and the Hawkeyes are 9-0 !!!!!

the President has sent the nomination of one of the pesticide industry flacks that bad mouthed Michelle's organic garden to the Senate to be confirmed Ag Rep on the Trade Team 

unbelievable

I'll see if I can find out why.

The liberal elite is smug and patronising

Anyone who unbalances the equilibrium is quietly excluded from the debate

Terence Blacker

www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/the-liberal-elite-is-smug-and-patronising-532641.html

The lesson of what has just happened in America is that the wider world is drifting away, alienated. Liberals find it difficult to understand why this should be so. For decades the belief has taken hold that, if decent, warm, modern values are carefully explained, then goodness will prevail.

Years ago, summing up the defiant optimism of a generation that was determined to change an ossified older order, Bob Dylan sang: "Something is happening here and you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr Jones?"

--cont--

--cont---

The liberal elite is smug and patronising

Anyone who unbalances the equilibrium is quietly excluded from the debate

Terence Blacker

Now, weirdly, all that has changed. The Mr Joneses, beleaguered by forces that they do not understand, belong to the liberal elite. Where a previous generation deployed police and teargas to protect its position, resistance today is of a gentler, creepier kind. Those who disagree are shifted out to the margins and ignored. Columnists who break the consensus are forced to apologise. Politicians who let slip inappropriate views are vilified. Anyone who unbalances the equilibrium of decent, middle-of-the-road liberalism is quietly excluded from debate.

Clearly, it will not work. Far from winning new converts, it hardens positions on the outside. The time has come for liberals to take a less truculent approach towards those who disagree with them, to try persuading rather than mocking and patronising.* The alternative is a smug, smiling intolerance that will eventually defeat itself.

www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/the-liberal-elite-is-smug-and-patronising-532641.html

-excerpted-

*my edit

your posted vid has been taken down.  :-(

Anyway, this actually would be a State Department action. Obama may have been his own worst enemy by appointing warmongers to state such as Hillary, Eckleberry and Holbrooke.
This would be a great chance to use Bubba and Carter to promote world peace and eradication of poverty. It also requires a defensive grand strategy.

I agree, dog.  I also think Rahm was very much behind the State appointments.  I've read many times over the years that there is enuf food to feed the whole world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8335211.stm

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged the Israelis and Palestinians to restart talks "as soon as possible".

And don't forget: Daylight Saving Time ends tonight. . . .

"Appointing somebody like Siddiqui to be the chief trade negotiator in our view enforces that the agenda is not going to change very much," Ozer said.

Monsanto/Vilsack/Siddiqui  -

And Obama's reasons for doing this are what?

Remember the genetically engineered corn that made men sterile (not altogether a bad idea :-)  ?  I wonder what's being messed with now and what's coming down the pike. Paranoid?  Yup, with good reason.  "Brave New World" and "1984."   Please pass the SOMA.

Isn't there a show called "World's Biggest Loser" or s/t like that?  I wonder what THOSE viewers are eating.  :-)

The Public Option in Congress Is Now a Sham. Who Cares If Lieberman Kills It?

Grijalva Pushes Senate, Obama In Letter To Pelosi

While Rep. Raul Grijalva ostensibly wrote this letter to Nancy Pelosi, in reality he wrote it to Harry Reid and Barack Obama. In it, he asked for three changes to the “manager’s amendment” (a potential substitute to the current House bill with various changes) and an opportunity to bring an up or down vote on Medicare + 5% rates to the House floor (here’s the language of that amendment). Here are the changes sought:

Americans in every state in the nation must be able to take advantage of the benefits of the bill; thus the bill shall explicitly state that the public option must be available without any triggers or opt-out provisions.

If the Secretary is forced to negotiate provider reimbursement rates in the public plan, a ceiling shall be determined and set for such rates.

The bill shall fully repeal the McCarran Ferguson Act for health and medical malpractice insurance, as oppose to merely amending the Act.

This is clearly a recalibration of the minimum requirements for progressive support on the bill. Grijalva is seeking statutory language that would explicitly reject opt-outs or triggers. That directly comes out of the meeting with the White House and progressive House members where the President focused on opt-outs and triggers. Based on the other provisions, we can assume that the President may have brought them up as well.

By: David Dayen Friday October 30, 2009 2:29 pm

Family photo of Ty Ziegel at his post in Iraq in 2004.

. .

Ty Ziegel has some help getting dressed in his Marine uniform for his wedding.

. .

Ty Ziegel at the candy store at his home in Washington, Illinois. When kids ask Ty what happened to his ears, he says, "the bad guys took them."

. .

Ty Ziegel and Renee Kline have their portrait taken before their wedding.

Sgt. Tanner Stichter tends to a wounded Specialist Carl Vandenberge.

. .

Specialist Carl Vandenberge, right, and Staff Sgt. Kevin Rice, left, are assisted as they walk to a medevac helicopter after being shot by insurgents in the ambush.

. .

U.S. troops carry the body of Staff Sgt. Larry Rougle, who was killed when the insurgents ambushed their squad in the Korengal Valley.

———
———

For every flag-draped coffin which arrives at Dover AFB, there are three more members of our Armed Forces who sustain life-altering wounds.

If you want our troops to be re-deployed, please put your concerns into action, by contacting your members of congress, preferably in person at their local offices. It is not necessary to have an appointment to go to their offices and make your thoughts known. And go back to their offices, write, and call as often as you can. Also, please convey your thoughts to the President.

same FDL page

snip

So here’s a suggestion. In a week or so, when the president announces he is escalating the war, let’s not hide the reality behind eloquence or animation. No more soaring rhetoric, please. No more video games. If our governing class wants more war, let’s not allow them to fight it with young men and women who sign up because they don’t have jobs here at home, or can’t afford college or health care for their families.

Let’s share the sacrifice. Spread the suffering. Let’s bring back the draft.

Yes, bring back the draft — for as long as it takes our politicians and pundits to "fix" Afghanistan to their satisfaction.

Bring back the draft, and then watch them dive for cover on Capitol Hill, in the watering holes and think tanks of the Beltway, and in the quiet little offices where editorial writers spin clever phrases justifying other people’s sacrifice. Let’s insist our governing class show the courage to make this long and dirty war our war, or the guts to end it.

Go Ducks. who needs baseball

LOL Mark Grace is a commentator?  That's just too weird.  And they call him Gracie.  Ha ha ha

(what's with the Barbie resurgence?) time to sample the goodies

Following health reform is the financial reform.
Bunch of articles appeared recently about Madoff's lesson.
Reasonable reader may easily find out that there were more than enough regulations/regulators/agencies at that time already. The result was/is ZERO!

But it seems does not matter.

For how long more will endless racing after illusions continue?

---------------------------
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59T4W720091031?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=11604&sp=true

"...it appeared the agency knew that goings-on at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC were improper but never followed through on their discoveries or on the allegations of chief whistleblower Harry Markopolos.

"I don't think we should worry about Bernie finding out to whom we speak .... we are not telling anybody that we have found anything improper (except for his lies to us, of course)," one SEC investigator wrote in a May 16, 2006 e-mail."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/business/31sec.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

"...The paperwork gathered from the agency’s files also tell a tale of unseasoned, poorly managed people who were uncertain about what to do and unwilling to ask for help. In numerous instances, employees would share their doubts about Mr. Madoff in notes or e-mail messages, but then never take steps to press for more information."

It's fun to watch history record..., gives you better understanding who is who.

What if...?

Imagine...!

"Socially, Philadelphia was still a fairly provincial city, its business community governed by the mores of the Main Line. Politically, it was a cauldron of ethnic rivalries, dominated by competing Irish and Italian constituencies." -
  --  Andrea Mitchell

Does anyone know how to reach her?  She's not listed in the Keystone Heights, FL telephone book.  I talked with a live operator.  She's not answering her emails..........and she's been MIA for weeks now, maybe 6 or so.  And she lives alone.

Can anyone help with this?

What it means to be "progressive Democrat" vs. "conservative Republican"?

Another good Doctor is completely messing this "clarity" up...lol.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g13bfgR0OluyiOwDkbeKOefkp36wD9BMAL1O1

snip

Indeed, a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll released last week found that trust in government is at a 12-year low, and half of all Americans now support the creation of a new political party.

Both parties ignore such sentiment at their peril in 2010 and perhaps into the 2012 presidential race.

In Senate contests from Florida and Kentucky to New Hampshire next year, conservatives furious at the Republican establishment are mounting primary challenges against more mainstream candidates favored by the national party.

On the other side, Democratic strategists worry that progressives, disgusted by the big money bank bailout and disillusioned with President Barack Obama's lack of fight on issues such as a government-run health insurance plan, might keep some people from voting. That could cost Democrats seats up and down the ballot.

Political operatives are keeping an eye on independent voters — an important and growing group that often decides elections. Will these voters send a signal to politicians Tuesday as well or will they stay home and leave it to the more ideologically driven base voters in both parties?

  Yanks ahead 5-3, man on second... Kate Hudson .. errr, A-rod @ the plate.

   Time for another vodka martini.........

We are getting hints that the repug party may split. If dems are smart, they will also split and give us progressive candidates.  If they split, the progressives win IMO, since the country is sick of war, banks and everything icky that repugs generally stand for.  The country is not center right unless center right means peace, single payer, good roads etc.

We could have 4 major parties going by 2012 or sooner.

This is very good news indeed.  The progessives (dems?) would win.  My prediction...the Indies would take them over the top.

The people may be waking up and we have Stewart, Maher and Colbert to thank for it, since they draw in the youth, who then influence (wake up) the elders.

Hearing about the split in NY and NJ fills me with hope that the dems might learn something from this.

It's certainly no secret that x number of progressive dems are frustrated with Obama.

When the student is ready.............   :-)

GO DUCKS!!!!!