THE STEEL DEAL

Our Lady of the Apocalypse - the Wicked Witch of the West

 

From McClatchy ...

Washington - If the Senate doesn't pass a bill to cut global warming, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer says, there will be dire results: droughts, floods, fires, loss of species, damage to agriculture, worsening air pollution and more.

She says there's a huge upside, however, if the Senate does act: millions of clean-energy jobs, reduced reliance on foreign oil and less pollution for the nation's children.

Boxer is engaged in her biggest sales snow job ever. The stakes couldn't be higher as she faces one of the toughest high-profile acts of her lengthy career: getting Congress to sign off on historic legislation to lower greenhouse-gas emissions.

What is it about rich white bitches always telling us we must eat the bitter fruit and they never do?
And why are they always so angry?
And ugly?

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The Scratching Post Gazette

This is what my sister and I have been doing the last few days -  click the image and look around.
It's still a little raw - but you will get the idea.

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The ONLY way to keep him from putting his foot in his mouth.

From The Los Angeles Times ...

Possibly a very important policy change quietly emerged in the daily schedule of Vice President Joe Biden today. Loyal Ticket readers know that, as a patriotic duty, we monitor the longtime senator's schedule with a close eye for detail because, after all, this man is only a heartbeat away from having to give a toast at a G-8 summit. We've especially noted Biden's innumerable  "private meetings" that are closed to the press because, well, they're private. And we've wondered aloud how this Democratic VP's private meetings with unnamed people on unnamed subjects differs from the private meetings with unnamed people that his evil predecessor had that got so many Democratic senators and representatives worried about nefarious secrets.

On one recent long weekend, the man who became a Delaware senator when his future boss, Barack Obama, was an inexperienced fundraiser of only 11, devoted an entire Monday to "private meetings" that are closed press in his Delaware home. If that isn't dedication for the $208,000 salary. Well, today's schedule, unlike many at the end of Biden's work weeks, contains no "private meetings." Not one. Having spent Thursday traveling and successfully selling the nation on the so far hard-to-detect effects of the $787-billion Obama administration economic stimulus spending plan that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave them, Biden will show up for work around 11 today.

He'll join Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a roundtable to discuss only the rising costs of healthcare for people who own or work for small businesses. One suspects the absent president's ambitious plan to spend billions more to impose his healthcare reforms might also be mentioned. OK, so figure an hour for the roundtable, maybe 75 minutes max. You can only talk about that stuff so long before requiring healthcare yourself. Fifteen minutes for handshaking, cellphone photos and congratulations on the excellent roundtable. The VP should be outta there by 12:30. That leaves - what? - five, maybe six hours to make it a seven-hour workday. According to the White House schedule, Biden will not spend the remainder of the workday in private meetings that are closed press. Instead: "The Vice President will spend the remainder of the day in meetings that are closed press."

You get the difference, right?

You know you're in trouble when the Los Angeles Times starts grumbling.
Can't say as I blame the Administration for keeping a lid on that clown.

 

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I say what Matt Drudge ain't got the balls to say!

Obamas Depart Europe - Next Stop Africa ...... Developing

H/T Ron!
(Give it time - loads a bit slow)

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A Conspiracy of Dopes

From the AP via the Richmond Times-Dispatch ....

McLEAN, VA - The federal government's most secure prison has determined two books written by President Barack Obama contain material "potentially detrimental to national security" and rejected an inmate's request to read them.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is serving a 30-year sentence at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo., for joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush. Last year, Abu Ali requested two books written by Obama: "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."

But prison officials, citing guidance from the FBI, determined that passages in both books contain information that could damage national security. A prison spokeswoman referred questions to the FBI.

Jesus H. Christ. This administration makes the Keystone Kops look like brain surgeons.

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The Player in Chief - the 'stimulus' is in his 'package'.

Jaysus! It's bad enough that this moron doesn't know how  many States there are, or that he doesn't know who the President of Russia is, or that he can't  remember where he met his wife, or that he thinks using one credit card to pay off another credit card is sound fiscal policy, or that his idea of transparency is a stone wall, or that he can't put two words together without both prompting and equivocation - the fucker is so stupid and so self-absorbed that he can't even remember the eyes of the world are upon him.
We elected the Player in Chief.
The only thing missing are some tats and serious bling   ...... Developing

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What a joke.

From the Washington Examiner ...

 Carol Browner, former Clinton administration EPA head and current Obama White House climate czar, instructed auto industry execs "to put nothing in writing, ever" regarding secret negotiations she orchestrated regarding a deal to increase federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

 Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, is demanding a congressional investigation of Browner's conduct in the CAFE talks, saying in a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, that Browner "intended to leave little or no documentation of the deliberations that lead to stringent new CAFE standards."

 Federal law requires officials to preserve documents concerning significant policy decisions, so instructing participants in a policy negotiation concerning a major federal policy change could be viewed as a criminal act.

He promised 'transparency', but I don't think invisibility is what most people had in mind.
It would be funny if it wasn't so frightening.

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Achtung!

From the Times of London ...

Al Gore invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill yesterday when he urged political leaders to follow the example of Britain’s wartime leader in the battle against climate change. The former US Vice-President accused governments around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid taking difficult decisions.

Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilization in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.” Mr Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as that from Hitler.

I'm back. Bear with me while I reacquaint myself with what I do.

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Can you hear me now?

 
From the Sunday Times ...

 America's traditional means of projecting power abroad is growing “increasingly obsolete” and its billion-dollar military hardware could be as ineffectual against future threats as the heavily fortified Maginot line was in defending France against the Nazis, a senior Pentagon adviser has warned. In a wake-up call to US military chiefs, Andrew Krepinevich, a leading architect of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, argues that the Pentagon is ill-equipped to counter rising powers such as China, hostile states such as Iran, the threat from irregular forces such as Hezbollah, and terrorists such as Al-Qaeda. It is also wasting billions on weaponry that could be outdated before it rolls off the production line.

 In an interview, Krepinevich said the military, like many bureaucracies, was in danger of “drinking its own bathwater” and discounting new challenges, including the proliferation of precision-guided weapons and threats from space and cyberspace. Last week Robert Gates, the defence secretary, rewarded him for his prescience with a seat on the influential defence policy board at the Pentagon. Aircraft carriers, navy destroyers, short-range fighter aircraft and forward bases such as Guam and Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean are becoming increasingly vulnerable to technology and tactics being developed by America’s rivals, Krepinevich argues in the July issue of Foreign Affairs journal.

 Even new areas of supremacy, such as US dominance of global positioning satellites that guide “smart” bombs to their targets, are becoming a “wasting asset” as states such as China develop the space technology to destroy them. China already has the ballistic missiles and laser technology to destroy low-orbit satellites on which the military depends. Krepinevich claims America should devote more resources to cutting-edge nanosatellites to maintain its technological lead and should invest in missile interceptors and laser energy defences that could counter the threat from adversaries deploying their own “smart” weapons. “Britain came out of the first world war with all the world’s aircraft carriers but fell behind between the wars,” said Krepinevich. “Being the leader doesn’t necessarily help you over time.”

A chilling and prophetic read and it deserves your attention.

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Uh oh. Now what's he gonna do?

   I think I will do things differently around here. In large part because I really can't bring myself to address the news. It is just too ugly and I don't have the words anymore. There are only so many ways you can say 'that is so fucked up'. I may deal with those things from time to time, but it is no longer 'fun'.

   Besides my meager attempts at making images, behind all my rhetoric and politics is a burning desire to speak. I am not a 'talker' but I can tell a very good story. I can tell you a story that will make you listen. Make you laugh. Make you cringe. Make you wonder. Make you want to hear more.

   I think I will start telling stories here. Tales of where I've been or what I've seen. I know, I know, Everybody does THAT, but I have a 'way' of telling stories. My stories are connected to a larger truth. I have a reason to tell you what I tell you. I will leave it to you to understand that reason.

   I suppose the easiest way to do this would be to start at the beginning. Screw that. Tina Turner said it wouldn't be 'nice and easy' and that's good enough for me. In fact, I will go her one further. This might be the roughest ride you ever took.

   Let's start at the end. I am 60 and very old for my years. If there was a way to stop my progression from birth to death and I haven't tried it, smoked it, done it or embraced it, then I must be getting old. I knew I wasn't going to live forever at age three. It was then I found out there was no God.

   Oh! I should find an image for this post. Can't have words just slapped all willy-nilly up on the screen without something to look at, can we? I shall go do that and return to this conversation later. Remind me to finish this story when I get back.

  

  

Maybe

I might be back tomorrow.