Opera Glasses and Popcorn
Rescue teams and villagers search for bodies among the ruins in Okcular Turkey [AFP/Getty Images]
It’s looking like the year of the quake.
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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
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.
Marisacat 
Hey, All!
Just waving hello. Still looking for work, though I have a hot phone-banking prospect for some Cadillac non-profit this week, maybe. Think of me next time your dinner is interrupted by a phone call from some schmoe begging for money so the CEO can have a bigger limo. :p
Oh, and we have a new cat. Kind of an Aby-tabby mix, I guess. It’s been boring for Butterscotch the Evil since Callie passed on last Fall. Now she has somebody to be disgusted with besides the stupid humans.
Carry on. =^..^=
ms_x!
I thought of you when MitM posted the story about McDonald’s co-opting meringues in France.
(You will always be MeringueWoman to me.) 😉
Hi dear! My fingers are crossed for you… (recommending one of your “remedies”, Lilet and Paris macaroons!)
And kiss the kitties!
[grin]
Thanks, but right now the budget calls for remaindered rice crackers and maybe one beer– but not until after Noon. I have my standards. :p
Glad to see everyone here still keeping the faith. The most exciting blog moment I had recently was The Distant Ocean Michael Moore thread that morphed into everyone quoting Looney Tunes at each other. You might say it was a spontaneous evolution or something… 😀
Oh, and I’m having an art “fire sale” on LJ because the closet is too full to hold any new stuff. 😮
Buh-but… I don’t even *look* French! Tsk. I did watch a few snippets of the Olympic hockey games, though. Does that count?
I’m sorry to have been lurking so much but not really posting. Typing around the new lap cat right now.
mr_xeno is calling him “Sid the Kid” after some other damn hockey celeb I’ve never heard of.
mr_xeno is calling him “Sid the Kid” after some other damn hockey celeb I’ve never heard of.
LOL Gift him (new cat) with a hockey puck.
He’s already swatting around one of those “wooly mice,” and staring under the closed door at Butterscotch.
They have not been formally introduced yet.
Always fun to introduce a new adult cat to the other adult cats. 😈
I am assuming New Guy is an adult?
He’s nine months old, so almost full-grown.
I explained at the shelter, “Our cat will hate him, but that’s okay. She hates everyone.”
:p
aww so dear… when you get a pic of him on line, send me a download… 😉
That would be Sidney Crosby. He scored the winning goal for Canada in the gold medal game. 😉
Make sure the new kitty has a helmet!
😆
.
Listening to Rush, he’s playing clips from a long (described in some reports as a monologue) radio interview from Massa…
Lotta juicy stuff on Rahm… a lot more than had made print reports. YUM.
Implode on guys.
Massa’s alleging that the WH is forcing him out because they’ll do anything to get the health insurance reform bill passed. He’s going on Glen Beck’s show tomorrow. (via MSNBC)
Popcorn!
TPM has the audio.
Did you hear the part yet on the hsower curtains in the House mens locker room? What a scream! ya want gay innuendo, Massa will serve some up in response.
I assume he manages this for a few days then drops. But fun while it lasts.
Via Ben Smith… 2006 Rahm and Massa sitting in a tree… plotting
NYT rushed their big Sunday Mag Rahm article to press, online…. (scheduled for print edition this weekend)…
I suggest knee capping them all to the floor boards in the West Wing. Ob and his progeny and wif in the private quarters. Let the next administration find the skeletal remains.
Anything to be rid of them. I’d rather live under the owner-ogres than the white glove, dying on the vine front men.
Sully is out today saying the ONLY good thing about DC is Ob. Cold compress for the queen. AND: Cue the assassination hysteria (fresh article on that over at the Guardian, a keeper of La Flame).
And keep laughing! Who typed?, with Rahm dictating on the phone to the newsroom?
Pretzel Rahm.
and to prove himself lacking in judgement, he chose Rahm.
might as well laugh, right? round and round we go…………………
😆 … 🙄 …………… 😈
hmmm Rather than an urban area with a pop. of 80k, sounds like “Marja” is a loose collective of farmers and ag in the southern part of Helmand province.
C-punch
NYT has a piece up on Massa… I had forgotten he was a recruitment from the R side of the horrific bed.
GOOD LUCK… 😆 I bet he wishes had never changed parties!
Amo Houghton getting old and retiring was possibly a bigger disaster for that district (and the Dems) than anyone ever suspected. Sometimes the devil (Republican) you know is better than the devil you don’t…
Ah well, another Markos Moulitsas special, there.
HA! At this point it is an issue can the Dems pull off a Special Election.
I gather Giannoulias is struggling in Chicago….
Good Luck to them all!
No way in hell the Dems will pull off a special election in that district.
However, NY-29 is not NY-23 (the locale of the other crazy special election for McHugh’s seat). NY-29 contains both WNY’s poorest, rural, red areas and some of the most affluent/”progressive” (parts of Rochester). NY-23 voters were a lot less excitable and more homogenous, and I daresay more “reality based” than either the right or the left in NY-29. They just rolled their eyes and kicked the national GOP out and went back to basic training and milking the cows.
Glad I live in boring NY-25, which is more similar in political temperament to NY-23.
Of course I am enjoying this no end.
As we are on fire from coast to coast and most places in between.
I have no idea how the elections will go… and don’t especially care, but for the entertainment of: Oops another one drops… Oops another one fell by the wayside. ooops scandal over THERE… and HERE. And THERE… and so on… 😉
“Reality sinks”
Americans to Legacy Democrats: F* You!
Why health care reform is not a “huge progressive victory”
snip
the last is so perfect. I am lighting candles (pumpkin colored ones as it happens, they were not right for my neighbor’s T’Giving dining table and he passed them to me) it FAILS.
Big time.
For one thing, they plan to siphon money from Medicare. Aside from, it will bankrupt people, much as they are being bankrupted now.
Star of Oscar Winning ‘The Cove’ Recaps His On-Stage Political Action and the Academy’s Censorship
I just heard on the news outhere that they censored his hand held sign with the texting address (I guess that is what it was… “The Cove” and some numbers…) but at least from the clip here, 44,000 people have contacted him, he said.
Wow. This is original.
1. Toss about a half dozen fresh, downwardly mobile 30~something
bourgeoisie.
2. Marinate. In anything. (any bullshit will do) .
3. Leave standing. { Feel free to improvise from here,
until reaching the CRUCIAL next steps…}
4. Etc.
5. BASTE the bourgeoisie with a vaguely leftisher sauce. In a Box. Online. { Revolutionary Rhetoric Brand’s Peppercorn Ranch is recommended. }
6. For a few hundred bucks, not venison, MONEY,
…FORM PAC.
{ Now we’re cookin’ !}
7. Smoke box of basted borgeoise on fire till the inevitable waft of “Money Bomb” flavor for Democratic candiates arises.
8. Watch whole thing ignite, engulfing kitchen,
the drapes in the dining / living rooms, what have you.
9. Flee with loved ones as smoke and flames become unbearable. 10. Alert neighbors.
At this point, consider taking local survivors to a nearby drive-thru,
having any cute but fleet footed little ones shadowing the rear bumper while adults place wholly unintended-to-be-paid-for order at the million megawatt screen and microphone.
Be sure to have the vehicle MORE than arm’s length from pick up window, thus, When ANYTHING purportedly edible in a bag is placed on the counter inside, the signal can be given to the kids to rush by with the snatch and grab .
Adults in the car should feign astonishment and discomfort before
quickly motoring off to meet up with the young –
– Bless Hunter Gatherer Souls – Later.
Our first goal is to organize a money bomb for …
hmm “money bomb”… OK that fits in with the USA!!! USA!! model.
Hahahahah is 7, 8 and 9 the Special House Made Bar B Q
??????
Sounds like………… 😉
LOL. Don’t forget # 4!
4 , IMO, is the CRUCIAL Step: “Etc.”
Oh that and forming the PAC to create your own job.
But You can substitute anything for anything else with the rest.
Ya know- whatever.
Kind of like a Holiday prime rib ,
you know, using one solitary shriveled little pea instead.
…a sort of Roast Beast au Seusse
Of course, the trend of late is serving up nothing at all…
and just keep insisting it’s there
* Bless Their Hunter Gather Souls.
Obama is out …what else –
speaking Iwancha-ta again today.
Iwancha-ta~
‘Knock On Doors, Talk To Your Neighbors, Pick Up The Phone’
Iwancha-ta..Iwancha-ta..Iwancha-ta.
You’d think Motherfucker’s runnin for President of Avon or Mary Kaye,
the way he’s all Iwancha-ta Knock on doors! – AND..
consider our full line of cosmetics!
Because YOU TOO can win a Pink Cadillac.
So we see how it all comes down.
The MSM moves to prop him up , too, heartily selling the “insurance reform” sham.
WaPo-
Obama launches attack on health insurance companies
NYT- Obama Turns Up the Volume in Bid for Health Measure
Oh The Drahhhhma surrounding whether he is going to “get stuffed” and “lose” “Health Care” / “Insurance” “Reform”. Hardly. The Donk rank-and-filers are so fucking stupid . Not on Your Life.
He and the Dems are going to “win” this fatal finale, it’s their job on so many levels: one, to serve corporate interests, and two, literally to prevent losing jobs deep into the Democratic bench on the Hill at the risk of wholly discreditting themselves and revealing the collusion game for what it is.
No, The R will either help him, maybe this guy Brown from Mass, someone insulated or they can package as a ‘centrist”. And it has to happen before mid terms get in full swing, as the R can’t sell it after recouping what – let’s be honest now – are THEIR seats.
The mandates will pass, people will not be dropped, no, they will continue.. to be fucked, that is, bet on that,
and DENIED AUTHORISATIONS when they need it.
They don’t have a F****** bill and he’s still making speeches.
Every day a speech. They call out they love him, he says “I love you back”.
Could be July 2008.
No change.
It’s a Special to Roll Call! From Max Baucus.
You know Max…Max “Shit on It / Sit on it/ Stomp It / Block it / Zap it / Kill It/ Make Insurance Ranch Sausage Out of It” BAUCUS Says
“We Must Reform Healthcare NOW!”
And A real tear jerker, too.
Cue formulaic HOOK.
hmm I caught Marcia Angell of Harvard and a former editor (first woman) of the NEJoM on Moyers over the weekend… third time i have cuaght her in interview on these bills…
She said the plan is, as under te current most likely bill, the insurance cos can charge the elderly up to three times for coverage, that the sick poor elderly will just not obtain insurance and the ins cos will enjoy the mandated purchase of coverage from the 20s and 30s group.
I have not gone to Moyers yet to look up the transcript.
That’s exactly how it’s playing out.
And the saps supporting Obama are the dumbest of dumbfucks: they keep blithering on about the magical subsidies and the uninsured who will “get covered”. Covered with what?!
Rendell in PA forced the State Retirees into Aetna.
The fuckers just. deny. authorizations.
It’s what . they. do.
Just string people and caregivers out.
All sorts of shit going on with Aetna, others obviously, too….
But It’s not going to surprise me one bit when people start shooting their executives.
The real end game IMO is the kind of Standard Oil sized mega monopoly medicine that even most Oligarchs can barely conceive. Locked in if need be with a SCOTUS decision striking down governmental initiatives otherwise.
Coming – I imagine eventually –
to a conversation within earshot of us all…
“So. Who is the
M.D., eh ~ I mean,Goldman Sachs Life Account Executive YOU don’t get to see ?”
“I dunno, THANK GOD, but Little Jimmy and Sarah were well behaved today…the National Guardsmen providing security at the Pediatrician’s office really seems to keep them in line..
Did you hear about the Geriatric uprising?
It seems that Surplus Human Capital Determinations are being issued to 40 year olds now in Region B…”
Hey, it’s closer to the damn truth than Obama’s Magicare.
Yes well.. she is in MA, so she also psoke on that.. which of course it is verboten to do. Cali btw legislatively banned ins cos from dropping people for pre existing conditions. Was doen years ago… MADE NO DIFFERENCE…
AND decades ago we put in severe limits for pain and suffering on tort, malpractice. And fruther the caps have never been revisited, even tho they are very otu of date. MADE NO DIFFERENCE to the ins cos.
The way is plotted out.. and it is a fucking nightmre. Jesus even Howard in one of his few lucid moments, actually publiclly said a family will be paying 20K for ins under the REFORM. Almost no one can afford that, nto long term.
She held out hope no bill will pass… and said it is the ONLY way, as whatever passes will be, quickly over a small number of years, completely undone. And then it will enver be revisted.
I think the jig up, up forever for any kind of reform, at all. Ever. But she seemed more hopeful.
Last, I think one of the keys to what is happening, with a bill, Ob and the raiders get the keys to the Medicare banked monies. I think that is part of hwat this is all about. Raiders. She alluded to that, but somewhat cryptically.
Interesting. An update on an insurance issue I had previously – we were billed $450 for a non-participating provider on a trip to the emergency room. This practice is illegal in California. It is called balance billing. However, since I have a Federal Insurance plan, it’s okay to do this because the CA insurance regulator doesn’t have jurisdiction!
I met three people who have been hit by this same thing – all federal employees. If they can’t even protect their own employees how they gonna protect anyone else?
However, i have yet (crosses fingers) to receive the bill from the doctor. Probably because I screamed “I’ll SUE!” to the provider, Blue Cross and the hospital.
I met three people who have been hit by this same thing – all federal employees. If they can’t even protect their own employees how they gonna protect anyone else?
yeah what does it say?
Obviously they accommodated someone, or they could ave written things that Federal rules on the ins coverage supercede state. SImple as that .. (or so I assume, knowing nuthing!)
Goldman Sachs Life Account Executive YOU don’t get to see ?”
This is no joke… that’s where we’re headed, towards giant “Risk management” oligopolies. All forms of risk: financial, health, natural disaster, fire, automobile etc, etc… The “successful business model” will be to “efficiently allocate payouts” i.e. deny coverage.
we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet on ever more abstruse “derivatives” which “financialize” all aspects of life.
Massa on Larry King’s show tonite. I predict a book coming soon…
😆
Rush never mentioned he used to be a R…………. SOMEONE claim him, is all I can say!!
What a laugh!
maybe the marines would like him back? Apparently the scuttlebut is multiple gropings of his staff, or at least three of his staff members, in NYC, in his “personal” office, what ever that means.
Too funny!
oh noes. Politico NOW says it is “groping INTERNS”.
Call Foley quick, pundit land needs an expert – for commentary! No? Sure? No?
Big SNicker. I just heard that Massa says it was not sexual, les gropings.
Just caught up to The Note/Rick Klein from this morning. Whatever brings trouble, I am FOR:
I actually watched Glenn Beck’s show for the first time. What a pathetic wimp of a man that guy is. Anyway, it was a weird interview with Massa – Beck desperately wanting dirt, Massa not giving him any.
In other news, there’s cow humping going on across the road – more entertaining than Beck at least.
Just to be clear: it’s NOT Massa humping cows over there.
they are not ”intern” cows, then.
snicker
Papal bulls.
Are your ears burning, mcat?
They’re talking about you over at the Big Orange Playpool.
what is left to say I wonder?… gah. more of the same, “that cunt”… 😈 ……… :roll:………… 😆 … Etc.
OMG, the clips of Massa on Beck are fucking funny as hell.
Kos is attacking Kucinich for being “like Nader” on Countdown as he shills for the Obama Insurance Bloodsuckers Enrichment Act.
and now he’s threatening to primary K.
Stomp your little feat, you hack.
I love how everyone forgets over there that Massa was a Kos creation…
It’s Pick on Dennis and the Dirty Fucking Hippies Day over at dkos.
it’ll be the hairy-legged women’s studies bitches next, when the misogynist religious nuts get the abortion restrictions left in the coerced insurance bill.
I imagine because Rush played the audio of Kuc with Laurence O Donnell, this am…. That hack (LO’D, I mean). I thought Kuc did well.
I think one thing that frightens the wee dumbfuck Dems is that this has the power to go fully bi partisan, BUT WITH THE VOTERS.
Cue the angry moo sounds from the humped cows. Etc.
Totally righteous “Cove” dudes reported to have caught LA sushi joint selling illegal whale meat
Good pic of the sign the Oscar producers censored on the broadcast.
Paris mapcut by Karen O’Leary
The careful work on this amazes me. I can’t cut a straight line in paper with a ruler to guide the scissors.
Dems Yawn Over Appointment of Right Winger Who Wants to Destroy Legal Aid – To Legal Services Corp. Board
Browne has spent most of her career with a right-wing litigation shop that repeatedly fought to cut off funding for indigent legal services;
what a joke. The law prof, cmmunity organiser pretzel.
(or, How is that vote working for you?)
oh, so much hope, so much change … ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan
Yup – I say go for it (assholes).
.. as tested on the residents of Fallujah………….
I just can’t wait to watch so-called progressives choke on that one while still hailing Obamalama as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
embedded fingerprints? biometric data? DNA?
And this is for the “legal” residents and US citizens, eh?
Oh my – O’Biden in a yarmulke.
US apologises over Gaddafi comments
WaPo ombudsman: Readers react to photo of two men kissing
oh thank god it wasn’t non sexual gropings. what a relief.
gnu
LINK
…………………. 😯