Cleveland Sports Forum

Back on the PBS love that escaped to another folder for awhile.....


Charlie Rose tonight had Patti Smith, Sting, James Taylor and Willie Nelson as guests.


Possible political views cast aside, it was television worth watching.

(In My Mind I'm Going To Carolina.......)

Willie Nelson on playing guitar in Texas......

"You know what they say about guitar players in Texas......without a waitress he's homeless"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEusOoPpkEE



Alison Krauss, with a bit of my vision of The Carolinas.

Want to make sure that everyone knows that "Carolina on my Mind" is a song about North Carolina.

"Carolina in My Mind" is a song written and performed by singer-songwriter James Taylor, which first appeared on his 1968 debut album, James Taylor. Taylor wrote it while overseas recording for The Beatles' label Apple Records, and the song's themes reflect his homesickness at the time. Released as a single, the song earned critical praise but not commercial success. It was re-recorded for Taylor's 1976 Greatest Hits album in the version that is most familiar to listeners. It has been a staple of Taylor's concert performances over the decades of his career.

The song was a modest hit on the country charts in 1969 for North Carolinian singer George Hamilton IV. Strongly tied to a sense of geographic place, "Carolina in My Mind" has been called an unofficial state anthem for North Carolina. It is also an unofficial song of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, being played at athletic events and pep rallies and sung by the graduating class at every university commencement. The association of the song with the state is also made in written works of both fiction and non-fiction. It has become one of Taylor's most critically praised songs[2][3] and one that has great popularity and significance for his audience.[2]


The song references Taylor's years growing up in North Carolina.[4] Taylor wrote it while overseas recording for The Beatles' label Apple Records. He started writing the song at producer Peter Asher's London flat on Marylebone High Street, resumed work on it while on holiday on the Mediterranean island of Formentera, and then completed it while stranded on the nearby island of Ibiza with a Swedish girl Karin he had just met.[2][5] The song reflects Taylor's homesickness at the time,[6] as he was missing his family, his dog, and his state.[5]

rusty2 wrote:Want to make sure that everyone knows that "Carolina on my Mind" is a song about North Carolina.

Oh yes, absolutely knew it was Tar Heel in primary focus.

And with an additional thought, "Carolina on My Mind" helped get me through 2+ years of living in the west suburbs of Chicagoland when I had to be there temporarily for career. The two songs I listened to over and over were "We've Got to Get Out of This Place" and the aforementioned James Taylor number.

All due respect to Joez.

I had just purchased a lake cabin in central South Carolina that I completely gutted and rebuilt. I'd be on my boat on the lake in March or April with it 80 degrees on a Sunday, and then I'd head to the Columbia SC airport to catch a 7:40PM Sunday night Delta connection through Atlanta that got me to O'Hare not long after 10PM with the time change.

I had the same limo driver meet me at the airport each week (hiring a limo was cheaper than three days of airport parking). He'd always have a few beers on ice for me to "chill out" on the ride to my apartment so I'd be chilled out to get to sleep.

I usually landed to disgusting Chicago snow, ice, sleet or cold after leaving the lake cabin and boat behind.

Downtown Chicago is great....."in the loop." For me, the suburbs suck. Joez is out west far enough that he is "fringe" Chicagoland. There are some really cool places in far western Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

And after that post, I'll note that Baron and probably many others here have also been places they had would have preferred not to be in life and career.

The picture of Sarah Palin on the phone did copy but imagine it
















"Hi. This is Sarah Palin. Is Senator Lieberman in?"
"No, governor. This is Yom Kippur."

"Well, hello, Yom. Can I leave a message?"

Now I know why Rusty has such a fascination with Barry Manilow.


http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/15/barry ... %E2%80%99/

McConnell: Dems Treating Obama's Jobs Bill "Like An Afterthought"


Washington, D.C.- U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding the President’s visit to Ohio and the bipartisan opposition to his stimulus and tax hike proposals:

“Over the past week, President Obama has been traveling around the country trying to set a record for the number of times he can say the words ‘pass this bill right away’ in a single five-minute speech.

“And today, he’ll bring his act to a 50-year-old bridge that connects my own state of Kentucky with Ohio.

“Now, the purpose of this visit is clear: The President’s plan is to go out to this bridge and say that if only lawmakers in Washington would pass his second stimulus bill ‘right away’, then bridges like this one would get fixed — and that the only thing standing in the way of repairing them is people like me.

“Well, I would just make a couple of points about all this.

“First, I find it hard to take the President’s message all that seriously when his own Communications Director is over at the White House telling people he’s no longer interested in legislative compromise; and when the leaders of the President’s own party in Congress are treating this bill like an afterthought.

“We’d be more inclined to look at this so-called jobs bill if the President’s own staff and the members of his own party in Congress started taking it a little more seriously themselves.

“Second, I’d remind the President that the people of Kentucky and Ohio have heard this kind of thing before. Don’t forget: the President made the same promises when he was selling his first stimulus. It’s a message he brought to Ohio repeatedly.

“Here’s what he said two years ago this week at a stop in Warren, Ohio: ‘All across Ohio and all across the country, rebuilding our roads and our bridges … that’s what the Recovery Act has been all about.’

“Yet two and a half years later, what do we have to show for it: politically-connected companies like Solyndra ended up with hundreds of millions in taxpayer-backed money, and bridges like the one the President’s at today still need to be fixed.

“It’s worth noting, in fact, that this one company blew through more taxpayer money than the first stimulus allocated for every road and bridge in the entire state of Kentucky — combined.

“The President told Ohioans and Kentuckians the first stimulus would keep unemployment below 8% too.

“Yet two and a half years later, unemployment in both states is still above 9 percent.

“So we’ve heard these promises before, and I don’t think the President should expect anybody to fall for them again.

“I mean, how many stimulus bills do we have to pass before these bridges get fixed?

“How many Solyndras do we have to finance?

“How much money do we have to waste before the President makes good on the promises he’s already made?

“If a bridge needs fixing, by all means, let’s fix it.

“But don’t tell us we need to pass a half a trillion dollar stimulus bill and accept job-killing tax hikes to do it.

“Don’t tell the people of Kentucky they need to finance every turtle tunnel and solar panel company on some bureaucrat’s wish list in order to get their bridges fixed.

“And don’t patronize us by implying that if we just pass this second stimulus, that bridges will be fixed ‘right away.’

“The American people heard the same thing when the administration was selling the first stimulus, only to turn on their television sets two and a half years later to see the President having a big laugh over the fact that all those shovel-ready projects weren’t quite as shovel-ready as he thought they were.

“So I would suggest, Mr. President, that you think about ways to actually help the people of Kentucky and Ohio, instead of how you can use their roads and bridges as a backdrop for making a political point.

“If you’re truly interested in helping our state — if you really want to help our state — then come back to Washington and work with Republicans on legislation that will actually do something to revive our economy and create jobs. And forget the political theater.

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — In a significant new blow to al-Qaida, U.S. airstrikes in Yemen on Friday killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American militant cleric who became a prominent figure in the terror network's most dangerous branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits for attacks in the United States.

The strike was the biggest U.S. success in hitting al-Qaida's leadership since the May killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But it raises questions that other strikes did not: Al-Awlaki was an American citizen who has not been charged with any crime. Civil liberties groups have questioned the government's authority to kill an American without trial.

The 40-year-old al-Awlaki was for years an influential mouthpiece for al-Qaida's ideology of holy war, and his English-language sermons urging attacks on the United States were widely circulated among militants in the West.

But U.S. officials say he moved into a direct operational role in organizing such attacks as he hid alongside al-Qaida militants in the rugged mountains of Yemen. Most notably, they believe he was involved in recruiting and preparing a young Nigerian who on Christmas Day 2009 tried to blow up a U.S. airliner heading to Detroit, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives sewn into his underpants.

Yemen's Defense Ministry said another American militant was killed in the same strike alongside al-Awlaki — Samir Khan, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani heritage who produced "Inspire," an English-language al-Qaida Web magazine that spread the word on ways to carry out attacks inside the United States. U.S. officials said they believed Khan was in the convoy carrying al-Awlaki that was struck but that they were still trying to confirm his death. U.S. and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not immediately identify them.

Washington has called al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch in Yemen is called, the most direct threat to the United States after it plotted that attack and a foiled attempt to mail explosives to synagogues in Chicago.

In July, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said al-Awlaki was a priority target alongside Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's successor as the terror network's leader.

The Yemeni-American had been in the U.S. crosshairs since his killing was approved by President Barack Obama in April 2010 — making him the first American placed on the CIA "kill or capture" list. At least twice, airstrikes were called in on locations in Yemen where al-Awlaki was suspected of being, but he wasn't harmed.

Friday's success was the result of counterterrorism cooperation between Yemen and the U.S. that has dramatically increased in recent weeks — ironically, even as Yemen has plunged deeper into turmoil as protesters try to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh, U.S. officials said.

Apparently trying to cling to power by holding his American allies closer, Saleh has opened the taps in cooperation against al-Qaida. U.S. officials said the Yemenis have also allowed the U.S. to gather more intelligence on al-Awlaki's movements and to fly more armed drone and aircraft missions over its territory than ever before.

The operation that killed al-Awlaki was run by the U.S. military's elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command — the same unit that got bin Laden.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said American forces targeted a convoy in which al-Awlaki was traveling with a drone and jet attack and believe he's been killed. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Yemeni government announced that al-Awlaki was "targeted and killed" around 9:55 a.m outside the town of Khashef in mountainous Jawf province, 87 miles (140 kilometers) east of the capital Sanaa. It gave no further details.

Local tribal and security officials said al-Awlaki was traveling in a two-car convoy with two other al-Qaida operatives from Jawf to neighboring Marib province when they were hit by an airstrike. They said the other two operatives were also believed dead. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, began as a mosque preacher as he conducted his university studies in the United States, and he was not seen by his congregations as radical. While preaching in San Diego, he came to know two of the men who would eventually become suicide-hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The FBI questioned al-Awlaki at the time but found no cause to detain him.

In 2004, al-Awlaki returned to Yemen, and in the years that followed, his English-language sermons — distributed on the Internet — increasingly turned to denunciations of the United States and calls for jihad, or holy war. The sermons turned up in the possession of a number of militants in the U.S. and Europe arrested for plotting attacks.

Al-Awlaki exchanged up to 20 emails with U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, alleged killer of 13 people in the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at Fort Hood. Hasan initiated the contacts, drawn by al-Awlaki's Internet sermons, and approached him for religious advice.

Al-Awlaki has said he didn't tell Hasan to carry out the shootings, but he later praised Hasan as a "hero" on his Web site for killing American soldiers who would be heading for Afghanistan or Iraq to fight Muslims.

In New York, the Pakistani-American man who pleaded guilty to the May 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt told interrogators he was "inspired" by al-Awlaki after making contact over the Internet.

After the Fort Hood attack, al-Awlaki moved from Yemen's capital, Sanaa, into the mountains where his Awalik tribe is based and — it appears — grew to build direct ties with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, if he had not developed them already. The branch is led by a Yemeni militant named Nasser al-Wahishi.

Yemeni officials have said al-Awlaki had contacts with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused would-be Christmas plane bomber, who was in Yemen in 2009. They say the believe al-Awlaki met with the 23-year-old Nigerian, along with other al-Qaida leaders, in al-Qaida strongholds in the country in the weeks before the failed bombing.

Al-Awlaki has said Abdulmutallab was his "student" but said he never told him to carry out the airline attack.

The cleric is also believed to have been an important middleman between al-Qaida militants and the multiple tribes that dominate large parts of Yemen, particular in the mountains of Jawf, Marib and Shabwa province where the terror group's fighters are believed to be holed up.

Last month, al-Awlaki was seen attending a funeral of a senior tribal chief in Shabwa, witnesses said, adding that security officials were also among those attending. Other witnesses said al-Awlaki was involved in negotiations with a local tribe in Yemen's Mudiya region, which was preventing al-Qaida fighters from traveling from their strongholds to the southern city of Zinjibar, which was taken over recently by Islamic militants. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals and their accounts could not be independently confirmed.

Yemen, the Arab world's most impoverished nation, has become a haven for hundreds of al-Qaida militants. The country has also been torn by political turmoil as President Saleh struggles to stay in power in the face of seven months of protests. In recent months, Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida have exploited the chaos to seize control of several cities in Yemen's south, including Zinjibar.

A previous attack against al-Awlaki on May 5, shortly after the May raid that killed Osama bin Laden, was carried out by a combination of U.S. drones and jets.

Top U.S. counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has said cooperation with Yemen has improved since the political unrest there. Brennan said the Yemenis have been more willing to share information about the location of al-Qaida targets, as a way to fight the Yemeni branch challenging them for power.

Yemeni security officials said the U.S. was conducting multiple airstrikes a day in the south since May and that U.S. officials were finally allowed to interrogate al-Qaida suspects, something Saleh had long resisted, and still does so in public. The officials spokes on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.

You can say what you want about Obama, and Lord knows I have said plenty about his worthless ass, but the guy has no problem killing those who would harm us. Even against the whines of his base and the ACLU.

I'd give him a high 5 but he hates all of us God fearing gun clinging rednecks from the flyover states so I'll just offer up my kudos. Bin Laden and al-Awlaki within months of each other. Nice!

I really liked jousting on politics and talking sports with Big Nate when he was occasionally here.

I'm pretty liberal on "social issues," but am disappointed when people disappear from the public discourse of our country's future.

3 percent of the posters make 87% of the posts.

#OccupyTribeForum.

Darkstar wrote:3 percent of the posters make 87% of the posts.

#OccupyTribeForum.

LOL

I guess that makes me an eighty seven percenter