Luvz ya, Fareed, but you left out a few important points re: AIIB, TPP, China

Of course it's true that a number of the U.S.financial allies ignored U.S. attempts to persuade them to not join China's AIIB, but they did anyway, and it's likely that Republicans will make repeated attempts to paint this as lack of U.S. leadership/Obama's entire fault for this, but take a look at what Iceland's efforts to divorce U.S. financial sway independently of China, which I posted about not too long ago.

It's the global financial/banking collapse under Dubya's watch which causes today's refusal to follow any U.S. finance leadership anywhere and it doesn't matter who is president.  It's the U.S. conservative religion on finances which has demonstrated how wrong it is and you can consider Iceland and allies who join up with China's AIIB to be the U.S. capitalism religion's heretics in such numbers that we can all call them Financial Protestants at this point, and that's also what's causing the near-fatal snag with the TPP, and, conceivably, the TTIP--China.

China's looking more attractive to the global market place than the ham-handed U.S. these days, and y'all have Dubya, and his Party, to thank for that. Fareed Zakaria overlooked this awfully big elephant in the tent when he addressed the AIIB matter this morning.

(I did make the attempt to locate an explanatory link for China's AIIB and the best that came up was stuff on the Bank China--sorry. It is an investment partnership that China's advocating as an alternative to the U.S. World Bank).

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Sunday addendum, 60 Minutes Edition: I just heard the phrase "smartest IT guys...are no match..." against hackers, in context of the Sony hackery by N. Korea. I just shook my head, laughing out loud.  The smartest IT guys working for Sony aren't smart enough to do what I did on the private network over here--it works like the internet but there's no connection to the Internet for things that are internal operations. A separate gateway is connected to the Internet for only those functions for which the Internet is required.  The system is designed such that NO internal functions rely on the Internet, and the Internet is used for communications as a separate system. DUH.

So the wiz kids at Sony made ALL Sony internal functions Internet-dependent?  Pretty st00pid, in MY book.  It IS possible to make a LAN system to facilitate internal functions with NO Internet dependencies. GeeeeezLouise.

So Hillary's running. Yeah, surprise surprise surprise--didn't see THAT one coming. {/sarcasm}

And now for something completely different: I attended a delightful presentation of the Pirates of Penzance at the Enid Symphony, and it got a well deserved standing ovation.  Indeed, I stood too, although I was holding my camera, for I applaud profusely any presentation that so closely involves the audience, as this most certainly did. The maids made first appearance not on the stage but in the balcony area, went down the stairs and up the aisles to reach the stage, singing.  Ah, but that wasn't all.  Here's a clip of the intro:

Spotted a Chautauqua regular (and supporter too, by the way):

Another Chautauqua regular and major supporter was honored at this performance, too: Lew Ward, of Ward Oil.  My hat's off to you too, sir.  Now--how does one go about putting a full orchestra on the same stage as the actors?  Well, how 'bout putting a few horns in the balcony...

Hey, how 'bout that backdrop, hm?

You saw that right, in the balcony and on the stage: the entire orchestra was dressed as pirates.  After intermission, the bass fiddle guy put a Jolly Roger on its neck..just not in the next clip...

Ahhh, what's next...yeahhhh, THAT's wut I'm talkin' 'bout....

Oh hey, I never get tired of anything by Gilbert & Sullivan. I just wonder why Iolanthe doesn't get more popular by comparison, though.  Or Mikado. Some considerable years back, during the Reagan administration, the CBC did a rip-Reagan-royally rendition of The Gondoliers.  The Gondoliers--that's another one that deserves a revival.  So could Molière, for that matter.  No, that's NOT a G&S production, that's a vintage French satirical playwright, another favorite of mine.  Tartuffe, peut-etre--it comes to mind immediately. That would be timely indeed.

So, then--how 'bout a sample of a modern major general...

I daresay my Erinadar went off. I detected a wee trace of Irish lilt in that gent.
...and now a word for our sponsors and a zapped parrot...coq au vin, anyone?

Hail, hail, the gang's all here with cat-like anvil chorus tread...

...and in comes Queen Victoria to save the world...of course we all know who saves HER.

A standing O well earned, and a great time was had by all!