The rantings and ravings of a mom of three wonderful girls as she finds new love while working like a dog and shaking her fist at the system. You know. Pretty much like everybody else.
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Just sharing some new sidewalk art pics I was forwarded today. I hadn't seen them before and thought you may not have either. (Click the pic to enlarge.) Enjoy!
Just a brief note to let those who drop by here from time to time...and consider themselves friends...know that me and mine are well. This despite 85 MPH winds yesterday that took out power to about 300,000 homes (ours included) here in River City. Even though Hurricane Ike made landfall more than 1000 miles from our house, he was still full of wind when he got here.
Our neighborhood, for those who haven't visited, has lots of lovely well-established (read that large) trees and older homes. After roughly 6 hours of high winds starting yesterday at about 11AM, the damage was as follows around here. At our house, there are cable lines down in the backyard and a variety of smaller limbs in both the front and back (though nothing creating more than the nuissance of having to clean them up), a few shingles blew off the roof, our Obama yard sign was a complete casualty and we have no power and no phone. Three doors to either side of our house a large limb had blown down, nearly completely blocking traffic on our street. One of those across a car parked where our pal Nate (who is also without power) often parks himself. Luckily, his truck was parked elsewhere due to an unexpected out of town trip on Saturday that had him arriving home very late.
The city at large is hurting. Power is out in so many areas that schools have been closed due to the number of them without electricity. Still NUMEROUS areas (especially in our neighborhood) blocked by fallen debris, though clean-up is well underway today. And the problems that normally go with hurricanes...a rookie would assume...shortages on ice and batteries.
And the one this rookie didn't foresee...a lack of gasoline. Well, around here they're saying it's no so much a lack of gasoline, as it is an abundance of business at those stations who have power to run their pumps. With so many stations out of commission, those who are open are seeing a HUGE bump in business and keeping the pumps flowing is the only problem they have. I stopped at three different stations at lunch today and only the second one, did I have even a chance to succeed in my quest. Unfortunately the last pump with any fuel left ran out on the guy directly in front of me in line. This, of course, after a 20 minute wait.
So, we're hoping to be back in the grid soon. As you may imagine, since the mayor announced this morning we may be 10-14 days without power, some folks at my house are pretty antzy. A lot of folks around here feeling the same, I guess. As we don't know many people who have power right now, and we're certainly not in a position to check into a motel (and I gotta imagine that's a pipedream even if we had the money) for two weeks, we're roughing it like the rest and are grateful we didn't get the voluminous water that normally accompanies these events. Luckily the temperatures are a help, with low humidity and highs in the mid-70's, we're dealing.
We can't say, with any certainty, how far inland you have to go to avoid a hurricane. But we hope the rest of you, out there, are faring better.
Here in "The Other" Windy City, that's all the news that's fit to print!
After last week's RNC, I found I was pretty off put. But, hey, sometimes, these things are "just me"...you know?
The morning after Sarah Palin's speech, my favorite republican co-worker stopped by to gloat about what a great choice she was!! I tried to ignore it, but when his entire reason for delight in his choice was because they'd have a shot at picking up 15% of the former Clinton supporters...and he had no idea about her stand on issues or about the MANY skeletons in her igloo...well...I got mad.
I admit it.
My hubby will be the first to tell you, "Don't Type Angry." (Although, he's been known not to follow that same advice from time to time.) But I couldn't help it. He started talking about how Obama had voted "present, but no vote" over 130 times...and that he (the co-worker) could NEVER "get behind a president who couldn't make up his mind" on things. And, well, having gone to websites previously to check on how various folks have voted on various issues, I knew just how easy it would be to prove whether this was even true...or not. And, of course, as I was CERTAIN that my co-worker would want to know how HIS candidate fared by comparison, it would allow me to do that, too.
I spent a little time wading through things and tallying them up...and then...well...I prepared an email forward for him. It looked exactly like this.
A REVIEW OF THE CANDIDATES:
Okay, [Republican Architect Dude],
Per our discussion this morning (and you know I would), here’s the poop. Get your read on, there’s good stuff in these here links.
To recap, of 1298 votes cast since January 2005 to present, Obama has voted
Yes - 673 No - 297 No Vote - 298
I was quite surprised to see that a good many of the “No Vote” votes were based on political confirmations of U.S. District or Circuit Judges throughout the country, votes to invoke cloture (basically a vote to end discussions of whatever matter is about to be voted on), and votes to waive a C.B.A. (cost budget analysis) on various initiatives. I have to assume that if I did not have first hand knowledge about the qualifications of a judge in Virginia or Louisiana, I’d be reluctant to vote party lines just to have a vote on record. Similarly, if I felt the matter deserved more discussion prior to voting, I might not want to go on record to voting to invoke cloture. And, frankly, any vote waiving a C.B.A. is bad business as far as I’m concerned.
Of course, then I became curious about the other presidential candidate’s voting record…
Stone-thrower, Senator John McCain voted “No Vote” in 113 of the last 114 votes (which is every vote from April 1, 2008 forward), and another 50 “No Vote” votes from January 1, 2008 until April. I’m not going to count back further than that, but will tell you that the visual inspection (and you should check the link, it’s great shock value) would lead me to believe there are more. Surprising to me that he was poking Obama with that particular issue when, clearly, he’s right there, too.
A few other facts you may be interested to know, as the junior senator of Illinois, in just 3 ½ short years, Senator Obama has sponsored 131 bills, including the Lead Free Toys Act, The Fuel Economy Reform Act, the Climate Change Education Act, the Nuclear Weapons Threat Reduction Act, the Hurricane Katrina Working Family Tax Relief Act, The Congressional Ethics Enforcement Commission Act, The Improving Standards for Nutrition & Physical Education in Schools Act, the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Act, and the Homes for Heroes Act, which helps low-income vets get homes.
McCain has sponsored 537 bills (and co-sponsored 1230 more) since 1993. Most notably, he is responsible for co-sponsoring the McCain-Feingold Act regarding Campaign finance, however, during the last session of congress, bills sponsored by McCain included The Indian Arts & Crafts Amendment Act, The Arizona National Scenic Trail Act, The Cell Phone Tax Moratorium Act, The Drug Testing in Major League Sports Act and the Professional Boxing Amendment Act.
Initially, Senator Obama was appointed to serve on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Committee on Veterans Affairs, and the Committee on Foreign Relations, where he made official trips to the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.
In his second year on Capital Hill, he added committee appointments to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, and the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs to his workload.
Senator McCain is a ranking member on the Armed Services Committee and is a member on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
It is true, that before his current term as the junior senator of Illinois, a state with 12, 763,400 people, he only served six years (winning his initial election and being re-elected twice more) as an Illinois State Senator, serving the Chicago south-side district #13, home to approximately 781,000 people…more than the entire state of Alaska (at 626,930), by the way.
Prior to his political career, Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review, a civil rights attorney and taught law at the University of Chicago.
Conversely, Governor Palin, served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska City Council, a town of 7,025 people, and then was elected mayor of that same town for two terms. Upon her election as mayor, she immediately fired the police chief and librarian (based on a reluctance on the part of the librarian to ban certain books that Palin felt were inappropriate). She rescinded the firing of the librarian, but not the police chief. She also fired the public works director and the finance department director.
During her second term as mayor, she hired lobbyists to work to get “earmarks” (often the pork on legislative bills), one of the things John McCain was, at the time, fighting to abolish, for Wasilla. She also raised city taxes to pay for a multi-use sports complex for Wasilla (a city one fifth the size of Jeffersonville, Indiana), but it went over budget due to an eminent domain lawsuit. And, of course, there’s the debacle with the “bridge to nowhere” (which she found insulting…but got over by making light of it during her acceptance speech last night). She stopped construction on the bridge, after receiving $398 million dollars, claiming she needed another $329 million to build it. The money, earmarked for this bridge, was requested by congress to be sent to New Orleans to help rebuild there, but it was fought by Alaskan politicians and never went towards relief efforts.
In contrast, Hillary Clinton supporters are pro-choice, gun-control advocates who do not oppose gay marriage and are environmentally-conscious feminists looking for universal health care from a candidate with international experience in Congress and having served at the president’s side during two terms in the White House. I think it’s insulting to think that people who wanted to see Hillary Clinton elected president only wanted to do so because she is a woman, and therefore any ol’ woman will do. Sarah Palin could only appeal less to Hillary Clinton supporters if it came out that she was related to the Bush family. See this and this.
Oh, and with regard to her firing of Alaskan Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, over his refusal to fire a state trooper who had been officially cleared by IAD and who was embroiled in a bitter child custody case with the governor’s sister, once he WAS fired, he was replaced, by Palin, with someone who was in the middle of a sexual harassment investigation, for which he was eventually reprimanded. She then lied about any involvement in the abuse of power allegations, then adjusted downward to her staff acting without her knowledge, then adjusted down to “only as it regards the safety of my family”, and has been caught, yet again, lying about the situation. She had initially agreed to cooperate with the legislature regarding the investigation into the wrongful termination of Monegan (whom she claims to have dismissed because of “performance-related issues”…and then offered him a position with another agency), however, this week she has moved the jurisdiction to the state personnel board, which she appoints. Despite the fact that the trooper was a jackass, he was dealt, what was considered by his superiors, standard and appropriate reprimand for his mistakes.
Selecting Joe Biden to run as his vice-president, Obama has brought a senator who has served 6 consecutive terms and chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, and serves on the Judiciary subcommittees: Crime & Drugs, Terrorism & Homeland Security, Human Rights, Immigration/Border Security/Refugees, and Antitrust Competition.
I gotta believe that it comes down to issues and experience, and while Obama doesn’t have vast amounts of experience, he’s worked his tail off in the Senate and he has the savvy to surround himself with qualified people. If McCain were elected and something happened leaving Sarah Palin serving as president, would you genuinely be comfortable with that?
Signed,
Your favorite democrat co-worker
Sadly, I doubt he read it. Even though my sources are pretty mainstream (and not the liberal blogosphere...which is where republicans feel the only negative press is born), it's a long message, and there are lots of links. Attention span issues definitely kick in when it's information you don't choose to read.
Now, the fact that she pushes for abstinence-only education and doesn't see how that can backfire on young people (and their families), is an issue near and dear to my heart. But it's one I didn't touch on. There is a "truce", after all. I doubt it would make a difference anyway. Dick Cheney's daughter could probably share a few things with Palin's daughter about how what's best for one's family takes a backseat to political positioning.
In any event, it had been long enough, and despite prodding from my hubby to post that note, I was going to take the lazy way and just leave you guys out of the loop of my rants (you do get lucky once in a while). But I ran across a few things today on You Tube that I simply had to share. Since they were topical, I went ahead and did a full-scale attack.
Btw, I think choosing any candidate STRICTLY because of the ability to get votes for the party, without consideration for their ability to do the damned job is sickening.
But apparently, that's how it's done. Just because the VP choice has a vagoogoo, that's really all that matters. And they have no shame in saying it. And, lastly, that a savvy woman would have no problem playing along with it.
