My Heroes Will Always Be Cowboys

UPDATE: Thanks to SherryT for reporting a bug in the last video embed code which caused it to auto-start on some Mac computers. Most annoying! The bug has been fixed and I totally apologize for the glitch.

Thanks to CJ for telling us yesterday about Calgary’s time honored tradition of  “White Hatting” visiting dignitaries. Last Thursday, Will and Kate joined the long and varied list of celebrities who have been “white-hatted,” including the Dalai Lama, Pope John Paul II, Wayne Gretzky, Bruce Springsteen, Luciano Pavarotti, Oprah Winfrey, George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Mickey Mouse.

No, not him.

The real one. From Disneyland.

I can’t really see what the rest of the “white hats” have in common. Out of the whole batch, the only real cowboy is George W. Bush, who by all accounts should be wearing a black hat. How’s that for irony?

The white-hat honor was bestowed on Will and Kate by Calgary’s Mayor, Naheed Nenshi.

Now that’s the way to wear a Stetson!

Come on now, who are you kidding? “Cowboy Naheed Nenshi?” That doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? It has a bit of a discordant ring to it, like “Cowboy George Schwemley,” a distant cousin of Little Mo’s who once rode in the Buffalo Bill Rodeo show. Butt Raj found the degree of multiculturalism exhibited in the Great White North reassuring - in case, for whatever reason, he is ever forced to leave this country.

Anyway, you may have noted that the Wons were not included on the list of “white hatters.” That seems a little racist, even though Oprah did get one. So maybe next year we’ll get an invite to the Calgary Stampede to  punch some doggies and trade our black hat in for a white one. Like George W. Bush’s.

I think we’ve got a good shot at it. After all, Big Guy and Mayor Nenshi have a lot in common, in addition to them both having funny names, they both Tweet!

Uncanny! Apparently Mayor Nenshi’s parents were trouble makers too.

And another similarity: Mayor Nenshi served as Grand Marshall for Calgary’s Gay Pride parade this year. Well OK, Big Guy didn’t really have time to be Grand Marshall at this year’s San Francisco parade, because he was way too busy trying to get America’s economy-car out of the ditch that the R-words drove it into. (No luck so far, butt don’t worry; we’ve got a plan. We just have to resolve that debt ceiling matter first.)

A little OT, butt I didn’t even know there was such a thing as gay cowboys until Broke Back Mountain set me straight. Although “straight” might not be the best choice of words here.

And then, imagine my surprise when I found out that there were  black cowboys too! And some of them were even gay! Goodness, I really do need to get my Old West pack updated, it’s a little provincial.

Clevon Little as Sheriff Black Bart in Blazing Saddles (one of the best non-politically correct movies of all time)

And speaking of cowboys, Big guy was busy  packin’ for our big trip to Montana this weekend, until the R-words dropped their soap in the shower and agreed to traipse over to the Big White and make Big Guy look like a Big Leader in the deficit reduction shell game.

Butt don’t feel too bad. We just started planning the fly fishing trip last week in order to have a vacation to cancel in order to show the American people how hard we’re workin’ to solve the budget and debt ceiling problem. Real Presidential vacays (Like Martha’s) are planned months in advance.

I won’t tell you what Big Guy thought he would be catching with his “fly fishing” rod. Butt JoeyB set him straight (there’s that homophobic word again…sorry). Big Guy’s never actually caught a trout, even though his staff marvels at his spinning and casting skills:

And he is pretty good at catching flies:

(Literally. No double entendre, please).

I just hope we can get through the weekend without anymore of Big Guy’s histrionics. They haven’t been playing as well lately, even with our LSM. Butt you know how it is in the summer time: everyone gets all wee-weed up around here.

Sheriff Bart threatens to “let the N-word have it.”

“If you don’t raise the debt ceiling I’ll…I’ll… well, I swear, I’ll…. Wait a minute guys…you’re supposed to do what I say here.”

Like in the movie:

So, we “cancelled” our Montana vacay so people won’t get all wee-weed up when we vacate to Martha’s Vineyard next month for a little well-earned R&R. What a waste. We had our publicity stills ready to go and everything:

Maybe we can use them at next year’s stampede. The one in Calgary.

Lady M is threatening to get involved in the budget talks this weekend too, because she doesn’t want to risk criticism for our  Vineyards vacay after America has gone broke. She’s actually pretty good at the negotiation table, coming from a long line of black cowgirls herself.

MO’s great-great aunt, Stagecoach Mary LaVaughn, with her trusty companion. And her little dog Bo. 

So if those R-words don’t want Lady M to get her LaVaughn on (and trust me, they don’t) this weekend, they best come prepared to cave in and raise the roof.

 

“I said raise the debt ceiling or I swear, I do the Dougie. Right here, right now.”

Great video of real American cowboys for those who, like me, love real cowboys!

Linked By: BigFurHat @ iOwnTheWorld, and  Red Square on The People’s Cube, Thanks!

Twits or Tweets? WTF, Friday Edition.

The Chicago Tribune – of all newspapers – seems to be making fun of Big Guy's Twitter-fest:

Twitter is casual, fast-paced, funny, anarchic and egalitarian. Politicians were never any of those things.

They seem to imply that our Big White (BW) Twitter town hall (TTH) and Big Guy (BG), by extension, is none of those things.

I beg to differ. We’ve so nailed 4 out of 5.

Casual:

BG, getting down with his peeps, and a casual ROG (round of golf)

Fast-paced:

Run Bo, run! Faster!

Funny:

He even cracks himself up

And egalitarian? Are you kidding me? Do any of you remember Joe  the “we’ve got to spread the wealth around” Plumber? (JTP)

How much more egalitarian can we get? We’ve even got bumper stickers.

I guess I’ll concede on the charge of not being “anarchic.”  We’re much more into Organizing for America (OFA), Big, BIG government and tyranny, butt sometimes despite our best efforts things end up in chaos that even a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist might approve of.

Obamacare Bill (warning: embiggens on its own, no clicking required)

 

Obamacare flowchart: click to embiggen (CTE). The picture, not government - it does it on its own.

So we’ve got that going for us.

Anyway, we think the tweet-fest went just swell. So you can just disregard what Major Garrett had to say on the Dr. Laura Ingra-ham radio show. After all, he doesn’t even work for FOX News anymore:

“[I]f people aren’t listening to you on that core message, it doesn’t matter what you say anymore,” he said. “And I think the president is dangerously close to losing that connection with the American people on what he knows about the economy and what he can predict about the economy. And presidents who can’t lead on the economy tend to be replaced.

And I think today’s Twitter town hall is evidence of a low-level degree of anxiety bordering on panic within the Chicago reelection headquarters because back in 2008 and 2007, I watched this develop on the ground. There was a sense that ‘oh social media created the energy.’ No, social media harnessed and built it out. It made it exponential. But it didn’t create it in the first place and you see a lot of sort of feverish attempts to engage social media as if that’s the means by which to create energy. No – you create energy by what you do, what you say and how you lead, especially if you’re seeking reelection and it’s at that level that I think the energy pool is much more shallow for President Obama than the campaign would like it to be.”

Panic schmanic. David Plouffe has everything under control. He knows what’s important to the American people: and it’s not that 3 letter word: JOBS.

“The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers,” Plouffe said. “People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate, they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’”

Then they probably won’t care about Big Guy putting Social Security and Medicare on the table in order to get some new tax increases either.

The 2012 election is going to be a breeze; maybe we don’t even need to do any more Twitter Town Halls (TTH).

Whose the dweeb with the pencil up his butt? The one on the left. No, I mean on the left hand side.

Somehow, I don’t think that would be a bad thing. And it would leave more time for Big Guy (BG) to get casual, funny and fast paced – in order to create some of that old energy around our HOPE and CHANGE meme.

Casual, funny, fast-paced. The “egalitarian” will come later.

Be sure to catch this weekend’s rap up of Wills and Kate’s North American tour. The more I see of them the more I see how much the Duchess and our Queen have in common.

It’s a mighty wind.

 

BTW: June unemployment numbers just in, 9.2%. OUCH!

After That Townhall, I’m All A’Twitter

I think that went well, don’t you? The Twitter Townhall?

Uh, what button do I push again?

Big Guy certainly demonstrated his command of the new social media. And let’s not quibble about the fact that he didn’t Tweet back his answers, nor even constrain himself to the Twitter convention of 140 character response. He doesn’t have to, because…“I’m the President” Which, I'll just point out, IS fewer than 140 characters, as is “it’s Bush’s fault,” either of which would have been better answers then the long ones that Big Guy gave. For example:

On housing:

"The one thing that we can do is make sure that for homeowners that have been responsible, didn’t buy more house than they couldn’t afford…. Makes sure that they can afford to pay." [Ed. watch those double negatives: it sometimes appears as an attempt to purposely obfuscate the issue, or, minimally, makes the response confusing.]

"Given the size of the housing market, no federal program is going to be able to solve the housing [problem]."

Now, if only he can remember that concept as it applies to every other market of that magnitude – say, for example, health care.

On the Space Program:

"What you’re seeing now is NASA I think redefining its mission. We have set a goal of getting to Mars with a pit stop on an asteroid. We haven’t identified the asteroid yet."

"In order to do that we’re actually going to need some technological breakthroughs that we don’t have yet."

Muslims new technological breakthrough: wheeled ground transportation. They seem unclear on the concept however.

"Let’s allow the private sector to get in so that they can, for example, send these low-earth-orbit vehicles into space."

‘Cuz GM’s almost there already

On jobs:

Big Guy got the same question on jobs from John Boehner as he did from Richard Trumka at the AFL-CIO: “where are the jobs?”

"So it’s great that we have an Apple that’s creating iPods, iPads, and designing them and creating the software, but it would be nice if we’re also making the iPads and the iPods here in the United States, because that's some more jobs that people can work at."

How about tax incentives to move jobs back on-shore? I’m just sayin’.

"(On White House workers) They haven’t had a raise in two and a half years and that’s appropriate."

Oh oh. That might be a, ahem,lie? “White House Staffers Got a Raise Last Year, and You Did Not.” Apparently my raise must have slipped through the cracks. So to speak.

On Taxes:

"The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the head of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners or oil and gas companies that are making millions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high."

Excellent first shot in the launch of class warfare!

"If all we do is just go back to the pre-Bush tax cut rates for the top income brackets, millionaires and billionaires, that would raise hundreds of millions of dollars, and if you combine it with the cuts we’ve already proposed, we could solve our deficit and debt problems."

Excellent follow-up! Of course, once again, the short answer is “It’s Bush’s fault.”

Because after all, the pie is only so big.

On education:

"Working with university presidents to try to figure out where you can cut costs. Of course it may mean that the food in the cafeteria is a little worse, the cafeteria may be a little less fancy."

Hmmm…maybe this is another job for Lady M? Because she has a lot of experience with school cafeterias.

And food.

Butt back to Big Guy’s Twitter-fest. On immigration:

"We have an immigration system that’s broken right now." (It’s Bush’s fault)

Really?

You think?

Apparently answering only 18 Tweets from what turned out to be tens of thousands didn’t really set well with some folks though. Take CNN’s concern for example:

Which raises yet another question: Is it fair to turn over such a question-answer session to the people of the Internet? Or would democracy be better served by letting pundits, news people or even regular Joes who attend real-life town hall meetings ask questions of officials?

Hee hee. They didn’t really mean that last part about “regular Joes.” Butt I think I can answer their question. No. Absolutely not fair to turn such an important question-answer session over to people on the internet who are inexperienced and unqualified to ask fair and balanced questions. Give the job back to the professionals. Like Gwen Ifill, Chrissy “Tingles” Matthews, Katie Couric, and anyone from NPR. As long as you keep Fox News people away, we should be good.

Got to run: budget talks with the R-words this afternoon. That should be good too, since Big Guy’s never done a budget in his whole entire life. That’s been a job for his handlers, agents and various assorted little people ever since he was first dubbed “The Won.”

"People like me, who have been incredibly fortunate—mainly because a lot of people who have bought my book—for me to go back to the tax rate that existed under Bill Clinton so that I can make sure that kids still have Medicare and kids still have Head Start makes a lot of sense to me."

He was incredibly fortunate to have found such a talented writer to write his book: millions of Americans bought his story, along with his book.

So anyway, budgets and fiscal matters are not really his strong suit. Although I do understand he voted against raising the debt ceiling, before he voted for it.

That’s a wrap. WTF.

Linked By: Gerard @ American Digest and by

Larwyn’s Linx on DougRoss@Journal

Thanks!

Coming Soon: The Royal Tweets

Watching Will and Kate’s royal Canadian visit has brought about some wishful thinking on the part of many Americans. Despite it being anathema to the concept of a democratic republic, many are longing for a little royalty of our own; something Kennedy-esque to lift us out of this malaise that has set in with the summer heat. You know, someone we can look up to; someone with the grace, charm and refinement of Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge.

Well America, you’re in luck! Not since the Kennedys graced the White House has America had such a royal family residing in Washington. Here, to illustrate, is a pictorial essay of how the Wons are just like royalty. I believe the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Kate drops a ball to start a street hockey match in Yellowknife (north of the bear line, eh?)

Lady M starts the Nationals v Cubs game in Washington D.C. last night

Kate participates in active sports

 

So does Lady M

Wills shows Kate and some wee ones how a gentleman operates an umbrella

Big Guy knows how to use an umbrella too

Will pilots a military helicopter in a water landing during military exercises on Prince Edward Island, to impress his bride

Big Guy gets on a military helicopter, quickly recovering from bumping his head in the process

Kate demonstrates proper limo dismount technique

As does Lady M

Kate breaks ground for a shovel ready project

Lady M threatens to break heads if the project’s not shovel ready PDQ

And of course, we haven’t even touched on the mutual fashion sensibilities of the Duchess of Cambridge and Lady  M. Here are Kate and Mo, both de-planing in a black and white sheath dress: is this resemblance not simply uncanny (no pun intended)!?!

Alas, I’ll have to cover the fashion similarities tomorrow because I have to get ready for Guy’s first ever Twitter Town Hall webcast  this afternoon.

Unfortunately the answers, unlike the questions, will not be constrained to 140 characters, as Big Guy will be responding to the tweets verbally. So pack up some sandwiches and a thermos or two of coffee – and maybe a few Twinkies - and plan on spending an action-filled afternoon in front of your computer because we’re going to be explaining TWF (The Way Forward) and our plans for WTF (Winning The Future) in our TwitterTownhall on the Economy and Jobs. That’s "@townhall" marked with the hashtag "AskObama." Social Media. TWF. WTF.

See you all there.

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on DougRoss@Journal