Obama’s Political Tin Ear
When it comes to President Barack Obama’s political tin ear and inability to feel voters’ pain, truly it’s an embarrassment of riches.
The federal deficit, well in excess of $1 trillion, speaks volumes; but it lacks the immediacy of, say, last May’s Gulf Coast scenes of Obama, alone on the beach, limply picking up tar balls, as BP’s burst oil well was gushing and ruining lives; or the First Lady’s luxurious vacation in Spain this summer.
And now we have the very relatable Oval Office redecoration, costing tens of thousands of dollars, at a time when the federal budget is drowning in red ink and most Americans would be hard-pressed to replace carpets and sofas still having good wear left in them, let alone buy fancy wallpaper from the Hamptons.
And while the work was paid for by the White House Historical Association, it’s naïve to think the “quid” for the “quo” of an Oval Office makeover will cost taxpayers not a dime. But even positing utmost rectitude, the lack of frugality when America is approaching bankruptcy is incomprehensible.
Bill and Hillary Clinton already spent an estimated $337,000 in the 1990s to refurbish the Oval Office — along with the East Room, Blue Room, State Dining Room, Lincoln Bedroom, and Lincoln Sitting Room, with the assistance of Arkansas decorator Kaki Hockersmith.
This work, also paid for with private money, required counsel’s approval, given obvious conflict of interest concerns, and, in fact, as the New York Times noted back then, generated an angry letter from then Deputy Counsel Vince Foster to the White House Usher’s Office on what he believed was the unfair politicization of the cost, shortly before he was found dead at Fort Marcy.
…which might well be critical to the non-violent salvation of what remains of the United States. Be grateful for small blessings, I say.
Obama is a classic narcissist – so forget about him having ANY kind of ear (tin or otherwise) to listen to anything except his monstrous ego. But I also think there’s something else at work here besides narcissism. Both Barack and Michelle clearly realize they’re doomed for 2012 – so they’re both grabbing the goodies while they can. Hence the Marie Antoinette vacations in Marbella and redecorating in the midst of the worst Depression since the 1930′s. About the best we can hope for is that when they leave in 2 years, they take that tacky rug with them. (And Michelle can walk off into the sunset with her hooker belts as well.)
The fact that they are seemingly not worried about being re-elected in 2012 is what bothers me. What exactly is in Obama’s mind.
You may be giving Obama credit for a depth of thinking and planning that he doesn’t possess. My own feeling is that IF he’s really not interested in a second term, it’s probably because he’s completely unused to actually working.
Obviously he has never had to make it in the private sector; his only “real” job, at a law firm, was shortlived, and, curiously, we’ve never heard the real “why”. I believe the easiest explanation (other than the fact he just wasn’t competent) is that practicing law, especially in the beginning, is real, hard work, requiring many hours of research and drafting. Really hard work. Not for Barack, or for Michelle.
We have NO evidence that, in all his years in college(s), he ever worked hard; could that be why his school records have never been released?
Yes, he worked hard as a community organizer, wandering the neighborhoods teaching uneducated poor people how to cause trouble. But how hard IS that?
As a Senator, even at the state level, no one ever accused him of being a hard worker.
Face it, he just doesn’t have it in him to work — no matter how loudly George Soros cracks the whip.
Spot on, Polly. Obama shows himself to be quite shallow & lazy. I believe he is poorly read & poorly educated despite his impressive-sounding credentials. I think the job of POTUS is really palling on him. I would not be surprised to see him unable to complete his term in office, stepping down for ‘medical’ reasons.
Wow you are right your credentials and work history are much more impressive bobbcat.
How do we know that he worked hard as a community organizer? He was lecturing and not publishing at U of C at the same time.
I’m sure he was unhappy “not being the boss”. Being a head community organizer was definitely preferable to being an underling in a law office, for his personality
It also affects the way the White House is run. The first Bush administration standardized on computers, mostly IBM, that used the Windows OS because it was the one the rest of the U.S. government, and indeed the U.S. period, used, and thus could be bought through the same procurement system, getting the job done while saving taxpayers’ money. It was also easier to secure against hacking than the Mackintosh-based OS.
When the Clinton crowd came in, they ripped out all the Windows computers and replaced them with brand-new Macs, bought outside of procurement at boutique’ prices. Their reasons? Never actually stated, but the gist seemed to be that they were “just too cool” to use Windows comps. (Those aren’t for smart, sophisticated, edgy people, you know.) The result was a White House computer system that made it very easy to “shred” emails from people they didn’t want to hear from, like Americans who disagreed with the Clintons. They also made it easy to hide or destroy data- to keep it away from Congressional investigators.
The second Bush administration went back to Windows computers bought through regular procurement channels, again to facilitate interfacing with the rest of the government, not to mention email from the American people. (They also wanted computer keyboards that somebody hadn’t pried the letters “G”, “W”, and “B” out of.) Things went back to the way they’d been under the first Bush administration, i.e., everything worked.
The One comes into power and- you guessed it- the Windows comps are ripped out, replaced with brand-new, super-cool Macs. Needless to say, White House computer ops are once more very much a hit-or-miss proposition, with email being a “we’ll only talk to you if we want to” situation. As for investigations, the present majority in Congress probably figures they have at least as much to hide as The One’s minions do, so it’s a “non-issue”. (For now, anyway.)
The moral being that The One does not have a “tin ear” when it comes to listening to the American people, or even the rest of the U.S. government. He simply does not give a damn what anyone says who isn’t part of his little clique’ of sycophants. And none of them will tell him anything he doesn’t want to hear.
We have a President who combines Carter’s disconnect from reality with Nixon’s vindictiveness. This is just one more example of how it affects the way he runs, not just the White House, but the country as a whole.
(I.e., not too well.)
clear ether
eon
I think you’ve gotten to the heart of the matter with your use of the word “vindictiveness.” This redecoration may have just been an excuse to banish the rug designed by Laura Bush. Look for it wherever Churchill’s bust ended up.
Doesn’t anybody care that the whole new layout / scheme is just plain UGLY?
I think the part that bothers me the most is the rug. No, not the misattributed quote, but the color.
I can think of a lot of colors I’d want in the room where the President makes important decisions, meets foreign dignitaries, etc. I’d think it would be a color intended to convey dignity, as well as being easy on the eyes, to reduce stress levels. (Google “U.S. Navy submarine interior color studies”, sometime.)
Probably the best all-around choice would be either a dark royal blue, as in the field of the Stars and Stripes. Or, a pleasant medium green. Maybe even a dark red, although that’s a more “belligerent” color (ask any live-theater art director).
About the last color I’d want would be Afrika Korps Desert Yellow, aka “baby-crap light brown”. I have tank models painted that color.
On a Panzer IV? OK, because it’s historically accurate. (The AFV itself is ugly as sin, anyway.)
On the floor of the Oval Office?
Ugh.
Yuck.
Try. Again.
cheers
eon
I think you are overreacting on the Macs. I know IT directors who run large Windows systems from their Mac. The Clinton era was still before the Intel Mac so you may have more of a point but a network is a network. Personally, after having to de-virus my daughter’s PC hundreds of times, I finally got her to use a Mac at college. Not a single phone call about viruses since (Lots for money but not the Mac).
I have another daughter in a federal law enforcement agency (I’m not supposed to say) and their network is so f**ked up they have to work around it and cannot exchange data with other agencies because of incompatible data structures. The extreme privacy nuts would be much reassured if they knew how little the functionality of custom written federal systems is.
I don’t think anyone with even minimal experience with computers will dispute that Windows computers work better with other Windows computers than Macintosh’s do.
But your implication that Macintoshes can’t share email with Windows computers makes no sense whatever to me. I have no trouble sending emails from my Windows machine to Macintosh users nor in receiving their emails. Frankly, I can’t see why I should, given that email is governed by various protocols that are independent of which operating system you are using.
Can you please illuminate the difficulties that Windows computers and Macintoshes have with sending email to one another?
It amuses me when the Democrats call the Republicans “The Party of No.” Thank God there still are at least a few people in Washington today that can still say “NO” to the massive and wasteful spending that is going on in the capital. If we had a few more conservatives who could have said “NO” to Obamacare, to bank bailouts, to the “stimulus” that stimulated nothing, and to the billions of other dollars that have been flushed down the toilet for pet Democratic projects, just think how different this administration would have been. If Conservatives ran the Congress, Obama actually would have had to compromise and work with the Republicans on these major issues. But under Pelosi and Reid, America has gotten a clear picture on what liberal democratic rule in Washington looks like.
So, do you like what you see? We now have unemployment almost at 10% (higher, though, in most states like Michigan and California), more people working part time, health insurance premiums still going through the roof (even though Obamacare was supposed to stop that from happening), we have a Federal government at war with Arizona because the Feds can’t even enforce their own immigration laws, and we have Iran about to get a nuclear weapon while Obama keeps pushing Israel to give up just about everything. So, how’s that “Hope and Change” working out for you now?
November. We can start putting an end to this madness in November. With a Republican Congress, Obama will be forced to compromise or maybe even give in to some fiscal sanity. It will be interesting to see if Obama gives in like Bill Clinton did in 1994, or if he just sits there like a spoiled child and is a lame duck for the next two years. We’ll see. But the first step is to throw as many of those liberal bums out of office as possible in November. And we will.
I don’t really care if Obama “changes”, a la Clinton…
While I doubt he will, if all we get is gridlock until he’s out, that’s just fine with me!
Let the Big Bad “NO” begin….
Libertyship, let me introduce you to Senator John McCain.
You would think that the Oval Office redecoration could have included something to get rid of the flies and rats.
And it’s soooooooo UGLY! Like it could be from The Simpsons’ (DOH) living room… uuuuuuuggggggggly.
But, Mary, look at it from their angle.
All this spending (on decoration) must have enriched somebody (somebodies). It is called ‘redistributing wealth’. And in HIS words, if we spread the wealth around, everybody comes out ahead.
Since the Obamas have not worked a single day at honest labor, how the ‘wealth’ is gotten in the first place is just minor details.
They’re like any family of 4 who just won the mega-millions lottery.
You might enjoy my satirical video on the Audacity of Taupe-the Oval Office makeover:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMAfS-zonCE
I enjoyed your video very much, but don’t be so mean! The Obamas are obviously simple, plain people with simple, plain taste. Or if not “taste,” then preferences.
Seen in this light, you can understand that Michelle’s trip to that opulent place in Spain was pure torture for her, but she made the sacrifice so that the peons at home could have a little vicarious pleasure.
Actually your utube video was pretty biggotted you small minded person. No one cares what Steve Job’s office’s looks like. You conservatives are so jealous we haven’t started another war to get you creaming in your pants yet that you resort to this inane uproar?
Namecalling is so much more effective if you can properly spell whatever name it is you’re trying to label the other person with … don’t you find?
And no, I’m not going to spell it out for you. Look it up and educate yourself.
Obama reminds me of those students in my elementary school that got passed to the next higher grade simply because the teachers knew there was no redemption in retaining them to repeat a grade, since the student had no motivation and the teacher would be stuck with that student again the next year.
Obama’s a retard; But, a retard of his own choice. He has convinced everyone, without a shadow of a doubt, that he has no class, and doesn’t desire to acquire any.
The average day laborer at Home Depot, would take the job as President more seriously, even if he couldn’t speak english.
This keeps looking more and more like an Imperial White House than a Presidency. This is the same butt wipe that had his picture taken with his feed on the desk in the Oval Office. That idiot treats it like it was a desk from Rooms to GO. This wife just cost the tax payers millions for her excellent European vacation. She had thought to spending that money here, sort of like a mini- local stimulus package. Obama is just like all of the socialist elite, socialism is for the people not the leadership. If you can streach the definition of leadership tho his Presidency.
He doesn’t have a tin ear, he just doesn’t care. He figures he’ll either get a second term by stuffing ballot boxes and voting the dead the same way he did in 2008 or he won’t. Either way, he did better than if he’d won millions in a lottery. He’ll be protected, coddled, listened to, and paid big lecture fees the rest of his life. Any time he wants he can drop into an Islamic country and be treated like royalty from the day he leaves office until he assumes room temperature.
The only difference between now and when he looked like a smart pol is that now he doesn’t let his handlers control him as much. They’re trying hard to keep him hidden and not let people see what a half witted maniac he is, but once frequent golf games and vacations no longer keep him distracted, the truth will out, and the truth is that he honestly and deeply believes that we little people are dust in the wind unworthy of his paying attention to how we see him. This nation elected a little tin god and in doing so made him a big tin god. Now, we’re going to have to deal with the consequences once “god” gets angry. So far, he hasn’t even been uncomfortable more than a time or two, much less really pissed. Just wait, he’ll do things that even his fellow fascists will be shocked by before it’s all said and done.
Regards
He will not get Secret Service Protection nor a pension if he gets impeached starting in January of 2011!
Obama’s statement during the campaign that his plan for a Cap-and-Trade tax would cause consumers’ energy bills to “necessarily skyrocket” struck me as vindictive. I still can’t understand why that one sentence didn’t scuttle his candidacy.
Why on Earth would a President wish such suffering on his fellow countrymen?
This guy plainly dislikes this country. And got elected in spite of it. How could we have been so stupid?
Because he believes:
– Americans enjoy too much luxury.
– Americans consume too much.
– There are too many people on Earth so killing off Granny before
we waste medical dollars on her is not only OK it is a moral imperative.
– The little people can’t be trusted.
– The Constitution was a white man’s way to keep the minority oppressed.
– Life should be FAIR.
– We need to de-industrialize the world and especially the US.
– The end justifies the means.
– Most importantly he believes HE IS GOD.
“Why on Earth would a President wish such suffering on his fellow countrymen?”
Marxist don’t care about the suffering they bring.
“This guy plainly dislikes this country. And got elected in spite of it. How could we have been so stupid?”
What you mean “we” Kimo Sabe?
The one thing I can say about the Obama administration is that the “change you can believe in” has become a reality. Unfortunately for Obama, it is the change that the American people have had ENOUGH of the liberal elitists who at every turn try to tell us how to run our lives like we’re a bunch of morons. Obama has done more to wake up America than any other politician. The results just aren’t what he and the demonrats hoped to achieve. Let he and moochelle have their makeover. They have a little over two years to keep fleecing the taxpayers for the vacations and perks and then it’s bye bye.
To me, it can’t come soon enough. I just want my country back.
You have to laugh at these writers with their “tin ear”, “clueless”, “incompetent” articles.
This guy understands perfectly well eveything that he does.
The oval office makeover is him lifting his leg on the American people.
Now he has sprayed the #1 symbol of the presidency.
You are exactly right.
The arrogance, the disdain and the many decisions that are bad for our country all make it very clear:
Obama doesn’t lack political skills; he is not a politician.
To compare him to a real politician like Bill Clinton is to miss the point.
It is more useful to compare him to one of the hijackers on 9/11. For one of the passengers to ask “how can this hijacker-pilot be so arrogant when he doesn’t even know how to land this plane?” is to misunderstand what is happening.
great analogy
Exactly. He is simply pushing for more conflict to create more crisis so he can take more power. He is a leftist ideologue, radical activist and community agitator.
Just another example of how the elite live while expecting us to tighten out own belts and sacrifice “for the good of the country”. It has been the same throughout history. The ruling elite have always considered themselves better than the people they rule. We are the rabble in their minds.
…. then Deputy Counsel Vince Foster …. was found dead at Fort Marcy ….
But not until long after he’d already been found dead in Hillary Cli’toon’s down-town-DC pied-à-terre.
“Then: ‘There are times where you can afford to redecorate your house, and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding the foundation,’ Obama said in early 2009. Now: The Audacity of Taupe!”
So….you’re assuming that he thinks that the lectures he gives to others also apply to himself. Come on. He’s the king. We are the peasants. For future reference: the lectures that he gives to the peasants apply only to the peasants. They do not apply to him.
As many have mentioned before, it is important to understand that Mr. Obama is not really a “person” in the familiar sense. He is more like something raised in a lab. His life has been very public while, at the same time, hermetically sealed off from that public. Education at private school, Columbia and Harvard doesn’t isn’t exactly a serious introduction into the cadences of the regular folks. He has never really worked a real job praticularly one where he had to hustle for a buck. His political education is the result of elitist salons, victimization dogma and fellows like Rev. Wright. He primarily exists as the projection of the hopes and dreams (mostly totalitarian) of the Left and the media. As such are we really surprised that he can only speak in cliches, bromides and with a hectoring and impatient tone? When you come down from the mountain with The Truth people are supposed to listen to you dammit.
WH makeover? Haven’t seen nor care to see it. If it’s anything like the Obama’s ‘cool clothing’ (the ever so ‘popular’ straight leg/stone washed jeans and FAR-too tight tops with flesh hanging out by the armpit) – I’ll pass.
Brian Richard Allen – Yeah the Foster ‘investigation’ always had me reeling when in school.
Ken Starr bungled the Vince Foster ‘investigation’ so badly, it made O.J.’s ‘Dream Team’ look competent!
The evidence (or lack thereof) at Marcy Park, Foster’s vehicle was odd to say the least.
Very drab looking decor. The drapes especially look weird. They seem to have a pattern that looks like dirt splashed on them. I suppose the White House will have to be fumigated by the next president to get the odor of cigaret smoke out of the woodwork.
The 0val 0rifice is now “Osama Bin Laden” approved.
Camel Jockey beheading beige for everyone!
Hoorah!
I think you’re on to something, Delia. I bet it’s intended to look like “cave interior/circa northern Pakistan mountains”…..I wonder if the toilet in the bathroom off the oval office is a squat toilet, like those that are being installed in some major shopping centers in Great Britain for the convenience and comfort of the jihadis in their midst.
I am not sure why people continue to say that Obama actually went to, or even graduated from, Columbia. Absolutely no one remembers him there. The only people who vouched for him were a couple of Pakistanis, one apparently a narcotics dealer. There is no proof or even evidence that BHO was in New York during those years.
There’s evidence he was in NY and wrote an article for the Sundial on 3/10/83.
Pretty much an anti-nuke piece, and not all that well written. I pulled a copy of the net some time ago…it was referenced in an AT article I believe. Pretty much clears up any doubt that he’d like to disarm the US IMHO. There was some opinion at the time that we were on the brink of war with the Soviets…ie that they were going to pre-emptively strike the US given their view of the moves of the Reagan admin at that time.
He may have dropped in from time to time. Still no proof that he graduated, or whether he was in the US most of the time. Maybe this is the time when Brzezinski, mastermind of arming the mujahadeen in Pakistan, got ahold of Barry. Obama’s early life is a black hole, much of it.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm
The timing of O’s article was coindental with what was going on here. I don’t remember the link where I found it but the title of his article was :” breaking the war mentatlity” here’s another NYT link: http://documents.nytimes.com/obama-s-1983-college-magazine-article
So we know that he indeed wrote once in the school paper
These two keep reminding me of the Jeffersons on TV. Just like the theme song.
Movin on up to the big time…
Link to article by BO. Also background for the times…draw your own conclusions.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm
http://documents.nytimes.com/obama-s-1983-college-magazine-articleks to article:
President Obama’s redecoration fits snugly within an ideology of elitism: rule by experts, of whom he considers himself to be one. Liberalism, which used to be about the forgotten man, has become a kind of insider’s club. Everything has changed except the label.
See “Liberalism and its discontent”:
http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/liberalism-and-its-discontent/
Here’s the problem. Obozo is acting like he’s the next caliph, and we haven’t gotten around to stopping him yet.
Don’t try to tell me Obama is not a Muslim!
The Obamas come from a background that teaches them they are OWED something by this “downright mean” country. So they are going to load up on the perks, knowing full well the axe falls in 2012.
Take a look at the following page that features historical photos of the Oval office. NTS, Obama is not the only one whose taste is all in his mouth. http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/west-wing/oval-office-history.htm
Nixon’s was particularly tasteless, IMO.
What I think the President is finding out is that once you lose your mojo, everything you do, however modest or innocuous, is going to be attacked, criticized and ridiculed. And he really hasn’t seen anything yet. Two years ago he channeled the deluded dreams of millions of Americans. Now he gets to channel their irrational anger and frustration. (Redecorating his office is a big deal? Not really. But it will do.)
Nowhere to run, baby, no place to hide. He should have stayed in the Senate. What an easy gig compared to this Presidency stuff.
Bees? Really?
How quaint. How back to earth!
How labor intensive!
How expensive!
A beekeeper friend recently did whatever they call it to his hives. (Extraction?) He had an abundance of honey! It was a lot of sometimes messy work, including the few random bees circling the dining room where he had spread blue tarps over the rug and partly up the walls after shoving the dining room table up chair rails. So who’s paying to have the White House honey extracted? THAT’s the kind of stupid stuff that added up shows these people are not serious at all.
I think the bees in the South Lawn is actually a rather cool idea, but let’s get real here. It’s for show because neither of the Obamas are farmers or aspire to be even hobby farmers.
We all would be more impressed if Obama had bothered to pay attention to what he had in his “health care ‘reform’” bill that is going to totally bury small business folk and hobby farmers in the bizarre 1099 paperwork requirements inserted in there which are designed to trip everyone up.
Get out of our lives all ye who dwell in DC and play pretend farmer. Stop charging your fantasy Christmas lists to our cards.
Re: 3. eon–
eon, you are 180 degrees out of phase. Macs are MUCH more resistant to hacking than are Windows boxes. I work in IT (information technology) and I’m ALWAYS rebuilding Windows boxes that have been hacked. I’ve NEVER had to rebuild a Mac due to hacking. That’s not to say that Macs are immune to getting hacked, but it is much harder for a hacker to get in to a Mac due to better OS design. Just about everything on a Windows box is hackable from the word go.
–chicopanther
I think the biggest issue is the appalling double standard applied here. Liberals see no problem spending vast amounts of money to redecorate the White House when a Democrat is in it, but they had a fit back when Nancy Reagan got new china.
They praise Michelle Obama’s great fashion taste when she wears very expensive silk dresses, but smear Sarah Palin over a wardrobe she was given.
Obama’s inaugural (or coronation as the MSM treated it) was lavishly expensive during a time of economic hardship, yet the MSM attacked the Bush administration over far smaller expenses during his 2nd inaugural.
There are numerous more examples, liberalism is all about hypocrisy. With liberals austerity only applies to others, but not to themselves.
But of course! It (their double standards vis a vis just about everything under the sun) is the hallmark of their elitism!
Punk. Sarcasm duly noted.
May I presume it would be illegal to drag these turds from their offices with a John Deere tractor, hang every last one of them from their personal “tree” on the National Mall, and await the buzzards to clean up this mess? Hmmm?
Yes? What a shame.
The first task of the president who boots Elephant Ears and Mz. Bozo into the street in 2012 will be to fumigate the Oval Office. Then take a week for a Hazmat team to sponge down the walls and terminate the lice. Geeze, what a dumpster-diver!
Riding the Affirmative Action gravy train means never having to say you’re sorry.
I’d bet the bland color scheme was chosen as a “calming” factor for Obooby, as I’ve heard he is wound pretty tightly.
Anybody who thinks a carpet in off-yellow is “calming” needs serious therapy.
I’m sure the White House staff “appreciate” the fact that keeping it clean and presentable-looking is a pain in the you-know-what, too. The One is just going out of his way to make their jobs easier, isn’t he?
/sarc
cheers
eon
Two topics come to mind here:
1. Obama did not get his quote right, proving the quality of his scholarship and making our “law professor” President look stupid. It also shows again, like the letter he sent to Chirac on his first day in office that his staff is so enthralled with him they cannot bring themselves to check his work to avoid embarrassment.
2. It pains me to read some of the comments here. Quite frankly, I wish people would just avoid any and all reference to Obama’s race or religion because it makes their comments seem ignorant or bigoted. Frankly many of them are.
Do not focus on the why of Barack Obama, focus only on what he does. He is who he is. He managed to slip through quality control and we have to deal with this fact. We need to manage our nation wisely and get through some very challenging times, preferably without a Caliphate in Europe or a nuclear war.
I take it you disagree with our illustrious Attorney General, that it’s a *good* thing to have “open discussions” on race …?
“HOW I WENT FROM BEING YOUR ORDINARY MILLIONAIRE TO YOUR PLUPERFECT TRILLIONAIRE IN ONE EASY LESSON”
by Barack Obama
Obama doesn’t have a tin ear to voters; he is a driver of conflict and its his history to make certain “middle America” is upset as often as possible. Its inconceivable the team who mastered candidate Obama’s brand would perform this poorly or this often by accident.
Aw we had the top search for Audacity of Taupe for years before this guy steals our formulation.
http://docweasel.wordpress.com/2008/page/3/