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Duck!

Last one. No, really, this was probably the last really hot day of Summer. Heavy rain tomorrow, then nice enough for the rest of the week, but ten or twenty degrees cooler and windy. That’s it. The end.

The Daily Mail says it was the hottest September day for seven years, but you know. Pff! The Mail. Still, it was pretty toasty.

So we packed a lunch for Bodiam Castle — that’s the really cool ruin with the big moat and the ducks and the steam trains. It’s a pretty easy trek for us (and takes us past our favorite Chinese takeaway), which makes this one of our best options on a hot day. Also, the kiddlets went back to school yesterday, so it was just us dessicated old people. Ahhhhh. Such a quiet, polite bunch.

I love the way the ducks and the fish totally ignore each other.

Oh, also — points to the Brits: I love it that we aren’t forbidden to feed either (throwing food into ponds was aggressively illegal in New England). Does the heart good to see people and nature enjoying each other so much — and so what if sandwich ends are not the optimum diet for any of us?

As for politics — help me out here, folks. I’ve wanted to talk about the Syria thing all week, but I just can’t work out the angles. Obama and Kerry both — especially Kerry — made their names in politics as totally anti war. So what is it about this one stupid bad-guys-versus-bad-guys civil war that’s got those two all revved up to put their whole careers on the line, just to lob a few pointless missiles in a vaguely menacing direction? I can’t make this make sense.

Comments


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 5, 2013, 10:33 pm

So which one of those two is Obama and which is Kerry?


Comment from Man Mountain Molehill
Time: September 5, 2013, 10:35 pm

Some anus stole my barbeque grill the evening before Labor Day. Grilling season is over, anyway, it’s going to be cold, overcast and rainy for the next 8 months. Hope they enjoy it a lot. Hint, indoor bbq is great…


Comment from gromulin
Time: September 5, 2013, 10:39 pm

The British and their Carp. If you’ve never seen the passion the Brits have for Carp fishing, you just haven’t lived.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 5, 2013, 10:42 pm

Grom: one of my favorite mags on the newsstand is Total Carp.

Not that I read it, you understand. Just snigger at it.


Comment from AliceH
Time: September 5, 2013, 10:59 pm

Feed the ducks if you want to – that’s worth lots of points by my reckoning. I remember clambering about some ruins and old castles and crumbly cliff edges in Ireland, yet something about it sort of nagging me. It was about a week before I realized it was the absence of railings, yellow-painted lines to NOT CROSS, no signs warning me of DANGER DO NOT ENTER, no standard spec stairs-with-wheelchair-ramp stitched awkwardly onto to every building, blah blah blah.

Somehow, even without lawsuit-averse property owners/governments plastering the scenery with cautions and promises of likely death, no one fell off a parapet or tumbled into the sea so far as I could tell. It was a weird feeling, being left to just get on with being responsible for my personal safety.


Comment from gebrauchshund
Time: September 5, 2013, 11:09 pm

You would need to internalize large quantities of weapons grade stupid for the Obama/Kerry clown show to make any sense.

I’d recommend against it.


Comment from Feynmangroupie
Time: September 5, 2013, 11:39 pm

Something sweasel-ish…pictures of thatched roofs (rooves?) and a thatcher thatching. I didn’t know this was still a thing.

http://acidcow.com/pics/19253-home-55-pics.html


Comment from Deborah
Time: September 6, 2013, 12:01 am

Perhaps Bashar Hafez al-Assad knows what really happened in Benghazi.


Comment from tomfrompv
Time: September 6, 2013, 12:26 am

I just want the House to vote NO. And force Obama to make a manly decision for once. But Boehner will most likely cave as usual, give Obama an out as usual, and the bombing will start with the media giving cover to our Marxist blackman (who is half white although the media hates to say it)


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: September 6, 2013, 12:28 am

Obama and Kerry both — especially Kerry — made their names in politics as totally anti war. So what is it about this one stupid bad-guys-versus-bad-guys civil war that’s got those two all revved up to put their whole careers on the line, just to lob a few pointless missiles in a vaguely menacing direction? I can’t make this make sense.

They have this very, very large multiple-scandal-dog, which has a very, very small tail. So, they are wagging that tail with all the vigor of a pit bull with a Scotch Bonnet up its butt.


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: September 6, 2013, 12:28 am

Short form: every single time Obama comes down on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood and/or Al Quada. Look at the so-called Arab Spring. Who did Obama support in every country? When Egypt collapsed, economically and politically under the MB, who did Obama support? When the Army overthrew Morsi, who did Obama side with? The MB.

Assad, arguably is holding his own or winning over the “rebels”; 5 of the 7 groups of which are MB or Al Quada. Both sides have access to nerve agents. The supposed attack came when there were UN inspectors in the area. It would have been insanity for Assad to attack at that moment. I said “supposed” on the attack because of the pictures of the bodies shown of the victims.

Nerve agents aren’t gases like tear gas, chlorine, or phosgene. They are like Raid™ for people. Micro-droplets touch the skin and are absorbed and poison the victim. All it takes is a miniscule dose. It is persistent on the skin and clothing until it breaks down.

Those bodies were prepared for Islamic burial. That involves, striping them, washing by hand several times with certain ceremonies, and wrapping in the shrouds seen. Anyone doing that and not wearing specialized CBW suits is dead.

Who will the coming strikes [no matter how Congress votes] on Syria target? Assad. Who will that benefit? The MB and Al Quada. Consistency, at least.

Add in that Russia, China, and Iran have sided with Syria; and this is, as Brits say, a dog’s breakfast.

They say that the strikes will be limited in duration and force and there will be “no boots on the ground” [maybe on that last]. Same phrase describes Pearl Harbor.

By the way, not saying that Assad, or any Islamic dictators, are “good guys”. They are all wastes of protoplasm. None of them are worth supporting, but at least some of them are less dangerous to the US than others. The MB and Al Quada are not in that last group.

Subotai Bahadur


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: September 6, 2013, 2:19 am

What I don’t understand about Syria is – why, and why now? I am not surprised that neither Obama nor Kerry considered important to consult with our allies, our enemies, or the UN before proceeding down this path. However I am surprised that it is suddenly so important. Assad cooperating was never in the cards after the way we treated Momar in Libya, and for that matter how we treated Our long-time Egyptian ally.
I really feel there is more than a hint of Gulf of Tonkin here, although I have no evidence. Perhaps the reason is that after moving out of Iraq the radical Islamists strengthened to the point where they would make Syria their new Afghanistan -headquarters for their mischief- right next to Israel. dunno.


Comment from Deborah
Time: September 6, 2013, 2:30 am

Sorry to go off topic, but I thought Stoaty would like this.
Hobo Nickels at American Digest — http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/hobo_nickels.php


Comment from mojo
Time: September 6, 2013, 4:41 am

Stock price for Rayethon is going up. 1.4 mil a pop, those Tomahawks.


Comment from Gromulin
Time: September 6, 2013, 5:01 am

If I ever win the deadpool, an issue of Total Carp would make my day.


Comment from unkawill
Time: September 6, 2013, 8:53 am

I’m with Gromulin on the Total Carp.
As to the bombing, we need to take off
and Nuke-Em from Orbit. It’s the only
way to be sure!!!111eleventy!!!111!!!


Comment from unkawill
Time: September 6, 2013, 8:54 am

A good Jihadi is a dead Jihadi.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 6, 2013, 11:56 am

Any dick winners who would like an issue of Total Carp as a Dead Pool prize, just remind me when you win…

Those are awesome, Deborah. Engraving on coins is an old, old tradition…my favorite being altering Brittania to be sitting on the toilet. It’s a whole subset of coin collecting, and one that has a lot of appeal to me.

Those are some especially nice thatched roofs (rooves?) FGroupie. They are pretty common where we are. My favorite is one we pass frequently — as a finishing touch, the thatcher made a straw cat stalking a straw bird up the side of the roof.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: September 6, 2013, 3:00 pm

I can’t make any sense of the Syria thing either. There seems to be no good guys to root for or fight for, the anti-war guys are all lining up to call for war using exactly the same arguments they fought against with Iraq, against a nation where someone is using the WMD they swore never existed but were moved there from Iraq. Its like Bizarro world or something.


Comment from acat
Time: September 6, 2013, 3:04 pm

I don’t get Syria either. There are no good guys, the war isn’t two-sided, Assad could be worked with .. not *well*, perhaps, but worked with.

What really has me questioning Obama’s sanity – not Kerry’s, though .. bootlickers gotta lick even if master’s been walking in {excrement} .. is that Assad is a client of the Russians, Putin doesn’t look interested in taking us messing on his turf lightly, and Putin has his hand up the Iranians’ {backside} prepping them to hit us “for revenge”.

This has the potential to Franz Ferdinand out of control … and for *WHAT*?

Mew


Comment from GIL
Time: September 6, 2013, 4:40 pm

One rather horrible speculation. Is all of this theatre that is somehow leading up to 11 Sep 13? These foolish people are playing some dangerous war games. I hope the House votes against him.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 6, 2013, 5:12 pm

It certainly occurred to me that giving a ‘major’ speech on this topic on September 10 is either tin-eared or stunningly arrogant.


Comment from Tibby
Time: September 6, 2013, 5:24 pm

My only real notion is that it’s all more hand waving and distraction from all the real problems that this administration totally OWNS.

Ditto on the stupid speech – wha? Not that anyone listens to him anymore, just reads the hi/lo points after it’s over. Lord I fear for my country.


Comment from Deborah
Time: September 6, 2013, 6:56 pm

When Obama gives a
speech I spend the next
day talking in tele-
prompter sound-bites. It
makes me laugh out
loud at my own wit which
is shabby but I caint
help it.

I would like to
start a trend where we
all mock Obama by
talking like him but I
remember Valley Girls
and we are still suffer-
ing from that, even
in Texas.


Comment from Mojo
Time: September 6, 2013, 7:01 pm

I’d go with “stunningly arrogant”, myself.


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: September 6, 2013, 8:06 pm

Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 6, 2013, 5:12 pm

It certainly occurred to me that giving a ‘major’ speech on this topic on September 10 is either tin-eared or stunningly arrogant.

Can’t give the speech on the weekend, or literally no one will listen. Can’t give it on Monday night, because the Philadelphia Eagles play the Washington Redskins, and most of Congress is going to be there. If he gives it on Wednesday, 9-11; well on this side of the pond we are a bit touchy about that date. Which leaves Tuesday.

What I more than halfway expect, though, is that Tuesday he will announce the strikes are happening as he speaks; before Congress can vote. That way he will claim that he did not go against Congress or the Constitution.

It is sad when the President of Russia is more straightforward, honest, and credible than the President of the United States.

In any case, does anyone put it past him?

Subotai Bahadur


Comment from Frit
Time: September 6, 2013, 8:54 pm

Oh! Stoaty; May I be so bold as to request a pic of the thatched roof with straw cat stalking straw bird? That sounds totally cool!

(As for the whole political thing, I just can’t *headdesk* sufficiently without hurting myself…or breaking the desk.)


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: September 6, 2013, 9:02 pm

I can’t get over the fact that the left, including Kerry and Obama, were incensed that someone might fight to defeat Saddam Hussein, who gassed like 800 times as many of his own people just to shut them up… and think its great to attack Syria for the same thing.

There’s just no sense to this at all.


Comment from kilroy182
Time: September 6, 2013, 11:02 pm

The deal with Syria? Now bear with me because I wear a tricorn hat made of tinfoil but, I think Obama wants to wear out, run down, and overstretch the military as much as possible overseas while he’s trashing the economy at home.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 6, 2013, 11:12 pm

I’ll try, Frit, but it’s a lousy place to pull over and take a picture. Very steep wind-y backroad. I took a chance there might be a picture online, and I think I found one, but it was too tiny to be worth posting.


Comment from Poindexter
Time: September 9, 2013, 3:29 am

Feeding ducks, eh? Ever watch “About a Boy”? (One of my all-time favorite movies.)

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