Last week the elder statesman of disgraced Congressmen offered Weiner some advice: Shut up. This week he comes to his defense in a tortured sort of way.
Unlike rational members of Congress, Charlie Rangel seems intent on injecting himself into the Anthony Weiner story. Last week the elder statesman of disgraced Congressmen offered Weiner some advice: Shut up. This week he comes to his defense in a tortured sort of way.
Democrat corruption comes in a variety of styles and colors
The Associated Press offers up Rangel’s latest idiocy:
U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel told reporters Friday that he still believes Weiner can be an effective lawmaker, “if the press gets off his back.”
He suggested that other members of Congress had done things more immoral than Weiner, who admitted this week to sending racy messages and explicit photographs of himself to women he didn’t know.
Rangel says Weiner, “wasn’t going with prostitutes. He wasn’t going out with little boys.”
Thanks to Congressman Rangel, we now know what sort of behavior the Democrats consider unacceptable. At least until the first Democrat in Congress is caught with a prostitute or a little boy.
He’s insane. What else would make a member of Congress think it was a good idea to take photos of himself while naked and holding his house member in the House Members’ gym?
He’s insane. What else would make a member of Congress think it was a good idea to take photos of himself while naked and holding his house member in the House Members’ gym?
Time for Weiner to stop hanging out in Washington.
This is just one of a dozen or so photos Weiner took of himself in the House gym. You can see the others – if you’re so inclined – at the TMZ link below.
National Institutes of Health (NIH), has spent $3,634,807 getting monkeys to smoke and drink drugs such as PCP, methamphetamine (METH), heroin, and cocaine.
Pardon us. We’re a bit embarrassed. We saw that headline and immediately assumed it had something to do with Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. But, no, we were wrong.
Much to our surprise, the story about the dope smoking, menstruating monkeys had nothing to do with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
CNS News has the latest installment of “Let’s Piss Away Your Money On The Stupidest Crap Imaginable”:
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a division of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), has spent $3,634,807 over the past decade funding research that involves getting monkeys to smoke and drink drugs such as PCP, methamphetamine (METH), heroin, and cocaine and then studying their behavior, including during different phases of the female monkeys’ menstrual cycles.
The study also uses “interventions” as “treatment models” for monkeys who have been taught to use drugs.
Precursor research on drug-using monkeys, also funded by NIDA, discovered that after smoking cocaine monkeys exhibited “dilated pupils and slightly agitated, hyperactive behavior”—which helped researchers conclude that the “physiological effects” of cocaine on monkeys “were similar to those reported in studies of human subjects.”
Monkeys and members of Congress are reportedly lining up to volunteer for the next phase of the experiment.
Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, appeared on MSNBC and spoke that which has so far been unspeakable for Democrats.
With friends like this, who needs enemies?
Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, appeared on MSNBC and spoke that which has so far been unspeakable for Democrats. He admitted that this is now Barack Obama’s economy and the voters will rightfully hold him accountable for it.
Spoken like a man who doesn’t face reelection until 2014 and won’t have to worry about getting swept away in the coming 2012 landslide.
That gives him two years to make a comeback. And with the Republicans propensity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Durbin’s probably pretty safe.
Here is the dumbest comment of the week about Anthony Weiner and Weinergate.
A lot of stupid things – no, a lot of really stupid things – have been said about Anthony Weiner and Weinergate in the last week, but we think we’ve run across what may be the dumbest comment of them all.
It’s brought to you courtesy of the nimrods at CNN:
Pointing fingers of blame everywhere except where they belong
Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Reps. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania, Michael Michaud of Maine, Mike Ross of Arkansas and Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts joined a growing chorus of Democratic voices that have called for Weiner, D-New York, to step down over sexually tinged online communications with several women that he then lied about.
A Democratic legislator familiar with discussions with and about Weiner told CNN that Weiner’s colleagues are telling him he should resign “to preserve his own dignity.”
“To preserve his own dignity”? Hah! That’s like saying Weiner’s porn star should resign to preserve her virginity.
This guy had no dignity before Weinergate and he certainly has none now.
Ali Bongo is the corrupt dictator of Gabon and, apparently, someone who finds the welcome mat out when he drops in at the White House.
Ali Bongo sounds like some kind of intestinal disorder: “Oh, my god. I came down with a bad case of Ali Bongo last night and I thought I was going to die.”
But it is, in reality, a man’s name. A very bad man. He’s the corrupt dictator of Gabon and, apparently, someone who finds the welcome mat out when he drops in at the White House.
Gabon "President" Ali Bongo looks exactly like Eddie Murphy's version of a corrupt African dictator in "Coming to America"
Naturally, we have to depend on the Daily Mail UK to report the story the American media has chosen to ignore:
The U.S. President will today have a coveted private meeting with President Ali Bongo of Gabon in the Oval Office despite his appalling track record.
Bongo’s family has ruled the impoverished African nation with an iron fist for five decades and have used its oil riches to fund a life of outrageous luxury.
Meanwhile one third of people in Gabon live on less than $2 a day and thousands starve to death each year or are forced to pick through garbage to find food.
Critics have pointed out that Gabon, with a population of 1.5 million, is the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
They claim that the only reason Mr Obama has agreed to the meeting is that he wants to curry favour with an ally to secure America’s fuel supplies – regardless of who it is.
Yeah, that’s one way to go about it. Another way might be to allow American oil companies to drill domestically and to stop throwing roadblocks up in front of American coal miners.
But that’s just crazy talk. What were we thinking? Much easier to kiss the ass of a corrupt, third world, tin horn dictator.
t’s telling – very telling – that Weiner is more afraid of Hillary Clinton than he is of the President. Unfortunately, that’s not unusual…
Democrats are shunning Anthony Weiner. He’s become a laughing stock. Even his internet paramours have turned on him. But if you think it couldn’t get any worse for the New York Democrat, think again.
The Huffington Post tells the terrifying tale:
Hillary Clinton advises the unfortunately-named Huma Weiner
Rep. Anthony Weiner has lost nearly all support in Congress, sources told The Huffington Post, but the embattled New York Democrat has an even tougher audience yet to face: He has to explain himself to Hillary Clinton, the formidable secretary of state he has come to regard as his honorary mother-in-law, people who know the Clintons and Weiner said.
“It scares me, and I’m nowhere near Weiner,” said one Clinton-world insider. “I get nervous even thinking about it.”
Weiner’s elegant — and reportedly pregnant — wife, Huma Abedin, is beloved by the former first lady, who has kept Abedin as an aide for 15 years. Hillary Clinton even described her as a second daughter when Weiner and Abedin married last July.
In order to zig just when you thought we were going to zag, here’s our take on this story:
It’s telling – very telling – that Weiner is more afraid of Hillary Clinton than he is of the President. Unfortunately, that’s not unusual, because it appears that no one is afraid of Barack Obama. Especially our enemies.
No fear, no respect. The United States of America, 2011.
What the hell. If President Obama can take credit for the Navy SEAL success, we’ll take credit for Sarah Palin’s line on Sunday’s Fox News Sunday.
What the hell. If President Obama can take credit for the Navy SEAL success, we’ll take credit for Sarah Palin’s line on Fox News Sunday.
Yeah, we said this line. It was ours. It was a gutsy call on our part.
Here’s Sarah Palin on FOX News Sunday using our line about Barack Obama running for reelection:
The point is this administration has got to be honest and candid with the American public. The bottom line is their plans for bigger government, more federal control over our private sector, more regulations, and more burdensome mandates on our businesses and on our people, it’s not working. And we do need to shift gears and change course. It’s very noble of President Obama to want to stay at the helm and maybe go down with the sinking ship but I prefer and many Americans prefer that we start plugging the hole that we start powering up the bilge pump and start getting rid of some of the unsustainable debt that is sinking our ship. We don’t have to go the way of the Titanic.
We also wrote the Gettysburg Address, the Beatles’ song Yesterday, and the play Death of A Salesman. But Barack Obama helped us with the last one.
Obama just offered to borrow communist money we’re unable to repay to give to socialists who are unwilling to repay it.
While the media has busied itself with a Weiner roast, President Obama has quietly been focusing laser-like on the debt crisis. Not ours, the one in Greece.
While not one of the 57 states Obama needs for re-election in 2012, Greece is a “headwind” making his failing economic policies fail.
First official photo of the next generation trying to dig themselves out of the hole we dug for them
CNBC has the story:
President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged European countries and bondholders to prevent a “disastrous” default by Greece and pledged U.S. support to help tackle the country’s debt crisis.
Mr. Obama was quoted, “… we have pledged to cooperate fully in working through these issues, both on a bilateral basis but also through international and financial institutions like the IMF.”
Too many nuances there for our taste. Daniel J. Mitchell translates:
The story doesn’t have much detail, but it appears that Obama is willing to brutalize American taxpayers directly (which is what he means by “on a bilateral basis”) and indirectly (i.e., the reference to “international and financial institutions like the IMF”).
Brutalized by the IMF and we’re not even hotel maids. The 48% of us who pay taxes are used to that by now. And the money’s going for a good cause, right?
Another bailout will be a case of throwing good money after bad. And it will exacerbate the.economic damage by delaying the economic reforms that are needed to put Greece’s economy in better shape.
… the other insolvent European welfare states will look at what’s happening in Greece and conclude that they also can avoid necessary reforms and wait for handouts from American and German taxpayers.
Columnist Richard Glover says it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.
For some time now it has been the standard operating procedure for some on the left to equate “climate-change deniers” to Holocaust deniers. We’re not sure whose clever idea this was. We are sure that it really wasn’t all that clever.
As is often the case with the progressives this rhetoric could only exist for so long before it was no longer progressive enough. Now, it seems, there is at least one guy willing to ditch the talk of Holocaust deniers and fantasize about incorporating the tactics of the very guys that brought that particular horror about.
Global warming Nazis are on the march
Australian Broadcaster and Sydney Morning Herald columnist Richard Glover explains:
Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies. Not necessarily on the forehead; I’m a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ”Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?”
On second thoughts, maybe the tattooing along the arm is a bit Nazi-creepy. So how about they are forced to buy property on low-lying islands, the sort of property that will become worthless with a few more centimetres of ocean rise, so they are bankrupted by their own bloody-mindedness? Or what about their signed agreement to stand, in the year 2040, lashed to a pole at a certain point in the shallows off Manly? If they are right and the world is cooling – ”climate change stopped in the year 1998” is one of their more boneheaded beliefs – their mouths will be above water. If not …
L.A. County is now demanding that Alan Fahey tear down his “unusual” home or face up to seven years in jail.
Alan Fahey started building his home 20,000 square foot home thirty years ago in Acton, California, a ramshackle community that sits on the sandy fringe of Los Angeles County. He calls it “Phonehenge” because it’s built atop pilings made of telephone poles.
Unfortunately, the county is now demanding that Fahey tear down the home or face up to seven years in jail.
Welcome to Phonehenge, located in lovely Acton, California
Yahoo News has the story:
A jury began hearing the county’s case against Fahey last week: He is charged with 14 criminal misdemeanor counts, including unlawful use of land. L.A. County deputy District Attorney David Campbell told the paper that Fahey repeatedly ignored city officials’ warnings that he was violating multiple municipal building safety and fire codes and thinks he is above the law.
“He has set up his own arrogant interpretation of the law,” Campbell told the paper.
Fahey’s lawyer Jerry Lennon says county officials were negligent in enforcing their own rules, leaving his client alone for two decades before deciding to crack down.
“This is an exceptional place,” an L.A.-area advocate for code reform, David Lewis, told the L.A. Times. “Most of the properties that are involved in code enforcement actions are not visually striking. It’s something the public can look at. It’s something special that shouldn’t be demolished.”
The Watts Towers, piles of junk that have been designated as a National Historical Landmark.
On the other hand, the city of Los Angeles honors an equally unpermitted and inelegant series of structures known as the Watts Towers. Here’s how Wikipedia describes them:
The Watts Towers … is a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet (30 m). The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato (“Sam” or “Simon”) Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954. The work is an example of non-traditional vernacular architecture and American Naïve art…
The sculptures’ armatures are constructed from steel pipes and rods, wrapped with wire mesh and coated with mortar. The main supports are embedded with pieces of porcelain, tile, and glass. They are decorated with found objects, including bed frames, bottles, ceramic tiles, scrap metal and sea shells. Rodia called the towers Nuestro Pueblo (which means “our town” in Spanish). He built them with no special equipment or predetermined design, working alone with hand tools and window-washer’s equipment. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken glass and pottery to Rodia, some of which were added, but the majority of his material consisted of damaged pieces from the Malibu Pottery or CALCO (California Clay Products Company), located nearby. Green glass includes recognizable soft drink bottles from the 1930s through 1950s, some still bearing the former logos of 7 Up, Squirt, Bubble Up, and Canada Dry; blue glass appears to be from milk of magnesia bottles.
In other words, the Watts Towers are giant piles of junk, yet they were declared a National Historical Landmark in 1990. Perhaps Los Angeles County should follow the example of Los Angeles City and, instead of prosecuting Fahey, support a similar designation for Phonehenge.
As our reader Kimmy Queen said, “You decide: Should the government enforce safety measures or is the government out of control because it chooses to enforce NOW after 20 or 30 years of doing nothing? Hands up if you believe that they will throw the tax code book at him if he turns it in a museum and asks for donations.”
Now Barack Obama’s inability to speak in public without those trusty devices seems to have rubbed off on the First Lady.
Extemporaneous is not a word often used in the Obama White House. President Obama’s over-reliance on Teleprompters makes it look like he’s watching a tennis match when he gives a speech. Now his inability to speak in public without those trusty devices seems to have rubbed off on the First Lady.
The difference between delivering a speech and reading a speech
Politico reveals the details:
In a Newsweek profile published Sunday, the first lady’s staff members said the first lady will “spend hours and even days preparing for one appearance,” according to the article.
For major speeches, like a commencement address at West Point, Obama will edit drafts by hand, according to the magazine. “Staff will then drag a lectern into her office, where she will rehearse the speech with a teleprompter for days,” it said.
“She demands a lot of herself,” David Axelrod, President Obama’s former senior adviser, told the publication.
Well, that’s one way of putting it. The less charitable among us might say, “She has no confidence in herself.”
As expected, Reuters reports yesterday that the latest rise in jobless claims is “unexpected.” There are none so blind as those who will not see bad news during a Democrat administration.
As expected, Reuters reports yesterday that the latest rise in jobless claims is “unexpected.”
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid unexpectedly edged higher last week, stoking fears of a stalled economic recovery even as a separate report showed record exports in April.
Initial claims for state jobless benefits increased 1,000 to 427,000, the Labor Department said. However, economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims dropping to 415,000 from a previously reported count of 422,000.
There are none so blind as those who will not see bad news during a Democrat administration.
Cate Blanchett’s latest purchase might make one think she doesn’t believe her own line of global warming hysteria.
Can we call actress Cate Blanchett a Hollywood hypocrite? We think it’s a reasonable appellation, because while she may live in Australia, but her global warming hypocrisy reaches all the way to Tinseltown.
Sunset at Havannah Harbour marks that moment when the sun sets on Cate Blanchett's credibility
Blanchett’s latest purchase might make one think she doesn’t believe her own line of global warming hysteria:
The movie star-turned-eco warrior is believed to have recently bought a plot of land in Vanuatu, one of the countries hardest hit by global warming….
Blanchett is thought to have bought some waterfront property in or around the luxury area of Havannah Harbour during a visit last year…
Other sources said she bought property around Havannah Harbour, where the property market for international celebrities and other jetsetters is booming…
The Vanuatu travel and luxury magazine Pacifique breathlessly opined: “Cate Blanchett’s purchase in Havannah Harbour has everyone rethinking this tropical paradise.”
Far as we can tell, there are only two possible conclusions that can be drawn from this story:
1. Blanchett has made the worst real estate investment in history because her new purchase will soon be under water due to the global warming Blanchett rails against, or
2. Blanchett is just the latest in a long line of global warming hypocrites.
Anthony Weiner was a man who believed in taking risks. Stupid risks. What he really needed was someone who could have computed the odds for him. Someone like Bodog, the online gambling company.
Anthony Weiner was a man who believed in taking risks. Stupid risks. What he really needed was someone who could have computed the odds for him. Someone like Bodog, the online gambling company.
The Daily Caller has the details:
Odds that Anthony Weiner's pecs have been surgically enhanced: 1-1
All y’all gamblers out there, heads up! Odds are set for Anthony Weiner’s resignation and divorce.
The gambling company Bodog is accepting bets for two Weiner related categories:
1. Will Anthony Weiner resign by July 4th 2011? Odds for “yes:” 5 to 4, for “no:” 1 to 2.
2. Will Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin file for divorce in 2011? Odds for “yes:” 2 to 1, no odds for “no.”
Adam Young, head odds maker at Bodog, explained that a lot of research goes into making the odds such as these because, unlike a sporting event (which is what Bodog primarily does), there is no empirical data.
“We get a feel for what the actual story is and what the opinions are in politics. After we assess that we try to put it into a percentage,” Young said.
Offering odds on unusual situations is nothing new for Bodog. In 2007 it offered odds on Heather Mills [the ex-wife of Paul McCartney] losing her prosthetic leg during her apparance on “Dancing with the Stars”.
Weinergate is very similar. Except instead of wondering if Heather Mills will lose her leg, they’re wondering if Anthony Weiner will lose his ass.
This story irks the hell out of us. So may we suggest that you let out a big sigh before you read it. There. That’s it. Let it all out. Relax. Calm yourself.
This story irks the hell out of us. So may we suggest that you let out a big sigh before you read it. There. That’s it. Let it all out. Relax. Calm yourself.
OK, now it’s probably safe to read about the lunatic pacifists in the Midwest:
Oh, say can you see that not all the students at Goshen College agree with banning the National Anthem
A small northern Indiana college has decided to stop playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at sporting events after starting to do so for the first time last year.
Goshen College’s board of directors says it will find an alternative that honors the country and the Mennonite Church-affiliated school’s pacifist traditions.
The 1,000-student college has been playing an instrumental version of the national anthem, followed by a peace prayer, before games and other events. Some were upset with the school’s decision last year because the song’s lyrics contain references to using war and military might to defend the country.
Art professor John Blosser tells The Goshen News that there is much national pride at the school, but that most people aren’t going to blindly accept what the country does.
Wouldn’t you just know the whole thing would be explained by an art professor? It’s never a professor from the business schoool nor someone from the athletic department. It’s always an art professor.
Cordova, the Washington co-ed who received the fateful Tweet of Anthony Weiner’s weiner, was named “Most Likely To Be Involved In A Tabloid Scandal” in her high school yearbook.
It looks like Gennette Cordova’s classmates in the Shorecrest High School Class of 2007 were psychic.
Cordova, the Washington co-ed who received the fateful Tweet of Anthony Weiner’s weiner, was named “Most Likely To Be Involved In A Tabloid Scandal” in her high school yearbook.
We just have one question: What the hell happened to that slacker Alex Murphy?
Britain’s MI6 and their Communications Headquarters hacked into Al Qaeda’s online magazine “Inspire” replacing bomb-making instructions with cupcake recipes.
We’ve discovered that the real reason nanny state nags like NYC Mayor Bloomberg and First Mama Michelle Obama are obsessed with our diets lately is concern for national security. There’s a good chance that Al Qaeda may have shifted their focus from shoes and underwear to death by cupcakes.
Make cupcakes, not war!
Fox News has the ingredients of a very odd story:
British intelligence agency MI6 and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters cooked up a cyberattack and hacked into terror group Al Qaeda’s online magazine “Inspire” — replacing bomb-making instructions with cupcake recipes, according to the Daily Telegraph.
When followers of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula tried to download the 67-page instructions for how to “Make a bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” by “The AQ Chef,” the terrorists were instead greeted with a web page of recipes for “The Best Cupcakes in America” published by the “Ellen DeGeneres Show,” the newspaper reported.
Terrorists could then learn how to make a mojito cupcake made of white rum cake and draped in vanilla buttercream, instead of making a lethal pipe bomb using sugar.
The inducement to become a TSA crotch-grabber may have just increased exponentially. Besides getting to ogle backscatter X-rays of hot babes, they may now get to eat Ellen DeGeneres’s cupcakes.
We were dying to know if the modern-day Ayers and Dohrns figured out the scam:
The terrorist group was able to reissue the magazine two weeks after the cyberattack and has produced four other issues.
Damn it. Now the only way to get that mojito cupcake recipe is to watch reruns of Ellen DeGeneres. And we’re pretty sure the Supreme Court has already defined that as cruel and unusual punishment.
If the Bump-In-Chief wishes to find the real culprit, he should consider Pogo’s line, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
Someone once said that success has a thousand fathers while failure is an orphan. But when the prodigy in question is today’s rotten economy, President Obama sees more sperm donors than there were unread pages in his health care bill.
President Obama should look this guilty every time he appears in public
President Obama is pointing to problems in Japan and Europe as challenges for the U.S. economy, placing some blame on events abroad for a domestic recovery that is showing signs of slowing down.
…U.S. unemployment rose to 9.1 percent, up from 9.0 percent in April.
That bump is a political challenge for the president, whose re-election in 2012 may depend on his ability to convince voters that his economic policies have been successful.
We concur. For some reason, convincing folks policies are successful is much harder when those policies are failures. Go figure. Since the “Bush’s fault” meme is getting old, Obama has turned to “Casablanca’s” Captain Renault: “Round up some NEW usual suspects”…
“Lately, it’s high gas prices, the earthquake in Japan, and unease about the European fiscal situation. That will happen from time to time. There will be bumps on the road to recovery.”
The bumps he alluded to are called “Obamacare”, “stimulus” and “excessive regulations” to name a few. And those high gas prices are partially because he feels about the domestic oil industry the way Khruschchev felt about capitalism: “We will bury you.”
If the Bump-In-Chief wishes to find the real culprit, he should consider Pogo’s line, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
This official White House photo says it all. President Obama’s in the dark when it comes to economics. He’s in the dark when it comes to domestic policy. He’s in the dark when it comes to foreign policy. He’s in the dark…
This official White House photo says it all. President Obama’s in the dark when it comes to economics. He’s in the dark when it comes to domestic policy. He’s in the dark when it comes to foreign policy. He’s in the dark when it comes to the Second Amendment. He’s in the dark when it comes to fuel prices. He’s in the dark when it comes to … well, it might be easier to tell you what he’s not in the dark about.
To summarize Matthews’ position: Hey, Weiner didn’t get caught with another woman. This is nothing more than high school level embarrassment. A mere trifle. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Chris Matthews. In this video clip the MSNBC host downplays Anthony Weiner’s recent, shall we say, indiscretions. To summarize Matthews’ position: Hey, Weiner didn’t get caught with another woman. This is nothing more than high school level embarrassment. A mere trifle. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Well, may we suggest that you don’t move on too quickly. Because we’ve found a couple other video clips where Matthews seems absolutely horrified by the sexual hijinks of Republicans Mark Foley, Larry Craig and David Vitter.
First, here’s Matthews downplaying Weinergate:
The video clip above makes it clear that Chris thinks it’s no big deal that Anthony Weiner sent a photo of his weiner to a young man, but in the following clip he is horrified that Mark Foley asked young men to come to his apartment for a drink. He actually compares it to the last days of the Roman Empire.
And here’s Matthews calling for the heads of Senators Larry Craig and David Vitter.
We’d say Matthews is a hypocrite, but he’s on MSNBC so that’s probably not necessary.
Outspoken Australian feminist Germaine Greer has launched a stinging attack on domestic dogs, blaming them for the ruination of a protected perennial flower, the English bluebell.
Germaine Greer’s fifteen minutes of fame expired years ago. The once prominent feminist is now struggling to find a new cause célèbre that can restart the clock. Oddly enough, she seems to have settled on the plight of her favorite flower.
Germaine Greer dislikes dog poo almost as much as we dislike the phrase "dog poo"
Outspoken Australian feminist Germaine Greer has launched a stinging attack on domestic dogs, blaming them for the ruination of a protected perennial flower, the English bluebell.
Addressing Britain’s Hay Festival on Thursday, the 72-year-old Melbourne-born academic who owns a patch of land covered in the plant that flowers in spring, pointed the finger at toxic dog poo for the plant’s scarcity.
”If you love your bluebells, kill your dog,” said Greer dramatically…
Overdramatically, actually.
Toxic dog poo. Watch out, Rachel Carson. Here comes Germaine Greer with a new book called “Silent but Deadly Spring.”
Let’s say you’re an artist. A hack artist, perhaps. Your work really isn’t very good and under normal circumstances you’d either starve to death or have to go get a real job. What to do? What to do?
Let’s say you’re an artist. A hack artist, perhaps. Your work really isn’t very good and under normal circumstances you’d either starve to death or have to go get a real job. What to do? What to do?
This is the post-television age. The iPod age. The iPad age. All an artist need do is figure out a good scam and hornswaggle the media into promoting your “art.”
Interesting that Coreth created his latest ice sculpture in Australia, because it looks far more like a wombat than a polar bear
News24 offers a case in point:
A ten tonne polar bear camping out at Sydney’s majestic Circular Quay isn’t likely to survive for more than a day or two. The bear, made of solid ice, will slowly melt into a great puddle of water under Sydney’s 20°C winter sun, and sculptor Mark Coreth is just fine with that.
In fact, he hopes this slow and painful “death” will remind people of the plight of the real thing.
Here comes the part we love. The part where he tells us he was inspired by the noble native:
“When I was [in the Arctic], the Inuit guides were saying look, you can sculpt a polar bear, that’s fine, but how on earth are you going to sculpt the real issue we got, and that’s the warming arctic?” Coreth said in front of Sydney’s Customs House.
Turns out the Brit has been traveling the world with these frozen polar bear sideshows since 2009. He’s got the spiel down cold, you might say:
“Sitting in the sun, it’s going to melt that bear, that’s the natural warming of the planet, as is happening,” he said.
“But when people touch it, when they touch that bear, they melt it, you can feel it melt under your hand, that’s a human impact. Big hard touch, big hard melt.”
But don’t get the impression Coreth is some kind of starving artist. He may love the hell out of the polar bears, but as AFP notes, he’s figured out how to turn a profit by melting hearts with his melting art.
Bypassers can pay Aus$2 to touch the creature, feeling “the ice melting under your hand,” said Coreth, who hopes to raise awareness about global warming and its effect on polar bears, an endangered species.
Touch the creature. Sounds like an online conversation with Anthony Weiner.
H/T: Mike Power
He told Don Imus that he’s worried that extended unemployment may cause civil unrest, which is merely a euphemism for riots in the streets.
James Carville is the Democrat political strategist who coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid.”
When he gets that Cajun accent going we only understand about half of what he says. But we understood every word when he told Don Imus that he’s worried that extended unemployment may cause civil unrest, which is merely a euphemism for riots in the streets. And that, he says, may have a destabilizing effect on American politics.
Of course, it might be wise to keep in mind that when Carville speaks of destabilization of American politics, he means Democrats may get voted out of office.
“It is going to be very difficult,” Carville said. “But the country, if that is what we are doing, this is gruesome on people. This unemployment rate for this long is humanitarian crisis of the first magnitude. This financial crisis, people have studied this by the way, they know that the things take this long to work their way through. The aftermath of these things — kind of an academic book that is dry entitled ‘This Time is Different.’ What it concluded it is not different this time. They studied it, the aftermath of the financial crisis. What we are going through is imminently predictable. But this is a terrible thing that has happened to people’s lives. I think the president at one level understands that, you know. But he is limited in what he can do. So we’ll just have to see. But it’s going to be hard. If 54,000 jobs is the new norm – this is going to be very, very tough. Some people say it just might be one more thing. We don’t know.”
But Carville said the consequences aren’t limited to politics alone. He warned of heighten risk of civil unrest with the bleak economic picture.
“You know, look – this is a humanitarian — you know, you’re smart enough to see this,” Carville said. “People, you know, if it continues, we’re going to start to see civil unrest in this country. I hate to that, but I think it’s [eminently] possible.”
Translation: Riot all you want when Republicans are in office. But hell’s bells, people, don’t do it when a Democrat is sitting in the Oval Office.
We hate bad-news good-news jokes, especially when the punch line is “there is no good news.” This is one of those occasions.
We fondly remember the old Abbott and Costello routine “Two Tens For A Five.” Fondly, because the routine was funny, but also because fifty years ago it was just a comedy routine and not government policy. Two tens for a five would be a huge improvement over what’s actually happened:
The Federal government borrowed and spent $5.1 trillion over the past four years to generate a cumulative $700 billion increase in the nation’s GDP. That means we’ve borrowed and spent $7.28 for every $1 of nominal “growth” in GDP.
We hate bad-news good-news jokes, especially when the punch line is “there is no good news.” This is one of those occasions:
In constant dollars, GDP is flat: we got no growth at all for our $5.1 trillion: zip, zero, nada. In constant dollars, the GDP in 2011 might return to the 2007 level, if the economy continues “growing” at the same pace reached in the first three months of 2011. If not, then the GDP will actually be lower than pre-recession levels.
We’re glad to find out it wasn’t just our imagination that last year’s vaunted “Recovery Summer” seemed like a typical summer in Anchorage – both lasted about a day. And we have noticed the “unexpected” change in the Democrat and media (yes, still the same thing) rhetoric from “good times are a’ comin” to “things could be worse.”
Unfortunately, we are compelled to add “and thanks to that mountain of useless debt, they will be.”
