It's friggin' cold out, today!
Anyway... the cable guy just left. Fixed my various "pole to line" problems, etc., switched out modems... all is well!
Watched my first paid for streaming flick last night! Signed up for a trial Hulu account (and after that expires I'll sign up for a trial Netflix account) and trail Amazon Prime account. Hulu didn't have the particular episodes of the particular program I was looking for, but it was available from Amazon (for $1.99) so I went wild and ordered it and watched it.
I need to pay for one more episode in order to "catch up" to the rest of this season's episodes which I have DVR'ed.
(This all goes back to the Optimum/Cablevision vs. "The CW" feud which is why I missed opening episodes of several CW programs and now need to pay to watch them!)
I may also have to pay for the first two episodes of "Hart of Dixie" which Mary and I missed; I haven't yet checked to see if they're available for free or only paid access.
Obama's still President and that really sucks.
Obama... Biden... Reid... Boehner... McConnell... Pelosi...
This country is so totally fracked up, folks...
(*SIGH*)
Anyway... except for Christmas I haven't used these newsbite posts for sharing my favorite songs and videos since my old computer crashed. It's time to rectify this situation! My old song lists are in my "old" email archives somewhere deep within the bowels of my old hard-drive... so... rather than bug "my tech guys" I'm just gonna start anew from scratch!
5 comments:
http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/afterhours/inauguration-2013/did-beyonce-lip-sync-the-star-spangled-banner.php
Beyoncé sang the national anthem at yesterday’s inauguration ceremony for President Obama and received overwhelming praise for her performance, ranging from Business Insider (“It was just amazing”) to TMZ (“f*cking awesome”).
* ONLY... (*SMIRK*)... SHE DIDN'T. DIDN'T SING, THAT IS.
To press seated just below the podium, in front of the “President’s Own” Marine Corps Band, it was evident that the band wasn’t actually playing during the song — even though band director Colonel Michael J. Colburn was conducting energetically and the band members mimicked blowing into their instruments.
* OBAMA CORRUPTS EVEN THE MARINES...
(*SIGH*)
UPDATE January 22, 11:45 AM: The London Times has confirmed our theory that Beyoncé was, in fact, lip syncing. See the video via YouTube.
UPDATE January 22, 12:10 PM: "We don't know why Beyoncé decided to use prerecorded music," a spokesperson for the Marine Corps Band told us this morning. "All music [for inaugural ceremonies] is prerecorded as a matter of course, and that's something we've done for years and years. The Marine Band did perform live throughout the ceremony but we received last-minute word that Beyoncé wanted to use the recording."
Miming along to a pre-recorded track isn’t unheard of at inaugural ceremonies. At President Obama’s 2009 inauguration, cold weather and wind meant that a live performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman had to be nixed in favor of a recording.
* BULLSHIT! THEY DIDN'T "HAVE TO." THEY CHOOSE TO!
[T]here are no previously known cases of a singer lip-syncing the national anthem during an inaugural performance.
* SOUNDS FAMILIAR... OBAMA IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A GREAT MANY PRESIDENTIAL "FIRSTS..."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-mali-usa-idUSBRE90L0DR20130122
The United States has started transporting French soldiers and equipment to Mali as part of its logistical aid to French forces fighting Islamist militants in the north of the country, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.
* FRANCE... VIETNAM... AMERICA...
* HMM... ASIDE FROM THE MONEY BEING SPENT... ASIDE FROM ENGAGING US IN YET ANOTHER WAR CONGRESS HASN'T AUTHORIZED... IF HISTORY PROVIDES LESSONS, ONE IS THAT HELP THE FRENCH IN THEIR COLONIAL ADVENTURES DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK OUT...
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/18/pat-buchanan-al-qaida-in-the-heart-of-africa/
* BY PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” is Newton’s third law of physics.
Its counterpart in geopolitics is “blowback,” when military action in one sphere produces an unintended and undesirable consequence in another.
September 11, 2001, was blowback.
George H.W. Bush had sent an army of half a million to hurl Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, a triumph.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
* ACTUALLY... NOT SO MUCH.
He proceeded to impose severe sanctions on the Iraqis and to build U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia.
* HE SHOULD HAVE TOPPLED SADDAM HUSSEIN AND INSTALLED A PRO-U.S. REGIME AND HE NEVER SHOULD HAVE PUT U.S. BASES IN SAUDI ARABIA.
“Infidel” soldiers on sacred Islamic soil and the suffering of the Iraqi people under American sanctions were two of the causes Osama bin Laden listed in his declaration of war on the United States.
* YEP...
Our 3,000 dead on 9/11 were blowback for having established a neo-imperial presence in the Arabian Peninsula after Desert Storm.
* IN LARGE PART... YEAH.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
In the African nation of Mali today, where al-Qaida and allies have seized the northern half of the country, Azawad, as large as Texas, we are witnessing blowback for President Obama’s intervention in Libya.
* YEP!
How so? Due almost entirely to U.S.-backed NATO bombing, which prevented Moammar Gadhafi from crushing the uprising of 2011, the colonel was overthrown and murdered by rebels. Tauregs from Mali, whom Gadhafi had brought into his army, fled or were expelled from Libya. Taking their heavy weapons, they returned to a country where their people had been mistreated and seized its northern half, to secede and create their own nation. But the jihadists who fought alongside them to capture the north turned on them and drove them from power. Ansar Dine and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb — like the Taliban in Afghanistan who blew up the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas — then blew up all non-Islamic shrines and imposed a brutal form of Sharia law. Adulterers are subject to stonings. Thieves have their hands amputated.
This is but part of the strategic disaster, however.
The U.S.-trained Malian army collapsed in the face of the rebellion. U.S.-trained Malian troops defected to the jihadists. A Malian captain trained at Ft. Benning overthrew the democratic government in Bamako and seized power.
* DID YOU KNOW THIS, FOLKS...??? DID YOU KNOW ANY OF THIS...???
This situation had festered for 10 months. Then, this month, the jihadists occupied Konna and threatened Mopti, south of the dividing line, and Islamists entering Mali from Mauritania seized Diabaly, only 250 miles from Bamako. The whole of Mali seemed about to fall to al-Qaida
France, whose colony Mali was, reacted.
Prime Minister Francois Hollande sent planes to bomb the Islamists and 2,500 French soldiers to recapture Diabaly. That battle is now underway.
* AND WE'RE FURTHER INVOLVING OURSELVES UNDER THE DIRECT ORDERS OF OUR AMERICAN DICTATOR BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA... THE LION OF LIBYA... THE BOAR OF BENGHAZI... THE FUTURE MONKEY OF MALI...
(*SMIRK*)
* HEY... FOLKS... DON'T MISTAKE THE SARCASM FOR THIS BEING NO BIG DEAL! THIS IS A BIG DEAL! ONCE AGAIN THIS PRESIDENT IS SLOWLY BUT SURELY INVOLVING US IN ANOTHER WAR ABSENT CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL - LET ALONE DECLARATION OF WAR. IN TERMS OF MILITARY ACTION... YOU'RE DAMNED RIGHT THAT OBAMA OPERATES AS A DICTATOR!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
The 16-nation Economic Community of West African States has talked of raising an army to recapture the north. Thus far it has been just that, talk. While the United States has provided logistical and intelligence support to the French, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says there will be no U.S. boots on the ground.
French troops and air power can probably clear and hold the south, but who is going to march north to drive AQIM and its allies out?
Twenty-five hundred French soldiers could not both invade and hold Azawad. Even should they recapture northern towns like Timbuktu, they could not hold the region against a determined guerrilla war that al-Qaida and its allies could mount. Yet Hollande says he will restore the territorial integrity of Mali.
French bombing is already causing civilian casualties. This could produce blowback in France, where thousands of Malians have emigrated. Many French yet remember the homeland terrorism as they fought their eight-year war from 1954 to 1962 to hold Algeria.
This week’s seizure of Western hostages in Algeria is Islamist retaliation for Algeria’s having allowed France to use its airspace in the attacks in Mali. And as Syria’s civil war has brought jihadis on the run, an Islamist war against France in the Sahel region of Africa could do the same.
And how would Muslims of an inflamed Middle East accept another Western war against soldiers of the Prophet?
While Mali is of little geostrategic value, a huge and secure base camp for al-Qaida in northern Mali presents serious problems for the United States. Al-Qaida in Mali is reportedly in contact with the terrorists of Boko Haram, who have been murdering Christians and burning their churches in Nigeria. And the reports that Islamists entered Mali from Mauritania suggest this cancer is metastasizing.
What should be done?
The United States cannot fight Mali’s war. No vital interest is imperiled there, and this could lead to an Afghanistan in the heart of Africa. But if America is not going to take the lead in recapturing the Azawad for Mali, who is? France? ECOWAS? NATO? Algeria?
Without America, the will is not there, the weapons are not there, the troops are not there.
As we consider our options, however, let us hear no more from President Obama about al-Qaida being “on the run” and “on the path to defeat.”
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