Double take…

Double take… 15 July 2009

Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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Sofia, Bulgaria: A man looks out the window of a tram decorated with a bank advertisement [Stoyan Nenov/Reuters]

I couldn’t get it ’til I read the legend… but then it is a few mins before 5 AM and no coffee for hours… 🙄

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1. marisacat - 15 July 2009: No surprise

Israeli soldiers in Gaza describe a ‘moral Twilight Zone’

By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers

JERUSALEM — Israeli combat soldiers have acknowledged that they forced Palestinian civilians to serve as human shields, needlessly killed unarmed Gazans and improperly used white phosphorus shells to burn down buildings as part of Israel’s three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.

…

Israel launched the 22-day military offensive on Dec. 27 in a bid to destabilize the Hamas-led government and deter Palestinian militants who’ve fired thousands of crude rockets and mortars at southern Israel that have killed 12 people in the past four years.

Nine Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza during the fighting, four of them by friendly fire.

By contrast, Palestinian human rights groups and Gaza medical officials said that 1,400 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, were killed by Israeli forces. The Israeli military has questioned that figure, but hasn’t made its own analysis available for review. snip

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2. marisacat - 15 July 2009: hmmm

[O]bama is arguably in the midst of his toughest moment as president. With budget deficits and unemployment rising, criticism of his handling of the economy is mounting, as well. The adoring crowds that greeted him in the early months of his presidency gave way today to an audience that needed convincing.

Going into the speech, the Detroit News flatly said the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package was not working; the Detroit Free Press criticized his decision to focus his remarks on community colleges, rather than the economy and jobs; and the mayor of Warren went on the radio to rebuke Obama for delivering a speech instead of holding an unscripted town hall, as originally planned. snip

Jeepers.

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3. marisacat - 15 July 2009: hmm Is this so their personal items don’t get lost at Summer Camp?

On July 4, Ob wore a bar b que chef’s apron wiht the Seal of the President… and now Hilarious is wearing an arm sling with the seal of the State Dept.

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brinn - 15 July 2009: yeah, well, mcat, you know it’s all about the visible badges! 😉

By the by, I am now officially certified(able) by the state of tejas as a “NCLB highly qualified paraprofessional educator” yay me! Bring on the jobs!

Still no official word on the UI check…got one piece of paper that said that I had made enough $$ so I qualify IF I meet all of the other qualifications….we’ll see if I do or not — the damned “request for payment” online form they had me fill out was 3 screens long….apparently I need to do that every 2 weeks, whether they send me any $$ or not, until they send me an official piece of paper saying that I have been denied benefits….

It is to laugh. A lot!

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4. marisacat - 15 July 2009: 😈

Try as they might (and yes it is frm The Corner)

Fake Umpire Hiding Behind Fake Love of Baseball? [Ed Whelan]

Pardon the baseball fan in me:

President Obama says he’s a longtime fan of the Chicago White Sox, but he calls Comiskey Park “Cominskey.” And Judge Sotomayor, in her testimony yesterday, asserted that “Few judges could claim they love baseball more than I do” and that she “grew up . . . watching baseball.” But a March 28, 1995, story in USA Today, titled “U.S. District judge not a baseball fan,” stated that Sotomayor “grew up a few miles from Yankee Stadium but says she knows little about the sport.” And yesterday she said that “many residents of Washington, D.C. have asked me to look at the Senators” as her new team. But as even a casual baseball fan would know, the D.C. team is the Nationals, not the Senators.

07/15 03:32 PM

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brinn - 15 July 2009: jesus h on toast….

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catnip - 15 July 2009: Blasphemy! (you forgot the cinnamon)

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Madman in the Marketplace - 15 July 2009: OMG … they should be exiled!

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5. marisacat - 15 July 2009: 😆

“Government Sachs” pulls the DJI up by it’s shredded bootstraps… UP 256

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6. catnip - 15 July 2009: I see Sotomayor is set to be confronted by the firefighters she ruled against tomorrow in her hearing. Popcorn!

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marisacat - 15 July 2009: will she be busy writing on that tablet?

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catnip - 15 July 2009: Good skit idea for SNL. Let’s see what she’s really writing. 😉

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7. Madman in the Marketplace - 15 July 2009: Max Blumenthal roams Tel Aviv with his video camera.

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8. catnip - 15 July 2009: Obama’s surge… http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/07/15/afghan-july-casualties071509.html

July is shaping up as the deadliest month of the Afghan operation for U.S.-led international forces, with the number killed already matching the highest full-month toll of the nearly eight-year conflict, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

As of Wednesday, at least 46 international troops, including 24 Americans, had been killed in Afghanistan this month, according to statements by the U.S. military and NATO command. That matches the tolls for each of the two previous deadliest months — June and August of 2008.

The rate of foreign states’ troop deaths in July — about three a day — is approaching some of the highest levels of the Iraq invasion.

I’m not sure what that has to do with Michael Jackson but there you have it…

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marisacat - 15 July 2009: Well in the UK the 9 (think that was the number) who died on the same day.. received an official funeral, as a group. A stunning view of long, matching black hearses…

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catnip - 15 July 2009: Yes and we show the return of the coffins (as they leave Afghanistan and when they arrive home) and the funerals of Canadians here too.

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9. Madman in the Marketplace - 15 July 2009: That Honduras coup

• Secretary of State Clinton and her spokesmen stopped speaking of President Zelaya’s return to power after they designated Costa Rican president Oscar Arias as the “mediator” between the coup regime and the constitutional government; and now the State Department refers to the dictator that illegally took power during the coup, Roberto Micheletti, as the “interim caretaker president”.

• The strategy of “negotiating” with the coup regime was imposed by the Obama administration as a way of discrediting President Zelaya – blaming him for provoking the coup – and legitimizing the coup leaders.

• Members of the US Congress – democrats and republicans – organized a visit of representatives from the coup regime in Honduras to Washington, receiving them with honors in different arenas in the US capital.

• Despite the fact that originally it was Republican Senator John McCain who coordinated the visit of the coup regime representatives to Washington through a lobby firm connected to his office, The Cormac Group, now, the illegal regime is being representated by top notch lobbyist and Clinton attorney Lanny Davis, who is using his pull and influence in Washington to achieve overall acceptance – cross party lines – of the coup regime in Honduras.

• Otto Reich and a Venezuelan named Robert Carmona-Borjas, known for his role as attorney for the dictator Pedro Carmona during the April 2002 coup d’etat in Venezuela, aided in preparing the groundwork for the coup against President Zelaya in Honduras.

• The team designated from Washigton to design and help prepare the coup in Honduras also included a group of US ambassadors recently named in Central America, experts in destabilizing efforts against the Cuban revolution, and Adolfo Franco, ex administrator for USAID’s Cuba “transition to democracy” program.

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marisacat - 15 July 2009: and yet dip shits who wouldn’t know a national constitution if they stumbled over it in the dark (or day light) need only be told that Zelaya “acted unconstitutionally”, that he “broke the law”, by US entites (read: operatives) and thus blahg, ”report”, comment and otherwise vomit up that it was not a coup.

Fine, not a coup. Let’s call it a bi racial Yankee Doodle Dandy machination. How’s that fit?

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Madman in the Marketplace - 15 July 2009: only if the machination comes with spicy cheese sauce.

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10. Madman in the Marketplace - 15 July 2009: Exploding the system

Workers at collapsed French car parts maker New Fabris threatened on Sunday to blow up their factory if they did not receive payouts by July 31 from auto groups Renault and Peugeot to compensate for their lost jobs.

New Fabris was declared in liquidation in April, so the workers stand to get no redundancy money, although they are entitled to draw state unemployment benefit.

They want Renault SA (RENA.PA) and PSA Peugeot Citroen (PEUP.PA) to pay 30,000 euros ($41,800) for each of the 336 staff at the factory, or some 10 million euros in total, in return for its remaining stocks of equipment and machinery.

“The bottles of gas have already been placed at various parts of the factory and are connected with each other,” CGT trades union official Guy Eyermann told France Info radio.

“If Renault and PSA refuse to give us that money it could blow up before the end of the month,” he added.

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11. NYCO - 15 July 2009: Taking Shorter Showers Doesn’t Cut It: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet?

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marisacat - 15 July 2009: changing light bulbs, inflating tires

…two of Ob’s fave raves

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12. Madman in the Marketplace - 15 July 2009: Bernie Sanders: The VA is a Socialized Health Care System, Right Mr. McCain?

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marisacat - 15 July 2009: ugh McCain.

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13. marisacat - 15 July 2009: Today:

The president does full round of interviews with network medical correspondents Wednesday to talk health care.

Tomorrow:

Obama set to deliver remarks at NAACP’s 100th anniversary conference Thursday night in New York.

Expected to sit down with the networks for a string of interviews previewing the event.

I give up. He’s fucking nuts.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 15 July 2009: Friday:

He parts the waters of a large puddle so that Michelle won’t get her designer sneakers wet.

: P

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catnip - 15 July 2009: racist Obama hater!!

(I’ve been hanging out at dkos. Can you tell?)

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14. catnip - 15 July 2009: Man they waste a lot of time at these senate hearings lobbing softball questions.

So, can you tell us again what your favourite colour is?

How about ponies? You like ponies, right?

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15. marisacat - 16 July 2009: Yes well too late now. Not that there was a choice. And my, but Black Commentator humped for him. And will again, would be my guess.

[W]hat are we to make of this? Within the Obama administration there is more than likely a struggle underway. […] Specifically, is the Obama administration simply trying to change the appearance of the USA internationally or are they attempting to shift US policy. The response to the Honduran coup seems to indicate the former. They do not want the appearance of the demonic Bush administration, but they are not prepared to support a Honduran administration which is allied with the likes of Venezuelan President Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales. Instead this starts to appear to be a Clintonian solution, i.e., a repetition of President Bill Clinton’s approach to the coup people in Haiti in 1994. He—Clinton—was prepared to restore democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide, however he would do so only under certain conditions (one being giving up on his populist economic program and the second being that he was only to serve out the remainder of his term despite the fact that years had been robbed from him). In the Honduran case, a “compromise” might be offered that simply restores President Zelaya but essentially neuters him.

So much for Honduran sovereignty; so much for a different US approach to foreign affairs??? Only if we remain silent.

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16. lucid - 16 July 2009: had a good date tonight with a dancer… [just to throw a wrench in the works…]

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marisacat - 16 July 2009: ooo good news! (and good luck)

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17. marisacat - 16 July 2009: nu-u-u-u….

LINK

…………… 🙄 ……………

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