Oh, for goodness sake, I can’t be the first.

ZED?

yes you got teh zed ce :) congratulations

hey wigwam — how ya been?

Hi Suzanne. Hi Christine.

Damn busy. But that’s a good thing these days.

Lot’s of family in town for the weekend.

Hey! How are you?

sounds like a wonderful weekend wigwam

how’s ohio tonight ce?

I’m doing well.

I just finished Matt Taibbi’s article in this month’s Rolling Stone: “Obama’s Big Sellout.” It’s about all the Rubinites and Citi-istas on BO’s economics team.

Taibbi’s goes rather light on the rhetorical flourishes, and mostly lists specific appointments, their background and behavior. That list is damning enough that his usual cleverness would be distracting.

Hey, Suz! Hey, Pups!
Happy Saturday.
I just saw “The Informant” with friends. It was a hoot.

FunnyWheelieDiva

Chris, wigwam, suz – good evening!

Seems like we had a glitch here — lots of logging on and off. BUT, Ohio is grand here. Great food, family, weather, work and love. Had hilarious moments reading 1978 letters to MsCE from me, in 1978, in Paris to her grandparents. I was 26 as is she, and life in France, for me, was very, very new.

hey funny d — how’s seattle tonight

It’s great seeing everyone, and seeing everyone have a good time.

Hi Chris, Wigwam, and thanks for the very funny video, Suz. I love that show but this was hilarious.
Edit–hi FunnyD and Sunny!

hey sunny how ya doing?

Hey Sunny! Life is good.

evening Funny!

Wiped off the last of the apple pie – yum.

no glitch on my end ce — anyone else having a problem?

sounds wonderful ce — wow — the same age? ohmystars

And we had the last of Cris’ apple tarte tatin…oh, so wonderful!

hey margot — i laughed so hard watching it i had tears running down my face and i would have to pause the video and wipe my eyes….

how ya doing tonight?

I was a babe in arms then, and Patty and I had huge laughs about my innocence. I was so young.

A bit chilly but dry and clear. Fingers crossed. I hear it was pretty unpleasant in Astoria on Turkey Day…

FWDiva

my jen is not quite 2 years younger than i was when i had baby girl… errr stephanie.

jen and mike have started the search for their first house. they were out looking today and she promised to take pictures and show them to me tomorrow.

local weather dood said no rain in the forecast for the next week. a rarity in oregon late november/early december

Such fun!

wigwam — is that article available online or is it print only?

Hey Pups,

A friend of mine in Nashville has learned of two 6 month old kittens being fostered that urgently need a home. THeir foster-care provider is moving to Florida and cannot take them. My friend has spoken with their caretaker and they’ve been spayed, vaccinated and are litter-trained. They are siblings, as cute as can be and need to stay together. If you know of a home that needs more kitties (and let’s face it , what home doesn’t?), please send me an email …Thanks in advance. If you decide to take them, I will help with the transportation costs…TIA

ThatGuy

Suze! Pups! Everyone survive T-day?

hey that guy — how’s the bay area tonight? gotta pic of those kitties?

Even when my parents were not looking to buy a house, we spent weekends looking at houses for sale. They just loved looking at houses. It hooked all of us four kids into loving archcitecure!

hey ndfg! barely — i got sick and left before dinner. jen’s first time cooking turkey day dinner :( :( :(

how was yours?

Suz, that was a scream. Usually find Richard Simmons unbearably creepy, not so much here.

I don’t have one right now but I can get one tomorrow.

Bay area is clear and windy, kinda chilly.

when jen was a little girl we would do that. go through the models and nitpick them — i fear i may have created a monster

wasn’t it a hoot! he was having so much fun. i usually turn the channel whenever i find him on a show but … this was forking funny

Wow. You better get out and enjoy it!
Maybe we’ll get a little of that up hereabouts…it’s been plenty wet up here!

FWDiva

Can’t complain, Suz, thanks for asking.

chilly here too — supposed to be in the 30′s at nite all this week. brrrrr

Oh no, how disappointing! For everyone.
And then that long drive home…
Hope you’re all better now!

FWDiva

you have a good turkey day?

worst. mom. ever.

sigh

but i am headed back tomorrow and we will celebrate with leftovers.

I tried but wasn’t able to find it online.

BTW, in addition to Taibbi’s indictment of Obama’s economic team, this month’s issue has an editorial by managing editor, Will Dana, expressing disappointment in and concern for the Obama presidency.

Well, it’s not like ya did it on purpose! I mean, sick is sick. Glad you’re close enough geographically to try again.

Does Token stay in Tillamook while you’re in Portland?

FWDiva

someone has to tell him. he sure as hell won’t hear it from ‘ron’ emanuel.

Hey Margot and That Guy.

This is an only (erratic) cat household. Unsafe for “interlopers”.

what a vid, suz!

yup. he laid around on the sofa and watched teevee

For some reason, after reading that stuff I can’t get the tune and words to Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed, Handsome Man” out of my mind.

bummer! {{{ suze }}} not fun missing jen’s first t-da dinner.

I was sick too but on the upswing. I had gotten horribly sick over the weekend, 103 and aching all over. Called doc on tues to see how long flu lasts, if i should still come in for pre-op physical on friday. Doc was immediately suspicious that i didn’t have any respiratory symptoms and ordered me to either get to an urgent care or come in. Kidney infection. So i was still weak & shaky T-Day but at least i didn’t get a meal-on-a-tray shoved into my quarantined bedroom.

So even tho i couldn’t stay erect for very long at a time, it was healing to hear all the family merriment going on. And i thought of you as i could hear the gales of laughter that erupted when Baby Brother put on his Classic Loony Toons DVD.

hey newton — laughed til i cried :) how ya doing?

Animal Planet?

oh noz ndfg… you better now?

Fine. Late.

food network

what are ya late for?

dessert?

whatcha got?

yep, much better thanks to the miracle of antibiotics properly used.

Running outta steam here … g’night everyone!

g’nite ndfg

well, not pie.

someone has to tell him. he sure as hell won’t hear it from ‘ron’ emanuel.

IMHO, this is an issue of character, not misinformation or lack of information. This wasn’t a “sellout.” Rather, IMHO, it was bait-and-switch. Per Glenzilla today:

And particularly once I watched Obama — once his party’s nomination was secure — flagrantly violate his pledge to filibuster any bill containing telecom immunity, I had no expectations that he’d feel at all compelled to adhere to his other promises.

it sucks when the best possible scenerio is misinformation or the bubble.

cheesecake?

Yup. Per Rolling Stone managing editor, Will Dana:

We didn’t take the decision to go after Obama lightly. Just as we feld a responsibility to get behind his candidacy in 2007, we feel the same responsibility to point out how perilously close Obama is to betraying the commitment to change he promised.

For me the postprimary right turn was too sudden and deliberate to be anything but part of a careful plan. The only question was whether the plan included any postelection return to rule of law, etc. Visibly, it did not.

OTOH, this is cheering:

Hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists are likely to be ejected from federal advisory panels as part of a little-noticed initiative by the Obama administration to curb K Street’s influence in Washington, according to White House officials and lobbying experts.

(snip)

The initiative is aimed at a system of advisory committees so vast that federal officials don’t have exact numbers for its size; the most recent estimates tally nearly 1,000 panels with total membership exceeding 60,000 people.

Under the policy, which is being phased in over the coming months, none of the more than 13,000 lobbyists in Washington would be able to hold seats on the committees, which advise agencies on trade rules, troop levels, environmental regulations, consumer protections and thousands of other government policies.

“Some folks have developed a comfortable Beltway perch sitting on these boards while at the same time working as lobbyists to influence the government,” said White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen, who disclosed the policy in a September blog posting on the White House Web site. “That is just the kind of special interest access that the president objects to.”

Interesting the WaPo chose the day after T’giving to write about an initiative announced in Sept.

dang.

knowing what i know now i would still vote for him over mccain. but it would be a vote based on the lesser of two evils instead of a vote for change.

the post holiday friday news dump

I won’t soon forget my neocon twin brother’s warning……empty suit, no substance…..both my brother and my father, die hard Republicans, could not vote for McCain, but both would have voted for Hillary — they said, “The devil you know.”

The question I’ve been asking myself is whether I’d still vote for him over Hillary Clinton. Would she have a less Clintonesque economic team? A more even-handed Mideast policy? Etc.?

We are ROFLing here at our house, Suz, this is wonderful!

And why, exactly, was ABC all bent out of shape about little Adam Lambert after airing this atrocity?

hey dearie — how’s south central ca coast tonight?

Sad…I’ve been disappointed, and getting flack from a friend who’s very very upbeat and thinks Obama has no faults, or something like that.

hey teddy — didja see the abc family channel logo in the lower right hand corner — totally forking cracked me up to think that aired on abc family

That sounds like it could be a good thing. But I’ll believe it when I see it. There have been a lot of misdirection and symbolic gestures so far.

The ‘Nard is lovely, if cool, today and this evening……but awesome winds last night, and my neighbors put in a sensor light near my back deck …and their palm tree blew it into action in the wind all night….hello 2 a.m; hello 2:30 a.m., etc. etc. It’s calm now, and I hope I can sleep tonight.

One of my best friends is thoroughly convinced that Obama’s heart is in the right place” and that any evil he does just shows what powerful forces he is up against.

oh dear. can they adjust the light so it doesn’t turn on when the palm fronds sway?

then there are what i call the tin foil hat brigade who insist that he has been ‘gotten to’ by those powerful forces.

at least i hope they are tin foil

I’m easy. I like that there is a protection in having some lighting if needed. We do have a lot of wind down here… I’ll have to see how it goes. They are wonderful neighbors, and we’ll work it out……I kind of laughed about it last night. I guess I’m just easily amused.

maybe blackout lining for your drapes is the easiest solution.

once ya tweak those lights they are pretty good.

He pretty much lost me by leaving so many people in place. Quite a decision for a change candidate.

Gotta go make up for lost sleep last night. Thanks for all you do here Suzanne!

yeah, abc family

as in, “is he family?”

if he meant to change the way things were done he wudda come in with a strong articulated platform — instead we get the appeaser who goes along to get along.

sigh

g’nite dearie — fingers and toes crossed for sleep tonight!

You should tell your neighbors; interrupted sleep is very debilitating. I’m sure there’s a way to re-position the sensor so it doesn’t respond to the wind in the palm. They may never know unless you say something; most people set up those lights and just hope for the best.

We’ll have to gear up for a big push against Bernanke, just to show Obama we’re serious. It could end up a very odd right/left coalition in the Senate Banking Committee.

hehehehe

how’s sf tonight teddy?

Hey folks I don’t know if I told you this or not, but I’m calling the tea party locations and finding out just how many city governments are owed money because of their low balling attendance (which then then brag about how many attend later) on their permits.
After I gather the data I figured it would make sense to involve people locally to write their local government,
“Why am I paying taxes for the anti-tax Tea partiers? They are backed by the largest private energy company in the world, the health insurance industry and RJR Reynolds is it fair that I had to pay for their PR stunt?”

hey spocko — is that what they did? they low-balled the attendance to get cheaper permits?

Suzanne: Yes. Now I’ve only gotten thru to one, but they estimated that 100 would attend so that they wouldn’t have to pay for all the things you have to pay for on a 500 person permit. The park had to scramble to get more security for the 1200 they estimated showed up. They have yet to be paid the difference. (It’s over a month)

I’m guessing they said that 3,000 people attended. It would serve them right if the had to pay for the three thousand people they claim attended!
But, I’m going to do the leg work to confirm other locations. My guess is that they did this all across the country. It will always be a “surprise” that the events have more people than they estimated. But the various cities will never know that, because they don’t talk to each other.
“Hey Greek Theater in Denver, did you get screwed by the Tea partiers? We should tell the Orland people to make sure to ask for more money up front.” That would not happen. I’m connecting the dots.
.

excellent *rubbing hands together gleefully*

this is definitely a story that could go national…. in such hard financial times for municipalities and the tea baggers stiffed them — a pattern of behavior and not just once.

Chilly (well, for here) quiet, dampish. I had a busy day, though — got all those shopping bags fulla clothes outa here, the front hall and closet seem HUGE now.

Sorry to read you couldn’t stay for dinner Thursday, are you going back over the hill when you feel better?

headed back over the coast range tomorrow for an afternoon celebration with leftovers.

and YAY!!! doncha feel so much better now!

that is a super idea. i like the way your mind works, spocko. it’s logical.

Indeed. Lots of noise… and strange bedfellows.

Hey spocko, I looked up Ohio and there are lots coming up in April ’10. I guess nationwide.

headed to bed now, busy day tomorrow clearing out PAPERs; there’s just so much former-jobs stuff I’ll never need. It’s all out of date, why keep it around?

See you guys for Late Night Sunday….

g’nite teddy — looking forward to it :)

As I was laying out the media strategy I thought about how the various communities I touch can get involved.
So say you live in LA and you find out this game they played where the corporations pose as a grassroots group and use your services for their media photo ops. You have more reason to be pissed.

I’ve also been calculating their response. They will use all their charm and diversion to say that it was just such a surprise each and ever time and they meant no harm. They will gladly send checks for the full amount.
Now the question is “what is the full amount” the number of people that the said attended? Wouldn’t it be nice if they have to pay for the 1.2 million they said they had at the 9/12 march? HA!

*wicked evil laugh*

hoist them by their own petard

Any chance you have a link for RJR backing?

Too funny.

Here’s the deal. The tea party movement is backed by rich corporations with two cut outs. A PR firm and a non-profit. They want to co-opt the energy of the tea partiers. But corporations don’t like messy. They aren’t used to sponsoring mobs. They will pay their bills if they get caught, but they don’t want to been seen as who they are. My longer term goal is to tie financially the tea partiers to their corporate sponsors so that when someone is shot at one of their events the injured parties will have a paper trail of people who knew this was dangerous and did it anyway.

Only by linking financial damage to the corporations will they start either backing away or getting them to buy more insurance.

We can never get them on the criminal charges, the individual who listens to Beck shows up at a tea party and shoots someone to “water the tree of liberty” will be held personally responsible. But the corp that knowingly encouraged these people with a history of potential violence will have to bear some liability. They are doing this for ratings, and they knew the costs.

is april ’10 the kick off for primary season?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity
Tobacco industry involvement

AFP advocates pro-tobacco industry positions on issues like cigarette taxes and clean indoor air laws. The name “Americans for Prosperity” will sound familiar to tobacco prevention policy advocates, as Americans for Prosperity worked around the U.S. in recent years to defeat both smokefree workplace laws and cigarette excise tax increases.

Americans for Prosperity is one of the top funders. of the Tea partiers

rachel has mentioned americans for prosperity often in her who’s behind the phony grassroots coverage

holy moly margot — you see this? ohio guy with a buncha pipe bombs:

Police said no charges have been filed against Mark Campano, 56. Police found 30 completed pipe bombs in his apartment along with components to make more, plus 17 guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Campano is in an Akron hospital with injuries received when one of the bombs exploded.

Of course this is where the cut outs come to play. The parks don’t care who got the permit just that they got it and followed the rules. But think about how different this would play on the books without the cut outs
“RJR Reynolds is hosting a protest against healthcare reform. They estimated 100 people will show up. 1200 showed up and they said it was now a public event like a civil rights protest. They want or park to absorb the extra cost because it is the will of the people. They had no idea so many would be against health care.”

The other thing that happens is the follow up. If you see so grassroots type organization on the permit you might not expend energy going after them. But it was a tobacco company they should be able to pay for the play.

its the pattern of behavior — the doing this for all or the majority of their events — if yu can show a pattern of behavior that can not be explained away by their ‘who could have anticipated’ crap.

if it happened in june and they repeated it in july and repeated it in august even after getting bills for june and july….

Thanks.

Quite likely RJR will become less active in the US political arena over the next few years. They’ve lost critical battles.

That said, I think you’re onto something very interesting.

bout time for me to head out. gotta get my beauty sleep so i can be bright eyed and bushy tailed (and healthy) for tomorrow’s make up celebration.

g’nite all and thank you

Thanks Suz. Have fun!

Exactly. The other trick they will use? “liberals never have to pay extra! The commies get free services for their protests! They are trying to silence us! They want to limit our right to assemble!”
this is where I focus on I love free speech when a corporation buys speech they should pay for all the speech they get. Is this corporation giving us jobs?