Archive for August, 2009
Is Chelsea Clinton getting married this coming weekend at Ted Danson's house?
This is the rumor going around today, that Chelsea Clinton will be getting married this weekend at Ted Danson’s house. We have no idea what to say about that…but would be so very happy for Chelsea and the Clintons if that was true. Chelsea Clinton is a remarkable, kind, wonderful young woman deserving of all the happiness in the world…so if Saturday is really her wedding day, we’d be thrilled.
Hillary Clinton has not had any public appointments since August 18th, including none today as well. That makes us wonder if she’s working behind the scenes on both State Department matters and also being a mom and supporting her daughter as the big day approaches. If there are no public appointments, or a very light schedule, in the next few days, we’d be more inclined to believe the rumor as Clinton’s never gone that long without a full public schedule as Secretary of State…not even the week she had surgery on her elbow.
Another clue will be to see if anyone can spot a similar change in President Clinton’s schedule, too, though a dad would not be as involved in the wedding plans as the mom would be.
We’ll try to ask around and see where the Clintons’ Chicago friends will be this coming weekend, too. If none of them will be in town, and if Clinton herself has no public engagements scheduled for the rest of the week, and if President Clinton also has no events on the books this weekend, then maybe Chelsea is getting married.
It will be a great weekend for it, with nice weather before the fall hits.
And it makes sense to be at Ted Danson’s house…he and Mary Steenbergen are dear friends of the Clintons’, so it would make sense the wedding would be hosted by them. We met both of them on the campaign trail in Indiana and they were just so kind, so wonderful, and such big supporters of the Clintons. LOVE THEM.
Here’s hoping that whatever’s planned, if anything, is a wonderful time for all and the happiest day of Chelsea’s life. If it doesn’t happen this weekend, then we’ll all just pocket that love and save it up for her when the big day does indeed come, or whenever she needs it most.
That remarkable young lady deserves everyone’s support in all that she does.
She is everything a presidential daughter should be, and a wonderful reflection on all that her parents stand for.
Missing the forest for the pantsuits — how Hillary Clinton is quietly redefining US foreign policy
Here’s an interesting article in The Washington Post that hits on several of the points we make here all the time:
(1) Hillary Clinton is not marginalized, no matter how many times concern-trolls and Eeyores like to say she is. The MSM has chosen that narrative to use against her, the way they chose to use the narrative they’re employing against Sarah Palin, and how they crafted the Lightbringer narrative for Dr. Utopia. Too many people take what they hear on TV, especially MSNBC, for the truth without critically thinking about any of it.
(2) Hillary Clinton continues to face sexism on a daily basis, as an article about her can’t be written without mentioning her hair, her weight, her fashion choices, etc. When did this ever happen to James Baker, Warren Christopher, Henry Kissinger, or other male Secretaries of State? Yet Clinton, as always, never lets this junk phase her.
(3) Hillary Clinton is redefining the role of the State Department in the post-Cold War world.
(4) Hillary Clinton is the “bad cop” that goes out into the world to stand up to all the villainst hat Dr. Utopia bows to, hugs, or otherwise apologizes to. She is an excellent “bad cop”, with a spine of steel and a tenacity that never lets up.
(5) It’s still too early to judge exactly what Hillary Clinton is doing at the State Department, because most of it is behind the scenes, but it’s obvious she’s making a big impact and will leave the office better than when she found it, when her term ends in 2013 (or before that, should she choose to leave State and run for some other elected office, as we want her to).
Cash for Clunkers ends today. Epic failure. AND now it's harder for poor people to buy cars they need to get jobs.
Cash for Clunkers ends today…and here’s an unexpected result of this disaster: car lots have slim pickings of affordable cars for people without a lot of money, most of whom need to buy cars to be able to find jobs and get back on their feet.
Well, maybe “unexpected” is the wrong word…when words like “told you so” are decidedly more apt.
Cash for Clunkers did three things:
(1) It gave people a chance to make some money turning in cars they had sitting in their backyards and didn’t want, but never had motivation to get rid of. This in itself is not a bad thing, as most of these people noted it was the first time the government ever gave them any of their tax money back, so bully for them.
(2) It depleted the supply of cars that would normally have gone to used car lots to be sold for relatively little money — the kind of cars people just starting out, or struggling to get on their feet, or working hard to stay afloat buy. Despite Dr. Utopia’s best efforts to the contrary, we are still a capitalist society and supply and demand rule the day. Less cars means higher prices on the used car lots…which means everything just got that much harder for the poor and middle-class struggling to find and keep jobs.
(3) Cash for Clunkers devastated nonprofits, because cars that would have been donated to the St. Vincent DePaul Society, the United Way, etc. were instead turned over to the government to be destroyed. Not only did that deprive the nonprofits of those donations, but it also ties into (2) above since poor people who would have bought those cars from St. Vincent DePaul or whatever didn’t have cars to buy. Supply and demand hits hard again.
This administration is building a track record of disasters caused by never thinking things through — rushing legislation to vote without Congress reading it, using the MSM to pound administration critics because “the first black president” is not allowed to be questioned on anything (lest the Medusian head of RAAAACISM! rears itself again), turning Alinksy Methods against private citizens who speak their mind, collecting data on dissenters via “Report Your Neighbor” programs at the White House itself.
So much more effort is put into smashing down criticism than is ever invested in sound public policy development. We could attack George W. Bush for a great many things — and he never claimed to be a perfect man — but the Bush Administration never pulled any of this crap.
And it took Bush much longer than this to have any truly epic failures on his watch.
Alinsky Methods Employed Against Whole Foods
Here’s a great read on the Loony Left’s full-frontal Alinsky assault on Whole Foods — which is, honestly, the absolute most ridiculous thing the Lefties have done in a while.
Whole Foods and Dr. Utopia have been synonymous to us since the infamous Iowa arugula comment back in 2007 (when Dr. Utopia went to Iowa complaining about the “high price of arugula at Whole Foods” and, after the rally, Iowans asked reporters “what’s arugula and what’s Whole Foods?”). With its organic produce, sustainable proteins, Earth-conscious packaging, and commitment to community re-investment, there is no company we can think of more utopian than Whole Foods. AND, judging by the caliber of people we see working there (smart, well-dressed, highly educated…and these are just the people bagging the groceries), it seems like employees there are taken care of really, really well. On top of that, the place delivers excellent products, albeit out of our current price range.
What we have repeatedly told Republicans is that the reason the GOP loses so often in cultural and political wars is because Democrats do not have Defcon 1-5 when it comes to Alinsky Methods…phasers are never set to stun, people. The slightest excuse for mobilization and boycotts sets loose the red-meat-starved dogs of war on the Democrats’ side. Republicans tend to dismiss all but the most heinous of infractions and say things like, “we’re taking the high road on this”. Democrats never, ever let an opportunity pass them by to organize a boycott and terrorize corporate America about something (usually cries of RAAAACISM! from the Sharpton-Gates-Holder-Jackson-Paterson-Lewis-Lee-Clyburne gallery, but also whacked out environmental causes where most of the people similarly have no idea what they are talking about).
This means Democrats are constantly practiced, organized, and well-connected with other boycotters, letter writers, picketers, etc.
Think about that.
Just imagine your hobby is playing soccer. Are you better at soccer, as a team, if you practice once a week and play a game every Saturday…or are you better if you try to play a pickup game with people you don’t know once every year or so?
Democrats have been using Facebook and other social networking tools to keep in touch with everyone they meet at protests and rallies. Then, when the next excuse for acting up comes along, all those same people show up again, this time maybe with friends and the new people who heard about it on the Internet. And every time, these people learn from each other and they become more effective using the Alinsky Methods to tear down their targets.
Republicans need to wake up that this has been happening for years, but now it’s been made so much easier with the invention of Facebook.
It’s fascinating the Left has miscalcuated so badly in its assault on Whole Foods, though. This is not going to end well for them. What it feels like is that it’s driving a wedge between the well-off Liberals and the lower-grade loons…the former are never going to stop shopping at Whole Foods, and don’t understand why the rest of the Left is going after their all-time favorite store (while the latter stopped knowing or caring what they were protesting a long time ago, and now just blindly follow the lead of King Mob).
Maybe this is evidence the Left has lost control of the astro-turfed grassroots.
Because surely the DNC didn’t come up with the idea of going after such a great company…one that’s doing all the things Democrats supposedly want all companies to be doing. If Whole Foods, with all the good it does, isn’t good enough for the Left or Democrats anymore, then what company is? Should this just be open season on business and capitalism, period?
Maybe it already is for some of these clowns…but how many of the well-off Libs are going to go along with that…since, then, where would any of them get their arugula?
Monday Open Thread, August 24th 2009
What’s on your mind this Monday?
Here’s something we’ve been noticing here that Sebastian Gray is working on a larger piece about — but since the economy tanked, we’ve been noticing business-looking people turning up in all sorts of unexpected jobs. Really, really good-looking, well-educated people bagging groceries at Whole Foods when you could imagine those guys trading bonds downtown in the Loop. Nice looking guys behind the counter at McDonald’s or Burger King. Cab drivers who could just as easily have been realtors, 100% American born and bred, who seem new to driving people around town. The economy here in Chicago seems to be forcing people to take jobs 3-4 levels below where they’d typically be working, earning much less than they did before. Maybe these people are all picking these up as second jobs to supplement cut hours and lost income.
We’re interested if that’s happening where you live, too. Do you notice people who look like they were working in high-powered offices a year ago now working at coffee shops, grocery stores, car washes, or other places you’d typically see teenagers, immigrants, or sketchy people working? And if this is true that professional people are being forced down the ladder, then what’s happening to the people who used to have these minimum wage jobs? If professionals are now forced to work at McDonald’s, then where are the people that would normally be working at McDonald’s going?
Is anyone else noticing and reporting on this?
What have you noticed?
Fires in Greece got us thinking about that "What's your nationality?" crap again
If you are a regular reader, you know that one of our pet peeves around here is the very Chicago query of “What’s your nationality?”, “What’s your ethnicity?”, and, most strangely phrased, “Where are your people from?”.
We find all variations of the question to be both obnoxious and offensive…and frankly tell guys so (and it’s always guys) when they ask one of us this (because none of us are blond-haired-blue-eyed-Aberzombies). Our nationality is American, jackasses, because none of us here are immigrants, none of us are the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, or even great-great-grandchildren of immigrants, and none of us have an allegiance to any country in the world besides the U.S. of A.
Got that?
Yesterday, while we were volunteering at a car wash for a charity, and we were soaked in dirty, awful water and the wind kicked up and we honestly thought we were going to freeze to death in August, we had to deal with a loudmouth, Chicago jackass straight out of central casting who was obsessed with that “nationality question” stuff again. We just hate these people. We gave our whole day to wash cars to raise money for a local charity, and that’s what this guy was doing to, so we couldn’t go for his throat the way we would if he’d pulled the nationality stuff at Sidetracks or Roscoes or somewhere. When this happens in bars, we just flat-out call the questioner a RAAAACIST! Since it’s all Loony Libs and Lefties who pull this, upon being told how RAAACIST! it is to ask a stranger “Where are your people from?”, these clowns usually high-tail it out of the bar, and out of our lives, right quick.
But, the situation’s more delicate when we’re at work, or working a charity event. As much as we want to, we just can’t get away with calling these fools on their RAAACISM! whithout starting a big scene when we’re trying to do a job. So, we had to endure the very tiresome back and forth Chicagoans LOVE to get into about ethnicity and “nationality”…where they are all mixes of Irish and Polish and Italian and whatever the fudge and totally ignore the fact that they were all born in this country, America, and that their parents were all born in this country, America, and at least some of their grandparents were born in this country, America.
Flashing back to freshman year political science, “country” and “nation” are indeed two different things in the case of the United States. We are the greatest country on the face of the world, but we are not a homogenous “nation” of one kind of people, the way countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa are, for the most part (give or take recent immigration). Remembering back to that college class, a nation is a set of people with physical, cultural, emotional, and other traits in common historically…and a country is a political entity with defined borders and a structure that governs over what could be many “nations” of people, all living in the geographically-defined purview of that “country”. The United States of America not only includes the descendents of the European settlers, but of everyone who has come to these shores over the years, on top of the Native American nations that were here originally. So, it’s much more complicated here than it is on other continents.
But we never, in all our lives, had people come up to strangers and ask “What’s your nationality?” before we moved to Chicago. At least one of us is asked this once a day, somewhere. And it is never, ever acceptable to these questioners to answer “American” when pushed on this nationality crap. They just are so obsessed in Chicago with relatives they never met, and whose names they don’t even know, who lived in Europe many years ago…in countries these clods know relatively little about.
One “nationality expert” we know is also someone who was born here, whose parents were born here, and whose grandparents were all born here. Yet, she claims her nationality is “Polish”. She, of course, has no idea who the Prime Minister or President of Poland are. She has no idea if Warsaw or Krakow is the capital of Poland. She even thought Poland was a willing Axis nation in World War II. Being “Polish” to this girl means eating sausages at the Chicago street fairs, dancing badly to polka music at weddings, and making a big deal about Paczki Day (supposedly the Polish Mardi Gras, that no one in Poland knows about, where jelly donuts are made to use up all the sweets before Lent…the only problem is that actual Polish people, those who live in Poland, have never heard of Paczki Day. When pressed, they realize “Paczki Day” is no different than the St. Patrick’s Day corned-beef-and-hash-a-pa-looza held every March in cities like Chicago, when people in Dublin have never eaten corned beef and hash in their lives. It’s all an American invention, Epcot Center style, to create some touristy, colorful, ethnic-seeming treats for idiots to revel in while completely ignoring their own wonderful country for a day).
If any of these nationality experts spent any real time in Europe, they would realize it is not a magical place to be so obsessed with. If Europe was so wonderful, then the people who live there would not still be trying to move HERE. Labor strikes cripple France as regularly as arthritis. Garbage piles up on Italian streets so high it reaches second stories because the sanitation workers periodically just don’t feel like working, and the government is so disorganized it can’t stop them. Socialized medicine in England means people wait for months to get operations (if they are lucky, and if the government decides that person is indeed worth saving and deserves to live). We won’t even get into how bad things are in Poland, still, 19 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
The reason Americans invents so many cute and colorful ways to celebrate other “nationalities” is because the reality in those distant lands is entirely uncelebratory.
So, as much as we hate the nationality experts, we are fascinated with what makes them keep looking backwards across the ocean to places that don’t give a damn about them (and where locals, like in Poland, think Americans are stupid for Paczki Day and all that made-up fuss). And we appreciate the irony in this, because we are fascinated by the motivations driving people who are fascinated by where ancestors of ours lived 500 years ago. It is a circle of pointless fascination, the eye of which is firmly entrenched here in Chicago.
But, today, seeing stories about Athens wrecked by intense wildfires, we realize just how little we care about what happens to Europe. As kids, we were all excited to go to Europe for the first time, or to hit Japan in high school, or to travel to Africa in college, or wherever. If you haven’t traveled much, and you never were able to afford many vacations, you romanticize places like Paris or London or Rome or Tokyo or wherever, because honestly you don’t know any better. You also romanticize people like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, making them into fairy tales they weren’t either, because all you can do is read about them in books and then fill in the blanks with your imagination to make them superhuman and unrealistically perfect. If you had ever met Washington in person, you would have been floored by what we imagine was probably halitosis so bad it could strip paint from the walls. Lincoln would have stunk too, we bet, since deorderant sure wasn’t around at the time, and the man favored wool suits, even in summer. Do the math on that.
Europe stinks, too, literally and figuratively in many ways.
There are all those garbage strikes that we mentioned before, but there’s also the post-WWII guilt trip Europeans have been on, where they’ve been disastrously overaccommodating to Muslim extremists who abuse Europe’s lax asylum laws…turning London into a veritable Londonistan where Shari’a law has now taken hold…or reducing the Netherlands to a place where the Dutch live in fear of actually being Dutch, and doing what they’ve always done, because the new Muslim arrivals of the last 20 years see almost everything Western as an affront to the Koran…and then behead those they see as responsible.
Europe, to us, is a continental collection of such fools.
Looking back to Europe for our “nationality” is like looking in Lincoln Park Zoo for our ancestors…because, technically, we’re primates…and technically we’re related to those chimps, apes, gibbons, spider monkeys, and whatever…but we sure don’t like thinking about it. Not after we walk into the Primate House at the zoo and are greeted by the overpowering stench of so many flung feces, so many rotten apples, so much urine-stained concrete from those cages. Watching those apes swing about on old tires, fight over bits of peanut shell, and eat insects off each other makes us wish the Creationists out there were right, and that we didn’t really spring from these saps swinging up in those artifical vines.
But, Darwin is right…and “nationality experts” are technically right in that people living on this continent, who aren’t Native American purebloods, can only trace their American roots to 1492, at best (lest you count the Viking settlers up in what’s now New England, or are Asian and lay claim to Dynastic Chinese legendary expeditions predating Columbus).
But, saying you’re “German” is technically ridiculous, too, because “Germany” didn’t exist until the 1800s…when so many fiefdoms, princedoms, and kingdoms merged into the gestalt German empire. The countries that are now Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, etc., didn’t exist until the 1900s: before that they were either part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, or the German Empire.
How far back do “nationality experts” want to go? Can’t we say, “my nationality is the Roman Empire” because, technically, if you go back far enough all the countries labeled above were part of Trans-Alpine Gaul or some other Roman provice back in the day.
Go back far enough and we’re all Africans, if you want to get really technical. So, what’s needed is a specific date and time for when nationality experts need us to ID the birthplace of specific ancestors (on specific sides of the family tree) to determine what “nationality” we all are based on what country controlled that particular piece of dirt at that moment in time.
As Athens burns, we’re not hopping on a plane to save the Acropolis because thousands of years ago some distant relative of ours worshipped Pallas Athena there. But, if Athens, Georgia was set a fire, or Cleveland was being attacked by giant spiders or zombies, or Pittsburgh was under assault by aliens, you bet your ass we’d come a-running. You do not mess with Cleveland on our watch. You do not invade any American city without our blood boiling and revving us up to help. When Katrina hit in 2005, some of us here took leave of absences from work and volunteered with the Red Cross working 16 hours a day, double-shifts, packing donations to send down to Louisiana.
Because we LOVE THIS COUNTRY. We LOVE AMERICA. We are AMERICANS, and dammit if that’s not our NATIONALITY. This is where our hearts are. This is where our blood, sweat, and tears go. This is where the bones of ancestors going back hundreds of years are.
Europe had its chance…and just as Poles over there can’t recognize or wrap their heads around Paczki Day…or how the actual Irish laugh at St. Patrick’s Day here in the US…we look back at Europe and smell a rotten, naive, stinky place we’re glad every day our ancestors were smart enough to leave.
Sarah Palin tosses around Facebook pages like ninja throwing stars
Great Merciful Zeus, you need to read this…it contains a line we so wish we’d thought of…that Sarah Palin’s throwing around Facebook pages like ninja throwing stars.
And, unlike us, she’s not being snarky or taking cheap shots at Oprah or HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy while doing it (not that we’ll ever stop)…but Palin’s being devastatingly sharp, to the point, and critical while still retaining her personal charm.
Got. to. love. it.
Here in Boystown, the Loony Left continues to berate Palin…but, like the article above says, if she’s so stupid and so irrelevant and such a joke…then how on Earth is she having such a profound impact on Obamacare by just posting her thoughts on Facebook?
Riddle us that.
Sunday Open Thread, August 23rd 2009
Well, we’re calling it unofficially Fall here in Boystown. Not only have we seen the first leaves on the ground this week, but at various places they’ve had the tiki torches and overhead heaters lit to keep people warm as they enjoy the last days of al fresco dining before we’re submerged in another Midwestern Ice Age through May. We have a feeling it’s going to be a brutal, brutal winter, after such a cold summer. Curse you, Global Warming, and the heat wave you didn’t actually cause!
And, it must be said, we dread with much sadness the OFFICIAL start of Fall when the last of the shirtless runners disappears from the Lakeshore paths, like some gorgeous, exotic creature falling from the endangered species list and into zoological oblivion. When the last frat guy with something to prove (and a body that just won’t quit…and can’t, apparently, be contained by tee shirts of any kind) finally dons something above the waist, we know the sunny, beautiful, enchanting Jeckyl side of our schizophrenic city has been replaced by the bitter, brutal, beastly Hyde.
Today, we’re going to hit the Lincoln Park Zoo, wander down the Lakeshore path to Millennium Park, get what will probably be our very last Rainbow Cone of the summer, and do something touristy on this sunny Sunday like ride the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier or maybe take a Segway architectural tour.
One of the things we try to do on this site is not just talk about politics and other current affairs issues, but to give you a taste of the Chicago we know and love, the awesome city we live in. Too often, we think all of us get caught up in the Hyde side of this town: the corruption, the graft, the disaster that will be the 2016 Olympics, and whatever else Mayor Daley is up to. But, man alive, don’t think for a moment we don’t relish everything this town has to offer on that sunnier side of the street. The things that are good here are GREAT, while the things that are bad are TERRIBLE. Maybe you can’t have one extreme without the other in a city that is running at such a high level of play.
What do you like to do in your own home town on what could be one of the last nice, sunny, relatively warm Sundays of the year? We’d love to hear some more fun, free suggestions for what people with families, in particular, can do for a memorable Sunday afternoon that everyone can enjoy.
Let’s keep it positive and light in this thread — and come up with some really fun ideas for activities…if you are in Chicago, like us, we especially want to hear from you since we’ll probably take you up on a suggestion or two today.
Saturday Open Thread, August 22nd 2009
What’s on your mind this Saturday?
We’re going to be busy most of the day doing some volunteer work for a nonprofit in town we love, but just a quick scan of Drudge Report shows how angry people are that the Lockerbie, Scotland bomber was released from prison…to triumphant cheers in Lybia…because the British government not only wanted to score trade deals…but because the current administration in the White House didn’t fight this sort of thing the way George W. Bush would have.
The jobless numbers out recently are also chilling…way over 10% in major cities. For those of us in Chicago working 2-3 part time, temp jobs while we continue to look for permanent work in our fields (some looking for over a year), we honestly believe unemployment here is 16% easily.
How long will the MSM/White House shell game last on this? How long will people believe we have always been at war with Eurasia?
What do you think? How long will it take for Dr. Utopia’s job approval ratings to be in the low 40s, high 30s?
What’s your take on what’s going to happen as we sink into fall?
Because our own postings will be light today, we’d love to hear as much from you today as possible so we have things to think about and research for next week.
What's the latest update on Helen Jones-Kelley and David Kernell?
Failed bureaucrat, power abuser, and Muppet hunter Helen Jones-Kelley
We’re curious.
What’s happened to Helen Jones-Kelly, former Director of the Ohio Department of Family Services (and serial Muppet poacher), the woman who abused her power and authority to dig up dirt for Dr. Utopia’s campaign to attack private citizen Joe “the plumber” Wurzelbacher in the closing days of the 2008 election? She was fired, of course (forced to resign, but you know what that means), and last we heard Wurzelbacher was suing her for her attacks on him. What’s the status of that suit?
Also, what’s the status of the case against David Kernell, son of Democratic State Rep Mike Kernell in Tennessee, who illegally hacked into Sarah Palin’s email account and posted access to it to anyone who’d want it on the Internet? Where is he in the legal process?
The MSM lets these people drop off the radar, but every once in a while we want to check back in and see whatever happened to them.
Is the civil case against Jones-Kelley still going forward? Is she working for the government or Democratic party again? Can she still afford her lavish, bougie, felt Muppet-skin suits?
Is David Kernell facing real jail time? Has he plead-out? Will he face a trial by jury? What’s Mike Kernell doing these days, besides being one terrible parent to have raised such a son?
Let’s all take a few minutes today to search around on the net or through our own contacts and see what we can dig up that’s new for these two agents of Dr. Utopia and the Hope and Change Rainbow Unicorn Brigade.
