Comments on: Solidarity eventually.

By: Suzi

Suzi — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:49:47 +0000

Moe, thanks for the Kilkenny tip, quite a story, just about how I pictured Palin. It’s on this site too:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/palinvet/gG5XS5

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:01:25 +0000

There are other pictures that show this more clearly than these

Jolene, you got THAT right! (didja like the ones where I cut the heads off of the nominee and his wife, but got a fuzzy pic of Malia?)

Actually, the following picture made me laugh out loud, later on.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30109017@N04/2822795997/

(the Obama entourage is just arriving, and all heads are turned toward their approach.….except for the kid in the foreground, who is presumeably winning a video game on his DS!)

Mark — thanks for the heads-up on Phil Hill; I hadn’t heard the news

By: beb

beb — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:46:14 +0000

Calliope writes: “Did they learn nothing from Henry Ford? The man was a right bastard, but he understood that, for his company to prosper, his employees needed to be paid well enough to buy his products.”

I like to note that Ford was also experiencing something like 330% annual turnover of his work-force. He wasn’t just trying to get his workers to buy the cars they made, he was trying to buy some stability on his assembly lines.

By: MarkH

MarkH — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:57:45 +0000

Brian, also on the obit list this past week, Phil Hill. As a fellow F1 aficiando, I’m sure you can appreciate:

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080828/FREE/808289987

And, in the more obscure dept., “the voice”, Don LaFontaine.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/09/02/entertainment/e102033D49.DTL

And, basset, it was Johnny Bond’s version in 1960:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Rod_Lincoln

And (finally), moe99, many thanks for the link to Anne Kilkenny’s WI post about Palin. Please read it, all; it’s very well thought out and articulate, giving this McCain-leaning voter pause. Kilkenny doesn’t seem to have an axe to grind, other than she detests book-banning.

Is it just me, or does her post make Palin look and sound like the Reese Witherspoon character in “Election”?

By: Gasman

Gasman — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:47:28 +0000

Dwight,
I did not “make bad educational decisions, sleep through high school, eschew college, and expect to make as much as a doctor by ratcheting the manifold on top of 4-cylinder engine for 20 years.”

I am a doctor, (D.M.A., doctor of musical arts) and I have been a card carrying union member from the A.F.M., the American Federation of Musicians. (At present my card has lapsed because of some injuries that have kept me from playing professionally for a couple of years.)

Your ignorance regarding unions is rather profound. I have worked for the same company in two different capacities; one union and one non. In the non union position I was salaried and worked from 12–18 hours per day with no overtime. In the union position I had maximum hours set, mandatory break time, union benefits, and no overtime unless it was negotiated and then the rates were clearly spelled out. Guess which one was a better gig? I have seen the benefits of a union and there is no way in hell that I would go back to the non-union side of things.

Have there been excesses? Sure there have. There have also been gross excesses in the “free market” but that hasn’t stopped you from extolling its virtue.

By the way, the market is not free unless all parties at the bargaining table have positions of relatively equal power. Not the case in third world countries. Also, “free market” is supposed to mean competition, not a market that is “free” from risk for cronies of the Republicans in power. I’m all for free markets if they are truly free and fair and if there is genuine competition, unlike the sweetheart deals for Haliburton.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:27:04 +0000

…wasn’t that something about Obama & Biden just informally popping in at Pier 32 Restaurant in Hamilton, Indiana a couple nights ago? My old co-worker Larry and his family and a friend’s wife were interviewed in the Auburn paper …can’t link it, it’s a pay to read deal.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:22:10 +0000

Calliope, very enlightening post, thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Levi “Sex on Skates” Johnson is in the clear, only because he lives in Alaska and not,say..oh, Ohio.
Alaska’s age of consent is sixteen. He clears all legal hurdles.
In Ohio, all professional people who became aware of Bristol’s pregnancy would have been required to report Levi Johnson as a child rapist. She’s 17, he’s 18. Only if he was 17 at conception could he be spared two years in the state penitentiary as a sex offender, and he would be in grave danger there as a sex offender.
He probably would have served about 4 to 6 months lock-up time and the rest on probation.
These cases are reported in detail in our local paper.
Only if the prosecutor has reason to not prosecute will the perp be spared prison time.
In Alaska, 16 year old girls are fair game if the male is 19 or younger.
Different strokes for different folks.

By: Jolene

Jolene — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:51:07 +0000

Thanks for the cookout pics, Brian. They reminded me of something I’ve been noticing in other pictures of Barack, which is that he seems very natural and warm when he is interacting with his children and even with other people’s children. There are other pictures that show this more clearly than these, but these are good too. It’s not so unusual, I guess, that innocence and sweetness overcome reserve, but it’s very appealing. Sappy, perhaps, but I love the way he wraps them up in his long arms.

By: Calliope

Calliope — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:36:21 +0000

Dwight says:

“I can buy a bicycle manufactured in China and shipped half way around the world to my local Target cheaper than I can buy an American built bike — Oh wait. I can’t buy an American made bike. There are none. Sorry.”

Not true. Here’s an incomplete list: Bike Friday bikes are made in Eugene, Oregon. (I own a Tikit, myself). Waterford, some of the finest steel frame bikes made, are made in Wisconsin. Cannondale’s low end bikes are foreign, the high end bikes are made in the U.S. Gary Fisher’s full suspension rigs are made here. Litespeed bikes are made in Tennessee. Seven Cycles are handmade in Watertown, MA. Trek’s Carbon frame bikes are made in the U.S. I believe Surly bikes are also US made. Yes, most bikes are made in Asia now. But there are no American made bikes? Horsepucky.

I really can’t discuss the rest of Dwight’s post without the use of many profanities. I will say, however, that I am always awestruck and amazed at the disdain that so many modern conservatives have for the American worker. The stupidity is quite breathtaking. Did they learn nothing from Henry Ford? The man was a right bastard, but he understood that, for his company to prosper, his employees needed to be paid well enough to buy his products.

Well, the american ‘consumer’ has run through his credit, and wages are falling. Who is going to buy all this asian made crap now? Good luck with that.

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:09:20 +0000

I canNOT see the Proprietress’s Video Notebook linked above, although I have tried and tried!! My conclusion is, it is just a cruel, cruel tease!

Say — here is a link to the rest of the pics I snapped at the Obama visit to Fort Wayne last May (Nancy very graciously published several of them hereabouts back in May). It was a cookout, and we have noticed that most weekends the Obama campaign does one of these cookouts at key places around the country. If you get a chance to go to one, do so! I found the whole thing very compelling; it definitely strengthed my sense of connection to the Obama campaign — despite that some folks try and say that Obama can only speak well when there is a teleprompter in front of him (a flat lie).

Now seems a good time to glance at them again (they are not in chronological order; Flicker befuddles me)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30109017@N04/?find=beej2118%40yahoo.com