Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Well, folks... tis the last day of 2014.
Let me get a few end of year newsbites out...
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Preparing for NEXT Christmas... and Other Positive Thoughts!
Usually Right is basically my "Dear Diary" tracing the decline and fall of America.
(*CHUCKLE*)
But it's not ALL gloom and doom! This blog also serves as a travelogue, every so often a cookbook, and once in awhile a page for me to share my... er... "feelings."
(*GRIN*)
It was nice to have Kim home for nine days. Furthermore, it looks as if Mary and I have something to look forward to - namely, another trip to the UAE come next December... next Christmas!
(Yeah... we figure since Kim & Shaky seem determined to visit family and friends in America each summer, the least we can do to take some of the financial pressure off them is to alternate Christmas' - and thus Christmas flights!)
Here's the thing, though: Now that Kim is working for a private school and not the government, her housing isn't what it once was. No 20 ft. balcony overlooking the city. No rooftop heated pool...
(*SIGH*)
Therefore... we may have to stay with (or at - depending upon the host's Christmas break itinerary) one of Kim's friends whose apartment COMES with all the bells and whistles... OR... Kim and Shaky are going to have to upgrade... OR...
(*GUFFAW*)
OK... I'm kidding...
(*PAUSE*)
...kind of kidding...
(*CHUCKLING SNORT*)
We'll work it out!
So... what else? What positive thoughts do I have to offer as this year comes to a close and a new year awaits just around the corner?
2014 was a pretty good year. I'm expecting 2015 will be as well. Business could be better, but then again... it could be worse! The Barker lifestyle? Well... except for being priced out of Macallan 18, life is good! This year we returned to Charleston and Savannah... also to Key West and Fort Lauderdale... and additionally we partied in that rollicking tinsel town of... Schenectady... and of course made it to the hallowed ground of Cooperstown! Not too shabby for the decidedly non-1%, huh?
(*HUGE FRIGGIN' GRIN*)
2014 was also the year of Kim - the celebration of our daughter's marriage to a young man I couldn't be fonder of nor prouder of. Shaky... you're a good man! (If you weren't... you'd be DEAD... parts of your rotting corpse buried in various off the beaten trail spots throughout upstate New York...)
(*SHRUG*)
Hey... folks... just keepin' it real!
(*CHUCKLE*)
My wife? She's the GREATEST! (They don't refer to her as "Saint Mary" for nothing!)
My friends? God bless you all! You know who you are and you know how much I love you. A toast:
Sociability!
To my buddy God...
(*SHRUG*)
You da Man!
Father... Son... Holy Ghost... so far, so good! Thanks for all YOU do for me and mine! Thanks for Your protection and Your love. I know You're there... because I've felt Your presence. If not for Your intervention... I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it this far.
I could go on and on about all the things I'm grateful for. I won't, though. Instead... allow me to close with a bit of humility:
I'm far from perfect. In fact, I can be a real prick. I can be obnoxious, condescending, short-fused, wrongly assumptive, impatient, uncompromising, nasty, belittling, unfair, and downright mean at times.
I'm sorry. I'll try to do better in 2015.
As for my good qualities... my "better self"... I'll try to keep feeding into that part of my nature... hopefully the truer side of my nature.
That's all I've got, folks!
Merry Christmas...
Happy New Year...
AND LET'S ALL HAVE SOME FUN IN 2015...!!!
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Christmas Day 2014
Well, folks... MERRY CHRISTMAS...!!!
Santa - and family - has been BERRY, BERRY GOOD to your beloved bloghost...
I GOT THE HESS TRUCK...!!!
(Yep... Toy Truck AND Space Cruiser... WITH Scout!)
(Folks... we're talking the 50 Year Anniversary Hess Truck!)
Oh... and from Shaky and Kim...
(*DRUM ROLL*)
GOLD...!!!
(Yes... as in "GOLD" gold! Direct from the UAE! Two gold coins! Commemorative 1897 Quarter Sovereigns!)
Pretty neat, huh?
My best present, though... a simple email... a simple "Merry Christmas" from my sister-in-law Kathy and her husband Mike.
(There's a story behind this one, of course, but... in the greater scheme of things... it matters not.)
Let's see... BIG gloves... (SNOW GLOVES!)
A can of REAL Kona Coffee... (God bless Trader Joe's!)
Some VERY NICE BEER... (Hurry, kids! It ain't gonna last long!)
Assorted snacks... (I just LOVE getting FOOD & DRINK presents for Christmas!)
Today...? A lazy day. I've already told friends to drop by if they're of a mind! (I'm reiterating that to all of you now!)
Yesterday...? A wonderful day! Last minute shopping prior to salvaging 40 minutes to drink at Defiant... prior to heading to dinner which we enjoyed with the VanDemarks... prior to Church with the VanDemarks... then back home to watch the Pope officiate Midnight Mass from St. Peter's (the Vatican)!
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Merry Christmas... I suppose.
(*BITING MY LIP*)
Who the hell am I trying to kid - myself?
Cops being murdered... FDNY being targeted... 5th Avenue being closed on account of ANIMALS...
No, my friends, this is not a "merry" Christmas; if anything it's the worst Christmas this country has seen since Christmas 2001.
Do you think North Korea is a joke? I can assure you... it's not. Imagine them targeting not Sony Pictures, but key U.S. infrastructure.
Isis...? Iran...? How accepting of propaganda and misinformation the average American is. CHINA is our enemy... NORTH KOREA is our enemy... the DOMESTIC LEFT within our own borders is our enemy.
The lies the average America swallows...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
I know I've taken a few days off from blogging. In fact, I'll probably take a few more off! And no... I don't expect you folks to read/watch/listen yourselves into clinical depression today, tomorrow, or indeed till January...
(*SMILE*)
But just keep this REALITY in the back of your mind: America is being destroyed from within. And yes... we have enemies without... enemies who are actually looked upon as "friends" by the bipartisan American Oligarchy.
Ho...
(*TEARING UP*)
Ho...
(*TEAR SLIDING DOWN MY CHEEK*)
Ho...
(*DOUBLE SNIFFLE*)
Sunday, December 21, 2014
More Christmas songs...
OK... you guys remember how I found out I liked Pink, right? (Via BobyPump...)
GUESS what I found out while shopping with Mary and Kim last night! It turns out... I like Brittany Spears!
(I of course mistook "My Only Wish" for a NEW song - only to be corrected by Kim; seems as if it's several years old and I've just missed it until... er... now.)
Anyway... today... and over the next few days... I'll probably post more videos here on this thread - so check back every so often!
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Friday, December 19, 2014
Barker's Newsbites: Friday, December 19, 2014
Well, folks, happy days are here again - Kim's flying in today for the holidays!
I'm picking up Mary later this afternoon and off we'll go - over the river and through the woods... literally - to JFK.
Hell... I was up at the crack of dawn (well... 7:05 a.m.) this morning in order to get Hank a LOF; mission accomplished by the way!
So... today's Christmas song...
Oh... and folks... DON'T FORGET... set up your DVR's...
MR. MAGOO'S CHRISTMAS CAROL IS BEING AIRED TONIGHT...!!!
WPIX... Channel 11 here in New York... 8:00 p.m.!
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, December 18, 2014
Sorry for no newsbites yesterday...
Anyway... after 45 minutes... here's today's Christmas message in song!
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Monday, December 15, 2014
Barker's Newsbites: Monday, December 15, 2014
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Dec. 13 & 14, 2014
Friday, December 12, 2014
Back to Boehner...
John Hayward writing in Human Events...
* * *
* * *
Money is once more flowing out of Congress to all manner
of follies and outrages, thanks to an omnibus spending bill that funds
everything except Homeland Security through September of 2015 – throwing away
every scrap of leverage the incoming Republican majority could possibly
exercise against Emperor Obama, ensuring that no one outside the authors of
Democrat Party fundraising email spam will be talking about shutdowns, and
effectively neutering freshly-elected conservatives.
* ...AND EFFECTIVELY NEUTERING FRESHLY-ELECTED
CONSERVATIVES.
* TRUE CONSERVATIVES HAVE TWO... NO, MAKE THAT THREE...
CHOICES COME JANUARY: 1) TOPPLE BOEHNER AND HIS CREW; 2) LEAVE THE GOP IN MASS
AND START A NEW PARTY; 3) STICK WITH BOEHNER AND SIGN THE DEATH WARRANT OF THE
GOP WITH WHILE BUILDING NOTHING IN ITS STEAD TO STAND AGAINST THE LEFT AND
SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION.
* IT REALLY DOES COME DOWN TO THOSE THREE CHOICES, FOLKS.
Americans with some vague memory of how the system is
supposed to work might be wondering what happened to the sober deliberation of
budgets, the careful spending of every dollar, and even the basic rules of
accounting. Welcome to the new millennium, old-timers!
We don’t do things that way anymore. Government by
perpetual crisis is so much more exciting, and lucrative for the Ruling Class. Now
we wait until the hands of the fiscal doomsday clock stand at one minute to
midnight, and the political class has to fund everything with “emergency
spending bills,” scribbled in blind haste and posted on glitchy websites for
public review in a half-hearted ritual of “transparency.”
We live in the shadow of the cromnibus, an appropriately
clunky word that combines “continuing resolution” emergency tactics with
“omnibus spending” irresponsibility. The Cromnibus is a flabby beast with a
gaping maw and many tentacles to feed itself... but it lacks eyes, ears, and a
frontal lobe.
* I PREDICT ASSASSINATIONS IN 2015. ASSASSINATIONS AND
VIOLENCE - VIOLENCE FROM "WE THE PEOPLE" DIRECTED AGAINST GOVERNMENT
FORCES.
Anyone who raises the slightest objection to this panicky
spending bonanza is denounced as a penny-pinching extremist monster who just
wants to kill children, puppies, and kittens for fun by shutting down the
government that keeps them alive. You don’t want Obama to throw up barricades
around your national parks and memorials again, do you? No? Then shut up and
spend!
* I FEAR KILLING THESE PEOPLE IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THEM...
The sole reservation in the winder spending festival is
the Department of Homeland Security – which, as Fox News explains, is only
funded through February, so the GOP leadership can pretend it’s going to stage
a huge fight over Obama’s illegal amnesty orders next year. This is supposed to
mollify the starchy citizens who still care about antiquated notions like the
rule of law, the separation of powers, the value of citizenship, and national
security long enough for the Establishment to enjoy its holiday vacation.
* I HATE BOEHNER WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING.
* AND, NO... FOR THE RECORD... I'M NEITHER
"THREATENING" BOEHNER NOR CALLING UPON OTHERS TO BREAK THE LAW IN ANY
WAY.
Boehner's bill finances the day-to-day operations of
every Cabinet department except Homeland Security through Sept. 30, 2015, with
$521 billion for defense and $492 billion tied to non-defense.
Another $64 billion is provided for overseas military
operations.
* THROWING GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD...
Let’s have a big round of applause for the GOP
Establishment, ladies and gentlemen! They managed to throw away the most
remarkable electoral victory in a generation in only one month...
* DIE... BOEHNER... DIE...
* DIE... BOEHNER... DIE...
* DIE... BOEHNER... DIE...
There was no reason to give the defeated Democrats
anything except a stop-gap bill to fund the government through January, at
which point the incoming Republican majorities should have exercised control
over everything.
* E*X*A*C*T*L*Y...!!!
* FOLKS... BOEHNER IS LITERALLY A TRAITOR! AS LEADER OF
THE REPUBLICAN HOUSE HE'S GIVEN ALL THE POWER TO OBAMA, PELOSI, REID, AND THE
DEMOCRATS! (AND YET... THE REPUBLICAN RANK AND FILE WILL NO DOUBT RE-ELECT HIM
TO THE SPEAKERSHIP!)
* FOLKS... EVERY REPUBLICAN WHO VOTED FOR THE BOEHNER
BILL SHOULD BE TARRED, FEATHERED, AND RUN OUT OF OFFICE ON A RAIL!
On the Senate side, conservatives such as Sens. Ted Cruz,
R-Texas; Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., could create problems in
passing the bill.
* I DON'T SEE HOW... BUT LET'S HOPE AND PRAY!
Why any of these [RINO] leadership strategists think
voters will reward them in 2016 after they (a) give the country away to Emperor
Obama and his new imported class of super-citizens, and (b) allow the defeated
minority party to effectively run Washington for a year, remains a mystery. ...
The Republican leadership isn’t just bad at standing up for its principles and
fulfilling commitments to its voters. It seems institutionally incapable of
understanding, as Democrats do, that power won today must be used to set the
stage for tomorrow’s elections. Democrats target constituencies and service
them, including constituencies that aren’t actually American citizens while Republicans
try to figure out how badly they can get away with disappointing their base
while they service a Beltway culture some of them fear, and others profit from.
(*SIGHING WHILE NODDING*)
If the Republican leadership was smart, they’d be looping
events such as Jonathan Gruber’s disastrous House testimony into a big-picture
assault on arrogant, wasteful government, and reminding the hard-working,
rules-obeying American taxpayer how much contempt Democrats hold them in. A
proper budget debate right after the holidays would be a great way to do
that.
The Democrats fear nothing more than a sharp Republican
Party playing that kind of hardball and appealing directly to the working
middle class, which is so comprehensively betrayed by the Democrat philosophy
of rewarding its big contributors and powerful special interests at the expense
of everyone else. There’s a lot of junk in this “cromnibus” spending bill that
could be used to buttress such a case, such as a juicy payoff to outgoing
Majority Leader Harry Reid’s casino backers… but then, in order for Republican
leaders to make hay over such corruption, they’d have to give up their pork and
payoffs, and they don’t want that.
* V-IO-LANCE...! V-IO-LANCE...! V-IO-LANCE...! (JUST A
CHANT, FBI... JUST EXERCISING MY EVER DWINDLING RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH...)
The only reliable bipartisanship in Washington is the
agreement between both parties to serve and protect the permanent system of
regulators, appropriators, lobbyists, and Big Media, which have fused together
into a single organism with a shared bloodstream, through which well-connected
individuals and flow from lobby organizations, to bureaucratic appointments, to
media sinecures with ease.
Look at the resume of a Beltway power player, and you’ll
have a hard time telling the difference between elected officials, the agencies
they nominally control, the special interests they serve, and the media that’s
supposed to keep them all honest.
The same person can work for all of those entities in the
span of a decade. The only thing they
really cooperate on is the care and feeding of the Cromnibus, the misshapen
thing that feeds them all through its multitude of teats.
* KILL... 'EM... ALL...!!! KILL... 'EM... ALL...!!! KILL...
'EM... ALL...!!! (STILL JUST RAMBLING ALOUD, FEDS!)
If all this “omnibus spending bill” jazz sounds familiar,
it’s because we’ve played through the same hammy drama every year for the
better part of a decade. In fact, the term “cromnibus” – currently beloved of
such feisty insurgents as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) – is said to have been coined
by the office of then-House Minority Leader John Bohener, circa 2007, when he
energetically criticized the Democrat majority for doing exactly what Boehner
is doing today.
Barker's Newsbites: Friday, December 12, 2014
NOT... GONNA... LET... BOEHNER... SIDE-TRACK... ME...!!!
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
And now... for a POSITIVE exclamation of "Jesus Christ!"
This one... and this version... speaks to me...
Hey Jews! Atheists! Muslims! Buddists! Whateverists...
JOIN US IN MERRIMENT...!!!
Dear Marlin Stutzman: Please Castrate Yourself With a Rusty Razor!
HERE...
(SEE! I REMEMBERED THIS TIME!)
* * *
* * *
Representative Marlin Stutzman (R., Ind.) accused House
Republican leadership of reneging on a deal made with him to get his support on
a crucial procedural vote that almost killed the $1.1 trillion cromnibus
funding bill.
* STUTZMAN MADE THE DEAL. (YOU'RE A PIECE OF SHIT,
STUTZMAN!)
“I was very surprised and even more disappointed to see
the cromnibus back on the floor,” Stutzman said in a Thursday evening
statement. “The American people deserve better.”
Stutzman was one of the last Republicans to cast his
ballot in favor of a rule allowing the House to vote on the cromnibus.
* SCUMBAG...!!!
National Review Online reported that Stutzman backed the
rule at the last minute after leadership told him that they would pull the
bill, once the rule was passed, and replace it with a short-term continuing
resolution favored by rank-and-file conservatives. With the last-minute help of
Stutzman and outgoing representative Kerry Bentivolio (R., Mich.), leadership
won the vote 214–212.
* LOOK AT THIS CLOWN... THIS DOUCHE... THE
"LEADERSHIP" TOLD HIM... HE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THE BALLS TO NAME
NAMES!
* WHO PROMISED YOU, DOUCHE?! NAME? NAMES... PLURAL...?!
“I supported the rule because I was informed by
leadership that the cromnibus was dead and a short term CR would take its
place,” Stutzman said.
After President Obama came out in favor of the funding
bill, Republican leaders spent the day whipping their members and hoping that
Democrats would deliver the requisite number of votes.
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