Smirking, ignorant W. with lipstick's Blog

LIVE BLOGGING (NOT INTENDED BY ME OR PLANNED): REPUBS TEA-BAGGING AGGRESSIVELY RIGHT NOW HEALTH CARE ON HOUSE FLOOR!

2009-11-07T16:01:47Z

UPDATE: TPM-TV did get a good bunch of this on film (nice going, TPM-TV!), and it was much worse, longer, and more tense live, though you sure get the idea from here: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/11/just_ugly.php#more?ref=fpblg
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ORIGINAL: Check MSNBC TV for example, which carries this live.

They are terrorizing the chairman, John Dingell, with never-ending objections.

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This is unbelievable. They are mau-mau-ing the process. It's the most twisted thing.

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Okay, this is not my venue or what have you -- no expert. But what just happened is about 15 Democratic Congresswomen used the device of asking the right to advise and extend their remarks to INSERT a simple statement of sentiment, one sentence on why they say it's good for health care.

Republicans were unbelievably aggressive in obstructing.

Now the Republicans are stating why they oppose it, in a short statement of sentiment. Dems are being polite and quiet. Repubs are abusing their short statements of sentiment by speechifying. Dingell retaliating by charging Repubs
for debate time. Okay, now this is over.

Back to Dems who have 28 minutes left to talk. Let's see how obnoxious Republicans are...

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Okay, the circus of earlier has calmed down greatly, so I'll sign off on this entry. It was starting to look like they were going to bring Palin in to do some fancy pageant walking while they hung a big Hitler poster on the wall for a while, which is why I raised the alarm.

What's GOOD, BAD, and VERY GOOD from NY 23?

2009-11-04T12:49:39Z

UPDATE: DO SEE THE *WILD* Lawrence O'Donnell video! You can bet that the Morning Joe people had words for him afterwards!

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GOOD that the good guys won.

BAD that it does not fully rouse up Palinesque wackaloons who would have had then *really* gone after e.g. moderate GOP Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, even though they still partly will. Supposedly they have 12 candidates they're after in all; such is their death wish! (They already tried telling Klondike Barbie that NY 23 was a tricky district so she shouldn't upset the applecart: "Overreach THIS!," she intoned.)

GOOD that it still leaves R's divided.

BAD that they may still be more organized having managed to lose a seat that should have been child's play for them.

VERY GOOD, if they stick to this emerging meme: people need a role in selecting their nominees! Those guys who tried to do them a favor by putting forward Dede as electable can never get away with that again, is all! And that is the *compromise* position; everybody says it, from envenomated tea-baggers, to old-school walrus Haley Barbour.

Role in selecting? That means primary-ing their asses! And Republican primaries these days are howling nut fests! And Limbaugh & co. will be revving up those low-information voters about who are the real unelectable zealots who deserve their nitwit votes for nominee! So we'll be seeing more spinny-eyed Doug Hoffmans!

MSM has DELIGHTED in repeating Fox's asinine talking points, now CONCLUSIVELY DISPROVEN

2009-11-04T00:03:21Z

Today's a good time to return to Howard Kurtz's October 25 hatchet job on the White House's policy on Fox News. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAwqRqPpccM He gathered together an ex-Fox commentator Jane Hall, and some Psycho-Lady from Reverend Moon's reactionary Washington Times, and the three of them beat up on a game fellow "Nico" from Huffington Post. Together they recited 16 talking points from Fox almost on cue, masquerading as discussion. It honestly had the feel of very professional propaganda, just enough reality to make the bombardment of baloney seem credible. Kurtz has been spreading the laughable tale BTW that Washington Times is "more legitimate than ever" now since some guy he used to work with at the Washington Post has prostituted himself by joining the Mooney Tunes. Eager to saw of the limb upon he was already so pecariously perched, Kurtz apparently used that baloney to justify booking Psycho-Lady of all people! His pal is a good chum, so Psycho Lady must be fair and balanced also!

The three of them ticked off Fox talking points on why WH strategy is bad, seriatim:

PSYCHO-LADY:

(1) "because it's an attack on the media!", and (2) it's such big (and presumably harmful?) story for the White House that "other networks have to cover it!"

JANE HALL:

(3) "have to differentiate between their commentators and their news."

John Stewart did a great job (For Fox Sake!) of exploding this canard: the "opinion" wackaloons spew their insults and, then the "news" team reports their agitprop as though news: DEEP VOICE OF CONCERN: "Many today are beginning to question," blah-blah.

(4)"Not a good strategy for Obama Administration" (This was repeated three times.)

(5) Obama should go on Fox's shows, including with their tawdry B-girl Chris Wallace.

(6) They "don't know" the difference between news shows and opinion. That's right! "Don't know." Yuh!

PSYCHO-LADY:

(7) Obama talks to MSNBC-TV and that's wrong.

(8) It's not at all like Bush/Cheney's 24/7 control of media access, since Olbermann is just the same as that great journalist Rush Limbaugh (I don't even undersand this but this is what the crazy Washington Times Psycho-Lady said).

KURTZ:

(9) Why it certainly *is* "Nixonian" to dismiss the propaganda network, Kurtz helpfully concludes, supported by the others (dredges up idiotic quotes from misguided liberals). Veteran Nixon conman Ailes, now of Fox, personally came up with this talking point so enthusiastically recited by Kurtz.

PSYCHO-LADY (up on her high horse):

(10) What is really terrible is they are attacking the free press! Repeats this insanity later also. We have already seen in this blog what passes for journalistic "freedom" in Murdoch propaganda mills.

KURTZ:

(11) Our host agrees with Psycho-Lady's sourcing for the important point above, and then,

(12) stokes the fire by bloviating about the Press-Pool incident, a cherished and endlessly repeated Fox News half-truth about a non-newsworthy non-incident.

(13) It is fair to go after MNSBC-TV! (though, isn't it funny how they never say, "But on the other hand, unlike Fox's propagandist "news," they do have NBC News, and even with right-winger David Gregory moderating their now much-degraded Meet the Press?)

And HERE is the piece de resistance! Kurtz declares, really unbelievably, that it is

(14) "unfair to judge an entire organization by a few commentaries." Read that again, it's a direct quote. A few commentaries! That was his conclusion, his sum-up! LOL!

Does Fox even say that craziness? I thought that their lie was that it is important to distinguish their propagandistic "news" from their brownshirt commentary, no? Did fair-and-balanced Howard outdo them in deceit?

Meanwhile, Jane Hall used Chris Wallace's stock talking point (not, "Hey big boy!"), (15) "you can't whine!" several times

and (16) added Fox's trump card that supposedly decides the argument, "THEIR RATINGS HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER!" (Most say, "their ratings have shot up!")

See, we have to accept that if Fox gets high ratings, and especially increased ones, WH simply must regard them as a news network since WH is then supposedly boxed in.

Make any sense?

Apparently this passes for logic among the MSM; they nearly all chimed in to endorse the non-sequitur. The White House showed courage in saying the truth, and has shown rare leadership, even if it may be harmful to them in short term. We can be happy our children have a President prepared to face facts. MSM has been cowardly, with most nearly as terrible as Kurtz. Ratings might be how Fox would like to measure things, but the White House is not stupid:

Either it is news or not, and it certainly is not news, not even if you drag out every last spinning-eyed Psycho-Lady from the funny farm! But finally we learn that that last talking point is not only irrelevant, but like so much from Fox,

it is also a lie!! http://mediamatters.org/columns/200911030004 Fox's ratings are NOT up! (You see, MSM? That's is real reporting, you begin with facts!) Meanwhile, the MSM has dutifully reported Fox's (a) disinformation and (b) sophistry on this subject, how often would you say?

10,000 times around the world, estimating conservatively? Thanks to Media Matters for being maybe the only pros.

"Still, some top professionals HAPPEN TO WORK at Fox!"

2009-10-25T15:51:36Z

What's that? You mean, professional cameramen? (No disrespect to my cameramen friends!)

To all those feeling a need to stand up forth the "professionalism" of some writers and editors working there: Wise up!

Journalists of integrity do not have bylines with the North Korean News Service ("Kim Yong Nam Congratulates Zambian President! "), neither did they didn't write copy for the Daily Worker. Nor do they accept employment from Fox "News."

When you go cooking up rallies calling the President Pol Pot, do P.R. for them, and then cover the staged rallies yourselves, you are taking yourself out of legitimate competition for the Edward R. Murrow Award. It's no defense to say it's just your employer and you're somehow not complicit, because you are and you bloody well know it (and so do your colleagues).

An exception can be made for people who are both, (1) truly struggling to feed their families in hard times and (2) trying to get the hell out there to a respectable job as very soon as possible. An exception can NOT be made for journalists who found it "just a good fit" or who like the money.

Just as a prostitute cannot be regarded as a nice girl who merely appreciates all that cash, although clearly one might understand if she is in an extreme situation with children to feed. When you walk into that door voluntarily and absent those extreme circumstances, you are leaving your professionalism and integrity behind. (And you can ask her (or him, if perchance a gigolo): it's hard to walk back out.)

You are just as much a whore as is either a greedy prostitute who has other choices, or (even worse) that smirking, smarmy Chris Wallace. It's a choice you make, and it has consequences. Own them.

And don't you let NOBODY TELL YOU DIFFERENT!

[False Alarm] If it is really true that news bureaus RALLIED TO DEFEND FOX, they are a bunch of TRIBALIST, MASTURBATORY NINNIES (Say it ain't so if you ain't ninnies; we're listening)!

2009-10-23T20:15:43Z

UPDATE: Great, so the story was wrong! Good to hear. No prob.

With the White House showing such courage in the face of swine, I am much relieved that the reported cowardly buffoonery did not occur!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/23/white-house-loses-bid-exclude-fox-news-pay-czar-interview/

Fox News is the scourge of billionaire-funded overseas propaganda in our free society. Nothing less absolutely, and that's well been proved. See, the old Frontline, if one was too frivolously unprofessional and irresponsible to take such a ridiculous/embarassing stand without the rank minimal step of looking it up!! If it is really true that genuine journalists bandied together to defend repulsive disinformation merely because certain deal-pushing producers investing in Glenn Beck et al, comically also called themselves "journalists" when convenient, that is a black disgrace that cannot and should not be forgiven.

Ever! And they are no better than Beck, now that he is their cohort, if true (and pray it isn't this way!). And so I am still hoping that they are not so utterly **cretinous!** I want to believe that these executives are not so spittingly disdainful of real journalists (who may have foolishly put their faith in their employers) to sell out all, so as to stand by a for-big-profit foreign propagandist scum. One who has notoriously shamed several other countries along the way, as EVEN THE MOST CURSORY LOOK would reveal!! The execs just *couldn't* be so breezily dismissive of their professional ethics, could they?

Say it ain't so, Joes! Say you ain't the ultimate patsy tools and kindly explain ***why not***, okay?!

HOLY SHIT, HE REALLY WAS BORN OVERSEAS!!!

2009-10-19T13:37:19Z

It turns out the far right has been CORRECT about this all along, and it is beyond upsetting!

Head-spinning! The threat, of course, is that a foreigner not born or raised in U.S., without the innate love of country that such implies, either is himself or brings in people (a) determined to overturn the Constitutional order, and the foreigner (b) actually gets his hands on real power. At the heart of our Republic, the foreigner and his lieutenants use the bully pulpit, move political parties, influence people at every level. Not one of us, he uses his power to sow sedition, promote disorder, etc.

I feel so naïve! Beck has warned us about foreign infiltrators, Fox has warned us, Lou Dobbs has warned us, think of the millions that are in the hands of our enemies and the lengths they may have gone to make this happen! Even Bachmann is somewhat vindicated!

Morally destitute, born an alien to us, disdainful of national laws, he understands only combat and brutality. The people who work for him may be native-born Americans but even they have no loyalty to real democracy, elections,Constitutional order, and they work for somehow who now turns out be a foreigner! One such infiltrator snarled, "If I just had somebody who was willing to sit on the other side... until the last shot is fired, we'd be fine."

That's right. Foreign scumbag investor Rupert Murdoch owns Newscorp, they own Fox News, and he still owns disgraceful newspapers in his distant homeland of Australia: Born overseas, he is without loyalty to the United States, not known to have lived in USA till he was 54 years old when he somehow technically became a citizen and strictly for business reasons. The ugly Australia record is familiar: now technically living outside Australia, he backed one Aussie politician with vicious propaganda after the pre-existing Prime Minister refused his demand that be made ambassador from Australia to U.K. (did the rapscallion want to be an American citizen, yet somehow Australia's ambassador to yet a third country?).

Murdoch's revenge:

"MUNGO MacCALLUM: The journalists' copy was being altered. They were given specific instructions on what they could write and what they couldn't write. And where the instructions weren't specific, they learnt pretty bloody quickly because nothing appeared in the paper if it didn't follow the line. It was the most extraordinarily ruthless and one-sided political coverage I think any of us can remember and we devoutly hope we never see it again.

MAX SUICH: It was the first time he'd really unleashed a ferocious campaign against a politician in an unfair fashion. The manner in which it was done was undoubtedly in breach of journalistic ethics.

KEN AULETTA: The one-sided coverage sparked demonstrations. Murdoch's papers were burned in the streets. And then Murdoch's own journalists walked out. It was a rarity-- reporters striking not over money, but ethics." (Wow, character! We don't see former journalist-turned prostitute Chris Wallace fussing about no ethics, do we?!)

As we see, it wasn't news there either.

"[N]ow he wanted a favor from Prime Minister Fraser: a change in the laws regarding the ownership of T.V. stations. Murdoch's plans to expand into foreign markets conflicted with laws requiring station owners to maintain their permanent residence in Australia. Fraser had the law changed." Fraser was basically blackmailed by Murdoch that otherwise he'd unleash his hideous agitprop machine.

CONCLUSION: We should have heeded the cautions of the far right and Fox itself. A man born overseas pulling strings in our midst, we have a ruthless public enemy. It is an outrage that a foreign man with this odious record controls the thinking of millions of spineless sheep, and even potent madmen like Dick Cheney who required that Fox's tawdry propaganda be tuned in whereever he went (but the latter is a record of shame and failure all its own). There ought to be a law against this, but as if see from Australia, if such a noxious parasite gets those fangs in to begin with, it can grow so strong as to have the law itself changed, undermining the public interest. Good God, and they TRIED TO WARN US!!!

Balloon Hoax?! NO WAY!! Where is the TRUST?!!!

2009-10-16T20:34:25Z

I'm totally in the tire swing for this telegenic, UFO family, ain't you?!
BTW did you see the vid of the lad blowing chow during the Today Show?

Oh, sorry! (My bad!)

Look! The pity is that with two wife-swapping "reality" shows under their belts, that perfectly ordinary UFO out back, and their insistent attempts to sell their lame and boring life stories to networks TLC and TMZ as a reality show, people jumped to conclusions, formed *doubts*!! Why, that slap-happy sherriff didn't today; that would mean his deputies were crudely duped and paraded on TV as morons by amateur media hucksters yesterday! That's awful; WHAT ABOUT SUPPORTING OUR TROOPERS, HUH??!! Okay, the boy twice *admitted* to the hoax to Wolf Blitzer, and the father conspicuously said "yeah," and the parents have no remotely credible explanation. So what, you JUST JUMP ON THEM AND JUDGE THEM??!!

HELLO!!!

What did the BIBLE teach us about "doubting Thomas's," and how would *you* like to be carried off by that backyard UFO? Lewis Carroll wrote, 'Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Have we really lost that can-do spirit???

ROGER AND ME. by V.I. LENIN (the legend of Fox News!!).

2009-10-13T18:18:24Z

Lenin wrote a lot about having revolutionary newspapers such as the Spark (Iskra), Forward (Vperyod), and Proletarians (Proletary) appear credible. He sternly urged to have "news" (and even art criticism!) that appeared to be dry in style; it was presented as if neutral in order to gain phoney respectability (accordingly, the bolshevik contributors went really wild only in op-ed pages, or such was Lenin's vision).

Roger Ailes who runs Fox News is a career, far-right wing political manipulator. He knows media, sure, and was even involved in Broadway plays http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/ailesroger/ailesroger.htm, as well as a botched attempt to bring the scourge Rush Limbaugh to TV.

"While serving as both CNBC's president and Limbaugh's producer, Ailes went on Don Imus's radio show to promote Limbaugh's reports of a "suicide cover-up, possibly murder," in the death of White House counsel Vincent Foster. 'The guy who's been doing an excellent job for the New York Post [Christopher Ruddy]...for the first time on the Rush Limbaugh show said that...he did not believe it was suicide.... Now, I don't have any evidence.... These people are very good at hiding or destroying evidence.'"

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2004/05/12/tv/index2.html

Ailes was never a journalist, though, but merely someone bent on transforming media into a reactionary political instrument. Going back aways, he is known for inventing the original Swift Boat technique of destroying an opponent by a noisy smear http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/weekinreview/the-nation-swift-boats-and-the-lessons-of-dukakis.html, and he slipped by the Federal Elections Commission with his Willie Horton abuse of Michael Dukakis only because the legendarily ineffectual body deadlocked.

In time, Ailes began having trouble with his CNBC gig and another NBC cable network where he had a one-hour show; that's when NBC pulled the plug and went in the other direction by hatching MSNBC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes Briefly cast adrift, Ailes soon met a foreign misanthrope with a huge bankroll and no sense of honor named Rupert Murdoch: Ailes thus concocted Fox News!

Cut to 2009, and they have admitted that Fox News did "P.R." for the teabaggers! Admitted it!!! http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2378425

Just a little "public relations" work by the "news" network http://mediamatters.org/reports/200904080025 for anti-Obama Swift Boating. They also like to claim the "department" that organized Beck's rally uses a different non-newsy name somehow; thus, the *actual* news group preserves its (objectivity?). BALONEY! It's all run by Ailes and it's all called Fox News despite their caterwauling that somehow it isn't. Lenin would approve (and Orwell would recognize the stunt): when you get caught red-handed, insist that something plainly impossible is somehow nonetheless true. Ailes had explained his "fair and balanced" journalistic philosphy as to Obama, upon hiring Beck in 2009: ."I see this as the Alamo...If I just had somebody who was willing to sit on the other side of the camera until the last shot is fired [meaning Beck], we'd be fine." (And don't get me started again about prostitute extraodinaire, Chris Wallace!)

Having no sense of their risible absurdity but possessing bottomless chutzpah, Fox wants to bring up the comparison of when Nixon shut out the New York Times. Because by isolating a reputable news organization, Nixon had set himself up. Did I say reputable news organization? Ailes (a Nixon protégé!) is thus comparing his tawdry farce to none other than the Grey Lady!

A politician should never take on a news organization; it is true. But as said before, the political price to be paid for relations with Fox works like this: since in refighting the Alamo, Fox only smears and denigrates the President no matter what he does, the only cost that can be incurred would be that of legitimizing the propagandists by granting them interviews and access. Because if Fox seems like a news organization, all their non-stop derision seems to have some validity, which it doesn't. Since legitimizing Fox is thus harmful, scoffing and ignoring the scalawags is the right play for WH.

If you or people close to you think Fox is news, or kind of news, all that proves is that disciplined, well-staged political organizing works even today, just as it did for Lenin. Lenin and company put out those newspapers but he was obviously no newsman either. By the way, intellectuals in Russian have never understood why the imperial police (okhrana) put up with Lenin's crap (they could have jailed him, tailed him, whacked him); that cost the whole place 70 bloodthirsty years in the wilderness! Of course, Ailes is no revolutionary, just a bubbleheaded Nixonian pimp whose appalling life's work has consisted of arguing with mock indignation that up is down. Some, like fellow Nixon-crony Cheney (and his freak show daughter Liz!) enjoy this of course, and are eager to play their roles as willing dupes. But Obama and the rest of us can opt out: we don't have to be part of the Big Lie.

[P.S. one may also see btw Countdown from last night on this;
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#33284922]

Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize!!!!!!

2009-10-09T09:04:25Z

Tough break for all those who bloviated he was rejected internationally over Olympics!
HOLY SMOKES!!!

Replaying failed Palin strategy: HOW REPUBLICANS LOST HEALTH CARE debate, ha-ha-ha!

2009-09-26T00:22:00Z

Bible Spice sucked up a lot of attention and air time, and that was the kooky McCain campaign's strength, but also its undoing. By the time people had taken in her full freak show two or three times, and especially after Katie Couric, they were ready for Tina Fey to eviscerate the ignoramus.

So with health care also; way too much time on the boob tube with nothing to say, i.e., Republicans have made the same strategic error. Overexposed loudmouths who have nary a thing to offer. That hideous Coburn has made a fool of himself, indeed a Scrooge, and so now has Cantor, in similar and all-too-predictable ways. Got no solutions, and that has registered.

Americans listened to envenomated Republican surrogates and their bizarre invective, gave them every chance. And finally concluded that they are naught but a bunch of bigots and buttholes. Enter President Clinton as relief pitcher, and he is throwing smoke. (Go dawg!)

The polling shows that Americans may be unhappy with some of Obama's leadership, but they are moving away from these ignorant haters and corporate stooges. The nabobs claim (incoherently) that giving Americans what every industrial country already has now is excessive, and the voters think, "Overreach THIS!" Voters won't move back because Republicans have taken their best shot, and people reached the conclusion that they're peddling snake oil: accordingly, we are going to win. So we can decide for ourselves if the public option really is a good idea, because we are going to get it, and we will all try it out together.

McCain wanted these town meetings all along (we just didn't realize what devilry he had in store), remember that? He got the rough equivalent with Palin and her idiocy. Now GOP has staged the real thing, and Americans were shocked but not impressed. Republicans can try the same tactic in 2010, of course: put a bunch of screaming people on the news night after night, who don't have one intelligent thing to say. So far, it has failed twice.

Recommend please if SMIRKING CHRIS WALLACE deserves a PUNCH IN THE MOUTH.

2009-09-21T12:30:18Z

Some people change careers, and Chris Wallace was a journalist until 2003. He got his start by trading on the name of his overrated father, Mike Wallace, though he did well on his own.

Since 2003, he is unburdened by the strictures of journalistic discipline, and works, as Obama did, as a community organizer. But he has funding from billionaire wackaloon Rupert Murdoch and Fox, and together they toil to create a pro-assassination environment and bring down the government by extra-Consitutional means. Whenever they get into trouble, Wallace is paraded out in a silly reporter's costume and tries to convince himself and others that he still has his old journalist job, and is not a front-man for a corporate sponsored sedition (domestic terrorism?) movement. This weekend, one week after the Fox-organized insurrection rally with its Hitler signs and gun threats in Washington, Wallace had the breathtaking temerity to quip, "Every president is thin-skinned, but I wonder whether this administration, this White House, has a particular problem with criticism." (I.e., blaming the people they are spending millions continually to attack for defending themselves.) They try to hide behind double talk about how the paid insurrectionists are not from the news division of the news department, or some utter malarkey: No real journalist would ever dream of working as such a 1984-style corporate stooge, and he is no more a journalist now than were the KGB officers who wrote op-ed for Soviet newspapers. But Chris Wallace is unfazed and he pronounces the ludicrous words above as though he of all the low, disgraceful individuals had the standing.

I'm tempted to be more nuanced and say tar-and-feather him (and surely boycott), but I honestly can't bring myself to pull the punch. RECOMMEND PLEASE, if somebody oughtta wipe that smirk off his face by giving Wallace a GOOD SOCK IN THE MOUTH.

Thank you,

O.T.

The DEVILS of TASMANIA: Vicious and Sick

2009-09-19T18:33:18Z

"No one is really sure exactly how the cartoon character Taz originated. Some theorize that it may have been an inspiration of Errol Flynn, a native Tasmanian and a 1930s star of such movies as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). His father, T.T. Flynn, was a professor who did some of the first studies of the Tasmanian devil's biology. "One story is that a producer from Warner Bros. saw a devil in a traveling zoo," says Nick Mooney, a wildlife biologist for Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment. 'The animal was driven crazy by confinement and was racing around in its cage, sort of like in the cartoon.' "

==========================================================

Tasmanian Devils originally ranged through much of Australia (not fully clear), but some 400 years before European colonization began in 1788, came to be restricted the large Southern Island that gave their name. Tasmania would be the 42nd largest U.S. State after S. Carolina and before West Virginia at 26,421 square miles. Put another way, Tasmania is just over 2/3 the size of the whole of Ireland.

The Devil is the only remaining carnivorous marsupial (after the disappearance of the stripey marsupial wolf, or Thylacine last in captivity in Hobart, capital of Tasmania, in 1936). Marsupials, with pouches, are a sub-class of mammals (oh, excuse us!, infraclass, claims Wikipedia in their tedious, been-to-college vernacular).

The Devils were so named by Europeans for their ferocity, and trademark piercing screams. The strongest bite among any mammal, it is said, and reportedly a real threat to livestock. The size of a small dog, it's meat is said to taste like veal. Malevolent toward one another, they are surprisingly tolerant of wildlife officials, and often rest calmly when physically handled. But all is not well.

The poor Devils now mostly have a hideous transmissible cancer on their faces(!) and mouths; they contract this from biting into one another's faces (which they spend a lot of time doing), and the population may be about 80-90% down according to the worst estimate. This horror dates to around 1996 and its origins are unknown; infectious cancers are exceedingly rare and there are only probably three such types in the world. Of course, frequently biting into the large cancerous facial lesions of other infected Devils makes potentially every one of them a member of the at-risk population, regrettably.

Curiously the cells transmitted are not those either of the infect-ing Devil or the infect-ed; but of a Devil from around 1996 who somehow caught the ailment and is long deceased (Devils survive only three months with this scourge, not being able to eat when the fast-growing tumors expand to obstruct their mouths). If they are thus alien tissue, why don't their bodies reject the alien cancer cells? That's what most animals would do! Well, Devils on Tasmania are almost genetically identical and no one knows the reason for that; the result is that their immune systems don't recognize the cancerous cells of that long-deceased infected relative as foreign, and just accept the wretched infection as if their own tissue.

But wait! Tasmania is big enough, you see, that the population in the Northwest is just different enough genetically, that a Devil named Cedric from there did reject cancer cells and this meant in a nature series that I saw, cue the lights, there is hope and we will beat this thing! Hollywood ending, as Cedric points the way!

Except, uh, that Cedric later caught a mutant form of the cancer, or at any rate was somehow infected by December 2008. They have cut out the tumors in order to (maybe) save Cedric's life, but the hope that Cedric brought has dwindled. There is no durable strategy for the wild Devils now, except by quarantining tiny, uninfected populations, for example, in a fenced-off area of the island (Tasman Peninsula), also on an island nearby, and through maintaining captive (zoo and other) populations. Hobart, which housed that last marsupial wolf, has stepped up to support a captive population.

To review: the entire population is at risk, there is no cure and none really expected (even though post-operative Cedric may be still alive), and substantially all Devils in the wild are slated to die in perhaps 10-20 years!

If every individual in the wild expires, then presumably captive Devils can be reintroduced after a time. But first one must make quite certain that the contaminated wild ones are all good and dead, not one survivor, ghastly as this is. It complicates things further that Devils also eat carrion; there is little doubt they would eat a deceased Devil and there may be risk of infection there as well; little is known. In incidentally, they typically live perhaps eight years in the wild, but the longevity world record is not known.

Something already wiped out much of their population in (presumably) epidemics of 1909 and 1950, by the way, and they obviously recovered. They are important to Tasmania incidentally in controlling the red fox, an appalling threat to the island introduced by "ecoterrorists" in 2001. Tasmania is over 1/3 covered by parks and refuges, and many of Australia's vanished animals live now only the island (what kind of awful person would introduce foxes intentionally into the fragile ecosystem is difficult to imagine).

Warner Brothers, responsible for the undersigned's logo and the wonderful Taz character has stepped up to offer support, as has Ted Turner. In the Northwest, the population is still little-affected by the way, so there remains a flicker of hope that they could somehow be resistant, despite Cedric's predicament. Maybe. There is now talk of fencing off the entire Northwest; no one seems to know if that is realistic.

Save the Tasmanian Devil's site is http://tassiedevil.com.au/. If you are in a position to help, please do so. In any case, thank you for reading, and don't be afraid to tell others.

-O.T.

Uppity Negro

2009-09-04T08:51:47Z

Say what?

Sorry for the hideous phrase, but that's really the problem here, and it's what they mean when they say they want their country back. They want back that country that always had white Presidents. The idea of "one of them" being the leader, the senior, the Commander in Chief, Number 1, is unbearable.

It was tolerable, sort of, during the campaign, and that's what Sarah Palin wanted to say when she wasn't allowed to give a speech the night they lost the election: not being too bright, she would have railed that the vote was nothing but a distracting warmup, with the real struggle to only now begin by gum (so don't think some piddly little election mattered for much!). You betcha!

They never really grapsed (they're not too bright either) that day after day they would have to look at his dark skin and think to themselves, "that's my President." It galls them to no end and even that doesn't fully describe their primitivist humiliation and rage. That's partly why words fail them, Obama is "fascist" or "socialist" or "actually scary" or "Hitler." It calms them not at all to face the horrific fact that he is about 50 times smarter than they.

This is blind fury, being guided to subordinate themselves to such a being (!!!) and they can't vocalize the odious, putrid real reason for it. Not when they're sober, anyhow. Incidentally, I notice commentators are beginning to acknowledge this as the actual basis, virulent racism that's "always been a factor, of course." Yucch!

That mostly covers what's been going on, unfortunately.

You'll want to see Orrin Hatch's tribute to Kennedy. IT'S AMAZING.

2009-08-29T09:49:16Z

Dick Day (who is that guy BTW? :) ) alerted me yesterday to an MSNBC link glitch; hope it works this time (for this clip).

The stuff about how how Ted would have just called his friend Orrin and got something done on Health Care? It might not be true in this case (Ted rightly rejected a bi-partisan strategy when Bill and Hillary tried Health Care), but calling on Orrin certainly would have occurred to Ted. There's a lot in here (ever hear about the song that Orrin wrote for his friends Ted and Vicki, the one from Oceans Twelve?), and it's worth your time.

===============================================

AND SPECIAL BONUS!!! What I tried to post yesterday but link was busted, Keith's excellent two-day-old Worst Person in the World!

Imagine a sitting President being KIDNAPPED from the Oval Office. Actually happened in USSR in 1991. (And so what?)

2009-08-23T12:17:27Z

Same as the President of France or Queen of England. This is a little-remembered event in a highly chaotic period, but on August 19, 1991, Gorbachev's cronies, terrified of him beginning to allow the Soviet empire to break up, ~~dragged him a whole time-zone away~~ put him under unlawful house arrest (i.e., falsely "imprisoned" him) while upon vacationing on {factual error caught by Desidero at bottom below; Yeltstin was already vacationing in Crimea from August 4 when put under house arrest; he was not taken to his dacha but imprisoned in his dacha -- thanks to Desidero} the peninsula of Crimea to stage an overthrow. This is remembered as a failed coup, but even though Soviet troops wouldn't support it, the plotters partly got their way for the moment: when he returned to Moscow three days later, his rival Boris Yeltsin continually mocked Gorbachev to his face on television -- that his own guys had done this so why should anybody else trust his leadership? Yeltsin rubbed it in for days and days, and basically took over.

At the time, USSR had consisted of what are now 15 countries, although scrappy Georgia had announced sessession in April, and as to the Baltic republics who had always hated USSR, 2 of the 3 of those had nominally seceded in 1990 - Moscow wanted to at worst hold the line there - those four annoying "countries" and they hadn't even yet lost Estonia, and maybe could get it all back anyway. That's sure what those kidnappers wanted!

After all, they had a pretty big army, and the bedrock core of USSR had always been the 3 Slavic republics of gigantic Russia, plus Ukraine (historically, "Little Russia") plus Belarus ("White Russia") - those were the most cherished places they could never lose. But can you imagine being in Moscow itself or out in any of those regions listening to news that your President was kidnapped?! Not a confidence builder!

Even in Soviet Ukraine, for example, they wondered what the hell to do. President kidnapped while empire crumbling - hmmmmmmmnnn. In the Ukrainian capital Kiev, there stood a gigantic arch representing the eternal friendship between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. You don't need metallic symbols like that, if the friendship is truly so unshakeable, of course. And Ukraine's leadership looked up at that imposing arch and got themselves an idea, just as Gorbachev was struggling to somehow regain his footing. They declared indepedence from USSR four days after the kidnapping, on August 24, 1991, and Gorbachev had to resign as Party leader the next day, quite a blow in USSR culture. The sly Ukrainians got away with it in all the commotion, too, and that makes tomorrow Independence Day in Ukraine. (This is all on Wiki and lotsa other places, of course.)

So Ukraine was the first Slavic "country" to declare independence, inflicting an unbearable loss, and a whole parade of new ex-Soviet countries followed suit over 3 months. Russia itself threw in the towel by late December. Bye-bye, big empire! Of course, the Russian Federation itself is still a huge empire with innumerable minorities across 11 time zones, so even though it lost 14 whole countries, it's not a total break with the past by any means. But it is a huge one, and right now Ukraine is celebrating its role with a three-day weekend! Still, many Russians, Urkainians, and Belarussians still regard themselves as one people by the way (and many Ukrainians don't know what the three-day weekend is exactly for), so it is not a settled issue culturally (though Ukrainian nationalists don't want any part whatsoever of togetherness). Anyhow, Happy Independence Day, Ukrainians!

And Gorbachev? He was regarded as a rock star in USA at the time one might recall, but as a bumbling buffoon across ex-USSR, then as now. Tensions persist, of course, such as it almost coming to blows when cocksure, imbecilic Bush tried to bloviate how NATO was a good move for Ukraine a year and half ago before an infuriated Putin, who spat, "Well, you understand, George, Ukraine isn't even a state!" Don't believe the cheery East European B.S. about that account being "debunked" either (in a story completely missed by airheaded U.S. MSM who narcoleptically published WH talking points); it's audible on video and you can see Putin's fury.

Smirking, ignorant W. with lipstick's Blog

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MSM has DELIGHTED in repeating Fox's asinine talking points, now CONCLUSIVELY *DISPROVEN*

"Still, some *top professionals* HAPPEN TO WORK at Fox!"

[False Alarm] If it is really true that news bureaus RALLIED TO DEFEND FOX, they are a bunch of TRIBALIST, MASTURBATORY NINNIES (Say it ain't so if you ain't ninnies; we're *listening*)!

HOLY SHIT, HE REALLY *WAS* BORN OVERSEAS!!!

Balloon Hoax?! NO WAY!! Where is the *TRUST*?!!!

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