Gonna’ Party Like It’s 1989

Greg Norman atop the leaderboard at the British Open.
How cool is that?

Keep Voting Until You Get It Right!

Ah, the gallic arrogance of the Ruling Class! Here’s Democracy, Euro-Style

Irish politicians reacted angrily Wednesday after French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested Ireland should hold a second referendum on the EU’s new treaty, after rejecting it last month.
Irish voters dealt a blow to the European Union last month by rejecting the Lisbon Treaty in the only popular vote on the text anywhere in the 27-nation bloc.
According to deputies who attended a meeting with Sarkozy Tuesday, he said that the Irish would “have to re-vote”, despite 53 percent opposition.
A key adviser to the French president said later on Wednesday that Sarkozy could ask Ireland to hold a second referendum on the document, but with some minor changes.
“One of the solutions would be indeed to eventually ask the Irish to re-vote, but probably not on a text that would be exactly the same,” said Henri Guaino in an interview to French television.

Gee, are they going to let the folks who voted “Yes” also revote?
Hell, are they ever going to let everyone in Europe vote on it, too?
Methinks…not.

About Time

To Every Thing

…turn, turn, turn.

…I’ve never had any doubt that the U.S. military would defeat Saddam Hussein’s army. There was never any doubt that if we poured enough resources in there, that we could lock down Iraq.

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)

…And that is a terrific opportunity, but the underlying issue, which is what the surge was supposed to accomplish, creating the space so that the Iraqi factions would actually start working together more effectively politically so that you have a stable government and you’ve got a relationship between the central government and the provinces that works, that has not yet occurred. And it is my belief that it will not occur unless they have a greater sense of urgency about it. Now is the right time for us to begin bringing our combat troops out of Iraq.

And a time for every purpose, under heaven.

…GWEN IFILL: That’s a final question, just to – I want you to think a little bit about the stage that you’re at in your campaign. You have 26 percent of people still think you were raised a Muslim. People look at your shifts on issues, from warrantless surveillance to gun control, and they say: “Who is this guy? What does he believe?” How do you begin to, in this stage in your campaign, tell people who you are and have it stick?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, first of all, I do think that this notion that somehow we’ve had wild shifts in my positions is simply inaccurate. You mentioned the gun position. I’ve been talking about the Second Amendment being an individual right for the last year and a half.

So there wasn’t a shift there.

…The fact of the matter is on the big issues — ending the war in Iraq, universal health care plan, a tax code that is fair for every American, having a serious plan to deal with this foreclosure crisis, capping the emission of greenhouse gases, increasing fuel efficiency standards on cars, investing in our infrastructure, increasing troops in Iraq, getting serious about a whole host of issues around civil liberties like closing Guantanamo and restoring habeas corpus — on those big issues that are going to determine the future of this country and whether or not ordinary Americans can achieve the American dream, I have been entirely consistent not just during this campaign, but through most of my adult life.

And so I don’t think it’s going to be hard to persuade people what I stand for because the truth is the things that I stand for today are the things I stood for 10 years ago and 20 years ago.

Good

Let her rot in jail and rethink her ways

(CNN) — Susan Atkins, a terminally ill former Charles Manson follower convicted in the murder of actress Sharon Tate, on Tuesday was denied a compassionate release from prison.
Susan Atkins, Califorina’s longest-serving female inmate, is shown in her most recent mug shot.
Atkins, 60, has been diagnosed with brain cancer and has had a leg amputated, her attorney said. In June, she requested the release, available to terminally ill inmates with less than six months to live.

Sorry, anyone who did this

According to historical accounts of the murder, Atkins stabbed Tate, who was eight months pregnant, and scrawled the word “pig” in blood on the door of the home the actress shared with director Roman Polanski.
By her own admission, Atkins held Tate down and rejected her pleas for mercy, stabbing the pregnant woman 16 times.

Never ever deserves to breathe free air.

Tired, Lots Of Work To Do This Week: Part Deux

Painting ’til the wee hours.
Art show. New Orleans. Four days.
::sigh::
So tedious, Kcruella is flying in from Jersey to help me suffer.
That is all.
Carry on.

“God-Like” Isn’t What It Was Cracked Up to Be

…any more, is it?

We interrupt the continued deification of Brett Favre — a first-ballot Hall of Famer and the most durable player in NFL history — with the following reality check.
Yes, Favre played long enough to throw the most touchdown passes and collect the most wins by an NFL quarterback. But let’s examine the second half of No. 4’s career. The truth is, Favre did little over the past decade to earn the gushing praise heaped upon him by our fawning brethren in the media.
After beating the San Francisco 49ers in the 1997 NFC Championship Game, Favre won just three of his last 10 playoff games. Eli Manning had more postseason wins in a 29-day span this past season than Favre had in his last decade with the Green Bay Packers.

And reality checks suck. So, enough already with the ‘comeback’, “Waaaaaaaa, I didn’t wanna quit!”.
Quit being a selfish prick who believes his own publicity and let somebody else have a shot while you still have some luster.

Ya Think?

“I am sure you see the absurdity of a university threatening an employee with discipline for reading a scholarly work that deals with the efforts of Notre Dame students in the 1920s to fight the KKK,” American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana attorney Ken Falk said in a letter to an IUPUI lawyer.

The irony is, with all that education…they don’t.

It takes the fall out from an article in the Wall Street Journal months later to force the “apology”.

Tired, Lots Of Work To Do This Week

That is all.
Carry on.

Why Wall Street Fears…

Obama

Investors this summer have been placing their bets on an Obama presidency, and for the most part that hasn’t been good for the market.
Without giving him a chance to explain himself in detail on the campaign trail or at the Democratic National Convention, they are voting with their shares by tossing financial, health insurance, manufacturing and high-dividend stocks into the ash can, and are growing skeptical about energy companies as well.
It’s not that major institutional investors don’t like the man — far from it. He has many backers among the financial elite, including multibillionaires George Soros and Ron Burkle. And it’s not that there aren’t many other reasons for investors to sell stocks now, as the global economy tangles with the terrible twin beasts of bank deleveraging and inflation.
It’s just that Obama’s rhetoric on taxes and health care is scaring common wealthy people with large capital gains from investments made over the past decade, and a lot of them don’t want to wait around to see whether it’s just populist fluff that might be set aside once he takes office.

Aside from the populist rhetoric, does anyone know what his policies actually are? It’s not a question of “giving him a chance to explain himself;” for god’s sake, the man is running for President. He should be laying out for us his plan.
And this is comforting:

Plus, the Democrats who run Congress know that a weaker economy favors their nominee — and they are loath to pass banking or trade legislation now to improve the nation’s industrial standing over fears that it could backfire and give comfort to the Republicans.

Because, obviously, the health of their Party is more important than the health of their country.
But don’t question their patriotism!

Chuck Schumer, Super Genius

The unbridled arrogance of this man never ceases to amaze or entertain.
Except now he’s cost us billions

The federal government took control of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank on Friday in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.
Citing a massive run on deposits, regulators shut its main branch three hours early, leaving customers stunned and upset. One woman leaned on the locked doors, pleading with an employee inside: “Please, please, I want to take out a portion.” All she could do was read a two-page notice taped to the door.
…Federal authorities estimated that the takeover of IndyMac, which had $32 billion in assets, would cost the FDIC $4 billion to $8 billion. Regulators said deposits of up to $100,000 were safe and insured by the FDIC. The agency’s insurance fund has assets of about $52 billion.
IndyMac’s failure had been widely expected in recent days. As the bank was shuttering offices and laying off employees to cope with huge losses from defaulted mortgages made at the height of the housing boom, nervous depositors were pulling out $100 million a day. The bank’s stock price had plummeted to less than $1 as analysts predicted the company’s imminent demise.

There was a massive run on the bank, which drained its assets away.
And what caused that run? Glad you asked:

IndyMac, which once employed 10,000, fell prey to a classic run on the bank, and regulators singled out Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) as having helped to fuel massive withdrawals. On June 26, Schumer said in letters to the FDIC, the OTS and two other federal agencies that IndyMac might have “serious problems” with its loan holdings.
“I am concerned that IndyMac’s financial deterioration poses significant risks to both taxpayers and borrowers,” he wrote. The bank “could face a failure if prescriptive measures are not taken quickly.”
That public warning prompted depositors to pull $1.3 billion out of accounts between June 27 and Thursday.

This damn attention whore, seeking the spotlight once again now that Hillary’s star has faded, decided to try his hand at self-fulfilling prophecy.
Thanks, Chuck.

I Am Sick With Dread in Anticipation

…of the autopsies.

Missing soldiers’ bodies recovered in Iraq
Pentagon confirms the deaths of men who were seized in 2007 ambush

Dear God, the possibilities are so horrific and I hope against hope that the animals who held them went against type this time.
Bless their brave hearts and comfort their brave families.
And I want to throttle anyone who can talk about Guantanamo unequivocally, as if we were capable of such bestiality.
Fuckers. I hate them.

South Carolina Is So Gay

Oh my goodness. Someone really wasn’t thinking when they approved this

South Carolina’s top tourism agency has canceled an overseas advertising campaign targeting gay tourists.
The campaign, tied to gay pride week celebrations in London, included ads that proclaimed “South Carolina is so gay.” A handful of other U.S. destinations joined the campaign, including Atlanta, Boston and New Orleans.
…Employees “exercised extremely poor judgment in approving participation in the program,” Prosser said. PRT, he said, will require more review of future overseas advertising, as it does with domestic advertising.

Gee, y’think?
What about “South Carolina is Beachin’!”

iDiots

I mean, c’mon, I’m as big an Apple Fan Boy as there is, and there’s no steenkin’ way I’m camping out over night on the sidewalk…for a phone.
iDiots.

I Knew It!

Via Insta, comes this encouraging news ahead of the weekend

Ending Moderate Drinking Tied To Depression
ScienceDaily (July 9, 2008) — Scientific evidence has long suggested that moderate drinking offers some protection against heart disease, certain types of stroke and some forms of cancer.
But new research shows that stopping drinking — including at moderate levels — may lead to health problems including depression and a reduced capacity of the brain to produce new neurons, a process called neurogenesis.

I have to say, one of the funniest lines I’ve ever read in one of these scientific articles is this one:

In mice that voluntarily drank alcohol for 28 days, depression-like behavior was evident 14 days after termination of alcohol drinking.

Bottoms up! Be Happy!

Battleship Potemkin

After dinner we decided to watch it last night; what a neat flick.

There are so many scenes and elements of this movie that are familiar, because so many directors have borrowed them from this 1925 classic. We recently watched The Untouchables, for example, and there’s the baby in the carriage rolling down the steps amongst the bodies…

I must sadly admit though that in my advancing age I confuse the Potemkin with the Aurora.
With regard to the crew of the Potemkin, I think this is pretty neat (from 1987):

Ivan Beshoff, the last survivor of the 1905 mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin, a harbinger of the Russian Revolution, died Sunday, his family said today. His birth certificate said he was 102 years old, but he contended he was 104.
Born near the Black Sea port of Odessa, Mr. Beshoff abandoned chemistry studies and joined the navy, serving in the engine room of the Potemkin.
The mutiny over poor food was the first mass expression of discontent in Czar Nicholas II’s military and later came to be seen as a prelude to the 1917 Russian Revolution.
The mutineers killed the captain and several officers. The entire Black Sea fleet was ordered to suppress the rebellion, but crews refused to fire on the battleship, and it sailed for 11 days before surrendering.
Mr. Beshoff had said he fled through Turkey to London, where he met Lenin. He settled in Ireland in 1913, saying he had tired of the sea.
Mr. Beshoff worked for a Soviet oil distribution company and was twice arrested as a Soviet spy, but became a beloved figure in the Irish community.
After World War II, he opened a fish and chips shop in Dublin.

What a funny world we live in.

I’m Not Sure How This Made a Major News Gathering Place, BUT

…somebody has great taste.
Ooogachaka, baby.

Good Thing The NOLA Police Brass…

..are crackin’ down on the real criminals

With minutes left in the last shift of his 35-year New Orleans police career, Sgt. Bobby Guidry received a call from a supervisor telling him he had been suspended for wearing the wrong uniform shirt, the veteran officer said.
The Police Department confirmed the censure Tuesday, though it quibbled with the term “suspended.” Rather, Guidry is “under investigation for wearing the wrong uniform,” said Police Department spokesman Bob Young.
Instead of the standard-issue all-black uniform, Guidry, a veteran officer in the city’s Uptown 2nd District, chose the powder-blue uniform shirt that he wore to work for more than three decades.

Yes sir, they come down hard on Blue Collar crime in the Big Easy.

So, I’ve Used “Dog” Myself For Years Now

“She’s a dog”, “he’s a horn dog”, “quit dogging me”, “I’m dog tired”, “dog gone it”…you get the idea. But like this?

…But its own gay rights group has opposed the move, claiming that cutting back the bushes was “discriminating” to homosexual men who used the area for late night outdoor sex known as dogging.

Never in my wildest imagination. Twisted sort of logic about it, I guess, with dogs, bushes, doggie sex sty…yeesh. Forget it. Won’t go there.

Save the little animals. Trim the bushes.

So Where Does That Leave the Furor

…over “Yo Quiero Taco Bell“, considering the Mexican attitude?

A comic-book character popular in Mexico for generations has run into a cultural barrier at the border, where Americans see him as a racist caricature.
… “This is absolutely insensitive toward race, in particular the African-American culture, and also people of color,” Quannel X said. “This is poking fun at the physical features of an entire people.”
But Mexican readers who grew up following the shenanigans of Memin say critics need to look beyond the cover and understand the stories.

Mexicans weren’t quite so understanding about the cute little dog…

…or another cartoon character years before him.

Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?

Who says golfers haven’t got a sense of humor?

Tiger Woods is out for the rest of the golf season, and so is caddie Steve Williams.
Caddies are a caring group, especially when it comes to their own, so it was only fitting that they take up a collection for a guy who’s player won’t be earning any more money on the PGA Tour until he recovers from reconstructive knee surgery.
Two weeks ago at the Travelers Championship, the caddies put up a sign in their trailer that said, “Steve Williams Benevolent Fund,” offering caddies a chance to donate to the cause.
For a money jar, they used a shot glass.

Hehehehe.

Hahahaha! If Someone Else Already Had This

I apologize. (I don’t get out much…)

Read more »

WASSUP??! They Eat Horses, Don’t They?

This is getting downright nasty.

Belgian-based brewer InBev will seek to remove and replace the board of Anheuser-Busch Cos Inc to secure a $46.3 billion takeover of its U.S. rival, InBev said on Monday.

In the “Why Does It Cost So Much?” Category

…add yet another entry.

BP’s rivals shift in Russian tussle
The fate of the second biggest foreign investment in Russia hangs in the balance amid signs of a shifting mood in the Kremlin which may have wrong-footed investors and one of the world’s biggest oil companies.
… TNK-BP, a highly lucrative 50-50 joint venture between BP and four Russian-connected billionaires, began in 2003 amid much fanfare in a deal blessed by then-president Vladimir Putin. It produces a quarter of BP’s global oil output and posted a net profit of $5.7 billion last year.
TNK-BP’s first five years were a success story. Former BP managers working at the venture talk with pride of how they improved management of oilfields using the latest technology, cut back leaks, and boosted operating efficiency.
… So when a campaign against TNK-BP suddenly started this year involving tax police, alleged labor code violations, security service sweeps and court cases, many assumed the Kremlin was pressuring the firm to accept a state partner.
A similar barrage of official harassment was unleashed in 2006 against Royal Dutch Shell to force it to sell a controlling stake in its giant Sakhalin gas venture to Russia’s state-dominated energy champion Gazprom.

The American public acts like the world does business just like US companies have to here. I can’t think of many places besides the United States where your investment in exploration, development and infrastructure is safe from nationalistic meddling.
-Putin sets the hook.
Of course, if America is utilizing her own national resources, foreign upsets in the supply chain won’t hit as hard.
But, nowadays, that’s a foreign concept.

Poetry

…of a different meter.

…a grossly mishandled cock-up…

I don’t agree with the sentiment per it’s target, but dang. You have to hand him the ‘spoken-as-I-see-it’ trophy.