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Sunday 8 November 2009

Posted by marisacat in Divertissements.
90 comments

Chishang, Taiwan: Taiwanese pianist Chen Kuan-yu performs a concert in the middle of a rice paddy field
Photograph: Reuters

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Putting a poppy… 7 November 2009

Posted by marisacat in Culture of Death, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, WAR!.
85 comments

A plot of crosses to mark the losses of those men and women who have died in Afghanistan [Guardian]

…a posy, a poem over the horror.  Well… at least the poppy is timely.

As for the rest, the wretched week past.. tossing the dots in the air, wondering if they fall in a pattern… I’d say we are dotless. Our dots are soap bubbles.

One thing I do hear rising – bubble like! – from the after-event of all the events, amid the CYA-ing, the bitching, the moaning, is Democratic calls for a draft.

The posturing to come is horrific.

*****

Honorable mention… 😉

SMBIVA has up two posts on the ditch we are in.  Very smart too.

It’s a no-win situation for meliorists. If they align with them, they’re going to be suckered into a corporate “worse the better” strategy every time. It’s amoral collegiality, and it works. The only electoral beneficiary is the Republican Party. The rest of the victory, needless to say, stays with their sponsors.

And one most deliciously lambasts Orange Boy.. and his “shooting up” posts.

Vote! For your drug of choice!

Along the way, in comments at SMBIVA, someone posts in full Ishmael Reed’s June 2008 post on The Big Let Down.  A nice re-read.  Especially as we are wallowing in the so-very-predictable ”BLD”.

Respite? … after the storm? There won’t be any. 6 November 2009

Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, WAR!.
29 comments

A rosy pelican catches a fish in Delhi zoo. The 214-acre National Zoological Park is home to more than 2,000 species of animals and birds from Africa, America, Australia and Asia [Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images]

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I am still advocating for the little Capuchin monkey to take the WH Press Guy Job… with a series of pre-set signs.  Add to the pile: 

I don’t have the theoretical background to — to answer that… yada – bilge – bile – etc

I think about the scheisse pile in Ft Hood what I think about a lot of erupting violent crime that needed to be assessed early, better managed before it blew, nipped in the famous bud stage, etc. (Garrido/Dugard and Sowell/many – and others)… it is allowed to fester.  A stressed and distressed population is a goal.  And if the festering, sucking air wounds blow big.. someone somewhere is happy.

A long term side goal, at least by some elements in the country, is and has been race war.  Will it ever blow?  I have no idea.

Oh, and pretzel?  Well, he fails at CinC (I don’t agree with every observation, but with the thrust of the article).  Just my opinion.  Hell, so did George the Second — where to start!  Bill was a mess.  IMO the Democrats still pay for Clinton having picked Cohen, a Republican, as SecDef.  I think the last credible one was, maybe!, Stansfield Turner.

George the First, practically a drooling lunatic. Sold to us, though, as ”Old Aristocracy” (don’t make me laugh too hard!).. and ”Old China Hand”.  He served all of 10 months in China straddling iirc two calendar years – Babs and the kids in Manhattan, it was his life time with the CIA that commended him to the job.  It came out in the 1992 election that, from his own mouth, there are three versions of his War Time Heroics.  Enuf said.

Reagan, the tag end of decades as a costumed, Max Factor’d propaganda prop, happily drafted to the Hard Right Wars. One more paying gig.  Sadly, with better managed Optics.  And a chronically  vigilant, protective wife (she served him well).

But who’s counting in a losing game.

It – being a credible, walk-on, run-way worthy CinC – is not even a consideration for the job … not anymore, not that I can see.  I am not at all surprised that Gates has gotten his H1N1 vaccination (as if I care) but Pretzel and Wife have not — don’t care about that either,  it’s the optics and what is revealed.  (Or, so the publicly told tale goes…)

The whole of the press briefing today is not up yet at WH.gov, but here is the entry at Political Punch.

TAPPER:  Kind of a — a theoretical question, but what — at what point does an attack become considered a terrorist attack, even — even if it’s a domestic terrorist attack?

GIBBS:  I don’t know that I would have the theoretical background to — to answer that.  I would pose that to somebody at — at the FBI. But, again, I don’t know that we’re at a point yet where we fully understand motive.

TAPPER:  OK.  In terms of the House health care reform bill, right now one of the big logjams, as you know, has to do with abortion language and also has to do with whether or not illegal immigrants, undocumented workers can have access to the health insurance exchanges.  Those are both issues that you have said from this podium, I think, that should have been settled, theoretically, because you said that the bill the president signs will not fund abortions, I believe, and…

GIBBS:  The president said that.

TAPPER:  The president said that.  And you’ve said that the bill the president signs will not — illegal immigrants will not have access to health care…

GIBBS:  Well…

TAPPER:  … the health insurance exchanges.  So why are they still debating this on Capitol Hill if the president has made his position as to what he’s going to sign clear?

GIBBS:  Congress, obviously, is working through a process that will ultimately, we believe, before the end of the year get a bill to the president’s desk.  I think there are still discussions going on, on both of these two issues up on Capitol Hill.  While the president would like it, tomorrow will not be the final vote on a bill coming to his desk, but he sees tomorrow as an important step forward.  He’ll go to Capitol Hill tomorrow to advocate for continuing that progress and passing in the House of Representatives a bill.

TAPPER:  Well, I guess the question is, the people who are — have the — have the — have the Democrats who are urging a different position from the one that you and the president have stated about what the president will sign, have they not gotten the message?  Has the president not conveyed to them what he wants in the bill sufficiently?

GIBBS:  Well, as you mentioned, the president’s been clear about what he said, and I think those that — that have a different viewpoint than what the president might have, on either side of the aisle, are best to speak to their motives.

-jpt

November 6, 2009 in Today’s Qs for Obama’s WH | Permalink | Share | User Comments (8)

There is enough word around that Ob/WH just wants ”something” by the State of the Union, next year.

This WH seems very interested in big signs, displayed across  the frontage.  Hang a headline on the Plantation House:  Pink ribbons, big ol’ spiders, green water in the fountains.

I suggest a sign that says, ‘Scuse us while we stumble, but we will be mumbling something about it very soon.  Check back!  Meanwhile:  Vote for us!

Leave the sign up for the next occupant.  Nobody decent would want the job.

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Shoot out 5 November 2009

Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, WAR!.
39 comments

Architectural renderings of recent upgrades to Ft Hood.

So… 11 dead plus the shooter dead, makes 12.  More than 30 wounded.  Some reports say the main shooter (2 “suspects” in custody) used two handguns.

Major Malik Nadal Hasan. Some reports say he is a recent convert to Islam.  Kay Bailey H tells us that he was soon to deploy to Iraq.

Gonna be a long story.

Buckle up.

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So… Uncle Pookie stayed on the sofa. 3 November 2009

Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
46 comments

Soon we will be treated to a speech.  No doubt.

One thing, Ob won’t be running suddenly to the right in a panic, he headed that way from the git go.  😆

I so don’t want one… 1 November 2009

Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, la vie en rose, Moscow, WAR!.
76 comments

The Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armoured car sells for one million euros. It has gold plated bulletproof windows, pure tungsten exhausts, speed gauges encrusted with diamonds – and seats made from whale penis leather
Picture: BARCROFT MEDIA

hmm It occurred to me though that Maria and Arnold might want one so I thought I’d google up a fast article on the item… made by a Russian firm, Russo-Baltique..  (proceed to fret, we are being outdone in the gargantuan division – I say, thanks be to someone’s god!)

If four-wheel-drives weren’t politically incorrect enough, a Russian car maker is offering one with whale penis leather trim. By RICHARD BLACKBURN.

A Russian armoured-car builder is boasting that its latest vehicle has seats covered with “whale-penis leather”.

The €1 million ($1.6 million) Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armoured car has been developed by the same company, RussoBaltique, that built armoured vehicles for Tsar Nicholas, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.

On its official website, the company says the whale-penis leather is the same as that used by Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis on the yacht Christina O.

Onassis is rumoured to have had some of the barstools on the yacht, the world’s most expensive at the time, covered in the controversial leather.  . . . . .

…it all seems so long ago, but we should be relieved there is continuum! Lest the firmament tear!

For those wondering just how may whales may need to be harvested to outfit the special edition, the answer is not many. The penis of the Blue Whale, for example, can grow up to 2.4 metres.

Maybe they should just ship a whole one, along with the … car.  Tank.  Whatever it is.