Reflections From a Murky Pond

Despite backroom dealing and likely a number of veiled threats, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor just formally changed its outlook on the United States as a debtor from “stable” to “negative” and said that Obama’s government could lose its AAA rating if officials fail to bring its spending in line with revenue.

The Obama administration privately urged Standard & Poor’s in recent weeks not to lower its outlook on the United States — a suggestion the ratings agency ignored Monday, two people familiar with the matter said.

Treasury Department officials had been discussing with S&P whether the ratings agency should change its outlook on the United States to “negative” from “stable,” an indication that the country could lose its crucial AAA rating in coming years over its soaring debt levels.

Treasury officials told S&P analysts that they were underestimating the ability of politicians in Washington to fashion a compromise to curb deficits, a Treasury official said. They argued a change in ratings was not needed at this time because the debt was manageable and the administration had a viable plan in the works, the official said.

But S&P analysts told Treasury officials on Friday that they were unmoved — and released a report that expressed skepticism that the political parties could come together on how to bring spending in line with revenue.

Amazing! Standard & Poor stood up to the Obama Regime and told them that their profligate deficit spending was not only egregious general theft but a poor risk for anyone who might consider loaning them money.

They also rejected Obama’s claims of being able to reach his form of a “bipartisan” agreement between the Republicans and his Democrats which would actually manage and reduce America’s deficit.

Things will get tougher from this point forward, both for the Obama Regime and for America.  That might be a good thing in the long run though. Most wastrels won’t change until forced to do so.

Social Media has certainly changed the way that a great many people “interact” with each other. It may also be changing how they “interact” with their God(s). 😉

Let There Be Likes!

I can just picture a tropic Bible with such passages as, “And God said, ‘Let there be likes!'” be published – online of course – in the near future.

In truth though, it’d be no worse or more ridiculous than the LOLCat Bible, which has been an ongoing project for some time already.

Roasted beets with herbs and feta cheese make a wonderful vegetable side dish for many meals. Try the recipe sometime when you encounter fresh beets at the market.

So, what do you get if you combine 16 celebrity women known for the beauty using image morphing software? Someone decided to find out and the results are interesting.

There’s no denying that the result of 5 iterations of feature normalization through image morphing display a classically beautiful woman’s face. In point of fact, the resulting construct would, in the Western World, be considered quite hot.

For reason I can’t satisfactorily explain though, even to myself, I find it more than a little disturbing at a visceral level.

Perhaps it’s as simple as it being a purely artificial construct that mimics an ideal set of features based upon proportion and symmetry.

Perhaps it’s the fact that, even after so much combination and normalization, I can recognize the the “1st generation” features in it, which indicates that there’s only really a small variance in the details of what we consider beautiful.

I’d be interested in anyone’s thoughts on this, especially since, with modern cosmetic surgery and the geometric progression were making with gene therapy, this could be the “look” of the future.

Obama just doesn’t seem too happy with the job of POTUS. It’s apparently not living up to all the dreams that he had about it. The appalling lack of gadgets and cool toys in the Oval Office seems to be particularly upsetting to Obama.

The president, in an unscripted moment with donors in Chicago, was talking about the need to innovate in technology.

“The Oval Office, I always thought I was going to have really cool phones and stuff,” he said during a small fundraising event at a Chicago restaurant. “I’m like, c’mon guys, I’m the president of the United States. Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn’t happen.”

The president made his off-the-cuff remarks with donors as he took questions and after reporters had been ushered out of the event. But the question and answer session was piped back to Washington by mistake and into the press briefing area where a few reporters were still working late.

Sorry, Boy; there’s no fancy toys with lots of amusing lights and buzzes to delight yourself with and feed to your ego. There’s just fine furnishings befitting a head of state and whole lot of work to do, much of it thankless but all of it important.

On the other hand, if high tech “bling” is all it takes to keep Obama amused, quiet, and safely occupied in pursuit other than political endeavor, it might well serve the nation well, especially during foul weather when he can’t be sent golfing.