Tuesday News Bucket

14 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on November 27, 2007 at 7:19 am

   strikes again: DesMoines Register

   Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson promised today to provide a new style at the White House with a positive, bipartisan administration closely linked with common people.

   He said he would bring Americans together by appointing a Cabinet of Democrats, Republicans and independents. In addition, he would spend nights in the homes of average Americans and would meet with them individually to hear their concerns.

   What, no pajama parties at the White House, Bill?

   • 

     Kahli on November 27, 2007 at 8:48 am

     I just threw up a little in my mouth.

     • 

       Nag on November 27, 2007 at 10:18 am

       When I read your comment I just snorted uncontrollably and coffee shot out of my nose.

2. 

   CabinGirl on November 27, 2007 at 7:27 am

   but totally worth the read:  The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush.

3. 

   CabinGirl on November 27, 2007 at 7:39 am

   Sally Quinn and her friends buy their cocktail weenies at Costco: NYT

   “I do it — Costco all the way,” said the writer Sally Quinn, who is known for the power salons she puts on with her husband, the former Washington Post editor, Ben Bradlee, at her Georgetown town house. “I just started.”

   Ann Jordan, the wife of Vernon Jordan, also calls herself “a big fan” and says she has used Costco food for parties, especially for the fund-raisers she held during the Clinton years. Ellen Bennett, a fine art photographer and the wife of Robert S. Bennett, President Clinton’s personal lawyer in the Paula Jones case, has thrown an open house “Costco party” each Christmas since 2004.

   “Pigs in blankets, salamis, salmon, shrimp, pâté, cheese,” said Mrs. Bennett, remembering her parties.

   I can’t believe that was considered worthy of an article, especially since more and more regular people are wishing they could afford to shop at Costco.

   • 

     idredit on November 27, 2007 at 9:27 am

     most of these prepared foods are imported from China. A friend in the bakery business tells me they can’t compete with the Costco cheesecake.  Made in China.

4. 

   Kahli on November 27, 2007 at 8:51 am

   This is the country we’ve become.

   Medicare is trying to recoup money from hospice programs where the patients have the audacity to live too long.

5. 

   idredit on November 27, 2007 at 9:22 am

   No:16  Annapolis

   • 

     dada on November 27, 2007 at 12:07 pm

     as chimpy and his

     courtesan

     sec.state CONdi make another flailing attempt to salvage some semblance of a legacy in the ME, syrias’ attendance is being touted as a significant achievement:

     Condi’s Road to Damascus

     Remember Nancy Pelosi’s spring break in Damascus? Condoleezza Rice apparently does not. When the House Speaker paid Syrian strongman Bashar Assad a call back in April, President Bush denounced her for sending “mixed signals” that “lead the Assad government to believe they are part of the mainstream of the international community, when in fact they are a state sponsor of terror.” Today, said sponsor of terror will take its place at the table Ms. Rice has set for the Middle Eastern conference at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

     Only at Foggy Bottom would Syria’s last-minute decision to go to Annapolis be considered a diplomatic triumph.
     .
     .
     In the meantime, we have the Annapolis conference, and the one-day photo-op it provides Ms. Rice. In the spirit of giving credit where it’s due, the least the Secretary can do is invite the Speaker to the party.

     wsj

     and just so he can get his picture in there too, dimson will do a drive-by, and then leave the hard work to others.

     ceo president indeed…meh.

     lTMF’sA

     • 

       idredit on November 27, 2007 at 2:02 pm

       we speak to and negotiate with terrorists when it suits.

       This is one huge charade.

       The Saud explains to TIME why they’re attending:

       Did you have reservations about attending?

       We were fearful of failure. For us, of course, and what the turn of events after a failure would be. But also for the United States. We were anxious that the credibility of the United States is maintained.

       Do you suppose under those robes he’s sporting a cast on his arm?  The royals came under pressure. Note the announcement – only yesterday – the Bush-al Maliki’s deal…’we’re not leaving Iraq…your Sunni brothers won’t be left to the slaughter so you’d better attend….meme’

6. 

   CabinGirl on November 27, 2007 at 11:12 am

   of this story from Reuters

   Flashing a dazzling smile and built like an Olympic basketball star, the 22-year-old said he has slept with more than 100 white women, most of them 30 years his senior.

   “When I go into the clubs, those are the only women I look for now,” he told Reuters. “I get to live like the rich mzungus (white people) who come here from rich countries, staying in the best hotels and just having my fun.”

   At one club, a group of about 25 dancing men — most of them Joseph look-alikes — edge closer and closer to a crowd of more than a dozen white women, all in their autumn years.

   “It’s not love, obviously. I didn’t come here looking for a husband,” Bethan said over a pounding beat from the speakers.

   “It’s a social arrangement. I buy him a nice shirt and we go out for dinner. For as long as he stays with me he doesn’t pay for anything, and I get what I want — a good time. How is that different from a man buying a young girl dinner?”

   Obvious health concerns aside, I think it’s interesting that older women seeking younger adult males for a good time get lumped together with pedophile tourists, while men who do something similar are just ‘middle age crazy’ and able to do the same thing from the comfort of home, no trip to Kenya necessary.

7. 

   anarchronarchist on November 27, 2007 at 11:36 am

   This guy does a grade C hatchet job on Bush, The Clintons, heck – everyone! – but it would be fun if it all were true/not a comical bit of rhetorical contortion:

   Bush on Drugs

   If you are gonna write a piece like this, do a good job…

8. 

   ask on November 27, 2007 at 11:37 am

   Poor in need of help from global warming

   UNITED NATIONS – Floods, droughts and other climate disasters will rob millions of children of the decent meals and schools they need unless rich nations pony up $86 billion by 2015 to help the poor adapt to global warming, an expert panel warned Tuesday.

   The U.S. government needs to cover $40 billion of that spending, which will “strengthen the capacity of vulnerable people” to cope with climate-related risks, according to the report commissioned by the U.N. Development Program.

   The nearly 400-page Human Development Report comes just a week before the world’s nations convene in Indonesia to negotiate a new climate treaty. It adds a dire economic perspective to previous U.N. scientific findings that carbon and other heat-trapping “greenhouse gas” emissions must stabilize by 2015 and then decline.

   Without the money, the panel found, a warmer world “could stall and then reverse human development” in the countries where 2.6 billion people live on $2 a day or less.

   • 

     ask on November 27, 2007 at 11:43 am

     More from this year’s Human Development Report.

     Iceland best place to live, Africa worst: UN

     BRASILIA (Reuters) – Iceland has overtaken Norway as the world’s most desirable country to live in, according to an annual U.N. table published on Tuesday that again puts AIDS-afflicted sub-Saharan African states at the bottom.
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     Rich free-market countries dominate the top places, with Iceland, Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland the first five but the United States slipping to 12th place from eighth last year in the U.N. Human Development Index.

     But the index, blending 2005 figures for life expectancy, educational levels and real per capita income, finds that all 22 countries falling into its “low human development” category are in sub-Saharan Africa, with Sierra Leone last.

     In 10 of these countries, two children in five will not reach the age of 40, said the compilers at the U.N. Development Program. Last year’s report said HIV/AIDS had had a “catastrophic effect” on life expectancy in the region.