I am not going to link the story because when I read it, I found nothing. No names and scant details. The babe looks like a woman McCain would like. To me it is a big so what. I put this up before McCain talks to the press. Why would anyone want to be President?
This is the link to the lobby firm. Their server is getting hammered. Their motto:
ReplyDelete"If you're looking for friends when you need them…it's too late."
-Mark Twain
A telecommunications lobbyist. That damned telecommunications bill is a disaster. Under that bill, if it is the one that has to do with cell phones and towers, a city cannot even bring up the issue of health hazards when deciding whether and where to site a tower. You have to accept a tower in your community. You can't discuss health hazards. No group of Americans by themselves would write such a piece of legislation.
ReplyDeleteSooner or later, the lawsuits are going to start to fly over health damage from cell phones and towers. I know a guy whose father and brother have worked a lifetime for Boise Electric. Near those cell towers, the cows don't give milk. You sure about that I asked. Yup, that's what they say.
As scandals go these days, though, it doesn't seem like a biggy.
Big debate tonight. I'm going to watch if it's on. Hillary's got to come out swinging.
My church rented some land to a cell tower company, and one of our church lawyer guys was telling us all about the law. I got to add to, that when the hearing took place before the city council, the cell tower company guy was sure a self assured cocky son of a bitch. Had a right to be I quess, as he couldn't lose.
ReplyDeleteGiven the story in the NYT and given McCain's response. I believe Mac
ReplyDeleteThis is the type of stuff that the NYTimes can dig up, via ananymous sources, on anyone, especially those with fifty years of experience.
ReplyDeleteStill focused on John, not Cindy's feloneous past, if anyone gets after Mrs Obama, for not being proud of the US, that piece of history will come out.
Makes Obama's admitted drug use seems tame, by comparison. Mrs McCain guilty of forgery, perjury and theft, to obtain the drugs and her adopted children, as well as drug use.
More than enough to make Rush her companion at rehab.
Nah, No One saw this coming.
ReplyDeleteThe lovely "Maverick" becomes an ill-tempered, old, crazy son of a bitch. Next: Keating five.
The "Party of Stupid" reaffirms itself.
If you'll remember; word of this came out during the NH Primary, and the NYT denied any knowledge of it's existence. I guess it wasn't time, yet. Romney was looking good, and the good ol' Maverick needed the help.
ReplyDeleteGet ready for a long year, boys and girls.
Correctamundo, rufus.
ReplyDeleteJust the first shot across the bow.
"If Karl Rove were brought out of retirement to help elect John McCain president, even he in all his evil genius could not have a schemed up a better way to breathe new life into his fellow Republican's campaign than the New York Times' inept effort to tie the Arizona senator to a comely young lobbyist.
ReplyDeleteSimply put, as it's playing out right now, the story was -- probably unintentionally, although who knows -- timed perfectly to help out McCain. Its insinuations of an improper relationship between the powerful senator and Vicki Iseman came too late to hurt McCain with the "values voters" in the GOP primaries, but at exactly the right time to rally right-wing talk radio against the Times, and thus for a candidate they can now support in November while holding their collective nose."
http://www.attytood.com/2008/02/the_new_york_times_grooves_one_1.html
Hey Rat, look at what's coming to a A Town Near You.
ReplyDeleteWithout knowing anything about Mrs. McCain, it seems the problems of a candidate's wife generally don't dirty up the candidate much. Mrs. Ford was a falling down drunk--did that hurt Jerry? If the candidate is a falling down drunk people take notice. Spun positively, he stuck by his woman, if he's still married to the same woman. Newt on the other hand ejected his wife cause she wasn't pretty enough.
ReplyDeleteI'm ashamed to say I once had a subscription to the NYT, long ago.
"I guess it wasn't time, yet. Romney was looking good, and the good ol' Maverick needed the help."
ReplyDelete---
"We Endorsed him before we trashed Him."
---
All about timing, but to Ash's Moonbat's the Worlds still upside down.
What is it w/Ms McCain's eyes?
ReplyDeleteLooks like hate, or damage, or continued LEGAL Prescription Drugs.
I'd much rather have a Druggie than a Commie America Hater, esp when Hubby is too.
Ash is playing the Canadian over at BC, dismissing the USA and all it's work again. Ash, I think Nahncee meant you, and made a typo:)
ReplyDeleteSomeday we'll have a President w/one of them teachers with Student Pets in bed.
ReplyDelete---
All Part of our Cultural Evolution.
Bernie Ward for President. Politically correct, and sexually progressive, too!
ReplyDeletebobal, the point was pretty minor and obvious re. peterbostons gushing about how exceptional the US is for shooting down the satellite given that China did the same.
ReplyDeleteto change the topic - should America get out the bombers and wipe out the nasty Christians who have torched the US embassy?
Success at last:
ReplyDeleteMakeover at Madigan is dramatic, soldiers say.
A year ago, wounded soldiers struggled in a World War II barracks
Ash could take Bernie's Place @ KGO!
ReplyDeleteBless the Perv and the Children, and Ash when the Perv gets fired.
ReplyDeleteAmazing Video of Shootdown
ReplyDeleteThe Iranians may be impressed with the missile shoot-down as they may be with some of the cable cutting.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what will impress the Canadians.
ReplyDeleteThe technology is really quite amazing - shooting a rocket that accurately. The Qassam rocket leaves much to be desired yet it is giving the Israelis some grief.
ReplyDeleteDoes the GOP not have an equivalent to the NYT/CNN, etc? Why do we keep patronizing these established Liberal propaganda outlets?
ReplyDeleteFOX
ReplyDeleteWashington Times
ReplyDeleteEarlier Thursday, police estimated that about 150,000 people had attended a rally in the Serbian capital. The crowd waved Serbian flags and carried signs reading "Stop USA terror."
ReplyDeleteOne group set fire to a red-and-black Albanian flag.
On Thursday, the neighboring Croatian Embassy also was targeted by the same group of protesters at the U.S. Embassy, and smaller groups attacked police posts outside the Turkish and British embassies in another part of the city but were beaten back.
Kosovo Independence
Ha!
ReplyDeleteThere's an old Earth saying:
ReplyDelete"A hundred travel books aren't worth a real trip."
Any other dead end roads I should follow?
ReplyDeleteMr. McCain's Letter
ReplyDeleteOn Nov. 17, I wrote you expressing concern over the protracted pendency of the pending applications for assignment of licenses of WQEX-TV and WPCB-TV, Pittsburgh, Pa. I requested that the commission take final action on these applications at its open meeting in December, if it had not acted on them in the intention pursuant to the notation voting process.
...
Mr. Kennard's Reply
As you know, this application raises important and very difficult policy issues. I wholeheartedly agree that prompter commission action on this matter would have been preferable.
Ms. Tristani's Reply
Respectfully, I cannot comply with your request. In order to preserve the integrity of our processes, it is my practice not to publicly disclose whether I have voted or when I will be voting on items in restricted proceedings prior to their adoption by the full commission.
'99 Letter to FCC
This is an important part of the McCain letter:
ReplyDelete"The sole purpose of this request is to secure final action on a matter that has now been pending for over two years. I emphasize that my purpose is not to suggest in any way how you should vote -- merely that you vote. In order to assure that no oral ex parte communications on the merits of these applications take place, I will not entertain any oral responses of any kind to this letter."
Bill would have gladly accepted an oral response from a young staffer.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete...
A front-page story in today's Times, the work of a team of six reporters, is less enthusiastic about the senator's character:
Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.
...
McCain and Iseman also attended a fund-raiser together near Miami, then flew back to Washington on a corporate jet of one of her clients. There is a disagreement over whether that flight was improper:
The campaign did not report the flight with Ms. Iseman. Mr. McCain's advisers say he was not required to disclose the flight, but ethics lawyers dispute that.
...
As background, the Times also mentions a few other "charges" against McCain:
Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman's client.
The Iseman Cometh
I wonder why they endorsed such a Crook?
ReplyDeleteActually, of course, none of it is a wonder.
The only Wonder is the Pure as the Driven Snow 8th and 9th Wonders of the World:
Mr. and Mrs Obama.
PBUT!
John O'Sullivan on Conservatives and McCain.
ReplyDeleteAsh asked:
ReplyDeleteshould America get out the bombers and wipe out the nasty Christians who have torched the US embassy?
Did you hear the brutish church goers chanting, "Hallelujah!" and "Praise the Lord?"
"It's very clear that there are differences with respect to the action that we took to recognize Kosovo and the actions that others have taken to recognize Kosovo," McCormack said. "We can talk about that, but none of those disagreements are an excuse or a justification to incite violence."
ReplyDeleteBut he did not draw a direct link between the alleged incitement and the attack on the Belgrade embassy in which masked men smashed their way inside the compound's chancery building, tore down the U.S. flag and tried to throw furniture from an office.
They set fire to the office and flames shot up the side of the building. Police reinforcements and fire fighters did not arrive until about 45 minutes after the blaze broke out.
Embassy Damage
That piece was in the morning paper, rufus. Pretty keen deal, 280 megawatts from the sun. That it'll take five years and an extension of Federal tax credits to be economicly viable, a tad discouraging.
ReplyDeleteThe construction of this solar plant and others under contract in the U.S. are subject to a long-term extension of the solar investment tax credit by the U.S. Congress.
Gets us back to an earlier discussion, 280 megawatts, 1,900 acres. There is a whole lot of nothing around Gila Bend, AZ, that's for sure.
Summertime heat, around 110 degrees, daily average highs.
I forget how the wind farms compared, acres per megawatt.
Seems they were shouting "Stop US terrorism", whit.
ReplyDeleteThe Wall Street Journal, mat.
Under new management, it will compete with the NYTimes, buy a subscription.
How we (the US) can be so stupid is beyond me. Frankly, I don't blame them (the Serbs) for being really, really pissed.
ReplyDelete9th photo from the top has Christ watching from the sidelines.
ReplyDeleteThe muslims shout Allahs name, the Christians carry Christs' image with them.
The Serbians have gone to the Pope, who, in Team43 style has called for reconciliation
the Pontiff, receiving Serbia's ambassador to the Holy See, steered clear of the dispute and renewed his call for all sides to show restraint.
"With regard to the current crisis in Kosovo, I call upon all interested parties to act with prudence and moderation, and to seek solutions that favor mutual respect and reconciliation," the Pontiff said.
Like Rodney King asked:
"Why can't we all just get along?"
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's two main opposition parties will step up efforts on Friday to form a government after their election win, raising the prospect of a coalition that could drive President Pervez Musharraf from power.
ReplyDelete"We intend to stay together (to establish a government)," said Asif Ali Zardari, who led the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to the most seats in Monday's election after his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated on Dec. 27.
...
U.S. President George W. Bush's administration has urged the next government to work with Musharraf and says Washington needs Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan where U.S. and NATO forces are fighting Islamist militants, as an ally.
...
On Thursday, Zardari held a first round of talks on forming a coalition government with Nawaz Sharif, leader of the party that came second in the election and the prime minister whom Musharraf overthrew in 1999.
Zardari told a joint news conference in Islamabad afterwards he wanted a broad coalition but one excluding the main party that backs Musharraf.
...
Since returning from exile in November, a month after Bhutto, Sharif has made clear he would like to oust Musharraf.
"We will work together to form the government," Sharif told the news conference. "There is no issue of disagreement."
...
If they do team up, Musharraf could either quit or drag Pakistan through more upheaval as parliament tries to remove him on the grounds he violated the constitution in November when he imposed six weeks of emergency rule.
With Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's political party taking a beating in this week's parliamentary elections, the spigot is being watched more closely, if not turned off, the Post said. Washington recently delayed payment of about $78 million out of $360 million for the March-June 2007 quarter.
ReplyDelete"Padding? Sure. Let's be honest, we're talking about Pakistan, which has a legacy of corruption," said U.S. official familiar with the situation.
It's money well spent, particularly when compared to the cost of the war in Iraq, the official and some analysts say.
Payments to Pakistan
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"..it will compete with the NYTimes, buy a subscription."
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one that sees the contradiction here?
TNR: Behind the Bombshell in 'The New York Times.'
ReplyDelete"Don't Give Up the Ship!"
ReplyDeleteNo doubt Barry's Commie-Bitch wife felt no pride.
Watching Hillary and Obama. Hillary just does not have the killer instincts to go after Obama. She has not demonstrated why she would be a stronger leader. She is too much in her head and not her guts.
ReplyDeleteObama is very impressive tonight. McCain will have a tough time against him. Obama brought up the point that we are neglecting Latin America and allowing the likes of Hugo Chavez and the Chinese to fill the void. Obama has clearly sharpened up his points on foreign affairs.
Hillary will lose Texas.
Hillary could not bring herself to say to Obama that he is not qualified to be Commander and Chief. His rebuttal to Hillary certainly made him look at least as qualified as she.
ReplyDeleteHillary does not seem to understand that her opponent is Obama. She needs to go after him bluntly and directly and does not do it. She seems like she is running for vice president.
ReplyDeleteHillary gets a standing ovation for an answer to a question, but I am uncertain if either pulls ahead of the other over this debate. In that case it goes to the big Mo or "O".
ReplyDeleteEach state could be an indicator of electoral health for Clinton, with Latinos forming a large portion of the Democratic base in Texas and lower-wage white male workers a large part of the Ohio base.
ReplyDeleteClinton had dominated both voting segments in earlier contests but Obama won among lower-income Democrats -- as well as among women -- in recent votes in Wisconsin, Virginia and Maryland.
The Latino sample in exit polls in those states was too small for a clear reading of those voters' preferences. But tonight's debate reflected the significance of the Latino vote, particularly in Texas, and was carried both on CNN and Univision.
Distancing Herself
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf you want someone to compete with the NYTimes, mat, you've got to support those that try.
ReplyDeleteMurdock is willing to try, are you willing to buy?
If not, there is little room to complain that the NYTimes holds a monopoly on the national press.
The day after the South Carolina primary Hillary Clinton defended her husband's efforts on behalf of affirmative action during his presidency. Presumably she agrees with her husband and with Patrick that it is legal for employers to discriminate in the name of racial diversity.
ReplyDeleteAnd Obama? It's hard to imagine that he disagrees with Patrick's view of Title VII.
Yet it's also hard to square that view of Title VII with Obama's campaign theme of transcending race.
Rationale for Discrimination
New house prices, mat, are not the median value of homes in the US.
ReplyDeleteAs posted, the average senior lives in a 1985 model home, not a 2008 model.
So new home prices are not the gauge of housing values, the median values are. $225,000
With the seniors having about 125,000 in median equity in the homes.
Not enough to fund a retirement.
ReplyDeleteIndependents lifted Obama to many of his early victories, but he has also carried the support of mainline Democrats since Super Tuesday. These new polls, however, show Clinton leading Obama by double-digit margins among Democrats.
ReplyDeleteBoth Ohio and Texas hold open primaries, in which any registered voter may cast a ballot.
The polls were conducted by telephone Feb. 16 to 20, among random samples of 611 Ohio adults and 603 Texas adults likely to participate in the Democratic primaries in those states. Sampling-error margins are plus or minus four percentage points for the full samples; error margins are larger for subgroups.
Even in Texas
I just want to extend my apologies to all that I have offended by subscribing to the NYT. My only excuse is.... I did not know what I was doing...I got sucked in by the Arts and History page.
ReplyDeleteHowever this ends, it's gonna end in tears.
ReplyDeleteThe party of a major U.S. ally in Pakistan lost heavily in parliamentary elections, but some observers say the results could give the United States new options in the struggle against extremist groups.
ReplyDelete...
Despite Musharraf's loss, Wendy Chamberlain, the president of the Middle East Institute, calls the election outcome "the best-case scenario." Chamberlain, a former ambassador to Pakistan, says it gives the United States an opportunity to "reassert our own core values and support the right of the Pakistani people to select their own government."
...
George Perkovich, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agrees with the hands-off principle.
New Opportunities
"Murdock is willing to try, are you willing to buy?"
ReplyDeleteNo. That's not a viable business model. Not even for one like me.
"So new home prices are not the gauge of housing values,.."
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience, new homes are often CHEAPER, because they are build in new neighborhoods that are further away from established urban centers.
Single-family permits fell to 1,370 in January, according to RL Brown's Phoenix Housing Market Letter. That's the lowest monthly level since 1992.
ReplyDeleteNew-home closings fell to 1,848 last month, their lowest level since October 1995.
Both new permits and sales are off 50 percent from January 2007's pace.
Lower Still in January
But new homes are largely McMansions, Mat.
ReplyDeleteDoes that negate my point?
ReplyDeleteThe era of "Social Consciousness" in the 70's didn't make it out of the decade.
ReplyDeleteMerc Diesels Supplanted by V-10's and occasional 12's.
All evidence negates your non-point!
ReplyDeleteIt might well be different in Canuckistan, where the flight to the Burbs may not be so strong.
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDelete$400,000 will buy you a 700 sq ft cockroach box in downtown Philadelphia.
Well, we await the 'Rat's return,
ReplyDeleteauthority in all things.
And yes, I speaketa inglish. Should've writ "built" above.
ReplyDeleteOld folks just can't keep pace w/this:
ReplyDeleteREPORT: Vegas Nightclub Doormen Making $500,000 -- A YEAR!
Thus, the new government should, at least in theory, have as free a hand as it has ever had since 2001 to go after Islamist militants. In the northwest tribal areas, the winning ANP party, a more secular Pashtun party, has a strong incentive to establish its authority against its Islamist rivals.
ReplyDeleteOne must always have very low expectations when it comes to Pakistan and the fight against Islamist militants there. But Monday’s election results gutted the local political legitimacy of the Islamists.
At the very least, the political situation in Pakistan and the NWFP has been scrambled, creating new opportunities for the new government and the U.S. to exploit.
Westhawk
An interesting aricle in the Atlantic on a scenario where McMansion neighborhood become slums, because they are too big and made too poorly.
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty good ad showing the decline in value:
ReplyDeleteMcMansion for Sale
Hey I tell you god mother Linda lives in a McMansion there in Columbus, Ohio, 5000+ ft of luxury, but in an older neighborhood. I couldn't believe it. She is selling and she sent us the pics--here you are looking at a million for that old palace. What a place, but it is begging on that market. I'm a pro here on my little real estate, I have no idea what going on in other places.
ReplyDeleteI could not believe it.
Papa, and grand papa, bought 90 acres outside Moscow for one hundred dollars an acre for the first 50 and forty dollars an acre for the back 40. I sold 1.5 acres for $301,282 this month for building apartments, and I am not sure I got a good deal. If you are looking to buy a house, don't come to Moscow, Idaho, go to Ohio. Go to Kansas.
ReplyDeleteGodmamma Linda was looking to get $250,000, it would be a million easy here.
ReplyDeleteThe woodwork in that old place of Linda's was astonishing.
ReplyDeleteDamn me, I fell asleep, and I swore to myself I would watch that democratic debate.
ReplyDeleteVegas Sucks.
ReplyDeleteDoug, link that Vegas doorman making half a mil a year, woodja?
ReplyDeleteRepost, for Trish. I may be a sap, but I have read this stuff til my eyes fell out of my head, and it is uplifting. I started reading it when the old ones in my family died. And it has meant a lot to me. This is a humorous take on the subject, but serious, too.
ReplyDelete"The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." the bard
"In the case of dead, though, there is a world of difference. By definition, death is a state from which one doesn't return. If a person is pronounced dead, no matter how sure the doctors were that their pronouning it was correct, no matter how many dozens or hundreds of persons in that same condition they had pronounced dead, none of whom had ever snapped out of it; and no matter how stringently the standard medical criteria were applied, if that person subsequently resumes vital activities and regains consciousness, the logic of language still obliges us to say that person was not dead.
There is an understandable tendency to take what people who survive an ordeal like that say about death seriously, although in some respects they aren't in any better position than anyone else to talk about it, since they weren't, in fact, dead. Hence, near-death experiences engage our interest by unveiling the Zeno-logic of death: there is a point presently known as death, but if you reach it and are aware you have done so, at least if you reverse direction and come back from it, then you never were there in the first place, because by the very fact of your having reached it, it would have receded far beyond your reach to an incomprehensible distance and in an unimaginable direction.
Putting it this way exposes a frustrating unfairness of the situation. It is as though there were a stipulation that the goal post would be moved back were the athlete to reach it. This is particularly ironic in the case of those who have been declared dead and returned with wondrous tales of the beyond, for it is in large part because of their trailblazing that we can no longer call what they went through death.
So, through their near-death pioneering, a curious development has take place unnoticed, namely, millions of people now alive have returned from a situation that a century ago was simply designated 'death', and they have informed us that even after that point, they were very much alive, very acutely conscious. What is more, they say that even from within that experience they had realized there was to be a continuation of conscious existence, and that, in fact, they had already been taken up in its flow, comforted and welcomed and reunited with loved ones lost. So, by the criteria of 1890, even those of 1930, life after death has indeed been proven.
And this is the last laugh! Do you get it? All those silly big discussers in all those silly discussions are still denying what all the world already knows!"....
"That will make it possible for myriads of people throughout the world to realize that we do not have to die to get a glimpse of the love that awaits us in the light beyond."
from 'The Last Laugh'--Dr. Raynmond A. Moody, Jr. PH.D., M.D.
The discovered country from whose bourne many have returned.
I agree with Whit when he said he doesn't hold it against the Serbs for being really really pissed. I would be too, and I think American foreign policy is in a major error on this issue.
ReplyDeleteDrudge has it on the Frontpage.
ReplyDeleteU.S. Ends Protections for Wolves in 3 States
ReplyDeleteAnimal advocates say gray wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho still need help despite growth in their numbers.
Animal Advocates, eh?
---
I'd shoot the wolves and the "advocates."
How about you, Al-Bob?
Allah be damned, if you git me going on the AllabedamnedIdehoehooFishandFuckUpBedamnedGameDepartment, I will not talk to you agin.
ReplyDeleteProudly we serve, proudly we have more pickup trucks than employees!!
I tell you sooth, we have more wolves, than wolf advocates.
ReplyDeleteAnd I will tell you something else,the Elk Herds are going down, just as us 'old boys' predicted, and now Fish and Game is getting a lot of QUESTIONS.
ReplyDeleteRuled by the Castrati.
ReplyDelete