« June 2009 | Main | August 2009 »
I love me some cool jazz... That classic swinging sound of the 50's and 60's from guys like Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Vince Guaraldi, Art Pepper, Cal Tjader, Arnett Cobb, and of course George Shearing.
Shearing was one of the great (the greatest?) piano man of the golden age of jazz, and his band was always tight and in sync. And check out the locked piano chords, a Shearing signature sound.
You hip cats dig it?
Why am I not surprised? Via Breitbart:
House Democrats have declined to subpoena available records that might reveal whether other members of Congress got discounted VIP mortgages from subprime lender Countrywide Financial Corp. similar to the sweetheart deals given Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad.
So much for Pelosi's "most ethical Congress ever" pledge.
How long before the media begins calling this a cover up? Oh, right... they're on the same team. Nevermind.
This came in my e-mail today, and I figured it dovetailed pretty nicely with the Glenn Beck video in my previous post.
"C'mon, that will never happen in America."
“What would you say if I gave you 11 reasons why the elections in 2010 will be the most important in the history of the United States?
1. What if I had told you in October 2008, before the last presidential election, that before Barack Obama's first 100 days in office, the federal government would be in control of both the mortgage and the banking industries? That 19 of America's largest banks would be forced to undergo stress tests by the federal government which would determine if they were insufficiently capitalized, so they must be supervised by the government?
Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
2. What if I had told you that within Barack Obama's first 100 days in office the federal government would be the largest shareholder in the US Big-Three automakers: Ford, GM, and Chrysler? That the government would kick out the CEO's of these companies and appoint hand-picked executives with zero experience in the auto industry and that executive compensation would be determined, not by a Board of Directors, but by the government?
Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
3. What if I had told you that Barack Obama would appoint 21 Czars, without congressional approval, accountable only to him, not to the voters, who would have control over a wide range of US policy decisions. That there would be a Stimulus Accountability Czar, an Urban Czar, a Compensation Czar, an Iran Czar, an Auto Industry Czar, a Cyber Security Czar, an Energy Czar, a Bank Bailout Czar, and more than a dozen other government bureaucrats with unchecked regulatory powers over US domestic and foreign policy.
Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
4. What if I had told you that the federal deficit would be $915 billion in the first six months of the Obama presidency - with a projected annual deficit of $1.75 trillion - triple the $454.8 billion in 2008, for which the previous administration was highly criticized by Obama and his fellow Democrats. That congress would pass Obama's $3.53 trillion federal budget for fiscal 2010. That the projected deficit over the next ten years would be greater than $10 trillion.
Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
5. What if I had told you that the Obama Justice Department would order FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high-value detainees captured on the battlefield and held at US military detention facilities in Afghanistan. That Obama would order the closing of the Guantanamo detention facility with no plan for the disposition of the 200-plus individuals held there. That several of the suspected terrorists at Guantanamo would be sent to live in freedom in Bermuda at the expense of the US government. That our returning US veterans would be labeled terrorists and put on a watch list.
Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
6. What if I had told you that the federal government would seek powers to seize key companies whose failures could jeopardize the financial system. That a new regulatory agency would be proposed by Obama to control loans, credit cards, mortgage-backed securities, and other financial products offered to the public.
Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
7. What if I had told you that Obama would travel to the Middle East, bow before the Saudi king, and repeatedly apologize for America's past actions. That he would travel to Latin America where he would warmly greet Venezuela's strongman Hugo Chavez and sit passively in the audience while Nicaraguan Marxist thug Daniel Ortega charged America with terrorist aggression in Central America.
Would you have said, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
8. Okay, now what if I were to tell you that Obama wants to dismantle conservative talk radio through the imposition of a new "Fairness Doctrine." That he wants to curtail the First Amendment rights of those who may disagree with his policies via internet blogs, cable news networks, or advocacy ads. That most major network television and most newspapers will only sing his phrases like state-run media in communist countries?
Would you say, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
9. What if I were to tell you that the Obama Justice Department is doing everything it can to limit your Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. That the federal government wants to reinstate the so-called assault weapons ban which would prohibit the sale of any type of firearm that requires the shooter to pull the trigger every time a round is fired. That Obama's Attorney General wants to eliminate the sale of virtually all handguns and ammunition, which most citizens choose for self-defense.
Would you say, "C’mon that will never happen in America."
10. What if I were to tell you that the Obama plan is to eliminate states rights guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment and give the federal government sweeping new powers over policies currently under the province of local and state governments and voted on by the people. That Obama plans to control the schools, energy production, the environment, health care, and the wealth of every US citizen.Would you say, "C'mon, that will never happen in America."
11. What if I were to tell you that the president, the courts, and the federal government have ignored the US Constitution and have seized powers which=2 0the founders of our country fought to restrict. That our last presidential election may have been our last truly free election for some time to come. That our next presidential election may look similar to the one recently held in Iran. (And maybe under review by ACORN.)
I know - I know what you will say. That will never happen in America.
Yeah, that's pretty much what we've been warning people about since Barrack emerged as a candidate, but people called us crazy right wing nutjobs. I wish it was just my imagination, but sadly it's all too real.
Via Third World County:
Not the response you were hoping for Paul?
It's funny, of course, but very telling as well. Why should an independent unbiased journalist be hoping for any particular response? Shouldn't an independent unbiased journalist just be searching for the truth? In this case the truth clearly doesn't fit his agenda, and he doesn't even try to hide the fact that he has an agenda.
Yes, Paul, bad move on your part... You have exposed yourself as a member of the MSM/DNC Cabal.
Today is my birthday. I think I'm officially middle aged now. 40 is middle aged right, and 50 is over the hill? Maybe I've got them reversed. Anyways I'm not a young sprite anymore. Even my chest hair is going gray.
I had a nice evening Sunday. Mom stopped over and had dinner with me and the girls. We had some wonderful lebanese food from a place around the corner. How lucky is my Mom to get HER favorite food, gyros, on MY birthday? I should have made her eat some Mexican instead, but I guess I'm getting mellow in my old age...
Got a few phone calls. Got some funny cards. Some of the cards contained moolah, so I went on Ebay tonight and bought 15 or 20 of the older Forgotten Realms paperbacks that were still missing from my collection. Thanks y'all! I've almost got the whole collection complete now.
My mother also gave me this fabulous gift:
It's an autographed copy of the Depeche Mode's "Violator" album cover!!! Wow! I was blown away. That's going to look frickin' awesome hanging up in the man cave!
To cap the evening off, my thirteen year old daughter joined me in the home theater to watch Depeche Mode's concert video "Devotional" with the surround sound cranked way up. It was almost like being right in the audience. It is incredibly cool that my kid enjoys my favorite band and we can share that kind of stuff together.
Anyways, forty's not so bad I guess. I mean, there IS only one alternative to getting older right?
I have no idea who this chick is, but It's been a busy weekend and I always do a babe post on the weekends, so this is all you get.
Any complaints? No, I didn't think so.
Liu Bolin is an artist known in his native China as "the invisible man" for his series of photographs where he paints himself to blend into the background. These are real photographs, not digital manipulations!
Amazing...
Several more after the jump.
If you haven't noticed, the blog posts have been trending lighter as of late. Truth be told Obama's just worn me out. I can only be outraged about so many things for so long before I just run out of steam.
That happened last week. Now I'm in recovery mode.
I'll get back to exposing the Democrat's agenda to destroy America sometime soon... maybe next week, or the week after. Hopefully it won't be too late.
The Mayor over at Mitchieville has started assembling a photo gallery of hipster douchebags. Head over and check it out for a good laugh.
Two things I can tell you about hipster douchebags is that they vote Democrat (unless they are just too cool or stoned to vote), and they all own Apple iPods and Mac laptops.
Oh, and I despise them, so make that three things.
A heady combination of two things previously thought to be uncombinable, by some guy named DJ Morgoth.
Wow... That was really well done, but... was it good? I can't decide. Is it appealing just for the sheer craziness, or is there some musicality in there?
Some hip hop "artist" who goes by the name of Ju made a ridiculous video called "Been Had Money" showing himself mumbling a lot of nonsense while throwing twenty dollar bills all over the place. Comedian / talk show host Daniel Tosh then made this video response, asking his audience "Is It Racist"?
No, it's not racist, it's the truth. Kudos to Daniel for illustrating just how absurd the entire hip hop mindset has become. Black children would be much better off emulating Tosh than most of their real idols, although that wouldn't be very "street" now would it?
UPDATE: Well, at least this Ju guy has a good sense of humor. He's begun parodying himself: "Been Had Cans", "Been Had Bricks", "Been Had Vitamin Water", "Been Had Baseball Cards", "Been Had Tatoos"
QUESTION: Should I film a "Been Had Dungeons & Dragons" video showing off my huge D&D collection?
IDEA: Too bad we don't have an Obama look-alike who could star in "Been Had YO Money", where he counts all the trillions in tax dollars and shows off all the pork-barrel projects he's been spending it on. Sounds like a good project for Crowder and Zo at PJTV.
Sunshine, smiles, my baby girl, and my wife the total hottie.
When I die this is what I'll be remembering.
I enjoy reading science fiction novels, especially swords & sorcery tales set in the Forgotten Realms setting for the Dungeons & Dragons game. I often read them at night, when I have trouble sleeping. This helps me to pass the time without just laying there tossing and turning. Sometimes it even helps me forget whatever was bothering me so I can fall back to sleep.
So far I have collected 189 Forgotten Realms paperbacks... Yes, one hundred and eighty nine novels set in this one fantasy world. That depth is part of the allure for me. Between the game books, novels and video games, there’s been so much detail added to the Realms that no other fictional setting comes closer to being a real place you could almost step into. For instance, if a writer mentions a wizard wearing a red robe and sporting a tattooed pate, I know he’s from the nation of Thay, where that land lies in relation to where the story is occurring, what language they speak there, their form of government, the names of several of the Zulkirs and Tharchions, their primary exports, the wizard’s likely motivation for doing whatever he’s doing in the story and so on. As I said, the Forgotten Realms is almost like a real place once you’ve gotten into it.
“Whisper Of Waves” is book one of The Watercourse Trilogy by Phillip Athans, which I must admit, has been passed over many times while I perused the shelves at my local bookstore. Now that I’m running out of Realms books to collect it finally made the cut, and having just finished and thoroughly enjoyed it, I’m left wondering why I didn’t buy these books years ago.
I suppose it’s partly because the story seems a little unconventional. I mean, how many swords & sorcery tales feature an architect and a senator as the primary characters? Also the cover art is very different from the rest of the Realms books. Not bad, just very stylized and not what you’d expect, almost retro. I guess it was the uniqueness of this series that caused me to skip over it in favor of titles that I was more certain I would enjoy, and ironically it’s that same uniqueness that ended up making this book one of my favorites.
Right from the acknowledgements at the front of the book you can tell you're in for something different.
Sources for this novel include various works of the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, including “The Fountainhead” and “The Virtue Of Selfishness”.
Marek Rymüt’s speech to the tradesmen was paraphrased from Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, 47 Volumes (London, 1975).
Most of these titles start out with a little thank you to mom, a spouse or the editor, not a hat tip to an icon of conservative political philosophy and the founder of communism!
“Whisper Of Waves” features a really interesting cast of characters all moving along in their own little orbits, intersecting now and then, but only really coming together towards the end of the book. The pace is fast enough to keep things moving, even though as book one in a trilogy there’s a lot of exposition to be expected.
I found this book to be really well written, with Athans giving us rich descriptions and characters with real depth and emotion. For example, here is a short passage featuring the protagonist Ivar Devorast and his old master, Fharaud, whose been long disabled and is lying on his death bed.
He tried to breathe in, but couldn’t. Devorast saw his distress and leaned closer, concern plain on his face. Concern, but not fear.
“Fharaud?” he said. “Can you¬―¬?”
Devorast stopped talking and their eyes met¬―truly met, in a moment of understanding. Fharaud felt Devorast’s hand in his and marveled at that simple sensation. He could feel. He couldn’t breathe, but he could feel.
His heart skipped a beat¬―was that panic?
If it was, it was as fleeting as half a heartbeat, then Fharaud was at peace.
“Goodbye, my friend,” Devorast whispered.
Fharaud wished he could say goodbye too, but he couldn’t, and Devorast would understand. He tried to keep his eyes open as long as he could, but in due course the room went dark.
The last connection with the material world that Fharaud experienced was Devorast’s last whisper, “Rest well, Fharaud. Rest well.”
And he was gone.
That was one of the most vivid death scenes that I’ve ever read, and there are little gems like this scattered all throughout the story. I hope book two and three are as good as this one.
I would heartily recommend “Whisper Of Waves” to anyone interested in the fantasy genre, and it’s truly a must read for any Forgotten Realms fan.
Well now... it's 6:45 AM Sunday morning and I just finished reading a book and posting a review of it to my blog. Shall I try to go back to sleep, or dive right into book two of the series? Hmm...
Via Politico:
Of all the statistics pouring into the White House every day, top economic adviser Larry Summers highlighted one Friday to make his case that the economic free-fall has ended.
The number of people searching for the term "economic depression" on Google is down to normal levels, Summers said.
Searches for the term were up four-fold when the recession deepened in the earlier part of the year, and the recent shift goes to show consumer confidence is higher, Summers told the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Okay. How stupid is that?
Well, if that's the metric their going to use this week, let's all click this link (a few dozen times) and maybe e-mail it to our friends and family. Perhaps then the administration will get the message, and get serious about working towards a real economic recovery, instead of wasting time and trillions of dollars on advancing a partisan agenda and securing their grip on the reigns of power.
On July 18th, 1969 Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge, swam to shore, walked past several homes where he could have called for help, and eventually just went back to his hotel to sleep. All the while, his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne was trapped underwater running out of air.
The next morning "Teddy" stood at a pay phone nearby and watched the authorities remove her body from the wreck, and only then did he go to the police.
The scuba diver who removed Ms. Kopechne from the car stated that her body was pressed up into the highest part of the vehicle where an air bubble would have formed, and that had he been called to the scene quickly she probably would have lived.
Mr. Kennedy was apparently more concerned about preserving his political career than saving the life of Ms. Kopechne and he left her there to drown while he considered how best to handle the fallout.
When he passes away, the MSM/DNC Cabal will try to make this champion of the Democratic party out to be a saint, but don't you forget what he did that day. Nothing he's done since can absolve him of this.
UPDATE: The Cassandra Page finds some excellent paralells / contrast between this tragedy and another one. Just click over and give it a read. Good stuff.
This week's babe is the lovely Wisconsin born actress Heather Graham.
The thirty eight year old blonde bombshell is most notable (in my opinion) for her truly enourmous blue eyes.
Yeah... and all us bloggers who warned again and again that Obama was a ultra left wing radical masquerading as a moderate were just looney tunes.
Here's your new "Green Czar:, Anthony Jones in his own words:
“I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of… I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary…I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th..By August, I was a communist.”
Where did he meet all these awe inspiring radicals? In jail...
Now he's serving our first Marxist President at the White House.
More info at Romantic Poet.
This is the welcome the good people of Georgia just gave to one of their fallen soldiers returning home from Afghanistan.
Staff Sgt. John Beale was serving with the Georgia Army National Guard in the 108th Cavalry.
Military officials said the soldiers were killed Thursday in an attack on their convoy in Kapisa province when their convoy struck an improvised explosive device and came under small-arms fire.
I was weeping within the first minute... just imagine what this was like for his family as they rode in the procession.
Hat tip to Theo Spark.
That is not a Photoshop! It's a real photo capturing the moment a US Navy F-18 buzzed an apartment building along the Detroit River as part of the opening ceremony of a speedboat race last weekend.
Did the guy standing on the balcony get knocked down by the jet blast? I'd be surprised if that didn't break a few windows, just from the noise and vibration. How many dogs suddenly piddled on the carpet in that building?
Westwood's Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun video game came out back in 2000, and has got to be one of the best entertainment purchases I've ever made.
Nine years have passed, but I still play this game on a regular basis. In fact, I've spent entire weekends fending off adversaries while I build huge fortresses, create choke points, assemble enormous air squadrons. Then, once I've finished preparing the battlefield I unleash my armies and mercilessly crush my enemies.
It's a blast!
I try not to repeat myself too much on this blog, but Monica Bellucci's charms proved too hard to resist, so here she is again, featured in my Babes section.
The ravishing forty four year old (yes, you read that right, forty four) is probably most famous for her role as temptress Persephone in the Matrix films.
Gotta love that translucent dress!
This song has great atmosphere.
I love me some 80's tunes!
Here's Obama checking out 17 year old Mayara Tavares's posterior at the G8 summit.
I guess even Marxists like Barack can appreciate some good Brazillian booty.
I came across this meme somewhere on the web:
"If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you've got Paul's vote for life."
Fully 50% of Americans now pay little to no Federal income tax, so we've reached the tipping point. More and more people will now be voting themselves money out of their neighbor's wallet at an ever increasing rate. Ben Franklin warned us about this:
"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
Here we go.
Outside the Bristol Zoo, in England , there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 coaches, or buses. It was manned by a very pleasant attendant with a ticket machine charging cars £1 (about $1.40) and coaches £5 (about $7).
This parking attendant worked there solid for all of 25 years. Then, one day he just didn't turn up for work.
"Oh well", said Bristol Zoo Management - "we'd better phone up the City Council and get them to send a new parking attendant . . . "
"Err . . . no", said the Council, "that parking lot is your responsibility."
"No", said Bristol Zoo Management, "the attendant was employed by the City Council... wasn't he?"
" . . . No." insisted the Council.
Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain (presumably), is a man who had been taking the parking lot fees, estimated at £400 (about $560) per day at Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over £3.6 million ($7 million - or $280,000 every year for 25 years)!
And no one even knows his name.
UPDATE: My wife's been to the Bristol Zoo, but doesn't recall the name of the parking attendant. Darn!
Iowahawk gives us a peek at the new marketing strategy of the Washington Post. Journalisim wasn't paying tha bilz baby, so they got a new thang goin' on:
Katherine Weymouth: Hey fellas, after a hard week lobbying down on K Street, we know what you want. When the sun goes down on the capitol dome, you want to kick off those white shoes and get comfortable with the Beltway's hottest journalists and public policy analysts. And they're all waiting for you at the Washington Chrome Post.
Sexy Reverb Voice: mmmm.... the Washington Chrome Post.
Katherine Weymouth: The Washington Chrome Post, home of DC's most uninhibited panel discussions, with dozens of key government policy analysts waiting to make all your lobbying fantasies come true. Whether your tastes run to heath care, union pensions, or asphalt contracting, let the Washington Chrome Post show you the kind of full-frontal journalism that will make yours an evening to remember.
Go read the rest, and you'll see why Iowahawk is the Howie Mandel of the blogosphere.
It was fun while it lasted...
This is all that's going to be left for our kids and grandkids once Obama and Pelosi are finished bringing their "change".
Hat tip to Mitchieville for the pic.
You can hate it or love it, but this rap tune's got a really great groove to it and sounds like a nice way to coast into the holiday weekend to me.
Embedding on this clip is disabled by YouTube, so you'll have to click through to watch it.
Keep an ear out for the last guy complaining about people "throwing babies in the garbage" and thanking his mother for not having an abortion. These guys aren't ALL bad... just mostly.
Cuban born, New Jersey raised Vida Guerra is this week's babe.
A former bank loan officer, Vida took a chance and replied to an FHM magazine casting call for "the girl next door" and she's been laughing all the way back to the bank ever since.
Via The Politico:
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.
The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health-care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”
The offer—which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters—is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.
I'm not sure I agree with that characterization. I take this as a sign of just how incestuous the links between the press and the Administration have gotten. For them to be so bold shows us just how smitten they are. Like Governor Sanford and his Argentinian mistress, they've finally met their "soul mate" and they just don't care what anybody thinks anymore.
Ed Morissey at Hot Air poses the most important question:
OK, OK, perhaps it isn’t fair to call the Washington Post a pimp for the White House. Maybe it would be better to call this what it is — prostitution of the press in order to gain cash and sell itself out for access, both for itself and for its clients. After all, with the Post grabbing between $25K-$250K for these soirees, it won’t do to risk its cash flow by being too critical of the White House and its occupants, would it?
Journalistic integrity? Yeah right.
This is just the latest sighting of the mythical MSM/DNC Cabal. Like the Loch Ness monster, many choose not believe in it's existence, but all these ripples in the water and long necks popping up out of the waves aren't just my imagination. It's real, it's out there hiding in plain sight, and it's up to no good... I just know it.
UPDATE: The pimp party's been called off, but Powerline sees through the Post's attempt to spin this as an innocent mistake.
The Post, embarrassed by disclosure of its cozy, profitable relationships with lobbyists and the Obama administration, has repudiated the "salon" program. Given that their publisher was the program's host and the paper's "news executives" were set to participate, the paper's suddenly discovering its ethical standards rings rather hollow.
Yeah, pretty much. The MSM/DNC Cabal can't risk something so exposed, so they'll spike this one just to maintain plausible deniability.
They scold auto execs for flying on private jets and scold bankers for having meetings at resort hotels, then our elected representatives board their taxpayer-funded private jets to travel all around the globe doing a whole lot of nothing.
Via Drudge Report, Spending On Taxpayer-Funded Trips Rises Tenfold:
Last summer, Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.) took a four-day trip to the Galápagos Islands with his wife, four other lawmakers and their family members. The lawmakers spent $22,000 on meals and hotels, records show. Mr. Baird, a member of the House Science Committee, said the trip was to learn about global warming.
On the first day, lawmakers toured a breeding center for giant tortoise and land iguanas before dining with scientists, according to an itinerary for the trip. The next morning, lawmakers headed to the Galápagos National Park while their family members had the option of hiking, swimming or shopping. That afternoon, the group boarded a boat to visit a sea-lion colony and search for white-tip sharks.
Wow. That sounds like some very important "work" he did. What a guy!
Via Hot Air:
"Unknown lifeforms picked up by a sewer snakecam in North Carolina."
WARNING: Kinda gross. Don't watch during your lunch hour!
Makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck don't it? I hope it's fake, because these things are disgusting!
UPDATE: Via Geekologie we have an explanation from a scientist:
They are clumps of annelid worms, almost certainly tubificids (Naididae, probably genus Tubifex). Normally these occur in soil and sediment, especially at the bottom and edges of polluted streams. In the photo they have apparently entered a pipeline somehow, and in the absence of soil they are coiling around each other. The contractions you see are the result of a single worm contracting and then stimulating all the others to do the same almost simultaneously, so it looks like a single big muscle contracting. Interesting video.
There you have it.
Recent Comments