November 12, 2009

At the November Rose Café...

DSC05212

... we're fading, but slowly, and we are still very beautiful.

41 comments:

David said...

I return to "dithering" which seems to be the topic of the day.

This from Bloomberg:

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Mortgage applications to purchase homes in the U.S. plunged last week to the lowest level in almost nine years as Americans waited for the outcome of deliberations to extend a government tax credit.

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of applications to buy a house dropped 12 percent in the week ended Nov. 6 to 220.9, the lowest level since Dec. 2000.

traditionalguy said...

We are fading roses that need a spring of capitalism and a thaw of the banking system allowed to make us grow back again. These are frozen right now and the bloom is off all of us American Beauty roses except for the hybrid Neo-Reds being fertilized by generous grants of free money from Congress funding The Great Environmental Hoax.

Chip Ahoy said...

This guy named Bush is giving a speech presently, apparently he used to be somebody important, but it's 70 ℉ outside and I can't be arsked to stay inside to listen, the outside is beckoning.

Here, have yourselves some butternut squash cookies wut I dun made.

Lance said...

Remember Pres. Bush's decision on federal stem cell research funding? He took months to make that decision, and in the end no one liked it. But I don't recall anyone accusing him of dithering.

Of course, there were no direct life-or-death consequences to that decision. Yes, additional federal funds for embryonic stem cell research might have one day saved lives, but that was hardly certain.

Titus said...

Those roses look like vaginas opening wide ready to engulf an enlarged, throbbing, veiny, erect wet penis.

Titus said...

Most flowers tend to remind me of pussy.

And logs remind me of hogs.

Unknown said...

Very pretty, Ann, but I think your saturation on the pink is a little intense.

Feel free to disagree.

Maxine Weiss said...

Ann Althouse:

"If You Choose Not to Comment...
...that's fine - just be aware that I may die. Really. Because every person who reads without commenting kills off another little piece of my SOUL. I just wanted you to know. So you can, you know, have a clear conscience at my funeral. Which might be soon. No pressure though. "---Ann Althouse

THIRDWAVEDAVE said...

I for one will not be responsible for pushing you over to the other side, Althouse. I read, therefore I comment.

MnMark said...

Have you seen that it is now coming out that the "hero" female police officer who has been credited with stopping the muslim murderer at the military base is in fact not the person who actually shot and stopped him, but that it was a male police officer who did so? Here is an excerpt from the story in the New York Times:

...The eyewitness, however, offered a different account. He said he was walking in a roadway between the main building, known as the Sportsdome, and five smaller buildings. Major Hasan was headed toward the main building, the witness said, when Sergeant Munley came around the corner of a smaller building. Major Hasan wheeled on her and shot her several times, the witness said. It was unclear whether she squeezed off a shot or not, but she fell over backward, disabled with wounds in her legs and one of her wrists, the witness said.

Major Hasan then turned his back on her and began to shove another magazine into his pistol. He did not appear wounded, the witness said. A few seconds later, Sergeant Todd came around another corner of the same building. He raised his weapon and fired several times at Major Hasan, who pitched over backward and stopped moving.

"He shot her, turned away from her and was reloading, when he was shot," said the witness, who was nearby.


I don't mean to belittle the female officer, who bravely ran to the scene to confront the shooter. However she didn't stop the shooting. She was quickly shot and disabled herself, and it was a male officer who did the actual shooting. But that doesn't make as interesting a liberal narrative, I guess.

traditionalguy said...

Titus ...I will never see a rose quite the same way again although their fragrance will remain the same.

Penny said...

"And logs remind me of hogs."

Maybe you should consider a move to the Pacific Northwest, Titus?

rhhardin said...

Household fauna unfaded.

traditionalguy said...

Penny... Titus may already have pet named himself Giant Sequoia.

David said...

Why is a Titus comment like a clock?

David said...

Dick . . . talk . . . dick, talk . . . dick . . . talk . . . dick, talk . . . .

rhhardin said...

Field corn harvesting.

MamaM said...

The tall upright in the foyer chimes in at 5 with a sonorous...

dong...dong...dong...dong...dong...

reader_iam said...

One official involved in the conversations had reportedly told colleagues that he worried that if Hasan deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he might leak secret military information to Islamic extremists.

I could swear I commented on this very blog, in some thread here,within a day or so of the massacre, about whether it was fair to wonder if Hasan ought to have been considered a possible security threat. ...

Now, it appears that between the spring of 2008 and this summer folks affiliated with both Walter Reed and USHUS expressed that worry, as well as concern that Hasan might be psychotic and unfit to serve.

JAL said...

Lan, forget the anti-Bush "narrative." Get the story straight.

JAL said...

Chip --

Link needs fixin'

wv sesesses
Reallllleee

JAL said...

My last roses are ducking and feinting the temperature drops and occasional frostbite.

I might get one or two more.

Good year.

wv notaste
What's with blogger?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

"A rose may wither but it will never dither.."

It was the best I could do on short notice ;)

rhhardin said...

A power on and off a couple of times killed one of the small UPSs; which is sounding a continuous warning note and indicating "replace battery."

Obviously assembled by Democrats.

There's nothing wrong with the battery.

rhhardin said...

Primitive blog.

knox said...

Remember Pres. Bush's decision on federal stem cell research funding? He took months to make that decision, and in the end no one liked it.....Yes, additional federal funds for embryonic stem cell research might have one day saved lives, but that was hardly certain.

BUSH DITHERED, PEOPLE DIED

Penny said...

Reader, that was some sad reading there. From a bigger picture perspective, aside from the "Hasan incident", we get to see precisely how our government bureaucracies and union ranks fail at doing anything but GROW. If you can't even rid your organization of a potential psychotic because it's too cumbersome, and your best option is to pass along your problems, what does that say about where our country is rapidly headed?

This story also shows how employers address the burdens of affirmative action thirty years later. They don't.

Ann Althouse said...

"Very pretty, Ann, but I think your saturation on the pink is a little intense."

Actually, I decreased the saturation on this — by quite a lot.

ricpic said...

To Squirt Or Not To Squirt

Though failure to comment may kill the hostess's soul,
Masturbatory comments take their own deadly toll.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Actually, I decreased the saturation on this — by quite a lot.

Yes, it made it look like from an old book.

Unknown said...

Ann Althouse said...

"Very pretty, Ann, but I think your saturation on the pink is a little intense."

Actually, I decreased the saturation on this — by quite a lot.


Impressive. Over the years, I've done a lot of fooling around with Kai's Power Tools, Eye Candy, and some other graphics tools and usually that is the effect when you boost the saturation.

I wish I could have been there to see the actual bloom.

rhhardin said...

bureaucracies and union ranks fail at doing anything but GROW

4th law of Systemantics

"4. Laws of Growth: Systems tend to grow, and as they grow, they encroach."

Though my own favorites are

"Systems attract systems-people," and "Fail-safe systems fail by failing to fail safe."

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

You are being inappropriate rh ;)

Ann Althouse said...

@edutcher I know what you mean, but that was a problem with the original picture and I was trying to make it less obvious by turning down the saturation.

Penny said...

"Masturbatory comments take their own deadly toll."

I'd be more inclined to believe that ricpic if there were more Blind Boys from Alabama or elsewhere, for that matter.

Penny said...

"I wish I could have been there to see the actual bloom."

The greater thrill is to be there for the first blush of a rose.

But not to worry. Most of us can find a blushing rose at our local supermarket 12 months out of the year for ten dollars a dozen.

Sure, not quite the same as the ones Althouse photographs in her garden, but lovely enough to brighten my home through the long cold spell.

Chip Ahoy said...

Thank you, JAL. Linkie fixed, butternut squash cookies.

rachel tot said...

Roses in poses
Flowers in bowers
Arrangement derangements
In plastic wrapped wowers
Unhappy cellophane
Twixt man and woe
Please remove before presenting
For heart to hoe

(sparking retro-romanticism small picture)

Penny said...

"(sparking retro-romanticism small picture)"

Bean, if it's sparks you are looking for, might I suggest the next post up where Meadehouse stumble onto a "controlled" burn.

rachel tot said...

sparkin'- v., n. courting, wooing

Penny, noun is all that was referenced. Anyway, suspect the woods burn is a truthers' affirmation of cheney thermite

Fred4Pres said...

Peak Oil? Peak Obama.