Occu Who?

Not a soul in Zucchini Park this morning.

Well, other than about 10 Sanitation Department fellows in their snazzy dayglo vests.

Does BAE REALLY Wanna Mess

…with Dakota Meyer?

Marine Who Received Medal of Honor Fights Allegations He is Mentally Unstable

In September, President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s most prestigious military award, to Sgt. Dakota Meyer, the marine who saved 36 of his comrades during an ambush in Afghanistan.

…But today Meyer, 23, is having trouble getting a job because of allegations by defense contractor BAE Systems that he has a drinking problem and is mentally unstable. Meyer filed legal papers Monday claiming the allegations were in retaliation for objections he raised about BAE’s alleged decision to sell high-tech sniper scopes to the Pakistani military.

How does BAE know what he drinks and whether he’s “unstable”, unless he’s come unglued IN the workplace, and there’s NO indication of THAT. It just appears that a national hero objected to something the British firm was doing and decided to blacken his name in the easiest, cheesiest way possible. And over something concerning our BESTEST, most TRUSTED friends in the WHOLE WIDEST WORLD, the PAKISTANIS?!?

…In March 2011, Meyer began working at BAE Systems, a British military contracting company, where he learned the company was trying to sell advanced thermal optic scopes to the Pakistani military.

“We are taking the best gear, the best technology on the market to date and giving it to guys known to stab us in the back,” Meyer wrote to BAE Systems manager Bobby McCreight, his former co-worker, according to the lawsuit.

“These are the same people killing our guys.”

Meyer sounds like a pretty unstable, unhinged, charge up the hill WAR veteran to me. Finds out that his own employer is, in his haunted and tortured eyes, aiding and abetting the enemy. So he takes matters into his own hands and…writes a letter containing his objections to his manager.

Clinical. Whack. Job.

Yeah.

BAE weasels like no ones’ business in their refutation ~ not of their claims concerning Meyer’s mental state, but their culpability as far as the Pakistani sales go.

…But BAE Systems is claiming that that decision is not up to them.

“The U.S. Department of State, not BAE Systems, makes the decision on what defense-related products can be exported…said Brian J. Roehrkasse, the vice president of public relations at BAE, in a statement.

“NOT UP TO THEM“?!?!?!? Aw, who are YOU kidding, douchebag? YOU decide what to S.E.L.L. ~ the government only tells you it’s legal to do so.

Busted. Pathetically.

I Guess The Budget Crunch Hasn’t Hit Ohio State

Over $4 million per year for their new football coach?

Meyer will become one of the highest paid coaches in college football, along with Alabama’s Nick Saban and Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops, and Texas’ Mack Brown. The school says he will receive a six-year contract that pays $4 million annually, plus another $2.4 million total in “retention payments.” He also can qualify for supplemental bonuses.

Insane and frankly unconscionable at a public institution.

Spam Of The Day

Someone necessarily assist to make severely posts I would state.

I think that someone is THS.

“What The Hell Are We Paying You For?”

Oh baby, some serious Christie Man-Love generated here

(via Ace)

The Cream Rises To The Top

Yes, just as I was getting all misty-eyed and nostalgic over the very very sad announcement that Barney Frank was not going to run for re-election along comes the joyous news that his replacement will be…Maxine Waters

Wall Street executives are bracing for the possibility that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) will take over as the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee after Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) retires.

Waters is in line for Frank’s spot and could become chairwoman of the panel if Democrats retake the House. Frank announced Monday that he will not seek another term in the House.

The Republic is in the very best of hands, it really is.

Looking For That Perfect Gift?

Perfect for me, that is? Well, Dear Readers, you know that wine is always the perfect, thoughtful, appreciated gift here at Chateau Bingley.

Now I just happened upon this little token of your appreciation this morning

Latour, (Pauillac), 2010

“It’s too early to know for sure, but the 2010 Latour appears to be a huge and massive Pauillac fruit bomb from this property. With 14.4% natural alcohol, this blend of 90.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8.5% Merlot and .5% Cabernet Franc, director Frederic Engerer told me it is unlike any other wine made at this estate. Possessing abundant amounts of everything, it even eclipses the 2009 in terms of power with a lower pH and higher total acidity. Representing only 36% of the production (making it even more difficult to find than usual, as this is the smallest of the Medoc first growths), it possesses an opaque black/purple color along with an extraordinary perfume of spring flowers, blueberry, blackberry and cassis liqueurs and hints of white chocolate as well as earth intermixed with vague charcoal and truffle-like components. With unreal concentration, full-bodied power, and a precision, freshness and refined level of tannins that are something to behold, this remarkable offering is one of my personal favorites of the vintage. It will undoubtedly shut down after bottling and enjoy 50-60 years of longevity.”

Doesn’t that just jump out at you and scream “I must buy this for Bingley!” Well, you should.

And at only $1,350 PER BOTTLE just imagine the joy you’ll provide me when I see that little case (a bargain at $16,200) nestled under our tree!

Of course, Sis has her heart set on the Petrus.

Casablanca Is One Of My Favorite Movies

So of course this Thanksgiving we (well I) had “champagne cocktails”

ordered from our Sasha stand-in (also me) in my best Captain Renault voice

I came here for the waters.

Reset!

He did after all say “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

So after snuffing Osama we now get this act of Smart Diplomacy™

(Reuters) – NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations, already deeply frayed, further into crisis.

Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in just under a third of the alliance’s supplies.

Thanks GOD we got rid of that Chimpy Cowboy, eh?

Now excuse me whilst I relax amidst all this love oozing around the world for the US.

Pshaw! Bingley (Good Man That He Is) Is a (Dare I Say It?) (Oh, I DO!) WIMP

For, while I also have to W.O.R.K. , major dad and I were, this very morning, for the first time ever in almost 30 years of marriage…keeping 700+ other foolish, hardy souls company freezing our collective asses off at 3:30 zero dark this a.m. in the Navy Exchange parking lot.

It wasn’t all bad ~ they walked boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts up and down the line, and had coffee available. (But with no girls’ room available, plus a vague hope of sleep if we got home by, oh 6 or so, I passed.)

The doors opened promptly at 4.

And, believe it or not, we all scuttled in, for the most part zeroing in on what we wanted. Ours involved clutching a ticket I’d picked up outside, so there wasn’t quite the pressure behind some of the other interior dives.

And we scored the new telly, which we now have to arrange to get delivered sometime.

I feel like a traitor. It’ll replace the 1988 one that goes to the bedroom to replace the ’84 cutting edge stereo model that still has the gorgeous “Black Stripe” picture and cool background story of having gotten it REALLY cheap, because Toshiba was selling the Russians nuclear submarine (or something) technology secrets that year. (But it only has 50 channels ~ an early FCC thing.) The thought of bannishing such a trooper to the storage unit…gads.

To answer your question: No. Nothing leaves casa de major dad unless it’s MUERTO. Dead. Done. Finished. Can’t be fixed. Even then, I weep.

So a new TV brings with it its own angst besides electronic loyalties. Furniture has to get moved around, so the feng shui is thrown off, as well as the vermin that counts on those corners and dustballs. We’ve discovered (Where a Thanksgiving Skype with Ebola pays off handsomely.) that our cable box has no HDMI sort of holes in the back, so major dad gets to waltz with the girls at the Cox office today, should they even be in residence. Then there’s the reprogramming issues and the BluRay player that came bundled with the telly.

It’s overwhelming. I’m going to need an extension on the Skypey camera so I can wheel Ebola’s eagle eyes all over the livingroom.

Considering the suffering to come, it’ll probably be the once and ONLY time in almost 30 years of marriage we venture forth, but it doesn’t change a thing about Bingley.

Shockingly I’m Not At The Mall

I just don’t get this whole Black Friday bit; it’s like the HallMark Holiday of commerce. Why oh Why would I possibly want to leave my nice cozy house, and my nice cozy stupor, to go to a store at midnight?

To shop?

Especially the leaving-the-stupor part is a big turn off.

Oh, and the teensy fact I have to work today also cut in to my stupor time, as well, sadly.

Happy Thanksgiving, My Darlinks!!

We Skyped for over an hour with Ebola this morning when he got home from stormy sky watching, so we are already VERY thankful.

Enjoy your day wherever you may be, stay safe and warm and, above all, happy.

He Had to Disconnect His Phone After One of These Pictures Went Viral

I can imagine the love he’s been getting.
He says lots of it’s been coming at 2, 3 in the morning, and that got old quick.

I Started Reading “The Dragonriders” Series When I Was Pregnant With Ebola

And the “The Crystal Singers”. I am so sad to hear of her passing, for she had such wonderous, accessible, engrossing tales to share.

GOD, they are FANTASTIC!

Science fiction author Anne McCaffrey dies at 85

Writer best known for the ‘worlds of her imagination’ in her ‘Dragonriders of Pern’ novels

Prolific science fiction and fantasy author Anne McCaffrey died Monday at her home in Ireland shortly after suffering a stroke. She was 85.

“The Thread” wreaked havoc on Pern. Scorched crops, laid waste to the land, economy ~ decimated the populace. Everyone watched for signs of the recurring menace when the cycle spun through towards its end.

I think it’s come again, but our defensive dragons are gone.

And so few people left with both courage and imagination.

Blame Bush!

Well Duh, of course it’s HIS fault

Bush tax cut debate dooms deal to cut deficit

WASHINGTON — A long-running war between Democrats and Republicans over Bush-era tax cuts doomed the debt supercommittee’s chances of reaching a deal. Efforts to overhaul the tax code may await the same fate as both parties gear up to make taxes a central issue in 2012 elections.

Both the Giants and the Jets sucked this weekend.

DAMN YOU CHIMPY!

Son Of A Farmer Dumps On Fly-Over Country

Jon Corzine moved to the Big City and got all high-falutin and sophisticated-like.

And now he’s hosed the farmer’s hedging business

(Reuters) – When the CME Group pledged $300 million of its own money to help former MF Global customers get their cash back faster, the exchange was likely thinking of customers like Kansas cattle rancher Tim Rietzke.

Fed up and frustrated with his broker’s collapse and what he sees as the CME’s slow efforts to help him retrieve $30,000 in stranded capital, Rietzke says his faith in the futures industry has been shaken to its core.

“I would be hedging some feeder cattle right now, but I’m not going to do it. I’m leaving them exposed to the cash market and I don’t like that,” Rietzke said.

Where are the media stake-outs of Corzine’s residence, asking him where the $1.2 billion is?

MF Global Doubles Up

The trustee doubles his estimate

The court-appointed trustee overseeing MF Global’s bankruptcy says up to $1.2 billion is missing from customer accounts, double what the firm had reported to regulators last month.

The trustee, James Giddens, has been combing through the accounts and finances of MF Global, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Oct. 31. He also says his plan to release about $520 million from accounts that have been frozen will mean nearly all the assets under his control will be distributed.

People need to go to jail. Boss-type people.

Oh, and sell your CME stock.

How To Make A Turkey Smile

Pathetic

That’s the only word that describes these supposed “leaders” of ours

The deficit-cutting congressional supercommittee is expected to announce tomorrow that it has failed to reach agreement on at least $1.2 trillion in federal budget savings, a Democratic aide said.

All they do is pimp and pose for sound bites. They can’t agree on $1.2 trillion in “cuts” over 10 years…while the current administration is over spending by $1.6 trillion every single year.

It’s disgusting and pathetic, and we need to get rid of all of them next year.

Nowhere in This NBC News Weekend Report on Mean Old Police Abusing Peaceful, Kumbayah Singing Occupiers

…will you hear one single word about ANY crime committed by ANY Occupier ANYWHERE.

EVER.

Apparently, there just weren’t any.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Couple this report with the hysterical (literally and figuratively) “Poet-Bashing Police“ op-ed in the NYT today (“…The deputy sheriffs, all white men, except for one young woman, perhaps Filipino, who was trying to look severe but looked terrified, had black truncheons in their gloved hands that reporters later called batons and that were known, in the movies of my childhood, as billy clubs….“) and I was almost goaded into shedding a tear for the stifled flower drum song, the loss of their innocence at the hands of these monsters in stormtroopers’ uniforms…

Not.

UPDATE: Oh, just a BIT more context on the pepper spraying in this longer clip than the viral one. “Fuck the police!” who just happen to be surrounded, for starters. “We use our voices! You use weapons!” for the chorus and the Chancellor ordered the protestors moved.

From the comments:

Ya gotta love the chancellor.
She orders the campus police to remove the protestors, then calls it ‘chilling’ when they do.
I’m sure the police are glad she has their backs…

Really. Might as well be Oakland.

UPDATE: More pepper spray brutality goes “POOF!” under scrutiny…and longer video.

What a FANTASTIC Weekend So Far! On Top of Virginia Beating FSU

…I get to read the most beautiful, poetic and truthful Sports Illustrated article ever written. Why is it so?

Because I HATE WADE PHILLIPS’ GUTS, that’s why. And the article’s ALL about how BAD Wade Phillips SUCKS…and how great Doug Flutie art. **heartaflutter**

And payback, baby.

The Curse of Flutie strikes again with injury to Texans’ Schaub

Only a flake would doubt the Curse of Doug Flutie.

If you didn’t believe in the Curse before this week, it’s time to walk toward the light after we learned Monday that the high-flying Texans have lost quarterback Matt Schaub with a foot injury, most likely for the year.

This poltergeist of pigskin speaks to earthly beings through an extra-large medium, the Cold, Hard Football Facts. And what the Curse of Flutie tells us is quite simple: any team that employs Wade Phillips, now the defensive coordinator with the Houston Texans, is doomed to miserable failure — usually due to some sort of downfall at the QB position and always on the heels of cruelly heightened expectations that make the pain all the worse.

The Curse of Flutie is karmic retribution from the great spiritual beyond for the fact that Phillips benched our pint-sized hero passer before the 1999 playoffs when both were with Buffalo, despite the fact that the Bills had gone 10-5 with Flutie at the helm.

…Twelve years later, and Buffalo has never returned to the playoffs.

But that was just the start of the Curse of Flutie. It’s left a predictable trail of misery, defeat and missed opportunity in its wake from one end of the NFL to the other. Any team that employs Phillips is doomed to suffer.

…Football fans have two choices: they can believe in the Curse of Flutie or they can wallow in their ignorance and misery.

Before you decide, consider the statistical signature from the Gridiron Gods to affirm the Curse:

In Flutie’s last game in a Bills uniform in 2000, he pitched the proverbial perfect game, completing 20 of 25 passes (80 percent) for 366 yards, 14.6 YPA, 3 TD, 0 INT, and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.

It was and remains the only “perfect” passing game in the history of the Buffalo franchise. Jack Kemp never posted a perfect passer rating for the Bills. Joe Ferguson never posted a perfect passer rating for the Bills. Jim Kelly never posted a perfect passer rating for the Bills. Ryan Fitzpatrick never posted a perfect passer rating for the Bills.

Only Flutie has accomplished this feat … and then he never played another down in a Buffalo uniform. It was a fitting middle-fingered statistical salute to the organization that wronged him so badly in 1999.

Today Flutie’s earthly body works the broadcast booth analyzing college football and running his charity, the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism. He occasionally walks on water.

But his aggrieved spirit roams the NFL, seeking vengeance upon Phillips for the worst coaching decision of the 20th century.

All I can say is “aMEN!”

And, “Go, Eli!”

I Admit It: Obama Is Focused Like A Laser On Jobs

Focused on killing them, that is

President Obama’s United States Department of Agriculture has delayed shale gas drilling in Ohio for up to six months by cancelling a mineral lease auction for Wayne National Forest (WNF). The move was taken in deference to environmentalists, on the pretext of studying the effects of hydraulic fracturing.

…The Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP) recently estimated that drilling in the Utica shale, which is affected by the suspension of the mineral lease auctions, would produce up 204,500 jobs by 2015.

“The President’s plan is to simply say ‘no’ to new energy production,” House Natural Resources Committee chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash, said to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar during a hearing pertaining to hydraulic fracturing. “It’s a plan that is sending American jobs overseas, forfeiting new revenue, and denying access to American energy that would lessen our dependence on hostile Middle Eastern oil.”

Hey, how are all those good paying Green Jobs Obama has has created in the Gulf Region working out?

“Marco Rubio is a Parasite”

It got a little testy with Occupy Pensacola this week, since the mayor finally grew a pair, cut off the city-provided electricity and water the other day, and then ~ FINALLY ~ evicted them from the City Hall lawn, effective 11 p.m. tonight. So they’ve been spinning their heels since yesterday, marching around town, running into traffic, blowing horns, banging the drums slowly and, somewhere along the way, picking up a labor parasite in a suit.

Since they post most everything on their FB page, I thought I’d check in and, lo and behold, they were gathering for a march on Marco’s office. Quelle horreur! I did my Paul Revere imitation: called my girlfriend who’s his aide there, asked her “did you know…?” (of course not) Luckily enough, all the offices are in the Federal Courthouse, so security is grand, but it does make for wonderful theatre when protesting.

Welcome to Occupy Pensacola’s busy yesterday…

An area labor group allied with Occupy Pensacola demonstrators in a rally and march Thursday to protest Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s connections to big banks bailed out by the government.

Lee Pryor, mobilization coordinator for the Northwest Florida Federation of Labor Central Labor Council, led more than 50 protesters from the Occupy encampment at City Hall along Palafox Place to the federal courthouse, where Rubio’s Pensacola office is located. Pryor said the march from City Hall was in response to Mayor Ashton Hayward’s eviction of Occupy protesters from the property.

The group has until 11 p.m. today to leave their site.

Still a little fuzzy on labor’s involvement all of a sudden, but when they see opportunity, simpleminded targets and a shot a publicity, they jump.

Now, about that “Marco and the banks” thing…

…On Thursday afternoon, Molly Allbritten, 23, of Pensacola held a sign saying “Banks got bailed out/We got sold out/Rubio profited.” Allbritten said she made the sign because Goldman Sachs, Rubio’s fourth-largest campaign contributor, received a bailout from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, passed by Congress in 2008. She said the contribution showed Rubio benefited from the bailout.

Now that IS a baffler and a prime example of Occupy’s obstreperous obtuseness. First, Marco would most probably have voted against TARP, considering his “12 Ways to Reclaim America” advocated ending TARP immediately and returning all funds TO THE TREASURY, vice dumping whatever was left into the general fund, as Congress was attempting to do.

Well, had he BEEN in the Senate in 2008. He wasn’t even elected until TWO YEARS LATER and got a whopping $30K from them out of almost a million dollars in total donations from organizations. And, gosh. In spite of that mountain of payola, stupid little girl, the guy still wants the government to stop spending!

From where I sit ~ as a 53%er who PAYS for MY electricity, water and PERMIT if there’s ever ANYTHING I want to do in the city ~ I’d have to say the PARASITE label swings pretty firmly back on your mug. (Stopping there is an act of extreme generosity on my part.)

In addendum: for the ignorant ass on OP’s FB page who couldn’t figure out WHY a Senator would have a regional office (versus just his office in D.C….really), try researching “constituent services” when you find someplace to recharge your laptop. For a social sponger who expects everything handed to them with the latitude to throw a nasty tantrum if it’s not, I’m amazed the concept escapes you.

Brussel Spouts

Water. When you’re thirsty it’s what you drink. Why, Science even has a fancy term for being without water. They call it “dehydrated.”

And when you drink water, and I have this information direct from Very Top Scientists, you re-hydrate yourself.

Unless you live in Europe

THE EU was ridiculed last night after it took three years to issue a new rule that water cannot be sold as healthy.

In a scarcely believable ­ruling, a panel of experts threw out a claim that regular water consumption is the best way to rehydrate the body.

The bizarre diktat from Brussels has far-reaching implications for member states, including Britain, as no water sold in the EU can now claim to protect against dehydration.

…German professors Dr Moritz Hagenmeyer and Dr Andreas Hahn, of the Institute for Food Science and Human Nutrition at Hanover Leibniz University, applied for approval for the seemingly uncontentious claim that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration”. However, bureaucrats refused to back them.

After a meeting in Italy a delegation of scientists concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration rather than a risk factor that drinking water could control. Now their verdict has been turned into a regulation that will become UK law by December 6 and is bound to send shockwaves through the soft drinks industry.

This is the road the Big Government folks want to take us down.

This farcical sentence is worth reading again:

After a meeting in Italy a delegation of scientists concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration rather than a risk factor that drinking water could control.

Reduced water content in the body, called by us Commoners “dehydration”, is actually but a symptom of…itself.

Good god.

Zucchini Update

When I got off the bus this morning at 5:30 a.m. there was not a single Occupier in the park that I could see.

I saw a bunch of orange-vested city workers milling about.