Every year in England during the May Bank Holiday a seven pound wheel of Double Gloucester cheese is sent rolling down Cooper’s Hill in Brockworth, just outside of Gloucestershire, while dozens of competitors run, leap, roll, flip, and faceplant their way down the steep slope in pursuit of the cheese; whoever crosses the finish line first wins the cheese.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. 33 people were injured in the 1997 running, leading to the cancellation of the following year’s event. Although this year’s event was canceled as well, this time due to concerns about the sheer number of spectators who have come to attend the event, a less-publicized unofficial rolling was held.
There’s nothing like the real thing, though. Said competitor Mike Smith of the cancellation,
“Dreadfully disappointed with the news. As a cheese-roller of many years, I look forward to the chance to really injure myself each year. I have no idea how I’ll hurt myself this year…”
With any luck he’ll get the opportunity next spring. Until then, all we have are memories: here’s video footage of the 2007 Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, in an interview on MSNBC:
“This teacher complaining, they’re getting four-to-five percent salary increases a year in a zero percent inflation world; they get free health benefits from the day they’re hired–for their entire family–until the day they die. They believe they’re entitled to this shelter from the recession when the people who are paying for that shelter are the people who have been laid off, who have lost their homes, had their hours cut back, and all we asked them to do was freeze their salary for one year and pay one-and-a-half percent of their salary for their health benefits.”
(….)
“…The state teachers union said–they had a rally in Trenton against me. 35,000 people came from the teachers. You know what that rally was? The ‘me first’ rally. ‘Pay me my raise first. Pay me my free health benefits first. Pay me my pension first. And everybody else in New Jersey, get to the back of the line.’ Well, you know what? I’m not going to sit by and allow that to go unnoticed, so we’ll shine a bright light on it, and we’ll see how the people react. But I think we are seeing how the people of New Jersey are reacting, and that’s how you make it politically palatable in other states in the country. Just shine a bright light on greed and self-interest.”
Hey you punks, get the he77 off my hill!
Takuan Seiyo:
“As the West is being destroyed by its own elected leaders, its smartest and most creative, its most successful and prettiest, and the great majority of the population follows as though after the Piper of Hamlin, the salient question is how to save what remains and the people who carry what remains. Very few of the latter are in the political or managerial leadership caste, and you could count on one hand the ones whose exceptional talents or beauty set a large number of hearts aflutter.
“An even greater problem is that the destroyers and looters have been in sole purview of culture and education for so long that hardly any under-50 Whites remain who have retained their own mind and its link to their uniquely magnificent Western heritage. That link has been replaced either by a permanent hairshirt for the real and imagined transgressions of the West against the (broadly speaking) East and South, or by a moronic multiculti rainbow pastiche expressed, among others, in the pumping loins of white rappers and pop divas that are but inferior copies of stuff black people do better.
The majority of the people alive now in every Western country, and overwhelmingly so among the young, react at best with discomfort and avoidance to ideas that are not apologist for their race, history and religion…”
The Cheese is dead! Long live the Cheese!!
The “nation of shopkeepers” who brought us football now celebrates the stupidity of cheese rolling. I hesitate to add that had Hitler waited another 20 years he would have crushed Britain with little effort. The once Mighty British Empire has been reduced to neds, yobs and drunks who now invite their enemies to invade as oppose to fight them.
Gord, I prefer to think of the cheese-rolling race as a kind of a boot camp. It does take a certain amount of vigor and courage.
That being said, it is kind of cheesy.
David Warren, on growing distrust of the media:
“The deeper issue is ‘content.’ People will not read or view what they consider to be a waste of their time, and in particular, will not seek news from sources they believe to be tainted. The exclamation mark is affixed, when the mainstream media sweep the JournoList controversy under the rug — at a moment when their audience is free to read all these appalling e-mails on the Internet.
“As I insist, the most damaging thing for a purveyor of news is not bias, per se, but an apparent lack of candour. People want to know ‘what really happened,’ and if it is obvious that Agent A will not tell them, they will turn to Agent B. To my mind, that is exactly why my profession is in big trouble.
“It is moreover the reason why every agency in society, which governs itself by strictures of ‘political correctness,’ is in big trouble. People — quite simple, uneducated people, among others — may not have the means to analyse their distrust, but they can sure smell a rat. They may not be able to detect a lie, but they will eventually sense that a writer or speaker has no category for the truth.”
Hey, that cheese rolling thing is a right fine example of classic English eccentricity. I haven’t had such a good laugh watching a vid in quite some time. The English spirit is alive and well, amongst the commoners, in any case. As for the effete, impotent, self-censuring, apologizing political class, that’s another matter. Off with their heads. Long live the Brits! Long live Gloucester Cheese Rolling!
A new touchy subject … for women that is …
I listened with great interest to Charles Adler’s discussion today about whether women are generally worse drivers than men.
So as a lark, I wrote about this on Facebook though stating quite clearly that I was biting my tongue on the subject.
Oh my, oh my, did I get a tirade of abuse from a whole lot of my female friends!!!
And I used to think that women were most sensitive about their weight and their hair. Apparently NOT!!! Just Subject #437 that can’t be openly discussed between the sexes without repercussions! 🙂
“But I think we are seeing how the people of New Jersey are reacting, and that’s how you make it politically palatable in …”
I still don’t see from the article how NJ taxpayers are reacting. can anyone shine a light on the answer to that question?
Cheers to the cheeze rollers!!!
Certainly worth an email to them. And a celebratory shot of scotch!
Starting today, do I still have to pay my water utility bill? If they cut my water, can I drag them to my local HRC?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10797988
UN declares clean water a ‘fundamental human right’
http://tinyurl.com/2ukf2lo
Liberals take poison pen to ideal Tory census
I can’t believe they’d be this stupid. God help us all, if they ever get back into power.
Beagle: on the specific matter Christie was speaking to – limiting salary increases for teachers – he has a substantial 27-point margin of support among New Jersey residents. Perhaps that’s the reaction he’s referring to.
RT: Ed West at the Catholic Herald (UK): “Roger Scruton is right to be suspicious of utopian thinking.”
“The European Union, like Soviet Communism, is ‘an unachievable goal chosen for its abstract purity, in which differences are reconciled, conflict overcome and mankind soldered together in a metaphysical unity, can never be questioned, since in the nature of the case it can never be put to the proof.
“‘All the crimes committed on the way to it are deviations, perversions or betrayals, things that the ideal was designed to prevent.’ Indeed – and when these super-states descend into ethnic acrimony, then ‘nationalism’ will be to blame, not the absurdity of the super-state. Organic nation-states, in contrast, have allowed men ‘to create institutions that hold their leaders and representatives to account for everything that affects the common interest’.
It is an ‘unplanned expression’ and for that reasons ‘offensive to those who live by the plan’. The utopian vision is also behind that other modern grand illusion, mass immigration.
As Scruton notes: ‘Since the 1960s western countries have adopted policies in the matter of immigration that no person schooled in the elementary truths of pessimism would have endorsed. Anybody who has studied the fate of empires, and the difficulties of establishing territorial jurisdiction over communities that differ in religion, language and marital customs, knows that the task is all but impossible, and threatens constantly to break down in fragmentation, tribalism or civil war.’”
Check out the various blogs on the new Obama “open door policy” towards illegal immigrants. And I can’t cross the border into Montana to buy a 6 pack without a passport! (My grandparents were American.)
Joe Citizen X: Next time you’re on a beer run and they ask for your passport, just point to your sombrero…
RT: David Warren, on growing distrust of the media:
“The deeper issue is ‘content.’ People will not read or view what they consider to be a waste of their time, and in particular, will not seek news from sources they believe to be tainted. The exclamation mark is affixed, when the mainstream media sweep the JournoList controversy under the rug — at a moment when their audience is free to read all these appalling e-mails on the Internet.
“As I insist, the most damaging thing for a purveyor of news is not bias, per se, but an apparent lack of candour. People want to know ‘what really happened,’ and if it is obvious that Agent A will not tell them, they will turn to Agent B. To my mind, that is exactly why my profession is in big trouble.
“It is moreover the reason why every agency in society, which governs itself by strictures of ‘political correctness,’ is in big trouble. People — quite simple, uneducated people, among others — may not have the means to analyse their distrust, but they can sure smell a rat. They may not be able to detect a lie, but they will eventually sense that a writer or speaker has no category for the truth.”
Cheese-rolling looks like a blast and I give kudos to those who take part.
IMO, it doesn’t come close to a similar event (in Japan, I think, but don’t quote me) where hundreds of would be heroes vie in an attempt to ride a log down a watered precipitous slope. Said log is about 3 feet in dia by about 40-50 ft?? long and probably weighs many tons. The unlucky jockeys usually find themselves being steamrolled by the out-of-control missile.
I don’t know if there are a lot of serious injuries, but I have a hunch that some of these free-spirits have unfortunately eliminated themselves from the reproductive gene pool- only to be replaced by poetry writers and hair dressers. Pity, that!
I think I would give the cheese rollin’ race a shot at least once. I’m due for another vacation soon anyhow.
EBD: “Joe Citizen X: Next time you’re on a beer run and they ask for your passport, just point to your sombrero..”
================
What a brilliant idea! If we could arrange for some media attention, maybe we could have a mass staged event from coast to coast with Canucks trying to illegally enter the US wearing sombreros, just to buy beer, of course, nothing more nefarious.
Louise,your link is noteworthy for a variety of reasons.
First and foremost,it is a prime example of what the left find funny.It is condescending beyond belief. They look down at us,the unwashed masses,from atop their pedestal,which is on a very high horse,and snort,and then giggle to each other. This snobbish article is the modern Canadian version of “let them eat cake”.
2. This is in a ‘National’ newspaper”. They do not care if they insult 40% of the Canadians,mostly productive Canadians, who voted for the governing party. They are saying we are ‘knuckle-draggers,who when we are not walking,are dragging women back to the cave.
3. A senior Ignatieff official,unnamed of course, says ” “But no, I don’t think they’ll reverse their decision. Once you throw a bone at Canada’s version of the Tea Party crowd, it is hard to take it back.” OMG,they are confusing so much here. Is this ‘official’ saying that Conservative voters,men,women,all races, are like a pack of dogs?
4. “Are there any rooms in your house where you keep books? If so, why?”
I could go on,but the bottom line is that a ‘national’ newspaper and the opposition party has insulted a great many Canadians. This is humour,progressive style,Grade 9 returns.I suppose they must have run out of pictures of our PM being shot. It is a shame.
The complete ‘census’ form is up at the Liberal website,for now.
http://www.liberal.ca/newsroom/blog/censuslessness/
sda archive comments – anyone else having trouble loading them?
http://www.my9tv.com/dpps/my9_news/local_news/nyc/rep-charles-rangel-ethics-charges-deal-20100729_8908463
“During the hearing, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said that Rangel had been “given the opportunity to negotiate a settlement during the investigation phase,” but that the time for deals had passed, seemingly shooting down reports that Rangel’s lawyers had struck a deal. “We are now in the trial phase,” McCaul said.”
I agree with Ann Coulter. Republicans should stay away from Rangel, but some ppl are just plain Stupid…….. Charlie Rangel will “WIN” every round, where it counts
It is Nancy Pelosi & the Progessive (marxist) Democrats that want to get rid of Rangel, he holds the keys to NYC… he stands in the way of the Marxist’s hope to increase their strength in New York. The Republicans are been gamed as “Mad Junk Yard Dogs”
Newt as this eras Churchill, outlines the greatest threat to freedom today:
http://bigpeace.com/fgaffney/2010/07/29/newt-gingrich-at-aei-today-freedom-will-prevail/
We are at war – make no mistake.
He looks like he is 15- WSJ
A private first class with a “Top Secret/SCI” clearance has turned Army Intelligence over on their heads.
“”Army Intelligence””
Now that is a contradiction in terms.
The same ‘Army Intelligence’ that told us-
“no worries,
the North Vietnamese would never coordinate attacks on every major base/city in South Vietnam- They would never face us in out in the open, major daylight combat operations.”
The Tet Offensive.
Nearly got my ass blown off on that one guys.
Anyway…
Keep up the good work boys,
your Army Intelligence is showing.
wallyj, Lieberals are sooo cute. I would love to keep one as a pet. I bet that I could teach it to roll over so that I could scratch its belly. I would reward it with a dog biscuit and scratch it behind the ears.
Science: No-thing? 10 years of a life for no-thing?
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing*.”
“Venter: At the end of the day, it is an argument over nothing. But this battle between common good and commerce — that is the kind of story that sells newspapers.”
…-
“‘We Have Learned Nothing from the Genome'”
“Science / AAAS
The world’s first bacteria with a synthetic genome was even coded with an e-mail address.”
In a SPIEGEL interview, genetic scientist Craig Venter discusses the 10 years he spent sequencing the human genome, why we have learned so little from it a decade on and the potential for mass production of artificial life forms that could be used to produce fuels and other resources.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Venter, when the elite among gene researchers undertook the decoding of the human genome, you were their greatest enemy. They called you “Frankenstein,” “blood sucker,” “Darth Venter” and even “asshole.” Why do you attract so much hostility?
Venter: Well, nobody likes to be beaten — by superior intelligence, planning and technology. That gets people upset.
SPIEGEL: Every area of science is competitive. But it doesn’t lead to that kind of hostility in all areas.
Venter: The human genome project was completely different, it was supposed to be the biggest thing in the history of biological sciences. Billions in government funding for a single project — we had never seen anything like that before in biology. And then a single person comes along and beats scientists who have been working on it for years. It is no wonder they didn’t like that.
SPIEGEL: Wasn’t it more the case that your opponents were afraid that you, as a profit-oriented entrepreneur, would make the human genome your own private property?
Venter: That is totally absurd; and you know it. Initially, Francis Collins and the other people on the Human Genome Project claimed that my methods would never work. When they started to realize that they were wrong, they began personal attacks against me and made up these things about the ownership of the genome. It was all absurd.
SPIEGEL: So it was all just propaganda?
Venter: At the end of the day, it is an argument over nothing. But this battle between common good and commerce — that is the kind of story that sells newspapers.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,709174,00.html
(*H/T Macbeth)
The Voracious Red Dragon Has Sharp Claws/Teeth.
All the better to eat you, my dears.
Mao Stlong Lepolt: Moi’s Paltnelships Goody fol Canada.
How many paltnelships you wan?
BTW, Canadian “Liberal leader”, Bob Lae, is Moi nephew.
See Bob for herp with oul paltnelships.
…-
“*Officials are being wooed by China, Tory MP says
Calgary’s Rob Anders amplifies recent comments from CSIS director”
…-
“Smiths Falls celebrates partnership with China
Updated: Mon Oct. 19 2009 1:26:25 PM
An eastern Ontario town that was faced with hardship after losing its major employer is now partnering with a city in China.
Smiths Falls and Xiangfan City have forged a ‘sister city’ agreement in hopes of creating new opportunities in both countries.
“We have lots of opportunities in trade exchange. And, secondly, we have opportunities in education,” Tang Liangzhi, the head of Xiangfan’s local government, told CTV Ottawa through a translator.
Those opportunities could include investments in Chinese high tech, as well as money for the automotive industry in Canada.
The mayor of Smiths Falls says the partnership will likely have a positive impact on other eastern Ontario towns as well.”
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20091019/OTT_Smiths_Falls_091019/20091019/?hub=OttawaHome
MP Anders:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Officials+being+wooed+China+Tory+says/3340018/story.html
Great article, EBD @ 10:16 p.m.: “From Meccania To Atlantis – Part 17: Shotgun Marriage In Europe” by Takuan Seiyo
“Reckoning that autochthons [natives, aka, founding population] are increasingly bitter about the witches’ brew rising all around them, the rulers have doubled their efforts at population replacement so that the new colonizers — unskilled, uneducated and poor — augment the Looters’ Coalition in the 50-50 Neosocialist state on the welfare receiving side.
“In America in particular, half-suitable foreign colonizers or indigenous minorities are recruited to acquire a quasi-education in dumbed-down colleges, and then offered choice government positions. This streams more ‘minorities’ into the Looters’ Coalition, but on the paycheck receiving side. Furthermore, such positions give them the power that their strong tribal instincts skew toward a further containment and dispossession of the beleaguered founding populations.”
Canada, anyone?
Driving through some of our more multi-culti, ethnically diverse neighbourhoods here in Toronto, it’s occurred to me that compared to the unspeakable living conditions most of them endured in their countries of origin, these mean streets are heaven for visible minority immigrants, while the influx of this largely unskilled, uneducated and poor population, many on welfare, with all of their “rights” and “freedoms” demands, have turned “the beleaguered founding populations’ lives into a living hell.
Who are the gross beneficiaries of this new diverse and multicultural dispensation?
Another irony is that the author, Takuan Seiyo, because of his ethnic and cultural background, probably has more credibility with what he calls the “socialist and proactively dhimmi” hordes in North America whose “reaction to the West’s traditional culture and heritage often sharpens to hateful hysteria.” He was born in Communist Eastern Europe, socialized there, and then in Switzerland, France and elsewhere. He now lives in Japan.
Out of “white man’s guilt” and having set ourselves adrift from our story (his-story, her-story), whose honourable foundations are the Judeo-Christian faith upon which values and principles Western democracies were largely created, we’ve allowed ourselves to be falsely humiliated, accused, and found guilty — of what? Of generosity and hospitality to the rest of the world?
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Dammit.
batb, the rot starts at the hard left indoctrination factories we politely refer to as post secondary institutions.
Scrap tenure, defund the useless soft ‘science’ faculties, stop the poisoning of society with moral relativism and cultural self hatred spewing from these pits.
trappedintrudeaupia, I couldn’t agree more … but HOW?
That cheese-rolling race is perhaps the fastest IQ test I’ve ever seen administered.
batb: “trappedintrudeaupia, I couldn’t agree more … but HOW?”
We could start by sending out kids to technical schools and community colleges instead, which would be more useful for the kids, too.
Secondly, alumni should let the universities know they will no longer get donations from their graduates, or alternatively, target donations to only those colleges that produce useful degrees (the sciences and technologies). Finally, we need a Canadian version of Campus Watch (http://www.campus-watch.org/), maybe with a different focus or expanded focus, since Campus Watch focuses on profs who focus on Israe/Jewish hatred, to keep an eye on what these indoctrinators are doing and keep people informed. If our students can avoid courses taught by them, all the better.
David Horowitz has done some really good work of exposing these professors on American campuses. One way you can ascertain a professor’s political bias is to get a hold of the reading list he or she prescribes for the classes they teach. They are available at the university bookstores prior to each semester.
What to do about the collusion to sabotage the peer review process is a different matter, though, but I think you’d get most of those culprits through other means.
“… but HOW?”
By Revolution…
Is it any wonder that Great Britain lost its empire when there are many of its citizens who look forward to being injured by cheese hurtling down a hill?
Right honourable – by Revolution? That still doesn’t answer the question of HOW does one get rid of the junk curriculum and faculty at our universities.
Economically, this section of a university is prime time meat, so to speak. All the sophist students who have no idea what they want to do but certainly don’t want to work yet.. come here – and pay their tuition. That’s a basic source of money for the university. The fact that they learn nothing of use and instead, become brainwashed – that’s one reality. The fact that their existence brings in money – that’s a stronger reality.
The faculty? I’m an academic – and I’ve seen what goes on. It’s all opinions and opinions; words slither around, miles and miles from reality. That’s the fictional realm of the humanities and social sciences where what you SAY..is ‘reality’. Indeed, the further the distance between your words and the hard reality – the more intriguing, the more innovative, the more admired the rhetoric! [Think Obama, Gore, Suzuki here].
Work for faculty? They might ‘teach’ two to three courses per term. That’s a maximum of nine (9) hours per week…spent pontificating in front of your students. Tests? Heh – you give the same ones every year..and have your ‘marker’ do the work of marking. Oh and remember, the long summers off..from mid May to September. And sabbaticals every three to six years. Full year paid leave. Neat. Tenured – can’t be fired.
Research? Heh -you can write anything, and I’m sure we’ve all seen it – the most empty blather is acceptable. Because this postmodern rhetoric has NO connection to reality and therefore, whatever you say…is acceptable. They can get it published anywhere. Lots of vanity presses around (you pay; there’s no peer review).
Remember the Sokal Hoax? A physics professor wrote a paper for one of these social science/humanities journals (Social Text). He gave it the pompous postmodern title: “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”. These are all terms beloved of the postmodern crowd because they are detached from reality and thus have no meaning. The article was filled with nonsense, outright falsehoods and illogical assumptions – and was accepted (peer reviewed!) and published. Then – Sokal revealed the hoax.
Postmodernists, of course, were very angry and felt their ‘rights’ had been ethically abused by Sokal’s passing off something that he did not believe in. Not the fact that he was showing them how detached from reality they are; but the fact that he did not believe in this fictional world that he was writing about.
The fact that they cannot see that the rights of people who are ‘existential’ and thus live in factual reality are abused by postmodernists who claim that that same factual reality does not exist…is far beyond the intellectual capacity of postmodernists.
So- as long as you can get an easy life, living off the govt, teaching nonsense in these universities..and as long as young people can be removed from the work force for these extra years…you aren’t going to change a thing.
Canadian cowboy trains British soldiers to spot IEDs
The British Army has recruited a Canadian cowboy to teach soldiers how to look for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) hidden in the ground when deployed in Afghanistan.
The cowboy is professional tracker Terry Grant, aged 52, who is famed for his hit reality television show ‘Mantracker’ in which he tracks contestants over vast swathes of the Canadian wilderness….
Spill Baby Spill
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-crude-mother-nature-breaks-slick/story?id=11254252
sda commenters a week after the blow out.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=13900
Is there a special version of the census long form for proggies on the Lieberal website?
If not, perhaps we should scratch one together.
Here are a few of questions to start it off.
A. Was Anglo-Saxon 101 your most difficult university course?
B.How many times did you have to repeat it before you got a passing grade?
C. Can you read Beowulf in the original? Do you have any other useful skills?
D. When you meet with your former UCC classmates for the annual Labour Day party at the cottage do you converse in Latin or Classical Greek? Do you have any other useful skills?
E. Can you change the oil in your Volvo all by yourself? Can you change a tire?
It’s a start. Any more ideas?
Macdonald:
Someone should tell Grant not to dismount. Better he should lose a good horse…
Charles MacDonald @12:21 – Mantracker!!???!
Well then, SDA’s unofficial official tough-guy is now way badder than Chuck Norris. I feel considerable pride.
The Lancaster is in Winnipeg! I’m off to see it tonight.
http://www.wcam.mb.ca/
I’m not normally thsi much of a pedant but I was born in Gloucestershire: Brockworth is just outside Gloucester and not Gloucestershire. Gloucesteshire is the county and Gloucester is the county capital. =) And its pronouced Gloster and Glostershur for those who were wondering. =)
WAG* Report: Cool.
…-
“Cool summer: L.A. sets more low-temperature records
The unusually cool summer continued in Southern California, where several new record-low temperatures were recorded on Wednesday.
The 68-degree low at Los Angeles International Airport broke the old record low for the day, which was 70 degrees in 1991. Santa Barbara (68) and San Luis Obispo (69) broke records as well.
The temperature at USC, 75, tied the record low set in 1999. UCLA also set a record, 56 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
While the region saw a heat wave a few weeks ago, temperatures have been gradually going down again as July comes to an end.
June was also marked by gloomy conditions and lower-than-normal temperatures.”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/cool-summer-la-set-more-record-low-temperatures.html
(*Formerly AGW)
It’s O’ver.
America has divorced Liberal Ziffy’s O’Harvard buddy O.
O = O.
What was his name????
Lib Ziffy says, I am not now; nor, have I-Moi ever been a buddy of O.
O’s sole legacy*:
“*This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder.”
…-
“Why America turned on Obama
Despite some major achievements, the President is plummeting in the polls. And the attacks are coming from all sides.
This month, President Barack Obama signed into law a financial reform bill aimed at preventing another financial crisis. It cost him financial backers on Wall Street, but gave consumers new protections and government more regulatory oversight powers. The financial reform bill came on the heels of the hard-fought health-care reform law, which for the first time provides insurance coverage for all Americans. That in turn followed the successful rescue of the U.S. automotive sector and a massive stimulus bill full of Democratic policy victories, like a huge expansion of federal support for environmentally friendly energy technologies. In his first year and a half in office, Obama put the first Latina on the Supreme Court and is on track to have three women on the top court for the first time in U.S. history. He reached an arms control deal with the Russians and picked up a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s been decades since any president has accomplished so much so quickly—and all this without headlines about West Wing interns.
And yet, the White House is on the defensive. Even as the financial legislation worked its way through Congress to the President’s desk for signature, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was being taken to task for admitting on a Sunday morning talk show that Democrats could lose the House of Representatives in mid-term elections this November. House Democrats were livid. Headlines used words like “panic” and “white flag.” But sadly for Obama, Gibbs was merely stating the obvious.
It is unremarkable for a president’s party to lose some seats in mid-term elections—a time when voters typically take their discontent out on incumbents. But this one could be particularly ugly for Democrats. Despite his legislative successes, Americans have been turning on Obama. His drop in approval in his first 12 months, from the mid-60s to the low 50s—or less in some polls—was one of the sharpest for a newly elected president over his first year. Now, 18 months after his inauguration, fewer than half of Americans approve of his job performance, and he is almost as acidly unpopular among Republican voters as former president George W. Bush was with Democrats in his second term.
Most importantly, Obama has lost the crucial independent voters whose support helped propel him into the White House—slightly more than half disapprove of his job performance.
And between the crippled economy and the drawn-out struggle to stop environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, confidence in Obama has been deeply shaken.”
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/07/27/why-america-turned-on-obama/
…-
*O’narcissist:
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections
Stuart du Kamp @ 4:12 – but they keep re-drawing all the county boundaries, don’t they, (the jerks)? Who can keep track?
According to the infallible Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brockworth,_Gloucestershire#Cooper.27s_Hill”>Wikipedia, a while back this cheese-rolling deal was part of a larger midsummer festival, so I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest a possibly conceivable connection to this (link to a slightly hippyish site, and for that I apologize).
If there were a connection it would be cool.
Anyway, I’m sorry it’s been cancelled, to the degree that it has. ‘Elf ‘N bleeding Safety continues to ruin everything.
Stuart (4:12), you’re not being a pedant at all. It’s good to get the facts straight: the Gloucestershire cheese-roll is held just outside of Gloucester, which is the county capital of Gloucestershire. If the Gloucestershire cheese-roll was held outside of Gloucestershire, they’d probably be chasing a different cheese.
I’d correct the post, but every time I do that the whole page has to be rebuilt, and I could lose the post and all the comments, so I’ll let the error stand as a mini-monument to my poor research.
Grand Strategy with Charles Hill : Chapter 5 of 5
Charles Hill outlines the deterioration of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/
Cheese rolling isn’t stupid any more than Wellington Tossing, Watermelon chucking, Italian Tomato fights and the like. Like a giant perogie on a fork or an intergalactic UFO landing pad, these are diversions of folks with either too much time on their hands and/or a sense of tradition.
Now trying to ban it because some snowflake might get hurt is the stupid part. Anyone interested in ruining fun has to look no further than their local bureaucrat.