Pennies from heaven...?

I don't quite understand this... the President will be sending Americans a check to help stimulate the economy? This accomplishes what...? How?

If my household receives any money, we'll be using it to catch up on bills... I guess that's stimulating the economy...?

How will YOU stimulate the economy with your gift from Dubya?

My test results...

I also took the test. h/t Binkyboy at 43rd State Blues.

Economic Left/Right: -6.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.46

Since I completely admit that I'm not very well-informed about labels and definitions (I'm the "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like" type of person), I'm open to any comments who can help me understand what this means!!

Journalism is a joke anymore...

Are there any REAL journalists out there?

I'm not the only one who feels frustrated that there is little to no coverage of the real issues...

I'm sick to death of the Paris/Anna Nicole/Brittany sagas (like that is NEWS??) and the glossing over real issues (like what may have caused the Utah mine to collapse?).

There is no coverage of veteran associations' evaluations of Craig/Simpson/Crapo so Idahoans keep re-electing them (thinking they are supporting the troops by electing these Republicans... HA!).

It's not just a local issue... there have been questions about credible media coverage for years... from Colin Powell's son being appointed as the head of FCC ... Jeff Gannon's fake reporting ... Fox News altering Wikipedia ... Fox News and their misleading headlines ...

So what is going on?

One retired news reporter told me that:

“The media are in their usual hurry to put this GOP embarrassment to rest. This is the result of decades of abuse heaped on the media every time they print or broadcast a story that is not 100% complimentary to Republican candidates and office holders.

From the late 1970s, it was a predictable pattern. Find out something negative about a Republican, go with the story and you could expect a flurry of letters and phone calls accusing you of deep bias and outright incompetence. They often went to your bosses threatening that they could get you fired. You worried about it because you knew your station manager or executive editor belonged to the same golf club or the Arid club or whatever elite organization as the GOP leadership.

After awhile, reporters had to spend so much time justifying their work, they’d just back away from anything negative about the Rs. And, don’t forget: television news is in it for the ratings. If TV reporters believe the Rs are the huge majority, who do you think they’ll play to?

Democrats haven’t figured out how to push back. I’m not suggesting they push for suppression of the truth. But they’re certainly going to lose the perception wars if they don’t push for even-handed coverage. The message has to go to Idaho media that nobody is fooled by their acrobatics to please the Republican extremists.

Sali’s bigoted comments will go deep underground and stay forgotten come Election Day. In the meantime, several newspapers will do puff pieces, or as we used to put it crudely, ‘blow jobs’ on Sali describing a kinder, gentler and more palatable to the mainstream kind of guy. On Election Day, the very people who should be horrified by his comments will blithely cast their votes for him completely unaware of his deep seated bigotry.

And Idaho’s reputation as a backwater full of George-Wallace-style-knuckle-draggers will be intact.”

Are we willing to allow this to go on??

War on Religious Extremism

One of the comments by Sisyphus (at The fearful gospel of Bill Sali over at Red State Rebels) has stuck in my mind since I read it the other day...

Let's rename the

"War on Terrorism"

to the

"War on Religious Extremism".

“War on Terror” is typical of our society’s trend to call garbage men “sanitation engineers” and other vague euphemisms that conceal accurate functions and characterizations, which sanitize missions and tasks involved, and deflect our attention from the true definition of the subject under discussion.

I’m still processing why this impacted me so much… tell me what you think…

"Battle of Little Big Bush"

Yesterday, as I was trying to catch up on reading what I've missed online for the last few months, I noticed a reference to General Custer. Of course, for the life of me, I cannot find the webpage that I saw it on... but it made a reference to the fact that neither Custer or Bush had an "exit plan"... and look what happened to Custer's men.

That's what I wanted to post about this afternoon, but after searching, I still can't find where I read it yesterday!

However, I did find the following and hope folks read the whole article... FEEDBACK welcome!

Before the coming of George Bush and his shadow president Dick Cheney, the greatest military blunder in American History was thought to be Custer's Last Stand...
General George Custer was a man of towering ego and petty vanities who refused to listen to moderate voices that warned him of growing Indian unrest at Little Big Horn. He refused to listen to his own Indian scouts. Ring any bells?

It did not take a lot of hindsight to know that general Custer's vain assault on a much larger force of better-armed native Americans would come to no good end.

His own turncoat Indian scouts told him the encampment at Little Bighorn was far too large to be attacked. They were changing back into their native clothes en masse so as not to be associated with the white man.

But in his supreme arrogance Custer believed that HE knew better than his own best sources of intelligence. We all know the result of that one.

How uncanny are the parallels to the current situation in Iraq?

[Please read the complete article at the Radical Left... and pass it on...]

"There are so many good things happening here, Betty. I think we have gotten through to the savages and now they live in peace." wrote General Custer to his sister, Betty.

General Custer knew that the liberal media was focusing on all the bad things. He knew that a lot of good things were transpiring in and around the area of the Little Big Horn River. He fought til his dying days to bring out all the good things, and he fought the liberal media and their slanted message! "INDIANS!" was the last word General Custer spoke.

The liberal media had a field day with all the bad stuff that was happening. Why couldn't the liberal media report on all the good that General Custer and men were doing for the Indians at Little Big Horn?

I guess that just as today, the liberal media was too biased against conservative causes! I say, "Damn the liberals! We need more men like General George Custer!" [snipped from RepublicanPress...]

Any regrets?

For those of you who voted for Tom Luna or Donna Jones, does anybody wish they had known then what they know now?

Or would your vote remain the same...?

Am I being too sensitive or is this BEYOND offensive?

UPDATE [10:50AM, 12/20/2006]:
When I started this post, I was really upset at the insensitivity of whoever designed this item and at the company for selling it. I couldn't imagine what type of person would actually PURCHASE it!

Within an hour, there were several hits on this post from the company. In less than two hours, the item "is no longer available". I don't know when/who brought concerns like mine to their attention, but the most important thing is that they RESPONDED.

Please let Oriental Trading Company know that you appreciate their prompt response to our concerns...

To those of you from Oriental Trading Post, THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART for listening to us...
==============================================
Original post:

As the rest of America is either slapping "Support The Troops" magnets on their cars or sending care packages to Iraq...

...while over 200,000 families prepare for holidays without their loved ones (either their soldier is deployed over the holidays or is one of the 2,952 Americans who have been killed or one of the 22,300 injured men and women)...

...while our politicians bicker over strategies for the war in Iraq...

...The Oriental Trading Company provides a PINATA in the shape of an Army Humvee filled with soldiers... !!!! What were they thinking??

And who would BUY one of these?? What kind of sick and twisted person would feel pleasure while taking a stick and pounding at this pinata? Am I missing something here??

If this bothers you, as much as it bothers me... let them know.

H/T to Steve O., for the post at Bring It On...

Otters for sale...?

Like many other blogs and websites, I have a counter at the bottom of my blog. I check it occasionally to see how many people have clicked on my blog and where they've come from... just out of curiosity. (Well, actually, it's because I blog so I can have some place to express my opinions and share things that I've found... and it's sometimes pretty lonely. I eagerly look for comments just to see if anybody pays any attention...)

Don't worry, it doesn't tell me WHO you are! I just know the general vicinity of your location (or at least the location of your server... it lists me in Boise!) and usually what brought you to my blog. I see locations from across the United States... some who probably just accidentally stumbled on my blog looking for something else and who knows how others found me. I wish they'd leave comments... just to see why they stopped by. I have had several hits from places like Canada, England, India, and Japan. I'm SURE they were lost! (Were you? Let me know!)

I see a lots of clicks from LeftyBlogs and my blog was mentioned at Democratic Underground, which led to a LOT of hits. I can see that people stop by after Google searches for Larry Craig, Mike Simpson, or Tom Luna--I am happy to see that because I'd like to think that my posts will provide a little bit of information which may be helpful to them as they evaluate our representatives and the job they do. I wish I'd see a few more hits on my posts about Dirk Kempthorne, but nobody really seems to be paying much attention to him.

My favorite hit is when I see that someone clicked on my grandmother's prayer after doing a Google search for "grandmother prayer". I don't know what they are looking for, but my grandmother was an awesome woman and I like to think that she is continuing to touch people with her spirit when they read her favorite prayer.

But what REALLY is strange... is ALL the hits that I get from people who Google "Otters for Sale"... they come from the northeast mostly, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts and so on. I bet they weren't expecting MY post when they stopped by! I had NO idea that buying otters is such a big business!! (I can think of a lot other jokes but I'll let you make up your own!)

So, tell me... how did you end up here? Was this what you were looking for?

My blog is getting a "makeover"...

Hey, I upgraded my blog tonight... I don't know what all I can do or what will be different EXCEPT I can now put "tags" on my posts! I've always wanted to do that! I have done some, but gee, it's getting late and I have a big day tomorrow... so I'm calling it a night.

In the meantime, if you stop by, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail. If you see something that you liked on my blog, tell me. If you think I'm missing something, let me know. If you stop by regularly, why? If this is your first time, how did you hear about it? Are you from Idaho or from farther away? My "counter" shows that some visitors are from as far away as Japan and I can only think that somehow they just stumbled onto my blog accidentally! So, if you arrived here on purpose, I'd love to hear about it!

I see the numbers rising on my counter... so, who are y'all? I'm really curious!

Gooding Drinking Liberally

I've had several people contact me about Gooding Drinking Liberally... we want to start it up again.

However, this is NOT my group... it's for anybody in the area who wants to socialize with other liberals, progressives, Democrats, Independents, or left-leaning thinkers. We can share, laugh, watch liberal movies, have speakers, whatever. It is not a political organization and does not endorse any political party, candidate, etc., but will mostly provide support for each other as we process our concerns about certain issues which we (as liberal-types) feel are not being addressed by conservatives in our (as citizens of Idaho and America) best interest (whether it is education or civil rights or whatever...). If you have any questions or want clarification, please let me know...

If you are in the slightest bit interested, please e-mail me with answers to the following questions:

• Are you interested?
• How often do you want to meet?
• What days?
• What times?
• What locations? (THIS IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES! Any suggestions???)
• Do you want "special guests"?
• Do you want to gather and watch certain shows/movies together?
• What else would you want?
  

Why didn't you vote?

I'm just curious... voter turnout supposedly was around 20% yesterday. What's up with that?

I know my husband didn't vote because he left for work at 6:30am and didn't get home until 1am this morning. And we didn't plan ahead well enough to get an absentee voter form for him.

If anybody reading this did NOT vote yesterday, please take a moment and explain "why". Perhaps if you explain what prevented you from voting, the rest of us can work on ways to increase voter turnout in the next election.