Daffodil Lane: April 2006 Archives

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April 30, 2006

My First Face Drawing

Alexis drew her first face yesterday! She says he's happy and he's singing:

The eyes and nose are very distinct. The mouth is there, but she kind of got carried away on the bottom, but it's the first face she's drawn and I think it's beautiful! :o)

Posted by Dianne at 7:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Kitten Part Two

Amber brought her kitten over this afternoon for another visit while we were working out in the back yard.

She's a really cute little thing and Alexis loves her, though the cat was a bit afraid of her at first, but seemed to finally get used to her loud little self.

Amber hasn't named her yet, but she's cute none the less. :o)

Posted by Dianne at 7:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tough Primary Race Confronts Lieberman

The reoccurring bi-line for these right wing rags has really annoyed me for quite a while in this race.

"Antiwar Democrat Mounts a Major Challenge to Connecticut's 3-Term Senator"

Anti-war?? Ned Lamont has many issues with Lieberman and they have nothing to do with the war. This is the Lieberman that voted to allow the US government to interfere with the Terri Shiavo case. Lieberman is nothing more than a Republican piece of scum. The fact that Ned Lamont supports getting our troops out of the catastrophe that has been the mismanaged Republican war in Iraq isn't something that makes him a bad person. And it sure as hell doesn't define his campaign. He's running on a campaign platform about standing up for the American people, which is a wild idea for the right wing media and Republican types to understand, but it's not so far outside the mainstream.

[via America Blog]

Colbert Rocks!!

The truth hurts, but Colbert handed it out at the White House Correspondence Dinner to EVERYONE! The man has nerve! The man has chutzpah! The man quite frankly is BRILLIANT!! To stand in the room with Dubya and company and deal it out...it was amazing! Bush couldn't get out of the room fast enough! He ran with tail between his legs! Whoever invited Colbert had to have know he would do exactly what he did, only they might not have realized he would do it with such aplomb and temerity. And the clips with him and Helen Thomas were FANTASTIC!!

Bravo Mr. Colbert! Bravo! And a shout goes out to Helen Thomas as well! You are Daffodil Lane's Good Person(s) of the Day for daring to stand in the same room as the president and tell him what he desperately needs to hear...the TRUTH!!

Watch the video of Mr. Colbert here.

Found via Shakespeare's Sister and Crooks and Liars.

Posted by Dianne at 8:03 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 29, 2006

No We Didn't...

But Amber got a kitten and she brought it over for a visit!

Click on the extended entry below to see more kitten pictures. They are a bit blurry because Jamison didn't realize my camera wasn't on the right setting, but they are cute none the less! And Alexis was completely enthralled!

Posted by Dianne at 8:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Now I remember why I don't like to answer the door.

I should always know when it's going to be bad when there is a knock and doorbell ring within nano-seconds of one another. Folks nothing is more annoying than getting up to answer the doorbell only to hear someone knocking impatiently on the door. So I open the door and there are three kids there with a March of Dimes bucket, which they promptly hold up and ask me if I would like to give a donation. I politely say no thank you, which jars them into giving their speech about what the March of Dimes is. To which at that point annoyed I tell them I understand what the March of Dimes is. I close the door and one of the girls yells "If you understand what it is you need to be giving some money!"

Now I have a strict policy of never yelling at kids especially when they've been sent on some fools errand by some adult, but that's just plain rude. I personally think the March of Dimes does great work, but I don't give donations at the door to any organization. It's just not the way I work. If I haven't had time to research your organization, go over the budgets for the last 5 to 10 years and decided that you're running a tight ship, then I have to assume that you're some sort of fly by night organization. In an age of utter dishonesty you'd have to be crazy to just hand money over to total strangers because they say they are from a charity. It's frustrating and annoying that someone would send a kid on such an exercise without having a conversation with them about what is appropriate behavior for dealing with rejection. I may be polite about such things, but how long before such a smart mouth ends one of them at the end of gun barrel in this redneck ghetto?

While I'm on the subject, before you give to any charity you should check out their organization on the Better Business Bureau's site. I have to a rule if the CEO of a charity makes more than 250,000 dollars then it's a scam, plain and simple. I also don't like to see administration fees higher than 7 percent. Fundraising spending is another one that bothers me a lot with these charities...most spend way too much on fundraising and not enough on doing their jobs. I'm usually willing to ignore totals less than 20 percent. Anymore than that and it's nothing more than a front as far as I'm concerned, like all those Republican fronts that pay for campaign staff, they are usually majority adminstration and fundraising, almost nothing on charity.

Read more over at Better Business Bureau Charity Site.

Posted by ManDrake at 6:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Potty Training SUCKS!!

She gets it. She knows what to do, but she today she flat out refused and had two accidents just because she could. And she gets this belligerent look on her face like she's dares you to do something about it! You ask her where she's supposed to pee pee and she'll beat around the bush and then finally grudgingly admit the potty or you'll ask her if she's supposed to pee pee and poo poo on the potty and she'll say "No!" and then again grudgingly admit the potty. IT MAKES ME LIVID!! Usually I just walk away and she never knows it upsets me, but this evening in the basement when I was making her help me clean up the pee pee on the floor from her latest accident and she started slinging the pee pee soaked paper towel around and it got on her, Jamison and ME I actually snapped! I spoke to her very firmly. And I know you aren't supposed to get upset with them or whatever, but dear Lord this potty training stuff is for the birds!! Who wants to be soaked in pee pee? It's disgusting!! I AM SO OVER EFFING POTTY TRAINING!!

Posted by Dianne at 6:17 PM

Another GOP Hooker Scandal

“I happen to believe we’re losing our moral authority to lead this place. It’s been over a decade since my party took over the majority and I feel like we’ve forgotten how we got here.” – Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn

Representative Says caused me quite the laugh attack. Moral authority of the GOP, the notion of it's laughable. Republicans are all about telling you how to live your life and nothing about living that way of life for themselves. From the President down to the brain-dead followers hating on the ground, every Republican is a worthless hypocrite. The Republican party is the party of liars and thieves. Which brings us to the latest in the never-ending list of scandals that have come to define Republican "leadership" in Washington. It would appear that Republican lobbyists were using hookers to motivate their brothers on the hill. Nothing about this new revelation is overly surprising given the "moral" nature of your average Republican. The only way to end the corruption in Washington is to get the Republicans out of the town forever. Actually getting them out of every public office in the land would go a long ways towards improving the credibility of the United States.

[via America Blog and 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera]

And they say answering the door can't be useful.

Well mostly I say that. ;) I just found the website of one of my local campaigns, they were traveling door to door this morning passing out literature. So now I've found the Craig Reynolds campaign website. I've updated the links along the side accordingly. Interestingly enough I can't seem to find his campaign site with a normal search engine, which makes me wonder if I'm missing more campaign websites that way. I'm going to change over to a more aggressive search string to see if it yields any better results. Also me linking to them and the name should also help as well, since a search results response is related to links to the site under a name. Maybe Daffodil Lane will carry enough of a push to make it appear at the top of the listings. One bad thing when I first went to his site is that all it's links are broken. That's one disadvantage of coding your website on your own computer, when you look at it on-line you can actually be fooled into thinking it's working when in reality it only works for you because you're the source of where the files come from. Other than that it's decent site as far as I can see.

Read more over at Craig Reynolds for District 31.

Posted by ManDrake at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 28, 2006

The Princess in Her Chair

Posted by Dianne at 7:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Petunias in Sunshine

Posted by Dianne at 7:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Broom

Alexis loves to sweep, but a regular broom is too big for her and she ends up knocking things over. So today we got her an Alexis sized broom.

And you can see how happy that makes her!

Posted by Dianne at 7:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Method of Concentrating Sunlight Could Be Cheaper

A really interesting notion. Prism Solar Technologies has developed a solar cell using a hologram to concentrate solar energy on its units. This allows it to create solar panels with more power with less of the over price silicon. Also it looks pretty because you get the reflected color effect caused when you use a prism. That's always nice, here the picture of it.

The 85% reduction in silicon drops the price per watt of power from $4 to $1.50. The first generation of the cells are only going to get things down to $2.40, but they will be available by the end of the year according to the literature. That's a good improvement all things considered. It would be nice if this improvement was made to all solar panels made in the US immediately, but we know how those patents work. A tiny underfunded company will keep a strangle hold on technology that could help free up a massive amount of power for other purposes.

Read more over at Treehugger and Prism Solar Technology.

Posted by ManDrake at 5:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

House Republicans Abandon Ethics Reform

I really love the contrast in how people looked at this. First we have a quote from the Washington Post on the subject.

"If the Senate-passed measure was a disappointment, the House version is simply a joke — or, more accurately, a ruse aimed at convincing what the leaders must believe is a doltish public that the House has done something to clean up Washington."

Pretty close to my view, but I would have been meaner about it. Now let's see how the Republicans viewed their bill and the reasons they abandoned it.

"Today, unexpectedly, House leaders "abruptly called off" debate over the bill. Their reasoning: it was too strong. (They claim it's okay because the public doesn't actually mind corruption.) A look at just how strong is too strong for conservatives on ethics reform..."

When people say the Republican party lives in its on delusional version of reality, that is really true as these kinds of things show. The Republican have no interest in even trying to reform their corrupt way of life. They will make absolutely no effort to actually change anything. Republican love corruption that part is true. I've yet to hear a single Republican worrying about the fact that every Republican in Washington is a thief. They are more concerned about the fact that their racist agenda isn't been fulfilled as quickly as they would like, but that's just Republicans for you...evil to their core. It's just the kind of people they are. The only way we are going to get anything approaching honesty back into government is to make sure that no Republican at any level of government is allowed back into office, they are just too evil and corrupt to be allowed. It's time to get registered and it's time to take action against the Republican party.

Bush sees no evidence of gasoline "rip-off"

I'm sure glad the Republicans are sure we aren't getting ripped off. I know I feel so much safer now that they are on the case. What a load of crap!! Given how much money they are paid by the oil companies and how much they've given them in gifts of favorable legislation it's hard to imagine any other response coming from the Republican party. We will never see lower gas prices for as long as the Republican party holds any office in this country. It's an unbelievable disgrace that they are so dishonest.

Petunias

I adore petunias! I wasn't able to find any of the purple and white striped variety from last year, but I did find my good old favorites....deep purple, red and white. Maybe the petunias that reseeded themselves are the purple/white blend.

Posted by Dianne at 2:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Princess Has a New Throne

I LOVE Adirondack chairs! My grandfather used to make the most beautiful oversized Adirondack chairs that were off the ground and made you feel like a kid because your feet didn't touch the ground! Today when we were at BJ's to get another Garden Hopper Alexis and I found a kid's sized Adirondack chair just for her. While she is napping I put it together for her.

They had boy and girl designs and Alexis liked this one best. I'm hoping it will have to be repainted at the end of the season to a nice purple or blue! ;o) I wonder what she'll think when she gets up and sees it together? More pictures to come.

Note: I was going to put a link up to the chair itself, but I can't find them online. They are made by Battat and they are very nicely crafted, wooden and sturdy. And it wasn't that expensive to boot! ($19.99) What could be better than that?

Posted by Dianne at 2:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

O'Donnell to Replace Vieira on 'The View'

O'Donnell to Replace Vieira on 'The View'
Rosie O'Donnell is expected to make a surprise return to daytime television by taking over exiting Meredith Vieira's slot on the talk show "The View."

O'Donnell's appointment was reported Thursday by the newsmagazine "Extra." It was confirmed by a person close to the show who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because "The View" wanted to make the announcement on Friday's show.

ABC officials declined comment on the report on Thursday.

Dubbed "The Queen of Nice" when her syndicated talk show went on the air in 1996 and became an instant hit, O'Donnell won six Daytime Emmy Awards in six years as best talk-show host. She left the show to help raise four children with her partner, Kelli Carpenter O'Donnell.

I don't watch "The View"...it's a little too catty for me, but I would love to see Rosie back on TV and might even tune in to watch her do her thing. (Or at least set my TiVo anyway!) I'm not sure how well a group pannel is for her because she has such a fun loving dominant personality, but I'm very happy for her if it comes to be! I love Rosie and have missed her show since it left the airwaves.

Found via Yahoo! News.

Posted by Dianne at 2:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Republicans Set to Approve Takeover of 9 Military Plants by Dubai

No real surprise here. Republicans have one firm belief...What's good for Business is good for America. That is almost never the case, because business is focused on the next quarter and seldom plans for anything beyond that. So the Republicans have brought that same kind of standard for short sightedness to Washington and are Rubber Stamping every corporate deal that crosses their desk, giving away America's greatness for short term gain, with no consideration for America's future, because it's good for Business. If you give up the means to produce, you lose the means to maintain our power as a nation. It's a simple as that. Rich people don't give a damn if America is here tomorrow, they are only driven by their greed and their hate of the poor. It's as simple as that folks. The Republicans are desperately trying to rush as many of these kinds of agenda items through now so that they can completely have undermined the American way of life by the time we move to stop their radical anti-America agenda. This is what it means to be a Republican to want to destroy the United States. It's disgusting and disgraceful.

[via Hamilton County Democrats]

'Green roofs' growing more popular

NEW YORK (AP) -- An architectural organization has unveiled a new "green" roof for its own building to showcase a trend toward environmentally-friendly technology.

The leafy rooftop of the American Society of Landscape Architects building in downtown Washington is a model of the techniques used increasingly to cool temperatures, filter air, and lessen the burden on sewers by absorbing rainwater.

Visitors are surrounded on three sides by a variety of plants, and the aluminum grating that serves as a walkway is suspended over more vegetation.

Green roofs, first championed in Germany, have grown in popularity around the world, and experts predict more growth as the practice sprouts as far away as China. In North America, green roof space grew 70 percent last year.

"What you're going to see is a meteoric rise in this industry because it takes serious issues like storm water and offers multiple solutions," said Steven Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a non-profit industry association.

Germany, which helped launch the trend beginning in the 1950s, now has 50 square miles (32,000 square acres) of green roof space and adds an additional five square miles (13 square kilometers) per year, estimates Christian Werthmann, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.

Green roofs began to spread when some German cities encouraged building owners to substitute ballast and tar rooftops with vegetation. Werthmann estimates 40 German municipalities require green roofs in at least some cases.

The United States has only a fraction of the green roof space found in Germany -- but a study this month found U.S. green roof space grew 80 percent last year. North America has a total of 2,150,000 square feet (200,000 square meters), according to the study by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.

Chicago was the U.S. leader, planting nearly 300,000 square feet (27,900 square meters) of green roof space last year.

I remember reading a news story a few years ago about a guy in New York that started planting organic roof top gardens and even has bee hives to help pollinate the rooftop crops! I can't find the exact story now, but he sells his produce to local fru-fru, shi-shi gourmet restaurants and apparently had quite the business. And the allure of roof top gardens is growing. It's a brilliant idea and it does help lower temperatures in the buildings themselves, along with providing a place to help naturally filter rainwater keeping the sewers from becoming overwhelmed. It also helps add oxygen to the air and all the other good things that plants do and goodness knows a little fresh air in a city isn't a bad thing. It's a very interesting concept.

Found via CNN News.

Posted by Dianne at 2:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Green groups endorse Republican Lincoln Chafee

I saw the uproar over all this and if you've read Crashing the Gates you'll realize that this is probably one of the biggest issues facing progressive groups. They think that if they endorse a Republican that it might change the way that they vote. The reality is that there is no such thing as a "moderate" Republican, there is only violently conservative and more violently conservative. The only thing they hate more than our freedom is the notion that we should have decent way of life.

Chafee if you recall voted to approve the EPA folks, who decided that Mercury really wasn't poisonous enough to worry about and increasing the amount that they let industry pour into the environment wouldn't hurt anyone. Mind you I'm nothing approaching a tree hugger, but I sure as hell know that Mercury is bad news to human beings. You don't have to be smart to know that, you just have to have the ability to read and write. Which of course is almost a guarantee to you not getting into the Republican party.

So why would you ask would an organization dedicated to "saving" the environment support any Republican at all? Because they think it might help. THERE ARE NO REPUBLICANS THAT CARE ABOUT AMERICA!! THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT THEIR MAJOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS!! Anyone that tells you differently is stupid or selling you propaganda hoping you're stupid. The notion is just plain laughable, Republican Environmentalists!! They are trying to use up the entire world before rapture, they could care less about saving it for any reason.

Wired Owes Al Gore an Apology

It's really an interesting notion. As it's well known the entire traditional media is under the control of the right wing and in 2000, they acted as one voice to scream that Al Gore was not qualified to be President. Republican cronies in every news outlet attacked all as one voice to create the meme and there was no infrastructure in place to discredit their gross misrepresentations. Actually even in 2004 we weren't able to get everywhere we needed too and the Democratic mindset still wasn't to the place that it needed to be to fight the entire traditional media all at once. The Republicans are very vile and sinister people from the highest levels of government to the worthless snakes you meet on the street corner. It's taken time for a critical mass of people to realize how evil and despicable the entire Republican party is so that we have enough people in place to fight them. I'm still not sure if we have what it takes yet to fight the entire right wing media on our own. We still only have access to about 10% of Americans right now. Mind you it's probably only like 7%, because most Republicans are xenophobic Luddites which gives us great reach. And 7% of the American population represents about 20% of the voting population, because so few Americans vote anymore. We really need to move that number up massively to fight the worthless right wing spin. Americans have to grow to realize the traditional media has nothing to offer but Republican lies and propaganda. They have abandoned their traditional role as the fourth estate for the sake of greed. I've actually been extremely surprised that the right wing media hasn't jumped on Gore more forcibly. I don't if they are waiting for the movie release, or if they are afraid that in this environment that has exposed them for the absolute failures that they and their Republican masters are, that it might inspire Gore to get back into politics. I think an apology is definitely in order from Wired, but I wouldn't bet any money on getting it. Their Republican masters would never allow that without gaining something much greater in return.

Buying the GOP Congress Highly Profitable for Oil Companies

We all know how dishonest your average Republican is. On any topic from their marriages to their taxes, they are flat out liars at best and utter scum at worst. It's just a common thread that holds the entire party together as one functioning hate machine. It's really sad when you look at the numbers of the kinds of returns on investment their campaign contributors are getting from the Republican hate machine. Oil companies are looking at 23,282% return on investment. Yes that's right...for 36 million dollars that they invested into Republicans over the last 5 years through the official campaign contributions that we know about, they've managed to 8.5 Billion dollars worth of tax breaks to help them make ends meet. That's what you get when you send worthless scum like Republicans to Congress. Corruption on a scale so grand it boggles the mind. If we damn Americans were addicted to foreign oil, there wouldn't be any problem. But of course that leaves out the tiny detail that the Republican party has been working night and day to make sure that we don't have any other choices. I always joked that if you eliminate all the other choices human beings will always make the right decision. The reverse is also true. If you eliminate all the other options human beings will always make the wrong decision. And that's what the Republicans have done for the American people...handed them a stacked deck and now they are screaming at them for drawing bad cards. If only we would pull ourselves up by our bootstraps!! Folks it's time to vote against their worthless trash in Washington, it's better to vote for Mickey Mouse than any Republican.

'Red to Blue' Candidates Will Get DCCC Greenbacks

I'm not sure how much I like this program, but it's much better than what the DCCC has done in the past. Basically in the past they just worried about their own members and didn't really concern themselves with picking up seats at all. So I guess I have to take the notion of challenging at least 22 at risk Republican seats as a good start. But the requirements that the candidates should already be in a great shape before they give them money seems a bit on the crazy side to me. It's sort of like giving rich people a tax break, they already have everything they need. Mind it will help them anyway, because they are working against Republicans who have unlimited funding from their corrupt sources flowing out of their ears. And there really isn't much anyone can do about that reality until the Republicans are defeated. It all depends on the American people realizing that the Republican party is selling off their rights and freedoms to the lowest bidders and it is dangerous for the future of our country. So far Americans have been extremely happy to have their freedom and future sold out. Perhaps we've just become a people too decadent to be afforded such luxuries of freedom and success. That's basically what a vote for a Republican means at this point, that you want to live in abject poverty and slavery for the rest of your life. I can't imagine why anyone would vote that way, but I'm not a Republican and I don't have an undying hate for America so it's hard to put myself in their shoes.

Filing Deadline in Georgia Today

Currently there are two unopposed seats the GA-10 and GA-11. The rumor mill from the people in charge had suggested to me that they were on the verge of having a candidate for the GA-10 a few weeks ago, evidently they are waiting till the last second the make a decision. Right now the Democrats are at 417 challenged seats and 18 unopposed, of which 3 we can't get people into. So now is no time to be slacking off for the Democrats of Georgia, you've got 5 hours to twist someone arm so hard they join the race. Sure it's going to be hard to run in districts that are so red that the America hate just drips from every pour of the Republicans, but now is the time. We fight everywhere, or we lose everywhere. More importantly, this is a war against the RSC and the other hate groups inside the Republican party. It's important that they realize that they are no longer going to be given a free reign to try and destroy this country no matter their hate filled desires to do so.

On a side note, the good folks in the Barry Welsh campaign have redone their seat challenge website. If only the DCCC could have done this good on their crappy site.

Read more over at CQ Politics and Fifty State Strategy.

Posted by ManDrake at 12:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Now Republicans want to raise fuel-efficiency standards

Luckily the good folks over at Bring It On gave a coffee spew warning for their readers and the dramatic announcement that hell had frozen over. Republicans are among the dumbest and most ignorant people on the planet. No matter how big or obvious a problem is, they fight it until the last possible second. Always screaming at the top of their lungs that "market" forces should be allowed to take their course. And every single time market forces lead us to the exact same place and freaking disaster. Now the Crackheads have decided after fighting for more than 15 years against it, that maybe it's time to take a serious look at CAFE standards. You think you brain-dead freaking morons!! That was the answer that could have helped us out a decade ago when you idiots were screaming that we couldn't do something like that because it was unrealistic possibility, that it would "hurt" American industry. American industry pretty much killed itself all on it's own and where are we as a nation because of the absolute failure of the Republican party to allow action? Where are we?? In the middle of a disaster unfolding in slow motion, while these morons suddenly find religion about the obvious answer that's been sitting around on the shelves for decades. Republicans are too stupid to lead, they are too dumb to be allowed any position of power or importance in this country. They are a living disgrace to the American way of life. They are a complete failure as human beings. Anyone that supports them has to be as stupid as they are. My god!! Raise the CAFE standards, talk about a day late and dollar short! I'm sure we will see dramatic announcements by the traditional media declaring this to be the great innovation in conservation in human history and give the Republicans hours and hours of coverage of their brilliance. Nothing is going to get better in this country until no Republican is holding office anywhere in it folks. It's time to get registered to vote and vote these worthless pieces of human trash out of office once and for all.

[via BringItOn]

Duncan chooses Simms as running mate

It appears that Duncan has picked a running mate. I'm not aware enough of Baltimore politics to know who Stuart O. Simms is, but the newspaper makes him out to be a good vote getter in Baltimore for Duncan. Which is good since O'Malley's choice for a running mate is good at getting votes out of Montgomery County where Duncan is strong. This should help solidify the campaign teams and move us toward the primary. I'm betting it gives Duncan about a 3 point jump in the polls with Democrats, just because he's finally got a complete ticket to run on, which should turn this race into a much closer affair. More importantly it forces Ehrlich's hand on who he can pick for his running mate with Steele on his doomed Senate exercise. The "official" announcement is expected sometime next week, probably at some massive event to maximize press coverage.

Webb Opens Race to Replace Allen

Big news to the south of us in Virgina...the Webb campaign has officially started. Allen like every other Rubber Stamp Republican is a miserable failure as a human being and abject failure as a leader. He's done nothing but push the radical anti-America message of the Republican party against the America people. It's really a sad disgrace that he's even been allowed to claim he represents the good people of Virgina. Webb is a hundred times better a leader and person than Allen ever dreamed of being. Of course Allen has little interest in the Senate seat since his only ambition has been to fill W's shoes in the White House from day one. I think that's a lot of the Republican party's problem...they all want to be president and none of them want to do the hard work of actually leading the country. But Republicans are naturally lazy souls to begin with, so I don't know why I'm surprised.

Anyway Allen's dreams of conquest have been sort of turned on their ear this week by the release of photos and interviews from his high school friends showing him to be a confederate flag wearing malcontent with nothing but hate and rage for his fellow man. Now mind you this will probably raise him about 20 points in your average Republican polling, because they are mostly made up of racists anyway. but one has to wonder how it will play among real Americans who are bit more tolerant and less hate filled than your average Republican.

Right now Allen is leading 50 to 30 over Webb. Now that Webb has actually started his campaign we shall see where the numbers start going. Webb also has a primary opponent, but I expect him to make quick work of the poor guy.

Read more over at Political Wire and Washington Post.

Posted by ManDrake at 12:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Polls, Polls, Polls

I'm the kind of Sociologist that loves to have hard and fast data to work with. Here are the latest batch of Senate polls that interested me.

Florida
Sen. Bill Nelson (D) - 56%
Rep. Katherine Harris (R) - 24%

Washington
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) - 48%
Former Safeco CEO Mike McGavick (R) - 40%

Pennsylvania
State Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr. (D) - 51%
Sen. Rick Santorum (R) - 38%

New Jersey
Sen. Bob Menendez (D) - 40%
State Sen. Tom Kean, Jr. (R) - 34%

Arizona
Sen. Jon Kyl (R) - 42%
Former State Party Chairman Jim Pederson (D) - 31%

Nebraska
Sen. Ben Nelson (D) - 54%
Former Ameritrade CEO Pete Ricketts (R) - 36%

Ohio
Sen. Mike DeWine (R) - 43%
Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) - 41%

California
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) - 59%
Former State Sen. Dick Mountjoy (R) - 31%

And then there is Maryland. Since I'm now divided on who should run, I'm going to list both sets of results.

Rep. Ben Cardin (D) - 45%
Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R) - 35%

Former Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D) - 42%
Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R) - 38%

Steele is slipping across the board as people find out more and his corrupt Republican past. So that has led more people to be open to Mfume. The Democratic polling is still showing a 7 point Cardin win over Mfume in the Democratic Primary. Cardin has slipped a bit in his polling off of crossing the 49% mark, but that could just be polling noise.

Read all the polling at Our Senate. (Sorry for the vague link, but I referenced 8 of their articles.)

Posted by ManDrake at 12:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Maryland's Anodyne Debate

What an editorial. If I didn't know better I'd say it was written by someone in the Duncan campaign! Not that it matters, the points are very good. A lot of us activist types have started to become worried about the fact that the Republicans seem to have completely backed off the O'Malley campaign as if desperately trying to make sure he wins. And anytime you have Republicans cheering for a particular Democrat to win then you've got a matter for grave concern. Republicans are vile and ruthless campaigners, they plot and plan in ways that would make normal people cringe. They only know smear, they have no positive aspect to themselves or their records to draw from, so all they have to fall back on is attack and innuendo. Which makes me worry that they've got enough mud to throw that they feel they can skew the results close enough and confuse people enough, with their state run voter suppression plans to allow them to steal the election. Maybe it is time to get these two candidates out in the open together and see who the better man really is before the Republicans get a chance to trap us in a bad choice. We must never forget the levels of evil and corruption that define the Republican party, we must never make the mistake of trying to humanize a group of people who are vile and dishonest. It's time to get all the cards on the table for every Marylander to see, so we can mitigate the mud of the overloaded Ehrlich campaign war chest from all his corrupt Republican campaign contributors.

April 27, 2006

P!nk's Dear Mr. President

If you haven't heard P!nk's new song entitled Dear Mr. President with the Indigo Girls then you're in luck...I have a link for you! It's a very impassioned and very meaningful song. And to top it off she does an excellent job with the song...the song itself and the music are beautiful and extremely moving! P!nk's whole new album entitled "I'm Not Dead" is awesome...I highly recommend it!

Check it out here.

And just for fun let's throw in the lyrics too!:

"Dear Mr. President"
(Feauring the Indigo Girls)

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you

Posted by Dianne at 10:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Exhaustion has finally overtaken me

Tonight was suppose to be the fourth in my series of political events for this week, but I mapquested it and I just couldn't muster the energy to convince myself to leave the house. I've been so many places and met so many people in the last week, I just need a break to regenerate myself. One of the unfortunate side effects of being a INTJ, is that pretending to be an ENTJ is like running a marathon in your head. Not to mention that it's almost mandatory that I talk to Dianne at least 3 or 4 hours a day so that we can transfer the bulk of what happened in our days to one another. So that's been pushing my bedtime later and later. I'll have to catch the next meeting and hope for the best. So no report tomorrow on my politics tonight, I'll spend that time on some non-local politics.

Posted by ManDrake at 7:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Alexis First Spring Watering

This kid ALWAYS gets in the path of the waterhose...There is no such thing as "too cold" for her!!

Click on the extended entry below to see more watering fun!

I guess she did have on the right shoes for the occasion now didn't she!??!??!? ;o)

Posted by Dianne at 6:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Teepees

This picture was actually taken when 5 of them were completed. There are six total. Two for peas, two for beans, one for chick peas and one for cucumbers.

Posted by Dianne at 5:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rose Bud Girl

Posted by Dianne at 5:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

My First Pair of Garden Gloves

Posted by Dianne at 5:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bootstraps Don't Beat Trust Funds

There are few things that more annoy me about your average America hating Neo-Conservative Republican fanatic than the bootstraps myth. I'm sure you've all heard it a thousand times, the story of how people should just "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" and take care of themselves. These are the same people that will tell you that they got where they are in the world by their hard "work" and "dedication" and not from "handouts" from other people. The reality is that if you bother to even take the slightest look at most of these vile animals back stories you will likely discover interventions on their behalf by others to get them where they are in life. The reality is that you get no where in this world without the help of other people willing to give you a chance to be who you can be. It's not some secret, except to the wingnuts.

I've talked about this reality for years since I saw the charts in college that basically mapped out your likely economic outcomes based on your parents economic outcomes. You know how they say the apple doesn't fall from the tree, that is tragically a much more true statement than most people in this country realize. You're more likely to get struck by lightening several times than to successfully breaking into the top 5% of wage earners. Most likely if you're lucky and keep your nose clean so to speak, you'll make it up one or two income brackets above your parents. The grim reality is that you're just as likely to end up stuck where they are or slip down into a lower wage bracket.

For example, by virtue of my parents I've managed to travel up a single income bracket from where they are. Which means that Alexis has about a 24% chance of making it into a bracket higher than mine or a 25% chance of staying at about the same income level. Which is better than me, because I only had about 20% chance of making it to where I did based off of my parents. Dianne had an even lower chance of success, so she's even luckier than me by comparison. The point is that you can work as hard as you want too, pull on those bootstraps until you are blue in the face, but the reality is that to make true progress it requires generations and people willing to give you a chance to make it.

It's a fascinating study. The chart is on page 14 of the study if you're interested. Very powerful stuff when you think about it...it's good to have a more modern version of the table to confirm the older version that I learned in school economic mobility. And the next time some moronic Republican tells you a bootstrap story tell them that science has yet again proved that they are idiots.

Read more over at Common Sense and Understanding Mobility in America .

Posted by ManDrake at 5:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More Gardening Fun

This morning Alexis and I set off to get some pretty flowers for the new flower bed in progress. We got some gorgeous flowers, some of which I had never heard of but immediately fell in love with, and I now need to do some research and see who grows to what height so we don't have anything overshadowing anything else. Plus we have some seeds to plant as well for Shasta daisies, poppies, sunflowers, etc. In the process of researching, which I'm still doing, I came across GardenGuides.com, which is a very interesting little garden site, so check it out if you have any plant type questions.

Click on the extended entry below to see our flower choices and explanations of how some of them ended up coming home with us. :o)

Our first stop was at the Gerber Daisies, where we purchased 1 light yellow, 1 dark yellow, 1 red and 1 pink. For the record the pink was not my choice...I detest pink with a passion that is indescribable! In fact the only reason Alexis owns anything pink is because I got sick of people telling me she was a handsome boy since she didn't have a lot of hair as a baby, but my daughter was enthralled so I relented and let her get a pink one, which started a trend which you'll see later on. I had planned on getting four Daisies and that was the only other color they had anyway, so I guess it all worked out, though given a choice had she not asked for the pink one I would have gone with another red one most likely given red is one of my favorite colors.

The next choice was purple Lobelia. I just love this one! It spoke to me the minute I saw it, though I had seen them in the past, I didn't remember them being so pretty!

Our next choice was a white Angelonia. I tend to gravitate toward white, yellow, red and purple plants. I'm not sure why. I had never actually seen this one before.

We then moved to the Zinnias. We ended up with 1 mixed pot, 1 pink (again Alexis' choice not mine!), 1 red and 1 yellow. We also got a couple of Zinnias that to me look like Black Eyed Susan's:

Very Black Eyed Susan like, although the petals are a bit shorted and wider.

Next was a purple Salvia also known as "Indian Tobacco". I'm sure I've seen these before, but I don't remember them. I fell in love with the long purple flower columns.

Next we picked an Argyranthemum, which reminded me of a yellow Daisy and that was the only reason I bought it, because I adore Daisies! I had never heard of this plant either.

And last but not least we got a Torenia. I had never seen this one before either, but I fell in love with it's white flowers with yellow accents. It almost reminded me of a fried egg for lack of a better description.

We also get some petunias that I will take a picture of when I get them in the deck box later this afternoon, a couple of cherry tomatoes to ensure Alexis has plenty to snack on since we're starting the other ones from seed and they might take a little longer, a couple of cucumber plants and 1 red Chile pepper plant for pest reasons. Alexis "helped" by picking out plants she liked and telling me "I like dat one Mama!" or "No Mama...Not dat one!" or as I mentioned before "The pink one Mama!"

Also a little update on general garden progress:

My Rosemary is really doing it's thing!

My pineapple sage is coming back as well! I didn't think it was going to, but then after it rained it finally jumped back! I'm going to dig it out of the main garden and put it in the new flower bed since it has such lovely red flowers in the fall.

My Sage is looking really good!

And so is my Oregano!

Even my rosebush is full of buds!

On a side note I bruised the bottom of my leg in a freak pot hole/buggy incident this morning at Home Depot so my gardening on the ground is somewhat limited until the egg sized bump on my leg recedes and it doesn't feel like someone is stabbing a knife into my leg when I lean forward on it to plant things. So it may be a day or two before I get to get the flowers in the ground. When Alexis wakes up from her nap (she actually took one today!) we're going to go out and do a few standing up type things like spreading compost and removing some more leaves. We may go to BJ's and get another Garden Hopper so we can plant that way.

Slowly but surely it is coming together and I hope to be completely done by this weekend! As it stands now the plan is to make the garden capable of feeding Alexis and I all summer long and it's looking good! Keep your fingers crossed! :o)

Posted by Dianne at 2:42 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Senate Panel Says FEMA Is Beyond Repair

Standard Republican response...it's better to just leave the country unprotected rather than admit that they need to fire every incompetent Republican appointee. Cut your arm off because you have a splinter. It's stupid and it's insane!

The problem starts with Chertoff and until they are willing to address the fact that the man is completely and utterly incompetent then nothing is going to change at all in the Department of Homeland Security. I mean this guy is completely clueless and puts more Americans at risk everyday he's allowed to screw up our defenses in this country.

Another step that needs to be taken is that the Republican party shouldn't be allow to change procedures for political gain. I mean they are finding more and more dead bodies every day as they go into these houses nearly 6 months later. Why you ask have they not already handled body collection? Because the Republicans thought it was giving them a black eye so they decided to cover-up to problem by ignoring it. I mean even this article uses the last official figure which ignores all the hundreds of other bodies that have been found by families and clean-up crews since the Republicans order the search stopped.

We are about a month away from the next hurricane season and the Republicans are still wasting time and not changing any of the problems. It's a mortal disgrace! If you aren't registered to vote its time to fill out the paperwork so you can send the Republican party a message at every level of government. It's time for you to go! In the meantime, it's time for everyone to double check their disaster kits because remember the Republicans would rather let you die than help you, so you have to help yourself until we can vote them out of every office in this country.

Kweisi Mfume

I'm not sure what to start with about Mfume. I come from ministers, so it's not hard for me to identify with that presentation style. Mfume has that down cold, he's a brilliant speaker. He has a powerful grasp of the subject matter of the campaign and has a charming personality to boot. I haven't listed him on the politicians list for the blog yet, because Cardin kills Steele in the general by a landslide. So now I'm completely divided, because for as long as I ignored the fact that I already liked Mfume better than Cardin before I heard him speak, now I'm forced to evaluate the situation anew.

Cardin has always been the living embodiment of a do nothing Democrat. I'm sure Jerry, who posts on here every once in a while, could provide a list of his failures since he represents him and makes him angry on a regular basis. While I don't hold politicians to as high of a standard as Jerry, Cardin has failed to step up on a number of important votes that were on my list of critically important, but Cardin wins in a landslide. Mfume would have to fight tooth and nail against the Republican smear machine, 24/7 to win against Steele. The reality is that it would be too close to call and we all know that the Republicans with their buddies at Diebold always win those match-ups. But Mfume is the better choice of Candidates. So I'm left in the undecided column suddenly.

I'm going to add Mfume to my listings of Senate candidates, because I'm no longer sure that Cardin is the only choice. If you get a chance and you think you've decided on Cardin or any of the other candidates, I highly recommend that you take some time and go to a Mfume event and give him a listen. He's a powerful speaker and he definitely will give you reason for pause with your decision.

On the web front, he's got a decent site, definitely an improvement over his original. He's got a blog section, which is under construction. Which is not reassuring since his original website had a blog section, but it didn't have RSS or other standard blog features.

Andy Barth

One disadvantage to not living somewhere for any length of time is that you don't know the local celebrities. Evidently Andy Barth has been a local news man for the last 30 years or so. Now I don't watch the local news and I've only recently added an RSS feed to statewide newspapers, because I really don't have any personal connection to a lot of the trivial stuff that happens at the local level. I know it's a mortal sin, but the reality is that I don't worry about the potholes in my neighborhood because I'm more worried about the entire nation dying. It's a priority thing for me, but I digress.

Andy did a very good presentation. I'm told by people that were there that had seen him before that he's really gotten much better at giving his stump speech and he's gotten a lot more comfortable with the open question format. That's good, I like to hear that people are making progress. His website has a blog, it's been used, but hasn't been updated for the last 3 weeks. It's definitely better than Sarbanes blog, but not to Jamisonian standards of perfection.

All and all I liked him and he seemed to show a grasp of the complexity of the topics. So far I still like Sarbanes better, because I was able to identify with his message of what kind of world he's afraid that will be turned over to his kids. And since that's nearly my entire political motivation in life, it definitely resonates with me at the most pure level. But I would love to see Andy Barth continue in Maryland politics at some level. He's much too good of a person to be allow to sit on the side lines enjoying retirement. Actually I've been getting that feeling in all these contested Democratic races. The Republicans have no where close to the kind of talent and ability that the Democrats can field on any given day. It's too bad we can't bring that all to bear on every single race at once.

Maryland District 30 Democrats

Last night I had the great pleasure of spending time with the District 30 Democrats. They call themselves the Do Something Democrats and I have to say they live up to the moniker. If you live in District 30 or just enjoy the company of a good folks on a mission, you should check them out. I found them through contacts with Mark Shenton, who is also running for the District 30 Democratic Central Committee. He's been extremely patient as I've gone about twisting his arm trying to convince him to run a more aggressive campaign. On one level he's right, DCC is only voted on by Democrats for Democrats, so it's not as aggressive of a race. I tried to convince him it's his stepping stone to being Governor of the State. He laughed and laughed. You get the picture, anyway I had a lot of fun and met a lot of interesting people. It's only 10 bucks to join and they are working hard in District 30 against the ruthless attacks the Republicans are planning against their elected Representatives. And we know it's going to be ruthless because the Republicans are vile and sinister people. So give them a hand folks, join up, help out, and be a part of the District 30 Democrats. And when Mark gets his website up, I'll put up a link for him. In the meantime, I'll just give him grief and rush him.

Read more over at District 30 Democrats.

Posted by ManDrake at 12:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rules of the Road: Canvassing

On Tuesday night I took the Canvassing class from the Democracy for America night school. On one hand it was interesting, because I had often wondered what the motivation was for going door to door. Mind you as a general rule the only people that go door to door in Redneckville USA are sales people. They use the standard script starting with the lie "I'm not selling anything" and so on. I think we all know the script so I'm not going to waste time covering it. I was trying to think back to the last time someone knocked on my door for political reasons. Philip Jimeno was the last to knock on my door for such a reason, which is one of the reasons I like him. That and he's a really personable kind of guy, but most politicians are so there is no big surprise there.

Anyway, one thing I know for sure, Canvassing is definitely not for me. The security problems alone are terrifying to consider. We live in a Red part of the state, so I'm sure that anyone Canvassing for the Democrats would be put on a list for an unfortunate "accident". Republicans are ruthless and violent people, so it's really not worth the risk. Beyond that I mentally can't get past the notion that you need to convince people to vote. I get annoyed thinking about having to convince people to vote. Our country is dying because you fools are slacking off on the job while the Republican hate machine is in the process of destroying this country. In an age where you can have a ballot delivered to your house, fill it out and mail it back in for every election there is no possible reasonable excuse for not voting. And you shouldn't have to be told that.

Anyway the class is available online if you want to learn more about it in advance of the Nationwide Canvassing event in 2 days by the Democratic party. Even if you aren't planning on participating, you should check to see if they are coming to your area so you can give words of encouragement to those that are doing it.

Read more over at DFA NightSchool and National Canvassing.

Posted by ManDrake at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Daffodil Lane