COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“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."

Friday, March 14, 2008

Patrick Swayze and Cancer


Gaunt: Patrick Swayze puffing on his cigarette yesterday.

Cancer treatment is the human struggle for life while your body has other ideas. It is the corruption of life by a body gone insane. We are programmed to live and resist dying. Fight or flight is not a dilemma, it is in our DNA, and every fortunate cancer patient faces a choice to bargain for more life in exchange for what is hopefully short term pain and severe punishment. The unfortunate succumb.

If unfortunate enough to be faced with the choice, go for the pain and suffering. It is worth the price. You will win or you will lose. In life we all ultimately lose, but if you fight, and pray, and believe, you just may make it, and that is the sweetest victory of all.

Cancer humbles and teaches as does life itself.

Good luck Buddy, and take your pleasures where you find them.
__________________

Patrick Swayze still smoking despite being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

By BARRY WIGMORE Daily Mail
13th March 2008


Puffing on a cigarette is not the most sensible thing to do when you're battling cancer.

But if, as reports suggest, Patrick Swayze has only a few weeks to live, he may think it makes little difference.

The once-athletic star of Dirty Dancing, Ghost, and action films such as Point Break looked gaunt as he dragged on a cigarette while waiting for his private plane.

He had just completed a session of chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer at Stanford University Medical Centre in California.

His thinning hair was hidden beneath a baseball cap.

The 55-year-old star is in pain, but is still fighting and is determined to beat the pancreatic cancer that has ravaged his body, says his 81-year-old mother.

Heartbroken Patsy Swayze, a former Hollywood dance choreographer who encouraged her son to enter showbusiness, said: "Patrick doesn't deserve to get this. He's got such a big heart.

"He's been such a good and generous and thoughtful person. It breaks my heart to know he's suffering. But he bears it and is determined to beat this."
She told America's National Enquirer magazine: "He's hanging in there and getting the best treatment he can."

Swayze has been a 60-a-day smoker for years, and research shows that smokers are twice as likely to get pancreatic cancer as non-smokers.

Rhita McNair, a close friend of Swayze and his wife of 32 years, Lisa Niemi, said that like the long-running Marlborough Man cowboy cigarette ads, Swayze kept smoking even as he enjoyed the fresh air during horseback rides on his 17,000-acre ranch near Las Vegas.

Miss McNair said that during a recent cattle drive, Swayze looked as though he'd lost about two stones in weight, but "sadly he was still smoking."( more)

131 comments:

  1. Why quit now? May as well enjoy what time he's got left.
    - Walt, Pennsylvania, USA

    I agree with Walt. My mom quit 25 years ago and was told even with quitting that long ago, it was the reason for her pancreatic cancer.
    - Barb, Cumberland USA

    Patrick has got cancer. Not smoking now will NOT help anything. He, like many finds comfort in cigarettes, perhaps the very last few comforts he may have. Get clear, and stay clear!
    - Antonio, Aylesbury, Bucks

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't know how much time it might give him, probably little or none.
    ---
    A friend of ours, 52, was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's.
    Since his dad also had it, perhaps he'd be better off if he had smoked:
    That's the one condition I know of that smoking has a protective effect on.
    ---
    Don't know if you recall that article on Steve Jobs I posted, I'll look it up again.
    Said only 5% make it 5 years out.
    He's probably getting the same treatment at Stanford as Patrick.
    ...represents about 50% of the value of Apple, when he was gone they went steadily downhill.
    ---
    Did all of you see the Hillarious SNL Scene of Patrick dancing with Chris Farley?
    ...with bare chests!
    Carvey and Miller agree it evoked the biggest explosion of laughter ever heard in rehearsal!

    ReplyDelete
  3. We will hammer on Barack's Pastor Wright after the Dems are through hammering each other. Someone still has to explain to me how blacks voting against whites 9-1 is OK.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Trish said:
    I can understand why Fallon left - and why Gen Jones didn't take the CENTCOM job to begin with.

    North is, however, completely wrong on the reason for Fallon's departure.


    I'm listening....

    ReplyDelete
  5. 2164th: We will hammer on Barack's Pastor Wright after the Dems are through hammering each other. Someone still has to explain to me how blacks voting against whites 9-1 is OK

    How come criticism of the Mormon belief was verboten when Mitt Romney was in the race under the "no religious test" clause, but Obama's religion is fair game? My own religion is (officially) Roman Catholicism, and I hate the way the bishops moved pedo priests from parish to parish rather than taking them out of service, but if I ever ran for office I would not accept criticism of those actions, because my Catholicism is based on the tradition and theology, not the poor choices of the clergy.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You can't make the same comparison with the Catholic Church. The CC is like the military. It is extremely hierarchical. A bad priest is like a bad lieutenant. They both have rules and some break them and they have to pay. The priest can't make up his own mass. Pastor Wright has more in common with the Ku Klux Klan than a priest.

    He is the man that Obama chooses for a spiritual leader. There is no equivalency. Obama put this pastor on his steering committee. Wait till the American public gets this into its understanding.

    Obama is suppossed to have transcended race. He is supposed to be something new. I think he is full of shit and intend to say so.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'll predict one thing. The people in Pennsylvania will be waiting for Obama's explanation.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 2164th: He is the man that Obama chooses for a spiritual leader. There is no equivalency. Obama put this pastor on his steering committee. Wait till the American public gets this into its understanding.

    There are a couple principles of fair play you are violating here. You are not responsible for the views of an associate, and no one may assume you share the views of an associate unless you make a positive declaration to that effect. Otherwise I could say, "David Duke has come out for McCain, when is McCain going to distance himself from David Duke and reject his racism?" and keep McCain ever on the defensive. This is what Hillary tried to do with Calypso Louis Farrakkan vis a vis Obama, which Obama defused gracefully by making the whole issue seem like a semantic quibble.

    ReplyDelete
  9. If you cannot see what would happen to a GOP pol in similar circumstances, aenea, you are suffering from intentional blindness.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Them Patriotic, America Loving Hispanics are at it again.

    If this wasn't Dhimmi Nation, these aholes would be shamed out of the public square.

    Mr. Zammer is caught up in a Congressional standoff over immigration overhaul that is punishing employers who play by the rules and that, advocates of change say, could cost small companies billions in lost business.

    In an effort to win support for a comprehensive immigration overhaul, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and its allies have blocked voting on legislation that would allow employers to rehire foreign seasonal nonagricultural workers independent of a 1991 quota.

    As a result, the government is limited to issuing the 66,000 seasonal work visas set when the visa program, known as H-2B, became law — 33,000 for winter workers and 33,000 for summer workers. Last year, more than 120,000 foreign workers entered the country on H-2B visas.

    For Cape Cod, the impact has been devastating. Employers will receive only 15 of the 5,000 visas they had requested, according to the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.

    “It’s just ruthless for the Hispanic caucus to do this, use it as a bargaining chip,” said Mr. Zammer, whose foreign workers — mostly from Jamaica and Eastern Europe — normally make up 25 percent of his staff. “We’re working at finding new people. We have to. But it’s extremely difficult, because you end up stealing from other people who are also trying to get help.”

    ReplyDelete
  11. A politician cannot control who supports him. He can decide where he parks his ass on Sunday morning.

    ReplyDelete
  12. You are not responsible for the views of an associate, and no one may assume you share the views of an associate unless you make a positive declaration to that effect.

    Obama chose the pastor, that's the rub.

    ReplyDelete
  13. So McCain could put Duke on his steering committee and get away with it?
    Very funny!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Considering this view of America, it's not surprising that in December Mr. Wright's church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan for lifetime achievement. In the church magazine, Trumpet, Mr. Wright spoke glowingly of the Nation of Islam leader. "His depth on analysis [sic] when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening," Mr. Wright said of Mr. Farrakhan. "He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest."

    Obama and the Pastor WSJ

    Out of all the churches in America, out of all the black churches in America...

    ReplyDelete
  15. A bipartisan coalition of 182 members of Congress has co-sponsored measures sponsored by Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, and Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, that would allow returning workers back.

    “The H-2B visa program is being held hostage,” said Representative Bill Delahunt, a Democrat who represents Cape Cod. “We’re talking about a stimulus package, and yet we’re putting at risk regional economies from the East Coast to the West Coast and many sections of the country in between.”

    ReplyDelete
  16. You only need watch that video clip for five minutes and you understand what the good pastor is all about.

    Multiply that by the known fact that he is the Obama preacher of choice and add him to your political steering committee, add that to Obama's wife's little faux pax about her newly found pride in America and you begin to know the real Barack Obama.

    You don't need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind blows. I hope the Democrats get stuck with him for a November storm.

    ReplyDelete
  17. whiskey_199 said...
    Obama in 2006 gave 22,000 to Rev. Wright's church as a charitable donation.

    Hard to distance himself now from "Goddamn America."

    ReplyDelete
  18. I gave $40,000 to David Duke!

    ReplyDelete
  19. The EB Truth Squad needs to find Michelle Obamas Thesis.
    It's full of shit like:

    "The Dangers of Assimilation" !

    ReplyDelete
  20. A group get well card has been created for Patrick. Please stop by and leave a personal message for him. Thank you.

    http://www.squidnote.com/c/DrFmJ1_2g9P

    ReplyDelete
  21. "Did all of you see the Hillarious SNL Scene of Patrick dancing with Chris Farley?"

    Yes! One of the best skits ever. Along with the skit that had Farley as a motivational speaker. "I AM divorced. And I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER."

    I haven't spoken to my mother since she started chemo (I hate the way that sounds) Wednesday. We have this little phone problem related to a big electrical problem and are essentially all three of us waiting to perish during the night during an electrical fire.

    If the worst thing in the world is seeing one's child suffer (I think this is uncontestable) the second-worst (debatable, perhaps) has to be seeing one's mother suffer. Just knowing that she is, is horribly sad. And I think it probably does not please her one bit that we are sad; no, that would make her sad. See how mothers are? So everyone, most especially she, endeavors to find some humor, some comic absurdity, in the deadly serious and flat-out awful. It's rather a grim imperative.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Buddy Larsen, with his talent for words, wrote some moving stuff about his mom's trials and passing.

    ...I'm afraid it's on the original site that Wretch has never fixed.
    (It needs to have auto-spam removed...)

    ReplyDelete
  23. Seeing your children being unhappy is hard to take.
    Our son was totally miserable for a year (a woman, what else?) and the effect on us was amazing.
    Luckily, she moved on.

    ReplyDelete
  24. 38 "Moderate" Pubs voted against extending the tax cuts!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Obama agrees with Reverend Wright on Apartheid in South Africa, so all is well.
    That makes up for all else, you see.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Whit,

    I remember Gen Jones saying that he would not take the job of CENTCOM cmdr because Rumsfeld's practice was to deal directly with ground commanders and to leave the CENTCOM chief out. (Jones was asked to take the job shortly before Rumsfeld left.) This also meant that the CENTCOM chief's pull on ground commanders is effectively nullified. Now, that's certainly the SecDef's prerogative, but that leaves you essentially as a titular head in arguably the most important matters.

    Well, Rumsfeld is gone and Gates is in, and it is still the practice to deal directly with ground commanders and to leave the CENTCOM chief out. Meaning, that when Rumsfeld left, the practice did not leave with him, but simply moved upstairs, so to speak - or across the river, where it undoubtedly originated anyhow.

    The WH is wedded politically to a course of action, and to an individual (actually, two of them, because Odierno must be included) irrespective of countervailing wisdom and the CINC input. The surge cannot deliver before hell freezes over the promised reconciliation, and no other way is sought to remove ourselves from the proximity of, or reduce our exposure to, an intractable problem. We are exhausting ourselves upon a rock, so to speak.

    And Petraeus is the rock star.

    ReplyDelete
  27. With our daughter, the suffering was very much a consequence of her first year of full-on economics at school. Brain-bleeding and tearfully miserable it was.

    Sorry at the time I ever gave her Hazlitt and O'Rourke to read in high school. Might've otherwise stuck simply with French.

    And boy problems, oh my God, of these there seem no end.

    Give me a couple of eight-year-olds any day. Somewhat counterintuitively, at least to me, it doesn't get any easier. For children or parents either one.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Obama's True Beliefs [Mona Charen]

    Derb: I am coming to believe that Barack Obama is one of the greatest con artists we've seen. His entire campaign has been about "coming together," a post-racial consensus, etc. Any mention of his middle name was immediately condemned as ignorant fear-mongering. He has played the role of racial unifier with great skill and finesse.

    But there is a great deal of evidence out there that he is anything but. The Reverend Wright is exhibit A. Mrs. Obama is Exhibit B. But there's lots more. Here is a piece by John Batchelor about some of Obama's other connections.
    For example:

    William Ayers is the second Chicago figure to consider in the political profile of Mr. Obama. William C. Ayers, known as Bill Ayers, is notorious as a terrorist bomber from the 1970s who, on September 11, 2001, in the New York Times was quoted as finding "a certain eloquence in bombs." Now, at 62, Mr. Ayers, a former aide to the current Mayor Richard M. Daley, is an established professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Importantly, Mr. Ayers and his wife, the equally notorious Weatherman terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, hosted a crucial meet-the-candidate event in their Hyde Park neighborhood home in 1995 when Mr. Obama, also a Hyde Park resident, was sounded out by vital citizens, among them the retiring state senator Alice Palmer for the 13th District.

    Obama's book is strewn with hints of his far left sympathies, as when he tells an African cousin who complains about the hardships of life in Kenya that things are no better in America. Or when he suggests that the lives of poor black young men in the inner city are blighted by white racism. He never says it explicitly, but it's there.

    He has been very friendly with Rashid Khaladi, the fierce anti-Israel professor who took Edward Said's post at Columbia.

    My own theory, FWIW, is that Obama acquired his far left views at least in part to make himself as authentically black as he could to compensate for having a white mother. His mother, of course, was very left herself. But looking the way he does, and having been raised among only white people (mother and maternal grandparents) he felt the need to better identify with his black heritage. That struggle is what the book is all about.

    One can have sympathy for his psychological predicament . But that sympathy certainly does not extend to electing him president of a country that I sincerely believe he does not love.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Sorry at the time I ever gave her Hazlitt and O'Rourke...

    ...and Hayek.

    I think it was the Hayek that did it.

    ReplyDelete
  30. "My own theory, FWIW, is that Obama acquired his far left views at least in part to make himself as authentically black as he could to compensate for having a white mother. His mother, of course, was very left herself. But looking the way he does, and having been raised among only white people (mother and maternal grandparents) he felt the need to better identify with his black heritage. That struggle is what the book is all about."

    That's borne out also in the lengthy Vanity Fair profile of Obama.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "Give me a couple of eight-year-olds any day. Somewhat counterintuitively, at least to me, it doesn't get any easier. For children or parents either one."
    ---
    Having never gone to school, and be "socialized," the high point for me with our son was 12.

    For mom, who knows?
    I'll have to ask, but I can gaurantee it was younger than 12!

    It was amazing to see all the normal things he would do at 12, when most of us, even in the old days, were thoroughly distracted in school by concerns based on nothing real, in fact.
    ---
    My sister and bro in law were in awe when we went to Disneyland with them when he was 12!

    They were sure he would NEVER "grow up."

    That turned out to be not a problem, in spades, but those extra years were bliss for us, and good for him.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Yeah, Trish, look at the last 2 paragraphs in that Charen piece.
    That's what she thinks too.

    I'm still analysing, but was convinced he's dangerous long ago.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Trish,
    If you can catch Ingraham's third hour, she's talking about her "second mom's" passing. (leukemia @ 80)

    She'll be giving her rememberances at her funeral this weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Actually, 1st, 2nd, and third hours, more or less.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Barry's Reverend Jeremiah Wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Bush is talking to the New York Economic Club in NYC. Very impressive. He is really on his game today.

    ReplyDelete
  37. When our son finally decided to go back to school-school (and he did so, I kid you not, to meet girls) he was incredulous, and then contemptuous, to discover just how shallow and stultifying the whole enterprise is, socially and academically. His classmates and teachers found him frighteningly knowledgeable (not REALLY due to us, as he's a natural autodidact.) Anyway, this was at a nationally-ranked high school. His father and I, too far removed from the experience in years, had forgotten this simple fact and never thought to warn him. For advice and commiseration he relied heavily on his sister, away at school and fresh from those trials and tribulations. He was grumpy ALL the time.

    He's far happier at the high school here, but it is a little short on "chicks."

    ReplyDelete
  38. Like our son's blown turbo on his STI.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Take away girls and cars, men's survival rate would go way up.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Limbaugh just referenced someone that articulated my view:

    Barry joined the Church to establish his Black Street Creds.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Now my husband would tell any young man that YOU DO NOT KNOW "women problems" 'til you've married one. And I'm (just) old and wise enough to grant him that.

    Man problems? Yes, well, we'll not even bother mentioning those here at the EB, as they surely are a fiction.

    ReplyDelete
  42. 2164th said...

    "You only need watch that video clip for five minutes and you understand what the good pastor is all about."

    which video are you referring to?

    ReplyDelete
  43. Here is the video of Barack Obama's choice for a pastor. Of course before he morphed into the Chosen One

    ReplyDelete
  44. Now here is another pastor from another time. Imagine the left reaction to a pol who sat in his church. It is mild compared to Brack's choice.

    ReplyDelete
  45. fiery rhetoric but nothing that hasn't been said before in more genteel ways by the likes of Chomsky et al. Much of it even true.

    Another sad instance of US political rhetoric is all this blather about Michelle's Obama's pride in America. Even that WSJ op-ed piece plays on the (willful) misrepresentation of what she said:

    "Mr. Obama obviously would not choose to belong to Mr. Wright's church and seek his advice unless he agreed with at least some of his views. In light of Mr. Wright's perspective, Michelle Obama's comment that she feels proud of America for the first time in her adult life makes perfect sense"

    She actually said:

    "What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud."

    note: she said really proud. Now you can be proud of your country over many things at many different times but it is perfectly legitimate to point out something that makes you REALLY proud. Hey throw enough shit at the wall and some of it is bound to stick. No holds barred in the refined politics of America, nope. Swift boat away!!

    ReplyDelete
  46. I recommend for anyone's consideration Al Giordano's take on the Wright problem at www.ruralvotes.com/thefield/.

    Because contrarian opinion has thus far claimed the day(s) in this election season. And because forewarned is forearmed. Or something like that.

    ReplyDelete
  47. hey, you know what just occurred to me? Folk are all over this reverend guy 'cause he's not PC. Ain't that hoot?

    ReplyDelete
  48. And I hadn't even read trish's link when I made that last crack.

    ReplyDelete
  49. "Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue." -- Barack Obama

    ReplyDelete
  50. Sure, he can give Jerry 20 k and employ him and still denounce him on the record, can't he.

    After all, we're talkin St Barry here!

    ReplyDelete
  51. "hey, you know what just occurred to me? Folk are all over this reverend guy 'cause he's not PC. Ain't that hoot?"
    ---
    You could say that about Duke and Hitler, but it would not change the fact that they too are RACISTS!

    ReplyDelete
  52. Barack can "denounce and reject" Wright all he wants...it doesn't change the fact that this was his chosen Pastor for the last twenty years.

    ReplyDelete
  53. The Obama Files

    What you need to measure about Barack Obama, a likely potent adversary for the presidency, is that while he is a politically junior and consciously liberal-voting member of the U.S. Senate, he is actually a veteran Chicago politician with a fertile record of surprising associations in controversial events well apart from his work in legislatures.

    Some few of these associations from his years in Chicago law work and urban development, and from his career in the Springfield, Illinois senate, speak to the quality of his judgment and to the strength of his character. Four associations in particular go the heart of the inquiry ahead in order to ask and answer the fundamental questions about who is Barack Obama.

    ReplyDelete
  54. This to, will pass.

    The Pastor is a non-issue, believe me.

    If that's the best there is, to use against Obama, we're just goin' to be pissin' in the wind.

    If Blacks vote 9 to 1 for a white man, that's not racially biased, but when they vote 9 to 1 for a Black, it becomes racist?

    I think not, it is just a reflection of their poor voting habits. When Clinton was getting that 90% of the Black vote, it was not a racial issue, though he became known as the first "Black President".

    The Mormons denied Blacks were fully human, until 1978. Did not cause either Mitt, nor his father, to quit the Chirch.
    Nor any number of GOP Senators and Congressmen, past and present.

    Those Catholic pedophiles, any politico Catholic that has not quit on the Pope over the cover ups is guilty of supporting both pedophilia and the cover ups?

    Can Sean Hannity pass that test?
    I think not.

    The religion issue will not beat Obama, to contiuely play on it, will backfire.

    Mark my words.

    As to that Chippy dance number, one of the funniest, grossest things I've seen on TV.
    Farley was over the top.
    Swayze the perfect straight man.

    Saw another of his movies for the first time, a day or two ago, "Forever Lulu".
    He was quite entertainng in it.
    "City of Hope" another piece of work he recieved little credit for, but was a provocitive story, well acted.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Bobal: Considering this view of America, it's not surprising that in December Mr. Wright's church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan for lifetime achievement.

    in 1994, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis explained that the Catholic Church only extends ordination to men in order to follow the example of Christ, who chose only men for this specific duty, which makes about as much sense to me as not letting women vote because the Founding Fathers chose only men for this specific duty. But we do not require our Catholic politicians to distance themselves from, or reject, these clearly misogynist statements.

    ReplyDelete
  56. The Roman Catholics have been found liable, across the US, for the pedophilia. To the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

    Anyone who has not disassociated themselves from that Church is supporting pedophilia, and the monsters that have a complete support system that has been created within that Church.

    Shame on those that would support and defend pedophiliacs. You are either with us or against us, and the Catholic Church is against a strong moral code of conduct within its' own clergy.

    Proven time and again, across the country, in Courts, with REAL victims. More than "words" but actions.

    Playing with fire, chasing Pastor Wright, when other religious sanctuaries are so wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Was Jesus a pedophiliac?
    He never married.

    That is what the Catholic Church pretends, defending those Priest that abuse small boys. Time and again, in Parish after Parish.

    Known to the authorities within the Church. So say the Courts, so say the jurors.

    What would Jesus do?
    Why don't the Catholics?

    ReplyDelete
  58. Trish,

    Good luck and prayers to you and your family with your mom.

    I've seen that play. Didn't like it either.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Good luck and prayers to you and your family with your mom.

    Me too, Trish.

    ReplyDelete
  60. And from me also, Trish.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Vell, I don't have words to say what I think about this. The Men Can Do It But The Dogs Can't

    The Netherlands is lost, drifted into the netherworld. At this point, what the hell, might as well turn it over to the muzzies, as far as I can see.

    ReplyDelete
  62. pom poms out tonight

    trying to learn us again

    preach it brothers

    i just want to make sure though-

    what is the definition of reject again brother

    che rat,
    a christian theologian now?

    and of course, a staunch conservative
    ................

    went fishin one time, caught a big one, the more that fish wiggled and squirmed, the tighter that hook sunk in

    ReplyDelete
  63. Hey, Albob:
    What are we going to do for spare parts for the Airbus Tankers when France goes Muzzie?
    Curious folks want to know.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Be cool to have a big Cartoon Boxing Glove Knock the Sneering Saint on his ass!

    ReplyDelete
  65. Meanwhile, Clintons hit new low(is this possible?)--

    HILLARY SENDS FERRARO AFTER THE RACE CARD

    By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

    Published on DickMorris.com on March 14, 2008.

    Hillary The Movie - View The Trailer & Purchase The DVD Here!

    Geraldine Ferraro, a pioneer and trailblazer in American history, has done more to ruin a sterling reputation in the past few days than anybody but Eliot Spitzer. By claiming, I think falsely, that Obama would not be where he is if he were white or a woman, I think she totally overlooks the impact of his charisma , eloquence, demeanor, message, use of the Internet, focus on caucus states, and his refusal to take special interest money as factors in his sudden rise. She betrays a stunning inability to look more than skin deep for reasons for his success.

    But this begs the real question: Ferraro is no racist. Her entire career speaks to the contrary. So why is she now so unable to peer into the deeper reasons for Obama's success and stopping at skin level?

    The blunt fact is that Geraldine Ferraro would not make a statement like this one without at least the tacit knowledge and acquiescence of the Clintons and their campaign. Ferraro is an old pro and would know enough not to shoot off her mouth without making it part of a carefully conceived strategy to discredit Obama based on race.

    As such, her comments need to be seen as a piece with the attacks on Obama's minister and his endorsement by Farrakhan. With Hillary now almost totally dependent on older voters, the race card may be the only way to produce the kinds of margins she needs in the future primaries to offset Obama's large and widening lead among elected delegates.

    The fact is that Obama cannot and should not be held accountable for the ranting and raving of his minister, unless he fails to disavow these remarks. He has done all he needs to do in distancing himself from the likes of Farrakhan. And is success is due to his imaginative use of the political process to achieve what he has earned.

    Obama out-organized Hillary by focusing on the small caucus states in February, by which time Hillary confidently expected the race to be over.


    Obama out-messaged Hillary by refusing special interest PAC or lobbyist money, giving him a way to paint Hillary as the candidate of the Washington establishment.

    Obama out-fund raised Hillary by understanding the potential of the Internet to raise quick and clean money and to permit reloading quickly.

    Obama out-positioned Hillary by using her claim to experience (faux as it was) to paint her as just another cycle in the oscillation between Bushes and Clintons which has dominated our politics for two decades now.

    Obama out-spoke Hillary by showing and eloquence and elegance that she cannot hope to match.

    Obama out-targeted Hillary by focusing on young voters and grasping the amazing insight that in an election with a black and a woma n, that age would be the decisive variable.

    And now Hillary is trying, through her surrogate Ferraro, to make it appear that all Obama had to do was show up, show some skin and win.

    Even for the Clintons, this is a new low.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Buy 'em from the netherworld, what else?

    ReplyDelete
  67. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  68. A Flop Flopper:

    "Senator Barack Obama’s stance toward his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has gradually gone from fulsome praise to growing distance to — as of now — denunciation."

    ReplyDelete
  69. "and his refusal to take special interest money as factors in his sudden rise. "
    ---
    Dick is such a funny funny guy.
    Specially when he's sucking a prostitutes toes!

    ReplyDelete
  70. I think HE wants back in the WH.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Reverend Wright's been told to get lost temporarily--



    Controversial minister leaves Obama campaign
    Presidential candidate condemns words but not ministry of former pastor--

    Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., condemned racially charged sermons by his former pastor Friday and urged Americans not to reject his presidential campaign because of “guilt by association.”

    Obama’s campaign announced that the minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., had left its spiritual advisory committee after videotapes of his sermons again ignited fierce debate in news accounts and political blogs.

    Obama did not clarify whether Wright volunteered to leave his African American Religious Leadership Committee, a loose group of supporters associated with the campaign, or whether the campaign asked him to leave.

    “I think there was recognition that he’s obviously on the verge of retirement. [that] he’s taking a sabbatatical and that it was important for him to step out of the spotlight in this situation,” Obama said.

    Wright was the latest in a series of advisers to Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who have stepped aside as supporters of both candidates trade racially charged accusations.

    Obama rejects comments
    Obama spoke warmly of Wright, who retired last month as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Wright is a man “I’ve known for 17 years, [who] helped bring me to Jesus, helped bring me to church,” he said.

    “I strongly condemn” Wright’s statements, but “I would not repudiate the man,” Obama said. “He’s been preaching for 30 years. He’s a man who was a former Marine, a biblical scholar, someone who’s spoken at theological schools all over the country.

    “That’s the man I know,” Obama said. “That’s the man who was the pastor of this church.”

    But Obama acknowledged that “there’s no doubt this is going to be used as political fodder, as it has been in the past.”

    “What I hope is [that] what the American people will trust is what I believe,” he said, that “my values, my ideas, what I’ve spoke about in terms of bringing the country together will override a guilt by association.”

    But the sermons, at least one of which was delivered long before Wright retired last month, revived uncomfortable questions about Obama’s ties to the minister, whom conservative critics have accused of advocating black separatism.

    A videotape of one sermon captures Wright using a harsh racial epithet to argue that Clinton could not understand the struggles of African Americans.

    “Barack knows what it means, living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people,” Wright said on Christmas Day of last year. “Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a [N-word]!”

    In another sermon, delivered five days after the 9/11 attacks, Wright seems to imply that the United States had brought the terrorist violence on itself.

    “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York, and we never batted an eye,” Wright says. “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is brought right back in our own front yards.”

    In a later sermon, Wright revisits the theme, declaring: “No, no, no, not God bless America — God damn America!”


    Click for related content
    Discuss: Barack Obama’s pastor troubles
    First Read: Confessional Friday for Obama


    Obama: I didn’t hear inflammatory sermons
    Obama took the title of his 2006 autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope,” from a sermon by Wright, who baptized him and officiated at his wedding. He has called Wright “a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible.”

    In his remarks on MSNBC, Obama expanded on a brief posting that was made under his name earlier Friday afternoon on the Huffington Post Web site.

    “The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation,” the posting said, adding that over the years, “Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life.

    “In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.”

    Obama wrote that he had known of similar statements by Wright over the years, which he strongly condemned. He wrote that he chose to remain in the church because “Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community.”

    ReplyDelete
  72. Straight Talk:

    "“I think there was recognition that he’s obviously on the verge of retirement. [that] he’s taking a sabbatatical and that it was important for him to step out of the spotlight in this situation,” Obama said. "

    ReplyDelete
  73. In a later sermon, Wright revisits the theme, declaring: “No, no, no, not God bless America — God damn America!”
    ---
    Obama: I didn’t hear inflammatory sermons

    The Saint as the See no Evil Monkey.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Making Obama Unelectable

    Mark Penn declared today that Barack Obama "really can't win the general [election]." Of course, it's silly to say that Obama or Clinton "can't" win the general. There's not even good evidence to suggest that Obama is less likely than Clinton to win the general. Currently, the RCP poll average has both defeating John McCain by an average of 1.5%. Before the last couple weeks, when McCain and Clinton have both been making mutually-reinforcing attacks on Obama nearly every day, Obama was running well ahead of Clinton in those head-to-head matchups.

    Both Obama and Clinton have significant drawbacks as general election candidates. I think Obama's potential -- that is, in situations when a high-profile Democrats is not reinforcing the GOP message every night -- is much greater than Clinton's The basic fundamentals are best captured by the Gallup Poll's favorable/unfavorable rating, which is the basic measure of a politician's popularity, for Clinton and Obama. Here's Clinton:

    Poll shows Clinton's rating abut even.



    And here's Obama:

    Poll shows Obama's ratings much higher for favorable than for unfavorable.



    That's an enormous difference -- a thirty-point gap. Obama has plenty of flaws as a general election candidate, but they're not as deeply-rooted as Clinton's.

    As I said, Obama was running well ahead of Clinton in head-to-head matchups a few weeks ago, and now they're tied. After several more weeks of Clinton reinforcing McCain's message against Obama, Clinton will probably be performing better than Obama against McCain. This is the point I made in my TRB column. She needs to convince the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to split for her by about a 2-to-1 margin. The only way she can get a split like that is if she can persuasively argue that Obama is unelectable. And the only way she can do that is to make him unelectable. Some people have treated this as an unfortunate byproduct of Clinton's decision to continue her campaign. It's actually a central element of the strategy. Penn is already saying he's unelectable. It's not true, but by the time the convention rolls around, it may well be.

    --Jonathan Chait

    Here's hoping they destroy one another, like matter and anti-matter. Poooff!

    ReplyDelete
  75. spiritual advisor and mentor for 20years, mr. wright has a lot to say about white people it seems

    now...precisely who are those captors discussed again in concept 8, Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness?

    Mr. Obama:

    "A - SENSIBLE, HEARTFELT-
    list There was one particular passage in Trinity's brochure that stood out, though, a commandment more self-conscious in its tone, requiring greater elaboration. 'A Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness,' the heading read. 'While it is permissible to chase 'middleincomeness' will all our might,' the text stated, those blessed with the talent or good fortunes to achieve success in the American mainstream must avoid the 'psychological entrapment of Black "middleclassness" that hypnotizes the successful brother or sister into believing they are better than the rest and teaches them to think in terms of "we" and "they" instead of "US."'"

    Others have never been proud of America, wonder what the impetus behind this perspective is?

    Have Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky been added to Mr. Obama's foreign policy advisors yet?

    ReplyDelete
  76. A day at the VondelPark in Amsterdam, or The Garden of Earthly Delights

    Hieronymus Bosch, seer

    ReplyDelete
  77. Have Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky been added to Mr. Obama's foreign policy advisors yet?

    Lord, have mercy.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Thank you for your prayers and wishes.

    She's in excellent spirits as the side effects thus far have been much milder than anticipated by all. She's mostly irritated by the weird chemical smell she gives off (I'm sure you wanted to know that) though no one seems to notice but the dogs. Dad couldn't smell rotting lunch meat in his own shirt pocket. How fortuitous.

    She's purchased a wig. She WILL lose her hair in a couple of weeks.

    One treatment down; three to go. Every day now that she doesn't feel like total crap is by definition a damned good day.

    It's all relative.

    ReplyDelete
  79. trish,

    I wish your mom all the luck in the world!!! (lest you think I would hope otherwise)

    Dougo,

    How can you on the one hand get your knickers all in a twist about Obama's racist pastor and then a couple of post later have your panties all in a bunch about the French going muzzie preceded by a list of dangerous hispanics? What a bundle of contradictions you are.

    ReplyDelete
  80. She's a Pennsylvania Democrat, ash. Of course you wish her well! ; )

    ReplyDelete
  81. I'm inclined to agree with Rat that the Wright problem won't matter much in the long run of the election.

    But then I don't pay any attention to the likes of Hagee either, which got quite a bit of notice at places like Josh Marshall's.

    I hate to say it (and I can't speak for Rat) but some of us are rather deaf, or indifferent, to certain forms of dementia. It's part of the political scenery.

    ReplyDelete
  82. It won't sway any of the true believers, a lot of them are in Wright's church too, so to speak, but it might have some bearing on some fence sitters. That's pretty powerful stuff, still, even in this age, "Goddamn America"--a lot of people don't like the sound of that, and Obama's been there 20 years, the guy married him, they're buds.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Your expertise is wanted al-Swede-Al!

    And any Swedes or Dutch out there? What do you find?
    My Thursday column is about Eliot Spitzer and, more broadly, how we should approach prostitution.
    I argue that the evidence suggests that legalization has not worked well, and that the Swedish model of going after johns may be the best bet.
    I’d welcome your comments.

    ReplyDelete
  84. "I hate to say it (and I can't speak for Rat) but some of us are rather deaf, or indifferent, to certain forms of dementia. It's part of the political scenery."
    ---
    Anybody that lived through the Sixties Close up knows that whatever it's called, that if it gets a good start, it becomes a Hell of a lot more than mere scenery.
    ie, the Panthers, Weathermen, SDS and etc.
    or the Rodney King Riots and others instigated by MF's like Wright and Sharpton.
    A lot of real victims resulted from that insanity, and the course of the nation is still different because of them.

    ReplyDelete
  85. It is powerful stuff, bob. I just don't anticipate Obama being increasingly associated with those statements. Again, that may be simply a consequence of my own inclination to ignore the more frothy types. Of any persuasion.

    Unless they're policy advisers. That's a different story.

    Now, if you gave Wright an advanced degree from MIT, a place in a think tank, a more sophisticated manner, and a probable position in the Obama WH, I'd pay closer attention. Not sure many others would. And isn't that instructive.

    ReplyDelete
  86. What a bowlful of liberal spaghetti "logic" you are.
    Does publishing the truth about the extremely high rate of Hispanic Homicides make me a racist, since the MSM Default, is to cover it up?

    ReplyDelete
  87. He was an advisor, Trish, and he still would be if Barry could get away w/it:
    Doesn't that reflect rather poorly on Saint Barry?

    ReplyDelete
  88. Sharpton was just a small time politician when he got some Jews burned alive.

    ReplyDelete
  89. I was in diapers, Doug.

    Closest thing I know: Rodney King riots.

    ReplyDelete
  90. He was a campaign adviser. It's not the same thing.

    ReplyDelete
  91. If McCain had Duke for a Campaign advisor, it wouldn't bother anyone?

    ...and besides, he ran a whole lot of important decisions by this great sage, not just campaign advice.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Doesn't that reflect rather poorly on Saint Barry?

    Sat Mar 15, 01:52:00 AM EDT

    What reflects poorly on Saint Barry is in the eye of the beholder. What reflects poorly on Saint Barry to me, is Saint Barry's own policy positions, which I shall be voting against.

    I am voting for Saint John, soon before bidding farewell to Saint George.

    ReplyDelete
  93. Trish,
    Have you read "Radical Son?"
    It reads like an action novel, and Horowitz isn't easy on himself at all.
    States that he committed treason, for instance.

    ReplyDelete
  94. I think you have a double standard for racism in different groups of people.

    ReplyDelete
  95. if you gave Wright an advanced degree from MIT, a place in a think tank, a more sophisticated manner, and a probable position in the Obama WH,-- you'd have Noam Chomsky.

    ReplyDelete
  96. The trouble with Steve Jobs
    Jobs likes to make his own rules, whether the topic is computers, stock options, or even pancreatic cancer. The same traits that make him a great CEO drive him to put his company, and his investors, at risk.

    ReplyDelete
  97. All I can say Doug, from inexperience, is, in answer to your question, that..

    When love is free
    Prostitution will be
    A memory...

    ReplyDelete
  98. If you gave him a wig, a feathered headdress, and a dangly leather jacket, he'd be Ward Churchill!

    ReplyDelete
  99. By George!, I'll never vote for George again!

    ReplyDelete
  100. Love is pretty free among US Girls, judging by the VD Rates.

    ReplyDelete
  101. I wouldn't even vote for his beautiful daughter.
    Plus, she's married, or engaged.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Churchill model has the advantage of not having to print out a degree:
    He just swears it exists.

    ReplyDelete
  103. I have a PhD too, I swear it. Plowed, hard & Dry.(That's an unsung ag degree that few attain)

    Reverend Wright, Professor Chomsky, Chief Churchill--all the same guy:)

    ReplyDelete
  104. If you quit reminding us of your relationship with that Deere, we'd all start picturing you in your jacket with the leather elbows, smoking a pipe in your office in the English Dept.
    Are you Bi, by the way?
    (Speaka de Swedish?)

    ReplyDelete
  105. I think you have a double standard for racism in different groups of people.

    Sat Mar 15, 02:02:00 AM EDT

    I think it has more to do with my everyday circumstances. Though not unacquainted with black racism, the racism I have more often encountered, Doug, is the racism of other white people, which I find most depressing, and always have.

    Other white people by and large are my milieu. My lifelong milieu. It's not surprising that's where my attention lies. That's the world I inhabit.

    And while often saddened or offended by racism, I don't feel threatened by it.

    ReplyDelete
  106. My most vivid encounter with white Racism was way back in the Army.

    The day MLK was assassinated, I was eating dinner at the house of the officer in charge of my motor pool, having done some work on his car.
    When the announcement was made on the TV, he said
    "He got what he deserved."

    I think my face revealed a lot, in my shock, and his proper Christian Wife said "Harold!"
    (or whatever his name was)

    You mentioned running into some racist folks down there, were you talking about white folk?
    (I assumed the natives, some of the most openly racist folks I've met wrt Blacks, were Cubans)
    You didn't say whether you've read Radical Son.
    I recommend it highly for an inside look.
    Quick and gripping read too.
    (at least it was back when I read it.)

    ReplyDelete
  107. Blacks are threatened by racism, and murdered by racists every day wherever Hispanics have decided to take over their neighborhoods.

    ReplyDelete
  108. The city of Los Angeles is run by Hispanic Racists.

    ReplyDelete
  109. Amazing statistical fact from LA County DA:

    LA County has a larger population than 43 states!

    Amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  110. That's hard to believe, isn't it! 43 states. I remember L.A. Dad and I went down there quite a few times, when his partner was in the oil business, selling gas locally, and had to go, meetings at the corporate headquarters there, plus my sis worked there for a while. Dad and his pard went down to the Rose Bowl ten years in a row too. I remember the smell of the air, had never smelled that metallic air/taste before. We went up to some hill to look at a model home one night, I couldn't believe the sea of lights. I remember Wilshire Boulevard and the fancy cars. I remember the police sirens all the time, around the hospital where my sis worked(L.A. General). I remember Las Vegas when it was practically nothing. The Golden Nugget was a biggie, then. Bryson in his book The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid has some interesting stuff about the nuke tests near Vegas. I remember when the hotel shook from an underground blast. Many were open air tests then, too. L.A., an entirely new world, like Mars, to me.

    I remember one of my older aunts speaking Swedish once in a while. I know nothing of it.

    ReplyDelete
  111. The white racism I've encountered has been among relatives in the Midwest, though mostly of a departing generation, and among acquaintances in the South and Mid-Atlantic. The racism I encountered in the Army was in Basic, and it was black racism. Basic was my social introduction to a broad spectrum of young women. I was ever so glad to reenter the narrower spectrum in MI. I have rarely encountered it in or around the military since.

    The racism in South America is, unsurprisingly, light skin v. dark skin. Latin v. black. And one might more accurately call it classism. While light-skinned people are everywhere among the poor, dark-skinned people are rarely, if ever, among the wealthy. And they are very frankly, very openly looked down upon.

    Americans are held in high esteem for their education (not necessarily for their income, as the Colombians in these parts are phenomenally well-off) and most young Colombians in what might be called the governing class are prepped for American university. At the same school my son now attends. No blacks at the school, though not by regulation. They just haven't made it there yet.

    ReplyDelete
  112. I'll have to remember to look it up before we take it back, but Bryson said in The Life and Times, that there was a nuke test back east, if you can believe it, but I can't remember where, maybe in the south somewhere.

    I don't remember anything about that when I was growing up, never heard of it.

    ReplyDelete
  113. No, I haven't read it, Doug. And between farting around on the internets, having to learn Spanish, and attending to various and sundry things, it might be awhile. I barely finished this last O'Rourke, and I bought it in the Newark airport two months ago.

    I used to read at least four, five books a month. Somewhere, I'm sure, are those grown-ups who still do.

    ReplyDelete
  114. "as the Colombians in these parts are phenomenally well-off"
    ---
    Where does that come from?

    ReplyDelete
  115. When love is free
    Prostitution will be
    Only a memory..

    Hookers hit hard times---

    Madam: Sex Too Hard To Sell These Days
    Oldest Bordello In Hamburg's Red-Light District Is Shutting Down For Lack Of Business

    HAMBURG, Germany, Mar. 14, 2008

    (AP) The oldest bordello in Hamburg's red-light district is shutting down for lack of business, according to newspaper reports published Friday.

    The family-run Hotel Luxor, established in 1948, is being sold to an investor and will close down for good next month, madam Waltraud Mehrer said, according to the Hamburg Morgenpost and Bild newspapers.

    She blamed the decline in business on easily available Internet porn, the rise of call-girl services, and "noisy discos and dance clubs" on the same street as her business, the newspapers reported.

    "You can't make any big money selling sex in St. Pauli any more," she was quoted as saying, referring to the area that includes the red-light district. "The only thing still in operation are the table dance clubs."

    The club's heyday was in the 1970s, when it was open 7 days a week, with 12 prostitutes on hand.

    "Our customers were well off, they didn't scrimp," she said. "That's also changed today."

    Hotel Luxor today employs four prostitutes, and is only open Tuesday through Friday nights.

    "Two thousand euros (US$3,080) per night _ it was like that once," one of the women, who gave her name only as "Nicole," told the Morgenpost. "Now I can only dream of that. I've been here a year and only earn around euro200 (US$308) per shift."

    ReplyDelete
  116. I remember riding in to LA as a kid too, AlBob, back when it was a city apart from the rest of Southern Coastal Calif.

    A neat guy that worked a few weeks a year at my dad's store lived there.

    He was always taking trips to Mexico in his yellow and brown Nash Rambler that had the seats that turned into a bed.

    He'd give us slide shows of Mexico back when it was safe and beautiful.
    The good old days.

    He and his ladyfriend both had places in neat little neighborhoods, his having a yard with oranges and etc and a little concrete incinerator.
    ...you'd go to jail for firing that up these days!
    Fireplaces are no longer allowed in new houses.

    ReplyDelete
  117. "sex in St. Pauli any more,"

    St. Pauli Girl Lager!

    Not a bad brew.
    Ever had it, Albob?

    ReplyDelete
  118. ""If I had thought that was the tenor or tone on an ongoing basis of his sermons, then yes, I don't think it would've been reflective of my values or my faith experience...
    If I had heard them repeated, I would've quit."
    "
    ---
    Flop Flop Flopping ever deeper into the lie.
    I think some more video will be surfacing.
    The above is obviously a boldfaced lie.

    ReplyDelete
  119. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Fran cracked down on the farmers(blue grass farmers) burning fields here.

    Never heard of that brew:)

    Well, maybe I've heard of it, kinda rings a bell, is it a real beer?

    Got a date with the sandman. Nite.

    ReplyDelete
  120. Of course, earlier today, AFTER HEARING THEM,
    He said he WOULDN'T Ask Jerry to Step down!

    Change is coming a mile a minute these days from Saint Barry.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Yeah, has a picture of a Fraulein all decked out in German Garb carrying the Frothy Pitchers to us.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Where does that come from?

    Business. Both domestic and multinational. Importers and exporters.

    Is all of it legitimate? Absolutely not.

    ReplyDelete