Whee It’s the Weekend!

Tags

2016 election, activist judges, immigration, Israel, life in the foothills, obesity in America, rebranding the GOP, Ryan budget

Now that is something a decent retired person should not have to say, yet I find myself doing it. It’s been a busy week and today is the first day that I have not had some errand, or several to run. I’m fairly ecstatic.

The Contrarian is off to buy potting stuff, I bought a bunch of flowers and plants yesterday. I also got most of my herbs. Hopefully I can get them in later today. I’m waiting for the lemon curd to get cold and stiffen up before I finish the lemon cake. I’m not busy as you can see.

Diego continues to astound. He takes his job as paper boy very seriously, now waking us at 5:00 am should he hear a car go by. He is still having trouble differentiating the delivery man from the casual driver out for a spin before dawn.

He races eagerly out to the drive, looks around, finds nothing, then heads for the neighbors to see if there is a paper there. Finding none, he returns home, only to insist upon going through this scenario about every fifteen minutes.

Today, a new breakthrough occurred. After his first two trips were unsuccessful, it being Saturday and all, he had the fortuitous luck to meet the delivery guy on his third trip. As the guy pulled up to stop and extended his arm to through the paper, Diego bounded forth and took it from his hand. The guy thought this enormously fun, and waved and chuckled as he drove off.

Diego, of course will now want to sit out from about 4 am  waiting his delivery. It is still unclear whether the Contrarian shares his eagerness to await the grand arrival.

There is nothing “new” about the New Ryan Budget. Just more of the same.

Seriously repeal Obamacare?

Seriously?

Yet Boehner the Orange will claim that it’s another “passed” budget out of the  House.

We can pass one that says unicorns are now free to buy property too, and that stands as likely a chance of getting passed in the Senate.

They keep running the mantra that the “American people” wouldn’t have elected a majority of Republicans to the House if they didn’t believe in Republican fiscal principles.

No, franking the word gerrymandering comes to mind when I look for an explanation of why the GOP retained the House.

Bloomberg’s attempt to reduce the size of sugary drinks in NYC, didn’t fare too well before the courts.

Sarah of course appeared at CPAC carrying and sucking on her Big Gulp, all to show victory over stupid liberals and their attempts to control what we stuff in our mouths.

It wasn’t that many decades ago when getting fit was a national event, and nobody suggested that the government shouldn’t play a part.

Now it’s some conspiracy.

The Right thrive on conspiracies. I’m sure some bright Republican entrepreneur will soon open a shop for selling conspiracies. “We will design the conspiracy that’s right for you!” “Everything you don’t like can be explained by a conspiracy. Get your’s now!”

Meanwhile (god I love that segue), Republicans are busy rebranding themselves.

Trouble is, they are still caught up in the shall we drink tea or return to good scotch?

CPAC was a perfect example of speaker after speaker coming forth and starting with “Forget what he/she said, what we really need to do is. . . .”

I think it’s best if the scotch drinkers just lock the doors and refuse admittance to the tea boat folks. After all, they are none too smart, and surely cold turkey is best doncha think? (NO not wild turkey!)

Republicans have yet to learn the lesson that judges appointed for life, tend to have a mind of their own.

Your concerns are theirs about as long as it takes to confirm them. Then, well they have other concerns.

Sometimes those concerns don’t involve your petty social bigotries.

It’s funny to hear the Right lament their “conservative” judicial appointments as now activitists.

Some are so angry and so utterly devoid of constitutional knowledge that they suggest that the SCOTUS, after all is just an “opinion”, and one they need not follow.

Yeah, like evolution is just a “theory”.

The GOP can’t seem to find its way on immigration either. The Tea People want them all deported.

The GOP wants to win an election someday that is larger than a state.

Never the twain shall meet.

The compromise is permanent residence status, or as South Africa calls it, “the good old days.”

On a side note, I hear tell, (have no confirmed, but heck it’s too good not to be true) that Michelle Malkin is an anchor baby herself, born in this country to ” immigrants” who were then allowed to apply for citizenship because their daughter was a natural citizen.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Right-Wing pundits. Malkin is known for her rabid hatred of immigrants who have children and then apply for citizenship through the child. She opposed citizenship for anyone simply by being born in this country. Doncha just love it?

Oh please, even the GOP can do better than this.

Santorum ain’t done yet. And perhaps we can get Sarah to make a run.

Please this can’t be all they can come up with.

They are just salivating for Hillary.

Funny thing, is so are we.

She beats every one of them in head to head polling.

Maybe an Allen West will stick his black heart in (and I do no black not Black). Oh please God, do have a sense of humor once more.

The far right thought the Obama trip to Israel would go badly. If you don’t believe me, fast backward to the crazy sites in anticipation of the trip and read the comments.

It’s a bit like Bill Clinton. The right was chewing towels when Clinton escaped the “trap” laid by the GOP and his popularity soared.

The reactionary Right continues to predict disaster in Obama’s relationship with Israel, except that by all accounts he wowed them as usual.

It must make them mad. I bet they spend the evening loading rounds in the basement and checking once again if they have enough spam to withstand the “insurrection” that is coming any day now.

 

A Rolling Stone Gathers Whatever Is In Its Way

Tags

budget, deficit issues, gas prices, GOP, Israel, John Boehner, Middle East, Obama, teabaggers, welfare

Sir Boehner of Orange is not a man who is cozy with the truth. He, like so many of his cohorts, believe it is a most malleable thing to be twisted and pulled into whatever shape is necessary to feed the agenda they are pushing at any given time.

As most of us know, the sequester is looming on the horizon, and the GOP chatter seems as usual to ignore facts and create a new reality as needed. Thus the sequester is the “president’s idea” as if he designed it as the solution to our fiscal ills.

The Grand Bargain that Boehner continues to claim fell through because the President “changed” the offer at the last minute, is a total lie. In fact Boehner made the deal only to discover that he could not control the crazy element in his own caucus. Because of the Hastert Rule (thou shalt not bring to the floor a bill not already approved by a majority of your party), Boehner knew the deal could only pass with Democratic help. That he was not prepared to do, so he created the myth that the President changed the offer.

Given that time was short and the GOP was threatening to destroy the economy unless they got their way, the President proposed a draconian alternative that would come into play in six months. This was supposed to ensure that a meaningful debate and agreement would ensue to avoid the awfulness of the sequester. The President originally offered a 50/50 deal–there would be a sequester that consisted of half tax increases and half budget cuts. Boehner refused that deal and insisted that all be cuts.

Moreover, at the conclusion of the sequester deal, Boehner bragged to the press and anyone else that would listen that he had gotten “98% of everything he had been asking for” so he declared himself and his Party the winner.

Those are the real facts.

What the GOP continues to miss here, is that we are not so gullible nor so stupid that we don’t know these facts. So, his little attempt to hijack the truth in favor of his new reality only elicits nods and uhuh’s from his own stupid base. The rest of America sees it for the series of lies it is, and of course, realizes that the GOP is still the party that protects corporate interests to the detriment of the rest of us.

No lessons yet learned. The GOP continues to wallow in the mire of lies. It will remain a party that can’t win the big one. It will continue to try to figure out ways to steal elections. It will continue to be the best comedy routine in town.

•

You have heard no doubt that the President is heading to Israel? And when he is there, he’s going to get a Presidential Medal of Distinction. And the Right wing reactionaries are livid. They just cannot understand why the vast majority of us cannot see that this man is a horrid, vile, Commie, Islamic lovin’ Israel hater. I mean they cannot fathom this as it is SO obvious that he has a “visceral hostility toward Israel.”

Their answer is of course that the person giving him the medal, Israeli President Shimon Peres, is just a figurehead, who is not liked by most of the population.

It makes me laugh. And then I read their shock and dismay again, and I laugh a bit louder and longer.

The circus continues.

•

I do so appreciate a Republican who wants to help the poor. Jeff Sessions is ready to do just that. His method? Cut welfare of course. I mean really, it just breeds dependency doesn’t it? At least that’s what Newt said back in the 90’s when he pushed through the welfare reforms that resulted in tens of thousands losing their benefits. (hint: you might find some of these folks among the homeless today.)

Anyway, Sessions is bristling at the idea that the GOP is being called the party of the rich. And in a memorandum, he made it clear that they shouldn’t tie this deep desire to help out our poor by tying it to deficit reduction–that looks bad. Instead cuts in food stamps and such should be tied to helping business get healthy so those jobs become available. As everyone knows giving stuff to the poor just breeds more grabby people. Everyone knows that.

Boy, I feel ever so much better knowing the GOP really has a heart.

•

If you have been wondering why the price of gas has gone up sharply, well, yes you guessed it, you can blame the neo-cons. They pushed sanctions against Iranian oil, making Europe and others refuse to buy any. The neo-cons were sure of course (they always are) that this would not impact American prices.

They were also sure that Saudi Arabia would pick up the slack. (That now seems unlikely).

West Texas oil is selling at $100 a barrel, which is not good either.

All this causes prices to rise (and Iran gets the benefit of that for what oil it does sell).

Thank your nearest Republican today!

Related articles

• PowerPoint Presentation Shows Boehner Selling The Sequester To His Members In 2011 (tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• The sequester slideshow that may haunt the Speaker (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• GOP lawmakers don’t fear political impact of sequester taking effect (thehill.com)
• Boehner pushed the sequester that he now blames on Obama (dailykos.com)
• Setting the Record Straight About the Sequester (whitehouse.gov)

We’re Still Here?

Tags

"the hat", Beatrice, environment, global warming, GOP, Humor, Israel, Middle East, Mitch Daniels, Palestine, rapture, religion, Tim Pawlenty, tornadoes, weather

Photo credit: Adam Baron

Well, thankfully, we took lawn chairs. I mean Saturday for the Rapture. We were up on the hill, standing, and then sitting. Checking the watch. We clasped hands at :30 seconds and counting. And then. . . N O T H I N G.

At first, utter terror grabbed my heart. Oh no, was there some bureaucratic snafu? Had our names been left off by some angelic error? I commenced to clacking my ruby-red shoes again and again. To no avail.

We wondered, should we run back to the house and get in the basement? But all was eerily quiet and well, you might even say serene. No shaking, no erupting cacophony of earth-splitting horrors.

Finally, dejectedly, we wandered back to the house, flipped on the TV and found everything pretty much the same.

“Damn it!” the Contrarian exclaimed.

“What?”

“We missed the Preakness. Wonder who won?” he muttered.

“I can top that,” I intoned.

“How’s that?”

“On Monday, I’m back to what is increasingly as boring as paint drying–the GOP field of candidates!” I sighed.

♦

No doubt the poor people of Joplin, MO thought the Rapture might have been just delayed as they saw their town torn apart by a killer tornado yesterday. These monster storms are taking a toll across the country, and one has to go back to pre-1950 times to find these kind of death tolls. That means the storms are more ferocious, since warning systems and structures are certainly much better today. But there ain’t no global warming of course. No that is not possible.

♦

Does anyone care that Mitch Daniels is out and Tim Pawlenty is in? It’s really hard to. Theories abound as to why the “better?” candidates are opting out and the idiots are taking center stage. The most likely scenario is that they figure that Obama is nearly a sure bet. Re-focus on 2016. Maybe. If so, it promises to be a yawner except for the humor factor if Bachmann and Palin, join the other loonies Cain, Santorum, and Gingrich. Even then, it’s hard to get enthused. Or maybe I’m just off my game today. **shrug**

♦

 

Proof that I am sane and the world is crazy? One need go no further than a few weeks ago when I named the hat worn by Princess Beatrice at the William and Kate wedding as the “Bullwinkle Hat.”

Said “hat” sold on Ebay for $130,000 big ones. Need I say more?  

Truly, the more I look, the easier it is to find evidence that I am one of the few remaining sane humans on this planet.

Newt Gingrich. Need I say more?

I can go on like this all day. I deserve some kind of recognition for my ability to retain my mind in good working order when faced with this kind of insanity provoking nuttery. I do.

♦ 

I confess to not understanding all the intricacies of the Middle East peace process. But over the years, my sympathies have shifted more to the Palestinian side of things. I certainly don’t like Hamas’s tactics, but I think the Palestinians have a better claim on the land than do the Israelis. Fair reading of the Bible must leave a person with a certain amount of “well that’s a convenient way to tell the story and justify war and genocide isn’t it” feeling in the end.

Looking back, it was probably a very bad idea to create the state of Israel. And given history, Jerusalem, seems to me, to be fairly an “international” city of three religions. Saying all that, realities are what they are.

I suspect that those who really are in the know, know that Obama’s  speech on the peace process were carefully crafted and struck just the right note. They are entirely in line with European allies conclusions on the matter.

How do you feel about the situation?

♦

What’s on the stove? Liver and Onions, carrots, salad

 

 

All Snugged UP

Tags

Al-Jazeera, Bill O'Reilly, demographics, Egypt, El Baradei, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Health care, Israel, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Muslim Brotherhood, Newt Gingrich, Palestine

Okay, it wasn’t actually THAT bad. To be honest, we don’t really know how much snow we got. All the places where we measure were clean of snow. It blew THAT hard. There are places where there are a couple of inches, and then drifts that are two feet high. I’m guessing we got about 4-5 inches.

Still, we are most assuredly snowed in. Which is okay sort of. I mean we got food, and wood. We don’t have any special treats for Superbowl Sunday.

I can’t go shopping til whenever, because when we get out we have to get a new alternator first. And there is plenty of snow in the forecast, though amounts are still up in the air–“up in the air”– get it? And after about four days in the twenties, it’s going back to single digits and subzero at night.

February can go suck an egg.

***

I don’t like much I’m reading in the news so far. Just a few snippets minus the links. Rand Paul is trying to suck money from his supporters with a baseless fear about the US signing a treaty that will strip all private gun ownership. This with the UN. It’s all nonsense as even the NRA admits, yet Paul will scare a lot of folks into sending him money.  What a jerk.

A woman tried to mail a puppy in a two-day priority mail box. Puppy discovered and saved. Woman crazy and should be locked up.

Anderson Cooper assaulted in Cairo as pro-Mubarak forces are sent out to engage violently with the anti-government forces. Meanwhile of course the wackos continue to claim that the “pro-al Qaeda Muslim Brotherhood” has as its first priority to attack Israel.

Within hours of the faked up anti-planned parenthood video, websites and marches are set up and ready to go. Does anyone smell a rat here? All the usual right-wing groups are signed up.

I’m not sure I want to read any more news.

***

Steven Benen does a good analysis of Glenn Beck’s latest insanity. Turkey, a republic since 1928, is in fact a dictatorship according to Beckian land. He posits that China will take New Zealand and all kinds of other squirrelly nonsense. Beck has lost some 1/3 of his followers and seems desperate. Thus the claims get even more insane. Read the analysis and link to the embedded video to see the wacko in action. Followers are being told to “store up food.” Oh and PS: read the comments which are hilarious: “It’s like taking Jack Benny seriously as Hamlet.” Too funny.

***

El Baradei, thought by many to be a likely head of an interim government in Egypt, is well thought of by most of the moderates and liberals. Of course that means he is an enemy of the far right. Both Gingrich (who cares), and John McCain (who cares even less) have warned on Fox Crap that El Baradei is a secret radical and an enemy of the US. What a crock. El Baradei, you will remember, raised the ire of the neo-cons back in the day when he told the truth about Iraq and made their “dangerous” Iraq proofs all the harder.

***
It seems the media is more fun than ever these days. Billo the Clown, touter of “fair and balanced” made it quite clear, that when one “knows” fair and balanced, one knows “not fair and balanced.” And Al-Jazeera is not fair and balanced, and if Alan Colmes suggests they are, well Billo just screams him down. I think that Billo just felt a jab of guilt, don’t you?

***

Reagan’s Solicitor General, and now Harvard professor, Charles Fried says that the new Health Care Law is surely constitutional. This pissed off Orin Hatch to no end, but I’m guessing Fried is a bit more knowledgeable than Hatch. A video of his testimony at Truthout.

***

The call it “Fox Geezer syndrome” and more and more people are complaining about it. It seems that our elderly, left with nothing to do, are turning to Fox and Beck and well, becoming conspiracy fanatics. When they kids call or visit, they are met with endless diatribes about Obama, and the left, to the point that such conversations must be avoided. Funny, but sad it in a way too, because many reporting this are conservatives themselves, and find their parents descent into Fox madness quite disconcerting.

Also, Beck’s numbers have fallen by 1.5 million, and Fox’s median age is, get this: 65! Retirees with nothing to do, sit and watch this crap show all day and night and are the elderly zombie generation. Unreal isn’t it?

***

But another reason why fundamentalist beliefs and rational politics don’t mix. Mikey Huckabee is against the Palestinians having a homeland of their own. Forget of course that it was their homeland long before “God gave it to Israel.” No, Huck believes in the biblical history that suggests that Israel gets all of the promised land. It begs the question that if Huck runs for president, he’s gonna have to explain if he is a biblical apocalyptic believer. If so, I’m thinking he has disqualified himself from the job. Scary crap.

Related Articles

• On One Side the Right, on the Other Conservatives: (brothersjuddblog.com)
• Beck: Most Journalists “Just Punch The Clock” And Are “So Dead Inside” (mediaite.com)
• The Right’s Egypt Freakout (thedailybeast.com)

You Neandertal!

Tags

Einstein, foreign policy, general relativity, GOP'ers, Ground Zero, Iran, Israel, Media, Muslims, Neandertal, Olympics, paleontology, physics, Quayle, relgious freedom, teabaggers, terrorism, wingnuts

It used to be that to call someone a Neandertal, was to hurl a telling insult. You basically were saying, your kinda dumb, kinda out of touch with the world, and kinda doomed to extinction.

No more.

What I love most about science is it’s lack of certainty. Nothing is ever written in stone, but all is subject to the proviso of: “This is true, so far as we know now.”

For decades, perhaps longer, Neandertals were relegated to the failed category. A dead end hominid that couldn’t cut it in a modern world and died out.

Genetics and that wonderful world of genome testing has virtually proven evolution to be true, and at the same time, has re-written the human family tree. That’s why the field is so darned exciting.

Michael Shermer, science writer for Scientific American and Skeptic, explains how Neandertals are now re-categorized as homo sapiens neadertalensis, the sapiens being new. For indeed, they were not a dead end but in fact contribute to the genome that you and I today share. I have no idea why I am glad it is true, but I am.

It’s not so hot today, so far that is. I haven’t even heard a weather report. Not that that means anything if I did. They said we would be hot this week, but would have little actual rain. So far, in three days we’ve had at least three inches. So listening to them is wasting precious minutes of my day. I think mold is growing everywhere, and I’m thinking that weeds will be popping up through the floor any moment. This is SO tiresome.

I read this next one earlier today, but D-Cap explains it in his perfect style and wit. The Phyllis Schafly “son” has joined ma-ma in loolo land, now claiming that Einstein and general relativity is all bunk and just another of those liberal lies. Oh Lordy, Lordy, when will the teabaggin’ crazies combine to make up one good brain?

By the by. I LOVE Greek style yogurt. It is so fantastic that it doesn’t even compare to the regular type. Anybody know why the freakin’ stuff costs an arm and a leg? Is there some serious process that costs billions to create it like this? I would love to know.

William Lindsay has an interesting post at Bilgrimage about the tea party phenom as well as how the elites who have little to do with you and me control these conversations. Interesting take on Catholic conversation and gender domination. As many of us have said, we are the mere puppets in this charade of a national debate. We control no agenda, no topic.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so deathly sick of every politician, right or left who has the unmitigated gall to speak for me in that smarmy “The American people don’t like. . . .” Not a damn one of you has a clue what I don’t like or do. So speak for yourself, since you obviously only vote for yourself.

Big Think does a great article on Ground Zero and religious freedom. Lots of good links so you can continue learning. As I’ve said before, this situation has all the makings of tragedy in the making. In saner heads do not prevail. Be one of the sane ones. Make your opinion known by supporting Muslims in your community, writing letters to the editor, and speaking out clearly. The haters (who are always complaining they are being denied the right to their religion) cannot be allowed to win this one.

I included this one for fun. Ala Sharron Angle’s “I want you to ask the questions I want to answer so that the message we want out there is out there,” state Texan GOP’er, Debbie Riddle was taken aback when Anderson Cooper asked her to provide proof of her allegations. She alleges that terrorists were sending in sleeper pregnant women to give birth to American citizens who would in twenty or so years commit acts of terror. She got this info from FBI sources. She could not, of course, come up with any such sources and ended by accusing Cooper of grilling her, and that his network had not warned her to be prepared with actual answers. TOO FUNNY.

I swear, some day we are gonna find that this was all a monumental comedy hoax perpetrated by Candid Camera. I mean really, how do you grow up to adulthood with no brain? Yet if we listen to the Gopers, apparently dozens of them do.

We hear tell that Dan Quayle dubious VP under Bush numb nuts #1, and all around IQ misfit, has spawned a child called Ben who is carrying on the family dull tradition. Running for office he is calling Obama hands down the worst president in US history. This said with tongue in cheek no doubt. Coming from such illustrious parentage, one can but exclaim–Anyone for duck hunting? But he is running in Arizona, proof positive that the Continental US  is sagging southwest due to an excess of poop. A high colonic please!

Speaking of empty skulls,  I saw an interview with the guy who played piano for years at the WH. He was at Blair House when the Numb nuts #1 returned with the clan following his inauguration. Piano player said he recognized most of the Bushie family members, even the weird one who sat alone in the corner. Any guess who that might be?’

A very long, but very thorough article at Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg on Iran, Israel, and US foreign policy. A long haul, but then you come here to learn where to go to be informed right?

And just for fun, here’s a little post about how the British are gearing up to make nice with all the Olympic visitors come 2012. How to talk to foreigners! Enjoy! (Read the comments!)

What’s Up? 08/02/10

Tags

14th Amendment, global warming, immigration, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama

Oh yeah, *bounce* *bounce* doin’ the happy dance. Not a pretty sight, so don’t watch. The MAN is doing another Pirates movie! Scheduled for release next summer.

Filming in Maui. Oh to walk the sacred sands upon which his royal feet have tred.

I do get a bit worked up heh? Fair’s fair. The Contrarian gets just as giddy over Halle, what’s her name. I could name others. The Contrarian is fickle. I’m of course loyal to Depp.

Okay, back to some semblance of decorum. Um, I put up 21 packages of corn from the garden this morning. Making a grand total of 39. Should hold us well for the year.

The Contrarian went into town and got the back window ordered and a new fan belt installed. Oh such fun times. I’d like to go shopping tomorrow, but I doubt the weather is going to allow that. Raining tonight. We’ve had a few light showers today, nothing to talk about.

If you met somebody famous, (like Johnny Depp!), what is the first thoughtful question you would ask them? Would it depend on who they were? Politician versus actor, versus athlete, versus theologian? I think I would most want to know what is the last book they read. What were they currently reading. That would be mine.

I guess it’s good? to know that we are not alone. Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to deport migrant workers (mostly children) in Israel who have lived their entire lives there and speak Hebrew as their native tongue. Can’t have resources devoted to non-Israelis he claims. I’m sure the teabaggers around the old US of Racism will be holding up this banner in defense of their bigotry.

In Character has a rather thought provoking piece on Obama, entitled Does He Feel Our Pain? What does the empathic president mean in the face of all the woes that beset the nation. A long read, but an absorbing one.

Dingbats Kyl of Arizona and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina are reputedly in favor of starting the process in Congress to repeal the 14th Amendment. I believe the collective IQ of the GOP now stands at a -5. More on this tomorrow after I’ve had time to research this a bit. If they mean the entire 1st section, than much more is at stake than their bigoted (I’m so scared of losing my election that I’m peeing my pants) desire to screw the new it’s okay to beat up on group: immigrants. Twas only three years ago that Graham was in favor of enacting a pathway to citizenship for those here without legal status. Now he wants to strip their American born children of the same and ship them off to what to the kids are but foreign countries. So much for the usual guts to stand on principle, but hell, principle has never stood in any Republicans way it seems.

A good one at Grumpy Lion, a new site I just came across. It’s entitled Why Humans Won’t Get Global Warming. Go read it.

Enufs kiddos. See ya tomarra.

What’s Up? 07/19/10

Tags

American Foreign policy, Clinton, forgiveness, Israel, Mariah Carey, Middle East, Netanyahu, Palestine, Periodic table, racism, reconciliation, Rwanda, science, teabaggers

Welcome to Monday! Not so hot for those poor souls who have to work for a living, but hey for me, it’s pretty much the same as any other.

It’s threatening to rain, and has been all day so far. Guess we get to live with that possibility nearly all week. The lane is crap, I nearly didn’t get in from church.

We talk about what “line” to take through the mud holes. Who would have thought I would be ruled by such nonsense at age 60?

What happened to back out of the DRIVEWAY and go?

Our choices seem, sweltering or rain. Okay, you have your own troubles, so on with news:

I have to admit that I’ve struggled with forgiveness. I guess most of us do. I’ve never been faced with it with someone I couldn’t avoid generally most of the time. I don’t know how I would do with forgiving someone who seriously harmed me or mine. That’s the test. South Africa worked on forgiveness on a massive scale with “reconciliation” courts. Here’s a take on that subject regarding the genocide of Rwanda. Pretty deep thoughts, pretty important stuff. And it is deeply painful and haunting. Tread quietly here.

I’ve increasingly been disturbed by our Israeli policy as I’ve delved more deeply into the history of the Middle East. Contrary to the religious right who oft time support Israel as part of their belief that they are being “biblical” in doing so, I cannot find this a viable excuse. (Sen. Inhofe, I recently read suggested that politics should never play a part in our determination regarding Israel. Instead he claims, we are to ask, “Do we follow God or not?” He shall be forthwith called Crazy Inhofe on this blog). This disturbing  (word of the day) report suggests that Obama would do well to be severely questioning of the motives of Mr. Netanyahu, who seems to think that manipulating the US government by lies is the preferred plan. No doubt he is heartened by the End Timers, even though they are only trying to bring forth the final battle of Armageddon upon Israel.

If you thought that there could be nothing interesting to read about the Periodic Table, think again. But then you gotta trust me. So trust me. Follow the link.

Nobody says it better than Elizabeth Kaeton in “Refutiate” Racism. All I can say is bravo!

Most of my blogging friends are way more talented than I. Witness this fine entry by OKJimm, who has come back with a vengeance with I Gotza Song….. It is so worth your while to go visit. If there are enough like Jim, then perhaps we will not leap into the abyss.

I’m thinking maybe we ought to have an ASS of the week award. But oh God, the entrants could collapse my inbox. But this one by Mariah Carey just might make the #1 spot any week:

Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.

With thanks to Jaliya at Pushing fifty. . .gently. . .

With that, I’m off to go read some Camus. Seriously that man makes my head hurt. I have to stop every three sentences to try to digest what he is saying. Gawd, what a mind.