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...like Mars Needs Women.
In today's upcomng news we can expect a Blago info dump aimed at muddying the waters. Those salivating at the thought of Emanuel on a spit will likely be waiting in vain. Those noticing that Obama's "no contact" line was serious Clintonian parsing should know better than to expect anyone to care. Pretty obvious they didn't cut any deals, which is the heart of the matter. The rest is political voyeurism (I readily concede to being a political voyeur).
Bush appears to have cleared the way to spend $17 billion or so to kick the GM/Chrysler problem down the road and onto Obama's watch. For those who weren't paying attention, the previous deal, agreed to by NEARLY all parties, collapsed when the UAW refused to make any concessions. Oh yeah, Ford says they're cool without loans right now. I think my next truck will be a Ford.
If I had a nifty music video I'd insert it here. Instead, you get Mr. Bean's Nativity Play. Enjoy.
Have a good weekend, folks, and be careful out there.
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W lets the workers starve!! Film at 11!
You should read the responses from Hot Air (I love Ed Morrisey). They are mad that W allowed the firms to survive, like W personally insulted them. Only one responder recognized that he could not let that dissapear. Can we imagine the newspapers if that were the case.
Now the question is how long will $17 billion float the companies? How soon will they coming hat in hand again.
The $17 billion will last
The $17 billion will last just long enough to get them firmly into "Obama's problem" territory. Given the "burn rates" at GM & Chrysler, I'd say March, tops. Of the two, GM will get the lion's share.
BTW, Chrysler is 80% owned by a private equity capital group (Cerberus Capital Mgmt) that could well afford to bail out their own damn company, at least in part. But why pick up the tab when the taxpayers are buying?
It is still a win for the
It is still a win for the UAW. They played Russian Roulette and won. Bush did not have the nerve to let them go bankruptcy route. Contracts will now never be addressed. Obama will bend over backwards to give them cash in a month.
You know some kind of strange
You know some kind of strange historical epoch has passed when you lose Deep Throat (Mark Felt), Estelle ("I'll have what she's having") Reiner, Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett), and Bettie Page all in the same week.
Majel Barrett died? Damn, I didn't know that. I knew about Deep
Throat, and Bettie Page, but wow. So many icons passing away.
Yes, of leukemia. I believe
Yes, of leukemia. I believe she was 76. Youngest of the four listed.
NEWS FLASH:"BRIGHTON,
NEWS FLASH:
"BRIGHTON, Mich.(AP) Ticking someone off could get you a ticket in one Michigan city. The Brighton City Council on Thursday approved an ordinance allowing police in the Livingston County community to ticket and fine anyone who is annoying in public "by word of mouth, sign or motions."
The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus of Howell reports the measure is modeled on a similar ordinance in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.
A city attorney says there could be situations where the measure would violate freedom of speech, but that those cases will be reviewed by the city.
The ban takes effect Jan. 2.
___
Information from: Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, http://www.dailypressandargus.com"
I love what the city attorney has to say. Better yet how Obama is leaning on NAFTA and the North American Union as the Russians dock in Cuba. Pop corn anyone? I think Obama praised Bush today for helping the Unions in Michigan. To protest in Detroit however, might get me arrest for being annoying.....
I'll put odds down on an Ohio
I'll put odds down on an Ohio State fan getting the first ticket.
More Holiday Humor
John Scalzi lists The 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time.
The inestimable IowaHawk reports on the latest application for massive federal assistance in SantaCorp Pleads Case For Bailout, and Protein Wisdom's Dan Collins cuts through Burge's bias to bring you the rest of the story. (Don't miss the comments for valuable insights on the Oompa-Loompa Conspiracy!)
Very Funny
Chomsky deconstructing Christmas....LOL
I thought the Algonquin and
I thought the Algonquin and Ayn Rand ones were pretty funny too. :-)
Yeah....
And Zbig wouldn't find the Carter one very funny, but I DO.
Hamas didn't give Carter any Christmas present this year, in fact their gift to Israel is an end to the cease-fire and more missiles.
Two notes..
1. "His IO is 125" is getting annoying.(can I ticket you guys?..LOL)
2. so is the calendar bleeding into posts
We don't pick the ads. I'm
We don't pick the ads. I'm not sure we're allowed to. And yeah, we hope to get that calendar thing fixed soon when our admin guy has the copious spare time...
Here's a chortle-worthy post from Jules Crittenden:
Managing Your Greenwald Relationship
P.S. Carter
And by the way, after Carter visited Hamas and Lebanon this week what happened?
Hamas ended their cease-fire and started firing missiles into Israel.
Hizb'Allah said this.
Gee he is having a great impact...LOL
As Obama prepares to take office, Israel is considering strike on Iran and India is considering a strike on Pakistan. Not sure Carter will make any difference. The question is really whether Obama will either.
Changing gears a bit,
what do you guys think of this? THis story's apparently been around for a while, but just caught this on the news. Is that doll saying "Islam is the Light?" Honestly, I couldn't make it out at first, but when the reporter mentions that the doll was supposedly saying Islam is the Light, I have to admit that it did sound eeirly similar. I watched the YouTube clip, and it sounds like "Itlan" or something.
Much like that ridiculous Dunkin Donuts scarf controversy a while back, this is already become fodder for the usual suspects. What do you think?
Snopes says it's false.
Snopes says it's false. Snopes has shown itself to be somewhat less than unbiased in politically-related "debunkings" over the last few years, but I think they're right here. Mattel says it's a coincidence of meaningless sounds, and I don't find any real reason to doubt that. Shakespeare's Infinite Monkeys doing random sound files. I can hear it if I'm listening for it, but if I wasn't listening for it it would be pretty much random noise. Only when you try to force meaning on the meaningless (confirmation bias) do you come up with the phrase.
People tend to discount such high-improbability "coincidences" due to the extreme odds against them, but when you have an infinite number of coincidences possible, some of them will actually happen and appear to be meaningful. Of course, you never notice the bazillions of coincidences that don't appear to be meaningful or you'd realize how "likely" such coincidences actually are.
Non-causal "meaningful" coincidence is also known as synchronicity, and is of course a prime driver of conspiracy theory.
As an add-on to what Tully
As an add-on to what Tully said, I noticed the network news going to great length trying to explain to viewers that the recent snow fall IS NOT A SIGN OF GLOBAL WARMING. It was strange listening to their experts explain how this weather is all within the bounds of natural variance. Natural law assumes co-incidence as well as the improbable. Yesterday was the anniversary of Franklin publishing his first Poor Richard's Almanac. As I walked by a specialty shop on 5th Ave in NYC I saw in the window the hand written letter BF sent with his $75 to pay for the printing. Great penmanship. The last 300 years of weather measurements show quite a variation though it started out cold for our Founding Brothers.
Gees... snowing on the first day of winter is a sign of Global Warming? Problem is, now that the media has programmed their viewers, they don't understand. Ironic, isn't it?
For all who want to know the line Holdren is pushing, see my post call Holdren. I would love Tully to comment on those links.
Yep, I note media is now pushing Climate Change and not Global Warming.
Silly Max. Don't you
Silly Max. Don't you understand that everything is a sign of Global Warming? ;-)
Exactly.
That's what I thought too. When I first heard it, I couldn't make it out. If you're looking for it to say "Islam is the Light," that's what you'll hear.
Besides, how plausible is it that Fischer Price is trying to indocrinate 2-year olds into Islam, anyway? How silly is that?
Is the fix in?
Anyone else wondering whether the fix is in for Caroline Kennedy in NY?
We have Hillary leaving for a plum spot and declining to speak to Kennedy's qualification issues.
We have a dying lion in winter in Ted Kennedy, with no heir apparent in sight.
We have a clumsy power-grubber (Blago) getting caught spectacularly, as though he were thrown under the bus by defter hands.(watch the poof of smoke while I pull the ace from my sleeve).
We have a host of circumspect and admirable comments from many party insiders and brokers.
Just sayin'.
Ya think? ;-) It doesn't
Ya think? ;-)
It doesn't speak well of the party. Then again, neither party has done much to speak well of recently.
We are in a semi-free fall
We are in a semi-free fall with media watching our backs...ouch.
New Yorkers are divided. How many votes did Kennedy miss? Bloomie and Kennedy? And I thought Obama had sown up the JFK mantle. One New Yorker told me he was quite upset Caroline never slammed Ayers for dedicating one of his masterpieces to Sirhan Sirhan.
Blago not going and Franks/Pelosi in the limelight makes me think the Republicans won't hold the record for pathetic much longer. Now what will a pragmatic egoist do when the public has had enough of the show?
Start throwing our shoes?
No one ever holds the record
No one ever holds the record for pathetic very long.
It seems that way
Kind of hard to see Asimovian aspirations in the headlines. I was reading how a lunar steam roller could microwave moon dirt into smooth ferrous roads and metal shielding. Oceans of water may be trapped in Martian soil. If not, there are water geysers on Enceladus for Poland Springs to tap and oceans of hydrocarbon on Titan to pump. Perhaps, the visionaries of sci fi would be surprised by our race towards the pathetic, egged on by greed, power and incompetence.
We'll need to get past the pathetic just to keep our power grid alive here on good old Earth.
splashing
The line that always come to mind for me is Elaine from Seinfeld; "Just when I think you can''t get any more shallow, you find a way to splash a little more water out of the pool."
Fair for me to note that all I said above was pure speculation based on noticing a confluence of events. But it would be a real act of political orchestration to throw a guy like Blago under the bus for everyone to pay attention to so that we'd all miss the other essentially corrupt installation. Which if anything is cynical on a grander scale.
If there's any quid pro quo, we'll likely never know. But NY is bound to get especially generous aid when Obama passes the free ponies and rainbows for economic recovery act of 2009. In fact, I plan to open a pony grooming salon and training center.
I'd have no problem at all with CK running. But when someone is being handled a very important job, I think a different standard ought to apply. So I hope divided sentiment runs enough against CK to derail this. It rubs me the wrong way.
Hear hear! I would add some
Hear hear! I would add some sentiment for Biden not being able to "park" his seat for his son, and Salazar not being able to hand his seat to his brother. Most of my ancestors fled dynastic family regimes to come to America. What is this unholy attraction for pseudo-royalty?
I know it wouldn't pass constitutional muster, but some days I'd REALLY like to see a generation-skipping requirement for political office. As others have pointed out elsewhere, if Caroline Kennedy had made her home in Chicago we might never have had Obama for Prez, as a Kennedy could have claimed the Senate seat that launched him just by showing up and indicatng her interest. As little as I might care for Obama (the jury' still out) that's a SERIOUSLY good point. Some outstanding fresh-blood Dems are being knocked out of the chance to shine if CK/Biden/Salazar get the handouts. We need to broaden the "gene pool" of our office-holders.
Oh, wait, no quotation marks needed there. We need to broaden the GENE POOL of our office-holders!
Perhaps CK had first winked
Perhaps CK had first winked at Hillary. I think some deal had been discussed about the open seat HRC would create. Then Spitzer fell. Obama rose. Funny how that works. Patterson is in a strange position only scratched at by SNL.
Yeah Tully, a house right next to Ayers. Maybe she would have picked Trinity.
Gene pool politics are a bit like movie sequels. Now Barak Lincoln Obama would have been something.
Gold Jerry, gold.....
You all have a very nice Christmas Holiday and Happy Hannukah.
Suck it up....you'll all need it next year.
Now there is a platform for a
Now there is a platform for a political party: only one elected official per family unit. I think I will start to apply that to my voting pattern. Of course, I will be leaving a lot of empty votes. Doubt I can vote for Senator in the next election for Florida under this rule. ;)
So, one's kids would have to
So, one's kids would have to rebel and switch parties to get elected...sounds like an upside.
Would adopted children have to go with genetic inheritance or adoptive inheritance? Questions, questions...