Monday - November 09, 2009

Rare Edison Electric Pen to be sold …… 1st invention in the world to use an electric motor.

That’s what it says in the morning paper.
Did you folks already know about this invention?  WOW ... What a mind Edison had. There’s a better illustration in the hard copy but the Telegraph didn’t put it on line. Darn.  So I went looking and found a few photos.

There’s an illustration here that shows two jars ...  but the hard copy shows one jar that looks like a mason jar with a motor inside.

From The Telegraph

One of the few remaining Edison Electric Pens that was the first invention to have an electric motor is to be sold.

In 1875 Thomas Edison launched the pen to allow multiple copies to be made from the same handwritten manuscript - although the typewriter soon made it redundant.

The machine for sale that belonged to a collector is in full working order and comes with the associated Edison Mimeograph Duplicator.

The pen’s stylus would make 50 punctures per minute, perforating the paper with thousands of tiny holes.

This paper would then be placed into the duplicator and ink would be spread over it, creating as many copies as was desired.

Run off a wet-all battery in a glass jar, the pen was initially a hit, being sold all over the world.

At the time it was boasted that up to 15,000 copies could be made from the same stencil, with up to 15 possible in every minute.

Sales literature at the time from the US stated: “The apparatus is used by the United States, City and State Governments, Railroad, Steamboat and Express Companies, Lawyers, Architects, Engineers, Accountants, Printers and Business Firms in every department of trade.”

It added: “It is especially valuable for the cheap and rapid production of all matter requiring duplication...”

Originally the whole system could be purchased for 40 dollars, and there were different sized duplicators.

Uwe Breker, who runs an auction house in Cologne in Germany, expects to raise nearly £10,000 from the sale.

He said: “The Edison Electric Pen still works today, but you can use a modern 4.5 volt battery to power it.

“There are only thought to be about two dozen of these in the world and most are in museums so it is very rare for one to come on the open market.

“The electric pen was the very first item to be driven by an electric motor and is one of the earliest items of Edisonianan available to collectors.

“On August 8, 1876, Edison was granted U.S. patent number 180857 for his new invention.

“It sold well all over the world but the development of the typewriter reduced demand for it considerably.”

The is to be sold at Breker auctions on November 21.

Edison’s Electric Pen
1875: the beginning of office copying technology
by Bill Burns
Edison’s electric pen was the first electric motor driven appliance produced and sold in the United States, developed as an offshoot of Edison’s telegraphy research.

Edison and Batchelor noticed that as the stylus of their printing telegraph punctured the paper, the chemical solution left a mark underneath. This led them to conceive of using a perforated sheet of paper as a stencil for making multiple copies, and to develop the electric pen as a perforating device. US patent 180,857 for “autographic printing” was issued to Edison on 8 August 1876.

The electric pen was sold as part of a complete duplicating outfit, which included the pen, a cast-iron holder with a wooden insert, a wet-cell battery on a cast-iron stand, and a cast-iron flatbed duplicating press with ink roller. All the cast-iron parts were black japanned, with gold striping or decoration.

The hand-held electric pen was powered by the wet-cell battery, which was wired to an electric motor mounted on top of a pen-like shaft. The motor drove a reciprocating needle which, according to the manual, could make 50 punctures per second, or 3,000 per minute. The user was instructed to place the stencil on firm blotting paper on a flat surface, then use the pen to write or draw naturally to form words and designs as a series of minute perforations in the stencil.

Later duplicating processes used a wax stencil, but the instruction manuals for Edison’s Electric(al) Pen and Duplicating Press variously call for a stencil of “common writing paper” (in Charles Batchelor’s manual), and “Crane’s Bank Folio” paper (in George Bliss’ later manual). Once the stencil was prepared it was placed in the flatbed duplicating press with a blank sheet of paper below. An inked roller was passed over the stencil, leaving an impression of the image on the paper. Edison boasted that over 5,000 copies could be made from one stencil.

The electric pen proved ultimately unsuccessful, other simpler methods (and eventually the typewriter) succeeding it for cutting stencils. But Edison’s duplicating technology was licensed to A.B. Dick, who sold it as “Edison’s Mimeograph” with considerable success. The company is still in business today as an office products and equipment manufacturer.

http://electricpen.org/

All photos come from electricpen.org

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2009 at 05:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT • Science-Technology •  
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Fort Hood shooting: FBI to investigate reports gunman said non-Muslims should be beheaded

Except for the act itself, almost nothing has sickened me more then seeing this bastard’s photo in our morning paper today, wearing the uniform of the US Army.
When I first heard about this and heard the muzzie name, like all of you I wasn’t much surprised.  And this scum was born in the USA. Doesn’t matter does it? 

Kudos to the lady cop who brought him down of course and NO criticism of her intended. NONE!
But I have to ask those of you who know more about weapons then I do, which is all of you I believe, how was it possible to shoot this bastard four times and not kill him?  Are police in Texas issued pea shooters for sidearms?

Another question.  If these statements are true, and I guess we have to believe they are else where did they come from; what was our internal security doing?  The cops?  Homeland Security?  Someone. Anyone.  If a flag was raised, why was this creep still wearing our uniform and allowed access to our base and access to weapons?

The FBI will investigate a report that Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America’s Fort Hood military base, told colleagues that non-Muslims should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.


By Nick Allen in Fort Hood
Published: 7:30AM GMT 09 Nov 2009
Fort Hood shooting: FBI to investigate reports gunman said non-Muslims should be beheaded
Maj Hasan, armed with two handguns including a semi-automatic pistol, walked into a processing centre for soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he killed 13 and injured more than 30. Photo: GETTY

He is also said to have told other doctors at one of America’s top military hospitals that non-believers were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire.

The comments are said to have come during an hour-long talk Maj Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given a presentation focusing on an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Maj Hasan appeared to agree with.

It is the latest in a series of “red flags” about Maj Hasan’s state of mind that have emerged since the massacre at Fort Hood, America’s largest military installation, on Thursday.

One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.

Another, Dr Val Finnell, who took a course with him in 2007 at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, did complain about Hasan’s “anti-American rants.” He said: “The system is not doing what it’s supposed to do. He at least should have been confronted about these beliefs, told to cease and desist, and to shape up or ship out. I really questioned his loyalty.”

I’m not posting the entire article.  You folks back home are probably being flooded with the story already.
My source for this is the Daily Telegraph. 

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2009 at 04:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Military • Outrageous • RoPMA • Terrorists •  
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   Sunday - November 08, 2009

Weekend Oldies

Yeah, I know, I promised to do this each week. Sue me!

Here’s my personal favorite Warren Zevon song. Werewolves of London is good, but Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner is far better.

I’ve never been sure of this song. Didn’t care when I was young, but now? I’m thinking the Kinks are singing an ode to the transgendered:

But listen and decide for yourself…

Before you mention this Peiper, I did just notice he met her in a club in Soho. Think I’ve answered my own question.

Next up: ABBA. In period dress. Guess this is a tribute to Queen Elizabeth 1.

Lastly, in 2007 I was in the audience in Branson. Jim Stafford did Spiders & Snakes.

A bitter-sweet memory. The Skipper and I were supposed to meet up on my way home. He didn’t answer his phone. 

Posted by Christopher     on 11/08/2009 at 09:03 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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Weekend Women Redux

I sent this to peiper, who declined to use it because it’s obviously too hot…

BTW peiper, she has a nice hat also. Don’t you agree?

So, below the fold, Mrs Christopher.

Posted by Christopher     on 11/08/2009 at 07:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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A Rhetorical question

So, I’m watching The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

Now, I know it’s fantasy. But still, you have to have some basis in fact.

Reepicheep is leading the mice. He draws his obviously well-made rapier.

And here I went wrong. I started thinking things like: who forges mouse-sized rapiers in Telmarine-occupied Narnia?

Posted by Christopher     on 11/08/2009 at 07:00 PM   
Filed Under: • wierd stuff •  
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A Class Act

Former President George Bush and his wife Laura visit Fort Hood, spend hours visiting the wounded. No press coverage wanted. Compare that to the classless pretender’s “Oh, and another thing, there’s been this massacre in Texas” bit glued on to the end of his closing notes talk at some indian conference. Sunnuvabeetch couldn’t even be bothered to finish one talk then go outside to the porta-podium to make a separate delivery. He sure supports the military right down to the bone, don’t he?

Class vs. trashtastic.

No time to post today; here’s the link at Flopping Aces: http://www.floppingaces.net/2009/11/07/george-and-laura-bush-visit-victims-of-fort-hood-shooting-in-private/

Posted by Drew458     on 11/08/2009 at 12:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Obama, The One •  
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Get me a rope before Mandelson wipes us all out.  A RANT against the lord of darkness

It’s one of those literary like bleak English winters and I love it.  Dark sky, not a hint of blue anywhere and bitterly, bitterly COLD.

Since my first Sunday post earlier today, I have been ensconed in another room with comfortable chairs, three Sunday newspapers and all the magazines that go with them, and an electric fire as the Brits call the floor heater.  So lots to read and lots to ponder and I of course have to break away from that place, and come back to my puter to share things with BMEWS of what I always hope is of some interest.
Like this rant by Jeremy Clarkson on a man named Peter Mandelson.  Someone Americans won’t know or will not heard much of if anything at all.
I am therefore putting some information on this twice resigned under a cloud Labourite (LEFT) individual who has come back into govt., in our extended text.

Oh yes ... just so you people reading this know (Brits already do), Mr. (Lord actually) Mandelson is generally known as .....

THE LORD OF DARKNESS

Having resigned twice under a cloud and losing his seat as an MP, Labour made him a Lord so they could bring him back into the govt.
LyndonB will correct me where I may have it wrong.

So then .... Clarkson is on a serious rant today. He’s really angry.  Here’s an example.

Get out of this stupid, Fairtrade, Brown-stained, Mandelson-skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral, trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual, mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and set up shop somewhere else. But where?

Now I’m guessing here but those could be a few of the reasons that LyndonB and Chris have left old Blighty for other shores.  There might well be other reason as well, but that’s a good start. 
So then, without further ado .....  Heeeeeeeerrrrrssssss Clarkson.

Get me a rope before Mandelson wipes us all out

Jeremy Clarkson
Sunday Times

I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought all week, and I’m afraid I’ve decided that it’s no good putting Peter Mandelson in a prison. I’m afraid he will have to be tied to the front of a van and driven round the country until he isn’t alive any more.

He announced last week that middle-class children will simply not be allowed into the country’s top universities even if they have 4,000 A-levels, because all the places will be taken by Albanians and guillemots and whatever other stupid bandwagon the conniving idiot has leapt onto in the meantime.

I hate Peter Mandelson. I hate his fondness for extremely pale blue jeans and I hate that preposterous moustache he used to sport in the days when he didn’t bother trying to cover up his left-wing fanaticism. I hate the way he quite literally lords it over us even though he’s resigned in disgrace twice, and now holds an important decision-making job for which he was not elected. Mostly, though, I hate him because his one-man war on the bright and the witty and the successful means that half my friends now seem to be taking leave of their senses.

There’s talk of emigration in the air. It’s everywhere I go. Parties. Work. In the supermarket. My daughter is working herself half to death to get good grades at GSCE and can’t see the point because she won’t be going to university, because she doesn’t have a beak or flippers or a qualification in washing windscreens at the lights. She wonders, often, why we don’t live in America.

Then you have the chaps and chapesses who can’t stand the constant raids on their wallets and their privacy. They can’t understand why they are taxed at 50% on their income and then taxed again for driving into the nation’s capital. They can’t understand what happened to the hunt for the weapons of mass destruction. They can’t understand anything. They see the Highway Wombles in those brand new 4x4s that they paid for, and they see the M4 bus lane and they see the speed cameras and the community support officers and they see the Albanians stealing their wheelbarrows and nothing can be done because it’s racist.

And they see Alistair Darling handing over £4,350 of their money to not sort out the banking crisis that he doesn’t understand because he’s a small-town solicitor, and they see the stupid war on drugs and the war on drink and the war on smoking and the war on hunting and the war on fun and the war on scientists and the obsession with the climate and the price of train fares soaring past £1,000 and the Guardian power-brokers getting uppity about one shot baboon and not uppity at all about all the dead soldiers in Afghanistan, and how they got rid of Blair only to find the lying twerp is now going to come back even more powerful than ever, and they think, “I’ve had enough of this. I’m off.”

It’s a lovely idea, to get out of this stupid, Fairtrade, Brown-stained, Mandelson-skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral, trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual, mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and set up shop somewhere else. But where?

You can’t go to France because you need to complete 17 forms in triplicate every time you want to build a greenhouse, and you can’t go to Switzerland because you will be reported to your neighbours by the police and subsequently shot in the head if you don’t sweep your lawn properly, and you can’t go to Italy because you’ll soon tire of waking up in the morning to find a horse’s head in your bed because you forgot to give a man called Don a bundle of used notes for “organising” a plumber.

You can’t go to Australia because it’s full of things that will eat you, you can’t go to New Zealand because they don’t accept anyone who is more than 40 and you can’t go to Monte Carlo because they don’t accept anyone who has less than 40 mill. And you can’t go to Spain because you’re not called Del and you weren’t involved in the Walthamstow blag. And you can’t go to Germany ... because you just can’t.

The Caribbean sounds tempting, but there is no work, which means that one day, whether you like it or not, you’ll end up like all the other expats, with a nose like a burst beetroot, wondering if it’s okay to have a small sharpener at 10 in the morning. And, as I keep explaining to my daughter, we can’t go to America because if you catch a cold over there, the health system is designed in such a way that you end up without a house. Or dead.

Canada’s full of people pretending to be French, South Africa’s too risky, Russia’s worse and everywhere else is too full of snow, too full of flies or too full of people who want to cut your head off on the internet. So you can dream all you like about upping sticks and moving to a country that doesn’t help itself to half of everything you earn and then spend the money it gets on bus lanes and advertisements about the dangers of salt. But wherever you go you’ll wind up an alcoholic or dead or bored or in a cellar, in an orange jumpsuit, gently wetting yourself on the web. All of these things are worse than being persecuted for eating a sandwich at the wheel.

I see no reason to be miserable. Yes, Britain now is worse than it’s been for decades, but the lunatics who’ve made it so ghastly are on their way out. Soon, they will be back in Hackney with their South African nuclear-free peace polenta. And instead the show will be run by a bloke whose dad has a wallpaper shop and possibly, terrifyingly, a twerp in Belgium whose fruitless game of hunt-the-WMD has netted him £15m on the lecture circuit.

So actually I do see a reason to be miserable. Which is why I think it’s a good idea to tie Peter Mandelson to a van. Such an act would be cruel and barbaric and inhuman. But it would at least cheer everyone up a bit.

SUNDAY TIMES

Posted by peiper     on 11/08/2009 at 09:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Politics • Taxes • UK •  
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Police secretly follow mother after hearing her reprimand children.

BMEWS readers, When you were a little kid and maybe acted up or got a bit difficult, did mom ever threaten you with, “Wait till I get you home?” Or, “You’re gonna get it.” And didn’t we always know what “IT” was.  In my home “it” was never an idle or empty threat.

Well, if you live in this part of the world today mom and dad, ya better be careful where and how loud you threaten your offspring. 
It isn’t just the walls that have ears anymore. Oh no.  Off duty but officious cops have ears too.  So look around, look over your shoulder, look behind you because ...............  you will be questioned later.  You WILL be visited by .... The Plod.  (Britspeak for cops, in case you didn’t know that)

A mother who threatened to smack her children while out shopping was secretly followed home by an off duty policeman and was later questioned by officers.


By Jonathan Wynne-Jones
Published: 12:15PM GMT 08 Nov 2009

The 34-year-old woman, who has asked to remain anonymous for the sake of her family, was also warned by social services that she could face further action and that a file on the incident is being kept on record.

Last night, charities criticised the police’s action as “disproportionate” and pointed out that parents in England and Wales are allowed to smack their children.

Friends of the woman, who works in a bookstore and is married to an aeronautics expert, said that she had been left distressed by the ordeal.

Shopping in a supermarket in Woolston, Southampton, the woman’s children, aged 11 and 4, were misbehaving, provoking her to warn them that they would “get a hiding when they got home”.

She claims she did not actually smack them afterwards and says that, while smacking is used as a form of punishment in their home, it is not something she often does.

However, an off duty policemen who had been standing near her in the supermarket followed her on the 15 minute journey home and then reported the incident to Hampshire Police’s child protection team.

It was not until six weeks later that she was visited at her home by two officers and quizzed on how often she smacks her children. The pair also gave her parenting tips. They suggested that she should use a ‘naughty step’ or withdraw treats as a more effective form of punishment.

A month later, she received a letter from Southampton social services saying that her behaviour had raised concerns over the children’s welfare.

Kim Wills, information officer for Southampton council’s Children First department, wrote: “I am writing to inform you that we have received information on 24th September 2009 from Hampshire Police advising of concerns for ------- and ------ regarding an incident on 6th August 2009 where the children were chastised in public.”

The letter stated that Children’s Services would not be taking further action “at this time”, but told her that the information would be kept on record.

A spokesman for the department said that the incident would be held in their files until her children leave school, which could be up to another 13 years.

While it is a crime to smack children so hard it leaves a mark, mild smacking is allowed as “reasonable chastisement”.

Friends of the woman describe her as a good, patient mother, who is loved by her children.

They said she had been upset by the police’s questioning and shocked to learn that she and her children had been followed home.

A spokesman for Hampshire Police defended the action of its officers, arguing that the manner of her reprimand had caused alarm.

“An off-duty officer reported to our child protection team an incident involving a women in Woolston, Southampton who they saw chastising her children.

“It was not an ordinary telling off and because of what the woman said and the way her children reacted to it, it gave our officer reasonable grounds for concern for the children’s welfare and they may be at risk of physical chastisement.”

The spokesman added: “We followed this up as you would expect any police force to do, especially when it comes to the safety of children.

“Officers from the team spoke to the woman later at her home about the concerns and passed the details of the case to social services as is normal practice in such cases. No further action was deemed necessary by us.”

The mother denies that there was anything extraordinary about the way she scolded her children, and said that they were simply upset because they do not like being reprimanded.

A spokesman for Care, a social welfare charity, questioned the need for the police’s action unless there was a clear indication that she was going to beat them.

“One fears that it was a wholly disproportionate response to a threatened smack informed by the destructive and censorious views of those opinion formers who refuse to make a distinction between smacking, which can actually be very helpful, and beating which is a serious crime,” he added.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 11/08/2009 at 08:29 AM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Daily Life • Family • Outrageous • Stoopid-People • UK •  
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So now it’s come down to this low. Muggers attack two-year-old girl. I’m not even shocked.

So forget surprised.  Yes I think it’s shocking that any low life pile of human garbage would hit a two year old in a robbery attempt.  I’m just not shocked that anyone actually did it.
What ppl can get away with and what ppl do, just doesn’t have a very high surprise factor anymore.

Like so many posts I do, this wasn’t on my radar this morning till I booted to catch the morning paper before it’s been delivered to our door in another hour.
If caught, what are the chances these perps will EVER get the kind of punishment that would deter them from this kind of life?
My solution? Some serious acid scaring on the face so when free the public can be immediately aware of a potential problem coming their way. Some broken hands might be a good idea as well.  Extreme?  Maybe.  But so is street crime.  Trust me.  If caught, these slags won’t suffer whatever they put the victims through.

A two-year-old girl was punched in the head by two teenage girls during an attempted robbery in north-west London.

By Julie Henry
Sunday Telegraph

CCTV of two teenage female muggers who punched a two year old toddler in the head. Photo Pixel

The girl was with her mother when the pair were targeted by two female suspects in Preston Road, Wembley, at about 4.45 pm on Thursday.
They demanded money from the mother before punching her in the arm and attacking her daughter.

The attackers are described as being of Mediterranean appearance and aged between 14 and 18.

“Although the victim and her daughter do not have any visible injuries, this was a frightening experience for them,” said Det Insp Rebecca Reeves, of the Metropolitan Police.

“We have released images in the hope that someone may recognise the suspects and report them to the police.”
One was around 5ft and was wearing a white jacket, black mini-skirt, tiger stripe leggings, black flat shoes and was carrying a large black fake leather bag.
The second wore a black jacket, blue denim “skinny” jeans, black Ugg-style boots and had a large brown fake leather bag with gold details.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 11/08/2009 at 03:03 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Daily Life • UK •  
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   Saturday - November 07, 2009

WEEKEND WOMEN

I haven’t followed Country Music since leaving the business many years ago.  In fact, even when I was working in it, I hardly ever listened to the radio.
Still wasn’t hard to keep up of course because I was mostly right there in Nashville.  In fact, I was right here.

That’s the old Faron Young Bldg. My office lined in red as you see. Over to the left at the other entrance was the offices of Music City News. In it’s day the best paper on the topic in the whole of the USA.  Faron’s offices were on the top floor.  I liked Faron a lot. As a DJ of course I knew who he was and happily played his records cos the guy was damn good.  I think my favorite was, “It’s 4 In The Morning”.  Oh well. This is about Women.  Now then ... This absolutely GOR-JUS creature is a dancer I’m informed, but also a Country Singer. No, I had never heard of her. No, I haven’t heard her sing either.  I’m happy to just look at her. Aren’t you?

JULIANNE HOUGH:

(Born July 20, 1988) is an American professional ballroom dancer and country music singer. She is most-widely known for being a two-time winner of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.[1] She earned a Creative Arts Primetime Emmy nomination in 2007 for choreography. ABC’s 20/20 called her one of the “very best dancers on the planet."[2] Hough’s brother, Derek, is also on Dancing with the Stars and is a winner himself. Hough was signed to Mercury Nashville Records in December 2007. Her self-titled debut album was released May 20, 2008, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Country Album chart and #3 on the Billboard 200. It sold 67,000 copies its first week, and has sold over 320,000 total copies. On October 12, 2008, she released a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Julianne Hough Holiday Collection, which as of January 5, 2009, had sold 157,000 copies.

MAN WHAT A WELCOME AND FAR CRY FROM THE CARTER FAMILY. Not that I was ever a fan. Yuk.  If it wasn’t for the late Johnny Cash they’d have been consigned to the dustbin of music history.  I never understood their appeal.  APPEAL ... talk about looks.  Tanya Tucker’s sister. LaCosta. W O W! What memories.
Tanya wan’t bad either and neither was Lorie Morgan.
OK, enuff of that.  NEXT.

Because my taste is so well defined (lol) which means you can’t argue with me here.  This woman was not only one hell of an actress.
In the history of beautiful women this lady was, in her youth, the MOST fantastically gorgeous - desirable - beautiful - awesomely beautiful female that nature ever created.  And so say I and I must be right since my taste is better then yours.  (oh boy.  I’m in trouble. Huh?)

An English beauty rose for certain. You may recall her as the evil mom in, The Manchurian Candidate.  And of course the awful (I think) Murder She Wrote TV series.

AWESOME ANGELA

ANGELA LANSBURY

Posted by peiper     on 11/07/2009 at 07:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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Speaking of Obama, Heffer says he is beatable.  The question is, by whom?

There was a small photo in the hard copy of Ronald Reagan.  How I do miss that great man.
Anyway, this is an interesting take from an eminent Brit conservative.  There isn’t anything I care to add.  In fact, I can’t think of anything and it isn’t necessary anyway.
That’s your job.

I wonder, though, whether what has happened to Mickey (Mouse) is a metaphor for St Barack Obama, who perhaps needs an image makeover after an unsuccessful year of kowtowing to his friends in Congress. Finding a “dark side” to show to those who now call the shots in America – notably organised labour and other Leftist lobby groups – could well help his poll rating, as could an enhanced role for Minnie. Are Disney’s top men even now on their way to the White House for urgent talks?

it is quite clear that the rhetoric-filled incumbent is eminently beatable.

Barack Obama is beatable - but by whom?
The Republicans have a fundamental problem: they don’t have a leader to capitalise on Barack Obama’s weakness, says Simon Heffer.

By Simon Heffer

A year on from its meltdown in the Obama landslide, the Republican Party has cause to celebrate. As predicted, it won two state governorships this week – and that was predicted because of the disillusionment with the image machine that is President Obama and his chums. Those victories, in states Mr Obama won last year, Virginia and New Jersey, have caused not just many Republicans, but also their acolytes in the press, to proclaim they are on the road back, and that the spectre of George W Bush no longer hangs over them.
Perhaps they are right: but things don’t look entirely wonderful for them.
Like our Tories, the Republicans are finding it hard to avoid a civil war over ideology. A more significant electoral result, in this respect, came in a congressional by-election in New York state. There were effectively two Republicans on the ballot – a moderate, pro-abortion one called Dede Scozzafava, and one supported by most local Republicans, but running under the banner of the Conservative Party, Doug Hoffman. Last Sunday Miss Scozzafava withdrew from the race and said she would back the Democratic candidate. Her name was already on the ballot, she registered 5 per cent of the vote, and the Democrat won.
Those who have said that this shows the American people don’t want a Reagan-style Republican Party are, however, just plain wrong. Miss Scozzafava did not withdraw because she was popular: she withdrew because she was about to be thrashed out of sight. However, the battle over just how far to the Right the Republicans should be is one that is going to run, and cause problems, right up to the day in the summer of 2012 when their candidate is formally nominated to take on Mr Obama.

The Republicans also have a more fundamental problem: they don’t have a leader. George W Bush is in an outer darkness from which his forthcoming memoirs are unlikely to reclaim him. John McCain is still in the Senate and serving his country, but at 73, and with last year’s defeat on his record, the game is up. And Sarah Palin, who arrived with such a bang, has left with a whimper, weighed down by lawsuits, the towel thrown in in Alaska, and her baroque extended family having become one of America’s favourite soap operas.

In just under a year’s time, Mr Obama and his party will face what threaten to be gruelling mid-term elections. Sensible Republicans argue that anything could happen in that time and that the chances of winning back either the Senate or the House are slim. Despite the anti-Obama feeling in the country, and the unlikelihood of dramatic economic recovery over the next 12 months, they are probably right. However, the Republicans must demonstrate some momentum in those elections or they will never get out of the starting blocks in 2012: and it is quite clear that the rhetoric-filled incumbent is eminently beatable.

With that election almost three years away, nobody wants to be a Republican front-runner and invite early destruction (Sarah Palin, qv). However, media here have already identified two – Tim Pawlenty, the Governor of Minnesota, who strongly supported Mr Hoffman over Miss Scozzafava, and Mitt Romney, the multi-millionaire Mormon who ran for the nomination last year.

Governor Pawlenty sounds like he could be the man to beat – “We cannot send more politicians to Washington who wear the Republican jersey on the campaign trail but then vote like Democrats in Congress,” he said of his desire to back Mr Hoffman. So the fight will be entertaining, and possibly nasty – and that’s before they even take it to Mr Obama.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 11/07/2009 at 07:30 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Politics • UK •  
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A PRO WAR EDITORIAL COMMENT FROM CHARLES MOORE, IN THE FACE OF CALLS TO END IT NOW.

Funny how plans to do one thing get put off by something someone else does.  In this case, our friend Christopher has posted a great cartoon, and one I wish I’d found first. And like most illustrations of that nature, it says a heck of a lot.

Well, I had intended to post my Weekend Women before doing anything else, and they’re all ready to go.  But first there was that cartoon and then what is obviously a negative war cartoon in our morning paper, followed by this pro editorial from Charles Moore.  With all that, I felt I HAD to share this first. In fact, my next will be one from Simon Heffer on defeating Obama.  So a busier Sat. morning then I expected. 

This is a very worthwhile read and I encourage all to do so.  It has been edited for space here so please catch the link for the entire piece. It’s worth it.

If we truly want to win the war in Afghanistan, we need to challenge its opponents much more fiercely. Politicians such as Nick Clegg, who congratulate themselves on asking the necessary, awkward questions, need to be interrogated about what they actually want. Do they want the first defeat of the most powerful military alliance in history at the hands of a small band of fanatics armed with little more than rifles and IEDs? Do they have any conception of what such a defeat would mean for the world order, for the stability of countries in the region, or for civil peace in every European city? Do they not understand that this fight will be seen all over the world not as a battle for control of some jagged mountains, but between values, and that, if our values do not win, they will lose? (Charles Moore)

FOR MOORE, CLICK HERE

The war in Afghanistan is necessary, so why aren’t we trying harder to win?
The campaign in Afghanistan is being let down by weak leadership, on both sides of the Atlantic, says Charles Moore

By Charles Moore
The Saturday Telegraph
Editorial

Forgive me for starting with a harsh point, but it needs to be said that the fact that 229 British servicemen have been killed in Afghanistan is not an argument for ending the war. There is a tendency at present to exploit people’s admiration for the soldiers’ courage as a means not of advancing the Allied campaign, but of trying to stop it.

Such arguments have much more force with a conscript army, but ours is a professional one. Men volunteer to fight and they know that when you fight, you may die. The death of 229 such professionals over the course of eight years is not, by the standard of most wars, a high number. Tomorrow, the nation remembers wars where that number of dead per day was commonplace. The recent losses are extremely sad, but not shocking or even surprising. In themselves, they tell you nothing about whether the war is right or wrong.

It is, therefore, a bad idea for Gordon Brown’s public interventions on the subject of Afghanistan to be responses to particular deaths. Yesterday, he spoke in the wake of the murder of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman. One feels that his timing, though not his content, was tacitly rebuked by General Nick Parker, the new British commander in theatre, who said: “I hope we don’t make strategic decisions on the basis of this low-level, terrible action.”

The actual words which Mr Brown used supported the Afghan campaign, but their psychological undertow was less encouraging: “Oh dear, oh dear. Don’t panic! Don’t panic!”
Mr Brown is well known for being an intensely political politician, forever calculating electoral advantage, but he does not understand the political effect of wars. His original hope in Afghanistan seems to have been that people somehow would not notice it much. He was not exactly against it, but he has never, as people say nowadays, taken “ownership” of it. This is a war: why has he never set up a war cabinet?

Posted by peiper     on 11/07/2009 at 06:53 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • UK • War On Terror •  
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More Ft. Hood

See more such political cartoons here.

Posted by Christopher     on 11/07/2009 at 05:01 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor • Military •  
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   Friday - November 06, 2009

I’m Looking Into It

Every time I load this page today, the masthead and the first post have a white haze over them. I don’t know why. It isn’t any error in the top post, it isn’t a problem with the Cities Online counter over to the right. I will try pulling a couple more bits and seeing if that fixes anything. In the meantime, this post will stay on top, with lots of line breaks in it, so that the links in the posts after this one aren’t obscured.










Huh. I cleared all my recent data from Firefox and it went away. Stupid browser.  Good, that’s one less headache for me today.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/06/2009 at 05:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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