Saturday Morning Open Thread

Chris Hitchens and Leon Wieseltier wonder why the empty suit draped in the White House is so unwilling to bestir himself on Libya.

Hitch suggests the President is secretly Swiss, and is simply waiting to gauge the strenght of the prevailing winds:

The Obama administration also behaves as if the weight of the United States in world affairs is approximately the same as that of Switzerland. We await developments. We urge caution, even restraint. We hope for the formation of an international consensus. And, just as there is something despicable about the way in which Swiss bankers change horses, so there is something contemptible about the way in which Washington has been affecting—and perhaps helping to bring about—American impotence.

Mr. Wieseltier puts it more politiely than I would in suggesting that Obama simply hates American power almost as much as the sterotypical third-worlder:

Why is Obama so disinclined to use the power at his disposal? His diffidence about humanitarian emergencies is one of the most mystifying features of his presidency, and one of its salient characteristics. These crises—in Tehran two years ago, in Cairo last month, in Tripoli now—produce in him a lame sort of lawyerliness. He lists the relevant rights and principles and then turns to procedural questions, like those consultations. The official alibi for Obama’s patience with Qaddafi’s atrocity is his concern for the Americans who are still stranded within Qaddafi’s reach; I was amused to learn from a friend that the spin out of the White House includes the suggestion that Obama’s restraint is actually the wisdom of the hostage negotiator. But Obama’s statement about Libya suggests another explanation for his slow pace. This was its climax: “So let me be clear. The change that is taking place across the region is being driven by the people of the region. This change doesn’t represent the work of the United States or any foreign power. It represents the aspirations of people who are seeking a better life.”

They are fighting authoritarianism, but he is fighting imperialism. Who in their right mind believes that this change does represent the work of the United States or any foreign power? To be sure, there are conspiracy theorists in the region who are not in their right mind, and will hold such an anti-American view; but this anti-Americanism is not an empirical matter. They will hate us whatever we do. I do not see a Middle East rising up in anger at the prospect of American intervention. I see an American president with a paralyzing fear that it will.

Of course, this is the same President who has tripled our troop commitment to Afghanistan.

AllahPundit has a deeper and darker theory - whatever the US does now may set a precedent for our response to an uprising in Saudi Arabia.  Interesting...

Comments

[PD]

I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself

I guess I know what he means, but that is just a darned odd way of saying it.

It sounds like, "I'm down with the struggle as long as it's undemanding."

[PD]

"Protesting in pleasure."

[clarice]

Look how shallow the "graves" are. How easy it is to get some guys with shovels to dig light trenches in the sand and spread a bit of cement on the bottom of them for the camera.

[clarice]

Hillarious, hit!

[glasater]

Saw the cement and what looked to be a type of cinder block. It could be all show and the guys were very quiet on the video.

What is a side light and something that stood out to me was how bundled up they all are for the cold.

[Rob Crawford]

we know this sort of thing is common in Arab lands..a little made up drama.

Apparently it's a big thing in leftist lands, too.

[Rob Crawford]

What is a side light and something that stood out to me was how bundled up they all are for the cold.

See? That video was intended to be datelined Wisconsin, but someone jumped the gun.

[Melinda Romanoff]

caro-

If you want a vivid depiction of the area and some thrilling history thrown in, go to the library and grab Pirate Coast.

I hope the leg is mending nicely.

[clarice]

An odd thing-- all the time I've been posting here I never used quotes in my html tags and had no problem doing that until today. You must suddenly put quotes around the link.

[Porchlight]

Hahahahaha, hit. I'd never seen that. Nowadays you could substitute "getting re-elected" for "higher office."

[Danube of Thought]

"I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself..."

Didn't Earl Butz make a joke about this?

[Pagar]

Well I see what happened to mess up the Badger LUN and I apologize. Don't know how or why it happened.
----------------------------------------------
The train wreck of the Republicans turning the most important issue in America (keeping their homes)over to the leftist that caused the entire mess continues.

Today's stories at 4closurefraud.org (if the LUN doesn't work include such notables as US Congressman Cummings (D-Md-07) (who claims he is the ranking member of the committee)(He is the ranking Minority member)--"Launches major Investigation of Mortgage Servicers Abuses".
----------
"SunTrust admits to 4000 counts of Perjury!"

"SEC probes Citi over Subprime Mortgage business!"

"US Congresswoman Waters troubled by Reported Foreclosure Fraud Deal!"

That is just one day's stories. If you aren't checking the site every day; It is impossible to understand how the Republicans are being cited as the ones who caused the nation's foreclosure problems by the Democrats who actually caused 100% of the mess.

[glasater]

Heh Rob!

It's just that I think of that part of the world as all balmy and what not this time of year.
But if MarkO is saying the forecast is snow in Vegas and I'm freezing here with twelve degree overnight temps--I'm thinking Kim is onto something...
Jane and Caro--take your long johns when you go to Europe!

[hit and run]

Clarice:
all the time I've been posting here I never used quotes in my html tags and had no problem doing that until today. You must suddenly put quotes around the link.

I just noticed that too. Couldn't figure out why my link before kept showing up in preview as an unclosed tag.... and sure enough,put in the quotes and it fixed it.

Love love love typepad!

[Pagar]

In addition to today's stories at 4closurefraud.org, here are a few highlights from other days in Feb found in their archives.

"/2011/02/17/mers-paper-affidavit-highlighting-issues-with-mers-foreclosure-mills/"
----one quote from the article--------
". This Court does not accept the argument that because MERS may be involved with 50% of all residential mortgages in the country, that is reason enough for this Court to turn a blind eye to the fact that this process does not comply with the law.”

/2011/02/22/massachusetts-register-of-deeds-call-on-mers-to-come-clean-and-pay-up-says-essex-county-owed-22-million-dollars/

/2011/02/23/judge-orders-quicken-loans-to-pay-2-7-million-award-to-homeowner-in-west-virginia-mortgage-fraud-case/

"In the West Virginia case, the judge last year found that Quicken had put 45-year-old Lourie Jefferson, a licensed practical nurse, into a complex mortgage product that would have required her to come up with a $107,000 “balloon payment” at the end of 30 years to finish paying off a loan of just under $145,000. Quicken misled Jefferson about the loan and used an appraisal that inflated the value of her home by nearly 300 percent, according to that decision. "

It is hard to find a case where more fraud has occurred than this one.
--------------------------------
It is even harder to find cases where Republican lawmakers are trying to make the issue of bank/servicers fraud an issue they control.

The Obama administration has came up with a completely phony $20 million white wash that will end up saving no more homes than the phony HAMP stuff that was pushed before.
Giving control of an issue that could be solved by getting the fraud out of the system
to the political party that caused the fraud is insane.

[Rocco]

Jane and Caro--take your long johns when you go to Europe!

And don't get too close to Sarkozy, the perv!

[clarice]

It took me a while to figure it out , hit. I did what I always did and it came out messed up. I figured for sure it was senile dementia, that I'd forgotten to do something which is so automatic by now. Before leaping to my death from a tall bldg, however, I decided to try the quotes. Thank goodness, that did the trick.

[Sandy Daze]

glaster -

We'd like to think of the Southern Med coast as balmy this time of year, but a quick check of today's temps for Tripoli tells another story: high 59F low 42. So, not surprising to me at all that the folks in the video would have been bundled up. A stiff wind off the Med would have been unpleasant.

Muslim grave areas I have seen are not at all comparable to Judeo-Christian cemeteries. Others of this list will be able to explain the rationale better than I, briefly it is once dead (remember need to be buried within 24hours) you are forgotten. Tending the grave does not occur. Being able to even identify the location of a gravesite of a family member after some time has passed becomes increasingly difficult until ultimately, that gravesite is indistinguishable. I have seen the same in half a dozen different majority-muslim countries.

Take good care,
Sandy

[maryrose]

sam and Janet:}{
I totally agree with your statements upthread. {Like some enchanted evening}
I digress..
As far as how smart Obama is? Smart enough to get elected but not intelligent enough to govern effectively. And we all pay the price for his inability to make the right decisions or any decisions at all. I concur with why all the old advisors have jumped ship-they know a sinking one when they see it. Axelrod and Plouffe realize the danger this clown president has of not getting re-elected which is why they have begun so early to try and re-write hislegacy thus far. I still think another candidate for dems could be possible if oil continues up or we double-dip in the economy. GDP of 2.8 is a far cry from the predicted 3.3 and yet some persist in trying to spin the numbers. Santelli is the only one who makes sense. Zandi persists in saying cutting the deficit now is the wrong thing to do. What planet are he and Obama living on?

[caro]

Just call me gullible, Clarice. Just think if all that manpower could be put to more productive use. Sad that this represents the creativity of the muslim world.

[clarice]

sandy's right about Moslem gravesites, still these trenches are too shallow and placed too close to the sea to be credible to me.

[hit and run]

Thx for Tatling on me Clarice....;-)

[glasater]

Sandy thanks! You are an invaluable resource.

Might the video try to show how many people "Daffy" is trying to kill and put fear in the hearts?

[daddy]

Way way behind, haven't read the threads etc,

but just heard on FOX that President Obama has just issued a statement on Libya saying "the leader must step down."

Rush is right, Obama for some reason is afraid or unwilling to mention the name Quadaffi.

Anyone have a decent explanation for the inability of Obama to say the name Quadaffi?

[clarice]

glasater, here's what the explanation at the site is :
PLEASE READ THIS DESCRIPTION This video show the aftermath of Gadaffi's death squads. Many residents of Tripoli fear to even collect the corpses in the street, as Libyan Forces are reportedly firing at random.THE LINK BELOW. Is an external link which will show you exactly what Gaddaffi and his Son's have done to unarmed Libyan Civilians. It is just a small example. HOWEVER, I WILL WARN YOU THAT THE LINK CONTAINS
HARROWING IMAGES OF MASSACRE COMMITTED BY THE LIBYAN POLITICAL ELITE http://tinyurl.com/5wuorrj Please SHOW THE World What they are doing

Pls note the men standing in the ankle deep "graves" by the sea.

[Extraneus]

Well, you know he's a stickler for pronouncing Muslim names correctly, daddy. Maybe the dozen spellings have him at a loss?

[Extraneus]

Ah, the rich tapestry of wife-beating, slavery and mutilation.

(Thanks for posting the video link, DoT. I love that dude, too.)

[Hey, Leo, I'm being enigmatic.]

Loose shoes.
=======

[donald]

I see barak as tony soprano filling out the ncaa pool

[Jack is Back!]

Pat Condell is the guy in the vids. What a lot of people don't know is that he hates all religions equally. The same for all the main political parties in the UK. In America he would be considered an aetheistic nationalist.

[clarice]

After checking out the url on the video site, it appears that that is where the atrocity pictures are and the "graves" on the beach are just drama, a symbol of the massacres.

[BobS]

Forgive another shameless link to my own blog, but this is just too juicy.

"Obama Tells Gaddafi to Go...Through Angela Merkel"

LUN

[Jane]

Anyone have a decent explanation for the inability of Obama to say the name Quadaffi?

He doesn't know how to pronounce it.

[BobS]

Jane: How about all the different spellings that exist?

[BobS]

I'm starting to believe that Gadaffi's lapsed into senility - and might have some time ago. He was photographed today again wearing that Michael Myers hat. He was incoherent again and its why we are seeing his son, Saif, out front.

[daddy]

Clarice,

I had the same linking problem yesterday, but I fixed it this way.

Immediately after

I don't know why it's changed, but it's changed.

[daddy]

Rats Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

Clarice, Let me try again without using the symbols so as not to dick it up. After the =" which is at the end of the href part, the URL must now touch the quotation mark at the end of =". You can't leave a space as we previously could. Don't know why that is. If you leave a space you get a bit of jibberish proceeding your link and the link won't work.

[daddy]

Note to self.

"Doh!...Read all the previous comments before posting", sez I.

"But what's the fun in doing that? asks the Devil guy on my shoulder.

"Because you won't look like a moron," sez the Angel on my other shoulder.

"C'mon, have some guts!" sez the Devil on my other shoulder. "Post away like there's no tomorrow. Always better to ask for forgiveness than permission."

"That's stupid", replies the Angel on my other shoulder, "why if everybody posted whatever popped into their..."

"Shad-up you crybaby Angel" sez I. "I'm with the Devil guy on this one."

Woo Hoo! Cheerleaders with Donuts!

[Extraneus]

If it wasn't for the angel, I'd have missed that great pic.

[clarice]

When I know I'm dying, I want a box of doughnuts and a pack of cigarettes to make the passage easier.

[Janet]

Happy Birthday BobS.! A bit late on the late day we are celebrating.

[daddy]

Cigarettes and a box of Donuts?

Hmmm, If I didn't have to go walk the dog, this might be a nice time to do some fun riff's on bizarre "Famous Last Meals".

Fer instance, convicted murderer Thomas Grasso, executed in 1995, asked for and had:

"...two dozen steamed mussels, two dozen steamed clams, a double cheeseburger from Burger King, a half-dozen barbequed spare ribs, two large strawberry milkshakes, half a pumpkin pie, and whipped cream with dice strawberries. And one more thing: supposedly, a 16-ounce can of spaghetti with meatballs. Or, at least that’s what the prison thought. His last words suggest there was a miscommunication: “I did not get my Spaghetti-O\’s, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.”

[Janet...Viejita Fumadora de Virginia]

cigarettes & cigarettes for me.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

I'm starting to believe that Gadaffi's lapsed into senility - and might have some time ago.

Looking at his crew of "bodyguards", tertiary syphilis might be more likely.

[daddy]

A Brit site (DJMICK) which I won't link to as it's NSFW, has pics set up rehashing 8 last meals of executed convicts.

Clarice, Some menus are close but just not right.

Number 1 is a milk shake and a donut.

Number 5 is a chocolate bar and a pack of Pall Mall's.

I guess what they say about the English is correct Clarice. They are lousy gourmands to the bitter end.

KayyyyyyyyyyyRooooooooooo!

[Rocco]

Here's a cheat sheet for simple html tags by web monkey

Simply change the brackets I've used to the less than and greater than brackets as shown in the cheat sheet.

{a href="paste url here"}type whatever words you want here{/a}

the only space in the string is between a and href="

[Barbara]

The whole concept of a "last meal" has always been puzzling to me. Is it possible that a few hours before shuffling off this mortal coil (and in a particularly unpleasant way) anyone would be thinking: "Oh Yum! What am I hungry for?"

And are last meals prepared by the usual prison kitchen staff? If so, I can't imagine they'd be worth dying with jail carbs in your belly.

If they'd give me mine a week ahead I'd like chopped chicken liver on toast points, a small pizza Margherita with charred spots on the crust, Caesar salad, braised lamb shanks, and a homemade rhubarb pie. Plus the best bottle of Cabernet my priest could sneak into the prison and a few fags borrowed from Clarice's pack.

[glasater]

Thanks Clarice. I couldn't open that file when I read the statement you enclosed in your comment 'cause Safari on my computer doesn't have the proper "gadget". But your explanation makes better sense.

[Extraneus]

Would toast points be ok in a low-carb last meal?

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Obama would really be a hypocrite if he marched for collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, since Fed public employee unions have no collective bargaining rights.

[Captain Hate]

Since this is an open thread: I always swore I wouldn't be one of those parents who lived vicariously through my children but damn if they don't make it difficult at times. When I got home from taking Mrs H to Oberlin to enter some photos in a competition, there was a message on my answering machine from my youngest Hatette. When I returned her call, she said "Have you ever heard of the musician Ned Rothenberg?" I said "Yeah; remember when you got mad at me for blowing off your best friend's wedding to go see a concert in Oberlin? He was one of the guys playing and even though you got really really upset at me for a short but brutal period of time, it was worth it." It turns out he's sub-letting my daughter and her squeeze's apartment while they'll be working elsewhere. I told her I talked with him after the concert and he seemed like a great guy and they probably made an excellent choice.

Sometimes it seems like my life is one step away from being in a Paul Auster book.

[daddy]

I thought up a screenplay for Famous Last Meals while walking the dog.

THE LAST MEAL

Sushi Chef: "Konichiwa"

Me: "Hi!"

Sushi Chef: "What'll it be tonight?"

Me: "I'll try the Blowfish!"

FIN

[narciso]

daddy, how about that system with two planets in the same orbit, really weird huh.

[daddy]

Very weird and very cool Narciso, especially the part about planet occupying gravity wells in the orbit created between the 2 planets and the host sun.

I remember way back in College days the L5 Society was popular in campus thought---something about building a floating, livable space habitat like in that Bruce Dern space movie Silent Running, and having it float around in Lagrangian Gravity Well number 5. Something like that.

Neat to see that it's possible in reality, but would we have to listen to Joan Baez tunes if we got there?

[daddy]

Yippee!

Capn' Hate. Did ya' see that? 64-60:) :) :)

ACC ball is fun this year.

[Rob Crawford]

Hopefully not much like the Valley Forge from Silent Running. Bruce ended up blowing it up.

[narciso]

I'm a big science fiction fan, Rob, and yet I found that film tedious to sit through

[Minimalist Poster]

The Joan Baez version of "No Expectations" is fabulous, though . . .

[Rob Crawford]

I tolerated it once when I was a kid.

The most important thing about that movie is that the ship model later showed up as part of the fleet in the original Battlestar Galactica.

[Captain Hate]

Don't hate me for this daddy (or Janet) but I find the Chokies more irritating than Chefsky's crew. I was looking forward to Seth whining on selection Sunday like he has previously (although how did somebody like him ever have such smokin' daughters; hawt wife FTW) but now they're a lock even if they lose out. Could Singler look any worse than he did tonight?

[narciso]

Right, the agricultural ship, that made it that nameless horror, that succeeded the original Galactica.

[Porchlight]

I always swore I wouldn't be one of those parents who lived vicariously through my children

It's okay, Cap'n - if it makes you feel any better, I live vicariously through my parents. Their lives are far more interesting than mine. So I guess it evens out. :)

[daddy]

"Could Singler look any worse than he did tonight?"

Hard to imagine Captain, but I'm hoping he looks as bad next Saturday when we host them at the Dean Dome. Pressure is on for us to step up now.

Cool story about your Hatette's new apartment.

Was it you or Porchlight who was hot on a band called the Pogues?

Had never heard of them, but my 2 fav Irish guys in the Shanghai Pub do one of their tunes and I've always loved it, and last week when I asked if it was some old sailing tune, they told me it was by the Pogues. Small world.

[Captain Hate]

I think it was Porch who sung their praise, daddy, but I like 'em too.

[Donald]

Um,

Daddy

LUN

Enjoy!

[jwest]

Concerning that burial video on the beach, I think I’ve been there. If the two tall buildings seen briefly when the camera scans around are the Alfateh Tower and the Bu Layla Tower, this stretch of beach is located in the northwestern corner of Tripoli about a mile west of the Old City.

I’ve got a friend who lives in the Alfateh Tower, so I’ll send the link off to him to see if he has any information.

[daddy]

Thanks for that Donald.

The one my boys play that I like is "Streams of Whiskey." Here's a link to the Blarney, and in the picture it's the fat white haired guy and the guitar player next to him who looks like Harry Potter. Great folks.

[Captain Hate]

Pressure is on for us to step up now.

Please wait until tomorrow....