“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Monday, June 07, 2010
OOOOOH....Bad Ass Barack
You really can't make too personal a comment here , but does anyone really believe that Barack was on the brogan side of the Kickin or the ass side?
Tough Guy Barack's Mentor. Must be that 747 kicking in.
BP's history reflects an institutionalized system of deception geared towards saving a buck.
Can it change? It hasn't so far.
It's a pattern that's been there for years.
"A series of internal investigations over the past decade warned senior BP managers that the oil company repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules and risked a serious accident if it did not change its ways.
"The confidential inquiries, which have not previously been made public, focused on a rash of problems at BP's Alaska oil-drilling operations. They described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured employees not to report problems and cut short or delayed inspections to reduce production costs.
"Similar themes about BP operations elsewhere were sounded in interviews with former employees, in lawsuits and little-noticed state inquiries, and in e-mails obtained by ProPublica. Taken together, these documents portray a company that systemically ignored its own safety policies across its North American operations -- from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico to California and Texas. Executives were not held accountable for the failures, and some were promoted despite them..."
Van der Sloot folded when interrogated by real cops instead of those pathetic limp wristed cops and crooked judges in Aruba. In less than 24 hours Slooty pled guilty.
Too bad the girl had to die at the hands of the creepy Sloot, all because the Dutch shit birds authorities were incapable of doing their job.
And speaking of shit birds, Bernie Madoff The convicted fraudster, sentenced to 150 years in jail for running his 'Ponzi" scheme, allegedly said "fuck my victims" when a fellow inmate condemned him for his crimes.
Bernie told a fellow prisoner that the crime was not fully of his own making, and that he felt unfairly caught up in the situation.
"People just kept throwing money at me,"
--------
It is heartening to see the world as it truly is:
- Obama is still searching for his inner ass-kicking self.
- The Dutch legal system in Aruba did their part to enable another young girl to be murdered. They had Van der Sloot for murder but couldn't keep him for a week.
- The Americans send Madoff to a country club for 150 years for taking money. We must have our priorities straight, and nothing pisses off American justice more than taking rich people's money.
-The Peruvians get their man and a confession and will send him to prison for 25-35 years. No life, no execution in Peru no matter what.
-The idiot parents that let a high school girl go to an island for a week, an island notorious for sex, drugs and gambling will finally get their justice from the street rabble, thugs, murderers and rapists in a Peruvian hell hole of a prison.
The parents of the murdered American girl get a life penalty of guilt and pain for being stupid.
The Israeli Defense Forces not only attacked the Turkish flotilla, unprovoked, they are attacking Israeli civilians, with out provocation, too.
At least that is what the Israeli civilians that were attacked are reporting.
That the IDF has a pattern of attacking unarmed civilians, exemplified again.
The official at the Israel Defense Forces' Central Command said this week there had been recent incidents involving stones and bottles being thrown at military vehicles in the area. This follows rioting on Independence Day last month when IDF forces tried to enforce an order declaring a site adjacent to Yitzhar a closed military zone.
In that disturbance, settlers threw bottles, rocks and light bulbs that injured a soldier and a border policeman.
The settlers complained at the time that IDF troops were harassing them and said their actions were taken in self-defense.
Those Israeli civilians would not lie, about the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces, would they?
I would think not. Not when the behavior of those Israeli Defense Forces fit their previous pattern of behavior.
That of attacking and harassing civilians, without provocation.
Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) -- Israel's resistance to an independent, international investigation into its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship is "another proof of their guilt," Turkey's foreign minister said Sunday.
Speaking on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu compared last week's the storming of the aid ship Mavi Marmara to pirate raids off Somalia. The raid killed nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists, including one with Turkish-American dual citizenship, and left several Israeli troops wounded.
"We want to know the facts," Davutoglu said.
"If Israel rejects these, it means it's also another proof of their guilt. They are not self-confident to face the facts. We are ready."
Davutoglu said Sunday, "Nobody has the right to kill our citizens." He said just as Israel has made an "important case" for the return Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza since 2006, Turkey has a right to know "why our nine civilians were killed in international waters."
"This is a very good question, and we will ask this question all in international forums," he said.
Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.
SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.
Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.
He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29#ixzz0qG1GJHyT
What seemed to excite him most in his chats was his supposed leaking of the embassy cables. He anticipated returning to the states after his early discharge, and watching from the sidelines as his action bared the secret history of U.S. diplomacy around the world.
“Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed,” Manning wrote. “It’s open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It’s beautiful, and horrifying.”
Update: The Defense Department issued a statement Monday morning confirming Manning’s arrest and his detention in Kuwait for allegedly leaking classified information.
“United States Division-Center is currently conducting a joint investigation” says the statement, which notes that Manning is deployed with 2nd Brigade 10th Mountain Division in Baghdad. “The results of the investigation will be released upon completion of the investigation.”
With 10 GOP candidates on the Aug. 24 primary ballot, political experts say a contender realistically could win the nomination with as little as 30 percent of the vote or even less. Unlike other states, Arizona doesn't hold runoffs to shrink a mob of ambitious politicians to two front-runners.
So in the Republican-leaning, Phoenix-based 3rd Congressional District, hopefuls are working hard to carve out distinctive political niches and gain a crucial electoral edge.
The free-for-all resulted from the perception that the GOP has a lock on the seat - a perception strongly disputed by Democrats - and the decision by Shadegg, R-Ariz., not to anoint a clear heir-apparent in the district, which covers north-central Phoenix as well as Paradise Valley, Anthem, Cave Creek, Carefree and New River.
"I have not endorsed, and at the moment am not necessarily planning on endorsing," said Shadegg, who announced Jan. 14 that he will retire after eight terms on Capitol Hill. "I'm quite confident we'll elect a good, conservative Republican to step in and take my place."
Given the country's angry political mood and questions about who will turn out for the late-summer primary, even seasoned Arizona political insiders and national observers are hesitant to make predictions about who will prevail in the Republican race.
The clear front-runner, at least in the money race, is Quayle. As of March 31, he had $503,350 on hand. His closest financial competitor, Moak, had only $280,280 on hand; Parker, Morris and Waring were the only others with more than $100,000 in their accounts, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission records.
That's made Quayle the target of his opponent's operatives, some of whom anonymously attack him as a daddy's boy on Twitter and YouTube. One primitively animated YouTube video depicts Quayle as a dimwitted marionette and his father as the puppeteer.
Quayle, an attorney and the co-founder of a small investment company, acknowledged that his last name "has its good and its bad points" but laughed off the criticism.
"People are going to try to paint me a certain way, but this election is about me and my ideas," said Quayle, who lists repealing this year's health-care legislation and other "anti-growth policies" among his top priorities. "If they want to attack me for who my father is, go for it, because I'm proud of my father and I'm proud of what my family has done for our country."
A day after the Istanbul press conference in which the leaders of Turkey and Syria reconfirmed the strong bond between their countries, and harshly criticized the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, London-based al-Quds al-Arabi reported on Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar Assad proposed a new initiative to his host, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aimed at having the blockade on the Strip lifted once and for all.
Syrian sources refused to outline the plan's details, but told the newspaper that it includes a number of political ideas for regional and international activity aimed at lifting the siege. According to the sources, Qatar is slated to take part in the initiative's implementation.
According to the report, Assad considers the current political situation a window of opportunity to work, together with Turkey, to boost pressure on Israel, partly in light of the increased calls in Europe and the United States to either end or loosen the blockade on the Strip.
Both Turkey and Syria believe "the diplomatic move, combined with the current timing, has the power to yield results and create a change in the equation that will bring an end to the Gaza Strip's isolation," the report said.
"This is not the first time Israel commits crimes, but in this case it failed to label its victims as 'terrorists'," said the Syrian leader. ... "We all know that the activists were not even allowed to carry knives. What happened was not the result of a mistake on the part of the (Israeli) soldiers or an erroneous government decision – it was Israeli instinct," he added
And speaking of shit birds, Bernie Madoff The convicted fraudster, sentenced to 150 years in jail for running his 'Ponzi" scheme, allegedly said "fuck my victims" when a fellow inmate condemned him for his crimes.
Bernie stole what 30 billion?
Just how much as Obama, Pelosi and Reid stolen so far?
The bastard confessed because it's said that if you do you will get a lighter sentence. One can only hope after 35 years there will be enough evidence to try him in Aruba.
I pulled this column out of the WaPo on On Faith section because it addresses Comedy Centrals view on religion. I have been ranting about them ever since they folded to radical Muslim pressure recently.
"Within weeks of that very public retreat, Comedy Central announced plans to work up a series laughing at Jesus Christ called "JC," a half-hour animated show about Jesus trying to live a normal life in New York City to escape the "enormous shadow" of his "powerful but apathetic father."
That's true, DR, but even if he was executed in Peru, as a parent, I would want my own daughter's murderer to pay for what he had done to her. And if he doesn't make it to Aruba there will still be no closure, for the parents.
"Nearly a century after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that "marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man.' " That 1967 case, Loving v. Virginia, ended bans on interracial marriage in the 16 states that still had such laws.
"Now, 43 years after Loving, the courts are once again grappling with denial of equal marriage rights -- this time to gay couples. We believe that a society respectful of individual liberty must end this unequal treatment under the law..."
The quotes above are the first two paragraphs of the article supporting the lawsuit now at the SCOTUS attempting to overturn California's Proposition 8 which outlawed same-sex marriage.
The two paragraphs contain a non-sequitur in conflating interracial marriage with same-sex marriage. Logical fallacies are the typical first resort of advocacy groups.
Quirk:The two paragraphs contain a non-sequitur in conflating interracial marriage with same-sex marriage. Logical fallacies are the typical first resort of advocacy groups.
And yet Virginia judge upheld a ban on interracial marriage using the same logic that SSM is banned today:
"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
Forty states made interracial marriage illegal at one time. The California Supreme Court overturned this ban, noting, "Races don't marry each other, people do."
And before you go accusing me of being anti-gay (just as Allen assumes any criticism I make of Israeli policy is an attack) let me say it's not true. Not only am I not anti-gay or even ambivalent, but let me say unequivocally that I could really give a shit.
I've mentioned before that I come from a huge extended family; therefore, there are inevitably some gay members. No one gives a shit with the possible exceptions of the mothers involved who despair of having grandchildren.
However, that issue highlights the main issue. "Marriage" is a word that has taken on a certain meaning over millennium of usage. It implies the formalized union of a man and women to procreate and raise children. The gays are trying to redefine the word marriage in an Orwellian attempt to eliminate the perceived difference between traditional marriage and gay unions.
My position is the same as most of those in the US. It is not about gay "rights". Most people in the US have no issue with assuring actual gay individual rights through the use of civil unions granting the same legal "rights" and prerogatives as married couples.
What “rights” do gays hope to get through “marriage” that they would not get through “civil unions”? Zip.
However, that is not, in my opinion, why the gays are pushing for same-sex marriage. That push is political. It is designed to remove any perceived difference between traditional marriage and the gay lifestyle.
Over time as more young people become more comfortable with the concept and as the political class assures we become more and more PC, it’s likely same sex marriage will likely gain acceptance in more and more states.
Right now, most Americans are reluctant to redefine a word that has worked well for thousands of years. They prefer to call a spade a spade.
Call me old-fashioned, small-minded, whatever. I'm old enough not to give a shit.
However, don't ask me to accept illogical arguments, such as equating actual rights abuse as was he case with interracial marriage, with not being willing to call something like "same-sex marriage" what it is not.
Why not call it a "Same-sex Marriage" ceremony? Oh, that's right, not quite the same effect.
For Criminitely, that spill is being "conservatively" estimated as costing the Gulf Coast $40 Billion.
Listen Closely, for $40 Billion I can build 1,000 Ten Million Gallon/Yr. Ethanol Refineries! And, have Ten Billion Dollars left over to install a Blender Pump in Every Filling Station in America.
The problem with Republicans is, they sport an average IQ slightly below that of a wilted cabbage. Because of this they, continually, fail to see the inevitability of certain outcomes.
Right now, the most inevitable outcome in the world is the proliferation of ethanol in our fuel supply. Just a modicum of analysis informs that ethanol usage must double, and then double again, in fairly short order (ten years, fifteen at the most.)
Not to pile on this bandwagon, a, potentially, extremely popular bandwagon at that, is imbecilic.
Obama is "frozen in place." He's let the biodiesel tax credits expire, and legislation to reinstate them to languish for 6 months. The ethanol industry can't make a move until the legislation due to expire at the end of this year is addressed.
A Moron can see that this is, as Rat said, A Golden Opportunity for the Republicans to Grab Hold of a Vital Issue, and make some serious noise.
Alas, all the mental deficients want to do is whine, and bite on Obama's ankles. It's pathetic.
Quirk:1. "Marriage" is a word that has taken on a certain meaning over millennium of usage.
2. My position is the same as most of those in the US.
3. Right now, most Americans are reluctant to redefine a word that has worked well for thousands of years.
You object on grounds that arguments for marriage equality are logical fallacies, and then you roll out argumentum ad antiquitatem and argumentum ad populum?
What “rights” do gays hope to get through “marriage” that they would not get through “civil unions”?
1. Recognition in other states.
2. Immigration of spouse.
3. Joint filing of 1040.
4. Survivor benefits with respect to social security.
Barack '8 Years of Failed Bush Policies' Obama tells high school grads: 'Don't make excuses'
To the graduates, Obama delivered the usual commencement ceremony fare about the future, setting goals, thinking long-term and not allowing setbacks to deter their determination:
"The truth is, no matter how hard you work, you won’t necessarily ace every class or succeed in every job. There will be times when you screw up, when you hurt the people you love, when you stray from your most deeply held values."
So far, so good. Then, the next line about pointing fingers after setbacks:
"It's the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame."
Speaking of blame, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll out Monday finds the American public blaming the Gulf oil spill on BP, of course. But 69% are now giving a negative rating to the Obama administration's federal response. In fact -- oh, look! -- the 69% thumbs-down Obama oil spill grade is 7 points worse than the negative rating given the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.
Gee, who can we blame for that? George W. Bush for not being bad enough? Hang on one Chicago minute. The president had that covered too in his advice to the grads:
"Don’t make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes, but for your failures as well."
4. Survivor benefits with respect to social security.
5. Visitation rights in a hospital.
All would still be there under "same-sex marriage" as well as under "civil unions" unless resolved at the federal level. However, I don't see demonstrations over "civil union" rights only for "marriage" rights .
Tell me T, would the majority of gays in this country be satisfied with a federal law that said "Civil Union Ceremonies" grant the same legal "rights and/or priveliges" as traditional marriage ceremonies.
Or would they insist on it being called a marriage.
I suspect it would be the latter for the reasons I previously stated.
It's why the Dems changed "Health Care Reform" to "Health Insurance Reform".
The obvious answer, Q, is for the Government to disavow any link to approving or disapproving marriages, through the power of licensing.
Limiting itself to the licensing of secular "Civil Unions".
Marriage then regaining its status as a sectarian union for those in need of religious affirmation. While a civil union becomes a secular contract pertaining to various rights and privileges provided by modern society.
The Government has no business licensing marriages, but should regulate civil unions to ensure fairness and equality of opportunity to all the residents of the United States.
WASHINGTON — The last time Benjamin Netanyahu met an American president as Israel’s new leader, in 1996, it did not go well. Mr. Netanyahu lectured President Bill Clinton about Arab-Israeli relations, aides recalled, driving Mr. Clinton into a profane outburst after his guest left. _____________
From a personal source, Clinton roughly said:
"Who the fuck does that guy think he is? Who the fuck is the superpower?"
Quirk:Tell me T, would the majority of gays in this country be satisfied with a federal law that said "Civil Union Ceremonies" grant the same legal "rights and/or priveliges" as traditional marriage ceremonies. Or would they insist on it being called a marriage.
I don't care what they call it. I want to apply, with Miss Fely, to adopt children with the same level of consideration as straight couples who have also been together for 23 years do. If we get smacked by a Mac truck driving through Utah, I want to be able to see Miss Fely in her hospital bed. And if by some terrible misfortune she snuffs it, I want half of Miss Fely's social security check and I want the state to consider that her property automatically becomes mine without recourse to a lawyer and a will.
Where does it stop, where's the line in the sand? Polygamy serves well enough, to keep the race agoing. And in ancient Egypt the royals often married their own sisters, to keep the royal blood line pure, to seemingly no ill effect. I voted with the gays here when it was on the ballot, but I'm beginning to wonder, where is the line in the sand, if society's, and it's government's, opinion is out of it, and you can do whatever you want, and call it a 'marriage'?
Lewiston has lost last year's Number One ranking as the best place in the nation for fishing, big game hunting, and upland bird hunting, falling to Number Four, in this year's Outdoor Life's national rankings list, due, I think, to the ruination of the elk herd in the Lolo, brought to us by the animal rights folk and enviros.
The polygamists here in AZ and up to Utah, they thump their Bibles and tell the whirled that polygamy is the "Lord's Will", that they are just doing their Lord's work.
Maybe they are.
Brigham Young had a total of 55 wives, and helped to create another modern Abrahamic religion.
Beyond that feat he led a rebellion against that Federal Government and was fully pardoned for it.
Brigham Young echoed the opinion of many Latter-day Saints when he declared:
"I love the government and the Constitution of the United States, but I do not love the damned rascals that administer the government."
You could make up a good comedy about all these pairings, triplings, quadruplings, and and permutations, Quirk.
I think Netanyahu is fine, he needs a new defense minister. The blockade of Gaza is legal, and totally rational. Ayers and Dorn are somehow linked to HHI or IHH or whatever it is, Israel is under a lot of pressure, Obama is basically for the other side, trying to ruin the country, and the world has gone totally nuts. And the only ray of hope is the November elections. There, back on the topic.
Obama is merely maintaining the position that the US has held, for 43 years.
That the Israeli occupation of the Territories violates the Geneva Accords. It has been that way since 1967. Well before there ever was a "Hamas".
The issue is not Hamas, the issue predates Hamas.
The Israeli are pursuing policies that we have stated, for 43 years, are an impediment to any negotiations. Nothing has changed.
The US stands today, where it has always stood. With the Israeli in violation of international mores and standards, in open violation of Treaty obligations they voluntarily under took.
As they have been for 43 years. While Israel also retains an undefined but 'Special' relationship, with US.
The US stands right where it always has. Obama has not shifted US a foot, left or right, as regards Israel.
"It implies the formalized union of a man and women to procreate and raise children."
eh? How so? There are plenty of married couples who don't want nor have any children.
"It's defined by Webster"
definitions change over time and, besides, wiki's where its at now:
"Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found. Such a union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding."
Bobal:But T you don't want Miss Fely to be able to divorce you, having stated divorce should be illegal, at one time, if I recall correctly.
You're a Huck Finn fan, Bob, you can appreciate political satire. If we can't have marriage equality for gays and lesbians because it would "destroy the institution of marriage" then surely a Federal ban on divorce is in order, since that destroys the institution of marriage directly rather than through putative secondary and tertiary effects.
"The physicians’ group, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., analyzed a wide range of previously released government documents and reports, many of them heavily censored. It found that the Bush administration used medical personnel — including doctors, psychologists and physician’s assistants — to help justify acts that had long been classified by law and treaty as illegal or unethical and to redefine them as safe, legal and effective when used on terrorism suspects.
The group’s report focused particularly on a few issues where medical personnel played an important role — determining how far a harsh interrogation could go, providing legal cover against prosecution and designing future interrogation procedures. The actual monitoring data are not publicly available, but the group was able to deduce from the guidelines governing the program what role the health professionals played, assuming they followed the rules.
In the case of waterboarding, a technique in which prisoners are brought to the edge of drowning, health professionals were required to monitor the practice and keep detailed medical records. Their findings led to several changes, including a switch to saline solution as the near-drowning agent instead of water, ostensibly to protect the health of detainees who ingest large volumes of liquid but also, the group says, to allow repeated use of waterboarding on the same subject.
Another government memorandum concluded from medical observations on 25 detainees that combining several techniques — say a face slap with water dousing or a stress kneeling position — caused no more pain than when the techniques were used individually. That was used to justify the application of multiple techniques at the same time.
The group concludes that health professionals who facilitated these practices were in essence conducting research and experimentation on human subjects. The main purposes of such research, the group says, were to determine how to use various techniques, to calibrate the levels of pain and to create a legal basis for defending interrogators from potential prosecution under antitorture laws. The interrogators could claim that they had acted in good faith in accord with medical judgments of safety and had not intended to inflict extreme suffering. "
"medicine - some of which has reportedly expired."
Some AID...
More likely to KILL the Gazans than CURE THEM...
"Despite international criticism against Israel following a calamitous IDF raid on an aid flotilla to Gaza, it appeared Monday that Hamas was the one preventing the goods brought by the flotilla from entering the Strip. The army announced Monday that the humanitarian aid brought by the ships had been mostly unloaded, and estimated that the task would be completed in the next few days. However Hamas continues to insist that the shipment not be brought in through the land crossings, and in the meantime the goods continue to pile up in the army's warehouses. Major Or Elrom, of the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the (Palestinian) Territories, said there was nothing on board the flotilla's ships that Gaza's residents did not already have. "All of these goods have been previously conveyed there, and we hope we can do the same in this case," she said. A Defense Ministry facility adjacent to the Tzrifin army base has been turned into a temporary warehouse over the past few days, containing beds, mattresses, couches, medical supplies, shoes, clothing, and medicine - some of which has reportedly expired."
Quirk:And before you go accusing me of being anti-gay (just as Allen assumes any criticism I make of Israeli policy is an attack) let me say it's not true. Not only am I not anti-gay or even ambivalent, but let me say unequivocally that I could really give a shit.
That's one reason why I do post at the Elephant Bar (well, in addition to the occasional hot babe pictures). Vaguely conservative, but not hostile to homosexuals. We don't get to pick our sexual preference, but we do get to pick our politics, and I think its a tragedy when conservatives give gays and lesbians no choice. Not all of us want socialism and a Jimmy Carteresque foreign policy.
BOB:This modern prejudice against marrying one's own sister, it's just an irrational modern tabu, I tell ya! The Pharo, he had it all.
The last Pharaoh was Cleopatra, and she was married to her brother Ptolemy XIII. Cleo, true to Whiskey's theories on the Belmont Club, liked Bad Boys so she just hung out with Caesar and Mark Antony rather than her brother-husband.
"...However Hamas continues to insist that the shipment not be brought in through the land crossings, and in the meantime the goods continue to pile up in the army's warehouses..."
Cunning these Palestineans.
Their plan is clear. They will break Israel through ever increasing carrying costs.
I just saw pictures of the Holloway and Flores girls up on my TV screens.
The Flores girl is Latin and so darker but otherwise they look quite similar (to me). The same rounded face, the same smile. The pictures I saw made them look about the same age.
Maybe they reminded him of his mother.
(Or maybe not. I really should go back and finish that last year in clinical psychiatry)
Just saw Matt Simmons on CNBC interview. He predicts that by the end of the summer BP will no longer exist as a company.
If that happens, I would predict that new oil exploration will grind to a halt in the Gulf. British and US relations will take a hit. We will hear a lot more about the British stockholders that will be going hungry.
Not sure it will happen but no one thinks a miracle will make this thing go away soon.
[Matthew Simmons, chair and CEO of Simmons & Company International, is a prominent oil-industry insider and one of the world's leading experts on the topic of peak oil. Simmons was motivated by the 1973 energy crisis to create an investment banking firm catering to oil companies. In his previous capacity, he served as energy adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush.
Matthew Simmons believes the Club of Rome predictions are more accurate than usually acknowledged [1]. Simmons is an advisor to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre. He is a member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. He believes a careful assessment of Saudi Arabian oil reserves is the most significant issue shaping petroleum politics.]
Note: Simmons indicated that there is another huge BP leak 7 miles away from the original that we don't know about.
He didn't say where he got hat info.
Supposedly, this guy is pretty well respected in the industry.
I've seen a number of articles from the British newspapers taking a nationalistic stance on the BP spill, accusing the US of blaming it all on BP.
We've all seen the stories about the BP stockholders crying foul about talk of holding up their dividend ($10 billion) until actual costs are fully assessed.
Mat Simmons is, probably, best taken with a bit of salt. He's surely right on the larger issues, but he gets rather lost in the weeds, sometimes, on the tangential thingies.
The question of the moment, is there a leak elsewhere on the sea floor that is part and parcel of the Deep Horizon, and is as of yet unreported?
Did BP rupture that cottage cheese geology that doug spoke to, earlier. As we were exploring the feasibility of Russian claims of a historically proven nuclear solution to undersea petrochemical leakage.
BP will be bankrupted, the War on Oil in full swing, with the stalwarts of the "Right" will still be urging patience and calm.
While the Federals shut down off sea drilling and curtail on-shore exploitation in the "Nature Preserves".
Can't be to careful with our future. Our commonly held heritage, as bob once described those Federal lands.
Yes sir, the "Right" will bemoan the obvious, while not advancing a "Green Agenda" that is both practical and possible. One that is agriculturally based and widely dispersed.
Both things that the technocrats of the Federal Socialist establishment despise. Which the general population of the country would embrace, if they understood both the chemistry and the economics of modern ethanol.
Well, I'll tell you what, don't f around with my wife. She, from southern Ohio, HAS HAD IT.
Today, after seeing me through the dentists yesterday in Spokane, went today to check on a small water leak in an apartment (it was a faulty overflow valve) and noticed, the Big Bong, on the living room table, the whole body heavily tatoos, boys taking over an apartment in which we let the other tenants our early, according to the lease, and the fact they had paid her with CASH, for a couple months. She went to the police, and those boys are getting an anonymous knock on the door. Possession of drug paraphenalia, in itself, is still a big deal here in Idaho, she don't want nothing to do with it. Well, that's my wife, criticize her as you might.
Don't fuck around in her apartments, she runs a damn safe and dependable place, God Bless Her.
Before you criticize, THINK! you don't want no MS-13 as your next door neighbors. She don't even want them to get started, whatever the money, SHE'S HAD IT.
It's not in her southern o how laid back and sane and rational southern river Ohio tradition, by the river, where her mother worked for the school district, her father was a riverboat captain, and it was expected, you do something with your life, other than violate the rules. Not in HER WORLD. And, I put everything in her name, she can walk out, anytime. She's a tough, but very compassionate landlord, just don't fuck with her.
Last week’s events off the coast of Israel continue to resonate. Turkish-Israeli relations have not quite collapsed since then but are at their lowest level since Israel’s founding.
...
To begin to understand how deeply the Arabs are split, simply consider the split among the Palestinians themselves. They are currently divided between two very different and hostile factions.
...
The split within the Palestinians is also reflected in divergent opinions among what used to be called the confrontation states surrounding Israel — Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
Interesting synopsis of the current situation Sam; although I disagree with Stratfors conclusion that the main long-term challenge Israel faces is military.
Stratfor de-emphasizes the long-term strategic effects of world opinion on the situation while I think it will prove more important in determining final outcomes than the military factors.
But it remains unclear exactly what Obama can offer Abbas, other than a public embrace, a vow not to give up navigating the treacherous diplomatic thicket of the Middle East and some hope of future humanitarian gestures to Gaza.
Privately, Obama may commit to continue pressing Netanyahu and to seek a commitment from the Israelis to enter eventual direct talks, but relations between the White House and Netanyahu have been testy, leaving the US leader little room to maneuver.
In addition to White House talks, Abbas is scheduled to meet with US national security advisor Jim Jones, and with US lawmakers.
Entirely. Israel is not in control of its own destiny. No indeed, never has been.
In fact, without US resupply, Israel cannot operate in an extended offensive military posture. Not even if limited to operations in Gaza.
While, as Mr Luntz has documented, there is a steady erosion of support, in the United States, for the Israeli position. Even amongst the Jewish community, here in the United States.
While there may be an entire litany of causes for this softening, the fact that public opinion is migrating away from the Israeli position is undeniable.
Without US support, both political and military, the future will not be bright for the future Bibi envisions: a "state of the Jewish people," meaning one that is also a national home for Diaspora Jews
Mr Obama, speaking for the United States, calls for a "Jewish state" with "rights for all Israelis."
The writers at Haaretz.com think that the excrement is hitting the rotating blades, already.
I can say, with certainty, that if it's not already, it soon will.
Mexico teen killed by US Border Patrol, anger high
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN and OLIVIA TORRES, Associated Press Writers – 2 mins ago CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican boy after a group trying to illegally enter Texas threw rocks at officers near downtown El Paso, U.S. authorities said Tuesday. The shooting, which happened Monday evening beneath a railroad bridge linking the two nations, drew sharp criticism from Mexico, where the government said Tuesday that "the use of firearms to repel attacks with stones represents disproportionate use of force, particularly coming from authorities who have received specialized training." It was the second death of a Mexican at the hands of Border Patrol officers in less than two weeks, and the case threatened to swell into a full-blown international incident when U.S. and Mexican officials traded suggestions of misconduct. Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Chihuahua Attorney General's office, said a spent 40-mm shell was found near the body — raising the question of whether the fatal shot was fired inside Mexico, although he did not explicitly make that suggestion. That would violate the rules for Border Patrol agents, who are supposed to stay on the U.S. side of the border. A U.S. official, meanwhile, said video shows the Border Patrol agent did not enter Mexico. The official, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name, said the video also shows what seem to be four Mexican law enforcement officers driving to the edge of the dry but muddy bed of the Rio Grande, walking across to the U.S. side, picking up an undetermined object and returning to Mexico near the area where the boy's body was. Like their U.S. counterparts, Mexican law officers are not authorized to cross the border without permission. According to the FBI, Border Patrol agents were responding to a group of suspected illegal immigrants being smuggled into the U.S. near the Paso Del Norte bridge, across from Ciudad Juarez around 6:30 p.m. Monday. One suspected illegal immigrant was detained on the levee on the U.S. side, the FBI said in a statement. Another Border Patrol agent arrived on the concrete bank where the now-dry, 33-feet (10-meter) wide Rio Grande is, and detained a second suspect. Other suspects ran back into Mexico and began throwing rocks, the FBI said. At least one rock came from behind the agent, who was kneeling beside the suspected illegal immigrant who he had prone on the ground, FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said. The agent told the rock throwers to stop and back off, but they continued. The agent fired his weapon several times, hitting one who later died, said the FBI, which is leading the investigation because it involved an assault on a federal officer. The agent was not injured, Simmons said. Border Patrol Special Operations Supervisor Ramiro Cordero said preliminary reports showed Border Patrol agents on bicycle patrol "were assaulted with rocks by an unknown number of people." "During the assault at least one agent discharged his firearm," he said. "The agent is currently on administrative leave. A thorough, multi-agency investigation is currently ongoing." Chihuahua State officials released a statement Tuesday demanding a full investigation into the death of the boy, identified as Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca. The boy was shot once near the eye, Sandoval said. Authorities are still investigating the bullet's trajectory, he said. Sandoval said he couldn't comment on the video reported by the U.S. official because he didn't know anything about it. "I am unaware about those hypotheses," he said. "What I can tell you is that there is an ongoing investigation."
Sandoval said investigators were questioning three teenagers who were with the victim at the time of the shooting. The boy's sister, Rosario Hernandez, told Associated Press Television News that her brother was playing with several friends and did not plan to cross the border. "They say that they started firing from over there and suddenly hit him in the head," she said Monday. His mother, Maria Guadalupe Huereca, told Milenio TV in Mexico that her son had gone to visit his brother, who handles luggage at a border customs office. While there, he met up with a group of friends and they decided to hang out by the river, she said. "That was his mistake, to have gone to the river," she said. "That's why they killed him." She said he ran and hid underneath one of the bridge's pillars upon hearing gunfire. "He was a boy, and even then they killed him," she said. "I ask that they punish them. ... They left me without anything." Sergio Belmonte, spokesman for the Ciudad Juarez mayor, said state justice officials were performing an autopsy before releasing the body to the family. Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it "energetically condemns" the shooting and demanded "an expeditious and transparent investigation of the facts and, if applicable, punishment of the guilty." "Mexico is aware of the existing risks in the region, but, according to international standards, lethal force must be used only when the lives of people are in immediate danger and not as a dissuasive measure," it said. The department said its records indicated the number of Mexicans killed or wounded by immigration authorities rose from five in 2008 to 12 in 2009 to 17 so far this year, which is not half over. T.J. Bonner, president of the union representing Border Patrol agents, said rock throwing aimed at Border Patrol agents are common and capable of causing serious injury. "It is a deadly force encounter, one that justifies the use of deadly force," Bonner said. The violence in Mexico combined with assaults on Border Patrol agents in the U.S. has increased the level of apprehension agents have about their safety, Bonner said. Less than two weeks ago, Mexican migrant Anastacio Hernandez, 32, died after a Customs and Border Protection officer shocked him with a stun gun at the San Ysidro border crossing that separates San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.
When that big wave hits - whether it's the backflow of dollars from China, the glaciers from the north or geomagnetic reversal, where the ice on Earth's crooked axis tips us all upside down one night - it is by no means over. Faith is the force that makes the river when the cowboys come galloping to the edge of the cliff, not knowing what lies beyond.
Abandon hate, for all who enter there will die. The kingdom is within.
Really. Have faith in the life God gave you, and like the crumbling stone walls of our farm, follow it home.
Statfor was also wrong about certain aspects of its anlysis regarding Fatah and Hamas if one can believe a number of recent columns in other publications.
I usually take analysis put out by these think tanks with a grain of salt.
That is unless that analysis happens to agree with my thoughts on a particular subject.
QuirkGlad I'm not looking for a place to hole up for awhile in Idaho.
I think this summer we need to go to Glacier Nat'l Park, but we'll spend a couple nights in Columbia Falls MT, its only 10 or 11 hours from here. Pass on the Bobal offer, after that crap he did earlier.
Let the rapist go unreported, but turn in to the police the full bodied tattooed cash paying tenants, that have a bong on the coffee table.
Then expect that the evil doers will not connect the landlady's visit with the anonymous knock on the door. Or that the police will detain those same evil doers, for an extended period of time.
I just thought my concern was the product of my own cynical train of thought processing. That you are thinking along those same lines, for that I am truly grateful.
While visiting in Turkey: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also condemned Israel for the raid at the parley, and called for an international inquiry, saying “the fact that it was conducted in neutral waters evokes special regret and requires separate consideration.”
"I just thought my concern was the product of my own cynical train of thought processing. That you are thinking along those same lines, for that I am truly grateful."
Sorry rat.
I'm always looking for a way to agree with someone/anyone here.
However, at least half my posts are stream of consciousness ramblings where I fail to lay out the context.
My post to Bob was merely instinctual fear of the Yellowstone Caldera getting ready to blow.
Someone told me part of Yellowstone is in Idaho.
My fault.
However, over the next couple days I will try to anticipate your cynical train of thought processing and post accordingly in order to make up for this misunderstanding.
“They come to do the jobs American’s won’t do,” President Bush explains. “They come for a better life.”
...
“Flush with new recruits from Central America, MS-13 members set up cliques in remote places like Boise, Idaho and Omaha, Nebraska,” Newsweek reporter Arian Campo-Flores wrote.
...
This begs questions. Is George W. Bush competent to fulfill his job as president of the United States?
From April '05. Gotta be worse by now. Bet those MS-13'rs have migrated from Boise to Coeur d'Alene by now.
"Barack Obama is talking to experts about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill because he wants to know “whose ass to kick”, according to the latest reports. But judging by the US President’s previous remarks, it’s plain he has made his mind up already – step forward (or bend over) Tony Hayward, the smirking, cherub-faced CEO of BP.
"Here on Telegraph Blogs, we’ve closely followed the US administration’s statements about the company it refers to – very deliberately – as “British Petroleum”. Nile Gardiner noted that BP “has been demonised by the administration with language that it would dare not use even against… Iran and North Korea”. Then Ian Cowie, the Telegraph’s personal finance editor, argued that when Barack Obama attacks the company “it’s your pension that’s taking a kicking”. Finally, Toby Young wrote that President Obama seems to have declared war on UK PLC. He emphasised BP’s gigantic tax contributions to the UK Treasury, and the fact that it has lost more than a third of its market value in the last six weeks..."
Trish...Trish, my muse please roll...er...shake that 8-Ball.
Resent polls indicate Americans are getting down on the Tea Party movement. However, the Dems also continue to have problems with a discontented base.
Nancy Pelosi, the liberal House speaker, is heckled by liberals
"Bodyguards rushed forward and formed a six-person ring around Pelosi and the lectern. Leaders of the conference tried to take the speaker backstage until the disturbance could be quelled, but she brushed them off: "I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving," she said. "You have made your point. I'm going to give my speech over your voices."
"And she did, for an excruciating half-hour. The hecklers screamed themselves hoarse, dominating Pelosi's speech through her concluding lines: "I want to say thank you to Campaign for America's Future for your relentlessness, for your dissatisfaction, for your impatience. That's what I see every day in my district." Political movements tend to unravel gradually, but on Tuesday this one seemed to be imploding in real time.
"As the "tea party" right has gained strength, Obama's hope-and-change left has faded. The frustration has crystallized at the gathering this week of demoralized activists..."
We see changes here in Michigan. For years we track the nation in voting. Recently we moved Democratic. However, this year it looks like we are moving back towards the GOP.
But I suppose, you can call me a racist too, cause he happens to be white. On the other hand, my daughter's friend, Kevin, is gay as a goose, just like you, and I like him. He was going to live there. He was her boss, the daughter's boss, at the book store, and is about 12 years older than she, but Kev's got a real problem with the bottle, and his father is a doctor, too. Kev's in rehab, right now.
And, Miss T, I've wanted to tell you this. Susan Blackmore is full of shit. She has given up the dope, and gone into meditation. She is right, when she says, all human bodies and brains are much the same, cross the wide blue world. But, don't you see, if she were right, all people that came very near to death, or, as some of them say, I was really really dead, and it's different than you can think, all these people would have the same experience, but they don't. Only something around under ten percent. Therein lies the mystery, o smart ass.
Loser
ReplyDeletePresident of the United States.
ReplyDeleteHe mis-spoke, he meant to say, "Who's ass to kiss."
ReplyDeleteLame Duck Loser
ReplyDeleteWell, he is kind of wiry.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, given a choice, I think I'd take Michelle to back me up in a fight.
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BP's history reflects an institutionalized system of deception geared towards saving a buck.
ReplyDeleteCan it change? It hasn't so far.
It's a pattern that's been there for years.
"A series of internal investigations over the past decade warned senior BP managers that the oil company repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules and risked a serious accident if it did not change its ways.
"The confidential inquiries, which have not previously been made public, focused on a rash of problems at BP's Alaska oil-drilling operations. They described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured employees not to report problems and cut short or delayed inspections to reduce production costs.
"Similar themes about BP operations elsewhere were sounded in interviews with former employees, in lawsuits and little-noticed state inquiries, and in e-mails obtained by ProPublica. Taken together, these documents portray a company that systemically ignored its own safety policies across its North American operations -- from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico to California and Texas. Executives were not held accountable for the failures, and some were promoted despite them..."
Short Term Profits Lead to Long-term Disaster.
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Usurping un-American bastard.
ReplyDeleteShaun Hern Lee
ReplyDeleteSpace Station
ReplyDeleteWolframAlpha Intro
ReplyDeleteWolframAlpha Site
More tough guys in the news
ReplyDeleteVan der Sloot folded when interrogated by real cops instead of those pathetic limp wristed cops and crooked judges in Aruba. In less than 24 hours Slooty pled guilty.
Too bad the girl had to die at the hands of the creepy Sloot, all because the Dutch shit birds authorities were incapable of doing their job.
And speaking of shit birds, Bernie Madoff The convicted fraudster, sentenced to 150 years in jail for running his 'Ponzi" scheme, allegedly said "fuck my victims" when a fellow inmate condemned him for his crimes.
Bernie told a fellow prisoner that the crime was not fully of his own making, and that he felt unfairly caught up in the situation.
"People just kept throwing money at me,"
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It is heartening to see the world as it truly is:
- Obama is still searching for his inner ass-kicking self.
- The Dutch legal system in Aruba did their part to enable another young girl to be murdered. They had Van der Sloot for murder but couldn't keep him for a week.
- The Americans send Madoff to a country club for 150 years for taking money. We must have our priorities straight, and nothing pisses off American justice more than taking rich people's money.
-The Peruvians get their man and a confession and will send him to prison for 25-35 years. No life, no execution in Peru no matter what.
-The idiot parents that let a high school girl go to an island for a week, an island notorious for sex, drugs and gambling will finally get their justice from the street rabble, thugs, murderers and rapists in a Peruvian hell hole of a prison.
The parents of the murdered American girl get a life penalty of guilt and pain for being stupid.
There really is hope and change mother fucker.
Another ass-kicking day in paradise.
ReplyDeleteThink I'll check and see what my ass-kicking man Bibi is chewing on this morning.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe Israeli Defense Forces not only attacked the Turkish flotilla, unprovoked, they are attacking Israeli civilians, with out provocation, too.
ReplyDeleteAt least that is what the Israeli civilians that were attacked are reporting.
That the IDF has a pattern of attacking unarmed civilians, exemplified again.
The official at the Israel Defense Forces' Central Command said this week there had been recent incidents involving stones and bottles being thrown at military vehicles in the area. This follows rioting on Independence Day last month when IDF forces tried to enforce an order declaring a site adjacent to Yitzhar a closed military zone.
In that disturbance, settlers threw bottles, rocks and light bulbs that injured a soldier and a border policeman.
The settlers complained at the time that IDF troops were harassing them and said their actions were taken in self-defense.
Those Israeli civilians would not lie, about the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces, would they?
I would think not.
Not when the behavior of those Israeli Defense Forces fit their previous pattern of behavior.
That of attacking and harassing civilians, without provocation.
Russia PM Putin says Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor to come online in August (Reuters)
ReplyDeleteIstanbul, Turkey (CNN) --
ReplyDeleteIsrael's resistance to an independent, international investigation into its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship is "another proof of their guilt," Turkey's foreign minister said Sunday.
Speaking on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu compared last week's the storming of the aid ship Mavi Marmara to pirate raids off Somalia. The raid killed nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists, including one with Turkish-American dual citizenship, and left several Israeli troops wounded.
"We want to know the facts," Davutoglu said.
"If Israel rejects these, it means it's also another proof of their guilt. They are not self-confident to face the facts. We are ready."
Davutoglu said Sunday, "Nobody has the right to kill our citizens." He said just as Israel has made an "important case" for the return Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza since 2006, Turkey has a right to know "why our nine civilians were killed in international waters."
"This is a very good question, and we will ask this question all in international forums," he said.
Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.
ReplyDeleteSPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.
Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.
He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29#ixzz0qG1GJHyT
... to Manning, however.
ReplyDeleteWhat seemed to excite him most in his chats was his supposed leaking of the embassy cables. He anticipated returning to the states after his early discharge, and watching from the sidelines as his action bared the secret history of U.S. diplomacy around the world.
“Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed,” Manning wrote. “It’s open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It’s beautiful, and horrifying.”
Update: The Defense Department issued a statement Monday morning confirming Manning’s arrest and his detention in Kuwait for allegedly leaking classified information.
“United States Division-Center is currently conducting a joint investigation” says the statement, which notes that Manning is deployed with 2nd Brigade 10th Mountain Division in Baghdad. “The results of the investigation will be released upon completion of the investigation.”
With 10 GOP candidates on the Aug. 24 primary ballot, political experts say a contender realistically could win the nomination with as little as 30 percent of the vote or even less. Unlike other states, Arizona doesn't hold runoffs to shrink a mob of ambitious politicians to two front-runners.
ReplyDeleteSo in the Republican-leaning, Phoenix-based 3rd Congressional District, hopefuls are working hard to carve out distinctive political niches and gain a crucial electoral edge.
The free-for-all resulted from the perception that the GOP has a lock on the seat - a perception strongly disputed by Democrats - and the decision by Shadegg, R-Ariz., not to anoint a clear heir-apparent in the district, which covers north-central Phoenix as well as Paradise Valley, Anthem, Cave Creek, Carefree and New River.
"I have not endorsed, and at the moment am not necessarily planning on endorsing," said Shadegg, who announced Jan. 14 that he will retire after eight terms on Capitol Hill. "I'm quite confident we'll elect a good, conservative Republican to step in and take my place."
Given the country's angry political mood and questions about who will turn out for the late-summer primary, even seasoned Arizona political insiders and national observers are hesitant to make predictions about who will prevail in the Republican race.
Read more:
Quayle cash leader
ReplyDeleteThe clear front-runner, at least in the money race, is Quayle. As of March 31, he had $503,350 on hand. His closest financial competitor, Moak, had only $280,280 on hand; Parker, Morris and Waring were the only others with more than $100,000 in their accounts, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission records.
That's made Quayle the target of his opponent's operatives, some of whom anonymously attack him as a daddy's boy on Twitter and YouTube. One primitively animated YouTube video depicts Quayle as a dimwitted marionette and his father as the puppeteer.
Quayle, an attorney and the co-founder of a small investment company, acknowledged that his last name "has its good and its bad points" but laughed off the criticism.
"People are going to try to paint me a certain way, but this election is about me and my ideas," said Quayle, who lists repealing this year's health-care legislation and other "anti-growth policies" among his top priorities. "If they want to attack me for who my father is, go for it, because I'm proud of my father and I'm proud of what my family has done for our country."
A day after the Istanbul press conference in which the leaders of Turkey and Syria reconfirmed the strong bond between their countries, and harshly criticized the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, London-based al-Quds al-Arabi reported on Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar Assad proposed a new initiative to his host, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aimed at having the blockade on the Strip lifted once and for all.
ReplyDeleteSyrian sources refused to outline the plan's details, but told the newspaper that it includes a number of political ideas for regional and international activity aimed at lifting the siege. According to the sources, Qatar is slated to take part in the initiative's implementation.
According to the report, Assad considers the current political situation a window of opportunity to work, together with Turkey, to boost pressure on Israel, partly in light of the increased calls in Europe and the United States to either end or loosen the blockade on the Strip.
Both Turkey and Syria believe "the diplomatic move, combined with the current timing, has the power to yield results and create a change in the equation that will bring an end to the Gaza Strip's isolation," the report said.
"This is not the first time Israel commits crimes, but in this case it failed to label its victims as 'terrorists'," said the Syrian leader.
...
"We all know that the activists were not even allowed to carry knives. What happened was not the result of a mistake on the part of the (Israeli) soldiers or an erroneous government decision – it was Israeli instinct," he added
And speaking of shit birds, Bernie Madoff The convicted fraudster, sentenced to 150 years in jail for running his 'Ponzi" scheme, allegedly said "fuck my victims" when a fellow inmate condemned him for his crimes.
ReplyDeleteBernie stole what 30 billion?
Just how much as Obama, Pelosi and Reid stolen so far?
3,000 billion?
The bastard confessed because it's said that if you do you will get a lighter sentence. One can only hope after 35 years there will be enough evidence to try him in Aruba.
ReplyDeleteThere will be nothing left of him, in 35 years, Ms M.
ReplyDeleteNot even a memory.
Van der Sloot won't have any ass left to kick, after only a few months in that Peruvian jail house.
ReplyDeleteHe will not be as popular, amongst the felons of Peru, as Bernie Madoff is amongst the incarcerated American gangsters he dallies with, today.
Sloop is going to find out that what the word "bitch" means in Spanish.
ReplyDeleteLa perra Sloop, pronto aprenden a ser usada y abusada
ReplyDeleteY gusta, mucho
ReplyDeleteI pulled this column out of the WaPo on On Faith section because it addresses Comedy Centrals view on religion. I have been ranting about them ever since they folded to radical Muslim pressure recently.
ReplyDelete"Within weeks of that very public retreat, Comedy Central announced plans to work up a series laughing at Jesus Christ called "JC," a half-hour animated show about Jesus trying to live a normal life in New York City to escape the "enormous shadow" of his "powerful but apathetic father."
Citing the 1st Amendment Selectively
I have no problem with the new program; however, it just emphasizes the double standard and cowardice they employ.
What I found interesting were the reader comments that follow the column that completely ignore that double standard issue.
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That's true, DR, but even if he was executed in Peru, as a parent, I would want my own daughter's murderer to pay for what he had done to her. And if he doesn't make it to Aruba there will still be no closure, for the parents.
ReplyDeleteYou better watch what you say, Deuce, he might like it.
ReplyDeleteFrom the WaPo today:
ReplyDeleteMarriage equality for all couples
"Nearly a century after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that "marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man.' " That 1967 case, Loving v. Virginia, ended bans on interracial marriage in the 16 states that still had such laws.
"Now, 43 years after Loving, the courts are once again grappling with denial of equal marriage rights -- this time to gay couples. We believe that a society respectful of individual liberty must end this unequal treatment under the law..."
Same-Sex Marriage
The quotes above are the first two paragraphs of the article supporting the lawsuit now at the SCOTUS attempting to overturn California's Proposition 8 which outlawed same-sex marriage.
The two paragraphs contain a non-sequitur in conflating interracial marriage with same-sex marriage. Logical fallacies are the typical first resort of advocacy groups.
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The Halloways, Ms M, will have to find their closure where they can.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, the story will end there, in Peru.
First with a shout, then with a whimper.
But end there, it will.
"She doesn't hate the Jews, or any individual people, but she really hated Israel," said Brooks, who works for the Tennessean in Nashville, Tenn..."
ReplyDeleteHelen Thomas
Gee, rat good thing you don't work as a newspaper columnist; otherwise, you wouldn't be working as a newspaper columnist.
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About the only way the Halloways will get justice is to go to Aruba and go postal on a judge and brace of lawyers.
ReplyDeleteI know. It's a shame, though.
ReplyDeleteQuirk: The two paragraphs contain a non-sequitur in conflating interracial marriage with same-sex marriage. Logical fallacies are the typical first resort of advocacy groups.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet Virginia judge upheld a ban on interracial marriage using the same logic that SSM is banned today:
"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
Forty states made interracial marriage illegal at one time. The California Supreme Court overturned this ban, noting, "Races don't marry each other, people do."
Sexes don't marry each other, people do.
"Sexes don't marry each other, people do."
ReplyDeletePithy and clever but untrue T.
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The Middle-easterners figure "Marriage" is defined by "God." We figure it's defined by the Supreme Court. All tolled, I like our system better.
ReplyDeleteRat
ReplyDeleteI am staying at the MonteLucia this week. Very nice, and cheap too. No one is here.
Bad Assain Barack is going to take a controllable disaster and turn it into a capital destructing event.
ReplyDeleteHe is going to kill jobs of all description while he wrecks the drillers and oil service firms.
He will transfer US wealth, through higher oil prices, to companies and countries that are not shy about drilling and oil exploitation.
In effect, he will further tax the economy with rising prices of imported oil.
Obama has no clue on how to run anything. He is a professional at victimhood and blaming others.
Sorry if this has already been posted, but I listened to most of the Helen Thomas sound byte this morning. She says she is of Arab Descent. Hmmmm.....
ReplyDeleteIt is summertime, gag, the livin' is easy.
ReplyDeleteObama is operating right on the predicted path.
It is the loyal opposition that is letting US down. They present no politically viable viable alternative.
Captured by that black hole of
Drill, Baby, Drill
Obama's political opponents may as well be at the bottom of that Guatemalan sink hole.
They are letting a golden opportunity slide on by.
And before you go accusing me of being anti-gay (just as Allen assumes any criticism I make of Israeli policy is an attack) let me say it's not true. Not only am I not anti-gay or even ambivalent, but let me say unequivocally that I could really give a shit.
ReplyDeleteI've mentioned before that I come from a huge extended family; therefore, there are inevitably some gay members. No one gives a shit with the possible exceptions of the mothers involved who despair of having grandchildren.
However, that issue highlights the main issue. "Marriage" is a word that has taken on a certain meaning over millennium of usage. It implies the formalized union of a man and women to procreate and raise children. The gays are trying to redefine the word marriage in an Orwellian attempt to eliminate the perceived difference between traditional marriage and gay unions.
My position is the same as most of those in the US. It is not about gay "rights". Most people in the US have no issue with assuring actual gay individual rights through the use of civil unions granting the same legal "rights" and prerogatives as married couples.
What “rights” do gays hope to get through “marriage” that they would not get through “civil unions”? Zip.
However, that is not, in my opinion, why the gays are pushing for same-sex marriage. That push is political. It is designed to remove any perceived difference between traditional marriage and the gay lifestyle.
Over time as more young people become more comfortable with the concept and as the political class assures we become more and more PC, it’s likely same sex marriage will likely gain acceptance in more and more states.
Right now, most Americans are reluctant to redefine a word that has worked well for thousands of years. They prefer to call a spade a spade.
Call me old-fashioned, small-minded, whatever. I'm old enough not to give a shit.
However, don't ask me to accept illogical arguments, such as equating actual rights abuse as was he case with interracial marriage, with not being willing to call something like "same-sex marriage" what it is not.
Why not call it a "Same-sex Marriage" ceremony? Oh, that's right, not quite the same effect.
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For Criminitely, that spill is being "conservatively" estimated as costing the Gulf Coast $40 Billion.
ReplyDeleteListen Closely, for $40 Billion I can build 1,000 Ten Million Gallon/Yr. Ethanol Refineries! And, have Ten Billion Dollars left over to install a Blender Pump in Every Filling Station in America.
"The Middle-easterners figure "Marriage" is defined by "God." We figure it's defined by the Supreme Court. All tolled, I like our system better."
ReplyDeleteWrong.
It's defined by Webster.
Words have meaning in a non-Orwellian world.
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The problem with Republicans is, they sport an average IQ slightly below that of a wilted cabbage. Because of this they, continually, fail to see the inevitability of certain outcomes.
ReplyDeleteRight now, the most inevitable outcome in the world is the proliferation of ethanol in our fuel supply. Just a modicum of analysis informs that ethanol usage must double, and then double again, in fairly short order (ten years, fifteen at the most.)
Not to pile on this bandwagon, a, potentially, extremely popular bandwagon at that, is imbecilic.
Obama is "frozen in place." He's let the biodiesel tax credits expire, and legislation to reinstate them to languish for 6 months. The ethanol industry can't make a move until the legislation due to expire at the end of this year is addressed.
A Moron can see that this is, as Rat said, A Golden Opportunity for the Republicans to Grab Hold of a Vital Issue, and make some serious noise.
Alas, all the mental deficients want to do is whine, and bite on Obama's ankles. It's pathetic.
They print a new "dictionary" every year, Q.
ReplyDeleteQuirk: 1. "Marriage" is a word that has taken on a certain meaning over millennium of usage.
ReplyDelete2. My position is the same as most of those in the US.
3. Right now, most Americans are reluctant to redefine a word that has worked well for thousands of years.
You object on grounds that arguments for marriage equality are logical fallacies, and then you roll out argumentum ad antiquitatem and argumentum ad populum?
What “rights” do gays hope to get through “marriage” that they would not get through “civil unions”?
1. Recognition in other states.
2. Immigration of spouse.
3. Joint filing of 1040.
4. Survivor benefits with respect to social security.
5. Visitation rights in a hospital.
Barack '8 Years of Failed Bush Policies' Obama tells high school grads: 'Don't make excuses'
ReplyDeleteTo the graduates, Obama delivered the usual commencement ceremony fare about the future, setting goals, thinking long-term and not allowing setbacks to deter their determination:
"The truth is, no matter how hard you work, you won’t necessarily ace every class or succeed in every job. There will be times when you screw up, when you hurt the people you love, when you stray from your most deeply held values."
So far, so good. Then, the next line about pointing fingers after setbacks:
"It's the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame."
Speaking of blame, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll out Monday finds the American public blaming the Gulf oil spill on BP, of course. But 69% are now giving a negative rating to the Obama administration's federal response.
In fact -- oh, look! -- the 69% thumbs-down Obama oil spill grade is 7 points worse than the negative rating given the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.
Gee, who can we blame for that? George W. Bush for not being bad enough? Hang on one Chicago minute. The president had that covered too in his advice to the grads:
"Don’t make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes, but for your failures as well."
I Take Full Responsibility For What He Did
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"1. Recognition in other states.
ReplyDelete2. Immigration of spouse.
3. Joint filing of 1040.
4. Survivor benefits with respect to social security.
5. Visitation rights in a hospital.
All would still be there under "same-sex marriage" as well as under "civil unions" unless resolved at the federal level. However, I don't see demonstrations over "civil union" rights only for "marriage" rights
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Its intellectual dishonesty.
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Tell me T, would the majority of gays in this country be satisfied with a federal law that said "Civil Union Ceremonies" grant the same legal "rights and/or priveliges" as traditional marriage ceremonies.
ReplyDeleteOr would they insist on it being called a marriage.
I suspect it would be the latter for the reasons I previously stated.
It's why the Dems changed "Health Care Reform" to "Health Insurance Reform".
It's the politics of the euphanism.
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The obvious answer, Q, is for the Government to disavow any link to approving or disapproving marriages, through the power of licensing.
ReplyDeleteLimiting itself to the licensing of secular "Civil Unions".
Marriage then regaining its status as a sectarian union for those in need of religious affirmation. While a civil union becomes a secular contract pertaining to various rights and privileges provided by modern society.
The Government has no business licensing marriages, but should regulate civil unions to ensure fairness and equality of opportunity to all the residents of the United States.
THIS FROM THE NY TIMES
ReplyDeleteBy MARK LANDLER
Published: May 14, 2009
WASHINGTON — The last time Benjamin Netanyahu met an American president as Israel’s new leader, in 1996, it did not go well. Mr. Netanyahu lectured President Bill Clinton about Arab-Israeli relations, aides recalled, driving Mr. Clinton into a profane outburst after his guest left.
_____________
From a personal source, Clinton roughly said:
"Who the fuck does that guy think he is? Who the fuck is the superpower?"
Learn to embrace ...
ReplyDelete"the politics of the" euphemism ...
It's all the rage.
If Obama had the best interests of the United States, at heart, he'd cut off Bibi's allowance.
ReplyDeleteSlice those loan guarantees, tomorrow. Stop the arms shipments, today.
Then he's cut off funding to the Egyptians, for good measure.
But Mr Crown will not give the go ahead, for that piece of policy to be implemented.
And Lester, he runs the Chi-town show, owns all the big top tents, has all the clowns under contract.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteQuirk: Tell me T, would the majority of gays in this country be satisfied with a federal law that said "Civil Union Ceremonies" grant the same legal "rights and/or priveliges" as traditional marriage ceremonies. Or would they insist on it being called a marriage.
ReplyDeleteI don't care what they call it. I want to apply, with Miss Fely, to adopt children with the same level of consideration as straight couples who have also been together for 23 years do. If we get smacked by a Mac truck driving through Utah, I want to be able to see Miss Fely in her hospital bed. And if by some terrible misfortune she snuffs it, I want half of Miss Fely's social security check and I want the state to consider that her property automatically becomes mine without recourse to a lawyer and a will.
But, as everyone here tells me, Mr Obama does not have the best interests of the US, at heart.
ReplyDeleteSo the enemies of the US, they continue to be funded, across the Middle East, on both sides of the terrorist divide.
Where does it stop, where's the line in the sand? Polygamy serves well enough, to keep the race agoing. And in ancient Egypt the royals often married their own sisters, to keep the royal blood line pure, to seemingly no ill effect. I voted with the gays here when it was on the ballot, but I'm beginning to wonder, where is the line in the sand, if society's, and it's government's, opinion is out of it, and you can do whatever you want, and call it a 'marriage'?
ReplyDeleteBut T you don't want Miss Fely to be able to divorce you, having stated divorce should be illegal, at one time, if I recall correctly.
ReplyDeleteThis modern prejudice against marrying one's own sister, it's just an irrational modern tabu, I tell ya! The Pharo, he had it all.
ReplyDelete"I don't care what they call it."
ReplyDeleteIf you can go by the polls, most of America including me could go alongs with legislation along those lines (don't know about the will issue though).
For the reasons I mentioned, I just don't think it will stop there.
Just my opinion.
I wish you luck in getting what you are looking for T.
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"This modern prejudice against marrying one's own sister, it's just an irrational modern tabu, I tell ya! The Pharo, he had it all."
ReplyDeleteBob, you're starting to drift again. Come on boy. Hold it together.
:)
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Lewiston has lost last year's Number One ranking as the best place in the nation for fishing, big game hunting, and upland bird hunting, falling to Number Four, in this year's Outdoor Life's national rankings list, due, I think, to the ruination of the elk herd in the Lolo, brought to us by the animal rights folk and enviros.
ReplyDeletehttp://fsolmedia.com/OL/BestTownsComplete.html
Outdoor Life's rankings
The polygamists here in AZ and up to Utah, they thump their Bibles and tell the whirled that polygamy is the "Lord's Will", that they are just doing their Lord's work.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they are.
Brigham Young had a total of 55 wives, and helped to create another modern Abrahamic religion.
Beyond that feat he led a rebellion against that Federal Government and was fully pardoned for it.
Brigham Young echoed the opinion of many Latter-day Saints when he declared:
"I love the government and the Constitution of the United States, but I do not love the damned rascals that administer the government."
You could make up a good comedy about all these pairings, triplings, quadruplings, and and permutations, Quirk.
ReplyDeleteI think Netanyahu is fine, he needs a new defense minister. The blockade of Gaza is legal, and totally rational. Ayers and Dorn are somehow linked to HHI or IHH or whatever it is, Israel is under a lot of pressure, Obama is basically for the other side, trying to ruin the country, and the world has gone totally nuts. And the only ray of hope is the November elections. There, back on the topic.
The Brig had 55 wives? That's a lot of wives, even Osama hasn't that many. I think I read he had only a piddling thirty, or something.
ReplyDeleteObama is merely maintaining the position that the US has held, for 43 years.
ReplyDeleteThat the Israeli occupation of the Territories violates the Geneva Accords. It has been that way since 1967. Well before there ever was a "Hamas".
The issue is not Hamas, the issue predates Hamas.
The Israeli are pursuing policies that we have stated, for 43 years, are an impediment to any negotiations.
Nothing has changed.
The US stands today, where it has always stood. With the Israeli in violation of international mores and standards, in open violation of Treaty obligations they voluntarily under took.
As they have been for 43 years.
While Israel also retains an undefined but 'Special' relationship, with US.
The US stands right where it always has. Obama has not shifted US a foot, left or right, as regards Israel.
Sand is the problem.
ReplyDeleteQuirk wrote:
ReplyDelete"It implies the formalized union of a man and women to procreate and raise children."
eh? How so? There are plenty of married couples who don't want nor have any children.
"It's defined by Webster"
definitions change over time and, besides, wiki's where its at now:
"Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found. Such a union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage
:)
Bobal: But T you don't want Miss Fely to be able to divorce you, having stated divorce should be illegal, at one time, if I recall correctly.
ReplyDeleteYou're a Huck Finn fan, Bob, you can appreciate political satire. If we can't have marriage equality for gays and lesbians because it would "destroy the institution of marriage" then surely a Federal ban on divorce is in order, since that destroys the institution of marriage directly rather than through putative secondary and tertiary effects.
I never did know how to take you, T.
ReplyDeleteIs trish in the house? trish... trish?
ReplyDelete"The physicians’ group, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., analyzed a wide range of previously released government documents and reports, many of them heavily censored. It found that the Bush administration used medical personnel — including doctors, psychologists and physician’s assistants — to help justify acts that had long been classified by law and treaty as illegal or unethical and to redefine them as safe, legal and effective when used on terrorism suspects.
The group’s report focused particularly on a few issues where medical personnel played an important role — determining how far a harsh interrogation could go, providing legal cover against prosecution and designing future interrogation procedures. The actual monitoring data are not publicly available, but the group was able to deduce from the guidelines governing the program what role the health professionals played, assuming they followed the rules.
In the case of waterboarding, a technique in which prisoners are brought to the edge of drowning, health professionals were required to monitor the practice and keep detailed medical records. Their findings led to several changes, including a switch to saline solution as the near-drowning agent instead of water, ostensibly to protect the health of detainees who ingest large volumes of liquid but also, the group says, to allow repeated use of waterboarding on the same subject.
Another government memorandum concluded from medical observations on 25 detainees that combining several techniques — say a face slap with water dousing or a stress kneeling position — caused no more pain than when the techniques were used individually. That was used to justify the application of multiple techniques at the same time.
The group concludes that health professionals who facilitated these practices were in essence conducting research and experimentation on human subjects. The main purposes of such research, the group says, were to determine how to use various techniques, to calibrate the levels of pain and to create a legal basis for defending interrogators from potential prosecution under antitorture laws. The interrogators could claim that they had acted in good faith in accord with medical judgments of safety and had not intended to inflict extreme suffering. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/opinion/08tue1.html
definitions change over time
ReplyDeleteMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between kin that creates individuals
"medicine - some of which has reportedly expired."
ReplyDeleteSome AID...
More likely to KILL the Gazans than CURE THEM...
"Despite international criticism against Israel following a calamitous IDF raid on an aid flotilla to Gaza, it appeared Monday that Hamas was the one preventing the goods brought by the flotilla from entering the Strip.
The army announced Monday that the humanitarian aid brought by the ships had been mostly unloaded, and estimated that the task would be completed in the next few days.
However Hamas continues to insist that the shipment not be brought in through the land crossings, and in the meantime the goods continue to pile up in the army's warehouses.
Major Or Elrom, of the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the (Palestinian) Territories, said there was nothing on board the flotilla's ships that Gaza's residents did not already have.
"All of these goods have been previously conveyed there, and we hope we can do the same in this case," she said.
A Defense Ministry facility adjacent to the Tzrifin army base has been turned into a temporary warehouse over the past few days, containing beds, mattresses, couches, medical supplies, shoes, clothing, and medicine - some of which has reportedly expired."
http://www.jihadwatch.org/
Quirk: And before you go accusing me of being anti-gay (just as Allen assumes any criticism I make of Israeli policy is an attack) let me say it's not true. Not only am I not anti-gay or even ambivalent, but let me say unequivocally that I could really give a shit.
ReplyDeleteThat's one reason why I do post at the Elephant Bar (well, in addition to the occasional hot babe pictures). Vaguely conservative, but not hostile to homosexuals. We don't get to pick our sexual preference, but we do get to pick our politics, and I think its a tragedy when conservatives give gays and lesbians no choice. Not all of us want socialism and a Jimmy Carteresque foreign policy.
BOB:This modern prejudice against marrying one's own sister, it's just an irrational modern tabu, I tell ya! The Pharo, he had it all.
ReplyDeleteThe last Pharaoh was Cleopatra, and she was married to her brother Ptolemy XIII. Cleo, true to Whiskey's theories on the Belmont Club, liked Bad Boys so she just hung out with Caesar and Mark Antony rather than her brother-husband.
"...However Hamas continues to insist that the shipment not be brought in through the land crossings, and in the meantime the goods continue to pile up in the army's warehouses..."
ReplyDeleteCunning these Palestineans.
Their plan is clear. They will break Israel through ever increasing carrying costs.
They ARE diabolical.
.
Them Egypshuns, they were "all 'bout" fambly.
ReplyDeleteI just saw pictures of the Holloway and Flores girls up on my TV screens.
ReplyDeleteThe Flores girl is Latin and so darker but otherwise they look quite similar (to me). The same rounded face, the same smile. The pictures I saw made them look about the same age.
Maybe they reminded him of his mother.
(Or maybe not. I really should go back and finish that last year in clinical psychiatry)
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Those Eyegptans they care a lot about creed and national origin, too.
ReplyDeleteNot like US civilized folk, in America. Where we count as individuals not as part of some pseudo subculture of ancestral identity politics.
"...I think its a tragedy when conservatives give gays and lesbians no choice..."
ReplyDeleteHey, T.
Did you hear I'm a "classical liberal" now rather than a conservative.
Kool or what?
.
And that's just a clarification and reclassification.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like that whole "New Coke" thing.
(Or a political euphenism)
I feel like a new man. Liberated.
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"...euphemism..."
ReplyDelete(Dang, I hope Deuce or Trish didn't see that.)
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RE: BP
ReplyDeleteJust saw Matt Simmons on CNBC interview. He predicts that by the end of the summer BP will no longer exist as a company.
If that happens, I would predict that new oil exploration will grind to a halt in the Gulf. British and US relations will take a hit. We will hear a lot more about the British stockholders that will be going hungry.
Not sure it will happen but no one thinks a miracle will make this thing go away soon.
[Matthew Simmons, chair and CEO of Simmons & Company International, is a prominent oil-industry insider and one of the world's leading experts on the topic of peak oil. Simmons was motivated by the 1973 energy crisis to create an investment banking firm catering to oil companies. In his previous capacity, he served as energy adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush.
Matthew Simmons believes the Club of Rome predictions are more accurate than usually acknowledged [1]. Simmons is an advisor to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre. He is a member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. He believes a careful assessment of Saudi Arabian oil reserves is the most significant issue shaping petroleum politics.]
Note: Simmons indicated that there is another huge BP leak 7 miles away from the original that we don't know about.
He didn't say where he got hat info.
Supposedly, this guy is pretty well respected in the industry.
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"trish... trish?"
ReplyDeleteHave we a question, Ash?
"trish... trish?"
ReplyDeleteA voice crying in the wilderness, calling upon one of the "Three Graces" of the EB by name.
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I've seen a number of articles from the British newspapers taking a nationalistic stance on the BP spill, accusing the US of blaming it all on BP.
ReplyDeleteWe've all seen the stories about the BP stockholders crying foul about talk of holding up their dividend ($10 billion) until actual costs are fully assessed.
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Mat Simmons is, probably, best taken with a bit of salt. He's surely right on the larger issues, but he gets rather lost in the weeds, sometimes, on the tangential thingies.
ReplyDeleteI noticed, for example, that when he pontificated so authoritatively on ethanol he didn't have a clue what he was talking about.
ReplyDelete(ex: Simmons, speaking knowingly, "Ethanol has less Octane than gasoline." - Fact: Ethanol has an Octane Rating of 129 - Gasoline 114.)
The question of the moment, is there a leak elsewhere on the sea floor that is part and parcel of the Deep Horizon, and is as of yet unreported?
ReplyDeleteDid BP rupture that cottage cheese geology that doug spoke to, earlier.
As we were exploring the feasibility of Russian claims of a historically proven nuclear solution to undersea petrochemical leakage.
Squeezing the rock, as Pravda reported.
BP will be bankrupted, the War on Oil in full swing, with the stalwarts of the "Right" will still be urging patience and calm.
ReplyDeleteWhile the Federals shut down off sea drilling and curtail on-shore exploitation in the "Nature Preserves".
Can't be to careful with our future. Our commonly held heritage, as bob once described those Federal lands.
Yes sir, the "Right" will bemoan the obvious, while not advancing a "Green Agenda" that is both practical and possible. One that is agriculturally based and widely dispersed.
Both things that the technocrats of the Federal Socialist establishment despise. Which the general population of the country would embrace, if they understood both the chemistry and the economics of modern ethanol.
Barack
ReplyDeleteHussein Obama becomes the first U.S. President to hold press conference
without any American Flags present
Actually, gasoline is 84, and ethanol, by the number we usually use, is 113.
ReplyDeleteThe Brits can go "bugger" themselves.
Well, I'll tell you what, don't f around with my wife. She, from southern Ohio, HAS HAD IT.
ReplyDeleteToday, after seeing me through the dentists yesterday in Spokane, went today to check on a small water leak in an apartment (it was a faulty overflow valve) and noticed, the Big Bong, on the living room table, the whole body heavily tatoos, boys taking over an apartment in which we let the other tenants our early, according to the lease, and the fact they had paid her with CASH, for a couple months. She went to the police, and those boys are getting an anonymous knock on the door. Possession of drug paraphenalia, in itself, is still a big deal here in Idaho, she don't want nothing to do with it. Well, that's my wife, criticize her as you might.
Don't fuck around in her apartments, she runs a damn safe and dependable place, God Bless Her.
Before you criticize, THINK! you don't want no MS-13 as your next door neighbors. She don't even want them to get started, whatever the money, SHE'S HAD IT.
Not in my wife's world.
She will get you.
It's not in her southern o how laid back and sane and rational southern river Ohio tradition, by the river, where her mother worked for the school district, her father was a riverboat captain, and it was expected, you do something with your life, other than violate the rules. Not in HER WORLD. And, I put everything in her name, she can walk out, anytime. She's a tough, but very compassionate landlord, just don't fuck with her.
ReplyDeleteGlad I'm not looking for a place to hole up for awhile in Idaho.
ReplyDelete.
Last week’s events off the coast of Israel continue to resonate. Turkish-Israeli relations have not quite collapsed since then but are at their lowest level since Israel’s founding.
ReplyDelete...
To begin to understand how deeply the Arabs are split, simply consider the split among the Palestinians themselves. They are currently divided between two very different and hostile factions.
...
The split within the Palestinians is also reflected in divergent opinions among what used to be called the confrontation states surrounding Israel — Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
Strategic Balance
The Three Graces of the EB. Or the The Three Muses of the EB in my idealized vision of the ladies.
ReplyDeleteNow were I in my marketing/promotion mode, I might suggest that they form an all girl rock band.
TMT
or
TMT Dynamite
no, just TMT but we would have to work Dynamite! into the promotion some how.
Sunday. SUNDAY SUNDAAAY!
TMT
Open their "WorldWide Dynamite Tour"
In Israel's National Rollerdome
(replacing "The Pixies)
Opening acts include Lady Gs Ga, Emenim, and The Travelling Wilburys
Also three rounds of Midget Wrestling featuring Tiny Tim and Gordo.
(And the colored girls go "Da Doop! Da Doop! Da Doop!")
Don't miss it. A once in a lifetime happening.
That's the ticket.
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Strategic Balance
ReplyDeleteInteresting synopsis of the current situation Sam; although I disagree with Stratfors conclusion that the main long-term challenge Israel faces is military.
Stratfor de-emphasizes the long-term strategic effects of world opinion on the situation while I think it will prove more important in determining final outcomes than the military factors.
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But it remains unclear exactly what Obama can offer Abbas, other than a public embrace, a vow not to give up navigating the treacherous diplomatic thicket of the Middle East and some hope of future humanitarian gestures to Gaza.
ReplyDeletePrivately, Obama may commit to continue pressing Netanyahu and to seek a commitment from the Israelis to enter eventual direct talks, but relations between the White House and Netanyahu have been testy, leaving the US leader little room to maneuver.
In addition to White House talks, Abbas is scheduled to meet with US national security advisor Jim Jones, and with US lawmakers.
Raid Tensions
Israel doesn't give a shit about world opinion.
ReplyDeleteStratfor is right in de-emphasizing it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, but you miss the point, sam.
ReplyDeleteEntirely. Israel is not in control of its own destiny. No indeed, never has been.
In fact, without US resupply, Israel cannot operate in an extended offensive military posture. Not even if limited to operations in Gaza.
While, as Mr Luntz has documented, there is a steady erosion of support, in the United States, for the Israeli position. Even amongst the Jewish community, here in the United States.
While there may be an entire litany of causes for this softening, the fact that public opinion is migrating away from the Israeli position is undeniable.
Without US support, both political and military, the future will not be bright for the future Bibi envisions:
a "state of the Jewish people," meaning one that is also a national home for Diaspora Jews
Mr Obama, speaking for the United States, calls for
a "Jewish state" with "rights for all Israelis."
The writers at Haaretz.com think that the excrement is hitting the rotating blades, already.
I can say, with certainty, that if it's not already, it soon will.
The Israeli are certainly concerned about the $4 billion USD in loan guarantees provided to Israel, by the United States government.
ReplyDeleteIsrael is seeking up to $8 billion in loan guarantees from the United States to compensate for the Jewish state's short-term economic crisis caused by the global recession, the collapse of its high-tech industry, and the cost of fighting terror.
ReplyDeleteCopyright © 2010 The Jewish Federations of North America, Inc.
"Stratfor is right in de-emphasizing it.
ReplyDeleteLong-term I think you are wrong.
.
Or to paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz:
ReplyDelete... war is the continuation of politics by other means. ...
So, truth be known, politics, it is all important, to war making.
At least Carl von Clausewitz thought so, he knew more than most, on that score.
Mexico teen killed by US Border Patrol, anger high
ReplyDeleteBy CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN and OLIVIA TORRES, Associated Press Writers – 2 mins ago
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican boy after a group trying to illegally enter Texas threw rocks at officers near downtown El Paso, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.
The shooting, which happened Monday evening beneath a railroad bridge linking the two nations, drew sharp criticism from Mexico, where the government said Tuesday that "the use of firearms to repel attacks with stones represents disproportionate use of force, particularly coming from authorities who have received specialized training."
It was the second death of a Mexican at the hands of Border Patrol officers in less than two weeks, and the case threatened to swell into a full-blown international incident when U.S. and Mexican officials traded suggestions of misconduct.
Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Chihuahua Attorney General's office, said a spent 40-mm shell was found near the body — raising the question of whether the fatal shot was fired inside Mexico, although he did not explicitly make that suggestion. That would violate the rules for Border Patrol agents, who are supposed to stay on the U.S. side of the border.
A U.S. official, meanwhile, said video shows the Border Patrol agent did not enter Mexico.
The official, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name, said the video also shows what seem to be four Mexican law enforcement officers driving to the edge of the dry but muddy bed of the Rio Grande, walking across to the U.S. side, picking up an undetermined object and returning to Mexico near the area where the boy's body was. Like their U.S. counterparts, Mexican law officers are not authorized to cross the border without permission.
According to the FBI, Border Patrol agents were responding to a group of suspected illegal immigrants being smuggled into the U.S. near the Paso Del Norte bridge, across from Ciudad Juarez around 6:30 p.m. Monday.
One suspected illegal immigrant was detained on the levee on the U.S. side, the FBI said in a statement. Another Border Patrol agent arrived on the concrete bank where the now-dry, 33-feet (10-meter) wide Rio Grande is, and detained a second suspect. Other suspects ran back into Mexico and began throwing rocks, the FBI said.
At least one rock came from behind the agent, who was kneeling beside the suspected illegal immigrant who he had prone on the ground, FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said.
The agent told the rock throwers to stop and back off, but they continued. The agent fired his weapon several times, hitting one who later died, said the FBI, which is leading the investigation because it involved an assault on a federal officer. The agent was not injured, Simmons said.
Border Patrol Special Operations Supervisor Ramiro Cordero said preliminary reports showed Border Patrol agents on bicycle patrol "were assaulted with rocks by an unknown number of people."
"During the assault at least one agent discharged his firearm," he said. "The agent is currently on administrative leave. A thorough, multi-agency investigation is currently ongoing."
Chihuahua State officials released a statement Tuesday demanding a full investigation into the death of the boy, identified as Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca.
The boy was shot once near the eye, Sandoval said. Authorities are still investigating the bullet's trajectory, he said.
Sandoval said he couldn't comment on the video reported by the U.S. official because he didn't know anything about it.
"I am unaware about those hypotheses," he said. "What I can tell you is that there is an ongoing investigation."
Sandoval said investigators were questioning three teenagers who were with the victim at the time of the shooting.
ReplyDeleteThe boy's sister, Rosario Hernandez, told Associated Press Television News that her brother was playing with several friends and did not plan to cross the border.
"They say that they started firing from over there and suddenly hit him in the head," she said Monday.
His mother, Maria Guadalupe Huereca, told Milenio TV in Mexico that her son had gone to visit his brother, who handles luggage at a border customs office. While there, he met up with a group of friends and they decided to hang out by the river, she said.
"That was his mistake, to have gone to the river," she said. "That's why they killed him."
She said he ran and hid underneath one of the bridge's pillars upon hearing gunfire.
"He was a boy, and even then they killed him," she said. "I ask that they punish them. ... They left me without anything."
Sergio Belmonte, spokesman for the Ciudad Juarez mayor, said state justice officials were performing an autopsy before releasing the body to the family.
Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it "energetically condemns" the shooting and demanded "an expeditious and transparent investigation of the facts and, if applicable, punishment of the guilty."
"Mexico is aware of the existing risks in the region, but, according to international standards, lethal force must be used only when the lives of people are in immediate danger and not as a dissuasive measure," it said.
The department said its records indicated the number of Mexicans killed or wounded by immigration authorities rose from five in 2008 to 12 in 2009 to 17 so far this year, which is not half over.
T.J. Bonner, president of the union representing Border Patrol agents, said rock throwing aimed at Border Patrol agents are common and capable of causing serious injury.
"It is a deadly force encounter, one that justifies the use of deadly force," Bonner said.
The violence in Mexico combined with assaults on Border Patrol agents in the U.S. has increased the level of apprehension agents have about their safety, Bonner said.
Less than two weeks ago, Mexican migrant Anastacio Hernandez, 32, died after a Customs and Border Protection officer shocked him with a stun gun at the San Ysidro border crossing that separates San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.
Well, they're the smartest, most brilliantist people on the planet, I'm sure they can work it out without my tax money.
ReplyDeleteWhen that big wave hits - whether it's the backflow of dollars from China, the glaciers from the north or geomagnetic reversal, where the ice on Earth's crooked axis tips us all upside down one night - it is by no means over. Faith is the force that makes the river when the cowboys come galloping to the edge of the cliff, not knowing what lies beyond.
ReplyDeleteAbandon hate, for all who enter there will die. The kingdom is within.
Really. Have faith in the life God gave you, and like the crumbling stone walls of our farm, follow it home.
The Willies
Statfor was also wrong about certain aspects of its anlysis regarding Fatah and Hamas if one can believe a number of recent columns in other publications.
ReplyDeleteI usually take analysis put out by these think tanks with a grain of salt.
That is unless that analysis happens to agree with my thoughts on a particular subject.
:)
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Check out this low tech oil cleanup process
ReplyDeleteQuirk Glad I'm not looking for a place to hole up for awhile in Idaho.
ReplyDeleteI think this summer we need to go to Glacier Nat'l Park, but we'll spend a couple nights in Columbia Falls MT, its only 10 or 11 hours from here. Pass on the Bobal offer, after that crap he did earlier.
Hey T,
ReplyDeleteI'm headed back to Kirkland 8 July. Will be in Priest 11 - 13.
How to Get a Cork Out
ReplyDeleteThe Willies
ReplyDelete"I don't hate the Yankees or the Mets, the Lions or the Packers,..."
My kind of guy. Although, I could have done without the reminder of the geomagnetic reversal and the Yellowtone Caldera.
I had put those out of my mind.
The Big One. Ones?
Check out the notes in red on the video.
I need a drink.
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That's a year and a half old, Quirk.
ReplyDeleteDanger averted.
Well, ok. Notes in red. Feb '10.
ReplyDeleteHellsapoppin
ReplyDelete.
Good heavens Bob.
ReplyDeleteGrab the wife and kids and get out of there.
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Sam:
ReplyDeleteRiddle me this.
1) How much hay would it take to fill up the gulf?
2) How drunk would you have to be to worry about getting a cork out of an empty wine bottle?
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You and I, Q, the only folk that seem to care.
ReplyDeleteLet the rapist go unreported, but turn in to the police the full bodied tattooed cash paying tenants, that have a bong on the coffee table.
Then expect that the evil doers will not connect the landlady's visit with the anonymous knock on the door.
Or that the police will detain those same evil doers, for an extended period of time.
I just thought my concern was the product of my own cynical train of thought processing. That you are thinking along those same lines, for that I am truly grateful.
Eviction proceedings?
ReplyDeleteIs that what's gonna be up when the tattooed quit payin' their cash to their landlady?
As they trash the apartment?
Golly.
But it's lookin' like that's a whole can of worms, spilled on the carpet.
Quirk, you take all the fun out of it.
ReplyDeleteWhile visiting in Turkey:
ReplyDeleteRussian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also condemned Israel for the raid at the parley, and called for an international inquiry, saying “the fact that it was conducted in neutral waters evokes special regret and requires separate consideration.”
Even the other Eurotrash are denouncing the Israeli for pirating those Turkish ships in international waters.
ReplyDeleteWill wonders never cease?
"I just thought my concern was the product of my own cynical train of thought processing. That you are thinking along those same lines, for that I am truly grateful."
ReplyDeleteSorry rat.
I'm always looking for a way to agree with someone/anyone here.
However, at least half my posts are stream of consciousness ramblings where I fail to lay out the context.
My post to Bob was merely instinctual fear of the Yellowstone Caldera getting ready to blow.
Someone told me part of Yellowstone is in Idaho.
My fault.
However, over the next couple days I will try to anticipate your cynical train of thought processing and post accordingly in order to make up for this misunderstanding.
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“They come to do the jobs American’s won’t do,” President Bush explains. “They come for a better life.”
ReplyDelete...
“Flush with new recruits from Central America, MS-13 members set up cliques in remote places like Boise, Idaho and Omaha, Nebraska,” Newsweek reporter Arian Campo-Flores wrote.
...
This begs questions. Is George W. Bush competent to fulfill his job as president of the United States?
From April '05. Gotta be worse by now. Bet those MS-13'rs have migrated from Boise to Coeur d'Alene by now.
3rd World Momentum
Wife's right, these dudes look like bad shit.
ReplyDeleteWe wouldn't rent to a self confessed criminal either.
We want peace, and quiet.
How 'bout fill up a tanker full of hay, troll real slow past one of them there slicks, and start blowin' that shit in.
ReplyDeleteAlfalfa, Sam, will really suck it up. Call me for quotes.
ReplyDelete"The Brits can go "bugger" themselves."
ReplyDeleteWill David Cameron ever kick Barack Obama's ass?
By Will Heaven (no shit, Will Heaven)
"Barack Obama is talking to experts about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill because he wants to know “whose ass to kick”, according to the latest reports. But judging by the US President’s previous remarks, it’s plain he has made his mind up already – step forward (or bend over) Tony Hayward, the smirking, cherub-faced CEO of BP.
"Here on Telegraph Blogs, we’ve closely followed the US administration’s statements about the company it refers to – very deliberately – as “British Petroleum”. Nile Gardiner noted that BP “has been demonised by the administration with language that it would dare not use even against… Iran and North Korea”. Then Ian Cowie, the Telegraph’s personal finance editor, argued that when Barack Obama attacks the company “it’s your pension that’s taking a kicking”. Finally, Toby Young wrote that President Obama seems to have declared war on UK PLC. He emphasised BP’s gigantic tax contributions to the UK Treasury, and the fact that it has lost more than a third of its market value in the last six weeks..."
The Brit View (Or one of Them)
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Should be an interesting election in November.
ReplyDeleteTrish...Trish, my muse please roll...er...shake that 8-Ball.
Resent polls indicate Americans are getting down on the Tea Party movement. However, the Dems also continue to have problems with a discontented base.
Nancy Pelosi, the liberal House speaker, is heckled by liberals
"Bodyguards rushed forward and formed a six-person ring around Pelosi and the lectern. Leaders of the conference tried to take the speaker backstage until the disturbance could be quelled, but she brushed them off: "I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving," she said. "You have made your point. I'm going to give my speech over your voices."
"And she did, for an excruciating half-hour. The hecklers screamed themselves hoarse, dominating Pelosi's speech through her concluding lines: "I want to say thank you to Campaign for America's Future for your relentlessness, for your dissatisfaction, for your impatience. That's what I see every day in my district."
Political movements tend to unravel gradually, but on Tuesday this one seemed to be imploding in real time.
"As the "tea party" right has gained strength, Obama's hope-and-change left has faded. The frustration has crystallized at the gathering this week of demoralized activists..."
Disgruntled Dems
We see changes here in Michigan. For years we track the nation in voting. Recently we moved Democratic. However, this year it looks like we are moving back towards the GOP.
Michigan Moving Right
Should be interesting in November.
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I was going to correct the previous post to
ReplyDeleteRecent polls...
however
Resent poll...
probably works as well in that context.
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Pass on the Bobal offer, after that crap he did earlier.
ReplyDeleteOne time only offer, I've let one of my daughters friends live there, to my great grief.
It took him four months, to change the damned electrical billing over, drove my wife nuts.
But I suppose, you can call me a racist too, cause he happens to be white. On the other hand, my daughter's friend, Kevin, is gay as a goose, just like you, and I like him. He was going to live there. He was her boss, the daughter's boss, at the book store, and is about 12 years older than she, but Kev's got a real problem with the bottle, and his father is a doctor, too. Kev's in rehab, right now.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Miss T, I've wanted to tell you this. Susan Blackmore is full of shit. She has given up the dope, and gone into meditation. She is right, when she says, all human bodies and brains are much the same, cross the wide blue world. But, don't you see, if she were right, all people that came very near to death, or, as some of them say, I was really really dead, and it's different than you can think, all these people would have the same experience, but they don't. Only something around under ten percent. Therein lies the mystery, o smart ass.
ReplyDeleteSome people may have stronger glue, twixt the spirit and body, is all I can figure. Can you do better, Miss T?
ReplyDelete"please roll...er...shake that 8-Ball."
ReplyDeleteThe Magic 8 Ball has already spoken on the matter. Satisfied, I see no reason to shake it again.
As backup I'm employing the intercession of Saint Rita and a voodoo doll on loan from DIA.
And thus it is.
ReplyDeleteThe vestal virgo rebuffs the petitioner's plea and refuses to shake the oracular 8-Ball
The gods quake, the universe tilts
Mighty Posiedon screams "Let loose the Kraken, and destroy the sons of man
And the petitioner is left to moan
"Heck, I only wanted to know what was going to happen in November.
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