I am sooooo pooped, after spending the day in prison, but I could not be more proud on my guys. One had his parole hearing last week. We’ll call him S. He has been in prison for 23 years, and I know only a couple other people who have worked as long or as hard to change. The board will deliberate on him in the next couple months. Prayers, good thoughts, and good wishes please. Critter sends greetings to critter. I’m current with replies. I will hopefully be sufficiently rested to be back to normal tomorrow.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:27 (average 5:24). To do it, click here. How did you do?
SOTU:
Here’s the speech in its entirety.
This may have been Obama’s best yet. Rubio’s speech, except for his brief deception that creating a permanent underclass of immigrant serfs is favoring immigration reform, could have been delivered by Little Lord Willard before the election. Rand ‘asshole, son of asshole’ Paul never wandered from beneath his tin foil hat. His tax plan would hand billionaires in the 0.1% a bigger tax break each year than most Americans earn in a lifetime.
Short Takes:
From MoveOn: Words From A President Many Never Expected To Hear During Their Lifetime
I fully agree. That we love must be all that matters, not who we love.
From NY Times: …At times, the meeting slipped into an unusually accusatory and bitter back-and-forth, with Republicans like Ted Cruz, a freshman senator from Texas, going as far as to suggest that Mr. Hagel had accepted money from nations that oppose American interests.
Saying that he had serious doubts about the source of payments that Mr. Hagel had accepted for speaking engagements, Mr. Cruz declared, “It is at a minimum relevant to know if that $200,000 that he deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly from North Korea.”
Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and other Democrats countered by saying that Republicans had unfairly questioned the integrity of both Mr. Hagel, a two-time Purple Heart recipient, and had undermined the work of the normally bipartisan committee itself.
“Senator Cruz has gone over the line,” Mr. Nelson said. “He basically has impugned the patriotism of the nominee.”
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who is opposing his former colleague, also bristled at the attacks on Mr. Hagel, saying that “no one on this committee should at any time impugn his character or his integrity.”
Teabag Cruz was way over the line with is lies about Hagel. On the other hand, rare kudos for McCain for having the integrity to defend an enemy against a vile, unjustified attack.
From Reuters: Comcast Corp clinched full control of NBC Universal for $16.7 billion on Tuesday, the latest in a series of deals that have taken the cable operator from humble roots in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Manhattan’s iconic Rockerfeller Center.
To give you a better idea just how much media is concentrated, here’s what Comcast gets, according to Wikipedia.
Subsidiaries
- NBC Broadcasting
- NBC Advertising Sales
- NBC Owned Television Stations
- Affiliate Relations
- Network Research
- Domestic Television Distribution
- NBCUniversal Digital Entertainment
- Special Events
- NBC Entertainment
- NBC programming
- Universal Television
- Universal Pictures
- Focus Features
- Working Title Films
- Universal Studios Home Entertainment
- Universal Animation Studios
- Illumination Entertainment
- NBCUniversal Cable
- Syfy
- Chiller
- Cloo
- E!
- G4
- USA Network
- Universal HD
- Universal Cable Productions
- NBC Sports Group
- Comcast Sports Group
- Golf Channel
- NBC Sports
- NBC Sports Digital Network
- NBC Sports Network
- Entertainment & Digital Networks and Integrated Media
- (entertainment networks)
- Bravo Media
- Oxygen Media
- Style Media
- Telemundo
- mun2
- PBS Kids Sprout (JV)
- TVOne (JV)
- (digital networks)
- DailyCandy
- Fandango
- iVillage
- Television Without Pity
- Integrated Media group
- NBCUniversal News Group
- NBC News
- CNBC
- MSNBC
- The Weather Channel (JV)[31]
- Canal+ Group (50%)
- Canal+
- StudioCanal
- i-Télé
- Cyfra+ (75%)
- CanalSat
Joint Ventures
- United International Pictures
Cartoon:
17 Responses to “Open Thread–2/13/2012”
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4:03 It was hard to find this villa hiding in the trees.
5:09 I got lost in the trees!
3:56 Through the woods and over the hill to grandma's house! I really get ticked when I'm chugging along and then my computer freezes — I was about 3/4s done when the computer froze for nearly a minute. Sometimes I notice right away when it starts again, sometimes I don't. Had that trouble again today. We have had this one before within the past year.
At least I wsasn't last!
SOTU ~ I think the President did a wonderful job especially about gun control. He could have put a stonger spin on job creation though.
MoveOn ~ He represents all peoples' interests very well except the uber-wealthy. But, they don't need another champion in D.C.
NY Times & the Cartoon ~ Today I have to comment on the 2 of them together.
Cruz just may be crazier than Rubio and Paul.
Reuters ~ There is nothing like a monopoly!
It did not bither mne that he didn't, because that has been his focus for the last two years.
Amen!
The craziness of all three asymptotically approach infinity.
Oligopoly, actually.
Puzzle — 3:56 Through the woods and over the hill to grandma's house!
MoveOn — AMEN!!!!! True brotherly/sisterly love and respect know no fear and know no boundaries.
NY Times — Damn it Harry, you screwed the pooch again. Not only is poopyhead Graham making a rucus but so is Inhofe.
I bet a fly on the wall in that hearing room would have the vapours as a result of all the rancour in the room. And the sarcasm from Carl Levin at the close was surely an indication that it will be a tough 2 years ahead.
Reuters — I wonder what this will mean for MSNBC stalwarts like Ed Shultz, Racel Maddow etc? Being from the deep south in Mississippi, does this mean that their political and editorial focus will be more conservative moving the liberals out? I hope that does not happen. Don't need any more conservative pundits. As Patty says, nothing like a monopoly.
Cartoon — They are both looney tunes and should be checked into an asylum for the politically challenged.
Yet another win for you.
Amen!
See my #2 today.
I'm not too concerned about that. The ratgings of MSNBC keep going up, and the ratings of Faux Noise keep dropping. MSNBC is alone in the fact based-center left niche. If Comcast moves them they will have to compete with CNN for the gact based right niche or with Fox for the lie based GOP propaganda niche.
One with very thich pads.
It was a superb SOTU address by our President.
Rubio? Not so much.
But I actually think his "Swig Heard 'Round the World" may actually help him by shifting the focus from his banalities and lies to his gaffe (or is that quaffe?). So let's enjoy some of the better Tweets about his slurp …
Rubio just locked down the thirsty vote.
In fairness to Rubio, we are in the middle of record-setting drought.
Shorter Rubio Speech: take Mitt Romney's policies and just add water
Rubio – NOT ready for Prime Time … but definitely ready for SNL
I don't always drink H2O, but when I do, I prefer it be during the most important speech of my career.
Republicans upset with Rubio for diluting their talking points.
… AND what I think is the hands-down winner:
Rubio was able to turn water into whine
Agree.
Agree.
Love them all!!
I take meds that cause that exact problem. And if I don't get a drink of water, I start coughing and choking. But still – he could have done it on camera ahead of time if he has that problem. It didn't absolutely have to be live, did it? I mean, you learn to prepare for things like that – or you should. I carry a bottle of water everywhere in my purse. If Rubio has the same problem as me, this is very telling. He can't prepare properly for a speech (by not giving the most important speech of his career LIVE). How can he be organized enough to be in the Senate or run for president?
LOL, So I Need…"water into whine." PERFECT.
I stumbled across these 2 videos when I was opening up my computer tonight. There is talk that Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet is thought to be in the running, so of course Colbert had something to say about it.
http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/a-canuck-cant-be-pope-stephen-colbert/185ebwb4z
And this is from 2011, Colbert commenting on Canada. We are a favourite target of his!
http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/stephen-colbert-riffs-on-canadian-election/1854ltaqn?cpkey=e0828c4c-e604-45d3-b7ab-0b036a712e15%257c%257c%257c%257c
I sure had a good laugh!
If Ouellet is elected Pope, then he's the Canadian I want to own. 😉
SOTU — Excellent speech and I particularly liked how Mr Obama segued into the next topic all through the speech. It flowed. I was trying to watch Boehner to get his reaction and was some what amused. When Mr Obama mentioned all troops out of Afghanistan by end of 2014, Boehner did not applaud nor stand — sour grapes from a war monger? — but shortly after applauded to keeping up the effort to deep six Al Qaeda — then at the mentioning of signing an executive order over strengthening defenses against cyber attacks etc, he was wiggling in his seat and not applauding with others. And it certainly appeared he was not to pleased with the reference to gun control also — he probably though the president was going to take away his shot glass.
I very much liked the opening with the words of JFK — "…not rivals for power but partners for progress …"
And I was happy to hear him give voice to the crisis that have been manufactured by the obstinate and obstructionist Republican/Teabaggers, refering to the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling, but certainly not limited to those.
I've heard SOTU speeches before and been bored out of my gourd, but not this one.
I have seen/heard/read almost every SOTU since the early 1960s. This is the best to date.
Every now and then, John McCain can surprise me in a good way. He surrpises me now by jumping off the GOP wagon to halt the slander against Hegel. Frankly, the entire republican thought in the House and Senate (when not about screwing the people to give more $$ to corporations in order to get more money in their unregulated Super PACS) is to just block everything and anything Obama wants.
Aid to distressed victims of a natural disaster? Nope!
Violence against women? They like it!
These morons don't get that this is why they lost seats during the last election. Somehow, they think the entire American population will believe it was all Obama's fault. But the only people who believe that are diehard Faux News junkies and GOP voters. And they are a dwindling minority, thank God.
I can only hope the party completely crashes and burns within the next 5 years. And I hope the party death throes are televised.
Angie, the only reason they did not lose the House too is that they have the deck so stacked by gerrymandering districts in such a way that the vote of a rural voter counts as much as three times as much as that of an urban voter. To win the House, we need to beat them by at least 7%.