Author: skippybkroo

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

remember that huge scandal when chemical weapons from iraq were found in a united nations office?  well, it turns out that the culprit was less saddam hussein and more scrubbing bubbles.  asspress:

a substance found at a un weapons inspectors’ office last month and suspected of being a chemical warfare agent appears to be a non-toxic solvent, a un official said thursday.

the material was found aug. 24 at a un office in midtown manhattan. the material, from a bombed-out iraqi research facility, was in inventory files with a label that indicated it could be phosgene, a chemical substance used in the first world war.

it had been in the files for 11 years and was only identified when officials checked the inventory number against the many records in the vast archives.

un and u.s. officials said after the discovery that the material posed no threat to anyone’s health or safety. however, it was removed by a team of hazardous materials experts from the fbi and new york city police and taken to a laboratory for testing.

preliminary results indicate the substance was a non-toxic solvent, not the chemical agent phosgene, the un official said.

who knew mr. clean was a terrorist?

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

for those who thought runs on banks were a thing out of 30’s movies, think again.  the current sub-prime mortgage crisis didn’t do countrywide’s banking subsidiary any good last week.  reuters:

withdrawal slips in hand, customers lined up at countrywide bank branches on friday to take back their money, as parent countrywide financial corp. tried to assure investors and depositors that it and its bank were stable.

countrywide bank issued a statement friday that liquidity issues affecting its parent did not affect federally insured deposits at countrywide bank.

countrywide bank said it has more than $107 billion of assets and 105 banking offices.

thursday, countrywide, the largest u.s. mortgage lender, said it drew down an entire $11.5 billion bank credit line as a credit shortage limited access to short-term cash.

by noon friday, more than 40 countrywide customers had been served or were waiting in line at the branch in a los angeles suburb, waiting upward of an hour and a half to withdraw money from their accounts.

the countrywide folks wanted to make it clear that the bank was solid, even if the mortgage firm had to borrow a bit of cash:

countrywide financial corp (cfc.n: quote, profile , research) provided further details on the $11.5 billion it drew down to improve its liquidity, a friday regulatory filing showed.

the calabasas, california-based company said about $660 million was borrowed under an agreement that matures nov. 16, 2007, $2.64 billion under an agreement that matures on may 7, 2008, and $60 million under an agreement that matures may 8, 2008.

it also said it borrowed $6.44 billion and $140 million under separate agreements that mature on may 10, 2011, and $1.54 billion under an agreement that matures nov. 17, 2011.

let’s hope they didn’t borrow it from countrywide!

of course, anyone will tell you that panic is what causes panic…that, and the fact that the gop ponzi scheme of the last two decades is starting to fall apart.  asspress sez that the stop-gap bandaids the fed is trying will do no good:

the federal reserve swept into the market this past week to offer a calming hand, but that’s still no panacea for the fundamental problems wall street faces.
big institutional investors from hedge funds to investment banks are still wrestling with credit problems spawned by distressed subprime mortgage loans. the housing market still looks gloomy. and the wave of takeovers that drove stocks to new highs this year has dropped off considerably.

the fed’s discount-rate cut and injection of billions of dollars into the banking system alleviate only some of the stress. wall street observers say there is still plenty of risk and that the aftershocks from the failure of billions of dollars in subprime loans have yet to be felt.

“what the fed did was about consistent with putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound,” said chris johnson, founder of cincinnati-based johnson research group. “you have a situation where the subprime concerns have spread, and there are still a lot of things going on in this market that are just wrong.”

investors are really hankering for a more important interest-rate cut — in the federal funds rate — when policymakers meet next month. that would lower borrowing costs on everything from school loans to mortgages and help stimulate the economy. but there’s a catch even with a fed funds cut — it would take months for the benefits to be felt.

investors must also take into account that it’s the dead of august — not exactly a time of the year known for big market comebacks.

who cares about august?  we’ve still got october coming up!

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

it was a balmy summer’s nite here in los angeles (incredibly…usually in august it’s a stifling hot infernal by now) and skippy went to an upscale (read:  minimalist to the point of austere) west hollywood restaurant called republic to hear john edwards speak.

billed as “small change for big change,” this gathering boasted that you didn’t have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet a presidential candidate.  

that turned out to be right and wrong.  skippy didn’t pay tens of thousands of dollars (it was only $15…a pretty good pricetag); but, alas, he didn’t actually meet john edwards.  it was far too crowded.
the good news for the edwards campaign was that far more people than they expect to showed up.  skippy waited for about 45 minutes after the supposed start of the event in a line that stretched literally around 3 sides of the building and all the way down the alley.

the bad news was for skippy;  he brought a skippy t-shirt as a gift for sen. edwards, and planned on introducing himself thusly:  “hello, sen. edwards, i write a political blog called skippy the bush kangaroo. it’s basically an anti-catholic blog where i make fun of people’s religion.  can i have your support?”  ok, the amanda marcotte reference probably wouldn’t have endeared the senator to skippy, but he was sure the free t-shirt would have.

but it was all for naught, as only a handful of people actually got near enough to shake the senator’s hand.

while in line, skippy overheard many people passionately discussing politics and what was wrong with this country today.  you would have thought it was a bloggers convention, except everyone dressed nice!

someone in line was talking about global warming;  they said the glaciers will have melted by 2030.  skippy turned and said the glaciers will have melted by the time they get into the venue to hear the speech.  but, eventually, everyone got in.

it was incredibly crowded.  it was difficult to makes one’s way to the cash bar to buy refreshment.  but that was, at least, a goal, and it wiled away the time otherwise spent standing around (no chairs) in the patio courtyard waiting for sen. edwards.

but finally, when he did make his entrance, everybody was enthusiastic about it.  tho he had a few microphone problems, sen. edwards was charismatic and charming and full of energy.  he never faltered in his speech, which sounded less like a rehearsed diatribe and more like an impassioned dialogue.

firstly, he said elizabeth is doing well.  the crowd erupted into cheers.  and then he went into what he planned to do once he became president.  this included universal health care (he pointed out that he was the only of the democrats to actually come up with a plan for such); a suggestion for “college for all” where a kid who graduates high school and is accepted to college and works 10 hours a week while going to school will get his tuition paid (big applause by the young crowd); stopping global warming with carbon caps and no new nuclear energy plants; and getting out of iraq (and he chastised the democrats for not refusing to fund the war).

and then, he said he would rescind all the laws allowing illegal wire-tapping of american citizens, which got the crowd going even wilder.  then he paused for a second, and said, incredulously, “i can’t believe that a presidential candidate nowadays has to say something like that,” which got even more applause.

he ended his speech (rather short, in skippy’s opinion, considering the long speech he saw al gore give in 2004 up in westwood) with a plea for help from the average american.  all great movements, he said, comes from regular people like us.  he paraphrased gandhi:  be the change you want.  the audience, admittedly his supporters, broke into wild cheering as he left the stage and signed autographs.

all in all, skippy was impressed with sen. edwards enthusiasm and sincerity, which, we are afraid, the multi-millionaire media will not allow to get onto television.  in person the man is magnetic;  we doubt that america will ever see that en masse.  

skippy recommends that if sen. edwards comes to your town, you go and listen for yourself.

we usually don’t take requests, but gadfly made such an impassioned argument over at watching those we chose about the senate dems caving into awol:

did reid not even think of trying to prevent cloture, or otherwise using senate procedural hurdles as roadblocks? and, as blogger corpus juris has said, where’s reid’s you tube moment on this?

senate and house democratic leadership had to know bush was going to pull out all the rhetorical stops on this, and that rove was likely to try to spin this for political gain. so why didn’t they have an advance counter-marketing plan? here’s some possible talking points:

“democrats want to totally protect americans, including protecting their privacy.”

“democrats have a better bill.” (and why they didn’t actually have one lined up a week ago, i don’t know)

“we know that americans don’t want to surrender their privacy and other rights.”

instead, democratic congressional leaders demonstrate that all too often, they are still being reactive rather than proactive. i think it’s about time for skippy to repost his “no money for democrats” post.

all right, all you blog lovers out there, sit back and take a trip down blog memory lane with this rockin’ golden oldie from the skippy vaults…this one goes out for gadfly:

action alert: no more $$ for dems

steven d, writing over at booman last week, expressed some sentiments that have been roiling in our minds as of late:

half my spam these days comes from democratic politicians requesting my credit card number, or my check, preferably in an amount larger than $100. true, it does get worse during an election year, but since 2008 is the “big one” with the presidency up for grabs, the calls for cash have started earlier and earlier…

no, we are the free money people. our emails receive automated replies, not personal ones. our phone calls get stuck in easily deleted voice mail caches, or if we’re lucky, half listened to by some young staffer who probably thinks what we have to say is a big fat waste of his or her time. and the reason is because we can’t contribute enough money in our pay to play political system to earn us any real access…

the single biggest reason democrats won control of the house and senate was their pledge to change the direction of the war in iraq. well, they didn’t change it, bush did with his “surge” plan which is now killing more american soldiers each month even as there is no let up (so far as we can tell from censored media reports) in the levels of death and destruction which the iraqi people are continuing to endure.

the democrats gleefully took our money. they gladly accepted our volunteer efforts. and they rejoiced in our votes which gave them control of both houses of congress for the first time in over a decade. then they slapped us in the face, told us to shut up, and tried to make lemonade out of the bags of stale urine they dumped on our heads after they voted to give bush every damn thing he wanted without a single relevant concession on his part.

okay, that’s fine. nobody said politics wasn’t a dirty game. but no one said we have to keep paying for being mistreated and abused by the party that putatively represents our interests, either. so here’s my recommendation to you:

stop sending dems your money!

i mean it. stop all contributions. and after you do, send them emails or call them on the phone and tell them you will no longer contribute to any democrat or democratic organization or political action committee, ad nauseam, until they stop funding the iraq war. that’s what i am going to do with respect to the democratic national committee, the only democratic organization i contribute to on a regular (i.e., monthly basis). i send them a monthly amount via my credit card every month. but no more.

look, i understand that democrats can’t get much of their agenda, if anything, passed so long as george bush can veto their legislation. they can’t pas universal health care, for example, or a bill to start limiting our use of fossil fuels by putting caps on carbon emissions. they don’t have the votes to override a veto by bush. so i won’t hold them accountable for not passing much needed progressive legislation.

but funding the iraq war doesn’t require passing legislation. all it requires is not passing a bill to fund the war in iraq. or keep sending the same bill back to bush which mandates a withdrawal of us troops and make him blink first. but they couldn’t do that, despite the fact that 70% of americans disapprove of both bush and his handling of the iraq war.

so let them drink tea and eat cake without my hard earned dollars paying for their privileges. and without yours, and yours, and yours … etc. because maybe then they’ll finally take us seriously and pay attention when we tell them to:

support the troops — bring them home. now!

period. end of discussion.

we totally agree. and we have already begun to implement this policy.

both mr. and mrs. skippy have donated extensively (at least, for middle class people) to various dem candidates and organizations in the past. they have donated enough to be on several lists of suckers that give money which other organizations use to call and solicit funds.

just yesterday skippy received a call from the “democratic finance committee.” once the caller identified whom he was representing, skippy told him in no uncertain terms, “you guys really screwed up on the iraq funding withdrawl vote. i’m not giving you guys another cent until you get that right.”

and he hung up.

we strongly urge everyone to do the same. not only stop giving money to dem pols, like so many enablers spotting the drunk on the corner a dollar for “food,” but also let the candidates and organizations know exactly why the teat of free currency has dried up.

who’s with us?

ps. if you’d like the nifty “no $$ for dems” logo for your own blog, email skippy and he’ll send you the code!

(tip of the kangaroo tail to blue girl, red state, for the heads up about gadfly’s request!)

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

via a comment at swampland concerning the repubbb’s fear of cats on pianos and other youtube videos, we took a look at some of the actual questions that have been submitted to youtube for the upcoming postposed repubbblican debate.

granted, we viewed but a handful of the questions submitted. and it’s possible that we randomly picked the only logical, thoughtful and adult questions out of a batch of otherwise looney-toon videos.

sure, there was the odd ball that made the dem’s snowman look like william f. buckley, jr. (we love this guy).
but the majority of the ones we saw posed many excellent questions that any candidate, dem or repubbb, should not only be able to answer, but also should be ready and willing to answer (even tho most repubbbs would run like a chickenhawk from this one).

thusly the repubbbs’ penchant for avoiding the youtube format, in light of the outstanding questions already posted, makes the gop look like the insular ancient technophobe party out of touch with real americans more than ever.

and we thought romney was a mormon, not a quaker.

“tie the dog to the top of the buggy, mitt!”

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

due to the wonderful nature of randomocity in the universe, the daily kos random blog roll of 10 user blogroll links (changed daily) has listed skippy the bush kangaroo for four days in a row.

since a lot of our disagreement with markos is based on being unceremoniously dumped from his blogroll, we feel that we must now make some amends.

ergo, we will randomly apologize for 4 random things we said about kos.

we have counted approximately 30 posts about kos which we have written since being dumped off his roll (the number of which brings to mind the shakespearean quote about some lady protesting too much somewhere).

we then generated 4 random numbers with this random number generator.  those numbers are:

28 4 26 13

so we will apologize for those posts.  specifically

#28:  it takes a big booman to do a big job

booman graciously took it upon himself to add all the blogs to booman’s roll which markos and duncan dumped from their rolls.  but we must apologize.  we said it took a big booman to do a big job.  if any of you have met booman in person, you know that he’s not particularly big (not that he’s short, he’s just right).  we regret having said he was big.  he is not.  he’s medium.  our apologies.

#4:  killing two bugaboos w/one blog

we are sorry we agreed with steven d at booman who said he was often at cross purposes with markos.  but we we sincerely apologize.  we don’t agree with steven d.  he is never at cross purposes with markos, and if he says he is, he is a damnable liar.

#26:  three questions of the day

man, this one is way beyond us.  mimus pauly, our co-blogger, wrote on this post, en toto:

duncan who?  markos who?  jesus what?

we don’t even know what the hell mimus was talking about. and you can bet, ladies and gentlemen, for that, we apologize.

finally, #13:  dear markos:  it gives us no pleasure to say “we told you so”

this one is almost a no-brainer. we got 7 kinds of sh*t from most people about this post wherein we chastized markos for dismissing cyber-stalking against kathy sierra, when not 3 days later, the virginia tech massacre took place.  at the time, we seemed to think there was a cautionary moral lesson involved, something along the lines of “don’t dismiss stalking as violence against women, because it could snowball into real violence.”

upon reflection, we realize that it was an argument so weak that liberace could kick sand in its face.  we truly regret having made such a facetious connection, tho we stand behind the primary premise that cyber-violence against women should not be dismissed.

we hope this sets a random amount of the record straight.  we randomly want markos to not feel bad for a random amount of things that may or may not have randomly occurred.

we randomly regret a random amount of those errors.

[ed. note:  and to a lesser extent, duncan.]

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

mr. and mrs. skippy enjoyed several hours of the live earth concerts yesterday. skippy started by watching king brown band and toni collette & finish from sydney, australia, via the net on friday evening. the connection was suprisingly good and the msn website had a nice big screen (which could be enlarged), so it was a good web presentation.

as the saturday wore on, both bravo and cnbc carried various venues of the concerts. the chili peppers rocked the house at wembly stadium, and smashing pumpkins were also particularly good. lenny kravitz, looking a bit thicker than we remember him, got the whole crowd going in rio, when he left the stage and wandered out into the audience to finish “let love rule.” it was also bizarrely exciting to see kayne west rap with sting & the police on “message in a bottle,” which was an appropriate song, because its refrain of “sending out an s o s” went perfectly with the logo of the entire concert series.
also of note: melissa etheridge, genesis, duran duran, ub40 (they be 50!) metallica, shakira (looking not like a belly dancer for once), linkin park, kelly clarkson (who is growing into a great singer) and of course, mrs. skippy’s favorite, madonna. but skippy was incredibly happy to see roger waters do the finale of dark side of the moon, from us and them thru eclipse. and then he topped it off with a children’s choir joining him for another brick in the wall, as a huge inflatable pig floated thru the audience.

if there was a problem with the broadcasts, it was the jumping around from venue to venue, artist to artist, with no apparent rhyme or reason. we would have liked to have seen madonna’s set all in a piece; and it was jarring to be watching a dark night at giants stadium one minute and then a bright daylight set at sydney’s venue. and, switching back and forth between bravo, cnbc and nbc (in prime time) the same artists would be seen over and over again (at one point, roger waters was on all three channels at once! now, we love roger waters, but he ain’t no sid barrett).

we missed keith urban and alicia keyes doing gimmee shelter, which was apparently the highlight of the concerts, and we didn’t see any of the dc concerts with garth brooks and trisha yearwood. in theory, everything is available on demand at the web site.

jeralyn has a great live-blogging account of the concerts at talkleft.  but for an opposing view, simply left behind was underwhelmed by nbc’s coverage.

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

let us, snarkmeisters that we are, be the first on the left to relish the irony that the man whose wife fought desperately to have congress pass laws insisting on warning labels for popular music is sponsoring world-wide concerts this weekend.

now, we are not trying to dismiss the importance of global warming awareness, nor the importance of a good boogie session.  we just think it’s a bit funny that al gore worked hard to enlist the aid of the very same music acts whom 22 years ago his wife fought against (madonna hit #8 on tipper’s list of the filthy fifteen, for the incredibly sexual and ultra-violent “dress you up with my love” back in 1985).

that being said, we still urge everyone to ignore tipper and watch the 24 hours of concerts this weekend, beginning in australia, and moving around the globe, with an extra concert added in the dc area, and more to be announced.

[ed. note:  be sure to check out the schedule; due to the international dateline, the concerts will actually start tonight at 9:10 pm eastern, 6:10 pm real time, and continue on from there.]
and, in further ironic al gore news, a bookie in dublin who bet against the longshot that “al gore” would be the next famous celebrity arrested, is paying out on the bet.  rte news:

bookmaker paddy power, which offered 14 to 1 odds that al gore would be the next high profile american to be arrested, paid out today.

of course, it was the former vice president’s son, al gore iii, who was arrested by california police earlier this week, but the bet did not specify which al gore it had to be.

some of the 50 or so people who placed their bets on al gore were quick to claim the more than €10,000 payout in this ‘bizarre coincidence’, according to a paddy power statement.

‘we got a good stoning thanks to the vice president’s son,’ the statement said in an apparent pun given the nature of his arrest.

we’d sure like to watch the concerts with al gore iii, except now he’s in rehab.

[promoted by BooMan]

jim capozzola, the blogfather of all left blogtopia and writer of the rittenhouse review, has passed away. susie mandrak of suburban guerilla gives us the terrible news:

my friend jim died this evening.

jim, one of the founders of the political blogosphere, started the rittenhouse review a week or two before duncan black started eschaton.

he was my fairy blogfather. he showed me how to install a sitemeter, he gave me tips for building readership, and advised me to “pick a fight with a blogger who’s much better known – you can’t believe how well it works.” (i never took his advice, though.) he even paid to have the ugly banner ad removed from the top of my first site.

more than that, jim was extraordinarily generous. a master networker, he insisted on introducing all of his friends to each other and they, in turn, became friends. “see?” he’d say. “i told you you’d hit it off.” in turn, i introduced him to the sweet potato fries and the chocolate bread pudding at silk city.

julia of sisyphus shrugged goes on:

jim was prickly and suspicious and cynical and hard-edged and one of the sweetest people i’ve ever met.

i first “met” jim when he linked to something i wrote and i wrote him a thank you note and he thought i was trolling for a sidebar link, because everyone did, because jim was it back then.

he championed me all the same, as he did lots of other people who are big bloggers now.

we got to be e-mail buddies, and we met when he came to new york for one of the first liberal blogger foodfests (brother’s barbecue, because jim loved barbecue, and we left a large tip and the waitress told us that the conservatives didn’t tip).

then we arranged to meet in philadelphia and i ended up at the house of a nice young couple named black along with everyone with a blog who i wanted to meet in a hundred mile radius.

jim, in the mean time, was effortless and insanely dapper and endlessly kind to newcomers who he thought should be getting more notice than they did.

i’ll post some of his greatest hits in a bit, so you’ll know what all the fuss is about, but let’s let jim the nice guy have his due for a few hours.

dammit, this makes me mad.

anyway, if you’re so inclined, what you could do for jim that would have made him happy is sometime pimp a blog that you don’t think is getting as much attention as it deserves.

also maybe send your friends an e-mail when you don’t have an excuse.

the staff at skippy international is terribly depressed to hear this.

jim was a friend to skippy’s blog, and one of its earliest supporters.  back when blogger forced people to buy their way out of running a blogger banner at the top of their blogs, jim paid the $11 for skippy to go bannerless.  and he did it without telling us, and only informed us after the fact.  he was quite generous, and with his blogging expertise and time as well (he was the one that warned us how litigious matt drudge could be).

jim’s was one of the very first blogs to populate blogtopia, preceding both duncan, as susie notes, and markos, as well.  it was jim’s early support of skippy’s blog on the rittenhouse roll that lead to others noticing our work.

it is ironic that on this day when steve gilliard’s blog has been continued by others, we also put jim capozzola to rest.  blogtopia has lost another unique and important voice.

in accordance with julia’s suggestion. we suggest everyone pop by all the blogs we’ve said hello to.

rest in peace, jim.

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

in a little known interview with fark.gov, markos moulitsas, aka the great and powerful kos, admitted to actually being a future reincarnation of a clone of karl rove which came back in time to destroy the blogosphere before it could usurp george bush’s power.

the interview was actually given in 2010, but the crack i t staff at skippy international was able to trace the isp footprints foward 3 years into the future (it has something to do with our servers being cross-connected with the clock radio in the break room) and was able to find kos’s own words actually admitting that he’s out to destroy everyone whom he purged from his blogroll earlier this year.
an except from the fark.gov interview:

f:  so you’re actually a clone.

mm:  yes.  i’m the 23rd generation of a karl rove clone experiment conducted in by the bill frist institute of flat earth science in the year 2525.

f:  in the year 2525?  is man still alive?

mm:  yes, and women are kept in pens for men’s pleasure and to make babies.  although we don’t need to make babies anymore because the grand exhalted leader jenna bush xiv has declared stem cell research legal for all white people who make more than $500 million a year.

f:  adjusted for inflation, that must be…

mm:  not all that much.  a coke costs $100,000.

f:  so, you’re really karl rove, come back in time to destroy the blogosphere.

mm:  yes.  it was decided by the dick cheney 5000 computer-bot that the only way to ensure the great republican revolution had staying power was to make the left look looney.

f:  and you’re doing that now?

mm:  well, first we tried sending a real fat guy who made goofy movies back in time, but that didn’t work out.

f:  michael moore?

mm:  chris farley.  who knew heroin was so much fun?  so, anyway, it was my mission to come back to pre-21st century berkeley, start up a small internet concern, then convince everybody that if we banded together, we could change the world.

f:  did you?

mm:  of course.  my powers of persuasion are legendary.  and i’m incredibly charming in person.

f:  i’ll admit to wanting to have sex you with you right now.

mm:  understandable.  using these great charms, my hologram jerome armstrong and i were able to convince the majority of left-leaning computer geek slackers to vote for the democratic party.

f:  as opposed to someone who would actually stand up to bush?

mm:  exactly.  we were able to stave off actual grassroots change and let the glorious republican mass mind-control take place.  now the future is one of peace and prosperity for old rich white men everywhere inside the beltway.  oh, by the way, i’m going to have to kill you, you know.

f:  i guessed.  but can we have sex first?

mm:  no.

f:  aaaaarrrrrghhhhggghhh!!!!!!  my spleen!!!

it is our sincere hope that by publishing this interview we can change the course of history, and…

arrrggghh!! our spleen!