Whelmed Nation. 23 July 2009
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.trackback
Farne Island puffins have been fitted with satellite tracking devices to monitor their behaviour after a sudden population collapse surprised scientists [Photograph: /Mark Pinder]
Still whelmed, overwhelmed… I see Angelina Jolie is in Iraq. Sure to help! Speech at the Council on Foreign Relations upon her return. Apparently Michael Jackson met his “secret love child” at a Tunisian hotel. I can see MJ stories going on ’til the end of this century, two more stories popped up just while I was at the Telegraph…. And… the Henry Louis Gates unfortunate meeting with Cambridge cops – Harvard Campus Police were there as well – has more chapters than the The Holy Bible. I think we will b beaten to death with these bible stories as well… after all, God is in the mix!
I am sure the puffins are gossiping… I’d love to hear what they are saying, for a change…
At the supermarket checkout counter I saw a tabloid headline “video of Michael Jackson’s death”…
They must have come across it on YouTube.
What’s all this kerfuffle about red and blue pills? The blue one or the red one?
According to Wikipedia
This seems to be an infelicitous use of this metaphor. Also isn’t the blue pill viagra?
i thought he walked into a ton of mud puddles last night….
I call bullshit on wiki — never once in any of the Matrix movies was the term ‘redpill’ or ‘bluepill’ ever used….
Yes, Laurence Fishburne’s character offered a CHOICE of blue or red to Neo in the first one, but as we were beat over the head with in the 2nd and 3rd ones….it is about CHOICE, not labeling….
PS Please don’t take the above as a defense of Obie, in any way shape or form, or the Matrix movies for that matter! Although I loved Colbert’s use of the whole stupidass mess last night:
“OmiGOD! Heathcare reform is the matrix!! A dystopian future filled with chaos and leather trench coats! Floor length leather trench coats!!! ….[please see video if you missed it — outloud belly laughs I had]
Sure, the first part of you healthcare would be AMAZING! But, trust me, the next two parts would suck!”
very funny: http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=239580
oh don’t worry… I think he was trying to be ”professor” or something, tell us a story so we could learn, etc… it backfired overnight.
Amy had someone on from CREW, who filed the injunction to force the WH to release names of Big Fucking Health Execs Who Noodled with Obama Admin to the Public. Yes that would be Obama WH. Change… 😆 you know!
it’s a line up! Send them to Jersey!
oh no. On Nightline Ob is going ot reveal his ”new and deeper spirituality”. Apparently it all has great “meaning”
Lemme out of here! Obviously a Date Night is soon to come. DIVERSION!
he discussed it to a backdrop of photos of MO and kits.
oh and to photos of Joshua Dubois his Religio director. Who sends him a daily religious meditation, via the BlackBerry.
And I STILL wanna know if when he, DuBois, preached at a Pentecostal church in Cambridge if he did it in TONGUES.
Via kevin drum:
High Frequency Trading
Some free market. And now Robert Hormats, a vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, has a top economics post at State. AS Max Keiser said, this is a coup.
out-manned, out-womaned and out-gunned. To steal from either August Wilson or Ishmael Reed.. I forget which wrote the play. Wilson I think.
”Top Aides are leaving Ensign” …
LV Sun… this must mean something!
I guess his parents didn’t hand out enough money.
I had not thought of that!
This is bad news. I had thought, last summer, that one thing he MIGHT do was to actually, at some point, close Gitmo. Only because it was such a Big Promise. One of the biggest. Not that the other bases and prisons and renditions would shut down, Oh no… but this tells me they may do nothing.
The Washington Post:
Obama Complains About the News Cycle but Dominates It, Worrying Some
Surprised to learn that Gibbs has anything going on “very deeply in the back of [his] mind”.
Fox won the night, they ran something or other, and it beat Obster.
Cambridge cops news conference slamming Obamalama and asking for an apology. Popcorn!
So entertaining: Mr Obama Regrets. The furor. I really do think Obama, one, wanted a diversion (he got one!) and two, wanted to help his friends, Gates and Ogletree. One of the cheaper and smaller public uses of the pretzel’s bully pulpit. Mr Obama managed to build a mini Waterloo, all on his own.
Masterful, really.
Yes I so want a racial issue blown to the high heavens over Gates, a national courtier. So valuable a battle.
😆 at the end fo the article is Donna Brazile.
Guess she did not listen to the speeches. That is EXACTLY what he promised he was and would be.
New phrase: eco-imperialism
Irish law makes it illegal to speak blasphemy
Ah, the Dark Ages…such a misunderstood time!
Well, you can see why the English wanted to hang on to the place so desperately. What’ll they bring back next? Primogeniture? Droit de Seigneur?
marrying your first cousin to preserve the line?
🙂
as Israel enacts laws that you may not speak ill of the occupier. Struck mention of the “naqba”…
And we are right behind them.
the latest iteration of california’s budget is finally getting close to done, and it’s looking wretched. an unabashed punishment of the voters for shooting down the politicians’ bullshit initiatives last special election, IMO, just as sitting on their hands w/ angelides in 06 was punishment for not electing the new dem silicon valley big money candidate westley.
to make it worse, the dems manage to pass all the GOP cuts and coastal oil drilling and bankruptcy-inducing robbery of local and city governments and absurd borrowing tricks that’ll have us back in an unforeseen emergency session/special election in 5 months or so, and the GOP votes no en masse after all their demands are met, laughing all the way to the bank, certain that come election day, they can grandstand on sacramento dems stealing local govt revenue, that they sagely voted against.
every time they do this, it makes the case all the more stronger that the dems really, really do not want to be the majority party. how fucking pathetic do you have to be to be taking dictation from a party that can’t win more than 34%?
when you outsuck the national dems, you’re beyond hope. california will be where the sucker’s bounce’s back is broken, and the new round of sliding begins. we clearly haven’t suffered enough yet.
they collude. collaborate. connive. partake. hide behind.
It is a simple reality of faking out the base. Divvying up the electorate.
Arnold, imo, was sent to do a job. On a mission. And Dems helped every step of the way, beginning with the Recall. And day by day. To the Re Election. And now.
Watch Cali go down, watch Texas rise. Same plan that was behind the energy battles of 00/01. Of which Arnold was a participant. Same objective. Same goal. Same outcome.
oh, here is another thing, if you think Obster is not a FULL PARTICIPANT in the current goings on with Arnold, you would be wrong.
Cali is a template.
the recent economist cover certainly tried to make that CA-TX comparison explicit.
i’ll check it out, thanks for the tip….
Paging brinn: Christian right aims to change history lessons in Texas schools
I’m all for blaming Christianity for American exceptionalism – not for those reasons though.
it DID made us exceptionally good at committing genocide.
There, I said it so you don’t have to!
Poor Ob. Still talking, he’s joined the press gaggle room…. Think he jsut threw Gates under the bus. (the police have yet to release the audio record, btw)
Guess the cops knocked on Ob’s door and someone told him to punt.
What a sad joke it all is. He’s weak.
.. and now he is insisting he had every reason to step into a local issue.
And still talking. And talking. And talking. Quite the performance.
Brrreaking the broken news.
Maybe pretzel could take a few days off… and leave us all the hell alone.
Maybe pretzel could take a few days off… and leave us all the hell alone.
Ramen.
I heard someone yesterday say that the only people who are “post-racial” in the US are the Obamas in the WH.
And then he inserted himself in a testosterone pissing match (one good description I have read of the mess in the yellow house that Harvard owns) …
You’re not going to believe this Danielle, but…
…after reading the gist of your first graf , Dear…
I found that I had inexplicably slipped into a breezy sundress and discovered myself wandering goo-eyed across the expansive lawn of our ancestral manse, past the acre-sized bed of day lilies leading past the dune grass to our private beach the size of Rhode Island. With an exquisitely clear pitcher of lemonade. For the help setting up the Day Tent.
You want breathless? We got breathless in Jersey.
Would you like lunch. We have lunch in New Jersey.
Boiled, Sun Baked Skunk.
Grilled.
RetrOOOOOOhGMAB.
All I ask is that they go on vacation. No public endeavors. At all. From any of them.
Daddy (Ob)… Aunt Nan… Uncle Harry
what to do …what to do about summer vacation….
Daddy is going to be upset.
“Damn it we’re going on vacation”, he says.
“We must.” say Mommy too. Besides,
Mr. Emanual and Mr. Axelrod say so.
“Don’t you want to get our summer pictures taken?”, they say
Geh. The pridictable “Historic” (do-over) summer photo op ..
The VERY TOP of the Agenda for August.
All that predictable scheisse: football on the lawn,
sailing, definitely a picture of Dad sailing,
All those delusional , conflicting metaphors
speaking of commanding a carefree life…
Available to anyone. easy as pie…
a bucket of steamers in a $1000 /s.f. fishing shack…
Listening to Gibbs in the gaggle. Absolutely amazing.
The REAL Vacation?
Newport Light.
The accommodations ? Grand but not obviously so…
….but the cigarettes? DEFINITELY. And def not show-ey.
I’ve smoked every combustible material known to man except cigarettes.
But I’d have som sympathy for the guy if he either wore a patch on his forehead or, midway through a crawling reply to a Tapper question, he just came out and said “Mind If I smoke?”, whipped out the Zippo without waiting for reply, and fired up on National Television…
I mean something,-ANYTHING – …slightly authentic…
Maybe Laura could lend him some.. I heard she smoked Menthols.
I found that I had inexplicably slipped into a breezy sundress
I’d pay good money to see that. 😉
LOL.
Hey speaking of funny I
Let’s rewind, shall we?
He said “the Cambridge police acted stupidly”. Maybe “maligning” has a different definition in his dictionary.
Whoops- I was going to say you and moiv had some rollicking posts in the last thread LOL. Moiv “fetus doll in the vending machine” and the “matching handbag with the man ” was a treat.
it was a great thread!
Well I’m certainly glad you are happy!
With Evil Pot Cultivaters on The LOOSE out there!
And a Financial Earthquake about to
fracture off the entire State of Cali along the San Andreas Credit Default Line hurling it in a ride-able (we’re told)
repo wave towards Cheena.
Under the New Recovery program, after collateralizing all you heathens out there to partially satisfy our Obligations to Beijiing, we here in Eastern MississipoLobamia are planning to raise money at Neutered ‘Roots Nation !
How? Why Harvesting all those Neutered ORGANS from the multitudes in attendance! Not to mention from all the Joe Trippi and Pwoggie Blog sockpuppets to pay our debt of course!
Win/Win!
open season on growers… and I would guess on smaller medicinal pot dispensaries – and growers… it is the message sent already… they carefully went after a small new dispensary in SF a few months ago… one of the poorer little operations… Carefully went after the smallest of the medicinal growers a few months ago (a lot of single women, mothers, I read)… in which district I forget now I posted about it at the time, and about Emmalyn’s in SF, the dispensary.
Here is a laugh… even the tonsil pullers are “disapointed”
Check out the big pout. lol
when the NYT reported a few days ago that MO would be stepping into the health care issue, they topped it with a really, and I mean REALLY, bad photo of her from June, at a health care function. It said volumes… These are writers and editors who, when recapping her bio for readers after the 17 pt win in WI, helpfully neglected to mention she worked in the Daly operation in Chicago. Helpfully “reported” but hid, at the end of page 3 in a muddled telling, her stifling an offered free innoculation of the HPV shots for young women in South Side Chicago… as part of her “diversity job” at University of Chicago Hospital.
Good Luck Obamas!
So it’ll be MichelleCare, will it? That ought to go over well.
I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
gotta love it when pretzel says, look at me I am weak. Rejoice. And weep wildly for the weepers will inherit nothing. Write my words down.. I am The Way and The Word.
Can this get droolier?
Every time I see comments like that, I’m reminded of this JC Superstar song.
gah.
And they would be calling the shots.
Puffins are wonderful creatures . . . I saw lots and lots of them at Witless Bay, a few years back.
😉
Because of their shape, they have to work extra hard in flight. Picture footballs with very speedy flippers.
It’s true. The whole world needs a vacation right about now.
oh I did not know that about them in flight.. their bodies DO look very over weighted in the breast area….
I imagine them saying, Magda, I brought you a nice smooth stone.. don’t you like it? Bruno, a smooth stone? Bring me a fish!
Something like that… 😉
LOL!
Heading out for vittles myself right now, but will stop by with additional puffin lore later.
BTW – Loved the baby elk and dogmother photo at the link a couple of posts ago. . . the correspondence in coloring and fur must have lent itself to the bonding; the dog’s expression seemed to speak volumes.
oh wasn’t that a great one!? I loved it too.. that was a nice gallery. Very sweet….
dead link for Witless Bay. (Ironic?) 😉
It is an intriguing name, eh?!
http://www.env.gov.nl.ca/parks/wer/r_wbe/
No comment. 😉
Is Pee Pee the smallest? For the sake of its feelings I hope so. I mean, up against “Great”.
😆
I had to look up the history because you just never know why those Newfies do anything. (They are a different breed – no doubt about that.)
Thank you for that, herbal one! I never knew the name’s origin, and I was there!
Mind you, I was kinda distracted by all the birds and whales and rollicking sea on our boat, while there – you can’t actually land on the birdie islands, they’re that protected – not to mention the effects of the previous night out singing, dancing, and drinking with my sis and a whoooooole lot of very jolly, very amiable strangers in St. John, during a big music festival.
As you say, a different breed – and like the puffins, pretty darn adorable in their uniqueness!
good thing they didn’t name the province after Whittle considering the island ..and all™. LOL
The world would be merciless with people from
Pee Pee, Whittle, Canada.
Shields on PBS Lehrer is admitting how FULLY scripted the pressers are. Even to answers to the questions anticipated… they do a “pre briefing” I guess based on the back and forth emailing with media as to questions. The only guestion is how scripted was the answer…. did everyone OK “stupidly”.
Good Luck Obamas!
I was watching the pundits on Wolfie’s show a while ago and they were saying how wonderful it was that Obamalama is just a “regular guy”. Ummm…so was dubya. And that wasn’t so wonderful after all.
All things to all people all of the time.
Meanwhile, Hillary called Zelaya “reckless” today because he’s not keeping to the US imperialist script.
he theatens the constitution… and he is denying (she all but said) a “peaceful” resolution that suits the US of A.
Coo coo Coup!
but the USA had NOTHING to do with the coup … nosireebob.
Artist takes $190,000 out of bank because they won’t give him a mortgage
oh I love it!
What a great story . . . The $20-bill brainstorm definitely reflects an artistic sensibility!
New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit
The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar.
When he shoots he scores! Ob man…
Interestingly I landed on something a couple of days ago… I think they may be getting ready to slaughter a load of the nation’s dairy cows. To raise the price of milk… something they have done before… I let whatever I was reading get away from me… will google and see if I can find anything.
Food, Ag… we live in wondrous times…………
Oh Gad.
Jersey Dems – all five of them not arrested yesterday – apparrently have pulled the plug on Corzine. Any day now, vultures are sure to land on Corzine’s numb skull and start picking at his flesh.
NYT –
No more personal appearences for you Jon.Politico says Oblama sent out – get this –
an e-mail blast for Oblama supporters in Jersey to support Governor Goldman Tool. How Personal. At least Ob didn’t forget to write.
Corzine a “Great Leader.” okaaay.
No begging letter tho. Just the Peppy Preppy routine
Again from Politico.
Yeh – I’m sure that will go over well with AA ward heelers in Newark, Jersey Cityhey’ll love it over in Trenton and Camden, too – now that Obama just laminated his black lips to a White cop’s asssss.
I read about the email blast, Ob For Corzine. And I laughed.
To be frank I think Ob’s lips are laminated to the bus, the one he throws people under. What a shame that Skip Gates and his interlude with 10 cops and assorted neighbors who gathered AND his friends in high places!… has risen to the biggest race issue in the US. What a fucking shame.
The kossacks are making my head explode.
they need hankies — and diapers.
They’re so predictable. Obama says or does something and they rave like screaming banshees. Obama backs away singing kumbaya and they all say he’s so “brilliant” – so “masterful” – so “refreshing” – such a “real man”. And they all say what a shining example he is while they continue to act like screaming banshees – even though he’s told them to simmer down. It’s the same damn cycle every single time.
I see Digby is getting blowback in the comments of her latest post. Obama is infallible according to these blogging shills – even when he steps right into the middle of an issue with his foot firmly planted in his mouth, it’s everybody else’s fault. Bunch of codependents.
I haven’t read her in a couple of years.. I will swing by…
On another note, women dare to say a truth or two about Obama, and, while it may not sound like it, they are coming at him from The Left… Moyers had two women on tonight on Health Care (or No Health Care) … pretty funny! [The second half of the show was on specific call outs for murder, from Shock Jocks. Too late!, I would say.]
Earlier tonight I heard him say it now will nto get done til the end of the year. Which is what Grrassley and Ross (Bloooooooo Dog) told him, via their interviews with Bloomberg. Pretty much a death knell.
AND the thousand pages that so far constitutes a working doc on Health Care Reform are downloadable… the Dems won’t bother, but the Republicans WILL.
Back to the Gubernatorial DeathWatch in the Times –
So what’s Jon to do?
He FREAKS is what he does. LOL.
And runs to find himself a “74 year old Jewish Grandmother”.
– his peeps on the NPR affil NJN News are touting her as
-wait for it –
LMAO!
Seventy.
Fuckin .
Four.
And hack from waaaaaay waaaaay back .
And – Whoops! Where’d my money go?1?? —
A MADOFF VICTIM too. Catch her fuckin Bio –
A 74-year-old grandmother, <—LOL
Loretta Weinberg was Corzine's campaign co-chair when he made his first bid for public office as a U.S. Senate candidate in 2000. She was also an early supporter of Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Weinberg also had several key endorsements, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and received the blessing of the Bergen County Democratic Organization and some key party leaders who have fought with her in recent years.
She served in the State Assembly for fourteen years until her election to the Senate in 2005. A former Teaneck Councilwoman and Assistant Bergen County Administrator, Weinberg served as Assembly Majority Conference Chair and as Chair of the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee.
Earlier this year, Weinberg revealed that she had lost her life savings – more than $1 million – as a victim to Bernard Madoff’s ponzi scheme. She had her money invested with Beverly Hills financial planner Stanley Chais, who had invested her entirely with Madoff, whom Weinberg says she had never heard of before the scandal became public.
Corrupt old hack. A lotta Bullshit floating around too about how “for years” she has worked for reform in the system. All those “years” and not a drip of success,huh? And the Madoff “Victim” Status .–
They think it’s a plus?
.”She had her money invested with Beverly Hills financial planner Stanley Chais,”
Like clubbing a baby seal.
Corzine must be doin blow or something.
Nobody can be that fucking stupid, that fucking aloof , can they?
Did they think they’d play to Seniors? That they’d somehow be immune form attack? Lot of Kerry in this fucknut.
Popcorn! Lots of it! Buttered!
House healthcare talks break down in anger
And Rahm and Bill worked so hard to put in many new Blooooooo Dogs. Nuuuu Blooooooooo Dogs.
Serves them right. Shit they even owkred VERY VERY hard to put in a Right to Lifer member up in Ohio.
Good Luck Obamas!
HA! I don’t know if wu ming is around but I am listening to Leland Yee who is one of the least bad (but weak!) on KGO radio and boy, loser time. Big time.
Nothing, nobody in charge. And Arnold cosy with the WH.
An absolute plan for utter disaster.
motheroffuckinggod!
A caller on Soc Sec Disability and some state aid (total income a little over 800 dollars a mo), hwo has had 50.00 a month deducted from her state aid, asked for information on possible state aid for food.
Leland told her to be proud of California and be brave.
UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE.
gnu thred…
LINK
……………………. 🙄 ………………
OK – Belated Atlantic puffin lore here! And yes, Marisa, they do gossip amongst themselves! Plus, they sound different depending on where they live.
Sound samples and more here.
oh thanks for that, IB…
I also saw a segment a couple of weeks ago, at a preserve in Namibia, of cheetahs… that was just amazing… they chirp, like birds. It was fascinating.
Puffin wings really do work like flippers, underwater, and their feet – splayed out – play a role in underwater steering, too. Supposedly the birds can flap as much as 400 beats a minute in the air. They spend most of their time at sea, and usually only come ashore to hatch and raise the chickadees.
Some basics from a Maine website:
More, from Audubon:
ha! in terms of the ”flippers”, they sound like penguins who have convinced themselves they can flyyyyy..
Wiki says their similarities to penguins (both in body style and color) is an example of convergent evolution. They’re from genus Fratercula (Latin: little brother), which is probably a reference to their black and white “robes.” Beak is brightest during mating season . . . I think it actually sort of molts off, thereafter.
But having seen them tear through the air – again, like a flock of barreling footballs – I’m convinced they’ve got sky AND sea conquered, too! Great skimmers and plungers, emerging with the fishies hanging out each side of their face.
I wonder what’s up with the shape of their eyes?
More puffin info in the mod burrow!
Their lives at sea continue to be quite mysterious, it seems. They travel far, and the young ‘uns, once fledged, simply don’t come ashore for several years.
with those details it is terrible to think of them in captivity.
Absolutely. As I mentioned, you can’t even touch a boat to shore in Witless Bay, so as not to disturb them, and apparently the big colonies there are stable.
According to Audubon’s conservation status report, their numbers have increased massively since “near-devastation” in the 1800s and early 1900s, from hunting, egg-gathering, and habitat .
Oil spills do get ’em at sea (maybe that’s the cause of the population fall at your link), and fishing nets, too. Their numbers rebounded in Newfoundland (where’s they’re the official provincial bird) after overfishing of cod, etc., caused moratoria on commercial operations.
Very interesting birds!
One last link, in case anyone wants to check out a puffin cam, or adopt a puffin! {Send money! At least they’re NOT Dems, which can neither fly NOR swim!}
http://www.projectpuffin.org/
😉
gnu…
LINK
………………. 😆 ……………….
Another fine beak!
(And even while immortalized in millions of lawn ornaments worldwide, less heinously commodified than the one at #32!)