Breakfast Scramble

Warren Jeffs indited (Associated Press):

ELDORADO, Texas – A grand jury on Tuesday indicted polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and five other members of a sect raided in April

If the People of Texas prevail chalk it up to Jeffs’ vanity:

[I]nvestigators found photos of Jeffs kissing and intimately embracing several apparently teenage girls.

Having sex with a minor is already stupid.  Yet Jeffs strived to record his sexual feats crimes

John Edwards’ Two Americas Lives:  (National Enquirer):

Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

Note to Enquirer, make that former Vice Presidential candidate.  Then unlike Jeff, Edwards doesn’t face jail time.

Hello Dolly:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Dolly reached hurricane status Tuesday afternoon, as the storm headed toward northern Mexico and was expected to jolt the very southern tip of Texas but veer away from critical oil facilities.

Track Dolly here

Dark night for Christian Bale, (Loa Angelos Times):

LONDON — Did Batman attack his family?

Christian Bale was arrested and released Tuesday and then denied allegations made by his mother and sister that he had assaulted them Sunday night. The arrest reportedly was delayed until after Monday night’s glittering European premiere of the actor’s latest Batman movie, “The Dark Knight.”

Estelle Getty:  RIP (age 84)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy-winning actress Estelle Getty, best known as a wise-cracking octogenarian on the popular 1980s and ’90s sitcom “The Golden Girls,” died on Tuesday. She was 84

Yes, as you can doubtless see, we’re changing the basic layout.

I’ve found a template I can work with, and will be doing that for a few days. Mostly I’m trying to bring the color and font setup over from the old template while allowing the tech additions the new one allows. The old template was based on WordPress version 1.5, and a lot of changes have happened since then…. it took a fair amount of upkeep. This new one looks like it’ll be easier for me. As for looks; eh….  It’s getting there.  Meanwhile, pardon our dust.

Authors; Your new column width is around 900 pixles.  I’m working on that, too.

Addendum: (Bit)

Never mind. Turns out there’s a couple problems with the new one that I have to fix before I can put it online, one of them being the CSS feed routing, and the other being an issue with the sidebar code.

Made a good start on it, though. Meantime, back to normal.

• A second place at OTB’s Caption Contest.  Guess Obama’s an easy target. At least Leno will have some fun if Obama wins.
• So they tossed out Jackson’s fine for her ummm… “Wardrobe Malfunction’?  First, this does show, as everything else does, the uselessness of the FCC. But the real killer here is someone actually argued it was an accdient and some idiot wearing a robe agreed with them.
• I commented the other day about how Toyota was moving out of California… too much liberalism. can’t run a profitable business there. Now the AAA is doing the same… moving out of California, because of the costs involved. Last sane person out of California, turn the lights out, OK? Oh, wait… you won’t need to, I think.
• Add Rick Moran to the reaction list on the McCain op-ed rejection by the New York Times I mentioned this morning.
  

  “The Times is dying. And the story of John McCain’s discarded op-ed is one of the big reasons why.”

  No kidding. This incident may be the tipping point on a great many things, the election itself not the least of it.

• One of the big deals of the social left, particularly those who love poking fun at Christianity is those who predict the end of the world and then when the end doesn’t come, adjust their timetable accodingly.  Funny how the idea of peak oil gathers so much credit among these people, given that when peak oil didn’t come, they had to re-adjust their timeline accodingly.  The really funny thing is they never notice the parallels.
• Saw this about a cancer pill this monring. Interesting, but we’ve heard this before. We’ll see, I guess.
• Heh. And I’ll bet he still has a bug problem.
• 800,000bbls per day from ANWR… had Bubba not tossed that veto. Think that’d help? Pelosi doesn’t care. Perhaps it’s time we sent her a message, along with the rest of the Democrats?

Barack Obama continues his victory parade before the fact in the Middle East, while the American media attempt hide the fact that BO is clueless.  The Associated Press, like the New York Times, tanks for Obama.  Consider this lede by Brian Murphy and Qassim Abdul-Zahra:

BAGHDAD-Face to face with Iraq’s leaders, Barack Obama gained fresh support yesterday for the idea of pulling all U.S. combat forces out of the war zone by 2010. But the Iraqis stopped short of timetables or endorsement of Obama’s pledge to withdraw troops within 16 months if he wins the presidency.

Given the stubborn fact that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki clearly rejected BO’s pet idea of a withdrawal without regard to conditions on the ground, would the lede have been more accurately written:

BAGHDAD-Face to face with Iraq’s leaders, Barack Obama gained no support support yesterday for the idea of pulling all U.S. combat forces out of the war zone by 2010. The Iraqis rejected Obama’s idea of timetables and did not endorse Obama’s pledge to withdraw troops within 16 months if he wins the presidency.

Had the presidential candidate been John McCain, the second version would have been closer to what that AP would have published.

Jim Geraghty, National Review:

{A]s his adviser Susan Rice said, Obama “bows to nobody in his understanding of this world.”

Terry Moron, ABC News:

“And so, when pressed, Barack Obama says that he still would have opposed the surge but said he didn’t anticipate what people here call the Iraqi surge uprising against Al Qaeda and Shi’ite extremists. He said he didn’t anticipate that, but he is insisting that he is focusing forward on what needs to be done — setting that timetable for withdrawal.”

The victory parade of the Clueless One continues.  but not bowing is not the same as understanding.  Had BO’s stated course been followed, Saddam Hussien would still be in power.

Remember that New Yorker cover of Obama that caused so much fuss last week? Seems people are finally starting to read the actual story we (but darned few others) linked… and look what we find inside… Just after the 9/11 attacks, Obama went for the jerking knee when asked about what caused those attacks:

 Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.
We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

Of course, we’ve found since then, that all 19 of the hijackers were from either wealthy or middle class families… poverty had nothing to do with it.  Now, he may have admitted he was wrong about the poverty angle, but if so I’ve never seen it. And to my mind this brings up an important parallel; He’s yet to admit he was wrong about the surge, yet, too despite standing just now in the midst of it’s success. This stikes me as a rather critical failing in a candidate…. even leaving aside for the moment that he’s so wrapped up in the ‘hope’ meme that he fails to recognize what our enemy is about.

Is there anyone less qualified for the office of POTUS than Barack Obama?

Addendum:  (David L)

Bit quoted BO:

The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics.

I said yesterday:

BO‘s mantra has been Hope.  My description of BO has been moron.    Before you can offer hope, you must first have a clue. 

There can be no doubt.   BO is a moron.  For, only a moron would believe you can stop Islamist jihadists with empathy.   5.56 NATO works far better.

(CNN) — The New York Times has rejected an op-ed piece written by John McCain defending his Iraq war policy in response to a piece by Barack Obama published in the paper last week.

You guys have all hear this one by now, so it hardly seems worth it to waste the bandwidth to copy the meat of that story. If you want, you can check out Don Surber and his look at it. Michelle, too, where she points out that McCain has learned a powerful lesson on who his friends are not.. You may also want to slide by The Anhoress who does a fair enough job of doing what we have been doing here for a long time; dismembering the New York Times verbally.  American Thinker points out that the money is the proof of media bias and lays it all out this morning.

So, what we’ve learned, here, is that the New York Times is working feverishly for Barack Obama.  Gee, like that’s big news, huh? Well, it gets better.  Volokh jumps into this one too… pointing out that David Shipley, the guy who rejected the article, and wrote the rejection letter in the name of the Times, was a part of the Clinton administration.  Gee,  no cause for a concern over bias there, huh?

Powerline notes that there’s even glaring omissions in Shipley’s rekjection letter:

Apparently the Times didn’t like McCain’s op-ed because it didn’t precisely “mirror” Obama’s. Shipley emailed to the Drudge Report:

The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.

Obama, of course, didn’t “define victory in Iraq” either…

This is just one more proof of media bias. Can we take this as a given, now? And Pinch wonders where his paper’s circulation is going?

Here’s the piece as offered by the McCain camp:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

• Davidremarked the other day on the tax hike on fuel being proposed by the Democrats. I think his headline to be crucial to understanding this thing. Imagine with me, if you will, what would happen to the Democxrats and their chances in November if they printed headlines as David did;
  

  Democrats propose fifty-four percent gasoline tax increase

  Think they’d stand a snowball’s chance? David calls them idiots. I think not. True, it’s a destructive plan. But they’re Democrats… since when would they EVER be held to account? They KNOW they’ll never be held to account.

• I’m forced to conclude it… There’s something in the inbreeding of the soccer fan.. regardless what country is involved. I wonder about this, too, speaking of soccer.
• Donnagets a new phone, with a decent MP3 player in it. So, I get the Sanza she’s been carrying around till now.   It’s nice, since I do have a rather large MP3 collection… I figured out the other day that if you played them continuously, back to back, I have something like 3 months worth of MP3’s. Nothing beats it for the truck… though I wish I could get a stronger signal out of the modulator I bought.  Short  version of the story is the Rainier has a top of the line Bose system, and sounds fabulous to this broadcaster’s ear, even with the taps all the way open to the 275wRMS max.  Trouble is, the thing doesn’t have an auxiliary input on it. Only way  could get audio from the MP3 to the head just now was get a fairly cheap modulator, which is basically a tiny FM transmitter.  Tiny is the operative word, both in size and power. Even small, educational stations 60 miles away drown out the MP3.  (Damn the FCC for lowering their power unilaterally.)    So, I’m searching for a solution, there. I’ll let you know if I find something.
• Seems that ban on handguns in Chicago isn’t working so well.You’d think that Chcago, of all places, would understand prohibition better than most, particularly in light of the idea that guns and alcohol have long been a part of western culture.
• We’d actually planned to go camping this weekend. Darn good thing we didn’t; Temps were around 90, with humidity up in the high 80’s with thunderstorms. Yes, we have A/C in the camper, but sitting around a campfire becomes somewhat less enjoyable when it’s that hot and wet.  It’s one reason I’ve never considered camping in Florida, for example. Next weekend, perhaps. Not sure where, yet. Perhaps up along the St Lawrence river.
• Now, here’s irony. Remember Ezra Lavant? Apparently, since he won his case before the inaptly named Canadian Human Rights Commission, he’s been getting death threats. I wonder; Are death trheats considered hate speech in Canada? If they are, will the HRC go after this case with all the zeal they attacked Levant with? (Sound of tounge popping in cheek) He’s offering a reward of $1000 if you can find out the owner of this address… “CM00195eebd328.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com”
• One of the nice things about WordPress 2.6, which I installed over the weekend, is that it allows me to preview what a new theme looks like and though some slightly convoluted menuing, I can edit the thing, all without putting it online. I’ve got a project going. It may or may not come to anything, but it’s fin for the web guy in me, anyway.
• They’re still convinced Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery. Strata isn’t.
• Gotta love it. Ya know, I hope it’s not just me that thinks this thing with Obama’s speaking outside the country is a bit over the edge. I mean ostensibly, he was supposed to be fact finding, not trying to sell hismelf. (Yeah, right) But notice, please that the Obama camp is going out of their way to avoid contact with the Euro press. So, guess who this is for the benefit of? Leftists at home who think we’re not bowing to old Europe enough.  And I wonder too, if some of this isn’t because the Euro press is somewhat less in the tank for Obama?
• Happened across Roman Catholic Radio last night while panning around the AM dial, and heard all about how we who think strong borders, and immigration laws lack the Charity of Christ.  Well, I have to tell you, I’m annoyed. We need to favor open borders, and apparently disregard laws designed for the security of our country as ‘unjust’…  This is a moral issue, we’re told.    Well, it seems to me that the group that kept Clergy abuse under wraps for so long, on a world-wide basis, has a great deal of ground to cover before they can presume to judge my morality, or anyone else’s. Now, I’m quite sure I’m going to catch serious flack over this, but I speak as one who was and remains steeped in the Christian tradition, and I must tell you that this open borders business of theirs is way over the line, and I’m finally forced to speak out.  What was this from Christ about giving to Caesar that which is Caesar’s?  Doesn’t that suggest that we’re supposed to obey the laws as set out by the government? That was a rather thick line Christ drew.  While you actually have the Bible cracked open instead of using it as a club, please explain to me where theft is covered in the Bible. Wasn’t that “thou shalt not steal?”  Theft is what we’re talking about, when we talk about LaRaza, for example. Is the Roman church saying that we’re not to be concerned about all the theft, murder and rapes committed by illegals?  For example, one that just came up in the news here this morning, out in SanFran.  I’d suggest, in that case, the city and it’s sanctuary policy bears direct culpability for those deaths.   I’m proud to be associated with people who come to this country to be a part of this country and it’s culture. I will fight, as I can anyone wanting into this country under any other conditions. I will continue to fight for borders, language and culture.  I view that as a moral issue.  Sorry, Roman Church…you’ve squandered your status as the representative of Christ in my view, and have no moral leg to stand on here. No voice whatever. None. You, also, share the burden for these deaths, and more since it’s your policy and your arguing these people are following. I’d suggest having a word with Christ on the matter, but my guess is you’ve forgotten his number. I, meanwhile, have yours, cold.
• The other side of that guage of charity of course, is the Democrats, who are basically hiding Denver’s  homeless buying the movie tickets, and zoo tickets, to keep them out of sight. Gee… now there’s the charity of Christ, huh? Funny how the Catholic Church says nothing of this, or of the policies that make it a need.
• Now that we’ve gotten Obama to Visit Iraq, perhaps we can get McCain to visit ANWR?With any luck, he won’t be issuing policy pronouncements before he goes, like Obama did. Obama’s suppsoedly on the ground now, but based on his statements he’s incapable of learning about the situation there. At least, he’s incapable of admitting he was wrong.
• Here comes the ‘Tax the rich” meme again.  What do you do when you run out of rich?
• Meanwhile, Rasmussen Reports is saying that there’s a majority out there that see the press as being in the tank for Obama.  As if we needed proof beyond this nonsense. Of course the remaining question is how many people understand that to be a bad thing.

Micheal Falcone has written an interesting article for the New York Times, “McCain Ad Takes On Obama Over Gas Prices.”   The close of the article:

Don’t hope for more energy, vote for it. McCain.

BO’s mantra has been Hope.  My description of BO has been moron.    Before you can offer hope, you must first have a clue.   John McCain hits BO for being clueless on energy.   BO thinks we can tax ourselves to energy independence.    Not only is McCain right that BO has no clue with regard to energy, he simply has no clue, save how to read a teleprompter.

America doesn’t need a  President who offers hope.  We need a President with a clue.  Developing …

The belief that reporters are trying to help Barack Obama win the fall campaign has grown by five percentage points over the past month

Rasmussen Reports

No Amanda Sherlock!

The Wall Street Journal is saying:

Now that Starbucks Corp. has disclosed the 600 locations it wants to shutter, a phenomenon is taking hold: the Save Our Starbucks campaign.

In towns as small as Bloomfield, N.M., and metropolises as large as New York, customers and city officials are starting to write letters, place phone calls, circulate petitions and otherwise plead with the coffee company to change its mind.

“Now that it’s going away, we’re devastated,” said Kate Walker, a facilities manager for software company SunGard Financial Systems who recently learned of a store closing in New York City.

Here’s a list of the closings, by the way. Wel, now, that was the other shoe, I guess… which stores were to close.

It’s interesting to note how many find themselves in this situation.  for all that there’s a bunch of whiners  out there that treat Starbucks the same as they’d treat Wal-Mart,  there’s a lot more people who find themselves upset that their store is scheduled to close.

For all that anti-Starbucks nonsense… which I cannot really take any more seriously than I do the treatment of Wal-Mart… Tom Smith over at Right Coast makes the point that Starbucks has improved the quality of even non-Starbucks coffee, if for no other reason than they raised the bar:

Yes, Starbucks are absurdly ubiquitous, they have overexpanded, and now they’re going to pay the price.  The creative destruction of the market is at work.  But we should remember some key facts and be grateful.

First, remember what coffee was like before Starbucks.  Some of you (though I doubt it, with the readership of this blog) may have cut your teeth on micro-roasted craft coffee shipped straight from Kona or that African critter’s butt to your grinding burr in Seattle.  But most of us drank the usual American swill to be found in law firm coffee rooms and frat house kitchens.  Akk.  Dreadful stuff and I know because I drank enough of it.  “I just made it” meant it had been sitting there getting foul for less than an hour.  “It’s OK” meant you could drink and not die immediately.  I grew up in a house where my Mom drank 20 cups of coffee a day, not one of them not worth forgetting until, you guessed it, Starbucks came along and taught people about coffee the way everybody discovered wine in the 1970s.  So yes, Starbucks is not as good as PetePeet’s. Well, excuse me while I play the grand piano.  No it isn’t.  But the point is, it’s not Maxwell House.

Well, as I told James at OTB (Who passed long the link BTW)

Neither is Maxwell House, anymore, and perhaps that’s the larger point.

A lot of what is said here is true, but let’s be honest; a lot of that is perception. One can still get a reasonably good product from the biggies…(MH, Folgers, etc) with some care, particularly among their specialty labels.

Don’t misundersdtand…The point I’m making isn’t that there are not shifts in quality of the original product… the coffee itself. What I’m suggesting is that we’ve shifted away from an attitude of “It’s just coffee, for crying out loud”, to “Let’s do this right”. I suppose Starbucks did that, at least; hipped folks to the idea that there was “Just coffee” can be far better than what we found boiling away at the bottom of the pot.

See, it’s not just the coffee beans themselves though that’s a large part of it. But I’ve had some VERY bad coffee made from Starbucks beans, because the person making the stuff had no clue what constitutes a good cup of coffee.

Smith, however, goes further:

A common meme is this idea that Starbucks is a hotbed of elitism in the bosom of no nonsense, egalitarian America, as opposed to good ol’ Dunkin Donuts.  This is a lie.  Maybe people who live in La Jolla or Coral Gables get sick of elitism, but for the vast majority of us who live out in the great long tail of American mediocrity, a place that has pretensions to upper middle class culture, however transparently self serving and delusional, is more than welcome.

Exactly. And if we’re truthful, we have to admit that is the secret to the success of Starbucks, and a lot of other coffee chains… even McDonalds recognized this and started remodeling many of it’s outlets to more closely resemble Starbucks stroes… in the lighting, the deep browns and tans of wood and leather… the overall look and feel is of a well-appointed break room in a lawyer’s office, or perhaps a boardroom of anywhere in Corporate America.

The reason such things are a success.. the business model for Starbucks… is when you go out for Coffee… which isn’t exactly a scarce thing and could be obtained anywhere… you tend to prefer something a bit more special… that’s the nature of going out to eat or whatever, these days.  Even places like Dunkin Donuts, are putting a specialty spin on their coffee anymore.

That’s the nature of competition. It improves everyone’s situation. And guess what? IN the end, competition is what the anti-Starbucks movement was rooted in.

I should note that one Starbucks store in my area is closing. Not a shock; the neighbors have been rasing hell about the traffic sround the place and the lack of parking, with the town for years now.  meanwhile, four more have gone into the area within trhee miles of the closing one. Sorry, but I can’t get overly excited about this one.

One thing I will note; Around Casa de Bit there are more in the way of Tim Horton’s than there are of Starbucks, by a factor of 2 at least. Different niche, but still… Tim’s coffee also went up a notch or three, after Starbucks came on the scene….

Addendum: (Bit)

As the conversation has progressed over at OTB, we have gotten into some territory we often get into with these kind of discussions, particularly where leftists are involved: The anti-corporation nonsense. One reader complans about the ‘thuggery’ of Starbucks.  Essentially, he decides to go to the old reliable of duming on the corporation. I respond:

Look, Dodd, there are taste factors involved here of course.. and that’s an individual thing. Call it snaobbery, or whatever. But that wasn’t Tlaloc’s thrust, by my read. Tlaloc leans toward dumping on the corporation which is why I raised the spectre of Wal-Mart. Corporations, after all, always make easy targets…

It’s easy, for example, to blame corporations for fat kids, instead of laying blame on parenting. Those parents are voters, after all. It’s easy to blame the corporation for your chopped finges, saying the evil nasty corporation didn’t want to spend the money $0.01 to put a warning sticker on your mower… when most people with any degree of common sense understand even without the help that putting your hands under a mower that is running might not be the smartest thing. It’s easy to blame the corporation for not warning you that putting your toaster oven in the bathtub with you might cause a problem. It’s easy to blame corporations for oil prices,. easier certainly than blaming governmental policies so dominated by the ‘no drilling’ crowd. It’s easy to blame the demise of small (insert product here) shops on the corporations… rather than reflect on the fact that if the small shops were doing a better job, they’d remain in business. etc, etc.

All of this is of a kind with most of the anti-Starbucks nonsense I see, such as what Tlaloc came up with here. Sorry, I’m unimpressed by it.

Oil futures went slightly above $130/BBL early today apparently on Iran fears, and on US weather concerns in the Gulf of Mexico. 

These, however, seem temporary concerns. and certainly not the kind of speculation driving spikes we’ve seen in recent months, now.  These also seem the kind of concerns that increasing domestic production would also most drectly affect.

It was historlc, a first of its kind and to a young teenager and his brother, it was quite impresive.   It was Midtown Plaza and it was the first indoor mall in the nation.

Of course in 1963, Midtown was the only indoor mall I had ever seen.  I was impressed but I had nothing with to compare it.

I place the start of Midtown’s decline with the opening of Greece Town Mall.  In of itself, Greece Town Mall,  wasn’t much of a mall, but unlike Midtown it had free parking.   Those were always Midtown’s problems, you had to pay to park and the stores were never great.

The last destination store in Midtown was a leather shop which relocated to the suburbs about a decade ago.  For the last several years, I’d get to Midtown once a year to hike the Rochester Skyway.   It was depressing hiking through a once vibrant shopping area.   I did my last hike there earlier this year.  I moved the hike up so get it in before the Mall closed.

Anyhow, 13WHAM has put together an interesing Midtown Plaza History.   Midtown will be demolished next year, but had been slowly dying for years.   Save for those who live downtown, the shopping simply will not be messed.

Hat tip photo: City Newpaper.

Addendum: (Bit)

My connection to Midtown is somewhat deeper than is David’s, I suppose, given that I was working in the place on and off over 30 years.  First job was at what was WVOR/100.5fm, which had it’s studios on the third floor, to the left of this shot, at the time. Later, I would work at Xerox, also left, and over at Chase Manhattan, to the right.  Oddly enough, to the center of the shot, on the upper floor, is the shop that lasted there all that time; A Radio Shack… which of course is a business that saw changes over the years. I bought my first mobile DJ control board there, 30 years ago. I still have that board. Still works, too. Used it for an amp bridge about 6 years ago.

And I saw the place as few do, while working there… I saw it during all the off hours imaginable, since I was on call at the bank, or the Radio station… It was not unusual at all for me to come into the place at all hours of the day and night.  You can imagine the place dark, not lights on to speak of. Huge, and a little intimidating in the darkness.

It goes even deeper. Some of my earliest memories surround visits to the place. I commented on this a few years ago:

One thing I do remember also about those years is the rather unique clock, shown in the interior shot on the page I linked. There are 12 nations represented on that clock… And each one of the pods you see, contains a diarahma depicting that country. It moves, and has a soundtrack for each country, too… And was all made by hand, and worked for the first time the week the mall opened back in 1962. At the time, the electronics were all electron tube based, and tape recordings provided the (rather poor quality) sound. Since then, a computer has taken over the operation of the display which vastly improves the sound, but some of the hand-made parts have broken, and the gent whose clock outlasted him, isn’t around to care for his creation. Sad.

I can remember begging my sister to wait just until the top of the hours, just so I could hear the music and see all the doors opened at once… And see all the displays, instead of just the half-hour where only one of them opened.

If this all sounds quaint, keep in mind; This was magical stuff for a 5 year old, particularly for the time. And the time itself was of the same magic; The country was under the Presidency of JFK, the world, supposedly, was united..And our place in the world was pretty much secured, except for those nagging nuclear bomb drills in school, and some background noise during the dinner hour about a place called Vietnam.

Still, this was quite the place when it opened in 62; One of the first of it’s kind. I suppose the guys who put it up… Foreman, McCurdy, and so on, rather figured it’d be around a bit longer.

Even back in 04, when I was still working there, I knew the end couldn’t be far off:

I still shop here for some of my Christmas giving… for two reasons… I work here… and I like the idea of coming here each year. It’s something of a tradition for us to bring the boys down and show them around. They particularly like the model train displays that get set up each year at various locations, and of course a ride on the monorail s a good thing… But I know that this place is a memory, now on borrowed time. And that’s sad.

Thus the unannounced, yet impending demise of an old friend is noted in this blogger’s musings for the week.

Well, now it’s gone, and it’s all done but for the wrecking ball, and I cannot help but feel a milestone long coming, has finally passed.

It’s immensely amusing;

The last several years we have had long lines of leftists denounce saying the Middle East politics of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. This argument, apparently, is supposed to suggest that our involvement in Iraq is somehow deficient, and of course, that all this is the blame of the Republican administrations involved.  None of this, of course, accounts for Jimmy Carter’s involvement with the origination of this particular policy in Iraq.

Be that as it may, I was amused to note none other than Bob Barr attending the Nutroots conference in Austin the other day.  I gather that just about everybody on the planet expected Al Gore to show up, but nobody expected Barr.  Sort of like the Spanish Inquisition, I suppose. Nobody expects them, either.

One can only assume that there is a special kind of pragmatism going on these days, with the left so desperate to get one of its own inside the White House. however you read that, there can be only one reason why Mr. Barr has decided to show up to this conference.  That being that he realizes that Obama is weak enough of a candidate to warrant his attempting to steal away some of the votes at this conference. put more simply, Mr. Barr wouldn’t be at the conference if he didn’t think he was going to gain something by it.

This perhaps also says something about the idea that bar will only be taking votes away from McCain.  Just as certainly the Democrats are expressing the same hope.  Clearly, however,  Mr. Barr doesn’t see it that way.

Now, look; I figure like the Pythonesque Spanish Inquisition, Barr will be laughingly ineffecie at actually gaining enough votes to make any difference at all.  Barr is not going to carry any state in the union.  As a matter of fact I doubt he’s going to carry any county in the union.  Any voting district.  His impact will be minimal if that.  That said, he wouldn’t be down there pitching his line to a room full of staunch liberals, if he wasn’t taking it as accepted that the Democrat nominee is in serious trouble with his own party.

(CNN) — A German magazine quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as saying that he backed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months.

“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months,” he said in an interview with Der Spiegel that was released Saturday.

“That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,” he said.

But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks “were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately.”

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.

So, in other words, what’s happened here is that Maliki is NOT backing Obama’s “plan”.  Gee… I wonder why the press would change the facts? Perhaps to suit it’s own mantra?Clearly, what we have here isn’t news reporting, it’s liberal advocacy with a press pass stapled to it.

So much for Obama’s ability as a statesman, to be caught so quickly, in what clearly is an agenda driven mistranslation… no… call it lie, actually…

Oh, and with more and more people ending up under Obama’s bus  you watch and see how long it takes for Maliki to go from ‘Friend of Obama to ‘a creation of George Bush”.  I’m telling you… it’s likely already happened.

Quips Allahpundit:

As if it’s not bad enough that they’re trying to spin this after the fact, the Times reports that the statement was put out by Centcom, just to make the U.S. fingerprints on it extra legible, I guess. In any event, Maliki’s desire to make any timetable contingent upon further security gains was already clear from the Spiegel translation — or more specifically, the first version of the Spiegel translation, before they went and surreptitiously changed it.

McCain’s team put out a statement tonight, too.  Quote:

Let’s be clear, the only reason that the conversation about reducing troop levels in Iraq is happening is because John McCain challenged the failed Rumsfield-strategy in Iraq and argued for the surge strategy that is responsible for the successes we’ve achieved and which Barack Obama opposed. Unlike Barack Obama, John McCain has never ignored the facts on the ground in Iraq, he’s never avoided the warzone before proposing new strategy, and he’s never voted against funding our troops in the field. If John McCain was following Barack Obama’s lead on foreign policy, the United States would have already withdrawn from Iraq in a humiliating defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.

Quite so, although I’d have re-written that as, “If John McCain and Nuri al-Maliki were following Barack Obama’s lead…” Barry O’s accomplished the foreign policy masterstroke here of screaming for withdrawal year after year when it would have been a horrific idea and now, with the jihadis and militias finally subdued to the point where it at least wouldn’t be disastrous, he wants credit for having been ahead of the curve. You truly are a visionary, Messiah.

Yeah, really. But, you know, what really concerns me here and ought to concern you, is the press which has always been in the tank for the Democrats has now sunk to a new low, here… openly changing facts to help the Democrats. Facts don’t matter, so long as Democrats get elected.

What biased press?

Does Barack “BO” Obama understand the nature of democracy? Not according to the angry letter he sent out to supporters of Mrs. Clinton, Greg Sargent, TPM Election Central:

I must confess a bit of fatigue and irritation with people who continue to carp, complain, and criticize the results of the primary and lay down conditions for their support. The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t establish conditions to recognize the Boston Celtics as NBA Champions; Roger Federer did not demand concessions before recognizing that Rafael Nadal defeated him at Wimbledon.

It is time to act in a mature and resourceful fashion. It’s time to put the primaries behind us. It’s time to support Barack Obama without conditions or demands

In a socialist system a dictator, like Joeseph Stalin, Saddam Hussien, or Fidel Castro is free to demand uncondition support.   However in a democratic state, support is only for the supporter to give and not for the canidate to demand.    In democracies voters retain their free agency.   BO should be campaigning to be the People’s servant.  Rather BO acting like he hiring domestic staff.

Remember, Alice Germond, is employee of the Democtratic National Committee and the DNC is a wholely owned subsidiary of the the Barack Obama campaign.