5) By now, you've heard about the little scare at the Pentagon. I wonder what kind of device it actually was. I know they'll tell us something, but really...you'd drive to the Pentagon and risk arrest for a pipe-bomb or some such? Doesn't make sense.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Nobody Asked Me, But...
5) By now, you've heard about the little scare at the Pentagon. I wonder what kind of device it actually was. I know they'll tell us something, but really...you'd drive to the Pentagon and risk arrest for a pipe-bomb or some such? Doesn't make sense.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
*Rolling Eyes*
There's A Certain Irony Here
Lest You'd Think I'd Forget...
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.
—Back to barracks! he said sternly.
He added in a preacher's tone:
—For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.
He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm.
—Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?
He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.
—The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!
He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered cheeks and neck.
Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.
—My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?
He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:
—Will he come? The jejune jesuit!
Ceasing, he began to shave with care.
—Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.
—Yes, my love?
—How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?
Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.
—God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade.
He shaved warily over his chin.
—He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is his guncase?
—A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk?
—I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If he stays on here I am off.
Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.
—Scutter! he cried thickly.
He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper pocket, said:
—Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.
Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly. Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:
—The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. You can almost taste it, can't you?
He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly.
—God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look.
Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of Kingstown.
—Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said.
He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's face.
—The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That's why she won't let me have anything to do with you.
—Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily.
—You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean as much as you. But to think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you...
As Long As You're Annoying New York Lawmakers
We Need To Fake Left And Ram It Up The Middle
The World's Toughest Job
Congratulations To Boston
Condolences To Vancouver
Mopping Up After Grover Norquist's Wet Dream
Half of Americans say they couldn't come up with $2,000 in 30 days without selling some of their possessions. Meanwhile, companies are flush: American firms generated $1.68 trillion in profit in the last quarter of 2010 alone. But many firms would think twice before putting their next factory or R&D center in the U.S. when they could put it in Brazil, China or India. These emerging-market nations are churning out 70 million new middle-class workers and consumers every year. That's one reason unemployment is high and wages are constrained here at home. This was true well before the recession and even before Obama arrived in office. From 2000 to 2007, the U.S. saw its weakest period of job creation since the Great Depression.
Nobel laureate Michael Spence, author of The Next Convergence, has looked at which American companies created jobs at home from 1990 to 2008, a period of extreme globalization. The results are startling. The companies that did business in global markets, including manufacturers, banks, exporters, energy firms and financial services, contributed almost nothing to overall American job growth. The firms that did contribute were those operating mostly in the U.S. market, immune to global competition — health care companies, government agencies, retailers and hotels. Sadly, jobs in these sectors are lower paid and lower skilled than those that were outsourced. "When I first looked at the data, I was kind of stunned," says Spence, who now advocates a German-style industrial policy to keep jobs in some high-value sectors at home. Clearly, it's a myth that businesses are simply waiting for more economic and regulatory "certainty" to invest back home.
So it's really no wonder to read that Norquist's influence in the very party that spawned this hell-creature is on the wane:
Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist’s influence over Senate Republicans slipped Tuesday, a development that could have implications for bipartisan budget talks as well as for the future of the party’s orthodoxy.
For decades, Norquist’s anti-tax pledge has dominated Republican politics, with most party members vowing — at Norquist’s behest — to never raise taxes or to offset any tax increases wtith tax cuts elsewhere.
But the No. 3 Senate GOP leader said Tuesday that eliminating tax breaks might be a legitimate way to solve the nation’s current fiscal crisis. “My view is a good way to reduce the debt is to get rid of unwarranted tax breaks,” GOP Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) said.
Now, not content with simply repudiating Norquist and the ludicrous (and soon to be firmly debunked) "lower taxes are good For Americans" mantra, the GOP manages to muck it up by taking away one of the few tax breaks that might actually be good for the nation: the corn ethanol subsidy.
Reasonable people can disagree about the subject: corn is already a heavily subsidized crop, for instance, and corn ethanol actually uses more energy and may therefore produce more carbon than sugar cane or switchgrass ethanol production. Corn is a pretty noxious crop, and it's probably better used in ethanol than in high fructose corn syrup additives. The debate can rage on ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
The focus I'd take in terms of the subsidy is, if it weans Americans off fossil fuels, it's a good thing. Ethanol, particularly corn ethanol, should be viewed as a way station on the road to energy independence, not just from foreign oil but from large size energy conglomerates.
Norquist's attempts to remain relevant smack of desperation. Yesterday, for example, when he saw the handwriting on the wall that even conservatives were going to back the rollback, he offered a compromise of voting for the elimination of the tax credit to be offset by a permanent elimination of the inheritance tax.
(The estate tax, but I'm trying to find a way to defuse the "death tax" imagery.)
The amendment submitted by Jim DeMint (R-StirCrazy) was attracting some attention until leadership quashed the notion, pointing out that the amendment would kill any chance of either proposal passing, and it would likely never make it to the committee, much less through it.
The original amendment, offered up by Tom Coburn (R-(not)OK), puts Coburn in direct conflict with Norquist, and could signal Coburn's first trial balloon for a potential bid for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination. By turning his back on the symbol of failed Republican policies of the past thirty years...and really, how hard is it to admit that you have a problem, GOP?...he sends the message that he's willing to forgo any support from the small and shrinking vocal minority of Teabaggers in order to come off as someone who can actually govern a country without throwing a temper tantrum.
He learned the lesson of the Obama candidacy, in other words: No Drama Obama.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Maybe Some Good Came Of Fukushima?
What could they possibly blow up, Senator?
Wow!
Slightly Less Of A Loser
Interesting Poll Here
Jake Tapper Doesn't Really Get It
Uh Oh
Scott Walker Loves Him Some Pork
On The One Hand...
Pakistani intelligence has detained five alleged CIA informants who spied on Osama bin Laden in the months before the al-Qaida chief was killed in a special forces raid, US and Pakistani officials have said.
The Pakistani informants noted the details of vehicles visiting Bin Laden's house in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad, and helped run a nearby house from which CIA spies watched the al-Qaida leader.
A Pakistani official said the owner of the CIA hideout had been arrested along with several other people.
A military spokesman denied a New York Times report that a serving army major had also been detained. The arrests highlight continuing tensions between the US and Pakistan in the wake of Bin Laden's death. They are likely to intensify pressure from senior Washington politicians to cut Pakistan's $2bn annual aid package.
On the one hand, Pakistan swears they are assisting the US in its efforts to contain terrorism and in particular, Al Qaeda. On the other...well...you decide.
This development comes on the heels of the hectoring given by Pakistani security officials to CIA chief Leon Panetta last week about covert activities in Pakistan.
This, despite the fact that Panetta had all but accused the Pakistani security forces of aiding and abetting militants by showing them a video of a bomb factory in Waziristan (note, not even in Pakistan) evacuating after the US had notified the Pakistanis they were aware of the activity.
Not even about to launch a raid, just that they knew it was there.
One can only assume the CIA have knowledge of activities inside Pakistan and will not reveal this to the military.
A senior Pakistani official said the dispute represented a clash between "Pakistani hyper-nationalism and American arrogance".
That about sums it up, on both hands.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Smart Retreat
A Womb With A View
Marriage Equality In New York State
Could There Have Been More Fallout Than We Were Told?
Remember "It Depends On The Definition Of 'Is'?"
From Their Lips To God's Ears
BEIJING — China on Tuesday pledged not to resort to the use of force in the tense South China Sea, as neighbours with rival border claims stepped up their complaints over Beijing's assertive maritime posture.
Beijing called for more dialogue to resolve the long-standing territorial disputes in the area after the Philippines sought help from the United States and Vietnam staged live-fire military exercises in a show of military strength.
"We will not resort to the use of force or the threat of force," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters.
To No One's Surprise
Monday, June 13, 2011
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Conflict-of-interest rules "have been commonplace for over 200 years," said Justice Antonin Scalia, and they have never been thought to infringe on the free-speech rights of lawmakers, he said.
In the past, the court has said the Constitution gives legislators a right to speak freely, but it does not give them a right to cast a vote on matters if they have a conflict of interest, Scalia said. The right to vote in a legislative body "is not personal to the legislator but belongs to the people. The legislator has no personal right to it," he said.
Another Score For Obama
*YAWN*
Pobre Hijastro
For us, it is really a momentous occasion that the president is making an official visit," Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuño, who is scheduled to meet with Obama, told POLITICO. "It will allow us the opportunity to discuss with the president important issues - just as the governor of Florida or Delaware would do if the president were to visit their state - and showcase what Puerto Rico is all about."