Tag: Open Thread

Pony Parthian

Tonight’s Party is brought to you by Unitary Moonbat, who came up with this pun:

where tonight we’ll take a last look – a Parthian shot, if you will – at the recent history of Iran.  

https://www.docudharma.com/show…

So, in honor of the Unitary Moonbat a little look back at a lesser known singer.

I first heard of Ella Mae Morse when I was getting into Boogie Woogie Piano and listened to some Freddie Slack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E…

by the way, the EMM  entry mentions Nick Tosches.  Amazing stuff. Highly recommended  The fiction book In the Hand of Dante is kinda pedantic, well no, it’s EXTREMELY pedantic, but amazing nonetheless.  My favorite is probably Where Dead Voices Gather

http://www.exitwounds.com/Tosc…

A tribute to Ella Mae

http://www.prescottlink.com/mo…

Cow Cow Boogie was her first big hit, but I don’t care for it, so I’m not going to link to it.  It may have been named for Cow Cow Davenport   http://www.redhotjazz.com/cowc…

who could really bang the ivories, and his Cow Cow Blues  has nothing to do with cows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

His other classic is State Street Jive

Also, ya gotta love this:

Davenport learned to play piano and organ in his father’s church from his mother who was the organist and it looked like he was going to follow in the family footsteps until he was expelled from the Alabama Theological Seminary in 1911 for playing Ragtime at a church function.

Back to Ella Mae

I like this one.  Can’t really say why, it’s kinda schlocky too.  Oh well.

House of Blue Lights w/jive

You may tip Ella Mae, but do not recommend this Pony Party.

There are many excellent Earth Day Essays, along with other great work on the Front Page, read one or two if you haven’t already, then feel free to come back and boogie.

On a side note, I was given  the secret Turing Test code, but ya’know, fuck it, who cares.

Four at Four

  1. The Los Angeles Times reports Bush opens summit with leaders of Canada and Mexico. George W. Bush, Felipe Calderón of Mexico, and Stephen Harper of Canada are meeting for the fourth annual summit between the three nations. New Orleans was chosen as a venue by the Bush administration for propaganda value. Bush said he was celebrating “the comeback of a great American city” that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

    The summit will focus on trade, immigration, and cross-border drug and weapons smuggling, just as free-trade agreements and NAFTA in particular are under political attack more than at any time since the U.S.-Canada-Mexico agreement began eliminating tariffs and other barriers to North American trade 14 years ago.

    Three-way trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico has grown since 1994 from about $290 billion to $930 billion, according to U.S. government statistics.

    But Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, long an opponent of the pact, said the increase was largely the result of a “massive surge in imports” into the United States, bringing with it what the group calculated was a 691% increase in the trade deficit attributed to NAFTA.

    According to the AP, Bush refuses to admit the U.S. is in a recession. “Bush, replying to criticism from Democratic presidential candidates, said Tuesday that ‘now is not the time to renegotiate … or walk away from’ the North American Free Trade Agreement… Asked about the state of the U.S. economy, Bush said: ‘We’re not in a recession. We are in a slowdown.‘”

Four at Four continues below the fold with stories of big oil supporting state-sponsored terrorism, a plea to “eliminate capitalism” to save the planet and humanity, and an update on the Chinese arms ship en route to Zimbabwe.

Pony Party, Looking Up

According to this Yahoo!News story

…for those living in the Northern Hemisphere, a great “window of opportunity” for viewing Mercury in the evening sky is about to open up.

Muse in the Morning

For Earth Day:

Art Link

Blue Mother

Chapter 6

The Spirit of the Valley

never dies.
It is called

the Mystic Female.

The Door

of the Mystic Female

Is the root

of Heaven and Earth.

Continuously, continuously,

It seems to remain.
Draw upon it

And it serves you with ease.

–Tao te Ching (tr. Lin Yutan)

Blue Mother

Like you

I hang my head

You in sorrow

Me in shame

Blue Mother

I weep with you

for the damage done

to the spirit

of the valley

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–November 1, 2005

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Too weird not to blog.

We interrupt your regular lefty and ultra lefty radical common sense for some topics that are just too weird not to blog.

Pony Party: Not My Best Day **updated**

My dogs have been sick. Really sick. Both of them. We first noticed one was acting funny on Thursday night – nothing alarming, but he wasn’t 100%. On Friday morning, we noticed that he was still lethargic, so we called the vet. We were able to get an appointment for 3 pm.

We were able to leave work at noon. Fortunately for us, we have flexible jobs. I guess that’s an advantage of working such long hours. Anyway, when we got home, the sick pup was even sicker and the other was also showing signs of illness. Both were lethargic and walked like their joints were sore. So, we called the vet and moved up our appointment to 1:15 pm.

The vet took their temperature (to the utter dislike of my pups) and drew blood. The blood work looked normal. The vet said that it was possible that they had eaten something that was making them ill. We tried to think what they could have eaten, but we hadn’t changed anything around our place. No new plants, no new food, no new cleaning products. Why would they suddenly eat a plant – both of them – that they had previously ignored? They’re never outdoors without being on a leash. It didn’t make sense that they would both be ill.

The vet decided that they should stay overnight, with fluids administered intravenously. He said he’d call in the morning. So, we spent an unhappy night at home, without the warmth of our beloved critters.

In the morning, we called the vet – he said they were doing well – still acting lethargic, but better. We could take them home. Happily, we rushed to the clinic. They were still walking funny and had goopy eyes. But at least they were coming home.

They hadn’t progressed from Saturday afternoon. By Sunday, they appeared worse. Neither was eating anything of substance. They would barely walk and were really not happy. So we took them back to the vet. They again spent the night on IV.

Today, the vet called to say that they are both showing signs of renal failure. They’re about to examine them using ultrasound. The vet should be calling soon. I’m really scared.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to comment, but thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Four at Four

  1. Lugo wins Paraguay Presidency, ending 62 years of one party rule, reports The New York Times. Fernando Lugo, the “bishop of the poor”, a former Roman Catholic bishop “who resigned from the church two years ago to run, will be the first Paraguayan president since 1946 not to be from Colorado Party.”

    Mr. Lugo, a gray-bearded man who exudes natural warmth and often wears sandals, was backed by the Patriotic Alliance for Change, Paraguay’s second-largest party… [He] tapped into a deep frustration with single-party rule in Paraguay. He accused the Colorado Party of entrenched patronage and corruption, a theme that resonated with voters. Paraguay has struggled since the Stroessner days to rid itself of a reputation for being among the most-corrupt countries in Latin America.”

    According to The Guardian, Lugo quit the clergy because “he felt powerless to help Paraguay’s poor”.

    “We ask you never to abandon us. We’ll make democracy together!” Lugo, 56, told cheering supporters as firecrackers resounded around Asuncion last night…

    Eight months ago, Lugo welded unions, Indians and poor farmers into a coalition with the main opposition party to form the Patriotic Alliance for Change… Lugo calls himself an independent and has steered clear of Latin America’s more radical leftwing leaders…

    Lugo will take office on 15 August, and has vowed to carry out agrarian reform to ensure poor peasant farmers can till their own land in a country where a small, wealthy elite owns the vast majority of farmland and cattle ranches.

    Did the door to Bush’s escape route to Paraguay just slam shut?

Four at Four continues below the fold with news of the al-Sadr-Rice Grudge Cage Match, torture at Guantánamo, and the Bush administration’s dismal record of prosecuting terrorism cases.

Pony Party, NHL Update

With the first round of the NHL playoffs winding down, and nothing else I really feel like talking about today 😉 …

Eastern Conference

Montreal and Boston play game 7 tonight, 7pm EDT.  Obviously, the series is tied at 3 games each

Pittsburgh (2) swept Ottawa, and advances.  (Ottawa only scored 5 goals in 4 games)

Washington and Philly play game 6 tonight, 7pm EDT.  Philly leads the series 3-2.

NJ lost to the Rangers (5) 4-1.

Western Conference

Detroit (1) bested Nashville 4 games to 2.

San Jose and Calgary play game 7 Tuesday.  Obviously, the series is tied at 3 games each.

Minnesota lost to Colorado (6) 4-2.

Anaheim lost to Dallas (5) in 4-2.  (Anaheim was last-year’s cup winner)

Muse in the Morning


Strings

Semantic String Theory

Letters are scrambled

syllables sewn together

words aligned

into strings

thoughts condense

out of nothingness

and are arranged

into meaning

Sometimes

they vibrate

with Truth

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–February 3, 2008

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Our Complicit News Media-

George W. Bush and his Cabinet Personally Authorize Torture-

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.- ABC News

Pentagon Illegally Engages in War Propoganda-

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.- David Barstow

Presidential Debate Moderators Attack Democratic Candidate-

I can’t remember a debate in which the only memorable moment was the audience’s heckling of a moderator. Then again, I can’t remember a debate that became such an instant national gag, earning reviews more appropriate to a slasher movie like “Prom Night” than a civic event held in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center:

And those were the polite ones. Let’s not even go to the blogosphere.

… The trashiest ads often bumped directly into an ABC announcer’s periodic recitations of quotations from the Constitution. Such defacing of American values is to be expected, I guess, from a network whose debate moderators refuse to wear flag pins.

Ludicrous as the whole spectacle was, ABC would not have been so widely pilloried had it not tapped into a larger national discontent with news media fatuousness. The debate didn’t happen in a vacuum; it was the culmination of the orgy of press hysteria over Mr. Obama’s remarks about “bitter” small-town voters. For nearly a week, you couldn’t change channels without hearing how Mr. Obama had destroyed his campaign with this single slip at a San Francisco fund-raiser.- Frank Rich

Just in the last week.

“Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.”- The New York Times

Not just W.  Only by fully understanding what our Complicit Beltway Media Traitors have done over the last 30 years to distort the truth can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.

We know who you are and what you are- liars, cowards, and fools.

Your audience hates you and won’t buy your bullshit anymore.  That’s why you’re dying.  Good luck when the money stops losers.

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Rice in Iraq, violence surges after Sadr threat

By Sue Pleming, Reuters

1 hour, 38 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backed Iraq’s crackdown on militias in a visit on Sunday to Baghdad, where the worst fighting in weeks erupted after Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened all-out war.

Rockets blasted the fortified Green Zone compound where Rice met Iraqi officials and praised their month-old campaign against Sadr’s followers.

She had harsh words for the reclusive cleric, who on the eve of Rice’s visit vowed “open war” if the crackdown continues. Sadr has not appeared in public in Iraq in nearly a year.

Pony Party: The Bostonians

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

Henry James

For Nocatz…..

Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.

Henry James

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance… and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

Henry James

P, Masslass, Victory Coffee, and I met in Boston for a DD girl get together. Special thanks to OTB for getting us the t-shirts. We would have loved to have had you join us.

Yes boys you were invited. Yes, we talked about all of you. In a joyous and admiring tone. Not one negative vibe invaded our evening despite the fact that once we started arguing, we did not all agree.

The girls thought I would be taller. I am short. And VC had a hard time picturing me as anything other than a cat. Naturally, I took that as the highest of compliments. We also picked up a stranger, a nice woman who was attending my conference. I saw her the next day and said,”I hope you didn’t think my friends and I were too crazy, we’re truly harmless.” She told me she enjoyed herself. Nurses tend to be ever so slightly nutty when taken off their work place leashes. Never. Never go drinking with a group of young nurses. You will be under the table. Engineers, at least engineering students, tend to think of themselves as being wacky hombres, nursing student can generally match them.

It was like meeting with old friends. No awkward moments, just glee.

Here we are!

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