Saturday

Book Review-Coulter's "Guilty"; TV Reviews-"Shark Tank","Hell's Kitchen", "America's Got Talent" THOUGHTS-Why Obamacare WILL Fail.

The chefs keep smoking on Hell's Kitchen 2009 and Gordon keeps cussing. We've got an update.

America's Got Talent begins the rundown to the big finale and we've got pics, videos, reviews and predictions of the first twenty in the semi-finals.

Here's a new show from ABC, "Shark Tank" and we take a look at it.

All with pics and videos you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

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Ann Coulter informs us and entertains us with her latest blockbuster…"Guilty".

A review of this book and reasons why you should read this book even if you think you already know everything.
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In THOUGHTS this week we've got some snarky reasons why Obama's health care overhaul is dead, stick a fork in it.

With the absolute one thing most responsible for killing the thing, the one item they can't talk around, the one notion that Americans will never buy.

Plus Hillary the graceless one is Bad Guy of the Week, a new bathing suit that you might want to purchase and a video of the best dog act of them all.
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Guest Writer Michelle entertains us with her tale of training a headstrong pup.


Pic of the Day




ObamaCare & Town Halls

RANT header


Did any of yon Obama voters ever think it would come to this? For last week was one for the history books, yes it was. Indeed, I predict this past week will definitely be in the history books that my granddaughter Kaitlyn will study in school but just in case, allow this humble Blogger to document it all.



We do tend to take our freedom for granted don’t we folks? Eh, at least before we elected Barack Obama and his hateful wife who has never loved her country. Now we are assaulted, called anti-American, visited by union thugs in the middle of the night or beat upon in the light of day and in front of the cameras for all the world to see.

From Freedomslighthouse.com:
"I want to address something to Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Hoyer - whatever his name is - and Mr. Reid. If you call my son "un-American" - your thugs already know where we live. We've had a visit from them - in the middle of the night. They can't come to us in the middle of the day, but they came to us in the middle of the night. You know where we live. I suggest you take that plane that you have and fly it to Michigan and say it directly to my son's face if you've got the guts."




What was the great crime of us citizens of the United States? Going to local Town Halls given just for the very purpose of allowing citizens to talk and discuss with issues with our congress critters! For this our country’s Speaker of the House, third in line to the presidency I must remind yon readers, and the Senate Majority leader, call us ANTI-AMERICAN!!!

This for participating in something as all-American as a Town Hall.

They messed up bad on this whole health care thing folks, yes they did. I doubt seriously that the Obama administration will ever recover from it. God bless that this be the case and let’s get him, and all his Dem cohorts, the hell out of there as soon as possible.

And if they weren’t having their minions beat us up they talked on the cell phone as we tried to speak to them, below witness the fine, fine Shiela Lee as she answers and talks on the cell phone as one of her constituents, a cancer survivor, tries to discuss the issue.



A pox on every one of them. They know not how to govern. Let’s start with New Jersey’s Governor Corzine and move on to Pennsylvania’s Arlen Spector. Let’s vote them out for while they can shout us down and beat us up or answer the cell phones to ignore us, we can scream our heads off in the voting booths.

The libs made one big mistake, one big, big, big mistake, yon ladies and gems. This one big mistake beyond the ten thousand little mistakes they made, even the Obamamessiah whose Town Halls were a little more civil but hopelessly staged.



The gubmint, ladies and gems, has no business, I said NO business, getting involved in matters of when to die, counseling for death, giving death panel referrals or any difficult decision of this matter, no the GUBMINT HAS NO BUSINESS WITH THIS.

They chided us and said hey, it’s only a for-free service, just a little thing to help us make these most difficult decision. We’re just allowing doctors to refer end of life patients for consultation with our fine, fine panel of specially appointed gubmint experts…and how are these folks appointed again, run that by me?

We have common sense out here in la-la land and we don’t buy Spector and his dismissal of this most innocent thing and we don’t buy Shiela Lee and her cell phone conversations, and we don’t buy Obama and his staged Town Halls with little girls who see mean signs and we don’t buy Ben Cardin in Merryland who says the Obama administration is reaching out to address our concerns and we don’t buy it, we don’t buy it and once more, we don’t buy it.

The last thing Americans will ever accept is the gubmint involved in any damn way at all with end of life decisions we will be the Soviet Union before we buy this and go on, I double damn dare you congress critters to pass this thing with that Death Panel thing on it, go ahead, I quadruple damn dare you.

Sarah Palin called them “death panels” on a Facebook post of all things and the very next day the Senate took that little provision out of their version of the bill.

How they hate this woman but she do have a lot of power now don’t she? Heh. Death Panels…it’s what they are folks. Don’t buy into that bit about a “free” service, how the gubmint only wants to help us get through a tough time, don’t buy it and the more intelligent amongst us do not.

The dumber ones who believe, I dunno, maybe they should go to the head of the line before the Death Panels.

Meanwhile, Life Goes On Despite the Death Panels

An afghan is finally complete and yes, we have tomatoes! Leave your name and address and we will ship you tomatoes.

We have been putting tomatoes on cereal, in soup, over ice cream.



Did I mention we have tomatoes?

Secretary of State A Bull In A China Shop

BADGUY HEADER


First, she’s had flat hair in public two times in a row and this, in a female, only means bad news.

Second, she gets into a tizzy because allegedly somebody asked what her husband, former President Bill Clinton of Monica fame, thought of some issue or another. It gets murky in that it’s not at all clear whether the questioner asked about OBAMA’s opinion and perhaps the translator got it wrong.

From Foxnews.com:
“You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" she replied incredulously when the male student asked her what "Mr. Clinton" thought of World Bank concerns about a multi-billion-dollar Chinese loan offer to the Congo.

"My husband is not secretary of state, I am," an obviously annoyed Clinton said sharply. "If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband."

Hillary Clinton has about as much grace and charm as a bull in a china shop. Further, she went to Nigeria, you know that place with the mail order scams? This country hasn’t had a fair election in ages and their elections often end with many dead, and she compares their elections to our 2000 election!

It’s obvious Obama’s sending Hillary overseas as the health care debate rages on to a not so happy ending. I’m sure Bill and Hillary are smirking because they too tried to ram an undesired health care plan down our throats. But Hillary Clinton has no grace and no charm.

This is obvious to even the most obtuse.

New Fashion Craze…the Burquini!

From Skynews.com



Seems France is a bit sick of those Muslims and their mistreatment of women. Thus this answer to a swim suit that will fit in with Muslim sensibilities is rumored to soon be outlawed in France. France is also considered outlawing the burqua because hey, folk, enough with these nut cases.

It’s okay if the women…a) actually WANT to wear these blankets all the time which most likely don’t, just my guess as women don’t normally want to walk around all day wearing heavy clothing and b)they don’t insist on wearing these things when most inappropriate, such as when taking pictures for identification. Duh.


Great Dog Show

I did a review of an act currently featured on this year’s America’s Got Talent, the act featuring a dog and owner, Rory and Tony respectively, reviewed and with a video HERE.

Below is a video I received and ladies and gems, THIS is a great dog act. Check it out.



 Posted by Hello


Growth

The days pass and pain fades. It isn't gone, but it's bearable. I still expect to see Bounty greet me at the door when I come home, and bark at the guy who cleans my aquarium. Hunter knows so little about how alaHouse works, and I forget he doesn't have Bounty's memories. He does, however, help immensely in keeping the section of my heart -reserved for dogs - from being empty. He does funny puppy things and reminds me of my responsibilities.

He is an alpha dog wanna-be, so we'll need to be careful about teaching him that we're the boss. He's an independent thinker who doesn't always come when called and instead watches you to see if it's worth coming over. He already rules one of the cats (Zeker), and is in
contest with the other (Kona) for who will ultimately be the four-legged monarch of the house. Teaching him anything is a test of will-power.

And sometimes, teaching him to not be taught is a battle of wills, too. Take the stairs, for example.

When we brought him home, Hunter was too little to successfully navigate stairs, and we have two or three whichever way you leave the house. To the garage is two, as is the front porch (not that he goes there). The deck has three in each set (one set of three steps at each end). So we took the puppy out, and carried him down the steps. It became a priority to teach him how to go up and down them.



He grew, and learned. Down was harder than up, but he got to where he was doing both pretty easily with only the occasional stumble going up or plummet into the dirt going down. And we congratulated ourselves on something well-taught.

Until shortly after that, at least . . . when taking him out meant walking with him outside, and then watching him dart up the nearest set of stairs. Now it seems he runs up on the deck as often as he actually does his business. So far, he hasn't taken to doing his business *on* the deck.

When you tell him to leave the cat alone, he ignores you. When you call him to go outside, he runs to the door with you but then just stands there watching you try to coax him out the door. When you lean down to pick him up, he runs away. It's a great game, especially at two in the morning when you're outside trying to get him to go to the bathroom so you can go back to bed.

I imagine we'll have quite a time teaching him to do the "obedient" things we expect our dogs to do. I have no doubts we'll win, I just don't know how long it'll take.


Michelle, winebird@inreach.com
The Desk Drawer, writer's exercise email list

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 Posted by Hello


”Guilty” by Ann Coulter

Amazon link for this book

I am going to take the easy way for this book review and go overboard with the praise. Not that every word isn’t deserved but let me give it a try.

I enjoyed every single word of this book. I bounced out of bed in the morning with the happy thought that there was still plenty of Ann’s book left to read. I took in a couple of chapters in the evening and I’d force myself to put it down, that I had to save some until tomorrow. I kept checking how much I had left to read. I was happy when there were still many unread pages left and grew sadder as the unread pages grew shorter.

I laughed and shook my head and got angry and thanked God for books and Ann Coulter and a snarky writing style that lifted my heart.

I get a little leery of political books because they tend to make me upset. I know the politicos want to shut us up and for the most part I’m up enough on current events that very little new is revealed to me.



Not so with Coulter’s book. There was a plethora of information provided that I didn’t know and, of course, this made me enjoy the book all the more.

Terry Schiavo was a young woman who had a heart attack that deprived her of oxygen enough that while she survived she was hopelessly retarded. She had to be fed through a tube in her stomach but judging from video snippets shown during the Schiavo hysteria, she seemed to be in there.

Terry was loved by her parents and they were willing to keep her in their home, take care of her and assume all expense for her medical care. So why was the government, in the form of Terry’s husband, so eager to kill her?

The media of the era kept flashing polls at me that the majority of the American people thought food should be cut off from Terry, essentially starving her to death, that the American people thought congress should stay out of it, that Terry had no reason to go on living.

I was demoralized. They weren’t cutting off breathing machines from the woman after all. They would be denying her FOOD for God’s sake. And that bit with her husband was suspect as all get out. First, the guy had long been living with a new female in his life, even had a couple of kids with her. So why one earth did he want to kill Terry when her parents were willing to take her off his guilty, sinning hands? Plus the fine Mr. Schiavo had a very suspect shark of a lawyer who was obsessed with death and had written a few books on the matter.

For if they starve Terry Schiavo to death based on the questionable request of a husband who long ago moved on with his life, won’t they do this to any one of us?

What I didn’t know that polls taken with all the facts, such as revealing the status of Terry’s husband, came in overwhelmingly that the American public thought Terry should not be denied food and allowed to die, essentially be murdered.

This is just one of the many insights Coulter provides to the reader and this reader prides herself on knowing the scoop on almost all current events. Ann not only provides these insights that blow liberal lies out of the water, she documents and footnotes it all!

Another insight that had me shaking my head in wonder was the case of George W. and the arsenic in the water. It seems that the Clinton administration, before leaving office, deliberately changed the standards for allowable arsenic in the water. This despicable act was all planned. They knew that sound bytes about arsenic in the water would get public attention and start the new president off on shakey ground.

It turned out that the new standards as changed by the fine Bill Clinton who so sullied our oval office would cost millions of dollars to correct in water treatment plants across the country. Bush was forced to change the arsenic standard and the Media, as is their job and as they are trained, hyped the hysteria oh dear Lord this new, and illegally elected president, was going to kill our children by leaving arsenic in the water.

I remember all that noise and didn’t understand what it was all about. Again, Ann enlightened me on the truth of the matter and I am disgusted.

What disgusts me even more is why George W. Bush never defended himself.

The man never did, he never did, he let “no weapons of mass destruction” become a mantra of truth when Saddam had millions of oil dollars that would get him a nuclear bomb in but a day and he never asked his critics if they thought the world would be better with Saddam Hussein still alive. I mean the Saddam’s own countrymen hung him, go on. He’d already started a war in the early 90’s and we didn’t take him down then. But the media carped about no weapons of mass destruction when Saddam could have, with but a snap of his fingers, order a delivery of fine nukes and likely would have at some point in time. But did George Dubya ever counter his critics? No. But hey, Saddam is no more and the world is much better off for it.

At any rate, I cannot recommend this book enough and right now I am going to go and get any other Coulter books she’d written that I avoided because I thought I already knew it all.

Thank you Ann for documenting the truth so artfully, precisely and with a humor that keeps us laughing through the read.

 Posted by Hello


Hell’s Kitchen 2009



Fox’s Web Site for the Series HERE.

I tune in weekly to watch Hell’s Kitchen and it’s pretty much the same week after week. Hell’s Kitchen opens for the night, the guests arrive in fine limousines, the red and blue kitchens, now all girls and all guys in each, begin to cook, and Gordon Ramsey begins cussing, yelling, screaming and humiliating.

I’ve compiled some pic montages from the series thus far but beyond that I’ve not honed in on a winner and frankly this reality cooking show doesn’t become interesting until much later in the contest.







I will launch into my weekly complaint that these wannabe chefs are always shown smoking and I got to wonder why the producers insist on this.

It wasn’t that long ago that myself was a smoker and I always feel guilty complaining about this. But the scenes of these chefs smoking bring nothing to the table in terms of intrigue or viewer clarity.

I definitely do not want the gubmint getting involved in the issue by issuing some sort of law making it illegal to show people smoking on television when a little production common sense would avoid such an awful thing.

My bigger concern is that right now, with my granddaughter’s generation, we have for the first time a generation of Americans who will, from their moment of birth, been part of a society that knows about the dangers of smoking. Until Kaitlyn’s generation, it could be argued that all the dangers of smoking were not known and many got hooked on tobacco before knowing the problems with inhaling smoke into healthy lungs, not to mention second hand smoke. And while I consider myself somewhat of a libertarian on the matter in that the freedom to smoke is a personal choice and folks that want to do it should be allowed to do so, I will suggest softly that one can go an entire life and not smoke one cigarette and not miss it a whit. Just throwing it out there.

I’d like for Kaitlyn Mae not to be exposed to cool and happening chefs smoking and have her think that this looks like a really fun thing to do. If these smart cooks were smoking, so Kaitlyn might think, maybe it’s an okay thing to do. Maybe I’m over-reacting but again I ask, what do these smoking scenes bring to the show? If they provided some kind of insight than I’d be fine with it. As I see it, it’s gratuitous and unnecessary.

But I must shut up now because next thing you know some liberal with nothing better to do with his or her life will get it into their head that they need to tell us how to live and make such as showing smoking, a perfectly legal activity mind you, on television.

So I write of my concern and hope that maybe the producers of this show will get a clue.

America’s Got Talent

America’s Got Talent 2009 is heading toward its September finals and it begins to get interesting.

I quite enjoy this show in that there is offered a plethora and variety of talent in the acts and the things people do continues to amaze me. Further, offbeat and quirky acts often win this reality contest and go on to smashing success. One such act, a ventriliquist, has been quite successful and had two shows at my own Delaware state fair, both sold out.

So far we’ve got, as of this writing on 8/15/09-ten acts going into the semi-finals:

Acroduck-a group of fellows who dunk the basketball and perform on exercise equipment at the same time. The action is choreographed in such a way that there’s always a fellow bouncing up and down on a trampoline of flipping on the ground, one “walking” up a wall, another with a basketball going through the hoop from somewhere else on the stage. I think it’s quite an intriguing act although I’m not convinced this act will win. Whatever, this group will go on to bigger and better things as what entertainment they bring is unique, interesting and requires no small about of talent and practice.

Kevin Skinner is a bluesy type of country singer and he’s good. The only thing is that it’s tough for an individual singer to win this contest unless they are older, like Britain’s Susan Boyle, or very young like the young girls that almost got through early in the series.

A young boy name Arcadian Broad plays classical piano and dances over the stage quite handily. He began this contest just dancing but this past week he began his act by playing the piano then launched into a rollicking dance to the tune of “Footloose”. The judges admonished him to concentrate on just the dancing but I think this was bad advice.

First, he is a good dancer for one so young but I’m not convinced his dancing will the sort of thing folks will pay to sit and watch. Second, the combination of a classical piano player and great young dancer is the sort of thing folks might pay to sit and watch. Just my opinion, of course.





Grandma Lee is an older woman, in her 70’s I think, who is a comedian and she’s okay. From what I’ve seen of her comedic show she wouldn’t have a chance save for her age. She uses her age to get yucks about sex via poking fun at the elderly, their forgetfulness, their dearth of sexual opportunity. Which is fine, it is funny but I don’t know if it’s enough to make Grandma Lee a winner. Maybe if she expanded that comic repetoire to include a senior citizen’s look at current events, some a bit more zippy.

Finally we have the Drew Thomas magician and hey, there always has to be one magic act in every year’s America’s Got Talent competition. This is a good magic act and I think Thomas has a better than even chance of winning, definitely to be in the top five.

The Fab Five are a group of sisters who dance in rhythm, a tapdancing sort of thing. I just don’t think this act will make the finals, much less win. First, the fact that they are sisters really isn’t part of the show. It’s the sort of thing viewers learn before the act and cluck in admiration but whether or not they are related brings nothing to the performance. Doesn’t hurt the act, mind you, but doesn’t help.

The Texas Tenors are a trio of male singers who do a good job with the harmony. But nope, I don’t think this act will win and I think this mostly because, well there’s another harmonious group that will beat them handily.

This year there is a couple who perform an acrobatic act called Paradizo Dance. This duo gives a very amazing act although at first one might think that two folks lifting each other up and such isn’t the stuff of spectacular wins on America’s Got Talent. The thing with this husband and wife team is that he is quite a big guy and she lifts him up often during the performance. Further, when he lifts her, it is quite amazing to watch, not your normal acrobatics. I’ve never seen such gracefulness in an act like this.

I don’t think Paradizo Dance will win this thing but they’ve got a future as performers in front of them, I’m sure of it.

Tony Hoard and Rory his dog have an act that squeaked through to the semi-finals. Sure, Rory’s a cute dog and very good at retrieving Frisbees as they shoot across the stage from all angles. The dog jumps on Tony’s back before catching a Frisbee or works his magic from many angles, all the while as loud music plays and the crowd screams and cheers.

The problem with this act is it’s too disjointed. Obviously Rory is the star of the performance even if Tony works endlessly to train the dog. But a show with a dog catching Frisbees over and over, even if done cleverly with cool music….this is just not the stuff that people are going to pay to see. It’s confusing and only holds attention for a short while until the eyes start to glaze over. It is, however, an entertaining performance and hey, Tony and Rory might make a great introductory act.

Finally I now name the act that so far I think will win this thing in 2009. Their name is Voices of Glory and they have a good story. They are three siblings, two brothers and a sister. Their mother had been in a coma after being hit in a car by a drunk driver. The three kids began to sing together as a way to somehow get through to their comatose mother.

Their mother did come to consciousness and the Voices of Glory act was born.

I love their harmony. It’s the little girl who has the powerhouse of a voice but their harmony is pretty. This act has what it takes to win this thing and so far I’m hoping they win the big prize.

Below are remix videos of the acts listed above, with my fine commentary super-imposed on the scenes.






Shark Tank

Here’s a new show thrown into the middle of the doldrums of summer lineup that has possibility. From ABC, it’s called “Shark Tank” and there are no underwater creatures in this movie.

The “sharks” are five investors. The “shark food”, as it were, are ordinary folks who have what they consider a fabulous idea that they want to market.

Some of the folk seeking money from the sharks are already in a business that needs a fresh cash infusion to keep on going. One such fellow featured on the episode aired 8/9/09 was a pie maker with a specialty in sweet potato pies. This guy had suffered some severe setbacks in the continuing pursuit of his dream but he battled his way back to business and he did seem to have a happening and ongoing pie business.

He needed some new baking equipment, however, so he asked for $460,000 in return for 10% of his business.

This is how the “deal” works. In return for some amount of money, estimated and justified by the requestor, a percentage of the business is offered to whatever shark takes the deal.

The sharks, being sharks we must assume, will often counter-offer for an even larger percentage of the business being offered by the entrepreneur for the money requested. One shark accepted the pie man’s offer for funds but wanted not 10% of the business for the money asked, but 50% of his pie business. The pie man accepted the counter-offer and we are left to assume, at least at this point, that everyone lives happily ever after.

Of course there must be crazies in this show, just for viewer interest if nothing else. One entrepreneur had some way-out idea for implanting blue-tooth deviceds directly into peoples’ heads. He was perfectly serious and the subject of much shark mirth.

Another interesting entrepreneur featured on this premiere show was a youngish woman who was the nanny of a little boy who had to take much medicine for some illness or another. It was such a task to get the child to take the medicine that she designed a little elephant shaped medicine dropped. According to the nanny entrepreneur, the child’s medicine tantrums stopped once the medicine was administered via her little prototype of the elephant eye dropped type of thing.

The female shark accepted the offer but she too wanted 50% of what we assume will be a new product soon to be on the market, that of an elephant shaped medicine dropper.

I kind of like this show and would recommend. We’ll keep following it and see where it goes. If nothing else, it’s a lesson in how business works and an insight into the mind of a venture capitalist.




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