Au revoir Mrs. Slocombe!

Molly Sugden, who starred in the British television comedy Are You Being Served, died today at 86.

This is a sad day for all Bricom fans -- and I am unanimous in this!

It's my understanding that the kidnapped US soldier was in another area of Afghanistan far away from Helmand valley.

How can the military allow this hate?

What can be done?

http://theworldofhowey.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/death-at-camp-pendleton-when-the-military-supports-homophobia/

Mrs. Slocombe's dead!? Jesus, are there any celebrities left? They're all dropping like flies. This can only be Obama's fault.

I wonder who will take care of Slocombe's pussy.

SteveT, you're not alone. She will be missed just as much as Mr. Humphries, who passed a couple of years ago.

(must refrain from a joke about being reunited with her feline--I'm sure the correct word wouldn't make it through the filter)

Rush Limbaugh whined today that "chicks" have "chickified the news." He just keeps getting dumber.

He's kidding right. Has he watched FOX at any point in the last 10 years. How many blondes do they have as news readers?

Biobrain, you evil doctor, you beat me to it. As I already told hubby, though, it was an old one and probably passed years ago. I'm sure Mr. Humphries has been taking care of it for her.

:)

"And finally, Andrew Sullivan ponders what Fox News and other Republican outlets would do if Obama treated the American flag the same way Sarah Palin did."

Not only is Andrew's question reasonable, there is another aspect to it. What she did is possibly illegal. Her only defense about violating the US Flag Code is that she was exercising the same First Amendment rights that people who burn flags in protest exercise. Now there's some irony. As for me, I've burned three flags in my lifetime. Why did I do that? It's the appropriate method of retiring flags under the US Flag Code. As an Eagle Scout, I take that stuff seriously. And I'm a little pushy about it. I'll refold people's flags if they haven't done it properly.

critique of a critique of a claim about AGW

What is not yet actually known is whether the current apparent stability/slight-cooling will last 40 years as in 1940-1980, or end imminently. As sometimes happens, recent modeling that provides an excellent fit to the recent past contains models that make contradictory predictions: at least one model (a "dynamic model") predicts about 3 decades of cooling, whereas another recent and more widely cited multiple regression model predicts that the recent stability is a short random deviation.

How many times can I use the word recent? You get the idea. All the models have been tuned (perhaps "overfitted") to recent data and contain recent ad hoc additions in order to fit some/most/all of the 20th century and later data. If any of the predictions prove to be reasonably accurate for the next decade, we'll have a better idea which predictions to apply to the subsequent decades.

Meanwhile, reduce your energy use and buy carbon offsets. There is some cost, but no harm and some benefit, and preparation for whichever scenario has the most evidence behind it.

Wait, are you sure? I thought Rush said they've "chicken fried" the news, not chickified it. And if that's the case, I'll take seconds!

As part of the offensive, one American soldier is believed to have been kidnapped, while another was killed in a firefight.

This "kidnapped" usage seems to have become customary whenever an American soldier is captured, and it's a bit puzzling. If a soldier is captured by the enemy in a war zone, he's not kidnapped -- he's just captured. He's not a crime victim, after all. When we capture the enemy, do we say we've kidnapped them?

Remember when the Bush administration used to say imported drugs weren't safe? Well, apparently, they didn't care care all that much, even when they found it to be true.

Rush Limbaugh whined today that "chicks" have "chickified the news."

He dated a CNN anchor for years, and he's just now noticing there are more women doing newscasts? Way to pay attention, Rush. And I seriously doubt the shift to mainly doing entertainment news has anything to do with "chicks". Just network execs deciding that is what will get them the most ratings and dollars in advertising.

"Kidnapped"? You're kidding, right?

To share w/ yr friends, you can use THIS photo link http://tinyurl.com/n796kd

And an even more patriotic pinup is here. It is NOT PhotoShopped: http://tinyurl.com/kpn3fo

Both remind me of the American flags illegally autographed as souvenirs by the unspeakable and unnameable horror out of Lovecraftian depths that was President #43, aka He Who Must Never Be Named again.

As usual, IOKIYAR. IF you are a 'Publican, you can shake hands with Saddam, substitute supersitition for science, and support the violent overthrow of legitimately elected regimes, but heaven forfend if you touch the Q of E, even if yr not actually massaging her shoulders.

But that's all possible because the Villagers don't care, and that makes it okay. How many times have YOU heard that love-crazed Mark Sanford violated no law?

For the record, South Carolina not only is one of 26 states that still makes adultery a crime, it broadly defined adultery as "to lewdly and lasciviously associate" with anyone other than your spouse, at lest according to Franklin Foer's fascinating summary of relevant laws and lawbreakers at at http://www.slate.com/id/1063/

"Kidnapped"? You're kidding, right?

Hmm. You're right, that doesn't sound quite right, does it? Let's crank up the FoxNews neologism generator...hold on a sec...

An American soldier was defender-of-freedom-napped today by America-hating terrorists. How soon will Obama apologize? All that and commentary from Pat Buchanan coming up in the next hour.

Worth every penny they paid for it.

Steve: "The bizarre behavior by some members of the San Diego PD at a Francine Busby fundraiser last weekend continues to generate interest."

Please note that the incident in question involved Deputy Marshall Abbott from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, and not an officer of the San Diego Police Department. These are two completely separate and autonomous law enforcement agencies, with differing areas of jurisdiction.

The Sheriff's Dept. raid occurred in Cardiff, which is an affluent and unincorporated community of San Diego County that is north of San Diego city proper. The home in question belongs to a lesbian couple, who were both arrested, and there are serious concerns as to whether this incident was motivated by anti-gay prejudice on the part of both a neighbor (who apparently was heckling the event from his yard and filed a false noise complaint) and Deputy Abbott.

The city of San Diego is home to a fairly large and politically active gay community centered around the Hillcrest district, and its police department is considered gay-friendly.

* Douglas Kmiec is Obama's choice to be Ambassador to Malta. Nice gig. -- Steve Benen

How so? "Kmiec" means "peasant". In the religious Order of the Maltese Knights, the lower classes were relegated to serving the Knights. The Knight rode the horse, the Kmiec mucked it out. I do not believe that he'll be forced into that other service for which the Order had been disbanded, because the accusations were patently false (and motivated by royal greed) but, even so...

Andrew Sullivan ponders what Fox News and other Republican outlets would do if Obama treated the American flag the same way Sarah Palin did. -- Steve Benen

We know what they'd do; they'd splutter in outrage, just as they had when they thought he'd changed something on the flag (he hadn't) t include an O and when they claimed the flag was hanging facing in the wrong direction.

As for Palin's "display"... It is my considered belief that the flag is draped the way it is so as to hide the fact that one of its stars -- for Alaska -- had been excised from it. It hangs, in solitary splendour, in the window behind her. Very symbolic of the desire to rid herself and her state of the encumbrance of the rest of USA. Whatchamacallit... Moose whistle? Husky whistle? Todd will know.

Kidnapped is the correct term. The Taliban are terrorists; they are not part of any nation's armed forces nor are they fighting in uniform. In addition, based on their actions, they are definitely not fighting within the Geneva Conventions. Armed forces properly fighting in uniform, under their nation's flag, do not use human shields, randomly attack the populace they purport to defend or raise money via illicit drug trade and other criminal means.

When terrorists take a U.S. soldier alive, even in a war zone, it is kidnapping.

Re Sarah Palin's photos, someone needs to instruct her on the proper use of spray tan.

Obama doesn't care about protecting the US. . ."Because I don’t think he realizes what the world is like outside the United States."?

Really?

Barack Hussein Obama? Whose very existence defines the cosmopolitan?

The important distinction of these people is they literally cannot see past their mirror.

A while ago some right-wing sites and emails took a cue from the Washington Times (http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/21/inside-the-beltway-97423759/, "Swordless Sailors") and said that Obama had prohibited the Naval Academy grads to wear swords at their ceremony. I heard it said yesterday at a military funeral, so I mention it here now. Rebuttals were in the article's comments, and Snopes rebuts it here:
snopes dot com/politics/military/swords dot asp.

MRM, I don't know how anyone gets the idea that maybe a cooling period will continue. Maybe some processes can do that, but medium-term (~100 y) it's not about anything other than CO2 absorbing IR and warming the atmosphere. If there's feedback it better be good.

Armed forces properly fighting in uniform, under their nation's flag, do not use human shields, randomly attack the populace they purport to defend or raise money via illicit drug trade and other criminal means.

Actually that happens pretty frequently. Iran, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Burma, North Korea...well, the list is too long to cite here.

Tomm, thanks for mentioning the flag-autographing matter. During the campaign last fall, the Times ran a front page picture of a veteran displaying a flag that John McCain had autographed for it, and holding it as reverently as a sacred relic. I posted the picture on Newsvine with the rhetorical question how conservatives might have reacted if Obama had done that. The only intelligible reply was this (I'm paraphrasing): "Look, are you stupid? Patriotic symbols matter except when they don't. They matter if THEY say so. THEY haven't said so in this case. Therefore, they don't."

Andrew Sullivan is an idiot. He wonders why Trig is relevant to the slide show. Maybe if he actually read the article he would know. But hey, we wouldn't want him to do that.

For the record, she talks about how she likes to run alone, or pushing Trig in the baby stroller. I would imagine most mothers who subscribe to Runners World could relate to that, and the picture makes perfect sense.

As for the flag, I would bet that it was the photographer's idea.

But yes, the right wing would be going nuts about it if it was a picture of John Kerry doing that.

DR, Trig was relevant because it was an example that gave insight into Gov. Palin's quality of judgment. She traveled too much etc. while pregnant. It's not about "family" as such, but indirectly about the decision making process. We can see that Sully has a WUTA about certain dames, like Palin and Hillary - but the point is worth making.

I sometimes wish that the Democrats were as petty and dogmatic about ceremony as the Repugnant-cans. We would have that flag business on the news for days.

But then, that is also why I am proud of the Democrats.

Palin should be able to instruct others on how to take care of the flag properly, but it isn't something worth screaming about.

"in connection to the possible murder"

Native speakers say "in connection with."

"the first large-scale test of the U.S. military's new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan."

You mean we finally have someone smart enough to starve the beast, i.e. prevent the Taliban from accessing the poppy fields, decapitating their major source of funding.

Too bad we didn't have this strategy say, 8 YEARS ago when we should have stayed in Afghanistan to crush the Taliban and capture OBL.

But no, the neocons needed a boogeyman and an excuse to invade Iraq.

The reason I am bringing this up is because I have been picking up on a slowly emerging republican meme that Obama is mimicking republican strategy on this latest Afghan 'surge', and this will somehow vindicate all the actions of the rogue Cheney/Bu$h regime.

We must not let this happen.

Census: a republican idea but a good one. Postal workers
do the census and save $1billion

Gays in military: fix it fast...in the meantime hire all those
highly trained linguists into CIA. Still doing good and making better incomes.

thanks steve

Census: a republican idea but a good one. Postal workers do the census and save $1billion -- Max Hazelton, @22:55

I'm a "rude mechanical" passionately "into" technical details. So, I have to ask: HOW?

My postman only leaves his truck if he's delivering something that needs to be signed for (and not always then, but I ain't peachin'). Otherwise, he just slides up to the mailbox, pulls the "door" down, pulls out what we're sending, replaces it with what we're getting, slams the "door" shut and is off... Half a minute or less and, even so, we don't get our mail till nearly noon, though he starts delivering around 8AM. All of them have had their routes extended, so that the "force" could be thinned out (economy).

How on earth is he gonna stop, knock on the door, try to get the essentials out of the Bachmanesque housewives with both their knickers and their hair in a twist and still deliver the mail... to some couple hundred households, all in the 8hrs of his shift???

As with every "plan" that the regressive repressives (or is it repressive regressives?) have come up with so far, this one, too, is only half-baked (at most)...

Why doesn't Andrew Sullivan ponder this?

http://texas4palin.blogspot.com/2009/07/memo-to-obama-sully-for-flag-ettiquette.html

- JP

Neil B: MRM, I don't know how anyone gets the idea that maybe a cooling period will continue. Maybe some processes can do that, but medium-term (~100 y) it's not about anything other than CO2 absorbing IR and warming the atmosphere. If there's feedback it better be good.

It makes a big difference whether the recent apparent cooling continues for a few more decades before warming resumes (if in fact warming will resume.) With the measurement technologies being deployed, those decades will provide lots of information for testing the theories, and possibly for other processes to intervene and be discovered.

I read your response to my comment about Simon, Ehrlich and Holdren. You are correct that no one can foretell which technologies will be invented and which won't. Nevertheless, for the last 3 decades it was Simon who was right, and Ehrlich, Holder et al who were wrong. Right now finite air (short for CO2 and methane accumulation) and finite petroleum are active constraints, but lots of different new technologies are being developed to circumvent the constraints. We do not know whether the General Atomics and U. Texas combined fission/fusion reactors will work as designed (to pick just a pair of projects that I linked to months ago), but if they do they'll solve the energy and air constraints for another hundred years at least. With uncertainty, why bet on Ehrlich, Holdren, Limits to Growth et al when they have always been wrong before?

As an aside, One really influential group of people who don't believe in the limits to growth are the Chinese government. They have announced their intention to develop as much alternative energy as they can while concurrently investing as much in new coal-fired power plants as they want to. One potential side effect of Waxman-Markey will be to shift more of our manufacturing in their direction. The same risk was one reason that the Senate announced its intention not to ratify the Kyoto treaty; I am interested to see how the Copenhagen negotiations turn out.

Damn it. Who tucked Hilzoy in early?

Rush Limbaugh whined today that "chicks" have "chickified the news."

Particularly ironic coming from Limbaugh, seeing as he and his ilk have "dickified the news".

MRM: Erhlich, COR etc. have been wrong only to the extent they are "fringey" and represent a sort of far left of limitation theory. They aren't all wrong anyway, because fisheries and fresh water really are getting depleted. The mainstream idea is, there are consequences of growth and we need to do something and not just go as we please, even if the consequences aren't "disastrous" short or medium term.

But hey, I do appreciate your getting a better and more rational tone around here, you are at least readable and semi-thought-provoking IMHO and not just a troll anymore.

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