Quote by Raine: Anyone here?



Good..

Quote by starling310: Excellent Blog Raine.

Well now the market of those very people who sat in judgement of the Subprime loan victims are at the precipice. The middle class. No, these people are not wealthy. (Thom Hartmann has wonderful riffs on this issue a lot) They have extended credit lines that they now must repay... and they can't.

I understand the nuance and ramifications of this situation, but all I can say is good; maybe now something will get done to remedy this financial plague. Not that I would wish hardship on anyone, but it seems the powers that be take action only when it affects them, or their country club buddies.

Reagan Changed Direction Of Country In Way Bill Clinton Didn't

By Greg Sargent - January 16, 2008, 3:19PM

This is interesting -- Obama is turning up the volume of his argument with what he terms Clinton style "incremental" change, arguing that Ronald Reagan fundamentally changed the direction of America in a way Bill Clinton didn't.

Quote by starling310: Okay...I get the FREEBIRD thing.....I am GenX!

Quote by wickedpam: Maybe they thought his head was up his ass? :shrug:

Quote by starling310: There should not be a single person who can't vote because they have to work.

Quote by BobR: Did bulldog puppies break the blog? :huh:

Quote by shelaghc: Okay - yesterday I picked up about six bottles of hooch to take back to the 'burgh with me so I can have a modestly proper bar.



Most of them I don't drink at all, but it'll be nice to have them on hand.



Here's my alchy list:

Smirnoff

Frangelico

Amaretta

Irish Cream

Kahlua

Barcardi Gold

Tanqueray

Jameson's

Martini and Rossi sweet and dry vermouths

Godiva White Chocolate Liquor

Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Champagne

Yellowtail Merlot

Pinot Grigiot

Trader Joe's 2007 Ale (three bottles - it's the kind that they use corks to seal and is only available at this time of year)

Trinity Beer (2 six packs)

Newcastle Ale (2 bottles)

McEwan's Ale (2 bottles)

Leinenkugel Red (3 bottles)



Non-alch mixers anywhere, so I'm holding off till I get to the new abode.



How'd I do?

Quote by Raine:



I LOVE LF!!!

I did not know she would be filling in today as well!

Quote by shelaghc:



Heh - the Champagne is apparently a very good one but I'm not sure how long it can be "held," so to speak. I'd like to use it for a special occasion - like the appearance of true progressive radio in Pittsburgh.



And I've already said I'm up for a gathering! How far away are you?

Quote by starling310:

Quote by Raine:



I LOVE LF!!!

I did not know she would be filling in today as well!

I didn't know she had a "partner!"

Quote by shelaghc:

Quote by wickedpam: Which Champagne is it?



I've had bottles for years, I suspect a bunch of them had turned to somekind of vinager by now.

French champagne - Charles de Fere - Jean-Louis Brut.



Can't find a year on it.

Quote by shelaghc: :::sniff::: My cat sitter stopped by to say goodbye. She gave me a lovely bottle of Chardonney as a going away present. :::sniff:::: One more thing for the bar and one more hail and farewell.

Quote by velveeta jones: Velveeta is here. Have ya missed me? Didn't notice I was gone? Damn. Been doing disaster relief all day. Sleepy now.

Quote by livingonli: What about those of us whose lives just seem stuck in a rut?

Linda Tripp: the woman who was everyone’s friend

I find Linda Tripp, 58, at the Christmas Sleigh, a year-round Christmas store that she runs with her husband in the twee town of Middleburg in affluent Virginia horse country, about an hour from Washington. At least, I think I find her. As I walk up the street I see a woman who looks like Linda Tripp entering the store. She disappears into a back room. I spend a few minutes admiring the pricey wooden German toys and traditional Austrian clothes. A stack of copies of a book about Christmas in the White House is prominently displayed.



Then she emerges from the back room. “Linda,” I say, going to introduce myself. She looks at me for a moment and then corrects me: “Karen.”



Linda Tripp, who had worked for and revered the first President Bush, was one of the few who stayed on to work for the Clinton Administration. She had an uncanny ability to turn up wherever scandal hit. She was possibly the last person to see Vince Foster, the Clinton lawyer who was found dead in what was officially suicide but has kept conspiracy theorists busy ever since. She was a colleague and sometime friend of Willey but later accused her, according to Willey, of taking her job and gossiped about Willey’s relationship with Clinton.



She moved to the Pentagon, where she befriended Lewinsky, who had been moved out of the White House by aides concerned about her relationship with the President. Tripp became the younger woman’s confidante as she agonised about what Clinton really thought of her.



Tripp has always maintained that she taped their phone calls because she feared that she was being pressured to say she would lie about Willey and Lewinsky in the event that she was ever subpoenaed. But it became clear that she was also out to get Clinton and manipulated the situation. She was in cahoots with Lucianne Goldberg, a literary agent with links to conservatives, and talked about a book deal. She led Lewinsky on to discuss Clinton while she was taping, she encouraged her to use a courier service to send her packages so that there would be a paper trail and she insisted that Lewinsky hold on to the famous blue Gap dress soiled with the President’s semen, which became crucial evidence that finally persuaded Clinton to admit to the affair.



Tripp volunteered to give evidence in the Paula Jones case and then went to Kenneth Starr, the independent prosecutor, triggering his probe of the President. She participated in an FBI sting operation in which she wore a wire to record her friend and then arranged to meet Lewinsky again so that agents could apprehend her.



She became a hate figure for many and was depicted as a villain of the piece. An odd twist was that she was one of the few players in the drama to be prosecuted, when she was charged with illegal wire tapping for secretly taping her calls with Lewinsky. The case was eventually dismissed. On the final day of the Clinton administration, she was dismissed from her job.



In the intervening years she has survived breast cancer and married her childhood sweetheart, a German architect, Dieter Rausch. Together they opened the Christmas Sleigh. She has had extensive plastic surgery.



I look at the woman who calls herself Karen and she looks back, her mouth twitching. She bears an uncanny resemblance to the pictures I have seen of Tripp, postplastic surgery. Could this be Linda’s sister? But her sister isn’t called Karen.



I explain who I am and that I had heard Linda owns the shop. “She does actually – with her husband,” says the woman who calls herself Karen. That must have been the husband I had glimpsed going into the back of the store earlier wearing lederhosen, just as he is pictured in the leaflet advertising the store.



But no, it cannot be him because, as Karen tells me when I ask if I can speak to them: “They are not here right now. They won’t be back until tomorrow.”



But you are here. You are her, I want to say. But then I remember what Linda Tripp told Monica when discussing what she would say if she was asked under oath about the affair with Clinton: “I would do almost anything for my kids, but I don’t think I would lie on the stand for them.” Linda Tripp would not pretend to be someone else when a reporter came in.



“She doesn’t speak to the press at all,” says the woman who calls herself Karen, but then adds: “I am told they are going to do one interview,” for the tenth anniversary. I wonder who told Karen. Linda?



“They have a lot of media requests,” she says and heads to the back of the shop. “You are welcome to not take any pictures.”



I thank her and remark to myself on the extraordinary coincidence of having two people in one small shop who both look exactly like Linda Tripp after she has had some work done.

Quote by Raine: I kilt it with the linda tripp tawk.. :(



Rach is on fire tonite.

Quote by Raine:

Quote by velveeta jones:

Quote by Raine: Am I the only one listenign to Rach???

Don't get her..............

you know ... you could stream her.... We have the AAR link... Just saying... CSI? I pass no judgement. I love your wife. ;)