Saturday Night Live's message from the TSA. Think about it today as you pass through the airport porno scanners on the way to grandma's house for Thanksgiving. Video below. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:00 AM | Comments (32)
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Open thread, art only as I am painting and wasting away the night and you already have the Open Bloggerama ONT#2,451 below.

So, how are these threads going to work from here on out?

First I will open with one to two paintings/sculptures/installations I think would be right up you morons' dark alleys. With 30,000 years of the stuff there is bound to be something you have never seen before that will make you angrier at your Art History professor in college for not sharing with you (be it Dali's excrement-laden early surrealism or Oppenheim's lesbian sculptures or John Currin's women as you will see below).

Since we morons are a creative bunch I also encourage those of you with a camera, brush, clay or whatnot of your own to shoot me JPEGs and a brief description of your work by emailing me here. Right-of-center artists are a rare breed and here will be an opportunity to show off and have your fellow morons heap praise/criticism/devastating-yet-creative insults at you.
What to include-
Clear JPEG (if you watermark it, make it minimal)
Title, Year, Dimensions, Medium, your handle here on AoS.
I intend to upload more of my Californication and BREAST series for moron-enjoyment from time to time as well.

I give you art, courtesy of the great John Currin: more...

Posted by: CAC at 06:34 PM | Comments (96)
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The downtown L.A. hobo hunting safari vacations continue for the regular posters so here I am stepping in again:

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the mortgage crisis gets worse again:

In court testimony earlier this week former Countrywide execs testified that mortgages that originated with them were never properly transferred to other entities which purchased them:

As to the location of the note, Ms. DeMartini testified that to her knowledge, the original note never left the possession of Countrywide, and that the original note appears to have been transferred to CountrywideÂ’s foreclosure unit, as evidenced by internal FedEx tracking numbers. She also confirmed that the new allonge had not been attached or otherwise affixed to the note. She testified further that it was customary for Countrywide to maintain possession of the original note and related loan documents.

This is apparently a huge hairy deal. Without the paperwork being transferred in a timely fashion purchasers of the mortgages may not be able to foreclose, at least not without time consuming and costly litigation. In addition all those Mortgaged Backed Securities out there, they may be backed by nothing (well even more nothing that previously, I think we are starting to get into SQRT(-1) territory here) so look for a gazillion lawsuits as purchasers of those securities sue everyone and their brother trying to recoup their losses.

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:13 PM | Comments (491)
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Update Jennifer Grey won.

Bumped The show is on now

CDR-M suggested I add this too.

Original Post

The day of reckoning is now upon us.

Tonight we find out if Bristol Palin wins or if America truly is in an irreversible economic, moral, and societal decline.

Did you do you part and vote? Joe Miller did. Forty times, and on work computers to boot. Now we find out if the hard work paid off!

Use the comments section to celebrate, commisurate, or ________. It's really up to you.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:20 PM | Comments (402)
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Appears some in the mainstream media may be getting tired of shilling for Obama. After 22 months into their non-stop Obama Shill-a-Thon, a growing number of mainstreamers are venturing off the reservation.

Some are even openly airing their discontent over ObamaÂ’s insolence and sleight of hand intellect. We all knew this was bound to happen as the media in all of their liberal bias, are after all, human.

Even mainstreamer stalwarts such as MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and the New York Times’ Frank Rich have seemingly toned down their liberal declamations. To the mainstreamers, Mr. Obama represented the new aged politician whose intellect and transcendent nature would be ”just what the doctor ordered” for a nation whose politics had become acutely partisan and loudly acrimonious.

However, something has gone terribly wrong along the way in the mainstreamersÂ’ advancement of Obama. The mainstreamers projected their idealism onto Obama without ever vetting him nor paying attention to what exactly Obama was saying while he vied for the presidency.

The mainstream media essentially abdicated its official responsibilities like a modern day King Edward but unlike Edward, the mainstreamers continued on in guise. The guise has allowed the mainstreamers the ability to promote their liberal politics through a delivery system they call, “journalism.”

But after 22 months of the Obama charade, the mainstreamers are beginning to have serious doubts about ObamaÂ’s true abilities and whether he has the emotional intelligence and intellectual maturity to be President of The United States. The mainstreamers are becoming agitated with ObamaÂ’s petulant nature, vitriolic rhetoric and the stable of teleprompters that follow him everywhere. This isnÂ’t what the mainstreamers bargained for.

They assumed Obama’s electoral panache on the campaign trail would carry over into the presidency. After all, rhetoric is what carried the day for the mainstreamers and Obama’s Ivy League degrees and college teaching positions were all “icing” on the liberal cake. A cake the mainstreamers would have and, “eat too.” Or so they thought.

Enter stage right the November midterms and the political reality of a center right electorate. An electorate that repudiated ObamaÂ’s entire agenda.

ItÂ’s one thing for Obama to rule against the will of the American people and a whole other thing to shill for it - the smart mainstreamers realize this and are starting to take a breath.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:48 PM | Comments (149)
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Hat tip to The Secret Life of Steve Jobs. ..fritz..

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:18 PM | Comments (64)
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EhBC News reports that it was all hands on deck in the Situation Room this afternoon as officials worked on a response to the DMZ boom booms:

[Those attending] include: 

• National Security Adviser Tom Donilon; 
  
• Vice President BidenÂ’s National Security Adviser Tony Blinken; 
  
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; 
  
• [Seventeen other truly important people, most of whom you've never heard of.]
  

According to an unidentified source, officials decided on Domino's over Papa John's and to remove Kim-Jong Il from the position of yearbook editor.

I may have mangled that last line slightly.

Among those apparently not present were the President and the Vice President. We're probably safer with Hillary running the meeting anyway, but this is what's important, making sure the WH Press Corps gives certain people gold stars on their attendance sheets?

In one way, it's nice to see every last liberal cliche we warned people about during the 2008 campaign come true - it's fun to be proven correct, after all - but shouldn't something come out of this meeting? A strongly-worded memo, perhaps?

Update: And just as I finish writing this, the White House responds. Before I even hit the post button. Say what you will about AoS (and you will) but we get results:

Upon his return to the White House, President Obama attended a meeting of his senior national security team on the situation on the Korean peninsula. The President was briefed by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Secretaries Clinton and Gates, Ambassador Rice, Admiral Mullen, and General Sharp, Commander of U.S. Forces Korea. The President reiterated the unshakeable support of the United States for our ally, the Republic of Korea, and discussed ways to advance peace and security on the Korean peninsula going forward.

That's it; that's the whole thing. Nice of Obama to stop by afterwards.

When you watch this Administration, it's just like being in Churchill's bunker during the Blitz. Without the annoying Churchill part.

(H/T Allahpundit, like with 90% of everything else around here. We're pretty much the special ed trailers behind Hot Air High School.)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:15 PM | Comments (219)
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Obama Outlines Moral, Philosophical Justifications For Turkey Pardon

Art thread later, perhaps, maybe.

Posted by: CAC at 02:28 PM | Comments (61)
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From Nice Deb's Twitter feed.

Recall that Dave Weigel, a member of the the Washington Post's national staff, formerly covered conservative blogging, albeit from a liberal perspective. Jennifer Rubin is expected to look at things from a conservative point of view. She will serve on the opinion staff.

Fred Hiatt, WaPo's editorial page editor, said in his memo:

Jennifer will provide critical news coverage and commentary, with an exacting eye on conservative policy-making and Republican campaigns, pundits and politicians. From a conservative perspective, she also will cover a wide range of foreign and domestic issues and media controversies. We imagine her blog in some ways as a companion to Greg Sargent's Plum Line, though of course with its own style and blend of reporting and analysis.

. . .

Jennifer comes to The Post from Commentary Magazine where, as contributing editor and chief blogger. A provocative writing has become "must read" material for news and policy makers and avid political watchers. Â Her work has also appeared in the Weekly Standard, Politico, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, the National Review, the Jerusalem Post and numerous other print and online publications. Before her career in journalism, Jennifer was a labor and employment lawyer in Los Angeles for 20 years.

I'm sure Jennifer Rubin is well qualified and will do a fantastic job, but one question: Why not Ace of Spades? Is it the masturbation jokes? Because I know he can quit doing those whenever he wants. Maybe after a twelve step program. But he cleans-up real nice.

UPDATE: Nice Deb tweets: "@rdbrewer4 Oh, no...I read J-Ru's stuff all the time...she's a hardcore conservative. #tcot"

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:38 PM | Comments (124)
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Mark Penn, the famous pollster, author, business consultant and democratic über operative wrote a piece in Politico the other day, titled: ‘The Big Disconnect: D.C. Elites Think Obama Will Be Reelected, But The Public Doubts It’ and in it discusses the fact that Obama is losing the confidence of the American people, while D.C. moshes to Obama. Penn's article received some discussion but more is warranted in my opinion.

While it is true Penn has worked for the Clintons, and presumably has a certain degree of loyalty to them, it nevertheless must be quite painful for Penn to write about Barack ObamaÂ’s failing presidency. For after all, Obama was the democratsÂ’ answer to just about everything. A failing Obama presidency is not what the democrats had envisioned . . . certainly not 22 months into it.

In his piece, Penn cites a recent Politico Poll which finds just 26% believing that Obama will be reelected in 2012. However, Penn also notes that 49% of those polled living inside the beltway, believe Obama will be reelected in 2012. Penn interestingly refers to these ‘inside the beltway’ folks as ‘elites’ and suggests these ‘elites’ are entirely out of their gourds. OK, he doesn’t exactly say that but Penn does suggest these so called ‘elites’ are a segment of the population that are severely out of touch. Case in point, Penn indicates some 70% of the beltway elites admit they really haven’t been affected by our current economic downturn and that a whopping 80% polled believe the Tea Party movement to be a mere “fad.”

That last bit about the tea party being a “fad” to me seals the deal that those inside the beltway are entirely out of touch. For the tea party movement is something that clearly isn’t going away, not when it can be credited with the GOP taking back the house.

With the majority of those in the D.C. beltway likely employed by Uncle Sam with average government salaries nearly 2x that of their private sector counterparts, it is easy to understand how 70% of the D.C. beltway crowd have so far been unaffected by our current economic mess. The federal government has a way of embedding security within the psyche of its employees. I guess the reason federal employees feel secure is the fact that they are indeed very secure.

All of the above talk of elitists and their divergent opinions leads Penn to wonder if the president really understands that he ainÂ’t so popular outside the beltway chatter box.

I would say PennÂ’s piece was written as a bit of free advice for a tone deaf president named Barack Obama, as much as it was for Politico.

But what do I know, I ain't an elite and don't mosh.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:44 PM | Comments (114)
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