Congress is giving to those that are most needy. Themselves.

What they are deficient in character, they are making up for it in cash.

“Israeli troops dance as they await the order for a Gaza war”

hard to see how they can be so joyous waiting to kill innocents.

I wonder if Miss Vickie knows that now her life will become a fish bowl. She might eventually win her lawsuit but will it be worth what she goes through until then?

that’s bs

oh? the reports are wrong?

that’s bs

As a vet myself, your opinion is mattering less and less

Only the reports coming from Israel are wrong. See the conflicts between the Israel govt and the people on the Dignity (including the pictures).
483 hrs & 42 min

yea, so? They are scared shitless.

Ok, you tell me what to think and I’ll think it.

I remember doin’ some silly shit before an op. Scared shitless is right.

Tell your fellow vet, I don’t mean a goddamn thing.

The image of her (wich mirrors Cindy) and John McCain, sitting in a plane, under a blanket…

Brain bleach doesn’t even come close to making it go away.

I don’t really think we can make blanket statements that cover all. Also a vet.
483 hrs & 35 min

Have some experience in those kind of activities, do ya? Easier to get away with on a Greyhound. *g*

Division of labor in this house used to be that David read the paper and watched the 10:00 news, whilst I did online news. Happened to pick up “his” newspaper last night. Interesting photographic bias.

Two photos accompanied the article about the latest developments in Gaza. The larger is an AP shot of an elderly woman, weeping on the chest of an Israeli police officer who, caption says, is comforting her.

The second AP photo shows a “Palestinian protester,” face hidden by scarves, crouching with rock in hand, ready to throw stones.

The photos imply that the ruthless Palestinians are picking on Israel. It’s relatively subtle, but the print media bias (here, anyway) is instructive.

Perhaps, if being “scared shitless” became the “universal” human “condition”, there might be unanimous “understanding”?

More likely, however, the sociopathic “elite” would simply hold even greater sway … as even meager capacities for “reason” would angrily be flung away.

SD – did i understand from the previous thread that you have a sick tiger?

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

well, none of it matters, the world will end when Yellowstone blows.

you don’t che?

In theory, this is good. However, let us not forget that after 9/11, New Yorkers in particular and across the nation in general were scared shitless. There was a nanosecond when we were united in our scared-shitlessness. But that’s when unprincipled leaders move into the void and seize control, which in our case meant waging war against Iraq, falsely reassuring the nation that the Boys were in charge and not to worry our pretty little heads any more. Fah!

I really doubt the world will end. Maybe the world as we know it> *g*
483 hrs & 26 min

Sunday evening her left eye appeared to have rotated up and to the left. Really creepy lookin’. It pulls the third eyelid up with it. Vet said one possibility was Horner’s Syndrome, if I’ve got the name right, that is something akin to a pinched nerve and pulls the eye out of whack. He drew some blood to rule out any other medical condition that could cause it. In the last hour her eye has almost returned to its normal position so I’m hoping her blood work is good. Keeping my fingers crossed. Vet said it’s most often seen in dogs, puppies in particular, as a result of playing and nipping around the neck area.

So.

2008 has about run its course …

Who shall mourn its passing?

As time marches on, I suspect that it will take me, personally, several months to feel “comfortable” with putting a “9″ there, on the end, and no doubt, a “eight” will, still yet, creep in, depite my best intentions of remaing up-to-date and proudly contemporary.

I’m a big fan of Che’s ideals but not of his methods. Didn’t turn out so well for him, either.

I was thinking about going and getting a “9″ at the cost sale today!

I stand corrected

9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9

Happy New Year giftie, R! Free fer nothin’.

as a nut myself you messages are becoming more and more cryptic!

no, it didn’t work out so well for him altho he still lives,that’s something I suppose.

I’m looking forward to the movie, have you seen the trailer? I put it up at Oxdown a while back.

Lessee, 1968 sucked and 2008 sucked. Both with numerous exceptions, of course. Don’t know if I’ll be in any shape to put up with 2048. Gonna give it hell, though.

fingers crossed here too. maybe it was just a temporary condition due to some trauma induced inflammation.

Hey Raven. If they’re havin’ a 2-fer, could u please grab one for me?

And, say, what’s with the snippy pups today. Are we still yet again already snipping at our own? That should help a whole bunch.

HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR just to spite em! All-knowing, all-seeing hexspurts that they profess to be. Bah Humbug. I’ll take mine straight, no ice.

ooo, I hadn’t seen the trailer. I’ll definitely see it when it comes out.

A Feurae, on this end, asks that I convey his best wishes for a speedy and total recovery, SD and hopes that you shall keep him informed.

He also asks if you ever allow your tigers a bit of “nip”?

He claims that it raises spirits and makes one feel like a kitten again, if only for a while … (Antic-dotally, I shall not say anything as to the behaviors I observe when the tigers are under its “influence”)

DW

40 years ago tonight it seemed like everyone at Long Binh and Bien Hoa let go with everything they had into the night sky at midnight. Needless to say they were not thrilled at USARV headquarters.

It’s my fault.

Thanks barbara. Still have to trek out in the snow today, but that’s one less errand.

Gigi and Feurae, the newest addition, don’t get along very well. May well have been an altercation I missed and Gigi got ponked by the clawless Feurae. Gigi’s 14 and doesn’t tolerate the shenanigans of the 5 year olds very well. Grumpy old lady at times.

Yes I do, you are reading my mind! On planes and busses, trains, and once on a zodiak, looking for whales!

Good times.

One of the 60 minute type shows had an interview with Soderbergh that was pretty good. He knew nothing about Che when he began work on the film.

it sounds very epic-y

from dennis perrin:

Yesterday, I wrote how pleasantly surprised I was to see a popular liblog like Firedoglake tackle the Gaza crisis. This engagement is spreading throughout the libsphere, a big break from the relative liberal silence over Israel’s 2006 assault on Lebanon. Jane Hamsher speaks to this shift, which I’m happy to see happening. How deep it is and what shape it will take once Obama’s sworn in remains open to question. However, as bizarre as it might seem, I feel a tad optimistic on this front. Let’s see where it goes.

Naw. It’s the asphalt.

LOL. I’ve offered ‘em a nip of wine and of single malt and they just back away from either of them. I offered cuz I figured that would be their behaviour. Don’t know what the effects would be on them so never really tried to get them to imbibe. Had a dog in my youth, though, that loooooved bourbon.

shenanigans going on in your home? i’m shocked! *g*

I knew a shepherd named bourbon that fetched rocks and beer cans. Check her out.

May all the tigers have a Happy New Year.

And the poor unlucky caracals in the ME.

http://z.about.com/d/animals/1…..567001.jpg

It’s always a pleasure to meet another member of the Mile High Club.

We were 23 days away from the Pueblo seizure and 30 days away from the Tet offensive. At the time, there seemed good enough reason to believe communism was a monolith whit the USSR pulling all the strings.

Feurae won’t touch THAT stuff, either, he’s into herbacious materials …

Stuff grows wild, up here, and he and Thelonious heps themselves when it is in season, but they do like the dried stuff as well.

;~D

you two need to get a room!

Robert Fisk: The self delusion that plagues both sides in this bloody conflict

One common feature of Middle East wars is the ability of all the antagonists to suffer from massive self-delusion. Israel’s promise to “root out terror” – be it of the PLO, Hizbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Iranian or any other kind – has always turned out to be false. “War to the bitter end,” the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, has promised in Gaza. Nonsense. Just like the PLO’s boast – and Hamas’ boast and Hizbollah’s boast – to “liberate” Jerusalem. Eyewash. But the Israelis have usually shown a dangerous propensity to believe their own propaganda. Calling up more than 6,000 reservists and sitting them round the Gaza fence is one thing; sending them into the hovels of Gaza will be quite another. In 2006, Israel claimed it was sending 30,000 troops into Lebanon. In reality, it sent about 3,000 – and the moment they crossed the border, they were faced down by the Hizbollah. In some cases, Israeli soldiers actually ran back to their own frontier.

These are realities. The chances of war, however, may be less easier to calculate. If Israel indefinitely continues its billion dollar blitz on Gaza – and we all know who is paying for that – there will, at some stage, be an individual massacre; a school will be hit, a hospital or a pre-natal clinic or just an apartment packed with civilians. In other words, another Qana. At which point, a familiar story will be told; that Hamas destroyed the school/hospital/pre-natal clinic, that the journalists who report on the slaughter are anti-Semitic, that Israel is under threat, etc. We may even get the same disingenuous parallel with a disastrous RAF raid in the Second World War which both Menachem Begin and Benjamin Netanayahu have used over the past quarter century to justify the killing of civilians.

And Hamas – which never had the courage to admit it killed two Palestinian girls with one of its own rockets last week – will cynically make profit from the grief with announcements of war crimes and “genocide”.

At which point, the deeply despised and lame old UN donkey will be clip-clopped onto the scene to rescue the Israeli army and Hamas from this disgusting little war. Of course, saner minds may call all this off before the inevitable disaster. But I doubt it.

No, that was 67, I was in Korea then.

Well, yeah. Sometimes some of us just get fed up and go ponk the nearest thing. Shame on the ponker, and here’s good vibes to the ponkee, SD. Can’t we all just get along?!

That must have been some goooood shit those folks were smokin’. Are you in that pic? Seein’s how you knew the pupper an’ all. *g*

Weren’t that back when China was officially just a little island?

good news for us – anthony shadid (one of my very favorite reporters) is back reporting from iraq with, An Iraqi City Divided, and Defined, by Its Walls

I took it. The dude in the vest was on the USS Warrington. Only ship in the Nam hit by enemy fire so they say.

Here’s one for ya

Way cool, is you in that picture, Raven?

Had a prof who enjoy the ‘jargon’, but liked to tweak it a bit:

“Outta sight!” became “Beyond view”

and “Another thing” replaced “Sumthin else!”

no. it’s not all your fault. That’s lettin’ ya off too easy. u gotta stick around and mope wit da rest of us.

the one above

Actually I have vacation time that I have to take so I need to get off this damn thing and get my ass in gear doing area beautification for the princess!

Once upon a time we all had … hair.

;~D

There was a guy from some right wing Jewish Committee thing on my radio station yesterday who said that Fisk in no way could be an objective journalist and that he consistently dissed Israel so his reporting should be discredited. Almost threw something at the radio. Sent the show a nasty email, he was on live, but Rob Lorei, the news director who does the show, knows me and knew better than to read it on the air. Ben Cohen was the guy’s name. Spouted all the Likud talking points and Ahmed Bedher, a leader of CAIR and a programmer on WMNF, really took him to task on them.

Yea, mine is in a baggie in a drawer, I kept the pony tail when I broke my back and they cut it off. . . in 1975!

Well, dayam, Raven, I hope you get a real ‘break’ from all the ‘idiocy’. May ya kick back and re-create!

DW

Yep, load up the 66 chev truck and go to the dump with the pups!

Naw, ‘68. I got sent there too, from Okinawa. I remember it well. Wife pregnant, left Okinawa about midnight on C141, arrived Suwon about 2:00 A.M., temp. -4, wearing summer uniform, etc., etc.

USS WESTCHESTER COUNTY (LST 1167) was almost sunk off Dong Tam by VC swimmers attaching mines to the hull. Killed every E-6 on the ship.

some vacation! Sounds like one of ours.

Hey. Nice pic that (at 60). Kind eyes. Here’s to having survived through those times mostly intact. Huzzah. ;->

Mine is just gone, especially on the top.

Used to hate hats.

Kinda partial to ‘em now, both summer and winter (and, too often, spring and fall, grump, grump, grump)

Mine is still half way down my back.

And I hate hats.

How come the Great Poo Bahs all forgot those times and blundered into these?

Greedy AND blind. Idiots!

Raven’s eyes have seen more than most can imagine, and his soul shines brightly through.

(Thas my opinion, anyhoo)

yes.

How do you like my old man in his hat in 1942, (dancing as the set out for the Pacific)

you guys are wayyyyy to kind, and dat’s a fact Jack!

They haven’t blundered into anything. They followed an ideology that had disaster as it’s main goal. Then they convinced the willfully ignorant masses to follow them in their folly.

Well, what I got I intend to wear as long as I can (’bout six-eight inches down my back, but t’aint nuthin’ like it used ta be, SD, nuthin a-tall).

you’re gonna start my eyes a-leakin’ if you don’t stop this stuff.

OK, last one!

I didn’t wear mine at the angle the guy on the right does but used that same curl on the top edge. Learned how to curl it from a skivvy waver. Which one’s yer dad?

You got that “right”, SD. All part of da “plan” …

The one on the right, a salt he was.

That’s a great pic. I love Mr Ham on the right. The other guy is so regal.

Fresh post-age, up and ready for the reading, if folks want some…

Christy up top

http://firedoglake.com/2008/12…..se-part-i/

Christy’s upstairs
Mortgaging the Nation’s Future: Child Poverty and Abuse on the Rise

After he died I found his buddy and had some great talks with him about “takin rides” on the LCVP’s.

I guessed right. Only the cool guys curled their hat like that. *g*

sorry. no offense but… i do believe you missed my point. they did indeed blunder. why else any reason for a man-sized safe? Why would anyone give a #* unless they wanted a legacy, or some such dagnabbit thing?!

I knew it. Ya take after your father, Raven.

Hair today gone tomorrow. *g*
482 hrs & 40 min

Beverage Coffee of your choice. ;-)

Ms Ham, lil bit the refugee, but she don’t have to live like a refugee! The bodhi is always cool.

Took me 45 years to figure that out.

I don’t follow the connection between blundering and legacy. Maybe we’re reaching the same conclusion but from different paths?

“legacy”, schmegacy, they ‘want’ the whole damned world, everything, to satisfy their endless greed – and ‘they’ ain’t done yet, I’ll wager, Adie, as they blunder dangerously about …

paths are many
truth is one

we just thinkin’ of ourselves. who else we got to share the mopies with if you go off the edge? tough love. you gotta stay right here with us and yer puppies.

Did you check out that caracal?
http://z.about.com/d/animals/1…..567001.jpg

Don’t mess with him. He’s pi$$ed over what’s happenin’ to his home. He catches his dinner in broad daylight, by leaping high in the air and snagging unwary feathered beings. Let face-shooter try that!

and wit dat, bye bye, be safe the morons will be out in force

One my dad’s bandmates told me once that I was so like my dad it scared him (my dad). I still see it as a great compliment.

I knows what ya mean. Fer sure.

I do believe so. That was part of my point, skewed as it be. *sniffle*

I do now, 1969, not so much. Serious republican football coach

That’s right. World’s biggest amateur night.

Journey safe, brother, and joyfully …

NYers were not scared shitless, only the sheeple were. Those who had a clue sensed that this was not done by guys with box cutters.

The thing to be scared about are the fascists with tanks and tasers.

Have a great day and be safe out there.

Namaste

That was for Raven. Sheesh.

Aw, durn it … we’s all in da same boat and, mostly, in agreeable agreement … now ain’t we?

Mortgaging the Nation’s Future: Child Poverty and Abuse on the Rise

but then, we knew that, eh?. Always important to have the details to spew out at the badguys and the idgits.

Thanks Christy and Elliott.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool. Closing out the books for the year at work really sucks. Oh, well.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

true, that. Born during WWII, lived thru Korea & Nam, and here we are agin.

They know what causes that now. Guilty as charged.

So we bail out the industries critical to the conflict and carry on until we can’t any more.

it’s a sinful thing to take joy in a wobbly heartbeat… when oh lawd? when will it be enuf.

yep. jus’ feelin’ different parts of the hellyphant, tis all.

Be careful Dragon, and take care with those tigers.

Indeedy so, the hellyphant!