It takes a lot to get my jaw to drop, but this, this morning.............

FotoFlexer_obamaemperor

For a brief second, I though some blogger had little else to do on a Saturday night and did a Photoshop job, but nope......  And the official WH spin is that the current WH occupant was simply following protocol???!!!!!

OK, then what about this

Cannon3

And this,

Cannon4

And this?

Cannon6

Just who in hell is advising  the current WH occupant?! Or is this some bizarre PC driven act?  Or perhaps as I now strongly suspect , the current WH occupant is hell-bent on channeling one of the 20th century's biggest Presidential mistakes. Carter (the other is probably Harding).

Yeah, yeah, Bush I lost his cookies at a state dinner  in Tokyo and Bush II couldn't find the exit door in China. Both were embarrassing but on a かわいいそうlevel for Bush I andどんくさい for Bush II.  Embarrassing  but overall, harmless.

But besides embarrassing (and I suspect to the Imperial Family and many Japanese are too.  As for those 'nice boyz' in those dark sound trucks...), little things such as these send out the wrong signals that can have unpleasant implications later on. F'r instance Truman's S of State Acheson a smart man, but an off-hand remark about what was and wasn't covered under the U.S. umbrella in Asia, was interpreted in Pyongyang & Moscow as a green light for the invasion of the southern half of the Korean peninsula, leading to.....

Am aware many on Vox voted for and adore the current WH occupant, but I see him more and more as one and done in 2012.

hello all, how are you doing? I hope you are fine! , It feels great that I feel alot better after resting and such I feel alot better^^, here Arena37c preview, me love the samurai and its not only a samurai its GACKT haha can't wait to know more about his movie/drama whatever it is :P

Credit to fin-style ... Enjoy!

going to delete them if I got the scans!

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/party_foul_tea_partiers_eat_their_own_in_bitter_in.php?ref=fpb

TPMMuckraker

Party Foul! Tea Partiers Eat Their Own In Bitter Internal Feud

Zachary Roth | November 12, 2009, 5:08PM

The Tea Party movement is being ripped apart by bitter internal rancor, highlighted by a lawsuit against a former leader, vituperative name-calling, and charges of financial mismanagement and corruption.

As we told you this morning, board members for the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) this week filed suit against Amy Kremer, a former TPP leader who fell out with the group over her involvement with a rival Tea Party faction, the Tea Party Express. And on Tuesday, a judge granted a preliminary injunction, ordering Kremer to return control of the TPP websites to the board, and to stop representing herself as a TPP spokeswoman.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the Tea Partiers' internecine strife. Emails obtained by TPMmuckraker detail how a rogue faction of Tea Party Patriots is lashing out at the board for going ahead with the suit against Kremer, and challenging the board's financial management, triggering a state of acrimony that appears serious enough to threaten the upstart movement's ability to continue to mount an effective grassroots challenge to the Obama agenda -- just days after the House passed the health-care-reform bill that the Tea Partiers view as socialism.

In an email to fellow TPPers sent Wednesday, Gerald Merits called the lawsuit "the single most insane act of self destruction I have witnessed since this country elected Obama," and asked "how much donor money is being spent of (sic) suing Amy?"

For the rest of the day, the email list was consumed with charges and counter charges. In response to Merits, Josh Parker, a supporter of the board, wrote: "Amy created a situation where TPP couldn't do anything BUT sue her, then she goes on with her poor me crap. She brings this on herself and all the rest of us."

At the root of the dispute is the acrimony between TPP and the Tea Party Express, a newer group formed by a team of GOP consultants. Many TPPers sees TPE as inauthentic, calling it the "Astoturf Express," and deriding it as a "Republican front organization." But others -- including Merits -- have flirted with TPE, apparently out of frustration with the TPP's sprawling structure and unwieldy decision-making process. On Wednesday, David McKalip, the Florida neurosurgeon and one-time Tea Party Patriot activist, who found himself in hot water after we published an email he sent showing President Obama as a witch doctor -- addressed a Tea Party Express rally in Orlando.

In Wednesday's email exchange, several other TPPers sided with Merits in raising concerns about the lawsuit. And one, Jack Staver, raised a separate charge against the board, suggesting that board members were being insufficiently transparent about the organization's finances.

Wrote Staver:

How much money does TPP have? How much did we make in DC? Where are the financial statements? Do board members get paid and if so who? Who signs the checks? Where does our money go?

Merits echoed that theme. "Why are the financial records not public knowledge?" he asked. "Show me the money!"

Eventually a Tea Party Patriots loyalist couldn't take it anymore. "Why are you intentionally trying to destroy this movement??" he demanded.

Charges of lax book-keeping -- and worse -- appear to be breaking out across the Tea Party movement. In a separate email written Wednesday and obtained by TPMmuckraker, Matt Perdue, the president of a San Antonio Tea Party group, ripped into the group's treasurer, her husband, and their supporters for conducting a "mass redirection campaign," apparently to line their own pockets using Tea Party donations.

"Where has all this money gone?" asks Perdue. "If there is nothing wrong going on, why has there not been one single piece of paper produced to back up why people got checks, some for $3,000, $7,400+, $4,000, $10,400+??? Where is the documentation? Why isn't the cash deposited like it should be? Why did it take more than two weeks to deposit cash from the meetings?"

Meanwhile, other Tea Party factions are trying to distance themselves from the dispute between Kremer and TPP -- and position themselves to benefit. Darla Dawald, the leader of the Patriotic Resistance, a far-right grassroots group, wrote in a message on the TPP email list that her organization has "not supported any lawsuit or fighting ... but I felt obligated to inform our base what is happening so that you could make an educated decision about your support of the Group called the Tea Party Patriots." Dawald has been a key participant in the bus tour organized by the Tea Party Express -- an effort shunned by TPP.

And Eric Odom, the founder of the Tax Day Tea Party events, wrote in his own message that the acrimony "presents a dangerous situation for the movement as a whole," and urged TPPers to return to "defeating the socialist thugs who seek to destroy our country, not fellow patriots who seek to stop them." We reported that Odom this week launched a political action committee designed to channel Tea Party activism toward an electoral goal.

As Wednesday wore on, the TPP internal email list degenerated into name-calling, sarcasm, and personal attacks. "Jack, you REALLY look clueless right now," Parker wrote to Staver at one point. Parker also ripped Merits for "your usual pissing and moaning without knowing nothing." And Staver deemed Parker "not worthy of a response."

Some TPPers expressed concern that the acrimony could damage the movement if exposed. "Daily Kos and other left wing interest groups are going to love running with this story," wrote one.

Merits appeared to share that concern. "This will go public if we let it drag on long enough and if you don't think this will have a chilling effect on all Tea Party movements raising funds you are living in a world of fairy dust and gingerbread houses," he wrote. "Read my previous emails. If this goes on long enough, we all go down - NOT just TPP and TPE - ALL OF US."

Well, yesterday we finally got son's 1st quarter Japanese grade, an 'A', the first he's gotten in the subject.  After all the years of hectoring from his mother, you'd think she'd have said something -like 'Hey, you did it, I knew could!'.  Nope, which did not go unnoticed by son.  So the box score is 1 'B' and the rest, 'A's'.   Almost night and day from his junior year performance, which wasn't horrible, but was desultory.  Its sobering to realize that may have been influenced by my own unemployed and at home situation.

I 'get' the why's of lack of fulsome praise from his mother and in general why Asian parents don't jump up and down  for joy when their children bring home outstanding academic reports; its 当り前.  But this isn't Asia, as I have reminded his mother and that it wouldn't hurt to show son how pleased you are with his school work. The reaction to that has been along the lines of 'so he should be praised for even having a successful bowel movement?'

One of the many things I have learned in life is, life is a matter of balances and that sure any parent especially one suffering from 親ばか  can go overboard with the praise for children.  On the other hand,  culture aside, people are people and a good word  after some good performance won't bring the world order down either. 

Have always wondered how healthy the reluctance of Japanese/Asian parents to show some outward joy and appreciation of their children's' performance  to their children really is and how such affects personality?

I think I had one too many last night. 
That's what my head tells me at least...

But still, I feel good. Over all life is great at the moment, and I am looking forward to just relaxing and maybe having some kind of seriously decadent food today (cheating on the once a week is fine we said, and when you're hungover it doesn't really count anyways...) 

As usual it's grey outside, but since I'm not going to venture out in it I don't really care. Actually it can be quite nice when it's sort of dark and rainy when you get to stay inside, be warm and just look at it from your safe haven behind the window.

So I'm smiling to myself, looking at my friend who's sleeping in my bed (she a lot more hungover than me, but it doesn't bother me at all that she's here, I'm happy to take care of her) and wishing you all a very very...

Happy_saturday-6486

I'm definitely not one of those people who just jump at supposedly "hot new stuff" they try to sell. When I spot something interesting, I start monitoring news and reviews on the net to see what's up with it, if anyone seems to be complaining about some faults/ bugs/ glitches/ whatever.

Sourz

So for this night out I bought (among some other stuff)...

Apple sour(z).

It's a 15 % alcohol (for you who didn't know) and I it's going to be mixed with Vanilla Vodka and fruit soda to make a drink called P2.

...Or with just Vanilla Vodka so make Appletinis (which should apparently also have lemon juice or something like that in it, but I don't have that at home so...).

I've wanted to buy this for some time (because P2 is a good drink...according to me), but I thought it was too expensive.

As it turns out, it cost about 25 dollars for 70 cl, which I didn't think was too bad. So I bought it.

Oh well, I have to get on with getting ready for tonight now. I have a feeling it's going to be a great one!

Ki o tsukete mina-san! (^ _ ^) Matane!