Here goes… Fitz!

The idea of Snowjob going on FNS for a “fair and balanced” lovefest is beyond words. Not sure what planet I’m on anymore…

Happy Father’s Day to all the FDL dads.

Audubon and Fitz !

Murtha was great on Countdown too, Friday night. It was an incredibly long interview for tv.

Ha–funny about the feeder. I was out doing some weeding this morning and the nighborhood cardinal was lecturing me the whole time, “Put some damn seed in the feeder and then get the fuck out of here!” I swear. That’s what he was saying. Meanwhile a mourning dove was trying to use the guilt techique to get at me. “Sob-sob, will there be any new seed today? Sob-sob.”

JaneKnowles at 5 — that’s exactly how things have been here this morning, with the added bonus of a blue jay who is now adamantly demanding peanuts. Too funny.

Okay, and I know this is childish, but every time I see the last name of the guy who is the head of ConocoPhilipps, I think of that episode of Seinfeld. “Mulva.” “Deloris.” Mwahahahaha.

Morning, Christy!

We love the bird photographs. Thanks for this happiness.

Talking heads: one woman, DiFi. Can we write again to the publishers with names of other women they could invite, including obviously you, Jane, and Taylor? And that in general we would appreciate seeing some new faces *cough*Biden*cough*.

2500 dead and more than 18,000 wounded, of these how many would not have survived a ‘Vietnam’s’ state of the art medicine, seriously, very seriously handicapped, and the number would be closer to 10,000. Any takers…for this war of choice, even among Repugnants.
How about 15% of Iraq veterans with some kind of “battle syndrome” needing permanent and continuous help, that is not available. War on the cheap for future generations to pay and solve and resolve and sacrifice.

Ahh, the blue jays. We don’t many of them in my backyard in Brooklyn, but I love when those big mouths make an appearance. No one eats a seed with more gusto than a jay. They go out ‘em like jackhammers! I tell ya one bird I miss that used to visit our feeders in Jersey when I was a kid, black-capped chickadees. My neighbor taught me how to get them to eat seeds out of your hand. I miss them like crazy. You get chickadees, Christy?

And that in general we would appreciate seeing some new faces *cough*Biden*cough*.

One of these days, Schieffer or Wolf or Timmeh should lead off with, “Nice to see you again, Joe… nothing personal, Joe, but don’t you have a life? I feel like you’re stalking us, the way you hang around the studio all the time.”

Aww,I love little hummingbirds.The ones we have here don’t make an appearence in my yard til my hibiscus/rose of sharon comes into bloom.Since I cut the plants back last fall,they’ve been a bit slow to flower.In a couple more weeks though,I should have lots of them coming around soon.I miss the little things,so cute and FAST,lol.I do have two teeny little baby wabbits hanging out here though,they’ve taken to hiding in my raised flower beds.Yesterday I dug a shallow hole and placed a large bowl in the hole to make sure they have water,it’s been hotter than usual here.It’s a good thing my veggie garden has a little fence around it,lol.

I just can’t bring myself to watch the Sunday Yapping Head shows much anymore.I end up throwing a slipper at the teevee and yelling a few times per interview.I guess the main job qualification to have a”news”show these days is being a pompous ass.Ack.

Morning all! I left you something yummy in the last thread, egregious (a red head, huh?)

my cats, petey and roger got me a weed eater for dad’s day. yay!!! damn cats.

JaneKnowles at 10 — oh yeah, we had a nesting pair of chickadees in our yard this year. So cute. There is a wooded area not too far from our house, so we get a pretty wide variety at our feeders. I had several more around the yard, but they’ve been stolen a couple of times the last few years. I need to put in permanent feeders on posts that I cement into the ground…but somehow, I never seem to have the free time to do it. lol One of these days…it’s a goal of mine before fall and winter set in to get a couple more up around the yard this year.

Swopa at 11 — I’d chip in money to get one of them to do it. *g*

Great hummer photo, Christy, thanks! I miss them here in Asia — no hummingbirds in the Old World whatsoever, alas!

Right now the swallows that build nests under the eaves are super-active here: their young have just learned how to fly, but are still dependent on mom and pop for viddles: a couple days ago I watched a trio of scraggly-feathered younguns sitting on an electric wire on my street….mom or dad would swoop back every couple of minutes with some yummy bugs, and the children would all squawk…only one would get fed, and then the parent would swoop off again in search of more delicious bugs, plentiful now that the paddies have been flooded, the rice seedlings planted in the mud….

absolutely huge best to Jane and Mom, of course, and always huge thanks for the work you all do….FDL, more than any other site, really gives me hope…..

merlallen @ 14 — You couldn’t very well expect them to buy you a tie, now, could you? They’d snag the hell out of it trying to put it in the box.

Morning all,
All this talk of cardinals – I love those birds. Grew up with them, though none here in the PacNW. Was home to see my dad last week for his 80th (gotta call him today) – their backyard filled with cardinals, and mockingbirds and jays and doves – quite an exuberant display of avian fauna, I had forgotten. I had my boys with me – 10 and 4 – and they noticed all the birds too – but what was the real treat – LIGHTNING BUGS! That was magic, those little yellow flares splashed against pools of darker shade just as twilight was falling, and so easy to catch. They were thrilled. Later that night there was a BIG lightning storm – another think I really miss here in Seattle – weather with drama, with attitude. My kids were scared, but I loved it! I think that that’s what I miss of the midwest – muggy evenings, lightning bugs and thunderstorms.

By the by, I saw a red bird in my back yard when I was gardening yesterday — not a cardinal, but a red bird which I don’t get to see much here. As for Jays, they are pretty, but they shoo away all the other birds and quarrel with the squirrels all day long. Too noisy….

Murtha on Countdown – Unger used him for two of the 5 countdown segments and I thought that was a great way to go. Murtha holds up beyond a 30 sec. soundbite.

Harkening way back to the recipes thread, there was a link to an article posted and Christy commented some about the role of blogging, not to really replace journalists, but to keep nudging MSM to be more accurate and truthful.

I see two other roles emerging. First is the role of editing and story emphasis. MSM is led by the nose by politician on this and by editors leanings and worldview. OTOH, blogs act like and editor, sifting through the stories available and making independent determinations of which are the “top” stories of the day. The ability to bury story A and promote story B is being seriously challenged, along with the ability to edit to use slanted language and approaches. Stories are re-edited, but right in front of the readers, who then end up considering stories as very affected by the context of presentation.

Making the users of the information less reliant on the presentation gives them a different view on all news that is being presented.

The other important area is the one this thread highlights. The “news analysts” who become “new analysts” by being touted wi MSM as being – “new analysts.” Blog won’t replace real journalism on most fronts, but on the talking head front — those guys are very threatened and they are blind if they don’t see it.

MSM has reacted by trying to make them more and more controversial, but blogs are providing storyline deconstruction, challenges to touted credentials and almost real time response to factual misstatements, challenges to and almost real time comparisons to the context of current statements and stories v. prior statements, editorial assessments of guest selection and story promotion and the ability to coordinate comments with audience so that the “analysis” is tugged to discussion of what the audience really wants discussed.

Journalists don’t really have much of a threat from blogs (except those like TPM’ Muckacker that have bit the bullet to go ahead and engage in journalism on a story origination and development front), but talking heads programs will, IMO, over time be very threatened unless there is change.

As ever, Mary, great post. I really like the idea of blogs as group editor. They do fulfill the function of information processor (or news analysis if you prefer) but the real immediate impact that the MSM hates is the editing push back. If all that was happening on the blogs was individual bloviatings (and there is certainly plenty of that) then the corporate media wouldn’t care at all, because, at worst, they would simply be called upon to add their “superior” analysis in response to that of a blogger. In fact, this would continue their news patrimony.

However, it is the fact check and editing push-back that they hate. Smart people having an outlet other than the letter to the editor forum, which is strickly regulated by them. There isn’t ebven any such forum in TV media….

So now, their opinion is not challenged, their crdibility is. And just like people witghout deep crdibility reserves, they do not go to the well to boost their information and sourcing. No, they complain about how bloggers are mean.

I don’t see the current group ever improving. But the next generation will probably both come from this world and be responsive to its demands for accuracy and independence.

yeah, the countdown segment with murtha was terrific. the man’s integrity and authenticity are beyond question — well, except for the cowardly puckered-ass republicans. a very interesting nugget that came out of that conversation was murtha’s statement that he still intends to go for majority leader if the dems take the house; the bitching was more about the timing of his announcement, cause all the press wanted to talk about was his leadership intent.

Hey imman, thanks for the pecan pesto recipe!!

Speaking of paste, here’s my cut and paste:

That cable about employees at the Embassy was shocking.

These people work in Public Affairs. Guess it’s getting harder and harder to slap a happy face on that hell.

I especially liked that part about how employees felt like the news should somehow match their experience. But hey freedom’s on the march.

Mary at 6:54
Indeed. WRT the talking heads, I’m reminded of an interview I saw years ago of Noam Chomsky. One of his points was that he refuses to go on TV interviews because of their demands for ‘concision’. He felt that the demand for sound bite sized packaging utterly destroyed the ability to do justice to a discussion of a complex and important topic, and I think he’s right. Such constraints may (partly) underlie the small stable of talking Senatorial and Rep heads we see each Sunday- either by self-censorship or editorial – the one’s we see (to a degree) are the one’s willing to compromise their message, or compact it, to conform to the networks’ limitation on carry on bag size, if you will.
I’d be curious to hear Noam’s take on the blogosphere, both from his vantage as a political observer as well as a linguist/social scientist.

Murtha for president in ‘08! I wish he would toss his hat in the ring. It would make the contenders face the issue. He doesn’t eqivocate. And he speaks from the knowledge of someone who has lived war, and still lives it. Like my father, a WWII vet, he is very bitter towards those who bring on war and haven’t experienced, and care nothing for the terrible injury of soul that it brings to all, beyond the trauma,death, and destruction to innocents.

Good morning and thanks for the great photo. What a happy little guy. Lots of chickadees around here, they are incredibly tame. They come right to the feeder when i”m filling it and sometimes land on me. A noisy woodpecker outside this morning too.

Good luck to Tony Snow, I’d love to see Jack Murtha have at him.

Best to Jane and her Mom and family.

Happy Father’s Day to all of you dads here.

On the topic of hummers, we had a momma in our neighborhood for several weeks flitting about and chirping. We soon found a tiny nest in a large buddleia, with two tiny neele beaks sticking out. In a very short time those chicks filled that little nest and were practically bulging out, as much as hummers can bulge, and then they were gone. We heard multiple chirps for a few days – and now they seem to have moved on elsewhere. All quite miraculous.

John Fund on Reliable Sources…

Materials found with Zarquari indicate that Al Qaeda in Iraq has been decimated “and have been completely authenticated by my intelligence sources”

I’ve got a bridge….

Mary-
I agree about blogs being editors, but usually editors do their work before the public sees the final piece. Too bad that what they write gets out in print first and the corrections, if they get corrected, happen several days later on page 4.

tasch at 28 — you are so lucky. Hummingbird nests are notoriously tough to spot because they are so tiny and often so well hidden. To have found one with chicks in it is wonderful. Would love to have seen it!

Materials found with Zarquari indicate that Al Qaeda in Iraq has been decimated “and have been completely authenticated by my intelligence sources”

So now can we please get the F*** out of there??

I’ve got a bridge%u2026.

Exactly, because, you know, guerilla warriors always like to write pleading dire troop assesments, and ponderv– in writing — how wrong their tactics are and how right those of the enemy are. It happens in every war. I remember the documents captured in Viet Nam after Tet which proved the NVR and Viet Cong were on their knees.

I just hope we leave Iraq as soon as we left that “victory.”

egregious-
I guess that means the bombing has stopped, and peace is occuring as we speak.

Christy — while you are in the house. Mad snaps for yesterday morning!!

Snap asnap asnap, snap snap!

Maybe this will make the Public Affairs employees feel safe now and they can slap another happy face on that propaganda news.

You say snapping, I say slapping, let’s call the whole thing off :)

One of the reasons why I don’t watch tv, there is so little that is meaningful. So often you here the same stale remarks repeated again and again by the same cranks. Joe Biden must be on the payroll of the major networks.

Glad to hear that Murtha got two segments.

Unfortunately, the majority get their news and information from tv and other corporate media. They swallow it whole – spoon fed.

Happy Father’s Day to the delightful Mr. Smith, too. You have excellent taste in husbands, Christy. Also on Reliable Sources, according to the intro: a segment on Rove and the non-indictment and a segment on Yearly Kos. With Howie K. running things, I expect the story line on Rove is not indicted=innocent, and on Kos, well, who knows? Ah, yes, Fund is now bloviating on Rove. What a sack of scheiss. Warm thoughts going out to Jane and her mother; I hope everything turns out OK.

What do baby hummingbirds eat – nectar?

Good Morning Firepups,

Thanks as always for the birds Christy – due to weather patterns, ours are realy ‘off’ this year – usually have up to 12 species of warbler and this year we have 2. And the winter resident bluebirds have made an extended stay with as many as 7 babies at the birdbath. BUT, it’s also brought us a Lucifer’s Hummingbird

Imm-
how big is your red bird ? Cardinal size ? could be a Tanager Warbler size ? – could be a Vermillion Flycatcher

Note about Chickadees – always good to have around – other, more rare or secretive birds feel safer in their numbers and will come out for you

Morning All, Just saw Murtha on MTP oh how I love him. Saw where 13,000 more americans’s have lost their privacy. My Husband just recieved his letter from the VA, he recieved a purple heart in vietnam, he receives a small ck,he has retired from a good company he receives a small pension from there, because he retired early due to his health,why was all this very important infomation so casually carried in a lap top?????????????????? why did it ever leave the federal building???????? Please tell me how they going to spin this?????????????? They don’t have to explain nothing day after.

Kos is “coming up” on Reliable Sources…

No, kiddin’. The elction is a few months away, suddenly the “thwarted terrorist attack” stories start come to light in the US press. I could have NEVER imagined.

http://www.time.com/time/natio…..09,00.html

Oh yeah and Tony Snow would rather the press ignore stories oabout kidnapped American troops. He’d much rather the news re-run pictures of Zarqawis’s dead and bloated caracss.

Nice work.

-GSD

Murtha did well, EXCEPT…he wasn’t strong enough in countering that bastard Rovers attacks…WE NEED someone out there just countering Rover.

1..Rove is a TRAITOR, he leaked the identity of a CIA agent
2. How can Rove talk about the military, he LIED about his deferments in the Vietnam War, during his last deferment he ONLY went to school part time, and for a deferment you needed to be a full time student.(WHO GOT HIM OFF)
3..Rove is being paid by the American Public to ATTACK publicly elected officials(THIS NEEDS TO STOP)

We need to keep repeating this over and over in the public, the press won’t do it

Ever wonder why there are SO many incidents of stolen personal data? The total number of people affected is now over 100,000,000.

This data isn’t being carelessly lost, it’s being $y$tematically hijacked for the u$e of the giant dataminer$. These are non-government firms that don’t see the need to obey any privacy laws.

Of course even the government these days sees no need to follow the law either….Sigh.

There is a lot of money to be made by firms who have intimate details on 100,000,000 people. One could argue there are also opportunities for blackmail and political control as well.

Well the battle is heating up again in California’s Sequoia National Monument. The logging interests, acting through their proxy, the U.S. Forest Service is beginning its usual annual bunko propaganda, that starting fires in this area is good for the forest. These burns have one objective:logging. These clearing-fires only has to do with big Bush contributors like Georgia Pacific, Louisiana Pacific, major paper companies and the rest, in their greedy quest of the “bottom Line”. Ara Marderosian, director of ‘ForestKeeper’, says “they are turning this place into a desert”. And that’s true. If you’ve never visited Giant Sequoia National Monument, east of Fresno, on the way to Yosemite, then you’d better hurry. If Bush, corporate logging and the U.S. Forest “Service” get their way, it’ll all be gone soon. Don’t these nit-wits get it? Trees and all plants take in carbon dioxide (a human waste product) and give off oxygen. I mean, what good is all the money in the world without oxygen?

what I find interesting about the “authenticated” Rendon Zarqawi info is that while the ‘ooh we’re so screwed being up agaisnt an enemy so brilliant and ferocious as GWB, and can never hope to win against this great warrior’ is predictable, they screwed up the rest of it.

Why did they have the super-human terrorist Zarqawi coming out in favor of the same war in Iran as the necons are pushing?

Did someone in the Ministry of Propoganda miss a memo?

Snowjob is taking the media to task for spending so much time on the two missing soldiers in Iraq?

You’d think that cretin would at least pretend to show some compassion… He is as sociopathic as His Master.

I imagined this conversation Timmeh had with the oil lords after the cameras went dark -

“Ya’ know, if I’m gonna keep bullshitting Americans with a straight face, you guys need to give me a raise!”

BTW, let me add a crackle and pop to Imm’s snaps. The comments from the regular readers — a much nicer word than lurkers, IMO — were great, and I’ve bookmarked the page so I can go back for the recipes. A bunch more, including one from me, were added after the new thread started, so folks might want to go back to collect them. Imm, if you posted a recipe for pecan pesto, I seem to have missed it, and egregious, your link just took me back to this page. But thanks anyway. I pass several pecan stands on my way to Ocala, and from time to time stop and buy such goodies as pecan syrup for pancakes, but I’ve never seen a pecan pesto. Damn, I’m going to start drooling again. If this keeps up, I’ll have to buy a bib.

Hi all. I never turn on Pumpkinhead, but just did to see Murtha. The man is kicking BOOTAY. Damn!

Still trying to figure out the spin on the kidnappings. CNN was on this like a narcotic all day, so there must be some home front propaganda interest. Maybe it’s a Nicholas Berg thing to show how baaad and scaaary the bad guys are so we have to stay over there, see?

Then possibly saner heads realized this reminds normal Americans that our children are over there = bad for the administration.

Snowjob is going to self-immolate eventually, I can feel it…it couldn’t happen to a bigger creep and disgusting megalomaniac

BarbaraB sorry about the lame link. Still trying to learn how to link past comments.

Immanentize’s Pecan Pesto:
Put: 1 Cup Pecans, (toasted for 8 mins at 350 on cookie sheet), A full large head of garlic, cloves peeled, One cup (mushed down) fresh clean Basil leaves, 1 Cup grated parmesan or Pecorino, 1/2 cup good olive oil (I like Zoe) and one T salt INTO your cuisine art and pulse until it is a well-mixed coaurse mixture. You can double or triple as you like. Using a blender works too, but you will need more olive oil.

Great photo of the hummingbird this morning, although with THREE oil executives on Meet the Press this morning a photo of one of the birds in Alasaka after the Exxon Valdez spill might have been appropriate.

I thought Markos was a PHENOM just now…articulate, to the point and really gave the message that NEEDS to be heard…Dems take note PLEASE

Seeing these big three-oil company lying-heads explaining their ‘vision’ and prescription for America’s cold turkey rehab for oil dependency, on Meet the Press, makes me wish I could be in the studio with these guys and the Timster so I could throw up all over Russert, the big oil devils and Timmy’s pretty little table. What unbelievable hogwash is this?

I posted about the missing soldiers and the Republican’s shamful sham last week.

http://www.progressiveu.org/09…..h-triangle

I’m working on a follow-up article. So if you are a veteran of war and would like to answer a few questions, please register at progressive u and post a pm to me there. (This would be strictly confidential)

nolies32fouettes

Indiana is a major corn state: we have a number of ethanol plants in varying stages of completion. There’s just one that is U.S.-owned — all the rest are ‘foreign-owned’. So much for energy independence!

Was away for a bit – checking out Darksyde’s EXCELLENT post on DK this morning – go check it out.
As to what the baby hummers eat – what I saw watching the nest was that momma bird fed them from her beak – regurgitant food was my interpretation, and I assume she was feeding on nectar. Checking Roger Troy Peterson, diet is listed as nectar, small insects and spiders – yum!
I know they have a preference for red – as in flower color, and the reason that hummer feeders are colored as they are. I had the experience once while camping in the backcountry at Mt. Lassen – I was wearing a sweater colored grey with a bright red stripe across the chest – and a pair of hummers buzzed my several times one morning – I think they took me for a food source! It was great!

Thanks, egregious. I’m such a technoklutz that I don’t even attempt links, or block quotes, so I really admire someone who’s willing to try! Guess I’ll have to find my food processor. That’s a wonderful recipe. And wasn’t it fun to see yet more proof that bloggers are real people with real lives who actually cook (although in my case, make that “occasionally”) and what’s more have amazingly cultivated taste buds? Although I’m still dubitante about chicken gizzards…

The History Channel broadcast The Fog Of War last night — basically Robert McNamara’s life story. Brilliant guy — it’s a shame he didn’t follow George Ball’s example, and resign in protest over LBJ’s Vietnam policy.

Anyway, there was one bit of information (a screenshot at the start of an HC commercial break?) that totally shocked me.

In WWII, the average soldier spent 40 days in combat for every year they were in the South Pacific; In Vietnam, infantry soldiers spent 245 days in combat for every year of deployment.

Think about it — in WWII, it was one day out of six in combat; in Vietnam, it was 2 out of 3. What is the ratio in Iraq? 3 out of 4? 4 out of 5?

The problem with even the narrative of “al-Qaeda in Iraq is decimated” is that, even if true, it’s a big *so-what* for the overall situation.

Murtha was the first to tackle it head on and openly, but for over a year now the reports have been pretty clear that al-Qaeda is not the major player in all the unrest – sectarian violence, militia and a missionless US military being used for pong by all the various elements and by their leaders for politicking have been the bulk of the problems.

As they always were likely to be.

Terrorists have been created, but not necessarily al-Qaeda directed terrorists, and terrorism as a tactic — just as we used it for Shock and Awe — is being used by the militias and even by neighborhood groups.

So even accepting the narrative doesn’t change the situation by much. Then there is the ever diminishing loss of govt and military credibiity to ask that such a “stretchy” narrative be accepted.

But it’ a Rove/Rumsfeld approach – emphasis what has been the smallest part of the problem where you can stage manage and photo op, so that no one dwells on the bigger picture.

RE: Rove – I think it feeds the Republican boogey man machine to focus so much on countering his tactics with similar tactics. He can be countered just as well (better) with an Ivins or TDS approach.

E.g – “Left wing bloggers are angry and divisive.”

Response: You’re absolutely right. They were foaming at the mouth the other day on “left wing” FDL … Or that might have been drooling? Recipe sharing is a well known left wing divide and conquer tactic. Angry politicians use recipe swaps to attack their detractors all the time. I mean – take a look at Laura Bush and her cookie recipe tactics.

The recipe sharing clearly shows how divided the left has become on ideologic lines – with some purporting the divinity of brownies, some of chess pie and a few even worshiping the sacred cow of Devine Flank Steak.

The scarey part for Rove is that reading through that thread – even right wing icons have mouth foaming response. Scarey scarey people those bloggers. Even in his most inspired momemnts, Rove, the master, never thought to launch an assault on the senses that started with taste.

Definitely he stays away from taste. ;-)

#60…

Yes, ‘foreign owned’. So the bottom-line flows elsewhere.

Another thing that makes me wonder is the costs associated with corn production. I mean you have fuel charges, seed planting and harvesting costs, transportation debits and a host of other outlays. Coming from an ag. background, and living surrounded by farmers and ranchers (family and friends), I am naturally pro-farm/ag. But still, I have concerns.

Thank you FDL people. Gave up the tube months ago and use my
big old cable service just to internet. Getting the gist of the
media by FDL Telegraph is the best.

wandering thoughts this morning

last thread: Ed*ard Teller says:
June 17th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Oh good, another rhubarb fan!

The hummer up top reminds me that I saw a female Anna’s taking a bath in wet grass once. (Afraid of people? Not at all!) I’ve seen nests several times; they aren’t necessarily hidden, you just have to know what to look for. And yesterday’s birdwatching, while waiting for the mailbox place to open, was a pair of woodpeckers checking out the powerpoles in the parking lot. I ending up getting the binoculars to ID the birds: they’re acorn woodpeckers, not usual in the city.

I get more news from the blogs than I do from cnn.com or the newspapers, all of whom tend to ignore things like Shirlington that they should be looking closely at.

Oklahoma kiddo, not to be too picky, but unless it has been downgraded (not impossible under the facist rule of Bu$hco), Sequoia is a National Park (as is Kings Canyon nearby). Both were, and hopefully still are, blissfully less developed than Yosemite to the north.

“Left wing bloggers are angry and divisive.”

Response: You’re absolutely right.

Not quite — Left wing bloggers are angry and united — because the Bush Administration is dishonest and divisive; because the Bush Administration has destroyed America’s reputation around the world, has made us less safe by invading Iraq and letting Osama go free; and because the Bush Administration is trying to destroy the very fabric of American society and government.

We so called left wing bloggers are the true patriots — Bush and his henchmen are the divisive traitors.

Mary,

caught your anxiety about the missing soldiers in yesterday’s threads and it sounds like they hyped it all day yesterday

be prepared for WH to turn this in to some opportunistic lurid burlesque, complete with graphic imagery and obligatory warnings about ‘distrubing images’ just to bump the JAR by one or two points.

don’t mean to sound insensitive to their loved ones but if Karl can’t bump up numbers, he’d settle for galvanizing his eroding base with bloody american bodies

Looking at Murtha on Meet the Puss, and listening to what he’s had to say for the better part of the last year regarding Iraq, I am impressed. This is a man who is not afraid to say he made a mistake. His ideas are good and realistic on Iraq. The thought occurs that a Murtha/Hillary Clinton draft set-up, or what ever, could be a Democratic way to out Rove, Rove. And it just might defeat the Repubs in ‘08.

Murtha handled Meethead very handily, but I am still sick over the resurgence of Oinker Rove.

Murtha ROCKS!

Just stepped away for a phone call — Mrs. Imm and Imm Jr. are in Texas right now visiting the inlaws for father’s day. Sadly, my wife’s grandfather (89) passed this morning. He was a really great guy — very kind to me and a wonderful great-grandfather to my son. Few get that treat in life. Took little Imm (when he was four) fishing in the creek that he fished in when he was a boy and where he taught my wife’s father to fish. All very aad, but also nice to think about. My father died when I was but 31, and he never got to meet my wife or my son. It was a weird thing — no matter where you are in life, no matter how your father goes — peacfully in his sleep (like my wife’s grandfather) or after a long battle with cancer (like my Dad) — the children left behind are stripped of a generational barrier to their own mortality.

Love the hummingbirds. We keep a couple of feeders full and are swarmed throughout the summer. A few females show early and are joined a bit later by the males. They feed heavily for a while and then the visits taper off–I’m guessing while they are nesting. A few weeks later they are swarming again. Set up a camera on a tripod several years back in an attempt to capture in one frame some sense of the numbers, co-workers seemed not to believe my claims. Best shot included twelve.

As for the situation in Iraq, I’m worried that we may have a “Tet” there that will put the lie to the hogwash coming from the higher command types. I’m sure that our firepower will see the troops though the horror, but not until there are hundreds of deaths on all sides. A coordinated assault over large areas would spread our air thin, and could leave pockets of American troops on their own for too long.

I’m a Viet Nam veteran (CIB, two Purple Hearts) and I still am visited by the memories of that time, not all of them ugly but many are. As a callow youth I was drawn by the lure of adventure, raised on John Wayne, and oblivious to the political nature of what seemed a glorious opportunity to test my mettle. My view of the glory of war was changed by the nasty, brutal, and dehumanizing nature of that war. I fear and I hope this lesson is being learnt all over again in another political war.

Karl”Miss PIggy” Rove…NEEDS to be handled, and the bloggers are the ones that need to frame the points to handle that troll…..we have been watching that Rover from the outside and I think the bloggers have a better handle on how Miss Piggy thinks and works.

theExile #68…

Appreciate what you’re saying. Check out, if you have time Sacbee.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/…..0289c.html

Summer evenings: at the request of The Eldest, I just blogged (again) about a do-it-yourself mosquito trap. It’s quick and easy, and given that the West Nile virus now seems to be well established, a good idea. Thought I’d pass it along.

imman, sorry to hear of the death in your family. Sounds like a special bunch of people.

I made the chicken gizzard soup last night. It was wonderful. Many thanks!

snoboysdrift 66 – I’m with you – I never watch these gagworthy “news” shows – nor even turn on the TV at all now that Sopranos and L Word are over. I suppose the only reason I’m paying the satellite company is in case I ever need a slug of Spongebob.

Even 10 minutes of commercial tv generally makes me feel assaulted and depressed. It feels physically toxic and malign.

Happy Father’s Day folks.

Our poor birdie-poppas around here today:

Crows feeding 4 clumsy but eager, brand new fledglings that’re noisily chasing them around all over the yard; parents are frantic. And there’s a domino effect on down thru mobbing Blue Jays who don’t like the boorish crows, a bunch of others annoyed by the jays, & so on & so on. Background ostinato of the warring House Wren daddies.

Ruby-throated Hummers here – no Anna’s, alas: nests must be full of babies, ’cause poppa can’t get no respect. He doesn’t help to feed ‘em, so momma won’t let him anywhere near the feeder, & she’s in one BAD mood, poor fella.

Markos was on Howie again this a.m. – assume it was a repeat. I didn’t get to see it last week. Agreed. Markos sounded wonderful. Howie, not so much. LOVED that Lamont ad, which got a freebie showing during the interview!

No time for reading comments, so apologies if someone else reported this: Dan Abrams has been made HEAD of tv news division at MSNBC??? Wants to kick their news programming up a notch & make it “edgier”??? oh sigh. did I hear that right?

new thread — new vision

back to birds for a moment -

If you are a ‘birder’ – all that hype about SE Arizona is true. if you can afford the time and the $$, make the pilgramage, esp to Nature Conservancy’s Ramsey Canyon Preserve. You don’t even have to take advantage of the wonderful hiking, you can actually just sit at a few of the sites they’ve set up to see most N. Am. Hummingbirds. Try and fit in an overnight to Cave Creek (Trogons & various Mexican vagrants). Really is a Disneyland for us tree huggers

new thread — linky

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..e-glasses/

Imman – condolences for your loss. It sounds like he was able to leave your family, with some wonderful memories. I’m glad your wife and her parents are together and I hope you have a quiet, “connected” day since you can’t be with them physically.

Bird question–my mother has never seen a bluebird. Ideas about where I could take her to see one, either wild or captive? Thanks.

egregious 87

What part of the country are you in?

There’s Eastern Bluebird, and Western – and Mountain – . All different species & ranges.

You might try looking on the net – thru Audubon, or local birding clubs’links. Surely someone could point you to a nearby sanctuary with trails. Bluebirds are so popular, and so tame, they’re easy to see in the right spot, because many such places slap up nestboxes along meadow trails.

If looking on the net for pix, google bluebird and click on “Images”. You’ll probably get a multipage assortment of desktop-background-quality photos to enjoy.

Thanks Adie, we are in the east.

Christy 7: Saved me the trouble of pointing out that coincidence. I always thought the joke was how unlikely “Mulva” was to begin with. Never thought it could be a real name–who knew?

Next EPU-level question: why do people give a warning that there is a PDF? Does it load too slowly, or take up too much space?

egregious at 91 — because it loads very slowly and can be difficult on some computers to get in and out of once it starts to load. So the polite thing to do is give a heads up.

Imm., so sorry to hear about your grandfather in law. I agree, no matter how old one is, the death of a parent is a special kind of punch in the gut. At least your son got to know him. I wish we as a society did a better job of integrating the notion of death into our notion of life.

Our western orioles are having a good summer. Haven’t seen the mean old egg-thieving crows yet (I actually love crows, crow is my totem, but not when they rip the hanging nest to shreds).

Last week at around 9am I saw a coyote loping down the street with a mocker and a crow in hot pursuit. The mocker caught up with the coyote and seemed to rip some fur off his back. The coyote got indignant, turned for a second, and the crow was right in his face. Off coyote went into the bushes.

Thanks once again to those of you with cast iron stomachs willing to watch the cable spews. What’s with all the oil execs on the show with Murtha? Did I miss something? *s* I can’t keep up anymore.

Happy Fathers Day.

Another rhubarb recipe – I’m doing this from memory, will re-run it later if I mess it up. It’s Persian, a sauce for rice. (First met it at a restaurant run by people who left under the Shah, whose secret police were more than they wanted to deal with.)

Khoreshte Rivas
1 1/2 lb beef, cut up for stew
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
butter or margarine
1 lb rhubarb, in 1 to 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup chopped parsley
2 tbsp chopped mint (optional)

Brown the meat and onion with the nutmeg and cinnamon in the butter or margarine (if you want, add 1 tsp salt and some pepper here).
Add 2 cups water and simmer about 45 minutes. (Add more water if needed.)
Add the rhubarb, parsley (and mint) and simmer about 15 minutes.
Serve over rice.

Oklahoma kiddo, 58:

Seeing these big three-oil company lying-heads explaining their ‘vision’ and prescription for America’s cold turkey rehab for oil dependency, on Meet the Press, […]

I found myself thinking it was more like watching the leader of the Medellin Cartel and an Afghan Drug Lord explaining how they would continue to satisfy the problems of rising demand for cocaine and heroin in years to come. “Rising demand is just part of the problem: we have the production capacity, but the problem is a continuous supply chain”.

This was no kick-the-habit just-say-no longest-journey-single-step come-to-jesus session. This was all “heh-heh-heh, e85 unknown quantity, lets do more fossil fuels. Lower prices means more demand, so heck no, we want you to pay ’til it hurts”. No global warming, no international politics of supply, no price inelasticity of demand.

And no balance: where’s Al Gore when we need him?

egregious

I just tried google Bluebird Images Search

Plentypix.

Had to brag about our Eastern Bluebird poppa. He and the Mrs. have set up housekeeping in a wood nestbox 10′ from my veg. garden, 20′ from our house. He helps me garden – in so many ways. . . [no need for an I-Pod here]
Often just sits on the garden fence next to me.
They’re feeding nestlings right now – probably due to fledge any day now. Same guy comes back every year, usually managing to raise 2 broods (we’re in n.e. OH).
Good for the head & heart to visit with him often while we wrestle with the rest of the world.
Do hope you can find some for your mom to see. Their little chortle of a song alone is worth the price of admission, till you catch a glimpse of that day-glow blue in the sunlight…
They very readily use man-made nestboxes. In fact, that’s probably what has saved them & helped them prosper, as competition from Eur. starlings was putting their future in serious jeopardy back in the 60’s.

Thanks for all your good work. I’m embarrassed to admit how often I lurk at FDL. Discovered it by accident one day, and it’s my all-time favorite for news & pithy comment, wonderful ideas and, yes, good healthy snark ;->

Tried to watch the Sunday shows, but got disgusted listening to the oil company execs explaining their obscene profits. My vote for best quote has to be, regarding ethanol production, “There’s only so much corn.”

The hummingbird was the highlight of my morning. Ours will start showing up when the agastache comes into bloom. I’m jealous of all who have cardinals; we don’t have those here in Utah. We’ve had sightings of the lovely elegant little eastern blue jays here, but at our house we get only the large, noisy scrub jays (also blue), and the occasional Stellar jay. The parents may be bullies, but who could complain about those little blue babies just learning to fly.

Thanks for the pics, Christy

Your talk of birds made me remember the bird nest I found in a big hanging plant on my patio, that I saved, and will keep forever. I cut my girls hair on the patio, and thought I had swept it all up afterward. A few months later we heard chirping in the hanging basket. We watched the mother and father birds feed the babies for days. Once they were gone, we took the plant down to see the nest. It was made entirely of spun blond hair. My little daughter’s hair!

I just love FDL, and everyone here! Happy Father’s Day to all!

Oh my, PJ Evans– that looks heavenly!

anwaya…95

Precisely. That is the suppliers script for users. More of the same. Deal with the symptom; not the cause. And then all will be fine. That’s why ‘talk’ and the lip service to ethanol was just that. Lip service. Strictly p.r. bunk. I almost gagged when that one oil-head said that maybe in thirty years bio-fuel might make an impact. Can you imagine the discussion these guys have in their board meetings following one of their talking-head appearances with Timothy or the rest. I visualize a lot of cigar smoke, the Texas two-step, martinis and back slapping.

Mary-

You are right about the issue of Al Qaeda in Iraq. If the Democrats had an ounce of brains, they would keep pounding out Murtha’s point, which is that the terrorists make up only 7 percent of those who are aligned against the coalition forces in Iraq. Again, to be very clear, that figure is not seventy percent but SEVEN. The Republicans keep going on about how the U.S. has to keep fighting against the terrorists. As Murtha has also pointed out, it is the very presence of the U.S. military that is inflaming the insurgency and creating a breeding ground for the terrorists. The terrorists are also in 60 other countries around the world. Do the Republicans expect the U.S. to invade and occupy sixty other countries, in what should be seen as a police action instead of one which involves military force? The Democrats and activists have to get a hell of a lot more persistent in getting these messages out to the citizens of this country. End the occupation and bring the troops home- NOW.

The so called news is so bad I want to vomit! How could he miss his chance to challenge them about alternatives to more drilling and same-old, same-old? How could he not ask them what their profits would have been IF they had paid the royalty taxes they were supposed to or paid out the Exxon-Valdeeze fine instead of fighting it? ARGH!!!I’ll pay $5 per gallon IF there is an alternative in the works. We hate paying $3 because we know they’re NOT working on any long term solution.

EPU’d but wanted to thank P J Evans for the savory rhubarb recipe.

I love sweets but shouldn’t really eat them, so I rarely get to have rhubarb but this one sounds really interesting and yummy.

Thanks tasch – regurgitated nectar, sounds heavenly!

Susan 103:

You know, the Pennsylvania Dutch got right to the point when they called rhubarb pie plant; can’t beat a piece of rhubarb pie, regular or custard. But no strawberries mixed in, please! With rhubarb, it’s all or nothing…

To all for father’s day:
I just came back from a spiritual service where they offered a prayer of gratitude not only for all the fathers present, but for all the SINGLE MOMS DOING THE WORK OF FATHERS TOO! The place went wild and over 1000 people were on their feet.

Not falling in either category myself, it was nevertheless a moving experience.

So, to all the fathers on FDL – and any single parents doing the work of fathers – thanks for all you do.

And teach your children well about what is necessary to return this country to a true democracy.

Happy Father’s Day!

EGREGIOUS at #24 above said:
Hey imman, thanks for the pecan pesto recipe!!
==
I just want to say thanks also. Browsed (grazed?) through the entire thread looking for that recipe and afraid imman wd not come through. Cd have done a page search, but think of the fun I’d have missed. Also, not one but two CHESS pie recipes. There’s a traditional treat that Really needs to make a comeback.

Wd love to know how imman serves the pecan pesto, though.