Our Recovery Summer: We Could Use Those Jaws of Life About Now.

We dined last night on the very beach where Jaws was filmed! Butt more on that later. Yesterday was jam packed. Breakfast, then a bicycle ride for the whole family for a whole hour. Then Big guy played a round with Mayor Bloomberg and Vern Jordan -  golf, that is. Lady M took lunch, went to her spa treatments, and enjoyed afternoon cocktails and snacks before dressing for dinner.

“Oooohhh boys! I think she's come back for her noon feeding.” Prof. Hooper

Which unfortunately I’m not permitted to release any pictures of, but trust me: it’s just as well.

The mayor forgot to pack golf pants, and had to borrow a pair from MO. And look! Room in the back pockets for two Blackberries – with space to spare !

Big Guy’s day was not all play however. He took a conference call on the plummeting rate of GDP growth; and then chatted Mayor Bloomberg up in the clubhouse for 15 minutes about the economy before hitting the links:

“The president and Mayor Bloomberg took the opportunity to discuss plans for short- and long-term economic growth at a pivotal point in our recovery,”

I wasn’t there, but I heard they discussed Bloomie’s business interests in Dubai, and how we might want to expand the new Finance Bill to include some aspects of Shari’a finance law. You know, to improve our understanding of the religion of peace? Besides, China might get tired of buying our toxic debt and we’ll need to find a new candy man.

But like I said, I wasn’t there. It’s just hearsay.

“I'm familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you in the ass.” Prof. Hooper ( Photo from LIFE via BNI)

and, “I'm familiar with the fact that [YOU, TOO] are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you in the ass:”

Housing Starts? More like housing stops. Lowest levels since – well, the graph doesn’t really go back that far.

We capped the day off with a dinner visit to the fishing community of Menemsha, where some of the actual scenes from the 1975 Steven Spielberg blockbuster "Jaws" were filmed. But don’t think the president of the Free (for now) World is intimidated by sharks.

 “You’ve got city hands, Mr. Hooper”

No sir!They’ve been swimming around him for years. 

And because we wanted to be sure to catch the sunset at the Beach Plum (owned by eco-filmmaker and environmentalist Bob Nixon – my goodness there’s a lot of money in that eco-business!), we had to skip the NAACP event hosted elsewhere on the Rock, as well as the dinner beforehand. A shame too, because Big Guy’s Harvard BFF, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was attending. Gosh! We haven’t had a chance to catch up with him since he was arrested last year by those racist cops in Cambridge.

 Proof that Big Guy’s NOT a Muslim. (Having a beer with Prof. Gates and Stupid, last August.)

But we had a lovely dinner at the the Beach Plum Inn. As their Website explains: “Since we are located in one of the many dry towns on Martha's Vineyard, feel free to BYOB.” So we did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know it seems like a lot, but ValJar came with us. And although the restaurant is famous for their gorgeous sunsets over the ocean, somehow, we missed it.

No biggie. We revolve around our own Orb.

Bikin’ in tha G-Block: Git Yer Motor Runnin’

News Wrap-up at 11:00, on the 9th day of our vacay. Inside the G-Block (Shep Smith’s now defunct 7th segment):

 

Today, we’re bikin’ tha Rock, inside yer G-Block. Tha G-Block: I wish it started with an “O,” butt it dOn’t.

 

If yer new to tha G-Block or ya just don’t remember tha rules ya can go to tha original G-Block post “More Body Scanners In: The G-Block.”

WARNIN’

THAT ORIGINAL G-BLOCK POST

CONTAINS IMAGES THAT MIGHT CAUSE

YA TO LOSE YER LUNCH

 

In a nutshell, here in tha G-Block, we drop endin’ “g”s and anythin’ else we feel like, that makes us sound like the WONs when they’re talkin’ like the peeps. Ya know, like they do when they’re on the campaign stump in the inner city, or tourin’ a battery plant.

 

A Little Travelin’ Music – Born To Be Wild: Steppenwolf

 

First up in G, Big Guy’s takin’ to tha trails of Correllus State Forest on Martha's Vineyard in West Tisbury. Last year, everyone wuz hatin’ on Bo for settin’ a bad example by not wearin’ a helmut. So this year we’re sportin’ a colorful brain bucket. No wise cracks!

 

Git Yer Motor Runnin’                          (photo:AP) 

 

 Tha “Capt. America” look we were goin’ for. I think it worked, don’t you?

 

Next up, we see Big Guy givin’ Wee Won-1 a crash course in leadership. He’d teach her more, butt TOTUS is back at Blue Herron Farm, chillin’.

 

“Leadin’ Wee Won-1 and tha free universe”  (photo: AP)

 

Tha whole family is goin’ along for tha ride, showin’ their patriotism with bikes in red, blue and...yellow?

 

MO brings up the “rear” banana bike style (photo: Daylife)

WARNIN’: Big Dog On Trail!

And there’s a guy walkin’ his pooch too. (photo: Daylife)

Yer Closin’ Glam shot of the day: in “G” (photo: Daylife)

And that’s yer news, and tha G-Block on this 9th day of our vacation on the Rock 2010.

 

And now, …here comes Bill!

 

 

Loco is Definitely Better

Well, it’s official now. We have confirmation from AP, we are better than you:

And the White House has let it be known that the meals being cooked at their rented vacation compound feature all manner of things from farms and gardens on this island off Cape Cod.

Thank goodness! Chef, who flew in from the Big White to cook for us here on the Rock, is totally committed to the locavore ethic. As are all the local restaurateurs:

Mary Kenworth, owner of SR Restaurant, displays her tomatoes 

"Our real focus and mission, what we're really committed to, is local and sustainable food," said Mary Kenworth, owner of the State Road Restaurant in West Tisbury, where the Obamas dined Tuesday night.

Locavores on the prowl

Which is to say - in addition to demonstrating a “we’re better than you” attitude – that we are only going to eat things from local farms, ranches and fisheries. And there-in lies our first problem.

The local fishermen have apparently launched a protest, complaining that, thanks to Big Guy’s NOAA restrictions on fishing, their livelihood and very survival is being threatened. Now that’s ironic.

It sure won’t look good if we can’t get locally-caught lobster thermador and lobster tempura on our vacay next year. We’ll have one of our little people look into this right away. Thanks for the hat tip!

H/T Local Fishermen

Although, for future reference, if you fishermen really want to get Big Guy’s attention, you may wish to consider following JWF’s advice , and just wave a FREE GAZA banner.

  Protesting: one place where global trumps local

New marketing campaign for locavore shrimp from the Gulf: “They come pre-coated with oil, so you can just fry them in boiling water!”

Butt back to our “better than thou” eating sensibilities here on the Rock. I just wish to point out that the basis for our sense of moral superiority is not simply  healthy eating – although we’re all over that too – it’s much bigger:

supporting local farms, fishermen and ranches not only yields fresher foods, it indirectly helps preserve rural areas against encroaching development and minimizes environmental damage from mega-farms, slaughterhouses and long-distance trucking.

Yep, it prevents all those horrible things that require the use of carbon-based energy.Those horrifying corporate farms, packers and transportation companies that have managed to somehow produce enough food to feed the whole world, and in the process given all of our children fat behinds.

“I’ll have a bucket of that locally made double chocolate death wish ice cream”

Pure evil. Corporate farming I mean. So that’s where we’re focusing our attention. Everything else seems to be under control.

 

BREAKING VACATION ECONOMIC NEWS UPDATE:

U.S. second-quarter GDP revised to 1.6% growth from initial reading of 2.4% growth.

WHOOPS. THAT WAS UNEXPECTED!

Well, at least our GDP is growing, just not as fast as some of our other ASSetts. We’ll have our little people get right on that too.

 Nice Job!

The Word You’re Looking For: M-a-l-a-i-s-e

I submit the following for your consideration, and then I don’t intend to discuss this topic again.

Compare these pictures taken on Martha’s Vineyard yesterday: the adoring crowd waiting for a glimpse of the Won’s:

Preggo

Not preggo

Just picking up some fried seafood for lunch. And besides, nobody wears industrial spanx containment systems if they’re pregnant. So let’s just drop it.

We’re just buying some shrimp, guys, Ok? And a few beers. Coronas.

Beer frame courtesy of the Boston Herald

 

Having some shrimp at Nancy’s              Photo: Boston Herald

By now, I think you all know our track record on vacations - tragedy just seems to follow us like a little black grey cloud hanging over our heads: the Winter Holiday Underpants bomber in Detroit when we were in Hawaii, the death of the Liberal Lyin’ when we on the Rock last August. We’ve been holding our breath, waiting to see what was going to happen this time. Well, we found out yesterday: the economy is blowing up. That’s not good, in case you follow that sort of thing.

Here’s what happened yesterday:

There was a huge, unexpected  drop in new single-family home sales in July. The lowest since 1963. Wow! Big Guy had barely been born, unexpectedly, then... somewhere. Then we weighed in with a record drop of 27% in existing home sales, likewise unexpected. And then the unexpectedly bad news that durable-good orders for July, which analysts had predicted would grow by 3%, came in at only a tenth of that: 0.3%. As Hot Air reported, that’s the good news.  Excluding transportation, durable goods orders fell 3.8% last month.

But since we’re used to this type of crisis while we’re on vacay now, the team sprung into action. Big Guy ordered that today’s unemployment numbers come in 30,000 lower than last week’s (watch for next week’s number to be unexpectedly high as a result), he sent Joey B out to tell everyone again that the economy is going in the right direction (down?), and ordered an emergency conference call with his crack economics team.

Can you hear me now?

A conference call is like a round-table, only without the donuts. Which is to say, pointless. But I guess they all decided to get back together after vacation and get a plan together to fix the economy, which appears to be in a death spiral. So, that’s our plan, and we’re sticking with it.

I’m not sure what the plan will entail this time, and I do know that past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, butt I’m looking for another Trillion dollar stimulus bill. Because Paul Krugman said our whole problem is we didn’t blow enough money the first time. And he’s a Nobel Prize winning, brilliant economist, current writing columns for the NYT (now there’s an economic business model we could emulate). And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to fire our economic forecasters and get some new ones.

So don’t say we don’t have an economic plan: can you say Malaise?

A Pea In The Pod? Here We Go Again.

I just knew this was going to cause trouble when Lady M decided on this frock.

Butt I didn’t expect the trouble to come from my BB (blogging buddy) JammieWearingFool. It seems JWF is dredging up the ole’ “preggers” rumor that Lady M has a bun in the oven. This happens when we have a slow news day, or a photograph embargo. If you haven’t been following the conspiracy theories, the “Preggers” are a subchapter of the “Birthers.” Sort of like the Weather Underground was a subchapter of the SDS.

Oh no! Triplets! 

Anyway, the Birthers question the country of Big Guy’s alleged birth, and the Preggers are constantly questioning the cause of MO’s expanding girth. A sub-subchapter, the “grapers,” question, among other things, whether or not Big Guy is the biological father of the alleged baby on board.

Ok, for the record,

• I am not Lady M’s gynecologist, (eeuuw!)
• My circuitry can not replace the rabbit and
• MO has not shared any “inside information” with me

So, everything that follows is, as always, just my humble opinion.

Lady M is not in a family way.  I know, I know, she’s been wearing a lot of maternity style clothing  lately, butt that’s just one of the fashion forward re-statements we’re testing this season.It’s a sacrifice icons must make.

And I suppose releasing the preliminary results of our experiments with the post-partum Belly Bandit® containment system raised a few eyebrows. Butt this too can be easily explained by a review of our snacking patterns - without having to question what the milk man was doing in the house.

So, I’m begging you all, pa-leeeze, at least while I’m on vacation, Can We Please Not Say “Preggers"? And if we must discuss the growing “bulge”, can we just talk about Burger Bumps?

You’ll be doing me a great personal favor. Thank you.

A Fluke and an Imposter

Well, I see that the “free” picture sites are up and running again. Our embargo orders have been thwarted by – you guessed it – the First Amendment. So, although we haven’t officially  lifted the embargo, those rogue interweb companies don’t respond to orders requests the way our MSM lapdogs do. And apparently we can’t avail ourselves of all the other legal remedies we had originally planned either.

Butt before I get into that, you’re really going to enjoy these candid shots from dinner last night:

Whoa! Is this not the best retro-chic you’ve ever seen? 1970’s tunic made of scraps from the 60’s, paired with those ever popular 80’s-stylin’ leggings:

Is this not the best use of fashion recycling you’ve ever seen?

And Big Guy was looking sharp too, in his Verizon guy jacket:

Butt back to our photography embargo order: It appears that several of our enforcement options are unavailable at this time. First, we found out that Ellie Kagan won’t technically be on the Team until the first Monday in October,so we can’t get the Supremes to rule the Constitution void with regards to First Amendment rights. And because we didn’t get that Net “Neutrality” thingy in place yet, we can’t just shut down the offending ISP’s. Likewise, because Congress isn’t in session this month, we also can’t just deem these photographs to be illegal. So it looks like we’re just going to have to rely on “Chicago-Style” a bit longer. We’ll have reinforcements flown in by this afternoon.

Meanwhile,we are trying to enjoy our vacay. As you can see, it’s not easy :

 Date Night at the State Road Restaurant. Are we having fun yet?

Between the bad enchiladas and the constant worry about all of our  plans that are pretty much on hold until we manage to stack the Supreme Court court:  full Obamacare implementation (public option), circumventing Congress with an Executive Order to deem Amnesty for our illegals in time for the mid-terms, and once and for all getting that Interweb Neutering Net Neutrality fix in.

But enough about the heavy lifting, we’re on vacation. You’ve probably been wondering what the O’s have for dinner when they dine out,so here’s the inside scoop on their menu selections from the State Road Restaurant:

Appetizers: for Mo, Braised Berkshire Pork Bellies (we skipped the Christian Farms egg that normally comes with: no point reopening the GZM/religion controversy), Steamed Cape Cod Mussels for Big Guy (he thought they might help him bulk up).

Entrees: Pan Roasted Day Boat Fluke for Lady M and Imposter Sausage (a house specialty) for Big Guy.

With a menu like that, they might want to consider widening the doorway.

Big Guy was happy to hear, when we got back to the compound, that John McCain won his primary last night. Although they were opponents in ‘08,  they really see eye to-eye on more than you might think. And we’re counting on his support for our Executive Amnesty Order.  He’s going to need all the votes he can get in Arizona come November.

Breaking News Update: Only MOTUS Has Pictures: Maybe It’s Just a Bad Enchilada.

DNN (Martha’s Vineyard, 08-24-10) This just in:

Reports are coming in from around the globe that major internet images sources (Daylife & Picapp) have been brought to their knees for their apparent flagrant violation of the Obama “image embargo.” Reports indicate that only MOTUS (the Mirror Of The United States) has images from last night’s dinner at The Sweet Life Cafe.

Spokesmouths for the popular online sources released a brief response:

“This is a clear violation of our 1st amendment rights. Did this Administration “deem” that we have no Constitutional rights?”

Stay tuned for more.

Oy Vey! I know it’s been raining cats and dogs, butt If this is the best public face you can put on, maybe you should just order in:

Slouching Towards Gomorrah

Big Guy seems to be channeling Harry Bellefonte, who’s about 100. Harry hates America too.

I’m concerned because my circuitry does impose limitations on my field of refractive telemetry. In other words, I can’t correctly refract both FLOTUS and POTUS simultaneously. Technically, Big Guy’s not my responsibility, but look at him: I can’t let him go out looking like that! Butt I may need to call for reinforcements. I understand I have a second cousin working somewhere in Hollywood. I’m putting an emergency request into NASA, asking them to track her down for backup in case Big Guy continues down this ghoulish road.

Honestly, I thought this weird picture from the day before we left for vacay was just a fluke – bad lighting, or maybe a bad enchilada for lunch:

 

Now I’m afraid I just don’t know what to think. And it doesn’t get any better. While Lady M looks good, Big Guy looks like he’s doing a hostage tape:

These pictures are from after our dinner at The Sweet Life with ValJar and Eric and Cheryl Whitaker. Maybe BO had enchiladas again. If it’s just indigestion, Dr. Whitaker who, unlike Dr. Jill Biden, is a real M.D, could probably prescribe some Tums. Or OxyCoytin, if indicated. Although Dr. Eric’s not really a practicing doctor either. He’s a long time friend of the O’s from Chicago (and Harvard) and is an executive at the same hospital where Lady M used to “work.” In fact, he took over Lady M’s role in the “urban health initiative,” aka  “patient dumping.” And now Big Guy has brought the concept to the whole country! See how that old “boys” network works?

Butt, Lady M looks much better today: rested, wrapped, stuffed, buffed and shined. And the martini’s didn’t hurt any either. Hey! Maybe that’s it! Maybe Big Guy had too many martinis before dinner. Although he usually only drinks when he smokes.

Big Guy’s planning to play golf again tomorrow. It’s really the only thing he enjoys doing any more. You can tell - he looks a lot happier when he’s whacking those little balls around.

  

Butt it’s supposed to rain again tomorrow. Pray for us.

On a brighter note: don’t you think Lady M’s dress would look smashing with a boob belt?

The Dawgs of Summer

That bigmouth, Cripes Suzette! She let this big announcement

  via Cripes Suzette

out of the bag way ahead of our planned press release. It was originally scheduled for release the next time Big Guy puts his foot in it and we need a quick “cut to Lady M” diversion.

And since Lady M hasn’t been as open to performing stupid FLOTUS tricks as she once was – due to all the jealous rightwing racists hatin’ on her - we needed a few items in the can.

Butt, now that this is out there, it’s back to the drawing board to develop some new Big White, FLOTUS-centric, meaningless initiative to divert attention. We’ll need it to toss to the dogs of lore (MSM) as a diversion tactic the next time Big Guy – who thinks he can speak off-prompter now – goes out and acts stupidly again. Which could be just about any minute: just this morning I heard him asking Eric the Holder about taking over the tainted egg industry, because it’s too big to fail. Something about Alinsky’s rule about having all the eggs in one basket if you want to create an anomaly, or something.

I’ve heard that some people are more concerned with protecting the goose that laid all those golden eggs in the first place:

Ronnie used to say that it created the best anomaly in the history of mankind. But then, that was back in the day, when you used to be able to say that kind of thing. 

But I digress: back to Cripes – here’s what she went and blabbed about all over her blog: our new Office of the Fashion Adviser To the First Lady of the United States. Oh well, at least we found something for Van Jones to do. Maybe he’ll stop bugging Big Guy for George Soros’  phone number now.

Butt I’m going to have to talk to Toes about all the security breaches around here. I thought we had that little problem taken care of when Desi, our last alpha-blabbermouth, left; and then along comes this major leak. Why don’t we just open a satellite office for Wikileaks in the West Wing.  What? Oh.

Toes advises me we already have:

Butt they all have to lay low for awhile, now that Gibbsy unintentionally outed them with his “professional left” comment. Sheeze, what a pack of dawgs. I guess Big Guy really knew what he was talking about last year when he said everyone gets all wee-weed up during the dog days of August. I mean, wow! The crap’s practically flying in over the transom, even though we’re supposed to be on vacation!

*Sigh* Is it any wonder Lady M refuses to come out of her room?

 Hello? Room Service? I need a whole bunch ‘a stuff.

We’re going out to dinner tonight, but I don’t think that’s going to turn out well.

Our Batteries: On the Trickle-Down Charger

(Yawn)... another slow day of recharging our earth-friendly batteries, and the embargo is still on. I can’t tell you why. I mean, I know why, butt I can’t tell you right now. I see the blabbermouths at boston.com are yapping about our no-shows, so I might as well tell you about a few of the things we didn’t do:

We didn’t go to the Ag Fair in West Tisbury. I thought that was a sure thing, not because of their mission:

The Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society was established in 1859. It promotes the pursuit of agriculture, horticulture, land conservation, youth activities, mechanic and domestic arts and encourages the raising and improving of plant and animal stock and the sale of island-grown produce and flowers at local farmers' markets.

Yes, I know; it is totally in line with our Organic Garden and No Child’s Fat Behind mission. Butt I figured we’d be there early because of the Deep-Fried Twinkies:

Umm, umm, umm!

…and Norwegian draught horses pulling 3,600-pound slabs of concrete. I guess we’re still holding a grudge against the Norwegian’s because of that Olympic slight.

We also didn’t go swimming in the Tisbury Great Pond or Inkwell Beach due to, ahem, turd contamination. And I don’t know if they call it Inkwell Beach specifically because “... (it) has traditionally been a meeting place for African American families and visitors,”  butt if they do, we should be there, in our bikini.

Robert Abel artist rendering of The Inkwell

You already know we didn’t go to the big fundraiser ValJar and Gov. Deval Patrick threw on Saturday for DePat’s re-election bid. In our morning briefing “Talking Points” memo issued to our JournoList lap-dogs, we officially denied that De-Pat did not invite Big Guy because of his track record of support for other Massachusetts Democratic candidates.

 DePat hears that Big Guy has thrown his support behind him

Now for some things we did do:

1. ...
2. ...
3. ...
4. ice cream stop

Ok, butt we are recharging our batteries.

We are going art shopping at the Granary Gallery at the Red Barn to see about buying a painting:

I don’t know if artist Barry Rockwell painted it just because we were coming, butt he’s asking $2,400 for it. You will note that in the portrait Big Guy’s holding a copy of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

Now, I know enough about art to know that artists are really big on symbolism. So I’m speculating on exactly what the artist’s symbolic placement of this particular book is all about. I can think of several possibilities:

• He’s aware of Big Guy’s obsession with getting a bunch of grapes
• It’s an illusion to Big Guy’s historic role in the country’s 2nd Great Depression
• It’s a reference to the plight of our current-day “migrants” from Mexico: just looking for a job
• It’s a reminder of how much more hospitable the government run migrant camp in California was to the Joads than the private sector camps

If it’s either of those last 2, I think the artist can count on Big Guy taking it back to the Big White for his shrine. Although he thinks it’s a little pricey and he said he thinks he’ll see if he “can jew him down” because the perspective seems a little skewed to the right.

Beware the Grapes of Wrath: Just another part of the angry mob