Sorry folk, was at the mechanic getting new tires and forgot to throw up a thread. A reader sent this along:
The name Tebow makes me shiver, but this was all kinds of awesome.
This post is in: Sports
Sorry folk, was at the mechanic getting new tires and forgot to throw up a thread. A reader sent this along:
The name Tebow makes me shiver, but this was all kinds of awesome.
by Sarah, Proud and Tall| 39 Comments
This post is in: Lizard Blogging, Open Threads
A belated posting. I wanted to embed video but apparently the corpse of Steve Jobs doesn’t want me to be able to do that either so, if you’d like to hear the clever birdy, you’ll need to go here or search for “chook the superb lyrebird” on the Googles.
29 December 2011: Adelaide Zoo’s much loved lyrebird Chook, known for his stunning vocal ability, has died at the age of 32.
Chook became a YouTube star after he was filmed imitating the sounds of construction work, which he probably picked up as the zoo’s panda enclosure was being built in 2009. …
Chook had been at the zoo for 20 years, arriving from the Healesville Sanctuary.
Adelaide Zoo’s Brett Backhouse was Chook’s keeper for 11 years and says 32 is a good age for a lyrebird. …
“He was hand raised so he was quite human habituated. That sort of gave him some special abilities as well. He was a lot braver with humans because he was so used to them. …
“It’s part of their courtship that they perform. Ones out in the wild in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland will mimic whatever they can find and they use it to attract a female and sort of show how clever they are,” Mr Backhouse said.
“We’re still getting used to the fact that the aviary’s very, very quiet.”
I wish I could imitate noises that well. I’d park myself outside Laura Bush’s bedroom window and make car accident noises.
Oh, and just in case you missed it, Mr Levenson has another Balloon Jobs thread going on down below the simultaneous Jesus posts.
by Zandar| 213 Comments
This post is in: Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue, OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!, Our Failed Media Experiment, Our Failed Political Establishment
As much as I would love to believe this is yet another instance where the President has outsmarted the GOP (and in a fair would it would be) his proposal for legislation allowing him fast track authority to consolidate federal trade and commerce agencies is precisely the sort of thing that has zero chance getting through our awesome 9% approval rating Congress, and it’s easy to see why. Politico sees this as a smart move, on the other hand my inner cynic says this is good tactics, bad strategy.
Obama’s plan would merge the Commerce Department, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade representative and other independent business agencies into a new, unnamed Cabinet agency.
The president would need congressional approval to consolidate the agencies, and he virtually dared Republicans to vote against it, putting the GOP on the defensive for the second time in a month. The payroll tax cut fight forced Republicans lawmakers to choose whether to support the president or a tax increase. This would force them to support the president or the status quo — a tangled web of regulatory agencies that Republicans have held up as a barrier to job creation.
“This is an area that should receive bipartisan support because making our government more responsive and strategic and leaner shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” Obama said as he announced the initiative at the White House. “We can do this better. We can provide taxpayers better value.”
Not only will Republicans vote against it, I foresee they’ll propose legislation eliminating those agencies instead and daring the President and Democrats to vote against that instead. Meanwhile, we’ll be treated to the theory that the President should probably be impeached for daring to ask Congress for anything and that because he’s not serious about dismantling the entire Executive Branch and handing everything over to Orange Julius that he’s really a tin-pot Chicago Way dictator who is nothing like the Republicans.
Meanwhile, at the same time we’ll hear that this proposal means President Obama has abandoned unions, working-class Americans, and the idea of any government oversight over trade and commerce, making him a job-killing Wall Street puppet who never really liked American workers anyway, and that he’s precisely the same as the Republicans.
It’s about this point, when the Village is pushing both these theories on the news as “President loses union base” and “Why can’t Obama reach an agreement with Republicans?” that everyone else will turn off their brains to avoid the headache and this idea will get quietly shelved. There’s just nothing to be gained by trying to make a common sense proposal to even look at doing something like this during something as clinically insane as an election year.
by John Cole| 63 Comments
This post is in: Election 2012, Religion, Assholes
All around scumbag Tony Perkins and his assorted “Christian” organizations are now going all in for little Ricky:
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council says conservatives are looking for a candidate who will repeal the nation’s health care law, fight for pro family values and address the national debt.
“Not a lot of time was spent talking about Mitt Romney” Perkins says. He added, “it’s not news” that there’s not a lot of support among conservatives for Romney. Perkins says Romney’s Mormon religion was not discussed among those participating in the meeting.
So what does this mean? Expect conservative groups to start individually motivating their constituents to work for Santorum. Also look for more money and resources to start pouring into Santorum’s campaign. No question about it, this is excellent news for Santorum’s camp and a major blow to the Gingrich and Perry camps.
Who knew God was all worked up about the healthcare bill and the national debt. And when they say “pro family,” they mean gay bashing.
by Tim F| 13 Comments
This post is in: Religion, Republican Stupidity
For some reason evangelical leaders have all voted to rally behind…Rick Santorum.
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) – Influential evangelical Christian leaders on Saturday endorsed Rick Santorum for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination, in an attempt to strengthen him as the more conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney.
At a weekend meeting at a ranch outside Houston, Texas, the group of 150 conservatives agreed on the third ballot to support the former Pennsylvania senator.
I suppose evangelicals have a hard time with the usual degrading compromise when it means backing a schismatic cultist who tends to forget whatever promises he made last week. So noble failure it is.
This post is in: Balloon Jobs
Been a while since we did one of these, and I’ve had news of a couple of opportunities sent my way, so let’s have at it.
For one — if you have development/fundraising experience, the National Coalition Against Censorship is looking for you. Details here. I’m assuming this would be an in-office job, which would mean the New York City environs…
Also, rather more specialized, but Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism folks and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society have teamed up to offer a one year fellowship for a working journalist pursuing “a specific project on journalism and innovation.” Details here. That would, of course require geographic affinity with Our Faire City, Cambridge (not that one, this one) MA.
So over to you all: work available? Work needed? Take it away.
Image: Limbourg Brothers and Barthélémy d’Eyck, Les Tres Riches Heures du duc de Berry, (March), 1412-1416 and c. 1440.
by DougJ| 142 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
I don’t have the patience to read RedState anymore, but reader C sends along a report:
So much awesome in the comments to Erickson’s post defending Newt/Perry for attacking Romney over Bain. Newt is taking hardcore heat for his attacks on Romney (as this tpm clip summarizes), but Perry is echoing him, and Erickson is all in for Perry . . . just so much fun to watch. One comment is titled, “I can’t believe my ears, Erik Erickson is a Democrat.” Someone else comments, “Your defense for Perry’s Leftist attacks are based on Democrat attack adds that were run against a fellow Republican in the blue state? Go join Obama you RINO. Stop lying an acting like a conservative when you are clearly not if you like Obama’s class warfare tactics.” There are acrimonious accusations of ROMNEYBOT! I can’t tell you how this made me smile: “I have always been a Rush listener but think I will take a break. Those of us who are paying attention to what is happening in our country are desperate to have a President who believes in America and her people. Rush knows Perry is a capitalist and to say he’s acting like Castro, to me is sounding like the left. He says Newt and Perry are sounding like they are libs, what about him? Only a lib would would equate Perry with Castro. He went on a 10 min rant over tearing them down. It makes me ill.”