Hope

George Frederic Watts

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She smells a rat!

Brought the doggie up to the shop today to give her something different to do,
and she spent the entire time trying to get the rat that was hiding in the pipe.
She seems to be a real throwback to her Husky lineage,
scrounging a living from the frozen tundra.
When she catches the scent of a rat,
she is relentless.
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Thank you, Mr. President

This is only one small step towards taking government control away from,
the weapons manufacturers,
but it's a good start..........

Pentagon critic tapped to be weapons buyer

Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, February 25, 2009

President Barack Obama has nominated Harvard professor Ashton Carter, a leading authority on arms control and a longtime academic, to serve as the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, the White House announced Monday.

The choice of Carter to run the office that oversees hundreds of billions of dollars for new weapons and research — and is the focus of intense lobbying by defense firms, retired generals, and members of Congress — sparked concern within the defense industry and parts of the Pentagon bureaucracy when it was first rumored last month, the Boston Globe reported in its Tuesday editions.

But that may be exactly what Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wanted, the Globe noted.

Unlike most of his predecessors, Carter has no professional ties to America’s arms makers or manufacturing industry, nor has he spent his career in procurement, according to the report. Instead, from his perch at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Carter has been criticizing the Pentagon for buying too much armament it does not need.

Advocates told the Globe that Carter was chosen because of his combination of technical expertise and knowledge of defense strategy. He served in a senior Pentagon policy post from 1993 to 1996. But as a relative outsider, the Globe wrote, the 54-year-old Carter should be better positioned to make what Gates has said will be "difficult choices."

"He is not being brought in to help the defense industry thrive," Loren Thompson, president of the Lexington Institution think tank told the paper. "He is being brought in to decide what we need and what we can do without."

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We can't make it here anymore?

"We Can't Make it Here"
(youtube)
Lyrics

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget's stretched so thin
And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore

That big ol' building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore

See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna set there till they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore

The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore

High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore

Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their sh@# don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the da$% little war
And we can't make it here anymore

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat sh$%, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore

And that's how it is
That's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you're listening at all
Get out of that limo
Look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why

In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore

Music and lyrics © 2004 by James McMurtry

Clintons "shocking" stance

Activists shocked at Clinton stance on China rights (here)
Really?
Why?
We can no longer lecture other countries on right behavior.
Why would they be shocked?
They know damn well we torture, maim and murder,
the cats been out of the bag for quite awhile now,
and to expect US to do anything but grovel to China is unrealistic.
China's continual purchasing of US Treasury Bonds has been the sole financing of our various wars and such for quite a few years now,
since we ran out of our own money sometime back,
I think it was during the Reagan era.
Yep, we've been broke for quite a long time, just in case somebody out there didn't know it yet.
China is already pushing US to take action to keep the value of the dollar up,
and to even think that Clinton or Obama or anyone else is going to poke China in the eye over something as trivial as "human rights", would be a mistake.
The reason China even bothers with US anymore is because we buy a bunch of their cheap crap.
They have no use for US otherwise.
And if they ever try to cash in all those bonds,
we're finished.

 MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES (here)

A piece of crap?

You know, you can't believe everything you read right?
A lot of stuff that's out there is just a bunch of crap designed to confuse and deceive.
case in point is this recent article.....

Israel launches covert war against Iran

(click here)

I don't doubt for a minute that Israel is capable of doing such a thing,
they've assasinated people before and done countless other covert ops designed to weaken their perceived enemies.
So this article discusses Israel murdering nuclear scientists and setting up dummy companies to sell Iran bogus nuclear material and equipment.

The source?

US Intelligence experts.

Pfffffffft.
Why would our intelligence people reveal such a thing?

I think they're trying to scare scientists away from working with the Iranian program
and plant doubt about their material sources.

That's it.

That's all

It's just another load of crap.

By the way.........
Iran signed on to the international nuclear weapons treaty years ago,
agreeing to inspections by international experts.
Did Israel?
Nooooooooooo

In Obama's first press conference last week,
Helen Thomas asked him if he was aware of any middle eastern country
possessing nuclear weapons.
The answer of course is ......Israel
What was Obama's answer?
He didn't
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What the F#*% is going on??????

Did somebody declare today
Contrary Day?
and forget to tell me about it?

I'm going into town Thursday to meet a client and since there are 2 other clients in the area that I also need to see, I thought I'd try to line them up and see them all in one trip.
Kill the whole freaking day meeting with people.

So here are the 2 emails I sent out requesting appointments
each with it's followup reply.
The names have been Xed to protect the innocent.

Hi XXXXXXX!
I need to come to the park and check on the measurements and structural aspects of the window area where the XXXXXX cases are to be mounted. Is early morning Thursday ok? 9-9:30ish?
Paul

Sorry, How about Thursday morning?


Hi XXXX!
I'll be down in XXX XXXXX Thursday for a meeting on board the XXXXXX in the afternoon. Can we meet at XXXXXX in the late morning, 11 am, to finalize the specs for the kitchen?
Thank you,
Paul

I’ll look for you mid -Thursday afternoon.
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Feinstein has the right name,eh? doesn't she?

She goes off and blabs about how ....
US drones are launched from Pakistan
admitting in the process that the Pakistan government is in cahoots with US in the killing of its own citizens.
whatta
Fucking einstein
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It never rains ......

in sunny Southern California?
Over 2 more inches since last Thursday, which brings the total to 11" so far for the year, which exceeds coastal San Diego's yearly average but is still short by about 7" for the inland mountains.
Yep, it rains here.
The falls are about 1/2 mile upstream from here, the river is in the back yard
and the cats.........?
They don't care.
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What happens when you smoke pot?????????

Remember, back last century, those tv commercials?
"What happens when you smoke pot?"
"Nothing" the piece went on to say,
the camera would pan down to a dark basement where a couple of kids were sitting zoned out on a couch with the tv on.
"Nothing and that's what will happen to you if you smoke pot!"
Well as usual, they were feeding us a bunch of bullshit,
because if you smoke pot you'll probably become a world renowned classical musician
or a famous physicist, maybe a great writer or the head of a great university, maybe a skilled craftsman famous for the best handmade guitars,
or maybe even......
an Olympic Champion like Michael Phelps!
Smoke on brothers and sisters,
play on children.