Bcckkkkkkkrrrrrhhhhh...

(That is the sound effect I did in real life to simulate a bomb detonating.)

Where's the beach?

It's just ahead, down the path, turn right at January 2013. If you pass March 2013 you've gone too far.

Photo sent by PoconoJoe.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (73)
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Since this argument has begun again, let me explain, and hopefully, attempt to persuade.

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Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (370)
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Not just Obama's failures, but the whole party's; but it starts with President Hope and Change.

Ms. Jones certainly can't be alone. But how many are giving this all a rethink?

I couldn't even guess. Is it a trivial number or a nontrivial one?

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Posted by: Ace at 07:21 AM | Comments (352)
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Taking a page from departed BP CEO Tony Heyward, who whined "I want my life back."

Did Bush not feel the stress of adversity and setback? Were his aides not overworked?

I guess not, because there were no media reports on how tough President Bush had it, and how we really ought to sympathize with the plight of the most powerful man in the world (and the quite powerful servants of the most powerful man in the world).

Ah, but the rules are different for someone the media sympathizes with -- someone whom the media takes pains to humanize, because the person is human to the media.

Unlike Bush, or unlike Sarah Palin, who are plainly not human, and to be treated as such.

But Obama?

The patient was somehow different of late...
lifeless, passionless. It was as if all vitality and joy had
been drained of him. A broken man, a faded spirit.

Victor Davis Hansen notes a NYT article which invites you to pity the lot of the most powerful people in the nation.

It's short, and it's easily read-the-whole-thing. Here's as much as I can excerpt.

A Downright Mean Job

Yesterday, the New York Times had a puff piece on the “exhausting” nature of White House work, pegged to the recent wave of administration departures. The list of grievances: the grueling 12-hour days, the burden of dealing with an inherited recession, two wars, etc. Of course, in the weeks after 9/11, administration employees had to develop an entire protocol to prevent serial terrorist assaults in the wake of the most successful attack on the continental United States in the nation’s history. I don’t recall profiles of Bush people who were “exhausted” dealing with the partisanship and pressures.

...

The Times wants to draw a sympathetic portrait of the heroic Obama cadre that suffers so much on our behalf. These are six-figure jobs that wear out oneÂ’s hands on the Blackberry, true, but serve as valuable stepping-stones to even higher-paying corporate jobs. And this is still a recession. This raise-the-bar griping will not go down well with the coal worker in Montana, the welder on a 30-story scaffold, or the oil worker offshore (e.g., it is not as if a Blackberry is going to blow up in oneÂ’s hands, or an acoustical tile is going to fall and crush one in the West Wing). It is all too reminiscent of the various explanations weÂ’ve heard for why MichelleÂ’s Costa del Sol sojourn was an understandable and much-needed refresher before the more arduous odyssey ahead on MarthaÂ’s Vineyard.

Mickey Kaus noted snarkily that in the magazine world, any two incidences of a thing were enough to write an article about a "trend." Well, here's Katie Couric providing us with our second incidence, confirming a "trend" of media stories.

The job has aged him, as it did his predecessors. Dr. Michael Roizen at the Cleveland Clinic stated constant stress can age the Commander in Chief two years for every one year in office.

So I guess that means he's really turning 50.

President Obama has enough stress to last a lifetime... and as he blows out his birthday candles, war, recession and a giant oil spill won't magically disappear.

But I hope he's able to take a break tonight, forget his troubles and spend time doing something he loves.

"Spend time doing something he loves" -- Well, given that Michelle Obama was in glorious Spain mourning with margaritas, I guess he wasn't doing that.

Video of Katie Couric's Pity the Poor King nonsense and a schedule of Obama's arduous summer vacation schedule at the link.

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Posted by: Ace at 06:53 AM | Comments (133)
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I would say "press conference" but I don't know if she's taking questions and I doubt she is.

She's supposed to go on any minute now. She was supposed to start at ten, actually.

I don't know how interesting this will be because it's easy and empty to just list a bunch of conclusions about what you didn't do -- I didn't break any House rules; I didn't improperly intervene with Treasury; I didn't personally benefit. She's already released a short statement making those claims.

What's harder -- which is what the corrupt never do -- is to explain what you did do. But will she do that? I doubt it.

-- Begins by complaining that no trial has been scheduled and may be held after the election. Claims she wants charges all resolved now. Already combative about a schedule.

-- Claims neither she or husband gained any benefit.

-- Says, inadvertently accurately, that this case is about "access." Like her access to lobby the Treasury for her husband's benefit. But that's not how she means it-- she plays the race card, talking up how she represents minorities and brings their issues to the government.

-- Says her call to Hank Paulsen was on behalf of minority bankers who were overleveraged and wanted to know how the conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie would affect them. "The question at this point should not be why I called Paulsen, but why I had to."

-- Claims minority banks could not get a meeting "at the height of the crisis."

-- Claims didn't ask for any favors or any benefit for any particular bank.

-- She has now said "small or minority banks" approximately 400 times.

-- Saying there was nothing improper in a call to Barney Frank. I don't know the details about this. I just know she's lying.

-- Admits that she mentioned her husband's bank to Barney Frank. (I think.) But claims this was still just on behalf of "minority banks."

You know, if you own a frigging bank, I don't think you get to play the race card. Maxine Waters obviously disagrees.

-- Crowing about FinReg nonsense about setting up minority/women's issues staff. She has said "minority" now 820 times.

-- Keeps saying this is about "access." Again, yes, Maxine, it is, but not in the race-card way you mean it.

-- Minority and black now uttered 975 times. Access now up to 225.

-- "Access defines the scope of this case." "This case is about fairness."

-- Claims "exculpatory evidence" suppressed, but had it come out, it would have cleared her.

-- Keeps telling us the case is not about this or that but about "fairness," and now her "constituents," as well as apparently constituents in Texas, Louisiana, and other states, by which she means "minorities," so that counts as a mention, and she's up to 1078.

Fox Cuts Away from self-serving nonsense. Steven Hayes notes that she began the "press conference" claiming she never lobbied on behalf of One United (the minority bank her husband partly owns) but then later discusses... um, lobbying on behalf of One United. But of course it wasn't about One United; it was about "fairness" and "access" for "minority banks."

Posted by: Ace at 06:15 AM | Comments (103)
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Friday. (Yay!) The Thirteenth. (Gulp.)

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:23 AM | Comments (154)
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Happy Thursday all.

Let's Call It The Private Sector Recession

Because it sure as hell isn't affecting the public sector.

Over the last 30 months of the current recession private sector employment has declined by at least 7% but public sector employment is unchanged or possibly even grew.

There used to be an understanding that working for the government meant that the pay wouldn't be as good but in return there were solid benefits and job security. But now public employees make substantially more on average than the private sector, have amazingly generous benefits, and are essentially immune to any economic effects. Not only is this generally unfair but it's also unsustainable. States couldn't quite afford their public employee salaries and retirement benefits even before the recession and now many are effectively bankrupt.

So something is going to have to give. Otherwise we're turning into a country of the protected class and everyone else. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:48 PM | Comments (772)
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The 'great cow' at Racenna in great trouble,

Led by fifteen shut up at Fornase:

At Rome there will be born two double-headed monsters,

Blood, fire, flood, the greatest ones in space.

Oh, wait, they don't mean every third quatrain of quack prophet Nostradamus.

Oh dear no -- they mean science.

Floods, fires, melting ice and feverish heat: From smoke-choked Moscow to water-soaked Iowa and the High Arctic, the planet seems to be having a midsummer breakdown. It's not just a portent of things to come, scientists say, but a sign of troubling climate change already under way.

The weather-related cataclysms of July and August fit patterns predicted by climate scientists, the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization says - although those scientists always shy from tying individual disasters directly to global warming.

Um-- yeah, they "shy away" from that. They call an easy-lay AP reporter and feed him the story, and then say "but don't quote us as claiming a connection, because that would be unscientific; but by all means -- you make the claim which we cannot."

"There is no time to waste," because societies must be equipped to deal with global warming, says British government climatologist Peter Stott.

He said modelers of climate systems are "very keen" to develop supercomputer modeling that would enable more detailed linking of cause and effect as a warming world shifts jet streams and other atmospheric currents. Those changes can wreak weather havoc.

No time to waste. It's gonna be bad, people:

The New Land is scorched in the year 20 and 9,

The people cry out for mercy, but death does prevail,

SummerÂ’s heat and drought is unrelenting through September,

The people cannot escape, tens of thousands die.

By all means, let's get some more of that "modeling" going on supercomputers because everyone knows that supercomputers are smart and don't, say, just regurgitate your starting assumptions back to you.

Thanks to Dr. Spank.

Posted by: Ace at 03:21 PM | Comments (287)
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Stick with it for 30 seconds. As many oldsters know, there was a point three years ago when this was the movie on the site for references and sockpuppets.

And, as the American Film Institute recognizes, it is clearly the most important and influential American film in the last 100 years. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:07 PM | Comments (251)
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Really? The fifth?

Can I ask a serious question?

What the fuck?

Can I ask a follow up?

Seriously, what the fucking fuck?

There they go again. For the fifth time since July, the first family has set plans to board Air Force One for a frilly vacation, a 10-day return trip to exclusive Martha's Vineyard where they are expected to stay at the 28-acre oceanfront Blue Heron Farm that rents for up to $50,000 a week.

But first the Obamas will be traveling to the Gulf Coast of Florida for a mini-vacation as a way to encourage other vacationing Americans to head to the beaches that have been shunned by tourists worried about oil-slicked sands due to the Gulf oil spill. They are expected to travel to Florida this weekend, return to Washington for a few days then it's off to the Massachusetts island August 19.

This weekend's jaunt was announced after first lady Michelle Obama said during a recent trip to Panama City Beach, Florida that, "One of the best ways that fellow Americans can help is to come on down here and spend some money," She's expected to be joined by the president and 9-year old Sasha. Malia, 12, is away at camp for the first time at an undisclosed location.

As with most of the Obama vacation's this year, even the Florida trip has been criticized. This time, amazingly, for being too short.

Really? Is that the actual criticism? That President Seven Iron and the First Lady in Mourning are taking too little time off?

At yesterday's press briefing, deputy spokesman Bill Burton faced questions about the overnight trip, saying, "They've already spent a lot of time in the Gulf." Spelling out their plans, he said, "eating the food, the seafood, hanging out with the great folks who live there, and taking a look at how things are going for those folks."

Right. Well, that's not a criticism that their newest thirteen day mental health day is too short. It's a criticism that they're refusing to spend time in areas affected by the oil spill in favor of hobnobbing with the swells in Martha's Vinyard.

The 10-day Vineyard trip will likely also be met with criticism from those who think the president should downscale and travel to Camp David or back home to Chicago. Like former President Clinton, he doesn't have a ranch like former Presidents George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan, or a beachside resort like former President George H.W. Bush.

Ah yes. They would go on a more retrained vacation, but these poor millionaires don't have a ranch in pricey Crawford, Texas like Bush did. They're forced to vacation in Martha's Vinyard due to their penury.

It's Dickensian, really. Obama's like Pip.

Meantime, the First Lady in Mourning is taking a popularity hit.

The number of Americans who have a positive opinion of First Lady Michelle Obama has fallen in the last 16 months, according to the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. In April, 2009, 64 percent of those surveyed by the Journal/NBC said they had a positive impression of Mrs. Obama; today, the number is 50 percent. That 50 percent personal approval is just slightly above President Obama's personal approval figure, which stands at 46 percent in the new poll.

...

Mrs. Obama's personal popularity is lower than former First Lady Laura Bush's ratings in the same poll by the same pollsters. In December, 2001, 76 percent of those surveyed had a positive opinion of Mrs. Bush. In February 2005, that number was 65 percent. In October 2006, with her husband's job and personal approval ratings plummeting, Mrs. Bush's personal approval rating was 56 percent.

Michelle Obama received the first negative press of her time in the White House in recent weeks during her vacation trip to Spain..... The White House pushed back, first giving reporters the story that Mrs. Obama made the trip to comfort a friend who had recently lost her father and then stressing that the first lady is so popular that she will be in great demand by Democrats campaigning for House and Senate seats this November.

Yeah, she's going to be in big demand. Her schedule will be so jam-packed she'll have to take sixty seven days of vacation between now and November.

ADDED [DrewM.]: I had this tacked onto a post yesterday but it's worth replaying here. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (430)
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