Running of the Bull. No, not the US elections: Pamplona.
IDAHO ALFALFA FARMER DOWN IN PAMPLONA
PAMPLONA, Spain (AP) – One elderly thrill-seeker was gored in a leg and five others slightly injured as thousands of adrenaline-fueled runners raced ahead of six fighting bulls in the streets of the northern Spanish city of Pamplona in the first running of the bulls of this year's San Fermin festival, officials said Saturday.
Hillary Clinton's declining performance has been evident since long before the Egyptian fiasco. She continues to sink. See seems to lack the touch for diplomacy and tends to go off the deep end all too often. Time for her to go? One can only hope.
IT WAS just a week ago that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cheerfully reported that Russia was ready to “lean” on the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad as part of a new United Nations plan for a transitional government. “They have told me that,” she assured one interviewer following a June 30 conference in Geneva. “They’ve decided to get on one horse, and it’s the horse that would back a transition plan that Kofi Annan would be empowered to implement,” she told another.
Oops. It immediately became clear that Moscow had no such intention. In the past week, the official Ms. Clinton cited as her source — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — has said repeatedly that his government will not pressure Mr. Assad to leave power. “This is either an unscrupulous attempt to mislead serious people who shape foreign policy or simply a misunderstanding of what is going on,” Mr. Lavrov said Thursday. Western policy, he added, “is most likely to exacerbate the situation, lead to further violence and ultimately a very big war.”
At yet another conference on Syria, in Paris on Friday, Ms. Clinton had changed her tune. Now she is accusing Russia and China of “blockading” progress on Syria, insisting that is “no longer tolerable” and warning that they “will pay a price.” She pleaded with participating governments to lobby Vladimir Putin to change course. This raises an interesting question: Was Ms. Clinton taken in by Mr. Lavrov? Or did she know all along that the new U.N. plan she has been promoting was stillborn?
Either way, the Obama administration’s Syria diplomacy is making it look foolish as well as feckless. U.S. officials, apart perhaps from Ms. Clinton, appear to have no faith in their own policy. Conceding that the plan to appoint a transitional government is going nowhere, while Syrians die by the score every day, they resort to blaming Russia — as if they are shocked to discover that the Kremlin doesn’t want to support a pro-Western, pro-democracy agenda.
The Genius of Hillary C lint on continues. Tough shit for the Libyan people that we saved:
After the war ended last year, and former dictator Muammar Qaddafi was killed, and the global media departed, the residents of the predominantly Arab town of Misrata slaughtered, tortured, and expelled residents of the neighboring, predominantly black town of Tawargha. The pretext was a bizarre, racist conspiracy theory: that all 30,000 black residents of Tawargha had risen up to rape the Arab women and girls of Misrata. As Steve Inskeep of NPR reports, the United Nations conducted an investigation and found no evidence whatsoever to support the rape story. A more likely source of ill will was the fact that Qaddafi sought to arm the residents of Tawargha and incited them to join in his offensive against Misrata, which was repelled with assistance from NATO. Beyond that recent conflict, there is an enduring racism against black Africans that is shared widely in the Arab world. Qaddafi stoked that hatred even further by hiring black mercenaries from Niger and other neighboring countries to fight for his regime--troops who would likely have succeeded were it not for outside intervention. In recent years, Qaddafi had also styled himself as a “pan-African” leader who could unite the Maghreb north with the sub-Saharan south--an ambition at odds with the Arab world’s aspirations. The media has largely ignored racial and ethnic violence in post-Qaddafi Libya--much as it downplayed vigilantism and violence perpetrated against black Libyans during the war’s progress. President Barack Obama, carrying out the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine of national security adviser Samantha Power, was focused on impending atrocities threatened by the Qaddafi regime--and he, like the media, turned a blind eye. Now, thanks to Inskeep (who is a frequent target of criticism at this website for his left-wing political bias, but who nonetheless deserves credit in this case), it is no longer possible to ignore the local atrocities and regional security threats that have emerged since the fall of the brutal Qaddafi dictatorship. A mainstream media that rushed to point out post-Saddam Hussein problems in Iraq has thus far been largely silent in Libya. The mainstream media likewise let President Obama off the hook for going to war with no approval from Congress, in explicit violation of the War Powers Resolution. When the Obama administration claimed--laughably--that American forces were not involved in “hostilities” in Libya, despite U.S. leadership in NATO, the media barely resisted.
Qaddafi stoked that hatred even further by hiring black mercenaries from Niger and other neighboring countries to fight for his regime--troops who would likely have succeeded were it not for outside intervention...
Oil-rich countries across the ME bring in black workers from across Africa to do the menial jobs their own people are unwilling to do. Of course, when things get tight these workers are the first to be let go.
Qhadafi may have brought in some mercenaries but the stories indicate that many of the blacks killed during the conflict and after were these guest workers trying to flee the chaos.
Was Ms. Clinton taken in by Mr. Lavrov? Or did she know all along that the new U.N. plan she has been promoting was stillborn?
The answer is yes. Bezmenov.
President Barack Obama, carrying out the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine of national security adviser Samantha Power...
Whether this site believes it or not, the public record is clear that Bernard-Henri Levy convinced Sarkozy to intervene in Libya. The Americans clamored on board with a helpful assist from the R2P doctrine. One of Obama's foreign policy objectives is to internationalize global peace-keeping. The Syrian and the Libyan engagements are and were consistent with that policy.
We average citizens might complain about French policy, UK policy, Russian policy, or the policy of bumfuck wherever; but it is only the policy of the US that we can influence.
It is naive to assume the French could have gone anywhere on Libya without the 'Big Dog' there to back them up.
No Rufus - Levy went to Sarkozy - and made a very convenient proposal. The reason this story has so much traction is precisely because BHL is widely considered the poster boy for pretentious self-important intellectual (French as well!) Galling to Americans to be led into another ME cesspool by the epitome of "effete intellectual snob."
Who gives a shit about Sarkozy. Other than as a Front man.
France and the UK were interested in Libya for commercial reasons. The US was looking for any excuse to look like a player again in the ME after our fiasco in Egypt.
If people want to blame Levy for starting the Libyan war, although I find it ludicrous, go ahead. If he was responsible for anything it was merely as a useful tool, an excuse, the same thing the US used Chalabi for in the lead up to Iraq. If there hadn't been a Levy, there would have been another person or excuse.
The oil angle was "Extremely" important, but it was all behind closed doors - very hard to schuss out.
We do know that Quddafi was signing contracts to send some of that light sweet to China, and that France can't process much of anything that's not "light sweet."
The synergy of multiple events intersecting at a critical point in time created an "opportunity" that was gamed and risk-assessed by all the players. To say that USA "started it" because of Sam. Power, or to recover face after Egypt, is a bit of mind-reading as narrow in scope and ludicrous (and typically partisan in an Election Year) as claiming that BHL was solely responsible.
If not person X then person Y is beside the point. The first swing was BHL whether anyone likes it or not.
According to some BC regulars, France was facing a shut-down. My sense is that Sarkozy went after it for purely economic reasons. The election was secondary.
Nah. France was getting "some" oil from Libya, but not that much. Besides, they knew a "War" would take those fields out of production for at least the better part of a year (or, maybe much longer if the fields were damaged.)
On the other hand, TOTAL is very politically powerful in France, and the oil angle insulated Sarkozy from criticism from the Right.
Meanwhile, the Renewable Energy Industry is moving "offshore" as a result of the "Party of Stupid"tm letting the 1603 Program expire, and refusing to renew the PTC (production tax credit.)
As the world prepares to transition from fossil fuel energy to a more sustainable future the house tea drinkers work to destroy any attempted progress in America.
On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes.
The Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebels had the right idea.
Seniors prepare, both parties plan to gut Medicare though they will not tout the fact in their campaign adds.
More bullshit flowing from D.C.
And in this year’s contests, which both parties describe as a referendum on who can best correct the nation’s economic course, such talk underscores how far Republicans and Democrats are from truly squaring with the public about curbing the growth of the major entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security. That growth is driving the projections of a federal debt that is mounting unsustainably as the population ages and health care costs rise.
“A pox on both their houses,” said Ron Haskins, a former Congressional staff member who is now a scholar of social programs and budgeting at the Brookings Institution. Democrats and Republicans “know they have to do something about Medicare, and then they harass each other about cutting Medicare. It’s so discouraging to me, but I’m a Republican, so I’m much more distraught about Republicans.”
And, Mr. Haskins added, “$500 billion is modest compared to what Ryan would do.”
The GOP complains that Obamacare is a huge tax program. Rush Limbaugh, once again proving either his duplicity or his stupidity, claims that it is "the largest tax hike in history". In fact, it is a huge unfunded giveaway program. The IRS penalties may amount to $50 billion per year; however, the projected freebies and subsidies in the program equal at least 10 times that amount.
The one big area that Obama does cut is about $500 billion out of Medicare.
The GOP complains about those Medicare cuts by the Dems; yet, every budget proposal the GOP has offered up includes the same cuts, and some cases even more.
We can expect to see the same lies, distortions, and misrepresentations, as Buzz Lightyear would say, to infinity and beyond.
Libor doesn’t matter. Labor is well known by all who are aware of it – as a spread over 10 year treasuries, for example, on their floating rate bonds – to simply be a little tax banks charge one another and their customers. Nobody cares; the only thing that makes it significant at all is the fact that zero fed funds rates and 1.55% 10 year US Treasury rates mean 0.25% 3-month LIBOR is approaching materiality, when previously no one ever even bothered to notice it. This would be like someone to have been found guilty of “fixing” the Fed funds rate. In practice, it’s a combination of practice and active market-making anyway, so how are they to distinguish market-making among 7 or 8 huge banks, that dominate by far the millions of daily transactions in the global financial markets, from collusion in a price-fixing scheme?
What this really reflects is the fact that anti-bank animus is a symptom of the electorate’s failure to understand the economy they live in – particularly the fact that the economy is not some set of theories or operations within a system but a half-false and incomplete image of the bazillion interactions of hundreds of millions of people. If you did not have banks, it would be necessary to invent them, and among banks and customers you will need a tiny LIBOR-like transaction tax that will accrete like bacteria of which you are almost entirely unaware. July 7, 2012 - 5:58 am Link to this Comment
Jane Pitt wrote her letter to the News-Leader in response to another reader's missive suggesting Christians not support Romney for president because of his Mormon faith. In the letter to the Springfield, Mo., paper, she pulled no punches.
Urging "prayerful consideration" from fellow Christians as they choose how they'll vote in November, Mama Pitt made the point that a vote against Mormonism -- or no vote at all -- would translate into support for the self-identified pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage incumbent Obama.
These big bulls here don't eat carrots out of your hand, like Risky.
Thanks only to an American ex-pat doc, I survived the ordeal, but I'm staying in the Taberna Borrachera Ebriedad on the Avenida Casa Botin and chase mujers not toros the rest of my stay. Here are pics of the ordeal --
I'm not going to bother confirming it, but looks like another (partial) score for you Rufus, especially the part about French dependence. I'll have to speak with blert about this.
After the fiesta is over, Chad the Englishman, and Brett and I, are heading to the Pyrenees for some fly fishing, away from this heat. We'll put the red wine in the streams for cool. Quirk was to have met us in Madrid, with his French skirt Marsianne, but didn't show. It's irritating, but I'm used to it.
« Hope for America | Main DNC Scientists Disprove Existence of Roberts' Taxon
WASHINGTON DC - Jubilant scientists at the DNC's High Speed Word Collider (HSWC) announced today they have conclusively disproven the existence of Roberts' Taxon, the theoretical radioactive Facton particle that some had worried would lead to the implosion of the entire Universal Health Care System.
"I think it's time to pop the champagne corks," said HSWC Director David Plouffe. "Then blaze some choom."
The landmark experiment in Quantum Rhetoric began early this week after legal particle cosmologist John Roberts published a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Tortured Logic that solved the long-debated Pelosi's Paradox in Universal Health Care Theory.
"Pelosi's Paradox states that in order to find out what is in a health care bill, it would have to be passed," explained physicist Steven Hawking. "But in order to be a law it would have to be constitutional, which means someone would have to know what was in it, which would mean it couldn't have been a bill in the first place. Think of Schroedinger's Cat, except with a lobotomy."
Good chart, Max. 155,000 bbl/day would be, probably, around seven or eight percent of France's petroleum usage - not an insignificant amount, but not a "show-stopper," either. That almost half a million bbl/day going to Italy looks entirely more menacing.
The fact is, most of that African - Algeria, Angola, Nigeria - oil is light sweet, and a lot of the Persian Gulf oil is, also. Also, any refinery that can use N. African oil can, I'm almost certain, use Brent (North Sea) oil.
Again, it's important to keep in mind that all light sweet is fungible, and to a large extent they are interchangeable with the middle grades. If you cut off China's access to Libyan light/sweet they'd just outbid you for the Nigeran light/sweet, or for some Brent.
You got it right earlier, Max; there were several forces at work, and to pick out one as the "real, honest-to-God, True" reason is to play the Mug.
Two words-Cloward, Piven. Read up on Francis Fox Piven and her late hubby and see what they envisioned for America. It is all coming to pass. That cliff is getting closer and closer and we're going faster and faster. It's not going to be pretty. Are you prepared?
I don't read the American Thinker. Likewise, I don't read IBD for the same reasons. However, numerous media outlets including the one I have linked, have reported some factoids put out by IBD. It seems like it would have been easy for them to check. Even liberal papers like the Guardian have reported the same. And I have seen no denials by the Dems.
In June, applications for disability went up by 85,000. Job creation amounted to 80,000. Since 2009, there have been 3.1 million people that went onto the federal disability rolls.
I would suggest that a significant portion of the filings for disability over the past three years are the the result of the economic downturn, layoffs, lack of good paying jobs, etc. If true, this further weakens the Obama case for job growth.
If you can't stand Am Thinker, at least use HotAir, Quirk, or you miss the good stuff -
Epic #fail: Lanny Davis bungles Direct Messages to Morgan Fairchild; Update
Davis @LannyDavis
Waiting for you to confirm you are receiving as Direct Message - just us. 6 Jul 12
@LannyDavis
@morgfair try again. Ldavis@lannyjdavis.com— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) July 07, 2012 6 Jul 12
@LannyDavis
Is this DM? If so finally!— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) July 07, 2012 6 Jul 12
Political pundit/spinmeister Lanny Davis tried to send some private Direct Messages to actress Morgan Fairchild last night, but he ended up tweeting to the world instead.
Looks like he’s been working on figuring out how to privately communicate with Fairchild for a few days now:
Morgan Fairchild
@morgfair 2 Jul 12
@LannyDavis LOL! Let me know if you're out this way on west coast! It would be nice to catch up!
Lanny Davis @LannyDavis
@morgfair hey Morgan send me email - nice to hear from you. Lanny 3 Jul 12
@LannyDavis
@morgfair lannyjdavis.com. What is DM?— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) July 04, 2012 4 Jul 12
For her part, Fairchild valiantly tried to get Davis up to speed on the intricacies of DM’ing:
Morgan Fairchild
@morgfair
@LannyDavis Direct message-if you look in upper right corner & hit little head outline-it's one of options under that-only we can see mssg 4 Jul 12
Alas, it was to no avail.
This was one of the more notable mistweet episodes in recent memory. Naturally Twitter took the opportunity to poke some fun:
HubrisSonic @HubrisSonic
yes, go ahead with message “@LannyDavis: Waiting for you to confirm you are receiving as Direct Message - just us.” 6 Jul 12
AG @AG_Conservative
Just went back through @LannyDavis 's timeline. I don't think he even realizes he is using a computer. 6 Jul 12
Tony Ortega @VoiceTonyO
Shhh. Nobody tell him otherwise. RT @LannyDavis: Waiting for you to confirm you are receiving as Direct Message - just us. 6 Jul 12
amaeryllis @amaeryllis
.@LannyDavis you can post pictures to TwitPic dot com, it's private. 6 Jul 12
Tooth Fairy Denier @FunkynFortunate
Please, please please, just let Lanny Davis flirt with Morgan Fairchild. He is a Weiner in the making if you just let him go. 6 Jul 12
Buzz Wire @StrokesofCandor
.@LannyDavis Hey, I just met you. And this is CRAZY! But here's my handle, DM me maybe? @sevenlayercake @DinaFraioli @JessaNaomi 6 Jul 12
sevenlayercake @sevenlayercake 6 Jul 12
IS THIS DM?!?! #IsThisDM RT @Jennyjinx: That's so going to be a top story on @mashable in about 10 minutes. #LannyDavisDMs
Shane Wright @ShaneWright22
@sevenlayercake @Jennyjinx @mashable Testing Testing, how do I take a pic on this thing. S*#t my zipper is stuck! #IsThisDM 6 Jul 12
sevenlayercake @sevenlayercake 6 Jul 12
IS THIS DM?!?! #IsThisDM RT @Jennyjinx: That's so going to be a top story on @mashable in about 10 minutes. #LannyDavisDMs
Jenny Jinx™ @Jennyjinx
Please send me a picture of your skivvies. Privately. Reply to this DM. @sevenlayercake @mashable #LannyDavisDMs 6 Jul 12
William K. Wolfrum @Wolfrum
. @MichelleObama 'sup girl. Now that I'm DMing you, lets talk vegetables and democratic strategizzle. #LannyDavisDMs @LannyDavis
I THINK THE DEMOCRATS THOUGHT THAT THAT EVIL THING WOULD HAVE THIS COUNTRY BUTTONED UP AND THEY WOULD ALWAYS HAVE A FREE RIDE EVEN TO THE CEMETERY, BUT NOW THEY MIGHT HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT TRIP AHEAD OF TIME.
DELAND, Fla. (CBS Tampa) – Deland authorities say a teenager shot himself in the head to wake up from a magic-mushroom induced nightmare.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports that 17-year-old Steve Tilbury consumed several mushrooms, then drank a tea made from them, while with friends in his home.
He told investigators that he fell asleep not long after his friends left. But when he awoke from his nap, he reportedly thought he was still stuck in his nightmare.
“Tilbury said he woke up and it felt like it wasn’t real,” the deputy’s report states, adding that he felt trapped in his own home. “[He] said he thought if he shot himself he would wake up from the bad dream.”
Police say the confused teen then buried a .22-caliber bullet into his forehead. He miraculously survived, but still felt as though he was in a living dream.
The paper learned that Tilbury reportedly tried to clean his blood off the floor, before going outside and happening upon a stranger, who took him to Florida Hospital Deland.
Deputies asked him if he was attempting suicide.
“No, I just wanted to wake up from the bad nightmare,” he reportedly replied. “I am happy and I love my life.”
See what happens when "Republicanism" reduces everything to which side of the aisle one sits?
For most of my life, I followed the traditional political evolution, starting left(ish), then moving right(ish) as I saw the damage to the black family, the deterioration of the unions, and the corruption of government at all levels. And that was before 2001 and 2008 when I saw what serious "Republicanism" was capable of doing.
Then came the finger-pointing and the blog wars and the Beck/Limbaugh/Savage noise. Some of it made sense (government having successfully distanced itself from innocence.) Too much of it didn't make sense. Like accusing those of us who support the long-standing and highly successful SS program as lazy, soon-to-be-disenfranchised, teat-sucking socialists, while quietly dismantling banking regulations that imposed security and stability within the industry for nearly 3/4 of a century.
Until the public debate is reframed to replace ideological vitriol with problem-solving mechanisms, this country will continue to deteriorate. That will never happen until there is a consensus about the existence of a problem. According to the Gospel of "What Me Worry" Republicanism, there is no health care problem and there is no energy problem and there is no need to regulate banking (but we will go through the motions due to that unfortunate event in 2008) - no problem that the free markets can't solve or the government can't exacerbate.
And now, there is speculation that the LIBOR frenzy was a "playful" attempt to unhinge that $800 trillion derivatives market.
The conservative space is wringing its Pollyanna hands over the specter of a government assault on capitalism. So the Republicanism strategy is to "gut" Medicare (and Medicaid and SS if they get really ambitious) and dismantle the "regulatory burden" to unleash the "animal spirits" of innovation and prosperity. The "fiscal cliff" don't you know. (You know, the one health care's been approaching for the last two decades under the careful guidance of "hear no evil see no evil" the-markets-are-doing-just-fine-and-will-fix-everything-in-due-time Republicanism.)
None of this is serious. Serious people know what needs to be done. The tax code needs to be simplified. SS can be realigned with modern demographic trends. Neither of which will happen in my life time.
So when Doug pops in with his Moron/IQ comments or "b" (et al) hides behinds his cowardly innuendos that I don't have the Right Stuff to participate or Quirk brings out his seething sneering silent contempt routine, I think to myself, either I can start a food fight or I can find something else to do. Either way, the country is very much on a brink that will require government leadership to pull back.
Whether anyone likes it or not. Lock and load boys and girls. Your future awaits.
A month or so ago, after one of our many spats, you suggested that rather than argue with you, I merely scroll on by your posts. Citing my reasons, I readily agreed to the arrangement with the priviso that you leave me out of your posts. I thought it was working out well for both of us. You have one less person to question your opinions and I spend only half the time here than previously.
Yet, as I am happily scrolling today, I come across the name Quirk (easy to spot even while scrolling.)
"Quirk brings out his seething sneering silent contempt routine."
Are you really interested in starting this up again?
So when Doug pops in with his Moron/IQ comments or "b" (et al) hides behinds his cowardly innuendos that I don't have the Right Stuff to participate or Quirk brings out his seething sneering silent contempt routine, I think to myself, either I can start a food fight or I can find something else to do. Either way, the country is very much on a brink that will require government leadership to pull back.
And why do I have to read this, and in the paper too, he thought to himself. I never said she didn't have the right stuff, just made a joke to Doug about her name Marxine. And she is a little red, let's face it, or pink. I wonder if her undies are pink? Don't don't think that way, he stopped himself. Good old Quirk, made it from Madrid, Quirk the Great One, brought twenty bottles of the red in a ice cooler for the trip to the mountains in this old Spanish bus with the open air third floor. The mountains over there look as if made by Cezanne, he thought. Quirk's moved to the front with Brett, and Chad that good chap has taken up with Quirk's skirt Marsianne from Marseille. Chad was at the front and has been lonely too long but I wish they'd not do that under the blanket two rows away though nobody notices only me the Guardia Civil is asleep the woman with the three kids and three squacking chickens doesn't notice and Quirk up front with Brett with the hot breeze in their hair has his hand down under her belt in the back but o why me and why now and why here and why her and she said o darling we could have had such a marvelous time and damn those mountains look like Cezanne and undulating like a woman and they have caves with dripping water and moss and soft dark mossy underplaces o don't think like that but why me? How often does that happen in bullrunning? Never before I bet. He looked across the valley to the hills like a white elephant women far away and they looked like Cezanne and he had another glass of the red. Chad and Marsianne were out from under the blanket now and Quirk and Brett were under a sleeping bag and a chicken flew on his lap and he thought this is the only lap dance I get and he drank again and thought if that chicken pecks I'm going to strangle it. And he thought about laptops and addresses and Quirk.quik and Brett.bitch and Chad.champ and Marsianne.more and b el cornedo.ohno and looked again at the mountains and tried to think about nothing it's all nada y nada mas nada mas nada and Marxine is mad about nada after all she is worth more than Ash and Ruf combined and I even complemented her once in my way but if it is war it is war and he drank another glass of the red thinking I wish I were going to fish the Big One Hearted in Montana or The Big Found in Montana but this is fine with fine mountains across the way and he tried to doze a little in the sun with the hot air brushing his face.
I thought it was 'corn peasant farmer' and as the price of alfalfa tracks corn and barley......but your take is similar and most likely correct.
They called Doc Lucas el corneado around here after he got a rhino horn gored up his ass in Africa but I don't know where that came from. Big white hunter he was carried out by the tribesmen, and has loved them ever since.
Around here they are saying that even the massive rains we got here lately is unlikely to save the corn crop. One farmer they interviewed was in his field. The corn looked to be about 3 feet high. He said normally it would have been around 8 feet high. Just saying. I'm no farmer.
Britain gets the bankers, press and politicians it deserves
As mentioned in the linked article, Japan and other countries have the same problem. I would posit the U.S. also falls into a similar category.
Yet in most countries, away from emotive, physically repulsive criminal horrors, the introspection stops. It certainly has in Britain, which doesn't so much rage against the machine as get tetchy at it before losing interest until the next time...
Trailing in the wake of these disasters come the postmortems, the inquiries judicial and parliamentary, and the anger that never fails to spill over into mindless apathy.
"...the anger that never fails to spill over into mindless apathy."
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ReplyDeleteThe Idahoan goree claims it was all Obama's fault.
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Racist Bull hated Americans.
ReplyDeleteSpanish Socialist Medical Death Panel refused to treat on grounds of "Terminal Stupidity."
ReplyDeleteOr, as we call it in the States, "Republicanism."
Delete.
ReplyDeleteHillary Clinton's declining performance has been evident since long before the Egyptian fiasco. She continues to sink. See seems to lack the touch for diplomacy and tends to go off the deep end all too often. Time for her to go? One can only hope.
IT WAS just a week ago that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cheerfully reported that Russia was ready to “lean” on the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad as part of a new United Nations plan for a transitional government. “They have told me that,” she assured one interviewer following a June 30 conference in Geneva. “They’ve decided to get on one horse, and it’s the horse that would back a transition plan that Kofi Annan would be empowered to implement,” she told another.
Oops. It immediately became clear that Moscow had no such intention. In the past week, the official Ms. Clinton cited as her source — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — has said repeatedly that his government will not pressure Mr. Assad to leave power. “This is either an unscrupulous attempt to mislead serious people who shape foreign policy or simply a misunderstanding of what is going on,” Mr. Lavrov said Thursday. Western policy, he added, “is most likely to exacerbate the situation, lead to further violence and ultimately a very big war.”
At yet another conference on Syria, in Paris on Friday, Ms. Clinton had changed her tune. Now she is accusing Russia and China of “blockading” progress on Syria, insisting that is “no longer tolerable” and warning that they “will pay a price.” She pleaded with participating governments to lobby Vladimir Putin to change course. This raises an interesting question: Was Ms. Clinton taken in by Mr. Lavrov? Or did she know all along that the new U.N. plan she has been promoting was stillborn?
Either way, the Obama administration’s Syria diplomacy is making it look foolish as well as feckless. U.S. officials, apart perhaps from Ms. Clinton, appear to have no faith in their own policy. Conceding that the plan to appoint a transitional government is going nowhere, while Syrians die by the score every day, they resort to blaming Russia — as if they are shocked to discover that the Kremlin doesn’t want to support a pro-Western, pro-democracy agenda.
Syria and Russia
.
The Genius of Hillary C lint on continues. Tough shit for the Libyan people that we saved:
DeleteAfter the war ended last year, and former dictator Muammar Qaddafi was killed, and the global media departed, the residents of the predominantly Arab town of Misrata slaughtered, tortured, and expelled residents of the neighboring, predominantly black town of Tawargha. The pretext was a bizarre, racist conspiracy theory: that all 30,000 black residents of Tawargha had risen up to rape the Arab women and girls of Misrata.
As Steve Inskeep of NPR reports, the United Nations conducted an investigation and found no evidence whatsoever to support the rape story. A more likely source of ill will was the fact that Qaddafi sought to arm the residents of Tawargha and incited them to join in his offensive against Misrata, which was repelled with assistance from NATO.
Beyond that recent conflict, there is an enduring racism against black Africans that is shared widely in the Arab world. Qaddafi stoked that hatred even further by hiring black mercenaries from Niger and other neighboring countries to fight for his regime--troops who would likely have succeeded were it not for outside intervention. In recent years, Qaddafi had also styled himself as a “pan-African” leader who could unite the Maghreb north with the sub-Saharan south--an ambition at odds with the Arab world’s aspirations.
The media has largely ignored racial and ethnic violence in post-Qaddafi Libya--much as it downplayed vigilantism and violence perpetrated against black Libyans during the war’s progress. President Barack Obama, carrying out the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine of national security adviser Samantha Power, was focused on impending atrocities threatened by the Qaddafi regime--and he, like the media, turned a blind eye.
Now, thanks to Inskeep (who is a frequent target of criticism at this website for his left-wing political bias, but who nonetheless deserves credit in this case), it is no longer possible to ignore the local atrocities and regional security threats that have emerged since the fall of the brutal Qaddafi dictatorship. A mainstream media that rushed to point out post-Saddam Hussein problems in Iraq has thus far been largely silent in Libya.
The mainstream media likewise let President Obama off the hook for going to war with no approval from Congress, in explicit violation of the War Powers Resolution. When the Obama administration claimed--laughably--that American forces were not involved in “hostilities” in Libya, despite U.S. leadership in NATO, the media barely resisted.
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DeleteQaddafi stoked that hatred even further by hiring black mercenaries from Niger and other neighboring countries to fight for his regime--troops who would likely have succeeded were it not for outside intervention...
Oil-rich countries across the ME bring in black workers from across Africa to do the menial jobs their own people are unwilling to do. Of course, when things get tight these workers are the first to be let go.
Qhadafi may have brought in some mercenaries but the stories indicate that many of the blacks killed during the conflict and after were these guest workers trying to flee the chaos.
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Or, another way of looking at it: The Outside Forces of NATO beat the outside (Nigerian) forces of Quddafi.
DeleteWas Ms. Clinton taken in by Mr. Lavrov? Or did she know all along that the new U.N. plan she has been promoting was stillborn?
DeleteThe answer is yes. Bezmenov.
President Barack Obama, carrying out the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine of national security adviser Samantha Power...
Whether this site believes it or not, the public record is clear that Bernard-Henri Levy convinced Sarkozy to intervene in Libya. The Americans clamored on board with a helpful assist from the R2P doctrine. One of Obama's foreign policy objectives is to internationalize global peace-keeping. The Syrian and the Libyan engagements are and were consistent with that policy.
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DeleteWe average citizens might complain about French policy, UK policy, Russian policy, or the policy of bumfuck wherever; but it is only the policy of the US that we can influence.
It is naive to assume the French could have gone anywhere on Libya without the 'Big Dog' there to back them up.
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Sarkozy wanted to intervene; he had an election coming up. Levy was just a handy tool.
DeleteSame with Obama; the prospect of Winning a "Good War" was irresistable.
DeleteAnd it is delusional to think that the Americans made the Libyan proposal to Sarkozy.
DeleteSyria is a Guaranteed "Bad Outcome." The trick, now, is to find a way to blame That on the Rooskies.
DeleteElection Year Politics Trumps every fucking thing in the Universe, TWICE (infinity, and beyond.) :)
DeleteNo Rufus - Levy went to Sarkozy - and made a very convenient proposal. The reason this story has so much traction is precisely because BHL is widely considered the poster boy for pretentious self-important intellectual (French as well!) Galling to Americans to be led into another ME cesspool by the epitome of "effete intellectual snob."
Delete.
DeleteWho gives a shit about Sarkozy. Other than as a Front man.
France and the UK were interested in Libya for commercial reasons. The US was looking for any excuse to look like a player again in the ME after our fiasco in Egypt.
If people want to blame Levy for starting the Libyan war, although I find it ludicrous, go ahead. If he was responsible for anything it was merely as a useful tool, an excuse, the same thing the US used Chalabi for in the lead up to Iraq. If there hadn't been a Levy, there would have been another person or excuse.
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It was a perfect set-up for Obama, Max. If the outcome had ended up a Big Plus, Obama could go into his election, taking credit.
DeleteIf it ended up as it has, the White House could aid in promoting the meme that it was simply "supporting" the NATO Allies in their time of need.
Potentially, a good upside; not much downside. A good bet.
The oil angle is hard to ignore. Libya produced light sweet crude which France couldn't get (easily) elsewhere.
DeleteThe oil angle was "Extremely" important, but it was all behind closed doors - very hard to schuss out.
DeleteWe do know that Quddafi was signing contracts to send some of that light sweet to China, and that France can't process much of anything that's not "light sweet."
The synergy of multiple events intersecting at a critical point in time created an "opportunity" that was gamed and risk-assessed by all the players. To say that USA "started it" because of Sam. Power, or to recover face after Egypt, is a bit of mind-reading as narrow in scope and ludicrous (and typically partisan in an Election Year) as claiming that BHL was solely responsible.
DeleteIf not person X then person Y is beside the point. The first swing was BHL whether anyone likes it or not.
According to some BC regulars, France was facing a shut-down. My sense is that Sarkozy went after it for purely economic reasons. The election was secondary.
DeleteI don't disagree, Max, but I'd bet that there were numerous "conversations, a strategy sessions" before the French Thomas Friedman hit the scene.
DeleteHe calls his political enemy, and is "immediately put through."
I'd say they were waiting for him (or someone like him) to show up.
beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks :)
Nah. France was getting "some" oil from Libya, but not that much. Besides, they knew a "War" would take those fields out of production for at least the better part of a year (or, maybe much longer if the fields were damaged.)
DeleteOn the other hand, TOTAL is very politically powerful in France, and the oil angle insulated Sarkozy from criticism from the Right.
I think Italy, and Greece were probably the countries most dependent on the Libyan crude. And, going from memory, here, maybe Portugal.
Deletethe French Thomas Friedman
Delete:)
I'm sure TF has the larger mansion.
Yeah, but the Frenchman has the better tailor - and barber.
DeleteJust for grins
DeleteBigger than Brad and Angelina's chateau!
California now producing 2 1/2 times more Solar than last year.
ReplyDeleteCAISO
Meanwhile, the Renewable Energy Industry is moving "offshore" as a result of the "Party of Stupid"tm letting the 1603 Program expire, and refusing to renew the PTC (production tax credit.)
As the world prepares to transition from fossil fuel energy to a more sustainable future the house tea drinkers work to destroy any attempted progress in America.
ReplyDeleteThe most destructive movement since 1865.
ReplyDeleteOn Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes.
ReplyDeleteThe Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebels had the right idea.
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ReplyDeleteSeniors prepare, both parties plan to gut Medicare though they will not tout the fact in their campaign adds.
More bullshit flowing from D.C.
And in this year’s contests, which both parties describe as a referendum on who can best correct the nation’s economic course, such talk underscores how far Republicans and Democrats are from truly squaring with the public about curbing the growth of the major entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security. That growth is driving the projections of a federal debt that is mounting unsustainably as the population ages and health care costs rise.
“A pox on both their houses,” said Ron Haskins, a former Congressional staff member who is now a scholar of social programs and budgeting at the Brookings Institution. Democrats and Republicans “know they have to do something about Medicare, and then they harass each other about cutting Medicare. It’s so discouraging to me, but I’m a Republican, so I’m much more distraught about Republicans.”
And, Mr. Haskins added, “$500 billion is modest compared to what Ryan would do.”
Medicare: Lies and the Lying Liars who Lie Them
The GOP complains that Obamacare is a huge tax program. Rush Limbaugh, once again proving either his duplicity or his stupidity, claims that it is "the largest tax hike in history". In fact, it is a huge unfunded giveaway program. The IRS penalties may amount to $50 billion per year; however, the projected freebies and subsidies in the program equal at least 10 times that amount.
The one big area that Obama does cut is about $500 billion out of Medicare.
The GOP complains about those Medicare cuts by the Dems; yet, every budget proposal the GOP has offered up includes the same cuts, and some cases even more.
We can expect to see the same lies, distortions, and misrepresentations, as Buzz Lightyear would say, to infinity and beyond.
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One can only conclude they are trying to cut us short. After all the taxes we've paid, and laws we've obeyed.
Deleteb
Wind Industry Leaving the U.S.
ReplyDeleteNon-Hydro Renewables (mostly Wind) supplied about 20 Million Megawatt Hrs of Electricity to the U.S. in April. That's about
ReplyDeleteDouble the amount of April, 2007.
28. Dan
ReplyDeleteLibor doesn’t matter. Labor is well known by all who are aware of it – as a spread over 10 year treasuries, for example, on their floating rate bonds – to simply be a little tax banks charge one another and their customers. Nobody cares; the only thing that makes it significant at all is the fact that zero fed funds rates and 1.55% 10 year US Treasury rates mean 0.25% 3-month LIBOR is approaching materiality, when previously no one ever even bothered to notice it. This would be like someone to have been found guilty of “fixing” the Fed funds rate. In practice, it’s a combination of practice and active market-making anyway, so how are they to distinguish market-making among 7 or 8 huge banks, that dominate by far the millions of daily transactions in the global financial markets, from collusion in a price-fixing scheme?
What this really reflects is the fact that anti-bank animus is a symptom of the electorate’s failure to understand the economy they live in – particularly the fact that the economy is not some set of theories or operations within a system but a half-false and incomplete image of the bazillion interactions of hundreds of millions of people. If you did not have banks, it would be necessary to invent them, and among banks and customers you will need a tiny LIBOR-like transaction tax that will accrete like bacteria of which you are almost entirely unaware.
July 7, 2012 - 5:58 am Link to this Comment
..............................................................................
I was wondering about that.
Dayyum, I didn't know this. In fact, I didn't even "suspect" this.
ReplyDeleteIncome Limit for Medicaid in Arkansas - $1,899/YR
Speaking of Brad and Angelina:
ReplyDeleteJane Pitt wrote her letter to the News-Leader in response to another reader's missive suggesting Christians not support Romney for president because of his Mormon faith. In the letter to the Springfield, Mo., paper, she pulled no punches.
Urging "prayerful consideration" from fellow Christians as they choose how they'll vote in November, Mama Pitt made the point that a vote against Mormonism -- or no vote at all -- would translate into support for the self-identified pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage incumbent Obama.
Well did I learn something or what?
ReplyDeleteThese big bulls here don't eat carrots out of your hand, like Risky.
Thanks only to an American ex-pat doc, I survived the ordeal, but I'm staying in the Taberna Borrachera Ebriedad on the Avenida Casa Botin and chase mujers not toros the rest of my stay. Here are pics of the ordeal --
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/28/israel-lancho-spanish-bul_n_208906.html
I had dressed for the occasion, at least I looked good.
reporting...Pamplona 7/7/2012
b el corneado
Libyan Oil Exports
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to bother confirming it, but looks like another (partial) score for you Rufus, especially the part about French dependence. I'll have to speak with blert about this.
Later.
After the fiesta is over, Chad the Englishman, and Brett and I, are heading to the Pyrenees for some fly fishing, away from this heat. We'll put the red wine in the streams for cool. Quirk was to have met us in Madrid, with his French skirt Marsianne, but didn't show. It's irritating, but I'm used to it.
ReplyDeleteb el corneado
« Hope for America | Main
ReplyDeleteDNC Scientists Disprove Existence of Roberts' Taxon
WASHINGTON DC - Jubilant scientists at the DNC's High Speed Word Collider (HSWC) announced today they have conclusively disproven the existence of Roberts' Taxon, the theoretical radioactive Facton particle that some had worried would lead to the implosion of the entire Universal Health Care System.
"I think it's time to pop the champagne corks," said HSWC Director David Plouffe. "Then blaze some choom."
The landmark experiment in Quantum Rhetoric began early this week after legal particle cosmologist John Roberts published a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Tortured Logic that solved the long-debated Pelosi's Paradox in Universal Health Care Theory.
"Pelosi's Paradox states that in order to find out what is in a health care bill, it would have to be passed," explained physicist Steven Hawking. "But in order to be a law it would have to be constitutional, which means someone would have to know what was in it, which would mean it couldn't have been a bill in the first place. Think of Schroedinger's Cat, except with a lobotomy."
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2012/07/dnc-scientists-disprove-existence-of-roberts-taxon.html
heh
b
Good chart, Max. 155,000 bbl/day would be, probably, around seven or eight percent of France's petroleum usage - not an insignificant amount, but not a "show-stopper," either. That almost half a million bbl/day going to Italy looks entirely more menacing.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, most of that African - Algeria, Angola, Nigeria - oil is light sweet, and a lot of the Persian Gulf oil is, also. Also, any refinery that can use N. African oil can, I'm almost certain, use Brent (North Sea) oil.
Again, it's important to keep in mind that all light sweet is fungible, and to a large extent they are interchangeable with the middle grades. If you cut off China's access to Libyan light/sweet they'd just outbid you for the Nigeran light/sweet, or for some Brent.
You got it right earlier, Max; there were several forces at work, and to pick out one as the "real, honest-to-God, True" reason is to play the Mug.
allahwins
ReplyDeleteTwo words-Cloward, Piven. Read up on Francis Fox Piven and her late hubby and see what they envisioned for America. It is all coming to pass. That cliff is getting closer and closer and we're going faster and faster. It's not going to be pretty. Are you prepared?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/07/more_on_the_june_unemployment_figures.html
It's really bad. People are trying to get on Disability as the unemployment benefits run out for them.
b
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DeleteI don't read the American Thinker. Likewise, I don't read IBD for the same reasons. However, numerous media outlets including the one I have linked, have reported some factoids put out by IBD. It seems like it would have been easy for them to check. Even liberal papers like the Guardian have reported the same. And I have seen no denials by the Dems.
Jobs? Applications for Disability Benefits Outpace Job Creation
In June, applications for disability went up by 85,000. Job creation amounted to 80,000. Since 2009, there have been 3.1 million people that went onto the federal disability rolls.
I would suggest that a significant portion of the filings for disability over the past three years are the the result of the economic downturn, layoffs, lack of good paying jobs, etc. If true, this further weakens the Obama case for job growth.
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Nice little video - about 12 minutes - that I think is pretty accurate.
ReplyDeleteHouston, we have a problem
If you can't stand Am Thinker, at least use HotAir, Quirk, or you miss the good stuff -
ReplyDeleteEpic #fail: Lanny Davis bungles Direct Messages to Morgan Fairchild; Update
Davis @LannyDavis
Waiting for you to confirm you are receiving as Direct Message - just us.
6 Jul 12
@LannyDavis
@morgfair try again. Ldavis@lannyjdavis.com—
Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) July 07, 2012
6 Jul 12
@LannyDavis
Is this DM? If so finally!—
Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) July 07, 2012
6 Jul 12
Political pundit/spinmeister Lanny Davis tried to send some private Direct Messages to actress Morgan Fairchild last night, but he ended up tweeting to the world instead.
Looks like he’s been working on figuring out how to privately communicate with Fairchild for a few days now:
Morgan Fairchild
@morgfair 2 Jul 12
@LannyDavis LOL! Let me know if you're out this way on west coast! It would be nice to catch up!
Lanny Davis @LannyDavis
@morgfair hey Morgan send me email - nice to hear from you. Lanny
3 Jul 12
@LannyDavis
@morgfair lannyjdavis.com. What is DM?—
Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) July 04, 2012
4 Jul 12
For her part, Fairchild valiantly tried to get Davis up to speed on the intricacies of DM’ing:
Morgan Fairchild
@morgfair
@LannyDavis Direct message-if you look in upper right corner & hit little head outline-it's one of options under that-only we can see mssg
4 Jul 12
Alas, it was to no avail.
This was one of the more notable mistweet episodes in recent memory. Naturally Twitter took the opportunity to poke some fun:
HubrisSonic @HubrisSonic
yes, go ahead with message “@LannyDavis: Waiting for you to confirm you are receiving as Direct Message - just us.”
6 Jul 12
AG @AG_Conservative
Just went back through @LannyDavis 's timeline. I don't think he even realizes he is using a computer.
6 Jul 12
Tony Ortega @VoiceTonyO
Shhh. Nobody tell him otherwise. RT @LannyDavis: Waiting for you to confirm you are receiving as Direct Message - just us.
6 Jul 12
amaeryllis @amaeryllis
.@LannyDavis you can post pictures to TwitPic dot com, it's private.
6 Jul 12
Tooth Fairy Denier @FunkynFortunate
Please, please please, just let Lanny Davis flirt with Morgan Fairchild. He is a Weiner in the making if you just let him go.
6 Jul 12
Buzz Wire @StrokesofCandor
.@LannyDavis Hey, I just met you. And this is CRAZY! But here's my handle, DM me maybe? @sevenlayercake @DinaFraioli @JessaNaomi
6 Jul 12
sevenlayercake @sevenlayercake 6 Jul 12
IS THIS DM?!?! #IsThisDM RT @Jennyjinx: That's so going to be a top story on @mashable in about 10 minutes. #LannyDavisDMs
Shane Wright @ShaneWright22
@sevenlayercake @Jennyjinx @mashable Testing Testing, how do I take a pic on this thing. S*#t my zipper is stuck! #IsThisDM
6 Jul 12
sevenlayercake @sevenlayercake 6 Jul 12
IS THIS DM?!?! #IsThisDM RT @Jennyjinx: That's so going to be a top story on @mashable in about 10 minutes. #LannyDavisDMs
Jenny Jinx™ @Jennyjinx
Please send me a picture of your skivvies. Privately. Reply to this DM. @sevenlayercake @mashable #LannyDavisDMs
6 Jul 12
William K. Wolfrum @Wolfrum
. @MichelleObama 'sup girl. Now that I'm DMing you, lets talk vegetables and democratic strategizzle. #LannyDavisDMs @LannyDavis
b
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/07/05/democrats-mourn-obamacare-verdict/
ReplyDeleteBOB
I THINK THE DEMOCRATS THOUGHT THAT THAT EVIL THING WOULD HAVE THIS COUNTRY BUTTONED UP AND THEY WOULD ALWAYS HAVE A FREE RIDE EVEN TO THE CEMETERY, BUT NOW THEY MIGHT HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT TRIP AHEAD OF TIME.
BLESSINGS DALE
b el corneado
DELAND, Fla. (CBS Tampa) – Deland authorities say a teenager shot himself in the head to wake up from a magic-mushroom induced nightmare.
ReplyDeleteThe Daytona Beach News-Journal reports that 17-year-old Steve Tilbury consumed several mushrooms, then drank a tea made from them, while with friends in his home.
He told investigators that he fell asleep not long after his friends left. But when he awoke from his nap, he reportedly thought he was still stuck in his nightmare.
“Tilbury said he woke up and it felt like it wasn’t real,” the deputy’s report states, adding that he felt trapped in his own home. “[He] said he thought if he shot himself he would wake up from the bad dream.”
Police say the confused teen then buried a .22-caliber bullet into his forehead. He miraculously survived, but still felt as though he was in a living dream.
The paper learned that Tilbury reportedly tried to clean his blood off the floor, before going outside and happening upon a stranger, who took him to Florida Hospital Deland.
Deputies asked him if he was attempting suicide.
“No, I just wanted to wake up from the bad nightmare,” he reportedly replied. “I am happy and I love my life.”
That's about it for me today, can't take no mo.
b el c
Two words: Industrial Policy
ReplyDeleteOtherwise known as: Progressive Statism
See what happens when "Republicanism" reduces everything to which side of the aisle one sits?
For most of my life, I followed the traditional political evolution, starting left(ish), then moving right(ish) as I saw the damage to the black family, the deterioration of the unions, and the corruption of government at all levels. And that was before 2001 and 2008 when I saw what serious "Republicanism" was capable of doing.
Then came the finger-pointing and the blog wars and the Beck/Limbaugh/Savage noise. Some of it made sense (government having successfully distanced itself from innocence.) Too much of it didn't make sense. Like accusing those of us who support the long-standing and highly successful SS program as lazy, soon-to-be-disenfranchised, teat-sucking socialists, while quietly dismantling banking regulations that imposed security and stability within the industry for nearly 3/4 of a century.
Until the public debate is reframed to replace ideological vitriol with problem-solving mechanisms, this country will continue to deteriorate. That will never happen until there is a consensus about the existence of a problem. According to the Gospel of "What Me Worry" Republicanism, there is no health care problem and there is no energy problem and there is no need to regulate banking (but we will go through the motions due to that unfortunate event in 2008) - no problem that the free markets can't solve or the government can't exacerbate.
And now, there is speculation that the LIBOR frenzy was a "playful" attempt to unhinge that $800 trillion derivatives market.
The conservative space is wringing its Pollyanna hands over the specter of a government assault on capitalism. So the Republicanism strategy is to "gut" Medicare (and Medicaid and SS if they get really ambitious) and dismantle the "regulatory burden" to unleash the "animal spirits" of innovation and prosperity. The "fiscal cliff" don't you know. (You know, the one health care's been approaching for the last two decades under the careful guidance of "hear no evil see no evil" the-markets-are-doing-just-fine-and-will-fix-everything-in-due-time Republicanism.)
None of this is serious. Serious people know what needs to be done. The tax code needs to be simplified. SS can be realigned with modern demographic trends. Neither of which will happen in my life time.
So when Doug pops in with his Moron/IQ comments or "b" (et al) hides behinds his cowardly innuendos that I don't have the Right Stuff to participate or Quirk brings out his seething sneering silent contempt routine, I think to myself, either I can start a food fight or I can find something else to do. Either way, the country is very much on a brink that will require government leadership to pull back.
Whether anyone likes it or not. Lock and load boys and girls. Your future awaits.
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DeleteQuirk?
A month or so ago, after one of our many spats, you suggested that rather than argue with you, I merely scroll on by your posts. Citing my reasons, I readily agreed to the arrangement with the priviso that you leave me out of your posts. I thought it was working out well for both of us. You have one less person to question your opinions and I spend only half the time here than previously.
Yet, as I am happily scrolling today, I come across the name Quirk (easy to spot even while scrolling.)
"Quirk brings out his seething sneering silent contempt routine."
Are you really interested in starting this up again?
.
So when Doug pops in with his Moron/IQ comments or "b" (et al) hides behinds his cowardly innuendos that I don't have the Right Stuff to participate or Quirk brings out his seething sneering silent contempt routine, I think to myself, either I can start a food fight or I can find something else to do. Either way, the country is very much on a brink that will require government leadership to pull back.
DeleteAnd why do I have to read this, and in the paper too, he thought to himself. I never said she didn't have the right stuff, just made a joke to Doug about her name Marxine. And she is a little red, let's face it, or pink. I wonder if her undies are pink? Don't don't think that way, he stopped himself. Good old Quirk, made it from Madrid, Quirk the Great One, brought twenty bottles of the red in a ice cooler for the trip to the mountains in this old Spanish bus with the open air third floor. The mountains over there look as if made by Cezanne, he thought. Quirk's moved to the front with Brett, and Chad that good chap has taken up with Quirk's skirt Marsianne from Marseille. Chad was at the front and has been lonely too long but I wish they'd not do that under the blanket two rows away though nobody notices only me the Guardia Civil is asleep the woman with the three kids and three squacking chickens doesn't notice and Quirk up front with Brett with the hot breeze in their hair has his hand down under her belt in the back but o why me and why now and why here and why her and she said o darling we could have had such a marvelous time and damn those mountains look like Cezanne and undulating like a woman and they have caves with dripping water and moss and soft dark mossy underplaces o don't think like that but why me? How often does that happen in bullrunning? Never before I bet. He looked across the valley to the hills like a white elephant women far away and they looked like Cezanne and he had another glass of the red. Chad and Marsianne were out from under the blanket now and Quirk and Brett were under a sleeping bag and a chicken flew on his lap and he thought this is the only lap dance I get and he drank again and thought if that chicken pecks I'm going to strangle it. And he thought about laptops and addresses and Quirk.quik and Brett.bitch and Chad.champ and Marsianne.more and b el cornedo.ohno
and looked again at the mountains and tried to think about nothing it's all nada y nada mas nada mas nada and Marxine is mad about nada after all she is worth more than Ash and Ruf combined and I even complemented her once in my way but if it is war it is war and he drank another glass of the red thinking I wish I were going to fish the Big One Hearted in Montana or The Big Found in Montana but this is fine with fine mountains across the way and he tried to doze a little in the sun with the hot air brushing his face.
b el corneado
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Delete:)
Not too bad, el corneado.
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DeleteMy Spanish is a little rusty.
Doesn't el corneado translate to 'the corn dog'?
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I thought it was 'corn peasant farmer' and as the price of alfalfa tracks corn and barley......but your take is similar and most likely correct.
DeleteThey called Doc Lucas el corneado around here after he got a rhino horn gored up his ass in Africa but I don't know where that came from. Big white hunter he was carried out by the tribesmen, and has loved them ever since.
b el corneado
.
DeleteSpeaking of corn, Dog.
Around here they are saying that even the massive rains we got here lately is unlikely to save the corn crop. One farmer they interviewed was in his field. The corn looked to be about 3 feet high. He said normally it would have been around 8 feet high. Just saying. I'm no farmer.
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I have heard miserable reports. The heat took and/or is taking its toll.
DeleteOnce you are stunted, there is not much recovery.
corneado
Quirk, out this way we have once in a while 'hundred bushel straw, ten bushel wheat'.
DeleteCan look great, but if the rains don't come in late May, June or early July you are cutting wheat that looks like rice as the heads don't fill.
Doesn't happen often, but the Great Drought of '77 comes to mind.
corneado
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ReplyDeleteBritain gets the bankers, press and politicians it deserves
As mentioned in the linked article, Japan and other countries have the same problem. I would posit the U.S. also falls into a similar category.
Yet in most countries, away from emotive, physically repulsive criminal horrors, the introspection stops. It certainly has in Britain, which doesn't so much rage against the machine as get tetchy at it before losing interest until the next time...
The Unholy Trinity: Bankers, Press, and Politicians
Trailing in the wake of these disasters come the postmortems, the inquiries judicial and parliamentary, and the anger that never fails to spill over into mindless apathy.
"...the anger that never fails to spill over into mindless apathy."
I like Ms. Hyde's turn of phrase.
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ReplyDeleteA small nation worries.
Korea on Japan
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Pictures of fiesta here -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170094/Thrill-seeker-gored-injured-Pamplona-Running-Bulls-festival.html?ICO=most_read_module
Couple pics of Brett stripping to please the 'bulls', last photo, Quirk and Brett.
b el corneado
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170094/Thrill-seeker-gored-injured-Pamplona-Running-Bulls-festival.html
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ReplyDelete