Opera Glasses and Popcorn
Szilvasvarad, Hungary: English bulldogs meet at an international dog show [Laszlo Balogh/Reuters]
BTW, I just read that Ron Paul is IN. The primary race that is.
*************
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.
thanks for the caption … I first I thought that was Haley explaining his reasons for dropping out to one of his supports.
LOL too true!
The dogs are, I am sure, nicer.
no doubt
All you can do is laugh. The years roll out ahead like a continuous (and dumb) cartoon.
Insurgent against whom?
[yawn]
Time to load up on more superhero comics. There’s no way I’ll be able to endure all the smarm and self-satisfied bullshit from his local fan club all over again otherwise.
Oh, and the tears. Mustn’t forget the TEAAARRRS!!11
I really think he shoulda cried when he told Obama to “grow up”.
😆
The 2012 supporter swag should include airsickness bags and those mini-packets of facial tissues, if you ask me.
Or some of those leftover DVF totes that Pelosi was pushing. They can turn them inside out and sew on some transfers of people eating out of trashcans, or of people pushing around shop carts full of one-time home items. Something like that…
ugh, what an absolute creep, … from the pictures I’ve seen, he even looks like one, face permanently frozen into that smarmy, I’m purchasable, advertisement. Primary ambition? apparently owning the most powerful car in town:
yeah.. Messina, another reason for L’Obster to fail. Quite a few actually, Bill Burton is anotehr. Bill Daley.
O oops 😳 I must be a traitor to my country! I said a Rushism.
yeah really, and I guess us traitors need be careful, lest we end up in a neighboring cell to Bradley Manning. Only obscenely paid pundit whores like Rush can criticize without being threatened, in this country. The minute any of us repeat one of his extremely rare truisms, we’ll get hammered.
Oh Rush says stuff like that and then lies back and waits, he baits the system
Fine iwth me.
Imus did the same.
From the sidebar, Amy Goodman: Locked-Out Uranium Processing Workers Protest Honeywell’s Use of Scab Workers at Uranium Enrichment Plant in Illinois
Each and every site is a ticking nightmare, waiting to happen. Anyone who sees it otherwise is in some bizarre Disneyland.
I remember those hearings when Rickover retired.
yup.
And FukuShima proves, again, that there are no plans in place in the event of meltdown, utter devastation, complete tragedy.
Etc.
I mean, I HATED the Yucca Mountain plan, and Obster canceled it (to help Reid get re-elected, of all damned, stupid dead end things), after how many fucking god damned millions, hundreds of millions invested, but if you are going to pursue building reactors, gotta do something with the waste.
There are no plans in place.
yeah, no plans in place except privatized, galactic travel for the elite (and deportment for the prisoner class), to see what other planet can be colonized, and then ultimately destroyed.
I’ve been wondering about how they plan to partition out Mars to the various super powers, there are sure to be discussions going on. Fucking insane.
hmm on a different tack, I hear Phoebe Snow died… at 58… (58, eek)
that was pretty depressing …. I found myself immediatelly wondering about her disabled daughter when I read it. I certainly wouldn’t count on the current Administration to be working on policies which will ease the caretaking, they are too busy reinforcing Reaganism.
Hopefully she left a Special Needs trust for the daughter.
I’m thinking she probably did, given that she immediately walked away from her career, to take care of her….
Valerie passed away in 2007.
(I love that pic honey!)
oh the bulldogs?
Beat a picture of a politician’s smile….
😉
yes, it did, …pretty sweet…
(I loved that title too honey, that was at least half of the enjoyment for me, sweety.)
Only thing to call it, the wrinkly sweeties just wanted to smash their faces together….
Gave me a laugh, anyway.
Oh…I hadn’t quite looked at it that way (though I see the argument for it) …I got all elaborate with it , and construed they realized that some asshole had tinkered with their lives (hybridizing) so much, that their nasal systems were all fucked up and deformed …and that they were gently touching each others noses in a mutal, gentle display of : This shit is really fucked up, isn’t it.
UW doctors face penalties for writing sick notes for protesters
So much of what is going on is COMPLETELY OUT OF HAND. So fucking screwed…
yup, the dems will try to draft off of the outrage for votes, but will do nothing to stand up for those actually fighting back.
I am sure it is more complex than painted here (and i have a long abiding dislike of Shaitburger of the Firefighters’ Union) but it seems some big time union money noticed that the pretzel and other federal officials (congress) stood up for no one as the R hammer and chisel is slamming down in WI and Ohio and Indiana and so on…
I think a lot of unions are starting to do that.
Well Stern made public, on FOX News no less, comments to that effect (would be investing in local races and in strengthening union work, rather than the big quadrennial pushes) duriing the Kerry/Bush GE…Not the primaries when quite a few unions fell in with Howard, but in th GE.
Then I think some got suckered, to whatever level, by Foundling bullshite.. but hey, it did not work. And they’ve been shown now for months, Eat Shite and Die, but be sure to donate and work for us and vote for us. Etc.
NTIM, I am well aware.
From New Orleans to Japan, a gift of music
so cheering!
Ok, even though I am beyond broke, I am going to have to get myself and the boys passports ASAP.
Check it out:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/7275-state-department-proposes-bizarre-questionnaire-for-passport-apps
This part is especially pissing me off right now:
Beginning April 1, 2011, the U.S. Department of State will require the full names of the applicant’s parent(s) to be listed on all certified birth certificates to be considered as primary evidence of U.S. citizenship for all passport applicants, regardless of age. Certified birth certificates missing this information will not be acceptable as evidence of citizenship.
If this is so, my elder son will be imprisoned in this country forever. There is no father listed on his birth certificate.
oh, wait, there is a (s)…maybe we’ll be ok. Regardless, I am less and less liking the idea of being well and truly trapped here….
I think I’ll get on this right away…$500 for all three of us, though getting all of the paperwork together sounds like a HUGE pain!
Oh, well, more fun than grading papers! 😉
yes I have just been going back and forth in email about this. It is absolutely horrifying.
Think I jsut let my passport expire too, mid April. Not that I am going anywhere… I am not… but still.
You know the interesting thing tho, I had both a valid passport and an expired Cal ID (and what a fuckign struggle it was to get that in 2001 or whenever,…. and voer and over the ID wanted at process of applying for Medi-Cal as a second payer (it became a mess that I abandoned, a nightmre) and at a Pacific Medical Center check in at a clinic… they both watned the expired Cal ID.
They copied my current and valid passport but they preferred the expired Cal ID
Go fucking figure.
I need to rent Brazil and watch it about 3 times in a row….
This article asks the right questions, as far as I’m concerned.
Check out this proposed form!
That is insanity!! I started thinking about all of the places that I’ve lived in the past 45 years…shit, it took me almost 45 minutes just to think of them all!! This house I live in right now is the longest I have ever lived in one structure in my life…7 years. And my mother residence one year before my birth!? Whether or not she received pre-natal care?! The circumstances of my birth?! How the fuck should I know??
I mean really, WTF?!
the shit gets more ominous by the day, love how (obviously) no one seemed aware that on February 24th, there was an online, 60 day ‘public comment request.’ Who the fuck searchs (or has the time, and/or ‘puter to) the Federal Register online daily, to search for ‘public comment request’ announcements, much other than the gophers of the elite? Why doesn’t the FCC (OUR Airwaves) require radio and television networks to notify of such “requested public response” to the governments “proposed regulations,” which effect the country at large? Why, never a newspaper article noting such? I’ve never seen one.
….the USSA? …
The 02/24/11 Federal Register online proposed information collection (request for “public” response) 60-Day Notice of Proposed Information Collection: DS-5513, Biographical Questionnaire for U.S. Passport, 1405-XXXX
presumably, April 25th was the last day for response (The Department will accept comments from the public up to 60 days from February 24, 2011.), though I read at one site that comments were being allowed through the 29th (extended?).
(why do I get the feeling Obombster just shared his birth certificate for the Birthers, in prep for this news ….See that, even Lord Shepicus provides his personal data to fight terrerism!)
Interestingly the INS file on his father, or some of it, is also part of the release. Apparently.
Um, does anyone find it super creepy that all of this information is even IN a file anywhere??
well I don’t actually. I am for much more open borders, esp the two contiguous land masses Canada and Mexico. But I do accept that a country will monitor who is here.
It sounds, going thru the file which a newspaper obtained by FOIA, he was pretty much here on sufferance anyway.
here is a Politico link to the pages released.
that is interesting, and since it seems unnecessary, I guess all online are meant to go read it and haggle over it, through the election, …as “we” incarcerate, or bomb the fuck out of, anything that moves without a hall pass,….. so very fucked.
oh yeah, and how could I forget to note that there is no link on that comment request page, to the fucking proposal itself (in order to fucking comment on it), despite what would have been the absolute ease of doing so. Of course, they rightfully presume, the majority of commenters will be the ‘connected,’ not actually, We The People.
Well…. it is not like the so called Leftischer blog and other jungle drums bothered iwth this til a day or so ago.
was thinking that very same thought, myself. How was it that they happened on the news 62 days later, when many of the ‘liberal’ blawgers, are so connected.
well it shows up, for the umpteenth time, just HOW they are all connected. As maintainers of the status quo. Ultimately, Statists.
For one, the ENTIRE nation wide and international bar for Immgration and US Citizen issues knew about this. ACLU, so many entities, they knew from minute one, from the tiem thsi was cooking on the stove.
yup, all those data feeds … The Management Class has daily access to: Lexus ….RIA/Reuters, et al, …..provided this shit from the Federal Register, on DAY ONE ….
(this shit link (also posted above), for one of them
another, this shit link, ……(provided by R frendly Blawgosphere Management , …….. way to late, … to do anything about it))
Bummmmmer.
😆 No word yet on whether, Murder-on-the-Nile style, whether the shocked, Shocked to find each other at bombing nexus, WHETHER the JP Morgan sliver options desk, (D’Oh!), Sorosian Deutche Bank minions short on yuan, (Ouch!) and Goldman Sachsers LONG ON Oil, War, rough-livin’ Zionists AND short Hashemite Jordanians -(Enh. Whatev.) LOL, reports are unclear whether the impromptu Biz-School Reunion band of brother bombers safely cleared the blast zone or not.
Welll, I think it’s funny. LOL.
Bummer SUMMER.
Reminds me of when the IRA blew Montbatten out of the water. 😉
Oh, and this is why I am looking for a place I can rent in order to get a utility bill with my name on it in the right place so that my kids can stay at their schools….
Why do we live in such a screwed up country??
oh here even an address near a preferred school means nothing. It is all a convoluted system of lottery and various shifting requirments.
Check this out — came home from school today with son the younger….
oh, I can’t attach a file…drat.
IS there a way I can share a PDF file with ya’ll?
If not, here’s the text (my converter is not all that great):
River Oaks Elementary School
12401 Scofield Farms Drive • Austin, TX 78758
Phone (512) 594-5000 • Fax (512) 594-5005
Dear Parents,
In order for your child to be emolled in the 20112012
school year you will have to update your proof
ofresidence. Please bring in or send a copy to the
office, we will need one from each column below.
This needs to be done by the end ofthis school year.
Thank you all for your prompt attention. Any
questions please feel free to call me at the number
below.
·
Mortgage statement from the last
60 days.
·Lease from the last 60 days.
·
Legal affidavit regarding
sublease.
·
Legal affidavit from landlord
affirming tenancy.
· Temporary Residence Affidavit
with updated Driver’s license
submitted within 35 days.
· Section 8 Agreement.
Tax Properly Statement
·
A utility bill or work order dated within the
past 60 days:
Water bill
Gas bill
Electric Bill
·Utility Work-order (for new
residents)
We, do not accept cell phone or cable bill.
If a family is sharing housing ‘With,an
individual or family and does not pay rent
under Temporary Residence Form, the
family shall submit a utility bill in the name
of the person who owns or leases the
properly.
Valid Texas driver’s license .
.
Valid Texas photo identification
card
Get this last bit:
A family may report residency fraud by contacting the school district’s main office at 594-0000 and/or home campus.
River Oaks Elem
Student Records
(512)594-5038
I poked around a little bit in the back pages and did not run into instructions for posting pdf… if i do find will let you know…
No worries — I am just so pissed off right now. I also got a letter about a field trip that they want to take the kids on to the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory, which sounds awesome except for one thing:
It is 90 miles away!!!!! The letter says that they will be leaving the school at 8:15 am and returning at 2:40 pm. If the bus driver drives at 90 miles an hour (not bloody likely, more like a minimum 2 hour trip one way), that means that they will only be there for 2 hours!!
Oh, and get this! I can’t go because I haven’t filled out the district background check, even though I passed the STATE background check to be a teacher!! LOLOLOL!
I guess I’ll be hanging out with my boy all day that day….
jeebus that’s fucked up.
Which part!? 🙂
Jesus all that passport flap drov e me to check, valid to mid August of this year.
gah. Off to check if they even offer a renewal anymore.
They actually do! Get it renewed — waaaay less paperwork! 😉
yeah but I looked it is now 110.00 and requires a recent passport photo.
It $170 for folk like me who have a passport that was issued more than 15 years ago, and $130 a piece for the boys!
if you need an assist, with either the cost, or transportation for the photo hon, let me know.
Charlie Cook…
with this early report, speaking in glowing terms,
from Fuki-fuckin-shima.
😆 Yeh, Charlie, untilthat Historic Election Night 2008.
What was the slobber then? Oh yeh – the impressive win was a sorta, Bi – Post Partisan Historic like, You know we DID see it coming ~thing, but WOW, Whooo! Why, We’d have to go back to the Election of, heck – Did I say WOW already?!?? ”
Anyways, as of today, cue obligatory CC Reverence for The Peepuhl ….conclusion.
NeW.
CHange.
Etc.
The thing is, see, Charlie does this shit, ah, like seriously, for a living, actually.
Of course he knows a complimentary buffet when he sees one.
::
::
For any American noticing the physical insertion of Racist Donald Trump Racist Racist into any less than guarded personal orifice, an awareness by the way that We are meant to be One with the One, ~True~ Obama, Teh Obama in His Heart the Obama NOT-OF Iraq Afghanistan Pakistan Libya, of Wall Street nor BP in the Gulf or GE of Fukishima the Presidents Economic Recovery Council, and the Cat Food Commission.
Remember: we are One with Teh True, Un-Trumpy, One.
Casual observers risk 3 hour prime-time MSNBC enema otherwise.
So. this (Obama innoculation, IMO) this Obama booster shot and media downshouting Can ANYBODY Beat Obama? 🙄 is mere saline for what will run on DR Mengele Ron Paul Nazi-Jew-Gold Hitler.
That’s Ron Paul, Ron Paul,folks – you Hitlerites. LOL.
OR , you know, You can vote for Obama.
Some choice.
I just sat through it… Though I do have to say, if Jimmy the Greek can get fired for suggesting that African Americans were more naturally athletic because they were bred that way during slavery, it’s only fair for Donald Trump to get fired for suggesting that African Americans aren’t smart enough to get into Harvard.
While I almost never agree with Larry O’Dullard and his 15 minute whine to his employers was almost too uncomfortably stiff to even be funny, he has a point.
yeah but htere was bitching and moaning from the various choirs over Bush and his grades and legacy this and so on…. (Bush, who couldn’t care less).
At some point after the mess of a lousy run in 2004 BOTH Bush’s and Kerry’s grades were released. Most people gave it a total pass, Bush was winding up second admin and Kerry was one more loser.
Bush’s grades were better than Kerry’s. You can imagine liberals were anxious to just shut up about it.
I am so fucking sick of politicians’ withholding. I don’t care who gets stabbed anymore. Or why!
Esp as the rest of us are supposed to turn out our pockets. turn our minds open our doors to no knock, accept phone tracking as benign and so on and everything else.
Oh I don’t disagree. It was pretty clear from Trump’s presser though that he was directly toting a racial tone. And further, it is very much perceived that way by a general audience. Given how the networks have dealt with this in the past [i.e. Jimmy the Greek & many, many others], I’m just saying it would be entirely consistent if he was fired.
I’d actually be interested to see the reasoning by network execs if they didn’t fire him.
Yes but. There are profiles running around ( I hve seen Romenesko quoted and I think the survey and percentages are theirs…now I have not read any of the media commentary sites in ages, so I don’t know how Romenesko comes at things anymore) that the single most coverage of “Birhter and Citizenship” issues was at MSNBC.
Ob and structure lived to keep this alive. What a con game on all sides.
IMO, and i have hated Trump since he tore the frescoes off the Bonwit Teller bldg in NYC… the racism, of which we have so very much in this country, is on both sides.
Anyway, Ob si profoundly inept or just screwy in any case. Even as he does the Neo Con Neo Lib bidding. But then he is disposable. I particularly think of when he became the personal, task dedicated pretzel for Henry Louis Gates.
Too much fucking time on his hands, and further, imo not a reader. Nor a thinker. You actually cannot fill your life with golf on military courses.
Don’t underestimate the feeblemindedness of those in the middle class and above. I actually think the popularity of golf could be graphed next to the stupification of the country & they would exactly mirror each other. 😉
Of course! This is why Maddow had to go into an elaborate defense tonight trying to distinguish ‘journalistic coverage’ from ‘pushing the agenda’. It had me ROLFLMAO.
I know people fill their lives at golf courses and gyms and other sorts of, imo, hiding places. But it fills vacancy.
But the whole thing is mind numbing. Inventive, thinking people don’t. They might go the golf course to get away, or just enjoy the game.
Golf courses are great for hacks in all industries.
I can’t imagine ever joining a gym. I love competitive sport. If I’m gonna exercise, it’s going to be playing a game with someone else.
My brains just fall into shreds at a gym. All I really care about is the sauna or steam room, anyway.
Yes but again. FOr instance Imus, it was said and I would think the dollar amt somehwere inthe ball park, got a separation ssettlement of 20 million. I alsothought the huge reaction to what he did – and he had done that so many many many times, but always with a quick qualifier to dig himself out, for some reason he skipped the qualifier over the Rutgers women… anyway, I thought his removal stank to high heaven of a Hillary and Bill move, they were close with Kaplan, think his name was, at MSNBC. Then Corzine got involved and so on.
he could shockingly biting about her… wounding level. (fine with me)
That place seems to be Dem party trollope corner. or something.
Oh it is. Strangely enough I wouldn’t be surprised if Olbemann was shown the door because he was too critical of the admin [despite being one of its biggest cheerleaders]. Maddow, while often critical, usually focuses more corporate/public entanglements, especially on the Republican side, which the party probably overlooks because most audiences wouldn’t take the extra step to associate with the Dems anyways.
Had forgotten about the whole Imus affair, and no doubt I’m sure Trump would get a similar settlement – if not more.
The whole thing is ridiculously fucked. I know you don’t even need to get me started on the media blackballing of anyone remotely critical of Israel. 😉
Where does Trump have a contract? You mean ABC’s Appentice Bullshite?
I read he was just a few weeks ago, with poll numbers rising in response to this birther mess, he was give a spot at FOX “Fox and Friends”.
He would have to make moves to go soon anyway if he continues to posture as maybe running for PRetzel…, I cannot see him getting some huge settlement.
The Apprentice is on NBC. The question is has he already resigned a contract for the fall season. If he hasn’t I bet they would just let his contract lapse after the last episode sometime in May – and escape having to publicly posture about it [and save a bundle]. If he has, they would have to fire him & I’m sure that would entail a settlement.
well you see how little attention I pay, I thought it was ABC. I find the show bizarre and was slightly blown away, channel hopping, to see Meatloaf, prior to dying, was on it….
Jesus.
You got screwed? Well, the Supreme Court says tough shit.
No unions, no class action…no gathering together in a suspicious manner…oh, and papers please!!
Just wait until the pharma companies start requiring people to sign such agreements before getting a prescription filled.
well you sign it with the docs who agree to treat you… it is probably all tied up in a neat, leaking-blood, ball.
a nation of indentured servants, shopping at the company store, living in company housing … everyone else foraging and trying to scrape by under a bridge.
Prepare for the next culture war / winger conniption fit:
.Superman announces that he is going to give up his U.S. citizenship
Of course, in comics, Supes is the biggest and baddest illegal immigrant.
Meaningless in a world full of real problems, of course, but I expect a full week of screaming about it. At least a week.
What do you mean? That would seem on par with most ‘issues’ our politicians see as important. Besides, what could be more important than a flag lapel pin?
I think we should ask for space available on his cape.
Totally OT – are any of you using the latest Firefox? While it is exceptionally quicker as a browser, the UI totally mimics Google Chrome, which I hate…
Mmm.. trying out a new Langedoc wine tonight… It hasn’t even taken breath yet but it positively lovely.
BTW – links to the videos of the CD release show by my jam band at Sullivan Hall in March. Some fun stuff in there…
have another glass on my behalf…
😉
RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms
New
LINK
………. 8)