(via Charles P. Pierce)
So much beauty, so much joy. And then…
Kirit Radia, ABC News:
Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed his government “will do whatever it takes” to prevent a terror attack during next month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi.
“If we allow ourselves to be weak, feel weak, let our fear to be seen, by doing that we’ll assist those terrorists in achieving their goals,” Putin said.
“Our job, needless to say, the job of the Olympics host, is to ensure security of the participants in the Olympics and visitors to this festival of sports and we will do whatever it takes,” he said.
Putin added, “We would try and make sure that security measures were not be in your face, did not put pressure on the athletes and visitors or reporters. At the same time we’ll do everything within our power to make sure those measures are efficient.”…
“There is also a moral dimension to it,” Putin said speaking frankly about the mood of the Russian people. “I’ll tell you about it openly. There is nothing to hide or be embarrassed by here. Following the collapse of the USSR, following hard and, let’s put it bluntly, blood-soaked developments in the Caucasus, the overall state society was depressing and pessimistic. We need to cheer up, we need to understand and feel that we are capable of pulling off major, large-scale projects and do so on schedule and with good quality.”…
From CNN, Putin says gays ‘can feel safe’ at Sochi:
Russia’s Vladimir Putin again sought to downplay fears that gay visitors will be discriminated against as he paid a visit to the Sochi area Friday, exactly three weeks before the Winter Olympics get underway.
Putin’s remarks came as he met with volunteers for the games, the state-run Itar-Tass news agency reported.
The president said Russia, unlike some other countries, does not criminalize homosexual relationships.
“We don’t outlaw anything and don’t nab anyone,” Putin said.
“That’s why you can feel safe and free here, but please leave our children in peace,” he added…
There’s a video clip at the link of a gay family that feels so ‘safe’, their faces have to be blurred out.
PurpleGirl
Putin:
Can’t teach some old dogs new tricks, I guess.
Joseph Nobles
Leave your own Russian children in peace, you fucking creep.
Cervantes
Perhaps we should send someone over there to evaluate their planning and preparation.
Where’s Mitt Romney when we need him?
Villago Delenda Est
OK, perhaps then you can explain tossing members of Pussy Riot into the Gulag for a couple years, asshole.
Glocksman
Reminds me of when all of the anti-Semitic Juden Raus signs were removed during the 1936 Berlin Games.
Of course it was business as usual once the games were over.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: Yeah. Mitt could help them get all kinds of free gov’t handouts to keep them from going bankrupt. Ohhh…. wait a minute…
Glocksman
OT.
In the ‘Lies Newsmax Told Me’ department, today’s winner is the headline from their banner ad featuring ‘FEMA May Be Hoarding Emergency Food Supplies’.
What it leads to is not a Newsmax story, but straight to a video ad for ‘Food4Patriots’.
After sitting through several minutes of paranoid bullshit, I clicked to leave and the site then brought up the following text.
Food4Patriots Ad
Honestly, I’m shocked by the fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might want to stockpile non perishable foods, thus keeping it out of the hands of honest patriots like ourselves.
Thank God™ for Food4Patriots and their uncompromising stance on not selling out to FEMA.
Sarcasm aside, just how fucking stupid do you have to be in order to fall for such obvious bullshit?
Cassidy
If only us poor, oppressed Americans had as much freedom as Russia. They’ll never understand our plight as we exist in this terrible police state.
Baud
No.
Ash Can
I’m sure Putin has been rehearsing his “sorry folks, no one’s perfect” speech for use after any attacks on gays at Sochi.
OzarkHillbilly
One more reason why Massachusetts is more fun than Mississippi:
Alcohol consumption higher in more liberal US states, study shows
As states become more liberal over time, they tend to consume more beer and spirits per capita, say researchers
Glocksman
@OzarkHillbilly:
Fix your link, please.
Baud
@Glocksman:
Too much alcohol.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly: “You know, it’s hard to know just how well it will turn out.”
OzarkHillbilly
Also, if you didn’t have enough reasons for skipping Robert Gates’ new memoir, here’s another:
“Gates admired Bush as “a man of character, a man of convictions, and a man of action.” “
So let me get this straight: Gates admires Bush who invaded a country on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction, wasting trillions of dollars of national wealth, almost 4500 American lives and over 100,000 broken American bodies, hundreds of thousands Iraqi dead, who knows how many wounded and MILLIONS displaced with out finding a single nuclear centrifuge, a single mobile biological weapons lab, or a single chemical warhead (and this was the SECOND war Bush screwed up)
but “He is “disgusted” by the distrust that grows between senior military leaders and Obama, ” even tho Obama has had a big hand in dismantling a countries chemical weapons stockpile and ability to make more all without firing a single shot.
he even goes on to say, ” “Obama did the right things on national security, but everything came across as politically motivated,” he gripes. “
As usual, this “memoir” is just another first draft of history written with the sole purpose of casting the author in a favorable light before anyone else can point out what an absolute petty idiot he really is.
OzarkHillbilly
@Glocksman: Sorry, here it is:
Alcohol consumption higher in more liberal US states, study shows
@Baud: Wrong, not enuf.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
So what you’re saying is that Gates is a white Republican.
Glocksman
@OzarkHillbilly:
NIH data indicates that as a region, the North consumes 2.30 gallons of alcohol per capita.
The South consumes 2.18 per capita, while the US as a whole consumes 2.23 gallons per capita.
Source
Draw whatever conclusions from the data you want.
Though it would lead one to eliminate ‘alcohol’ from the list of reasons why the South is America’s most violent region.
MikeJ
On the plus side, it’s nice to see Americans playing in the premier league. On the down side Altidore can’t prop up 19th place Sunderland by himself.
Baud
@Glocksman:
Not necessarily. Averages don’t tell you anything about the spread/variance of the consumption.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Damn, is it really that simple? There I go again, over-analyzing….
Actually what I am saying is that once again the media has been hyping this book as an “inside view” into 2 admins when it is really just another hatchet job. And a transparent one at that.
Glocksman
@Baud:
True.
Perhaps a better question would be how many ‘problem drinkers’ are there in each region per capita?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
This morning, NBC reported that Obama was trying to pivot from the controversy over the NSA that “Washington” was talking about by using his weekly address to talk about …. the economy and jobs.
OzarkHillbilly
@Glocksman: Truth is, the only conclusion I drew was the headline was funny. Baud’s right, when they drink in the south, they drink more heavily. It’s like the old joke,
How much beer do you have to bring when fishing with 2 Southern Baptists? Just enuf for yourself. How much beer when fishing with one Southern Baptist? Enuf for yourself plus at least a case more.
magurakurin
wow. Sounds like Vlad needs to show us on the doll where Uncle Ivan touched him.
OzarkHillbilly
@Glocksman: The great state of Misery would win that competition hands down!
geg6
If you can, watch Kornacki’s show right now. He and the mayor of Hoboken may have just put the fork in the Outlaw Jersey Whale (tm Tbogg, FSM bless him).
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: the Economy and Jobs, economy and jobs, that’s all he ever talks about! It’s like he actually shared the concerns of working people! Good thing we have people in the press who know better, otherwise we might be fooled.
WereBear
I would add: that they admit to. They buy out of their dry counties and bring it home.
Glocksman
@OzarkHillbilly:
Do you listen to the Rainmakers?
Lyrics to Doomsville
OzarkHillbilly
@Glocksman: Googling them as we speak.
MikeJ
@Glocksman: The same ones that did Let my People Go-Go? A favorite song back in the day.
OzarkHillbilly
@MikeJ: I’m listening to it right now @ Rainmakers. Third song on first segment.
OzarkHillbilly
@Glocksman: Good stuff even tho my tastes bend more to the blues and folk, and they definitely know MO.
Glocksman
@OzarkHillbilly:
Listen to their album 25 On.
Much more folksy.
Also look for ‘Jeff Porter and Bob Walkenhorst’
They did an album a few years ago that’s wonderful.
WaterGirl
@geg6: I religiously watched every UP with Chris Hayes, but deleted my season pass to UP the day he left. Tried to watch Chris on his evening show, but the quality just wasn’t the same and he seemed to be turning into everyone else. Gave that up months ago.
But I watched a couple of on-line clips from last week related to Christie, and I was impressed. So once again I added a season pass on Tivo and planned to watch UP this weekend.
After the clips last week, I had high hope that Steve K. might provide some more pieces to the puzzle. So thanks for the recommendation to watch!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Two weeks from now: “Why isn’t Obama talking about the economy and jobs more?
Patrick
@OzarkHillbilly:
I found it disgusting that he released the book before Obama had even left office. Needless to say, the absolute garbage he wrote about Bush doesn’t help.
Patrick
@Baud:
Boehner asked after the jobs report last week and I quote; “President Obama, where are the jobs”?
It is hard to criticize Obama for talking jobs when Boehner himself demanded it.
Baud
@Patrick:
“They’re locked away in a drunk Speaker’s office,” should be the standard retort to that question.
Spike
@Glocksman:
“I’d give all I got for just one more shot at the one that got away.”
These guys were the soundtrack to my life back in the late 80s.
RaflW
@Glocksman:
Well, yes! Thank g_d indeed. I mean, I was at my local chain grocer the other day and they were nearly out of food!!*
.
*Not intended to be a factual statement.
RaflW
@Baud:
They were sequestered.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@OzarkHillbilly:
Gates is just proving that old political axiom of ‘Better to be wrong for the right reasons than right for the wrong reasons.’
Villago Delenda Est
@OzarkHillbilly:
So, a guy who couldn’t be bothered to show up to fulfill his obligation to the National Guard (he signed a fucking contract, you know) is “a man of character, a man of convictions, and a man of action.“
Mind you, this is before he got a chance to launch an utterly illegal and immoral war of aggression, the first one launched by a major power since 1939.
This tells us EVERYTHING we need to know about the judgement of Robert Gates.
Matt
Shorter Putin: “Man, killing all those Georgians and Chechens has really been harshing my buzz! Let’s have some games now, but NO FAGS FFS!”
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Bit late for him to try and hide his true nature. For example:
That was Mike Isikoff and Mark Hosenball writing in Newsweek in 2006.
Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
They just absolutely can’t fucking get over the fact that Real Men doing Real Manly things like Following Their Gut and Going It Alone ended up totally screwing the pooch instead of achieving the success that the script says they were entitled to, while limp-wristed liberal girly-men who could never make good publicity stunts like that aircraft carrier somehow ended up getting all the right results. Accidentally, of course. They’re not right, they’re just exceedingly lucky.
“We were wrong, but for the right reasons. They were right, but for the wrong reasons.” It amazes me how much these people think what’s in their *heart* (according to them) should be the measure of how they’re judged, regardless of what kind of results they achieved.
Well, no, it doesn’t amaze me, really… well, actually, it kind of does. It shouldn’t, at this point, but it still manages to. Grown ass men actually think like this. Grown ass men actually put this in memoirs and then expect everyone to weep with them.
Chris
@WereBear:
This. The fundiegelicals I knew in college drank, smoked, had sex and otherwise partied at least as heavily as the heathen savages they looked down on. It was just done with a wink, a nudge, and a “don’t tell the pastor.”
Looking back, that was probably one of the better congregations. I suspect there are plenty of others where the pastor would’ve been right there with them, and instead of “don’t tell the pastor” it would’ve been the pastor saying “don’t tell the few goody-two-shoes spoilsports who actually take the prohibitions seriously – I’ve got an image to keep up, doncha know.”
Chris
@Patrick:
I used to think Gates had shortcomings, but at least he was much better than Rumsfeld. Not even sure of that anymore.