Opera Glasses and Popcorn
A sunbird looks for nectar among hanging plants on a balcony. Most sunbirds feed largely on nectar. Fruit and insects are also part of the diet of some species [Wong Maye-E/AP]
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An Opera Glasses and Popcorn view of Politics and the Assembled Multitude...
Marisacat -
- Real independent observations on current events with a particular fondness for the follies of the Big Box Blahgers.
Deflates bloated egos like a champion fencer in a balloon warehouse.
- Alan Smithee
Marisacat -
"...polish on a mud wallow"
- Meteor Blades [May 24 at Mcat]
Marisacat -
"... doyenne of donkle deconstruction"
- Who is IOZ [January 2 2007]
Marisacat -
"... hardened professionals and their primary strength lies in their being completely unconflicted."
"... the primary difference is that on the level of criticizing other blogs and bloggers, they can actually do some damage."
"... Not what I look for in a liberal blog product."
- peeder - MLW, Daily Rant [3.24.07]
Democracy NOW! / Amy Goodman Electronic Intifada / General Content Press TV / Middle East News Press TV McClatchy Headlines The Real News Reuters / Politics
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on one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.
If you click on La Louche the picture or the words, it leads to the Amazon PayPage, a way to ... oh let's say help with the cat can deliveries.
Thanks to all who made the very kind suggestion.
interesting, not related to hummingbirds but evolved to fit the same niche:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunbird
And here I thought sunbirds were cars made by Pontiac…
Nader’s reading list.
I didn’t know about Chris Hedges’ book. I’ll have to check that one out (while staying away from sharp objects in case I end up feeling like I need to slit my wrists over the naked horror of it all.)
Happy Boxing Day!
Shorter Adam Nagourney: Leave Obama Alone!
The Nag. And after all of that, by the 24th Howard had caved on all fronts. In the meantime the administration issued a slap down (in a ddition to Axelrod, Jay Rockefeller and Gibbs all calling him “crazy”, using one word or another) that KGO here was happy to spread, that Dean had wanted HHS was denied – and/or that he had been “fired” from the DNC chair… etc., and this is his mixed metaphor “pay back”.
And Howard retreated… as he has done for years. Pity they are all so useless.
I prefer to eat chicken than TO BE IT.
New security rules here: all airline passengers flying to the US have to go through a pat-down. That should turn out well!
they not only want the x ray machines… they want hands on.
What a joke it all is.
I’m waiting for the reaction from civil liberty groups here.
you still have civil liberties groups?
Now HERE is a cop who’s paying attention and doing his job:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091226/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_girl_abducted
Bravo!
that is fantastic… and a very different ending than the little girl just found dead.
Some idiot reporter, on CNN during the “OMGterra!!!” hysterics, made the incredibly stupid statement that he was shocked, SHOCKED, that the hapless “bomber” was a child of wealth and privilege. Unlike the bunch that supposedly pulled off 911, engineers and children of wealthy Saudi and Yemini families. Or the group in the UK who wanted to create liquid bombs or whatever, all college educated and from middle class or wealthy families. Or the shoe bomber, another kid with an education and well-off family.
Nope, doesn’t play well with our idea of what “terrorists” should look like, doesn’t play well with the scam that EDUCATION and full-out capitalism makes people and life BETTER.
Gawd, so goddamn fucking stupid, I’m so sick of how willfully ignorant Americans insist on being.
yeah it’s a misnomer that the Revolution, or whatever this is… is from poverty. It is all so much more complex. Osama’s number 2 Zawahiri comes from entrenched upper middle class Eqyptian professional family.
I think the basic problem with America and Americans is we have a bizarre tunnel vision… this insane concept that only we are good and right and beloved by Gawd The Almighty. Etc. It means no self examination, none. With no self examination, no examination of politics, much less deep politics.
Or Osama bin Laden himself.
Actually education and wealth DO make life better – it’s demented religiosity that’s the problem.
yup…
they are tools people can use to make life better, but don’t ipso facto lead to a better life.
Guatemala: Christmas Day video and audio snapshots
Watch for Marvin the Martian getting down! (around 1:45)
Jesusfuckingchrist. It is never ending. And never to be undone, either.
I remember right after 9/11 they were careful about certain flights, to NYC or DC… and iirc imposed a ‘stay in your seats’ rule for the last whatever, half or hour, of the flight.
But this is insane. He detonated, or ignited, whatever he had, sitting in his seat.
Don’t fly over the damned oceans with small children.
Don’t, heaven forfend, need a KLEENEX in the last hour.
jeesus, I always have a iPod and book handy … I hate being trapped in a plane, and they keep my mind occupied.
How could anyone fly with a baby or small child? Or an elderly person, for that matter. I would die of discomfort being so penned in, in every way. Nothing in your lap.
Geesh.
I know. And forget about bathroom runs. Or having the runs and needing the bathroom. Maybe they’ll all be issued catheters.
Forget plastics. Adult diapers.
all i can hope is that they get this BS out of their system before i have to fly back next summer. fuck.
Jesus, I gotta go to the bathroom already.
Now CNN is surprised a well educated Nigerian would speak and understand fluent English.
It’s a former ENGLISH COLONY.
The stupid, it burns.
IIRC he is at an engineering school in London, as well…………. there really is no hope. America does God’s Business… and no one else is human.
Wow, that’s CNN?? I wonder what the knuckledraggers on FOX are saying.
little difference these days, especially when there is new fear to whip up.
Cute article on fashion as it relates to S. Palin and FLOTUS:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/fashion/27LADIES.html
“Who’s Barbie now?”
(the term FLOTUS cracks me up – it’s even better than POTUS!)
Nothing said ‘let them eat cake’ like that gold dress she wore to the state dinner.
Tone deafness: it’s what’s for dinner.
I thought that was a nice fashion choice on her part. Much better than some of the other dresses she’s worn in public.
It was pretty but being gilded in the middle of a recession…?
Are you kidding? It’s a perfect metaphor.
Or would you rather have a “Leave Only Footprints” cotton T-shirt wrapped in two layers of plastic and impregnated with “organic” dioxin? I can get you one where I temp, so long as you don’t weigh more than 110 lbs. It think that’s the “XL” size.
:p
That sounds funky. Is that XL for Barbie dolls?
Barbie dolls who married Rich Orthodontist Ken.
It took them a long time to come around to it but finally someone has said it:
Mind you, I haven’t been hanging around in the hidden comments so this might not actually be the first time someone’s used the connotation…
She and Miss Christie of West VA like to adopt an attitude that a lot on the page at their site is really not there. Nothing like leading a fake revolution from inside what passes for Harry Reid’s [cough choke strangle] War Room.
“Choices” like Hamsher and Dean are all they deserve. The poor little GBCW-er will be back there within hours, or just holing up at BooBooMan’s place. Or whatever. :/
Israeli Military Kills 6 Palestinians
So much for education and wealth.
Good to hear FLOTUS dress was to die for , tho.
More DISTRACTION.
Sirota at HuffPo.
Stop the presses, says Sirota.
{ who,
– > BTW, < –
…has a new guest column and appearance on…}
LOL. The latest gull of Davida says 60! – count em! – 60!
House Pwogs have signed a letter!
It’s hilarious. David, shameless self promoter he,
(if you didn’t catch the link above to his website, it’s a scream) so luridly trying to mount Hamsher’s filly now at the ranch hand rodeo down by the veal pen.
House Pwogs have signed a letter!
Yes, but was it a sternly-worded letter?
My PM – Helmet Hair Steve – is giving his year end interview on my teevee.
It’s either that or Shrek 2. Hmmm…
Go with the cartoon.
Ooops , not much help there – but Good Luck either way!
It’s a choice between a big green ogre and a big grey ogre – both of whom I’ve seen before. But Shrek does have better musical numbers.
lol…only 2 out of 3?
FWIW, from the UK Times:
Too too too funny. Hardly masking and the tongue in cheek is barely a cover…
lol
I ssure got a laugh out of it……………………………..
LOL
London Independent has a very full account of the Detroit Bomber. The story is being woven together pretty fast. Everybody is on board!
I think one thing that had the admin and whatever ptb fretting, that dropped comment of Gen Jones that has been getting frequently mentioned, that there is hardly 100 Al Qaida in all of Afghanistan.
What leads and bleeds and is fueled by his father even, his connection to AQ.
Everybody is on board!
About sums it up. Whose runnin this multi-level marketing pitch this time, anyway? Whose got the mic at this success story session?
Eric Prince’s in laws of Amway? The Levin Bros. patrons?
About the only thing that WASN’T on board that Detroit flight before it left the Netherlands was the Hague.
Better situated than Chi even, Detroit figures big in the NWO on so many levels:
The crushing of the labor movement, the largest concentration of an Arab / Muslim American community in the U.S., key land and sea trade transit with Canada in the virtual center of both countries, cheaaaaaaap real estate thanks to the combined destruction of so many efforts…Right down to ushering constraints against cash and carry small retail.
Not to mention what an OMG story can do to bolster War as the Answer for the Michigan Delegation…Frankly, in a state totally_fuckin_crushed by the NWO /GWOT, it provides cover to the Levins and Granholm as much as it does the likes of Bachman and Stupak.
I’d have an easier time believing that Rudolf, Donner, and Blitzen got sucked into those Detroit bound jet engines after Santa veered of course, duped by the son of a Nigerian Banker’s EMAIL.
Given where we’re at …..aside from guys from Langley or Benning, you could have couple of Prince’s guys in first class shouting “Fire” , doin the minor Hot Pants on some profiled poor sap who never knew what him. And the same ops backslap up a helpful genuine bystander to the cameras..
I don’t believe a word of it.
I wish more had caught the film of the bomb hunting device, with arms and legs like a largish metal spider, stuck as it could nto go up the stairs to get in the plane.
It flailed around, trying… but no go.
I happened to catch it as a local news channel here was letting raw feed come in.
Some kossacks were getting their little hands slapped when they made comments about the Nigerian e-mail scams because this is a serious situation, damnit!. It was quite the sight.
gnu…………..
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