I hope Israel is the last country left on the face of the planet willing to respond with "go to hell". I don't know anymore. God knows we have hung them out on a limb.

The Turk foreign minister is not mincing words. Why should Israel?

In an article published Sunday, Ahmet Davutoglu told the Turkish daily Hurriyet: "Israelis have three options: They will either apologize or acknowledge an international-impartial inquiry and its conclusion. Otherwise, our diplomatic ties will be cut off."

The Turkish foreign minister said that during his secret meeting last week in Brussels with Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, "We showed them an exit road. If they apologize as a result of their own investigation's conclusion, that would be fine for us. But of course we first have to see it."

You know, our relationship with Turkey has been stormy at best, tapped out at their refusal to allow the 4th ID to move through them into Iraq.

That recalcitrance was paid for with American lives. So I'm not feeling the whole "let's be buds with the Turks and find the third way" with them right now.

Did I use a big word? Did I use it correctly?

I don't do this for a living.

Ok, I'm just an idiot. I suppose we're willing to sell them some F -16s. Did we pull down the ICBMs there that Khrushchev was all pissed off about?

late tip via DrewM.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:02 PM | Comments (154)
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Welcome to the Monday.

OMG Turkeys! And The Moon!

Well if you liked Rainbow guy's orgasmic reaction to rainbows, here's another one of his videos gushing over turkeys. His name is 'Bear' and yes he looks about what you'd expect.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:00 PM | Comments (317)
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Holy Buckets, what happened?! I was just writing about the polls from last week that showed the number of folks who support repealing Obama's economy-killing healthcare reform law is a shrinking majority, down to 52%.

Maybe I wrote too soon?

Sixty percent (60%) of voters nationwide favor repeal of the recently passed health care law, including 49% who Strongly Favor repeal.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 36% oppose repeal. That figure includes 24% who are Strongly Opposed.

Forty-three percent (43%) believe repeal would be good for the nationÂ’s economy. Twenty-seven percent (27%) believe repeal would be bad for the economy, while 20% say it would have no impact.

What changed? This is outside the margin of error, so it's not likely to be just statistical randomness. Voters are further down on ObamaCare on July 1 (the date of this survey) than they were a week earlier.

That's the good news. The bad news is that voters don't actually believe in the dream yet:

Despite the ongoing support for repeal, just 41% believe the law is even somewhat likely to be repealed. Forty-five percent (45%) say repeal is unlikely. In April, however, 51% considered repeal unlikely.

Alright, so there's been progress, but not enough. I bet part of the problem is a lack of confidence in Republicans in Congress. Maybe we can change that in November...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:01 PM | Comments (179)
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Of course its the foreign media, not our domestic DNC mouthpieces.

...Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.

Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP.

The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weninger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s...

What would be the implication if some of the MFM here in the US started using such politically inconvenient terminology?

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 01:48 PM | Comments (56)
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The most populist of major candidates in a populist year seems to charm the bow-tie wearing Dean of conservative opinion columnists!

Can a David Brooks endorsement be far behind?

When her son was depressed about having to repeat kindergarten -- "He was a 6-year-old dropout" -- she decided on home schooling, which Nevada law permitted. But a judge construed the law to require that parents who home-school must live at least 50 miles from a public school.

She and many kindred spirits descended on Carson City to get the Legislature to correct this. One legislator, irritated by such grass-roots impertinence, said, "If I'd known there would be 500 people here instead of 50 and it would take five hours instead of 30 minutes, I would have thrown it [the legislation] in my drawer, and it would never have seen the light of day." Angle asked a cowboy standing next to her, "Can he do that?" The cowboy said yep. She has been politically incandescent ever since.

Even when asked where she was born, she is on message: "I was conceived in Lovelock [Nevada] but -- if you're not pro-life -- I was born in Klamath Falls [Oregon]." During her four terms in Nevada's 42-seat Assembly, many votes were "41-to-Angle." She wears as a badge of honor having been voted Nevada's worst legislator, a disparagement she says is always bestowed on a conservative because the voters are members of the press and the political class (the legislators and their staff).

One can only conclude from this column she must like baseball and despise grown men who wear jeans.

Will is about as mainstream and establishment a conservative as you are going to find and he seems a bit smitten with Angle and her candidacy.

I know Will has fallen out of favor with some conservatives over the years, in part because of his opposition to the Iraq war but also as a long tenure in DC has become a liability in the modern media world. Still, for those of us of a certain age, there was a time before cable took off when Will was pretty much the only conservative fighting the fight on national TV. I don't think anyone would call him anti-intellectual or a populist, yet he's clearly intrigued with the most populist of the tea party candidates.

Right after he primary victory, Angle's website was a mess (it only had a donation link). It's since been updated.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:32 PM | Comments (120)
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The pattern consists (to the extent I understand it) of attempting to test new highs, finding no support for such highs, and then testing new lows; once the market finds no support at the higher head and shoulders peak, it falls rapidly to a new lower level below "the neckline."

And that's not a good thing.

“Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it…there was a head and shoulders pattern that developed before the Depression in 1929, then with the recovery in 1930 we had another head and shoulders pattern that preceded a fall in the market, and in the current Dow situation we see an exact repeat of that environment,” Guppy said.

Unexpectedly, we should say.

But Always Keep In Mind What's Really Important In Life:

Thanks to "plonked" for that.

Posted by: Ace at 10:51 AM | Comments (195)
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A guy sees a double rainbow at Yosemite. Kinda cool.

His reaction, though, is pure psychedelic lunacy. Worth watching, if you like hearing dudes on LSD laugh and sob.

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Comments (94)
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I'm out for a while, so tawk amongst yaselves.

Some movie stuff to get ya buzzing is below the fold. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:41 AM | Comments (110)
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There is so much hate in my heart right now.

Professor Karol Sikora, who assessed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi for the Libyan authorities almost a year ago, told The Sunday Times it was "embarrassing" the bomber had outlived his three-month prognosis.

Megrahi, 58, is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, which left 270 dead.

Professor Sikora, the dean of medicine at Buckingham University and medical director of CancerPartnersUK in London, was paid for his medical assessment of Megrahi at Greenock prison on July last year.

He told the newspaper: “There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years ... But it's very unusual.

"It was clear that three months was what they were aiming for. Three months was the critical point.

"On the balance of probabilities, I felt I could sort of justify [that]."

Embarrassed. Oh, he's embarrassed. Well, then. On the balance of probabilities, I could sort of justify beating the good doctor into a pulp. But I wouldn't do that, of course. It would be very unusual, anyway.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:49 AM | Comments (97)
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One of the cardinal sins of inexperienced writers of fiction is their tendency to violate the rule "Show, Don't Tell." Instead of giving the reader or audience a chance to see the character's attributes, the writer has the narrator or another character or (in the worst case) the character himself, tell the audience about his attributes. More than that, usually, if the audience were never told about the supposed attributes of the character, they'd never know from his or her actions.

A subtrope of "Show, Don't Tell" is the designated hero. This is where the writer tells us who we're supposed to be rooting for and it's a good thing too, otherwise we'd never figure it out.

Politics has much in common with fiction. Here's the Economist's attempt at a designated hero:

Note the headline: "Obama v BP". The hero is alone, but not giving up. See his lowered head, his obvious heartache as he turns half-away from the sight of the offshore rig. Don't miss his rolled-up sleeves, his arms akimbo. The hero's not done yet.

Needless to say, the accompanying article is vomit-worthy.

Here's the original, un-doctored photo:

Oops. Not so alone, is he? Oh, and his head's not lowered, he's just looking at debris. And he's not shying from the gut-wrenching sight out in the ocean, but just turning toward that woman talking to him. Actually, he kinda looks like a doofus. Hey, maybe pretend to be listening to her, huh? A little eye contact, maybe?

Many violators of the Designated Hero rule run into the same problem. Their hero is an awful, frivolous, and empty person. You end up having to tell the readers to like him because if you don't they'll assume he's the bad guy.

The Economist has the same problem when writing about the President. In fact, he's done more to frustrate efforts to protect the Gulf than anyone. His drilling moratorium will cause more damage to the region than the BP spill itself. In fact, he hung the Gulf states out to dry while he had another round of golf.

Hence, Obama becomes the designated hero. He's the good guy because they say he is, not because he's done anything heroic. And, paradoxically, the fact that he's the (designated) hero means we're supposed to overlook his patent flaws. His lack of humanity. His inability to get anything done without six months of polling first. And his spiteful disregard for the designated villains.

Because that's the flipside. If this story has a hero, well, it has to have a villain. BP takes that role in the Economist piece, but the Republicans are not forgotten.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:35 AM | Comments (86)
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