Target of Terrorists?

http://www.incitynews.com/columnists/administrator/sir-paul-terror-target-3.html

What next?

My Favorite Time of Year

Sitting on my new living room furniture in my new apartment, the French door open to the cooling late September evening air, I heard the voices of children playing outside. Unlike most people my age who've been used to living alone for many years, I welcomed the sound. There were no children in my old apartment complex.

I found that out one lonely Halloween/Trick or Treat night. I had hurried home from work to dress in my witch regalia, broom included. I poured bags of candy into my brown earthenware bowl. I turned my porch light on. I turned off most of the inside lights and waited. And waited...and waited...and waited. My doorbell didn't ring all evening. Disappointed, I reluctantly took off my witch persona and turned on the TV. I took the candy (well, most of it) into work.

Yesterday as I listened to kids playing, I fantasized about the coming Trick or Treat night, this year falling, happily for this witch, on Halloween. I have my black dress, my striped tights, my cape and broom - and of course the hat - all ready to go.

I'll need to buy lots and lots of candy!

The Perfect Movie...

...when you wake up too early and don't want to do all the things you have to do...

My New BFF

Anyone who can keep me watching TV when I can hardly
keep my eyes open, deserves the ratings she's getting.
Rachel, you rock!

So we "gamble" our health insurance....

From Paul Krugman in the NYT, McCain's on words:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

So now, with the meltdown on Wall Street, where would are health insurance be?

Oh, and let's not forget that McCain and the Republicans touted doing the same with Social Security. So if you had a pension or 401K and Social Security invested in the stock market and you were inches away from retiring, you would now be...where? Certainly not in one of your 7 (or is it 8?) houses.

This is what happens when the wealthy 1% have control over the lives of the rest of us.

ENOUGH!

Does McCain know minor facts....

Chris Kelly on a Huffington Post blog writes today about McCain and Palin's credentials:

"She has been commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. Fact. On September 11 a contingent of the Guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them so I think she understands national security challenges."
Which is fine except:
The governor of Alaska doesn't command the National Guard in combat overseas.
Sarah Palin didn't deploy anyone anywhere on September 11th. She was a guest speaker at an Army deployment ceremony.
Track Palin isn't in the National Guard; he's in the Army. (Mitzi says: WTF?)
Sometimes it seems like it's more than John McCain can handle, just keeping all the lies about Sarah Palin straight in his head. Tomorrow he'll say she's in the Air Force herself, on a plane she bought on eBay, bombing the bridges at Toko-Ri.
--
It's all Shiites and Sunnis to John McCain. So what's your problem? We're told that Lord Raglan fought the entire Crimean War believing the Russians were the French. And that worked out okay because, uh, everyone under his command died.
--
"I know how to win wars! I know how to win wars!" -- John McCain 7/15/08 (Mitzi says: So you won in Vietnam? And how come we're losing in Afghanistan??)
I know this is a sort of threadbare exercise -- the old switcheroo -- but imagine what would happen if Barack Obama got the Army and the National Guard mixed up.
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust
huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/the-delicate-subject-of-j_b_127359.html

More about Sarah

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/there-is-something-about_b_126684.html

I recently read this quote by an Alaskan citizen who said she was "proud of Sarah but...":
"She scares the beejeezus out of me..."

It's now my favorite because....

She scares the beejeezus out of me!

Definition of Crazy:

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

The American voters did something crazy in 2000... with the help of the Supreme Court. Are we going to do it over?

Let's hope not. Don't just listen to the candidates - read their resumes, read their platforms, read their goals. But are the American voters smart enough to do that? Doesn't look like it.

"We won't be fooled again."

Uh...maybe not.

The Truth

Where is the Truth during this campaign? Here is a portion of the truth from this website:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/15/84829/6022/760/599280

• During the primary, McCain ditched every difference he had w/Bush to get nominated
• McCain went from voting with Bush for 90% of the last 8 years to 100% this year
• Many of McCain’s top campaign staff ran Bush’s campaign; his ‘town halls’ staged like Bush's
• The last time the GOP tried to package someone as a reformer during an election, it was Bush
• McCain never split w/Bush on Rumsfeld/Cheney, he said he would have hired them himself


• Obama bucked his party during the primary, opposing health care mandates, addressing the future Social Security solvency crisis, and advocating teacher merit pay
• Obama is endorsed by a long list of high profile conservatives and elected Republicans
• Not one high profile progressive or Democrat endorses McCain (CT Dems booted JL in 06)
• Obama bucked many of his own big donors during the primary to support the writers strike
• Obama worked across the aisle in the Senate with Republicans like Dick Lugar and Tom Coburn
• Obama pushed through strict ethics reforms against the will of many in both parties


• Obama has the strongest reform record of any candidate in modern history
• Obama pushed through the strongest ethics reform in his state for decades, The Gift Ban Act
• Obama pushed through the strongest ethics reform at the federal level in decades, The Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act, co-sponsoring and authoring numerous other reform bills
• McCain's single ethics reform accomplishment in 25 years is the McCain-Feingold bill
• McCain says he has never requested an earmark, but he asked for and received a $10 million earmark in 2006 and a $14.3 million earmark in 2003
• Obama pushed through a bipartisan bill making every earmark public knowledge


• Obama will cut taxes for 95% of Americans; his middle class tax cut is 3 - 8 times bigger than McCain’s according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center
• Obama’s budget adds up better than "we’ve seen in a Presidential candidate in a very long time"; his plan will leave 1.2 trillion dollars less debt than McCain’s (non-partisan TPC)
• McCain had to check with his staff when asked how many houses he owns and what kind of car he drives; he spends $250,000 a year on house servants alone


• US Troops overseas donated 6x more to Obama; our troops prefer his Iraq plan by 30 pts
• Obama always urged focus on Al Qaeda in Afg/Pak while McCain/Bush focused on Iraq/Iran
• Obama correctly predicted that invading Iraq would increase terrorism; Obama, alone among all candidates in urging focus on Pakistan last year, was vindicated by the recent turmoil there
• Non-partisan Disabled Veterans of America scorecard: McCain 20%, Obama 80%


• The Obama Presidential campaign is the first in living memory where average Americans own the biggest share: more than 50% of donations to Obama have been $25 or less, 80% have been $100 or less, and 93% have been $200 or less
• "You would have to go back a century and a half to name an incoming president with so few debts to repay"
• Obama and the DNC accept no federal lobbyist or PAC donations; McCain and the RNC do
• McCain has 133 lobbyists working for his campaign; his top staff is mostly DC lobbyists
• McCain got 10x more Top CEO donations than Obama in return for corporate tax breaks
• McCain's flip in favor of drilling was rewarded immediately with big donations from oil execs


• Obama has served 12 yrs at the federal and state level (4 yrs US Sen + 8 yrs IL Sen)
• Obama co-sponsored 15 bills that became federal law and co-sponsored 570 bills
• Obama sponsored 823 bills and cast over 4000 votes in the IL Senate
• Obama, a Constitutional Law Professor for over 10 yrs, would be the first to become President
• Obama spent 3 years as the executive in charge of a budget that went from $70K to $400K while serving as a local community organizer in Chicago
• Obama had 80 editors under him as President of the Harvard Law Review
• Obama's runs a campaign with over 2000 employees, more than the White House staff
• Obama got an International Relations specialty in college, later served 4 yrs on Sen Foreign Rel
• Obama's combined time either in public service, studying foreign policy, or directly pertaining to Constitutional Law adds up to twenty-five years, as long as McCain has been in office
• Obama’s record of experience is more diverse and in touch with America than McCain’s, as Obama understands how things work at the local, state, and federal level; McCain has zero local or state experience, with all his experience in office taking place in Washington DC

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr on one of Gov. Palin's quotes

via Politics on HuffingtonPost.com by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on 9/15/08

"Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in pubic premises before the snow flies."

It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list."

Evidently Gov. Palin reviews her quotations as thoroughly as McCain's staff vetted her.

I want someone as Vice President who's smarter than I am - doesn't look like it's her.

Moving...

Packed boxes are stacked all over my living room. I get the key to my new apartment Friday, so I can start moving some of the small stuff in and do some more packing - mostly books - and many of those books may go to the library for their sale.

As I look at all the things I've accumulated over a lifetime, I'm beginning to throw out (as in dumpster) more stuff - much more stuff. In throwing out "stuff", I'm also throwing out the negative feelings of lost loves, friends who betrayed and illnesses lived through.

This move is symbolic in several ways. As I slowly move further away from "my life" in Easton and toward a new life 3000 miles away, I realize how important this first move is - not just in downsizing belongings, but in downsizing that "life". Psychologists call it disengaging. I'm disengaging slowly - from giving up a bag of books to giving up volunteering.

I feel as if I could live in an RV - cats, computer, clothes - and books (only a few at a time) - and travel the country, writing about what I see.

I've discovered that while doing this disengaging, I'm making other connections - 3000 miles away. Each time I visit Heather in Everett, I feel more and more as if I'm "coming home". There's beginning to be more for me there than for me here. And that could be a conscious or subconscious disconnecting - but whatever, it's happening. If there was once something (someone) to hold me here, there is no longer. I feel free to follow some dreams.

I can tell it by my nighttime dreams - I see the Cascades in my dreams. I hear seagulls in my dreams.

A journey of 1000 miles (or 3000 miles), begins with a single step (or 15 miles).

Like I said earlier....

Sure wish McCain had picked Tina Fey.

Just As Silly As ...

...is not talking about the issues.

What the Washington Post missed

Here's the article about Palin getting state expense money for living at home:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26616212/

Here's the part that REALLY bothered me:

"One such invitation came in October 2007, when Willow flew to Juneau to join the Palin family on a tour of the Hub Juneau Christian Teen Center, where Palin and her family worship when they are in Juneau. The state gave the center $25,000, according to a May 2008 memo." (Emphasis added).

Separation of church and state?
Maybe not THIS state.
And to think, I'd thought about retiring to Skagway.

She's Lied!

Some people are afraid to say it. I'm not afraid to say: She lied...
About the "Bridge to No Where"...
About not taking earmarks...
About not misusing her powers...
About not using lobbyists (see "earmarks").

And those are just the beginning. Click on the title and watch a 3 minute video.
Lies, lies, lies!

We had a President who lied about the reason to invade another nation.

Do we need a proven liar this time?

I HAD to write a caption for this picture...

"And then I grabbed him my the balls and said, "Johnny,

you are NOT selling my plane. I don't friggin' care

WHAT that Palin broad did.'"

Giving away stuff can be hard...

It's been in a couple of closets for more than 20 years. I've worn it often but not lately.
"It" is a full length, black fake fur coat with a red satin lining. It was soft and luscious. I just don't wear it anymore - no place to where something like that.

A little back history: Twenty plus years ago, I lost 80+ pounds. I was still chubby but shapely and being tall, a local clothing store that specialized in "larger" sizes asked me to be one of their models.
I had fun, earned points towards clothes and bought the coat.

Yesterday I gave the coat to a thrift store. I hope that another chubby woman buys the coat, wears it and feels glamorous - like I did, more than 20 years ago.

Maverick?

Senator McCain:
As a child of the fifties, I knew Brett Maverick and you're no....

What a minute...
Gambler, conman, womanizer.

Ooops!
My bad.
Carry on..

The Next Thomas Eagleton?

Flashback: 1972 and McGovern chooses Thomas Eagleton. Before you could say "debate", Eagleton bows out because he had a history of electro-convulsive therapy for depression (a treatment of choice thirty-six years ago).

According to the latest news articles (and I don't care if her daughter IS pregnant - I just don't want a VP pushing her "values" on me), the vetting process has not changed much in the last three decades.

And if she does drop out of the campaign, it will be more of set-back for women in politics than Hillary's primary loss. It will just show that women are chosen (by some men) for superficial reasons.

It's all so sad. There were so many conservative Republican women who have the experience and would have been much better picks. If you really think about it, McCain choosing Palin was a huge slap in the face to them.

So sad and a huge step backwards for women in politics.