Friday, June 30, 2006

Friday Cat Blogging

Toy Test

I could care less about Star Jones or The View or Larry King or Star Jones on Larry King talking about The View, I saw this code and wanted to see if it would work.

The more you know...

Shrub isn't going away, and we all know what a monomaniacal end-of-the-world cheer leading loon he is, so it might be a good idea to bone up on what is going to happen: The Armageddon flowchart
What will we have left in 2008?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House on Thursday approved a Republican-crafted resolution condemning news organizations for revealing a covert government program to track terrorist financing, saying the disclosure had "placed the lives of Americans in danger."

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Seriously, if you were going to be doing some serious;y hard core baddnessm would you really pass the money around over the table? would you leave a paper trail? No, you would not, you would never do that. Real bad guys don't use above board legal means of of anything, there are just too many ways around it. George W. Bush and his cronies all ready removed our forth admendent rights, have shown no respect for the sixth and they aren’t going to be satisfied until they have removed all of them.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Ya think?


House May Chill Bush's Wooing of Latino Voters


By pushing English-only policies and tough measures against illegal immigrants, House conservatives are endangering President Bush's goal of drawing millions of Latino voters to the Republican Party and helping realign ethnic politics for years to come, according to an array of analysts and officials.

The latest blow to Bush's efforts to woo Hispanics came last week, when a band of House Republicans unexpectedly balked at renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act, partly because of a 30-year-old requirement that many local governments provide bilingual ballots. The revolt, which forced House GOP leaders to abruptly postpone a vote, came as House Republicans are stiffening their resistance to Bush's bid to allow pathways to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants while also strengthening borders and deportation efforts.


Wow. It must suck for Shrub to have to throw the illegal immigrant pentecostal Hispanics out with the bathwater.
Finders, Keepers, Loser, Weeper

Why I hate can be less than understanding of surveyors, pt. 1. I hate surveyors because they come to me with questions that they shouldn’t even assume I should be able to answer. I am a file clerk, a college educated file clerk. But a file clerk non-the-less. There are some things I am just not privy to. I do not know what facility the piece of paper belongs with. I don’t do that. I do not know how the top of my head what provider number goes with what facility. I do not know which facilities that you routinely go to; that is not my job. I also hate them for bringing me single sheets of paper that should go with huge packets that I have all ready filed.

Okay. Still being the good and efficient little pre-vacation worker. I filed and filed and field some more today. I also continued the great purge, I did not box anything up, I think I’m going to wait for Friday so that while I’m spending the day on my knees I won’t wear out the knees of my “good” pants any more then I have all ready. I also got good news pertaining to the rest of our yearly office physical – they are going to send the final list of facilities to us by the end of next week! Hazah! I can pull and mark all of the files myself before I leave!! I don’t have to push this unpleasant task on my co-workers! Yay. It made me feel much better. It also cuts down on the amount of time my co-workers will spend digging around in the files trying to find stuff themselves - and if in the off chance I have a hard time finding anything, the hard time will be mine and not theirs. I would much rather bitch at myself for my sloppy procedure then have someone else bitch to me about it. In the past if I couldn’t find something I was able to blame the girl who had the job before me – “I can’t find it! That other girl must have filed in the wrong place!” for any and all misfiling mishaps, but sadly, I’ve been here so long all the misfiling mishaps are mine now.

I always assume that I won’t be able to find whatever I am looking for, but since I understand my own filing logic, I can usually find where things are, even if they are not where they are supposed to be – which still happens too often. In the past when I had temps and other helpers, did you know that it helps if you can read if you are going to be doing filing?, things got really, really lost and I would only find lost things on accident – It’s not as though I could call up the temp who did the filing and say “Hey, when you were here, do you remember where you put something that said Goldsboro on it? I need it now and it’s not where it should be.” I am doing all my own filing now so I don’t have to worry about other peoples faulty filing logic .When I mess up, I can usually figure out where whatever it is has been misplaced , sooner or later, at least in my experience so far. I don’t even care if the list doesn’t come in until late on Friday, I’m going to get that crap pulled myself, damn it.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Man, I wish I needed a dog!

Boxer/Dane mix!



What a sweetie this dog would be!
World Peace Puppy

The Supreme Court rules President Bush overstepped his authority with military war crimes trials for foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay in a case involving a former driver for Osama bin Laden.

What I really like is "The Supreme Court rules President Bush overstepped his authority period" cross stiched on a pillow.

from CNN.com
Because there isn't enough violence in the middle east

The United States and its Western allies have told Iran that an answer is needed by July 5 on whether Tehran will take part in nuclear talks, The Associated Press reports.

from CNN.com
Nose to the grindstone

It’s the oddest thing, the closer I get to vacation the better and more efficant employee I become. If senioritus had worked that way, I would have been the valedictorian.

I was so good today. I set a goal for myself, I do this every day but unlike every other day, I actually accomplished it. I was shocked too. I try this all the time, while I’m putting my make up on at home in the morning I say to myself “Today I am going to do XYZ damn it”, and by the end of the day XYZ has been superceded by ABC and then the next day while Im putting on my make up I say “Well, I am going to be all over XYZ...” and if I’m lucky I get half way through X by the end of the month. It can be very disheartening

But today I got XYZ done as well as the daily ABC. If I wasn’t leaving on vacation there is no way I would have gotten any of it done. I want everything to be perfect when I leave. I also want to weld my door shut, but I don’t think that is attainable either.

Today I boxed up 16 boxes of purged material. I pulled all of that since Monday. I’ve been very busy! I decided that every time I open one of my cabinets that if my first reaction is Oh. Gawd and a desire to turn away from it, that I will purge that drawer until I can open it without making any faces or pulling away.

I just don’t want one of my co-workers who don’t go in their often, to go in there while I am gone and find a mess or several messes or see the whole damn thing as a giant mess. I really don’t want to come back to work in two weeks to find a See Me!! note anywhere on my desk, that goes double for the dreaded See Me. emails and even more the very upsetting See Me voice mails. I want to get back to work and see no one.

Todays project is going to be to enter all my purged material lists into the computer, get the boxes off my floor and out of my office and into the hall. In my fondest wish, the truck comes and takes them all away by the end of business. I don’t have much faith in this as I requested a pick up last March and they haven’t made it by yet. I called today and asked when they would be by and they giggled.

I went to the dog park today and got treated to an anti-Bush screed like I haven’t seen since the last demonstration I went to. The GOP has done lost the red necks! This old boy was so full of vitriol I thought his head was going to explode! A red neck! In a Jesus Saves tee-shirt! Claiming Shrub et all has raped the country!- “ Clinton got laid in the White House but George Bush has done raped this country! He started the war and he ain’t gonna end it ever! Ever time you have republican congress and a republican in the white house you got repression and depression, you can check it out too! Bush has turned the USA into a third world nation. You’re rich or you’re poor! The middle class is being starved out!!” and on and on in this vein until he wore himself out. The red necks are leaving the big tent.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Cute Dogs have cute blogs

Kenya the cute dog
Bushco once again shows its ass in public

WASHINGTON -- News reports disclosing the Bush administration's use of a special bank surveillance program to track terrorist financing spurred outrage in the White House and on Capitol Hill, but some specialists pointed out yesterday that the government itself has publicly discussed its stepped-up efforts to monitor terrorist finances since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

A search of public records -- government documents posted on the Internet, congressional testimony, guidelines for bank examiners, and even an executive order President Bush signed in September 2001 -- describe how US authorities have openly sought new tools to track terrorist financing since 2001. That includes getting access to information about terrorist-linked wire transfers and other transactions, including those that travel through SWIFT.


The Boston Globe
OMGBBQ

U.S. Supreme Court overturns part of a Texas congressional map engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

"Part" not ALL, of the horrifically gerrymandered POS, but damn!
Bad delegate

I did go home at lunch and I was not depressed I didn't leave for lunch aiming to go home but I got in the car and realized my book wasn't with me oh noes! So I had to go home. When I got home I was thrilled to see that there was nothing floating in the basement and my rain collection bins upstairs were dry and ready to go. I did put out more buckets to try to catch anything that might want to further ruin my ceilings - but that was just in case. The NOAA is still officially predicting that "we all gonna die" so I think a little prevention is a good idea at this point.

I also picked up my rubber boots, just in time for it to stop raining and the sun to come out. I think it's a trick though, its waiting for me to go out there in my leather shoes and then it will rain hell down. I'm smarter than that.

I was a bad democrat last weekend. The 23rd was the big state convention in High Point and I blew it off!, I'm so ashamed. But not really. I did the local one I drove out around robin hoods barn for the district one and I really did not want to have to drive two plus hours away to go sit in a hot room and say Yea or Nay on planks I really could care less about and then drive the two plus hours home. I have all ready lost the free tote bag I got at the 2004 state convention, which was conveniently held in downtown Raleigh as opposed to down town High Point - great if you're there to buy furniture, not so great if you're there just to sit in a room and be hot and then hot and annoyed. Is it wrong that I don't understand why the state level democrats have to have am opinion on Palestine?

Despite me not being there to "cover" it, the Democrats did get some coverage, some translated as almost none, but I found two articles about it and while I am pretty sure they are the same text, it was printed twice. Go Democrats, and Go Blue!. It seems as though they disagreed about things. Shocking! The Democrats got together and disagreed? , I am beside myself with not surprised. One of the reasons I didn't go was those who would go did go and it sounds like they did their thing. I stop feeling sorry for your cause the minute you start to whine about it. Go one second past your allotted time and I will vote against you just because I can. I'll vote for any proposal that can be discussed without the speaker bursting into tears or handing out snippy handouts detailing how unfair the chair was last year. For real, if you are still bitching a year later about a point of order? I will second any motion to have you tossed out. I will even "call the question" to make you shut up and I'm not really sure what "call the question" means. I don't need the aggravation plus a four hour round trip. If you want me to go you have to promise to aggravate me closer to where I live.

But I still kind of wish I had gone. It's important that that of us willing and able to take part in our democracy to do so, the fact that it is boring as all hell and aggravating is beside the point. It's like taking your medicine and I should have just taken it.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

And me with out my rain boots...

Some Areas Could See Up To Six Inches Of Rainfall.

A flash-flood watch is in effect for most of Central North Carolina until Tuesday afternoon with rainfall amounts expected to average between two to four inches with some locations receiving up to six inches or more of rain.

So how depressed will I be if I pop home at lunch?
Blog Things

Two minutes ago it was raining so hard I could hear it banging on the roof. I was thinking that Dogger was going to have to get her exercise chasing The Kitty because I was not going to take her out in that. She doesn’t really like rain anyway. Now? Two minutes later? It’s bright and sunny. Dogger will get her walk after all. I’m working on schedule that allows us to both get a walk and hit the dog park as well without exhausting both of us. I take her to the park at six, bring her home by about 6:45, feed her and then go for a walk. I spend less time sitting in front of the TV and she spends more time in motion. Okay, five minutes later and its very dark and I think it’s raining again. We may walk in place.

Do you know about Blog Things? I love Blog Things. It’s almost better then solitaire for self hypnosis. I went by there and low and behold found out how Machiavellian I am. I was pleasantly surprised. I’m not all that Machiavellian. The Kitty has not rubbed off on me as much as I thought. Good for me. I’m only somewhat Machiavellian.

You Are Somewhat Machiavellian

You're not going to mow over everyone to get ahead...
But you're also powerful enough to make things happen for yourself.
You understand how the world works, even when it's an ugly place.
You just don't get ugly yourself - unless you have to!


After I discovered I am a relatively nice person, I found that I should go to Dublin, where the other relatively nice people congregate. I hadn’t thought about going there but I find that we would get along well. The fact we both speak versions of English, which would help with asking directions enroumusly. To be honest, I wasn't going to learn Itilain anyway. The fact we both talk funny would be something we could bond over as well or at least act as a handy conversation starter. I bet they don’t hear “ya’ll” a lot there. I thought the European city I wanted to go to was somewhere in Italy, like Verona or Naples: I was wrong.
You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions.
You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.


When I get back from Dublin, I am going to find myself so changed by the experience I am going to change my name and I’m going to become a Hawaiian. Maybe I’ll hang little shamrocks on my lei and drink Guinness out of a coconut shell. Who knows?

Your Hawaiian Name is:

Lokelani Iolana


Now where was this Blog Thing when I was scouting around for majors all those years ago? This might have helped; instead I looked at course requirements and picked the one with the least math.

Your Scholastic Strength Is Evaluating

You are great at looking at many details and putting them all together.
You are talented at detecting subtle trends, accuracy, and managing change.

You should major in:

Statistics
Speech
Conflict studies
Communication
Finance
Medicine


Stats? are they kidding? I may have to start questioning the wisom of the Blog Things! do you know how mathy stats are? Totally mathy! I may have to question how much I want to go to Dublin and change my name! I may very well be more then just somewhat Machivellian!

Monday, June 26, 2006

Rats

Have you found yourself wondering why you haven't been reading about my yearly pitched battle with the dead rats in my yard and their friend the pieces of dead rat? Because this year THEY AREN'T DEAD! I saw one frolicking outside my kitchen window! I cook things in my kitchen! I eat in there! and there was a rat frolicking right outside where my food lives. My food could see the rat!

It was huge! and it was right there next to where my food lives! I think I would rather deal with them dead. A dead rat is a dead rat, it's finished, it's over it is not in a position to breed! you put it in a bag and you toss it! it's gross but it is no longer frolicking! GAWD!!!! first I saw a roach in the yard that was so big I could track it from across the street and now I have rats. I hope the little buggers eat the morning glories and hallucinate themselves to death.
The more you know... the less you get out

Internet Acronyms
I know a future Mommy and Daddy that need this product

Goo Team Goo!
Karma?

D.C.-area floods shut down buildings

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Flooding from a weekend of heavy rain shut down the Justice Department building, Internal Revenue Service headquarters and the National Archives on Monday, and created a nightmare for commuters with washed-out roads, mud blocking the Capital Beltway and delays on the area's rail lines.
How dare they be critical of the admin spying!

President Bush is sharply criticizing a newspaper's disclosure of a secret anti-terrorism program that taps into an international database of confidential financial records.

full story here
Tick, tick, tick...

It has come to my attention that I am going on vacation. Leaving, going, Soon. Very, very soon. Like a matter of days. Okay, a matter of fourteen days!!. July 10 seemed so far away last March and now here it is only fourteen days away!!, If I had known in March when I picked dates out of a hat, I would have scheduled it say, two weeks later, after our federal overseers scheduled visit. But I didn’t know that then. I know that now. There was some chance they were going to come back in say October and I was very happy to hear that. Very happy. Relived even, but then they said “No. We think July.” during the first week that I am gone. Of course.

If I get extraordinarily lucky they will send ahead a list of what they want and I’ll, not some one else, will be able to find it/mark it/ pull it prior to leaving - but that will only be if I get lucky. I’ll start asking today where the list is.

Okay, work is stressing me. I should concentrate on home: I all ready made Doggers storage plans, I just spoke to the yard man, my moveable plants are go to Broskey and Alphagals - this time away from the deer! I’ve all ready done a lot of the packing of clothes and gathering of stuff. It is early but my stuff has to be ready to go before I am so I’ve been working on it. I’m also working on not bringing everything I own. This is hard. There are all this eventualities to try to keep in mind. I mean what happens if I do need those snow pants? I mean, and should I bring the sandals and the slip ones? And what about if I step in a creek and get my shoes get all wet? I’ll really need that second pair of sneakers then won’t I? And what about if it’s really hot? I’m going to want to change tee-shirts as to not offend and if so I’ll need to bring extra tee-shirts but what if it’s cold? I’ll need that bulky pair of flannel pjs and the other sweater. The weather changes fast up in the great lakes, you never know what’s going to happen weatherwise.


One minute you're on the beach, the next minute you're under the bed.

It’s a crap shoot - bring sweaters and it will be a non-air-conditioned humid as all hell 97 degrees for two weeks, bring only tee-shirts and its guaranteed to snow. You have to be prepared for anything so you have to bring everything. On one hand it makes it very easy to pack - if it’s in your closet, bring it! But on the other hand, it makes it a bitch to pack because you can’t bring everything and there is a better then average chance that half of what you brought with you won’t get worn.

I also have to get the animals packed up. Dogger is going to storage (note to self- see about second mortgage!) and won’t need a lot of prep work and then she’s onto Broskey and Alphagals -( note to self, food and toys and doggy tranqs? Do they make doggy downers?) Dogger can be (is!) a huge pain in the ass to deal with. Hmm. How mad would the dog park people be if I just say, left her there for two weeks? It would be cheaper than doggy storage and less stress for Broskey and Alphagal... The Kitty is going in the car - I must stock up on the one true cat food and I should look for his rabies tag (note to self, call vet and pick up copy of long lost form, then ask why they never faxed info to new vet...).

Two weeks. Fourteen days and counting.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!

Saturday, June 24, 2006

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!!

Friday, June 23, 2006

Suggestion

I just picked up We Shall Overcome, The Seeger Sessions, Bruce Springsteens' new release. I really like it but I like real music played by real musicians and it doesns't get realer than this. A leetle country, a lot folk, a leetle rock, a touch of zydeco - if you like music in general, you'll like this CD.
Friday Cat Blogging

Somebody is so going to get audited



full story here Wonkette
Fun with TMI

Wanna feel real bright? Take your hair squishy out and then lose your hair squishy in the crap on your desk. I took mine out because my hair got tired… yes, my hair got tired. Hair can get tired! I took the squishy out and then when I was ready to go back to my copy machine master, I couldn’t find my hair squishy! I can’t stand there in front of my copy machine master with my hair down! I had to spend valuable work time away from the copy machine wandering around my office trying to find said hair squishy when I could have been standing in front of the copy machine some more, because you know I really, really, really want to spend even more time standing in front of the copy machine because my life is just not worth living if it is not spent standing in front of the copy machine - but instead I had to go searching for my hair squishy, which actually was never more than four inches away from me at any time.

I finally found my hair squishy but it was a real squeaker there for a while. I had to ask myself “When did I take it out? Was I in my office or was I still at the machine? Did I leave it somewhere?!It was stressful. It turned out that it was right there in front of me camouflaged by some happy meal toys. When I think about it, I may also have too many happy meal toys when it is possible to lose a hair squishy in them.

Because I can I am going to share with you some Fun with TMI theatre.

Our first scene is at the Burger King. I am enjoying my lunch and reading my book. It has come to a very exciting part - the female protagonist is getting ready to shoot the bad guy for having a penis – and I hear what I think is “Man, Man”. I ignore this because, well, “man” is not my name and I don’t really want to get into conversations with the other diners. I want to eat my lunch and read my escapist feminist empowerment thriller.

Anyway. “Man” was really “Ma'am”. I also ignore “Ma'am because it makes me feel old.

Okay. I finally look up. There is a woman seated at I will loosely call a “table” near me and she wants me to do her a favor. I want to become invisible or fall through the floor – neither of these things happens, also, the rapture did not occur. Damn.

The woman wants me to “Look at my ass and tell me if anything shows, you know, should I go to the bathroom?”, She walks away. I look at her ass. I feel need for brain bleach. I won’t share with you the outcome because I am a nice person. Also? Ew. In my mind, if you find your self having a “Should I or Should Not I Go To The Bathroom” moment, you don't ask for input from strangers, you JUST GO TO THE BATHROOM. Don’t ask for second opinions! And please Gawd don’t ask for MINE!

Our second and final scene was at work. I was at the copy machine as I always am and the secretaries were talking. They talk all the time. I got to hear in detail all about a camping trip one of them went on with her husband their dog and another couple. They had beans with dinner. Her husband really should not eat beans. They gave the left over beans to the dog. They all slept in the same tent. There are things I don’t want to know about other people. I was scarred.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Dayum!

Friedman, Strayhorn Get on Texas Ballot

AUSTIN, Texas - Maverick gubernatorial candidates Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn learned Thursday that they had each collected enough valid voter signatures to make it onto the November ballot.

Not one but two viable independent candidates have made the ballot for the first time in nearly 150 years," Friedman, a musician and author, said in a statement. "This tells us what we've long suspected: the two-party system has failed our state."

Both Strayhorn and Friedman turned in far more petition names by the May 11 deadline than the 45,540 required. Strayhorn submitted some 223,000 signatures and Friedman submitted 169,574.

Strayhorn, the state comptroller who bills herself as "one tough grandma," is the mother of former Bush administration press secretary Scott McClellan.

The last independent to be elected Texas governor was Sam Houston in 1859.
World Peace Puppy


Study: Earth hottest in 2000 years



"I blame George Bush"
A few good old men

Army takes older recruits

People can now volunteer to serve in the active-duty Army or the part-time Army Reserve and National Guard up to their 42nd birthday after the move aimed at increasing the number of people eligible to sign up, officials said.
It can be hard to tell.

Did Hitler say it or did Anna Coulter?

Godwin and his law can suck it.
Double Bubble

Almost back to real life, er, real work and I’m not done making copies yet. I just checked the final request to see how much exactly I was going to have to copy and to my horror, it’s a lot. Like a lot a lot – not as soul crushing a lot as the last two requests but mostly only because there aren’t any others waiting behind it.

Of course, my real work is piling up. All the correspondence, routine filing, files that need to be boxed up, paper clips that need to not be on the floor… all the stuff that allegedly I get paid to do. At some point this week I am absolutely, definitely going to go to archives and get rid of a lot of stuff I’ve requested over the last few months and while I’m there pick up my new boxes for the purged stuff – which is piling up and much in the way. I only had to ask three times before I could get the stupid boxes ordered. How many times do I have to ask “Please call XXX and tell them I need 75 letter boxes? I will pick them up”, I really think three is tow times too many but it’s not my call. Really, I literally can not call and make the order myself, even though I am the one that uses them and they are my thing.

Whatever.

It rained earlier today. I of course wore a white blouse today and I should have known that Mother Nature would see that as a taunt. I did not go home to see if my ceiling was further damaged – I’m a happier person when I have time to prepare myself for seeing bad things. I can spend the whole afternoon in crises mode or I can spend the day not in crises mode and then go into crises mode later when I can actually spend all my available time stressing over it. Bitching and whining at work is just looking for sympathy and other than a chorus of “Poor You!!” and the attendant validation of my self pity -, it is not helpful. On the bright side, it didn’t rain for very long so hopefully nothing happened. I am going to go bang on the roofers’ door to see where he was this weekend and light a fire under him to get my roof looked at. His is still being worked on but I would be a paying customer.

Because it is all about me. The rain also fell on his not-actually-shingled roof as well.

Did you watch Rescue Me last night? It was a very strong episode. Perhaps not one that would be the most welcoming to new viewers but a strong episode non-the-less. I saw an interesting mind set on a site I go to when I went to go lurk in the Rescue Me forum there.

In this weeks episode there was a sexual encounter, that could go either way actually, there were three questionable sexual encounters all wrong for different reasons with three different people left variously victimized. The biggy was very violent and very raw and very disturbing. It was not pretty and many posters were very upset about it – keep in mind in the Rescue Me world no bad deed goes without brutal punishment. Tommy will suffer for what he did. If My Name is Earl runs a karma concession stand, Rescue Me is the corporate parent.

Two weeks ago Tommy beat the living shit out of his brother. It was a horrible beating. It was also very violent and very raw and very disturbing. It was also not pretty and the posters thought it was “AWESOME”. Violence against a woman is greeted with the pearl twisting and vows to never watch again!! while violence against a man is greeted with applause and cheering. Somehow I don’t think that is a good thing or healthy or even right. No one regardless of gender deserves to have violence happen to them, even fictional, not at all real characters living in a pretend world. Screw you, PC-police, double standard having TWoP posters.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

It matters who is getting paid

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican-controlled Senate refused Wednesday to raise the minimum wage, rejecting an election-year proposal from Democrats for the first increase in nearly a decade.
Republicans defeat raise in your minimim wage, 6-21-06


WASHINGTON (AP) Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.The 2% cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.

Republicans approve raise for themselves, 6-13-06
Day 2




Progress made:


Miles to go:

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Because actual experience is so boring

Couric (who lacks the gravitas of a lesser muppet) predicted that the "pretentious era" of the evening-news anchor is going to be a thing of the past.
June 2, 2006


CBS News said Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Dan Rather(Who told us that Kennedy was dead) for the former "CBS Evening News" anchorman to leave the network after 44 years. June 20, 2006

You realize, Couric will be the one to tell us that the world is ending. It seems appropriate, somehow.
To Do : Learn smoke signals, work on developing psychic powers

The Bush Police State

WASHINGTON - Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.

"This is pernicious, an end run around the Fourth Amendment," said Marc Rotenberg, head of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, a leading privacy group that has sought tougher federal regulation of data brokers. "The government is encouraging unlawful conduct; it's not smart on the law enforcement side to be making use of information obtained improperly."

A federal agent who ordered phone records without subpoenas about a half-dozen times recently said he learned about the service from FBI investigators and was told this was a method to obtain phone subscriber information quicker than with a subpoena.

"We must break various rules of law in acquiring all the information we achieve for you," Touch Tone Information Inc. of Denver wrote to a law firm in 1998 that was seeking records of calls made on a calling card.

The FBI said it relies only on well-respected data brokers and expects agents to abide by the law. "The FBI can only collect and retain data available from commercial databases in strict compliance with applicable federal law," spokesman Mike Kortan said Monday.
Dianphus

Sisyphus was compelled to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he reached the top of the hill the rock always escaped him and he had to begin again (1. Odyssey, xi. 593). Accordingly, pointless or interminable activities are often described as Sisyphean.

Yeah. No shit "pointless or interminable activities" are often described as Sisyphean? Sounds like government work to me.

Today, they finally fixed the main copy machine. For now. The !@#$%ers . They come in , they take it apart, they call their supervisor, they miraculously “find” a bit of paper or a fragment of staple or a smudge of adhesive and they proclaim the copy machine fixed and hector us on our continued poor office keeping - it is always us it’s never the machines fault it’s broken. We suck and the poor yiddle copy machine is just doing the best it can.... Sometimes it is the effects of humidity sometimes it the use of recycled paper - the newest copy machine bogeyman. Whatev.

I have a huge copy request waiting. Huge. Enormous. I have not been able to make much headway on it because of the endless copy machine issues. The request was on my shelf hissing rather venomous things at me every time I had to walk past it. Nasty, mean, untrue things. Hateful request. The request and I were about to come to blows when I got another request. Bigger, meaner and even less finished because I haven’t started on it yet. They sit there and stare at me. And grow.

Today I started to make headway. I started at 7:15 am on the lesser, slower machine down the hall. It was a tedious process and the progress was slow - slow but progressive. The pile of paper seemed to be shrinking.I was wrong. It was wasn’t shrinking it was rearing back to pounce. Those of you who don’t think inanimate objects can have intent? have never worked in a filing room. I’m copying and copying and copying and copying and showing assorted RNs how to make double sided copies and copying and copying and copying at the slow, inefficient, noisy machine for hours.

Finally The Man came to fix the machine! We danced, we sang, we lay palm fronds at his feet. We swore up and down we would never (again) put sheets of paper with fresh white out applied into the machine! We would also never, ever, ever try to make copies of labels (again) - because that would be bad, we also never , ever would even think of letting sticky notes run through the mechanism of the copier (eight to twelve times a day - again). Nope. Not us. Never. Because those things would be are totally not compatible with copy machine life.

This was a senior copy machine guy. He pulled the machine away from the wall!. He told us if they had to come out to fix the machine again He would call management at the copy machine company and then he mumbled something dark about “RICO statues” but I think he was kidding because I don’t think, no matter what a pain in the ass a broken copy machine is and trust me, my ass is pained - I don’t think paper jams, even multiple jams over a prolonged period of time really count as racketeering.

So. Copy Machine fixed ( the crowd goes wild) and so I made copies and copies and copies and copies and copies and copies and I was sure the huge stack of paper must be shrinking...

And it wasn’t. It was exactly the same at 11:30 as it was at 7:15.

So I went to lunch and when I came back I filed. As the pile of copying failed to decrease the pile of filing increased. I am Sisyphus. So I filed and filed and filed and filed and then I went and copied and copied and copied and copied and tomorrow I will copy and copy and copy and copy and take a deep breath and start again because I got another request...


Edited to add : We Won

Monday, June 19, 2006

Monday

Wow. Again. Wasn’t it just Monday? Are these coming closer together or something? I was just at work and now here I am again.

I had completely managed to forget work. I had to go in on Sunday, had is not the right word - “wanted to” is not the right phrase either. I went to work on Sunday to get some housekeeping? Office keeping? Chores done and when I walked into my office I saw this stack of shite sitting there and I said “Oh. That’s right. The copier still doesn’t work and I bet the copier fairy doesn’t work weekends. I really needed this fixed too. Great.” . I checked too, the magic copier repair fairy does indeed not work weekends. It belongs to a magical repair fairy guild and they are really strict about not working weekends. Magical repair fairy pussies. I think I would have rathered not think about the grim realities of weekend copier repair for one more day. Oh well. I got my office keeping chores done and now on Monday I will have a couple less things on my To Do list. Yay. The massive copy projects are still there.

Sadly, getting ahead on office keeping does not eliminate the need to go to work on Monday. I still have tasks that need to be done. I could have these tasks done if not for my ongoing need to have the copier fixed - which is sadly, out of my control. I have two huge projects on deck for our federal overseers - This sounds very familiar. I just had a similar problem and for the same reasons - the damn copier was broken then too. I’m going to have to use the small, slow, noisy , inefficient, machine again. With the bog copier broken it also means sharing the small, slow, noisy, inefficient machine with the rest of the office. I can’t wait.

The spector of vacation is there as well, hanging out in the corner. Is there ever a good time to go on vacation? No, there isn’t. Vacation always comes at the least good time possible. It would be so much easier if it was possible to plan a whole vacation out, say three days ahead. That would be nice. But you can’t. Vacation has to be planned months in advance and no one else wants to co-operate with you about it. It would be great if the whole world would stop spinning and let you do your thing - but again, not possible. I think what would really make me feel good would be to weld my office door shut and leave my phone off the hook. If my Boss would agree to be tied up and locked in a closet for the duration that would be nice too. Last year she was kind enough to schedule elective surgery over my vacation and that eased my mind about leaving my office unsupervised and unprotected - she pokes around and that makes me crazy the only way I can protect my office from her poking is to never leave it. I doubt she would agree to more surgery this year just to make me feel better.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!!

Friday, June 16, 2006

Friday Cat Blogging

Sky Blue, Grass Green Pt. 5

Divided House rejects Iraq pullout date

In a 256-153 vote, the GOP-led House approved a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest.… of Haliburtan
World Peace Puppy and World Peace Schmoo

Mother Nature

It stopped raining.

Of course my house smells like mildew and I discovered last night after spending most of the day looking down to survey the damage that I should have also looked up. My ceilings look like they went seven rounds with Mother Nature – I didn’t even notice until I finally sat down Wednesday night to watch TV and noticed that there was a stain over the couch. I got a little concerned and when I got up I saw out of the corner of my eye that the old stain in the dinning room had gone from a mom and pop corner store sized stain to a super Wal-Mart sized stain. I spent a lot of Wednesday shrieking.

Today is another day. Today it is bright and sunny and dry. Today Dogger and I are going to actually go for a walk. After we go for our walk I am going to go ask my friendly neighborhood roofer to come and look at my roof – in between my shrieking fits on Wednesday I called my home owners insurance.

The neighborhood roofer walked by one day when I was out front and he asked where I was on doing something about my tatty roof. I told him that the roof wasn’t “tatty”, I preferred to see it as Shabby Chic and would until such a time as the neighbors tree fell on it or Mother Nature sent me a raging hail storm.

Well.

I should have thanked Mother Nature a couple of weeks ago because the seven inches of rain we had yesterday seemed to fall mainly through the roof of my house and I have to do something before the next storm comes through. Alberto may have been in a weakened state but he still packed a mean right hook. Poor little house can not take punch like that and whatever storm comes through next time is going to knock my poor little house right out.

The insurance lady also suggested that I have the roofing estimator person look at any interior damage as well. She then mentioned I have a $500 deductible so I’ll be having Mr. Roofer look at everything.

I noticed the other day that another neighbor appeared to be having some roofing done and I’ll probably as them who they used before I go see Mr. Roofer. I’m also going to have to figure out how to make the battery back up for my pump stop to stop screaming. I really, really was not happy about having to go down to the still wet basement in my bare feet at twenty after four in the morning to reset it. I checked to see if maybe it tripped its breaker while it was underwater but it hadn’t seemed to. Maybe Mr. Roofer also knows about sump pump battery back up units.

What else.

I out Dogger out in the yard last night and I figured out why the birds may have picked on her in the past. I was inside having a rain induced nervous breakdown and through my haze I heard what sounded like a flock of birds sounding the entire world like the soundtrack for Doggers Death From Above nightmares. I went out there to rescue my poor little dog and found, yes, a lot of pissed off birds, I also found Dogger nose to nose with a bird on the ground. They birds weren’t freaking out because Dogger was out there minding her own business ,they were freaking out because Dogger was minding theirs! I told her to get away from it but she didn’t want to. She didn’t hurt the bird and it flew away after I shouted at her to leave it alone but now I know she may have not been entirely innocent in whatever incident initially spawned her Death From Above anxiety.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

You Are Scooter

Brainy and knowledgable, you are the perfect sidekick.
You're always willing to lend a helping hand.
In any big event or party, you're the one who keeps things going.
"15 seconds to showtime!"
The New World Order

Police don't have to knock, justices say

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices. Earlier rulings found such action would have been running afoul of the U.S. Constitution..

Back when we had a consitution. Back in the good old days when jackbooted thugs couldn't just enter your own at will. Back before George Bush was King.
Title

I got home yesterday and there was a message on my voice mail (in the interest of total disclosure, I didn’t actually notice I had voice mail until significantly later on). I checked it and the voice identified themselves as Mumblely Walker from Bellsouth and they wanted to talk to me… . My first thought was “Damn Straight you wanna talk to me,I'm a STOCK HOLDER damn it!” and then I thought “Wait, Bellsouth? Why does Bellsouth want to talk to me? I don’t own stock in Bellsouth. What is this about?”. It took me a minute to remember why they might be calling me. I complain a lot to a lot of different places and for me the whole thing is it’s really more about the cathartic nature of making the complaint not so much the responses to the complaints.

So I looked back to see what I said to them,
Dear Bellsouth,
How upset would they be that I said they have blood on their hands? That I accused then of illegal business practices? Or that they are lacking in corporate ethics? Or that they colluded with the NSA in the the illegal tapping of their customers phone lines? Or that I hope everyone who can stop using their service does so and in droves? Or that Bellsouth is a tool of the devil?

Oh. Yeah. That may be why some guy names Mumbly Walker wants to talk to me. I know it’s not about being late on the bill - they got my last bill, the letter was enclosed.

Other than the boilerplate response from Clorox I haven’t heard from them – which is fine, I really don’t want to get into a gender role debate with some mid level trainee anyway. I haven’t called Bellsouth back yet. I will, gawd knows they have my number - but maybe not tonight – because?

That bastard Alberto came and pissed all over my basement. It had been raining steadily since early Wednesday morning and by noon it was still raining and Brosky suggested that I go home and check on my basement; so after I finished lunch, I went out and drove through the driving rain and went home to check my basement for water. Well, as I drove up to the house I saw that a lot of water was being pumped out. Oh good, I said. The pump is working. Yay pump. Then I went inside and checked the basement. The basement was full of water and only one of my two pumps was operational. One of the pumps insists on not being submerged in order to do its job - Pussy pump.

The floor of the basement is supposed to be a kind of a mottled gray color. All that brown colored stuff is the water. I went outside to see where all this water was coming from



Question answered.

And then I went and checked the stairwell down to the basement.



Shit. Okay. I know why it’s there and where it’s coming from. Yay. The basement has a foot of water in it and there is at least two feet of standing water outside waiting to come in, not to mention the rain still falling.

I called my parents in a panic.

I stood and looked at the water in a panic.

I took pictures in a panic.

I went back to work in a panic.

And then I came home. In a panic.

Ironicly, now what it really needs is to be hosed out.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

"Something Different about Advancing Forward Together Toward Cival War"

Bush: 'Something different happening in Iraq'

Opinion polls suggest support for the war is continuing to decline, and Democrats are increasing pressure to withdraw the troops. In response, the White House in recent months has taken a more measured tone when talking about the war, staying away from exuberant claims while emphasizing that steady progress is being made despite the violence

Fresh from his secret Baghdad trip, President Bush Wednesday morning described the excursion as a strategy session with Iraq's prime minister saying: "The progress will be steady toward a goal... I hope there's not an expectation from people that all of a sudden there's going to be zero violence."

"People know they've got to reconcile the past in order to have a bright future," the president said. He said Washington will try to get Iraqi leaders together with "leaders from countries like South Africa to share their experiences with this new government to help them reconcile the past."


South Africa? South Africa shot itself in the foot. It was it's very own home grown evil empire. We didn't go there and bomb them into the 20 century with the rest of the western world - you can not compare post-Aparthied South Africa with post-Saddam Hussan Iraq. Gawd.

Operation Advancing Forward Together.

Who writes these slogans? Does Laura not busy enough ridding the country of gang violence?

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- As part of a crackdown to restore security to Baghdad, Iraqi troops manned checkpoints Wednesday on roads in and out of the capital.
It was unclear how many troops were stationed across the city, but it appeared less than the 70,000 troops that the Iraqi Interior Ministry had said it would deploy for the open-ended mission -- dubbed Operation Advancing Forward Together.
Other developments:

• Gunmen opened fire Wednesday on a car carrying a member of the Muqdadiya town council, killing him and one of his guards, according to a Baquba police official. A bystander also was wounded. Muqdadiya is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province.
• Fighting between Iraqi security forces and insurgents in a Diyala province town left five forces dead and three others wounded, an official said. The clashes took place Tuesday night in Dahlaghiya, nearly 20 miles (32 miles) east of Baquba. Four insurgents were detained, the official said.
• Gunmen sprayed bullets Wednesday at electronic stores in Baquba, killing four civilians, a police official said.
• The senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday he favors a phased redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq beginning by the end of 2006 and finishing by the end of 2007.
• A statement posted online Tuesday and attributed to the purported new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, threatens attacks on Sunni government officials in Baghdad.
Grass Green, Sky Blue pt. 4

New poll shows US image sinking abroad

The war and Bush's leadership were the main points provoking negative reactions from people in other countries.
And you lose some

The copy machine is down again, actually both copy machines are down, so I am now being thwarted in both analogue and digital formats. I believe that Guttenberg would be very disappointed in the work ethic of modern copy machines. I bet his machine whipped out three, four bibles before it got jammed and over heated and I bet he didn’t blame “humidity” or “cheap paper” for his machines faults. I would be willing to use one of his machines if it would mean getting this copying job done.

It was very disheartening that even the sad little machine I don’t like to use, wouldn’t work. It has only three moving parts and is powered by gerbils! It doesn’t work well or fast or in an efficant manor - but it works consistently. I expect the fancy machine to not work but the gerbil machine is supposed to work all the time. It’s old, it’s simple, and it’s slow! it’s a pain in the ass to operate and it’s supposed to work all the time.

My train of thought leaves the tracks

Oh, I found a new thing for you not to do. If you are hanging around the house looking for stuff to do - Don’t just for kicks, let heavy glass pot lids fall on your foot. True, it will give you the opportunity to curse out loud, but you can do that anytime you want, within reason. Really, if you are feeling peer pressure to suddenly scream obscenities out loud; don’t look to dropping glass lids on your feet as a means to and end. Just say no. it’s not worth the pain. Lets say, you did drop a glass lid on your foot, say, yesterday, don’t try to do it again - I know, you have heard anecdotal evidence that your body will rush defenses and pain killers to “new” pain and how this will temporarily disguise the “old” pain – you watch too much House. If you are suffering from some other pain that you are getting tired of, really, take a pill. Don’t experiment with TV show medicine. I felt fine as well as pain free before I crushed some poor innocent, anonymous bone in my foot. Now, I have a limp.

I also suggest for your acute pain management needs, that you always keep some sort of frozen something in your freezer. Go to the store and buy a bag of frozen pees, maybe two bags if they are on sale. I think that maybe buying frozen pees in a variety of sizes would be the best course of action – a smaller bag for hand or ankle injuries and a larger bag for knees or elbows. I do not suggest using frozen hotdogs to ice an injury! Blech, really, don’t go there I know that if you have in the past tried to wait for frozen hot dogs to thaw before cooking them, that it seems like it takes a very long time for them to defrost - in reality they unfreeze very quickly when in contact with body temperature and then you are stuck with luke cold floppy dogs. Yuck. Really, even if wrapped up, luke warm floppy dogs are gross.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Earlier today

70,000 coalition forces, most of them Iraqi, to begin crackdown on insurgents in Baghdad on Wednesday, Iraqi PM's office says.

Later today

President Bush arrives in Baghdad on surprise visit to Iraq.

Okay. War. Now if we have 70,000 troops in the city, why on gawds green earth is our president wandering around as well? The troops wern't sent there to fight, they were sent there for a photo op.
Dogger the medium sized red dog

How was your weekend? Dogger and I went to the official leash cutting of our dog park and we had a nice time. We also scored free stuff. Which was even nicer.

Sunday afternoon we went back to the park and it was full of all these, I don’t know. Gen Y people? they thought they were very cool and they insisted on breaking Dog Park protocol and stood around in little clumps talking to their friends instead of hanging around the picnic table and kibitzing with the other dog people. Some of them even brought books! And one was reading the newspaper! at the dog park! - you are supposed to sit around and make semi-uncomfortable small talk between getting up and picking up after your dog. You don’t haul your dog out there so you can read! You are supposed to try to find as many ways as possible to 1) Compliment each others dog collars and B) Say nice things about each others dogs and 3) when all else fail exchange dog food reviews and vet gossip. Shocked. I was shocked with these new people. Also, it never occurred to me to bring a book and I bring books every where. There was one lady there who didn’t even have a dog with her. She was just there for the dog porn. I think Dogger wiped her face on her lap.

Speaking of dog porn. Should I be concerned that Dogger has taken part in not one but two doggy ménage a trios! She’s a girl dog; she shouldn’t be humping anything much less trying to hump some dogs head. It’s all about dominance but still, sitting there watching it? It’s kind of gross. I didn’t think I was going to have to have the sex talk to my neutered dog. I especially didn’t want to have to talk to her about positions. I just kind of assumed that dogs didn’t need tutorials about what end to hump.

Other than the humping, Dogger did well with the new dogs. All the new people gave me the opportunity to go wander with Dogger more then I did before all the new people showed up. Mostly because when there are only five or six people there it seems a little rude to not hang out together. But mostly because I went to go clean up after Dogger and when I got back someone had taken my seat. Dogger ran around more with me as her escort and even played a little chase with a pack of black labs. She was great until I suggested we leave and then she scared the whole park by strongly letting me know she did not want to go home right now and she would just take the leash from me now and she would eat dinner later thank you very much. While Dogger was bitching at me I could see the other owners furtively searching for their dogs because it sounded like my dog was about to go ballistic and sounded like she was going to take the rest of the dogs with her. Once they saw it was a just person being threatened, they calmed down.

I got to pet a rottweiler. I’ve never been that close to one that was not also trying to hump my leg or kill me. It was a young rot and it seemed to be pretty good natured. I don’t think I saw it trying to kill any toddlers the whole time it was there. Of course, there weren’t any toddlers there or maybe it had all ready killed them and moved on, I guess I should say I didn’t see any evidence of toddler slaughter. It was a nice dog to me. There was also a mastiff mix. It was very, very large. Dogger is, it is turning out, not the worlds largest dog. I’m shocked, my world is askew.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Because


And awwwaaayyyyyy we go...

Hurricane warning issued for Florida


The National Hurricane Center has issued a hurricane warning for a section of Florida's Gulf Coast from the Tampa area north to near Tallahassee.
You win some you ...

I found this in my in box the other day:

Congratulations! You've been chosen as a Prize Winner in the "Boston
Legal" DVD Giveaway, Courtesy of Zap2it . Please respond to this email no
later then July 1, 2006. Provide us with your address so your prize can be
sent, also include your phone number in case we need to contact you.

Thank you for entering Zap2it "Boston Legal" DVD Giveaway and
congratulations!

Zap2it



And I said “Rigghhhhhhtttt". People win little online drawings all the time. "Uh uh. This is a scam". I did in fact enter the contest, but I enter a lot of contests. A lot of people enter a lot of contests and they never win. I never won one .

The only reason I entered it in the first place was that I had casually started watching Boston Legal because I wanted something to watch after House and before bed. I had also heard that Boston Legal had a bit of a liberal bend to it and I’m all for bending liberally. And it has James Spader. You remember him, he was in Pretty In Pink and Less Then Zero ? He played the 29 year old high school boy who was always so mean to poor little 26 year old high school junior Andrew McCarthy? That Guy.

It’s nice to see the junior members of the brat pack working isn’t it? John Cryer, Charlie Sheen, Anthony Micheal Hall, James Spader, Keifer Sutherland... My 1987 issue of Teen Beat could almost be my 2006 TV Guide. It’s not going as well for the girls though and when was the last time you saw Jud Nelson act like anything less than a dick? Much less the last time he got paid to act like a dick?

Anyway, I had started watching Boston Legal and I saw that season one was about to come out on DVD and so I marched myself over to Netflix and added it to my list and I then entered the little drawing on Zap2it.Com because, why not. Either way, I’m going to see it, why not see it all at once instead of seeing it two DVDs at a time. It is not the best way to watch a TV show.

And then I got that email.

And then I removed Boston Legal from my Netflix list

And then it came in the mail.

And then I started watching it. And I wondered, why wasn’t I watching this all along? I really should have let go of my Ally McBeal hate.. Ally McBeal isn’t even in this show! The chick lawyers on Boston Legal almost look like real professional woman - in their defense anyone standing next to Spader or William Shatner is going to come off a looking a little thin by comparison. Spader? Kind of hefty but still kind of hot.

What else?

My best friend called me to tell me that she and her daughter had just returned from her former step daughters wedding. I had to ask? “Isn’t she like 12?”. She is not 12, she is 17 and a high school graduate. She is also a cancer survivor who came back from a diagnosis of terminal bone cancer at 15.

Her husband is in the air force and they are going to be based in San Antonio while he goes to school. She wants to volunteer at the children’s hospital where she can work with terminally ill kids so they can see that there is life after a death sentence. I think that marriage at seventeen is not a great idea but if she wants to live at a 100 miles an hour, well, I wish her Gods Speed.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!!!

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Wake me in the fall

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!!!

Friday, June 9, 2006

Clorox writes back

Dear Diana

Thank you for contacting us about Clorox Bleach - Regular Scent. We always appreciate hearing from our consumers.

As you can imagine, advertising is an integral part of our company's operation, and we devote a great deal of time and research to it. The objective of any Clorox Company advertisement is to provide the consumer with accurate, useful information about a product in a manner that makes the message memorable. On those rare occasions when there is disagreement about an advertisement's content or impact, we appreciate the feedback we may receive from our loyal consumers. Such feedback is always kept in mind when reviewing future advertising.

Again, thank you for contacting us.


Sincerely,


Consumer Response Representative
When is a terrorist not called a terrorist?

When he's a right wing nutjob? Police foil planned abortion clinic bombing I'm sure Homeland Security is going to be all over this.
Friday Cat Blogging

Be your own designer

3 easy steps ... 5 classic dress styles ... 7 neckline styles ... 6 sleeve styles ... wide variety of fabrics ... choose any dress length ... select your size or enter your own measurements ... sewn by us ... designed by you!

Dress By Design
World Peace Puppy



from The Daily Puppy
The Good and The Bad

I still just have my sad little .45. I thought about it earlier in the day this time and went out and got my coke. And a couple of pop tarts – I would have passed on the tarts but even I don’t feel right about putting $1.15 on a credit card.

Right now I am decided if I would rather sit in the a little too dark or in the way to bright. It wants to rain out, actually according to the national weather service the sky wants to open up and rain hell down. I think the weather is giving me a headache. All morning it was as quite as a tomb around here and all of a sudden the secretaries are paging over head every fifteen seconds. It is very irritating. We have voice mail, damn it, use it.

This is old news by now, but Blogger was bloggered and it wouldn’t let me post it.

First vaccine to protect against cervical cancer in girls and women wins approval by Food and Drug Administration.

Sadly, I was really surprised to see this go through. The climate is not friendly to rational thought and I really thought the flat earth anti-woman forces were going to win this. Perhaps they came to realize that their teen age daughters despite having signed that virginity pledge, still possess a cervix as do all woman regardless of what their sexual history’s may be. A mattress back has the same cervix as a nun. All woman’s got them a cervix and they all can develop cancer. Even nice girls…. I’m sure though that somewhere some GOP operative is going to have his head on a plate after this. Where was Bill Frist? Or Santorum? regardless, Yea!! To the anti-cancer researchers out there.

Next question, where do I get my shot? Will they give it to me with out asking or will I have to answer questions about how I am using “their” uterus? Will I have to promise to get pregnant soon? I got irrationally offended at an ad I saw the other day. It was all about the wonders of Clorox through the generations. The symbol of our time: A pregnant woman in white. It really offended me. I’m a stock holder, I should complain.


Dear Clorox,

Hi. I’m a stock owner. I bought your stock because I felt that no matter how bad the economy got or how badly the administration screwed things up that people would still need to be able to clean their clothes and keep their homes tidy. I figured that bleach would be a good solid investment. Clean never goes out of fashion, even if you have to buy everything you own from dollar stores, you still want everything to look nice.

Personally, I have found your product to be a crackerjack way to kill the grass that grows in the drain at the bottom of my basement steps. You can use that by the way: It works like a charm to kill unwanted grass seedlings in outdoor drains.

Anyway. I was flipping though a magazine and I saw your ad marking the many generations that have used your product. The ad was illustrated by a group shot of models costumed in period dress – all white women, in white.

What products do non-white women buy? You should find out and try to market to them too – that wasn’t my chief complaint though. My chief complaint about the ad was how the model chosen to be the avatar of our time was presented. All the models were portrayed as symbols of their time: a Flapper from the 20s, (I’m guessing there was no model from the thirties as the poverty stricken women of the depression era didn’t have the money to keep their whites white) A WAC from the forties, the fifties were represented by Marilyn Monroe. The sixties, a go-go dancer, and the seventies as Farah Fawcett ( I'm thinking theThe eighties were skipped as we were too busy working outside the home to separate out our whites?) and finally, the modern woman circa 2006, she was depicted as BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT! What exactly were you thinking? What message did you think you were sending to your costumers? Is that what we should be? Is that how you see us? in 2006?!

I’m a stock holder and I am angry and I demand this ad be pulled and a full page apology extended to the women of 2006, and even more importantly to ME YOUR STOCK HOLDER..

Sincerely,

Diana

PS – Die in a fire.



Edited to add: Have Google will complain:

Thank you for contacting Consumer Services. You will receive a response within 48 business hours.

Edited again - It's in the mail.

I did remove the "die in a fire".

Thursday, June 8, 2006

Skin Deep

I’m sitting here wondering if it would be worth it to go down the street and get a soda. I have exactly .45 in cash at present and the cokes machines don’t take plastic. I really, really want a coke. I keep looking at the time and telling myself that I’m going to be home soon and I don’t drink soda after a certain time and if I just hold on for a little longer I won’t be able to have the soda in question anyway. I still really want one. It would be really nice if they could make the coke machines accept pennies. I have plenty of pennies.

I keep digging through my desk drawer to see if maybe at some point I got clumsy or exhibited some for thought, and threw a couple of quarters or some dimes in there and they have been waiting all this time for me to just have a moment just as I am now… In reality, if there had been loose quarters running around in the drawer they never would have lasted this long. If I didn’t take them out the pen thieves would have. If left to my own devise the knowledge that the quarters were there in the first place would have made me crazy, I would have had spent them just because they were there and I could. What if they were just there and I didn’tuse them? They would have gone to waste! The horrors!

There could be all kinds of stuff lose in that drawer but I am too chicken to do a real search. It’s scary in there! Before we move I’m going to have to take the desk apart and carry it outside and burn it. It will be the easiest than trying to clean it out manually and box all that crap up and a lot of the shite in my desk isn’t even mine. I inherited this desk when I came on and while they had gone through and removed everything of value, they left behind a lot of crap and I didn’t know how to prioritize it when I came in and now I don’t want to. I’m just glad they come through periodically and fumigate the building.

Speaking of things that need to be fumigated. Dogger has ear mites again and it isn’t pretty. These made her near to death a couple of years ago and I want to take care if it this time. It’s very gross. There are things we are not meant to know about in the interiors of our dogs (as well, I believe our desk drawers) and now sadly, for me the mystery is over. She has such cute ears on the outside but sadly, that beauty is only fur deep. She has also developed her summer prickly heat issues again and that is always such fun. Did you know if it wasn’t for my pets I would not have any first aid supplies in the house at all? All of what I have I bough specifically for them and frankly, once that bottle of peroxide has been used on a dog, it just seems so much less clean than before…

PS. Do ya’ll watch Rescue Me? ( FX Tuesday nights 10pm) You really should! Remember first season NYPD Blue? Yeah, like that only better. Great stories, terrific scripts, fascinating (if deeply flawed) characters and stellar performances from an awesome cast week in and week out.

Have you ever been watching TV characters do each other wrong and said “Damn; if some SOB did that to me in real live I would lose my freaking mind. I’d have to find a way to kick that son of a bitches ass”, and then had to watch the TV characters just kind of get angsty and not do anything about the ass kickable offence? I hate that too. On Rescue Me they do what you would do if you could do what you wanted to. Warning though, not for the prudish or weak of heart - it’s strictly a grown up TV show. Think The Shield or The Sopranos. With Denis Leary.

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Bush to immigrants: Learn America's values , convert to a protestant faith and vote republican...

Bush visited a Catholic Charities center in Nebraska Wednesday, stopping in a classroom where immigrants learn U.S. civics in preparation for their citizenship test. The volunteer instructor was quizzing the eight students in English, and they rattled off answers about U.S. historical figures, the three branches of government and the Constitution.

Bush entered and greeted the students in Spanish and threw them a question they weren't prepared for -- how many father-son duos have served as president? The students were stumped, so Bush explained in Spanish that his father was a president, and the other team was "Juan Adams y su hijo Juan Q."



Hmmmm. No Habla Espanol ?
In a surprise to no one

U.S. Senate rejects constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage..
Whatev!

So. Did we all survive 6/6? Did we call forth the the beast?I didn’t do any beast calling myself. My beast doesn’t answer to her name so calling her is a bit of a time waste. I am assuming that no one else called to say they were picking it up but got caught in traffic and got held up and winded up pissing it off? Would a hell beast travel by car? Or is that way they started to make SUVs? It wouldn’t surprise me. So, from where I sit, I mean as far as I know, I may still have a train engine fall on me still, you know and according to some, the apocalypse could just happen in the middle of the day with out warning but what was it they say about that? That we shall know not the date or the time? That it’s just going to be a surprise? I don’t know where people get off trying to pencil that in. I would imagine that would seem a bit presumptuous myself, If I were the one making out the schedule or in charge of feeding the hell beast.

Any way.

What did happen yesterday? China unleashes power of Yangtze

“Chinese engineers Tuesday blew up a temporary barrier used during construction of the Three Gorges Dam, unleashing the full force of the Yangtze River upon the world's largest hydroelectric project..

And destroying vast areas and causing untold damage to the ecosystem as well

Also in China “An operation to remove a third arm from a two-month-old Chinese boy been hailed as a success.

Busy day for China.

What else?

After five years of a concerted White House campaign, there are tentative signs that Congress and the courts are beginning to push back against what has been the greatest expansion of presidential powers in a generation or more..
finally.

The story is straight ahead - the congress and the courts are getting a little cranky about being kept out of the loop. It’s understandable after five years of working under the Imperial Presidency, something has got to give.

A brief read through Pravda found the looking glass version:

In effect, Bush is asserting the same powers seized by Adolph Hitler in 1933. His Federalist Society apologists and Department of Justice appointees claim that President Bush has the same power to interpret the Constitution as the Supreme Court. An Alito Court is likely to agree with this false claim.".

Our old friend Pravda, still happily fighting the cold war. Remember the scare last week at the Rayburn building? Some workers dropped something and it startled some one near by and it got out of hand? It was a big zero. In Pravdaland it went like this. From the same article as the above quote:

”Russian Intelligence Analysts are reporting that the ongoing constitutional crisis that has erupted in the United States has taken a decidedly deadly turn as counter-coup forces attempting to block access to the American capitol engaged in a brief gun battle with US Army Special Forces leaving at least 3 dead.”.

Also in Wacky Pravda? Vegetables give Pamela Anderson best orgasms ever . I imagine that Pam knows a lot more uses for vegetables then she lets on. So what else in wacky Pravdaland? A lot of crap mostly, but then I saw this and I started to fear for the Russian people: Russians trust only Putin and mass media . Imagine if Americans trusted only Bush and the mass media?

Oh, wait… Okay, I’m pretty scared for us too.

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Armageddon?

Dow tumbles below 11,000

Rate jitters weigh as investors hang on every word from Fed officials; blue chips down 700 points in four weeks; oil dips.
The Bush Base must be really disappointed

Despite dire prophecies to the contrary, we have now gotten over half way through 6/6/06 and the sky is not falling , except for where it is
Memories

So I was looking for something this weekend. Just out of nowhere I suddenly really, really, really needed to find this thing and I was pretty sure I had seen it at some point somewhere, probably in the attic. In a box. Maybe.

So I had to go through the boxes in my attic. This was of course at 11pm Saturday night, which is really s great time to go pawing through dusty boxes in a sweltering attic environment in search of something that I may not have thought to save in the first place because, “why bother? I have it on disk! And 2.5 disks are always going to be readable! , why yes, please throw away that ancient, out modded word processor! I’m never going to need that thing again!” Hard copies people, it’s all about keeping hard copies. If you want to keep it, print it out! If it is “saved” on obsolete software it is trapped not saved.

I had to remember which box I was pretty sure what I was looking for lived in, and I was pretty sure where that box was. I have a lot of boxes. It wasn’t in the first group of boxes I went though. I thought I had found the right box, but instead it was full of stuff an alter server schedule dating from junior high – how did I save this? Better question why?. I don’t need it to remember happy days of alter server yore, being an alter server or a distaff Alter Boy for you who grew up in less progressive parishes, was hardly a happy task. It was a task and I only did it because my friend did it and then she promptly dropped out - I didn’t. I should have. But back into the box it went because there must be a reason that it has survived 24 or so plus years and a house fire and at least a dozen moves in the interim - I decided to treat it like a vase at the bottom of the ocean it shouldn’t have survived but there it is, be impressed with its resistance to the forces of nature.

There were also a lot of old letters. Huge amounts of old letters. Remember snail mail? It looks as though I had a healthy correspondence with just about every human being I ever met. There were even a few from people I couldn’t remember who they were. I think those dated from a pen pal phase I went though, the phase left me with a lot of bundled letters from people I can’t remember. It was a little jarring to find these strangers intermingling with my old high school paper press pass and clippings about the death of a friend.

A few years ago I went through another sifting through of my boxes and I pulled out all the letters I could find (and after digging through a few boxes, I found that I didn’t find very many) from a friend of mine that I had a correspondence with for years - She always surprised me, I would see her over the summer and she would inevitable ask “Hey, how is So and So?” and I was always Damn, did I tell her about him? When was the last time I even spoke to that person? She actually reads for content? Shit! I hope I’m not expected to know who her friends are. What’s the name again of that one she thinks is kind of a bitch? How do I frame that question, “Hey, how is whatshername? That girl you think is a bitch?”. I kind of hummed a lot.

I used to write letters, now I blog.

Monday, June 5, 2006

Shop Girl

Saturday I went shopping with a very short list. I was in the market for blue slacks and the new Dixie Chicks CD. I was partially successful. I did end up with the CD.

Of course, the search for slacks goes on. I can’t believe that standard issue blue slacks were some sort of Dallascentric clothing item. I remember racks of them in stores! Blue pants are blue pants, something I thought that everybody had as part of their work place wardrobe. Everybody needs a good pair of basic blue slacks. You would think.

No. Instead “everybody” needs a good basic fuchsia, turtle embroidered crop pants. Things like that? everywhere. But you know? I don’t think I have ever seen anyone wearing fuchsia crops pants embroidered with turtles. Oh, I know why - it’s because I go to work everyday and most people, even in my office with it’s more or less anything goes dress code, nobody wears slacks like that. I wonder why? Hmmm. You would think there wouldn’t be a big call for that item in a wardrobe. But oddly, there it was. Many, many , many of them. No basic blue slacks though.

After much looking around I did find two pairs of basic blue slacks, of course, neither fit. Baby bear was not happy. I found another pair that I was very excited about until I noticed that it laced up the back. Interesting, but a little too interesting for everyday wear.

So I got ready to leave Marshals, but not before I looked around a little. I found a new table cloth I didn’t really need, but it was on sale, and a slightly over the top gold, pseudo-Italianate oval mirror that I also technically did not need but that completes my long on hold decorating scheme for my bedroom. The mirror was not on sale, but it was there, it was under $30 and I was tired of looking for oval mirrors. Mirrors one and two cost me a combined total of $8 and one of them I rescued from the trash. I had planned on finding mirror three and spending a similar amount but it was not to be. Anyway. I left Marshals and went to where I was sure I would find something in the basic category. I went to Target, home of basic.

Basic must have left home because it wasn’t there. I did find the Dixie Chicks CD that had been one of the two things on my list before I went shopping, so I got that. I also found a book I wanted that I had been seeing at the grocery store for $7.99 and was too cheap to get it for that price. Screw you Kroger and your over priced paperbacks! Target is my friend. So, a table cloth, a mirror, and a book - not on my list and still no blue slacks.

I was going to leave Target and go to Kohls because Kohls is also my friend. The stupid traffic pattern decided that I was going to go home instead. Grrrr.

Going home meant that I was going to hit the Lark Spur Party on Saturday instead of Sunday. Which was fine with me. I went I saw and I bought three morning glory plants to camouflage/cover up my ugly back yard so the nice neighbors can pretend it isn’t there. Grow plants grow!. We’ll see how long it takes Dogger to discover them. In an attempt to thwart that behavior I went to the dollar store and picked up 16 feet of el cheapo garden fence to protect my new plantings, I also picked up a 17 quart cooler to thwart the hurricane season - with the idea being that if I am prepared for the power to go off for an extended period, it will not. It was kind of a relief to go to a store and actually find the fencing. It was making me oddly paranoid to not find what I was looking for in places it was supposed to be. To reward the store I also bought some batteries and a box of poptarts. Still no blue slacks.