Blowing it 15 April 2010
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.trackback
Iceland Volcanic Ash Clogs the Skies Photograph by Brynjar Gaudi, AP
Volcanic ash hangs over Iceland‘s Eyjafjallajökull volcano Thursday, three days after the volcano’s latest eruption. (See pictures of the Iceland volcano’s most recent reawakening.)
***
Impossibly, it is more spectacular now, than last month, last week… that fire and lava bursting from the snow and ice.
But now…
Amazing to think it may blow European and connected air travel to hell for however long it spews the heavy ash, right now 7 miles into the air.
You just never know what will come next.
***********************************
Marisacat 
What a fine compliment to the brazen Government Goonery: going on:
A Brazen Government Give Away of Public Property:
Apr 15, 8:17 PM EDT
Lawmakers to review Calif. sale of state buildings
By JUDY LIN
Associated Press Writer
….The Associated Press reported this week that California will pay about $5.2 billion to rent the buildings over the next 20 years after they are sold to private investors. The administration hopes to net just $660 million from the sale, after paying off $1.1 billion in construction bonds, as a way to help close the state’s budget deficit.
snip
The Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee will scrutinize the sale of two dozen state office buildings during its April 28 meeting. In a statement issued Thursday, the committee also said it will examine the Schwarzenegger administration’s sudden removal of members of two oversight boards who questioned the long-term feasibility of the plan, a development reported last week by the AP.
Schwarzenegger persuaded the Legislature to authorize the sale last summer as a way to get upfront cash to help close California’s deficit, now projected at $20 billion. Just three of the 120 lawmakers voted against the plan, which was never heard in committee.
Lawmakers were made aware that the state likely would pay more rent than it would if it continued to own and maintain the buildings, but there was no fiscal review to determine whether California ultimately would make or lose money on the deal.
Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said Thursday that it would be unconscionable to sell state property at fire-sale prices only to have to rent them back at market rates. Bids from prospective buyers were due Wednesday.
snip
….The AP analyzed state documents created by the marketing firm the state has hired to run the sale, CB Richard Ellis [ for those unaware, California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, of course, is on the Board of Directors at CB Richard Ellis, . diane ].
According to the lease proposals, the state would pay $5.2 billion over the next 20 years to rent offices it currently owns and would pay monthly fees for nearly 3,500 parking spaces it now controls, adding $138 million to the state’s costs. The state also might have to cover increases in property tax assessments once the buildings are sold.
After the 20-year period, the state would have the ability to repurchase the properties at market rate.
snip
The stories will be coming out forever. They have barely scratched the surface of S America, much less SE Asia or Africa.
Goldman Sachs charged with fraud.
I wonder what kind of slap on the wrist they’ll get.
their stock fell 13% today……………………….. YUM!!
I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of them got wind of it and shorted their own stock. I wonder if the SEC is even looking.
That would be my guess….
Ben Smith, who really is nto to be relied on (the People Magazine of Politics!) seemed to indicate Paulson may… m a y become a target of the investigation.
My guess is active headline generating from the Obster Mobsters… Like gays can now hold hands in federal subsidised hospitals.
Full text, The Hill
well, well, well … Suspicious Options Activity In Financial ETF Ahead Of Goldman Charges
We’re all in Ric’s Place…………. forever!!
To me, it’s pretty clear Kagan was set up to be knocked down.
A mere wave from the boys on the Presidential yacht as it drifts by the isle of Lesbos. Where isle inhabitants are expected to remain.
Oh- and send in campaign cash- because There Was those recent shoutouts from the boys aboard right before they hit the throttle pulling off so to speak: “Ya’ll can visit each other in hospital!” “If you or your loved ones buy protection from the commercial insurance rackets!”
Exhibit A.
The FIRST thing Rahm’s leak operation did was pee in the punch.
The Admin was not “looking for a fight’ on the confirmation.
Were they EVER?
::
Kagan couldn’t have more of the Pavlovian stimulus response inducing resumes. All together now, everybody drool.
NYC’s Hunter College High, Princeton, Oxford, Harvard Law.
One simply must lest ya’ll’s anti intellectual.
Yes, the resume. Which she promptly turned in for token status, albeit as an upper echelon token in the DP’s political hackery. A smart, wow that’s neat you were a Rhodes Scholar hack, but a hack nonetheless. Who found the reliable revolving door havens:
Haven at Chicago, haven at Williams and Connelly under Greg Craig, haven in Bills 2nd Admin as it was trading everything it could out of (nominally) herSolicitors General Office to keep his horndog ass afloat.
That Larry Summers , in the middle of his looting Harvard and digesting his own misogynistic feet so far down his throat they were turtle heading out of his rectum with regularity, that Summers appointed her as Dean of Harvard Law given the identity politics blankie she offered hardly refutes the Hacks Little Helper angle for Kagan, or let’s Harvard’s then Happy Hour Board/ then busy with the Bubble off the fiduciary hook.
Anyways. Almost Bottom Line?
She’s a team player who was never meant to be confirmed in the first place.
Oh but they Triiiied they’ll say.
( Always THE Bottom Line )
Adam B supports her. So, there’s that. He also openly wept about Greenwald’s take on her. 😉
And what’s Ben Domenech, plagiarist, doing working for CBS?
I just read at Ben Smith that Twoleroad has been speculating openly for months about Kagan, is she or is she. Meanwhile Human Rights Campaign, which would nto help a gay squirrel, is bitching and moaning what a right wing slander it all is.
Gotta love it.
Ben unhelpfully adds that most Americans don’t think being gay should matter for a job. Oh yeah? Then add it to Civil Rights protections in the workplace. Cuz most states it is still legal to fire someone for being gay.
Coretta Scott King stepped in to help people, but then she had more courage and intellect than most [male] Civil Rights leaders all squished together. In that ‘congealing fuckball’.
And ya know, now she is dead. And the kids are punks.
Get in the box, motherfucker.
Darryl Gates, LAPD goon squad police chief dead at 83.
good riddance to that racist motherfucker.
Trainwreck update.
Some people should have been turfed for that shit. Numerous fainting couches would have been required however and I don’t think they have a Send Money Now!! campaign for those.
Ah, the middling Tim Lange.
AKA “Meteor Blades” , The Marginal…turned “movement” relics trader.
Who tolerates all…except …..disruption.
That passed by sideboard margarine who is such the
sympathy fuck he sweats when full air is given to butter.
Captain Ob – Captain Obvious – Is that you?
RFLMAO
oh god… still at Sistahspeak.
I wish I drank. And drank and drank.
turned “movement” relics trader.
yeah.. and that story always stank to low heaven.
Ah Bill…. just on a ramble.
He’s gonna be on TW with Tapper. In Miami……………… more rambles.
yup!
C-Punch
{ reaching for popcorn}
See, that’s agitation at its finest.
Though it IS hard to tell … if Bill Donohue will be sending Rosen a few bucks or frothing that his piece is another obvious attempt by Joooos to displace Catholics at what they’re really good at.
I SAY…
Leave the Times and Catholics “alone” for now, Dave. 😉
Things are going so well. 😆
oh I think they should string Ratz up by any parts available for stringing… but ………….. there is a take down going on. Or a big haircut.
NOBODY cares about the children. None of the parties moving againist the Vatican cares about the children. They are baically just throwaways, caught in commerce… Nor do the parties even care about the rampant criminality, absent any idea there are victims…. We all know this.
Just a big power play of some sort.
I agree. And well deserved.
Yet spoils of such a useless vast , brutal autocracy must inevitably be divided. Which is probably more understandable than laughably ironic, given a RealPolitik POV: Something oh so alive and well , since FFS, being all but invented by the folks who co-opted the Roman Empire. And to think, that fuckin Hebrew – Henry Kissinger -tried to make it his own. Noob. LOL. Oh well.
As near as I can figure they hardly fill any role, hardly caging their sheep even. Who are multiplying. Which is so not good for some PTB,
especially the democracy- as – lip- service US PTB with political and economic demographic concerns here and fretting the lack of service by the CC in managing popular expectations in South America.
Then theres the money. And “These Times”. So, while perhaps not necessarily Church liquidity in bank, tho nothing to sneeze at, it still throws of a lot of cash, but the assets, man, the assets involved…. Fuck, its the ultimate raider’s dream.
So there’s all that.
But Good Luck! to the CC with that…somethin… what was it … oh yeh , that systemic child rape goin on.
That the Heirarchy covered up and the flock denied.
As many STILL DO. So Good Luck! to the CC trying to get around to the catechism of peace, class struggle, and justice.
Seeing as how they’ve been AWOL on it. Just a bit of the last coupl’a millenia. Utterly useless. Time to cast lots for their garments.
Actually I think the group escaping gunshot at the moment is the Boy Scouts of America. Partly because they are al tied up with the US government, in so many schools, community centers, youth groups…e tc.
AND I read a few years ago when there was an earlier eruption of the issues with the BS, every single boy in Utah is enrolled in the org.
Of course they too are blaming plain old homosexuals… in that they were barred from banning them as of a few years ago.
Tho I am sure they have work arounds…
Well, I certainly hope they keep the whole Boy Scout thing
from Ratzy and his minions. Jeezis.
They find out there’s an entire organization full of boys in brown shirts…
oh that made me laugh! Little Brown Shirts… just out in the open for the taking.
[snicker]
they could show them how to rub two sticks together.
😆 Hulluva way to spark off and burn a heretic tho.
$3 hand-powered suction device quickly heals wounds
They’re Trying to Call HIV-Positive People Bioterrorists?
Fernandis, however, suffered a severe bite through his lip, as well as bites on his ear, nose and neck; he was hospitalized for his wounds. Allen too suffered injuries. At an early hearing on the case, Allen’s lawyer presented 37 photographs of his wounds, including bite marks on his body.
the multiple biting is just too feral for me… frankly. But charging under terrorism? Just throw the assualt book at him. Them.
lawyers will tell people, there is just no winning in ”neighbor v neighbor” wars. It gets impossibly ugly. Best to avoid, or move.
I don’t understand why assault isn’t enough, either.
I Didn’t Do Anything, And I Got My Ass Kicked’ — The Unfolding Police Scandal Over Videotaped Student Beating
The video, even before the beating, shows a ridiculous over-reaction to a public celebration of a sporting win.
And the victim was beaten, bruised, bloodied… and handcuffed to his hospital bed.
Jesse Ventura on Bill Maher just advocated prosecuting the Catholic Church under federal RICO statutes, as they were an organization that moved people accused of felonies across state laws.
Capital idea, methinks.
Yeah RICO should be used for that… and a couple of other things I can think of. The organisation behind killing Tiller, for one.
Yay Jesse! Love that guy. He says the things that need to be said.
Speaking of Maher, David Remnick is on (Vanity Fair editor). Dear Spaghetti Monster, what a fucking middling halfwit. He’s like David Broder’s clone. Oh, and he and the guy who made Gore’s movie (who’s made a new scary movie about “loose nukes” that we’re all supposed to be scared of now) all agree that scary Arabs will steal nukes and kill us all, but those swell Israelis would NEVER use nukes.
Who the fuck ARE these people?
well David is a mittel brow idiot Dem operative.
IMO
and big apologist for Israel.
well he looks as tho he never grew beyond his bar mitzvah party.
He’s with the New Yorker…
oh, that’s right … I get my vastly diminished formerly good magazines mixed up!
It’s Simon Johnson nite. I just watched him on Moyers.
he doesn’t say much, sadly.
No and they’re all pretty dismissive of Israel’s nukes.
Oops – just read the above comments. Slow grey matter nite here…
that was disgusting, wasn’t it? Of COURSE those motherfuckers will use nukes if they feel threatened enuff.
itching to.
Catching up to it now………………. Oh gotta love this.
One wth the Petersen Insti… the other with McKinsey… here in SF, neoliberal company, and government connected, fully.
And thse boychicks are calling out Wall St and Rubin…
I did love th tidbit of Biden being the headline speaker next week at the Hamilton Project, the conservative baby of Rubin.
Just caught the end of the McLaughlin group. The host predicts Holder will step down this summer. I wonder why he thinks so…
Oh he stepped down when Lanny Breuer told him how he liked his coffee.
Speaking of Breuer.
Bottom line, NSA sweeps every call. Every call.
They get some rogue within NSA leaking – and not the mere booty calls of pols – tho damaging its really chickenshit — but the latest encrypted shit over money conspiracies, market manip, case fixes, legislation and political posts for sale….
We’re soo overdue for it. But, unfortunately, we come full circle:
NSA sweeps every call. Every call. We know it.
We also know we torture. And wage illegal indiscriminate wars.
The country yawned. With Democrats happy to pass the sedatives.
And now under Obama, they are fine with the overdose.
Administered with a smile.
I do have hopes in the paranoia that is apparently dogging our overlords, e.g. the Admin, the Hill, and FBI freaking about “threats of violence” , “sovereign citizens”, homegrown militia, etc. Bill and his slobber about reactionaries today. ETC.
I do hope the overreach and paranoia of despots proves to be their undoing. In that light, I think it’s not that surprising the “charges” against GS – 🙄 a civil complaint to be settled for pennies on the hundreds of billions. But I regret to say it means an even more repressive swing Right in the meantime.
Roundtable at Rose on Goldman Sachs.
They need to be roomies with the Pope… apparently one of their whines is that the rating agencies did n’t tell them the scheme (their OWN schemes!) was a scam.
Lordy!
they really are shameless.
Blowback:
Interesting…
Oh, c’mon. Who the fuck cares?
they have a more … “nothing” name for it.. but it is what I think of as the assassination pool. Just in case anyhing happens, there is supposed to be a representative pool .. not with but roughly en route.
I actually think the meeting was probably becuase both Obster and Gibbs have ratcheted up the anti media rhetoric the past couple of weeks… in a few interviews. Gibbs was really scathing a few days ago… in the Wapo.
Good luck to them all.. a biting frenzy should commence… etc.
Well, geez, he’s had more media than G*D. (Okay, maybe not lately considering the Popeyness shit…but still…)
Wow. These people are absolute morons.
Missing New Mexico cat found in Chicago
Hanging out at the blues bars, I suspect.
My brother, Mike the Hippy: “hope that volcano in Iceland gives ‘er for a year at least just to screw things up”
lol
well… because *new* things are interesting, I am enjoying it, in a way… but gosh I do wonder at extended ash and smoke. When will it calm down.
What gets me about flights being suspended is that airports don’t have contingency plans – no cots etc. They just don’t seem to care.
not that “airports” can care about anything…whoops… 😉
and you’d have to know my brother – he’s a bit warped. 🙂
I saw cots being set up a couple of European airports, think some countries mandate that airlines and airports do what they can…. and some indication that to the extent possible (not all that many rooms) some international non-US carriers were putting up some people stuck, booked on connecting flights…
Seems the US does the least. Quelle Shock!
But trapped is trapped. What a state of being in limbo. Or trapped with small children. Elderly, babies.
Esp trapped in a foreign country…geesh.
oh another story I heard, think on BBC or DW…. the Monty Python guy,…. the one who was later in Fualty Toers… is that Cleese?
Took a $5000.00 cab ride from Scandinavia to somwhere… I think in Southern Germany.
What a hoot! And well worth it.
I saw that. 🙂
Must be nice to have that kind of cash to throw around.
Why should they care?
Hey, if I can’t afford a vacation, I think that everyone else should have to stay home, too! :p
sadly
I don’t believe a “toolometer” will help us now in determining tools, from whatever
On a foolish note, yes, I am apparantly a drunk
This struck me as funny
Got wonderfully smashed, by invitation to humbling food drink live music and humanity, at the corner Meck restaurant
Felt so good after leaving way after open hours, went into the next door 7/24 and bought a 6 pack o mickeys in the more and more rarified, GLASS version
Some youngster, clearly amused by my grey hairs, said sumpin about grenades!!!
(duh, yeah they really do look like GRENADES!!!!!!!!!! CALL HOLDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
hilarious, the likely beseiged young middle eastern person at the counter was uproarioulsy and freely laughing, somehow, I’m glad to be part of that joke
they serve tan beans
nachos:
chicken chunks,
avacodo
a beige cheese
chili powder
unleavened corn triangles
secret stuff
and
much comfort
bien
and the devil, swine, shrimp, are absolutely delightful
though I usually, perhaps lamely, prefer the sauce, verde
“verde,” not to be confused, in any way, shape or form,
with Al Gore, tobacco
and a green Silicon Valley California, where, apparantley, a LUCKEY EMPLOYEE,
can eat theior lunch on silverware made out of potatoes which could have fed hungry people, and drop that silverware on the sidewalk for the homeless to eat…”presumeably” resolving any issues of morality they had, in one fell swoop.
Why, yes, yes I am fried, nonehteless sober as “sin”
I mistook “too!” for tool
oops
the good part of that, was that I aired something gnawing
although, I really do apologize, if, in that interim, I hurt any beleaguered feelings of so many of us underdogs.
Need I really say?
Need I really say….that I was fully aware that I posted nonehteless
If so, is it not like that ever so HIP, teh,
ta?
What the Founding Fathers Really Thought About Corporations
I think Chomsky has written a bit about this. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that corporations were able to decharter themselves.
iirc it was the late 1890s when the court gave THEM personhood…. (soon to expand to the fetus).
This looks like a job for The Onion: Fight Al-Qaeda with satire, ridicule: researchers
Yeah. That’ll do it! I mock thee.
Gore takes cash for water campaign from chemical firm – Dow Chemical
People have forgotten that the mere word, “DOW” was so toxic in the wake f the Vietnam war that for … years and years —- maybe close to a couple decades, they back pedaled advertising in regular consumer magazines and similar publications. They stuck to industry periodicals for advertising, mostly.
Go Gore!
[go anywhere]
thank you for that catnip!
the insane Gore worship drives me bonkers.
Kucinich: White House Assassination Policy Is Extrajudicial
No kidding.
oh but we all live under the same threat as Sderot! No fair!! We have to be safe, just like Israel.
Greenwald: What the whistleblower prosecution says about the Obama DOJ
God these fuckers leak.
So “secret” its on the FP of the NYT. In a lede by David Sanger, an Israel Guy. (pick a number). And the Obama cheerleader on the Nuke Summit who made the rounds on CR the other day ..
“Progress!” – buut {drool} –
“Ob says Sanctions might not work! Says Sanger…coming a few
a few days after Lanny and Rahm’s big –
Did I say God these fuckers leak? ETC- ..marquis arrest of an NSA functionary for leaking classified specs to journos:
“We do not Leak!”
So they say. Back to Sanger’s stenography:
Oh really, Sanger?
“A revised set of military alternatives,”??
Howd’ya find out? Given your. next. fuckin. line.?
So who’s in for the knife? And Who’s stickin it in?
(Oh, we’ll get around to policy eventually)
Is Gates looking to sandbag Jones via the the tattle chain? Gates?
The guy who has no prob dropping bombs without blinking?
Flashback to last summer
and the young bucks whispering around Jones then… Here’s David Ignatius trying to grapple with it in WaPo last summer when Gates called HIM up for an… interview? Reprimand? Fanny paddle?
Ah Ignatius, that fifth columnist, inveterate Zionist, TOOL of Israel –
who tried to end the discussion he was chairing in Davos at the World Economic Forumwhen Erdogan confronted Peres over Gaza, AND THEN gave Peres the final 25 minutes to spew the Israeli line.
🙄 Gates:
Jones as “the glue that holds the team together”. Some Horse.
Anyhoo, Ignatius being Ignatius, not able to help himself after Gates sought him out for reprimand, sang then like Sanger did today ~ and slipped in just a little more tool work before spinning Gates definitive verdict : Jones was STAYING. “Silly Season” or some slobber chuckle chuckle was the emphasized Igno-spin:
Well it ain’t Gates in the Parlor. And it ain’t Colonel Mus- I mean Jones at the NSC. It’s Rahm and his shits in the press. < — The previous link is about as well cited a rundown of the handlers , hacks and press flacks v Jones there is. Hey they're all imperialists , No Boo-Hoo for Jones, Gates, or any of them, May they Claw Each Other to Death©, but it is very well cited.
All the gobblers are there.
Holly Bailey for example.
.
Holly’s first lines in the Newsweek piece. Thank you Holly. Gobble.
Steve Clemons: Can James Jones Survive a Second Round of Attacks and “Longer Knives”?
Etc. Gobble Gobble.
It’s soooo Rahm. The Israeli butler. In the Parlor with the knife.
In Jones back. Mr. Gates is gonna be pissed.. Oh well.
“Graba mop” Rahm. Who doesn’t do floors.
LOL. Remember this – and the walkback – right after Ob was elected?
::
But guess who had to step in to give the mumbo jumbo reply on the Gates memo? And note the Newspeak at the end, thevirtual nuclear state”
Translation: Coach Gates says PUNT. Next possession we can have GE throw nuke techno to Israel OR Iran. Fuck it. Coach says PUNT or we’ll ALL be selling chickens outside a circus in China.
From Sanger’s Duck and Cover piece at the NYT-
LOL – They trotted out JONES.
Which is delicious given the knife in his back.
And after the year old pic they released in one organ or other this past week . LOL. Of Jones answering the phones there on the left while Rahm holds court.
Maybe they’ll have JONES call Rahms tithers for Obs re-election campaign.
Conclusion: I don’t think WE are going to war with Iran .
Afterall. Anymore. For Now.
LOL. Tho ALL OPTIONS ARE OPEN!
::
MJS at SMBIVA makes a compelling argument against Leftish CV (something I’ve always been a sucker for – LOL) , WRT “The Sacred Relationship”.
The CR the night of the Nuke Summit last week, had Sanger of NYT rounding out – mostly blowing – Kissinger’s Managing Direct Joshua Cooper Ramo and – who else – Sam Nunn. Who were blowing China.
A few other observations: Hillary has steered clear of any visible connection to the Play Palace intrigue. Busy with Policy and all I guess. LOL. And crickets on it all from Susan Rice, the Admin’s We Can Do Condi Too clone at the UN. Persuading China at the UN on the big Iran vote, I suppose. LOL. Gates and the Generals will decide.
Steve Clemons: Can James Jones Survive a Second Round of Attacks and “Longer Knives”?
Etc. Gobble Gobble.
… and so on..
Last year Greg Craig, this year Jim Jones?
Thing is none of em ever really go.
And while stranger shit has happened,
oh like opening the Russian Front- – Whoops Adolph! –
I’m of the mind that Jones and Gates will be on to the next landing when Rahm and Ob have to show up at AIPAC with the slight change of plans:
May we interest you in a Pahlavi? A good old 50’s style coup?
Somethin like that.
Although I have to say the guy who is prolly gonna get chopped down to the size of a Ken doll before its all thru is Abdullah of Jordan.
Why King PlayStation and Queen YouTube? (as Angry Arab calls them, off in their US supported operetta)
I think Craig did get pushed out.. for whatever reason. Prolly not over Gitmo issues….
Not that it matters…………
Yeah there is a Pahlavi ”kid” running around, looking all eager.
Good to know. The APPALLING! mere unbridled greed, incompetence, and weak regulation we can live with!
I sure hope it’s not malfeasance tho.
WTF?
We urge everyone to keep a close eye on this case.
I am really tired fo the trampoline we are TIED TO… chained to. Tethered to……….
It gets so wearing.
Mcat, {I’m joking} could you put one of those 😯
things after the NYT saying
We urge everyone to keep a close eye on this case. 😯
It just doesn’t look right without it. 😯
LOL. Maybe one in hypoxic blue for those of us holding our breath.
Somebody hit me with the adrenalin and the paddles me when they perp walk Greenspan, Blankfein , Rubin and Stanley Fisher.
I’m all 😯 ‘d …. out
Finally… 😉
A new thread:
LINK
………………… 😯