Freakin’ poodles!

Just driving by – Rostropovich birthday wishes.

Aloha from the mtn. top…! ;-)

hey
ES is getting techno again tonight.

I am so sorry I killed any possibility of universal health care here in USA. Don’t know about the undertakers though.

hiya ES & Pups!

I blame BB!
Thanks, we were waiting for someone to step up and take ownership of this mess.

evening, ndfg. how’s the peeper?

Did 30 minutes of meditation we have got to keep healthy and the mind leads the body.

What a relief..now everyone can just forget it and move on. No pun intended.

hey ndfg, ES and all!

Not a big fan of techno…! I did like that Groove Armada somewhat, I don’t like moog synthesizers producing the whole show…! ;-)

…the mind leads the body

In my case, all too often to the refrigerator.

That’s one reason why we liked Queen so much – on the cover of all their vinyl albums was the disclaimer: “No Synths.”

Newt you were pretty fit filling up Suz’s pod so nourishment is a good thing why not eat well.

Hi Margot and NDFG. Wasa gardening day here no shirt shoveling dirt and screening it. Life is good.

evening, firegods

Yes, it is a problem of burning calories at a ratio proportionate to intake. My Cheetoo-eating ass is currently disproportionate.

But at least I am not a chocolate fiend.

peeper is slowly healing … in 6 weeks i have a doc visit to decide when to do the final surgery (to remove silicone oil and install lens implant). So, progress is good so far. Really glad i switched surgeons. And to strengthen my eye i am consuming lots of marshmallow Peeps with my breakfast coffee. I think it’s helping.

I must have missed a few evenings here – marshmallow Peeps?
And glad you are progressing.

Keep it up, then!

Newt thanks for reminding me I have some hot nachos and some hot salsa. There that’s much better…here. Good aren’t they! Get a set of dumbells do some squat that will burn it without taking up space. (or lunges)

I had no idea marshmallow Peeps were edible so nutritious and good for the eyes! ((ndfg))

OK, that’s just unfair.
Celery and peanut butter is probably going to have to suffice this evening.

Peeps! I’m in love with the tangerine colored ones. Dunno if they’re new this year, but new to me.

Peeps for my peeper (ducks and runs away)

i’ve been getting a lot of grief from fb friends about liking marshmallow peeps … i don’t think i’ve brought up the subject at the Lake this year. Darn work is usually interfering with me showing up for LLN threads. (passes a basket of peeps, chocolate bunnies, and jelly beans behind the curtain for our Awesome Mods)

poor little peep…

Jelly beans!
Are there any licorice?

Rennetless goat cheese taste pretty good after hot salsa for a protein cool down.

Din’t know Dick Cheney posted on YouTube.

That’s Peep Abuse!

dibs on the red ones.

LOL!
Shooter: “OK, next, where’s that basket of puppies?”

What a planet!

Hey ndfg know anything about catarracts? VA says I have the start off it.

Hiya folks!

No Peeps for me. I’m allergic to corn. And they are made out of HF Corn Syrup.

I can eat delicious dark chocolate though.

This from Suzanne’s (I think) library of the fantastic:
Optometry Peeps

Now you are talking.

So I’m trying to alert the media to the bogusness of the Tea Party Express with their big event tomorrow in Searchlight NV, Henderson NV and Las Vegas
“Showdown in Searchlight” I called the Las Vegas ABC news room to point out that it’s not a grass roots movement. The group funding it is a GOP-consulting firm and that they just use the event to raise money.

The producer didn’t get the point.

Producer: Why would the GOP fund them if they are going to take votes away?

Me: It’s about them raising money with the Tea Party moniker for themselves

Producer: But isn’t this what all political groups do, raise money?

Me: Yes, but the question is who is raising this money and for what purposes? Our Country Deserves Better PAC was created by Russo and Associates, a GOP-consulting firm out of Sacramento and the majority of the money they have raised went to themselves.

You might want to ask who is paying Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber and Ann Coulter.

Producer: What is wrong with them being paid?

Me: The point is that they are not some grass roots organization. This is a well funded group that is simply trying to get ahead of the tea party parade to raise money

Producer: Well I’m not getting the point. But send the stuff to the reporter who might understand it better.

Classic brush off.

The TV media doesn’t care about who funds this, what they say or the fraud that is behind this group, it’s just spectacle. Unless Palin, Coulter or Joe the Plumber say something violent, racist or funny this will be seen as just another Tea Party and not a money grab from a GOP consulting firm who figured out how to get money from rubes.

I might have better luck with the newspapers since they can use these kind of details. But on the other hand, frak it.

Now if I wanted to flip their TV coverage I would need to give them something more sexy to shoot. Or more controversial. I tell my clients that if you want to do TV you need visuals or really compelling dramatic story. Or funny. Or with babys and puppies. Or someone getting stabbed.Or a celebrity. Money, fraud stories are boring. Now if the tea party gets violent they might wonder, “Who started this violence? Who is behind this event that got violent? Why weren’t they prepared?”

But I doubt they will get violent if the cameras are rolling. They like to break the windows when no one is around.

The problem must be that the TeaBaggerFests™ are good television (in relative terms), good radio. NASCAR racing without the sheet metal. RollerDerby without rails.
It is just too easy for an incurious media to run to the common.

IMHO

BTW, this is what I sent to the papers and a few TV people. It will be ignored. :-(

Hey, I know that a few of you will be covering the big Tea Party Express events, a few thing to note and to question about the costs and who is paying for this. This might be an opportunity to do a bit deeper story rather than just what they want you to see. As they say, “Follow the money”.

1) Majority Of Tea Party Express Spending Went To GOP Firm That Created It

The Tea Party Express is funded by Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) which raised around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.
Link from Talking Point Memo Muckraker

How much is Sarah Palin getting paid? Where is the money coming from and what is she doing with this money?

2) They hire race baiters like Mark Williams and feature racists like David McKalip

Mark Williams is the talk radio host who has written in the past that President Obama is “an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief.” he also derided Barack Obama as “our half white, racist president” Williams is a paid participant of the Tea Party Express.(FEC filings)

David McKalip is the Florida doctor and health-care reform foe who got in hot water this summer after forwarding a racist picture showing President Obama as a witch doctor — He was a featured guest at the last Tea Party Express stop in Orlando

3) They hire black people to balance the sea of white faces.
The conservative singer Lloyd Marcus is being paid to attend. For participating in the last Tea Party Express he was paid $10,863.64 in fees and expenses. (not to mention the CDs he sells, good thing there are no sales taxes in Nevada or that would be one more way that they keep revenue from the cities and states they visit)

The other featured black conservative, William Owens, was paid $750 to speak and, via his company itouchPublishers was paid $16,200 in “PAC printing costs and generic fund raising” again, from FEC filings. The group, the Multi-cultural Conservative Coalition is composed of Williams and one other person. The phone number for this coalition is in the same group as his itouchPublishers.

You might want to ask any people of color in the official TPE bus if they were paid to attend and how much.

4) Violent signs and violent comments are condoned
Some tea party leaders are attempting to distance themselves from violence, but the will the group that promotes the meeting as a “Showdown in Searchlight?”
Melanie Morgan’s group, Move America Forward, was endorsed by the NRA on their tours (also organized by Russo, Marsh, and Associates). Morgan has used inflammatory violent rhetoric such as “We’ve got a bull’s-eye painted on [Pelosi's] big, wide laughing eyes” I someone gets shot at a Tea Party Express event, whose insurance company pays for damages? Do the City’s that host them and give them a permit pay?

5) These events cost the local taxpayers but the Tea Party Express doesn’t reimburse them. Who is going to pay for all the Las Vegas Metro Police? Henderson Police? Searchlight Police?

You might want to question how much this anti-government, anti-tax group is using in government services. In LA the group size required 30 police officers to keep an eye on the group because of their increasingly violent rhetoric. The approx $6,000 in police costs were paid for by the LA tax payers.

A fund raising event with entertainment in a public venue is a bit different than a free speech march in the streets. This group sails into town in their huge buses, suck up taxpayer services and hold their event in public parks all the while screaming about the need to cut taxes and reduce government services. It would be ironic if it wasn’t so common an occurrence.

Has the old saying in journalism, “Follow the money” fallen out of favor? You can learn a lot about this group if you simply follow the money.

That is a great document.

Speaking of the T/Baggers putting Black folks out there as diversity props:

I had the misfortune of seeing the Ratigan Show one day earlier this week. Of all the…

He had Breitmart on for a 16 minute one-on-one. Breitbart threw Kenny Gladney out as the victim of a beating by SEIU ‘thugs’ in Missouri last year. Ratigan had no clue what he was talking about, and the accusation was left standing.

Spocko, you’re an inspiration.

Thanks. I honestly don’t know why I do it. It’s behind the scenes work that should be done to discredit these people with facts. Who is the “anti-tea party” who should do this kind of work? The MSM aren’t going to do it they expect the other party to provide their oppo research provided to them.

I do give credit to tpmmuckraker. Zack Taylor did great work. I also did primary research that contributed to this based on work from Brad of Brad Blog.

Oh yeah, gotta have their own personal Vicitim. For awhile I did research on the cost to the communities of these tea parties. How much you want to bet when they sell those “don’t tread on me” flags in a city or state with sales tax that they don’t collect it and don’t pay it to the state/city later.

They sell 60k worth of t shirts across America do they pay the taxes on the ones they sold? (the paid 30k for them wholesale)

In each city they under represent the number of people attending to get cheap permits and they don’t pay for the city services but use local taxpayer funds to cover their costs. I know I called the cities and checked.
It is just so conserative republican to bitch about taxes while using tax payer services. To scream “smaller government” while using cops and parks and recs people to deal with their crowds.

Freedumb™

Freedumb™
ain’t
Free™

I went to TeaPartyExpress™.
I bought this swell t-shirt for $29.95.
I bought this “Don’t Tread On Me” flag for $99.95.
I contributed $250 to some guy running for the Senate against that Commie™ Pinko™ Lefty™ John McCain.

And now I live in my car, because my doctor bills are unaffordable.
And I lost my job to the guy I trained to do it for me.
And there’s a Black guy in the White House.

Dude, where’s my country?

One nation, under Canada…

I’m from Tennessee.
I drive a pickup truck with a rifle rack.
I fish, and I hunt, and I am so hairy that when I take off my shirt, folks think I am wearing Mohair pajamas.

But I don’t do well in the cold.

Promises, promises…! 8-(

Good morning, pups. It’s Collins, Blow and Herbert today. Ms. Collins tells us “Nothing is Easy in Illinois.” She has a question: Which state has the most dreadful political culture in the country? The race is on! Mr. Blow, in “Whose Country Is It?” says the far-right extremist groups are on a collision course with demographics. And the future scares them. Mr. Herbert, in “Derailing Help for Consumers,” says ordinary Americans need someone on their side in the wild world of consumer credit. That’s why we need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Here they are.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got French toast made with challah and warm maple syrup. It’s finally really spring here — the azaleas are really starting to bloom, and the jasmine is sprouting. It’s going to be a pretty Easter next week. Have a great day.

Good morning Marion & all.

It’s f’ing 25 degrees here. I’ve had enough of the f’ing cold weather. I WANT WARM. (And yes you can remind me I typed that when it’s 98 temp/humidity and I’m complaining.)

Yeah, I hear you. We all bitched and moaned when it was “cold” here (that’s the 20s for us) but we’ll all be howling like banshees about how miserable the hot weather is too. At least we seem to be having a spring this year (fingers crossed). The past few years we’ve galloped from winter straight into hot and humid. Which sucks. How are your bees? I’ve started to see them around the rosemary blossoms, and once the basil starts they’re all over that.

Morning, eCAHN and Marion and all.
Here’s another great Teabagger sign, if you haven’t already seen it.

Poor (((bees))). They were out & bringing back pollen like a vengence during the few days when the weather was warm. Now that it’s cold again, they are back in their huddle inside the hives trying to keep warm, but the queen started laying again in February, so I don’t know how she is doing now that it is so cold. Going to get up to 47 today, according to the forecast, so hopefully they’ll be able to get back to business.

Yes, a great one. BT highlighted it yesterday.

The Green Revolution!!! Or not:

BP will close its solar-panel manufacturing plant in Frederick [Maryland], the final step in moving its solar business out of the United States to facilities in China, India and other countries.

Just 3 1/2 years ago, in an announcement widely hailed by Maryland officials and promoters of “green jobs,” BP unveiled a $70 million plan to double output at the facility and erected a building to house the production lines.

But on Friday the company said it would lay off 320 workers and keep only a hundred people involved in research, sales and project development. … The company, unable to sell or lease the building, will tear it down.

There are a few panels on war at VA Festival of Books on Book-TV this morning. However, I’m having guests late morning, so I’m going to be busy making coconut macaroons so I’ll miss them. (No TV in kitchen.)

Aagh..I even commented on that thread. Time for coffee.

And did MD give BP all sorts of tax credits to garned those fleeting jobs?

Brain fart!

They are talking on cspan2 about building out the internet. I keep hearing hearings on this subject, but nothing ever gets done. Typical of the U.S. these days: all talk, no action.