A blog about Politics, Personal Journals, and Family & Home.
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Geography challenged Sarah Palin can't even ACE a friendly interview. Fighting for the Right to Hang Laundry Our Recovery is Outpacing Europe's....I wonder why? Jesus was a liberal. Palin’s Exxon Valdez account draws guffaws Going Rogue "The 18 Biggest Falsehoods In Palin's Book" CNN Poll: Most Americans say Palin not qualified to serve as President Do you suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia Lou Dobbs Is Quitting CNN If money was no object, where would you most want to go or what would you most want to do. August 06 September 06 October 06 November 06 December 06 January 07 February 07 March 07 April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 
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Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal called President Barack Obama’s economic-stimulus plan “irresponsible,” and said it will inflate taxes and the federal deficit in an address establishing himself as a leading critic of the new administration’s economic policies. “It’s no way to strengthen our economy, create jobs, or build a prosperous future for our children,” Jindal said in a nationally televised speech last night that provided the official Republican response to Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress. “The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens,” Jindal said in arguing that the stimulus plan and other proposals by Obama to revive the nation’s economy rely too much on government spending and taxes. Jindal himself became the subject of criticism by some analysts and bloggers, who cited a flat delivery. Jindal “seemed more like a high school student giving a valedictory speech than a potential future leader of the party,” wrote Philip Klein of the “American Spectator.” Said Brit Hume of Fox News: “The speech read a lot better than it sounded. This was not Bobby Jindal’s greatest oratorical moment.” Your three cats. It's been a matter of debate in our house for a week whether you'd finally act like adults and take responsibility for your uber producing cats. Why did I think you'd suddenly change character? 1. You didn't take your sick kitten to the vet when she was near death from a suppurating wound. 2. You didn't come over when I asked you to (and you said you would) to get that same cat when she was giving birth in our back yard, in a wet cardboard box. 3. You lied to me when you said you had finally had your cats neutered and spayed. 4. Your wife egged our house while we were gone because she was mad at me for telling the kids to stay off of our newly seeded lawn. 5. You didn't get insulted when the neighbors, up and down the block, had to tell your kids to go home because it was dark and cold outside. 6. You didn't get insulted when the neighbors told your kids to stop showing up at mealtimes EVERY DAY. 7. You seemed impervious to shame when you and your druggie wife conducted your scream fests in front of the neighbors and the workmen I had laying cement. Or any of the other dozens of fights you had in the front yard. 8. You took the easiest possible means to drain your green pool even though it meant draining it along the side of our house and thereby killing our bushes and bedding plants. 9. You had no empathy for the two dogs you kept on a 15 x 15 cement slab on the side of the house where no one (except me) talked to them for days on end. They had to fight over the small amount of shade that fell on that cement slab during the summer time. 10. You didn't seem to miss the three 6 week old kittens who were mysteriously run over 5 blocks from here. All within a two block radius. HOW DID they get over there? 11. You don't seem to care or understand that your children are going to emulate your behavior someday. Will they also leave their responsibilities for someone else to clean up. In short, E. & B. you epitomize the phrase "neighbors from hell".
California GOP strains for ways to broaden appealReporting from Sacramento -- California Republicans cast about for ideas to revive their ailing party on Saturday, but struggled to define a clear vision for expanding their appeal beyond the dwindling ranks of older white conservatives.
At a glum gathering of Republican faithful, GOP leaders hewed to the party's traditional call to scale back government, even as many voters demand just the opposite to stop the economy's downward slide. At the same time, the GOP leaders lamented their party's failure to win over more women, Latinos, African Americans and younger voters, a shortcoming that points toward more defeats ahead for a party long relegated to firm minority status in California.
"Right now the party is pretty aimless," said state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a candidate for governor in the party's June 2010 primary. "It's got no strong leadership, and that's got to be fixed." Poizner and his top rival in the primary, former EBay chief executive Meg Whitman, were supposed to be the main attractions at the state party's weekend convention near the domed Capitol. Instead, fury among Republicans over the $12.5 billion in tax hikes approved by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature led to fratricidal maneuvers to punish the six GOP lawmakers who voted Friday for the state budget.
While Poizner and Whitman each sharply denounced the tax increases, delegates went further, crafting a plan to censure the legislators for damaging both the California economy and, not incidentally, the party's "brand name." In the end, a party committee scratched the censure but voted to deny party money to any of the six lawmakers who might seek reelection. http://www.youtube.com/watc... http://www.youtube.com/watc... Musically just OK, but rousing fun! http://www.youtube.com/watc... Nobody does it better than Johnny Cash. Two weeks after the presidential election in November, Scooter Libby was given a pardon by Bush.
Don't you just love it when .......Dedicated to Aaron Bros. and Jessica at CS for The Picture People
Don't you just love it when You get GOOD customer service. Both stores believed my tale of woe and put forth 100% to help me. Thank you Aaron Brothers and Jessica at the Picture People for exemplifying "old fashioned customer service". http://www.youtube.com/watc... She saying "I want to go...I want to go...I want to go" She did catch a later (3 hours) flight. By Sarah Vos - the Lexington Herald Leader The food is simple and straightforward, but it points to a time when horses were the dominant mode of transportation, when some families still owned slaves and when Kentucky's most famous native son, Abraham Lincoln, once walked the streets of Lexington.
As part of Lexington's celebration of Lincoln's 200th birthday, a handful of restaurants are serving dishes from Lincoln's Table, a cookbook of recipes from Lincoln's life. The event was organized by the Lexington Public Library, and the dishes are being served through September.
A la lucie offers a different Lincoln special every night. Though the restaurant is out of peaches now, the most popular summer offering was Miss Mary Speed's peach pie. The peaches aren't glazed or precooked. They're just put in the pie shell and baked.
"It was actually quite basic, but just absolutely delicious," said Alan Schmidt, who bakes the pies for a la lucie.
This weekend, they've been cooking up lamb shank and scalloped oysters. The scalloped oysters "you just bake with cream and soda crackers," said restaurant owner Lucie Sloan Meyers. The shank is baked with carrots, onions and celery until the meat basically falls off the bones.
Next week at Alfalfa, try President's Chaire, which chef Paul Nowacki explains is "just a fairly standard chicken casserole," and Kentucky Wonders, finger-shaped fried dough.
During August, Nowacki has served rail splitters (tangy corn muffins), Sally Johnston's Hasty pudding (polenta) and mushroom soup. "They're all very, very simple," he said. By the time Dudley's signed up for Lincoln's Table, there weren't many recipes left to choose from. "There's a lot of things, like tongue and aspic, that I'm like, we're not going to be able to move here," said Jonathan Gossett, the chef.
So he chose sorghum cake, a moist spice cake that he serves with a blackberry compote.
So far, the dessert hasn't been that popular. It's competing with more modern flavors like mango pound cake and avocado ice cream.
Pressed on what he would do to invigorate the recipe, to make it more amenable to modern tastes, Gossett paused, and then decided to change the recipe, giving the cake a butter cream icing.
"It needs a little bit of a lift to be attractive," he said.
NY Times News Service Washington- Buried deed inside the $787 billion economic stimulus bill is some bitter medicine for companies that have received financial bailout funds. Senate Democrats inserted a provision that would impose restrictions on executive bonuses at financial institutions that re much tougher than those proposed 10 days ago by the Treasure Department. The new limits prohibit cash bonuses and almost all other incentive compensation for the five most-senior officers and the 20 highest paid executives at large companies that receive money under the Treasury Asset Relief Program, or TARP. The restriction with the most bite would bar top executives from receiving bonuses that exceed one third of their annual pay. The provision written by Sen. Chris Dodd D-Conn, highlighted the growing wrath among lawmaker and voters over the lavish compensation that top Wall Street firms and big banks awarded at the same time that many of the companies, teetering on the brink of insolvency, received taxpayer-paid bailouts. "The decisions of certain Wall Street executives to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers have seriously undermined public confidence," Dodd said Friday. "These tough new rules will help ensure that taxpayer dollars no long effectively subsidize lavish Wall Street bonuses." The legislatively imposed pay curbs are, in essence, a bad report card for the new Treasury secretary. An Open Letter to President Obama About the Republicans (From a Former Republican)By Frank SchaefferThe lack of cooperation you're getting from the Republican Party will continue. If you think that the Republicans in Congress and the Senate are going to do more than their utmost to obstruct everything you are and what you stand for you're dreaming. As someone who appeared numerous times on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson, as someone for whom Jerry Falwell used to send his private jet to bring me to speak at his college, as an author who had James Dobson giveaway 150,000 copies of my one of my fundamentalist "books" allow me to explain something: the Republican Party is controlled by two ideological groups. First, is the Religious Right. Second, are the neoconservatives. Both groups share one thing in common: they are driven by fear and paranoia. Between them there is no Republican "center" for you to appeal to, just two versions of hate-filled extremes. The Religious Right supply the kind of people who at McCain and Palin rallies were yelling things such as "kill him" about you. That's the constituency to which your hand was extended when looking for compromise on your financial bailout bill. There's only one thing that makes sense for you now. Mr. President, you need to forget a bipartisan approach and get on with the business of governing by winning each battle. You will never be able to work with the Republicans because they hate you. Believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the norm not the exception. James Dobson and the rest are praying for you to fail. The neoconservatives are gnashing their teeth and waiting for you to "sell out Israel" or "show weakness" in Afghanistan, whatever, so they can declare you a traitor. The problem is that when you deal with the Republican Party you're talking to the polished characters in Washington. I wish you could see the hate e-mail's that I have received over the last two years because I supported you, letters calling for God to kill me, telling me that I hate God because I supported you and that I am "an abortionist" and worse a "fag lover" because I've written that I believe that you will be a great president. What those senators and congressmen are telling you is not what their rabid core constituents are telling them. Their loyalty is to a fundamentalist Christian ideology on the one hand and American exceptionalism of perpetual warfare and hatred and fear of the "other" on the other hand. Between the neoconservatives and evangelical Religious Right Republicans you have no friends. The good news is that most Americans support you. And if you will just get in the face of the Republican Party and call their bluff you'll be surprised how many individual ordinary Republicans will support you, not to mention the rest of us. America is sick of the Republicans. The Democratic Party won for a reason: the Republicans failed and have taken us all down with them! You're doing your presidency and America no favor by extending an open hand to the perpetually knotted fist of what has become the embittered lunatic fringe of our country. They would rather go down in flames than "compromise" their ideology. As you showed us again at your press conference of Feb 9, you are a brilliant, articulate and decent man. Your Republican opponents are not decent people but ideologues bent on destroying you. To quote the biblical adage sir, don't cast your pearls before swine.
The frost was nipping at my toes as I worked to get a decent shot. I'm throwing in a shot of the moon I took the other night. I can't seem to find the right setting for a night shot. Edited for brevity's sake "The End of the World Blues" by Ian Ewan We confront our mortality in the familiar consolations of religion - "That vast moth-eaten musical brocade" thought Larkin, "Created to pretend we never die". Throughout recorded history people have mesmerized themselves with stories which predict the date and manner of our whole scale destruction, often rendered meaningful by ideas of divine punishment and ultimate redemption; the end of life on earth, the end of last days, end time, the apocalypse. Many of these stories are highly specific accounts of the future and are devoutly believed. The apocalyptic mind can be demonizing - that is to say there are other groups, other faiths, that it despises for worshiping false gods, and these believers of course will not be saved from the fires of hell. And the apocalyptic mind tends to be totalitarian - which is to say that these are intact, all-encompassing ideas founded in longing and supernatural belief, immune to evidence or its lack, and well-protected against the implications of fresh data. Consequently, moments of unintentional pathos, even comedy, arise - and perhaps something in our nature is revealed - as the future is constantly having to be rewritten, new anti-Christs, new Beasts, new Babylons, new Whores located, and the old appointments with doom and redemption quickly replaced by the next. Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium is a study of a variety of end-time movements that swept through northern Europe between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. These sects generally inspired by the symbolism in the Book of Revelation, typically led by a charismatic prophet, were seized by the notion of an impending end, to be followed by the establishing of the Kingdom of God on earth. In preparation for this, it was believed necessary to slaughter Jews, priests, and property owners. The authorities, church and lay would put down these bands with overwhelming violence. Now, the slaughter has abated, but what strikes the reader of Cohn's book are the common threads that run between medieval and contemporary apocalyptic thought. First, and in general, the resilience of the end-time forecasts - time and again, for five hundred years, the date is proclaimed, nothing happens, and no one feels discouraged from setting another date. Second, the Book of Revelation spawned a literary tradition that kept alive in medieval Europe the fantasy that Christians as well as Jews, could now be the Chosen People, the saved r the Elect. Third, there looms the figure of a mere man, apparently virtuous, risen to eminence, but in reality seductive and Satanic - he is the anti-Christ. end of part one I was blind, and now I see Sherdavia Jenkins, 9, was playing with her doll in her front-yard before a stray bullet killed her during a Liberty City shooting.
lpitts@miamiherald.comIn Los Angeles, there is a park named in honor of Griffith J. Griffith, whose claim to fame is that he made a fortune speculating in gold mining and gave the city a large tract of land. In Chicago, there is a park named in honor of Ulysses S. Grant, whose claim to fame is that he commanded Union forces in the Civil War and was 18th president of the United States. And in Miami, there is, as of last week, a park named in honor of Sherdavia Jenkins, whose claim to fame is that she was shot to death in 2006 while playing at her own front door. Thus do we attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible and sanctify the profane. A 9-year-old girl takes a bullet in the neck in the crossfire between two gutless, brainless, soulless punks, and we put her name on a sign in a park. I don't mean to disparage the idea. It is a fitting and proper way of keeping that little girl's name alive. It just hurts that we were unable to keep the little girl alive. So we are left making these after-the-fact gestures that are lovely and heartfelt and utterly impotent to stem or even address the violence that wracks our inner cities. Indeed, even as Sherdavia Jenkins Peace Park was being unveiled, her neighborhood was grappling with its latest atrocity: two dead, seven wounded, after some individual with an assault rifle opened up on a street corner craps game. Fifty people were on hand, but police say they have few witnesses. Apparently, everyone was struck blind at the same time. The Rev. Al Sharpton came to town last week, part of what he calls a national campaign against the so-called ''stop snitching'' culture within the African-American community. Speaking at a church rally, he called out those folks who suddenly went blind. ''You are traitors to our race and denigrating our community,'' he said. Amen. This idea that we as black people owe some debt of silence to the corrupters and killers among us who shoot our babies and frighten our mothers and steal our sons is -- pardon my French -- bassackward, yet somehow, it has taken root in our community. You see it in that T-shirt some black men wear, the one with the old Warner Brothers WB logo and the legend that reads, ''If you see da police warn a brother.'' You see it in a street saying: snitches get stitches. You see it in Stop Snitching, a DVD sold in Baltimore a few years back that threatened snitches with death. You see it in the rapper Cam'ron saying in 2007 that he wouldn't snitch even if there were a serial killer next door. You see in the blind eyes of 50 witnesses. Yes, some of us have a well-founded and deep-seated distrust of the criminal justice system. But you know what? It's the only system we've got. Does it really make more sense to make common cause with people who are trying to kill you, to be loyal to those who have no loyalty to anything, all out of some idiotic notion of solidarity, or even out of plain old fear? African Americans have never been a weak and cowardly people. Weak and cowardly people do not risk their lives running to freedom. Weak amd cowardly people do not stand against government and guns, dogs and fire, demanding freedom. Weak and cowardly people do not produce Harriet Tubmans, Henry Johnsons, Rosa Parkses, Martin Luther Kings or Barack Obamas. But this right here, this so-called ''stop snitching'' culture? It's as weak and cowardly as it gets. Until and unless we find it in ourselves to confront and roll that culture back, our inner cities will remain blighted places that never see their full potential, places where businesses fear to locate, good people fear to walk, a child is unsafe at her own front door. And blind people stroll in the parks.
Dave Barry:
Alabama: Hell Yes, We Have Electricity
• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient. • A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film. • $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program. • $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship). • $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters. • $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters. • $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees. • $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's. • $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs. • $125 million for the Washington sewer system. • $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities. • $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion. • $75 million for "smoking cessation activities." • $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges. • $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI. • $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction. • $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River. • $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas. • $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings. • $500 million for state and local fire stations. • $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands. • $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs. • $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service. • $412 million for CDC buildings and property. • $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland. • $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service. • $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration. • $850 million for Amtrak. • $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint. • $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies. • $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems. • $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.
Former Sen. Tom Daschle has withdrawn his nomination to head the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a statement Tuesday from the White House.
Former Sen. Tom Daschle apologized for making mistakes on his tax records. Daschle had been fighting to save his nomination after controversy over his tax records and questions over his work in a field that some consider lobbying. In a statement announcing his withdrawal, Daschle said it was an honor to be chosen to lead the reform of America's health care system. "But if 30 years of exposure to the challenges inherent in our system has taught me anything, it has taught me that this work will require a leader who can operate with the full faith of Congress and the American people, and without distraction," he said. "Right now, I am not that leader, and will not be a distraction. The focus of Congress should be on the urgent business of moving the president's economic agenda forward, including affordable health care for every American." |
