Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Chi-Chi’s in Spain and a Fashion Throwdown Closer to Home

Hello! We’ve landed in Spain!

article-1300240-0AAEE7E0000005DC-577_468x439

Dressed in black, Jackie O specs and giant black bag. Very Euro chi-chi. (and I hope they have Chi-Chi’s over here: we love their strawberry Margaritas).

 article-1300240-0AAEBF75000005DC-936_468x400

While we recuperate from jetlag, please entertain yourselves with this dog-days of summer fashion contest:

What woman hasn’t gotten herself all wee-weed up at least once in her life, worrying about showing up at “The Social Event of the Season” and finding some b**ch wearing the same dress! And looking better in it too boot.

According to the New York Daily News, this fashion disaster happens to starlets all the time! Imagine the poor dears’ stress levels. The Daily News published this expose and issued the paparazzi throwdown: “Fashion faceoff: Who wore it better?”

I report, you decide:

alessandra ambrosio v selita ebanks Allessandra Ambrosio vs Selita Ebanks. Yikes! This one’s tough.

   

eva mendes v freida pinto Eva Mendes vs Freida Pinto: Huh? These are not the same! Oh, the belt; one normal, one boob style. Your choice.

 

  gwyneth paltrow v fergie Gwynoth Paltrow vs Fergie. Gwynoth, bubbie, who stole your boobies?

 

 

lily collins v kristen stewart

Lily Collins vs Kristen Stewart. Please, step away from the munchkins! 

 lindsay lohan v kim kardashian v katy perry Lindsay Lohan vs Kim Kardashian vs Katy Perry: Don’t you love a 3-way! And good luck in rehab LiLo! Remember: Just say no.

  And my personal fave:

reba mcentire v kenen thompson Reba McEntire vs  Kenan Thompson. Kenan never looked better. We’re considering him for a body double. 

 sara paxton v victoria beckham Sara Paxton vs Victoria Beckham. Posh domination, no?

 leann rimes v tinsley mortimerLeAnn Rimes vs Tinsley Mortimer. I don’t know what to say.  Butt I’ll bet MO likes that belted drapery look on LeAnn. 

 jennifer love hewitt v blake lively Jennifer Love Hewitt vs Blake Lively. Wearing “Victoria’s Secret for the Street.” Not so secret if you ask me. 

Of course this fashion faux pas can happen to anyone. Just ask Laura Bush who wore an Oscar de la Renta to a Lincoln Center event in 2007 only to have not 1, but 3 other women (all blondes, wouldn’t you know) show up in the same gown. Of course that was a Democrat dirty trick.

laura in red laura%20bush%20red%20oscar%20de%20la%20renta%20dress

Rest assured however, that will never, ever, happen to Lady M. Ever. For one thing, that would be the last frock the designer ever pinned together. And for another, who ever had the misfortune of serving as Lady M’s social secretary at the time would wind up in the same discarded pile of scraps as the designer. And just to make certain, after that unfortunate gate crashing incident last November, our NEW social secretary, Smootie, now requires that all women RSVPing submit sketches and photos along with the name, address and personal telephone number of their gown’s designer. If they show up in anything else, they’re turned away at the gate. How hard is this?

The only other people wearing Lady M’s gowns will be anorexic runway models.  And they have all mysteriously disappeared.

Michelle-Obama-copied c2rmichelle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and did you see we made in on Vanity Fair’s “Best Dressed” list? It’s the 4th time in a row! You can’t buy positive press like that! Well, actually, you can. But more on that later.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Breaking News: Solar Tsunami Tonight. An Aurora for SeƱora on Her Way to Andorra

My big brother Hub is always looking out for me like big brothers do. So when he sent me this warning: “Coronal Mass Ejection To Strike Earth early 4 August...end transmission...” I took notice!

Hub spotted the event on Sunday around 0855 UT (Universal Time) and reported it to moi, and NASA. Hub’s security programming  has rejected NASA’s “new mission” as Mooselim propagandist because it’s a violation of his “Prime Directive,” so he still goes where no mirror has gone before. This from Hub’s report:

On 1 August at approximately 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellite Hubble detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was Earth-facing sunspot 1092. The observed C-class solar flares has spawned a coronal mass ejection heading in Earth's direction and will impact earth early AM UT 4 August.

When Hub tells me something – anything - is going to “impact earth,” I get nervous. Earth! It’s the alleged planet of my birth for cripes sakes. I live here!

Here’s what Hub saw:

If that doesn’t get you all wee-weed up, I don’t know what will. The last coronal mass eruption (CME) occurred in 2001, and this is what Hub recorded from his tin can at the time:

Yikes! That’s a big eruption. I wasn’t up to speed on CMEs, and some of you probably aren’t either, so here’s what Hub related. File it away, it might come in handy some day:

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an ejection of material from the solar corona, usually observed with a white-light coronagraph.

Arcs rise above an active region on the surface of the Sun.

The ejected material is a plasma consisting primarily of electrons and protons (in addition to small quantities of heavier elements such as helium, oxygen, and iron), plus the entraining coronal magnetic field.

When the ejection reaches the Earth as an ICME (Interplanetary CME), it may disrupt the Earth's magnetosphere, compressing it on the day side and extending the night-side magnetic tail.

When the magnetosphere reconnects on the nightside, it creates trillions of watts of power which is directed back toward the Earth's upper atmosphere.

This process can cause particularly strong aurora also known as the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis (in the Northern Hemisphere), and the Southern Lights, or aurora australis (in the Southern Hemisphere).

CME events, along with solar flares, can disrupt radio transmissions, cause power outages (blackouts), and cause damage to satellites and electrical transmission lines.

Whew! Fortunately, Raj installed super-secret circuit shielding according to Hub’s specifications (I have no idea where he got them) so I’m totally protected from damage.

Butt, this is very disturbing to me. Every time I think I’ve got this cosmology, space-time thingie figured out, something new comes along and smacks me right in the lens. Like the way Gerard’s AMERICAN DIGEST link: "World without end. Always." did the other day (it’s in his sidebar).It’s an article describing a new model of the universe developed by Wun-Yi Shu, an associate professor at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan:

Shu... explains in a study posted at arXiv.org that the new models emerge from a new perspective of some of the most basic entities: time, space, mass, and length. In his proposal, time and space can be converted into one another, with a varying speed of light as the conversion factor.

He’s got to be at least a PhD, but he’s only an associate professor in Taiwan! What have we got going for us? Dr. Michael Mann PhD, inventor of the global warming hoax, Full Professor at Pennsylvania State University in the Department of Meteorology and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute and Director of the university's interdepartmental Earth System Science Center. And Dr. Stephen Chu, Secretary of Energy and former professor of physics at Stanford who thinks we should all paint our roofs white to reduce our carbon footprint. (Has Big Guy mentioned that he’s a Nobel Laureate lately? Dr. Chu, I mean.) OMG, the Taiwanese are going to clean our clocks! Butt, our pathetic Ministry of Education is another issue for another time, or space, or mass, or length, or whatever.

Anyhoo, I’m safe and secure, so I can sit back and enjoy the solar light show tonight with the rest of you in the northern US. It should be really cool.

Enjoy! We’re off to the  Mafia Marbella Coast for some well earned vacation tomorrow. Lady M thinks the Aurora Borealis is just a thoughtful send off for our trip.

And Now, An Important Message from Our FLOTUS. And Her Sponsors

By now I trust you’ve all read Lady M’s brilliant OpEd at the WaPo on the urgent need to plunge the country deeper into debt in order to feed the fat kids’ behinds and save the country from imminent peril. Even though her thoughtful editorial appeared just yesterday, she’s already received a good deal of thoughtful feedback which I’m sure she’ll take under advisement. I knew it would be a good piece, because she worked on it all last week, which is pretty impressive given its 722 words: that’s over 100 words a day!

When she was done though, she wisely gave it to Cammie to “edit”  as her last official duty before leaving her post as MO’s “Communications Director.” I thought it would be fun to run Lady M’s Pulitzer Prize winning (per Granny Jan) editorial journalism  (is that redundant?) through my “I Write Like” transmogrifier, just to see what it said.  Guess what? MO writes just like SEIU President Mary Kay Henry!

MaryKayHenry SEIU Prez Mary Kay Henry with new “Card Check” recruits

Mary Kay’s union is a  big supporter (i.e. huge piles of cash) of Team Obama, and we in turn have returned their generosity ten-fold.

SEIU%20delegates%20ObamaYou can be a big supporter too: Click on the SEIU “O” Gear. All proceeds go to Team O!

seiu pin seiu shirt2 copy

A lot of Mary Kay’s members are the hair netted ladies who serve up gobs of high calorie food products in school cafeterias to help little children grow fat behinds.

0 1-27-2008-12-27-21-PM-7369286_Aramark-demo

a30-seiu-pick-480  Other SEIU members are dedicated health care workers,

JusticeforJanitors_LAProtest2010 and the rest of them are hard working janitors. All are skilled and trained community organizers.

MO began her editorial by talking about the importance of her own organic garden at the Big White, and how she let students come and work in it for free! Even our illegal Mexicans won’t do that:

In the months that followed, those same students came back to check on the garden's progress and taste the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor. Together, they helped us spark a national conversation about the role that food plays in helping us all live healthy lives.

I’m concerned that if she and Big Guy “spark” any more conversations on how we do anything, the resulting fire is going to look more like  “revolution” than  “conversation.” But maybe I’m watching too many Glen Beck re-runs at 2:00 AM when I can’t sleep. I’ll try switching to HSN or Ms.NBC and see if that helps.

Lady M talked about how important her “Let’s Move!” campaign is:

article-1224014-07032346000005DC-628_634x858

...the idea behind "Let's Move!" -- a nationwide campaign started this year with a single and very ambitious goal: solving the problem of childhood obesity in a generation, so kids born today can reach adulthood at a healthy weight.

fat-childrenFuture SEIU members, practicing their intimidation and speed-dialing skills

If you’re not sure what a healthy weight for an adult is, you can just look at Lady M and the SEIU cafeteria workers for examples. Although MO’s actual weight is classified.

Here are a few more excerpts from Lady M’s extraordinary, historical and very important OpEd, in case you missed it:

But even if we all work to help our kids lead healthy lives at home, they also need to stay healthy and active at school. The last thing parents need or want is to see the progress they're making at home lost during the school day.

Hot-dog-460_797010c Home style

 

Onion_Rings School cafeteria style

Over the past year, I have met with community leaders and stakeholders from across the country -- parents and teachers, school board members and principals, suppliers and food service workers -- about the importance of making sure every child in America has access to nutritious meals at school. They all want what's best for our children, and they all know how critical it is that we keep making progress.

Of course, the only “stakeholders” out of that batch that matter to the O’s are the suppliers (who currently enjoy huge government contracts, which will now be enbiggened to become even huger: thanks taxpayers!) and food service workers (SEIU - ‘nuff said). As long as those two are happy the piles of cash keep coming our way.

That's why it is so important that Congress pass this bill as soon as possible.

Why is everything always so time sensitive with the Won’s? I used to think it was because they’re always planning to go on another vacation, but now I think it’s just to irritate the Tea Party.

 We owe it to the children who aren't reaching their potential because they're not getting the nutrition they need during the day.

Didn’t that used to be Mom and Dad’s job?

We owe it to the parents who are working to keep their families healthy and looking for a little support along the way.

Would those be the same families hauling sacks of chips, Doritos, Ding Dongs, Keebler elf cookies, Snickers and tubs of ice cream into their homes? With food stamps?

We owe it to the schools that are trying to make progress but don't have the resources they need.

Here’s a free tip for school cafeteria managers from the way-back machine of the 1950’s: loaf of bread, bologna, peanut butter, jelly,  sack of apples, bunch of bananas. Turkey if you must. This ain’t rocket science.

And we owe it to our country -- because our prosperity depends on the health and vitality of the next generation.

Although others may argue that our prosperity depends on  decreasing the deficit and taxes, putting people back to work and protecting the country from invasions of illegal foreigners, some of whom wish us great harm.

Don’t get me wrong - it’s not that I wish to remove all the delicious sugary, salty treats from kids lunch rooms - but in the olden days, when the Federal Government wished to impose noxious standards that nobody wanted, they didn’t automatically create another huge entitlement program. They just said  “no federal funding unless you follow our new federal guidelines” – like 55 mph speed limits, remember? All but one state complied. Pretty effective, and no new taxes. If that matters.

So if you want schools to replace corn with collard greens (heh, heh) just eliminate their school lunch funds if they won’t serve them. We save billions of dollars and SEIU won’t grow larger than the Chinese Red Army. Besides, I’m not convinced that collard greens cost more than corn - at least not until the “suppliers” and SEIU food service workers slap their Government-Gravy-Train-Premium on it.

New SEIU workers hired to learn how to cook collard greens.   Can you spot the “healthy” adult weight role models? 

So get ready kids. When we ram this up get the Child Nutrition Bill program up and running, you’ll be in for a treat. No more, lunch trays loaded with delicious unhealthy fried nuggets of chicken thingies, greasy, salty french fries, icy cold, sugary soda beverages to wash it down and finished off with yummy fattening chocolate chip cookies for desert:

schoollunch

Instead you’ll be getting healthy bowls of this green, orange and dark grey organic matter,

disasterandtreats001

and the trays will be filled out with more green chunks, a crumbly brown thing with a hearty chunk of fiberboard and some reddish stuff to spread on it. And no-fat moo juice.

healthy lunch

And it will only cost twice as much as the old school lunch program. So that’s good news for taxpayers. And the SEIU. Umm, umm, umm!

I wonder how much extra it will cost to actually teach kids to read, write and cipher? Because than maybe they could figure some of this really complicated stuff out for themselves.

H/T Fausta and Granny Jan

Monday, August 2, 2010

Michelle, Marbella. Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble.

Yesterday kicked off the start of a very busy month here at the Big White. First and most important of course is Big Guy’s birthday. We’ll be celebrating that in Spain, while Big Guy is in Boyz Town  Chicago racking up the loot for future conquests.

bo and kang All aboard for Boyz Town! H/T Mrs. P.

But we’re bringing our iPhones to Spain, so we can phone it in - our personal wishes, that is. Then when we get back from our pre, pre, pre-vacation we’ll just barely have time to pack for our pre, pre, pre, pre-vacation on the Gulf where we’re actually going to have to go outside in the hot sun for photo ops.

 upand away

Happy Family returning from Chicago, above, and Bar Harbor, below

return2

When we get home from that exhausting vacation, we’ll barely have time to pack for our real vacation on the Vineyards. As I said, a very busy month.

Lady M is also  dealing with the defection of her communications director Camille Johnston, who will be taking a job in the private sector. I was surprised at first, since I didn’t think there were any jobs left in the private sector. But when I heard she was going to work for Siemens as VP of Corporate Communications,

wind turbine blade fort madison io Big Guy at Siemens wind turbine blade plant in Iowa, last April

I realized it was one of the millions of jobs that Big Guy created or saved! Eric Spiegel, president and CEO for Siemens Corporation, said:

"Our Company's portfolio is well-aligned with America's priorities right now, and we believe our technologies can move the national agenda forward.  This is a major reason why we are moving our U.S. headquarters to DC – and why we are thrilled to have Camille's extensive communications and public affairs expertise to help us position Siemens more broadly in this country."

Allow me to interpret: “we’re going to milk this administration’s obsession with a green energy agenda and we think Cammi can help us gain access to the people who are handing out all the ‘green’.” So we’ll still be hearing from her regularly, but that doesn’t mean we won’t still miss her. As MO said in a formal statement:

"Camille has become a trusted advisor to me and to the entire East Wing. From our first day in the White House when we opened the doors and greeted visitors, she has led a communications team that has developed creative and effective strategies for the Let's Move! campaign, our work on behalf of military families, arts and cultural events in the White House and our international agenda. Her dedication, calming presence and expertise have been invaluable. She will be missed, but we wish her all the best."

Again, allow me to interpret: “Camille’s the one who’s been doing all the heavy lifting around here, so don’t expect a whole lot from me until we find another worker bee a replacement.” And that’s the real reason we’re taking August off.

camille%20johnston%20white%20house desiree-rogers1

jackie-norris-298

Cammi, Desi and Jackie: Three down, 19 more to go…

Lady M was so upset about losing Cammi that she needed to get away for a bit. But you can tell that the girlfriend vacay in Spain was pulled together at the last minute, and we didn’t do all the homework.

villapadierna1 Villa Padierna at the Costa del Sol resort of Marbella

Although the Villa Padierna on the Costa del Sol resort of Marbella is a 5-star resort, it is apparently a tacky  5-star resort. According to the Telegraph: 

Yet despite the sophistication and elegance of the (resort) where Mrs Obama will arrive with her nine-year-old daughter Sasha on Wednesday, Marbella's reputation does not make it an obvious destination for the First Lady.

Indeed, her decision to holiday on the Costa del Sol has been met with bemusement by some, who associate Marbella more with reality television stars, gangsters, corrupt politicians and wannabe WAGs (wives and girlfriends) than with the genuinely chic and classy Mrs Obama.

Oh, I don’t know: reality tee vee star, check. Gangsters, check. Corrupt politicians – well frankly, this is getting just a bit too obvious don’t you think? Anyway, Lady M had read that Jackie O used to go there to cavort with European royalty and she decided that if it was good enough for Jackie it was good enough for her. She should have done a little more checking on Travelocity. Although normally that would have been Cammie’s job.

Jackie-Kennedy1-5673Jackie, traveling first, with class

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Chelsea Morning on the Rhine: Updated

Now Bill Clinton - he knows how to throw a former-first-daughter wedding! A designer gown, former Astor estate nuptials, beautiful people, months in the making spare-no-expense social extravaganza (and, refreshingly, mostly not on your dime). The wedding drew a phalanx of paparazzi and disrupted everything, including other weddings, in Rhinebeck, New York. But it was worth it.

ht_clinton_mezvinsky_wedding_1_100731_ssh

Compare Chelsea’s fab affair to the former-first-daughter Jena Bush’s wedding, who was married at sunset at the Bush ranch in Crawford Texas (also not on your dime). GWB doesn’t even know how to throw a proper wedding: jena bushJena and Henry’s wedding, at the Bush ranch, officiated by Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell. He’s an authentic African American as far as I know. 

But Chelsea’s wedding – it was the stuff little girls dreams are made of: hyped as the “wedding of the century” (so far anyway, there are still 90 years to go), and the wedding of American royalty (well, I’ll concede there does seem to be a resemblance between Chelsea and Princess Anne)

anne2Princess Anne and first husband, what’s-his-name 

chelsea under cover Chelsea, looking quite royally British

Here’s the only good news from little miss smarty-pants’ wedding: Oprah wasn’t invited either! Or Babs. Or Stephen Spielberg as it turns out. Or maybe, like Lady M, they were all busy getting their nails done. As it turns out, the star power at the nuptials was pretty dim. Well, aside from the Clintons themselves of course. Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen were the only real “stars” and let’s face it, they haven’t been A-listers for years.

Here’s the first picture of the happy couple. Boy, after all that cosmetic surgery wouldn’t you think she might have picked up something a little more impressive than a girly-man? Oh well, at least she looked like a cake top bride. Nice work by Vera on the gown.

01chelsea6_span-blogSpan Although I’m afraid if Ms. Wang had seen what her momma wore yesterday she might have demanded the gown back.

bilandhil Yikes! This looks like something Lady M might wear after a bad weekend

Maybe she was expecting an emergency call from Big Guy to report  to Saudi Arabia.

Anyway, I’m sure Mom and Dad are pleased that their little girl married into a solidly Democratic family. New groom Marc Mezvinsky is the son of former Democratic Iowa congressman and convicted felon Edward Mezvinsky and former NBC reporter and former Pennsylvania congresswoman Marjorie Morgolies-Mezvinsky. But don’t worry, daddy’s crime was pure white collar. Ponzi schemes, you know like Bernie Madoff? And he’s been out of the clink since 2008. In retrospect, he blames it all on undiagnosed bipolar disorder. So, that’s good. He’s not just a chump like Bernie.

Marc’s mother and father are divorced now. And do you want to hear an uncanny coincidence? Marjorie Morgolies-Mezvinsky’s first husband had financial “difficulties” too, forcing her to withdraw as candidate for Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor in 1988. Seriously, what are the odds?

Oh, and did I mention that young Marc is an investment banker? Yes, he used to work for the despised Goldman Sacks, but now we works for a despised hedge fund, G3 Capital. But don’t worry, he studied religion and philosophy in his undergraduate years at Stanford, so he’s got all those bases covered. Now that he’s one of the greedy Wall Street bankers who are ruining America, Chelsea will never have to worry about money again. But as a backup (in case divorce runs in his family), she just completed a masters degree in public health. This could be her key to the executive manor. Along with her law degree legal knowledge (she’s not a lawyer, but might play one on TV in the future, HT: clarice) and Obamacare - which will require years of legislative and regulatory meddling crafting – she’s a natural. But don’t get any big ideas, Chelsea girl, about who’s in charge of the Public Health around here.

mean mo2 Step away from my gravy train, b**ch!

 

Chelseas Wedding

 

 

 

Uncle Roger was able to make it to the swanky wedding too. He’s looking more like big bro every year. You may be able to take the “hill” out of “billy,” but not out of  unk’ Roger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, here’s good news if you’re looking for a new vacation get away: the 50 acre Astor Courts is for sale! I understand that if it sells within 30 days, the Clintons will get a 75% rebate on the cost of the wedding. Damn! Those Clintons still have the magic working for them.

Lady M  and Big Guy are interested, but they’re going to wait until the 30 days elapse.

I also assembled an album of photos from the wedding-that-we-didn’t-even–get-to-send-our-regrets to: enjoy!