One moonlit night in 1983, a biochemist named Kary Mullis was driving along a California mountain road when he had an aha! experience akin to Newton's with the apple and Archimedes' in the bathtub. Mullis immediately pulled off the road, awakened his sleeping girlfriend, and told her that he suddenly knew how to replicate DNA.
It was a problem that had been vexing scientists and, as it turned out, Mullis was right. His insight into the polymerase chain reaction won him the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and led to the invention of DNA-replicating machines and the tests they make possible, including the one for HIV antibodies.
This is simply by way of establishing the impeccable scientific credentials of Dr. Kary Mullis. Because when someone of his stature questions whether the HIV virus causes AIDS, we should probably listen.
Huh? Of course HIV causes AIDS, we all know that, don't we? The CDC tells us so, the media tell us so, our doctors tell us so. End of story.
Well, actually not. There is a sizeable, and growing, chorus of dissenting voices. And unlike many groups that challenge an entrenched mainstream belief, this one does not consist of loudmouths with fringe credentials. It is made up of pre-eminent scientists with rock-solid reputations.
Among dozens of others, in addition to Kary Mullis, we find Dr. Peter Duesberg of UC Berkeley, one of the world's leading molecular biologists; Dr. Heinz Ludwig Sänger, emeritus professor of molecular biology and virology at the Max-Planck-Institute in Munich, Germany; Dr. Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, professor of medical physics at Australia's Royal Perth Hospital; Dr. Walter Gilbert, 1980 Nobel prize winner for his work on DNA sequencing; and Dr. Gordon Stewart, professor emeritus of public health at Glasgow University and a former AIDS adviser to the World Health Organization.
Impressive, and that's just the short list. So, what are these men and women saying?
Kary Mullis: "If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document."
A few quick reminders: AIDS is not a disease, it's "Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome," a catch-all applied to those whose natural bodily defense systems have been so compromised that they no longer protect the individual from any number of life-threatening diseases. AIDS vaulted into public awareness when large numbers of gay men in San Francisco started exhibiting horribly devastated immune systems in the early '80s, and began to die of previously rare or normally benign diseases such as Kaposi's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. A crash program attempting to isolate the source of this epidemic yielded the discovery of the HIV retrovirus by Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier and its designation as the "cause" of AIDS. Montagnier has since backed off and now considers HIV as merely a "co-factor" in AIDS cases; Gallo still vigorously defends the premise that HIV is the cause. (Full disclosure: Gallo patented the first "AIDS test kit" in 1984.)
There are many problems associated with the HIV/AIDS theory. Take the AIDS test, for example. It establishes the presence of HIV antibodies, not of the virus itself. Why? Because the virus is present in such minute quantities that it's too hard to find. How can such a tiny amount of virus do such awful systemic damage? Good question. Defenders of the status quo have been forced to claim that the virus somehow does its dirty work, then essentially disappears, only to have its effects show up later, often years later. That's a pretty unique kind of infection.
Then, too, aren't antibodies evidence that the immune system is doing its work? Yes. HIV/AIDS proponents claim that the virus is killing T-cells [one of the key components of the immune system], Peter Duesberg says. Yet, "At the same time, all they ever found in patients was antibodies against the virus. And I said those two things don't make any sense at all. A retrovirus isn't killing cells. That's the one thing we always knew and agreed on about retroviruses--that they do not kill cells. The second thing is viruses only cause disease when they are bonded, not when they are neutralized by antibodies. That's what you call a vaccine, when a virus is neutralized by an antibody."
There are reliability difficulties as well. An Australian research team, writing in Bio/Technology in 1993, concluded that no test procedure met the "gold standard," the "quintessential element for the authentication of any diagnostic test," wherein positive tests consistently lead to finding the virus, negative tests to not finding it. Or, in other words, a positive antibody test may mean the virus is there, but it may not.
Additionally, Mullis writes, "[Those] tests are based on a lot of assumptions that are not very easy to prove, because they've never isolated the organism completely by itself. There's not a tube of HIV in the country that's pure. There are cultures that have by mass something like one out of 100,000 is HIV. That's all. That's the best we've got."
Furthermore, treatment of HIV infection often involves immune-suppressive drugs that will, on their own, kill you as readily as any ailment, often closely mimicking the syndrome they're meant to cure. This Duesberg calls "AIDS by prescription."
Finally, there is the classification loop by which the CDC links HIV, AIDS, and disease. A person is said to have AIDS if he or she suffers from one or more of 31 different diseases--all of which existed long before the AIDS epidemic--and if he or she also has HIV antibodies. Someone who succumbs to tuberculosis and has the antibody thus has "died of AIDS." Minus the antibody, it's just plain old TB.
Likewise, "AIDS" is the diagnosis in Africa for anything involving cough, fever, persistent diarrhea and substantial weight loss, a symptom grouping that, probably not coincidentally, also defines malnutrition.
In short, the problems are many and the case against the HIV/AIDS hypothesis is complex. Space limitations mean that we have only hinted at a few basic aspects of it here. But there is a wealth of information on the Internet. www.virusmyth.net is a good starting place for interested readers. It archives papers by Mullis, Duesberg, and many others. We encourage our readers to inform themselves about this ongoing scientific debate, with minds open to the possibility that everything they think they know about AIDS may be wrong.
A stubborn clinging to unproven dogma is one of the worst enemies of the quest for truth. While we're not scientifically qualified to say with any certainty who is right in this controversy, we are sympathetic to Kary Mullis' complaint that "so many scientists have absolutely refused to examine the available evidence in a neutral, dispassionate way. Several respected scientific journals have [rejected] a statement issued by the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the H.I.V./AIDS Hypothesis simply requesting 'a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis'." That kind of peer review seems like a minimum effort that can, and should, be made.
Our final question is, of course: If HIV doesn't cause AIDS, what does, then? There is no one answer. Most likely, the dissenters say, different diseases have different etiologies. Problem is, no research is being done on alternative theories because the HIV people get all the grant money.
In the next issue of WWNK, we'll take a closer look at some of these theories and the roadblocks frustrated researchers encounter in trying to pursue them, and we'll examine the career-threatening consequences of dissent.
DJHJD
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
Monday, Monday ver. 831.01
Oof. I spent most of the day today working on the class reunion stuff. I made significant progress, at least.
Little Liz isn't going to happen. Time for Ruby to get a thorough cleaning, and go to the trim shop.
Bram the room mate is a lot of fun. I'm enjoying him being here a great deal. Well, it's only been a day, but .. I think I've scared the bejesus out of him talking about the Bush administration...
Little Liz isn't going to happen. Time for Ruby to get a thorough cleaning, and go to the trim shop.
Bram the room mate is a lot of fun. I'm enjoying him being here a great deal. Well, it's only been a day, but .. I think I've scared the bejesus out of him talking about the Bush administration...
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Why I skipped Gay Pride this year
It's just not fun anymore. The parade used to be a fabulous, exciting, heart rendering event - with several hundred thousand people lining lower Westheimer, screaming their hearts out.
Now, it's 1/3 churches, 1/8 lesbian service organizations, 1/4 multi-national corporations, three bars (all owned by Charles Armstrong) and BCBC. Churches? Churches that promise to be inclusive, and that Jesus will take us in? The same church organizations that are fighting against gay marriage, and fighting against gay people being seen as anything other than behavorial choice?
A bunch of people marching with signs for Jesus and overtaxed, underpowered audio systems playing Christian rock is NOT what I associate with gay pride.
Charles Armstrong, who is the Lord and Master of all Gay Commerce in the City of Houston now puts his usual five bucks into gay pride, and we have a token appearance for the six gay bars he now owns. He probably docked his employee's pay to create the float, or made them work on it on their own time or something.
I remember when there were entries for every significant gay business; bars had elaborate floats built on fire trucks or construction equipment, there were all-gay amateur marching bands, the Dallas gay cheerleaders, fifty-four thin, moustached men in leather chaps, leather vests, leather boots and leather caps, each carrying a flag of the fifty states, one carrying the flag of the United States, one carrying that of the City of Houston, one carrying the rainbow flag, and one the flag of Mary's, the oldest gay bar in Texas. People were exuberant.
Now, it's just the young lesbians who are. It's gotten to be a contest for "look at how accepting we really are."
The truth is different. The truth is that the prejudice has become somehwat unfashionable. It's still there. It still operates. Show me an openly gay upper level member of management in a Fortune 100 company. Show me an openly gay partner in a big five accounting firm. Or in a major law firm. Show me the CEO of a major multi-national company whose partner at a party is a man with whom he's shared his last thirty years.
It doesn't exist. It likely won't exist. Just as women continue to beat their heads against the glass ceiling, and black people are welcome just SO high and no higher, we are only allowed to achieve the maximum in businesses that we own. There are several, some very successful.
Yet, we will likely never measure up to the standards of Oprah or Mary Kay Ash. Most of our gay business leaders are still focused on the party, and focused on the youngest man they can still coax out of his very fashionable drawers. They are vicious snubs of other gay businesses, unless they think that they can get "it" or get it for free.
There is no bigotry like that with which the gay community assaults itself. Being old is cause for excommunication. Being fat is worse. Being effiminate even worse than that. The gay ideal is a clone army of thin young men in low-rise, $150 jeans, wearing an earth toned, distressed t-shirt with "Abercrombie & Fitch" emblazoned across their gym toned chest. Everthing is geared to speak to that image. There are no businesses that cater to an older crowd, except as to allow those older persons to try to pick up on the young ones that look just like .. the ideal. All right, there are a FEW businesses that are free of THAT much single-mindedness, but I defy you to find some gay business owner who actively seeks out other gay businesses to supply their needs.
So, rather than be regaled with zealots telling me that Jesus will welcome me into their worship services, or watch Countrywide Home Loans' float lionize having squeezed out all of the independant gay mortgage brokers, or Wells Fargo pretend to be accepting of homosexuality, or Bill White act like gay people mean a rat's ass, I stayed home, and reflected on a time when half-naked go-go boys dressed as fire fighters, grinned madly at the crowd from the top of their rented fire truck, instead of suffering through the intense discomfort of the Fire Chief and those few firefighters who could be compelled to ride behind the closed doors and windows of their COH fire engine.
Now, it's 1/3 churches, 1/8 lesbian service organizations, 1/4 multi-national corporations, three bars (all owned by Charles Armstrong) and BCBC. Churches? Churches that promise to be inclusive, and that Jesus will take us in? The same church organizations that are fighting against gay marriage, and fighting against gay people being seen as anything other than behavorial choice?
A bunch of people marching with signs for Jesus and overtaxed, underpowered audio systems playing Christian rock is NOT what I associate with gay pride.
Charles Armstrong, who is the Lord and Master of all Gay Commerce in the City of Houston now puts his usual five bucks into gay pride, and we have a token appearance for the six gay bars he now owns. He probably docked his employee's pay to create the float, or made them work on it on their own time or something.
I remember when there were entries for every significant gay business; bars had elaborate floats built on fire trucks or construction equipment, there were all-gay amateur marching bands, the Dallas gay cheerleaders, fifty-four thin, moustached men in leather chaps, leather vests, leather boots and leather caps, each carrying a flag of the fifty states, one carrying the flag of the United States, one carrying that of the City of Houston, one carrying the rainbow flag, and one the flag of Mary's, the oldest gay bar in Texas. People were exuberant.
Now, it's just the young lesbians who are. It's gotten to be a contest for "look at how accepting we really are."
The truth is different. The truth is that the prejudice has become somehwat unfashionable. It's still there. It still operates. Show me an openly gay upper level member of management in a Fortune 100 company. Show me an openly gay partner in a big five accounting firm. Or in a major law firm. Show me the CEO of a major multi-national company whose partner at a party is a man with whom he's shared his last thirty years.
It doesn't exist. It likely won't exist. Just as women continue to beat their heads against the glass ceiling, and black people are welcome just SO high and no higher, we are only allowed to achieve the maximum in businesses that we own. There are several, some very successful.
Yet, we will likely never measure up to the standards of Oprah or Mary Kay Ash. Most of our gay business leaders are still focused on the party, and focused on the youngest man they can still coax out of his very fashionable drawers. They are vicious snubs of other gay businesses, unless they think that they can get "it" or get it for free.
There is no bigotry like that with which the gay community assaults itself. Being old is cause for excommunication. Being fat is worse. Being effiminate even worse than that. The gay ideal is a clone army of thin young men in low-rise, $150 jeans, wearing an earth toned, distressed t-shirt with "Abercrombie & Fitch" emblazoned across their gym toned chest. Everthing is geared to speak to that image. There are no businesses that cater to an older crowd, except as to allow those older persons to try to pick up on the young ones that look just like .. the ideal. All right, there are a FEW businesses that are free of THAT much single-mindedness, but I defy you to find some gay business owner who actively seeks out other gay businesses to supply their needs.
So, rather than be regaled with zealots telling me that Jesus will welcome me into their worship services, or watch Countrywide Home Loans' float lionize having squeezed out all of the independant gay mortgage brokers, or Wells Fargo pretend to be accepting of homosexuality, or Bill White act like gay people mean a rat's ass, I stayed home, and reflected on a time when half-naked go-go boys dressed as fire fighters, grinned madly at the crowd from the top of their rented fire truck, instead of suffering through the intense discomfort of the Fire Chief and those few firefighters who could be compelled to ride behind the closed doors and windows of their COH fire engine.
Saturday - Pride Day
In Houston, Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco .. but not in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, or certain other cities.
Waiting for the new mattress/box spring to be delivered; Bram moves in tomorrow, and I had to get another bed. The guest room looks a zillion percent better with the mattress and box spring in place, and bedding on the bed. I need to put together a list of some things to pick up at Bed, Bath and Beyond - like a red silk duponi bed skirt, some other stuff.
And that damned cook top.
As soon as the mattress/box spring shows up, I need to run over to HEB and pick up a few things.
I've been looking at things that work and things that don't work for me, and where I'm getting resistence from the Universe. Mortgage loans, chasing old tax returns, working for businesses that are in trouble - just don't work. Chasing people who are already train wrecks only invites that wreckage into my own life.
I need to go up on my fees, and charge up front, only.
It looks as if writing courses, delivering courses and writing for NV is going to work for me. I'm really enjoying developing some course presentations, and conceiving articles for NV. I just put together a concept for a DaVinci code dialogue with a Christian scholar, a Jewish scholar and discussion ..
Waiting for the new mattress/box spring to be delivered; Bram moves in tomorrow, and I had to get another bed. The guest room looks a zillion percent better with the mattress and box spring in place, and bedding on the bed. I need to put together a list of some things to pick up at Bed, Bath and Beyond - like a red silk duponi bed skirt, some other stuff.
And that damned cook top.
As soon as the mattress/box spring shows up, I need to run over to HEB and pick up a few things.
I've been looking at things that work and things that don't work for me, and where I'm getting resistence from the Universe. Mortgage loans, chasing old tax returns, working for businesses that are in trouble - just don't work. Chasing people who are already train wrecks only invites that wreckage into my own life.
I need to go up on my fees, and charge up front, only.
It looks as if writing courses, delivering courses and writing for NV is going to work for me. I'm really enjoying developing some course presentations, and conceiving articles for NV. I just put together a concept for a DaVinci code dialogue with a Christian scholar, a Jewish scholar and discussion ..
Friday, June 23, 2006
Friday night wonders
Watching "Die, Mommie, Die." What a great movie. It's a hoot.
The garage door opener is working again! And the yard is mowed! And the pool is clean! YAY! Tomorrow, I'll vacuum, and the house will be all spic and span for the new room mate's arrival Sunday night. Tomorrow, I have to also buy a new bed, as the new room mate is renting the guest room for a month and then getting his own furniture.
The garage door opener is working again! Did I mention that the garage door opener is working again?
Renewed the loan officer license today. Mailed all the eBay stuff. Spent four and a half hours getting medical tests done. Reduced by nine pounds from last month, had normal blood pressure, normal EKG.
It's time to hit the hay here ... have a ton to do tomorrow, including floating in the pool with Mikey, Ro-Ro and Ro-Ro's friends.
The garage door opener is working again! And the yard is mowed! And the pool is clean! YAY! Tomorrow, I'll vacuum, and the house will be all spic and span for the new room mate's arrival Sunday night. Tomorrow, I have to also buy a new bed, as the new room mate is renting the guest room for a month and then getting his own furniture.
The garage door opener is working again! Did I mention that the garage door opener is working again?
Renewed the loan officer license today. Mailed all the eBay stuff. Spent four and a half hours getting medical tests done. Reduced by nine pounds from last month, had normal blood pressure, normal EKG.
It's time to hit the hay here ... have a ton to do tomorrow, including floating in the pool with Mikey, Ro-Ro and Ro-Ro's friends.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Thursday - maybe I'll try this AGAIN
This wireless router is less valuable than a dog turd in a punch bowl. It works for about ten minutes, then I have to go upstairs, unplug it, reset it, and come back downstairs. Of course, in the meantime, whatever I was working on is GONE.
Today was passably productive. Now, I'm at the mercy of this client, who may or may not show up to finalize his thing. He's not being any more reliable than he was before. Lovely stuff.
I should make some dinner and eat it before it gets too late. By the time I'm done with that, the wireless router should have collapsed onto its fainting couch again, and I'll be in synch.
Watching a documentary about Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense from the Vietnam era. I've seen it before, as it turns out. It's a goood show.
In summary:
1. I am going to let my loan officer license go, because I'm just no longer going to try to schlepp loans, and I can't see paying the $200 to keep that license.
2. I'm going to fire .. well, most of the clients I have .. tomorrow, because I'm no longer willing to have clients who try to negotiate the fee after the fact, and refuse to pay in full or on time.
3. I'm going to start looking for another place to live; I'm unwilling to continue to dance this dance with Twitch .. yes, no, maybe, it depends.
4. I'm going to tell a number of people that I'm no longer interested in discussing "deals" with them, because they bring me nothing. They call over and over and over and over and pester me with hypotheticals, but they offer nothing.
5. I'm going to figure out how to make my life work for me, and only work on things that don't involve solving other people's problems.
I am going to focus on my church development, including the articles and presentations that I have. I am going to focus on my website, and web based delivery of content that will make me money. I am going to focus on the mortgage training materials.
Somehow things are going to have to work out to support this.
Today was passably productive. Now, I'm at the mercy of this client, who may or may not show up to finalize his thing. He's not being any more reliable than he was before. Lovely stuff.
I should make some dinner and eat it before it gets too late. By the time I'm done with that, the wireless router should have collapsed onto its fainting couch again, and I'll be in synch.
Watching a documentary about Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense from the Vietnam era. I've seen it before, as it turns out. It's a goood show.
In summary:
1. I am going to let my loan officer license go, because I'm just no longer going to try to schlepp loans, and I can't see paying the $200 to keep that license.
2. I'm going to fire .. well, most of the clients I have .. tomorrow, because I'm no longer willing to have clients who try to negotiate the fee after the fact, and refuse to pay in full or on time.
3. I'm going to start looking for another place to live; I'm unwilling to continue to dance this dance with Twitch .. yes, no, maybe, it depends.
4. I'm going to tell a number of people that I'm no longer interested in discussing "deals" with them, because they bring me nothing. They call over and over and over and over and pester me with hypotheticals, but they offer nothing.
5. I'm going to figure out how to make my life work for me, and only work on things that don't involve solving other people's problems.
I am going to focus on my church development, including the articles and presentations that I have. I am going to focus on my website, and web based delivery of content that will make me money. I am going to focus on the mortgage training materials.
Somehow things are going to have to work out to support this.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Playing the slots in McCarren Int'l Airport?
Why do that when you have open access wifi!?!?
We have just about an hour before our connecting flight, and we've already evacuated in the men's room, grabbed a beverage, and now we're sitting here with our Dell laptops (which are nearly identical) clamshelled together, digging into our electronic worlds.
So, where to start? My joy at the American Episcopalians' choice of a new leader? Being kept awake nearly all night by E's OCD wheaton terrier? The three LOUD persons sitting behind us on the flight from SEA to LAS, who blathered on about waaaay too personal material? The dreary drive at the butt crack of dawn from Vancouver to Seattle? Or, shall I compare and contrast the treatment we had at the hands of ICE (the new border customs and immigration agency) and the government of Canuckistan?
On the way up Thursday night, we were in a huge line of cars crossing the border. We sat in that line, which suddenly broke free and we zipped up as the cars were processed in no time flat. We pulled up, and a camera took both our car's VIN and license tag. Here's how the conversation went:
Canuckistanian inspector: Where are you from?
Doug (for D&C): Houston, Texas
C.I. Rented car?
D&C: Yes
C.I. Both US citizens?
D&C: Yes
C.I. Purpose of your visit in Canada?
D&C: Visiting friends for the weekend
C.I. Where are you headed?
D&C: Vancouver
C.I. When do you return?
D&C: Monday morning
C.I. Bringing any gifts into Canada?
D&C: No, sir.
C.I. Have a good time in Canada.
Now, here we come back into the United States of Jesusland, as modified by the Republican party over the last twenty-five years:
US ICE Nazi customs inspector: What is your place of residence?
D&C: Houston, Texas
ICE Nazi: Where were you in Canada?
D&C: Vancouver
ICE Nazi: What was the reason for your trip?
D&C: Visiting friends
ICE Nazi: Did you buy anything in Canada?
D&C: Yes, a bottle of aspirin each, and a bottle of cough syrup (C got sick while we were there)
ICE Nazi: Is there codiene in them?
D&C: Yes, sir
ICE Nazi: When are you returning to Houston?
D&C: This morning at 11:20, we're headed straight to SEATAC
ICE Nazi: The drugs you're bringing in are controlled substances. Park your car, and go inside and wait with the drugs.
D&C: Yes, sir.
Inside, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Nazi #2, wearing BATTLE DRESS gives us further enlightenment.
ICE Nazi #2: Are you C?
C: Yes, sir.
ICE Nazi #2: Where do you live?
C: Houston, Texas
ICE Nazi #2: Both of you?
D&C: Yes sir
ICE Nazi #2: How do you two know each other?
C: We've known each other for years.
ICE Nazi #2: Why were you in Canada?
D: A Friend's 40th birthday party
ICE Nazi #2: How do you know this person?
D: I've known him for eight years - we've worked together in computers
ICE Nazi #2: Where is your prescription for these drugs?
C: We don't have one
ICE Nazi #2: You realize that these drugs you're bringing into the US are controlled substances. Having them in the State of Washington is a felony. I could call the Blaine PD right now and have you charged with possession.
D: uh-huh
ICE Nazi #2: So, what are we going to do about this?
(interruption by loud sirens and everyone scrambling outside to deal with the threatened incursion across the US Border. From Canada. At 7:15 a.m. In the morning. On a Monday.)
ICE Nazi #2: Are these for your personal use? you've opened them.
C: I came down sick while I was there.
ICE Nazi #2: The US doesn't ban the importation of these drugs for personal use, but you're only allowed 50 pills. This is way more than that. You could turn around and drive back to the drugstore and return these, but since you've opened them, I doubt that they will take them back.
D: uh-huh
ICE Nazi #2: So, if you're going to insist on bringing these into the United States, I'm going to have to call Blaine PD and have you arrested.
D: Okay
ICE Nazi #2: However, if you want to bring in this one (handing C the cough syrup) and you want to bring in this one (handing D a bottle of aspirin) then you could dispose of one of these into the trash, and I'll just let it go by.
D: Okay
ICE Nazi #2 thereupon escorts D outside to a trash can. D throws bottle of aspirin, of which two tabs have been consumed, into the trash.
ICE Nazi #2: You can go now.
I feel SO much safer!
We have just about an hour before our connecting flight, and we've already evacuated in the men's room, grabbed a beverage, and now we're sitting here with our Dell laptops (which are nearly identical) clamshelled together, digging into our electronic worlds.
So, where to start? My joy at the American Episcopalians' choice of a new leader? Being kept awake nearly all night by E's OCD wheaton terrier? The three LOUD persons sitting behind us on the flight from SEA to LAS, who blathered on about waaaay too personal material? The dreary drive at the butt crack of dawn from Vancouver to Seattle? Or, shall I compare and contrast the treatment we had at the hands of ICE (the new border customs and immigration agency) and the government of Canuckistan?
On the way up Thursday night, we were in a huge line of cars crossing the border. We sat in that line, which suddenly broke free and we zipped up as the cars were processed in no time flat. We pulled up, and a camera took both our car's VIN and license tag. Here's how the conversation went:
Canuckistanian inspector: Where are you from?
Doug (for D&C): Houston, Texas
C.I. Rented car?
D&C: Yes
C.I. Both US citizens?
D&C: Yes
C.I. Purpose of your visit in Canada?
D&C: Visiting friends for the weekend
C.I. Where are you headed?
D&C: Vancouver
C.I. When do you return?
D&C: Monday morning
C.I. Bringing any gifts into Canada?
D&C: No, sir.
C.I. Have a good time in Canada.
Now, here we come back into the United States of Jesusland, as modified by the Republican party over the last twenty-five years:
US ICE Nazi customs inspector: What is your place of residence?
D&C: Houston, Texas
ICE Nazi: Where were you in Canada?
D&C: Vancouver
ICE Nazi: What was the reason for your trip?
D&C: Visiting friends
ICE Nazi: Did you buy anything in Canada?
D&C: Yes, a bottle of aspirin each, and a bottle of cough syrup (C got sick while we were there)
ICE Nazi: Is there codiene in them?
D&C: Yes, sir
ICE Nazi: When are you returning to Houston?
D&C: This morning at 11:20, we're headed straight to SEATAC
ICE Nazi: The drugs you're bringing in are controlled substances. Park your car, and go inside and wait with the drugs.
D&C: Yes, sir.
Inside, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Nazi #2, wearing BATTLE DRESS gives us further enlightenment.
ICE Nazi #2: Are you C?
C: Yes, sir.
ICE Nazi #2: Where do you live?
C: Houston, Texas
ICE Nazi #2: Both of you?
D&C: Yes sir
ICE Nazi #2: How do you two know each other?
C: We've known each other for years.
ICE Nazi #2: Why were you in Canada?
D: A Friend's 40th birthday party
ICE Nazi #2: How do you know this person?
D: I've known him for eight years - we've worked together in computers
ICE Nazi #2: Where is your prescription for these drugs?
C: We don't have one
ICE Nazi #2: You realize that these drugs you're bringing into the US are controlled substances. Having them in the State of Washington is a felony. I could call the Blaine PD right now and have you charged with possession.
D: uh-huh
ICE Nazi #2: So, what are we going to do about this?
(interruption by loud sirens and everyone scrambling outside to deal with the threatened incursion across the US Border. From Canada. At 7:15 a.m. In the morning. On a Monday.)
ICE Nazi #2: Are these for your personal use? you've opened them.
C: I came down sick while I was there.
ICE Nazi #2: The US doesn't ban the importation of these drugs for personal use, but you're only allowed 50 pills. This is way more than that. You could turn around and drive back to the drugstore and return these, but since you've opened them, I doubt that they will take them back.
D: uh-huh
ICE Nazi #2: So, if you're going to insist on bringing these into the United States, I'm going to have to call Blaine PD and have you arrested.
D: Okay
ICE Nazi #2: However, if you want to bring in this one (handing C the cough syrup) and you want to bring in this one (handing D a bottle of aspirin) then you could dispose of one of these into the trash, and I'll just let it go by.
D: Okay
ICE Nazi #2 thereupon escorts D outside to a trash can. D throws bottle of aspirin, of which two tabs have been consumed, into the trash.
ICE Nazi #2: You can go now.
I feel SO much safer!
Friday, June 16, 2006
Deep in the Finlandia
Today, we ventured out for a quick tour of those things that make Vancouver fun and unique. We saw the steam clock, which was swarmed with people, and we drove through Stanley Park and the West End. We ate at a restaurant overlooking English Bay. Now, we're sitting in E's house, watching the sun go down over downtown through the front window and waiting for him to make some salmon and pasta.
Much napping. MUCH napping. Much drinking, too - not by Chuck and by me, but holy cow the alcohol consumed here!!
Yesterday, I had a message from the Buick dealer - automated marketing message. They are having a "major sales push" and my Riviera is "just right for trade in; we'll give you a maximum value for it."
So, tweaked by their communication, I went to their website for the first time in a few weeks. The car I ordered is now on their online inventory. As in, they haven't sold it. As in, they LIED when they said there were all of these customers for it.
And I want it.
We have five big homosexuals here in this house, and ONE bathroom, with a single, 15 gallon water heater. They're thinking of making a reality TV show about it.
Much napping. MUCH napping. Much drinking, too - not by Chuck and by me, but holy cow the alcohol consumed here!!
Yesterday, I had a message from the Buick dealer - automated marketing message. They are having a "major sales push" and my Riviera is "just right for trade in; we'll give you a maximum value for it."
So, tweaked by their communication, I went to their website for the first time in a few weeks. The car I ordered is now on their online inventory. As in, they haven't sold it. As in, they LIED when they said there were all of these customers for it.
And I want it.
We have five big homosexuals here in this house, and ONE bathroom, with a single, 15 gallon water heater. They're thinking of making a reality TV show about it.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Humping toward YVR
Another day spent nearly entirely away from the home office. Have to leave around 11 for a meeting in The Woodlands, and then teaching a class in Pasadena, which obviates coming back here.
Got radical yesterday (it was a VERY angry morning) and had Babs take ALL of the clothing that didn't fit to the resale shop and drop it off. It's gone, and my closet looks totally empty. I have to pick up some laundry today, or I'll have nothing to wear on my trip to YVR tomorrow.
Got radical yesterday (it was a VERY angry morning) and had Babs take ALL of the clothing that didn't fit to the resale shop and drop it off. It's gone, and my closet looks totally empty. I have to pick up some laundry today, or I'll have nothing to wear on my trip to YVR tomorrow.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Monday, Monday ver. 762.01
Blessings unto us all. It's hotter than the bloody blue blazes of hell today, but part of that is that I have a fever, gained from more food poisoning from the same source (presumably.)
I've worked a bunch today, in an unusual pattern of working for forty-five minutes, then laying down for forty-five minutes to try to settle the cramps and fever.
Taught my first class for San Jac tonight in a long, long time. Got the replacement stereo face plate for Ruby today, and it's nice to be able to use the stereo again.
I have another crazy day tomorrow. At least the bank reopened the Fabulair bank account, which they closed without cause or notice. Craziness will continue to ensue all week, it seems.
I've worked a bunch today, in an unusual pattern of working for forty-five minutes, then laying down for forty-five minutes to try to settle the cramps and fever.
Taught my first class for San Jac tonight in a long, long time. Got the replacement stereo face plate for Ruby today, and it's nice to be able to use the stereo again.
I have another crazy day tomorrow. At least the bank reopened the Fabulair bank account, which they closed without cause or notice. Craziness will continue to ensue all week, it seems.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Five Hundred Thirty Eight
$538.00
That was my electric power bill for last month. 102 was my blood glucose this morning. $65.00 was the total of gift cards I nabbed yesterday for transferring prescriptions. $40.00 was what I paid the lad who put the pool neeting up (after many, prior, failed attempts) and who cleaned out the garage, $250 is what I should make from selling things on eBay that we FOUND in the garage, zero is the amount of time I get to spend with Chuck today, $65 per bedroom is what I've agreed to pay the guy who's going to paint the upstairs rooms, $400 is the price I've quoted for the vacant bedroom upstairs, 5 is the number of seemingly real candidates for said bedroom, $3 is what Lisa paid for dog clippers at a garage sale yesterday for me, $3 is likewise what I paid for a coy pond liner at the church garage sale, and $175 is what a seller on Craigslist was asking for a similar pond liner, albiet somewhat bigger. 22 is the number of books I have about the Titanic. 90,400 is the number of miles on Ruby, and six is the number of suspension repairs I've had done on her in thirteen months. Sixty is the number of minutes before I need to be at church, and twenty is the number of minutes it's going to take me to get ready if I close down the computer RIGHT NOW.
That was my electric power bill for last month. 102 was my blood glucose this morning. $65.00 was the total of gift cards I nabbed yesterday for transferring prescriptions. $40.00 was what I paid the lad who put the pool neeting up (after many, prior, failed attempts) and who cleaned out the garage, $250 is what I should make from selling things on eBay that we FOUND in the garage, zero is the amount of time I get to spend with Chuck today, $65 per bedroom is what I've agreed to pay the guy who's going to paint the upstairs rooms, $400 is the price I've quoted for the vacant bedroom upstairs, 5 is the number of seemingly real candidates for said bedroom, $3 is what Lisa paid for dog clippers at a garage sale yesterday for me, $3 is likewise what I paid for a coy pond liner at the church garage sale, and $175 is what a seller on Craigslist was asking for a similar pond liner, albiet somewhat bigger. 22 is the number of books I have about the Titanic. 90,400 is the number of miles on Ruby, and six is the number of suspension repairs I've had done on her in thirteen months. Sixty is the number of minutes before I need to be at church, and twenty is the number of minutes it's going to take me to get ready if I close down the computer RIGHT NOW.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Saturday morning in the sunshine
Waiting for Twitch to show up - I had dinner with him last night and with Arturo, who used to live here in this house. He was weirded out very much by being here, and kept telling me how incredible the house looked now that I'm in it.
Twitch keeps asking what I'm doing with the pool, it has NEVER looked as good as it does when he lived here.
Just wait until I get the paint done and the landscaping done and the exterior lighting done. Hoo baby.
Have a lad coming over about noon to help me clean the garage out some more; I'm going to get the pool netting up if it's the LAST thing I do today. Mikey and Ro-Ro are coming over around lunch time, and we'll hang out most of the day.
Lance has offered to help me landscape here once I get the place secured. He has some great ideas already for what kind of plants should go where, and what will require minimal maintenance (a very good thing.)
The incredibly humpy new lawn guy started yesterday, and the yard looks GREAT. He spends more time edging than did the last people, and it makes a difference.
Wrote to both of the boys who have asked about renting a room; waiting for their replies.
Talked to Emery about the new car I wanted at his dealership - they told me that I needed to look at something LESS expensive for right now, and they're working on getting me approved on a VERY cute 2004 Mercedes .. I'm going to call her Little Liz. I guess I'll drop my car off to get it sold when we go to Vancouver on Thursday, and when it comes back, I'll be able to zip up to Dallas and pick up the car.
Twitch keeps asking what I'm doing with the pool, it has NEVER looked as good as it does when he lived here.
Just wait until I get the paint done and the landscaping done and the exterior lighting done. Hoo baby.
Have a lad coming over about noon to help me clean the garage out some more; I'm going to get the pool netting up if it's the LAST thing I do today. Mikey and Ro-Ro are coming over around lunch time, and we'll hang out most of the day.
Lance has offered to help me landscape here once I get the place secured. He has some great ideas already for what kind of plants should go where, and what will require minimal maintenance (a very good thing.)
The incredibly humpy new lawn guy started yesterday, and the yard looks GREAT. He spends more time edging than did the last people, and it makes a difference.
Wrote to both of the boys who have asked about renting a room; waiting for their replies.
Talked to Emery about the new car I wanted at his dealership - they told me that I needed to look at something LESS expensive for right now, and they're working on getting me approved on a VERY cute 2004 Mercedes .. I'm going to call her Little Liz. I guess I'll drop my car off to get it sold when we go to Vancouver on Thursday, and when it comes back, I'll be able to zip up to Dallas and pick up the car.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Friday -
Talk about UNmotivated. Good lord. I have been .. truly unmotivated today. I have been working on the car equation, and I've rebooted about sixty times, because the desktop has been cranky in the extreme. The pool guys are coming today, and the new lawn guy is scheduled to come. Babs is having a day off, and Chuck is completely twitterpated about his date last night.
A new tax client is supposed to be coming tonight; blah, blah. Twitch is saying he's coming by to pick up some more of his stuff - I only hope.
Just spending some time dwelling in my own attitude, motivation and behavior and looking at things. Hmm.
A new tax client is supposed to be coming tonight; blah, blah. Twitch is saying he's coming by to pick up some more of his stuff - I only hope.
Just spending some time dwelling in my own attitude, motivation and behavior and looking at things. Hmm.
This is a test
This is only a test. If this were a real post, you'd be reading amusing or insightful information.
Thank you for participating in this test of the blogger post system.
Thank you for participating in this test of the blogger post system.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Thursday thingies
Interesting - today, I started by pulling a bunch of stuff out of the garage, and discovering another wire shelf-y thing for the home office; so armed, I thought to move the printer/faxer/scanner/copier and the wireless router and modem around some to make things more rational.
Boy, did THAT work out. Not only is it far more functional for me upstairs, but the wireless signal in the living room (downstairs) is a WHOLE lot more stable and strong. Plus, I got a ton of stuff done today, including letter writing, filing, mailing, emails, phone calls .. hopefully, tomorrow will be even better from that perspective.
Twitch came by several times today, requiring technical support. He's so funny. Just haywire, he is. He was to be coming by tonight to pick up his bed and other stuff; of course, he's now hanging out with the "girlfriend," who WANTS his bed for HER house, and blah, blah. No really cute boy coming over tonight to help him move furniture. Bleh. I do have the first of the new room mate potentials coming by any time now to look the place over. He's supposed to be deciding tomorrow about moving in. I found someone today to paint the upstairs bedrooms and replace the sheet rock in the dining room for me; he gave me the number of someone to fix the garage door opener.
Secret Agent Man was very frisky (conversationally) today. Who knows what to expect EVER?
A guy came by whom I've been speaking with about renting one of the extra bedrooms. I'm not sure he's the right sort for the job - he's a bit withdrawn and well .. it's hard to put my finger on. I just don't think he LIKES anything. But, he's .. well, we'll just see.
Anyway, that's the update for the moment. Off to .. I'm not quite sure, but ..
Boy, did THAT work out. Not only is it far more functional for me upstairs, but the wireless signal in the living room (downstairs) is a WHOLE lot more stable and strong. Plus, I got a ton of stuff done today, including letter writing, filing, mailing, emails, phone calls .. hopefully, tomorrow will be even better from that perspective.
Twitch came by several times today, requiring technical support. He's so funny. Just haywire, he is. He was to be coming by tonight to pick up his bed and other stuff; of course, he's now hanging out with the "girlfriend," who WANTS his bed for HER house, and blah, blah. No really cute boy coming over tonight to help him move furniture. Bleh. I do have the first of the new room mate potentials coming by any time now to look the place over. He's supposed to be deciding tomorrow about moving in. I found someone today to paint the upstairs bedrooms and replace the sheet rock in the dining room for me; he gave me the number of someone to fix the garage door opener.
Secret Agent Man was very frisky (conversationally) today. Who knows what to expect EVER?
A guy came by whom I've been speaking with about renting one of the extra bedrooms. I'm not sure he's the right sort for the job - he's a bit withdrawn and well .. it's hard to put my finger on. I just don't think he LIKES anything. But, he's .. well, we'll just see.
Anyway, that's the update for the moment. Off to .. I'm not quite sure, but ..
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Hump Day developments
So, I busted Brian today - Brian the "pool boy," whom I have referred cleaning clients to, he who talked to me for a few weeks about moving in and being my room mate when he came to town, but who bailed on me upon arriving here. He who was paid to be the "pool boy," and spent the time hanging out chatting up the guests and being the center of attention. Yeah, that worked out for me.
Here's our little conversation:
Notice that he NEVER said that he wanted to be friends, or that he wanted to actually keep those social appointments, or that he wanted to reschedule.
It's not just what someone SAYS - it's what they DON'T say. And, the old adage - actions speak louder than words - that one is true.
Now, on to other topics.
Got my auto registration in the mail today, that seems to require a rocket scientist to install. "Don't do this, do do that." Yeep. I need to go put it in, actually, and head out to Clear Lake.
Whoops - can't write that - big eyes reads this, and he loves trying to get me into trouble if he detects any sign of anything he can remotely complain to the authorities about. Not that anything's ever turned out for him.
Talked (briefly) with secret agent man this afternoon. He wants to "keep things simple." I guess that means, "I'll email when I need you."
Bleh. Men suck.
Talked to TWO nice men today about them becoming room mates.
I need to buy some more copy paper. I'm outtie. Well, it's time to head out .. what WOULD I do with a five and a half foot musuem model of the RMS Titanic, anyway? And, would it FIT into my built-in?
Here's our little conversation:
DrDivo: So, I have a direct question - if you're not interested in being social with me, will you please say so - I don't like asking you to spend time with me if it's not something you're interested in.
gaysportnut: any big plans for the weekend
gaysportnut: I never said that....I have been busy
DrDivo: we've had plans to be social three times in the last month, and each time you've just failed to show. So, that's why I'm asking. Having grown up in the midwest, I understand how communication works. "I never said that" means "yes, you're right but I'm trying to be polite and not say something hurtful.' So I have my answer. My stepmother talks EXACTLY the same way.
gaysportnut: fine sorry you took it that way
DrDivo: well, what am I supposed to think? You blew me off for dinner and didn't communicate with me about it BUT asked one of my friends out before replying to my email asking you what happened. I just feel like a clueless
DrDivo: idiot for having asked you to hang out with me at all
gaysportnut: I didn't ask any of your friends out to dinner
DrDivo: Okay, whatever
gaysportnut: and when did I blow you off for dinner
DrDivo: Thursday, last week, we had plans.
DrDivo: no call, no email, no show. Third time.
gaysportnut: I asked Tommy to dinner like 4 weeks ago....I didn't ask anyone else or ask him again
DrDivo: okay, whatever
Notice that he NEVER said that he wanted to be friends, or that he wanted to actually keep those social appointments, or that he wanted to reschedule.
It's not just what someone SAYS - it's what they DON'T say. And, the old adage - actions speak louder than words - that one is true.
Now, on to other topics.
Got my auto registration in the mail today, that seems to require a rocket scientist to install. "Don't do this, do do that." Yeep. I need to go put it in, actually, and head out to Clear Lake.
Whoops - can't write that - big eyes reads this, and he loves trying to get me into trouble if he detects any sign of anything he can remotely complain to the authorities about. Not that anything's ever turned out for him.
Talked (briefly) with secret agent man this afternoon. He wants to "keep things simple." I guess that means, "I'll email when I need you."
Bleh. Men suck.
Talked to TWO nice men today about them becoming room mates.
I need to buy some more copy paper. I'm outtie. Well, it's time to head out .. what WOULD I do with a five and a half foot musuem model of the RMS Titanic, anyway? And, would it FIT into my built-in?
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Tuesday Twitching
I sit here waiting for Twitch and a client referral of his. I'm watching TV, and shopping around on eBay for nothing I need.
I did find a martini table for the Lexus LS430, which was a hoot. It's from Hong Kong, where they seem to have LOTS of really fun accessories for that car. But, a martini table. With two martini glass holders .. (giggles)
I have to get a new stereo rack, as Twitch is picking up his TV stand tonight. He's actually motored off with his dresser and his mattress foundations - he's on his way back for the bed frame (that's going to be a bitch) and the rest of the stuff in his closet.
I found a great stereo rack on Craigslist tonight - I hope that they write back and still have it - it's basically a tall black wire rack with four glass shelves. I wouldn't put the TV in it, just the stereo equipment. I'm actually thinking that I'd do something very interesting for a TV - get a big panel of white board from Lowe's, and a nice projector that I can also use with the laptop for presentations. The projector will accomodate high definition, and can be used on any flat white surface. Better picture fidelity, lower cost, bigger sized picture. WHOOIE!
But that's sometime in the distance, not now.
Twitch just called and said he was going to come back tomorrow night for the rest. I think I've talked him into coming back now.
Got some good things done today; tomorrow, a lot more needs doing.
I did find a martini table for the Lexus LS430, which was a hoot. It's from Hong Kong, where they seem to have LOTS of really fun accessories for that car. But, a martini table. With two martini glass holders .. (giggles)
I have to get a new stereo rack, as Twitch is picking up his TV stand tonight. He's actually motored off with his dresser and his mattress foundations - he's on his way back for the bed frame (that's going to be a bitch) and the rest of the stuff in his closet.
I found a great stereo rack on Craigslist tonight - I hope that they write back and still have it - it's basically a tall black wire rack with four glass shelves. I wouldn't put the TV in it, just the stereo equipment. I'm actually thinking that I'd do something very interesting for a TV - get a big panel of white board from Lowe's, and a nice projector that I can also use with the laptop for presentations. The projector will accomodate high definition, and can be used on any flat white surface. Better picture fidelity, lower cost, bigger sized picture. WHOOIE!
But that's sometime in the distance, not now.
Twitch just called and said he was going to come back tomorrow night for the rest. I think I've talked him into coming back now.
Got some good things done today; tomorrow, a lot more needs doing.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Monday, Monday ver. 781.01
An interesting day spent in a CE seminar. The entire day there, up at 0600 to work on email and such, then off to the seminar. All day there, and home on "E" to meet up with Twitch, who was expected to come pick up his possessions. He's being a total freakazoid. He said he's coming "late" with Sean/Shawn to retrieve more stuff.
Just zipped through Craiglist looking for room mate candidates for the rest of the summer. Found one that looked promising; wrote to several.
WAY irritated with Brian. And Secret Agent Man. And Twitch. And stuff.
I have a hugely busy day tomorrow. And, I either need to have this mobile alert business kick in and start PAYING or I need to quickly find another source of revenue.
I'm done with stressing out.
Have the proposal from the company that wants to JV with me regarding online presentations. Have to read that tomorrow and respond. Tom also asserts that he's reworked my website for review, but so far no links have been found in my email.
Just zipped through Craiglist looking for room mate candidates for the rest of the summer. Found one that looked promising; wrote to several.
WAY irritated with Brian. And Secret Agent Man. And Twitch. And stuff.
I have a hugely busy day tomorrow. And, I either need to have this mobile alert business kick in and start PAYING or I need to quickly find another source of revenue.
I'm done with stressing out.
Have the proposal from the company that wants to JV with me regarding online presentations. Have to read that tomorrow and respond. Tom also asserts that he's reworked my website for review, but so far no links have been found in my email.
Friday, June 02, 2006
How appropriate that Sunday's talk is
about anxiety. Looks like I'm spending my evening working on that topic.
Twitch came by, picked up his mattress and his TV. The important stuff. He can't USE the TV until next week sometime, but .. I digress.
All day tomorrow in a seminar for licensing CE, and then all day on Monday.
Picked Ruby up today - they charged uchanged the oil, and up the battery, inspected her, and discovered that she was missing a retaining nut on a front strut. IT seems that this has been a problem for some time; she drives much better now.
Haven't heard [back] from Secret Agent Man since Tuesday night. Thinking about him a lot, though.
Lots of worry going on around me, by me, because of me, and so on. I haven't come up with brilliance yet, but I'm working on it. I have a few hours yet.
Watching the very first episode of Twin Peaks - wow - what a trip. I have forgotten that whole show, how the story got started, and so on. My old TV looks like a portable compared to Twitch's huge TV. A black framed TV is better than silver, though.
Twitch came by, picked up his mattress and his TV. The important stuff. He can't USE the TV until next week sometime, but .. I digress.
All day tomorrow in a seminar for licensing CE, and then all day on Monday.
Picked Ruby up today - they charged uchanged the oil, and up the battery, inspected her, and discovered that she was missing a retaining nut on a front strut. IT seems that this has been a problem for some time; she drives much better now.
Haven't heard [back] from Secret Agent Man since Tuesday night. Thinking about him a lot, though.
Lots of worry going on around me, by me, because of me, and so on. I haven't come up with brilliance yet, but I'm working on it. I have a few hours yet.
Watching the very first episode of Twin Peaks - wow - what a trip. I have forgotten that whole show, how the story got started, and so on. My old TV looks like a portable compared to Twitch's huge TV. A black framed TV is better than silver, though.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Well, you were wondering ..
source article
Republican agenda revealed
by kos
Thu Jun 01, 2006 at 06:23:44 PM PDT
It's a local story from Lincoln, Nebraska, except that it offers us an insight into the Republican mind. And that makes it a universal, national story.
The mayor said she wanted specifics, so City Councilwoman Robin Eschliman gave her specifics about where she would cut the city's budget.
After a semi-scolding in a memo from Seng about how generalities don't help with budget-cutting, Eschliman responded with a list of specific budget cuts she supports, largely based on a survey she did over the winter. Here are a few areas in which she said she'd support "substantial cuts":
* Merit pay increases for city employees
* Swimming pools, unless attendance goes up
* Bus routes
* Expenditures involving water runoff, flood plain issues, etc.
* Libraries, unless usage is increasing
* Capital improvements to parks
* Funding for the Women's Commission; she suggests moving it under the umbrella of another department.
When contacted by the Journal Star about her letter, Eschliman said it was mistakenly released to the public and was only a preliminary list.
The New Nebraska Network pounced:
Though many Republicans are ideologically opposed to the above sorts of spending, it's rare indeed that one will come right out and tell families that they should go without popular services that government has long had an essential, oftentimes exclusive, role in providing.
When Eschliman talks about substantially cutting funds for public parks, libraries, and swimming pools, she's just being honest about the Republican party's priorities. It just so happens that when Republicans are honest about these things, they reveal themselves as completely out-of-touch with mainstream voters and their values.
Sure, people like to complain about paying taxes, but not to the degree that they're willing to give up those things that so enrich our quality of life and give our communities character. Eschliman and her like may prefer to see that money returned to citizens for investment in real estate and the stock market, but real people accept and embrace these limited trade-offs of their private gain for the public good .... a concept the true Republican ideologue simply can't grasp.
That's just the thing. Republicans will talk a good game about returning money to taxpayers, yadda yadda, but they are hard pressed to make the cuts. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, people like things like parks and swimming pools and libraries. Republicans may consider such things "non-essential", but most people consider those places community hubs.
So Republicans, when in power, cut taxes and starve government, but they rarely have the balls to actually cut popular programs. Because if they did, that would be the end of their political careers. And when their agenda sees the light of day, like it did in Lincoln, Nebraska, Republicans find every excuse to disavow that agenda.
If conservative ideology has supremacy in this country, why do conservatives hide in the shadows? If people really wanted government stripped to the bone, why not proudly display that agenda in all it's glory?
The "why" is easy. Republicans are afraid to reveal their true stripes.
Just another manifestation of Republican cowardice.
Republican agenda revealed
by kos
Thu Jun 01, 2006 at 06:23:44 PM PDT
It's a local story from Lincoln, Nebraska, except that it offers us an insight into the Republican mind. And that makes it a universal, national story.
The mayor said she wanted specifics, so City Councilwoman Robin Eschliman gave her specifics about where she would cut the city's budget.
After a semi-scolding in a memo from Seng about how generalities don't help with budget-cutting, Eschliman responded with a list of specific budget cuts she supports, largely based on a survey she did over the winter. Here are a few areas in which she said she'd support "substantial cuts":
* Merit pay increases for city employees
* Swimming pools, unless attendance goes up
* Bus routes
* Expenditures involving water runoff, flood plain issues, etc.
* Libraries, unless usage is increasing
* Capital improvements to parks
* Funding for the Women's Commission; she suggests moving it under the umbrella of another department.
When contacted by the Journal Star about her letter, Eschliman said it was mistakenly released to the public and was only a preliminary list.
The New Nebraska Network pounced:
Though many Republicans are ideologically opposed to the above sorts of spending, it's rare indeed that one will come right out and tell families that they should go without popular services that government has long had an essential, oftentimes exclusive, role in providing.
When Eschliman talks about substantially cutting funds for public parks, libraries, and swimming pools, she's just being honest about the Republican party's priorities. It just so happens that when Republicans are honest about these things, they reveal themselves as completely out-of-touch with mainstream voters and their values.
Sure, people like to complain about paying taxes, but not to the degree that they're willing to give up those things that so enrich our quality of life and give our communities character. Eschliman and her like may prefer to see that money returned to citizens for investment in real estate and the stock market, but real people accept and embrace these limited trade-offs of their private gain for the public good .... a concept the true Republican ideologue simply can't grasp.
That's just the thing. Republicans will talk a good game about returning money to taxpayers, yadda yadda, but they are hard pressed to make the cuts. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, people like things like parks and swimming pools and libraries. Republicans may consider such things "non-essential", but most people consider those places community hubs.
So Republicans, when in power, cut taxes and starve government, but they rarely have the balls to actually cut popular programs. Because if they did, that would be the end of their political careers. And when their agenda sees the light of day, like it did in Lincoln, Nebraska, Republicans find every excuse to disavow that agenda.
If conservative ideology has supremacy in this country, why do conservatives hide in the shadows? If people really wanted government stripped to the bone, why not proudly display that agenda in all it's glory?
The "why" is easy. Republicans are afraid to reveal their true stripes.
Just another manifestation of Republican cowardice.
Notes from the party:
More Jell-o shots, and in larger cups
More vodka
More patio furniture
More landscaping
Waterproof disposable cameras
Live pool-cam
Stronger wi-fi signal
Fewer sexually confused drunks
Less potato salad
Less food
Not on a school night
More vodka
More patio furniture
More landscaping
Waterproof disposable cameras
Live pool-cam
Stronger wi-fi signal
Fewer sexually confused drunks
Less potato salad
Less food
Not on a school night
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
What if you had exactly what you asked for?
I work on the science and philosophy of manifesting what I ask the Universe for - and I've had proof of it before. Yesterday, though, I first experienced having the universe deliver EXACTLY what I had asked for when I wasn't paying attention. It really rattled me.
I know that when I decided that this was what I wanted, I put it out into the Universe and then I started contradicting it by expecting the opposite result. When I got the result I wanted, it just shocked me.
Was it an anomoly? Was it real? Wow. I'm riding two trains of thought here - first, is it something that's real, and what comes next? Also, is it really this easy to have what one wants?
I know that when I decided that this was what I wanted, I put it out into the Universe and then I started contradicting it by expecting the opposite result. When I got the result I wanted, it just shocked me.
Was it an anomoly? Was it real? Wow. I'm riding two trains of thought here - first, is it something that's real, and what comes next? Also, is it really this easy to have what one wants?
Monday, May 29, 2006
Memorial Day memories in the making
I'm sitting here watching the gray clouds roll in from the east, as the light of day is barely dawning. This house is so fabulous.
N8 (the guy from Clear Lake who has a tendency to show up, wildly drunk) knocked on my bedroom window at 5:00 (4:55, actually) and is now snoozing in my bed. He doesn't seem as drunk as he USUALLY is, but he was at the 128% of drunken obnoxious before he wandered off in there to crash.
I looked out the window when he knocked, saw his car parked outside, went outside to see if he was wandering around somewhere, couldn't see him - just his car, so I went back to bed. Twenty-five minutes later, I gave up, realizing that I wasn't going back to sleep. So, now I'm up. Another night of fewer than five hours of sleep.
Yesterday, Roland helped put the speaker wire under the carpeting - it looks SO much better. The stereo is still thunderous; we watched War of the Worlds last night, and had it turned up to about 55% - we couldn't talk in the living room. The sound was clear as a bell, and the glassware in the bar was shaking like crazy. Brian was helping with this project yesterday, and remarked that I get irritated very easily. Well, yes. When people do stupid shit, and then try to blame me for it, I get irritable. Peace and tranquility, my son. I get over it very quickly too.
That's one of the reasons that I don't often go to movies at the theater; I can watch them here at home, in staggering sound and .. not have to park?
Spent some time yesterday car shopping on the internet again. Every single thing that I look at (which is appealing to me, anyway) has a little column of black circles in the Consumer Report reliability ratings. This would mean nothing but frustration and annoyance, which is NOT what I want from my new car experience.
Perhaps a .. Toyota Camry? Ugh. That would be much like driving a loaf of Wonder Bread.
N8 (the guy from Clear Lake who has a tendency to show up, wildly drunk) knocked on my bedroom window at 5:00 (4:55, actually) and is now snoozing in my bed. He doesn't seem as drunk as he USUALLY is, but he was at the 128% of drunken obnoxious before he wandered off in there to crash.
I looked out the window when he knocked, saw his car parked outside, went outside to see if he was wandering around somewhere, couldn't see him - just his car, so I went back to bed. Twenty-five minutes later, I gave up, realizing that I wasn't going back to sleep. So, now I'm up. Another night of fewer than five hours of sleep.
Yesterday, Roland helped put the speaker wire under the carpeting - it looks SO much better. The stereo is still thunderous; we watched War of the Worlds last night, and had it turned up to about 55% - we couldn't talk in the living room. The sound was clear as a bell, and the glassware in the bar was shaking like crazy. Brian was helping with this project yesterday, and remarked that I get irritated very easily. Well, yes. When people do stupid shit, and then try to blame me for it, I get irritable. Peace and tranquility, my son. I get over it very quickly too.
That's one of the reasons that I don't often go to movies at the theater; I can watch them here at home, in staggering sound and .. not have to park?
Spent some time yesterday car shopping on the internet again. Every single thing that I look at (which is appealing to me, anyway) has a little column of black circles in the Consumer Report reliability ratings. This would mean nothing but frustration and annoyance, which is NOT what I want from my new car experience.
Perhaps a .. Toyota Camry? Ugh. That would be much like driving a loaf of Wonder Bread.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Sunday before Memorial Day
So, this morning, I woke to cloudy skies and sprinkles. Rick trundled downstairs from the Twitch room about ten minutes after I got up. He went off to Jack in the Box to pick up some brekkie for us while I made coffee and emptied the dishwasher. Then, he and I cleaned things up around here in anticipation of the Dallas girls, who are arriving in about 45 minutes.
I'm loving having the surround system working. L-O-V-I-N-G it.
I'm loving having the surround system working. L-O-V-I-N-G it.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Saturday WITH Dolby 5.1
Rick and I got the rear speakers hooked up today - and got the front speakers hooked up CORRECTLY. Thus, the sound is AWESOME. Wait, one more time. AWESOME. The sound in this living room is nearly as good as it is in a movie theater. We haven't run the rear wires below the carpeting yet.
We cooked up enough food for twenty homosexuals, made another twenty jell-o shots, filled up the refrigerator with food. I got a bunch of little things done, to make the whole place more nested.
Mitch claims he's coming in the morning to pick up his bed, his clothing, his shoes, etc. That would be .. um, great! I just want him to leave his TV, but that's unlikely.
Enrique is going to help me with an exercise program that I've wanted and he has. YAY for Rick!
My Sunday off tomorrow. Strange, and not. Two Sundays speaking on anxiety and then we're off to E's birthday party, and another Sunday off.
Our reunion website is now LIVE LIVE LIVE! Next, I'll be flogging Tom to get my business website up and operating. WHOOP!.
We cooked up enough food for twenty homosexuals, made another twenty jell-o shots, filled up the refrigerator with food. I got a bunch of little things done, to make the whole place more nested.
Mitch claims he's coming in the morning to pick up his bed, his clothing, his shoes, etc. That would be .. um, great! I just want him to leave his TV, but that's unlikely.
Enrique is going to help me with an exercise program that I've wanted and he has. YAY for Rick!
My Sunday off tomorrow. Strange, and not. Two Sundays speaking on anxiety and then we're off to E's birthday party, and another Sunday off.
Our reunion website is now LIVE LIVE LIVE! Next, I'll be flogging Tom to get my business website up and operating. WHOOP!.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Thurs-day of reckoning
I started this post, and didn't finish it. The Time Warner cable connection was up, but the wireless wasn't working. Babs worked from home today. I worked on a bunch of stuff, and cleared off her desk for the most part. The reunion website is frustrating the snot out of me. It's taking forever, and the problem seems to be with the hosting company, not with us.
A big weekend coming up. Ruby's now acting like she's schizo - half of the time, the rear shocks aren't working, the rest of the time, they're working fine. Today, I had a meeting down in Clear Lake to check out the leased space for the church, and she rode great all the way down there. On the way back, she rode like a Big Wheel.
The leased space is fabulous - I have to prepare a revised lease proposal tomorrow and get it over to R&R for delivery to the landlord.
And, we move in five weeks. WOW.
Edgar now says that they'll probably come visit in the fall. By then, the house should be painted, the landscaping done, the upstairs bedrooms finished up.
A big weekend coming up. Ruby's now acting like she's schizo - half of the time, the rear shocks aren't working, the rest of the time, they're working fine. Today, I had a meeting down in Clear Lake to check out the leased space for the church, and she rode great all the way down there. On the way back, she rode like a Big Wheel.
The leased space is fabulous - I have to prepare a revised lease proposal tomorrow and get it over to R&R for delivery to the landlord.
And, we move in five weeks. WOW.
Edgar now says that they'll probably come visit in the fall. By then, the house should be painted, the landscaping done, the upstairs bedrooms finished up.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Tuesday that follows Monday
Tomorrow is when TWC comes out and I ditch AT&T, formerly known as SBC for good. YAY. I'm hoping it works out great.
N8 bought himself a new car. A black Escalade. Very zippy. E went to Paris today - so he's off the matrix for two weeks.
N8 bought himself a new car. A black Escalade. Very zippy. E went to Paris today - so he's off the matrix for two weeks.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Monday, Monday ver. 778.01
Watching "Good Night, and Good Luck." It's the damned same thing that we're experiencing right now! This is just insane! Nonsense and insane.
A nice, peaceful evening. I cleaned up the patio tonight, as much as I felt like. Moved the clay pots, to try to cover over a former flower bed that Barney is lying in regularly. I also spent some time thinking about colors for the house after July 1 when I get it secured in my name. The Behr website has some pretty cool selection tools, and offers suggestions based on current "fashion" and color combinations. In fiddling aruond with that, I picked out a nice color scheme. Belvedere Cream for the exterior walls, Toffee Crunch for the trim, Black Orchid for the doors and shutters, and Creamy White for whatever trim is left.
But, it must wait until later. I also picked out some new exterior lighting fixtures, which would, in combination with the paint, make this place look MUCH better.
I thought we would have some rain here today; Nicole called saying that they had lost power in their building. Just some sprinkles.
Did a property tax protest on this property today. Talked to two other people about tax protests for their properties - told 'em they were already undervalued.
Now, I'm watching Oz, Season one, episode one.
A nice, peaceful evening. I cleaned up the patio tonight, as much as I felt like. Moved the clay pots, to try to cover over a former flower bed that Barney is lying in regularly. I also spent some time thinking about colors for the house after July 1 when I get it secured in my name. The Behr website has some pretty cool selection tools, and offers suggestions based on current "fashion" and color combinations. In fiddling aruond with that, I picked out a nice color scheme. Belvedere Cream for the exterior walls, Toffee Crunch for the trim, Black Orchid for the doors and shutters, and Creamy White for whatever trim is left.
But, it must wait until later. I also picked out some new exterior lighting fixtures, which would, in combination with the paint, make this place look MUCH better.
I thought we would have some rain here today; Nicole called saying that they had lost power in their building. Just some sprinkles.
Did a property tax protest on this property today. Talked to two other people about tax protests for their properties - told 'em they were already undervalued.
Now, I'm watching Oz, Season one, episode one.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Salvation may be at hand
Washington Post article
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Salvation may be at hand
Washington Post article
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Friday, May 19, 2006
Here's an example of trickle-down at work
source article
Air Force Chief of Staff Named in FBI Contract Probe
May 18, 2006 5:17 PM
Brian Ross and Len Tepper Report:
The Air Force's highest-ranking officer, General T. Michael Moseley, and his predecessor, Gen. John Jumper, are the subjects of an FBI investigation into the handling of a $49.9 million dollar contract for the Air Force Thunderbirds, the air demonstration squadron.
Law enforcement officials tell ABC News the FBI is investigating allegations the two Air Force generals helped to steer the Thunderbird contract to a friend, retired Air Force Gen. Hal Hornburg.
Six months after leaving the military, Gen. Hornburg, whose command included the Thunderbirds,
became a partner in the company that won the contract.
"One of the highest ranking Air Force officers just creates his nest to land in when he leaves the military," said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight.
Investigators say Gen. Moseley and Gen. Jumper knew their friend was connected with the company when they awarded the contract.
The FBI investigation came about after complaints from Air Force insiders and from a rival company whose bid was for half the amount.
"We don't need it, it's a complete waste of money, and it is unethical the way it came about," said Sen. Tom Coburn of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The contract was cancelled earlier this year when the Air Force General Counsel questioned the "integrity of the process" and the involvement of four star generals.
The case was referred to the Inspector General for the Department of Defense, and the FBI later joined the investigation.
All three Generals have denied any wrongdoing.
Air Force Chief of Staff Named in FBI Contract Probe
May 18, 2006 5:17 PM
Brian Ross and Len Tepper Report:
The Air Force's highest-ranking officer, General T. Michael Moseley, and his predecessor, Gen. John Jumper, are the subjects of an FBI investigation into the handling of a $49.9 million dollar contract for the Air Force Thunderbirds, the air demonstration squadron.
Law enforcement officials tell ABC News the FBI is investigating allegations the two Air Force generals helped to steer the Thunderbird contract to a friend, retired Air Force Gen. Hal Hornburg.
Six months after leaving the military, Gen. Hornburg, whose command included the Thunderbirds,
became a partner in the company that won the contract.
"One of the highest ranking Air Force officers just creates his nest to land in when he leaves the military," said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight.
Investigators say Gen. Moseley and Gen. Jumper knew their friend was connected with the company when they awarded the contract.
The FBI investigation came about after complaints from Air Force insiders and from a rival company whose bid was for half the amount.
"We don't need it, it's a complete waste of money, and it is unethical the way it came about," said Sen. Tom Coburn of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The contract was cancelled earlier this year when the Air Force General Counsel questioned the "integrity of the process" and the involvement of four star generals.
The case was referred to the Inspector General for the Department of Defense, and the FBI later joined the investigation.
All three Generals have denied any wrongdoing.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Finally, one of the talking heads snaps back
http://www.kabc.com/mcintyre/listingsEntry.asp?ID=432586&PT=McIntyre+in+the+Morning
Doug's apology
AN APOLOGY FROM A BUSH VOTER
By Doug McIntyre
Host, McIntyre in the Morning
Talk Radio 790 KABC
There’s nothing harder in public life than admitting you’re wrong. By the way, admitting you’re wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you don’t believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, it’s out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.
So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.
In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasn’t sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was… unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.
For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.
Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.
And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.
I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, that’s where the Taliban was, that’s where al-Qaida trained the killers, that’s where Bin Laden was.
And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.
Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.
I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, “The Project for the New American Century.” It’s been around since ‘92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, “Democratizing the Middle East” and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, “pre-emptive war.” Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous.
But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, “The next smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud.” At least that’s what I thought at the time.
I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked with a guy, Frank O’Brien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.
But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.
I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war won’t be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and can’t do on the ground and any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in some cases, maligned.
I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the “waning days of the insurgency.” And I started wincing again. The President says we have to stay the course but what if it’s the wrong course?
It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to victory. We’re about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. It’s unspeakable. The liberal media didn’t create this reality, bad policy did.
Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably accurate take on a President’s place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush will be celebrated as a visionary genius.
But we don’t live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes we cast and the leaders we chose now.
After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.
Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding-— the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and that’s assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.
And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let’s talk for a minute about President Bush’s domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the public’s money. We’re drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren’s credit cards. Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?
Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or environmental protection, and/or worker’s rights.
I’ve talked so often about the border issue, I won’t bore you with a rehash. It’s enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; he’s debased the work ethic itself. “Jobs Americans won’t do!” He doesn’t believe in the sovereign borders of the country he’s sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President’s January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him in 2004. And I’m glad I didn’t.
Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any American’s lifetime.
You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and you’re right, history remembers you well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the White Sox, and you use the same gut to send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.
None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It requires it. It doesn’t work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center where all healthy societies live.
Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I don’t believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. And that’s one of the many problems with the Democrats.
The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.
I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapse. It’s currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money.
We’re being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. They’ve learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.
This is painful to say, and I’m sure for many of you, painful to read. But it’s impossible to heal the country until we’re willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.
With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, it’s almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?
It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that I’m all wet about everything I’ve just said. But I’m putting it out there, because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I don’t say any of this lightly. I’ve thought about this for months and months. But eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.
I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and it’s rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.
So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn’t generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn’t be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?
Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he’s down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.
You were right, I was wrong.
Doug's apology
AN APOLOGY FROM A BUSH VOTER
By Doug McIntyre
Host, McIntyre in the Morning
Talk Radio 790 KABC
There’s nothing harder in public life than admitting you’re wrong. By the way, admitting you’re wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you don’t believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, it’s out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.
So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.
In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasn’t sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was… unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.
For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.
Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.
And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.
I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, that’s where the Taliban was, that’s where al-Qaida trained the killers, that’s where Bin Laden was.
And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.
Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.
I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, “The Project for the New American Century.” It’s been around since ‘92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, “Democratizing the Middle East” and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, “pre-emptive war.” Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous.
But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, “The next smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud.” At least that’s what I thought at the time.
I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked with a guy, Frank O’Brien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.
But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.
I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war won’t be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and can’t do on the ground and any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in some cases, maligned.
I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the “waning days of the insurgency.” And I started wincing again. The President says we have to stay the course but what if it’s the wrong course?
It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to victory. We’re about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. It’s unspeakable. The liberal media didn’t create this reality, bad policy did.
Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably accurate take on a President’s place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush will be celebrated as a visionary genius.
But we don’t live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes we cast and the leaders we chose now.
After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.
Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding-— the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and that’s assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.
And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let’s talk for a minute about President Bush’s domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the public’s money. We’re drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren’s credit cards. Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?
Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or environmental protection, and/or worker’s rights.
I’ve talked so often about the border issue, I won’t bore you with a rehash. It’s enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; he’s debased the work ethic itself. “Jobs Americans won’t do!” He doesn’t believe in the sovereign borders of the country he’s sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President’s January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him in 2004. And I’m glad I didn’t.
Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any American’s lifetime.
You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and you’re right, history remembers you well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the White Sox, and you use the same gut to send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.
None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It requires it. It doesn’t work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center where all healthy societies live.
Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I don’t believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. And that’s one of the many problems with the Democrats.
The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.
I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapse. It’s currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money.
We’re being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. They’ve learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.
This is painful to say, and I’m sure for many of you, painful to read. But it’s impossible to heal the country until we’re willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.
With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, it’s almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?
It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that I’m all wet about everything I’ve just said. But I’m putting it out there, because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I don’t say any of this lightly. I’ve thought about this for months and months. But eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.
I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and it’s rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.
So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn’t generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn’t be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?
Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he’s down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.
You were right, I was wrong.
Prac'd
Just finished the Practitioner exam. 74 minutes, start to finish. We have three hours. It just seemed so much less involved than what we were prepared for. I’m writing a blog entry rather than make everyone nervous by getting up and printing my exam, signaling that I’m done.
When I was in college and in law school, I always finished the exam section a significant time before the allotted, and signaling that I was done always rattled those around me, which is a positive in a competitive environment such as that. In this environment, the intent is that everyone passes.
The traffic up here today was the worst EVER. I left the house at 5:05, and didn’t arrive here until 6:35. I was a bit tense when I arrived. I got over it. Mostly. One woman, driving a Jeep Grand as if she were a 15 year old male with a learner’s permit cut me off THREE times in less than a quarter mile, and then acted surprised when my “peace and tranquility” was busted into small pieces.
Today, I handed no man his hat. I did get Mitch the Twitch paying attention to me when I said that I wanted to stay in the house, but would not engage in a discussion based on what I could afford. I had to re-send him the several emails that I had sent outlining my position and non-specific offer, and I’m sure he has deleted those without reading them as well.
He’s such a nudge.
My new printer/fax/scanner/copier (thanks Donna!) is OUTSTANDING, and is suddenly not printing. Blarg. I need more help getting it working with one of the print server or the network hub. SOMETHING needs to work.
Tomorrow is another day. I have some accounting work to catch up on, but I rather think that the day will be spent working on mortgage classes – where to offer them, designing the flyers, where to send the flyers, completing the course books, that sort of thing. In the late afternoon, I am picking up Nicole, who is taking me out for my birthday present, even though we’re more than half way to the next birthday. We’ll have fun.
Chuck is going to BearSnatch all weekend in Galveston, so I’m flying solo – well, at least on Sunday. That boy has more dates than an Arab market.
It’s kind of strange that this is my last prac class. I haven’t breathed a word to a soul, but I’m thinking of volunteering to co-teach prac one next year with Jesse.
I wrote up a book outline for my ghostly experience with Judy (the murdered woman whom I saw at her house a few years ago) and sent it to Donna. She loved it! I have to put the outline into a format that the industry will recognize, and write the first chapter or so. She encouraged me to go to OGG (that’s airline speak for Maui) in August to attend a writer’s conference – I wonder how that would fit with my class reunion and my dad’s 80th birthday that month.
Oh, part of me just wants to be honest, get up and print the silly exam. This low plastic chair is hurting my knees and my lower back.
What if Neitzche was wrong? What if that which doesn’t kill you just makes you bitter?
The weather has just been gorgeous. If it were like this all the time, that would be just fine with me.
I was loading the car tonight (laptop, man bag, ink jet printer, CD-ROM external drive, cables, etc.) and noticed that Barney is looking .. well, like crap! He looks like an old guy in a nursing home right before they have to put him into diapers and feed him with a straw. I wonder if scrubbing him up on Saturday will help. It seems he hasn’t been chewing on himself since his Big Vacation, but of course, he has no front teeth left.
I’m just immersed in this crapola feeling that has underlain everything I’ve ever done or felt in my entire life. It’s all I’m present to (how Landmark was THAT?) Of course, this can be a good thing, because when one (me) gets REALLY clear about a feeling that they’re ready to release – it becomes easy to let ‘er go. And this one, I’d love to let go.
I’m clear that this feeling has colored (would poisoned be a better word? Probably) EVERYTHING I’ve attempted. Only when I can rise about this feeling do I have fully satisfying results. Jayne tells me that I need to reach back and focus on one of those feelings and bring that forward. Uh, hm. Tough gig. Working on it though.
Seeing Tom tonight after class. We have a ton of talking to do about the websites (six gazillion of ‘em) that I have tossed into his lap. Yesterday, we signed up with my registrar for monthly hosting for up to five URLs. Well, hell, that’s going to be soaked up by June, if I have any say over it. I’m going to see what it’s going to take to light a fire under his (very round) butt to get these websites deployed ASAP.
Pappa wants a new car, after all. And he doesn’t want to have to reach down and pay for it.
Nothing produces verbiage like a bunch of time with nothing else to do but think, create words and plunk down the keys.
Not a peep today from either of the gentlemen who had their hats handed to them yesterday; the guy from the Buick dealer, nor Secret Agent man.
Mikey’s coming over on Saturday morning to work on getting ready for the big party on Memorial Day. He’s prepared to start making jell-o shots ALREADY, which will require that we a.) make space in the freezer, which is full, b.) buy some really cheap vodka, and c.) buy shot cups. He’s a nut, but he’s popped up ready to ROLL with this party, and I’m very grateful. He single handedly made WoB #3’s Memorial Day weenie roast last year. All Curt did was hand over some cabbage and pick up some (crappy) chips and queso. Note to file: Mikey, I have a fabulous fondue pot that Sondra gave me. We can keep the queso HOT all afternoon.
Found a massage guy online who claims that he’s studied and can fix TMJ. As in the TMJ that causes me great discomfort EVERY day, wakes me up at night, and which I studiously ignore. He was emailing back and forth with me today about it – asking questions “if you hold your nose and blow, is either ear blocked?” etc., etc. He says he thinks I have a pinched nerve in my neck which is causing the jaw/neck/shoulder tension. I think he’s coming over Sunday for a few hours to fix it. FIX it. He was describing how these pinched nerves NEVER go back to normal, the body just adapts. Well, hell – when I was nineteen, I was in a pretty severe car wreck – and my neck hasn’t been right since. Now that he mentions it, it just gets worse every. Single. Year.
So, what will it be like to NOT have my shoulders up hanging off my earlobes? To not have all this pain? Wow. I don’t know. It’s like what you can do with all the negative thoughts that you finally rid yourself of.
Okay, people are moving around, so I’m going to close down, and hook up my printer.
Now that’s done. Jayne’s done too. To be worried or not? Kyle’s done, and he’s printing his paper. Once he’s done that, I’ll print mine out.
Debby gave me a copy of 365 SOM! How fabulous! I just love her.
When I was in college and in law school, I always finished the exam section a significant time before the allotted, and signaling that I was done always rattled those around me, which is a positive in a competitive environment such as that. In this environment, the intent is that everyone passes.
The traffic up here today was the worst EVER. I left the house at 5:05, and didn’t arrive here until 6:35. I was a bit tense when I arrived. I got over it. Mostly. One woman, driving a Jeep Grand as if she were a 15 year old male with a learner’s permit cut me off THREE times in less than a quarter mile, and then acted surprised when my “peace and tranquility” was busted into small pieces.
Today, I handed no man his hat. I did get Mitch the Twitch paying attention to me when I said that I wanted to stay in the house, but would not engage in a discussion based on what I could afford. I had to re-send him the several emails that I had sent outlining my position and non-specific offer, and I’m sure he has deleted those without reading them as well.
He’s such a nudge.
My new printer/fax/scanner/copier (thanks Donna!) is OUTSTANDING, and is suddenly not printing. Blarg. I need more help getting it working with one of the print server or the network hub. SOMETHING needs to work.
Tomorrow is another day. I have some accounting work to catch up on, but I rather think that the day will be spent working on mortgage classes – where to offer them, designing the flyers, where to send the flyers, completing the course books, that sort of thing. In the late afternoon, I am picking up Nicole, who is taking me out for my birthday present, even though we’re more than half way to the next birthday. We’ll have fun.
Chuck is going to BearSnatch all weekend in Galveston, so I’m flying solo – well, at least on Sunday. That boy has more dates than an Arab market.
It’s kind of strange that this is my last prac class. I haven’t breathed a word to a soul, but I’m thinking of volunteering to co-teach prac one next year with Jesse.
I wrote up a book outline for my ghostly experience with Judy (the murdered woman whom I saw at her house a few years ago) and sent it to Donna. She loved it! I have to put the outline into a format that the industry will recognize, and write the first chapter or so. She encouraged me to go to OGG (that’s airline speak for Maui) in August to attend a writer’s conference – I wonder how that would fit with my class reunion and my dad’s 80th birthday that month.
Oh, part of me just wants to be honest, get up and print the silly exam. This low plastic chair is hurting my knees and my lower back.
What if Neitzche was wrong? What if that which doesn’t kill you just makes you bitter?
The weather has just been gorgeous. If it were like this all the time, that would be just fine with me.
I was loading the car tonight (laptop, man bag, ink jet printer, CD-ROM external drive, cables, etc.) and noticed that Barney is looking .. well, like crap! He looks like an old guy in a nursing home right before they have to put him into diapers and feed him with a straw. I wonder if scrubbing him up on Saturday will help. It seems he hasn’t been chewing on himself since his Big Vacation, but of course, he has no front teeth left.
I’m just immersed in this crapola feeling that has underlain everything I’ve ever done or felt in my entire life. It’s all I’m present to (how Landmark was THAT?) Of course, this can be a good thing, because when one (me) gets REALLY clear about a feeling that they’re ready to release – it becomes easy to let ‘er go. And this one, I’d love to let go.
I’m clear that this feeling has colored (would poisoned be a better word? Probably) EVERYTHING I’ve attempted. Only when I can rise about this feeling do I have fully satisfying results. Jayne tells me that I need to reach back and focus on one of those feelings and bring that forward. Uh, hm. Tough gig. Working on it though.
Seeing Tom tonight after class. We have a ton of talking to do about the websites (six gazillion of ‘em) that I have tossed into his lap. Yesterday, we signed up with my registrar for monthly hosting for up to five URLs. Well, hell, that’s going to be soaked up by June, if I have any say over it. I’m going to see what it’s going to take to light a fire under his (very round) butt to get these websites deployed ASAP.
Pappa wants a new car, after all. And he doesn’t want to have to reach down and pay for it.
Nothing produces verbiage like a bunch of time with nothing else to do but think, create words and plunk down the keys.
Not a peep today from either of the gentlemen who had their hats handed to them yesterday; the guy from the Buick dealer, nor Secret Agent man.
Mikey’s coming over on Saturday morning to work on getting ready for the big party on Memorial Day. He’s prepared to start making jell-o shots ALREADY, which will require that we a.) make space in the freezer, which is full, b.) buy some really cheap vodka, and c.) buy shot cups. He’s a nut, but he’s popped up ready to ROLL with this party, and I’m very grateful. He single handedly made WoB #3’s Memorial Day weenie roast last year. All Curt did was hand over some cabbage and pick up some (crappy) chips and queso. Note to file: Mikey, I have a fabulous fondue pot that Sondra gave me. We can keep the queso HOT all afternoon.
Found a massage guy online who claims that he’s studied and can fix TMJ. As in the TMJ that causes me great discomfort EVERY day, wakes me up at night, and which I studiously ignore. He was emailing back and forth with me today about it – asking questions “if you hold your nose and blow, is either ear blocked?” etc., etc. He says he thinks I have a pinched nerve in my neck which is causing the jaw/neck/shoulder tension. I think he’s coming over Sunday for a few hours to fix it. FIX it. He was describing how these pinched nerves NEVER go back to normal, the body just adapts. Well, hell – when I was nineteen, I was in a pretty severe car wreck – and my neck hasn’t been right since. Now that he mentions it, it just gets worse every. Single. Year.
So, what will it be like to NOT have my shoulders up hanging off my earlobes? To not have all this pain? Wow. I don’t know. It’s like what you can do with all the negative thoughts that you finally rid yourself of.
Okay, people are moving around, so I’m going to close down, and hook up my printer.
Now that’s done. Jayne’s done too. To be worried or not? Kyle’s done, and he’s printing his paper. Once he’s done that, I’ll print mine out.
Debby gave me a copy of 365 SOM! How fabulous! I just love her.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
I think that
the universe was NOT wanting me to post what I had posted earlier, because after typing a bunch of text into this box - it all vanished when I tried to open up a movie file that someone sent me.
This day was rewarding in some regards, and utterly unrewarding in others. Perhaps I should focus on the rewarding parts. HAH.
This evening, I did get the tool kit and other detritus organized into the laundry room closet, which was a big step forward. That was a good feeling.
Which is something I'm digging for. A good feeling that isn't overlaying a bad feeling.
This day was rewarding in some regards, and utterly unrewarding in others. Perhaps I should focus on the rewarding parts. HAH.
This evening, I did get the tool kit and other detritus organized into the laundry room closet, which was a big step forward. That was a good feeling.
Which is something I'm digging for. A good feeling that isn't overlaying a bad feeling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)