Aloha, ES!

Evening Pups & ES!

Evening all…)

Eureka!

What’s on your mind tonight?

Shoes, for some unknown reason. Hey ES!

Hi ES..is it true that there is now a new holiday around the world?

Hey Loo Hoo, Shoes? Tell me.

Ya know the International Day of the Shoe. S)
Extra points if you are a veteran of the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars.

News to me, bb.

Evidently… Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others have all abandoned ship on their pro net neutrality stance.

FORK!

Or, extra laces for the sling shoe toss effect.

Hey Pups the DIGG is Open!

Boy is mother nature raining down on us….

International Day of the Shoe — when the world starts to show George W Bush the bottom of our footwear!

Hiya, ES

CE, you didn’t hear about this…?

Hey, Chris…
Loo Hoo, is this what you’re thinking about?

OK, Coke or Pepsi?

Lull is so cool. I watched it 3X. Thanks, ES.

F Empire interesting video starts nice
How about an Unknown Unknowns day remebering rummy’s idiotic justification of the wars?

Only if it has something added to it, preferably rye…! ;-)

Hey Teddy, Maybe we should drop the name Jack and use the term George Booted Thug from here on out.

This, Christine.

Nahant, I’m afraid your rain is about to be my snow… I had windows open this afternoon, it was about 70 and sunny. It’s dropped 50 degrees and still falling this evening with a chance of ice and or snow as far as the forecast looks ahead.

Tomorrow’s WH briefing will no doubt include PigMissile’s recitation of just how good Chimpy’s reflexes are.

Ducking President while the world watches…my my did I deserve such a special day or was this a free bonus delivered by the universe. No it was the Egyptian press. So what are the Suadis thinkin about their bro bush. He jusy wasted 1/2 of their soveriegn fund. No where to run no where to hide.

YUP!

Will her make-up cover up the blackeye…? ;-)

No way! PW is battle-hardened.
Let the world have a gander at ChimpCo’s cajones.

DId she really get a black eye?

Apologies to Phoenix Woman with my last…

Along with her black eye.

Good luck with the Snow and Ice ES… As they say better you than me!!

Don’t know. It has been reported that she was near, and mixed in with, the scuffle to take down the assailant hero.

So, the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report that totally busted Rummy, Rice and Joint Chiefs Meyers for authorizing “detainee abuse,” aka torture, which is a war crime under the Republican-sponsored War Crimes Act of 1996, and which includes the death penalty if the victim should die, which about three dozen have.

And a backward “W” on her right cheek.

I find it ironic that Shrub has the shoes thrown at him and Miz Pig Missile ends up with the blackeye…!

Well, she is a woman blonde salaried employee hero, too.

It’s a good thing Pickles wasn’t there instead, or it would have been a skull fracture and other blunt trauma.

heh perhaps karma was going for her mouth and missed?

nice tunes es – thanks for turning me onto so many new artists.

I’ve put up a vague Oxdown diary on the fire last Friday at one of Sarah
Palin’s churches.

At least it is definitively vague..

But, but a w is the same either way, dammit! Maybe it could be an upside down W. An M. But that’s kinda like Maliki. Pig Missile will come up with something, I’m sure.

In case I was overly circumspect, I’m calling for the death penalty for Donald Rumsfeld and Concoleeza Rice.

Gov. Palin stopped by the church this morning, and she told an assistant pastor that she apologizes if the incident is in any way connected to the undeserved negative attention the church has received since she became a vice-presidential candidate on Aug. 29.

Life really is all about Sarah Palin, she thinks.

Accountability…Justice…Rule of law…are we going back to constitutional law with a 28th amendment?
The sun’s gonna shine on my backdoor someday …just you wait and see.

Trials, for sure.

WAM!

Anyway, the thought of Perino having to earn her pay for 15 seconds is precious. I’m sure she’s got a job waiting for her as Sarah Palin’s foeign policy advisor in February. They can begin with the Cuban missile crisis.

They deserve their day in court. But, for God’s sake, BRING ‘EM TO JUSTICE!

I have just the appropriate ‘legal’ proceedings in mind.

CT, You might have a thing or two to say to this Harvard Professor. *S*

Obama: Break Your Afghan Pledge

During the recent campaign you pledged to send an additional 20,000 American troops to fight the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. I supported your campaign, but I hope you will now break this pledge. It served its purpose by reassuring skeptics you would be ready to use force if necessary as Commander-in-Chief, and it cleverly reminded voters of the Bush Administration’s decision to downgrade the original war on terror in Afghanistan, in favor of a dubious project in Iraq. You turned it into a good applause line: “The war on terror began in Afghanistan, and that’s where it will end.”

snip

Set ‘em loose in a Sadr City slum… Shoes would be the least of Shrub’s worries…! ;-)

The scariest line for the criminals:
“…it will end”

ES…maybe a little ice fishing over at the reservoir West of you. Get a line get pole get down there and make an ice hole. No pun intended. I heard today when the weather gets cold the fish hiberate in the lower synclines where their metabolism slows down and are not so hungry?

W always was a loafer…that assholed loafer

Chimpy should have caught it and pumped it right back at the guy.

a dog of an assholed loafer to boot.

Hush-puppies Gone Wild.

it was the laced he could do.

bb, the lake is far from frozen, though some coves might be in a day or two… and some of the best fishing can be during the winter months, if you have the fortitude to deal with the elements.

The river in my back yard would do the trick if I needed some quick protein.

Good thing for him thet were throwing loafers at the loafer instead of combat boots. When he ducked I thought he was doing one of his jokes with a shrub shrug, Actually the shoe was aimed high no need to duck.

Bernard Madoff, icon of the 21st century:

Madoff, who believes that he deserves “some credibility as a trader for 40 years,” says [in May 2001]: “The strategy is the strategy and the returns are the returns.” He suggests that those who believe there is something more to it and are seeking an answer beyond that are wasting their time.

How could anyone have doubts???

suffice to say the journalist was not one of W’s arch-supporters.

I agree 100% with what he wrote… Our escalation/air strikes etc… only fuel the Al Qaeda movement within the Taliban… He brought up an excellent point…

If the goal is to weaken international terrorists, escalating in Afghanistan today makes almost as little sense as George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. An escalation in Afghanistan would inevitably bring more civilian casualties, more anti-American resentment, and in the end more recruits to Islamist terror. Last August cannon fire from one of our AC-130 gunships killed dozens of civilians, and then in October a called-in air strike killed 25 to 30 civilians, including 18 women and children. This is not a war on terror; to Afghan civilians, it only creates terror.

I recommend for your transition-time reading a new report from the National Intelligence Council that suggests we reconsider the severity of the Al Qaeda terror threat. This report says Al Qaeda “may decay sooner” than was expected because it has alienated its Muslim supporters with its indiscriminate killing, and with its inattention to social problems such as poverty, unemployment, and education. America has a chance to defeat Al Qaeda by avoiding this mistake, by refocusing more of its efforts in the region on economic and social actions, less on air strikes.

Couldn’t he have just mocked hussein?

Suin’s boot video is a treasure…1.5 billion muslims are rolling on the floor…somewhere there’s laughter in the tears of sadness of the lost loved ones on both sides of the Bush Wars.

Arch sillies heel

Chimp-Co blur-ed the lines.

in these shoes (i don’t think so)

Ranger discussed it in his post today, particularly, the SF’s role in Afghanistan…!

OK, he is letting us punch ourselves out…
Bring it, big boy!

I left a comment there.

I tried to find the report on google, with no success.

Agree with much of what he said as well…. but it is not now nor has it been for a long time (if ever) about Al Qaeda.

hahahah!

Huh?

On a totally unrelated note, I was genuinely impressed by the president’s quick ducking response. In all seriousness, if you watch the video, the guy was extremely close to the president (maybe fifteen feet?). He threw the shoe very hard and very accurately. Given how out of the blue the whole bizarre incident was I think the reporter would have beaned most other folks in that situation.

–Josh Marshall

Isn’t the exact quote “not in these shoes”?

returns are returns. Let’s not be stupid. (’till we lose half our money.)

Oh fuck, the asshole can duck!

We cannot afford to fight in Afghanistan, even if there were a way to “win”.

So, let’s not question a good thing. (sigh!)

LOL!!!

yup but song title is in these shoes iirc

Instantaneous reversion to his days of Skull & Bones.
No sweat.

Don’t fret over it, please…)

Am looking for an old reference/bookmark, but I thought Bushco had congress nullify the ‘96 war crimes threat.

Crap, I think you’re right.

I wonder if he had diamonds on the soles of his shoes?

Here’s what Wiki says in part… on 1996 War Crimes Act

Potential application

White House officials were concerned that they and other U.S. officials could be prosecuted under the War Crimes Act for the U.S. treatment of detainees after 9/11 for violations of the Geneva Conventions. In a January 2002 memorandum to the president, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales authored a controversial memo in January 2002 that explored whether Article III of the Geneva Convention applied to Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan and held in detention facilities around the world, including Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The memo made several arguments both for and against providing Article III protection to Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. He concluded that Article III was outdated and ill-suited for dealing with captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. He described as “quaint” the provisions that require providing captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters “commissary privileges, scrip, athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments”. He also argued that existing military regulations and instructions from the President were more than adequate to ensure that the principles of the Geneva Convention would be applied. He also argued that undefined language in the Geneva Convention, such as “outrages upon personal dignity” and “inhuman treatment”, could make officials and military leaders subject to the War Crimes Act of 1996 if mistreatment was discovered.[4]
The adoption of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, defined in Section 6 of the act grave abuses of Common Article 3 to only include torture, cruel or inhumane treatment, murder, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily harm, rape, sexual assault or abuse, and the taking of hostages, thereby limiting the scope of the original law.

Am looking for an old reference/bookmark, but I thought Bushco had congress nullify the ‘96 war crimes threat.

That was pretty much the point of the MCA of 2006, but many of these crimes were committed while the WCA of 1996 was still in full force. Also, it’s not totally clear that the MCA nullified the WCA to the extent that some claim.

I didn’t see it in scanning these comments, and perhaps the author is too modest to mention it, but Late Late Niter Edward Teller has a diary up at Oxdown that I think is worth reading…you can read it here and then recommend and Digg it if you are so inclined.

Literally half. I chickened out and had it moved to my pension. I hope that our economy survives to the point where I kick myself.

Well I guess we can hope.

One of my favorite albums, Paul Simon’s Graceland…! ;-)

new Bay Area music: Aidan Hawken. pretty straightforward, some decent hooks. check out Innocent, for sure. Prodicgal Son has an Interpol-ish feel. Shut Me Out works.

there’s a Counting Crows angle. a buddy is playing bass (touring, not on the recorded tracks)

nite pups! Early morning tomorrow…

Aloha, nahant!

War is not the answer. Put troops in harms way the ressult will be destroy the assailant and ask questions later. Bad shit happens in a war zone. Get out of the zone. They has OB cold and called it off. With him gone not much rationale for the war. Oops what part of that is not understood?

South of you guys here on the Carmel coast we had a whooping hard rain pour through the village followed by an oh so lively ice storm. Left a blanket of ice and snow on our brick patio and flower beds and pots. Pretty awesome and as powerful as we’ve ever seen before this close to the beach. It appeared to be moving north east so keep me advised if this cold front & precipitation moves inland a bit as it moves quickly north from the Mty coast.

Nice. He listened to Peter Gabriel growing up.

nite nahant

He looks familiar. Must be because he played Du Nord in the mid nineties.

Goodness! That doesn’t sound anything like the Carmel I visited 5 or 6 years ago! Did your plants survive, NPB?

probably not the best weather to visit Point Lobos, perhaps?

it was mid-30s F in Calistoga this morning.

Hey, NPB!
We got splashed pretty good here about an hour ago. Too warm for snow or ice, however.

When is preznit’s 9th ward victory lap?

Harper’s Magazine index is usually a one page compendium of facts and statistics, often juxtaposed for unstated editorial effect.

This month’s is a doozy: a three page retrospective of the Bush era. behind firewall, alas. Here is a snippet:

HARPER’S INDEX
A retrospective of the Bush era

Number of news stories from 1998 to Election Day 2000 containing “George W. Bush” and “aura of inevitability” : 206
Amount for which Bush successfully sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1999 : $2,500
Year in which a political candidate first sued Palm Beach County over problems with hanging chads : 1984
Total amount the Bush campaign paid Enron and Halliburton for use of corporate jets during the 2000 recount : $15,400
Percentage of Bush’s first 189 appointees who also served in his father’s administration : 42
Minimum number of Bush appointees who have regulated industries they used to represent as lobbyists : 98

William Kristol starts to make sense;

Now there are other ways to explain the disparate treatment of G.M. and Citigroup. Finance is different from manufacturing, and banks from auto companies. It may be that the case for a huge bank bailout was strong, and that the case for a more modest auto package is not. Still, it seems to me true that the financial big shots haven’t been treated nearly as roughly in Congress or in the media as the auto executives, who have done nothing remotely as irresponsible as their Wall Street counterparts.

And then proves his stupidity in the very next paragraph:

What’s more, in their disdain for the American auto companies, the left and right wings of the establishment agree. Of course, the particular foci of criticism are different — the left berates the auto companies’ management, the right the United Automobile Workers. But even on the left, while Democratic politicians still try to look out for the interests of the U.A.W., there’s not really that much sympathy for the workers. The ascendant environmentalists disdain (to say the least) the internal combustion engine and everyone associated with it. Most of today’s limousine liberals are embarrassed by their political alliance with the workers who built those limousines.

Can anyone translate that?

So far so good – from what I can see in flash/light it seems even our lovely tall Ditura (thumphet lily flower blooms survived nicely and the other beds none for the worse. Still have some lovely potted plans of Suz and we moved them to under the eves with our for better protection from th elements. Not really too cold rain and ice and seems to be melting quicky. The thundering downpower of hail & snow is quite rate in our little one square mile patch of forests, countless flower gardens throughout residence as well as the shopping districts. Much warmer at the beach then on my deck at this writing.

I think they’re planning an obstacle course.

salon.com

We told you so

Progressives were right about the financial crisis but were ignored. Will they be listened to now?

By David Sirota

Oh, my. I can see that I need to do a road trip next year…I’ll peek at your garden!

Hey, that kid from The Nation is all over the place now. He’s really gotten good in the last couple of months! The next Rachel, I hope.

The classic bait and switch…

Bush created executive-pay loophole

Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.

But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.

Sweet dreams firepups here, there and everywhere. Have a long day to face tomorrow. The next exhibit is going to be beautiful and with luck open to the public by New Year’s evening. she hopes & prays and disappears and worry about it all in the morning. Once the exhibition is ready for prime time I’ll feel a whole lot better. Our big audience will be attracted during the crowds that continue to flock to the big ATT&Pebble Beach golf champtionship despite the fact that Tiger won’t plan in theProAM anymore and all Clint could do was welcome fat mouth Rush Limbaugh back and other assorted rethuglican movers and shakers. They took the late great Bing Crosby name off the tournament a long time ago and rebranded the event as unabashed corporate aggressive and we old duffers grow more cranky every year that they taken a perfectly charming pro-am winter tournament and transformed it by their blatant greed and corporate branding. Aghhhhh.

nite npb
the old clambake is in a pretty sad state now.

Aloha, NPB!

a “go-to” lefty blogger, he holds his own the bit I’ve seen on the teevee

Adian is pretty good, punaise. Innocent, Prodigal, Shut Me Out…. all good. I added Innocent to a random playlist.

Thanks

Too clever by half.

You are welcome to visit anytime your’re near our little one square mile vilage Loo Hoo. The Monterey Jazz Festival, always the last week of Septemember is always a good time to hang out here. Good weather, and all that oh so cool jazz. We’ll always have room for you – nice long sleeper couch in my studio adjacent to both kitchen & bathroom.Suz has my phone and email address so keep in touch.

Great to catch all you late late niters pups and thanks especially to Eureka Springs. Waving to Punaise!

The need for sunshine is great…a fiend with 40 years in CRE says it has yet to hit the fan…when it crashes it will be like the residential market as it was leveraged risk…and it has a trillion im loans with CDS. This is a bad boy that will make the U curve of the resession deeper and longer..thanks to no reg “Free Market” neocon economics from the Chicago Boys. They have seen it in Russia in the Horn of South America and devatation it created for the population while the corporate interest walked away with the public assets as is hapening to us as we blog.
Shock Doctrine on our own! The state and local governments are so upside down. Business on main street…manufacturing…finance are all frozen.
Even if there is a will is there a way out?

Always good to hear from you, NPB.

Good lord. Why do the democrats keep getting outsmarted by an imbecile? You gotta wonder…

Can you take pictures to share, NPB?

OH, thank you, npb!!!

“pretty good” fits. some of it veers off towards facile pop.

hey, that Byrne/Eno album is a slow-burn keeper, thanks for featuring it. I purchased it. several excellent tunes: Home, Everything the Happens, Life is Long, One Fine Day…

Good night firedogs

It’s high on my wish list!

Night, ES, and thanks.

nite es

Fear they have the intel. Three dem Governors down the tubes in a year. Ny, Ala and Ill. Nut cracker. Wait until Dems have someone in the intell drivers seat will RNC crack?

Aloha, Eureka!

If dems get 100% of both houses it may happen less frequently :(

later, ES

Thanks for the hospitality.

Goodnight ES, NPB CT you put up the SF link..do you think OB capture was aborted and do our soldiers have any choice but take orders?

UCMJ…dictates to follow chain of command. It is top down authoritarian system. They enlisted an all voluteer military. it is on the commander in chief and his aides.

In other word blaming the troops for following the orders given is incorrect. If you have a problem with killing innocent people as I do then do not enlist. US Congress passed the AUMF…so

BB, here’s a great take on what happened… From someone who was there…

Frontline’s interview of Gary Berntsen…

We are trained to also disobey ‘unlawful’ orders… Such as shooting prisoners or noncombatants…

Well, I shall bid ya’ll a fond adieu! Aloha Oe!!!

nite tuttle
me as well

Attaturk is upstairs!
The only war they can win…

I have read a much different version or somewhat. That the componnd that OBL was in was surrounded the attack was called off due to the civilian causalty element by Washington..who, what department I know not. The Bin Laudin Family had close alliances with the Bush family…maybe favors were owed. But letting go prolonged a lot of problems. If you can drop a 15,00 pounder cluster bomb without ethical concerns it doen’t follw that casualties were an issue. CIA would not be a reliable sources as they are trained spinners.

True you were military CIA does not have that mission…George Tenet on Nation wide/worldwide TV…”We do not torture”.’USA has been torturing and killing and training others to kill a long long time and we are not alone.
That does not justify it and the arguments that that CIA operative made would not hold water in a court of law.