The ducks' despair

Spring is coming very slowly here. We're getting highs in the high 30's now but, at night, lows well below 20º. So every morning when the ducks peer out the kitchen window from their home on the sill they see ice on the pond. No way are they going out in weather like that. 

Despite a record-snowy winter, the ducks' puddle is not as big as it usually is this time of year. Go figure. My hunch is that it's because the ground is still hard and the water from the melting snow runs off. But maybe not. 

Meanwhile, the ducks stay put.

Amazing: The most evasive answer to any question ever asked in the history of the universe

White House Defends Embrace of G.E. CEO Despite Report Company Didn't Owe Taxes in 2010 | Common Dreams

[White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney was asked why, if the president wants corporate tax reform, he appointed "to the head of the Competitiveness and Jobs Council a person [Jeffrey Immelt] who is now the poster child for abusing the system to get out of paying taxes."

"The jobs and competitiveness council is designed for just that," Carney responded. "And he has brought together a lot of voices on that. And he wants to hear the opinions of every member of that council. And we have said, with regard to questions about other members who have been appointed, that the president obviously doesn't want a council of people who agree with him on every issue; he wants to hear diversity of opinion."

 

Connection

iPhone abstract: Phil Compton

The end of civilization No. 7893471

OMG, FYI, and LOL enter Oxford English Dictionary, foreshadow the apocalypse -- Engadget

In an acknowledgement of the internet's overwhelming influence on the triviality we sometimes refer to as "real life," the Oxford English Dictionary doyens have decided to add a few of the web's favorite pronouncements to their lexicon. Among them are the standouts OMG, LOL and FYI, joining their compatriots IMHO and BFF among the proud number of officially sanctioned initialisms...

Republicans running loose in Iowa

Newt Gingrich Loves ‘Historian’ Who Says Jesus Opposed Minimum Wage

David Barton has proven that Jesus, the probably-mythological Jewish radical who repeatedly called for both wealth redistribution and the payment of taxes due to the government, actually opposed America’s minimum-wage laws. Well duh!

Another thrilling campaign gets underway

What’s in a Nickname? - NYTimes.com

In a big news moment this week, the Pawlenty campaign released a stirring video filled with shots of smiling workers, Ronald Reagan, farmers harvesting wheat, flags and golden retrievers in which T-Paw talks about taking back America and then, to a triumphant swell of music, concludes: “That’s why today, I’m announcing the creation of an exploratory committee.”...

...and lots, lots more from Gail Collins today (click the link, above, to read).

Now not just shoes

 Power To Strip Search Passengers Claimed by Feds    :      Information Clearing House: ICH

March 24, 2011 -- "Bar Code" -- March 18, 2011 -- In a breathtaking statement delivered in an official court proceeding, the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims authority to strip search every airline passenger; and to begin such a practice without even soliciting comment from the public....

Send in the bombs!

Ivory Coast Violence Forces Hundreds of Thousands to Flee - NYTimes.com

DAKAR, Senegal — At least 700,000 people have fled their homes in Ivory Coast’s main city, Abidjan, to escape the increasing violence and collapsing economy stemming from the nation’s political crisis, the United Nations said Friday.

Daily gunfire spurred by Laurent Gbagbo’s efforts to stay in power after losing a presidential election in November...

Oh wait, we're not interested in this one? Sorry.

Herbert leaves the NYTimes

Losing Our Way - NYTimes.com

The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.

Maybe this Times paywall won't be such a big thing after all, not if there's nothing left there to read.

Republicans are nuts

Michele Bachmann for president? Among Republicans, she's more popular than you think. - By David Weigel - Slate Magazine

Pollster and political guru Frank Luntz flew to Iowa last month to conduct a survey for Fox News. Twenty-six Republicans, likely to vote in the next caucuses, were shown video clips of 11 politicians who might run for president. They twisted dials, scored from 0 to 100, to rate the candidates. One of the clear winners was Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.

How broke we really are

Five Fun Facts About the $14 Trillion National Debt | Economy | AlterNet

The reality is that, as of last year, China held 9.5 percent of our outstanding debt. The largest lender to the U.S. government is the people of the United States – we own 42.1 percent of the national debt in the form of Treasury bills held in our pension funds, 401(K)s, etc.

And 4.6 trillion – about a third – is held by the government itself. Almost 18 percent of the T-bills outstanding are sitting in the Social Security trust fund, earning interest and making the retirement program incredibly secure despite all the claims to the contrary.

 

Intrusion

iPhone photo: Phil Compton

Read it and weep

'Kinetic Military Action' or 'War'? | Common Dreams

“I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone,” [Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes] said. “Obviously that involves kinetic military action...

But time flies when you're having fun

UNDERNEWS: Libya: Another war that could go on forever

Jason Ditz, Anti War - Speaking during a visit to Cairo, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed that the war in Libya is open-ended....

Awesome!

Stossel: No Group Has Had More Gov't Help Than American Indians (VIDEO) | TPMMuckraker

"Why is there a Bureau of Indian Affairs?" he said. "...no group in America has been more helped by the government than the American Indians..."

I am in awe.

Bombing to stop the violence

Gadhafi Attacks Continue Despite Coalition Bombing | Common Dreams

CAIRO—Forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi resumed attacks on Libya’s third-largest city early Thursday despite aerial bombardments by Canadian and other coalition warplanes aimed at halting the violence.

 

The vanishing bar

Japan radiation release lower than Chernobyl | Reuters

Japan radiation release lower than Chernobyl

It's so low now it might as well not even be there.

"Coalition" invents calm bombs

Coalition airstrikes bring calm to one Libyan town - CNN.com

 

Ooops

NYT’s $50 million ‘paywall’ crumbles with simple code exploit | The Raw Story

All it takes is four lines of text, and down it falls.

Because what does labor have to do with the Department of Labor anyway?

Maine Governor LePage Orders Removal of Labor Mural from Dept. of Labor, Sparking Outcry | Common Dreams

AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage has ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural depicting Maine's labor history from the lobby of the Department of Labor.

This is what you get when you vote for Republicans, boys and girls. Nutjobs. Wackdoodles. R's.

Clearly we will need to start a bigger war soon

In Libya Intervention, No Use for the United States’ Costly, Much-Touted F-22 Fighter Jet - ProPublica

As part of an allied military intervention in Libya, the United States has launched a number of air strikes targeting Qaddafi’s ground forces and air defense centers, but one rather expensive aircraft is sitting out the action: the Air Force’s much-touted F-22 fighter jet, produced by Lockheed Martin....

Had the F-22 been used, Libya would’ve been its first taste of combat. The $150-million aircraft has also sat idle in the United States’ war on terror, having “not performed a single mission [4]” in either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.

 

It's bad when you need a humor site to tell you what the story is

Obama Confirms There Is No Point To Our War In Libya

President Obama is spending these crucial first days of the War in Libya tending to his flocks of alpacas in the mountains of South America, so it’s understandable that it’s taken him days to notify Congress he is blowing up that African nation and to tell the rest of us why. So now, at long last, here’s the reason why: There isn’t one.

LIFE Magazine's Liz Taylor pix

Elizabeth Taylor Photos - All About Elizabeth Taylor - LIFE

 

Our bad

It seems we missed Pi day this year.

Pi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510...

And Massachusetts

Defying spring, wintry weather hits Northeast - Weather - msnbc.com

The arrival of spring did not stop wintry weather from heading to the Northeast on Wednesday, with snow expected in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

We're not expecting much snow here but temps are back below freezing for a while. So phooey.

New to the work avoidance list:

Black and WTF?

A photoblog of strange black and white photos.

Libya: Apparently, it's a make-up war

Fight of the Valkyries - NYTimes.com

Susan Rice, the U.N. ambassador and former Clinton administration adviser on Africa, was haunted by Rwanda. Samantha Power, a national security aide who wrote an award-winning book about genocide, was thinking of Bosnia. Gayle Smith, another senior national security aide, was an adviser to President Clinton on Africa after the Rwandan massacre. Hillary Clinton, a skeptic at first, paid attention to the other women (putting aside that tense moment during the ’08 primaries when Power called her “a monster”). She also may have had some pillow talk with Bill, whose regrets about Rwanda no doubt helped shape his recommendation for a no-fly zone over Libya.

I like the part about the cookies, but otherwise...

Never-Betters, Better-Nevers and Ever-Wasers - NYTimes.com

The Never-Betters believe that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic, news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake themselves....

Alas, I think this is true

The Horrible Libya Hypocrisies - The Daily Beast

...U.S. neoconservatives and liberal humanitarian interventionists have trapped another U.S. president into acting as if the opposite were true.

Once this terrible duo starts tossing out words like "slaughter" and "genocide," the media goes crazy. Then, the chorus begins to sing of heartless inaction by the U.S. president, blaming him for the deaths. White House common sense crumbles into insanity. The reason why neither President Obama nor his coalition partners in Britain and France can state a coherent goal for Libya is that none of them have any central interest in the outcome there. It is only when a nation has a clear vital interest that it can state a clear objective for war. They've all simply been carried away by their own rhetoric.

Those few of us who are old enough to remember the 1950's will recall Fidel Castro was a U.S. media darling when he was the leader of a plucky band of revolutionaries fighting the evil dictator Batista, and it was only after he'd won and installed himself as the head of the government in Cuba that—yikes!—it turned out he was a terrible commie. My guess is that the thing in Libya could well turn out in a similar way.

 

Oh shut up

Lessons From Wisconsin About Unions and Higher Education - NYTimes.com

We’re All Badgers Now

For the record, I'm getting really, really tired of the "we're all" line.

Found a few coins in the couch

Senator's girlfriend had help getting job - JSOnline

Even though the state is supposedly broke, top officials in Gov. Scott Walker's team were able to scrape together enough money to give a state job to the woman identified as Sen. Randy Hopper's girlfriend.

Yes! It's! Friggin'! %*^#^%! Snowing!

Maybe you thought it was spring.

It's not.

Not dead until we say so

Qaddafi Forces Hold Strategic Town as Allied Attacks Continue - NYTimes.com

TRIPOLI, Libya — After a second night of American and European strikes by air and sea against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces, European nations on Monday rejected Libyan claims that civilians had been killed.

"European nations" is apparently the skirt we're hiding behind this year. That would be European nations with the ability to fire missiles from U.S. warships at Qadaffi's house, but not because we're trying to hit Qadaffi himself with one. These European nations are not that kind of nations.

No word yet as to whether European nations include Poland; we don't want to forget Poland again.

Right, just trying to deliver some pizza

Allied forces strike Gadhafi compound; leader's whereabouts unknown - CNN.com

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- The heart of Moammar Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli lay in shambles Monday following bombing by the United States and its allies...

U.S. Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said neither Gadhafi nor his residence had been targeted. "We are not going after Gadhafi," he told reporters at the Pentagon.

 

Glass Dancing

iPhone abstract: Phil Compton

OK, maybe something

West’s Strikes on Libya hit Arab League Criticism | Common Dreams

RIPOLI - Western forces pounded Libya’s air defences and patrolled its skies on Sunday, but their day-old intervention hit a serious diplomatic setback as the Arab League chief condemned the "bombardment of civilians."

(See below: Nothing can possibly go wrong.)

No fly zone now no truck too

Attacks Aim to Cut Gadhafi Supply Lines, Mullen Says - WSJ.com

WASHINGTON—U.S. and coalition air attacks are now aiming to cut the supply lines for Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi's ground forces, in addition to destroying the country's air defenses.

Nothing can possibly go wrong. There, or here.

Priceless: Obama bombs Libya, pitches warplanes to Brazil

Obama pushes F-18 fighter jet in Brazil meeting | Reuters

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama made a strong pitch for the Boeing F-18 jet fighter in a meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff...

Finally we're back to just joking around

Liberal Democrats in Uproar over Libya Action | Common Dreams

WASHINGTON - A hard-core group of liberal House Democrats is questioning the constitutionality of U.S. missile strikes against Libya, with one lawmaker raising the prospect of impeachment during a Democratic Caucus conference call on Saturday.

Impeachment? Really? Where's the blowjob?

Look, I don't want to be a nag or anything, but maybe referring to war as a game is not a terrifically good idea

Clinton, Rice joined to get buy-in for no-fly zone - CNN.com

After meeting with Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, in Cairo Tuesday night, officials said Clinton called Obama, telling him the Arabs were willing to take part in the no-fly zone. That participation, officials said, was critical for the administration, which was concerned about the perception of invading a third Arab country.

"In order for us to go along, it was important for the Arabs to have some skin in the game," one senior official said.

 

A new euphemism enters the language

"No fly zone" apparently means all your asses are belong to us.

Gadhafi vows 'long war' after US, allies strike - Yahoo! News

TRIPOLI, Libya – The U.S. and European nations targeted Moammar Gadhafi's forces with airstrikes and dozens of cruise missiles...

State television said 48 people had died in the strikes...widest international military effort since the Iraq war...aimed at enforcing a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone...

Because being a war president worked so well for Dubya.

Libya is not Darfur or Bosnia. It is not about genocide or "ethnic cleansing." It is not Egypt either, a bunch of people demonstrating in a public square. The Libyan rebels wear uniforms and have modern weapons, including tanks.  Libya is a civil war. But of course it's a civil war with oil.

So here we go again.