Open Thread
“The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea.” –Isak Dinesen
January 2, 2025
Thursday, August 3, 2023
The Quitter Returns! -Monday, March 21, 2022
Putting the goober in gubernatorial -Friday, January 28, 2022
“The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea.” –Isak Dinesen
Just when you think the Koch brothers and their minions couldn’t get any more evil, they come up with a new way to terrorize people.
In Detroit, the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity has been campaigning against a new bridge project. They have posted fake eviction notices on the homes of residents in a section of Detroit. In small print, the notices, which are designed to look authentic, claim that the homeowners could lose their houses if the project goes through. One 81 year old woman started shaking after reading the fake notice.
Scaring innocent old people…those Kochs must be so proud of themselves!
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/07/238832/americans-for-prosperity-detroit/
They have the money and organization to get pretty much what they want. It’s a sad world when this can happen. Taking an entire Nation backwards a hundred years or more. They are billionaires and that is not enough for them. Oh boo-hiss on them.
Since this is the OT, a reminder from Mat Valley Coalition:
Reminder:
Community Outreach Meeting on Coal Issues, June 8 in Sutton
You are invited to a community outreach meeting on the coal issues Wed, June 8, 7:30 to 8:30 pm in Sutton at mile 61 of the Glen Highway. We will meet in the Chickaloon Traditional Council building on the second floor. Look for the spirit houses on the West side of the road. We will have snacks to share!
Link to Google Map Chickaloon Health Dept, 16166 N Glenn Hwy, Sutton, AK 99674
This is about THREE coal mines proposed. If you can, please attend (I can’t, I’m on an island off the other side of the continent).
Scott Walker is one cold hearted b@st@rd. He removed a painting of three children from the Governor’s mansion and replaced it with a painting of an eagle, claiming that the redecoration was to honor the 150th anniversary of the Civil War (which we all know was fought mostly in Wisconsin!).
The painting he removed “depicts an African American girl who was featured in an article on homelessness, a Hispanic girl who is a member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, and a white boy whose father and brother were killed by a drunk driver in 2009. Entitled “Wishes in the Wind,” local artist David Lenz said he “carefully selected” these children because “the homeless, central city children and victims of drunk drivers normally do not have a voice in politics.” ”
Yup…can’t have those three kids watching you as you work to eliminate all the programs and services that make their lives liveable!
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/07/238758/wisconsin-painting-replacement/
give yourselves a gift and check out Jim Wright’s take on Palins wild ride to warn the British against taking ours arms an’ stuff.
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8243351006478134285&postID=7912366787439847724&page=1&token=1307490391392
Oh my gosh, that was great, funny and serious! First off, I didn’t realize that just an average joe citizen asked the terrible “gotcha” question. I thought somebody from the media asked it and thought it was a weird question. But what a fun read!
Colbert “defends” Palin…..
THIS ….is hilarious….watch Colbert ride the pony while attempting to load a musket and ring a bell!!
Stephen Colbert Tries to Validate Sarah Palin’s Version of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride http://t.co/UJxCt4M
From The Washington Post! I simply copied & pasted it, I can’t take author credit.
Here’s BlogPost reader Tbarksdl’s poem:
Listen my children, and you shall grin,
At the media ride of Sarah Palin,
For day after day in twenty-eleven,
(Hardly any will be forgiven,)
Came tons of words from history’s trash bin
She said to her friends, “I will gladly march,”
By land or sea from DC tonight,
With nary a light in my brainless arch,
With mindless chattering as my signal light,
One thought on land, none on the sea,
And I two full quarts low will always be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm,
To every yahoo village and farm,
For the misled folk to be up and to arm.
“The socialists are coming! The socialists are coming!”
“Hit them with tax cuts! Unleash the greed!”
And so on and on rode Sarah Palin,
To every yahoo village and farm.
priceless.
Finally, a mother speaks out about the role model that Palin represents:
http://braintree.patch.com/articles/sarah-palins-return-leaves-a-trail-of-parenting-disorder
What do Shakespeare, Putin, and Paul Revere have in common? Yep! They all have p in them.
Blast from the past, in case anyone is even imagining it’s OK to vote Republican:
“The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals – ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern.”
– Paul Krugman, “The Politics of Spite,” NY Times, Oct. 5, 2009.
If you’re not depressed enough this morning:
http://www.ginandtacos.com/2011/06/07/senate-2012-son-of-a/
“In short, the Democrats are fighting a the war of 2012 on about 12 different fronts. It is unrealistic to expect that the party can prevail in so many tight races and toss-ups unless Obama somehow achieves a 1984-style blowout victory at the top of the ticket. That does not appear likely. At this early stage the odds are good that the Republicans will net a gain of at least four seats, giving them the Senate majority. If Obama returns to the White House alongside that outcome, we can expect gridlock on a biblical scale for at least two years. If the Senate and the White House both switch party control, then America can look forward to the kind of solid political leadership that Wisconsin and Florida have been enjoying since the 2010 midterms.”
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/06/06/exp.ac.kth.palin.paul.revere.cnn?&hpt=hp_c2
Last night Colbert shared his reenactment of Palin’s version:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/388583/june-06-2011/paul-revere-s-famous-ride
And don’t forget womanwithsardinecan’s version!
http://theperilsofpalins.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/paul-reveres-midnight-ride/
I can’t get “Blam blam! Ring ring!” out of my head. It’s kind of fun actually! It gives me a battle cry, making fighting the Palin idiocy much more fun.
What price,America? What if Mr Revere had gotten stuck on the MTA and was going to ride beneath the streets of Boston forever? And his poor horse would not have been allowed to ride the Metro beside him. “Let me out of this damn thingy” doesn’t quite have the ring of “The British are coming”,but you have to improvise in a pinch Poor old Charlie was missing his family and then he had to listen to Sarah rewrite history and finally jumped to his death. Thanks to Sarah Failin,Charlie became an official statistic and footnote in early American history.
That was great!
Colbert is truly hilarious! That is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a very long time!
My thoughts on the Wiener case——
E Spitzer had a problem and resigned from office. However, the difference, E paid for his adventure with an adult. Wiener was doing all this textsexing with different women, not knowing their age. Sooooooooooo, he might be in more trouble than he realizes. And I agree about all this new social media stuff——when you press “send”——–it’s out there. Even the good stuff can bring you trouble. Having a cyber-stalker is a scary thing.
Hopefully new technology can make the internet more safe.
Not to defend what Weiner did (which was stooopid and dangerous and idiotic and infuriating), but lots of the folks on the right are comparing this situation to that of my former Rep, Chris Lee, who resigned after his shirtless photos on Craig’s List were made public. They are screaming that it is only fair that Weiner resign since Lee did.
There are important differences in the two stories, however. First, Lee voluntarily resigned faster than the speed of light before the now-infamous pictures even hit the evening news, causing many of us to wonder what other little secrets were waiting to be uncovered. And, yes, it seems as though there WERE, indeed, more salacious secrets yet to come that did not get quite the media coverage because they were uncovered after his resignation. There seems to be some evidence that Lee did not just send his chesty pics to a select few ladies, but was also soliciting relationships with transgender women (and one of the women he connected with was a prostitute). He was not looking to do a little online long-distance flirtation like Weiner, but was actually attempting to meet up with these women for an in-person dalliance.
Being a resident in the NY-26 district (which, thanks to the unexpected results of a special election now has a Democratic Representative…woo hoo!!!), I am very glad that Lee did, in fact, resign before he brought more shame upon his constituents and his family.
On the other hand, I am torn about Weiner resigning. While I would dearly miss the kind of bulldog fighting he’s done for the public in Congress, I find the initial lies he told in a pathetic attempt to cover up what he’d done very disheartening, far more than the twittering of a few vulgar photographs. There are certainly many currently-serving members of Congress who are guilty of much worse than Weiner’s twitter-sleaze, but I find it impossible to muster any enthusiasm for him any longer.
I feel really sad for you and every one who looked up to the Congressman. I’m still shaking my head in disbelief that he did something this stoopid,when he had to know that the photoes would go viral. I didn’t think he was that dumb or reckless. Hope you can find a true champion. I’m afraid Congressman Wiener is about to become a minor footnote in political history.
Thankfully, we still have Kirsten Gillibrand as our Senator. She is smart, feisty, hard-working and knows her stuff. She also appears to have the kind of integrity we look for in our representatives. She also does NOT have an appendage that will cause her to send TMI pictures to complete strangers.
Testosterone, ego and political power are a dangerous combination. Having a Senator without either of the first two is a blessed relief!
The British are coming—-the British are coming—–the British are coming———ooops
I mean the e-mails are coming—this Friday.
http://on.msnbc.com/lntF2b
This is brilliant…if only Weiner had learned how to deal the critics like Palin:
http://www.salon.com/news/anthony_weiner_dny/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/06/07/palin_weiner
I hope I get some time on a sailboat this summer. I’m glad thatcrowwoman got some rain. I hope the twidiot leaves Maggie Thatcher alone.
It looks like Thatcher’s allies are protecting her from a Palin visit:
“It appears that the former prime minister has no intention of meeting the darling of the Tea Party movement. Andy McSmith reported in the Independent this morning that Palin is likely to be “thwarted” on the grounds that Thatcher, 86, rarely makes public appearances.
“It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher’s frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me:
Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2011/jun/07/margaretthatcher-sarahpalin
“Earlier in the symposium, retired diplomat Joseph Montville drew examples from American Indian and slave history to illustrate the need for society to take moral responsibility for past injustices in the process of breaking the generational psychology of victimhood.
“We have learned that time does not heal wounds. Only healing does,” Montville said. “We have to face the wounds of history and give them voice.”
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110603_11_A1_CUTLIN952193#&r=5528
I’ve been thinking about Native Americans a lot lately. I’ve been reading books to Charlotte by Paul Goble:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3APaul+Goble&keywords=Paul+Goble&ie=UTF8&qid=1307454948&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B000AQ1K9E
And getting teary-eyed thinking about the larger issues. She is young, so don’t want to get too heavy about the realities of the situation – as it exists now as well as the history – but also want to raise a child that is engaged & informed.
I guess it is time to begin facing the wounds & giving them voice in our home, at least as is appropriate for a 6 yr old. The world needs more compassionate children that grow into compassionate adults, and it starts with each of us.
Along those lines — here are some great books for parents/children about raising children in a way that encourages active compassion/advocacy:
“The World Needs Your Kid”
http://www.amazon.com/World-Needs-Your-Kid-Contribute/dp/1553655869/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307455342&sr=1-1
“If The World Were a Village”
http://www.amazon.com/World-Were-Village-World%252019s-CitizenKid/dp/1550747797/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307455390&sr=1-1
so terribly sad isn’t it?
Congressman Wiener from New York has one huge problem. He has admitted to sexting pictures of himself. What is wrong with these people? Rethuglicans are trying to hand Congress back to the Dems and they act like they don’t want it. Can any of these people be trusted to keep their pants on? Thatcrowwoman, I am happy you got some rain. We will skip the middleman next time so you get a bigger share of Nature’s gift. I used to enjoy the sound of rain on a tin roof. Now it has to be a downpour or My ears won’t pick it up. Enjoy your Summer.
mike from iowa said –
“Can any of these people be trusted to keep their pants on?”
No. In fact, the average person will take their pants off at least twice a day, if not more. And that isn’t even anything to do with getting naked for fun, that is just getting dressed in the morning and undressed at night! 🙂
I think it is time that we the people accept that people have sex. All kinds of people, all kinda of kooky kinky stuff going on. It has actually been happening for years, it is just now a lot easier to document it with the googles and tubes and the twitter and face book and mobile phones..
I honestly do not care for Weiner’s weiner. If he wants to twitter it to people, that is his business and not any of ours! And really having seen it, it doesn’t look like it is worthy of photography, but maybe that is just my opinion. 😉 There are weiners out there which should be celebrated, and photographed, and twittered to the world. Some of them may or may not belong to politicians.
Wiener’s wiener sounds like the title to a poem. I totally agree with your post, I was kinda thinking that people in elected office would be more careful about how and when they exhibit their exhibits. I personally believe that their private life is none of my business. What bothers me is the fact that CNN was giving Andrew Breitbart a stage and audience for his take on this.I exercised my rights to not listen to Breitbart and I was not interested in the Congrressman’s endowment. Rethuglicans are gonna have a field day with this indiscretion.
If only he’d been honest from the beginning this would be a non-issue. He could have said “hey, I was stupid, but it’s between my wife & I, thanks for your concern, but we’ll handle it our way.”
But no! He was a stupid idiot & a liar. And gave breitbart the credibility that he so desperately needed after the faux acorn & shirley sherrod issues. No excuse for giving breibart credibility! No way! And any network that give breitbart credibility is off the island with me. CNN is dead to me.
I don’t suppose that politicians are much more likely — per capita — to do stupid things or show off their boy bits, but their antics get front page status. They should know better.
What a moron weiner has been. Thinking he’s mr. big stuff (in more ways than one, apparently, and sadly).
Here’s hoping we can all move on from his story. I only wish he’d resign so that there could be a special election that would put someone in there who would not be a distraction/issue in 2012.
What’s really sad is that he was practically the only member (sorry) of Congress trying to get Clarence Thomas to release his financial records, along with those of his wife. We need Democrats who fight. I thought sexting was for teenagers. I’m furious.
Amen, Zyx!
Weiner is an extremely intelligent man who allowed his crotch to do his thinking for him. Giving Brietbart ANY credibility is only going to encourage him to go even further in his next smear campaign, and more innocent people are going to get taken down and destroyed just like he did to Shirley Sherrod and ACORN.
Weiner had a bright future in politics and he was one of the few members of Congress who spoke his mind and stood up for his constituents, regardless of what the party line might have been. His tenacity in defending the cause of right in the face of overwhelming odds was one of the things I admired the most about him. Now I just have a sick feeling in my stomach when I think of how he wasted his career and spit on the trust of the people who supported him.
Everything thrown away, and for what?
So now who’s going to lead the fight against Clarence Thomas? Anyone????
good one Snos. not worthy of photography? well maybe if we put hot mustard and a heaping of saurkraut on it. ROFLMAO
Palin is still trying for that photo-op with Thatcher:
http://politico-junkie.blogspot.com/2011/06/uk-palin-not-likely-to-be-granted-photo.html
I hope that woman does not embarrass our country by trying to upstage Thatcher when she unveils the “statute” of Reagan at the US Embassy in London on July 4. I don’t think a smirky apology about not trying to step on “tooooooooooooooooooooeeees” will work like it did with the useless Chris Wallace regarding Romney.
And, something really bugs me, even though I’m desperately trying to forget about her for a while. I don’t understand how the press can ignore that this woman claims to know her American history, that she knows the exact day to show off her blingish star-of-David necklace, BUT that she also claims not to be aware that Romney was announcing his candidacy 5-10 miles from her location on the same day. It’s all deliberate. She may not be good at book learnin’ but she sure knows how to be a bad girl.
That’s what freedom looks like.
Pursuit of happiness, anyone?
Thanks to mike for his pleas in triplicate to the Gov of Iowa,
and to Alaska Pi for invoking Tom Waits,
and to all the rest of you holding my parched forest in your thoughts and prayers.
I heard thunder rumble Sunday evening, and we actually got a brief shower yesterday afternoon!
Is there any sweeter sound than that of rain on a tin roof after weeks with just a trace of rain?!
Temps in the 90s dropped 10-15 *, hundreds of birds were singing and celebrating, frogs were croaking, goldfish were splashing, pollywogs were polywoggling, and dusty, thirsty plants got a rinse and a little drink. Life is greener in the forest this morning.
I’m still projecting my inner Eeyore, imagining a little grey raincloud above my head… It would not bother me in the least if “…it rained for 8 days on [my first] week off…” A steady, gentle rain, mind you…NOT taunting teh hurricanes! Just sayin’, long as I’m imagining…
Today is Friday on Tuesday for me, this fine graduation day for the class of 2011.
May they be active members of their communities, and do a better job of leaving things better than they found them than my (baby boomer) generation has done thus far.
Graduates, You’re the adults now. Young adults, but adults.
We need you to be as smart, and as strong, and as generous with your time and talents, and as kind, and as brave as you can be. We give thanks for your power to learn and grow each day.
We’ve survived hurricanes; we know that all our “stuff” can be gone in the blink of an eye. Our Real treasures are stored in our hearts and in our minds. But what we have in our hearts and in our minds is ours and ours alone. Nothing and no one can take that away from us, but may be freely given. When we share, our world is a better place, seems to me.
Welcome to the Real World, graduates.
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them.” ~~ Henry David Thoreau
Let’s see; a song for your generation, and for all generations, also, too.
here ya go…
Yes, We Can:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsV2O4fCgjk
Tikkun Olam.
L’Shalom.
and lots of love,
thatcrowwoman
with apologies for fumble fingered typos. My Norwegian grandmother, the English teacher of blessed memory, is rolling in her grave, er, churning in her urn (?!) about now, but I just didn’t proofread before I tapped [reply].
See you later, sweet po-taters.
🙂
Lovely photo. I can tell you, from a third generation sailor. A great look at the sea. It makes my blood move in a way nothing else can.
Except it is a plastic boat. Sorry. Had to add this. If God wanted us to have plastic boats, he would have made plastic trees.
My boats have always been made of wood. The lovely breathing and moaning in the motion of the waters….
Labor of love, that is…
Good morning. Going to be a hot one in the Ohio Valley today. I’m not looking forward to this afternoon when I get off work and voluntarily climb into my sweat box of a car and drive home to my sauna. At least the chair in the shade of my garden will be waiting for me.
So will the gnats and mossy horned mosquitoes be waiting for you. Have a nice day.
Home from work and mercifully, the thunderstorm we had has cooled things off considerably. Gnats and mosquitoes have drowned. 🙂
Toad played his part. I give him creadit for fallowing his high school sweet heart for as long as he has. Maybe he is the one that lead $P into this train wreck…. She was coached to get this far. Toad was a sports man and a thrill seeker on the fast track too state affairs! His life was rocked hard when the careless VP thing happened.
The Iron Dog title was a worthy physical escape from the ding bat. He also dug himself a few very comfortable bunkers for the troubled waters ahead. Toad will always be an nearsighted Alaskan Independent. The First Dude and her typtical disfuntional American family!
The game has changed from Todds smaller interest. Which of the 7 mountains $P lands on is still hard to predict. I think the 7 new coachs from the right team are being picked for duty and will be very ready to prepair the 2012 trail for Heath talk or what ever her last name will be when they split, go to jail, or campaine together again after the fishing season and before the next Iron Dog.