Monday, August 25, 2008
Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for
war.
Andrew Holmes
I worked on Christy's church with Monica, Jennifer, and Bob, Bob was the pro. We
put up about 80 feet of metal roofing. Jennifer is the wife of Jody who is the
new PA at the Selkirk Clinic. She is a good worker. I learned a few things from
Bob about roofing with metal.
G'ma got another one of those nosebleeds, they are very serious, she woke us up
just before 2200 and Christy called 911, they took her by ambulance to Colville.
They stopped the bleeding and Christy brought her home at about 0415. G'ma looks
terrible but she feels better.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
G'ma made it through the day but she is very tired, Christy,
who was up all night with her, is is tired too. I guess I am kinda tired also
because I am in a foul mood, I can't seem to snap myself out of it either. I
tried to just keep to myself but that just doesn't work.
Ryan Kiss fixed my hitch and he did a great job, I just can't
seem to find him to pay him for it.
Calie wants to go into Colville to get school supplies, I am
taking Christy G'ma and Monica in on Thursday but she doesn't want to miss any
Volleyball Practice... that is asking me to make a special trip so, that is just
like tacking on $35 to whatever it is she buys... silly and unnecessary, She had
at least two opportunities to get school supplies and refused... I give Calie a
lot of slack because she tries very hard at school and is involved in sports and
other extracurricular activities but sometimes she seems to demand special
treatment and I get a little miffed... well... a lot miffed.
I found out this morning that Mike didn't get laid off, he
quit. I am pretty upset by that news on several levels...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
No one can question the success of the Bush Administration
trickle down program. Granting huge tax breaks to the very rich and the most
powerful corporations has resulted in over a million new jobs. All the new jobs
are located in China, India and South Korea.
"Stan Kegel"
Desk is reassembled and in the living room
Thursday, August 28, 2008
" The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest
exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral
justification for selfishness."
John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and author
Colville today, Christy has a bone chip imbedded in her
Achilles Tendon and bone spurs on her heel
Friday, August 29, 2008
Folks, the President needs a break.
He's like a Black and Decker cordless Dirt Devil vacuum. If you don't recharge
his batteries, he can't suck.
Steven Colbert
I took the old oak bookcase down to the shop and sanded and
stained it, it was in awful shape,,, looks pretty good now, I will varnish it
tomorrow. I went to see the Cutter Theaters presentation of "Radio Gals", I
thought it was wonderful, I hope they do a reprise for the Fall Festival. I
laughed almost all the way through it, a girl named Christina Proffit played
Gladys Fritt a self obsessed loopy ditz with a yearning for the grass on the
other side of the fence. She was awesome, she stole the show. The others really
did an excellent job supporting her and the singing was really good. When the
whole ensamble harmonized they sounded like pros, the ladys playing the Swindle
Sisters were excellent too. I even forgot that the romantic lead, Pete Smolden,
was 40 years senior to Christina. Well worth the admittance...
Response to an anti Obama Screed from someone I used to
work with.
I have been getting this from both Democrats and Republicans.
I am sure you have... I
have been too, except the stuff I have been getting from Republicans has been
slanderous, wrong and unfounded fear-mongering and the anti Obama screeds I have been
getting from a (very few) Old school Democrats has been condescending racist
bullshit... not quite saying “Who does that uppity nigger think he is?” Makes me
sick…
I thought you
might want to know what's out there.
I am as tuned in to the
internet and the media as anyone, do not presume that you are the only conduit I
have to the world... you have not sent me anything I haven’t seen before.
You should see the videos on you tube,
Obama's African cousin who wants to restore Shari law in the
country he is
in.
I have seen it, there are
two fellas over there who claim to be his cousins, one is a reactionary and the
other is a self serving fool, so god-damn what? Would you like me to hold you
responsible for what your cousins do or say, what possible relevance do their
actions have on anything.
Obama's speech on disarming America, that one is scary the
way he wants
to weaken us and give our enemies an advantage over us.
It may be scary to you
but to me it is reassuring to hear someone finally say that enough is enough,
the military has enough firepower to blow up the world three thousand times
over, and they want more, your taxes are going to create this time bomb and it's
about time someone says 'what in the hell are you guys doing with our money.'
Obama supports the 2nd
amendment and that's enough for me.
Wall Street is
afraid of him on his tax policy.
Of course they are, they
are afraid that the SEC will get some of its teeth back, they are afraid that
some of their multimillion dollar salaries will be taxed.
His idea about we should learn Spanish so
the illegal don't have to learn English as well as give them
free medical
and welfare, my wife heard him speaking those remarks, it was
on the news
station here in Las Vegas.
I saw it too, you hear
what you want to hear I guess, I liked what he said and I like the idea that
Americans should try to speak more than one language, if you go to Mexico or
France or Germany you expect them to be able to speak English and most of them
can... we are not dumber than they are why can’t we learn a second language. why
in the hell is that a bad thing?
Last night I was watching the Republican Vise President
notation telling us
about life in Alaska and that Alaska can be self sufficient
and supply the
USA with oil that will greatly reduce our dependence on
foreign oil from
countries that don't like us. How the congress had
deliberately blocked
Alaska from being self sufficient economically, to keep
Alaska on welfare to
her doesn't make since when they have such vast resources
that go untapped.
( I think I got the jist
of that, he was talking about Palin...)
Just got this…
Who is Sarah Palin?
Here's some basic background:
• She was elected Alaska's
governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of
Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.
• Palin is strongly
anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.
• She supported right-wing
extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000.
• Palin thinks creationism
should be taught in public schools.
• She's doesn't think humans
are the cause of climate change.
• She's solidly in line with
John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil
drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush
administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried
it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.
• How closely did John McCain
vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time,
last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her
the position.
We also asked Alaskans
what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking.
Here's a sample:
·
She is really just a
mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5
years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think
that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline,
and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile
international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK
·
She is VERY, VERY
conservative, and far from perfect. She's a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes
against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is
currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of
state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali
Park, AK
·
Palin is not a feminist,
and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Karen L., Anchorage, AK
·
Alaskans, collectively,
are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our
State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much
unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can
get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty
employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is
ready for the V.P. position.—Sherry C., Anchorage, AK
·
She's vehemently
anti-choice and doesn't care about protecting our natural resources, even though
she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters,
but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK
·
I think she's far too
inexperienced to be in this position. I'm all for a woman in the White House,
but not one who hasn't done anything to deserve it. There are far many other
women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have
been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain's part- and
insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he'll get our vote by
putting "A Woman" in that position.—Jennifer M., Anchorage, AK
So Governor Palin is a
staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She's a global warming denier who
shares John McCain's commitment to Big Oil. And she's dramatically
inexperienced.
In picking Sarah Palin,
John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he's made a very
dangerous decision for our country.
In the next few days,
many Americans will be wondering what McCain's vice-presidential choice means.
Personally, I think he
chose to announce her as his VP pick solely to take the thunder from Obama, I
will bet that she goes the way of Eagleton and all the other pawns the
Republicans have sacrificed to get elected.
She is, ultimately, a
liability and I suspect she will ‘choose’ to resign before the end of September.
I bet McCain is still looking for a viable running mate… maybe he already knows.
He can appease the women and the evangelicals and the oil men by throwing up his
hands and saying “Well I tried, she quit.”
How is Obama going to implement his programs without raising
taxes?
By raising taxes on the
wealthy and empowering the middle class, , exactly the opposite of John McCain.
The bottom line is that I
like Obama. I believe he will try harder to set the country back on the right
path. I think torture is wrong, I think preemptive invasions of foreign
countries is wrong, I think bombing civilians is wrong, I think having a
birthday party for your boss when people are dying in a hurricane 600 miles away
is wrong.
I am tired of being
misled by Republicans saying they won’t raise taxes with one hand and cutting
services to the elderly and children with the other, they have cut back on state
funding to the point where the states have to raise taxes.
George Bush has spent
more and done less than the past 3 presidents. And John McCain has promised to
continue what George has started.
The difference is, I get
my opinions about Republicans from reading Republican and conservative
publications I get my opinions about Democratic policies from Liberal and
Democratic publications I will not let my preacher, Rush Limbaugh or any other
self serving media hack tell me what to think. I will not allow the RNC to
define Obama any more than I would let the DNC define McCain.
By the way, What sort of
small minded sophomoric putdown is B. Hussein Obama anyway? Did you get that
from Rove’s boss J. Sydney McCain?
P. Allen Daggett
The modern conservative
is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the
search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth
Galbraith, economist and author
P. Allen Daggett
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it
everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx
I went to the flea-markets in Metaline and in the Falls at 'Affair on Main Street'.
There was a good crowd, folks from all over Western Washington, I think anyone
who was selling anything was doing a good business.
Do you ever stop to contemplate how much information we
process every day? We all assimilate what we can handle and move on. I'll bet
that 90% of the crap I hear, read and see gets dumped in the UI bin. (Useless,
Unimportant, Irrelevant Information) All day long we are bombarded by inane
chatter and yet somehow we are able weed through the garbage and pick out the
data we need to make it through the day. There is a lot of data that we probably
should be paying attention to but it gets sloughed off as being too burdensome
or tedious. If it were possible to retain all the information we have access to
we would probably be very wealthy or insane.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
It's hard to argue against cynics - they always
sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.
Molly Ivins
Calie and I worked the Yard Sale at the baseball diamond in
Metaline, they did over $1500 on Saturday but we sure didn't do very well... the
stuff was fairly well picked over by the time we got there. At about ten o'clock
a couple pulled in and unloaded a bunch of stuff that didn't sell at their yard
sale... some of it pretty nice. I guess most folks figured there would be
nothing of value left because there was very little traffic.
Calie and Christy went to Colville, more school shopping.
Autumn and I are home alone. Monica came home about 1600 and we went to the
Western for dinner... spent too much...
I was just thinking about how I was contemplating voting for
John McCain back in 2000. I thought he had some integrity and I thought he was
an independent thinker. Boy was I ever wrong. He is just another Republican who
sold his soul to the RNC and will do whatever he has to do to get elected. I
read an article that said of J. Sydney;
I don't know whatever became of that chap and his hopelessly scrambled
frontal lobes, but I suspect he could have had a splendid career with the
Republican National Committee. Because his
anthropomorphic (I had to look it up, I forgot what it
meant) worldview -- that we, the people, are mostly large rodents put
here to pick up scraps left by much greater eminences -- possessed a certain
affinity with professional GOP thinking.
I know that Republicans are for the most part good people and
I know that there are Democrats who sell their souls too. I believe that Barack
Obama is who he says he is, I believe he means what he says and I could be as
wrong about him as I was about McCain but for now I think he is the best shot we
have at getting back our country and our respect. I don't like what Bush has
done to our reputation in the world. There is only one Planet and we don't own
it, we share it with everyone who who lives on it. We do not have the right to
kill for oil, we do not have the right to kill for an ideology, we are using up
resources at a rate that will ensure that our grandchildren will have to
struggle to survive... yes, I believe that, too many people, too much selfish
greed, to much presumption of entitlement among the wealthy and middle class. We
can be leaders but we have no right to be rulers...
Opposition to Iraq War Wrongly Called Unpatriotic
Damon C. Newcomb
Aug 28, 2008
August 27, 2008 - I grow weary of the McCain campaign
accusing those who oppose our continued involvement in Iraq of being
"defeatists, and too willing to surrender." I suspect such rhetoric is
intended to portray such individuals as unpatriotic.
As a psychologist who has treated sufferers of combat PTSD (post-traumatic
stress disorder), I hold strong opinions regarding how wars can be won;
especially wars fought from hidden agendas, and based upon lies, greed and
demagoguery.
You win such a war when no soldier dies, on either side, or comes home
crippled, or wakes up screaming in the midst of a nightmare reliving their
combat experiences - or commits suicide. You win such a war when no children
die, or refugee families flee their homes seeking safety. You win such a war
when not one tax dollar, which could be used to provide healthcare, build
schools, or repair a crumbling infrastructure, is poured into the bottomless
hole of the curse called war.
In other words, whenever you fight a war of choice, which should never be
fought in the first place, you lose. Period. End of argument.
So do me, and yourself, a favor Sen. McCain. Find a more honest and less
bloodthirsty way to win the election!
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/11024
Barack Obama has a great thinking look. I mean the look he gets on his face when
he's thinking, not the look he presents in debate, where they all control their
faces knowing they may be in the reaction shot and fearing they'll look shrewd
and clever, as opposed to open and strong. I mean the look he gets in an
interview or conversation when he's listening and not conscious of his
expression. It's a very present look. He seems more in the moment than handling
the moment. I've noticed this the past few months, since he entered the national
stage. I wonder if I'm watching him more closely than his fellow Democrats are.
Mr. Obama often seems to be thinking when he speaks, too, and this comes somehow
as a relief, in comparison, say, to Hillary Clinton and President Bush, both of
whom often seem to be trying to remember the answer they'd agreed upon with
staff. What's the phrase we use about education? Hit Search Function. Hit Open.
Right-click. "Equity in education is essential, Tim . . ."
You get the impression Mr. Obama trusts himself to think, as if something good
might happen if he does. What a concept. Anyway, I've started to lean forward a
little when he talks.
--Andrew Sullivan---
Also from Andrew Sullivan's Blog:
American Conservatism's Assisted Suicide
30 Aug 2008 12:10 pm
A reader writes:
I had been reluctant to acknowledge how flawed and dead the conservative
movement has become; that's over now. No more excuses, no more clinging to
old visions of rational discourse and principled debate. I really have
witnessed the death of conservatism and its replacement by a kind of toxic
babbitry which would be merely laughable or cringeworthy if it were not also
so extraordinarily dangerous.
This election year has been a series of revelations and
disillusionments--the crudely ugly tactics of Limbaugh and Hannity
(and--worse--their embrace by Buckley's heirs at National Review), the
thinly-veiled racism and nativism of the campaign against Obama, the
transparently cruel and God-hating ideology of movement Christians;
but--even though dismayed by McCain's bizarre campaign--I had retained some
illusions as recently as this morning. I believed McCain to be at least a
patriot, sincerely concerned with issues of national security.
His nomination of Sarah Palin ended that illusion, too.
No remotely serious politician--no honest patriot--would think of placing
this individual a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, however admirable she
may be, however lively her biography.
Moreover, the elation on the right regarding Palin's nomination made clear
to me that none of them has ever been remotely serious about national
security, either. On the contrary, as the left has insisted for years, for
them it really has all been about political advantage, noise and bluster and
ugliness with no core of principle, no genuine strategic commitment.
The very same people who, only yesterday, insisted that Obama's resume was
too dangerously thin to entrust him with the oversight of our national
security, today are celebrating Palin's accession as a triumph for
conservatism (evidently this is because she is hostile to both abortion and
polar bears). Their hypocrisy is staggering--they truly do believe in
nothing but their own entitlement to power by any means.
And I'm very much afraid I must conclude this is as true of McCain as it is
of his ghastly cheerleaders, the Limbaughs and the Hannitys. Nothing else
could explain the elevation of a woman so singularly unqualified in every
aspect save gender.
Posted by Harkavy at 5:01
PM, August 27, 2008
A German journalist tries to peel back America's real presidential race.
Race is of course not totally hidden in the presidential race
between Barack Obama and John
McCain. But how much racism is bubbling under the surface? Leave it to them
furriners to rub our noses in it.
Der Speigel's Gerhard
Spörl has a fresh piece, "The
Hidden Issue in the US Presidential Campaign," that
delves into it as few U.S. outlets have the guts to do.
Race, he says, is getting "short shrift" in this race. Here's an excerpt:
The race issue has dogged the United States from the very moment of the
country's birth and remains, despite being pushed into the background by
political correctness, unresolved. Now, the issue of race is playing a role
in weakening Obama and strengthening McCain and almost no one wants to talk
about it. Indeed, the issue of race in the campaign has become the province
of the lunatic fringe -- such as radio personality Rush
Limbaugh. Obama's candidacy, he said on air, "goes back to the fact that
nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy." He also referred
to Obama as the "little black man child."
A couple of weeks ago, Spörl, the paper's foreign-desk chief, did an
interesting piece (which
I wrote about in "Bush
and the Caucasians") trying to link the Caucasus madness to Bush's
foreign-policy flops.
His new piece doesn't give you any new facts, but he's produced a provocative
take that probably only a non-American can write. Here's some more:
Obama's skin color has, to be sure, already been touched upon in the
campaign. For the most part, though, references have been veiled and
indirect — and occasionally underhanded.
Hillary Clinton broached
the subject with particularly elegant perfidy. When she brought upRobert
Kennedy and Barack Obama in
the same sentence, the subtext was: Well, Bobby Kennedy was murdered, so
maybe it'd be a good thing if I stay in the race.
Bill Clinton compared
Obama to Jesse Jackson, a
man that has made many white voters uncomfortable in the past. And Geraldine
Ferraro, who would have become vice president ifWalter Mondale hadn't
lost the 1984 election toRonald Reagan, complained about Obama
allegedly being treated better by journalists because of his race -- as if
it were some priceless advantage to be born black in America and an
insurmountable disadvantage to be white.
And after noting that the Clintons "prefer to attribute all their defeats to
plots, conspiracies or monumental injustices," Spörl writes:
Obama was better than Hillary: better at speaking, cleverer in the way he
ran his campaign. He was the cool new kid on the block. His skin color
certainly didn't tip the scales in the Democratic primary battle, but it
seemed not to be a disadvantage either.
Now, though, it's McCain against
Obama, Republican against Democrat, old against young -- and, more than
anything else, white against black. McCain, of course, hasn't broached the
race issue directly. But indirectly, the argument goes like this: To be
white means to be like John McCain -- patriotic, bedecked with medals and
honors, self-sacrificing and a hero. To be black means to be like Barack
Obama -- eager for the spotlight, similar to a Hollywood actor, egocentric,
flippant and lacking truly American values. White America is -- subtly and
adroitly -- being mobilized against black America.
"The National Government will regard it as its first and
foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It
will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been
built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and
the family as the basis of national life." : Adolph Hitler, My New World
Order, Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933
"I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense
my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen... I know it won't
be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it." -George W. Bush
commenting to Texas evangelist James Robinson in the run-up to his presidential
campaign
"And I just -- I cannot speak strongly enough about how we
must collectively get after those who kill in the name of -- in the name of some
kind of false religion". Press appearance with King Abdullah of Jordan,
Aug. 1, 2002
Only the winners decide what were war crimes. :
Author: Gary Wills
Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are
for war.: Andrew Holmes
It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe
in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. :
Eleanor Roosevelt"There can be no public or
private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth.":
George Jacob Holyoake - (1817-1906) English secularist
"Better than a thousand useless words is one word that gives peace.":
Buddha
"Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease, He makes a solitude and calls
it--peace!" : Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) -Source: The Bride
of Abydos (canto II, st. 20)
"O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade;
Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might
never reach me more". William Cowper - Source: Task (bk. II, l. 1)
"It was last week in 1974 that Richard Nixon resigned the
presidency after getting caught lying and violating the Constitution. Remember
when violating the Constitution used to get you kicked out of office?"-Jay Leno
Now is the time for all good men to come to. -Walt Kelly
Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.-Adlai
Stevenson
Humility is no substitute for a good personality. -Fran
Lebowitz
I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy. -Samuel Butler
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how
soon it will be too late. --Ralph
Waldo Emerson
" Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very
foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a
social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as
possible. " - Neo-liberal economist Milton Friedman - in his 1962 book
Capitalism and Freedom
"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the
nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all." - John
Maynard Keynes
" The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral
philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for
selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and author