Lord Stern's Diet No Meat and No Cheese? Lord ! Haw, Haw, Haw

The English Peerage is always good for gut busting, pew splitting fart launched laughs! Flatulent Lord Stern the Climate Change Half-Wit whelping the Copenhagen still-born ruse of International Environmental Fascism, has blasted a hole through his britches with this one!

"Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better," Stern said.

To fight climate change and tackle the growing crisis of diet-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, British consumers must cut down on meat and dairy produce, reduce their intake of processed foods and curb waste.

I say, Old Cock, drop that saddle of mutton,Wot?

Roast Beef of England? Nay More,Rupert! Stilton? Scat! Nicholas Herbert Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, Kt, FBA Farting Nick Knows Nothing Nourishes Naughty Nitrates! Bacon Begone! Chops? Decamp, Scat! Shoo! Take it on the Heel and Toe!

Sing it Sinners!

When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman's food,
It ennobled our brains and enriched our blood.
Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good
Oh! the Roast Beef of old England,
And old English Roast Beef!



But since we have learnt from all-vapouring France
To eat their ragouts as well as to dance,
We're fed up with nothing but vain complaisance
Oh! the Roast Beef of Old England,
And old English Roast Beef!



Our fathers of old were robust, stout, and strong,
And kept open house, with good cheer all day long,
Which made their plump tenants rejoice in this song--
Oh! The Roast Beef of old England,
And old English Roast Beef!



But now we are dwindled to, what shall I name?
A sneaking poor race, half-begotten and tame,
Who sully the honours that once shone in fame.
Oh! the Roast Beef of Old England,
And old English Roast Beef!



When good Queen Elizabeth sat on the throne,
Ere coffee, or tea, or such slip-slops were known,
The world was in terror if e'er she did frown.
Oh! The Roast Beef of old England,
And old English Roast Beef!



In those days, if Fleets did presume on the Main,
They seldom, or never, return'd back again,
As witness, the Vaunting Armada of Spain.
Oh! The Roast Beef of Old England,
And old English Roast Beef!



Oh then we had stomachs to eat and to fight
And when wrongs were cooking to do ourselves right.
But now we're a . . . I could, but goodnight!
Oh! the Roast Beef of Old England,
And old English Roast Beef!

President Obama Takes the Nobel Prize

President Obama, not yet a year into his term of Office, takes home the Nobel Prize.

I heard his speech this morning - it was nice.

The President should order Air Force One over to where the American Kids are keeping the Peace -in Afghanistan and Iraq. That would would be the heroic act of a good a man.

It is one thing to accept the Prize and it is another make good on its worth.

More from the Great Eye of Chicago Artist Araceli Arroyo

I noticed the great photography of Chicago Artist Araceli Arroyo a couple of weeks ago. I really like her take on the working class streetscapes around Midway Airport and her shots of kids at play.

Most telling are her winter images especially the one above that captures Chicago's Hawk in full flight.

Click my post title for more of Ms. Arroyo's work.

Kevin Myers: Gallantry and Grace/Orange and Green

"You don't consciously set out to do something gallant. You just do it because that is what you are there for."
Richard Todd

"I don't subscribe to murder" - Liam Clancy

Two Irishmen - Actor Richard Todd and Singer/Guitarist Liam Clancy- died last week. Kevin Myers wrote an essay today on the nature of gallantry and grace.

Tuesday December 08 2009

TWO Irishmen died last week. They both seem to have been good men, their lives crossing only as vapour trails from different flight-paths might mingle. Each provided a different kind national stereotype -- one for Ireland, the other for Britain -- and the myths they helped create still live on in the imaginations of those outside their respective countries.

Richard Todd was born in 1919 in Dublin to Irish loyalists who were not about to remain in a state run by Sinn Feiners. He was raised in England and India before becoming an actor. With the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the British army, later becoming a paratrooper. He was among the first allied airborne soldiers to land in Normandy, before the sea-borne invasion hit the beaches. His own diffidence about this time matched his natural heroism. Later, as a film actor, he was to play in war scenes in which he had participated -- even watching other characters play the part of himself.

Two films defined him, and the mythic "Britishness" which he came to embody. The first, 'The Dam Busters', remains one of the finest British war movies ever made. It is successful partly because it conforms so totally with the requirements of myth, particularly in his portrayal of the legendary RAF Wing Commander Guy Gibson. Time has not been kind to either the dam-busting bombing raid, nor to its hero. The attack on the Ruhr dams in May 1943 could not possibly have succeeded in its stated objective in paralysing the German hydroelectric power systems. No measurable reduction in German industrial output was achieved.

The loss of aircrew -- eight out of 19 aircraft were shot down, with 56 men killed -- was quite shocking. On the receiving end, the result was even more terrible: more than 1,000 people -- more than half of them slave-workers and allied prisoners of war -- were killed.

History is only tangentially related to myth. And the legend of 'The Dam Busters' took flight with the film about the operation, with Richard Todd playing Gibson to perfection as the "typical" English officer. It is irrelevant that Gibson was, in addition to being a man of spectacular personal courage, actually a bumptious, insensitive and insufferable bully. The British people needed a hero, and Richard Todd's Guy Gibson provided it.

The second archetypal British character Todd played was Major John Howard in 'The Longest Day', the leader of the famous glider-borne assault on Pegasus Bridge in Normandy. Extraordinarily, Todd the soldier was actually a paratrooper in support of that operation. But John Howard once told me how he hated Todd's upper-class portrayal of him, which was utterly unlike the real John Howard; a working class boy, with a strong London accent, who had been commissioned from the ranks. This (to my mind) would have been a more compelling story; but to the American mind behind 'The Longest Day', and to the British also, British officers should always be toffs.

The real Guy Gibson was killed in action in 1944.

Two of the aircrew serving with the RAF at that time were the Waterford brothers, air-gunners Paddy and Tom Clancy. Only one-in-four of Bomber Command survived a tour of missions, and they both did; going on, in a second exile in the US, to form the Clancy Brothers. The youngest and last of the Clancys, Liam, died last week, just hours after Richard Todd.

The Clancys became an Irish caricature, but a wholly benign one, and only the too-sensitive worry about these things.

For those of us in the great Irish diaspora, the Clancy Brothers lit a torch of creative and cultural certainty. That it might have been largely mythic is irrelevant.

They also inspired many American folk artists, including Bob Dylan, and, of course, uncountable numbers in Ireland. But they were largely responsible, too, for the English folksong revival, the main protagonists of which -- Martin Carthy and the Watersons -- not merely followed their example, but were themselves of Irish extraction. A cliche is only tiresome to those who are too familiar with it.

The Clancys brought joy to millions, and made simplicity pleasurable. There was the darker side, of course; the fights and the booze, and so on. But they had their limits.

And whereas the Clancys revelled in 19th century ballads about the '98 Rising, they were uncomfortable with the gruesome musical lore of more recent vintage. John Boland's story on Saturday of Liam's rebuttal of an 'An Phoblacht' seller -- "I don't subscribe to murder" -- pretty much sums up the brothers' politics. Liam was the last of them to go, and I greatly regret never having met him.

NOT merely do the bawneen stereotypes of the Clancy cliche live on: so do its disciples. Children who never heard of the brothers live richer, better, happier lives today because of the music they helped save.

And another thing, equally relevant and always worth remembering: Europe is free today because of the likes of Richard Todd, and Paddy and Tom Clancy, and John Howard, and Guy Gibson. For behind all great myths are usually great truths.

The problem is that we usually don't know what they are.

- Kevin Myers

Irish Independent

Araceli Arroyo's Sober Eye Captures Winter's Bender

Que Ojos!
Click my Post Title for Araceli Arroyo's Wonderful Chicago Photos - from which I posted three great shots of Chicago Winter in Full Force and Fury.

In honor of this Artist's Cold Eye Cast on Winter's Chill, I add the overlooked Dead White Man of the Yukon!

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill
by: Robert W. Service

I took a contract to bury the body
Of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever
The manner of death he die --
Whether he die in the light o' day
Or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive,
Mucklucks or patent shoon;
On velvet tundra or virgin peak,
By glacier, drift or draw;
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom,
By avalanche, fang or claw;
By battle, murder or sudden wealth,
By pestilence, hooch or lead --
I swore on the Book I would follow and look
Till I found my tombless dead.

For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss,
And his mind was mighty sot
On a dinky patch with flowers and grass
In a civilized bone-yard lot.
And where he died or how he died,
It didn't matter a damn
So long as he had a grave with frills
And a tombstone "epigram".
So I promised him, and he paid the price
In good cheechako coin
(Which the same I blowed in that very night
Down in the Tenderloin).
Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine:
"Here lies poor Bill MacKie",
And I hung it up on my cabin wall
And I waited for Bill to die.

Years passed away, and at last one day
Came a squaw with a story strange,
Of a long-deserted line of traps
'Way back of the Bighorn range;
Of a little hut by the great divide,
And a white man stiff and still,
Lying there by his lonesome self,
And I figured it must be Bill.
So I thought of the contract I'd made with him,
And I took down from the shelf
The swell black box with the silver plate
He'd picked out for hisself;
And I packed it full of grub and "hooch",
And I slung it on the sleigh;
Then I harnessed up my team of dogs
And was off at dawn of day.

You know what it's like in the Yukon wild
When it's sixty-nine below;
When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads
Through the crust of the pale blue snow;
When the pine-trees crack like little guns
In the silence of the wood,
And the icicles hang down like tusks
Under the parka hood;
When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off,
And the sky is weirdly lit,
And the careless feel of a bit of steel
Burns like a red-hot spit;
When the mercury is a frozen ball,
And the frost-fiend stalks to kill --
Well, it was just like that that day when I
Set out to look for Bill.

Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush
Me down on every hand,
As I blundered blind with a trail to find
Through that blank and bitter land;
Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild,
With its grim heart-breaking woes,
And the ruthless strife for a grip on life
That only the sourdough knows!
North by the compass, North I pressed;
River and peak and plain
Passed like a dream I slept to lose
And I waked to dream again.

River and plain and mighty peak --
And who could stand unawed?
As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed
At the foot of the throne of God.
North, aye, North, through a land accurst,
Shunned by the scouring brutes,
And all I heard was my own harsh word
And the whine of the malamutes,
Till at last I came to a cabin squat,
Built in the side of a hill,
And I burst in the door, and there on the floor,
Frozen to death, lay Bill.

Ice, white ice, like a winding-sheet,
Sheathing each smoke-grimed wall;
Ice on the stove-pipe, ice on the bed,
Ice gleaming over all;
Sparkling ice on the dead man's chest,
Glittering ice in his hair,
Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart,
Ice in his glassy stare;
Hard as a log and trussed like a frog,
With his arms and legs outspread.
I gazed at the coffin I'd brought for him,
And I gazed at the gruesome dead,
And at last I spoke: "Bill liked his joke;
But still, goldarn his eyes,
A man had ought to consider his mates
In the way he goes and dies."

Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut
In the shadow of the Pole,
With a little coffin six by three
And a grief you can't control?
Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse
That looks at you with a grin,
And that seems to say: "You may try all day,
But you'll never jam me in"?
I'm not a man of the quitting kind,
But I never felt so blue
As I sat there gazing at that stiff
And studying what I'd do.
Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs
That were nosing round about,
And I lit a roaring fire in the stove,
And I started to thaw Bill out.

Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days,
But it didn't seem no good;
His arms and legs stuck out like pegs,
As if they was made of wood.
Till at last I said: "It ain't no use --
He's froze too hard to thaw;
He's obstinate, and he won't lie straight,
So I guess I got to -- saw."
So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs,
And I laid him snug and straight
In the little coffin he picked hisself,
With the dinky silver plate;
And I came nigh near to shedding a tear
As I nailed him safely down;
Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh,
And I started back to town.

So I buried him as the contract was
In a narrow grave and deep,
And there he's waiting the Great Clean-up,
When the Judgment sluice-heads sweep;
And I smoke my pipe and I meditate
In the light of the Midnight Sun,
And sometimes I wonder if they was,
The awful things I done.
And as I sit and the parson talks,
Expounding of the Law,
I often think of poor old Bill --
And how hard he was to saw.

Kathleen Kennedy Crows on Her Dungheap of Entitlement - Abortion Kills Children, Moron.

Why is it that the bishops are more concerned with restricting millions of American women from making health care decisions that are best for them and their families than they are with ensuring that millions of Americans — women, men, children, immigrants, the poor, the middle class — get much-needed health insurance?


As a Catholic, I dare say it’s because the Conference of Catholic Bishops has lost its way. For example, in Missouri, the Catholic Conference issued an e-mail alert urging “those who are opposed to health care reform but are also pro-life” to “stay focused on the abortion issue and get the Stupak-like amendment adopted in the Senate.”

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

The Public Kennedy Family Members are indebted to Planned Parenthood. They owe nothing to the Catholic Church and requite the Faith with Thick Dividends of Contempt.

One Kennedy, Patrick, whined that he was being taught by Bishop Tobin what exactly a public smear of Doctrine is all about and its consequence. Kennedy barked that the bishops were wrong on Abortion. Kennedy wants to go to Communion - receive the sacrament of the Eucharist. Bishop Tobin explained that Catholics who hold beliefs outside the Faith should not receive Communion.

Kennedy pissed himself over the thought that Catholic Rhode Island might agree with Bishop Tobin and took his whine National. He outsourced his complaint to the ever compliant Media. MSNBC, New York Times, you name it, all oiled Kennedy's complaint. Bishop Tobin remained tough.

Now, another Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend, a former Lt. Governor - akin to being named Kentucky Colonel - takes pen in hand to ensure that more babies get a surgical probe in the noggin. She sells books that smear Catholics.

Hey, it's Family Thing! Old Joe lobotomized a daughter whom he deemed not worthy to be a Kennedy due to mental challenges. The Kennedys seem to fully understand and embrace the Planned Parenthood disgust with Governor Sarah Palin's motherly caress of her Downs Syndrome child.

The Kennedy Brand is bloody. Abortion is the killing of a baby. Drop the Catholic bullshit and dance with WHO brung you. The Kennedy Family can embrace any imbecilic stand that they choose. They will make fine Christian Non-Sectarian leaders - or Non-Christian Secularists.

Choose. It's all about choice. I choose to be a Catholic American. I will not support Abortion, nor any parser who plays with Planned Parenthood.

The Public Kennedy Loudmouths can do with out communion - as they are not clearly in Communion with the rest of us. These morons believe it is all dress up - make-believe. Faith has no requirements.

John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy were the last Catholic Public Kennedys. Old Ted played at it, when convenient and bullied and bribed the cowarldy Catholic clergy.

The rest of them, the Public Kennedys ( who hold for Abortion and want things their own way) can just hop up and kiss my broad manly Irish ass!

Winter Nights Enlarge - Make Straight The Path of the Toro!

Winter's allure to delicate and romantic individuals who delight in the miracle that is snow is magic!

Click my post title for such scenes as to delight the delicate heart!

Thus!

Now Winter Nights Enlarge

by Thomas Campion (1617)


Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o’erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

Then there's me -
The Toro Snow Thrower

2

50cc Briggs & Stratton OHV 4-cycle engine
28" Clearing Width
Up to 45' Throw Distance*
Up to 2,000 lbs. per Minute*
6 Forward, 2 Reverse Speeds

Poetry!
Learn More

Tiger! Dawg! Seven?

Like most American males, having time to play golf is a challenge; Not that were I given the time, would I play golf. I look ludicrous in Golf togs and the duds I'd choose for a round would be unacceptable on the links - you know - from the toes to the crown: Converse All-Star Black Chuck Taylor's Leo football sweats or old cut-offs, Bass Pro T-shirt and La Lumiere Blue pith helmet.

The pith helmet was from cutting the grass on the fields at La Lumiere and it lends a genuine Frank Buck aura to my usual Walter Mitty-ish mien.

I just read that Golf Wiz and snappy dresser Tiger Woods is believed to have dallied with Seven (7) extra-Matrimonial Doxies. (Rachel Uchitel, Jaimee Grubbs, Kalika Moquin, Jamie Jungers and Porn Auteur Holly Sampson.) One for each of the Seven Deadly Sins, Tiger? Positively Old Testament there Tiger.

Dawg! = as my younger colleagues and charges at Leo High School might offer.

He did after all nail a Fire Hydrant and a Tree as well as the Concupiscent Seven!

North Korea Has G.I. Divas and We have Desiree Rogers.

The North Korean goofball Kim Jong Il has him an Army of leggy G.I.'s - no Sad Sacks They.

We have Desiree Rogers. Hey, my fault, I know. I am posting almost exclusively on the Desiree Rogers Agonistes. It keeps me from going to Lardo's Scottsdale Hobby Shoppe and buying kits of Schooners and Galleons in bottles, or waiting for my Green Chicago Parkway trio of trees to insinuate their roots deeper into my sewer egress lines -Both wonderful ways to pass my quality time.

One has only a thin wedge between the window and sill of opportunity to place a thorn in the thong of a self-absorbed Thimble-Rigging Job Jumper like Mardi Gras Chicagoan Desiree Rogers. As I noted, my animus stems from, but certainly not limited to, Ms. Rogers' revelation of character when she scooped Corporate Contributions form Peoples Energy Corporation's annual education grants to poor Black Kids attending Leo High School in Auburn Gresham and plumping up her Fash Bash - Fashion Show featuring Desiree Runway Rogers.


I liked this Rockefeller Center photo rendition of North Korean Military Hi-Jinks that came from my pal Mr. G of Chicago: http://superdadspeaks.blogspot.com This put me in mind of the New York Times piece I read before Mass this morning by Maureen Dowd - the bottled Mick Red-head wit and harridan.

Crazy Aunt Maureen Dowd - the bitter and marinated fifty and change spinster aunt who has given up meeting a nice man at St. Patrick's Novenas - has linked Desiree Rogers and Tiger Woods. Aunt Mo is generally all "Hey You Bitch Get Over Here!" about Sarah Palin, who could kick Mo's Rump from here to Nome and Back, in her cocktail and Virginia Thins Menthol throaty skirl*.

Both Tiger and Desiree hid and stayed silent because they mistakenly thought they were protecting the Brand. But despite their marketing savvy, these two controlling players spiraled out of control. They made the same colossal error in opposite ways.

She mistook herself for the principal, sashaying around and posing in magazines as though she were the first lady, rather than a staffer whose job is to stay behind the scenes and make her bosses look good. (Even if Barack Obama is a brand, Desiree shouldn’t talk like the First Marketer or call him a brand — and she definitely shouldn’t refer to it in a proprietary way as “we.”)

He is the principal. But he forgot that he’s no longer a solo brand. He has been marketing himself since he turned pro and 21 in 1996, becoming a billionaire with endorsement deals with Nike, American Express, Titleist and the two Generals, Mills and Motors.

Tiger has abilities -tons - not as a husband,or father mind you (Real Men Don't Tom Cat- my neighborhood? Not Done -Everyone is married to his/her high school pal until the trip to Sheehy's Funeral Home.) Desiree?

Give me these North Korean Gorgeous Grunts any day.


*skirl (skûrl)
v. skirled, skirl·ing, skirls
v.intr.
To produce a high, shrill, wailing tone. Used of bagpipes.
v.tr.
To play (a piece) on bagpipes.
n.
1. The shrill sound made by the chanter pipe of bagpipes.
2. A shrill wailing sound: "The skirl of a police whistle split the stillness" (Sax Rohmer).
[Middle English skrillen, skirlen, probably of Scandinavian origin.]

Lynn Sweet Flaks for Flake - Defense of Desiree Rogers?

Let's be clear - I learned what a self-absorbed dim-witted Diva Desiree Rogers happens to be years ago. When Desiree Rogers was ushered away from her post as Illinois Lotto Ball watcher and seated in position at People Gas that oversaw corporate citizenship by the utility the Diva turned that citizenship ( Corporate Charity) on herself.

Desiree Rogers ended Peoples Energy Corp.'s long standing annual grants to the Black kids at Leo High School.

Leo High School received $ 3,000 annually following a formal written request ( all that 501(c)3 stuff) to help families in need of financial assistance. Desiree Rogers ended that and told me that she going to do "more systemic good."

That year Peoples Gas funded a Fashion Show that featured Desiree Rogers. It was in ALL the columns, Magazines, Janet Davis & Features and Mary Cameron Frye stuff! Desiree was said to be Gorgeous! The Fash Bash did more "systemic" good for the kids from Englewood, Gresham and Brainerd who wanted an education in a high school where they could avoid getting Lit Up. That is Desiree Rogers, Boys & Girls! Leo Alumni many of them Peoples Gas workers themselves made up the grant - thank God.

Oh, so that's what clouds my opinion of Ms. Rogers? Yep.


Lynn Sweet* has a reputation for being a serious reporter. Today she writes, "The Rogers I know is down-to-earth. She grew up in New Orleans, graduated from Wellesley College, picked up a MBA from Harvard, and then built a successful, lucrative business career in Chicago, starting at AT&T. I met her around 1991, when she was the director of the Illinois State Lottery." Pravda?

Today Lynn Sweet offers a flak-catching puff piece on Desiree Rogers - the Diva with a Government Job.

President Obama was put in harm's way, not because of the Secret Service, but because Desiree Rogers' ego can be powered by her limited mental capacities and moral compass.

Two goofballs crashed America's 1st State Dinner in Honor of the Indian Prime Minister at the Obama White House.

Rogers' Social Secretary Policy placed President Obama in danger of harm and the Secret Service has been ordered to wear the jacket.

Chicagoans know Desiree Rogers. Chicagoans continue to be asked to 'really admire' Desiree, even though the pretty, wealthy and protected dimwitted woman can not handle a simple task - Rogers left a simple job at Illinois Lottery under cloud, at Peoples Gas, Rogers oversaw gas-shut offs to the elderly, explosions in Mount Greenwood and insulted skilled tradesmen. Rogers holds appointed positions on charities, business and civic boards and tax-funded sinecures, due to the authority of her ex-husband John Rogers.

Lynn Sweet is giving Desiree Rogers cover that she neither deserves nor appreciates.
It appears in Politics Daily and not in The Chicago Sun Times.

Maybe the Sun Times should hire April Ryan, who seems to ask real questions concerning the very limited capacities of Desiree Rogers and her responsibilities to our President.

What is sad is that Lynn Sweet's flack-jacket woven for the Dimwitted Diva appears only out of town. Chicagoans should read this. Click my post title.


* No Defense of Desiree by Lynn Sweet here in Chicago! Blackout?

LYNN SWEET ::


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Friday, December 4, 2009
Party crashers Salahis face subpoenas Desiree Rogers does not
WASHINGTON -- Reality TV show wannabees Michaele and Tareq Salahi face a subpoena from the House Homeland Security Committee after skipping Thursday's hearing on how they passed through Secret Service checkpoints to crash President Obama's Nov. 24 state dinner and ended up shaking hands with him.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
State delegation divided on Thomson
Members of the Illinois congressional delegation -- after an unusually long meeting Wednesday -- were divided over the possibility of the Obama White House transferring inmates at the Guantanamo Bay military prison to a nearly vacant prison in northwestern Illinois.
This D.C. invite turned down
The Obama White House on Wednesday blocked social secretary Desiree Rogers from testifying today before the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on how wannabe reality TV stars Tareq and Michaele Salahi whizzed by Secret Service agents and crashed the Nov. 24 state dinner.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Obama's friends on left wrestling with policy
Lynn Sweet: President Obama's decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan by adding 30,000 U.S. troops -- at the same time announcing an exit strategy to start in July 2011 with no firm end date -- was clearly difficult for many of his most ardent supporters. This is not a popular policy with an important segment of Obama's base.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Rogers asked to testify about party crashers
WASHINGTON --White House social secretary Desiree Rogers has been asked to testify at a Thursday hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee about how wannabe reality TV stars Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed the Obama's first state dinner last week.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
State dinner gate-crashers met Obama
WASHINGTON -- The White House confirmed Friday that President Obama met the couple who crashed Tuesday's state dinner --wannabe reality-show stars Michaele and Tareq Salahi -- releasing a picture of Michaele Salahi shaking hands with the president in a receiving line that included first lady Michelle Obama, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
State dinner, Obama style
WASHINGTON--President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosted their first state Tuesday night, including their closest friends from Chicago among the guests honoring India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharon Kaur, with Chicago songsters Jennifer Hudson and Kurt Elling performing.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Burris heads for Iraq in wake of panel's rebuke
WASHINGTON -- A day after the Senate ethics committee handed him a stinging rebuke, Sen. Roland Burris on Saturday voted to advance the Democratic health-care bill to the Senate floor and then departed for an official visit to Iraq.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Illinois' Gitmo could bring 3,000 jobs: White House
Lynn Sweet: A White House analysis of a federal purchase of the nearly vacant northwestern Illinois prison to house Guantanamo detainees and other federal prisoners, obtained by the Sun-Times on Saturday, concludes that in the first year 2,290 to 2,960 jobs would be created, and local residents would be "excellent candidates" for 1,240 to 1,410 of those jobs.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Senate ethics panel admonishes Burris, but no charges coming
Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) was admonished today by the U.S. Senate ethics committee over his testimony in Springfield concerning how he got appointed to Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. But his actions following his appointment by then Gov.-Rod Blagojevich did not rise to level of pursuing ethics charges against Burris, the committee ruled.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Trials: 'Failure is not an option'
WASHINGTON -- Trying terrorist suspects now detained at Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba in U.S. federal courtrooms -- rather than military tribunals, which operate under different rules -- met with skeptical questioning by some senators at a Wednesday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
If you like Sarah Palin, you’ll like 'Going Rogue'
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's Going Rogue is really two books: about half an interesting telling of growing up in Alaska, an outdoor and sport-filled life -- and a good chunk of the second half whacking her McCain campaign crew of handlers.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Dems at risk of losing Obama's old Senate seat
WASHINGTON -- About a year ago, thousands jammed Grant Park in Chicago to celebrate Barack Obama's election to the White House, a communal civic defining moment. But those giddy days are long gone as Democrats in Illinois face the potential of losing the Senate seat President Obama once held next November.
Durbin, Quinn see economic boon
WASHINGTON -- Detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba may be transferred to a nearly vacant maximum-security state prison in northwest Illinois, the Obama White House said Saturday.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Exclusive interview with Sam Kass White House chef
WASHINGTON -- A lot of lives have changed since Barack Obama won the presidential election one year ago last Wednesday, none so much as the life of Chicago's Sam Kass, the engaging, shaved-head assistant White House chef and food initiative coordinator, a crusader for healthy eating who has shot to fame in the almost 10 months the Obamas have been in the White House.

New York Post Quotes Desiree Rogers -'All right, come on in. It's no use kicking you out.' The Peoples Gas White House Has Been Open

" Dude, THIS is So Awesome! Desiree Said it was cool. Got any snacks?"





President Obama's social secretary quipped that she regularly let event crashers into White House gatherings -- months before two reality-TV wannabes waltzed into last week's state dinner.
Desiree Rogers claimed in an interview with the trade magazine BizBash at the Creative Coalition's annual meeting in June that she had added extra tables and benches at every event to accommodate uninvited guests.
"Lots of people just come anyways," she said. "They won't take no for an answer. Finally, I just said, 'All right, come on in. It's no use kicking you out.' "
But an administration official yesterday insisted that Rogers "was clearly making a tongue-in-cheek comment about White House staff, already cleared to be on the complex," not about the general public.
Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed last week's White House gala and were photographed with the president and Vice President Joe Biden.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/aide_crasher_confession_H3KDTbOhqGxAzmiomqV2MO#ixzz0YopN3CVm