ES!!!

zed

ES!

EPUed from previous
Great show coming on here in bay area on KQED “The Lobotomist”. An intriguing look at what the NY Times once dubbed “surgery of the soul—-the lobotomy…. Think George Bushco had one? Might explain a lot things about him:>(

((( ES )))

Who worked today?

Oh, ES, you shouldn’t have! My special day isn’t until next Saturday.
But thanks anyhow…

FunnyDiva
Whose “mundane” initials really ARE M.L.K.

good evening everyone..)

ES!!

Diva! I miss you when you lurk.

We shall overcome baby!

Ohh bee- have ! *g*

ES! On my mind: working for peace. Never. Ever. Forgetting. Iraq. Never.

Oh and justice. Everywhere.

(thank you and back to work I go)

Aw….ES,that’s so sweet of you!
I’m trying to keep myself from coming back to reality at 5pm still in my jammies…it’s so easy to do. And there have been so many near-flame-wars over prez. candies, I’m trying to stay informed without sticking my neck out.

FunnyD
Who once had a boss say “ooh, add an “i” to your initials, and you get “milk”". Um. Yeah. Good one. _His_ initials? D.M.B. Even straight outta College I could bite my tongue on that one!

I must say that was pretty bold of D.M.B. And yes re the near flame wars.. I am just tapping my , err.. fingers, awaiting Let Down Wednesday morning.. so we can get back on our Blue America horse (I hope).

FunnyD,
Stories like that one are part of what I love about late nights.
DMB…lol!

Yeah, for some reason, Science PhDs aren’t always the sharpest knives in the drawer.
But it’s good for a laugh…and I remember the guy, 15 years later, so what the hey…
FunnyD

Evening, all!

Stock markets/global finances are pretty much what’s on my mind tonight :-P

And what a fall.

I invest in milk, one half gallon at a time.

At least oil is down to 88.00.

Is oil down that much?

-G

According to this it is.

And our own Suzanne is saving a bundle on her electric bill. Power went out a few minutes ago, AGAIN!

Oh hey! ILY

Ugh, that’s one way to do it, I suppose :-P

Thanks ES.

Gotta get to bed.

-G

Good night, -G.

Not the way to save with these temps… no blowers to move the heat around….Brrr.. give me a wood burner for especially those times…

Well, pups, it’s been a lovely day here at the Lake, but I’m in day 3 of a Very Bad Cold and the fever-reducer has just kicked in. So…while I have half a chance of getting to sleep, I’m going to toddle off to bed. See all you lovely people tomorrow. And I do mean that–the Lake is so great for meeting folks with good hearts AND good brains.

‘night!
FunnyD

Here is some eye and ear candy for this lovely weather here in the bay area.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JYrOMK1aDA

Yeah, we watched it here on the East Coast; very interesting.

I don’t think W had a lobotomy — as I understand it, it makes you emotionally detached, and he’s way too vicious for that.

I think she has a wood stove. Hope she has wood… Cally wood prices are out of sight.. 45 to 55 a rick in AR, and we complain about that.

Hope you feel better soon, FunnyD.

I know but he does act like he is missing some of his Grey matter:>(

Nahant, that’s right…she’s got no heat.

OK, I’m falling asleep now. :-P See y’all later! Stay warm, dry, comfy, etc.

at least she has Token and Bailey to snuggle with :>)

Hello ES and all,

Just posted this elsewhere and want to share it too for MLK Day.

Queen Latifah

Amen!

I dunno, maybe she should take a hint from Jane, as cold as it is,it’s a three dog night.

And with that, I’m off to bed.
Gnite pups.

Nice.. I really didn’t know she could sing too.

Hey, we finally checked out mass transit to get my daughter to school (a 45 min drive) and it will save us a bundle in gas/time etc. We didn’t travel this way earlier because she would have been too young and too uncomfortable. But we did the math and phew! we will save a LOT.

G’night Busted…

Really? You know where I first heard of her? Sesame Street! LOL, really. She got her first claim to fame being a female rap star.

And QL was awesome in Chicago (the movie musical) as well…

Yeah, I agree, but apparently not that particular area of grey matter.

ooh, pretty. Did you see any snow? I didn’t but it sure felt cold enough.

Oops. That “pretty comment” was for nahant referring to carol of the bells…

We like George Winston here in this house, we hav several of his albums.

Wow ES, you still here? I’m watching and listening to the Mavis Staples vid. Powerful.

You would really like Hairspray if you haven’t already seen it. Same progressive message but in a light frothy way. Ends with “I know we’ve come so far, but we’ve got so far to go.”

Hairspray the movie? It’s been years, but I loved it.

The whole Mavis CD came out last year. Ry Cooder produced it and plays on nearly every cut. It’s excellent.

Well, yes, it based on the original Jon Waters movie, then two brilliant guys wrote a musical around it and it was a Broadway smash, then this year it came out as a movie based on the musical based on the movie you saw.

It stars John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken (who’s hilarious), the fabulous Queen Latifah, and lots of talented young people. It’s lots of fun. It’s out on DVD already so you can rent it.

WOnderful. I live way out in what we Arky’s call the boonies. I may have to join netflix this year.

I’m one ########### honky, but I’ve always loved the Staple Singers, Cornelius Brother and Sister Rose, Gladys Knight, etc. They knock me out.

Her is another George Winston we love! Great eye candy as well, very soothing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..re=related

Agreed.. nothing moves me like something with a bit of soul in it.

Netflix rocks. Just sayin’. They have obscure old movies and documentaries that the local stores never carry. Blockbuster also has a mail delivery service to, but I have no idea what their selection is like.

Any recommendation of which plan is the best? I can probably watch as many movies as they will send.. Don’t want to buy more than they will actually provide.

Netflix IS very cool. We joined very early on and we’re satisfied customers, yessirree. Took care of the problems we were having at both our local Blockbusters. We were charged for late fees even when we turned the vids in on time (quite irritating) and the manager wouldn’t refund us because it was basically his own little fundraiser for his store.

The second problem was we have a very very common name and the other store wasn’t so careful about who they rented the XXX vids too and the titles showed up on our record and of course those weren’t even returned. There we are with the latest Disney flick and the guy wants to charge us $75 for Alice in Ecstasy Wunderland or some filth. “Look at us. Look at the name. Do we look like the John Smith who would rent that stuff?”

Netflix to the rescue!

707!

Boy, that depends on how much time you have to watch movies! I use the two at a time plan, no monthly limit. Sometimes I watch them right away and return them in 3 days, and others, like over the holidays, I had the same 2 movies for well over a month. I’m sure they love it when I do that, since they bill me the same amount whether I watch 2 or 12.

For quite a while when I first started it was the one at a time plan. It was summer, so I wasn’t staying indoors enough to rent more.

That’s like us too. Some movies we hang onto and others go back immediately, depending. I think we’re a three at time household. Our kids have figured out how to load up our queue, so we have to keep pushing the movies up that we want.

Some DVDs are loaded with features and you hang onto them longer. When we first got our DVD player, I stayed up forever listening to the director’s voiceovers and stuff. Now I’m a little more selective. :) Oh, the other thing is if it’s a two disk set, you rent each DVD separately ie if the movie is on one disk and the special features on another. just fyi.

Yeah, some day I’ll write a short story about the other John Smith. We are the first ones listed in the phone book, so we get calls from his alumni association, his biker buddies, & his flirtatious encounters from the local watering hole. that call came when I just came home from delivering our first baby – what a hoot! – you should have seen the look on my hubby’s face when I handed him the phone! “No, you really have the wrong number…that woman? Oh, that’s my wife!”

Thank to both of you. I could watch a 4 movies a week on average in the winter. When I lived in the city that would be a slow week, much of the time. Sounds like one can send viewed movies back individually..so the rotation could be fairly constant. I will join manana.

So, are they going to have to shut down Wall street at noon, or what?

The Seventh Decade (book salon this weekend) arrived via mail today. I have heard a lot of good things about Johnathon Schell.. Should be a good book.

We are lucky in this house, the youngest is a movie fanatic and has over 1,000 DVDs in his collection. From the silent to the present day. His tastes range all over the place so when you want to watch a flick you go into his a browse until you find something that catches your eye.
Disclaimer he is a junior at Chapman university in the film school. One he recommends is Children of Men. Quite gory in places and many of the scenes are one take without changing the camera… amazing if you know any thing about movie making. He always gets the director cut so he can study everything…

I would wager they will. Though things seem to be leveling off after dramatic falls in Asia.. well everywhere.

I think Children Of Men is an excellent movie.

good question the international markets certainly look bad… Hope my 401ks don’t lose to much… I will be needing real soon now!

I agree… keeps you interested and on seats edge… just can’t figure out what is coming next… unlike some flicks

Oh yes, send them back individually. You have control over what you keep, and the order of the movies in your queue.

Wow! That’s overwhelming!

I was just watching the final “flower scene” from City Lights and it never fails to bring tears to my eyes. I don’t know why I found it on youtube (I think I was looking up something else) and it came up. We have a few Charlie Chaplin great silents. What a talent.

From downstairs last post but worth repetition:

freddy January 21st, 2008 at 11:17 pm 214
I’m just a dumb Canadian watching your process and I am puzzled. Was it not the case that Gore was pressured to abandon the Florida fiasco based on honour (sorry, we not only see it differently, we spell it differently)? Was it not the case that Kerry was pressured to abandon the Ohio dispute because of honour. Now Edwards is being pushed to do the same. Seems to me that if the media and particularly the Republican media, wants to shut down Democrats, all they do is say 911, patriot, salute the flag or honour and Democrats fold. If your politics are the politics of ideas and not shallow celebrity to suit the media’s desire to write the script, then you need Edwards and Clinton and Obama need Edwards. Democratic ideas being kept in the limelight are making converts to those ideas such as universal health care and sane foreign policy. Why would Democrats want to see this debate and its command of the national stage tamed?

Hi ET, jeepers I thought Bush was supposed to keep all his buddies rich. What went wrong?

My guess is before noon. Trading restrictions will be in effect almost immediately, and an early shut down.

I thought I was being smart by putting most of my money in the foreign fund of my 401k, which has worked very well until recently. This will be a painful week. Or month. Or year. Damn it.

It’s interesting. Alaska, so far, has been somewhat immune to many of the national trends. High fuel prices are having a severe effect on bush communities, where they are paying $6 or $7 per gallon for heating fuel, but Hugo Chavez has ponied up with $70 million in subsidies. Food – especially fruit – is going through the roof – try $3.49 a pound for a basic Fuji apple?

Not much of a sub-prime market up here, and the state is looking at a $6 to $7 billion surplus for the upcoming FY.

I spent all afternoon with a delegation from Japan. Apparently, the Nikkei opened %4 down and was 5% down last we checked. That’s 25% down since January first, all due to the weakness of the American economy in the eyes of the rest of the world.

It was a simple ruse: real-estate loans to indigents, which are “secruitized” by the purchased real estate, get sold to gullible foreigners on the basis of the ever climbing U.S. real-estate prices, which are inflating via the influx of foreign capital. And, Alan “bubbles” Greenspan never saw it coming. Why?

Let me tell you why. Bubbles believed Ronald Reagan that government interference in the marketplace is a bad thing. Bubbles believed in “unleashing the miracle of free enterprise,” to borrow a phrase from Saint Ronald. And now we are relearning what everyone except Amercians has known for centuries: unfettered markets don’t work. They are intrinsically unstable, except in very special cases that exist mostly in computer simulations.

Clap harder, or Tinkerbell will DIE! That’s the American version of economics. We’re so screwed.

Wow: http://www.forbes.com/markets/…..kets1.html

Some of the markets are 8% down. But, never fear, we have one of the lowest tax rates in the world. ;-)

Spew! And, damn you, that was some good wine.

dosido January 21st, 2008 at 11:54 pm 78
Hi ET, jeepers I thought Bush was supposed to keep all his buddies rich. What went wrong?

That is the tradgedy the losers are not his insider trsding friends. They are people like the other wa, Nahant and the retirement funds. His friends got juicy government contrscts while the pensions funds are left holding empty bags. Let us hope and pray that Edwards gets ekected and can turn this around. A 25% loss of equities since the 14000 record last summer is possible at 10500 NYSE/DOW that is another 1500 from where we wull start tomorrow.
That is a huge hit to Teachers, Police and Firefighters for openers. Government: federal, state and local will have to lay off and cut back services and hiring freezes. We are seeing the start of an inflation cycle. Their will be more pain for the poor, working poor, working homeless and homeless. Their will be a comensurate increase in crime and decrease in quality of life for the middle class. Socio economic impacts are historic as in the depression. This is the second major crime of bushco and the reason for his proposed give back of $150 billion rnsom for his criminal hide. The first is the war crime and rip off of the national treasury. It was not a mistake it was calculated escalation of the military. I bet my patuti that as many suspect 9/11 was a least known. I would check obituaries to see who the CIA has murdered to keep it quite.
No George Bush and his crime family and cronys are not risk takers they have no bets on the come line. The deals were well thought out by a number of defense contractors and Cheney and the big oil folks well in advance.
Thay might own some hedge funds but they are using investor capital.
Pelosi is letting them off with impeachment of off the table it is a get out of jail card free for all. Who gets punished ? We do.

Sorry about that. :)

Not to worry. There’s plenty more. ;-)

Actually I think you explained the “blindness” of Mister Mitchell with this short phrase:

It was a simple ruse

Iow he had no interest in [s]admitting he saw[/s] seeing. Ideology in this case is window-dressing designed to have a mystified reason to keep the uncertain from calling in the cops.

But then, I have a dark turn of mind.

So, will the American public learn not to turn to a dumfuck to lead their country ’cause it can cost them dearly, e.g., the dollar down 43% against the Euro, since Bush ascended his throne. When your retirement, house, and other saviings are crashing, how much do you really appreciate the taxcut the Reagan Republicans gave you, sucker?

I’m really out of it tonight, and so have to ask, “Which Mitchell?”

Depends. If people let fear control them, we’ll get another stupid liar. If they start thinking for themselves, there’s hope a real leader will be elected.

That’s enough dwelling on doom and gloom for me tonight. See you back here in the morning. Get some sleep. We’re in for a rough week.

I think that refers to Alan Greenspan, married to Andrea Mitchell.

Thanks, dude. It’s been a rough (but successful) afternoon.

If you’ve not read Ian Welsh’s posting from yesterday, I recommend it. Sobering! A long perspective of where we stand in the world.

Greenspan is Andrea Mitchell’s husband.

Things are getting tough all over.

Rat meat price hikes accompany Cambodia’s rising cost of living

Phnom Penh – The rocketing price of more conventional meats due to bird flu quarantines and world oil prices has doubled the market price of rat meat in Cambodia, local media reported Tuesday. Rat meat has become so valuable that rice farmers “in their hundreds” had set up sideline businesses catching rats and making them table-ready, reported the Khmer-language daily Kampuchea Thmey.

Whereas a kilo of the best quality rat meat went for around 50 cents two years ago, it now fetches up to 1.50 dollars, the paper reported.

For me this is not doom and gloom. This is the ecomomic check up that enables you to do the “Xs” and “Os” to get the game plan. You watch the films see the mistakes and Plan Plan Plan. Fuck this laissez faire econ from the dark ages.
We need some econ brain trust to dig us out:
As I have blogged before Americans can go to work to create real capital with rebuild of infrstructure,gris, water, wastewater alternative energy. There is a lor to do. All the republicans want to do is sell “magic paper”. The first step is examine the patient make a diagnosis and begin the treatment. Global warming has to be number one priority. It can be done in paralell.
Your a negative when you think the analysis is unpleasant. The ostriche with head in the dand will make a nice tasty meal. If we aren;t really smart we may be the main course. It is worth spending some brain cells on. The R do not have a plan B.

What’s on my mind tonight is Secret Government:

I just came across an old Bill Moyers show, aired originally on PBS in 1987, with the title “The Secret Government: A Constitution in Crisis”. Originally written in the shadow of Iran-Contra, it has striking relevance today. It is available on the Internet in two poor quality videos at
http://www.peace.ca/moyersvideo.htm. The end of the second video refers to George Bush as President, and the NSA– probably referring to “41″ rather than the current president #”43″.

It apparently resulted in a book, The Secret Government : The Constitution in Crisis : With Excerpts from an Essay on Watergate by Bill D. Moyers, Henry Steele Commager . ISBN: 0932020844. Now seems to be out of print, but 42 copies are available from Amazon.com for as little as 27 cents!

Moyers’ final comments are eerie in today’s contexts– who is actually in charge of our government, and how could we tell?

The Church Committee findings need to be revisited and carried forward!
Why has all this been known for so long, but so little has been done about it?

Bob in HI

That opens up new vistas on toughness for me.

Good Morning Bob;
We have that problem locally, the special interests always want to discuss the issues in the bathroom or golf course or anywhere of off camera and mic. Remember the FBI survelience films of Gaddi covring his mouth while meeting outside his club.
We have our meetings publicised on camera and rerun on public access similar to cspan. Never mind business decisions keep getting made of off the public forum. So how would you suggest we approach the publics business?

I second Bob in HI’s recc on the Moyers documentary, it’s excellent: view it, download it, burn it to disk and distribute it. Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine anything so forceful being broadcast today, though Moyers himself is still one of the few who try.

No doubt answering Bob’s question would explain the origin of most of our current predicament.

Hmmmm:

Why has all this been known for so long, but so little has been done about it?

That question alsmost answers itself: the secret government blocks its disclousre.

Whereas a kilo of the best quality rat meat went for around 50 cents two years ago, it now fetches up to 1.50 dollars, the paper reported.

Damn. There’s goes the menu for the Huckabee inaugural feast. Guess we’ll stick to popped squirrel.