Daily Archives: Wednesday, November 19, 2008

let’s just tie the night down and secure it in case a wind comes up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk4lCXt7JKo

tom waits doin’ the smooooooth talk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8X_RjblHg8&feature=related

Nichols and May at work

WARNING: This is seriously funny.  You should not listen to this audio file if anyone nearbye is asleep.  But do listen.  This is a treasure.  You’ll be asked to save the file, then open it.  It’s an mp3 file I downloaded quite a few years ago and is safe.

 

ni-nichols-and-may-at-work-mike-nichols-and-elaine-may

first lady of France sings for you

http://lateshow.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/video_player/index/php/970574.phtml

 

h/t to Brent

the olden days…firing line interview, Buckley and Chomsky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDmqRc80jJQ

Quiz answer: here’s what Limbaugh actually said

Quiz: http://bernielatham.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/daily-quiz/

Quiz answer: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_111908/content/01125106.guest.html

an unnice manhattan morning

One morning, I saw people hurrying past our jewelry shop on the Upper East Side.  When I went out to see what the ruckus was all about, one anxious fellow told me a plane had just hit a highrise.  Not a pleasant phrase to hear.  Of course, as it turned out it was a small plane and an unfortunate fatal accident.  The building hit was about five blocks from our shop and apartment and the view between our apartment and that building was unimpeded.  When we moved out to Oregon months later, the building was still unrepaired and the stains from the fire and smoke still visible.  

 

the nine-fold path…hopefully, with bathrooms along the way

The temple below was built by Buddhist monks from Heineken and Chang (local beer) bottles.  I think the idea deserves consideration over here.  Imagine the George W. Bush library-temple constructed using only Coor’s cans.  It could be beautiful and reflect ideological purity lite at the same instant.  

 

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/temple-built-from-beer-bottles.php

h/t Andrew Sullivan

Steele’s thunder stolen

I haven’t read Steele’s book, the subtitle of which is “Why Obama Cannot Win” but I’ve heard him talk and he’s impressive.  An example here… http://fora.tv/2008/01/18/Shelby_Steele_on_Why_Barack_Obama_Cannot_Win

Still, as Andrew Sullivan suggests, this quote from The National Review really is quite bitter in tone and Steele misses much because of that bitterness.

Obama received the votes of an enormous majority of voters under 25.  Why?  The author of A Bound Man, today on Uncommon Knowledge:

Everywhere I went on my book tour, young people would come up.  “We’re beyond your generation,” they would tell me.  “We grew up differently than you did.”  No, I tell them, you didn’t.  You did not.  You are now obsessed with race.  Race is the only thing that’s driving your interest in Barack Obama.  You couldn’t even tell me what his policies are.  You’re never critical of him in any way.  If you were free of race you would not judge him culturally.  You would judge him politically.  You just—you are consumed by race.

Quote of the day – ‘there’s just no pleasing them’ category

Americans were assured, when the nation-building enterprise commenced, that oil-rich Iraq would underwrite our sacrifices on its behalf. Yet, to be blunt, the Iraqis remain ingrates. That stubborn fact complicates everything.” Andrew McCarthy, National Review

Frum here to there

In October came the resignation of Mr. Buckley’s son, the writer and satirist Christopher Buckley, after he endorsed Barack Obama for president. He did so on Tina Brown’s blog, The Daily Beast, to avoid any backlash on The Corner.

Now David Frum, a prominent conservative writer who enmeshed himself in a minor dustup during the campaign by turning negative on Governor Palin, is leaving, too. In an interview, he said he planned to leave the magazine, where he writes a popular blog, to strike out on his own on the Web.

“The answers to the Republican dilemma are not obvious and we need a vibrant discussion,” he said. “I think a little more distance can help everybody do a better job of keeping their temper.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/media/17review.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1227070800&en=0fd3c2f76367617a&ei=5087%0A

Pants on fire

Michelle Bachmann on Hardball (about two weeks ago…video at link)

I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that.

Michelle Bachmann on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes yesterday

 

Colmes: You said you were concerned during the campaign that Obama had anti American views and you said the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look at the people and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America

Bachmann: Actually that’s not what I said. It’s an urban legend that was created and that’s not what I said. http://crooksandliars.com/

Gad.  What is it with these people?

Daily quiz

How will Limbaugh spin this one?

Al-Qaida deputy insults Obama

Don’t tell some of his detractors — at this point, they probably can’t handle the shock — but it turns out that al-Qaida isn’t exactly enthralled with Barack Obama.

In a new audio message, in fact, Ayman al-Zawhri, Osama bin Laden’s number two, has some harsh things to say about the president-elect. Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X, al-Zawhri says in the tape, according to the Associated Press.

Al-Zawhri also uses an old racial slur to describe Obama, as well as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, calling them “house negroes.”

Additionally, the al-Qaida number two called the election results an “admission of defeat in Iraq” and said, “America has put on a new face, but its heart full of hate, mind drowning in greed, and spirit which spreads evil, murder, repression and despotism continue to be the same as always.” http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/

“It’s like I’ve been saying all along if you’ve been listening and I know you have because you are attentive and intelligent, the two things the intellectual elites pretend but can never be – because, my friends, how can you attend to anything when your head is where the glorious sun does not shine.  But you, my audience, stand in the full light of the sun and the truth and soak up the real world like I do and we take the slings and arrows for it, for speaking out about it, shouting out about it and no one is going to stop us.  No namby pamby white flag liberals with their Fairness Doctrine are going to shut up el Rushbo.  It’s my promise to you, loyal listeners. 

You see what’s going on here, as I’ve said countless times before, we don’t know who Obama really is. Nobody does.  It’s all hidden and sneaky and black and unrepentant, like William Ayers the terrorist chum and dinner guest of Obama and Michelle and maybe the godfather of those two kids.  I mean, who knows?  I don’t know.  You don’t know.  Nobody knows who this guy really is.  And if we don’t know…if old el Rushbo doesn’t even know who Obama really is then…and this is the point folks…listen up here now…if el Rushbo doesn’t have a clue who Obama really is, how in the name of Heaven will some guy in a smelly cave thousands of miles away know who Obama is?  What?  You’re surprised al-Zawhri might make a mental error?  Might make a mistake in his thinking?  Do you think he has the cojones, my friends and I’m sorry if that word offends anyone but that’s what this guy and his terrorist buddies do not have any of, they are cowards first and foremost and so do they tune in to el Rushbo?  No way Jose.  They tune into people who don’t have cojones like them…the drive by media.  That’s what al-Zawhri “knows” about Obama.  What the drive bys tell him.  He drank the kool-aid.  He doesn’t know about Ayers because the drive bys don’t talk about Ayers, my friends.  He doesn’t know about Flager and the Chicago thugs…thugs exactly like al-Zawhri.  I mean, friends, it is exact.  It’s a parallel.  But the drive bys won’t tell him that and that’s who he listens to.  But you wait.  Soon he’ll see that Obama is a brother.  It won’t be long…I’m giving it to you straight and true here now…it will not be long before Obama is going to meet with al-Zawhri – no conditions of course – and they’ll hit it off.  Ayers will probably come along.  They’ll have a party.  Lots of cocaine in that neck of the woods.  And you know how it goes after that, my friends, and I’m scared, I’m really frightened about this and you know it takes a lot to frighten el Rushbo…a motorcade will pull into the White House and al-Zawrhi will climb out of that limo, it’ll be a Peugot not a Ford or a Chevy, and he’ll walk into the White House like a hero.

Yeah! That’s the ticket

Draft Sarah group surfaces

A group dedicated to pushing Sarah Palin into the 2012 presidential race was formed last week and is already emailing Iowa Republicans…

The “2012 Draft Sarah Committee” has a rudimentary website up showing the Alaska governor dishing out moose chili and appears to be composed of rank-and-file conservative activists.

The group’s leader, Paul Streitz, is a Connecticut resident who is best known there as an outspoken foe of illegal immigration. He founded the group “Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Control.” http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1108/Draft_Sarah_group_surfaces.html

Sarah Palin + anti-immigrant dudes = Republican swan dive into oblivitude.

J. Edgar Hoover, who didn’t believe in reincarnation, was

Maryland State Police labeled members of a Montgomery County environmental group as terrorists and extremists days after they held a nonviolent protest at an appearance by then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. at a Bethesda high school.

Police files released to the activists reveal that the governor’s security detail alerted the state police’s Homeland Security and Intelligence Division to what troopers guarding Ehrlich described as “aggressive protesting” by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network in 2005.

A review by The Washington Post of those and other files given in recent days to many of the 53 Maryland activists who were wrongly labeled as terrorists in state and federal databases shows an intelligence operation eager to collect information on the protest plans of a broad swath of nonviolent groups from 2005 to at least early 2007.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803487.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Kathleen Parker does the Goya thing

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D…

 

But, like it or not, we are a diverse nation, no longer predominantly white and Christian. The change Barack Obama promised has already occurred, which is why he won.

Among Jewish voters, 78 percent went for Obama. Sixty-six percent of under-30 voters did likewise. Forty-five percent of voters ages 18-29 are Democrats compared to just 26 percent Republican; in 2000, party affiliation was split almost evenly.

The young will get older, of course. Most eventually will marry, and some will become their parents. But nonwhites won’t get whiter. And the nonreligious won’t get religion through external conversion. It doesn’t work that way.

Given those facts, the future of the GOP looks dim and dimmer if it stays the present course. Either the Republican Party needs a new base — or the nation may need a new party. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111802886.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

A serious hat tip (and a medal or two) to Ms Parker.