Here’s a collection of souvenir pins from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. To date they are the only such pins to be commissioned in the likeness of an Olympic committee executive.
Aren’t they tasteful? Jesus, talk about making it all about you, Mitt.
Oh, and yeah, they were made in China, naturally. Can we imagine the shitstorm if Obama had done stuff like this?
Now here’s a real quick video of Olympics minister Hugh Robertson responding to the question of whether Mitt Romney will be carrying the Olympic Torch to the opening ceremony. Good thing he wasn’t drinking milk when asked the question — it would have blown right out his nose.
And see Mitten’s remarks about government funds helping to build economic opportunity from back in 2002 at the top of the right side-bar in “quotes from all over”. He was all for it, and postured himself as an expert in procuring same.
And now comes a short excerpt from a piece in the Telegraph;
One senior British colleague used an anecdote from a rare corporate gathering at his Massachusetts home at the end of the 1980s which he claims summed up Mr Romney’s character and management style.
“One of our wives was sick – she had been pregnant and the delivery had not gone well,” said the executive. “She had serious issues. Simultaneously, another wife of one of our colleagues had cancer.
“As the wife of the first man was leaving the house, she was struggling,” the former colleague recalled. “Mitt turned to her and said: ‘Buck up – you could be like her,’ pointing to the second woman.”
The Telegraph is no hotbed of flamethrowing proles, btw — it’s a tory rag, pretty much.
This guy is a piece of work.
This is better than tennis
A right wing bunfight has erupted with Cameron describing Salt Lake City, the centre of Mormonism in which Romney organised the 2002 Winter Olympics, as the ‘middle of nowhere’. Now the Mayor of Salt Lake City has hit back saying:
“We’d welcome the opportunity to share all that we enjoy here with the PM, including a great number of assets that you’d be hard-pressed to find in London, world-class outdoor recreation, an economy that has prospered even through the recent economic recession, one of the best-educated populations in the world and a rare sense of community and commitment to progressive evolution.
“We also hosted the most successful Olympics Winter Games, ever,”
“He can stop by any time. We’d love to have him and are happy to send a map so he doesn’t run into any trouble locating the middle of nowhere.”
Here’s the link if anyone’s interested in what’s happening in London today with a couple more digs at Romney and Boris doing his bit in Hyde Park.
It’s all clean healthy fun!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/london-2012-olympics-blog/2012/jul/27/london-2012-olympics-live-blog
Jeebus. You’d think Mittens would feel right at home there. Wonder if Salt Lake had the same sort of deals going.
http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/blog/an-olympic-tax-dodge
Steve Bell has a great cartoon up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2012/jul/26/london-2012-cameron-osborne-cartoon
I have to say that i’m getting bored to death of Mittens.
Reading through some comments, Mittens seems to be slowly getting a tiny bit of support from some Brits – and apparently the mayor of SLC had responded to Cameron’s remarks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2012/jul/26/london-2012-cameron-osborne-cartoon?commentpage=2#comment-17358042
Jeebus H.
Remember when people were asking how the Tories could have picked a PR flack as their leader?
I guess that’s one part of Running A Business™ a president doesn’t need to know…
Looks like some of those corporations have agreed to pay some tax after all.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-olympics-20120727-1,0,2043111.story
Oh, I’m not getting bored about the Mittens in London saga. It is delicious.
Just shows his arrogance travels really, really well.
Having said that – sounds like some of the points he made about organizational glitches were true. But the point of his visit was not to tout his “Olympic Organizer Supreme” skills, it was to show he could represent his country.
and in that he failed miserably.
And by the way, there is a massive difference between organizing the Winter Olympics in SLC and the Summer Olympics in London. Cameron was absolutely right about that.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Golden -Tongued Mitt Romney’s 2012 European Comedy Tour !! Shouldn’t the right be shouting about how he disrespected your closet ally?
lol
I’m with Elena. I’m loving it.
I suppose the serious point is about good manners. When you’re a guest you don’t criticize even if you think something is a load of shit. But it’s still funny.
Are you guys sure he’s not related to Sarah?
I’m suspending our healthy diet for the next two weeks. I’ve stocked up with popcorn,crisps and peanuts and am anticipating watching a seriously compromised husband when GB and USA are in direct competition with each other.
@Pornstar
; )
I suspect he may be working on a deal while he’s here to strip all the US assets and sell you back to UK—- for a profit
Frances:
I think that’s the wrong way around. He’s here to buy us, lock, stock and barrel.
Dunno Franny. I think he may be eyeballing you guys for an acquisition. Strip the assets from the royal family and then ship their jobs to China.
Mitt Romney — the Detective Frank Drevin of politics – it is all becoming clearer now, why the McCain campaign chose Palin !
You leave Leslie alone.
Elena:
I was hoping for more today, it was such a good start. Thought it was a three-day event? Only apparently he’s been told not to say owt after meeting the Irish PM. . .which could have been (depending on the type of screw up) either hilariously mistaken and stupidly ignorant or have ended with the instant renunciation of the whole damn Peace Process . . .
So I suppose we ought to be grateful.
(Been a bit overshadowed by Jeremy Hunt’s clanger today, but still, plenty of time yet before they push him onto the plane. Possibly with an endorsement in his passport that says ‘And don’t bloody well come back!”)
Anyway, makes up for all the fun we were anticipating and missed by Sarah Palin not getting the VP’s job. A worthy successor, Mittens.
All day Friday, the BBC announcers had been hinting at surprises during the opening show. But who could have thought the Queen would take part in a James Bond skit? I admit I double checked thinking it was a stand in. But no it was Her Maj in the flesh…
There are times I so love being British.
Squirrel, I am sure Mitt will not disappoint in Israel. Lots of minefields there.
He is hoping to get a bigger percentage of the Jewish vote. May work, may not. Not every American Jew is a big fan of Bibi.
Is this extract from a news feed in the Graun correct?
However, NBC did cut the whole section that was a tribute to “those who can’t be with us” (there seems to be some confusion as to whether this was a 7/7 tribute or a more general tribute) for an interview with Michael Phelps.
It’s a shame if they did, because the tribute to the dead was beautiful…And it was religious…A beautiful hymn and dance.
Di:
Yes, apparently they did. Ran some interview with some swimmer instead.
However: anybody seen anything about what was probably the only reason for Romney coming? (Since he apparently can’t be bothered to get the River Bus down to Greenwich to watch his wife’s Cadillac being driven into the Thames, or whatever.)
That is, how much did he actually screw out of (one presumes) expat American fat cats at his dinner? And from what sort of people?
(All I found was that they were offering cut rate dinners ro fill the place. Even then, at more than I think I spend on food in a year. Wonder what the meal was? Not an ancestral Lancashire Hotpot, even with oysters included, I presume?)
Elena:
Seems he’s already begun. That thing about “Democracy’s all very well, but they will keep electing the wrong kind of people. . .”
(And remember how he was ‘Bibi’s best friend’ in one (or many, I’ve forgotten) of those debates? Seems Bibi can’t remember whether he actually ever met him even.)
A little Mexican band’s just wandered past playing ‘Guantanamera’. (Very well, too!) No idea why.
Don’t give a shit about Mittens. Following the swimming, far more fascinating. I love athletics.
Di – we have the rep of being a religious country, but a religious ceremony still might not have played too well on a mainstream network news station. Then again too, there was the Mossad Operation Wrath of God retaliation.
Squirrel,
You don’t have to be an American banker to profit from keeping The Street (as opposed to the streets) unregulated,
And what anyone could see on every episode of Presidential Idol was a constant display of that good old “there’s simply no downside to insulting foreigners” insouciance. When Bobby Jindal excuses Mittens with his…
…he was, unfortunately, speaking the truth. About his side, at least. The persistent notion that Obama is still wildly popular overseas is, to this day, a productive GOP talking point. I promise you, it accurately reflects the opinion of most Republicans, who consider it self-evident proof that he is simply not any kind of real American. Mitt, now: if Mitt can diss an ally (and a political soul mate at that), is there any doubt that he’ll finally be the one to stand up to those wicked middle easterners?
Actually I can’t get Thomas Heatherwick’s Cauldron out of my head: an amazing combination of art and engineering. And a stunning sight when it was lit. Pity it gets dismantled at the end, but apparently every country gets one of the ‘petals’ to take home.
Pornstar: nothing religious about it. (Except, maybe that ‘Abide with Me’ is a hymn I suppose, but it’s sung at every FA Cup Final by the crowd.)
Squirel -
I didn’t see it – Di said it was religious.
Wingnut Bobby is still angling for VP.
Thought about making a post out of this, but then though, meh, fuck it, and too much other stuff going on anyway. Still, this story will make the rounds pretty quick I’d guess, and it’s worth a mention;
I spent a few minutes tracking the story down to it’s original source. It sounds totally plausible;
Oh boy, I’d like to see him pull a stunt like that at the Woody Creek Tavern. Mrs.g would run the cheap sonofabitch down in the parking lot and ask him if there was a problem. That’s putting it politely.
BTW, it’s entirely possible that none of you have ever seen the WCT. Here’s a pic. It’s not a large place, though in the summer there is patio seating outside. Even in winter, just in the space you see here plus a couple of other tables not visible, they can push over 300 dinners a night when it’s really jumping.
It’s a fucking zoo, basically. But a fun one. No, it’s not Christmas. It always looks like this.
You would have thought that Mittens and Dave would have been able to bond over that one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/01/david-cameron-tipping-uk-staff
I’ve been waitress to the stars in both NYC and LA, i judge slebs by how they tip. I’ve never seen Mittens on a waiters blog of bad tippers as of yet.
That bar looks awesome. My criteria for a good bar – it has to have Neil Young on the jukebox. Sawdust on the floor is just an added bonus.
Oh dear. WCT doesn’t have a juke box.
The staff generally provide the music by plugging in their ipod thingies into the sound system. So the tunes vary depending on who’s working that shift.
On the up side though, they don’t take credit cards, which I always take to be a sign of civilization. They will take a personal check, though, or the preferred cold hard cash.
If you don’t discover that particular oddity until after you’ve eaten and the check arrives — though it’s plainly written on the menu, and hard to miss — they don’t give you a ration of shit for being stupid and inattentive, just a stamped addressed envelope so you can mail a check when you get home.
They almost never get hosed. Twice a year, tops.
Well, it might pass with that as it looks more like a restaurant than a bar proper anyway. Gotta say i’m not down with the not taking credit cards though, even the Chinese restaurants take them nowadays. I have the package store, the local pub, and a breakfast diner in my backyard, the pizza place and the mexican place a block away. The bank is a lot farther, so they get business from me anyway that they wouldn’t get if i had to have cash on hand. I don’t use paper checks, haven’t in years. Just debit cards and electronic banking.
Very. . .er . . .ummm . . .tasteful. Ahem.
Great. He might as well have said “Us big corporate shites know how we keep you poor little people on the starvation breadline, I’m sure you are going to be grateful for this stale crumb I throw you from my table. Don’t all fight over it, will you, until after we’re gone?”
The more you hear things like this, the more you wonder if the guy actually has any friends, or even any mere acquaintances.
When, one wonders, was the last time he spoke civilly or considerately, or with any respect at all, to anyone his ‘people’ hadn’t run a credit check on beforehand to find out if they were worth a hundred million or so in ready cash?
There was a photo of him and Osborne, looking like they’d been sitting in strained silence for ten minutes with absolutely nothing to say to each other. Well, Ozzie’s only worth about 4 million or whatever. That probably explains it. Mitt probably asked the Chancellor if he’d like to finish his coffee, and take the half-eaten biscuit home for the wife. . . .
(He flew to Israel from Stansted in a chartered jet. Not talking to press; totally mystiying press pool notes, here, though.)
Greta Van Susteren? Yikes.
Jesus squirrel, did you check out any of the comments in that link to Greta’s hovel?
Jesus.
Then this, which captures a particular mindset, common in the US, as well as anything I could come up with descriptively;
Er, no, didn’t . . .bloody hell.
Pornstar…
Abide with me. I can’t count how many funerals I’ve been to where it’s sung.
It’s a hymn. It’s about God, so to me it’s religious
Squirrel/Di/Sib:
In case you were beginning to suspect that maybe Mitt didn’t mean it personally and maybe would like to make up with y’all, today in Israel he said, “You don’t criticize your allies in public…”
(Of course he was talking about Obama questioning Israeli policy at the UN, but still…)
Gunny -
Just caught your comment on Tomasky’s thread. That article was horrible.
Amy, yeah, Michael is irretrievably in the bubble. Chatting in geeky videos with the likes of David Frum, both nodding like well-mannered bobbleheads, is not leading us anywhere worth visiting either.
What bugs me the most is that his persuasions are indeed superficially reasonable, without the obvious batshit craziness of that which he so often rants against. Fine.
But precisely because of that, in some ways what he’s doing is even more dangerous than what the Bachmanns, the Boltons, and the Santorums of the world are doing.
The fact that he fulminates against the atavistic politics of the right, even with wit, scholarship and pretty clean prose, doesn’t mean he’s advocating something plausible as a corrective. He still thinks growth, much as we have understood growth since the 19th century and even before, is not only possible, but necessary.
I don’t buy that for a minute, but hey ho, such a position is consigned to the lunatic fringe — the oddball (and pretty diverse) band that Rahm Emmanuel called “fucking retards.”
That’s high praise indeed, so I’m good with that.
I’m pretty honored to be called a dilattante piece of shit by the likes of VM too. That’s when i know i’m on the right track.