the press conference

Dammit Mr. President.  STOP telling me you "inherited" this or that.  STOP.  I don't care what you inherited.  It is your deal now.  Man up and own it.  

Updated:  Stop it..."it was here when I got here."  God almighty, just own it.  What in heaven's name have we elected?  

I think I'm going to have to turn off the tv.  I've been watching for all of 30 seconds.

Some reading, Lenten and otherwise

I'm deep in the start of Sugarfoot Yarns...that blog is over here.  But life goes on.  Read something briefly this morning so true, so simple and direct and right, though, that I needed to share it.  

I'm against government funding of embryonic stem cell research.  It is wrong, and I think it is dangerous.  God didn't intend for us to meddle in our mortality like this.  But P.J. O'Rourke has made a beautiful argument against it here.  He has cancer...if anyone could "justify" this, he could.  But he doesn't.  Read it.  Obama is wrong, dangerously so, and unfortunately the "least of these" will be the ones to pay for his ignorance.

I didn't give up anything for Lent, but I tried to take on a Lenten discipline of reading a book.  So for me it is Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton.  I'm only a little into it, but so far it is excellent.  I'll share more later, but I'd encourage you to pick it up.

Too far?

Has he gone too far?  A trillion here, a trillion there, that's just money between friends, right?  But this, trying to negotiate with that guy up there by LETTER?  God help us all.

Oh no they didn't

They did.

Resistance one at a time

There are lots of us who are mad.  You aren't alone and neither am I.  Remember that.

Now, watch this:

(via The Anchoress.)  I was surprised at how calm and adult Reagan sounds.  (Sounded?) And smart.  And how I hear distressingly little of that in our current President's voice.

Finally, go here and join.  You aren't alone, and neither am I.

Video you must see

I DON'T CARE which side of the stimulus (I use that term loosely) plan you are on.  The fact that Congress voted on it in the manner in which they did should be, at a minimum, disturbing.  

Not one person has read this and they are spending my children's money.  Not one person.  I want to hear one--just ONE--Congressman justify his "yes" vote on a bill that neither he nor his staff could read.

Apparently only barely back...

First, let me just share that starting a shop is a lot of work.  A LOT.  But it is also incredibly fun--so many balls to keep in the air:  the contractors, the sales reps, all the "official" stuff like the LLC and tax numbers, publicity.  I am having a good time.

And it is a good thing, because the news is so depressing that I would otherwise just cry.  The ultra-maroons (Thanks, Bugs!) in Washington are stealing from my children and grandchildren.  Stealing from me, I could handle.  I didn't vote for those guys, but I did vote, and this is how the system works.  My children, on the other hand, didn't have a vote.  This is taxation without representation, and as I recall this is the reason we had the Revolution in the first place.  For the first time in my life I am so angry, so disgusted that I understand what my ancestors were thinking when they went to war against England.  I GET IT.  And I want to do something but I feel powerless.

Ronald Reagan once said, "All great ideas in America begin around the dinner table."  And the other night I had an idea...the Million Kid March.  Imagine a million kids with their parents on the Mall or right in front of the capital, protesting this disgusting act.  Heck, I'd take a few thousand.  My poor children, wide-eyed at their mother's anger at this fraud they are perpetrating on the American people, decided that it sounded great.  I want someone to plan it, tell me where to go and I'll show up, four kids in tow.  We live ten hours from Washington and as busy as I am, we would do it.  Would you?  Could we plan this?  What are your ideas?  

Here's one of my ideas...talk about this, to anyone who will listen.  Call the shows, contact the big bloggers.  Congress isn't listening (except:  shout out to my Congressman, Lynn Westmoreland, for the anti-pork pledge) so we have to find other channels.  We can't let this go without a fight.  The conference committee has given us a few extra days...could we do this?

See?  I told you I'm angry.  Instead I'm pouring my energy into things I can control, but it makes me feel weak.  What can we do?

Special shout-out to Jean:  sorry to hear about your hurt shoulder.  Take care, and use the time to watch some great movies.  

Whew! I'm Back

Crazy January.  And I know I should have posted, but I was cooking up something and just couldn't seem to get up the energy to blog.  But I'm fine.  In case you were worried.

So here's the deal...I've decided to open a yarn shop, the kind of little local spot people can come to and hang out and have a cup of coffee and BUY YARN.  (I have to pay the rent!)  I know it seems bizarre.  I just quit school, and now this?  Well, back before Thanksgiving DH and I were eating dinner and I told him, "I should just open a yarn shop."  And he said, "I think that's a great idea!"  So of course I was off and running, reading books about retail and yarns and looking at every store in the area.  I haven't been knitting my whole life, either, so I've been knitting like a madwoman.  

This is soon!  The landlord in exactly the spot I wanted came through with a very generous offer, so he pushed my timetable up a lot.  The lease starts on Sunday, and there is an incredible amount to think about:  business license, POS system, renovating the space, meeting with vendors and sales reps, trying to get the word out about the new shop.

The web site will be up soon, and when it is I'll post a link to it.  I'm not going to link from there back to this blog, though, because I still like talking about politics and I don't want to mix business with that.

So, here we go.  DH has always been an entrepreneur but I never have been.  Retail can be challenging...lots of time in the store, dealing with the public, the inventory.  But it is also so exciting.  I don't want this to be a bad bet.  There is an expression:  "Worried women knit."  Let's hope that lots of worried women find their way to my store!  (Men, too.  We're equal opportunity knitters!)

Sarah Palin Interview

My favorite Republican is back, being interviewed by John Ziegler of howobamagotelected.com. Check out the video:  

It's worth watching the whole thing.  I'm looking forward to hearing more from her in the next few years.  And can anyone really say she less qualified than Joe "Jobs-is-a-three-letter-word" Biden?

Upside down and Inside out

Did you ever look at the news at just think, "What the hell is going on?"  (Sorry about the cursing...I don't use it that often but it is good for when you need that extra emphasis.)  That was my day yesterday, like a nightmare, but now I can't seem to wake up.  I was actually YELLING at poor DH yesterday over the idiocy going on right now, both locally and nationally, even internationally.  The yelling didn't last, by the way; we both started laughing and then poured another glass of wine.  Anyway...

Read this article.  Seriously.  No, I mean NOW.  (And then come back!)  Atlas Shrugged, way back when I read it, was the longest novel I had ever read, 1,064 pages.  It was powerful, the kind of book that really makes you look around at things in a new way.  Stephen Moore has perfectly captured what is going on right now and shows how it lines up with the novel.  Good Lord, he is right.

Locally, our school board made Drudge a couple of days ago, which you know must mean something utterly ridiculous must have happened.  It did.  Not only do they want to make the teachers give back their 2.5% raise, the superintendent also wants to send out an additional property tax (retroactive) to all of us property owners.  We just passed a SPLOST here, for an extra 1% sales tax, not that I voted for it.  And back in July all of the incompetent I mean incumbent school board members were reelected without a whiff of a budget problem.  Something is truly rotten there.  I can look at this like a purely financial issue since I don't have kids in the system and it makes me so mad!  They have wasted so much money on real estate speculation and a bloated county administrative staff that it is hardly a surprise that problems are showing up now.

Nationally, oh, so much.  Obama wants to spend a TRILLION dollars getting us out of the poor economic conditions we're in.  What in the world makes in seem like taking the money from me and you, giving it to the government, and then having the government disburse the money to worthy projects is a better, more productive way to stimulate the economy than just letting all of us keep more of our money and using it as we see fit?  The U.S. Conference of Mayors is salivating...they have a 1557 page list of "shovel ready" projects!  Here is a partial list of those worthy projects...I swear I could not make this up if I tried.  Well, maybe, but take a look:

$35 million for the Music Hall of Fame in Florissant, Mo.; $35 million for the Scottsdale Museum of the West in Arizona and $20 million for the Virginia Key Beach Museum in Miami, Fla.

This is brilliant...we are in debt, so let's spend more.  I think I'll try that here at home, because there are these shoes I've been eyeing...

The porn industry wants a bailout.  Rich.  These people should be embarrassed to be associated with this business.  Instead they are bold enough to ask for your money and mine to save their sick business.  I think they won't get the money, but they have the nerve to ask!

Charlie Rangel's ethics investigation was supposed to be done by January 3.  Nancy Pelosi had promised!  But now it has been delayed.  Even better, thanks to Pelosi's rule changes, Rangel looks likely to not only continue serving "honorably" but also as the chair of the Ways and Means Committee for as long as he wants.  This is truly the fox guarding the henhouse.  What is wrong with the Republicans??  Why aren't they out in front of cameras talking about these things all the time?

Seriously?  You want to put a 70-year-old guy into a position for which he has only tangential experience, as Chief of Staff for Clinton, into one of the most important positions in the whole country?  Panetta as CIA chief is flat-out scary.  Transitions are high times for attacks, and I want a professional spook or ambassador in that position, not some high-level manager.  And look at the intelligence decisions made during the Clinton years:  the first World Trade bombing in 1993, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, the explosion of Al-Qeada (no pun intended).  This is a bad pick, and worse yet it is dangerous to all of us.

This was such a cheerful post!  Hopefully I'll find some good new to share later.

Changing the House

Not mine, Pelosi's.  I mean, she seems to think it's hers to change.  The Democrats are doing some rule changing, making their majority harder to overcome.  This is terrible, in fact, turning back the clock and making everything less clear--did you even think that was possible with the Congress?! What they are really doing is undoing some of the changes put in during Gingrich's Contract with America days.  So apparently, openness is good when the Republicans are in charge, but once the Democrats win then let's shut things down.

And related to my previous post about the word "rule," look at the fourth and fifth paragraphs from the bottom of the AP article:  "four decades of Democratic rule" versus "Republicans took control."  Words mean things.

The rule of words

Words mean things.  Which is why the repeated use of the word "rule" with regard to the government is really bugging me.

When I was in high school civics we were introduced to the concept of the "rule of law."  I found it a confusing phrase, because I kept thinking of a ruler, like with inches and feet, and not a ruler of a country.  But I finally get it, that the authority of the government in our country vests not in any one person or group of people, but in the Constitution.  Those people elected to government, in particular the President and by extension the rest of the executive branch, are guardians of the Constitution.  The President does not RULE.  The laws rule.  

So why does it seem like I see "Obama's rule begins" or "Pelosi's rule" (I know, Pelosi, how scary is that?) in the press so often?  I really don't recall the word "rule" associated with Bush or the Republicans in years past, but I am sure hearing it a lot now with regard to the Dems.  So I'll google it and see what I get:  2,140 hits, and I agree that all of them don't apply.  But that doesn't include the infamous "Obama will be ready to rule on day one" quote from the campaign.  I DON'T WANT A RULER!  What about the Democrats in general?  909 in the past year.

So what about Bush?  Okay, 5570, but I went through the first through pages and all of these refer to rules made by the Bush administration.  Rule of Bush?  123, and it looks like a lot of those are bloggers.  (Maybe I can finally get Googled by someone!)  But, from what I can find, no one is using "ready to rule" or "not ready to rule." 

So here's my point...there is a glee surrounding Obama and the Congressional Democrats, and it is coming from within and also from the main-stream media.  We didn't elect a new king, we elected a guardian of the Constitution.  The problem is that if we start looking at the "rule of Obama" or  Pelosi or whomever, then they step outside of the law.  The perception is that the ruler creates the rules and is not subject to them.  It isn't true, at least not yet.  The problem is that if you say something often enough then it becomes the truth.  (Lenin said that, not me.)  I don't want this to become the truth.

The New Year is Off and Running

No posting last weekend...yes, we were at the lake.  We got seven glorious days down there, quite a lot for us, and now we are pulling things together here, taking down the Christmas stuff (high time!), and generally getting ready to go back to real life.  The kids don't start back until tomorrow, so that gives us a day to find uniform shoes, clean out backpacks and get haircuts so that we are all ready for tomorrow.  I thought January 6 seemed late to go back, but right now it is terrific...it is raining, wet and grey outside right now, and it would have been tough to roll everyone out of bed at 6:50 this morning!

A quick update on some of my Christmas stuff, because I know you are waiting:

Aquaglobes rock!  I went out and got a couple of houseplants and set up my aquaglobes in them.  They are actually attractive and my plants seem to be getting watered steadily.  This may be the answer to my black thumb with indoor plants, and I'm thrilled.

Wii Fit is awesome, too.  I've used it a little every day, and while it is no fun seeing my weight on the screen every day, it does provide a little incentive to eat a little less or make different choices.  My balance scores are improving and I especially like the Hula Hoop and Boxing games.  (Hey, Casto, definitely put this on your list after you've played Wii sports enough.  We had ours for about eight months before I got my board, and it is the perfect thing to keep me coming back.)

We watched Prince Caspian a couple of nights ago...if you love the Narnia books then it is a great movie.  DH never read them (I know, how is that possible) and so he sees the movies as a pale imitation of the Lord of the Rings movies.  Still good, just not as great as those.  I loved the books and love the movies so far.  Voyage of the Dawn Treader was always my favorite book in the series so I'm really looking forward to the next movie.  Now that I'm writing about it, I see that Disney has pulled out of the project.  I hope Walden can find another partner, so I can see this one on the big screen.

Time to get everyone going today, get our chores done, and enjoy this last day of freedom (for them...my freedom starts tomorrow!).

My DS9...

was looking at an "Events of 2008" pictorial review (which is available here, click on "year in news").  He saw a picture of our favorite Russian leader, and read the caption out loud, until...

"...Vla-duh-meer....POOTIN!  Ha!  Hey, Mom, he's POOTIN'!  POOTIN' POOTIN'!  What kind of stupid name is that?!  POOTIN' POOTIN' POOTIN'!"

Sometimes it takes a nine-year-old to put scary world leaders in perspective.

(Updated:  I changed DD to DS.  Sorry, buddy.)

I got one!

Do you remember this ad:

I got one!!  Yes, I'm now the proud owner of a part of history, "commemorating the day the world changed forever."  (I'm not sure if that is threatening or merely creepy.)  Thanks, Steve!  I'm displaying it in a prominent place for as long as I can stomach it.  And when I find my **)#$% camera, then I'll share with the rest of the world.

I'm a College Drop-out

It's official...I withdrew from school today.  Technically that means that I'm just not taking classes next semester, but I doubt I go back.  Wow--I just realized that what it really means is that I may have taken my Last. Final. Ever.  Awesome.

I have mixed feelings, really.  I believed when I started the application process that I was being called to the "next thing" in my life, and now I wonder...did I hear wrong?  Or maybe this is just leading me somewhere else?  Because the further I get from school the more relieved I feel! 

The classes I took this fall were great, some of the most useful classes I've ever been a part of. But the more I learned about the counseling profession, the less it felt right or natural for me.  So many things that I love and that are important to me can't enter into a counselor-client relationship, and I don't think I can check that much of myself at the door.  God gave me this weird combination of gifts for a purpose, I suppose, and so I can only have faith that He knows what He's doing.  And I have to keep asking, "Is this right?  Or this?"  I like to think that one of the challenges that I took on in the last year was just to step out in faith and try something completely different, and to do it without a grim focus on the outcome.  I feel really good about that.

So, for now, my winter and spring are wide open, ready to fill with field-trip-chaperoning, after-school activities, reading for fun, and maybe a little sewing or gardening.  And blogging. Lots of blogging.

Tuesday Round-Up

Isn't that a lovely picture?  It's the sixth day of Christmas, after all, and so instead of geese a-laying I'm giving you Mary and Eve.  It's from the Anchoress, and drawn by Sister Grace Remington.

On to progressively more worldly matters...

Apparently, religious people have more self-discipline than those who are spiritual but don't subscribe to one particular set of beliefs.  I think the researcher who did this work is right in his conclusion that religion can imbue our daily lives with a sense of the sacred, but his solution is way off the mark:

“People can have sacred values that aren’t religious values,” he said. “Self-reliance might be a sacred value to you that’s relevant to saving money. Concern for others might be a sacred value that’s relevant to taking time to do volunteer work. You can spend time thinking about what values are sacred to you and making New Year’s resolutions that are consistent with them.”

So if I decide a value is sacred to me then it makes it easier to act in a way consistent with that value.  Which is a great idea except that the sacred doesn't emerge from within me, or from within you.  (I hope I'm not the first to tell you that.) God alone is holy, as the Psalms tell us repeatedly, and our religious practices are just an imperfect but worthy way to share in that holiness.

Hey!  Look at this!  Chrysler just wanted to say thanks...I think we know a little of why they're in financial difficulty.  Our tax dollars at work, ugh.  Apparently these add purchases cost in excess of a million dollars.  I know, compared with the $4 billion they'll soon receive it doesn't seem like much, but it seems to reflect the same attitude that led the CEOs to take their private jets to beg for bail-out money.

Congressional watch:  Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee is coming under increasing fire for being a Friend of Angelo.  Good.  He looks dirty and this matter needs to be made clear.  Charlie Rangel, of New York, is already in hot water (we hope) over his tax evasion problems; now it's come out that he even is using campaign funds to pay parking tickets.  (via Instapundit, Rangel's fate apparently hangs in the balance right now...good)  And Franken, who's not in the Senate yet, looks poised to take the seat in Minnesota.  I was born in Minnesota, but thankfully left before the lake-water craziness could overtake me. What are they thinking up there??!!

Let's see, what else?  Oh, the Flight 93 families are encouraging the federal government to just confiscate the land where their loved ones' remains lay.  I understand their wanting the memorial, and I think it should be treated as the cemetery that it is.  But the land is owned by a quarry and the owners should be compensated.  If they don't want to deal with the Feds, then pressure them buy publicizing the process, or by trying to buy the land yourself and then donating it to the government.  I'm reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism right now; what these families are proposing is using the muscle (and guns) of the government to further their goals.  I don't want to throw the term around the term, but this looks like fascism to me.

This was a long post!  Lots to look at.  Don't forget to post what you got for Christmas...see below!

Merry Belated Christmas!

Well, I took an unintentionally long break!  We headed down to the lake right after Christmas, for a long weekend.  Part of the appeal of our lake house is the peace, and maintaining the peace means NO INTERNET.  So, no blogging.

Our Christmas was wonderful...DH and I had agreed to cut back (hot tubs not selling like they have in the past, you know, and stupid government officials not helping matters), but I really don't think the kids noticed one bit.  That's a lesson we are going to hold on to, I think. We decorated a lot less, too, which I kind of missed during the month but now that I'm thinking of the clean-up seems pretty awesome.

Ann over at Gorgeous Things' blog asked the question, "What'd you get?" So here are my answers: A Wii Fit Board!!  It is so much fun, and we have all had a good time playing with that.  I also got Aquaglobes (DD5 can recite the commercial by heart), some Georgia Tech paraphenalia, this cute dress from my mom (Thanks!), and a couple of cool books.  Wow, listing it makes it look like a lot!

So what did you get?  Did you do anything different to celebrate?  Post your link in the comments, or just list it there!  Lots to blog about, as usual.  Sometimes the hardest part is choosing good topics.  More later, I hope.

It's not one individual post, so much...

more like the accumulated hilarity of all of them.

By the time I got to Ritalin kitty I couldn't breathe.  Better now, thanks.

Music, seasonal and not so much

I just discovered the Smoking Popes from a video over at Chicago Boyz...check it out:

I was thinking how cool it was to find a young group but then according to Wiki these guys are about my age!  I must not be that old.

On a more seasonal note, here is DS10's favorite song of the season:

Enjoy!