Comments or suggestions: Gerard Van der Leun
Something Wonderful: 2 Dancers, 100 Years of Fashion

100 years of East London style in 100 seconds. Sept 13th 1911 - Sept 13th 2011.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 30, 2011 4:22 PM | Comments (8)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Wonderful: Hullo Und Velcome to der Slingshot Channel

I have such a long list of targets for this thing they'd fill the telephone book of a small Maine township....

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 29, 2011 3:54 PM | Comments (11)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Neurotic or Psychotic?

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The great internet essayist Fernandez remarks in passing at the Belmont Club's The Teahouse of the August Mood "He belonged to no nation and therefore was a transcendent figure of sorts. Nobody was sure where he was born, how he got his start in life and to who he owed his loyalty. All anyone knows was that he was suddenly there."

In this case he is referring to "Basil Zaharoff, the original Man of Mystery," but since Fernandez is always as oblique as he is direct it brought to mind an old definition of the difference between a neurotic and a psychotic:

"A neurotic is someone who is slightly out of touch with reality. A psychotic is someone who is totally in touch with reality. It just happens to be his own private reality."

When it comes to the current psychotic in chief I admit I am weary of the endless game of "just what is up with this guy anyway?," and the countless "personhours" spent on parsing or interrupting his actions and/or non-actions.

Michael Medved, that cuddly little commenter on all things conservative, is always going on and on about this character being just another garden variety politician who wants to be loved. Medved is of the "no malice in here boss" school of political criticism. I'm sorry to say I don't buy it. I'm more and more deeply invested in the malicious psychotic school of thought. It pains me to think that one of the chief compulsions of all psychotics is to try and get as many people as possible to believe in his private reality.

There's a lot of crowing here and there around the infosphere in the last few days about his rising "disapproval" ratings, but they are small comfort to me. What galls me are the had-core approval ratings. These mean that millions upon untold millions actually approve of this psychotic's personal reality. That means that we've still got far too many psychotics running around loose and armed with the vote.

Job One? Reduce levels of political psychosis.

Job Two? Remove incumbent psychotics.

Those are the parameters of my personal political reality. I'll feel much better when everybody gets in touch with it.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 29, 2011 3:34 PM | Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Wonderful: Richie Havens, "I Was Educated by Myself"

I can’t buy the lie and it don’t matter
Even though I try to keep my health
It all seems the same, such a silly game
Played by silly fools who don’t even follow their own rules

But oh, when the sunshine follows me around
Lifts my feet and takes me from the ground
High enough to see the shelf
And know that I was educated by myself

I have seen the streets groaning, not battered
Though amongst us all, we kept our wealth
And though the rain goes pitter-patter,
It don’t change the pain that we all felt

But oh, when the sunshine follows us around
Lifts our feet and takes us from the ground,
High enough for us to tell
That we were educated by ourselves

It’s a simple dream, a common pattern
A universal scheme for us to sell
And though it’s a long, long way between Mars and Saturn,
But right here on Earth, we know so well
That all we need is sunshine on the ground
And smiles and smiles and smiles from frown to frown
Just enough for us to yell
That we were educated by ourselves



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 28, 2011 6:49 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
New Obama Speech Writer Located

And in the nick of time!

"Believe it or not, there was electricity in Africa in ancient times."

HT: The Barrister @ Maggies Farm who says, "I think this is satire, but I am not certain," and who therefor needs to regroup!



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 27, 2011 4:03 PM | Comments (35)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Would the Last Person Out of New York City Please Turn Off Mayor Bloomberg's Light. Thank You.

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Let's Review:

On Friday, city officials issued what they called an unprecedented order for the evacuation of about 370,000 residents of low-lying areas, warning that Hurricane Irene was such a threat that people living there simply had to get out. Officials also made what they said was another first-of-its-kind decision, announcing plans to shut down the city’s entire transit system Saturday — all 468 subway stations and 840 miles of tracks, and the rest of the nation’s largest mass transit network: thousands of buses in the city, as well as the buses and commuter trains that reach from Midtown Manhattan to the suburbs. -- Evacuations Ordered in New York as Hurricane Irene Nears - NYTimes.com

I think we can assume that "officials" all have personal and/or taxpayer paid for transport and some, like Bloomberg, have private planes and helicopters. For "all the little people" exactly how you all "get out" of New York City without a public transportation system is likely to be.... uh.... somewhat problematic.

I lived in Brooklyn Heights directly across the river from the World Trade Center on 9/11 and for the months that unfolded after it. One thing that was exceedingly difficult on that day and for days after was, well, getting out of New York. Rental cars were quickly impossible to get. Some friends, who really needed to get back to their home in Florida, actually bought a used car in Queens for the trip.

Another item that was passed over in all the reporting after that day was that the one sector of the economy that had a bump up in sales in the New York area were motorcycles. People, it seems, had figured out that if everybody who had a car wanted to leave New York at the same time the roads would quickly become impassable to anyone not on a motorcycle (preferably with a rider armed with a pistol).

New York, whenever lots of people need to exit at once, becomes a roach motel. You check in but you can't check out.

Case in point:

82-year-old Abe Feinstein, who has lived since the early 1960s on the eighth floor of a building that overlooks the famed boardwalk of Coney Island, which is in the evacuation zone and was alive with residents and visitors Friday. "How can I get out of Coney Island? What am I going to do? Run with this walker?" he said. -- News

He's not the only one. A fact of which it would seem the death-dwarf that poses as Mayor of New York seems vaguely aware:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged those who needed to leave to do so right away Saturday morning. The city doesn't have enough resources to evacuate everyone after the weather worsens, he said about 2 ½ hours before the transit system was to shut down.

With this one move, Bloomberg has rewritten the classic headline. Now it's MAYOR TO CITY: DROP DEAD.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 27, 2011 1:35 PM | Comments (10)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Thinking About My Series of Dreams Last Night

A world where the final digit to Pi had at last been computed, and they were folding up the mountains and the stars were going out, and the car had no reverse gear, and the brakes were holes in the floor where your shoes could be pressed against the asphalt, and the smell of singed leather.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 27, 2011 11:58 AM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
A Choice Not An Echo

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I'd say "Discuss," but there's really not much left to say.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 26, 2011 9:45 PM | Comments (22)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Please Inform Her That What She Is Doing Cannot Be Done

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Illo via rob

Presented solely to promote and enhance international peace and understanding in accordance with the mission of ACIGGPIL (Advanced Contemplation of Intense Gyno-Gymnastics Performed In Leotards) without regard to color, creed or national origin.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 26, 2011 6:34 PM | Comments (14)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Location, Location, Location: "The [Civil] war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor".

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Wilmer McLean landlord to history:

The initial engagement [of the Civil War] on July 18, 1861 of what would become the First Battle of Bull Run took place on McLean's farm, the Yorkshire Plantation, in Manassas, Prince William County, Virginia. Union Army artillery fired at McLean's house, which was being used as a headquarters for Confederate Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, and a cannonball dropped through the kitchen fireplace. Beauregard wrote after the battle, "A comical effect of this artillery fight was the destruction of the dinner of myself and staff by a Federal shell that fell into the fire-place of my headquarters at the McLean House."

Maclean however had had enough:

He decided to move because his commercial activities were centered mostly in southern Virginia and the Union army presence in his area of northern Virginia made his work difficult. He undoubtedly was also motivated by a desire to protect his family from a repetition of their combat experience. In the spring of 1863, he and his family moved about 120 miles (200 km) south to Appomattox County, Virginia, near a dusty, crossroads community called Appomattox Court House.

.... Two years later ....

On April 9, 1865, the war revisited Wilmer McLean. Confederate General Robert E. Lee was about to surrender to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. He sent a messenger to Appomattox Courthouse to find a place to meet. On April 8, 1865, the messenger knocked on McLean's door and requested the use of his home. Lee surrendered to Grant in the parlor of McLean's house, effectively ending the Civil War.

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At left, Wilmer McLean's house where the Civil War 'began.' At right, Wilmer McLean's house where the Civil War ended.

For a contemporary analysis of what this could possibly mean we turn to noted scholar and culture interpretrer, Tengobaila2.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 26, 2011 10:30 AM | Comments (11)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Buy A Prius, save a Panda!
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 25, 2011 2:57 PM | Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The 2012 Obama Victory Train

Obama will switch from a bus to a train for his January Victory tour through the Midwest Red States. This is a preview of the planned tour. Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 24, 2011 11:03 PM | Comments (8)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Candidate for "Only Cultural Artifact to Survive the Total Destruction of the Planet Earth"

Because it, you know, explains so much.

I know what you're thinking. "Should I click it?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is an Asian music video, emblematic of the most powerful mind-distorting cultural force in the world, and might, just might, blow your little head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? [Pssst... If they do click tell them to at least wait for the "special effect" at 1:30.]



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 24, 2011 5:37 PM | Comments (19)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Be Thou My Vision | Van Morrison

Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. -- Numbers 12:6

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 21, 2011 12:17 PM | Comments (13)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Pithmaster: Quotations from Chairman Reynolds

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Illustration by Eric @ Classical Values

It never ceases to amaze me what a quote machine we have in Instapundit (aka Glenn Reynolds). The man rolls out more memorable one-liners in a day than the President of the United States has managed to do in.... well, his whole life to date.

Some people think this is easy to do.... until they try it day in and day out year after year. They usually fade somewhere before noon on day one.

Giving the pith and giving the gag and whipping the quip are talents that are both God-given and self-generated through discipline and a playful habit of mind. Here's a selection from the current page of the last two and a half days of postings.

He's been rolling like this for ten years now. An amazing performance by any standards.

Just remember: You can’t live a million years if you don’t make it through the next twenty or thirty.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN WE’D SEE ENDLESS WAR. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! US troops may stay in Afghanistan until 2024.

The GOP doesn’t work the press well. Part of that is learned helplessness, but part of it is ineptitude.

Ordinary vacations are for the little people.

BEWARE THE BEARS. Make ‘em into rugs, as an example to the others.

CAN DRIVERLESS POD CARS solve the “last mile” problem? I dunno, but you’re gonna need a better name than “pod cars,” which sounds like transportation for “pod people.”

WHO IS BEHIND THE U.S “DAY OF RAGE” AGAINST WALL STREET? The usual suspects. But if they’re not burning Barack Obama and Tim Geithner in effigy, then they’re not really angry at Wall Street and its tools, they’re just putting on a show.

FROM LINGERIE MODEL to NASCAR driver. Well, either way you have a lot of male fans.

THIS YEAR’S BACK-TO-SCHOOL TREND: Higher Prices.

Obama’s attacks hurt his likability, which at this point is all he’s got left.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 20, 2011 3:01 PM | Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The Brutal Dilemma: Christopher Taylor on Why Cutting the Budget Means Cutting the President's Base

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In Word Around the Net: A BLACK FUTURE, essayist Taylor points out the obvious elephant in the room:

Blacks are disproportionately represented in government jobs. In fact, hiring blacks in federal jobs is so out of norm with the general population that NASA has the smallest over representation by only hiring 49% more blacks than are in the general population. Blacks make up about 10% of the United States population, but make up about 20% of the federal government jobs according to a 2010 study by the Office of Personnel Management. .... So we're faced with a brutal dilemma: in order to lighten the pressure of the federal government on the economy and businesses so both can breathe and prosper, we're going to have to slash the government down in size which will result in many people losing jobs in a time of dire unemployment. And many of those lost jobs will be black jobs.

His conclusion? Try cutting into this constituency and "America will burn."

But would it? I tend to agree with him that the make-up of the rising black middle class is such that no cuts of any significance in the government work force can be forthcoming. I also tend to agree with him that the risk of widespread rioting is real. But I also think that, well, maybe not. I've lived through and clearly remember the Watts Riots, the riots of the Long Hot Summer of 1967, the Miami Riots of 1980, the highly lethal LA 1992 riots. I don't think that that is the current mood of the country regardless of how much doom-saying is being bandied about.

Riots over job reductions? Maybe we have grown beyond that. Maybe the only thing that will spark riots is the chopping off of federal funds to the left-behinds in the armed welfare hamlets of the inner cities. And even then it would probably take a provocateur's spark.

What do you think? In the face of obvious financial disaster, should we take such dire warnings at face value, or should we say, "Go ahead. Make my day."



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 19, 2011 6:01 PM | Comments (22)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Wonderful (and Very Clean): New World Record for Most People in a Single Shower

Posted here to solely to help promote public hygiene while conserving our precious water. Honest.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 18, 2011 11:00 PM | Comments (7)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Jon Stewart Sums Up Why Ron Paul Supporters Should Move Through the MSM (That Includes You Fox) with a Flamethrower

Years ago I had some first hand, online experience with the legions of passionate Ron Paul supporters. Yes, they are irritating. Yes, they are relentless. But, yes, they've got a point. Stewart makes it for them in this clip.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 17, 2011 1:19 PM | Comments (22)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The Black Obama Bus-- Would an American Flag Be Too Much to Ask? It Is? Well, How About a Bumper Strip Then?

Here's the Tour America Sarah Palin bus:

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First found in"Not for Hire:" Sarah Palin's Ride Photographed This Evening in Portsmouth, NH @ AMERICAN DIGEST

Here's the Tour America bus of the person who is currently passing himself off as the President of the United States of America:

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Perhaps the Secret Service feels that anything identifying the bus as carrying the president might make it stick out too much. Hence, the only bus on the planet that looks like Darth Vedar is aboard. And, well, perhaps he is.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 16, 2011 1:04 PM | Comments (16)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Toasting the O-Negatives

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"Baby, it's cold outside...."


"Limbo lower now. How low can you go?"

UPDATING: Today, in 2011, a new low: Obama approval drops to 39% : Don Surber Which brings me back to last year at this time....

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Today's bad news for Obama just extends the previous bad news:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22.

The good news is that it's not a new low. It's a tie!:

"This matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for this president."

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Reading that took me back about four years to an evening out in Seattle with a friend. He's a long-gone liberal who's never coming back. I've long returned from that dark tunnel, but I admire and respect him and our friendship of long standing. Our default position on politics is that "it doesn't come up."

Meeting him were a couple of his friends which are only acquaintances of mine. As such, this being Seattle, they did not suspect, even for a moment, that I happen to be "one of 'THEM'." (Indeed whenever a Seattle acquaintance discovers my politics -- as happened last week at the airport -- the reaction is invariably along the lines of "I never knew you were THAT WAY." )

Into the bar came his friends, one of them walking with a swagger as if he'd just been sprinkled with holy water by the Messiah himself. He ordered a round of drinks and when they were put up lifted his glass and said, "Forty-three percent." This was in reference to the approval rating of George W. Bush that had been announced that day.

Three glasses clinked but mine remained on the bar. My hand edged it away. The man who ordered the drinks looked at me quizzically. I looked at him and, because I am blessed with an English Major and a large mental file of American poetry, said, "'There is some shit i will not eat'."

An awkward silence ensued from which all were saved by the start of the show we'd come to see.

My friend and I still see each other. Less now than before and the elephant has moved from the lawn to the porch with its trunk in the room. I never saw his friends again. Never had to refuse another drink. I'm okay with that but they came to mind today when these new disapproval numbers of their tin god were released.

I wonder what they do now. Do they still order drinks to make toasts, or do they just grab the whiskey and CHUG-A-LUG it straight from bottle?



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 14, 2011 11:49 AM | Comments (11)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Wonderful: The Hungarian Water Park -- or-- What Backyard Swimming Pool Cannot Be Improved With an Backhoe Excavator?

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In Hungary the "Please don't pee in the pool" rule has obviously been suspended ...

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 13, 2011 8:51 PM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Let's Review: Tell Me Again About How Smart Media People, Teachers, and Civil Servants Actually Are

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Found at The Unbroken Window -- Things One is Not Permitted to Mention in Polite Company



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 13, 2011 1:33 PM | Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Comment of the Week: Newton Wants Palin to Pull the Trigger

Sarah Palin should run for the Presidency.

It doesn't matter if her campaign lasts only a few days or a few weeks. If she's out of the contest by the primaries, that's fine and dandy. I won't cry over it, and neither will she, I bet. But she must, MUST give it a try.

"The biggest risk is not to take one." I heard that quote somewhere, a long time ago. She cannot live with "What if's". She must try it. Who knows what may happen? What's the worse part - the she might not be nominated? Heck, even if she's not, that would be a blessing in disguise for her.

I still think, after all of these past months, that Sarah Palin is, among the Republican candidates, The Only One With Steel-clad Testicular Fortitude that could have only been inherited from Margaret Thatcher. (The same kind that kicked British unions in the rear to never recover; kick-started a long time of prosperity; kicked the Argentinean Army into disgrace in the Falklands War, and provided one third of the Triumvirate that dismantled the Iron Curtain.)

Today, it is just like in the late 70s: perilous times, which called for extraordinary fortitude to face extraordinary challenges. Thatcher knew what needed to be done in Britain, and did it. And (I am quite certain about this), so does Sarah Palin in America.

-- Newton: Comment on Sarah Palin Takes in the Iowa State Fair



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 12, 2011 11:27 PM | Comments (21)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Obamacare and the Constitution

Is it just me, or could we save a lot of time and money by just sending somebody around to see what Justice Kennedy thinks?



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 12, 2011 3:19 PM | Comments (5)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Really Wonderful: The Adventures of a Cardboard Box

I always wondered what happened to that box I used to have. Now I know. It's great its still out there doing its job. Made my day, week, month.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 12, 2011 2:45 PM | Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Headlines from the Greatest Small Town Newspaper on the Net

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Attention Blonde Women: You Are Not Being Audited, And Prince Albert Is Not In The Can

SWAT Team Addresses Trade Deficit Between New York And Scarborough

Local Math Teachers Amazed, Excited About Yardsticks And Tape Measures

Forest Rangers Wonder Why A Fellow From Perry Smells Like Pine Trees And Matches

Elderly Maine Residents Always Seem To Be In The Last Place You Look For Them

Still Time To Enroll At University College At Rumford/Mexico And Become A Slightly More Educated Unemployed Person

Where else but in The Rumford Meteor | Maine news from the seat of Oxford County, Maine?

I keep telling people they should subscribe, but do they listen? Noooooooo.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 12, 2011 2:16 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The Root Cause? The Root Cause is Stupidity. Pat Condell on the British Situation

"You are like rats who shit in their own nest.... You pathetic pampered human vermin."

After that he tells you what he really thinks.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 11, 2011 6:53 PM | Comments (12)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"There Will Be Bamboozling"-- Remembering Barry as an Echo Not A Choice

The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the progressive slime that day:
The polls were sinking fast, with but one year left to play.
And when stimulus died again and again, and employment ate its gun,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the Won.

First, a tour of how the progressives are feeling these days:

Nervous Democrats say President Obama must be bolder on economy - The Washington Post

I should have picked Hillary over Obama People cried and hugged. I got teary myself. A black president. The times they are a-changing. Indeed. They keep getting worse.

Obama's Path to Reelection Narrows - Ronald Brownstein - NationalJournal.com

The American Spectator : The Growing Bipartisan Consensus on Obama

"I just think the president is not very bright."

Obama's No Good, Very Bad Week - WSJ.com

Jimmy Carter Is the best-case scenario.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 11, 2011 10:47 AM | Comments (8)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Someone Wonderful: Best Baseball Moment of the Summer
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 10, 2011 1:00 PM | Comments (12)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Wonderful: The Eagle Owl Attacks
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 9, 2011 8:04 PM | Comments (8)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Is London Burning? You Don't Miss Your Water Till Your Well Runs Dry

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They're rioting in Tottenham.
They're flat-broke in Spain.
There's hurricanes on Wall Street,
And Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans,
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!

Once upon a time, for two years, I was the “Managing Director” of a magazine publishing company based in London. “Managing Director” is Brit for CEO and I had a pretty soft time of it.

I lived in a spacious flat on Eaton Place in Belgravia. It was the block you see in the lead in to the classic Masterpiece Theatre warhorse, Upstairs Downstairs. It had a couple of upscale pubs hidden round the Mews and a shopping street full of upscale merchants not far away. Belgravia itself backed up onto the back yard of Buckingham Palace. It was a posh and tony section inhabited by the posh and tony. Johnny Apple of the New York Times was putting in his stint in London just next door and we’d go over every so often to sample his cooking.

Every so often you’d see the local Belgravia Bobby take a stroll down the block; not because he was needed but because it was, well, local color. He had the classic Peeler helmet of the Bobby of yore, the whistle, the sap and the come-along voice of command. Not that he ever had to use it in the toffs Belgravia.

Toward closing time in the pubs you'd hear upper-class accents complaining about "the wogs" and the arabs which were then arriving in ever increasing numbers but such chat, when I first moved in, quickly slid off into mumbling about grouse hunting and other country life concerns of the rich and pampered of Belgravia. By the time I left two years later, the chat about wogs and Arabs was much more strident and tended to dominate the evening. The elite were clearly feeling just a bit pressed by these early harbingers of the multi-cult cult. Still, they seemed confident that their upper-class enclave was pretty much wog-proofed and that "There'll always be an England," etc., and so forth. Upper-class twits, they had no clue that they were on Darwin's count-down clock, and the Mob's midnight menu.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 9, 2011 9:36 AM | Comments (26)  | QuickLink: Permalink
America: Our Poor Are So Poor They're Fat

Must see TV with Bill Whittle walking you through the nature of "poverty" in America.

"The rich get richer... and the poor get richer too."



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 8, 2011 5:15 PM | Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Remarks That Make It Impossible for Me to Type "Oh, go fuck yourself with an atom bomb" Quickly Enough

COKIE ROBERTS: "The problem that we have here is the Constitution of the United States of America which actually does require people to come together from different perspectives whether it's divided government or not." -- NewsBusters.org

Ah yes, the eternal "problem" of the Constitution. Always in the way of the progressives getting their way. It never occurs to them that, were they ever dispose of the problem document and "get their way," the next thing on its way to them would be a bullet straight into their ear answering the eternal question about the progressive brain -- "Will it blend?". After all, any tyranny takes out the troublemakers first, and who makes more trouble with fewer life and career consequences than the Cokie Roberts of this land?

I swear that this wizened hag with the Ed "Kookie" Burns hairdo and the steely look of permanent lesbian bed death deep in the eyes is going to compel me to make a commenting macro for her and her ilk. Just press "Shift-F12" and "Go-fuck-yourself-with-an-atom-bomb" hits the text box and clicks "Submit" on full auto. It'll save me decades in a day.



Posted by Vanderleun Aug 7, 2011 1:37 PM | Comments (13)  | QuickLink: Permalink
More Obama I Say. MORE O!-BA!-MA!

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In "World's Greatest Orator" Morgan has had it:

Barack Obama has become a nightmarish, freaky bore. I mean, just face the cold hard reality: When He steps up to a podium, do you even have a glimmer of “let’s see what He has to say here”? Anticipate learning something new? Seeing something unexpected? Can you even rely on being entertained?

To which I must remark, "Au contraire, mon frère. Tout le monde désire un crescendo!" I was vastly entertained by the above clip in which we learn just how long the boot sequence on the teleprompter actually is; in which the phrase "Wait for it" acquires a new and more resonant meaning. Yes I fear I must differ and return to some previous observations from yester-yester-yester-day when love was such a simple game to play: More Obama I Say. MORE O!-BA!-MA!

I have come to realize that what is deeply wrong with this country is that so far we have not heard and seen enough of President Obama.

I now think we need to see more. Much more. We need to have a morning message from the President every day on all cable news channel. Indeed, we need to have it broadcast on all TV channels, especially ESPN and other places where citizens dodge their need to know the truth.

We need to see his message in the lead in to Good Morning America and Fox and Friends both without fear or favoritism.

Weather Channel too.

We need to have Barack Obama’s message, whatever it might be on whatever day, delivered to all of us on the front page of whatever newspaper we are still reading.

We need to have his voice and his message as the lead-in to NPR’s Morning Edition.

We need to have his message replace the bumper music at the top of Rush Limbaugh’s show.

In short, we cannot have enough of listening to the President tell us what he’s thinking and what the right way to think about what he’s thinking is.

We need to hear his words and see his face every day. Every single day.

I am in ernest about this. I will even pay higher taxes to make this so. We need, in the most urgent and important way, to see and him him All. The. Time.

I hope the coming address to Congress and a grateful nation is only the beginning of this program of all Obama all the time.

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Posted by Vanderleun Aug 6, 2011 9:38 AM | Comments (11)  | QuickLink: Permalink
The Ancien Règime **

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The tumbrils creak and rumble still
Upon the road of State,
Retracing rutted years of sand
Whose Distance storms Debate.

The passengers stand fixed as Stone
While faces jeer from Snow.
The Blade awaits its midday meal,
When Above becomes Below.

Innovations carved from clouds
Give despair and dance New measures.
The blade Reflects its evening meal
When kings slake Lower pleasures.

Arrived at Hope they gaze at mist
Where granite horses roam.
Their schedules as fixed as Dark.
Their Future -- White as bone.

The Head within the Basket sees
Vast Parliaments -- of sky.
Its ears hear only Fading surf
As the past gone years Reply.

Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 3, 2011 10:49 AM | Comments (2)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Something Wonderful: A Surviving Example of The Hippie Bus
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 1, 2011 2:11 PM | Comments (9)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Bush on 9/11: The Real Story
Continued...

Posted by Vanderleun Aug 1, 2011 11:00 AM | Comments (10)  | QuickLink: Permalink
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