Friday Cat Blogging



...relaxed kitty edition.

Does this mean Bill Bennett is pro-choice?

White House Condemns Bennett's Remarks

"The president believes the comments were not appropriate,"

This does not read as condemnation to me. This does not say that Bushco does not agree with the remarks, this does not say Bushco is horrified by these remarks. "Not appropriate" is an inappropriate remark.

Sliders

I need a secretary. A secretary would have let me know that today is not September 29th. That today is September 30th. So I would have known. I was planning on 9/29 to be on Friday, today. I went the grocery Wednesday evening and bought food to prepare for an office birthday party potluck that was supposed to today, Friday the 29th, and not Thursday the 28th. Imagine my surprise when Thursday turned out to be the 29th instead of the 28th. I was unthrilled and unprepared and with out a pot to luck with. So, instead of having about a serving of chicken curry casserole I will be eating curry chicken casserole for the next, oh, I don’t know, forever. I hope that Alton Brown wasn’t pulling my chain when he said it was a good recipe – wait, I don’t think he ever said it tasted good, I think all he said was "Curry Chicken Casserole". So. It may suck. I guess I’m going to have to learn to enjoy curry chicken casserole. (turns out it tastes exactly like cream of chicken soup!)

But damn. If I had a secretary she, because who are we kidding he?, anyway. She could have kept me updated as to what day it was. I knew it was Wednesday, but 28th , 29th , 30th , dates mean nothing to me, and while we are on that, who schedules a pot luck with only two days to prepare? That’s just madness. Oddly, though, everyone else seemed to be able to deal with it. There was an email, I learned later, not that I got it, I seem to exist in some sort of email Bermuda Triangle, emails get sent out but they never arrive at their destination. I have a perfectly serviceable email addy at work and somehow I get left off lists. It happens. It sucks. I complain, I get added, I get dropped, it sucks, I complain… get lathered up, rinsed off and repeat ad invinitum.

Sucks being me.

So, I came home and made the casserole for myself. This means that I did not have to add the required celery and onions. I like onions all right but if I’m going to have to eat this every night for the near future, I can forgo the onions. I do not like celery and not having to eat it will make me happy. I was only putting them in for looks anyway. It does stick me with a whole head of celery or whatever celery comes in. I looked for single serve celery in the vegetable section but it doesn’t come like that. They allow you to buy as many or as few mushrooms as you need but they won’t split up a celery head, which sucks. I wonder if Dogger or The Kitty would like celery in their kibble? Do animals eat celery? Both Dogger and Kitty eat weeds and grass when they present themselves so I don’t see why they would pass on celery if it showed up in front of them. It’s kind of weedy and grassy and I bet they would like the crunchiness of it but there is also the stringiness of it and I don’t think animals like stringiness. So maybe, no celery for them. What can you do with celery if you have no intention of eating?

What else. Oh Minnie is making a new noise, for about a week she was making a subtle squeaky noise when I used the breaks, now she is making a significantly less than subtle slidey noise when I use the breaks. The breaks still break, but now when the do, they make a sound like two pieces of smooth aluminum sliding against each other. This new noise was a shock, my truck never made any noise, slidy or squeeky, it just ran. I liked that about it.

I discovered the new noise while I was running to the store to find something to bring to the suddenly Thursday and not Friday birthday lunch. I came to a stop sign and stopped and then said "Hmm. I wonder where sound that came from. That other car just made a weird noise" and then I drove off, and subsequently stopped again, with out the benefit of another car to blame the sound on and this time I heard it again. "Hmm". I said. "That sound came from my vehical. That can not be a good sound. I think I’ll turn up the radio". And I did. Really, really, loud.

John Roberts confirmed by Senate as 17th Chief Justice of the United States.

Freedom is...

Wow. I guess yesturday is going down as a black day for the GOP. If I watched FAUX News, I would bet that I would be watching a breaking story about Clinton under tipping or maybe, later, a nice Peggy Noonan penned Reagan retrospective. Maybe a little Ronnie would make the Delay/Frist medicine go down better.

And while you’re watching the news, don’t buy the GOP message saying that Ronnie Earl is a dem-lover. Ronnie hates law breakers and it doesn’t matter to him what side of the isle they sit on. In fact he has gone after more Democrats over the years then he has Rethuglicans. He finds what stinks and then he takes out the trash.

FirstDelay got busted and now Frist is now in trouble too. Somewhere I bet Martha is a little P.Oed – half her shtick over the past year has been how if she were a man her little insider trading impropriety would be over looked. Sorry, Martha, even powerful and connected, Men get busted for insider trading, it’s not just you. Granted, Frist won’t do time, but he did make the mistake of going off message about Stem Cell research and this might be his punishment. I wouldn’t be surprised if Karl Rove made the call to the authorities himself. The White House is all about message discipline and Frist was a bad, bad boy.

Adding insult to injury:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Wednesday warned there will be an upsurge in violence in Iraq before next month's voting, but said the terrorists will fail. "Our troops are ready," he said.

First he kind of, sorta, in a round about not really, but almost, took the blame for the Federal fumble of the Gulf Coast catastrophe and now he’s admitting our troops are getting pounded! All that reality must be very confusing to him and The Base, cause, you know, the rest of us in the Reality Based Community all ready know our troops are getting shot at!. He comes back to the comfort of his fantasy when he says” The terrorists will fail” - And in what way are the terrorists going to fail? So far what have they failed at? They seem pretty damn good at killing our troops and creating chaos in the country. I don’t think they have “failed” at anything they set out to do. We are perfect targets and until our government spends the money and greases the wheels to get the supplies they need, our troops are going to continue to be shot like fish in a barrel. And as to his use of “upsurge”, when was there down surge? When was it ever not an “upsurge”?

More from coverage of Bush’s speech:

Bush's remarks in the Rose Garden came a day after Iraqi and U.S. forces announced they had killed Abdullah Abu Azzam, the No. 2 al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, during a weekend raid in Baghdad.

"This guy's a brutal killer," Bush said.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq issued an Internet statement denying that Abu Azzam was its deputy leader, calling him "one of al-Qaeda's many soldiers" and "the leader of one its battalions operating in Baghdad." The U.S.-led coalition, however, called Abu Azzam the mastermind of an escalation in suicide bombings that have killed nearly 700 people in Baghdad since April.

"We can expect they'll do everything in their power to try to stop the march of freedom," Bush said. "And our troops are ready for it."

So, we got another Number 2 Man. How many guys are Number Two Guys in the organization? I mean, damn. I thought my office was top heavy and then the bad guys say "Yeah, well, ya'll killed one of our guys. Whatever" Out troops would be "ready for it" if their Mamas wern't the people responsible for supplying their armour, our troops will be "ready" when they are armed.

Why is Freedom marching in circles?

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay indicted on one count of criminal conspiracy by Texas grand jury, according to Travis County clerk's office.

Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com and watch FREE video.

edited to add:

DeLay indicted, will step aside as majority leader

Change is?

I came home Monday after work. Did my usual routine, took Dogger out, fed Dogger, fed Kitty, made my lunch for Tuesday, cleaned out Kitty’s box, picked out my Tuesday wear to work clothes and deposited Dogger in the back yard.

That is a lot to get done two minutes after you walk in the door. But I do it everyday so that I don’t have to do it later when I want to do it even less. Any way. I finally get to sit down. I am going to watch the third episode of Angel season 1. I finally sit down and turn on the TV and settle in to watch Angel - if it turns out that the episode is as dumb the 15th time around as it was the 14th time around, I can make the adjustment and I can watch Crafters Coast to Coast instead. I like those shows, shut up.

Anyway. Angel is not on. Crafters is not on. This is not right.

Last week Angel wasn’t on because of Golf. I hate golf – Monday there was no golf but there was Charmed. Ick. I’m so over Charmed. I go to the waiting arms of Crafters and find some random show I’ve never heard of instead, and now I’m getting annoyed.

Angel wasn’t the best show ever but they had just started over and I like the first season!, again, shut up. In the past when Angel failed me, I could flip over and watch felted hat projects and polymer clay art - but removing both shows? simultaneously? Gawd! I would have liked some kind of warning.

I knew that TNT was going to start airing Alias reruns, but I had thought they were going to take off one of the 134 hours of Law and Order reruns they air every day, I could live with that. I don’t watch as much Law and Order as I used to and I don’t watch Alias at all. This programming change did not need to impact me, and yet they go and replace the one hour of Angel I watch with reruns with, ack gag, two hours of Charmed?!

I don’t care what the programming wizards at TNT think is best, I want my vampire back! And as for HGTV, how many infomercials do they need to air? I mean really! Isn’t an hour of I Want That! a day adequate to feed their views lust for new and improved pot scrubbers? and I understand that they as a network can only run so many Real Estate themed shows before they morph into the Play Boy Channel of Real Estate porn, but really, another show extolling the virtues of some random companies 2005 line of night lights? Come on! I need to see more painted chair designs and table top glass blowing and felting! We all need to know more about felting!

Neither show is completely off either networks line up. TNT still runs a couple of hours of Angel a day, in the middle of the night and Crafters is still somewhere on the schedule at HGTV – but if I want to watch them I’ll have to set the VCR to tape them and that just seems pathetic. I have no problem at all zoning out in front of the TV while they are on but I have deep reservations about turning either into something I go out of my way to tape. Crafters Coast To Coast is not appointment TV and as far as Angel goes, to my deep shame, I do think I have all the Angels on tape from back when the show was still on the air and I could in theory dig those out… but ew. I am not that pathetic. I can just suck it up and hope Bones stays on the air and I can get my Angel fix that way. ( I hate FAUX for canceling Head Cases)

I’m still annoyed though. Is September 26 some kind of network national holiday? Did I miss a memo or something? I blame George Bush.

Military jury sentences Army Pfc. Lynndie England to 3 years for Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, The Associated Press reports.

from CNN.com

Not as much as she deserves, but better than nothing.

What Does Roberts Think about the rights of white trash?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith is going to the United States' highest court in her fight over the fortune of her 90-year-old late husband.
Playmate appeals to Supreme Court.

full story here from CNN.com

Old, Old, Old

I am getting too old for this shit. Danny Glover only had to deal with Crazy Mel Gibson! I had to get through the weekend on next to no sleep. I got about four hours Friday night and started the day at 3:30 am Saturday morning, Sunday morning, I went to sleep at 2am and only slept until 8:30am that morning. By about 7:30 Sunday evening I wanted to die. Monday 6:05am rolled around much too fast.

Once upon a time, like back in the early 90s, I could do that kind of thing, in fact, I thrived on that kind of thing. Sleep was a waste of time; sleep took me away from all the fun! Sleep was for babies and old people. I would sleep when I was dead.

Well. I’m not a baby and I’m not dead, I must be an old people. I hate that. It was so easy when I was young. In college I don’t think I ever got eight hours of sleep a night the whole time I was there– there was just too much to do! And I seemed to get most of it done too. If I did get tired, I had all this energy sitting around in energy warehouses until I needed it –run around until all hours and have to be at class by 9am? No problem! Do this seven days a week and remember what classroom I was supposed to be in? all I had to do was call up the warehouse and have them send down a little energy and I could do it again over and over again and enjoy it! I did that when I was out of school too. I think there was a lot of beer while I was at school. I think that helped soften the edges of a lot of it. I may have been miserable but all I can remember is having fun.

Speaking of beer. I had a beer on the bus ride home. One Beer. I got a buzz off one beer. How buzzed? My mouth was numb and I was really interested in the motion of the bus. That is the saddest thing. It is a sad state of affairs when I drink one beer and I end up feeling sloshed. I’m no light weight either; I should be able to down a whole lot more then one tiny beer before I’m feeling that way. I should say in my defense that I was in all likely hood dehydrated and it’s not like there was a food court in The Mall – there should be though, how can you have a mall and no food court? Funny story. We were on the bus coming home and one of the riders was bitching that we didn’t get to stay and listen to the speakers and bands that were scheduled for after the march. He said he had visions of the mall area dotted with camp fires – the rest of us were all “No, there would not be camp fires on the mall.”, and he was “how would they eat” and we said “Um. Venders?” he was really attached to the idea that the mall was going to transform into the world’s largest KOA campground. He was really thinking of tents around the Washington Monument. I think he had a beer too.

I wasn’t sorry to miss the speakers. I mean, I saw that there were a lot of really interesting people lined up but… I find rhetoric boring, I find rhetoric blasted out of speakers the size of Stonehenge to be both boring and painful. Even when I’m fully rested and I agree with it, I think rhetoric is boring. Preaching to the choir is nice for the choir and I’m sure it makes the preacher happy, but it isn’t going to change any minds and the idea of frantic, angry, rhetoric set to music… agitprop rock is so, so, dismal. I was glad to go home when we did.

U.S. Army soldier Lynndie England is convicted of six counts in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse case, The Associated Press reports.

Good.


Watch CNN or log on to CNN.com and watch FREE video.

RIP

Don Adams, star of 1960s spy spoof "Get Smart" and voice behind cartoon character "Inspector Gadget," died Monday, his agent said.

from CNN.com

44-31

My alma mater got beat, but not into the ground. A&M must suck this year.

Monday Rally Blogging

New York Times says:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 - Vast numbers of protesters from around the country poured onto the lawns behind the White House on Saturday to demonstrate their opposition to the war in 1. Iraq, pointedly directing their anger at President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. A sea of anti-administration signs and banners flashed back at a long succession of speakers, who sharply rebuked the administration for continuing a war that has cost the lives of nearly 2,000 Americans and many more Iraqis. Many of the speakers also charged Mr. Bush with squandering resources that could have been used to aid people affected by the two hurricanes that slammed into the Gulf Coast.

CNN.com says:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Crowds opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White House on Saturday, shouting "Peace now" in the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the U.S. invasion. The rally stretched through the day and into the night, a marathon of music, speechmaking and dissent on the National Mall. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, noting that organizers had hoped to draw 100,000 people, said, "I think they probably hit that."

The Washington Post says:

Tens of thousands of people packed downtown Washington yesterday and marched past the White House in the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began.

The Moonie owned, Washington Times says:

Thousands of protesters yesterday marched against the war in Iraq, aiming their anger at George W. Bush as they wound through downtown and past the White House.

What the newspapers tell you, The Dianaverse shows you.

I'm Back!!
HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!

Friday Cat Blogging

The Red Coat

I got my coat! Yay! It is so kewl. Everybody really needs a fifty year old, bright red wool parka embellished with hand embroidered puffins.



It is absolutely adorable and it is going to be my Going To Work winter coat. I do have a full length dwon fileld lilac parka I could wear to work, but really, I don’t need to be dressed for an Ice Age everyday…

I also decided that my day in and day out navy blue boys size large winter parka just doesn’t send the “ I Am A Grown Woman” message that I should be projecting to the world – not that puffin embellishment sends out “ Hi. I Am A Grown Woman” clearly either, but it at least says “I Am Not A Boy”. My hope would be that if you see a bright red wool jacket coming at you the very least you should think is: “Female”. I would like my outer wear to stay on message and I think that message should be consistently “I am Not A Boy”, the exception to this would be when I am dog walking, then, I don’t really care, at that point I am off duty and off message and that’s okay.

The new coat also looks more tidy and it makes me look tidy and much less barrel shaped then the blue parka. I can wear it to the mall and not feel like the message I’m presenting to the the world is “Softer Side Of Sears” and more, “Vintage Snow Bunny”, and the matching gloves are way, way cool too. They are Santa gloves.

I’ve never had a garment with fur on it, do I need to feed and water the hood and the gloves? What does one do with fur? Should I name it? Does it need flea and tick preventive? should I register it with the city? and even more importantly, when is winter? I'm ready now. Damn it.

I went all the way to the post office to pick it up at lunch. The postman of course did not see fit to actually bring it to my door – “neither ran nor snow nor dark of night” My Ass., my mail guy goes by his own creed and it has nothing to do with being kept from his appointed rounds. Lazy bastard. I still have a couple of things on the way and I would be willing to bet that if I want them I’m going to have to hit the post office each time.

And speaking of post offices. I have a lovely post office within walking distance from my house. If I don’t want to or can’t walk there, I can stop on my way home from work. It is very convenient. It is also not “my” post office. My post office is on the other side of robin hoods barn and is only slightly easier to find. I’m good at it now. This was how it was when I was in my apartment and the post office was directly next door to the apartments. My “real” post office was a bit of a drive away and was located less then centrally. Bastards.

I still haven’t heard from the DC trip folks yet. I made a not particularly successful dry run last night with Brosky and I did not enjoy myself. I really, really, need those people to get on the stick. I did look up the address to NC Central University where we are supposed to meet, but it’s a whole campus! Where on NC Central campus are we meeting, specifally? Where? GAWD, are we just supposed to drive around in the dark until we just bump into each other? Is there a bat sign I don’t know about? This is why we can’t win elections and fail to run winning campaigns and why we can’t organize the grass roots. We can’t get our shit together and we do not communicate and we think it’s cute to fly by the seat of our pants. It’s not cute, it’s sloppy. ( but it works! I found a carpool!! to the busses! Woo-Hoo!)

Well, duh

Legislation would require pets to be included in evacuations

Generation Lost?

I’m have done a pretty good job getting my stuff together to go to the rally in D.C on Saturday ( borrowed a digital camera, juiced up my cell, bought a not that uncool fanny pack thingy, decided what I'm gong to where, just said no to a sign and back pack...) I’m just waiting on the group to get their stuff together and send me directions to where ever it is I'm supposed to meet them and instructions for after that. I hate flailing around not knowing where I am going and what I'm going to do once I'm there.

I’m having to drive all the way to Durham for this and I’m not excited about doing this in the first place ( why can't these things launch from Raleigh?) and in the dark, an even less joyful idea. I will have a bit of a dry run before I have to make the trip at 4:15 in the morning on Saturday, but I would really prefer to have the specific directions to where the busses will be exactly - Close but no cigar or playing hide and seek with the the group does not get you on the bus and makes me crazy just thinking about it! I want all that sort of thing and no craziness! done before now.

Durham isn’t that far way, I know that, but I hate driving. I’m not a driver. I’m a rider. I do not get any pleasure out of driving and having to do that unpleasureable task in the dark at 4:15 in the morning is even less thrilling. I don’t even mind getting up in the middle of the night to make the trip, just the thought of driving in the dark all the way there and then again at midnight all the way back makes me nauseous.

The group sent me this questionnaire thing and I answered it. I got back a snippy little replay referencing a spread sheet that I was supposed to put my answers on. How exactly do you put essay questions on a spread sheet? I had a hard time getting my whole cell number in the slot provided I’m certainly not going to be able get any answer longer then 9 digits onto the sheet. Is there a secret way of doing it? It is a Gen Y thing to be good a spread sheets? I’m Gen X, we aren’t spreadsheet ready.

I just think it’s goofy. “What was your first political experience?” Gosh, honey, I hardly know you, I’m not sure I want to share that right now. It’s kind of personal... Not. I mean do I go with “My Mother pushed me in a baby carriage through D.C back in ’71” or should I go with “I publicized my Mothers school board candidacy by taping a handbill on my desk in second grade?” or “I considered getting a fake ID so I could vote”? As a possible response. None of them would fit in the spread sheet and I don’t speak I.M so what then? They also want to know what my favorite “fast” song or my favorite “chill” song are. I don’t have a song I “chill” to, and what songs I do like when I hear them, I don’t know what they’re called or who sings them. I suck. I’m not Ipod compatible.

So, thus far we have ascertained that I can’t deal with driving or spread sheets or popular music. I’m old. At least the group that I am going with is old enough to still use Gen X as an identifier, I guess that is a good sign, we do somewhat speak the same language or if we don’t actually speak the same language, we could probably communicate through signs and gestures. If there is anything less fun than being the youngest person in the group it is the non joy of being the oldest in the group.

While I am off hopefully in D.C on Saturday and not blinding driving around the general direction of Durham, Dogger, Nephdog and Kitty are going to be holding down the fort by themselves. I think for Kitty’s sake, he is going to be staying upstairs away from the dogs. I don’t think there would be a problem, but they will get hungry at some point and there won’t be any kibble for them until much, much, much later on. I don’t want Kitty to make a pest of himself and end up a dog treat.

Does Chung take checks?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is finalizing its preparations to help the regions that may be affected by the oncoming Hurricane Rita, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday.

"It's really all hands on deck to deal with this storm," he said. "We've now prepositioned or are in the process of prepositioning a lot of supplies. We've got helicopters on standby.

"We're working very closely with the governor and the other state officials to make sure that we are completely connected in terms of their needs and what capabilities they're asking us to bring to the table," Chertoff told CNN's "American Morning."

"We are taking it very seriously and we are leaning as far forward as we can in preparation," he added. (Posted 3:17 p.m.)

What do you think the Bushits sacrificed in order to have another monster storm so close to Katrina? This time they are On Top Of This, they can be all over this storm, they have all sorts of shit "Prepositioned" for this storm, they can look like big old well prepaired heros for this storm. They can look real good this storm... Texas is a great big red state. No one in Houston is going to drown in their attic. No Republicans will be harmed.

Fill Your tank now, your friendly neighborhood price gougers and panic merchants are warming up

$$$$$ Oil prices climbed by $2 a barrel, topping the $68 mark Wednesday as Hurricane Rita threatened to add to U.S. energy supply woes by hammering Gulf of Mexico rigs, pipelines and nearby refineries.

Rescue Them

I watch a lot of TV and from what I have learned so far is that all women on TV, can kick ass better then any man, they are smarter, pretty and always right. Even when they are dead wrong and dumb as a stump they are right and still smarter then anyone with a penis. It pisses me off, because I’m a woman and I make mistakes, I’m wrong sometimes and I can not kick ass. It’s depressing to see all the women on TV be uniformly a lot better at everything they do then I am; hands down it doesn’t matter what they try to do, they will do it really well - And on the off chance they do make a mistake, it’s not really a mistake because it turns out that they save a drowning family and solve the Big Problem anyway.

But on Rescue Me, the female characters are no more likely to be right then the men! In that world, everyone makes bad decisions! everyone makes a fool of him or herself! Some of them are doing jobs they shouldn’t be, men and women. It like real life, but with a better script.

The woman firefighter in particular was roasted over the flames on various forums because she came to the realization that she was not cut out for her job. She made the call, no one told her to step back, no one bullied her into it, she made her own decision. It broke her heart, but she did what she had to do. She was too small, not strong enough and just wasn’t cut out for the gig. She was 89 lbs with a killer bod and she still could not save the world! Which is shocking because over the last few years we’re been taught that if you were a woman and you weren’t 89 lbs with a killer bod, you did not possesses the applicable World Saving Skills and she was accused of shaming women everywhere and setting back everything that has been gained over the last 50 years. Whatever.

I get tired of 19 year old, 89 lb, 5’0 blond chicks saving an “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” world made of balsa wood and populated by stunt people. It’s easy to do with a blue screen and a raft of look a like stunt people standing by to do the really hard stuff. But it’s not real. I want a 36 year 5’10 160 lb woman to come and start shooting the bad guys while she Saves The World. I don’t need some tubby Fat Acceptance super chick to roll out of the dark to squish the bad guy and confuse him with her fabulous wit if he proves to be unsquishable, but stupid.

How about an actual, trained, female cop with a gun and pepper spray? Why! Why is always hand to-hand combat? Why can’t the 89 lb super hero just shoot the bad guy from behind a car every once and a while? And you know? My itty bitty little self worth wasn’t bruised in anyway because the firefighter who fell out on Rescue Me was the girl. It would have been bruised if she stayed 30 lbs under weight and 8 inches too short for the job and still kicked ass. In real life female fire fighters look a lot like the men. Bigger, stronger and tougher then you are.

Speaking of TV. The season has started and Rescue Me ended, I suggest Bones on Tiesday Nights and Head Cases and Wednesdays. I know, I know they are both on FAUX… that is a problem, but do you really want to watch NBC’s E-Ring?, I mean, really? Did you know Dennis Hopper is a Bushite? He voted for Bush twice? If that isn’t a Don’t Do Drugs message as well as a “Don’t Watch E Ring message, I don’t know what is.

This? I need

front


back


I mean who doesn't need a vintage, fringed, white leather University of Texas themed jacket? and I would have it were it now not going for $136 on Ebay. Bummer.

Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida, is a whacko.

Jeb Bush has an invisible friend Â? which would be fine, if he were a toddler, but since heÂ?s clearly not? Jeb Bush needs inpatient care.

Here is the full story , and it is not aarticleal from The Onion either, thGainesvillele paper is for real.

lifted from Atrios

Oh. Wah

Ford exec: Japanese hogging hybrid parts

"We would make more fuel efficient cars but those lousy japs are hogging all the available parts, its not like we can produce them ourselves or anything. They are forcing us to continue to make hyper fuel consuming SUVs! It's not our fault".

Language Skilz

Having Mini Kitty as a house guest for a few days was interesting. Mini Kitty does not speak the same cat language as Kitty does. I thought after eight years with Kitty, I had become pretty fluent in catese. I was wrong.

Kitty says "meep" or "mrow" Mini has a feline speech impediment and can not physically meow, instead she has developed a complicated pattern of chips and clicks. She is able to make the "meow" sound but when she does so, "meow: turns into somewhat more of a statement then when Kitty lets lose with a random “Meow” when he feels ignored because you are in a different room than he his and he doesn’t feel like getting up and walking there on his own, this is as opposed to when Mini Kitty says “Meow”, you know its time to evacuate the house and move to higher ground. Mini Kitty doesn’t do false alarms and being alone in another room by herself is not something she is likely to complain about.

When Kitty chirps “Meep”, it means “Feed Me, I’m so cute and small I’m hardly big enough to make a whole Meow. Feeeeeed Meeeeee” when Mini Kitty, who is genuinely cute and small, chirps: “Meep” it means “Don’t touch me!” in fact almost everything that Mini Kitty says can either be translated as “don’t touch me”, “Put Me Down” or “help”.

For example.

Me – A Ha! Caught You!
Mini Kitty – chirp! chirp!
Me – What? You’re okay; gosh you have such soft fur! What a pretty baby! (snuggle)
Mini Kitty – Chirrrrp! (slash)
Me – Ow!
Mini Kitty – (from under bed) chirpchirp.

Chirp can be translated in this scenario as “Don’t Touch Me!” or. “Put Me Down!” or if you are using an older translation guide “Unhand me! You brute!” Mini Kitty uses many different tones of voice for Chirp. It can be a protest – “Let Me Down!”, it can be used as a threat as in “Put Me Down NOW or I will cut you”, or even occasionally, “Chirp, Chirp” as Kitty uses it “Feed Me”.

Needless to say this made communication between the two cats precarious. Kitty heard Mini use the standard “Chirpychirp” and he assumed there was food near by, in his use of the word, “Chirp” is a call for food, so he came running only to find Mini Kitty laying in wait for him. Kitty isn’t used to having strangers in his house. He can deal with them on their turf but when he was faced with dealing with a guest on his turf, 24-7? It made him tense. Even worse. Mini Kitty used his box. The poor guy wanted to go in there to read the paper and every single time, Mini was in there putting on make up or doing her hair and it just made him crazy. When she wasn’t in the box she was following him around with swatches and paint chips and clippings from last months Box and Bowl.

Kitty wasn’t the only one being irked by the house guest. Dogger was thrilled at first, she licked Mini Kitty and sniffed her tiny head and thought they were off to a good start. Mini Kitty saw that Dogger was fenced in and took advantage of it. Mini Kitty would sit in the hall way in front of the baby gate and stare at Dogger. I would hear Dogger whining and tell her to stop it. I didn’t know why she was whining… Mini Kitty is mean.

Sadly, Mini Kitty is also the cutest kitty ever. She smells good and her fur is like the down on baby chicks. To see Mini Kitty is to want to touch her. It would piss off the animals but I would welcome Mini Kitty back anytime.

Coming This Week : Nephdog in da house!

NASCAR, TNT Allow 'S' Word During Race Broadcast
(The S word? Is that like The L Word?)

The S Word? Are these people in preschool?

Dear Friend of the Family,

NASCAR and the TNT network has allowed race car driver Robbie Gordon to use the "S" word on national television when they knew millions of kids and families were watching. TNT did not choose to use a delay mechanism to allow the word to be bleeped out. By the same token, NASCAR knew Gordon uses foul language, but decided to interview him anyway, without precautions.

Good Luck AFA, you’re messin’ with your peoples favorite show! Bubba, Bubbette and baby Bub ain’t gonna be as pissed about this as you are.

I hit the link and told the NASCAR high chief he was doing a fine job, my header was “American Family Nut Job’s Have Your Number”. So far I’ve used the AFA to tell all kinds of folks they are doing a good job and to keep up the good work.

Wait, Wait, Don’t Tease Me?

Okay. I know you have all been sitting on pins and needles to hear how the show went and when you can expect to hear my laugher on your local NPR station. Short answer? No one knows. I mean, someone knows, somebody in some office somewhere no doubt has it scheduled, but it didn’t air this weekend. Sadly, I was there for the birth of a rerun. The fancy radio term for this is an "Evergreen Show". This means they can run it whenever they need to and as many times as they want because it has no reference to current events.

Okay. For a brief moment I was bitterly disappointed - in a Damn! my huge font of knowledge of trivial current events is again wasted, Damn You Peter Sagal! kind of way. I got over it when they turned down the house lights, turned on the magic spinning disco ball and played Free Bird as the cast entered the stage.

Did you know they turn down the house lights down for radio?

The show started out with introductions of the cast. Peter Sagal is balding! Charlie Pierce is tubby and has thinning blond hair, Roxanne Roberts was wearing a disco dress, Roy Blount is older and gray, and oddly, in person, Carl Kasells’ speaking voice is difficult to understand. Or maybe it was a bad mike but I often had a hard time understanding what he was saying.

Because it was an "Evergreen" show there was no current event quizzing. It was all about random trivia of days of yor. Ben Franklin gave good sound bite, if he were around today he would be a regular on talk shows and I bet he would kill on Meet The Press and The Daily Show. We learned about how flush toilets were known at first as "Quincys" because he was the first president to have one at the White House. This is nice to know, but not as cool as "Colundezza Rice was shopping for what when she was verbally attacked in NYC?". I mean I care about flush toilets at the White House but not as much as I care about Bush Admin types getting flushed by the public for being asshats.

But it got better. I laughed myself silly. Charlie Pierce is a funny guy. I laughed for the whole two hours it took to do the show. It takes awhile, what with having to repeat things and a "Not My Job" author who talked and talked and talked and then talked some more. It was like he was under the impression he had been asked to speak at a filibuster instead of an hour long news quiz. He was folksey and funny and would probably been great at a book signing, where going off on tangents for three days is cool, but at the show? Not so much. It was like "come on! We have to give someone a chance to win Carl Kasells’ voice on their home answering machine!".

I thought all this time that people just called in while the show was on. They don’t seem to, it is not really a radio call in show. Listeners call, write or email for a chance to be on and then a handful get chosen and then the show calls them and I guess they say “Call X number at X time on Thursday” or some get told “Call at X time on Friday”. I got the feeling that they were on hold until they were needed for a quiz. One guy who called in for a quiz was so sure he was going to win that he and his wife bought a new answering machine for Carl Kasell to put a message on. He didn’t win and Peter Sagal told him not to count his Carls! . The guy was really sad he didn’t win - he probably felt dumb too as he was a history nut and since the line of questions were all historical, he should have won. Poor guy. Don’t Count Your Carls!! Heeee!

Even though it wasn’t a current events version of the show, it was really funny and if you are ever listening to WWDTM this fall and there is a lot of talk about “prostate warmers”, that is the show I was at.

And The Emmy(tm) went to...


Lead Actor Comedy Series
Tony Shaloub, Monk

Lead Actress Comedy Series
Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives

Supporting Actress Comedy Series
Doris Roberts, Everybody Loves Raymond

Supporting Actor Comedy Series
Brad Garrett, Everybody Loves Raymond

Lead Actor Drama
James Spader, Boston Legal

Lead Actress Drama
Patricia Arquette, Medium

Supporting Actor Drama
William Shatner, Boston Legal

Supporting Actress Drama
Blythe Danner, Huff

Best Series Comedy
Everybody Loves Raymond

Best Series Drama
Lost

Best Cartoon Series



The Daily Show won for best writing and best musical or variety show, David Letterman, not Jay Leno did a lovely thing for Johnny Carson. Show ended at 11:01pm.

I need this!!!!! It's a snowglobe! its huge!! It's yard art! and it's a Christmas decoration!

Dear Santa,

I know what I want you to bring me this year! and good news, it's not a useful tool that you assume that I am joking about really wanting. Pleeeeaaaassssseeeeee.

Love,

Diana

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!!

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!!

Friday Cat Blogging

TGIF

See how things have improved? Just a couple of weeks ago I had to link to happy baby animal images just to get through the day and this week, No Baby Animal Images! Things are looking up! Okay, not looking up but at least they’re not dieing of dehydration while trapped on the roof any longer.

And Shrub did kind of more or less around about, nearly, almost apologize for his rather large part of the whole deadly mess – which is a sight better then he will ever do for what has happened in Iraq. I do plan on skipping entirely his speech Thursday night where he announces the feds will be spending more along the Gulf Coast over the next few years then they have all ready spent in The Gulf... Dogger needs a bath and in our house that takes presidents over The President.

Mini Kitty is scheduled to arrive today and I want to get the house tidied up and that includes Dogger as well. It probably also means cleaning the bathroom, kitchen, living room, dinning room table and vacuuming the carpets as well. In one night. I did some acute cleaning over the weekend but most of that has gone the way of all things from the past – it is a pleasant memory and I wish I had taken more pictures while it was here. Sigh.

Speaking of things that seem to be staying around. That bitch Ophelia is not getting the hint. I didn’t realize that weather systems could have social anxiety! I mean girl friend is just sitting there on the outskirts playing with her split ends pissing around and wishing she had checked to see what all the other storms were wearing before she came to the party. She’s really pissed that Katrina has been gone for two weeks and she still is getting all the press. It’s really making her feel inadequate because her sustained winds are “only” 80 miles and hour and everyone keeps telling her about Katrina’s sustained winds and now Ophelia is thinking about padding hers just to stay competitive.

I got an email from one of my land locked friends back in Texas:

Diana,

I wanted to see if you were alright from the storm. Is your family alright? I didn't know if I could get through on the phone. Of course,this may not get through if your area was hit badly. I just wanted to check on you and see what was going on.

I had to write him right back to assure him that up here in Raleigh we aren’t under water or experiencing any failure of utilites from the storm at all. I mean, like nothing. I also think my friend may need a little bit of a geography refresher as to where I live and where the water is from here. Answer? A long way away. Storms do come here but to be really destructive this far inland, they have to be a very nasty storm – see Fran, see Floyd. Isabella caused a lot of damage in the western part of the state, but not here. It depends on where they make landfall and how fast the storm moves or does not move and how much wind it has and how much rain it carries with it. He bases his weather anxiety from a life time of tornados and watches and warnings and nasty storms that sneak up behind you and destroy your house before you can do anything about it. But they don't get the kind of coverage that hurricanes do.

It was sweet he wrote though, but I guess that the Katrina fiasco and the resultant media attention to the aftermath really got people keyed up and paranoid about storms. I was that away about tornados. There would be a partially fierce one somewhere in the state and the next time it clouded over where I was it would make me anxious.

When I wrote him back I mentioned that my parents are coming up this weekend. He wrote back “Are they evacuating!? Or are they just coming for a visit?” I assured him they are coming up to go see Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, they are not on the run for their lives. I saw it advertised weeks ago and after prolonged family conferencing we decided we did want to go and we hammered out which show we wanted to see and I got the tickets. I’m very excited about it.

Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner


I had a major announcement for the Kitty.

Me – I’ve got a surprise for you!

Kitty – stares into space, flicks tail

Me - Guess what!

Kitty - studies the wall

Finally I pick him up and get his attention.

Me – Okay. Guess What.

Kitty – You surpriseing me with the news that The Dog is going away forever and we’ll never see it again?

Me - No!

Kitty - You are changing my antibiotic flavored kibble?

Me – Your food hasn’t been antibiotic flavored in a week! Your new kibble is higher in allergens, didn’t you taste the difference? (pout)

Kitty – Yes I did. The new kibble is full of nummy anti-bacterial goodness. Do you hate me?

Me – The surprise is not food related

Kitty – Surprise!.Then why do I care? Dust Mote! Dust Mote!

Me – Stay Here! you should care because I care?

Kitty - But I don’t ! Moth! Moth!

Me – Own! Stop it. Sit still. We are going to have a visitor!

Kitty - Yes! The Moth! Let me Go!

Me – No! Later with the moth! We are going to have a visitor!

Kitty - It’s getting away!

Me – Topic! We are getting a house guest.

Kitty - Oh Gawd. Not that Other Dog again! It was just here. Does it not have a home? They have these things called “kennels”, take him there. I do not need another dog in my house. You know what? The dog that lives here all the time? I think that it would benefit from a kennel too.

Me – Not going to happen. Let the dream go. Live in the now.

Kitty – Right now I live in a kennel!

Me – You most certainly do not! It hasn’t smelled like a kennel in here since before Dogger was house trained! And you should talk – Poops in A Box!

Kitty – Topic?

Me - We are going to have a visitor. A cat visitor!

Kitty – You've managed to trick one of the one of the outside cats into coming inside? cats from the front yard?

Me – No they wouldn’t want to come inside. Did you know they hang around in the back yard too?

Kitty – Bastards! That is my yard. Gawd! You don’t let me go outside and all hell breaks lose! If I was able to patrol the yard, they wouldn’t be back there doing Gawd knows what!

Me – Dogger is in the yard sometimes.

Kitty – Do you think that the dog is some kind of deterrent? HA.

Me – People are plenty deterred by Dogger! She’s very deterrenty.

Kitty - to feral cats? Not hardly.

Me – ANYWAY.

Kitty – Feed me?

Me – Not right now.

Kitty - nudge, nudge, purrrrrrrr

Me – Mini Kitty is coming to stay with us.

Kitty – To stay with us?

Me – Yes!

Kitty - checking mental rolodex for alternative housing arrangements, finding none. Staying where?

Me – Here. With us, in this house. It’s going to be so much fun for the two of you! I’m going to put your box and your baby and water upstairs and you and Mini are going to be able to romp and have fun all weekend! Yay!

Kitty – Can I introduce Mini to the dog?

Me – No. You and Mini will be upstairs. I don’t think Mini and Dogger really need to meet.

Kitty – I had to meet Dogger.

Me – Dogger is your room mate and you could have a better relationship with her, I have seen pictures of Dogs and Cats being all friendly…

Kitty – You watch too much TV. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen in real life.

Me – No! I’ve seen pictures of cats and dogs being friendly. You can get along together.

Kitty – These pictures you've seen? are they outside of the funny pages?

Me – Yes! In real life! photographs.

Kitty – Photoshoped.

Me – Mini. You. Upstairs. Fun. Very little supervison. She is on her way.

Kitty - I could bunk with Dogger. We both have so much to learn about each other…

8/30 changed everything?

Proving that even peer pressure has gone corporate:

Northwest Airlines files for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, a spokeswoman announced.

The nation's third-largest airline, Delta Air Lines, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The last time I flew Northwest (admittedly,6-7 years ago) they served real food on real plates and gave us real table ware and that was in coach - Good customer service like that can not possibly go unpunished. Delta, on the other hand crashed two planes at DFW maybe three years apart. No justice.

They went from obsessing over blow jobs to just blowing

Senate GOP kills Katrina Investigation

Senate Republicans on Wednesday scuttled an attempt by Sen.Hillary Clinton to establish an independent, bipartisan panel patterned after the 9/11 Commission to investigate what went wrong with federal, state and local governments' response to Hurricane Katrina.

And please, please don't tell me that reflexively voted it down because of who introduced it. You know if they renamed Hurricane Katrina to Blow Job Katrina, the Senate GOP would have investigated the hell out of it.

thanks to Blondesense

Dogs!

We all know about Cat Blogging. Here is a guy who Dog Blog's , every day - not his dog, but the people of San Francisco' dogs.

Working for a living

Man. I’ve been working all day. At Work! You would think I was getting paid or something. It’s not pay, but it is something. The good news is I can look forward to Employee Recognition Day at the end of the month. I was a good little employee this morning. I made copies, I drove to out off site storage place, I made more copies. I mean like a huge amount of copies, like deforestation level of copy making and then I was through. Well, until I found a couple of sheets of orphan paper and then I had to tell my boss, (!) And then I had to drive to the where our mail goes before it goes where ever it goes and I want points for telling my boss I messed up but I don’t think I’ll get any.

It started at like 7:45 in the morning. My boss wanders in and announces that a subpoena has landed and I need to get several years of documents for this facility copied and to her now. I say “Um. A couple of those years are in archives”. And she says “GET THEM OUT OF ARCHIVES, NOW. I NEED THEM BY TOMORROW!". This was later updated to “NOW I NEED THEM NOW GO!GO!GO!, because my boss only knows how to speak in caplock. Boss is not going to be in for the rest of the week. So I flip through my list of archived material and pray that I transcribed my hand written notes correctly and didn’t leave this facility off the final version, which I have done in the past… then I called archives to warn them what was coming to tell them my tale of woe and they say “Well. We’ll try to get them to you” and I say “Today”, and they say “We’ll do our best”. Which is archive for “We’ll get to it whenever”. I even had to promise to drive to the hinterlands to pick the documents up myself.

Fortunately, I had marked the archive boxes correctly and they were able to find them and as soon as they pulled them they called me back. They must have been in a good mood because there can often be quite a pause between the pulling of the docs and the actual calling of me to come get them. It can make me very crazy during times when I am all ready fairly crazed and do not need more craziness in my day. But this time they took pity on my crazed self and dispensed with the waiting period.

And then I made copies. And Copies. And Copies. And then I thought I was finished. I basked in the glow of my boss’s joy and I went to lunch, an hour late. After I got back from lunch and was putting away all the paper I had pulled out in my mad rush to get this job done, I found more. I made the copies and bravely went to tell my boss. She said the packet had all ready been sent. Panic! Freaking Out! All Hands On Deck! Battle Stations! I made a mad dash out the door and was able to find the all ready mailed packet and stuff the offending material inside the (unsealed) envelope with the rest of the documents. Whew. Not so much basking in the glow anymore. But if they were so all fire important and the fate of the world depended on the docs getting out NOW, why did we send them through the regular mail? Not by Fed-Ex or UPS.

That pissed me off.

It’s hard to get back to work after all that working and rushing and deforestation-ing and all hands on decking and all the attendant state sponsored freaking out... I think all that early morning working should be enough to cover the rest of the days work or at least count double. I should be able to go home.

I am totally going to have to put the archive guys on my Christmas Card list.

All we need now is,fire?

Reality TV bites, 82% say in poll

and

Bush: 'I take responsibility' for federal failures on Katrina

As much as I like those, I would like more to see headlines like, say:

100% of humans think Reality TV should be banned from the airwaves

and

Bush genuinely apologizes for being a shit.

What I think headlines with the words "Bush" and "Takes" and "Responsiblity" and "Adults Think Reality TV Sucks" are really saying to us is:

The Vogons Are On The Way

They're coming to take you away, Ha, Ha Ho, Ho

Listen to Dr. Demento online!

Finally...

President Bush says he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina.


His advisers told him that The Base and Black Republicans (6 of which were scheduled to step down from the Black Republicans Club pr whatever today) would forgive him if he stepped up and admitted guilt. "It takes a strong man". Blah, blah, blah.

Seasons Greetings!

Dear My Yahoo Groups,

The new season starts tonight. Yay! This means that for the first time in almost four months you will have something relevant to post. It means you no longer have to fill the time squueeeeeeing over the actors’ ability to successfully use an accent that is not his. We know this is an impressive feat of actorness. We also should keep in mind that other actors have successfully achieved this Herculean task in the past and we should move on to other things show related. “Other Things” do not include endless threads titled "OMG WASN:HE TEH SEX ON LENO!!!111111", because this group is allegedly about the show, not the actor. Please keep this in mind. Don’t make me hunt you down and burn your 144 copies of TV Guide that feature the show/actor/tour of set.

You remember the show, the reason for this group? It is not called "Actor is teh hawt" it’s named after the series. You remember that right? That it’s a TV show that we are talking about here after all. Another gentle reminder, if you want to bash a certain character because she get’s to be the characters girlfriend and you do not, create a Yahoo Group for the bashing and leave this group for discussion of the show. Bonus points if you hate the character and the actor because she’s thinner, blonder, more attractive or successful then you are, fat, brunette and with a “good personality” may be great in real life, but in TV world it renders characters invisible. If you can see the character it is because they are thinner, blonder and prettier then you are. Get Over It. I all ready think you are a loser, don’t prove it to me by preaching about Fat Acceptance. I will send you diet bars.

Speaking of the show, once it has aired, there is no such thing as spoilers for that given episode. If you did not watch the show, do not come to the group until you have done so. Posting bitchy comments about how the episode was "ruined" for you because you “accidentally” read a thread title with a spoiler in it, well it sucks being you. Don’t go online until you have watched the episode. If you gasp! Missed The Episode Entirely, and won’t be able to watch it until whenever, do not post tearful posts begging the rest of the group add 47 rows of spoiler space to each and every post about the episode to protect your sensibilities. It doesn’t matter that all three of your VCRs you had recording the show all died/ran out of tape/were set for the wrong day, and left you bereft - it sucks for you. Please do not badger the group to supply you with a tape or DVD or download of the episode. It will rerun very soon. It will also be recapped at the beginning of the next episode. If you keep begging, I will hunt you down and burn your home made action figures.

Also, this is a group about a TV Show. This is not a place for you to come and try to receive the psychiatric help you need. The group isn’t here to help you through your issues. There are Yahoo Groups dedicated to all forms of mental illness, please do a search and take your problems to the correct group. The Group is also not a forum for you to discuss:

1. Your Kids
2. Your Spouse/Husband/Partner/Room mate
3.Your craft projects
4.Your car problems
5.What You Made For Dinner, what you may make for dinner, what should you make for dinner.
6. Home Improvements you watched on TV and your opinion of same, Home Improvement projects you would do but can’t afford right now because of Un-named responsibility you don’t “feel comfortable discussing here”,(but have, at length, over and over, check the archives under “ Re: Does Anybody else have chronic ear odor?)
7. Your devotion to Clay Akin.


Love,

Me

AP: Mike Brown says he has resigned as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com and watch FREE video.

Ask v. Tell


Well I survived one week of bringing my lunch, Shut up! It was a big deal! I don’t bring my lunch, I haven’t regularly brought my lunch to anywhere in a long time. I like going out for lunch. I like not just getting out of my building but getting away from my building.

This week I think the Wake County SPCA is going to get the donation money. I know they are sheltering some evacuee pets and they have so many animals as a result of the storm that they had to cancel the planned Dog Festival this weekend because they couldn’t do it and deal with all the new animals they are taking care of. I think they should have done it anyway. They could have brought some of the rescued animals, the more bedraggled the better, and raised huge amounts of money. All they would have to do is say

"These poor sad babies people have been sent to the four corners and who knows when they will be able to come get them. Their people are probably in some shelter somewhere wondering where their little friends are and if they are all right. You know where your little friend is, help us take care of these poor, sad little evacuee pets, help ease their peoples minds at this most difficult time".

They would raise money hand over fist. Let the crowd see their tiny little wet faces up close and wonder about where their people are, if their people are going to be back for them at all... They would have to wring the tears out of the cash they brought in, but they would bring in bank.

I mean, hell, they could bath them before they brought them out. If they didn’t dry them off post bath, hey, you know, they have so many and the image of those wet little animals... it’s warm here! What? They wouldn’t uncomfortable and I’m not saying they should be kept wet all day by, but maybe they could have cycled them in and out... anyway, seeing actual poor, sad, hurricane victim pets , would be very effective in getting wallets open while showing us exactly where our money would be going.

We had the second collection for hurricane relieve today. The Cathedral did a little better then the church I was at last week. The Cathedral had some one from Catholic Charities come down and talk about the refugees that are in Raleigh and what their needs are and gave several avenues for helping them and announced a supply drive for them in the coming weeks while making it clear that the need will not be over for months and we will be asked again. It was good, but dry. They needed to work the audience more. A better choice would have been to remind us that New Orleans is a Catholic city and was home to a huge number of Catholics and they are our brothers and sisters in Christ, and the city was full of Catholic Churches and now all those parishioners are with out Church homes as well as their homes and blah, blah, blah and not to mention we too live in a hurricane zone and this could have happened to us and has, although to a much, much, much smaller degree and again, Catholics, Catholics, Catholics... . I mean, if you want to make people give you money , asking them isn’t enough, you have to TELL them to give you money! And you you should tailor your message to your audience, bring the story to them, make them part of the story! make it personal to them. This week because I know where my animals are, the Wake County SPCA will get $25.

Today Is September 11, 2005.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, 2996 American citizens and foreign nationals were killed coordinated attacks in New York City, Washington D.C and Pennsylvania. It became known shortly there after that these attacks were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and carried out by his followers. Since then, 233 American service men and women have given their lives in Afghanistan in response to these attacks. Osama bin Laden remains at large.

My Hero

David Gregory . Read the exchange. It's good to see some one in the press treating Scott McClellan as the pinyata, before the inevitable return to the Kool Aid table by the White House press corps.

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!

HA!

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. - A judge sent Edgar Ray Killen back to prison Friday after finding that the former Ku Klux Klan leader, convicted for the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, was in better health than the court had been told.

Full Story Here

Is This a Joke?

If you're one of the many Bobcats planning to join us for the game on September 24 when Texas State takes on Texas A&M, then you won't want to miss special Bobcat Alumni/Bobcat Athletic Foundation pre-game festivities.

Join Texas State President XXX in the Alumni Tent for bar-b-que and beverages prior to the game and meet up with other Alumni that have traveled to support our Bobcat Football Team.

Saturday, September 24
Tent open from 4-6 p.m.
Tent cost: $10

For those of you that aren't familiar with my school or Texas A&M. My school is a teeny, tiny, itty, bitty little place with a team to match, while A&M is an enormous school with a gigantic athletic budget and the gigantor team that comes with that - even worse, A&M has a disturbing culty air to it. They are going to kill my school. Is A&M doing something that requires numerous human sacrifices?

Friday Cat Blogging

And they say Bush doesn't care about polls...

FEMA director Michael Brown being sent back to Washington; Homeland Security Director Chertoff to announce new leader for on-the-ground Katrina relief efforts, senior administration official tells CNN. Details soon.

from CNN.com

Karen Hughes decided that Dear Leader needed her more than her family did, comes out of retirement to change his nappys and tie his shoes

Bush Propaganda Minister blames NOLA looters and the media for soiling Americas image in foreign markets. Wait for variation on " A free press is a messy press and I'm here to make sure they clean up their act!".

WASHINGTON - Karen Hughes, who officially takes her job today as head of the nation's image-building effort abroad, said Thursday that Hurricane Katrina has complicated her already formidable task.

But while much of the international criticism has centered on the Bush administration's response to the storm, Hughes said something else is a problem for America's image around the world: the crime that followed.

"The images of crime being committed in the face of an awful natural disaster is hard for anyone to understand, people around the world and Americans. It sickens me as an American," she said. "How could criminals prey on vulnerable elderly citizens and children during a time of such horror?" "People are seeing things that no one likes to see," Hughes said. "We've seen criminals try to prey on vulnerable people in the midst of a tragedy, and that's horrible."

The images of Americans helping Americans will play well around the world, Hughes said. But the reports of crime will not, she said. "Unfortunately, criminals exist in America. Criminals exist in other places around the world. We are going to have to address that in our communications," she said.


Gainsville.com

Making sure the Volk don’t roll

Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.

The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and "sterile," said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.

The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

One restricted group will be the media, whose members will not be allowed to walk along the march route. Reporters and cameras are restricted to three enclosed areas along the route but are not permitted to walk alongside participants walking from the Pentagon, across the Memorial Bridge to the Mall.

Opponents of the Freedom Walk took issue with the way the Pentagon is staging the event. When the walk first was publicized, participants were required to submit their names, ages, e-mail addresses and home addresses. After some groups accused the Pentagon of using the registration as a recruiting tool for the military, the requirements were changed.

Washington Post

Just a reminder,The Good Guys are sponsoring a rally at the White House on September 24.

Twilight Zone Weekly

I was reading my Entertainment Weekly and it was jarring. It was so carefree and happy and celebratory – the new TV season is starting and they are all excited about all the crappy shows premiering and they write such positive, uplifting things about them and their chances, all the while, you know they are all ready wrote the cancellation blurbs about Hells Kitchen, Doogie Howser Esq and The Ghost Whisperer - because they are total cancellation bait. Cancelled and not Brilliant.

With the new season starting comes the second season of Desperate B-Listresses so EW can finally stop exhausting themselves coming up with increasingly moronic excuses to cover of Eva Noreasontoknowhernameia every week.

Hey, look! She’s reminding us of what a great rack she has and that her tits are 15 years younger then the other Housewives’ tits and she is really cool about not being nominated for an Emmy™ by bravely joking about how she didn’t want one anyway! And look at her rack!

Here’s one of her picking her nose at a stop light! She is so real!!

Now, this one is really special! Look! She’s wearing a bathing suit! In Public! At an Awards Show! In Miami! During a Hurricane! What a sense of humor! She is so edgy! And what a trooper!

Here she is at the opening of an envelope! What a professional!

Whatever. Why hasn’t Terri Hatcher used one of her skeletal shoulder blades to puncture Longernamererias giant head?

But other then Eva Gonorrhea’s unfortunate bathing suit, there was no real mention of the hurricane or New Orleans or the rest of the Gulf Coast or the death toll or the shocking realty of American Refugees/Evacuees/Survivors or what celebrities think about the hurricane or the destruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and the shocking reality of American Refugees/Evacuees/Survivors. It went on the whole issue with out once mentioning we should give to the Red Cross (try watching or reading anything now with out a mention of The Red Cross) It was so unreal. I mean, nothing had happened yet. I felt like I did reading my little entertainment rags that arrived 9/10. They seemed to be about a world that was so different than the real one, I kind of liked the “fake” world. Everyone was so happy. But then, like now, I hated them too, for being happy and ignorant. It pisses me off that they aren’t shocked and horrified like the rest of us. How dare they be smiling when all I want to do is cry.

I never thought about how the the publications we use to catalogue our world are so often out of date. Something traumatic happens and they don’t cover it for a week. They are perpetually out of sync. It isn’t just my lamo entertainment mags that are lagging and out of sync. My New Yorker seems to be about food this time around, not a mention of devastation or presidential malfeasance, or national mourning and shame. It’s hard to read these and feel like they are not at all relevant. I looked at it and wanted to say “What are you talking about! How can you be going on about restaurants at a time like this?” Last week everything was so normal. Reading those issues today is like reading an old, old magazine you might find for sale at 1000 times its cover price at an antique shop, everything they covered seems so cute and naïve and fluffy. It’s the same Twilight Zone version of the world where Shrub can blather nostalgically about WW2 and VJ day like nothing else was going on.

It’s a little shocking to not read about the admins blunders in The New Yorker a whole news-ish magazine with out any reference to the admins shocking mishandling of the catastrophe. They did mention the never ending vacation but they were still joshing the admin because it wasn’t over yet.

And because I didn’t mention it in yesterdays post, George W. Bush is evil.

Fourteen bodies found Thursday inside the flooded Memorial Hospital in New Orleans.

Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com and watch FREE video.

George W. Bush was born with a silver spoon up his ass

UN hits back at US in report saying parts of America are as poor as Third World"

(ya think they are a little pissed about Boltons appointment?)

The U.K Independent coverage of the U.N Report goes on to say:

-The infant mortality rate in the US is now the same as in Malaysia
- Child poverty rates in the United States are now more than 20 per cent
- Blacks in Washington DC have a higher infant death rate than people in the Indian state of Kerala.

Further, "The report is bound to incense the Bush administration as it provides ammunition for critics who have claimed that the fiasco following Hurricane Katrina shows that Washington does not care about poor black Americans.


( hate to act as the devils advocate here, but does Europe really treat their religious and ethnic minorities all that well? Rigid, highly structured, institutionlized class systems anyone? We suck hard, but we do not suck alone.)

But the 370-page document is critical of American policies towards poverty abroad as well as at home. And, in unusually outspoken language, it accuses the US of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security".

You know the international community has had enough of us when we suffer an enormous tragedy and we still get spanked and its Bushs' fault, we get it. Bush is doing wonders for the U.S internationally.

Oh. The Humanity

"Cheney told to 'fuck' himself on CNN... Developing"

-The Raw Story


Some lovely fellow on CNN just repeated Cheney's words to Senator Leahy back to him during Cheney's little press conference. "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney

-Atrios

The Blame Hearings

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A bipartisan joint congressional committee will review the response at all levels of government to Hurricane Katrina, the leaders of the House and Senate said Wednesday.

Frist told reporters during a brief appearance that the new committee will be composed of senior members of Congress, with Republicans in the majority.

A high-ranking House Democratic aide said lawmakers from his party had not been contacted yet.

CNN.com

So. The rethuglicans are going to investigate wrong doing on the part of other rethuglicans? Yeah. I see a lot of answers coming out of this. I see the whole and total blame for this catastrophe being laid at the feet of the Democrats, the storm and everything. The weather will magically be under the control of Nancy Pelosi and Moveon.

The Senate and House Dems? will bravely stand up and totally take the blame because somebody has to and there is nothing our elected Dems do better then take the blame, the public needs some one to be punished for this and the Dems bending over for the RNC, will help them feel like they are "doing something" or "getting involved". And because the Dems doesn't have its own FAUX News for disseminating Dem friendly information - Air America and Gore TV do not count, they are not even close to relevant and they are not yet accepted by the general public as news sources. There will be no way of getting out from under this for the Dems. The rethuglicans literally got caught drowning babies and old people and they will walk away scot free.

Place bets now, it will be the Dems fault, no matter how many Rethuglican leaders have blood on their hands how much proof of their wrong doing, how much testimony there is naming names and pointing at the GOP leadership It will as far as the commssion is concerned, ultimately it will be the dems fault.

Dr. Feelgood

I took Kitty back to the vet yesterday. He was running out of pred and his current dose wasn’t doing the job it had been. I made the appointment for 5 pm, which entailed a rush trip back to the house, grabbing Kitty as he (very cutely) greeted me at the door and slamming him into his travel box. Kitty knew where this was going and he slithered out the top. I gamely tucked him back in while he hissed and spit at me. I did not feel the love.

Kitty in box, I went hell bent for leather to the vet’s office. Once there we checked in and waited. And waited and waited and waited. I didn’t leave there until after 6pm and all the vet did was feel Kitty up and change the dosage of his pred. He also said some dark things about another med The Kitty might end up on as he can’t stay on pred or steroids in general, indefinitely. Nobody wants to live with a house cat suffering from ‘roid rage.

But. The new drug that may very well be on the horizon for Kitty is also a steroid. I looked it up under the spelling the tech at the vet gave me – Budensoide, but that turned into a close but not cigar don’t-you-really-mean- Budesonide”? way. So I went with door number 2. Budesonide - it is prescribed for both Crohns Disease and Asthma. It is a steroid, but according to the literature as well as my vet it’s kind of like a PO ( by mouth) cream for the intestines

Budesonide is a medicine to treat mild to moderate Crohn’s disease in many people. However, it does not work for everyone who takes it. Budesonide is a nonsystemic corticosteroid, which means it works mainly in one area of the body. The medicine in ENTOCORT EC is released in the intestine. Therefore, it controls the symptoms of Crohn’s disease even though 90% of the drug does not go into the bloodstream. Because of this, it causes fewer severe side effects than other corticosteroids.

Now. I don’t know the difference between Crohns and Colitis and Irritable Bowl Disease ( short answer? More or less the same conditions, the only real difference being what parts of the intestinal track and colon are affected) which is what the vet thinks Kitty is suffering from. None of them sound like quick, easy and cheap things to treat. Kitty is way, way too high maintenance to suffer from something so easy to treat as say, ear mites. I mean, if there is an OTC treatment for it, Kitty is not interested in anything so plebian. It is just the most distressing ailments for him and the most expensive, needing to be specially mixed by a real pharmacist with special drug mixing credentials medications for him. I think the Imodium ultimately didn’t work for him because he knew it was OTC.

At least it’s a problem I can more or less deal with and really, totally within my control. It’s a nice change of pace to worry about something I can actually do something about. And there is isn’t really any one to be angry at; I do wish I had never made it clear to the vet that I was fond of Kitty though. It seems to have given him the idea that it gives him cart blanche expencewise, even though I have on several occasions told him that as much as I do really love Kitty, sadly, he does have a DNR and a Feline Living Will and all the various ramifications and meanings of those documents - He doesn’t seem to get it. What I should have done in the first place is just to have stuffed Kitty into a pillow case and told the vet Kitty was just a stray that I found under the trailer and that I wouldn't be in his office at all except that Kitty saved my Dale Ernhart Commerative Kotex™ cozie in some near fatal trailer related tragedy and now I feel I owe him. You never know.

Another Katrina Timeline

Gah. Don't waste your your outrage, make a donation.

Spinning in their political graves


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House majority leader late Tuesday tried to deflect criticism of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina by saying "the emergency response system was set up to work from the bottom up," then announced a short time later that House hearings examining that response had been canceled

"It's the local officials trying to handle the problem. When they can't handle the problem, they go to the state, and the state does what they can to, and if they need assistance from FEMA and the federal government they ask for it and it's delivered," DeLay said.

He added that Alabama and Mississippi did a much better job of responding quickly than Louisiana. Alabama and Mississippi have Republican governors.

They’re going to blame the locals and the democrats. For all of it. They are going to spin this until the feds and the GOP smell like roses. Spin Dems! Spin!

Full story here


But, Wait :

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe...Specifically ,FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, ...including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding. Representing FEMA, Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.

So, Hmmm. Why are these guys just wandering around with Shrub and not,you know "to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe"?, which is what they came to do?


"7:02 P.M. - ATLANTA (AP): Hundreds of firefighters have been sitting in Atlanta, playing cards and taking FEMA history classes, instead of doing what they came to do: help hurricane victims.

The volunteers traveled south and west from around the country, leaving their homes in places like Washington state, Pennsylvania and Michigan. They came after FEMA put out a call for two-thousand firefighters to help with community service.
Firefighters arrived, as told, with lifesaving equipment and sleeping bags. But one of the waiting volunteers says it might have been better if they'd brought paper and cell phones. That's because some of the emergency responders are being told they will go to South Carolina, to do paperwork. Others don't know where they'll be put in action."

The FEMA director in charge of firefighters says he's trying to get the volunteers deployed ASAP, but wants to make sure they go to the right place. One firefighter points to nightly reports of hurricane victims asking how they were forgotten. He says, "we didn't forget, we're stuck in Atlanta drinking beer."

from The Salt lake Tribune

(and following around Shrub for photo ops instead of tending to the survivors:)




It Was The Feds game and THEY dropped the ball.

from This Modern World

The March of the Charities

I went to the beach this weekend. The water was warm the beach was cool and just about everybody on the beach was heavier then I was. I don’t think you can ask for more from a day at the beach.

Poor Mr. Kitty didn't have as a good time as I did, he was again tormented by Mini Kitty! That little animal is vicious – she chased him up and down the stairs, ate his food and then molested him while he was trying to relieve himself. Poor Mr. Kitty. To ad insult to injury, Mini Kitty is still absolutely adorable.

I finally saw March of The Penguins. Emperor Penguins are about 3 foot 8 inches tall and they can weigh between 66-90 lbs. They are cute and fluffy from the minute they hatch.

Totally Off Topic - Oddly enough, Mr. Kitty looks a lot like an adult Emperor Penguin while Mini Kitty resembles a baby Emperor Penguin. I mean, a lot. I could make the straight to DVD sequel in my parents’ guest bath - March of the Catguins pt. 2 – The Emperors Strike back.

I saw somewhere that the success of the move is a big surprise to the PTB. They also think that releasing it over the summer was counter intuitive. I think it was genius. Why would you want to spend 90 minutes at the South Pole if in real life it was 30 degrees outside? Ideally, you should see this movie when your clothes are still sticking to you. You can not enjoy the cold if you are cold and if watching your beautifully shot snow and ice is only making your audience think about the road conditions on the drive home, it doesn’t matter how gorgeous the snowscapes; if they make your audience think about snow tires and anti-freeze… they are not thinking about your movie anymore.

Did you know that penguins all look alike? The boy penguins and the girl penguins are interchangeable. They didn’t evolve the same way other birds did with the boy birds getting all the groovy plumage and the girl birds getting all the tiny little bird burkahs. I would think that this made editing the film easier. There wasn’t any one penguin that was the star penguin so they didn’t have to worry about keeping track - they could use any penguin at any time. They could also fudge on Mom and Dad penguin’s comings and goings. “All the female penguins go back to the sea” and then “all the male penguins go back to the sea”. In theory they could have just used the same footage over and over again, it’s not like the female penguins wear little bows or carry purses or that the male penguins wear little penguin rep ties. “The Mother penguin gives the chick back to the Father penguin”. How do they know? It could be the other way around. How could anyone tell? I mean short of tricking the penguins into giving up DNA samples and going all CSI - South Pole on the producers? it doesn't matter, I want a March of the Penguins Happy Meal.

Day one of Skip Lunch Donate To The Red Cross went okay. I was going to just make one donation at the end of the week but after eating my sad little sandwich, I needed the immediate gratification of donating the money right now. Tomorrow I might try another charity, if I can find one that would be okay with a $5 donation. I know that “every little bit helps”, but $5 is so little bitty that it might not help all that much when handed out piece meal. So I might just end up giving all the proceeds ( $25 big bucks shouldn’t really count as “proceeds”) to The Red Cross, because I know they’ll take it and it would be the full donation and not just a piddly $5 here, $5 there. But at the same time there are so many different organizations I want to help out… I really want to through some money to Noah’s Wish, because I know where my animals are. And since I haven’t mentioned it yet? George W. Bush is evil and every bad thing that has happened since the storm came ashore is his fault.

FEMA Chief Waited Until After Storm Hit


September 06, 2005 7:33 PM EDT

WASHINGTON - The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region - and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as "this near catastrophic event" but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities."

Or not...

This is a time line of the storms’ progress from The New York Times: Many hands dropped the ball

No more Mr. Frustrated Guy

New Orleans mayor issues order authorizing the forced removal of people refusing to leave the city.

Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com and watch FREE video.

The Hell?

Chaos as Iraq limits driving to save fuel

Not only have we invaded them, we have projected our problems onto them too? this is just stupid. Only we could manage to cause an oil producing country to run out of gas.

RIP

Actor Bob Denver, 70, of TV's "Gilligan's Island" fame has died, his agent tells The Associated Press.

How about asking the hens?

Bush, Congress to investigate hurricane response

Heh.

Isn't this kind of like putting the wolf in charge of figuring out who raided the hen house?

Every little thing he does...


Even with all the other enormously horrible things going on in the world, I managed to find something else to lose my temper over and have a tantrum about today. Not my now daily,

WHYYWHYWHYWHYARETHEYARETHEY
LETTINHTHESEPEOPLEDIE?!!
"CULTUEOFLIFE"MYASS!!IHATTTEEEEGEORGEWBUSH!!!!!!AAAHHHHHHHHAHHHHHHHHH!
!BABYMURDERER!LITTLEOLDLADYMURDERER!AMERICANMURDERER!!!
SHRUBISATERRORIST!! tantrum

But a new tantrum. A totally trivial tantrum that even while I was in the midst of it I felt bad about it.

I asked for and got two very fab floor lamps for the Dark Hole Of Calcutta A.K.A. Camp Knotty Pine A.K.A. My second floor. The room has the proportions and feel of a small submarine. It's dark on the USS Knotty Pine, it's dark all the time. It sucks up artificial light at about the same rate that The RNC sucks up soft money from The Free Republic - It's dark all the time.

I like light. Light is good. Light makes it easier to find my way around. Light make it harder for me to bark my shins on the coffee table in the morning as well as making it harder for my shoes to successfully hide from me.

So the Birthday Faerie was summoned. I said Birthday Faerie, I need a floor lamp for Camp Knotty Pine" and the Birthday Faerie said "Dayum. You need two. A body could hurt themselves up there!"

So I got two kickin' floor lamps for Camp Knotty Pine.Those kickin' floor lamps don't put themselves together. Enter the trivial tantrum.

The instruction book that came with it does not have instructions. It came with pictures. The pictures do not say that you should put the lamp together in an air conditioned environment very different from Camp Knotty Pine so that as not to over heat yourself and sweat into your eyes because this can start the lamp put-er togther-er into having a tantrum. The pictures in the bookare lovely pen and ink drawings that are probably suitable for framing, so lovely are the drawings in the instruction book. Sadly, they are not instructive drawings. They clearly illustrate that you must remove the widget before you attach the shade, but there are no drawings illustrating what to do if the bulb will not screw in properly if the shade and the widget are in place. There is no illustration speaking to why the widget is not able to properly screw in if the shade is in place. The illustration about why the shade must hang limply and the illustration of why light bulb never actually tighten the way its supposed to is not included, either.

So. I stopped trying. I decided that it was wasteful and wrong on my part to have tantrums over something as minor and insignificant in the view of everything that is going on today. The lamps will be put together, it just won' be today and it won' be by me.

Speaking of things that make me crazy. I discovered I can not watch coverage of the hurricane. I can read coverage of it for hours, I can and have looked at photos, I have read pages of discussion of the coverage, I can memorize interviews about the mishandling of the rescue efforts... but I can not watch it for more then a few minutes before I get anxious and nervous and need to go check my email or chase a cat or something, anything but watch it on TV . I hadn't noticed that I had not watched any of it unfolding on TV. I've been stuck to my computer screen and CNN.com and hitting the refresh button over and over but I had not watched any telivised coverage.

Please note the huge Red Cross link. Whatever you and I have donated thus far, we aren't done yet. We have to do more. It's not over. It's not going to be over. We must do more. Think about what you can do with out and go then go with out it and get used to it - donate the money saved to a charity of your choice. If you think can't afford to donate, think about bringing your lunch to work and donating what you would spend for lunch if you had gone out. The Red Cross can take donations of $5, everyday you don't eat out, donate the price of that skipped lunch.