The Ledes

Sunday, October 6, 2024

New York Times: “Two boys have been arrested and charged in a street attack on David A. Paterson, a former governor of New York, and his stepson, the police said. One boy, who is 12, was charged with second-degree gang assault, and the other, a 13-year-old, was charged with third-degree gang assault, the police said on Saturday night. Both boys, accompanied by their parents, turned themselves in to the police, according to Sean Darcy, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson. A third person, also a minor, went to the police but was not charged in the Friday night attack in Manhattan, according to an internal police report.... Two other people, both adults, were involved in the attack, according to the police. They fled on foot and have not been caught, the police said. The former governor was not believed to have been targeted in the assault....”

Weather Channel: “Tropical Storm Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, is expected to become a hurricane late Sunday or early Monday. The storm is expected to pose a major hurricane threat to Florida by midweek, just over a week after Helene pushed through the region. The National Hurricane Center says that 'there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday.'”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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The Commentariat -- Sept. 3, 2013

In Search of a Third Musketeer, McCain & Graham Tap Obama. Jackie Calmes, et al., of the New York Times: "The White House pushed forward aggressively on Monday for Congressional approval of an attack on Syria as President Obama got tentative support from one of his most hawkish Republican critics, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for a 'limited' strike -- as long, Mr. McCain said, as the president did more to arm the Syrian opposition. After an hourlong meeting with Mr. Obama at the White House, Mr. McCain emerged with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to say that the two senators' discussions with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office had been 'encouraging'" ...

... Evidently, the lonesome duo needed a Constitutional scholar in their coterie. ...

On CNN just now, McCain says Congress overruling Prez on a national security matter would set dangerous precedent. -- Greg Sargent, tweet today ...

... Jonathan Bernstein, in the Washington Post: "The 'McCain Doctrine Is Nonsense.... To remind Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) of the basics of the Constitution: Congress and the president are co-equal. That's true in general, and it's true of 'national security matters' in particular. The president is commander-in-chief, but Congress not only has the power to declare war, but also the responsibility for funding the armed forces, the diplomats and, well, everything else in the government." ...

... The Big News, Charles Pierce Translation: "The president had Senator Angry Grampy and Senator Huckleberry, the presiding geopolitical thinkers in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body, over today to discuss Syria, and to give them the opportunity to stand on the White House lawn afterwards and call him a dithering dilettante whom they will support if he stops his dithering and his dilettanting and give them the Great Big Boom Boom in Syria that they want." Also, Abyssinia. ...

... Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: Tea Party Republicans & neocon-hawky Republicans split over the use-of-force against Syria. "'Right now, the easy Republican vote looks like the vote against Obama,' said Michael Goldfarb, a neoconservative lobbyist and writer. 'Ten days from now, a vote against Obama could look like a vote for Assad, especially if Republicans succeed in blocking U.S. action, and Assad goes on to prevail, having used chemical weapons, with Iran at his side.'" ...

... Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal: "The formula for legislative victory [on a use-of-force resolution] starts ... with [Obama's] own Democrats, runs through the still-powerful pro-Israel caucus and ends with a band of Republican hawks who have been far more eager for action in Syria than has the president now seeking their help." ...

... E. J. Dionne elaborates on why President Obama had to go to Congress in this instance. ...

... Fred Kaplan of Slate: " Those who have long urged Obama to do something about Syria, and then criticized him in recent days for doing something (just because it’s Obama who’s doing it), will now have to step up and take a stand.... Who knows? Maybe we will learn -- contrary to the experience of the past decade -- that a democracy can go to war in a full and open vote without deceit." ...

... ** Garance Franke-Ruta of the Atlantic provides a list of all the times Congress has passed a declaration of war or authorization to use military force. Franke-Ruta also links to the Congressional Research Service reports from which she cribbed. ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post whips the House & Senate for members' likely votes on the resolution to use force in Syria. The Post provides an interactive feature that lets you see where MOCs stand. Post staff will update the feature as members weigh in &/or change their positions. ...

... Alex Seitz-Wald of the Washington Post: "After spending much of the past four years decrying President Obama's alleged overreach in circumventing Congress, neoconservatives are furious with the president for ... deciding to consult Congress before attacking Syria."

... Kim Willsher of the Guardian: "The French government has published an intelligence dossier that it says shows the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, carried out a 'massive and co-ordinated' chemical attack that is believed to have killed hundreds of people. A nine-page document, published at around 7pm French time on Monday, stated the information had come from "France's own sources" and was based on a detailed technical analysis of evidence supplemented by "additional elements gathered in co-operation with our principal partners'." Le dossier est ici. ...

... Elliot Hannon of Slate: "In a letter to U.N. leaders, Syria has called on the international organization to protect it from 'any aggression' directed at the country following the regime's alleged use of chemical weapons. The letter, from Syrian ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Ja'afari, is addressed to U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon and President of the Security Council Maria Cristina Perceval." ...

... Former NATO commander James Stavridis, in a New York Times op-ed: "The North Atlantic Treaty Organization must be part of an international effort to respond to the crisis in Syria, beginning immediately with punitive strikes following the highly probable use of chemical weapons by President Bashar Al-Assad's regime. The president, the secretaries of defense and state, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should all approach their counterparts to secure NATO action. Such action could be justified based on self-defense, owing to the threat posed to Turkey, a NATO member that has backed Mr. Obama's call for an American-led intervention; the overall threat posed by weapons of mass destruction; and, more controversially, on the evolving international doctrine of a 'responsibility to protect.'" ...

... Julie Pace of the AP: "For President Barack Obama's new foreign policy advisers, the first test of their willingness to undertake military action wound up being a stark lesson in the president's ability to overrule them all.... As Obama grappled with putting military action to a vote in Congress, he didn't consult his foreign policy team. Instead, he sought out Denis McDonough, a longtime adviser who now serves as his chief of staff."

Greg Miller, et al., of the Washington Post: "A 178-page summary of the U.S. intelligence community's 'black budget' shows that the United States has ramped up its surveillance of Pakistan’s nuclear arms, cites previously undisclosed concerns about biological and chemical sites there, and details efforts to assess the loyalties of counter­terrorism sources recruited by the CIA. Pakistan appears at the top of charts listing critical U.S. intelligence gaps. It is named as a target of newly formed analytic cells. And fears about the security of its nuclear program are so pervasive that a budget section on containing the spread of illicit weapons divides the world into two categories: Pakistan and everybody else."

Max Seddon of BuzzFeed: "Following his cancellation of a bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Barack Obama may infuriate the Kremlin further by meeting Russian human rights activists, including LGBT rights groups, during his upcoming trip to St Petersburg for the G20 summit."

Just Thinking about Larry Summers Terrifies Wall Street. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The spreading expectation that President Obama will name Lawrence H. Summers to lead the Federal Reserve Board appears to be working against the central bank's efforts to stimulate the economy. The jitters even have some analysts betting that a Summers nomination could lead to slower economic growth, less job creation and higher interest rates than if the president named Janet L. Yellen, the Fed's vice chairwoman." CW Note: this is a straight news report, not an opinion piece. Hope President Obama can take a few moments out of his busy schedule cajoling the massive coalition of the unwilling to read the Times this morning.

Fernanda Santos & Heath Haussamen of the New York Times: "The decision by clerks in six of New Mexico's most populous counties to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples has added a sense of urgency to a fight that some of the state's top political leaders had seemed in no hurry to join." New Mexico is the only state that has no law sanctioning or forbidding same-sex marriage.

Washington Post Editors: "Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court found most of its provisions to be constitutional. Republicans, having opposed the bill and supported the legal challenge to it, are entitled to be unhappy about the outcome, though in our view they are wrong on the merits. They are not entitled to obstruct and flout the laws of the United States. On the contrary, they have an obligation to cooperate in good faith with wholly legitimate laws duly passed and reviewed by all three branches of government." ...

Much to everyone's surprise, Ted Cruz has videotaped a TV ad the purpose of which is to lie about ObamaCare.

... Kevin Bogardus of the Hill: "Labor has watched with growing annoyance as the White House has backed ObamaCare changes in response to concerns from business groups, religious organizations and even lawmakers and their staffs. They ... don't understand why their concerns so far have fallen of deaf ears.... The key issue are union members who are among the roughly 20 million people who use non-profit multi-employer 'Taft-Hartley' health plans. Unions want the administration to change ObamaCare so that those plans are treated as qualified health plans that can earn tax subsidies.... Without those subsidies, employers may have the incentive to drop the plans and force workers onto the insurance exchanges."

Lobbyists Kill People. Margaret Clapp, et al., in a New York Times op-ed: a "legal" drug cartel is causing life-threatening & deadly shortages in generic drugs. Congress has allowed this to continue "because of the enormous political clout of the industry's lobby, which includes the Healthcare Supply Chain Association and the American Hospital Association." CW: another example of why we need a Constitutional Amendment reforming campaign financing.

Slow Gnus Day

Here's a Reuters report linked especially for contributor James S. who complains Monday was a slow news day: "A motorist said intense sunlight reflected from the 'Walkie Talkie' -- one of several flashy towers under construction in The City, London's historic financial district -- warped his Jaguar which he had parked across the road. The skyscraper's developers said they were seeking to rectify the problem which they blamed on the position of the sun at certain times of day." CW: Yes, evidently their engineers were unaware of the rotation of the earth & all that astrology stuff. Spin, Galileo, spin.

Right Wing World v. "Family Guy"

The National Memo: "At the Right Online conference this weekend -- where conservative activists were treated to a free night at Universal Studios thanks to the Koch brothers -- [conservative blogger Bill] Whittle explained how Hollywood is systematically destroying the Republican Party:

... if you're a young person out there today and you can finish the theme song from Family Guy, then all the anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, anti-morality messages of Family Guy are in your head as completely and thoroughly as that theme song is. -- Bill Whittle ...

The show's dad once described the two symbols of the Republican Party as 'an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change.' ... The best part of the accusation that Family Guy is destroying the GOP is that the network that airs the show, of course, is Rupert Murdoch's Fox Broadcasting Company. -- The National Memo

      ... The post includes a portion of an episode of "Family Guy" that illustrates the utility of government. Thanks to Barbarossa for the link.

News Ledes

Reuters: "Russia raised the alarm on Tuesday after detecting the launch of two ballistic 'objects' in the Mediterranean Sea but Israel later said it had carried out a joint missile test with the United States. There were no reports of missile strikes on Syria. Syrian state sources said the missiles had fallen harmlessly into the sea...."

AP: "Egyptian helicopter gunships fired rockets early Tuesday at militants in the northern Sinai Peninsula, killing at least eight and injuring 15 others in an ongoing campaign to put down Islamic radicals who have escalated attacks in the largely lawless region, Egypt's official news agency said."

AFP: "Tokyo on Tuesday unveiled a half-billion dollar plan to stem radioactive water leaks at Fukushima, creating a wall of ice underneath the stricken plant, as the government elbowed the operator aside. Acknowledging global concerns over the 'haphazard' management of the crisis by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his administration will step in with public money to get the job done."

Reuters: "The Philippines accused China on Tuesday of violating an informal code of conduct in the South China Sea by planning new structures on a disputed shoal, as China's premier told Southeast Asian leaders Beijing was serious about peace. Friction over the South China Sea, one of the world's most important waterways, has surged as China uses its growing naval might to assert its vast claims over the oil- and gas-rich sea more forcefully, raising fears of a military clash."

AP: "Microsoft is buying Nokia's line-up of smartphones and a portfolio of patents and services in an attempt to mount a more formidable challenge to Apple and Google as more people pursue their lives on mobile devices. The 5.44 billion euros ($7.2 billion) deal announced late Monday marks a major step in Microsoft's push to transform itself from a software maker focused on making operating systems and applications for desktop and laptop computers into a more versatile and nimble company that delivers services on any kind of Internet-connected gadget."

AP: "Verizon will own its wireless business outright after agreeing Monday to pay $130 billion for the 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless owned by British cellphone carrier Vodafone."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (17)

It may be a slooow news day, but Roger Federer lost in the third round to a Spaniard--ranked 118! I think Fed is over. And Rafa Nadal beat a German player--ranked 22. There will be three Spaniards in the men's US Open quarter-finals, and NO Americans! Vamos Rafa!

On other news fronts, John McCain has meet with our Prez today and thinks it is fine and dandy to bomb Syria (Lindsey GrahamCracker, too), except that we also have to agree to arm the rebels. And rob the Street's holdings in the Cayman Islands to pay for it. Oh....and not to worry about the "collateral damage." We have that all figgered out.

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

Great Gnus, there. It put me in mind of a quote from Cato I copied from a WSJ article four years ago, when we were wrestling with the interregnum financial crises:

“There must be a vast fund of stupidity in human nature,
or else men would not be caught as they are,
a thousand times over, by the same snares …
while they yet remember their past misfortunes,
they go on to court and encourage
the causes to what they were owing,
and which will again produce them.”

So, it appears the answer to "When will they ever learn?" is "Never."

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

@ Patrick: and that self same Cato also said this:

"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."

Love the Gnus ––very clever.

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Family Guy is destroying the GOP. Who knew?

http://www.nationalmemo.com/watch-conservative-says-family-guy-is-destroying-the-gop/

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

Re: No gnus is good gnus. The tail gnu reminds me of the MIC . The front gnu reminds me of the President. I wish the President would say to the MIC; "What a crock!" He won't because he can't.
An impossible situation with no right answer is best settled with time.
Assid will go to his grave with the bones of his victims, there will be generations of recriminations; man will continue on seeking the best of mass destruction in the hopes of self preservation.
If there was real concern Iran and Saudi Arabia would be working on a solution, instead they are fanning the flames.
Billy Joel had a song a while back; "We didn't start the fire..."
OR; as my older brother would say to my younger brother and me; "Stop fighting or I am going to beat the shit out of both of you."

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

Cool gnus.

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJames Singer

Tee Hee the gnus are (is?) priceless.

I saw a pix of McCain looking on as his BFF Lindsay Graham was speaking. My fertile mind, which is to say full of mostly potting soil, had a burning question. At McCain's demise, will Lindsay merely push Cindy out of the way to receive the flag or will he throw himself sobbing unto the casket? At any rate I wager, as my proper mother was known to pronounce complete with a slight sniff, it will be unseemly.

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterDiane

Love the ga-nus.

The ga-nu cartoon is a perfect distillation of why supposedly smart people do stupid things. They all think what happened to the last guy won't happen to me. I'm too smart to be caught like that.

Perusing the plethora of lists of why smart people do stupid things, several stand out that may apply to at least two situations facing the Obama administration.

One is that they are in uncharted waters. As with Syria. So what do you do? Hey, I know! Let's bring in the military/industrial establishment that has been making (mostly) dickhead decisions for about as long as most of us have been alive. So these same guys are brought in for consultation because generals, unlike during the second world war (and for at least one general during Korea), rarely pay the price for screw ups. Instead, they get another star and more fruit salad.

Congressional leaders who have advocated disastrous courses in the past are then called in for their advice on what to do about the latest cluster-fuck in waiting. Their advice? Do exactly what we did before during the last five cluster-fucks.

So the Syria situation is one potential crocodile. The other is the financial situation. Instead of talking to people who advocated sound solutions to the most recent financial disaster, let's bring back one of the architects of that failure. But because we can't really say that Obama is in entirely uncharted waters in this case, we come to one other big reason smart people so stupid things:

Flawed assumptions.

I mentioned the other day that many pundits (is "jackal" a synonym for pundit?) and, it seems, many in the administration, seem to believe that Syria is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" predicament for the president. Why are those the only two options? There couldn't be a third, fourth, or fifth option that would be more along the lines of "might work out very well--without killing anyone--if done correctly"? Same with the financial mess. Does it have to be "Larry Summers or some whackjob socialists despised by Wall Street?

Of course not.

Will that matter?

Probably not. The assumption here is that Wall Street has to be coddled and mollified, otherwise they'll take their money and go home, an assumption that is wrong on its face because, IT ISN'T THEIR FUCKING MONEY!

Smart people (sometimes).

Stupid decisions (too often).

Slow ga-nus (gulp).

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Read the Applebaum article on Summers a bit earlier, and then wondering what other views are out there (I know my reaction)... I clicked on Krugman's blog. Damn, I get an uneasy sense from what he has written today that even he is seeing Summers as a fait accompli.

The gnus are gnreat!

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

I see that Lil' Randy, the most famous war hero who never served a day in uniform, is getting all kinds of slavering kudos from conservative blogs and pundits for punking John Kerry on his ignorance regarding war. Does it matter that Kerry is a decorated veteran and Senator Toupée's first hand experience of combat begins and ends with war movies and video games? Not in Right Wing World. He's The Man, yo!

He went on the Fuzzy Gregory Right-wing Ball Washing Show this weekend to lecture Kerry on the horrors of war. And it doesn't matter that no one is talking about boots on the ground (not yet, anyway), Bad Toupée Man wants everyone to know that his son won't be the first to die in Kerry's war, dammit!

Can't exactly call Aqua Buddha a chicken hawk, so I guess that just makes him a clucking chicken.

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Ak: Aqua Buddha, "...clucking chicken"? Nah. Just a cluck. As in rhymes with #%@*

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

For gnus junkies only: David Attenborough and the wildebeest migration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOenJbfK0Po

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJames Singer

James,

My brother and I used to crack each other up with David Attenborough accent/cadence-accurate (as much as was in our power) quotes about faux natural phenomena. "The really, well most surprising, quality of indigenous pond scum is its uncanny ability to produce ever increasing levels of perfidious behaviour with each new Generation. Simply remarkable."

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

I simply cannot get past my unwavering belief that Paul the Younger is a stoner. I'm pretty sure that's part of his appeal to some Libertarians who are fellow stoners. The rest have organic damage not drug related I suppose. You must be suffering from organic damage to follow his stream of conscience ramblings.

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterDiane

@AK: You keep referring to the blue Buddha's toupee–––aren't all those curly locks his? Say it isn't so.

That this arrogant little man would have the gaul to criticize someone like John Kerry militarily puts him in the bottomless pit that those ignorant gnus slipped into. Oh, woe betide!

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

McCain plays iphone poker during Syria hearing.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/09/03/us/politics/ap-us-mccains-game.html?hp

This is not going to go away.

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJames Singer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-23941520

The above is a 10 minute BBC interview with Ret. General Jack Keane who got his info from McCain and Graham (must have been after their Sunday WH meet). General Jack was Army Chief of Staff and is now on several boards and is the war pundit on Fox.

I don't suppose I have to tell you his position. The a**hole will not disappoint.

September 3, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterHaley Simon
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