7 Days 2 Go

Author Orson Scott Card

speaks out in an open letter to America's newspapers and to America.

He asks:
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

"I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making
political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a
regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled Do Facts Matter? "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the
President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized
Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Franklin Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign..

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican..

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish,
short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences.
That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah
Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to
stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe --and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not
journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city. "

8 Days 2 Go

Will Voters Vote the Way They Answered This Poll?

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say more tax cuts will better stimulate the economy than new government spending, even as Congress considers a second stimulus plan that could cost as much as $300 billion.

Only 32% think the government should pass another economic stimulus package, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Forty-three percent (43%) disagree, and 24% are undecided (see crosstabs).

The findings come as a separate survey shows just 11% of voters think Congress is doing a good or excellent job -- even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, increasingly confident that Barrack Obama will be elected president, is talking about a special session after the election, if necessary, to enact the second plan. Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters say Congress is doing a poor job.

The White House signaled this week, however, that it is willing to consider another stimulus plan.

Eighty-five percent (85%) of those who plan to vote for John McCain think additional tax cuts will stimulate the economy more than new government spending. Likely Obama voters are evenly divided on the question, with 28% undecided.

Men favor new tax cuts over more spending, 64% to 22%. Women agree, 54% to 23%. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans and 61% of unaffiliated voters support tax cuts over spending, compared to 40% of Democrats.

Only 27% of GOP voters think the government should pass another stimulus package, as do a plurality of Democrats (41%) and 27% of unaffiliated voters. Fifty-three percent (53%) of Republicans and 44% of unaffiliateds oppose such a plan, along with 35% of Democrats.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of African-American voters believe the government should pass another economic stimulus package, compared to 28% of white voters.

The level of opposition is perhaps not surprising since 63% of voters in an earlier survey said Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the recently passed $700-billion economic rescue plan.

Opposition to the first economic plan was sizable and emotional, prompting most members of Congress seeking reelection to vote against it. Voters in earlier surveys generally opposed the first plan and preferred tax cuts to more spending.

Voters are more evenly divided when told some of the specifics of the proposed new stimulus plan. Forty-three percent (43%) favor a $300 billion stimulus package that includes an extension of jobless benefits, funding of infrastructure projects such as road and bridge construction, more money for food stamps and helping state and local governments that need money.

But 40% oppose such a plan, with 17% not sure.

Women by nine points oppose a second stimulus plan, but when specifics are cited, they shift in favor of it by 11. Men oppose both the concept and, by a narrower margin, the specifics.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of Republicans oppose a second stimulus plan even when some of the proposed beneficiaries are listed, while 63% of Democrats are in favor of it.

The Rasmussen Investor Index stabilized on Wednesday after a five-point jump the previous day. But investor confidence is still down eight points from a month ago and down 32 points from the beginning of the year.

As in previous surveys since the problems on Wall Street flared up last month, a majority in the new survey (55%) fear that the federal government will do too much. Just 32% worry that the government will not do enough, and 12% are undecided.

Eighty-four percent (84%) say they are following news stories about the new stimulus package at least somewhat closely, with 45% saying they are following Very closely. Only two percent (2%) say they are not following news stories about the proposal at all.

Among those following news stories Very closely, support for tax cuts over more spending is even higher, 63% to 22%. Fifty-three percent (53%) of this group oppose passage of another stimulus package but are evenly divided when the some of the details are listed.

In the second survey, 56% of voters say Congress has not passed legislation to improve their lives, but the identical number (56%) believe their legislators are at least somewhat likely to seriously address important problems. Sixty-nine percent (69%) say most members of Congress are more interested in their own careers than in helping people, and one-out-of-three voters (32%) say most members of Congress are corrupt.

Men are more critical of Congress than women. Democrats, given their control of both the House and Senate, give Congress higher marks than Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

The CaCa Sisterhood

You know, I can't believe I'm posting about this, because I tend to give a wide berth to judging campaign tactics, but reading this piece has really made me sad.



Women finally won the right to vote in 1920, but might have had a decent shot at it years earlier had it not been for....

women.

Yup, we were once own worst enemy, and it's happened all over again.

I'm not going to impune anyone's character, however. I'll stick to saying I think any offenders are just plain wrong about this. Choice means Choice. Choice doesn't mean Your Choice Only. I'll just stick to that. Respect lifts all women.

The reason I mention impuning character is, a cyber-friend of mine, another like-minded political blogger, was the recent victim of an whisper-attack for blogging her opinions as a voter, a citizen, a blog owner. The attack was based upon someone else's displeasure of negative campaigning, which included a perception that my friend was being negative by criticizing the opponent of the candidate she supported. My friend's attacker impuned my friend's character. She literally called her out by saying what she wrote showed bad character.

My friend confided in me because she knew I've been through a bit of this myself. In my case, the irony was that I'd read ad nauseaum about her angst with motherhood and her obvious error in being way too indulgent a parent. But I defended her to others, saying she's young, no one can tell her, she has to learn on her own, she can't help it.

So, it was similar with my friend and who attacked her. I'm glad I was able to be there for her to vent and know someone else understood the urge to cry out, "If they REALLY knew...".

We agreed that the moral here is, feel what comes naturally, but try not to judge. Just react by saying, you're wrong. And leave it at that. Cuz it would be nice if everyone remembered to look at their own Glass House first.

I'll just leave it there and not even get into why it's totally unreasonable to expect any political campaign to be all cotton candy and Rainbow Brite (and that it makes it's *allowable* to think a candidate has poor character)....
********************
That being said, let me get right back into my bad character self here. Joe Biden's kind of hot-headed himself, as The Orlando Sentinel reports.
Click for YouTube video of Interview

The next day, at a rally:

JOE BIDEN: “I know this has been a pretty mean campaign. I was on a television station the other day and doing a satellite feed to a major network in Florida. And the anchor quotes Karl Marx and says in a sense, isn’t Barack Obama Karl Marx? You know, I mean, folks, this stuff you’re hearing — this stuff you’re hearing in this campaign, some of it is pretty ugly and some of the innuendo is pretty ugly.”

Out in the real world, Joe, people are wanting you and your running mate to answer these questions, not act insulted that they were asked, and then write them off as ugly and not worth your breath. Explain why it's not.

Don't just put a jpg of your birth certificate on your fight the smears website, Obama. Let a judge see the real thing and attest publically to it being legit, or ask the Senate for your own resolution, like McCain has for us to believe he's a natural-born citizen.

<-----Jpgs can be Photoshopped. You help yourself immensely by fighting your even more immense stubbornness and just be gracious. Explain and show. Some people are immune to the Kool-aid. We need cold, hard evidence.

That's how I feel. I don't care that there is only 8 days to go and Obama's ahead in all the polls. That's not going to make me stop feeling it or saying it.

14 Days 2 Go...

I thought this was such a nicely written endorsement for McCain, from the Columbus Dispatch on Sunday:

For president of the United States, The Dispatch endorses Republican Sen. John McCain, whose experience, service and sacrifice for his country make him more qualified to lead the nation.
McCain's Democratic opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, is a rousing motivational speaker, but his experience and achievements -- eight years in the Illinois Legislature and less than four in the U.S. Senate -- do not stand comparison with McCain's.
A resume containing so little evidence of leadership and accomplishment leaves in question Obama's ability to handle the most responsible and difficult job in the world, especially at a time when the nation faces a combination of problems so large and complex that they would challenge even the most seasoned leader.
Nor does it seem likely that a man who has traveled in the left lane of American politics for his entire adult life really is the bipartisan centrist that he claims to be. And with Democrats already in control of the U.S. House and Senate -- and the possibility that they might gain a filibuster-proof majority in the next Senate -- there would be little to check the inevitable excesses of one-party rule if a Democrat wins the White House.
This could have a profound effect on the U.S. Supreme Court. A divided Senate acts as a check on presidential nominations to the court by preventing the confirmation of justices with extreme views. But with a filibuster-proof Senate majority ready to do his bidding, Obama would have the unfettered ability to appoint justices likely to be judicial activists, eager to launch a new era of legislating from the bench. Such a Supreme Court could end up as a rubber stamp for, rather than a check on, the White House and Congress.
While neither party can make a credible claim to fiscal responsibility, the dangers of more deficit spending, a growing national debt and uncontrollable entitlement spending are likely greater with an Obama administration. Democrats have not controlled the White House and Congress simultaneously since 1994. A return to majority status is likely to unleash pent-up demand to enact a Democratic wish list of new and expensive social programs when the nation can't afford the ones it has. Given his party-line voting record in the Senate, there is no indication that Obama is able or willing to stand against such an onslaught.
But many of the policy choices the nation will have to make in the next four years are monumental and should be the result of a bipartisan dialogue, not of unchecked one-party dictate.
Debate and political give and take ensure that decisions have been fully vetted, that all interests and concerns have been weighed and that the resulting decisions enjoy broad public support.
Unlike Obama, McCain has a record of bipartisanship: He was a member of the Gang of 14 Republican and Democratic senators who joined in 2005 to preserve the Senate filibuster rule. Note that this courageous act, which enraged the Republican Senate leadership, preserved the filibuster power for what was then the Democratic minority in the Senate. And that was not the only time that McCain has bucked his party.
At a time when the nation faces serious problems, including international economic turmoil, immigration, health care, war in Afghanistan, nation-building in Iraq and foreign-policy challenges from the Middle East, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, the president should have an extensive resume and long experience in grappling with tough decisions. Few new presidents have faced an assignment as tough as the one facing the winner of the November election.
From 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam, where he endured torture, through 25 years in the U.S. House and Senate, McCain has demonstrated the grit, energy and determination that the present challenges demand.
The choice is between a candidate who has been tested to a degree experienced by few and a candidate who is untested. In Obama, Americans are presented with a question mark.
Among the top problems facing the United States is its dire fiscal situation. The nation has a $10 trillion debt and other unfunded obligations to entitlement programs that total $53 trillion. The federal deficit this year is nearly $458 billion and some project the 2009 deficit could hit $700 billion. Despite these staggering numbers, lawmakers and the president just approved a $700 billion Wall Street bailout that they don't have the money to pay for. In short, the United States is dangerously overextended at a time when a worldwide recession threatens.
For years, The Dispatch has called on the president and Congress to deal with this massive, mounting debt which threatens the prosperity and quality of life of generations to come. But year after year, the nation's leaders have kicked the problem down the road.
Seriously confronting this problem will require a president able to call on Americans to make sacrifices for the sake of their grandchildren.
The president will have to ask them to accept cuts in popular programs, tax increases and lowered expectations of what government can afford to do.
Because of the personal sacrifices that McCain has made for the nation, he has unmatched moral authority to call on Americans to take their medicine. If elected, that is precisely what he should do.
The Dispatch urges voters to elect John McCain as president.

For Me, The Party's Over

This will be my ninth presidential election as a voter. Prior to this year, my choices required little-to-no examination on my part. I was a Party girl. I voted the way my handlers told me. Some candidates were easier to rally behind than others, but Party positions were always easy to identify with even when the candidates were not.

Fast forward to now. Every day I find that I miss those days more and more, and my biggest regret about this entire campaign season has been that I could not drink Obama's Kool-Aid.

Yes, I said it. I have been at times literally filled with regret about it. I've tried to tell myself it was because it would be so much easier, and it would, but I also think it would feel more familiar. It's been really hard for me to weigh each and every major issue on my belief meter and compare to both campaigns, for in the process I discovered that neither Party really represents me as well as I'd thought, but that the Party I was most aligned with on the issues was also the Party I was least aligned with as to Party character.

I've made no secret of how low I feel the Dem Party has gone this cycle to win, from their secretive reorganization of primary procedures to their partisanship during the primary to their advocacy of one of the most uber-Liberal political agendas in our history to their copy-cats-on-steroid embrace of Rovian politics. That's what I mean by Party character.

Good Lord, the GOP has certainly not been without fault, but they have been behaving more like a disbanded Party from the get-go and consequently one that's been more open to compromise. They are trying to find their way again. Their Party identity is weak, but their Party character is not. No matter how much the Axelrod Smear Express tries to paintball as racist or over the edge McCain's ad attacks on Obama's character with his ideological "pals", it doesn't stick in fact because any other candidate with Obama's lack of experience and similar associations would have gotten the same attacks and worse. To not concede that is to show basic ignorance about campaigning, as this opinion column by Jonah Goldberg points out.

Still, this is used as an excuse to negate choosing McCain. I'm always annoyed by this...I mean, what would you have McCain do, just pull out and concede? And why is it not plausible that he resisted normal, traditional negative ads as long as he could? Why does he never get credit for that, particularly when it should now be apparent that had he embraced them much earlier he'd be in much better shape? I guarantee you that Obama has been and is systematically using negative ads. Now, why is it okay for him to use them and not McCain?

The bottom line on this is that the Obama tactics have won the argument, however, by playing it better. Time for me to realize that no, Life's not fair, especially in this battle, so condoning fairness as a point of argument is trivial now, irrelevant. What I must realize is a life philosophy of Obama's new generation of support, and so I must, as they say, get over it.

Then, here comes
General Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama. My fellow political blogger Sara wrote an entry today that I wish I had written. It's worth reading, because she rears that ugly inconvenient head of hypocrisy and applies it to this latest endorsement. I'll just share one of her points here:

But, can we trust Powell's judgment?

Hillary did, and look where it got her. Look how Obama and his supporters treated her, for trusting Powell's judgment.

I respect Powell's service to his country. And I think he is a good man. But, for this love fest that is now happening, between Obama and his supporters and Powell just seems so hypocritical to me.

His camp criticized Clinton endlessly for her vote on the war. But, Powell sold us that war.

I'm somewhat empathetic to Powell, because I do believe that he got involved with an administration (Bush) who considered him irrelevant, except when they needed him to support them. But, he's a big boy. He could have said no, and by showing some spine might have shed some earlier light on a rush to a war that had no real justifications (that we know about, anyway). If Powell knew about any, he was complicit (which I don't fault him for as I believe there could have been good reasons; but Obama Doctrine, based on that famous speech of his, should fault him). If he was lied to, then he was impotent, and that sets off all kinds of alarms for me, not the least of which would be Powell's plausible resentment towards or revenge against the GOP in making this endorsement.

I wish he'd stayed out of it and not endorsed. To me, that would have signaled he has the wisdom to realize he is too entwined in this to be any kind of beacon of advice. But as always today, one's personal position, reputation and future must be considered. And again, that's reality and must be accepted. We'll never know the truth, short of a confessional memoir, but perhaps Powell simply accepted reality, too.

I just wish I could shake this increasingly persistent tendency to channel H.L. Mencken. I think he might have been caught up in generational change himself. I'll research that and report back.

18 Days 2 Go...

Interesting profile article this morning on the Wall Street Journal's website:
Two Families Named McCain: Candidate Shares a History With Descendants of Slaves

It seems that John McCain's great-great-grandfather was a slave owner in pre-Civil War Mississippi. I don't even want to think about the nastiness that will be spread on the leftie blogs about this and I don't know if McCain's family were good or bad as owners went, but I have a sneaking suspicion there will be a lot of assuming they were bad. It seems no one ever correctly remembers that good, kind humanitarian people with consciences owned slaves, too, because the world known through textbooks and revisionist history paints them all bad.

I read this with an acutely personal interest. Those who know me know that I'm the family genealogist, and my mom's branch of my family tree lived in that same immediate area during some of that same time. And just to be clear, that means that my ancestors owned slaves, too.

This is the only image I have of the of the 19th century Mississippi branch of my mom's ancestors, taken in 1895 at a family celebration:


Moreover, beginning around WWI, my maternal great-grandparents (and then my grandparents) employed a black woman from that area as a housekeeper. Her name: Fannie McCain Brown.

Whoa, not 100% for sure that our Fannie is from the same McCain family, but from what I know about my ancestors and about Fannie, who was employed by my family as a domestic long enough to have helped raise my mother and also me as a baby, my gut tells me she was related to the McCains in this story.

This is why my gut is telling me this. See the red A on this map of Mississippi? That is Teoc, MS. where the McCains lived. Now, do you see up Interstate 55 just a ways, the towns of Tillatobia and Oakland? My family's farm was just south of Oakland. Teoc's about 40 miles from Oakland as the crow flies. Talk about a small world!

If I feel up to it, I will tell a family story about Fannie tomorrow. I'm still feeling puny and I woke up today determined to actually do something in my real life (as opposed to using up my productivity online, lol). It's overcast and cool down here today, and I'm going to try to do a little cooking, a little baking. We shall see how far I get...

20 Days 2 Go...

I read a discussion of this chart and thought it was a good way to 'snapshot' how we got where we are now -- "we" the people (our government and others we trusted not withstanding).

Personally, the chart fits my life's circumstances in a couple of ways, so I had to copy it. That light blue line is the housing price index. It starts around 1987, which was the year we married. Hubs already owned our house he'd bought in 1976, but in 1998 we bought the house we live in now. See on the chart how the blue line is flat until around 1998, then it starts to climb? That's so true. I remember, because we had been waiting for the market to pick up. We bought at the front of the climb, so our home value enjoyed the full ride. (In our area it was a respectable climb and consequently the present values haven't really decreased...yet and hopefully never.) Our stock holdings mirror very roughly the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the red line, except our stock values didn't begin falling until May of this year.

I am thankful there is a 180-degree difference as far as our personal savings rate compared to the green dots. Ours would be sort of a flat line at 10% beginning in 1987 until around 1998, when we sold our first house and managed to save some of that profit and add to it over the last decade. Our bubbles would be in a straight line going diagonally up after 1998. I know we would feel much less secure than we already do right now had we not consistently put off short term pleasures and trivial spending as much as we did. We still managed to spend, I'm sure, more than we have needed to, but at least we saved, too.

The chart bubbles are probably the saddest part of that graph to me. But really, when you look at the 20-25 trend, the housing and stocks look a little more reassuring. But that's also because we have been in those markets for about that long.

Listen, I'm groping for any good thing I can find as mental outlook goes, because we've "temporarily lost" (as Hubs puts it) almost a quarter of a million dollars in Hub's 401K with 9 years to go to full retirement. Yup, about 30% of the whole thing. It can literally give me nausea and diarrhea to think about it too long. 7000+ shares of ExxonMobil. Hubs and most of the other old-timers he works with are bound and determined to hang tough, though. No one is moving one share. They are all convinced it'll be back up, if not in short order, then in the near midterm. No one can persuade them otherwise, and based on my 30 years of calculating retirement distributions of area Exxon retirees, history tells them to do just that. I, however, being the worrier I am, fear this is one time that will defy history.

Consequently, my nerves have really been taking a hit, too. Now that I've written about it, I am just going to try to forget about it. We've no need now to sell and pull out so it can all just sit there. I've researched where our cash sits, and those places are sound. And we have no need at present to borrow a dollar. Now, just to be able to get away from all of the panic and second-guessing on television and online.... LOL

As for tonight's debate, I slept through it, on purpose since I've really not been feeling well at all. I'll be honest. McCain is beginning to irritate me. Obama still irritates me as well, but not quite as much as before. Perhaps because I come at this from the direction of left-center as opposed to being a right wing conservative Christian or long time GOP, I'm past irritated at all of the little hissy fits and nag fests that the Right has been making every time McCain proposes something new or does something they don't like. To me it appears they are all ticked that he didn't run it by them first, and it also looks like to me to they expect that as a condition of solidifying around him. And this frankly makes me snicker snarkily, because it's greatly their own fault IMO he's not kicking ass and taking names in this election by this time (or at least ahead enough to absorb the hit on the economy and still be neck and neck). His party has not helped him in this nomination until the very end of it. It frankly seems a bit amazing that he's been able to hang in there and remain relevant despite everyone but the American People frantic to write him off at every turn. It's a big story of grit and determination and heroism that's not getting told at all. At least it is to me.

This has all been brewing inside me since my return from Ike, and I do not know where it's going to lead me. I still have no desire to vote for Obama, and I still feel that having a president right now who, even if he does nothing else other than veto bills with pork, might at least force Congress to quit adding them to legislation that they need to pass. And that is one thing right. Right now our government's corrupt, our economy is corrupt, our financial markets are corrupt, our vote is corrupt. Seems like we need a reformer much more than a Santa, but a month from now I might be making a list myself, who knows... Stay tuned, as I will continue to write about this. I am honest, if nothing else. :-)))

21 Days 2 Go...

Obama Thugocracy by Michael Barone

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors," Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. "I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into people's faces. They seem determined to shut people up.

That's what Obama supporters, alerted by campaign emails, did when conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio program in Chicago. Kurtz had been researching Obama's relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago -- papers that were closed off to him for some days, apparently at the behest of Obama supporters.

Obama fans jammed WGN's phone lines and sent in hundreds of protest emails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Rosenberg's example. We will make trouble for you if you let anyone make the case against The One.

Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Obama that were "false." I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Obama's ties to Ayers.

These attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals. Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the "fairness doctrine" on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s required equal time for different points of view. The motive was plain: to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications medium, talk radio. Liberal talk-show hosts have mostly failed to draw audiences, and many liberals can't abide having citizens hear contrary views.

To their credit, some liberal old-timers -- like House Appropriations Chairman David Obey -- voted against the "fairness doctrine," in line with their longstanding support of free speech. But you can expect the "fairness doctrine" to get another vote if Barack Obama wins and Democrats increase their congressional majorities.

Corporate liberals have done their share in shutting down anti-liberal speech, too. "Saturday Night Live" ran a spoof of the financial crisis that skewered Democrats like House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and liberal contributors Herbert and Marion Sandler, who sold toxic-waste-filled Golden West to Wachovia Bank for $24 billion. Kind of surprising, but not for long. The tape of the broadcast disappeared from NBC's Website and was replaced with another that omitted the references to Frank and the Sandlers. Evidently NBC and its parent, General Electric, don't want people to hear speech that attacks liberals.

Then there's the Democrats' "card check" legislation, which would abolish secret ballot elections in determining whether employees are represented by unions. The unions' strategy is obvious: Send a few thugs over to employees' homes -- we know where you live -- and get them to sign cards that will trigger a union victory without giving employers a chance to be heard.

Once upon a time, liberals prided themselves, with considerable reason, as the staunchest defenders of free speech. Union organizers in the 1930s and 1940s made the case that they should have access to employees to speak freely to them, and union leaders like George Meany and Walter Reuther were ardent defenders of the First Amendment.

Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that used to pride themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society.

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech that they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the OBama Thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

22 Days Left...

Meanwhile, Happy Columbus Day.

I've been sickly since I last posted. Hubs came home with what I guessed was a cold last Wednesday. Friday, I finally persuaded him to go to the walk-in clinic, so he took the afternoon off and got medicated up. Technical diagnosis: rhinitis. He got a steroid shot, some antibiotics, some antihistamine and some Nasonex, which he refuses because I have plenty. Wrong. I'm not about to give him any of my Nasonex. Get your own! So, he had to call them back and get a script phoned in. Dang, it's not gum or candy, dude.

Well, fast forward to Saturday night, late. We had made plans to go out to eat at Saltgrass Steakhouse and take in the American Carol movie on Sunday. But I started coming down with what he had. Your nose starts itching/burning, then dripping/running. Then, the eyes. Then, the throat. Muscle aches, lethargy, reduced appetite (only good part, lol).

So, nix on the fun. I slept an extraordinary amount of time between Saturday night and now, Monday morning at 8 a.m. And I may just lay back down some more. Sometimes I just have to sleep off an illness. The older I get, the more that works. (Or maybe the older I get, the more I am willing to slow down enough for it to work.) Hopefully, I'll be over this by tomorrow. I am almost there now.

As the ACORN mess spreads in the news, the Obama campaign feels it must sink once again to playing the race card, this time sending Georgia Rep. John Lewis into the media to complain about the bad bad man McCain saying mean widdle things like Gov. Wallace did in 1968. (And everyone under 30 or 40 says, Who?)

What Lewis refers to is during some rallies featuring McCain and Palin, supporters have shouted "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar" and even "off with his head." Most of the time McCain hasn't even heard what they were saying, and when he does he has spoken against it. The shouters are talking about William Ayers, the unrepentent terrorist pal of Obama's. They are not referencing Obama. So it's a stretch and a bit over the top as an accusation.

But everyone seems to trust that these really are McCain supporters. Except me. Why would it be unreasonable to be skeptical of that? It could be plants from the Obama campaign, too. They seemed to be all in a common cluster of rallies. If my goal was to cause a stir like that so it would get on the network news and make McCain look bad, I'd certainly hire me some plants lickety-split. Then, make Lewis play the part that he did as his loyalty commitment to the Obama campaign. After all, Lewis is a former Clinton supporter.

No, nothing Team O did would ever surprise me. It's just a little too well run to be real. The longer this goes on, I am flummoxed that such few people speak out about the tactics. I guess getting hit by Obama sludge twice (once with Clinton, now with McCain) gives me a unique perspective.

I'm of the school that says to McCain, keep attacking and exposing. It's working because the polls show them almost back to neck and neck again. It's a campaign, not a tea party where snotty pretensious women bitch-slap each other with their long gloves and pearls.

And on that note, time for my nap.

ACORNS Start to FALL...

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is the subject of a probe in 14 states now: AR, CO, FL, IN, MI, MO, NC, NM, NV, OH, PA, VA, WA and WI.

Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration

Las Vegas ACORN Office Raided in Voter-Fraud Probe

ACORN Voter Fraud Spreads To North Carolina...

Lake County, IN Rejects Large Numbers of Invalid Voter Registrations

More Milwaukee Voter Fraud

Lynn Sweet reports: ACORN/Project Vote voting drive targeted states Obama needs to win

-----------------------------
ACORN Fraud History By State
From 1998 to First Half of 2008
-----------------------------
AR 1998
A contractor with ACORN-affiliated Project Vote was arrested for falsifying about 400 voter registration cards.
**********************
MO 2003
Of 5,379 voter registration cards ACORN submitted in St. Louis, only 2,013 of those appeared to be valid. At least 1,000 are believed to be attempts to register voters illegally.
*************************
CO 2004
An ACORN employee admitted to forging signatures and registering three of her friends to vote 40 times.
FL 2004
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman said ACORN was “singled out” among suspected voter registration groups for a 2004 wage initiative because it was “the common thread” in the agency’s fraud investigations.
MI 2004
The Detroit Free Press reported that “overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters.” ACORN-affiliate Project Vote was one of two groups suspected of turning in the documents.
MN 2004
During a traffic stop, police found more than 300 voter registration cards in the trunk of a former ACORN employee, who had violated a legal requirements that registration cards be submitted to the Secretary of State within 10 days of being filled out and signed.
NC 2004
North Carolina officials investigated ACORN for submitting fake voter registration cards.
NM 2004
An ACORN employee registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. Citing this and other examples, New Mexico State Representative Joe Thompson stated that ACORN was “manufacturing voters” throughout New Mexico.
OH 2004
A grand jury indicted a Columbus ACORN worker for submitting a false signature and false voter registration form. In Franklin County, two ACORN workers submitted what the director of the board of election supervisors called “blatantly false” forms. In Cuyahoga County, ACORN and its affiliate Project Vote submitted registration cards that had the highest rate of errors for any voter registration group.
PA 2004
Reading’s Director of Elections received calls from numerous individuals complaining that ACORN employees deliberately put inaccurate information on their voter registration forms. The Berks County director of elections said voter fraud was “absolutely out of hand,” and added: “Not only do we have unintentional duplication of voter registration but we have blatant duplicate voter registrations.” The Berks County deputy director of elections added that ACORN was under investigation by the Department of Justice.
TX 2004
ACORN turned in the voter registration form of David Young, who told reporters “The signature is not my signature. It’s not even close.” His social security number and date of birth were also incorrect.
WI 2004
The district attorney’s office investigated seven voter registration applications Project Vote employees filed in the names of people who said the group never contacted them. Former Project Vote employee Robert Marquise Blakely told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had not met with any of the people whose voter registration applications he signed, “an apparent violation of state law,” according to the paper.
*****************
CO 2005
Two ex-ACORN employees were convicted in Denver of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.
NM 2005
Four ACORN employees submitted as many as 3,000 potentially fraudulent signatures on the group’s Albuquerque ballot initiative. A local sheriff added: “It’s safe to say the forgery was widespread.”
VA 2005
In 2005, the Virginia State Board of Elections admonished Project Vote and ACORN for turning in a significant number of faulty voter registrations. An audit revealed that 83% of sampled registrations that were rejected for carrying false or questionable information were submitted by Project Vote. Many of these registrations carried social security numbers that exist for other people, listed non-existent or commercial addresses, or were for convicted felons in violation of state and federal election law.
In a letter to ACORN, the State Board of Elections reported that 56%of the voter registration applications ACORN turned in were ineligible. Further, a full 35% were not submitted in a timely manner, as required by law. The State Board of Elections also commented on what appeared to be evidence of intentional voter fraud. "Additionally,” they wrote, “information appears to have been altered on some applications where information given by the applicant in one color ink has been scratched through and re-entered in another color ink. Any alteration of a voter registration application is a Class 5 Felony in accordance with § 24.2-1009 of the Code of Virginia."
*****************
MO 2006
Eight ACORN employees in St. Louis were indicted on federal election fraud charges. Each of the eight faces up to five years in prison for forging signatures and submitting false information.
*****************
MO 2007
Four ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City for charges including identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election.
OH 2007
A man in Reynoldsburg was indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties.
WA 2007
Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged, in the worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history. More than 2,000 fraudulent voter registration cards were submitted by the group during a voter registration drive.
******************
PA 2008
An ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
******************

Good Reads

Calling Out the Race Card...
by Michael Graham

This is the story of how I became a *racist*. And it all started with the Associated Press.
I am a self-diagnosed civics geek who spends far too much time surfing political Web sites like National Review.com, MoveOn.org and HotAlaskaMoms.gov.
It’s called research.
And so I’ve known about the connection between Sen. Barack Obama and unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers for a year. I knew Bombin’ Billy Ayers hosted one of Obama’s first political events, that he worked with the senator on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, that Ayers’ education “reform program” received hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to Obama, etc., etc.
I even knew that Obama kept working with Ayers even though Ayers espoused the value of terror after 9/11.
So I know the story. What I didn’t know, until the AP enlightened me, is that only racists actually talk about it.
This weekend, Sarah Palin pointed out that Obama is “someone who sees America as ‘imperfect enough’ to work with a former domestic terrorist who targeted his own country.” In another, she said the Illinois senator “pals around with terrorists.”
Now, I know that some voters think that Ayers/Obama is irrelevant. After all, Obama was only 8 years old (!) when Ayers was building bombs to kill American soldiers.
Reasonable people can debate the relevance of the Ayers link. But in an article headlined “Palin’s Words Have Racist Tinge,” the AP’s Douglass Daniel writes that her Ayers comments “carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain may come to regret.”
“Racially tinged”? Bill Ayers doesn’t even have tan lines. He’s as white a liberal radical as you’ll ever find. How was Palin racist?
The AP’s Daniel explains:
“In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day . . . Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as ‘not like us’ is another potential appeal to racism.”
So it works like this: Today, terrorists are most often “dark-skinned radical Muslims,” so mentioning white terrorist Ayers makes people think of dark terrorists named Hussein. Therefore, any mention of terrorism in the presidential race should be done only while wearing a sheet over one’s head.
If that makes sense to you, then there’s a scholarship to J-school with your name on it.
Don’t laugh. Declaring all criticism of Obama “racist” is a tool you will see used again and again in the next 28 days. And it won’t just be the Associated Press.
When Palin mocked Obama’s thin resume by joking about community organizers, pundits jumped in to join New York Gov. David Paterson and label the phrase “coded race language.” CNN’s Jack Cafferty says there’s no reason for the polls to be close “unless it’s race.”
And remember MSNBC’s Chris Matthews when Obama lost the New Hampshire primary? His reaction was to blame the racism of New England Democrats with his incredulous cry, “Boston? BOSTON?”
So if I criticize Obama’s terrorist pals, I’m a racist. If I point out his lack of experience - racist. And should I commit the ultimate sin and not vote for him, then I’m a New England racist, with my own special place in hell.
Stop debating, start obeying. That’s the Chicago way.

Credit Due McCain for Health Care Plan
by Michael Gerson

WASHINGTON - It is a shame that a discussion of health-care policy has come near the end of the presidential campaign, when the level of discourse is at its lowest.
In the midst of assailing John McCain’s mental health - he is diagnosed as both “erratic” and “out of touch” - Barack Obama and Joe Biden have pressed an attack on McCain’s health-care plan that is deceptive in almost every detail.
McCain has proposed to replace the current government health-care subsidy for employers with a tax credit that would help all individuals and families purchase coverage. Biden terms this the “largest tax increase in the history of America for the middle class.” He is off by - well, by even more than the norm of Biden hyperbole. In fact, the McCain trade-off would result in a significant tax cut for nearly everyone (except those with the highest incomes).
Obama breathlessly reveals that the McCain credit “wouldn’t go to you. It would go directly to your insurance company.” Since the credit is intended for the purchase of health insurance, where else should it eventually go? Is it a scandal that a child-care credit eventually goes to child-care centers?
“At least 20 million Americans,” charges Obama, “will lose the insurance they rely on from their work place.” As Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center points out, this is a distortion. He cites a Tax Policy Center estimate that the McCain plan would result in 21 million people entering the individual insurance market by 2018 - many because individual ownership of insurance will be more attractive. In every mainstream analysis, McCain’s plan would result in a net increase in the number of the insured.
Obama terms the McCain plan “radical” - which is its main virtue. It goes to the root of the problem - a system that depends mainly on businesses to provide health coverage. It discriminates against the self-employed and places unique burdens on small businesses.
There are really only two visions of health care reform: using government to increase private insurance coverage, or using government to provide health care on a larger scale. McCain takes the first approach. Obama takes the second.
Obama’s health plan is really slow-motion Medicare for all. And the problem with Medicare-like price controls is that they reduce the number of people willing to provide medical services, which always means longer lines and rationing.
McCain’s plan has a problem of its own. It is not too radical, but too timid.
To be a genuine alternative, Republicans should follow their own logic and make the ownership of private health insurance an entitlement. Fund the purchase of a basic health insurance plan completely, through a refundable tax credit, so every low income American can afford insurance. Help consumers exercise their newfound choice of health plans by requiring the disclosure of comprehensive information on health costs and outcomes.
Universal Medicare is a frightening prospect. But it may be unavoidable unless Republicans can counter the rallying cry “Health care for everyone” with a simple and superior alternative: “Health insurance for everyone.”

Back with a Vengence, You Betcha

This man, Barney Frank, pretends to not have caused one drop of the current sludge blocking our messed-up credit markets. Well, I say, he's an unabashed liar. Read this:
Barney Frank's True Loyalties It's a press release extolling the various bills that Frank, as the BigWigout in the Dem-controlled House of Reps, got passed during his time in power since January of 2007. This press release references the bills. I've read the bills. If you can find anywhere in any of his bills where he actually got passed more oversight on Fannie and Freddie, please show me. Details, please.

There's nothing, nada. Yet he gets out there and lies about it. He says, oh I most certainly supported oversight. It's McCain and the Republicans' fault, not mine. And, he's convincing. It requires voters to actually do some homework to find the truth, a task made much more difficult by the media being in Obama's tank.

Here we have someone steeped in gay rights activism whose groups include ACT UP and Queer Nation, whose been out and proud and defensive and angry for over 2 decades, and well-versed in covert action to produce results he and his desire. Do you seriously trust him to not hide what he does not want you to know, so that the cause is continued? Please. This is a far left-Liberal with agendas you don't even have on your radar, and he's in power.

Feeling groovy? Trusting? Happy? Then, I do not know you. And do I want to anymore? My jury is still out on that but it's leaning...

With the credit markets meltdown, it's no longer about trickle down vs. entitle up, people. It's about how wise and mature it is to feel bold, reckless and risky enough to try a new left-wing direction with fuzzy details, fuzzy alliances, and lots of questions about practically everything connected with Obama. It's about looking around and realizing that all of our allies in Europe have followed our lead and gone conservative. They no longer "hate" us. They respect us again. And now we want to go liberal? Now? That's old, leftover from 2000 and 2004. The world has changed in many ways. Don't be fooled.

Sure, no argument from me about not wanting to continue the Bush years. Hell, I am supremely proud to be able to say under oath and with my hand on a Bible that I never ever voted for anyone with the last name of Bush. Not for Governor, not for President. I hear yas about the Bush-lash. You think you have had plenty of it? Try having had him for a Governor for 6 additional years before he became President! Yes, I've BTDT for 14 long years.

So, wouldn't you think I'd be wanting the Dems to win in November? If I was all about revenge, like Obama's campaign IS all about, I would. I'd be on that bandwagon in a heartbeat.

After all, Frank is for deregulating pot , and I'm for that, too.
I've always believed that Reagan committed one of the biggest slashing of our individual liberties by making it legal for employers to examine their employees' urine and blood, for anything, because what's next, our DNA? Oops, too late. They can look at that too.

But there comes a time when wise and knowledgeable citizens must put aside all but the most important criteria.

Let's put it this way: if you are sitting here reading this, I'm willing to bet that you have a pretty good life. You have internet access and the time to surf. You're either a Stay-At-Home or your job is so cush that you can read my blog and Lord knows what else without fear of firing. Both are pretty good situations.

In fact, on that classic election question, are you worse or better off than you were 4 years ago, I know very few people who are not better off. I know some who can't admit that or refuse to acknowledge things, but very few who, all things considered, say it's worse. Sure, some have less money, but let's not forget you chose to quit your job and stay home, and that fear you had about if you'd make it is nowhere to be found anymore because you were able to make it. This is what I mean by "all things considered" because those kinds of things have value too.

Here is where I ask the quick quiz: Part 1: What economic conditions, policies, etc., put you where you sit right now, huh? Be honest.

Now, Part 2: who are you voting for? If it's Obama, and yet you are sitting here reading my blog, reaping the benefits of trickle down and stay at home or good job, then you are one big fat hypocrite.

Sorry, but my country means much more to me than sparing your feelings. Please, at least be consistent. It keeps you from showing your ass. Because, if you don't or cannot or will not realize that it was the unrepentant and ruthless grab by left-wingers like Barney Frank to continue welfare through "fair" housing requirements in Fannie and Freddie, and through funneling taxpayer money to its activist arm called ACORN (a blatant continuation of that apparent in the original bailout bill pork to ACORN that the House Republicans managed to negotiate out of the final bill), that unhinged the commodity of horrors called sub-prime bundle tranches that unhinged the credit markets, then you really need to quit voting until you can understand basic economics. Because, with an Obama vote, it is you who continues to vote for the perpetrators of this existing credit clusterfuck.

Get over the Cool, get over the idealistic romping through the flowerful fields, get over the hip Holly-woody, and look at where your vote is going to lead the country. Can you see it, is it clear? I know there is no view, and you don't really know.

At least I know that a vote for McCain is going to lead to eventually letting the markets work this out, as it should do and has always done, without promising tens of trillions of dollars to my grand children's accounts payable for nothing.

No, my vote is not going to a cool new world accessible via the Dream of Change. My vote's going to 4 years of probably an austere road, where we all learn again how to not get in over our heads, even those among us who were already living life that austere way (moi). My vote is betting on the fact that if nothing else gets done but cutting unnecessary spending, then that is a huge accomplishment, especially in the light of today. Something at least will get done.

My vote is going to the preservation of a world that I know very well: this one, the one we are all in right now, and were in last year. It's in times like these that wise and knowledgeable people realize when it's time to batten down their hatches and preserve what they've got versus going off on a good-looking fairy-tale theory.

It's not the right time. Wait to pick the right time, for the love of us all.

Notes on the temporarily meaningless existence otherwise known as my life:

Did the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator and...

AIMESLEE, if you were born to Sarah Palin, your name would be:
Bush Gator Palin

Geebus, I can't catch a break, although I suppose I should be thankful it didn't name me Ike, lol.

Could you live on $20 a day for food if you lived in a hotel room and had no kitchen? I've been trying to since Hubs and Missy left. It's tough. I have a bag of chips and a 12-pack of Diet Cokes so I try to only buy the sandwich or entree. What I have discovered is that the healthier you want to eat and also satiate your hunger, the more expensive it becomes. No wonder lots of poor people are obese. Seriously.

Speaking of which, this is why I know: I have gained some weight. I can feel it and it don't feel fine. Maybe later today after my nap I will attempt some kind of fast. But being that going to get my meals are the bright spots of my day, I may fail miserably.

I really wonder about the weight gain since I try to get out every evening and walk around the hotel property 3 times. It's all I can do to get that much walking done because I am trying not to take so much pain reliever, but my lower back has degenerative disk disease and gets really painful after exactly 1/8 of a mile. I literally have fears of it freezing up on me while walking and not being able to get back to my room. I would seriously be crying, help, I've frozen and I can't get up. It's happened before and more than once.

I need to get out and do my laundry in a day or two...or three. Not looking forward to it. I have a dislike for laundromats.

I do a lot of driving around and wasting gas. Well, not a lot, but probably twice a day. Until yesterday, this would involve going only at certain times in order to be able to keep a parking place close to my room. But this week hardly anyone is here, so there are several open spots at all times. The weekends are definitely the busy times. This is a college town and they play football. Probably a factor.

I have finally discovered what the attraction to Starbucks is, because last week I became addicted to a daily large iced coffee from McDonalds. What it is is habit. And it's enjoyable.

Well, I had tons more to note, but they all seem silly to write down here now. While I was thinking them up they seemed great. I will leave you with one travel tidbit, though. How to stay regular on the road: I take my Metamucil powder in a bottled water every day by saving a plastic spoon from a leftover meal and folding a note paper in half. Spoon the Metamucil into the paper fold, then gingerly pour the powder into the little small opening of the water bottle. Screw the cap back onto the bottle and shake shake shake forever. The powder will eventually dissolve. Uncap and drink it down. I'm sure that some camper or RV'er already thought that up, but I sure was proud when I figured it out.

Video of How I'm Feeling

saw this on the houston paper's website and had to share. i listened to what those interviewed had to say and felt they could have been my words, too.

The Politics of Ike

hello. bored silly here. and your name is?

dealing with an ever sporadic wireless internet connection at the hotel. i am now wondering if i can find a reliable connection that i can buy a month of. while i first thought i'd need to require that it be national / regional so that i could still use it at home for the remainder of the month, but now i'll gladly buy a month just for the rest of my time here. i've no clue where to look, tho. the sporadic an unreliable connection at the hotel just pisses me off and leaves me in a bad mood. i do not want to continue the hassle.

ike stories in the houston chronicle are pretty lame. they rely far too much on info to come to them. of course, coverage of my east side is little to none. so most of it is news i can't use.

it has been an endless source of depressing news, though. seems that under deregulation (like our utilities), customers are responsible for repairs so our bills will be increasing for years to come. and then there is the news that centerpoint has my area down for power restoration by thursday 9/25. i would be mildly excited except for the fact that it is not a guarantee. if there's a line break affecting me and 6 of my neighbors, well we don't get restored until they work on restoration affecting that few folks. this is what i spend a lot of time not thinking about because doing so just angers me.

things have been getting slowly tougher and tougher, mentally. i am nearing the point of needing to pay bills again, and some of them are in my desktop computer, which hooks up normally to the internet via cable and router at home. the computer is here with me, but there is no cable internet, only wireless. so bill-paying is going to be hit and miss this month until i get all of them written down on old-fashioned paper. this is one more reason to get started on my Rolodex of Life project...one no-tech place for all the important info.

so the politics of power turns out to be electricity, not oil. down here, anyway. i am finding so few reasons to continue to be here lately. so many reasons to move away. of course we can't until retirement. sucks balls. i read that centerpoint made 9.6 billion in 2007 and netted 1.5 billion. we are all seeing first hand down here the effects of not investing in infrastructure on centerpoint's part, and now those numbers show they can afford it. it's all for the shareholder now. no wonder businesses and governments go south. no re-investment. shareholders need to suck it up and be quiet for a while. and companies need leaders who can tell them to sit quiety.

well, glad to get that out. thanks for listening to my hissy rant.

Hotel Life

**mi casa**

i didn't feel so well today and so i took it easy. this post will eventually fit the title, i promise.

**i'm where the star is**

i spent a good 8 hours in the car yesterday, driving missy back home so she could pack and drive her car back to school and work. her dorm will re-open next week and she's bunking in with friends/coworkers until then. then, driving back alone to my hotel. in between my two road trips, missy and i took a drive around to look at ike's effects, which were pretty sobering. after missy left, i packed more clothes in the hope that i won't have to do laundry, and visited with hubs once he got home from work.

we managed to carry several rubbermaid storage tubs that sat in the storage buildings on our back deck, which were destroyed by ike. hubs had not had time to do it yet. we also made a can of trash to put out for pick-up.

i finally pulled out to return to san marcos just after dark. the drive is 3 and a half hours if you're lucky and you drive atleast a third of it at 70 mph or more. my cruise control got a workout. i have now made the trip one way or another 3 times -- twice in the day time and once at night, and i prefer the day because it's visually safer, but there is a lot less traffic at night. vox nix i guess.

anyway, seeing my street, neighborhood, town really affected me. i couldn't even take pictures because it's all ugly. very little of the tree debris has been picked up so far, and because it's all brown now, it makes everything look dead. then, there's a smell everywhere. to call it a stench is unfair. more like an odd smell. old timers to hurricane know the smell, and no one can really describe it except to say it is different. so the whole thing combines to make things eery there.

anyway, i think the smell is, in part, vegetative decay, but also maybe just the stirring up of the atmosphere. after all, what is a hurricane but the catastrophic dumping of one part of the world onto another different one. maybe it's what the atlantic ocean and gulf of mexico smell like.

justapoxed against that is the ever-constant hum of generators. hardly any street working signals and lights. some businesses open for some hours, some not. i thinks we have 8 grocery stores and only 2 are open. dozens of gas stations, but only 3 are open. parts of neighborhoods have power, parts of the same neighborhoods are still without.

back at my own home, i tried to take a brief nap during the heat of the afternoon. the corduroy couch, usually such a cool cushion, was hot and itchy. just as it absorbed the cool of the a/c, it now absorbed the hot wind and muggy heat blowing through without a/c. i was pretty exhausted so i did drift off for a bit. the heat woke me up, and i remembered that is how it is every night spent without a/c down here. i'd been considering going back the next morning, but that nap helped me decide not to stay overnight.

i think even though i'd had a most busy and stressful day, what wore me out more was trying to do things inside the house while waiting for hubs. i could go on, but if you have never experienced our summers, it won't help. i have always heard visitors or new residents from up north or out west marvel at how much hotter it seems with more humidity. summer nights are almost stifling sometimes. i think they call it radiant dispensation or something.

**the actual pool at mi casa**

so this brings me to hotel life. solitary hotel life. oh, and free hotel life. my brother told me to apply with fema for direct hotel payment because my zip code had mandatory evacuation and we have no power. i tried applying online and i am so glad i did, because about an hour later, i received an automated call telling me i qualified and to go online for a list of approved hotels. i was never more happy to see my hotel on the list, lemme tellya. lol it has been one of the few bright spots in this whole thing.

**my room looks just like this, seriously**

i have to remember to plead my own case here about my health, and why i'm staying in a hotel to begin with. the heat and lesser sanitation can really trigger various arthritic attacks, particularly the psoriasis. i can recall how ill i became after 3 days of suffering post-rita. i read that centerpoint said today that most people would not see power restored before next thursday, so that's almost another week now. i know that people survive 3 weeks without power up north in the winter, and if that makes me a wimp, then my bad, i admire them, they win.

**at one of the local parks here**

i do believe i could survive that long without a/c up here, though. i've been walking outside here in the afternoon and haven't even sweated. there is a cool wind here, even at 3 in the afternoon. that is non-existent at home unless there's a cool front or something. and it's humid but much less so than on the coast.

this is my 8th day here and the honeymoon is slowly wearing off. as wiped out as the road trip was, i was happy for the variety. i'm still happy with my hotel, as lodging goes. it's just getting old. i miss the air conditioned little life i had. at my own house. i want it back. i want to smell my normal life, too. i miss my rocking chair. and reggie. and my coffee pot. and my constant cable internet. i even miss hubs, believe it or not. lol he's working on his new job project now 7 days a week, since his quality of life is better at work right now. we talk a couple of times a day on the cell, and exchange accounts of our boring daily adventures.

well, i guess i needed to get all of that out. i was going to include some politics, but although i have been keeping up with it all, it's just not that front and center on my radar right now. i talk often with many of the other ike evacuees at the hotel and we all feel like the rest of the world is passing us by. we've all had our routines and lives disrupted and held hostage by the electric company, the roofing company, the construction company, the insurance company, fema, etcetera. all we can do really is sit and wait. so i try to be more patient, once again. pretend it's a vacation. pretend i'm in some control...

A Rollercoaster Week in Photos

...ike at sunset...

...third time's a charm...

...situational irony...

...a new high school ...

...electrifying bribery...

...trees

...new tourist attraction?

... power of nature

FYI, girls, he's gay

what a root system!

this is a six lane highway (I-10)

typical neighborhood after ike

gas pump canopy

one of too many downed power line poles

this used to be a building

pushed out of their watery boat slips