१४ ऑक्टोबर, २०१६

At the Fox Café...

handwriting-5

... you can say whatever you want.

Are we drawing foxes now? I tried to draw a rat...

handwriting-4

... this is drawing with a finger on the iPhone screen... and Meade said it looked "foxy," so I tried to draw a fox. On seeing that my winner of the rat contest looked like a mouse and the runner-up looked like a dog, I started to think of casting about for another animal to misdraw.

३१ टिप्पण्या:

Rick म्हणाले...

Does this mean you're following the Bush Retirement Plan?

Hagar म्हणाले...

My computer - or the monitor - does not seem to like AA's drawings. Most of the time they sort of dissipate and only a few strokes are left on the screen.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

@Hagar

Consider it a variation on "Erased De Kooning."

chickelit म्हणाले...

I started to think of casting about for another animal to misdraw.

You could always try chickens. Just don't go sketching China. Truman fought for the wattle and LBJ fought over the legs.

Heartless Aztec म्हणाले...

No more Ratso Rizzo?

Hagar म्हणाले...

Michelle Obama professes to be profoundly shocked by Trump's language in the 2005 video; just never has heard anything like it.
Did she ever listen to any of the language used by the "artists" she and her husnand have invited to the White House?
I am sure her daughters have.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

And you with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree!

Unknown म्हणाले...

I like your fox. Your rats' bodies were too small, especially the hindquarters. And the snouts needed to be longer.

I had issues on the screen too (on iPad)- the images jumped around which made the whole page start jumping. At first I thought it was some kind of animation (I miss that commenter, Chip Ahoy was it?)

Hagar म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
chickelit म्हणाले...

C Stanley wrote: (I miss that commenter, Chip Ahoy was it?)

Chip Ahoy is creating excellent graphics on a near-daily basis. For example, here

Hagar म्हणाले...

As for the important things, I think the most remarkable thing is the way Obama has reversed W's policy in the Middle East without anyone in the media taking notice.

W tried to contain Iran without acknowledging that the US and Iran effectively were at war.
(Which I think W was wrong about, though of course, if he had acknowledged that, there would have been a substantial party in this country wanting to know why we were not drumming up a real army and invading. And then the counter outcry, etc., and so forth.)

Obama has step by step turned this around so that we are now effectively assisting Iran in fighting ISIS, which in Syria makes us allies of the forces that are trying to exterminate the faction we are officially allied with and supporting - a very confusing situation and a risky one depending on who shoots down whose plane or sinks whose ship.

There is the remarkable story about the $400 million "ransom" payment that turned out to really be $1.7 billion, or, oh wait, no it was actually $34.5 billion, and followed up by the lifting of the international sanctions on Iran's major banks by executive action in violation of US law enacted by Congress, but not a peep from anybody - least of all the "Republican led" Congress.

This has been a consistent pattern slowly emerging throughout Obama's eight years in the White House without ever any statement of policy to the American people.

Wince म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Hagar म्हणाले...

I.e., I think Obama has intentionally built up Iran to be the hegemon in the Middle East from the beginning of his presidency and I just wonder if the ayatollahs yelling "Death to America!" and "We don't want your stupid help!" is just theater or what.

Wince म्हणाले...

Last night I was watching the documentary "Spring Broke" about the evolution of Spring Break since the 1960s and through the "MTV years" in the 1980s and 1990s.

Flea of the RHCP being arrested for sexual assault and the Beastie Boy's and their antics (before they all "found" the Buddha and became sensitive artists). Buck Williams, booking agent for R.E.M. and other bands showed pictures of the band performing above Camel cigarette signs.

A different time to be sure. And what Williams pointed out, from the music promotion side, was that each of these spring breakers returned to "500 colleges" where these influences permeate the culture.

Made me think about Trump. Instead of "locker room" talk, Trump should have said he engaged in Spring Break talk, which has a much more inclusive sense of shared debauchery. He could even say he lived large segments of his life as though he was on Spring Break.

In the face of the current accusations, Trump could even say "I always respected the word 'No'".

Notice how the NYT dishonestly struck the following from their written quotes of Trump accuser, Jessica Leeds.

Jessica Leeds: "If he [Trump] had stuck with the upper part of the body, I might not have gotten that upset. But when his hand went up my skirt, that was it. I was out of there."

So, even according to Leeds, Trump was passing "second base" and sliding into "third base" in their first class seats when she said "that was it". And she left the seat.

No meant no, no?

My point is that Trump could have done a better job prepping the opposition research battle space by pointing to the "no always meant no" defense, rather than categorical denial of any occasion when he got in front of his skis with a lady.

And given his identification with 1980s party culture, Trump could have touched a more broad-based appeal to shared history of debauchery rather than "men only" locker room talk.

IgnatzEsq म्हणाले...

There was apparently a market for Giraffes, as evidenced by the Giraffes Drawn By People Who Should Not Be Drawing Giraffes (G.D.B.P.W.S.N.B.D.G.) website, which sadly hasn't had an update in years. Maybe you could change that with a most loved Giraffe?

Wince म्हणाले...

"Most loved giraffe"?

Michael K म्हणाले...

As for the important things, I think the most remarkable thing is the way Obama has reversed W's policy in the Middle East without anyone in the media taking notice.

Nobody is talking about all the real things that are happening.

The first real titan to bow out was Stanley Druckenmiller. Druckenmiller maintained average annual gains of nearly 30% for 30 years. He is arguably one of if not the greatest investor of the last three decades.

In 2010, he chose to close shop, foregoing billions in management fees.

Druckenmiller was not alone. In 2011, investment legend Carl Icahn closed his hedge fund to outside investors. Again, here was an investment legend who could lock in billions in investment management fees choosing to close up shop.

He has since stated he is "extremely worried" about stocks.


Victor Davis Hanson with a brief summery of where we are going.

What would once have been seen as radical neglect of our existential problems is now the normal way of getting by one more day. What destroys civilizations are not, as popularly advertised, plagues, global warming, or hostile tribes on the horizon, as much as self-indulgence, self-delusion—and, finally, abject paralysis.

A little shooting war in the middle east, is nothing to worry about. Look, a Trump sexual comment !

Hagar म्हणाले...

A little shooting war in the middle east, is nothing to worry about.

Nor that a Chinese and a Russian warship have also shown up off the coasts of Yemen.

rehajm म्हणाले...

Obamacare altered via, in part, an act of Congress is something new. It is not the Obamacare so much effort was wasted in saving

Eventually, Obamacare is dead.

Clyde म्हणाले...

Greetings from October, 2020!

First, the good news: Most of you are still alive. With the recent Iranian nuclear test, that's getting kind of dicey, though. President Hillary Clinton deplored it, while a very vexed former Secretary of State John Kerry couldn't understand how the Iranians would do such a thing. "We had an agreement with them!" he kept repeating.

And while there have been a number of Muslim terrorist attacks during President Clinton's term, only a couple of hundred people have died from them. DHS tells us after each attack that "You're more likely to die from falling in your bathtub than from an extremist attack." Cold comfort for the relatives of those who actually have.

The best news of all was that President Clinton announced back in early 2019 that due to health considerations, she would not seek a second term. Vice President Kaine has gotten the nomination and will be trying to get the American people to choose a fourth consecutive term for a Democrat president. With the ongoing connivance of the media, that's still a very real possibility, despite the fact that the economy has continued to sputter on President Clinton, who has continued the trend from the Obama administration of not having any period of 3% growth.

Much of this can be attributed to the web of regulations that continues to tie down American businesses, as well as the $15 dollar minimum wage that was created by executive order in 2017, when President Clinton couldn't get legislation through a divided Congress. The executive order tied compliance with federal highway funds. There followed an "unexpected" surge in robotics that replaced many formerly low-paying human jobs, as well as many companies being forced to go out of business when they couldn't afford to pay the increased wages to their employees. This is one of the major factors that has caused the labor participation rate to drop below 57%, down almost 6% from January 2017.

Another is the high cost of energy. When the Clinton EPA banned fracking in 2017, environmentalists rejoiced (as did the Saudis, the Iranians, the Russians, the Venezuelans, etc). Americans would do their part to "save the Earth!" And then some. Combined with the onerous regulation on coal companies that drove most of them out of business, the costs for electricity, heating and gasoline all doubled, or worse. The HillaryHeat program is popular among the urban poor, providing federal subsides for their heating and electric bills. You probably don't qualify, as you aren't quite impoverished enough. Yet.

The Obamacare death spiral came to a head late in 2018, and was instrumental in creating enough discontent, through its skyrocketing premiums and limited choice, to push both houses of Congress back into Republican hands. It was too little, too late. Americans who can still afford health insurance don't have much in the way of choice, and the many who can't are just paying their Obamacare tax and hoping they don't get sick.

One bit of good news: Private gun ownership is still legal, although new regulations from the new Civilian Arms Enablement Agency have made buying new weapons much more expensive, and combined with new regulations from the EPA (claiming that shooting guns creates greenhouse gases) have tripled the cost of buying ammunition.

We won't even talk about the new major intractable war that we're bogged down in. We aren't winning. Turkey is no longer in NATO. Neither are the Baltic countries, who have been pulled back into the Russian sphere of influence. We've brought about half a million "Syrian refugees" into the country during Clinton's term. Only a couple of them were implicated in the terrorist attacks, and as the old saying goes, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Clyde म्हणाले...

(continued)

And yeah, 2016 is looking like the good old days. Maybe if the Republicans had picked someone who had been better-vetted than a Syrian refugee, this cup might have passed from our lips. Water under the bridge now. Oops, there's the warning siren. I'm heading for the fallout shelter. Good luck to you!

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent म्हणाले...

Clyde,

The one good thing I can say about HRC is that she's actually pro-fracking and, after making the right noises and collecting the cash from the rubes, she's an indifferent eco-warrior at best. She's going to disappoint a shitload of suck...uh, people projecting their hopes and dreams onto her blank screen, or however the Hell it goes.

David म्हणाले...

Do not buy the Briggs & Stratton PRO Series 3600 PSI / 2.5 GPM Gas Pressure Washer.

That is all.

Except that Russia seems to be trying to create a nuclear war scare.

RigelDog म्हणाले...

Can't help you there---every animal I draw ends up looking like a fat dog. Except dogs. Dogs end up looking like long cows.

Hagar म्हणाले...

And Iran has sent two warships to the area.
And the area is the Red Sea Yemen frontage which is very tight waters to have all these guys running around in.

Leigh म्हणाले...

So in the midst of this Trump fervor and "stalking" claptrap, have you no bone to throw to the beleaguered Ken Bone? No bone for an "aware, non-compliant" engaged citizen who is being pummeled to bits by the media because he dared to ask Hillary Clinton a not-even-pointed question? So much for a thoughtful, even semi-informed, participating citizenry. Anyone failing to fawn like lock-stock lemmings over the media's annointed royalty will be cruelly neutralized. Goodbye to even a shred of reality at future Town Halls.

Also? I strongly second the comments by @Michael K and @Hagar to this post. I'd only add that the Wikileaks emails also deserve far more attention.

Finally, if I say the media should stop invading Mr. Bone's space, is that a bizarre rape joke or a stern and pious anti-rape statement? "If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"

Bad Lieutenant म्हणाले...

Clyde said...
(continued)

And yeah, 2016 is looking like the good old days. Maybe if the Republicans had picked someone who had been better-vetted than a Syrian refugee, this cup might have passed from our lips. Water under the bridge now. Oops, there's the warning siren. I'm heading for the fallout shelter. Good luck to you!
10/14/16, 3:50 PM

Just quit whining and and vote for Trump. I don't even care if you're in a safe state, every vote will count in the media battles for moral supremacy when the election is inevitably contested.

There's a bitter cup at your lips and you won't do the one thing you can do to pass it? Save yourselves and fight the power!

Clyde म्हणाले...

Bad Lieutenant, I never said that I wasn't going to vote for Trump. I'm "Never Ever Hillary," so that means I have to vote for Trump in what is essentially a binary election. Unfortunately, enough women are going to believe the groping charges against him that he's not going to win. Most women have never met a master white-collar criminal who is capable of making off with hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains, but they have met men who said nasty things to them or couldn't keep their hands to themselves. That's a personal thing, and they'll be able to empathize with that, and it's probably going to cost Trump the election. Intellectually, Hillary's crimes and criminal nature are worse, but the allegations against Trump will feel worse to them, and they'll go with their feelings.

Clyde म्हणाले...

And onw other thing: I read that Trump would not allow his campaign to do its own opposition research on him to find out what might be out there that would cause him problems. This was a cause of contention within the campaign. Kellyanne Conway was quoted as saying something like "I don't know what might be out there." These groping charges may or may not have substance behind them, but in the end, that isn't what matters; rather, it's what the undecided voters out there believe about them as to whether they are credible or not.

Bad Lieutenant म्हणाले...

Keep hope alive, Clyde. I know at least one woman at my office, a wife and mother, who knows exactly where it's at, who believes the Trump chatter is nonsense, and knows that at all costs, NeverHillary.

You are right, we shall now judge the distribution of intelligence in American women voters. I'm still hopeful, even though my own mother has succumbed to the reality TV.

But as long as H is under 50%, there's hope. Just do every last thing you can do. All of us.

Char Char Binks, Esq. म्हणाले...

I bet even an elephant in Thailand couldn't draw a fox that well.