TampaYankee

Neither may be lying. Have you considered that each is telling the truth as they understand it? I doubt the unnamed intelligence officer was in the room when Obama was 'supposed' to have been told. Maybe Obama was never told. Maybe someone decided it was better not to inform him at that time. Maybe he was pulled away from that meeting and an unplanned event that the had to attend to. Maybe the word never got back to the unnamed source that it never happened. Who knows. This is a possibility. As to what the actual truth is, well, I wasn't in the room either. Does anyone really believe that Obama runs all the major agencies on a day-to-day or even week-to-week basis? Or any other President for that matter. That is why these guys have Cabinet Secretaries and Agency Heads. They should report on major activities regularly, it is true. It is also true that the President is one man and that there are twenty four hours in a day and that lots of unplanned issues arise that need immediate attention. So Presidents have National Security Councils and Domestic Policy Councils and Economic Councils with people to monitor all the agencies and departments for the President, whoever he is. Sometimes guys drop the ball, sometimes they maybe exercise a little too much discretion deciding what the president needs to know at any given time. Bottom line: shit happens. Things get missed that should not have. That doesn't necessarily mean that someone is lying. Of course that is always a possibility too. These are not explanations and not excuses just statement of possible occurrences.

From deeper in the files...

Chord Overstreet

It is best to do it in a fridge although I have done it in a parking garage. (My first time, I had taken my first real career job in a new state and I was living in a hotel while searching for an apartment.) If you have a cool basement then that works too. The warmer the environment, the faster the fermentation goes, the more it takes on a hint of vinegar aroma IMO. Ferment slow to keep it nice and apple-ee You will notice something after a week in the firdge. 10-14 days is a good point to start sipping. It can go another week or two as you savor it depending on how sweet you like it. Caveat Emptor: The fermentation releases CO2 which causes the cider to become effervescent like champagne. Thus it is under pressure. You MUST loosen the cap at the beginning of the process and check it every couple of days to release pressure else the container will explode. You will notice because the plastic carton becomes deformed -- rounded edges and bottom. Just remove the cap for an instant. Keep the cap on except when you 'burp' it. You want the CO2 to carbonate the cider. That is half the point. The other half is a mild alcohol contribution.

That's why you let it harden. If your patient and it is to your taste it will become as dry as any dry wine. The up side is you choose when the sweetness/dryness factor is right for you.

It's that time of year. I love apple cider allowed to gently harden under refrigeration. Just finishing my first half-gallon of this season picked up from a local orchard. I've deprived myself the past few years for blood sugar considerations. I'm hoping the trade of sugar for alcohol will mitigate the sin. Think I'll have one more half gallon before I crawl back on the wagon.

Yet another example that P.T. Barnum was right. I'm amazed that these conmen find audiences. Is there any doubt that they would sell their mother for a nickel?

I agree and I'm more than content to let this history unfold. That is the one sure way to find out who is right about all these prognostications. It is clear that the GOP wasn't willing to give their prognostications the time to come to fruition. Now they finally realize that they have no choice, most anyway.

Occasionally, you should toss all of your cookies just the keep the Native Sons of Alabama on their toes.

Thanks. I find that surrounding oneself with informative, thought provoking contributors with the gift of expression encourages one to up his game. We are fortunate to have such a group here, the characteristic I like most about this site, narrowly beating out the hot guys. Ah well, priorities change with age.

Who would have thought that when the ice broke, the thaw would have proceeded at the rate it has. It is almost like a damn busting: seeming to remain ever fixed it slowly erodes over time until enough small cracks and fissures appear to weaken the structure that lets all the pent up energy behind that dam have its way. The dam has yet to be washed away completely but water is gushing under high pressure blowing bigger and bigger chunks away so that water is significantly unimpeded in its journey to be free. The conservative social establishment is trying its best to plug the holes with their fingers and thumbs in a futile attempt to hold back the onslaught -- too little too late.

These guys look like winners to me.

Priape closed. Ste Catherine St in the Village will never be the same. It was a great store and lots of fun to take twinks to. Just ask Marc Anthony.

LOL

.. if I had one might look something like this.

I dare the GOP to do it again. No way in heaven or hell that Boehner and McConnell will allow that to happen again.

Christie is quite independent for a Republican in these times. Scratch 'quite' for 'very'. However, there are two third rails in GOP politics if I can stretch the metaphor: abortion choice and gay rights/marriage. It's not clear that any candidate could even get enough signatures to qualify for the dog catcher ballot in a GOP Primary. To expect him to take a stance contrary to these facts, whatever he believes, is to ask him to give a Shermanesque withdrawal from national office candidacy. I don't think he wants to do that. 'Leadership' is no great standard to bear if it leads you on Pickett's Charge and in the ash heap of history. Futile leadership in the face of unswerving intransigence may be exciting for the bystander or xhilarating for the romantic idealist as depicted in Les Miserables but the end is just as predictable.

True but whatever they are they either have to be congruent with the established structures or go over them some how. The latter not an easy task whether talking for the left or the right. What is true is that the right wackos are facing some very disturbing facts that amount to a steep grade to climb. By right-wackos I mean the extremists on social and fiscal issues. Time is against them -- the changing demographics are a time bomb they refuse to accommodate because they just do not want to. Afro Americans remain alienated by larger numbers than ever. They see the relentless extreme attacks on Obama's legitimacy as an attack on their race. The Hispanics too are alienated in the biggest numbers ever that just keep growing -- as they do in voting numbers -- by the wackos who seem unable to get past their anti-immigration stance. Then there is this anti-women stance. Call it a war on women or just being misunderstood, but women do not like the wacko attacks on contraception support in health plans and on abortion rights. They don't like 'small government' mandating transvaginal probes as a condition for anything, even consulting to obtain an abortion. Many women oppose abortion but they also oppose outlawing it because of the real life consequences that result. They certainly do not like 'small government' taking control of their bodies or imposing restrictions or banishment on women's health care caused by closing Planned Parenthood clinics, 98% of their efforts going to contraceptive and women's basic health issues. Where is the logic in outlawing abortion and also making contraception more difficult to obtain, especially for the poor? Younger women are becoming less complacent about accepting the status quo of less pay for the same work. Then there is Evangelical Problem. Most of this wacko social agenda is tied to the Evangelicals. However, the younger Evangelicals tend to be concerned with fiscal conservatism only. They are NOT in favor of this extreme anti-gay, anti-women social agenda. . They are not in favor of killing (dismantling by slight of hand -- Voucher Care) Medicare or Social Security but they are in favor of controlling spending much better. This is a rising tide of Evangelicals against the social and fiscal wackos. Many like to say that this country is center-right in its political perspective. Maybe so. However, what it is not is center-wacko!! In the past, each party has managed to come back from severe downturns in fortune and ordinarily I would expect it again this time. However, those times were occasioned by each party making itself relevant again to the national discussion and the voters. This time we have one party that swallowed a 'pill' antithetical to the party establishment and capitalist power centers that have traditionally supported the party, while making itself not only not relevant, but antithetical, to large swaths of the American demography. The question remains: Will this GOP survive in the future as a viable national party?

Back in the summer of 2009 when the Tea Party emerged with all those gawd-awful town meetings the GOP establishment embraced them along with Faux News, and Big Money. Back then I posted somewhere in a thread here that the GOP would rue the day they embraced the Tea Party. Well, since then the Tea Party has cost the GOP control of the Senate twice and taken them down to the lowest level in polling ever. In all honesty, I thought the GOP eventually would have to cut them loose after a very bitter divorce but that they would do so after three or four years. I'm less certain that can happen now. Again, acting short sightedly to what they thought was to their benefit, they pushed Citizens United and other measures to weaken election contribution laws. That gave individuals and PACs with anonymous contributors the independence to contribute around the Party directly to candidates with essentially unlimited amounts of money. This has weakened the Party (read establishment) control over GOP candidates and policies. Hence the Tea Party Senate candidates which have been a disaster. The GOP supported the gerrymandering of Congressional Districts to make GOP seats safe which ultimately turned out making Tea Party Districts safe. The Tea party is no friend of Wall St who with The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other like organizations are the base of the GOP Establishment. They just found out that the Tea Party has no problem destroying the Full Faith and Credit of the United States and with that the national and world economy in order to get their way. That means leaving Business and Wall St in a shambles. I do not think the Party Establishment can live with that. The question now is: What can the GOP establishment do about it? Rational persuasion about shared goals isn't going to work. Bribes won't work and with that threats. The Tea Party is independently funded thanks to Citizens United etc. As far as I can see what's left is open warfare. The GOP establishment has to find and fund, to all necessary levels, less extreme candidates that take on the TP candidates. While they have the money and can get the candidates can they get the votes? Those gerrymandered districts won't work in their favor. The outlook seems to me to be 1) a weakened GOP in an ongoing internecine battle that cannot compete effectively for the Presidency or govern rationally in one house of Congress, or 2) fracturing into two parties, neither being able to compete nationally, or 3) Business and Wall St. recruiting and supporting fiscally responsible Republicans and Democrats to forge a Congressional Middle Road group that can wield the balance of power in Congress and maybe for the Executive. 1) is not practical because it is too unstable with high risk potential. 2) is iffy as to which group would control the GOP party credentials and brand. Whoever does has the upper hand big time even if for a smaller national party. A 'third' party has an uphill battle getting recognized in all 50 states and establishing name recognition among the unplugged-in voter. 3) and 2) are not mutually exclusive if the Fiscal GOP keeps control of the brand and credentials. It is not clear at all how this will be resolved.

Good for them. Timing is everything.

Kudos to that company. They have my respect and would have my business if I knew who they were and they offered a service or product I have need of. Maybe, but by who is unclear. You and many others like to tout that OC was passed without a single GOP vote and that is true as far as it goes. However, several options were put in by the Dems at request/demand of GOP Senate and House members, in the hope that the result would achieve bipartisan passage. Sadly, such accommodations failed to yield fruit. As an example, the Vitter Ammendment in recent House demands to pass a CR required that government workers, including all Congressional and Executive Staff, have their employer contributions stripped from the health coverage obtained in the OC marketplace (eventhough there was no problem providing it in the prior menu of insurance providers marketed to the government workers). The demand that all goverment workers get covered in the OC marketplace WITH continued employer provided subsidy originated with Chuck Grassley R/IA. Obama and the Dems spent all spring and summer negotiating with Grassley, Snowe and others to incorporate GOP ideas, not to mention they based OC on the insurance program developed by the Heritage organization, a GOP Think Tank and implemented by GOP governor Mitt Romney. I believe that Grassley, Snowe others acted in good faith but with those August Recess town meetings, they determined there was no point to further negotiations on their part. They would all hang together or with certainty they would hang separately.

Public Option. I have a second more technical constructive suggestion for spreading the cost of health coverage. Presently, companies escape responsibility for chipping in on the coverage of part-time workers of 30 hours or less, I believe. They are held harmless for penalties if they do not help provide coverage for this group. Thus many companies threaten to downgrade employees to part-time status to escape the penalty. My constructive suggestion is to rewrite this part of the law so that companies must prorate their support or penalty for coverage, or lack there of, with 100 % penalty for full time (40 hrs/wk) uncovered workers scaling to 2.5% or uncovered workers working only one hour a week. Thus there is no benefit to downgrade employee hours. For every 40 hours of work spread among one or ten employees the full penalty would apply. Employee hours would then be determined by company need not company greed.

Of the Asian guys I have known, they have all been uncircumcised.

... and on their way to being unable to sign in their name apparently. Seems there is a move afoot to discontinue cursive writing in this computer age. Could evolution be reverting us to become little more than slugs will cellphones eventually? For those who are deniers there is still some sand left in between the birthers and climate cynics.

Unhand me kind sir!!