…to see how green worked against the colors of my new absinthe design (BITCHING, in my humble estimation.)…
…I looked up from the camera to see he had thoughtfully placed almost the entire dinner fixin’s (taters in the oven) beside the cocktail to keep it company.
Ebola is, unfortunately, unable to mooch join us tonight, so it’s strictly an adult affair.
Ah, Friday night.
Shame about that, Ratboy.
major dad points us to this Susan Estrich column. It sounds a warning chime for Team Obambi, but I’ll betcha they’re not listening.
…The problem with all this fawning is threefold. First of all, the fact that the press doesn’t push doesn’t mean that, sooner or later, the Republicans won’t. They will. Every question the press doesn’t ask and Obama doesn’t have to answer will be the subject of a speech at the Republican convention, an ad down the road, a tirade by somebody that will ring truer than it should precisely because it hasn’t been addressed before. Do you really think McCain and his friends won’t push hard for Obama to admit he was “wrong” about the surge? Of course they will; every bit as hard as Obama pressed Hillary on her war vote. Better to deal with it in questions from Katie, get an answer down that puts the question to rest rather than leaving her hypothetical viewer scratching his head than waiting for it to come back in a debate. Attacking Katie is not the answer — Katie isn’t running for President.
Second, being the favorite of the press doesn’t necessarily win you votes. Most people don’t actually like the press. The friend of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Being liked by the boys and girls on the bus doesn’t necessarily earn you the respect of the people back home. Standing up to them, giving as good as you get, all that helps. But if being loved by the press were a sure route to success, Hillary Clinton would never have carried all those big states after March 1. Ronald Reagan would never have gotten elected President. George Bush would have lost, twice.
Obviously someone needed to rein in this woman during the wedding planning.
Story here. The whole HILARIOUS blog here, plus another gem they recommend that could be called “When Quotation Marks Go Wrong” (for the geeky wordsmiths among us) (not that there are that many).
TRENTON, NJ (AP) — Veteran Democratic state Assemblyman Neil Cohen is being investigated for child pornography possession on his legislative office computer, according to four officials familiar with the situation.
State Sen. Raymond Lesniak and Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, who share a Union County office with Cohen, released a statement Thursday night that confirmed an investigation.
“We have been in constant touch with the appropriate authorities throughout this situation, and will continue to follow the Office of Legislative Services guidelines and counsel in this matter,” they said. “As the facts became apparent in our office, we notified the appropriate agency and will continue to assist in any way possible. While it was our proactive steps that led the investigation to this point, we are appalled at what has transpired.”
We really, really need to clean house in Trenton.
Politics | Mr. Bingley | 8:26 am | Comments Off on Yet Another Great NJ Legislator
Passengers on a London to Melbourne flight have described their terror after a faulty door “popped” in midair blowing a hole in the fuselage.
Qantas flight QF30, with 300 passengers and crew on board, plunged 20,000ft after the faulty door caused an “explosive” depressurisation.
The Boeing 747 had just taken off from a stopover in Hong Kong when the incident happened. As the plane dropped from 30,000ft to 10,000ft, oxygen masks fell from the ceiling.
Debra Manchester, a passenger in first class, said there was a “huge bang” and a “massive rush of wind,” with debris swirling around the cabin. Mrs Manchester, a housewife from Buckinghamshire, said there was an atmosphere of chaos as passengers struggled to put their oxygen masks on.
Give me a solid, well-built metal plane over some high-falutin’ composite thingy any day.
Time for some heavy drinking.
I am, after all, a simple man. It would seem to me that if you are a guy who’s been married for 48 years and your wife is “totally devastated” because you’ve been caught on film in an S&M orgy with some prostitutes and you can think of “nothing more undignified or humiliating” for your two sons to experience that maybe, just maybe the blame and responsibility for these troubled times in your family lies with the fellow you see staring back at you every morning when you shave.
“It’s not my fault!”
But, like I said…
I am a simple man.
Obama Overseas! In Presidential Mode! Back Home, It’s McCain in a Golf Cart.
…All three cable news networks carried Mr. Obama’s news conference live and in full. They showed only parts of Mr. McCain’s forum and focused mostly on his reaction to Mr. Obama’s statements. Even Fox News broke away from Mr. McCain midevent to cover the rescue of a bear cub wounded in a California fire and nicknamed Lil’ Smokey.
It’s not that the guy’s not insufferable ~ we all know he is ~ but this mad media dash to aid and abet his pretentious posing is just disgusting.
Barack Obama, who bows to nobody in his understanding of this world, has some rather important news for Australia: you are henceforth part of Asia
Now to find Australia some Hope.
(h/t to Daughter, who noticed this over my shoulder while I was on Obama’s site)
(click post time to see full text)
…How much oil and natural gas is there offshore? No one really knows. According to estimates from the Interior Dept.’s Minerals Management Service [MMS], the U.S. has roughly 18 billion undiscovered and technically recoverable bbl. of oil and 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Eric Potter, associate director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, says that if these areas are opened up now, by 2025, 1 million additional bbl. per day could potentially be added to the market. Using International Energy Agency demand forecasts, by 2030 this production would equal less than 5% of U.S. daily consumption, and less than 1% of global daily consumption. “It would certainly help,” says Potter. “But it won’t make us energy-independent.”
I thought “dang! That’s gloomy! It’s almost like they’re saying it’s not worth drilling.” Well, the last oil “expert” they spoke to ~ after noting that our crude would probably wind up summers else anyway ~ says flat out it’s not.
…Former Vice-President Al Gore, who opposes lifting the moratorium, raised that point at a July 17 news conference on energy policy. “You take an oil deposit right off the coast of California — that’s more likely to be sold to China, — said Gore.
Well, dang! That’s gloomy, especially if that’s ALL the news that’s fit to print about oil independence. Drilling sounds like a big waste of dead fishes and carbon emishes, even if we act now. Al Gore says so. And I’m sure that’s how he means it to appear to the uninitiated in Goreschpeak. As my favorite pitchman would say:
“But WAIT!!!! There’s MORE!!!!”
Moseying on over to Instapundit, what to my wondering, wandering eyes should appear?
A headline ’bout 800 BILLION barrels under here!! Well, shee-it HOWDY!
It’s a shame no one reads the BLM releases and then asks Al Gore about those.
…Sometimes, it’s not good to know how the sausage is made.
But credit card and bank rules are too important to leave to the sausage makers, and fortunately, all comments made so far are available for public inspection. They are worth at least a casual browse.
The provisions addressing credit card practices are part of the Board’s ongoing effort to enhance protections for consumers who use credit cards, and follow the Board’s 2007 proposal to improve the credit card disclosures under the Truth in Lending Act. The FTC Act proposal includes five key protections for consumers that use credit cards:
* Banks would be prohibited from increasing the rate on a pre-existing credit card balance (except under limited circumstances) and must allow the consumer to pay off that balance over a reasonable period of time.
* Banks would be prohibited from applying payments in excess of the minimum in a manner that maximizes interest charges.
* Banks would be required to give consumers the full benefit of discounted promotional rates on credit cards by applying payments in excess of the minimum to any higher-rate balances first, and by providing a grace period for purchases where the consumer is otherwise eligible.
* Banks would be prohibited from imposing interest charges using the “two-cycle” method, which computes interest on balances on days in billing cycles preceding the most recent billing cycle.
* Banks would be required to provide consumers a reasonable amount of time to make payments.
A chance to rage against the machine? Priceless.
You can let the Federal Reserve know how you feel here (use the “Submit Comment” links at the bottom of the page).
(CNN) — “We had a dream. Now it’s a reality.”
That’s the slogan on a popular T-shirt linking Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential run to the Rev. Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality. It’s one of several T-shirts — including “Barack is my homeboy”– that reflect African-American’s euphoria over Obama’s White House bid.
But there are others who warn that an Obama presidency could hurt African-Americans. They say that an Obama victory could cause white Americans to ignore entrenched racial divisions while claiming that America has reached the racial Promised Land.
Paul Street, author of the forthcoming book, “Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics,” says Obama risks becoming an Oval Office version of talk-show host Oprah Winfrey. She and former Secretary of State Colin Powell are African-American figures whose popularity allows some white Americans to congratulate themselves for not being racist, he says
“They’re cited as proof that racism is no longer a significant barrier to black advancement and interracial equality,” says Street.
I mean, there’s just no getting ahead with some people. If a white votes for Obama, they’re progressive…but also racist evidently. If a white votes against Obama, they’re racist.
See? Everybody’s happy.
I don’t vote for someone because they’re a symbol or because of what they represent; anyone who does that is an ass. I vote for someone, or not for someone, because of what they say they will do…and based on what they’ve done. And when we’re talking about handing over the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, well, Hope! and Change! founded on the strong convictions and inspired leadership of over 100 ‘Present’ votes doesn’t quite do it for me.
I guess I should say racist me.
I try to always follow King’s dream for his daughters, that they will live in a country where they are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. And we’re much farther down that road today than we were when he spoke those words, even though there are many folks who have made careers out of acting as though things haven’t changed at all (yes, I’m looking at you Jesse and Al); there’s a lot of money in the Institutionalized Grievance Business and those folks will actively seek to protect their turf regardless of the harm that accrues to those they claim to champion.
PHILADELPHIA – A fired TV newscaster was charged Monday with hacking into the e-mail of his glamorous younger co-anchor hundreds of times for more than two years, as leaked information about her personal life helped lead to her own downfall.
Federal prosecutors say former KYW-TV anchor Larry Mendte gained access to Alycia Lane’s accounts from home and at work — about 537 times between January and May alone — and shared some of the information he found with a reporter. Lane’s attorney said the motive was jealousy, but authorities were silent on Mendte’s motive and his method.
…The allegations are the latest in what is playing out as a titillating local news rivalry that has already ended Lane’s career at KYW-TV, the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia. She was fired in January after a series of embarrassing off-camera incidents, including a scuffle with a New York City police officer.
Juicy juicy!
I have to say I just don’t understand why you’d do a lot of this type of stuff. The egos of these people must be insanely, insanely large; I mean, look at what they were getting paid for basically being a pretty face who reads off of a teleprompter
Rosen alleged that Mendte acted out of jealousy, starting when Lane was offered a new contract in February 2005. Lane was making $780,000, or about $100,000 more than her co-anchor, he said.
She was making $780,000 and he was making $680,000.
I’m sending KYW my resume.
And as Cronkite had his “And that’s the way it is..” sign off and Rather had his “Courage, Merry”, so too will I have my trademark phrase:
“And thanks for letting us at KY share your night.”
As giant oil companies like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips get set to report what will probably be another round of eye-popping quarterly profits, just where is all that money going?
The companies insist they’re trying to find new oil that might help bring down gas prices, but the money they spend on exploration is nothing compared with what they spend on stock buybacks and dividends. It’s good news for shareholders, including mutual funds and retirement plans for millions of Americans, but no help to drivers already making drastic cutbacks to offset the high cost of fuel.
…you can blame “grannies”. And retired school teachers. And the like. Bastardly billions of big oil = a food stamp free mutual fund. Maybe enough left over for a cohiba.
…And then in early 2007 came the surge, which so many of us in the antiwar left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men and women and billions of dollars after futility.
Eight women and one man convicted of adultery are set to be stoned to death in Iran, activists said Sunday.
Lawyer and women’s rights activist, Shadi Sadr, said the nine were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.
“Their verdicts are approved, and they may be executed at any time,” she told reporters.
…Most of the nine come from areas of Iran that have low rates of literacy and some did not understand the cases against them, she said.
One of Sadr’s colleagues, Mohammad Mostafai, said his client, Malak Qorbani, had plead guilty to adultery even though she did not know the meaning of the charge.
Amazing what those 7th century secret religious police types can persuade someone to do.
Greg Norman, at age 53, leads the Open after 54 holes.
Words just can’t describe how cool this is. What’s very enjoyable is watching the creative shots he’s hitting, the unique shots that a links course requires and which so many folks from this side of the pond have no idea how to hit; things like the 5 iron pitch shots from 130 yards.
But that’s what you need to do in a constant 35 mph wind.
Best of luck tomorrow, Greg; I would love to see you hang on and pull this off.
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 2:49 pm | Comments Off on Simply Amazing
Hot Air has the details on some credibility returning to the scientists. As Ed says
The paper points out that the warming seen on Earth during the period under question matched the warming seen on other planets in the solar system, a point repeatedly made by skeptics over the last few years. Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, and one of Neptune’s moons experienced the same climate shift at the same time, and Monckton assigns the blame not to SUVs or belching smokestacks, but to the only energy source all have in common: the sun. Solar activity during the past seventy years, Monckton states, exceeded what had been seen for 11,000 years, which led to the warming activity here on Earth and elsewhere in the system.
It’s good to see scientists remembering the scientific method.
He posts a 65. He’s a really nice guy (I met him briefly this Spring); I hope he keeps doing well.
And what a putt by Norman on 18…and 17. Great stuff.
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 7:26 am | Comments Off on Go Camilo!
Swill Food and Grog | tree hugging sister | 
July 25, 2008 8:06 pm | 
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