Archive for September, 2010
Spam Computers getting smarter and smarter
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We had to show you the above spam comments caught in the filter, because we almost approved them. The spam computers are evolving rapidly, like SkyNet or those little alien do-dads in the under-appreciated Agent Mulder/Stifler/Julianne Moore laffer Evolution (a movie you’ve probably never seen that had a three-eyed smiley face for a poster).
The only reason we caught them, in fact, is because they came in at the same time, hitting different threads one after the other, saying almost the same thing. We were just about to approve the first one when we saw the other two below it and realized they were all trying to get linked to that Squidlyboo! site.
This is a great example of why we keep asking you get to avatars (but some of you still refuse to listen).
As smartly written as these spam comments are (whoever sent them knew this was a political site…and so the comments talk about Rahm Emanuel and the Mayor’s race so they seem legitimate at first…instead of the usual Asian spam in poor English talking about nonsense or lifting whole paragraphs from Jane Eyre or the encyclopedia to try to seem like English text), notice there are no avatars…just the automatically-generated ones from WordPress (which have switched to video game characters for some reason, as WP did an update and changed alot of things on the backstage area of the site).
Avatars would have taken care of these spam comments without us having to read them…and try to figure out if they were real or not.
This really was like taking a multiple choice test written by a very crafty professor.
We have to hand it to this spammer, because it was well-done. Still didn’t trick us, but he/she/it came damn close.
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UPDATE: Someone asked what happens if spam comments get through.
None of us are computer experts, so if we are wrong on this, please tell us in comments, but we believe that if spam like this gets through it’s a way for the spammer to trick people into coming to that Squidlyboo site.
Look in the screengrab and there’s that address the spammer wants you to go to. If someone clicks on the spammer’s name in the comment, then the person who clicks would be taken to that squiddlyboo site.
There might be a few reasons the spammer wants you to go there.
It could be that they are trying to drive hits to that Squid site because they need to increase their hit counts to get better ad revenue rates…where the more hits they get, the more they can make off the site (in case you are curious, WP does NOT allow ads so we make nothing off HB despite getting a lot of traffic…so it’s a massive lost opportunity for us here that makes us fund this out of pocket instead of getting that adstream).
It could also be that the spammer has that squid site set up as a data miner or malware promoter, so if you go there your computer gets infected.
It could also be a scam site like that Nigerian prince thing where idiots are tricked into giving them sensitive information and then they steal your identity or CC number. For instance, if someone was dumb enough to try to buy the Fisher Price toy that’s linked to in one of those posts, and that fool but his credit card in there, then this spammer now has your cc and will probably go wild with it.
There has to be some monetary reason these spammers keep trying to put all these links here all day. Something like 250,000 of these spam attempts have been stopped by the spam filter. There’s at least a couple hundred of these things sitting in the spam queue every single day. If we get busy and are running around Chicago and if Chrissy or Eric are busy on their coasts, then in just two or three days there are 1,500-2,000 messages for us to scroll through if someone is not sitting here deleting them every hour.
That’s why we keep asking nicely, again and again and again, for people who are being stubborn to get an avatar. The avatars let us just delete everything in the spam queue that we don’t automatically identify as a real and legitimate avatar. That means we don’t have to read things like the above and puzzle over whether they are live or memorex.
PHOTOSHOP: Add Governor Palin to this picture of presidents playing poker
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There’s a great spot to add Governor Palin to this photo…where she could be standing next to Eisenhower, with her left elbow touching his right, laughing and having fun, standing behind Roosevelt.
She’s look great in one of her red suits so the image just POPS.
Between now and 2012, the more images of Governor Palin where she’s presented as presidential the more psychologically Americans get used to the idea of a female president.
Hillary Clinton was recognized be even rags like TIME as having changed America’s mentality towards a female president because her 2008 campaign, and the visuals of her winning all those primaries and in the end getting more votes than anyone else in history in a presidential nominating race, broke down this psychological barrier.
Governor Palin is doing this on the Republican side of the aisle, and will become our 45th president.
Inserting her into the scene above and making that image go viral will really help that cause.
Who can find a good image of Palin that matches the scene for this (look for a red suit…which visually will pop the way we want it to)?
Who can take that image and import the Governor and then match the texture of her in that image to the painterly depictions of the other Republican presidents?
Click to embiggen. Image by Chrissy the Hyphenated.
UPDATE: Chrissy did an awesome job with the above, and it matches perfectly…but is there a better face for Governor Palin? We’d love to find a more attractive photo of her than this…one where she’s smiling and having a good time, but her mouth is not open.
Can anyone suggest one?
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UPDATE: Someone had a great idea in comments.
Can we tweak the above image and have the Governor looking right at the viewer, smiling a powerful smile, wearing that gorgeous red, and somehow showing the viewer that she’s got a great hand that she’s playing?
What’s the absolute best hand in poker?
Give her that one.
Everyone else is in the game, but Palin’s breaking the fourth wall and looking right at us directly showing us she’s got the goods to deliver.
Who can make these tweaks?
From CtH: The image below might work. I had a little too much fun making the above and didn’t get some stuff done I should have. So I’m going to be disciplined and just make the photo available to one of all y’all TALENTED P-SHOPPERS amongst you. Goodness knows, we have a generous supply here 
).
UPDATE: Here’s a shot of the Governor smiling and clapping that is just great and she looks really pretty:
Can her hands in this image be changed so that she is holding a hand of cards with the Royal Flush in spades…A-K-Q-J-10 (what people have said is the best hand in poker)?
So, then her excitement is that she knows she’s got the best hand ever?
Make her stand how Chrissy has her positioned…so that Governor Palin is showing her cards to President Eisenhower…and that’s why HE is smiling and happy too.
This would naturally fit into the painting quite well.
Who can do this?
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Click here to see the completed results — and get ready to say GREAT MERCIFUL ZEUS like never before. Seriously, these are rockstar.
Martha Coakely-Jim McKenna Attorney General Debate tonight at 8pm EST
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Martha “Marsha” Coakley is going to debate Jim McKenna LIVE! tonight in Massachusetts for the Attorney General’s race.
Anyone know if it’s being live-streamed so we can watch online?
We’d love to catch this and would live-blog it if we could see it.
We’re curious to see if Ms. Martha has learned any manners since her run against Scott Brown and if she’s still having her goons push people to the ground while making fun of her opponent for shaking hands outside Fenway Park (when she thought it was beneath her to press the palms like that).
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UPDATE: Here’s a link to the debate. It was actually pre-taped for a show called “Broadstreet”, which is filmed in some guy’s basement in Dorchester. His mom works the camera and then makes sandwiches for everyone afterwards, before the dance party.
Moderator: Marsha Coakley and Jim McKenna you are meeting for the first time. Why don’t you shake hands and pretend you are happy to meet each other.
Martha: Sure! In fact we are happy to meet each other.
Jim: We met in the parking lot and it is a pleasure.
(Martha seems to be thinking about having someone push Jim down in the parking lot after the show, or maybe that’s what she tried to do when they “met” but then he spotted her, so she was all “Foiled again!” about it)
Moderator: Hey, some people were killed up there in Manapaw and you didn’t say anything about that. Why is that?
Martha: Nobody asked me about that. I talked to the District Attorney somewhere near there about cyber crimes. Does that count? I think in general we need to solve things, track where guns come from, figure out how they are used in homicides, and then we need to provide resources to community policing at the ends of it.
Moderator: Is that enough?
Jim: This begs the question of who would execute a two year old, a toddler?
(audience looks at Martha Coakley)
Jim: This may bring back the question of the death penalty again. Obviously we don’t know all the facts yet and we shouldn’t speak authoritatively at this time yet at this point but this case may put the death penalty back on the table.
Moderator: We’ll talk about that in a minute. You are for the death penalty but are there any cases when you are against it?
Jim: At a minimum death penalty should be when you murder a police officer.
Martha: I am against the death penalty.
Moderator: Let me ask you about a couple other crime fighting measures proposed by some people. What are surveillance cameras and are you against them, because in the JP and the UP and UK there are surveillance cameras and I wonder if we should have them too.
Martha: I think that surveillance cameras are tools and are on the street when crimes occur.
Moderator: How ’bout you?
Jim: That needs a study. We need to be careful of what we are doing in putting more cameras out there and having the government watch people.
Moderator: Deval Patrick has announced he only wants one gun a month to be purchased by people in Massachusetts. Do you support that?
Jim: Nope.
Martha: No, and I’m on the record as not supporting that.
Moderator: Let’s talk about something everyone is talking about, Issue Three that will cut the sales tax from 6 to 3.25% and cost billions of dollars. Let me ask you some questions ’bout that. One, how many people are in the Attorney General’s office. B, how many people will be fired if the tax decrease passes. Three, do you think that’s an acceptable level of service to comfort the people of Massachusetts?
Jim: The Attorney General’s office has about 500 people or more (but we imagine most of them are currently being used by Martha Coakley for pushing and shoving, so only about 50 or so of those people are needed for actual Attorney Generaling). I don’t think we need to fire people or imperil people and if it imperiled people I would not support firing them.
Moderator: Can you manage this office with a $2.5 billion cut without laying anyone off?
Jim: We would make our budget work and would look for redundancies and eliminate them. It’s better that people got to keep their own tax money.
Martha: For every dollar we get, we bring in five, in protection money. I vote no on your questions. We need police and fires to keep people safe and in terms of our office we do a great job of bringing back money from consumers and I am a terrific Attorney General, Bob. I’m going to ask for a big budget because we earn our money’s worth and I think the legislature should follow my determinations. I think they need to honor it, they need to honor it, they need to honor it…
Moderator (whose name is Jim, not Bob…there are two Jims today, and one Martha, who the Kennedys call “Marsha”): Let’s talk about illegal immigration.
Martha: Let’s not. I already talked about this three million times.
Moderator: Well, then this is three million and one. You said, “Technically it’s not illegal to be illegal in Massachusetts” what did you mean?
Martha: I was making a distinction between federal law and state law and of course it is illegally illegal to be here illegally and I think I want to say three things about that: we need to tighten our borders, we need to make sure that we don’t give benefits to people who should not get them here, and I support knowing who we are arresting and getting some of that fingerprint analysis they have out now, like on TV.
Moderator: Jim, you’ve said that Martha Coakley is wrong. Can you tell us why she is wrong?
Jim: Where do I start?
Martha: I don’t support in-state tuition or drivers’ licenses. Well, Jim knows, if he can read, that I talk about the differences between state law and federal state law. We have always cooperated with federal law since at least 1986. If I arrest someone and the federal government wants to put a retainer on them, and I’ve had cases like that, well we always work with the federal government.
Jim: She said it is illegal to be illegal in Massachusetts because of federal law.
Martha: Yes I did say that. We don’t disagree on this. I said it, okay. Everything I say is just taken out of context and you shouldn’t disagree with that.
Moderator: Let’s talk about all those Republicans up in the legislature, the Fancy Toomies, or whatever they are call, I don’t remember their names.
Jim: We need to develop a consensus in the Commonwealth that it is wrong to be here illegally. We should not have sanctuary cities. We should agree as a Commonwealth that you should not be here illegally.
Martha: I don’t disagree with that. It is a serious problem. We need a federal solution. I’ve been cooperating with federal authorities for 25 years on this and believe we should take fingerprints and store them for people who are charged and convicted of crimes here (NOTE: she keeps saying this stuff about fingerprints like she only recently found out about them, or that Massachusetts just started using them for some reason).
Moderator: Do you support a bill that would mandate that if you apply for state-subsidized housing you must demonstrate your immigration status and show that you are here legally?
Martha: I don’t think we need to do that. We have protections now to make sure that people who should not get benefits don’t get benefits.
Moderator: That’s not true. What about the case of Aunt Zatuni (we think he’s talking about Obama’s aunt) where she got subsidized housing illegally when she was here illegally?
Martha: Well, whatever, she has asylum now so she’s entitled to all that and most of the immigrants here are here legally so whatever. I agree though that the illegal immigrant is a huge problem and we don’t disagree on that.
Moderator: Neither of you support importing the Arizona law here to Massachusetts?
Martha: I don’t.
Jim: Not as it stands no. What we have here is a situation where felons who are illegally here serve time and are released and then are not deported. We need to change that.
Martha: No, that needs to be changed at the federal level. Federal authorities are the only ones who can deport people.
Jim: We should have a law that says when they are released they are surrendered to ICE for deportation.
Moderator: Let’s move to when Jim said that Martha wasn’t aggressive enough. Is she deferring to the Feds too much, what’s your beef with her?
Jim: She needs to be more active. Diane Wilkerson was given immunity by Martha Coakley in 2007. At the time she was accepting bribes. Martha needs to make it a point to prosecute public corruption vigorously. We shouldn’t sit back. We should make sure that if there is a breach of the law and the public trust that it is prosecuted swiftly and vigorously.
Martha: First of all, I don’t defer to the Feds, I cooperate with them. They have better tools and agents than me. I knew the Feds were investigating Diane Wilkerson so I just let them go after her and she was already charged and convicted, so there. You work with the federal government to get the best results for public safety.
QUESTION: Will Rahm Emanuel's Man's Country Membership meet the residency requirement and save his bid to be Mayor of Chicago?
Rub-a-dub-dub: Could this Chicago bathhouse really save Rahm Emanuel's Mayoral bid?
Could Rahm Emanuel be thumbing his nose at his opponents with this Man's Country residency loophole?
According to various sources, the legal requirement to run for Mayor of Chicago is to “maintain a Chicago residence” for one year before the election.
The Mayoral election is scheduled for February 22nd, 2011.
Rahm Emanuel has not lived in the City of Chicago since he moved to Washington to become Obama’s Chief of Staff back in 2009. To meet the residency requirement in its strictest interpretation, Emanuel should have been living in Chicago from February 22nd, 2010 through February 22nd, 2011…and we all know that is not the case.
The Democrat Machine in Chicago, which seems eager to do all it can to help Emanuel, claims his voter registration remained in Chicago and that he voted absentee in the recent primary elections, so that he has “established the intent to be a resident of Chicago”, which the Machine claims satisfies the residency requirement.
Attorney Burt Odelson, a residency requirement expert, believes Emanuel’s eligibility for this election will be challenged successfully in court, however. He states that once Emanuel leased his Chicago home in September 2009 (and has not been back since) that he could no longer claim to be a Chicago resident.
Being a “resident” of a city does not mean owning property there; you are a “resident” if you rent so much as a room in Chicago, and can prove that you have such a room ready and waiting for you whenever you need to put your head down onto a pillow here to catch some ZZZs (among other things).
Thus, another residency argument Rahm Emanuel can make is his lifetime membership to Man’s Country, a male bathhouse on Clark Street in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood – where Chicagoans for years have spotted both Obama and Emanuel when the two men lived here.
Man’s Country sells lifetime memberships for $10. Once a man becomes a member, he is allowed to show up anytime he wants (the place is open 24/7) to rent a room for 8 hours (he can also rent just a locker in case he doesn’t plan on sleeping and instead just wants to “hangout” or “play basketball” the way Obama used to with Kal Penn or Reggie Love until too much attention was drawn to their antics). The rooms have a small cot, a single pillow, a sheet, and sometimes a TV. Man’s Country is made up of a warren of these little rooms, with no ceiling, in what looks like a Halloween haunted house of twists, turns, nooks, and crannies. Watch out for ghosts!
Could Emanuel’s Man’s Country membership, coupled with his voter registration, qualify him to run for Mayor of Chicago?
We believe it could, because it meets all the requirements as we understand them:
* The voter registration, according to the Democrat Machine, means Emanuel had “the intent to become a Chicago resident” at some point in the future
* Since he owns a house in Chicago, but does not live there, his “intent to become a Chicago resident” is bolstered by the fact he did not sell his house so an argument can be made that he further intends to live in this house at some point in the future when the tenants who have leased it vacate
* Because he has a lifetime membership to Man’s Country, Emanuel can further argue that he not only has further “intent to become a Chicago resident” because of his lifetime membership in a Chicago bathhouse, but he also has at his disposal a room to sleep in whenever he is in town, if he so chooses
* Man’s Country is Emanuel’s landlord whenever he’d return to town, with his rent payable whenever they see him next. Since it’s around $20 for 8 hours to “sleep” at Man’s Country, this makes this a very expensive place for Emanuel to “live” full-time (at the rate of $20/8hours, that’s $5/2 hours, for over $21,000 a year!).
* Clearly, someone willing to spend over $21,000 to “live” in Chicago as a resident is someone who loves this town (and Man’s Country) enough to run for Mayor
All it will take to clear this whole residency requirement business up is for Rahm Emanuel to take to the airwaves and ask any men he’s met at Man’s Country to vouch for him, let the world know how often he’s been there, and tell everyone about how much he’s enjoyed “sleeping” there in the past.
Since past is precedent, all of the above establishes solidly that Emanuel is a lifetime member, formerly frequent user, and Man’s Country renter with not only the intent to become a resident of Chicago in the future but the delusional belief we will be our next Mayor.
Is this your take on the residency situation for Rahm Emanuel as well?
What think you?
Rub-a-dub-dub!
Three or more men in a tub!
There's always room at Man's Country!
Amen to that!
DISGUSTING: White House boots family of WWII hero from premises because it does not like what 10 year old boy was wearing. Meanwhile, Michelle Antoinette gets to live there rent free wearing circus clothes.
Can't wear shorts at the White House...the rules are for thee but not for ME
Can't wear shorts on Air Force One!
Sometimes, seriously, the current White House so disgusts us with its treatment of the American people that we are damn near speechless.
We don’t have pictures of this yet, so we hope someone out there does, but Vernon Pawlik, the namesake grandson of WWII hero Vernon Baker, wore a tee shirt with his grandfather’s picture on it to the White House. He and his grandmother were there for a ceremony honoring his late Grandpa. The were promised a West Wing tour, but Obama officials wouldn’t let the family have what they were promised because the 10 year old had shorts and a tee shirt on.
In the midst of a Depression, some people don’t have fancy clothes to wear, even if they wanted to. There is no taxpayer-supported building in this country that should be allowed to bar someone entrance because of the way they are dressed, when so many families are struggling to keep food on the table and don’t have the resources to indulge in the Armani fall collection. Not everyone is an Obama.
What is the proper dress for a ten year old boy?
Shorts are indeed a ridiculous thing to wear to the White House, in our opinion. It’s THE WHITE HOUSE. You are getting a special tour of the West Wing. That is probably a once-in-a-lifetime event. So, if we were styling a family for the occasion, we’d have put the boy in a nice pair of pants and a button-down shirt.
Ourselves, personally, we would have worn a blazer too…but we would not have worn a tie because we hate them and think they are ridiculous. We also would have probably worn dark jeans because it’s rare for any of us to wear anything else…and this has led to misadventures in the past where we’ve had to run out and buy a pair of pants just to get into a Republican event, since so many of those are held in places like the Union League Club that does not allow entry in jeans.
It’s a stupid rule in 2010, but that’s a private club, so it can have that rule.
The White House is a taxpayer-supported enterprise. Entry is by invitation-only because of security needs, but once invited if you show up wearing potato sacks (which many people might soon be reduced to in the Obamaconomy) you should be welcomed in because YOU PARTLY FUND THAT PLACE.
What really makes us sick about what the Obama White House did here is the simple fact that Michelle Antoinette gets to live in the place and look as ridiculous as she pleases.
She’s dressed inappropriately almost every single day. There was even a day when what she wore looked worse than an actual sack of potatoes and another instance when two Grimaces from McDonaldsLand looked more presentable butting heads than her bulbous rump in horrific aubergine slacks three sizes too small.
But, she’s allowed to walk through the West Wing, farting through silk, any time she pleases.
The irony of this is excruciating.
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UPDATE: This whole thing bothers us so much we just need to chime in here as guys who have run private events for years, and in doing so have managed the guest lists at all sorts of affairs from very expensive weddings to fashion shows and even an Elton John and a Cyndi Lauper concert.
You never send someone on the guest list away. For any reason. They are on the list, they have their ID, you have confirmed it was them and they are invited. They must be admitted. Case closed.
NOW, however, just say you’re running the door at somewhere super-fancy. Let’s not say it’s the White House, but a fancy hotel, like the one where one of us worked for a long time in Cleveland. It’s the nicest restaurant probably in the whole state, someone has reservations for a special occasion, but he’s wearing shorts and a tee shirt. What do you do, when everyone else inside is dressed up that evening?
This actually happened…and there was a solution that didn’t embarrass anyone.
We took the man in question aside so that he was not humiliated in front of his family or other staff. We explained the “dress code” to him as being the fact that everyone in the restaurant was wearing suits so he would feel out of place in a tee shirt and shorts…so we asked him if maybe he had a change of clothes in his room or in his car.
He didn’t.
Being a hotel, with so many staff and tons of uniforms, we knew we had a pair of pants and a jacket that would fit this man…and we suggested this to him. He agreed to wear them, so a quick call down to housekeeping with his size and a trip to the men’s room to change for him and the problem was resolved.
Now, if we DIDN’T have the ability to give that man clothes to borrow, what would we have done?
We would have taken a look at the seating chart for the restaurant and found a table out of the way where we could sit him so that no one would pay any attention to what he was wearing. There were banquettes that faced a window and were almost totally hidden by a giant flower arrangement on a table in the middle of the room. That’s actually where the man was sat anyway because he had that tee shirt on under the jacket, without a tie, and it was the best place to put him.
This was his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary dinner, by the way. It was a party of six people, and they were there to honor that occasion. Everyone else was dressed appropriately, but this man just refused to wear nice pants, a shirt, and jacket. His wife was embarrassed, and his mother had a big corsage and his father had a fancy boutineer, but he wanted to wear his WMMS shirt and shorts he clearly paints in.
If you have any worth at all in a job you are doing dealing with people, you should be able to problem solve and save them and yourself embarrassment whenever possible.
If we worked at the White House, here is how we would have resolved the problem:
(1) Asked the family if they had more clothes in their car for the young man to wear, in a way that did not offend them
(2) Ask the family if they could go to their hotel and change and come back. SURELY the White House is available for a tour later in the day, even if it would be a truncated one, giving the family to be dressed up so that “they could have their picture taken to remember forever”, which would have been the excuse we’d use to get the boy to change
(3) If the above failed, we would have sent someone to get the boy a White House jacket in his size. We’ve seen these for sale and know they have them to give as gifts. They are blue jackets that have WHITE HOUSE stenciled over the heart with a little logo of the White House on it (a few times, George W. Bush wore these out jogging here and there). A dark blue jacket over the tee shirt with the shorts would have been fine. Though, we think the tee shirt is fine if that’s how the boy wanted to present himself and his grandmother had no problem with that.
(4) Considering the way this Administration spends tax money, and the fact this is THE WHITE HOUSE, we actually think it would have been appropriate to ask the grandmother the boy’s size and dispatch an intern to Brooks Brothers (very close to the White House in DC) and pick him up a jacket, button down shirt, and pants. That would have probably been about $300 or so, in a child’s size. That, frankly, is money well spent considering the boy is there to honor his American hero grandfather…and we don’t think any taxpayer would have a problem with this young man getting a much-needed suit on his visit considering what’s spent on gifts for all manner of visiting foreigners who come to the White House every single day from countries that have varying degrees of worth in our eyes.
Under no circumstances would we have ever turned these people away. If we had to buy him a jacket and pants with our own money, we would have gone out to do that, so that he could go on his tour.
Whoever turned him away should be ashamed of him or herself…but considering the people who actually live in the White House and how they treat the American public, we can’t say we are surprised by the way the people who just work there conduct themselves.
ADDENDUM from CtH: I am so ANGRY about this! Did you read the article?!
Veteran’s family denied WH tour because of shorts By Nicholas K. Geranios – September 30, 2010
On Saturday, Vernon Baker, the last surviving black Medal of Honor winner from World War II, was buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery. He belatedly received the military’s top award from President Bill Clinton in 1997, after historians concluded he’d been wrongly denied because of his race. His widow and grandson went to the White House for a special, pre-scheduled tour of the West Wing, which includes the Oval Office and rooms that are in use. When they got there, a staffer sent them away, because 10-year-old Vernon was wering shorts and a T-shirt bearing a picture of his grandfather.
Read more at Medal of Honor grandson denied tour for wearing shorts
I looked up what the rules are for touring the White House at White House Tours and Events Web Page.
The page has information about how and when you can tour the White House, what you will see and how long tours last. It notes that restrooms are available, but food service is not. It explains about access for those with mobility, hearing or visual impairments and notes that guide animals are permitted. It explains about parking, public transportation, restrooms and public telephones.
And it lists “Prohibited Items” in detail:
Prohibited items include, but are not limited to, the following: handbags, book bags, backpacks, purses, food and beverages of any kind, strollers, cameras, video recorders or any type of recording device, tobacco products, personal grooming items (make-up, hair brush or comb, lip or hand lotions, etc.), any pointed objects (pens, knitting needles, etc.), aerosol containers, guns, ammunition, fireworks, electric stun guns, mace, martial arts weapons/devices, or knives of any size. The U.S. Secret Service reserves the right to prohibit any other personal items. Umbrellas, wallets, cell phones and car keys are permitted. Please note that no storage facilities are available on or around the complex. Individuals who arrive with prohibited items will not be permitted to enter the White House.
It does NOT indicate in any way, shape or form that there is any kind of DRESS CODE for touring the White House.
There was a dress code posted during the Bush Administration. The Left made huge fun of it.
Click to embiggen. Source: Dubya’s White House Parody Site.
And they cheered when the “more relaxed” Obama moved in with his “sleeves rolled up.”
Click to embiggen. Source: WaPo Opinion piece on Obama\’s relaxed dress code
I wonder how these folks feel about a ten-year-old kid having been deprived of a promised tour of the place where the first black president works just one day after he had buried his beloved black grandfather … who is a legitimate hero and role model to all kids, not just black ones … at Arlington National Cemetery with all the honor due to a Medal of Honor recipient?
UPDATE from CtH who is still steaming …
I watched the video at News report with embedded video and grabbed some screenshots for y’all who have systems too slow to watch videos.
Click to embiggen.
I also thought we should have an “Honor the Hero” graphic here:
Click to embiggen.
I saw where the White House has apologized and invited the family back. Nice. Are they also going to pay their expenses to COME BACK? ::snort::
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UPDATE: This is very interesting…apparently this incident has really hit a nerve with people, because this post is getting thousands of hits on it, after only being up for just a few hours. At the moment, 7:18pm CST 9/30/10, it’s the 39th most popular article on the entire WordPress server. So, that’s #39 out of hundreds of thousands if not millions of articles that are on WordPress.
The trending and search monitors are also seeing a big surge of people looking for information on what the Obama White House did to this family from Idaho.
This is big trouble for the White House. Whoever sent that little boy a way is probably in for one heck of a reprimand for it.
The White House needs to not only invite the Baker family back, but pay for the family’s trip.
As precedent, we cite the Obamas’ lavish spending in 2009 around Easter when they flew in PI pizza chef owner Chris Sommers and his personal entourage 850 miles to the White House from St. Louis JUST TO MAKE THE OBAMAS PIZZA. The White House has a fully equipped kitchen, with Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford and many other chefs working there full-time and completely able to make anything the Obamas could dream up, from any recipe in the world.
Every Wednesday Michelle Antoinette throws a cocktail party where she demands all manner of extravagant entertainment, winging in dancers, singers, musicians, acrobats, fire eaters, and giraffes riding bicycles from all over the world to amuse her and the hundreds of people she surrounds herself with, to reaffirm what a fashion icon and trendsetter she is.
These people can surely afford to bring a widowed grandmother and young boy to the White House, at the Obamas’ personal expense, to make up for what they did to them with this visit.
This is an absolute outrage.
It’s been about five hours since we heard about this, and honestly, we are still beyond furious this was done to that little boy and that grandma, just after a war hero’s funeral.
RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL HELP: Absentee balloting coast to coast
We need your help to flesh out something. This is an instance where our curiosity’s been piqued and our gut tells us there’s an important lesson here, but we don’t know what the end result on a study of this will be.
In an earlier thread today, we took a look at a Cleveland Plain Dealer article reporting on absentee ballot requests (where Republicans have a net 10% lead in ballots being requested in the top three largest counties in the state, all of which are Democrat strongholds).
Our weakness in life is numbers: none of us here are engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, etc.
But we’re wondering if some of you who are analytical like this (such as our own Chrissy-the-Hyphenated) can help us look at statewide absentee ballot requests and see if the trend in those three Ohio counties is actually being extrapolated throughout not just the entirety of the Buckeye State, but coast to coast as well.
Can we get absentee ballot request data by party breakdown through 9/30/10 for all 50 states in total, or do we need to do this by a county-by-county breakdown. If the latter’s the case, then we should focus on getting the results for the rest of Ohio’s counties and look at this one state to see just how far ahead (if they’re really ahead) Republicans are in these absentee ballot requests.
We also need someone to help us figure out what relation absentee ballot voting has in regards to the ultimate winner of the election: ie, how do the absentee ballot request totals for each party jive with the ultimate win/loss for each party when the election results are finalized. Did the party that requested the most absentee votes, by percentage of party ID, really end up winning? Is a lead in absentee ballot requests truly indicative of momentum? Does the party with the higher percentage of absentee ballot requests REALLY win the election?
If you are a lurker, this is a great opportunity for you to immensely advance our cause and start joining in the comments (or emailing us if you don’t want to be public). We need your expertise, and your research skills.
Use the thread in comments to help us start putting the pieces to this puzzle together…like a bunch of bees all across the country bringing the pollen back to the hive to we can, together, pool it all together into delicious honeyed knowledge.
If these trends are all bad for Democrats, then you won’t get any of these answers in the media.
The Republican Party is too stupid to even get an inkling it should be looking at this stuff.
That leaves it up to us, again, to do the grunt work and research that no one else wants to.
There’s SOMETHING there with all this. We can feel it…and just need your help getting at it.
What's Hillary Clinton's No Limits Foundation Up To?
Click to embiggen
Ann Lewis and Leecia Eve are both personal friends of Hillary Clinton’s whom we met on the campaign trail in 2008 (both are very nice, and Leecia in particular is an absolute delight to talk to, like a favorite aunt or teacher).
The No Limits Foundation is essentially HillPAC, operating in this new form while Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State. After HRC left politics and moved into Foggy Bottom, Lewis created No Limits as the official unofficial Team Hillary camp in winter quarters.
Everyone involved with No Limits is someone we like and admire very much. For the rest of our lives, everyone associated with Hillary’s campaign will be considered family because of what we all went through together — you have no idea the strength of the bonds forged in that coast to coast battle. We really love these people. Truly.
But, we need to be honest here, because we think this is something even No Limits and Team Hillary in exile needs to hear…and it’s fascinating for us to come to grips with ourselves, now that we are comfortable calling ourselves Independents and no longer Democrats.
When we saw Lewis’ email in the in-box this morning we stopped reading once we spotted “organized by the International Association of…”
And that was it for us.
We hate the labor unions.
Every last one of those crooked operations.
We were Democrats for 32 years around here, but in 2008 we saw just how un-American the activities of the unions can be, most particularly the SEIU. As a Democrat, you have to look the other way when it comes to unions and what they do to their members, and how much graft and corruption these organizations wallow in. The unions are the Democrats’ hired muscle…the Democrats’ Hessians…and they are well-paid mercenaries.
Honestly, we love Hillary Clinton. We love Ann Lewis. We love Leecia Eve.
Hate the unions.
Here’s where words are going to fail us, so we hope you just go with this.
Seeing this No Limits message, and its invitation to come to this union event, we felt a heaviness overcome us. A sadness. This is like a therapy session because we’re talking about nebulous emotions here, but the unions so disgust us, particularly that vile SEIU and the crooked Teamsters, that the thought of ever having anything to do with the Democrat party repulses us…because we don’t want to ever have to go back to having to ignore all the bad things the unions do.
Robby’s sister Ann-Louise was once engaged to an Iranian guy who was crazy. He hit her, tried to make her wear headscarves, made her walk behind him. It was insane. To keep the peace and continue speaking to his sister, Robby and his family had to just bite their tongue and not say anything about this guy, no matter how much he repulsed them. FINALLY, at last, Ann-Louise dumped him and realized how abusive he was, and now people can talk freely about how bad this person was for her.
If we got an email from Ann-Louise saying she was dating another Muslim or thinking of getting back with that particular abuser, we’d have the same feeling as we got when we saw this stuff about No Limits and the union event.
A heavy, sickening, malaise about the whole thing…compounded by a helplessness that we can’t do anything to stop this “date”.
Someone running as a Democrat will always have to make nice with the unions and go along with their garbage. The way the Democrat Party is structured, it cannot win without the union thuggery, and the unions cannot survive without all the goodies the Democrats channel to them. It’s a symbiotic parasitic relationship of longterm mutual destruction and national corrosion.
What’s interesting to us is that we know we’re not the only Democrats who realize the spell the party once cast on them regarding all this stuff has been broken. Is this what it feels like to be in AA and NA, finally clean after years or even decades of having your judgment clouded by drugs? When we think about ever having anything to do with a union, even so much as going to an event backed by one, it’s like thinking about becoming a heroin addict after having at last kicked the stuff. It is a road we never want to be on.
Democrats really have no idea the damage Obama and the Left have done to the party. They really don’t.
There are probably tens of millions of people just like us out there, though we’re the ones with this platform to express how we’re feeling.
Never again.
Not even for Ann, Leecia, and Hillary.
Canary in an Ohio Coal Mine: More Republicans asking for absentee ballots than Democrats in three largest counties
H/t The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Here’s a remarkable harbinger in The Cleveland Plain Dealer: Republicans have requested more absentee ballots, by percentage, than Democrats.
You really need to think about this one, because it’s very important, but the big picture’s not immediately seen in the numbers.
The three largest counties in Ohio are Cuyahoga (Cleveland area), Franklin (Columbus area), and Hamilton (Cincinnati area). Ohio is actually a fascinating state to study in general because its major cities tend to cancel one another out in terms of influence. Instead of being a New York state, with New York City dominating everything, or an Illinois with most things being all about Chicago, in Ohio you have Cleveland at the top on Lake Erie, Columbus in the middle, and then Cincinnati at the Kentucky border (there’s also Toledo and Akron, with their own individual tugs). Each city has its own unique flavor, with Cleveland, Toledo and Columbus being more liberal and Cincinnati and Akron feeling more conservative (relatively).
According to the PD piece, in Cuyahoga County so far there have been 60,960 requests for absentee ballots from Democrats and 28,888 requests from Republicans. Looking at this number, Democrats would spin this as a win for them, since it looks like more Democrats are voting than Republicans…so Democrats win, right?
You actually need to look at how many Democrats and Republicans there are in Cuyahoga county (a liberal county) to see why this is so interesting. When you factor party ID and the numbers on the books for both parties, 18 % of Democrats have asked to vote absentee and 33% of Republicans have requested ballots this year.
So, right there that shows us that Republicans appear more energized to vote this election.
But, that’s not the end of the story.
In 2008, 42% of Democrats asked for absentee ballots compared to 39% of registered Republicans. Let’s think about those numbers for a moment.
The 2008 election was anomalous for Democrats for a great many reasons, chiefly the level of excitement generated for the contest and the massive push the lamestream media made for Obama. We’d never seen anything like that in this country before. It was a cultural phenomenon that’s not soon to be repeated (on the Democrat side, anyway). So, according to the PD, the Democrats’ number in 2008 was higher than it should have been because of all that excitement…while the Republican turnout was depressed because of McCain’s lackluster campaign and the Eeyore-esque defeatism Republicans felt in the face of the propaganda tsunami for Obama.
Voter turnout in a midterm election is also usually 20% lower than in a presidential year, so when we look at the Republican absentee ballot request figure, it’s only 6% less than 2008′s stats (when the dropoff should have showed it to be 20% less) while Democrats are now 24% lower in ballot requests in 2010 (when they should have been just 20% lower due to the normal dropoff).
So, there really is an enthusiasm gap that’s rearing its head in Ohio, just looking at this one indicator. If Democrats are 4% lower than they should be and Republicans are 6% higher than they should be, that means there’s a 10% gap in voter enthusiasm between the two. This could be a doomsday scenario for Democrats, because it does not appear they can overcome that chasm with their usual voter fraud, intimidation, and vote suppression tricks.
We have not studied absentee voting and its correlation to actual voting day results, so we can’t extrapolate this into anything predictive, but the numbers are fascinating to analyze. Democrats should be cleaning Republican clocks in Cuyahoga County. If they aren’t winning there, it’s like someone losing a class president election in a little red schoolhouse where 70% of the kids in the desks are related to him and live under the same roof. Cleveland is Democrat turf, with a Democrat machine and union muscle that guarantees Democrat loyalty.
If Democrat lose Cleveland, it might be hard to get the city back for a very long time to come.
The ramifications of that, like this absentee voting data, are remarkable.
Euclid Corridor Project in Cleveland: Photos and first hand accounts needed
There’s a side project we’re working on that involves The Euclid Corridor Project in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.
This was a $400 million+ pipedream that Cleveland’s City Council insisted would “save the city”, the way the new baseball stadiums, football stadium, Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and other large construction projects were supposed to save the city.
We want to take a look at the project, now that it’s finally completed, and see if the money spent on it and all the disruption it caused local businesses was worth it in the end.
To us, this looks just like the bluster that’s put into the Olympics…where cities spend massive amounts of money on construction and justify that by claiming once the dust settles the city will be reinvigorated and thriving.
In the last twenty years, Cleveland has sunk billions of taxpayer dollars into all manner of schemes that, when summed together, approximate what cities like Beijing, Sydney, London, Barcelona, and others ponied up for the Olympics.
We want to know if expenditures like this are really worth it.
Does anyone live in, or know anyone, in the Cleveland area who can shoot some photos of Euclid Avenue for us the next time they are downtown?
Or, those of you who like to research, can you fill this thread with articles about or links to photos of the Euclid Corridor Project and the “Health Line” RTA bus lanes that were built?
This is all pertinent because the White House’s trillion dollars in “stimulus spending” is very similar to the folly of “Monorail Building” cities engage whereby they delude themselves to believe massive public works projects will kickstart engines of economic growth.
We’re working on a larger project that explores all of this, and debunks the idea once and for all, and would appreciate this Cleveland-focused research to help us out.
Hollywood's Calling: John Kerry being considered for starring role in NBC's update of The Munsters
NBC's next big star?
With the success of True Blood on HBO and Modern Family a big hit for ABC, not to mention Halloween just around the corner, NBC’s asked for a pilot for an update of ‘The Munsters” featuring well-known personalities outside the normal casting pool for sitcoms.
Jeff Zucker ran NBC into the ground with his shameless Obama-propaganda drive for the network, and his insistence on making the worst shows possible featuring the most talentless and inept people he could find (remember Heroes?), and in a fascinating business move Comcast, NBC’s new owners, has decided to continue this tradition even after firing Zucker in a desperate bid to raise the network from last place in broadcast ratings.
“Their whole future is bet on John Kerry. He’s the only idea they’ve got,” noted Ophelia Goodies, publicist at large for the LeNa JaBroswki Write-In Campaign in Alaska as well as the new spokes drag queen for NBC Universal. “We currently have Elvira working here as our Director of Digital Content, which is fun, and a good start, but we really want NBC to be known as the “Boring Monsters Network”, which would make it BMN come to think of it, so of course we’re desperate to get John Kerry to sign on board. With all these people jumping ship on the Obama Administration, we figure Kerry might want out of the Senate too, and maybe Thereza can play Lily and they could star together on the show and get up to all sorts of adventures together”.
Rounding out the cast, Goodies believes NBC/BMN will grab up departing White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for another key role.
“Well, he thinks he’s going to be Mayor of Chicago, but that’s nuts, he’s not going to win, so I remembered he used to be a ballerina with Julliard so I think he would be perfect as Eddie Munster,” Goodies reported. ”This way, we can make the show kind of like a musical, like that GLEE that’s so popular this year, and he can wear his little short pants and scream expletives at people and be super creepy on the air. The cost savings on this hire are amazing, because just like with Kerry, we won’t have to employ many makeup artists since they already look so monstrous to begin with. Word is Nancy Pelosi’s going to be out of a job and looking for work soon too, so Spot’s another roll we can fill with little special effects and makeup required”.
While Goodies didn’t have a date for “The New Munsters” airing, she believes it will be “sometime after November” when so many potential cast members for the show will “suddenly find themselves available for all sorts of interesting new opportunities outside the realm of politics”.
Who else would you cast on this show, or other sitcoms, once they’ve been fired November 2nd and who would they play?
