Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Monday, June 16, 2008

Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus

By Cernig



Oh, what a Shakespearean experience it is to be the Chief Executive. Even the ultra-conservative British tabloid The Daily Mail has to notice.

Air Force One landed in a VIP area of Heathrow, part of a fleet that included another 747 aircraft, two smaller jets and four helicopters.



Two police helicopters were also in the air and scores of officers were on the ground.



The airport authority BAA insisted disruption to the travelling public was 'not that significant', although scheduled services were still suffering the knock- on effects of a 20-minute runway closure some four hours later.



Long before the grand arrival, an 11-strong convoy of vehicles moved into place to greet the incoming President.



Later a motorcade of 13 vehicles  -  including a travelling hospital, armed UK police in 4x4s, and at least one decoy vehicle (pronounced veehickle)  -  emerged from Heston service station.



The M4 there had already been cleared of traffic and was deserted when the convoy trundled off.



Following an example set by Tony Blair, it used the bus-only lane for the journey into London.



The president, incidentally, was not even in the convoy  -  he flew to Windsor by helicopter.

And upon landing in Windsor Castle grounds, he journeyed the last hundred or so yards to the door by limo, especially flown in for the event. Still, at least he didn't take an entire Marine invasion force on their own asault carrier this time, as he did to the G-8 summit in Gleneagles.



Is there any chance that the next incumbent of the White House might be less of a paranoid pantswetter and able to trust his allies in Britain and the rest of Europe to provide his security?



(Hat tip - Kat)



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  1. andersonJune 17, 2008 at 9:36 AM

    Cernig,
    Do you really think it is pants-wetting? I think he is just enamoured of the his ability to command such an impressive entourage and, of course, thrilling at his own displays of power and license to aggrevate as many people as possible. Think of it as a massive frat-boy ego trip.

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