Smart Power!

I’m so glad the adults are in charge

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo shut down its Twitter feed Wednesday following a public fight with the Egyptian Presidency and the Muslim Brotherhood over the arrest of an Egyptian television star.

“Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!” reads the banner atop the site where the @USEmbassyCairo Twitter feed sat until this morning. A cached version of the page shows that the last tweet was a link to the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart talking about the Egyptian government’s arrest of Stewart’s Egyptian doppelganger Bassem Youssef, who was detained and fined by the Egyptian police on the charge of insulting Islam and President Mohamed Morsy.

“It’s inappropriate for a diplomatic mission to engage in such negative political propaganda,” the official Twitter feed for the Egyptian presidency said on their own feed Tuesday. The Egyptian presidency tweet was directed at the Cairo Embassy, the Daily Show, and Youssef himself.

How sad is it that I completely agree with the Egyptian President?

And this is nothing new for “our” embassy in Cairo

This is not the first time Embassy Cairo has courted controversy via its Twitter account. On the fateful day of Sept. 11, 2012, Embassy Cairo put out a series of tweets seeking to calm the protests outside their walls. The campaign of Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, seized upon those tweets to accuse President Barack Obama of apologizing for American values because the tweets referenced an anti-Islam video that contributed to the unrest.

The main Embassy Cairo tweeter at that time, Larry Schwartz, was blamed for the Sept. 11 tweets and subsequently recalled to Washington. But the combative character of the embassy’s Twitter account continued.

That’s a rather creative re-write of what the Embassy tweeted on September 11th.

And a certain film maker is still in jail.

Big Badda BOOM Through the Front Door

…years before Shotgun Joe told the country to.

Poet Maya Angelou Blasts Gun at Home Intruder

I Heard An Fascinating Discussion Yesterday, On the Importance of

…quiet time.

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
– Winnie the Pooh

Our kids are losing theirs and, with it, their imaginations.

TRUMPeting the 3% Factory Orders BOOM on the Telly Last Night

…they forgot to mention it was thanks to a sharp uptick in the “volatile” aircraft orders category.

Factory orders rise, boosted by aircraft

New orders for factory goods rose in February but a gauge of planned business spending slipped, suggesting factory activity continued to expand at a modest pace.

The Commerce Department on Tuesday said orders for manufactured goods climbed 3.0 percent. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast orders advancing 2.9 percent.

…Gains in new orders were modest when stripping out more volatile categories.

Orders excluding transportation equipment increased just 0.3 percent.

TWO additional new Boeing airplane orders caused a “95.1%” increase and sent that rate skyrocketing. (Say what?) Pull them out and it’s a big, fat “meh”.

Why screw up a chirpy headline, right?

Today’s survey of your burgers and fries folks isn’t going so well, though:

Service Sector Growth Weakest in Seven Months: ISM

The pace of growth in the vast U.S. services sector slowed in March to the lowest level in seven months as new orders and employment measures pulled back, an industry report showed on Wednesday.

The Institute for Supply Management said its services index fell to 54.4 last month from 56 in February, falling short of economists’ forecasts for 55.8. It was the weakest reading since August.

…The forward-looking new orders index slipped to 54.6 from 58.2, while employment dropped to its lowest level since November at 53.3 from 57.2.

And those people are mostly PART-TIMERS, right? (Well, they WILL be after the ObamaCare they voted for really starts to stick it to them.) But they won’t be giving up that “Apple pie with those fries?” job just yet, I’m thinking, because the JobsJobsJobs SOOPER-GEEN-EE-US in the White House has better days planned for all of us, doncha know.

Work Slowdown? ADP Says Job Creation Slowing

Private-sector job creation was considerably less than expected in March, indicating that the labor market’s improvements could begin stalling.

A joint report Wednesday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics showed 158,000 new positions, well below economist expectations of 200,000.

Expect another “pivot/Crazy Ivan” to J.O.B.S. any minute now! Fer SURE!

(I’d just let “Shotgun Joe” know before you do. It’s better to be safe than sorry.)

We Are Saved! Cars Sales Are Up!

This is proof, PROOF, that all you H8TRS were wrong wrong wrong and that our Wise Dear Leader Obama is the greatest economic genius EVUH.

Or maybe not

(Reuters) – Thanks largely to the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jeffrey Nelson was able to put up a shotgun as down payment on a car.

Money was tight last year for the school-bus driver and neighborhood constable in Jasper, Alabama, a beaten-down town of 14,000 people. One car had already been repossessed. Medical bills were piling up.

And still, though Nelson’s credit history was an unhappy one, local car dealer Maloy Chrysler Dodge Jeep had no problem arranging a $10,294 loan from Wall Street-backed subprime lender Exeter Finance Corp so Nelson and his wife could buy a charcoal gray 2007 Suzuki Grand Vitara.

All the Nelsons had to do was cover the $1,000 down payment. For most of that amount, Maloy accepted Jeffrey’s 12-gauge Mossberg & Sons shotgun, valued at about $700 online.

In the ensuing months, Nelson and his wife divorced, he moved into a mobile home, and, unable to cover mounting debts, he filed for personal bankruptcy. His ex-wife, who assumed responsibility for the $324-a-month car payment, said she will probably file for bankruptcy in a couple of months.

Subprime loans as the primary force behind our economic recovery.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Exeter loan Nelson and his wife got, for example, carried a 21.95-percent rate. Exeter, which is majority-owned by private-equity giant Blackstone Group, assumes that one in four borrowers will default on their loan, according to an Exeter investor pitch book reviewed by Reuters.

The government is lending them the money at basically 0%.

As in zero.

It’s the Federal Reserve that’s made it all possible.

MONEY, MONEY EVERYWHERE

In its efforts to jumpstart the economy, the U.S. central bank has undertaken since November 2008 three rounds of bond-buying and cut short-term interest rates effectively to zero. The purchases of mostly Treasury and mortgage securities – known as quantitative easing and nicknamed QE1, QE2 and QE3 – have injected trillions of dollars into the financial system.

The Fed isn’t alone. Central banks from Tokyo to Frankfurt to London are running their printing presses overtime. The heavily indebted advanced economies are trying to reflate their way out of the prolonged bout of crisis and recession that crystallized with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in 2008. That crisis, of course, followed a nearly decade-long cycle of easy money and exotic financial products that itself began with the collapse of the tech-mania bubble of the late 1990s.

The Fed’s program, while aimed at bolstering the U.S. housing and labor markets, has also steered billions of dollars into riskier, more speculative corners of the economy. That’s because, with low interest rates pinching yields on their traditional investments, insurance companies, hedge funds and other institutional investors hunger for riskier, higher-yielding securities – bonds backed by subprime auto loans, for instance.

This is what this pathetic ‘recovery’ has been built on: cards, smoke, mirrors and fluff.

Oh and massive debt for our children.

Worthy Is The Lamb

…that was slain so I can eats him!

Thank you, Oh Bountiful Provider, for the Glorious land of Australia and all the cute, fluffy, wooly and oh-so-tasty creatures of Your Munificence that dwell therein

look at these bonesies! So nummy!

now you can easily slip the fileting knife betwixt the little rib segments you see above and get eight LambiPops thusly

now you do need to trim the excess bits off of the ribs. It’s not that complicated, especially if one’s kitchen comes equipped with a Trimmings Dispose-All Unit

You do have one of these, don’t you? Have can you possibly exist without one?

Anyhoo, you don’t need to be too exact on all the little scraps and such, as the grill will clean them bones up just fine

then toss those LambiPops into a gallon-sized ziplock with red wine, capers, garlic, rosemary, and just a little salt and pepper

then into the fridge to marinate for a few hours, flipping every hour or so

they cook on the grill very quickly (and you don’t want them past at most medium anyway)

and serve them up with whatever version of mashed potatoes you’re in the mood for and some steamed asparagus and Life, My Friends, is pretty good.

For dessert, I highly recommend a trip to your local orchard for some fresh made PAH

apple/cranberry in this case in a crust to DIE FOR washed down with several drams of hooch

from a little distillery in an area that THS used to frequent many many moons ago in her Moon-shining days.

I, of course, would never make illicit runs across the border to take advantage of differences in ages of legality to buy such things.

Never.

Good Friday Eats

“Virtue” being as you know my middle name I decided to make some fish for Good Friday.

Baked tilapia with a lemon/paprika/parsley coating, served with some chipotle-dusted roast potato wedgies and, of course, sauteed brussels sprouts.

Dang fine eats.

and washing it all down were a few lurvely bottles of Raymond Reserve Chardonnay

Runs about oh $15/bottle. A nice full velvety wine, with a joyfully piquant acidity playing a delightful dance in harmonious contrast to the fine butterscotch and late Spring melon notes that linger seductively on the palate, offering hints of untold delights that await the determined pursuer.

Ok, I made that up.

But it is none the less pretty good hootch.

Spam Of The Day

The individuals whom concur with among the underlying concepts shall completely comprehend where you are going with the plan.

Pithy, yet to the point.

Yet Another Mass Murderer

(h/t to Ace)

Base-Ah-Bah-ROOO Opening Day!!!!

And a note for Kcruella from Drew. 🙂

As a Mets fan Opening Day can mean only one thing….It’s time to start thinking about next year #Only300DaysUntilPitchersAndCatchersReport

— DrewM (@DrewMTips) April 1, 2013

She’s gonna kill me.

New York Times Geniuses Confuzzled on Whole “Easter” Concept

Issue correction on Papish story.

Pope Calls for ‘Peace in All the World’ in First Easter Message

VATICAN CITY — In his first Easter Sunday message, Pope Francis passionately called for “peace in all the world,” urging Israelis and Palestinians to “resume negotiations to end a conflict that has lasted all too long,” calling for an end to the civil war in Syria, and promoting a “renewed spirit of reconciliation” on the Korean Peninsula, where tensions have been rising…

…blahblahblah…

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 1, 2013

An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the Christian holiday of Easter. It is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven.

Barf

Filed Under “Awwww…”: Bingley’s Favorite Poster Child for Higher Learning

…still don’t got a gig.

High court denies appeal from ex-professor who called 9/11 victims ‘little Eichmanns’

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill in his effort to reclaim his job.
The justices did not comment Monday in refusing to review a Colorado Supreme Court ruling in favor of the university.

It’s “Stomp On Ward Day“.

Shit howdy!

[Insert Loud Braking Noise]

Shocka.

US Manufacturing Growth Slows, Misses Forecast: ISM

The pace of expansion in the U.S. manufacturing sector unexpectedly slowed in March, according to an industry report released on Monday.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its index of national factory activity fell to 51.3 from 54.2 the month before. The reading was shy of expectations of 54.2 according to a Reuters poll of economists.

…The new orders index fell to 51.4 from 57.8. The prices paid gauge slid to 54.5 from 61.5, compared to expectations of 59.8.

Oh, “expectations”, like “hope” and “change”, can be such troublesome things.