Keith Olbermann is going to let fly with another special comment tonight. I presume that he is going to lambaste Clinton over the "I'm staying in in case Barack gets assassinated" line. It should be a real corker.
If you missed it, check back here later tonight. I'll embed it as soon as MSNBC makes it available.
UPDATE: Oh, yeah. It was a real corker!
I'm changing the timestamp of this to move it up to the top.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Olbermann's Newest Special Comment
What Bush Has Been Good At During His Presidency
From a private aviation e-mail list:
This is a listing of the accomplishments of George Bush's Administration:
They've been very good at trashing America's reputation around the world.
They have cut back civil liberties to an unprecedented degree.
They've subsumed unprecedented powers into the presidency.
They've made Halliburton, Exxon and Blackwater shareholders wealthy.
They've reduced taxes on the super-wealthy.
They have tanked the economy, created sub-prime loan crisis, set new record
crude oil, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel prices.
They're doing very good job of helping the airlines destroy themselves.
They've done a very good job of destroying morale amongst controllers and encouraging retirement in record numbers, without hiring replacements.
Excellent job of raising the FAA to new levels of ineptitude.
Excellent job of creating the most hated federal agency, the TSA.
Excellent job of destroying New Orleans through inept response.
Super job of destroying the value of the dollar.
George Bush: Nuclear Proliferator
George Bush agreed to hand over nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.
This doesn't even pass the "giggle test". First off, Saudi Arabia is sitting on a large chunk of the world's oil reserves. Second, Saudi Arabia is hostile to Israel. Third, Saudi Arabia has sponsored the spreading of the same brand of militant Islamic thought that gave rise to al Qaeda. Most of the finding for al Qaeda historically has come from Saudi Arabia. A shit-ton of the mujahadeen that have gone into Iraq to fight our soldiers came from Saudi Arabia. Their government is an absolute monarchy, it is the antithesis of a free and democratic state. Saudi Arabia is one quick revolution away from being a Taliban-type nation.
Every argument raised by the Bush Administration as to why Iran should not be allowed to develop a civilian nuclear industry works tenfold against the Saudis. This smells as though Bush is trying to smuggle atomic weapons technology to the Saudis.
Hell, doesn't it dawn on anybody in the Chimperor's staff that Saudi Arabia is in a freaking desert? They must have, on average, 350 sunny days a year. The Saudis could easily buy into solar energy and, with their cash backing a solar program, they could become the owners of world-class technology.
But they won't, of course. Saudi Arabia wants an atomic weapon and George Bush is going to give it to them.
For George Bush's family loyalties lie with the House of Saud, not with the United States of America.
The Good Boy
George is really quite thin, but he looks kind of chunky here.
I'm very appreciative of him for his fly-removal services.
UPDATE: I changed out the litterbox; I cleaned it out and put in fresh litter. He thanked me by taking a dump on the floor next to my bed. When I reprimanded him, he hissed at me, so I hissed back. He then growled at me and I growled back.
Fucking little unappreciative shitcake...
"I'm Staying in the Race in Case Barack Gets Whacked"
That is basically what Hillary Clinton said. It wouldn't matter to her if she had 400 delegates and Obama had it sewn up, she's going to keep on campaigning in case some deranged cracker shoots him.
Spin it any which way you want, but her allusion to the assassination of Bobby Kennedy was nothing short of pathetic. There is certainly no evidence of Clinton being "a class act" in that comment.
Hillary Clinton is toast, now. She is going to leave this race with a well-earned reputation as a bitter, hateful, racist-enabling crank who prays that her opponents get killed.
Presidential Leadership
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." ...
" I believe we should go to the Moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of the Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.
"This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, material and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel.
"New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. The could in fact, aggravate them further--unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space."
That was then, 46 years ago. President Kennedy gave that speech after the flight of Alan Shepard, which meant that he said "let's do this" with *one* successful manned suborbital space shot. With fifteen minutes of manned rocket flight, the U.S. committed to go to the Moon. Success was, by no means, a sure thing.We have zero leadership now, unless it involves bombing people or cutting taxes for the rich.
And yes, DCNY is right: In large part, if you want to know who is to blame, look in the mirror. We, the American people, were more than happy to build McMansions resulting in fifty-mile commutes. We were more than happy to buy big-ass SUVs and pickup trucks.
Presidential and/or Congressional leadership would have made a difference. But we opted to live this way. Nobody forced us.
Energy Policy: A Short History of Presidential Failure
Distributorcap NY has taken a look at the rise in oil prices, both to date and into the future. The picture is not pretty.
For those unaware of how we got to this place, this goes back to 1973. That was the year that Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur (the holiest day in the Jewish calendar) in an attempt to win back the territories lost in the Six Day War. Despite initial successes on the battlefield, at the end of the war, the Israelis held even more territory, though at an enormous cost to both sides. In reaction or sympathy to the Arab side, the Middle East oil producers largely suspended exports.
The results were dramatic, to say the least. Gas prices in the US doubled. There were shortages of gasoline and diesel fuel; long lines at the gas stations were very common. Many gas stations rationed fuel sales to avoid running out of gas to sell. Some areas imposed "odd/even" sales days.
This was when the politicians first started decrying American reliance on imported oil.
The second gas crisis came six years later. During the Iranian Revolution, Iran's export operation went offline. Again, gas prices doubled overnight, there were gas shortages and lines at the pump.
There was some response from the consumers. Fuel-efficient vehicles became popular and people started paying attention to how much energy they used overall. The increased use of fuel-efficient vehicles slowed the overall increase in the use of oil. The price of crude cratered in the mid 1980s and, other than the spike during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, stayed relatively low until our current president began Operation Enrich My Buddies.
That supply disruptions could raise the price of crude oil has been known since 1973. That spikes in demand, when coupled with supply shortages, could do a real number on the price of oil has also been obvious. Since 1973, it has been clear to everyone who looked at it that this day was coming.
Well, that day is here.
One thing that is clear is that the politicians in Washington, the ones who like to style themselves as "leaders," are nothing of the sort. The only thing that they have been willing to run on the issue of energy independence is their mouths. In fact, the congressional delegation from places like Michigan have been active in doing everything they can to scuttle every initiative to reduce dependence on oil, because the Big Three automakers have been either too stupid or too unwilling to figure out how to make fuel-efficient vehicles at a profit. Those Michigan lawmakers have been aided and abetted by the oil and coal industries, who have been consistently against the idea of research into alternative energy technologies.
Let's also get past the "we can drill our way out of this" fiction. Oil is a world commodity and is sold on the world market. We cannot produce more oil here without effecting the price of oil in India and China. All producing more oil will do is delay the inevitable.
This day has been advertised as coming for 35 years. In those 35 years, the Republicans have held the Presidency for 23 years, the Democrats 12. This is a bipartisan failure, a bipartisan betrayal of the American people.
We cannot drill our way out. What we need to do, instead, is to begin to go in another direction. But because the Federal government has not used its abilities to either fund programs or give tax credits for energy research in a large way (yes, they did sort of mess around with it), we are now at the point where, instead of a series of long-term plan and well-thought out research projects, crash programs may be the order of the day.
Crash programs are expensive, wasteful and, given the slashing of contract administrations by the corruption-enablers of the Bush Administration, are prone to corruption. Crash programs also can head off in fruitless directions at enormous costs, both monetary and societal, as we are seeing with the corn-based ethanol programs.
But because of the failure of leadership by every president from Nixon to the Chimperor, and due to the obstructions by the oil, coal and automobile industries, we are at the point where we have no choice.
Thanks, guys.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Fiascoes
Ah, the day is full of fiascoes.
Texas officials have been forced to admit that half of the so-called "underage mothers" from the FDLS raid are not minors, one is 27. Another "mother" is neither a mother nor pregnant. A Texas appeals court has ruled that the whole raid was illegal. And now it seems that the phone call that was purportedly made by a child in the FLDS compound was a hoax perpetrated by a 33 year old woman with a history of such things. This whole affair is starting to look as bungled as the Waco raid against the Branch Davidians, only without the dead ATF agents and the torching of scores of people.
Petraeus wants another half of a Friedman Unit before he can think about any troop reductions. Yeah, yeah, same old horseshit. "We can reduce troops soon." But "soon" never comes.
Congress can't even send the right copy of a bill to Bush's desk for his veto. That part of the job isn't rocket science, guys. That's a "Heckuvajob Brownie" level fuckup.
And finally, in a sartorially stunning move, Vice President Darth Cheney wore a cowboy hat when he spoke to the graduates of the Coast Guard Academy.
In case you are not aware of this, the Coast Guard Academy is in New London, Connecticut. Wearing a cowboy hat in New London is about as out of place as is having a conscience at a meeting of Bush's National Security Council.
"We Are Powerless, We Cannot Do Anything"
That would seem to be the line of the executives of the oil industry.
(Whine, whine, whine) "It's not our fault that we are making so much money." (Whine, snivel) "It's not our fault that we, personally, are being paid millions of dollars." (Whine, whimper) "The money is just falling into our laps. We're the victims here."
Meanwhile, crude oil has hit $135 a barrel. No doubt that those oil executives are going to be seeking some counseling for all of the angst they are enduring as victims of the market.
Worse was the foul canard that the oil executives like to hand out, that "this wouldn't happen if we could drill fifty feet off the beaches in Miami" and so on. (Yes, the Republicans like to focus on ANWAR, but the Republican governor in Florida, some guy named Bush, was instrumental in extending the ban on drilling anywhere near the Florida coast.) It's all bullshit.
Oil is a world commodity. There is no way to extract oil off the beaches of California and keep that oil only for the US.
Stupidity to the Left
In Philadelphia, the Mayor and the City Council do not give a flying fuck that the law in Pennsylvania is that laws on guns are the sole province of the state legislature. They're going to do it anyway.
This is a tactic that shows the leaders of Philadelphia are about as sharp as a bowling ball. Worse, this is an action that shows that local leaders are no less likely to throw aside the rule of law as is the Bush Administration. It is the same mindset, the mindset of "we're the boss of you and we don't give a fuck what the law says, we're going to do what we want."
It is un-American. It is a slap in the face of everything that this country was founded upon.
Worse, it shows that the mentality of "laws are for little people to follow" is rampant throughout government. Without knowing a damn thing about anybody involved, I will bet that at least some of them have publicly excoriated the Bush Administration for their flagrant disregard of the law. Yet when it is their turn, it's "fuck the laws, fuck the courts" at its worst.
Governments do not engage in "civil disobedience," as those morons in Philadelphia put it. Governments have police powers, they can arrest people and throw them in jail.
When a government does not obey the law, it is not "civil disobedience."
It is tyranny.
(H/T to Snowflakes in Hell)
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Polly Wants to Exercise His Right to Remain Silent
A lost parrot told a veterinarian his address, but the bird refused to talk to the cops.
Bush: Negotiating With Hostile Regimes is Appeasement
That is what Bush and his mouth-breathing lackeys on the Right have been saying.
Too bad the Israelis do not agree with him. Which is why they have been negotiating with Syria, one of the nations that Bush so famously refuses to talk to.
Torture Nation; Part 3
The FBI, which has not been known in the past for caring very much about the niceties of the law, was disturbed enough about the way that the CIA and the military were interrogating their detainees that their objections went all the way up to the National Security Council, which, of course, thought it was just peachy to torture people.
Note that it took years for the objections of the FBI agents to make it up that far and it was only after the shit from Abu Ghraib hit the fan that the upper levels of the FBI passed along the observations and the concerns of the agents. The FBI management waited until the tide of public opinion was starting to shift. It is probably fair to conclude that if the Abu Ghraib photos had not been leaked, the FBI management would have never said anything.
That is not standing up for the rule of law, as the FBI surely would like to portray this story. That is nothing more than institutionalized cowardice.
UPDATE: The FBI agents at Guantanamo opened a "war crimes" file on the interrogation practices. That's not my term for the file, that is what the FBI called it.
The dominoes are falling into place. I feel that it is becoming more and more probable that high-ranking members of the Bush Administration will be prosecuted for their crimes.
Death March, Pt. 3
Obama wins Oregon and Clinton wins Kentucky. Obama now has a majority of the pledged delegates, Clinton sees a gazillion reasons to stay in the race.
Yeah, yeah. What I said here, here and here.
This was, albeit unintentionally, the funniest thing a Clinton supporter has said in a very long time:
"`I think in the end, when South Dakota and Montana go last and have their final result, she will sit back and see whether a win can be achieved or not — and if not, she is a class act and will do the class thing and get on board with the Democratic ticket,' said Jay Jacobs, a Democratic leader on Long Island and a superdelegate and top fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton."
Ah, not. I wholly disagree. If she were a "class act," she would have done what RoboWillard did and just stop campaigning. Now she can win if she manages to get the Democratic party to re-write the rules and admit the delegates from Michigan and Florida, which broke the fucking rules and where Obama didn't campaign, but where Clinton ran a shadow and illegal campaign effort. Her other chances of winning depend on the political equivalent of winning the Powerball lottery.
Which leads to the conclusion that Clinton's real goal at this point is to position herself for 2012, having done all that she could to hamstring Obama with her Rovian-style campaign.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Do You Now ,Or Have You Ever Disagreed With the Bush Administration on Anything?
Maybe you've made a phone call disparaging George Bush. Maybe you own firearms. Maybe you have protested anything. Maybe you're a civil rights lawyer. Maybe you're a reporter. Maybe you're a blogger or you wrote something disparaging about Bush in an online forum. Maybe you just shot your mouth off in a bar.
They probably know who you are. And they may be planning to arrest you.
Read the article. Then ask yourself why there is no national outrage over this. Why are there no public hearings.
Why is George Bush still president? Why is Dick Cheney still vice president? Why haven't those two Constitution-destroying fucks been locked up for treason?
(H/T to the Alternate Brain)
Dave Barry and Stuff
So as I am getting ready to write this post, I notice that there is one of those annoying "popunder" windows on my computer. I clicked on the box and it was some ad promising to "make my monitor come alive."
Great. Just fucking great. I have enough trouble with live people and critters, now I'm going to have to deal with animate computer peripherals? No thanks.
Where was I? Oh, yes...
Dave Barry doesn't do too many columns these days. But he did do one last month on income taxes. I'm not going to paste in his recommendations on the proper way to deduct the cost of whaling harpoons (go read it). But I will copy his Q&A about the Chimpy Stimulus Payment:
Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.
Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.
Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.
Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.
Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.
Clearing It Up for the Idiots
Keith Olbermann feels sorry for the Wingnuts who automatically assume that "cold-blooded killers" applies to the soldiers.
He asks a good question: Why do they hate our troops?
Bring It On. Really.
President Bush is planning to have an active role in this year's campaign.
"`The president believes very strongly that, if we get out and take our message to voters, that we can be successful,' said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel."
Seventeen out of twenty Americans believe this country is on the wrong track.
(Click to enlarge)Bush has the highest disapproval ratings (71%) since polling operations began asking that question. Which means that even a lot of Republicans, who may personally like the King of the Baboons, really think he is a fucking idiot. You could spread the Bird Flu around a major city and you would still be more popular than George Bush.
And this guy seriously thinks he can convince people to vote for Republicans? Bush isn't just in a bubble, he is living in either a hermetically-sealed armor-plated room or he is on a constant drip of LSD.
Or he is just retarded.
Bush will help the Republican candidates with the same efficiency and effect that he has helped New Orleans and Iraq. The idea that Bush is going to be flitting about the nation campaigning for Republicans has to strike fear into the hearts of virtually every GOP candidate running for office. The Republican candidates know this, they've lost three special elections for House seats that they should have won, and it's because of George Bush.
The Republicans probably wish that the Mars Landing program were closer to reality and that they could send Bush there, starting last week.
Bush campaigning for Republicans? Oh yeah, bring it on!
Monday, May 19, 2008
Thus Shall It Come To Pass
The dying leader shall know the truth of the opera house.
Battlestar Galactica is the best damn show on television. but since I'm not interested in shows about the psychosexual drama of life in a teaching hospital or mystics/serial killers helping the cops or retards trying for recording contracts or any of that shit, my selection pool is pretty limited.
With the addition of hundreds of cable channels, the wasteland has only gotten vaster.
Gun Stuff
The Marines have nothing on this Red Army sniper.
Next up is a video where you can watch a CNC lathe make solid bullets for the new Barrett rifle. Embedding was disabled on it, so you have to click on this link. The operator shut off the oil spray lube gizmo to be able to film it.
The Royal Carribean Death Penalty
If you complain about them in an on-line forum or a blog, you may be banned for life from ever going on a Royal Carribean cruise.
"Royal," indeed. "Off with their heads!"
I don't get cruising, I truly don't. I don't see the fun in going to a vacation spa that can both catch on fire and sink. I sure don't see the attraction in a spa where, if things suck, you can't whistle up a cab, go to the airport and go home.
"Woo-hoo, we're on a big boat." Big fucking deal, these folks will pay you to do that. Though the accommodations may not be as nice, the ports-of-call can be a bit sketchy, you can't drink booze on the ships and the cruise lengths are longer, they'll still pay you.
The "Father of Reaganomics" Says....
... that the greatest threat to the United States at the current time comes from the Right, for they are people who profess to love the United States, while they are trying to destroy the Constitution.
"Conservatives have confused loyalty to country, which is loyalty to the Constitution, with loyalty to the Bush Regime."
No fucking shit, Sherlock. People like me have been saying this since the first of Bush's "security" initiatives were made public in 2001. It was brutally clear when Bush put out a "military order" which authorized the first go-around of the military commission system. Some conservatives, such as William Safire, saw this for what it was and spoke out against it. But most just stood behind Bush and applauded as Der Monkey Fuhrer began to dismantle the rule of law and turn this nation into a nation of torturers.
So now some conservatives are starting to wake up.
Welcome to the party, pal.
Practice, Practice
It was threatening rain yesterday when I went flying. I went up for about fifteen minutes around the local area to get the oil warm, then I returned for a series of landings. When you're flying an airplane with a tailwheel, what is important is not just touching down on the runway, but controlling the airplane throughout the rollout on the runway.
So what you do are full-stop landings. If you are at an airport that has long enough runways, you can do "stop and goes," otherwise you pull off the runway and taxi back to the end. The airport I fly from doesn't have a long runway, so that is what I do. And that is what I did yesterday for about eight circuits of the traffic pattern.
It's not the easiest thing to do to the engine; it's "full rich" operation the whole way. You're going from full power to altitude, slow cruise in the downwind and then partial/idle power on the way down, and that repeats every six minutes or less. Aircraft engines last the longest with you're at a decent cruise power with the engine properly leaned.
Still, it's good practice from time to time.
Maaa! Keith's being mean to meeee! Make him stooooppp!
That's the basic theme of Bill O'Reilly's use of Fox and its bosses to try and get back at GE. The Bald Bombast is attacking GE because GE owns NBC, NBC owns MSNBC and MSNBC's cable channel runs "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."
Whining to one's corporate mother is indeed the sign of a coward and a bully.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Sheep Shonnie Nonnie
(This is a bit of a delayed commentary on the little brouhaha between Matthews and Kevin James, some Wingnut turdlet)
I once knew an Albanian woman. When she got mad at someone, she would let loose with a torrent of Albanian invective. One of the phrases she would yell sounded like "sheep shonnie nonnie." I have no idea what that means, but I gathered it was the sort of phrase that, if uttered to another Albanian, might well have led to someone suddenly coming down with a bad case of bullet wounds.
If I were to yell "sheep shonnie nonnie" at someone, I would be in the same situation as that turdlet was in when he was throwing around the word "appeaser." James had no idea what the term "appeaser" meant, he had no idea what happened during the Munich negotiations in 1938 or what Prime Minister Chamberlain did that was termed "appeasement." All James knew was that calling someone an "appeaser" was a bad thing.
That is partially what is wrong in this country today: We have people throwing around terms as pejoratives with no absolutely fucking clue what they are talking about. As a result, we now have people like Kevin James and George Bush who seem to think that "discussions" and "diplomacy" are synonymous with "appeasement." If diplomacy is appeasement, then Nixon appeased the Chinese when he went to China in 1972. Nixon appeased the Soviets when he negotiated the SALT I treaty in 1972. Reagan was an appeaser when he met with Gorbachev at the Reykjavik Summit in 1986.
Words have power. But they also have meaning. When people bandy about words and phrases with faint or no regard for what those words and phrases mean, then they debase both the discussion and themselves. They show themselves to be bereft of ideas and understanding, they can only throw around words like a gorilla throws feces at other gorillas.
George W. Bush uses words such as "appeasement" and "freedom" and "liberty" and "sacrifice" with no concept as to what those words mean. He really and truly is the Chimperor, for all he does is fling rhetorical shit at those who oppose him.
How Fucking Stupid Do You Have to Be?
To do something like this:
An American soldier used a copy of the Quran for shooting practice.
Imagine, if you will, that a Muslim soldier had gone into a church, taken down the image of Christ on the Cross, and then used that for target practice. You would hear no end of the outrage from people such as that Republican toady who is the head of the Catholic League, who, I will bet if he were asked about this incident, would call it "no big deal."
"Disciplined," yes indeedy. Sending someone home from Iraq, now that's punishment.
Stupid shit like that makes it clear that the U.S. Army is an army of occupation. That's the sort of act one expects from an occupier whose task is to place a boot on the neck of the locals and press them to the ground. That's not the act of a friend or an ally.
Stupid shit like that gets people killed.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Late on Caturday
For the last post of the day:
I have enough old towels, both from my use and from a friend, that I can put towels on most of my furniture and have spares to put on the furniture while the ones that were in use are being washed. Usually I'll fold up the washed towels until they are put back on the furniture, but if I'm running late, I'll just dump them next to my desk. When I do that, one of the cats often will find it an irresistible place to lie down.
This time, it was Jake's turn.
Wow!
Big Brown just won the Preakness Stakes.
I'm not a horse-racing fan, but Big Brown made that race look easy. It was a thing of beauty to watch.
The Stampede of the Converts
Don't be surprised if this photo results in a large number of people converting to every other religion in existence (or becoming atheists).
The slogans almost write themselves.
The Aerial Terror Threat
The idea is that the terrorists are going to come into this country, buy crop-dusting helicopters and load up the spray tanks with chemical or biological agents. Then the terrorists will fly those crop-dusters up to big buildings, hover near the intakes for the air conditioning systems and spray the CBW agents into the intakes. The terrorists would fly from one building to another, like some huge poison-dispensing bumblebee.
That probably sounds like a bad cable movie plot that is too cheesy even for Fox to produce. Even the Scifi Channel wouldn't touch it for one of their Saturday "most dangerous night on television" movies. But that is what the Department of Rodina Homeland Security and the FBI came up with a few years ago.
This is no shit. Your tax dollars at work.
(H/T to Schneier on Security)
Caturday
George takes no chances.
I'm really surprised that this shot came out. In order not to get the "light saber eyes" effect, I did not use the flash. The exposure time was one second. I have found it far more difficult to get a good picture of George than of my other cats, so I am pretty pleased with this one.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Tears
This is the opening sequence to the documentary One Six Right:
It never fails to put a lump in my throat.
But do yourself a favor: Go to the YouTube page here and watch it in full-screen mode.
Those are some beautiful airplanes. I'll probably never get to fly a P-51. I've flown a J-3, though, and it was just marvelous.
I make no claim to be any kind of super-duper pilot. I am an amateur, a weekend pilot. Yet my eyes are always drawn to the sky, whether it is clear blue or slate gray. When I see an airplane fly over, it is almost automatic to identify its type estimate its course, speed and altitude. I'll watch the Cessnas and Pipers flying 2,000' overhead the same way I'll note an airliner leaving a contrail against a blue sky, the sunlight glinting from its skin as twilight settles across the ground. and if the sight is accompanied by the sound of old radial engines, the thrill goes right to my bones.
One day, many years ago, I was in a large public park at an open-air festival, when a Grumman Tigercat flew by overhead.
The Tigercat was probably going from one distant airshow to another and I was thrilled to see it fly by. But I noticed that almost everyone around me didn't take note of that airplane, they didn't appreciate the fine lines of the airplane or the music of its two engines. I didn't feel superior to them, I didn't feel better for them. I felt sad for them, that their souls could not appreciate what had been offered.
Airplanes are music to my soul.
Lots and Lots of Airplanes!
The designer's website. I couldn't get the animation page to load, but YMMV.
100 years ago, this was high-tech in aviation:
Now, air transportation is basically not a hell of a lot more glamorous than an old intercity rail trip. All first-class mail goes by air for any great distances.
At the beginning of the 19th Century, you could not cross this continent by land; California was further away from New York than was Moscow. At the beginning of the 20th Century, you could get from New York to California in five days or so by rail. Now you can do it in five hours and I will bet that the inflation-adjusted price is far less than a coach-class rail ticket was a hundred years ago.
Sometimes it helps to stop and take a look back at how much things have changed in a very short span of time.
King Abdullah to Bush: "Go Fuck Yourself."
Saudi Arabia rejected Bush's plea to increase oil production.
$127/bbl oil suits the Saudis just fine, it seems.
Of, for the days when those two lovers held hands and walked through the Texas bluebonnets...
I guess King Abdullah did indeed know how to quit him.
How Our Media Is Failing You
They are not reporting the story that the Administration and Petraeus's drum-beating of "Iran, Iran, Iran" has fallen apart because they have not been able to show the evidence. The Iraqi government has not been convinced by the allegations (after all, they have good relations with Iran) and the purported cache of Iranian supplies consisted of nothing of the sort.
You won't see much of this in the New York Times, which despite years of experience with the lies of the Bush Administration, seemed to be swallowing the "Iran is to blame" line with a wide open throat. Their reporter, Michael Gordon, seems to be particularly willing to dish out to the Times's readers whatever load of tripe the Pentagon serves up.
Bet you haven't seen much of this story, either. As it is confirmed by two men with opposite political agendas, Doug Feith and Wesley Clark, it is probably true.
(H/T to Main & Central)
Oh, the Humanity
John Cole is right. I could watch this for hours.
Normally I don't care for Chris Matthews's show. It tends to be just too much blathering for my taste. But here, he did a masterful takedown of a Right-wing windbag who is all mouth and no intelligence.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Brava, Hillary
"President Bush’s comparison of any Democrat to Nazi appeasers is both offensive and outrageous on the face of it, especially in light of his failures in foreign policy. This is the kind of statement that has no place in any presidential address and certainly to use an important moment like the 60th anniversary celebration of Israel to make a political point seems terribly misplaced. Unfortunately, this is what we’ve come to expect from President Bush."
(More from WaPo)
That is spot on and Hillary should be commended for that by every thinking person in this nation, not just Democrats. Our Dipshit-in-Chief's inane comments are even more outrageous when you consider that ol' Prescott Bush, the Chimperor's grandfather, had rather cozy business ties to Germany right up to the time that Hitler declared war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941.
Secretary of Defense is an Appeaser of Fascism!
I swear, you just can't make this shit up:
George Bush states that negotiating with Iran is akin to appeasement of Hitler.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, wants to have greater contacts and talks with Iran.
Those guys can't even get on the same page. Most situation comedies have at least one character who is a complete idiot. The Bush Administration would be a riotous sitcom if only their bumbling hadn't cost the lives of 4,000 American soldiers, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, and resulted in over a half-million American soldiers with open wounds, closed brain injuries and PTSD.