Well, lessons continued to be learned, as we have had a difficult time climbing off the DL.
A few days of "feeling pretty good" does not a full recovery make.
Not to mention the mandatory tasks that get carried on, regardless of status, on-or-off the DL.
Rather then push it, and we do have our Ignorant Dolt of the Week lined up (we'll endeavor to post that tomorrow), we post the legendary Dexter Gordon, on the kind to tune you would expect, or want to hear, on a Saturday evening.
A village of 600 souls in a remote part of southern France, Roquefort clings precariously to the side of Combalou Rock, a promontory overlooking a deep valley where sheep graze in the shadow of limestone cliffs that were sheared off by a seismic jolt in prehistoric times.
But the primal shake also carved out aerated underground crevasses that give a unique economic value to this jagged landscape about 65 miles northwest of Montpellier. They make possible a gastronomical wonder that has delighted gourmets for centuries: Roquefort cheese. And now, in an era of globalized competition for trade, the smelly delicacy and its little home town have become ground zero for the warriors of export-import in Washington.
It seems, on his way out the door, the man who had a Ek-A-Lec-Tic reading list, but not such sophisticated taste buds, gave a shout out to the Freedom Fries crowd and whacked the French with a 300-percent duty on Roquefort cheese.
Yikes!
The measure, announced Jan. 13 by U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab as she headed out the door, was designed as retaliation for a European Union ban on imports of U.S. beef containing hormones. Tit for tat, and all perfectly legal under World Trade Organization rules, U.S. officials explained.
All you stinky cheese lovers, better get your dander up, and start lobbying the new Obama Administration.
Hmmmm .... Perhaps, if they could get McDonald's to start making their cheeseburgers with Roquefort ... Man, it would in no-time at all, see those walls come tumbling down, and a less-taxed stinky cheese makes it into the country ...
Or, you know ... They could tie it into the Stimulus Package ...Part of the next TARP payment
For all those Wall Street fat cats, the ones who got the $18-Billion in bonuses(I wonder how big their bonuses would have been, had they actually plunged us into a full-fledged depression) ... They're gonna want some good, imported Roquefort, to go with their whining ...
Christ, could you imagine if they were staffing the Titanic?
I certainly wouldn't want passage on that trip, worrying that they would vote, en block, not to lower the life boats.
"Sorry, folks, but we want the Captain to use our plan."
Ahh, but they already have run us into the proverbial financial iceberg, and now, they want to nitpick over what type, or what size, buckets we should use to start bailing out the water.
Or, their whiny bleating about Tax Cuts, just who should be able to climb into those lifeboats.
There's some other noise, as well, but it's hard to make out - it's only Mark Halperin, talking with his head up his ass, again.
They are the MINORITY Party, and, they don't get to call the shots, or grease the skids, as they did, so proudly and willingly, for The Bush Grindhouse.
At some point, their own supporters, their own constituents, will see their obstructionism, and ask why they don't have their gloves on, why aren't they in the game.
Something tells me, that despite decades, and generations, apart, Sly and the Family Stone are singing this song to President Obama, and the Dems;
President Obama won his first vote, with the House, going strictly along party lines, but this is just the first dance, with much more, and, perhaps, greater theatre, to be played out.
If the House Republican caucus, en masse, isn't willing to support a stimulus package in the midst of a global economic crisis, it's hard to imagine when, exactly, GOP lawmakers are going to work with the majority party in a constructive way.
[Snip]
Of course, the last time we saw a vote like this one was probably the 1993 vote on Clinton's first budget -- every single Republican in the chamber voted against it, hoping to prove, once and for all, that they were right about economics and Democrats were wrong. If memory serves, that budget was the first step towards the longest economic expansion on record, the creation of 22 million jobs, and the total elimination of the federal budget deficit.
While there is light at the end of the tunnel (and not a freight train, but rather, some good meds), we stayed on the DL again today, and dreading the snow/sleet/ice/rain storm barreling this way tomorrow.
So, we look to be back on track very soon.
For this evening, we have a little treat to share with you.
One song, two versions.
First, we start off with the classic, 'Corner Pocket, a warhorse of a tune from William "Count" Basie, and his monster orchestra.
Then, fast forward a few decades, to the Manhattan Transfer, and their "Until I Met You", which is none other than a vocal rendition of "Corner Pocket"
The most significant and intelligent part of Bill Kristol's column in the New York Times wasn't written by him.
This is William Kristol’s last column.
Well, his last column in the NYT, as Think Progress (and others) are reporting that The Washington Post will pick up on the journalistic bailout, having Little Billy on their pages, on monthly basis.
I guess they don't mind that Time Magazine, and now the NYT, have given him his pink slip.
Yes, Virginia, Even A Stopped Clock Is More Accurate Than Little Billy Kristol ...
It's one thing, tossing off scraps for the Flying Monkeys, they eat up everything, especially the false and untrue, like happy soup.
But he was now tied to the strings of the Grey Lady's dress, and the errors kept coming, and coming, and coming, earning them headlines, such as "The NYT's latest Kristol embarrassment.
As Steve Clemmons rhetorically asked; "Why are any of the majors publishing Kristol on a continuous basis when he has his perch at the Weekly Standard?"
The ever-sharp cracker jack, Scott Horton, whose articled was prefaced with"...Scott Horton, who broke news on Kristol's involvement in the selection of Sarah Palin, reports on real reasons the Gray Lady didn't renew his contract", has the scoop;
The New York Times’ decision not to renew Bill Kristol’s opinion column was because of the conservative writer’s sloppiness and uneven quality, according to a reliable source with first-hand knowledge of the decision. Today, the Times features a signature Kristol piece, discussing the heroic role of conservatism in modern American history and contrasting this with the fecklessness of American liberals. But only the last line is newsworthy: “This is William Kristol’s last column.”
The problems that emerged were more fundamental. Kristol’s writing wasn’t compelling or even very careful. He either lacked a talent for solid opinion journalism or wasn’t putting his heart into it. A give-away came in the form of four corrections the newspaper was forced to run over factual mistakes in the columns, creating an impression that they were rushed out without due diligence or attention to factual claims. A senior writer at Time magazine recounted to me a similar experience with Kristol following his stint in 2006-07. “His conservative ideas were cutting edge and influential,” I was told. “But his sloppy writing and failure to fact check what he wrote made us queasy.”
Notice how, when talking about Kristol, and his writing, the word "sloppy" keeps jumping up?
Go check out Greg Mitchell, over on Editors & Publishers, and his Kristol Bawl: An 'Appreciation' As Column Ends at 'NYT', which details the errors - "He gave us many belly laughs, several glaring errors to point out, some choice takedowns by Jon Stewart -- and Sarah Palin, who doomed McCain."
Now, Little Billy Kristol gets to "doom" The Washington Post.
It's fitting for Kristol to go out on a high note of error. klutzy writing and self-delusion, but apparently the market for his kind of babbling is not entirely dead. He came to the Times after a stint with Time, and now there are reports that the Washington Post, apparently suffering from a lack of wrong-headedness not completely satisfied by Charles Krauthammer and Michael Gerson, will avail themselves of Kristol's wisdom occasionally.
Ron Rosenbaum, over on Slate, weighs into Christie Brinkley's ex, sans anything other than 16-oz boxing gloves, whacking Joel around the ring, so to speak, unmercifully.
Which brings me to Billy Joel—the Andrew Wyeth of contemporary pop music—and the continuing irritation I feel whenever I hear his tunes, whether in the original or in the multitude of elevator-Muzak versions. It is a kind of mystery: Why does his music make my skin crawl in a way that other bad music doesn't? Why is it that so many of us feel it is possible to say Billy Joel is—well—just bad, a blight upon pop music, a plague upon the airwaves more contagious than West Nile virus, a dire threat to the peacefulness of any given elevator ride, not rock 'n' roll but schlock 'n' roll?
[Snip]
He thinks people can't stand him because he dresses wrong or doesn't look right.
Billy Joel, they can't stand you because of your music; because of your stupid, smug attitude; because of the way you ripped off your betters to produce music that rarely reaches the level even of mediocrity. You could dress completely au courant and people would still loathe your lame lyrics.
In-between those two samples is a boatload of great insight, and most amusingly, quite frequently.
John Denver is the worst for me ... Skin crawls each and every time my security breaks down, and a few notes of his singing breaks through
Being a Jazz Guy, I don't have as strong a dislike for Billy Joel as Rosenbaum, not being all that familiar with his work, yet, on the other hand, what I have heard of him, it hasn't made me want to run out and buy any of his recordings. What I have heard, it sounds like Pop pap, too cute, by half
