Lara Logan

Has our prayers and thoughts for a full and complete recovery.

Barbaric goddamned animals.

ths sends: And the misogynist bastards aren’t only in Egypt:

“Jesus Christ, at a moment when she is going to become a martyr and glorified we should at least remember her role as a major war monger”

Nir Rosen felt the need to use his Twitter feed to savage Logan from the safety of his NYU berth. There’s lots more in this vein before he attempts to erase it and start a piteous attempt at apology (“…joking with your friends gets out of line and makes you sound like a dick…“. I watched it play out until late last night.). Geraghty and a number of others have saved it ALL. Lucky, as it were, because, as of this morning, Rosen has scrubbed his Twitter account of his NYU affiliation and DELETED the entire thing.

Oh. And all his apologist friends are sending him heartfelt Twitter condolences on his self-inflicted plight, like, “If you only know Nir Rosen as a lout…“, “You said you were sorry!” and “Has Anne Coulter ever apologised?”

I’d like to pass along some info, should YOU be in a Twitter activist frame of mind. The category is #FireNirRosen and you can play along here:

Contact the NYU Center on Law & Security and tell them to fire Nir Rosen – cls@juris.law.nyu.edu – 212-992-8854 – #FireNirRosen

I adore Lara Logan, as I told Bingley last night when he texted. She’s a complete and utter badass, and has been totally supportive of our troops in the field and fiercely protective of them. Her takedown of Katie Couric over the Predator strikes last year was nothing short of magnificent. You’ll notice, for all those who thought of her as a screaming liberal (Bingley included), that THIS Rosen asshole refers to LOGAN as a “war monger”. And that’s why. Whatever her previous politics, her reverence for our military when she’s working with them and her honesty has earned her my respect and much affection.

I can only hope her FULL recovery is aided by her indomitable spirit, and that she’s soon well enough to take out all that righteous fury on some greasy Nir Rosen ass.

May all the horrors of Hell be visited upon those who harmed her so brutally and a myriad of blessings on the women who came to her aid.

Those girls will yet need protection from what may come.

UPDATE: Thanks to Dave’s heads up, a “Don’t let the door hit ya in the ass!” resolution that’s just delightful well deserved:

NYU Fellow Nir Rosen Resigns After Bashing Lara Logan on Twitter

I still want her to open a can o’ whoopass on him. But I’m vicious like that.

Smart Power!

Or is that Poder Inteligente?

Argentina’s relations with the U.S. worsened sharply Monday as the South American country continued to hold military equipment it confiscated last week from a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane sent as part of a training course for local police.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, called on Argentina to return the property without delay.

“It’s absolutely necessary that they immediately return that material. It makes no sense for it to have been confiscated this way. This material was intended for a joint exercise in training people to rescue hostages,” Mr. Valenzuela Monday said on CNN en Espanol.

Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman quickly rebutted Mr. Valenzuela and called on the U.S. to apologize for violating Argentine law.

“I told him, ‘Arturo, we have to be careful about this. The laws are made to be followed here and in the U.S. We all need to follow them,'” Mr. Timerman said on CNN en Espanol.

Mr. Timerman accused the U.S. of using the plane to smuggle undeclared firearms, surveillance equipment and “various doses of morphine” into the country for ulterior motives.

My Spanish is a little rusty, but I think “various doses of morphine” translates as “un iPod con los Disursos de Obama.”

Of course, it also could be a gift from Hillary to Pres. Cristina Kirchner

Hillary Clinton has questioned the mental health of Cristina Kirchner and asked US diplomats to investigate whether the Argentinian president is taking medication to help her “calm down”.

The US secretary of state painted Kirchner as a volatile and emotional leader who suffered from “nerves and anxiety”, according to a secret cable sent to the US embassy in Buenos Aires.

We’re in the very best of hands.

Excuse Me For a Moment As I Wipe Off the Uneducated Cynicism That’s Dripping From My Chin

There. All tidy.

Now.

Screw the Pell Grants. Since when did college join the living, breathing “necessity/GODGIVENRIGHTTOS” for life itself, like water, food, shelter, elementary/secondary education and wine?

I’m heartily sick of this emphasis on the miracle that is a degree, especially when it’s come to be regarded as a natural course of progression, vice a goal to be worked towards: the icing on the cupcake of your completed and adequate foundational education, as it were. That gooey, delicious topping shouldn’t really depend on my tax dollars funding it in any sense that individuals are HANDED tuition monies, in addition to state institutions in order to keep their roofs from leaking or the lights on. (And no. I have no sympathy for either your intellectual or civic prowess, or ethnic/social class. You should study hard and be a good person, regardless.)

Get a job. Work while you go to school. It might even take years to graduate. How appalling.

A higher education is a worthy pursuit, of course. I wish I had had the opportunity and, quite frankly, the drive to WORK my ass off to pay for one. But I didn’t, hence the Marine Corps and a different sort of adventure. But those were the circumstances of my life and “the breaks”, as well as the genesis of my distaste for the whole grant/scholarship/student loan/you-owe-me-college state of mind.

No, I don’t.

With Ebola’s entire college tuition having been paid for by the fruit of major dad’s labor, we’ve also lived the philosophy we espouse.

Dreams shrivel and die all the time. Get over it. (No one ever mentions how many of those opportunities were squandered, or doomed to begin with.) (Yes, I r a H8R.) With the average American just looking to keep the food and shelter God Given Right thing afloat over the course of the next year ~ hell, even the next week for how many millions of us ~ screw the Pell Grants.

THS’s Spies With Their Concealed Cameras

…caught some video of me with my new car over the weekend

As you can tell I’m loving it.

I wonder if we’ll be seeing any similar film of Tim anytime soon?

I Notice Somebody Already Has the Remote and His Spot on the Couch Claimed

The Westminster Kennel Club Show must be on again.

(BeauBeau asked me to remind everyone and says to tell you, if your viewing time is limited, it’s really only the Sporting [aka: WABS!!!] and Terrier Groups that are worth a damn, and they’re both on tomorrow night. FouFou, yappy dogs and great, slobbery, dumb, hairy beasts on tap this evening. Yawn.)

Junior Senator Knows How to Make the Ladies Swoon

…with HIS Valentine’s Day message.

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio today issued the following statement regarding the President’s budget proposal:

“Sadly, the President has missed a golden opportunity to have an adult conversation with the American people about the seriousness and urgency of our debt crisis. The President’s budget falls far short of tackling our national debt in a serious way. Although we face a $1.6 trillion deficit and a staggering national debt that exceeds $14 trillion, the President’s proposal would add $7.2 trillion of new debt over the next ten years. The fact that the President’s ten year proposed ‘savings’ is less than this year’s budget deficit alone is proof that this is a budget that cannot be taken seriously.

“While the President insists he will take the commendable step of vetoing earmarks, his silence on entitlement reform, the absence of meaningful spending cuts and his reliance on anti-competitive tax increases will cause more economic uncertainty, stifle job creation and keep America on a path towards a diminished future.

“Today’s excruciating problems are the legacy of decades of profligate spending by both parties. We have a job-crushing debt because Washington has repeatedly postponed the tough decisions for someone else to deal with down the road. The American people have every reason to be disappointed by the President’s budget and by Washington politicians who either don’t understand the seriousness of our fiscal crisis, or who are simply not willing to confront this challenge head-on.”

When the Lamb Opened the Fourth Seal, I Heard the Voice of the Fourth Living Creature Say, “Come!”

…I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Thanks to NBC and this video, everyone needs to get the tinfoil out of the drawer. Again.

(Via Allah’s Twitter feed.)

This Is Beyond Absurd

The Russians are drilling into a 14 million year old lake in Antarctica, looking for signs of life under the ice, pure, unspoiled life after millions of years.

So, naturally, they’re going to fill the hole with kerosene

A Russian team searching for signs of life beneath a 14-million-year-old frozen Antarctic lake has had to halt drilling just a few meters from water, potentially damaging 20 years of work in the process.

The team — headed up by the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg — had to call off work just 29 meters [95-foot] short of the end goal because the Antarctic winter is fast closing in. News that they plan to fill the 3,749-meter [12,300-foot] borehole with kerosene to prevent it from freezing will further trouble groups who fear continued research will contaminate the lake.

Maybe if they put a match to it it they can call it an AntarcTiki torch…

The Air Force’s Newest Weatherman Wishes His Mummy a VERY Cheerful “HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!”!

…before he heads out for his Recruiter’s Assistant gig.

I hope your Valentine skies are as blue as mine, dear Swillers, and may your hearts be as full of love.
And naked babies with wings.

It’s So Cold Because

…it’s so warm

Freezing temperatures across a wide swath of Mexico the night of Feb. 3-4 have made a big impact in available fresh produce. Expect the effects to be felt in your supermarket any day now.

…One industry veteran told Jesse Driskill, operations manager of the Nogales office of Meyer LLC, that Mexico had not had a freeze like this in 60 years.

What made this one even worse, Driskill said, is that forecasts were 5 to 10 degrees higher than what temperatures wound up being. Many growers took precautions, he said, but they did not harvest early because they did not expect it to get so cold.

…The cold weather experienced across much of the US in early February made its way deep into Mexico and early reports estimate 80-100 percent crop losses which are having an immediate impact on prices at US grocery stores with more volatility to come.

Now as we know “early reports” quite often are exaggerated so we’ll just have to see how this pans out.

Luckily, we are blessed with a government that has declared we have no inflation, so at least we don’t have to worry about that.

(h/t the Blog Faddah)

Breaking News: Harry Smith of CBS News Will NOT Be Receiving

…DVD copies of Obama’s speeches for Christmas this year.

…As for whether or not President Obama had any real effect on the protestors here, or on the overthrow of the Egyptian government, last night we spoke with Wael Ghonim, the Google engineer who had been arrested for twelve days and held in captivity by Egyptian authorities…

…one of the engineers of this entire protest movement and he said, “No way.”

He’ll be lucky to escape an IRS audit.

Breaking News: Little Local TV Station Goes Boldly Where Networks DARE NOT TREAD

Declares “ETHANOL SUCKS FOR ENGINES and the new EPA regs will MAKE IT WORSE“. (Oh, yes they did!)
Watch the report. It’s a good one.

When you pump gas into your car… it probably never crosses your mind that you could be damaging your engine.

But mechanics say the 10 % of ethanol that’s added to our gas can cause big problems.

Now the federal government has approved increasing that level to 15 % for vehicles made after 2001.

That could result in a lot more car repairs. This is what the inside of a steel fuel line looks like after just a few years of gasoline with 10 % ethanol running through it.

Now the federal government says 15 percent ethanol is ok.
But mechanics here say it will cause more engine trouble.

…Since ethanol is made from corn food experts warn that increased corn production to make more ethanol will also result in higher food prices.
Ethanol Bad for Engines

Zbiggy’s Got a Point, Especially If the Powers That Be Are Watching CNN

…to get their “intelligence”.

…JIM LEHRER: Did you see the possibility of a spark coming, Dr. Brzezinski?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I think Steve said it correctly. In these regimes, you never see the spark until the spark occurs.

(LAUGHTER)

JIM LEHRER: Too late.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Exactly. And that’s the problem. And that’s exactly the problem.

However, we have to recognize the fact that the Egyptian people don’t have yet a variety of political voices to whom to listen and whom to follow…

…But the great uncertainty in all of this is that there could be a collision, a spark. Something sets things off, there’s gunfire, lots of people get killed, and the whole thing erupts. And I have no way of predicting that.

I’m also perplexed, somewhat, by the reporting we’re getting, because what strikes me about the reporting is that it’s totally concentrated on one square in a large city of 15 million people, one square.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: And that’s all we have seen. And we have seen it now for 10 days.

But what about the rest of the country? Even what about the rest of Cairo? What’s happening there?

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI:

I wish our correspondents would talk to some of the other people, because we don’t really know what’s going on. We have essentially a focus on a narrow, highly congested, combustible situation.

But we don’t have a sense of what is really happening elsewhere in the country. In some places, it could be worse. For example, people have talked about Alexandria erupting. But, in many parts of the country, and maybe even in Cairo, it’s much less volatile. So, we don’t really have a good grasp, visually, and therefore intellectually, of what is really happening.

I’m relatively confident that Joe American sitting on his couch has a feeling that the narrative is being driven more by the cameras than the general populace at the moment. (Ironic that a Democrat would want the media to step outside the chosen storyline, or am I being cynical?) We’ve had a taste or two of that in the past election cycles ourselves. Or, heck. Just whisper, “Sarah Palin” around any “impartial” Mainstream Media Reporter and instantaneously chart the insinuation arc.

“Narrow focus”. No “sense of what is REALLY happening elsewhere in the country”…or the world, for that matter.

That’s the whole story of the Obama administration way of doing things, isn’t it?

Oh, wait.

We were talking about the press and Egypt.

Smart Power, Part MCMVIX

So when the CIA talks about “information from their network” they really mean they watched CNN.

Unfarooking believable.

If Venturing Beyond Our Borders Becomes Too Dangerous, NEVER Forget

…Dollar General has you covered.

Oy

Let the games begin…

Egyptian Official: Mubarak to Step Down, Transfer Authority to Armed Forces

UPDATE: VEY!!
As Gunslinger points out, “and so they did…”

PSYCHE, SUCKERS!

Oh, GOODY! Iowahawk Has Scheduled a Celebrity Event to Celebrate My Birthday

It’s a big fucking deal and I’d almost say I’m not worthy, but who I am kidding?

I can’t thank him enough.

On The Lamb Once Again…

Once again my Dear Bride and Daughter wandered off someplace and left me alone in the kitchen. As it was a Monday night I needed to throw together something not too involved, using what I had on hand, which in this case was about a pound each of ground lamb and “baby bella” mushrooms.

After tithing a third of the ground lamb to Claude I browned up the rest

and while that was going on I sliced some onion slivers and got some rosemary from the (now sadly deceased) bush on the kitchen table

and rinsed off the bellas and let them dry just a touch

then drained *most* of the lamb juice and set the now-embrowned Fluffy on the side

and got a couple of tablespoons of butter melted in with the lamb juice and set the onions, rosemary and ‘shrooms a’sizzlin

once the onions started to brown (and the ‘shrooms started “weeping” some of their moisture) I threw in a healthy tablespoon of minced garlic, well, just because

and let that cook for a minute or two then I added a tablespoon of flour and just enough chicken stock to cover…mostly

and turned up the heat so the flavors would reduce, thicken, and concentrate, stirring constantly to de-lump the flour

‘stirring constantly’ required me hold the pan with my left hand to agitate it and using the wooden spoon with my right. I smelled something burning with the heat up so high, and was somewhat puzzled since I hadn’t spilled anything and there was no sticking gunk in the pan.

Huh.

Then I looked at the potholder in my left hand

oops! Oh well, turn the flame down a tad, I reckon. Well, things thickened and emulsified nicely

and it filled the bowl perfectly.

Topped with crumbled gorgonzola and washed down with a glass or three of red wine it made for a fairly easy, filling mid-Winter’s dinner. And using only one pan (mostly) made the clean-up easy.

There’s “Stupid”

And then there’s “I-Am-A-Married-Republican-Congressman-So-I’ll-Troll-For-Chicks-On-Craigslist” stupid

Washington (CNN) – Republican Rep. Christopher Lee of New York resigned his House seat Wednesday following a report that the married congressman had tried to meet a woman on Craigslist.

As Insta says…”we’re in the very best of hands.”

Whatever’s in the Water Around Here, I Hope BP Didn’t SCREW IT UP Forever

Because it’s pretty extraordinary, when you think about it.

We were reading the fishwrap this morning about a football player who’d graduated from Ebola’s alma mater (our small Pensacola Catholic High School) about five years after The Spawn did. This kid’s 24. He’d been blogging for the past week, and the final front page piece today just got major dad and I shaking our heads again in wonderment at our backwoods piece of Redneck Riviera real estate. It boggles the imagination, really ~ between the two counties of Santa Rosa and Escambia, which had a COMBINED population of a hair over 400K people in 2000 ~ we have SIX LOCAL guys…wearing SUPER BOWL RINGS. Including this absolutely delightful young man, Josh Sitton.

…He joins running back Emmitt Smith (Escambia High), linebacker Derrick Brooks (Washington High), defensive tackle Fred Robbins (Tate High), kicker Lawrence Tynes (Milton High) and defensive tackle Anthony Pleasant (Century High) as local NFL champions.

Is that not astonishing? It is in MY book. Of course, there’s the guys like Omar Stoutmire, Ron Stallworth, Cortland Finnegan and others who have/are playing in the NFL. And if that were all, that would be enough, but…man. Just right this second Bubba Watson, Boo Weekley, Heath Slocum, Joe Durant ring a bell? They join Jerry Pate as our representatives on the PGA circuits.

Boxing Champion Roy Jones, Jr. (a spectacularly nice guy, by the way)?

Let’s see. Baseball. Don Sutton, Buck Showalter are names you’d know right off, and lots of guys like Nick Green, who I think plays for the Blue Jays now, whose names you might not. (Incidentally, from the very first game until 2004, the “Voice of the Blue Jays” was Pensacola’s Tom Cheek.)

We’ve got the NBA covered (Reggie Evans, Alec Kessler…), the WNBA (Michelle Snow), NASCAR (Shorty Rollins, Johanna Long) and even professional poker, too.

There’s Pensacola standouts in just about every major college program for damn near every sport.

And don’t even get me started on the arts scene and who goes “Hollywood”.
I just wish I’d grown up HERE instead of 57 miles from New York City. I’m convinced I’d have been a LOT closer to Broadway in Pensacola Beach rather than Pochuck Mountain, N.J., considering the results they get in these parts.

Overachievers out the wazoo. Man-o-man. Gotta be the water. Just gotta.

Guess Josh’ll be heading home next week, so hopefully we’ll have a big to-do in the city. Once again, CONGRATS!!!!! to our Green Pensacola Bay boy and his whole wonderful team.

UPDATE: Okay. Besides correcting Boo’s last name, major dad and I were already listing who we knew I’d left off the list and found even more we hadn’t known. Our STILL incomplete, but growing by the minute, roster:

Baseball: Three Catholic alumni have made the major leagues ~ Billy Sadler, Phil Hiatt and Jeff Farnsworth ~ along with more local fellows like Tim Spooneybarger, Mark Whitten, Jake Peavey, Talmadge Nunnari…get my drift here?

Then there’s Derrick “Smoke” Gainer, WBA Featherweight Champ. Yup.

NBA…yes, I found more. Amare Stoudemire and Clifford Lett!

Jeez. I gotta get to bed.

92 SPAM in the Queue This A.M.

…and this one wins the prize.

I will be attending an interview with a cryogenic ball valve this Monday.
Any suggestions?.

In a strong showing at Second Place ~ pointing out someone I completely overlooked in my dive to the kitchen to escape them ~ is the laptop battery spammers multiple entry:

What the fuck does the white guy in Black Eyed Peas actually do? Just watched SB halftime show and he didn’t contribute at all…

There’s a white guy?

The Penguin Dilemma

Please note the Penguin dialogue is NSFW

Oops!

So I’m getting on the bus at 4:50 this morning, and as I’m climbing aboard all the crap in my various pockets pressed the ‘panic button’ on the car key fob…

Oh well, the 15 other people on the bus didn’t really want to sleep on their way in, did they?

Well, the bus driver got a chuckle out of it, at least.

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic

And not whomping on the next kid with a big fat stick.

Yeah. Teachers should be responsible for teaching ALL that, too, right?

Teaching kids social skills pays off in grades

A comprehensive analysis of 33 studies finds that teaching kids social and emotional skills leads to an average 11 percentile-point gain in their academic performance over six months compared to students who didn’t receive the same instruction.

We’re doomed. HOW could I have forgotten? Obama will save us by instructing teachers to instruct the young ‘uns after being so instructed during the Super Bowl Half Time Snoozer Show.

Black Eyed Peas a glittering bore at Super Bowl

…Which brings me to the bit that political pundits with nothing better to discuss may natter on about come Monday morning: will.i.am’s lyrical change-up for the first verse of “Where Is the Love?”:

“In America we need to get things straight / Obama, let’s get these kids educated / Create jobs so the country stays stimulated.”

(will.i.am and “stimulated” shouldn’t appear in the same sentence together after that disaster.)
Of course, someone else has an opinion on that as well…

They Could Buy Us For A Much More Reasonable Price…

Heck, I’ll even get THS to start practicing her Zsa-Zsa accent

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – AOL Inc will buy The Huffington Post for $315 million, relying on the high-profile liberal pundit and onetime candidate for governor of California who co-founded the influential website to rescue it from the dustbin of Internet history.

Better get us now while we’re cheap!