G-20 Summit Venues

From the White House Office of the Press Secretary:

Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens:

The President and First Lady look forward to welcoming leaders, their spouses and officials to Pittsburgh at the city’s Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. After welcoming the leaders and spouses, President Obama and world leaders will remain at the conservatory for a working dinner. Known as “the Green Heart of Pittsburgh,” Phipps’ earth-sheltered Welcome Center was the first LEED-certified building in a public garden. Its newest addition, the Tropical Forest Conservatory, is the world’s most energy efficient conservatory and is the only conservatory powered by a solid oxide fuel cell.

David L. Lawrence Convention Center:

Demonstrating the possibilities presented by employing new and innovative technology to further economic recovery and development, the Pittsburgh Summit will be held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh. The facility was the first “green” convention center in the world to be awarded the LEED® Gold Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council for leadership in energy and environmental design.

Rosemont Farm:

The First Lady is looking forward to welcoming and hosting the Pittsburgh Summit spousal program. Following the leaders reception, the program will kick off with a private dinner for spouses at the farm of well known Pittsburgh philanthropist Teresa Heinz. The farm is set in the rolling hills just outside of Pittsburgh and will serve as a beautiful and intimate place for the spouses to gather. Rosemont Farm is a fully working farm where they grow their own fruits and vegetables and raise cows, chickens and produce their own fresh eggs.

Creative & Performing Arts School (“CAPA”):

Stemming from the White House's commitment to and encouragement of arts education for young people, Mrs. Obama will share with her counterparts the outstanding arts education opportunities afforded to the students of Pittsburgh. The group will tour and view a performance at the Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 school, located in downtown Pittsburgh’s Cultural District. CAPA, a Creative & Performing Arts public magnet school, enrolls more than 800 full time students who major in dance, instrumental music, vocal music, literary arts, theatre and visual arts. CAPA’s vision, “excellence for all in the arts and academic areas,” is supported by their state of the art facilities and the latest technology.

The Andy Warhol Museum:

The Andy Warhol Museum, located on the north shore of Pittsburgh, will be the setting for a luncheon hosted by the First Lady. The Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, houses the definitive collection of art and archives from the renowned 20th century artist Andy Warhol, who was born and raised in Pittsburgh. The museum is known regionally for being a forum for lively, creative community dialogue, and its staff works with educators, students, and community organizations to encourage and enhance learning through the arts. The museum is also known for bringing the work of Andy Warhol to the world through popular traveling exhibitions, which have been viewed by more than six million people throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia including 15 of the G-20 nations.
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Democratic Women

Michelle Obama gave a warm, engaging, pitch-perfect speech last night. It built layer by layer to a beautiful close which asked the American people to listen to their hopes instead of their fears and to commit to "building the world as it should be."

Of course as a Democratic woman -- especially as the wife of a Democrat seeking the presidency -- she started out at a deficit.

First, she had to prove that she wasn't a crazy, ball-busting bitch.

We all know that the wives of Republican candidates are God-fearin' women who love their husbands and love their country and have all perfected the Nancy Reagan staring-on-adorably-at-hubby pose along side their spouses (especially if hubby has been caught sharing a bed or bathroom stall with someone other than the little Mrs.).

Whereas, we all know (via Republicans and the MSM) that Democratic wives are CRAZY ASS BITCHES who would soon as castrate you as look at you.

Teresa Heinz Kerry was a CRAZY BITCH who'd say any crazy ol' thing and was a Sugar Mama to her weak husband. Michelle Obama is a CRAZY BITCH and oh-my-god-scary-angry-black-woman who hates her country. And then, there's the ultimate CRAZY BITCH, Hillary Clinton, who killed her lover Vince Foster when she wasn't busy being a crazy lesbian and who just wouldn't go away and die like she was supposed to during the primary (thanks to those on the left who helped promote that wingnut meme).

The corollary to the Democratic Wife CRAZY BITCH Rule is the Democratic Male Presidential Candidate as a WEAK FOREIGN WEIRDO Rule.

Al Gore was so "feminized" according to that leftist rag writer Maureen Dowd, that "he's practically lactating." John Kerry was weak and French for godsakes! Barack is a "anorexic starlet" Paris Hilton celebrity who is even more foreign than Kerry!

They are all too weak and femme to be trusted with this nation's security.

After all, if they were REAL MEN, they wouldn't have such CRAZY BITCH wives. REAL MEN -- like Republican politicians -- know how to treat a woman (you divorce her when she becomes sick/old, call her a cunt and offer her up to a crowd of bikers for their inspection).

Anyhoo, eighty-eight years ago today the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was officially ratified and women achieved the right to vote. On the eve of this anniversary, Michelle Obama made reference to that:

"It is because of their will and determination that this week, we celebrate two anniversaries: the 88th anniversary of women winning the right to vote, and the 45th anniversary of that hot summer day when Dr. King lifted our sights and our hearts with his dream for our nation.

I stand here today at the crosscurrents of that history — knowing that my piece of the American dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me. All of them driven by the same conviction that drove my dad to get up an hour early each day to painstakingly dress himself for work. The same conviction that drives the men and women I've met all across this country..."

Moreover, she graciously remarked on the significance of Hillary Clinton's candidacy:

"People like Hillary Clinton, who put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters — and sons — can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher."

Here's her speech in case you missed it:


Michelle Obama at The Democratic National Convention
by petulant

Text here.

(And, here's the Obama kids with their Dad if you missed that moment.)
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The Kerry Event

Just got back from the Kerry Book event (see the photos here).

Maria was correct. A few local bloggers were invited to attend and the cool part was that we were to be seated directly behind the two rows reserved for the local mainstream press.

• Row 1 - Reserved for the MSM
• Row 2 - Reserved for the MSM
• Row 3 - Reserved for us bloggers
• Row 4+ - The huge huge HUGE standing room only crowd.

As another blog-perc, we bloggers (a small group which included The Spork Incident, and a pair of heavy hitters from the John Kerry Blog and Democratic Underground) got about 10 minutes alone with the Kerrys - between Jon Delano's one-on-one and the book event itself.

On a completely self-serving note, here's the complete conversation between Delano and me:

Me: Mr Delano, good to see you! (I said this as we shook hands.)
Him: Well David, (he said as he shook back) when I heard there'd be some local bloggers here, I just knew you'd have to be one of them.

Cool thing here was that this occurred not 4 feet away from the Senator himself. See? It's ALWAYS about me.

Anyway as I said, we were graciously given a few minutes of the Kerry's time before the book event to ask a question or two. As I was the tallest of the bloggers there, it seemed only natural for me to go first. I asked when dealing with environmental questions, how does one deal with the large amount of pseudoscience masquerading as science?

Senator Kerry pointed out that all the science in his book is fully anotated, that there are 928 peer reviewed studies that all point out that human beings are actively contributing to global climate change. Peer-review, he added, is the system used by the scientific community whereby a study is submitted anonymously to a separate group of scientists (ergo "peer") for the methodology and data to be checked. The point being, of course, that if it makes it into a peer-reviewed journal, the science is solid.

Of the studies that disagree, he said, none are published in peer-reviewed journals. The evidence is so overwhelming that one would have to a member of the "flat-Earth caucus (Senator Imhofe, presiding)" in order to believe otherwise.

UPDATE: Here's the youtube clip of the Senator's answer:

The conversation (and it really was more of a conversation than an interview) went in a number of different directions. The Senator pointed out what he called the "Three Big Grabs" of coming to deal with global climate change:

1. Energy Efficiency
2. Alternative fuel sources
3. Clean coal technology

And as the Senator took a quick swipe of some lip balm, we were on our way to the Q & A.

Luckily a local photog (a woman with short hair and in a salmon colored shirt) snagged what was my seat, forcing me to stand. It was lucky as I was able to get some good pics from my scrawny camera phone - better than I would have gotten had I been sitting originally. Thanks Short-haired, Salmon-shirted lady!

If you've never been in that Barnes & Noble, take a look at the pictures in Maria's early blogposting (and I apologise for the low quality of the shots. I was using my camera phone). The space was maybe 30 feet wide and 150 feet long. Filled to capacity with people - so much that they had to move one of the speakers from the front all the way to the back in order for everyone to hear.

While pointing out that the environmental stuff is "Teresa's territory," the Senator laid the ground work for our understanding of the book. All the proceed of the book are given to environmental charities and the book itself grew out of their "deep frustration" at not being able to get people to "connect the dots" during the 2004 presidential election about the environment. Teresa Heinz Kerry pointed out that the book was not written for experts or pundits, but for regular people to read.

The rest of the question and answer period had to do with specific environmental issues (mesothelioma in women caused by the asbestos they laundered out of their husband's clothing, the quality of water in the rivers of North Carolina and so on). They took most of the questions from halfway down the crowd.

At one point, after a particularly sobering assessment by Teresa Heinz Kerry of the many dangerous chemicals found in stuff that should be safe and our government's seeming inability to deal with them, John Kerry took the mic and offered up an rhetorical sorbet of sorts. He stated that he'd noticed while his wife was speaking, the sorts of books displayed around him.

"Look at the size of the Romance section! I think we've been writing the wrong type of book," He said. He read off some of the titles - giving the crowd more than a few chuckles.

There was much too much information doled out at this half-book event half political rally to be addressed here. For more, go read the book.

UPDATE: Here's Jon Delano's story. For local blog-coverage, here's The Spork Incident. And for national blog-coverage, there are two; Democratic Underground and the Kerry Blog.

John, Teresa, (Kerry) & David (2pj)

John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry have co-written a book: This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future.


They are currently discussing and signing the book at the at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at the Waterworks Mall.

2 Political Junkies and some other local blogs were invited to the book signing and here are some pictures from David from this ongoing event:







Looks like an overflow crowd! I guess Pittsburgh still loves the Kerry's.

(FYI: I understand from David that the first couple of rows were reserved for the MSM with the invited bloggers sitting directly behind them, then the rest of the crowd.)