2 Focus Inn

yikes!

2011-09-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

just trying to get my layout to behave....I have been away for so long that I have forgotten how to do this stuff...

Back in Action

2011-09-26T11:10:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I took some time off.
Currently sitting in an inservice workshop on "The Blogosphere".

very interesting!

2009-08-03T08:15:00.001-07:00

from Fox News!

2009-08-03T07:54:00.001-07:00

OMFG!!!!!

2009-08-03T07:29:00.001-07:00

2009-06-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

Reagan

2009-06-08T04:57:00.001-07:00

I knew he sucked when he was in office....

it just takes this long for the proof to "win out".

Read about Ronnie

119 Million Americans must be wrong

2009-06-08T04:52:00.001-07:00

Fix health care!

Fix it now!!

2009-06-07T14:23:00.000-07:00

A is for Alaska

2009-05-15T04:58:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin is writing a book.
After I stop laughing I'll try to comment further.

maybe she should read one first?

2009-04-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

2009-04-30T19:30:00.001-07:00

2009-04-30T19:20:00.001-07:00

Torture?

2009-04-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

The current political situation regarding torture has me back on the blog roll.

Check out my friend Lolifes blog and his current post on the topic.

http://www.lolife.com/2009/04/the-right-were-fine-with-torture/comment-page-1/#comment-1360

2009-02-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

2009-02-21T15:10:00.001-08:00

So what have we learned in 2 millennia???

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public
debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and
controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed
lest Rome become bankrupt.

People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

Cicero - 55 BC

Disney Diary #2

2008-12-27T05:11:00.000-08:00

Epcot at Night is always tremendous.
The "Illuminations" fireworks show is always stunning. However it will ruin any and all community sized fireworks shows as it is the best you will ever see...

Stood in line far toooooo long for the "soarin' ride.
(lessons learned)
People from all countries do not like standing in line.

There are well-behaved children (about 25%) and poorly behaved children
(about 25%) The other 50% you don't even notice.

99.9% of humanity are good people.

.1% of humanity are significant assholes (people with serious B.O. also fall
in this catagory)

Today: Disney Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom (we know from the past that this park is also the "thunderdome" of moms with strollers)

Disney Diary Day 1

2008-12-26T13:02:00.001-08:00

Ok, to set this up right.
This is our fifth trip to Disney World....yeah, we like it..however each time we come we find something new and realize things that remain the same. Here is a collection of ways to make 'your' trip to Disney World more fun than Walt could ever imagine.

1. Mullet hunting- do it, take this with you always...they are out there...not sure where these people are from but apparently any sense of 'style' or 'taste' has not reached them yet. As far as I know, Mullets are not part of the Disney "Cast".

2. Fat: No one would ever consider me a skinny person, so I am a bit of an expert. There is serious fat out there...and it runs in packs..er,rather it sort of wobbles in packs. At any rate, if you have ever had concerns about your own self image..Disney will make you feel much better about yourself...again, large humans are not part of the Disney "Cast".

3. "Mad Moms", "Crabby Moms", "Screaming Moms" and "Pissed off Dads"...they are out there...mostly in Magic Kingdom, but all parks have them. They are amusing, especially when they are not you.

This whole "torture" thing

2008-12-05T05:10:00.000-08:00

Why do we have to physically deal with them?
Can't we give them drugs or beer or acid or something?

or sign them up on "Twitter".

Caron is more amazing everytime I vist him

2008-11-21T21:38:00.001-08:00

First time I heard Alain Caron was in 1981 or 82.. I had a record, a 33 rpm UZEB album that we nearly wore out back in college...tonite I typed his name into YouTube...(I can't even begin to tell you how much YouTube means to me)

A forward from my Bro-

2008-11-21T19:29:00.001-08:00

Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy

Stunning Break with Last Eight Years
November 20, 2008

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.

"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."

The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate - we get it, stop showing off."

The President-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.

Taylor Mali

2008-11-19T18:47:00.001-08:00

I think I may have posted this before...but it is worth posting again...

Bobby Mintzer tears it up.

2008-11-15T16:24:00.001-08:00

I first saw this clip about 25 years ago. In the wee hours of the morning with a smoke filled room full of musicians. It kicks harder now than it did then.

PETA

2008-11-14T19:49:00.001-08:00

In case you thought that PETA doesn't SUCK!!!!

fyi- I have a Samoyed, A lizard, two snakes (both named chris), a tarantula, a turtle, a whole mess-o-koi, a 72 bowfront,a 125 planted,a 55 planted, a 29 brood, 6 ten gallon rearing, a brine shrimp set up for the fry,10 breeding pair of Angels,50 rummy nose tetras, assorted glo-lite, cardinal and neon tetras and probably 85 medium sized black veil angel babies. I have 4 bird feeders, three hummingbird feeders (tho we can nary attract the little bastards,squirrel feeders, compost piles, wren houses (10 of them...yeah, that's right 10 wren houses's you got a problem with that?)and I am thinking of getting a tri-colored high end basset hound puppy...I had a couple birds but they make a mess, are loud as hell and taste like chicken.

CEO's that need a beating

2008-11-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

TOP 10 LIST of Financial Jerks that should be in Jail

1 Angelo Mozilo Countrywide
Bank of America looking to buy Countrywide. Questions of how much liability they will aquire.

The CEO of Country wide Angelo Mazillo could have cared less about the problems of the average jo He sees no responsiblity in this. Yet he has a number of homes, millions in retirement packages. A fleet of cars and eats lobster every night. Yet a mother committed suicide in Massachusetts because she had a hard time paying her mortgage. Big business is not concerned about you! remember they need you to make their money! Heads need to roll!

2. Daniel Mudd Fannie Mae Wishes he had not been such a “Legislative Slut”
Mudd was dismissed as CEO of Fannie Mae when Federal Housing Finance Agency stepped in as conservator on September 7, 2008. The government has advised him that his severance package will not be paid. Not to worry, he took care of himself.

3. Richard Syron Freddie Mac
The New York Times reports that Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) CEO Richard Syron ignored warnings four years ago that Freddie was taking on too much risk by underwriting poor quality mortgages and that its capital base was too thin.
Did Syron get paid millions of dollars to take orders from Congress? It's not clear why that should be such a high paying job. Nor is it clear why American taxpayers should pay the price for Syron's inability to manage Freddie. While $38 million -- .0048% of the bailout -- seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the magnitude of the problems, it looks like Syron made the decisions that created the need for the bailout.
4. James Cayne Bear Stearns Dumps 5.6 million shares-his entire stake a day after JPMorgan quintuples it’s bid for the troubled Bear Stearns. Amid rumors questioning Bear Stearns' financial health, Bear Stearns turned to the Fed, which asked JPMorgan to funnel funds to the embattled investment bank that the government would provide. Two days later, with the government fearing that Bear Stearns' unraveling would send widespread panic through the financial markets, JPMorgan agreed to purchase Bear Stearns

5. Richard Fuld Lehman Bros. Check this jerk out on UTube Ran his Company into ground through subrime lending. Lehman shareholders get zip-nada-nothing. He gets 480 million. Before the Senate oversite committee he says” When company did well, my people did well, when company did poorly, my people did poorly” He forgot to mention that when company did poorly, he did rather well. His theory is Privatize the gains and socialize the loses.

6. Martin Sullivan AIG AIG received 85 billion bailout from the taxpayers to rescue the insurance giant. Sullivan, a week later held weeklong boardmeeting at exclusive California resort and spent $440,000.00 of their gov’t windfall. The course of action that week was to figure their compensation package. He personally got 5 million bonus.
Sullivan took over as CEO of AIG in 2005 Under his watchful eye, the company never showed gain. The 4th quarter of 2007 AIG lost 85 billion

7. Stan O’neal Merril Lynch
To recap, O'Neal went full throttle into the subprime mortgage market at the height of the real estate market. He failed to consult the board on a major acquisition and has shafted the company's shareholders and will be richer beyond most people's wildest dream because of it. His Golden Parachute is worth 250 million

8. Kerry Killinger WaMu Killinger, who was stripped of his chairman title in June, became CEO of the Seattle-based thrift in 1990 and built WaMu into one of the country's largest banks. But with a heavy focus on subprime and option adjustable-rate mortgages -- the types of mortgages at the heart of the housing bust -- WaMu's losses began to mount and its shares plummeted, sparking an outcry from shareholders. His compensation in 2007 was 14.7 million. Should we Jail him or the Board of Directors?

9. Kennedy Thompson Wachovia
Thompson will step down after 32 years of service after having made a series of untimely - and ultimately disastrous - decisions that have cost the company nearly half its market value over the past year.
Shareholders began clamoring for Thompson’s removal in April after the company announced its first quarterly loss in seven years and cut its dividend by 41%. Issues were compounded on May 6, when Wachovia announced a first-quarter loss of $708 million, 80% more than the bank had previously reported.
The company has marked down $5 billion in mortgage and other debt-related assets, and recently announced it would cut up to 500 jobs. Wachovia stock has plummeted about 40% year-to-date. His compensation was a mere 16.5 million

10. Charles Prince Citigroup
Charles "Chuck" Prince, the deposed head of Citigroup, is in line to walk away from the Wall Street giant with a total pay, perks and shares payout worth just under $100 million, it has emerged.
The payout for Mr Prince, who stays on as a consultant until the end of the year, include a pro-rata cash "incentive award" currently estimated to be worth $12 million.
It also includes $10,716,469 in restricted share awards and $16,046,703 in stock options that will automatically vest at his departure.
Mr Prince, whose exit was sealed late last week, already owns 1.61 million shares in Citi, currently worth about $53 million.

You need to watch this entire clip, seriously.

2008-11-08T22:39:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I am not a huge fan of "The Young Turks", but they are the ones that uploaded this Fox News Clip onto Youtube. Uyger is a bit of a jerk at the start of his commentary but then really nails it. Watch and enjoy....or rather watch and say "oh, my God did the country dodge a bullet".

Great idea

2008-11-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

I frequent a few "nut bag" right wing blogs. Already this morning they are talking about "positioning Palin" to run for President in 2012.

I completely agree with this position. It is a brilliant idea. She is exactly who they should run.

Is it true that if you just keep on stuffing your head up your butt you will eventually come out on the other side? or do you just turn inside out?

What If we are racist and don't even know it?

2008-11-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

~ What if?

What if things were switched around? Think about it.

Would the country's collective point of view be different?

Could racism be the culprit????

[this most certainly must be a rhetorical question!]

What if the Obama's had paraded five children across the stage, following the debate, including a three month-old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his college graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to publicly display a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected a reality, if the tables were turned, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are? This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative characteristics in another when there is a color difference.

And, think of this - the candidates' educational backgrounds:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude.

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899.

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester;
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study;
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism.

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.

[AND WHICHEVER YOUR POLITICAL LEANING ... EXERCISE YOUR FREEDOM TO VOTE!!]

2008-10-29T19:49:00.001-07:00

Really?

2008-10-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

Palin is 'distancing' herself from McCain because she has her eyes on 2012????

That is the best,worst,funniest, sickest, saddest thing I have heard in a long time.
That falls under the "you've got to be F#*$&ing kidding me" catagory.

Hitchens shreds

2008-10-21T19:29:00.001-07:00

"It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them."

Read the entire article-

Mr. Cleese on Palin

2008-10-14T18:08:00.000-07:00

VP debate flow chart

2008-10-12T08:04:00.001-07:00

Palins kind of patriotism-Thomas Friedman

2008-10-11T07:12:00.001-07:00

Friedman article

Sent by: http://bradhendrickson.blogspot.com/

2008-10-05T09:20:00.001-07:00

Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain by Frank Rich, New York Times 10/05/08
Share
Today at 10:16am

SARAH PALIN’S post-Couric/Fey comeback at last week’s vice presidential debate was a turning point in the campaign. But if she “won,” as her indulgent partisans and press claque would have it, the loser was not Joe Biden. It was her running mate. With a month to go, the 2008 election is now an Obama-Palin race — about “the future,” as Palin kept saying Thursday night — and the only person who doesn’t seem to know it is Mr. Past, poor old John McCain.

To understand the meaning of Palin’s “victory,” it must be seen in the context of two ominous developments that directly preceded it. Just hours before the debate began, the McCain campaign pulled out of Michigan. That state is ground zero for the collapsed Main Street economy and for so-called Reagan Democrats, those white working-class voters who keep being told by the right that Barack Obama is a Muslim who hung with bomb-throwing radicals during his childhood in the late 1960s.

McCain surrendered Michigan despite having outspent his opponent on television advertising and despite Obama’s twin local handicaps, an unpopular Democratic governor and a felonious, now former, black Democratic Detroit mayor. If McCain can’t make it there, can he make it anywhere in the Rust Belt?

Not without an economic message. McCain’s most persistent attempt, his self-righteous crusade against earmarks, collapsed with his poll numbers. Next to a $700 billion bailout package, his incessant promise to eliminate all Washington pork — by comparison, a puny grand total of $16.5 billion in the 2008 federal budget — doesn’t bring home the bacon. Nor can McCain reconcile his I-will-veto-government-waste mantra with his support, however tardy, of the bailout bill. That bill’s $150 billion in fresh pork includes a boondoggle inserted by the Congressman Don Young, an Alaskan Republican no less.

The second bit of predebate news, percolating under the radar, involved the still-unanswered questions about McCain’s health. Back in May, you will recall, the McCain campaign allowed a select group of 20 reporters to spend a mere three hours examining (but not photocopying) 1,173 pages of the candidate’s health records on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Conspicuously uninvited was Lawrence Altman, a doctor who covers medicine for The New York Times. Altman instead canvassed melanoma experts to evaluate the sketchy data that did emerge. They found the information too “unclear” to determine McCain’s cancer prognosis.

There was, however, at least one doctor-journalist among those 20 reporters in May, the CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta. At the time, Gupta told Katie Couric on CBS that the medical records were “pretty comprehensive” and wrote on his CNN blog that he was “pretty convinced there was no ‘smoking gun’ about the senator’s health.” (Physical health, that is; Gupta wrote there was hardly any information on McCain’s mental health.)

That was then. Now McCain is looking increasingly shaky, whether he’s repeating his “Miss Congeniality” joke twice in the same debate or speaking from notecards even when reciting a line for (literally) the 17th time (“The fundamentals of our economy are strong”) or repeatedly confusing proper nouns that begin with S (Sunni, Shia, Sudan, Somalia, Spain). McCain’s “dismaying temperament,” as George Will labeled it, only thickens the concerns. His kamikaze mission into Washington during the bailout crisis seemed crazed. His seething, hostile debate countenance — a replay of Al Gore’s sarcastic sighing in 2000 — didn’t make the deferential Obama look weak (as many Democrats feared) but elevated him into looking like the sole presidential grown-up.

Though CNN and MSNBC wouldn’t run a political ad with doctors questioning McCain’s medical status, Gupta revisited the issue in an interview published last Tuesday by The Huffington Post. While maintaining a pretty upbeat take on the candidate’s health, the doctor-journalist told the reporter Sam Stein that he couldn’t vouch “by any means” for the completeness of the records the campaign showed him four months ago. “The pages weren’t numbered,” Gupta said, “so I had no way of knowing what was missing.” At least in Watergate we knew that the gap on Rose Mary Woods’s tape ran 18 and a half minutes.

It’s against this backdrop that Palin’s public pronouncements, culminating with her debate performance, have been so striking. The standard take has it that she’s either speaking utter ignorant gibberish (as to Couric) or reciting highly polished, campaign-written sound bites that she’s memorized (as at the convention and the debate). But there’s a steady unnerving undertone to Palin’s utterances, a consistent message of hubristic self-confidence and hyper-ambition. She wants to be president, she thinks she can be president, she thinks she will be president. And perhaps soon. She often sounds like someone who sees herself as half-a-heartbeat away from the presidency. Or who is seen that way by her own camp, the hard-right G.O.P. base that never liked McCain anyway and views him as, at best, a White House place holder.

This was first apparent when Palin extolled a “small town” vice president as a hero in her convention speech — and cited not one of the many Republican vice presidents who fit that bill but, bizarrely, Harry Truman, a Democrat who succeeded a president who died in office. A few weeks later came Charlie Gibson’s question about whether she thought she was “experienced enough” and “ready” when McCain invited her to join his ticket. Palin replied that she didn’t “hesitate” and didn’t “even blink” — a response that seemed jarring for its lack of any human modesty, even false modesty.

In the last of her Couric interview installments on Thursday, Palin was asked which vice president had most impressed her, and after paying tribute to Geraldine Ferraro, she chose “George Bush Sr.” Her criterion: she most admires vice presidents “who have gone on to the presidency.” Hours later, at the debate, she offered a discordant contrast to Biden when asked by Gwen Ifill how they would each govern “if the worst happened” and the president died in office. After Biden spoke of somber continuity, Palin was weirdly flip and chipper, eager to say that as a “maverick” she’d go her own way.

But the debate’s most telling passage arrived when Biden welled up in recounting his days as a single father after his first wife and one of his children were killed in a car crash. Palin’s perky response — she immediately started selling McCain as a “consummate maverick” again — was as emotionally disconnected as Michael Dukakis’s notoriously cerebral answer to the hypothetical 1988 debate question about his wife being “raped and murdered.” If, as some feel, Obama is cool, Palin is ice cold. She didn’t even acknowledge Biden’s devastating personal history.

After the debate, Republicans who had been bailing on Palin rushed back to the fold. They know her relentless ambition is the only hope for saving a ticket headed by a warrior who is out of juice and out of ideas. So what if she is preposterously unprepared to run the country in the midst of its greatest economic crisis in 70 years? She looks and sounds like a winner.

You can understand why they believe that. She has more testosterone than anyone else at the top of her party. McCain and his surrogates are forever blaming their travails on others, wailing about supposed sexist and journalistic biases around the clock. McCain even canceled an interview with Larry King, for heaven’s sake, in a fit of pique at a CNN anchor, Campbell Brown.

We are not a nation of whiners, as Phil Gramm would have it, but the G.O.P. is now the party of whiners. That rebranding became official when Republican House leaders moaned that a routine partisan speech by Nancy Pelosi had turned their members against the bailout bill. As the stock market fell nearly 778 points, Barney Frank taunted his G.O.P. peers with pitch-perfect mockery: “Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country!”

Talk about the world coming full circle. This is the same Democrat who had been slurred as “Barney Fag” in the mid-1990s by Dick Armey, a House leader of the government-bashing Gingrich revolution that helped lower us into this debacle. Now Frank was ridiculing the House G.O.P. as a bunch of sulking teenage girls. His wisecrack stung — and stuck.

Palin is an antidote to the whiny Republican image that Frank nailed. Alaska’s self-styled embodiment of Joe Sixpack is not a sulker, but a pistol-packing fighter. That’s why she draws the crowds and (as she puts it) “energy” that otherwise elude the angry McCain. But she is still the candidate for vice president, not president. Americans do not vote for vice president.

So how can a desperate G.O.P. save itself? As McCain continues to fade into incoherence and irrelevance, the last hope is that he’ll come up with some new game-changing stunt to match his initial pick of Palin or his ill-fated campaign “suspension.” Until Thursday night, more than a few Republicans were fantasizing that his final Hail Mary pass would be to ditch Palin so she can “spend more time” with her ever-growing family. But the debate reminded Republicans once again that it’s Palin, not McCain, who is their last hope for victory.

You have to wonder how long it will be before they plead with him to think of his health, get out of the way and pull the ultimate stunt of flipping the ticket. Palin, we can be certain, wouldn’t even blink.

Revelation! Not So Much Change and we like our leaders to talk stupid.

2008-10-05T07:22:00.000-07:00

So says the Right

She reads everything...or nothing...you decide

2008-10-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

GW reads nothing. GW doesn't watch the news. He has proved that being informed is not a necessary requirement of the Commander in Chief. Palin can also lead without being informed or educated. Education is over-hyped. Knowledge of world affairs is a waste of time.

Ladies and gentlemen may I present the Republican choice for VP.

debate

2008-10-03T05:09:00.001-07:00

Her performance was adequate. She was very stiff, nervous and got caught in "circular speak" a few times. Considering she has been preparing for this night for a month I would give her a C....She did not drop the "stupid bomb" like she did in the couric interview. Intellectually she was dominated. I missed about 15 minutes of the debate because I had to pick up my son, but I have it on dvr and will watch tonite...it was the Iraq war questions that I missed.

Maybe I am old and jaded but I don't see the "gosh darn", "Hockey mom" and "ya know" ism's to be an asset to what is needed in this country.

I thought she significantly dropped the ball on the separation of McCain from Bush. Biden hammered that point over and over again and she had nothing to retort.

confusion

2008-10-02T08:24:00.001-07:00

Bail out, No, bail out.
I was listening to the radio this morning and heard that it is quite possible that without this bailout we will suffer a crash equal to that of the depression era. They went on to say that even with this bail out we could very easily 'crash' months later.

I guess the big question is "how screwed are we?"

Bail out

2008-10-01T04:52:00.001-07:00

I'm ready to know the names now. We already know that our top admin. didn't see it coming..hell they didn't see anything coming. Bush had an NRG plan in 2002 where he recommended that people use more NRG, more oil, more gas....post 911? go shopping, spend money. He didn't see 4 dollar gas coming, and he completely missed this mess.

So who are the people and what are the business's that have now dicked up the entire economic system?

SNL

2008-09-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

Debates?

2008-09-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Everything thing will be in place tonite at the debates, except for maybe McCain. If that is the case, I think Obama should utilize the air time to do his portion of the debate. Let commentators ask questions and let him answer. They can then dig deeper into anything Obama says.
McCain wants to play political games with the voters?, go ahead, look like a complete ass. The right wants to hide Palin and her walnut sized cranium space?, go ahead.

Completely unprecedented behavior coming from the right. Which is in lockstep with the last 8 years of Republican control (which has drifted so far from a true conservative platform it is unreal)

ps. We held presidential debates while Sherman was marching on Georgia

pss. Will McCain actually have a point of view on this Wall Street bailout? I mean since he had to be there, shouldn't he have an opinion?

Are you F^@# ing kidding me?

2008-09-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

This is the VP candidate? This?!??! ok, show of hands...how many of you after watching this clip would vote for Couric over Palin. She is stupid. Her debate with Biden should be on "Pay per View". It is going to be epic.

an internet forward that makes sense to me

2008-09-25T15:01:00.001-07:00

This works for me!

It's crazy, but it just might work .....

I was doing some math and came up with similar results to this
85 Billion bail out. This e-mail is not mine but it does a good job of
matching the math. Billions, it's easy to say, harder to imagine.
Please take a minute and look at the math then think about one person
having the control of it all.

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a
"We Deserve It Dividend".

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000
bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.

Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man,
woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and
up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals
$425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve
It Dividend.
Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate
of 30%.

Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That
sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their
pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your
family?
Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it'll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the
folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company
that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed
Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do
it......instead of trickling out puny stimulus payments.

<> If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out
every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American
General go back to being American General. Sell off the real estate.
Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.

Sure it's a crazy idea that can "never work."

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85
Billion

We Deserve It more than the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC
.

And remember, The Family plan only really costs $59.5 Billion
because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Economy so bad, Bush changes vacation plans to "console"

2008-09-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

Bush has now 'Nationalized' more corporations than Hugo Chavez, and still can not give a speech.

McCain: We should deregulate health insurance like we deregulated Wall Street.

2008-09-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

From Liveleak.com

OK, a correspondent directs me to John McCain’s article, Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American, in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries. You might want to be seated before reading this.
Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

"Opening up the health insura More..nce market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/mccain-on-banking-and-health/

This clip is 7 minutes in length but well worth it.

2008-09-20T16:21:00.001-07:00

Things I don't understand

2008-09-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

The Republican party chose Palin to be the VP candidate. Does this mean that out of all of the prospective VP candidates she was the best option? She is the choice the Right made to be a heartbeat away from the single most powerful seat on the globe?

She embodies the best that they could find?
They believe that if the McCain/Palin ticket is elected and McCain, God forbid, is not able to serve Sarah Palin should be the President of the United States of America?

I am not surprised that the zealots instantly embraced her but I can not believe that the rank and file of party members with an IQ above room temp truly believe that this person is a proper choice.

I just don't understand.

a forward from me mum.....

2008-09-20T07:24:00.001-07:00

> I'm a little confused.
> Let me see if I have this straight.....
>
> * If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents,
> you're
> "exotic, different." But....
>
> * Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, yours is a
> quintessential
> American story.
>
> * If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic
> Muslim.
> * Name your kids Willow, Trig, Bristol and Track,
> you're a maverick.
>
> * Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
> * Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating,
> you're well
> grounded.
>
>   * If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community
> organizer, become the
> first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a
> voter
> registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend
> 12 years as a
> Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State
> Senator representing
> a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the
> state Senate's
> Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the
> United States
> Senate representing a state of 13 million people while
> sponsoring 131 bills
> and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public
> Works and
> Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any
> real leadership
> experience.
>
> * If your total resume is: local weather girl,4 years on
> the city council
> and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000
> people, 20 months as
> the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then
> you're qualified to
> become the country's second highest ranking executive.
>
>   * If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years
> while raising 2
> beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches,
> you're not a real
> Christian.
>
>   * If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress,
> and left your
> disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month,
> you're a
> Christian.
>
> * If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex
> education, including the
> proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of
> society.
>
>   * If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence
> only, with no
> other option in sex education in your state's school
> system while your
> unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very
> responsible.
>
>   * If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a
> position in a
> Prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her
> inner city community,
> then gave that up to raise a family, your family's
> values don't
> represent America's.
>
>   * If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude",
> with at least one DUI
> conviction and no college education, who didn't
> register to vote until age
> 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the
> secession of Alaska
> from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
>
>   OK, much clearer now.

2008-09-18T16:24:00.000-07:00

Palin as Madame Thenadier? brilliant.

Does anyone care about the truth?

2008-09-14T08:09:00.001-07:00

2008-09-14T08:06:00.001-07:00

2008-09-14T07:06:00.001-07:00

2008-09-13T13:24:00.001-07:00

> Subject: Garrison Keillor comments on McCain
>
> And it's an amazing country where an Arizona multimillionaire can
> attack a Chicago South Sider as an elitist and hope to make it
> stick. The Chicagoan was brought up by a single mom who had big
> ambitions for him, and he got scholarshipped into Harvard Law and
> was made president of the law review, all of it on his own hook,
> whereas the Arizonan is the son of an admiral and was ushered into
>
> Annapolis though an indifferent student, much like the Current
> Occupant, both of them men who are very lucky that their fathers
> were born before they were. The Chicago! an, who grew up without a
> father, wrote a book on his own, using a computer. The Arizonan
> hired people to write his for him. But because the Chicagoan can
> say what he thinks and make sense and the Arizona n cannot do that
> for more than 30 seconds at a time, the old guy is hoping to portray
> the skinny guy as arrogant.
>
> Good luck with that, sir.
>
> Meanwhile, the casual revelation last month that Mr. McCain has
> never figured out how to use a computer and has never sent e-mail
> or Googled is rather startling. It's like admitting that you've
> never clipped your own toenails or that you didn't know that
> toothpaste comes out of a tube because your valet always did that
> for you. It's like being amazed at the sight of a supermarket
> scanner. What world does Mr. McCain live in? Where does he keep
> his sense of curiosity? My 94-year-old mother has sent e-mail! .
& gt;
> Does somebody plan to show him how it's done and will they explain
> to him what "LOL" means?
>

This Palin I would vote for in an instant.

2008-09-12T04:55:00.001-07:00

2008-09-07T08:32:00.000-07:00

My favorite is when Karl "Melonhead" Rove calls Obama arrogant.
13% of the population thinks Obama is a muslim.

Bless him and his team.

2008-09-06T12:54:00.001-07:00

I saw this live and then posted at Lolifes blog. I had to add it. This should be required viewing for every US citizen.

The Bridge to nowhere

2008-09-05T14:37:00.000-07:00

It is alwasy interesting when the truth is 'spun'. Maybe she has what it takes to be a republican VP

Palin doesn't tell the whole story, just the parts that make her sound good.

Apparently not everyone in Alaska thinks she is wonderful. I don't think she is a liar, just a republican candidate.

More on Palin and her bridge to nowhere

I am voting republican

2008-09-04T20:03:00.001-07:00

RNC

2008-09-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Fred Thompson: big bag of wind. Same old story. Horrible delivery.

Mitt Romney: Surprising weak start. Stiff and a bit confusing, and I have been impressed with his speaking skills in the past. This is not a well written speech.

Huck: I always like his common man delivery. I find him genuine. I don't agree with him very often but I do like the man

Rudy: Thought he was a dick pre-911...then I liked him post 911...then I thought he was a dick, wasn't a dick, was a dick.....tonite I thought his speech was not as witty nor as intelligent as he obviously is.... I did find him effective while talking about Palin.

I'm very tired of the " Democrats will expand government and increase taxes" line....what has happened to Government these past eight years??

I am also tired of the sound bite about Palin that they keep on hammering "...she has executive experience"

Sarah Palin: Love the kids names....I think she might have inhaled.....nice speech...very John Cougar Mellencamp-esque......pretty home-spun...Norman Rockwell...June cleaver...all wrapped into one speech. ....and she went on the attack.....this could be one scrappy VP.......she lost me on the "lets drill for oil" rhetoric...we have plenty of oil, just not enough refining.

She is going to build more nuclear plants. That is awesome. I'll eat this computer if one is built in the next 4 years.

Her content was impressive. Her vocal delivery and timbre will be comedian material for the next two months and if they win, for the next 4 years.....

Overall: Good off the blocks. She put some "smack" out there...so now it is ok to give some 'smack" back...

Bravo!!, Republicans enjoy a win/win

2008-09-03T12:21:00.001-07:00

Hurricane Gus caused a convention re-vamp. Republicans do not appear rude and unfeeling.
Bush does not appear in person. No one has to hug him or shake his hand. McCain able to put a bit of distance back in his campaign.

Gus does not pound the Big Easy and the admin is prepared this time.

Sarah speaks tonite.....I can't wait.

When you prop yourself up higher than others see you....

2008-09-02T07:03:00.001-07:00

Excuses, excuses

2008-09-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

Shouldn't political parties hold their 'own' to a higher standard than the public does?
Are you tired of excuses from the opposite party of where your beliefs lie?
Are you equally tired of your own parties excuses?

Websters says

Hypocrite: One who affects virtues or qualities he does not have.

Really?

2008-08-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

How many people said "Who?"
How many republicans said "WTF?"
I did read that three years ago she was the mayor of a town with a population of about 6000...what other qualifications do you need?

Good pick republicans...

Entourage

2008-08-27T17:39:00.000-07:00

I don't know what is wrong with me. Three years ago a colleague encouraged me to watch the HBO series "Entourage". He was persistent. He kept telling me that I would dig the show..I would bet that he told me 30 times....I completely blew off the advice.

About three weeks ago another friend asked if I had ever seen "Entourage". "No" was my answer...He handed me the DVD collections of the first two seasons and told me I had two weeks to view them all. I took the DVD's, basically to be polite, and brought them home. I decided to see what all the fuss was about and popped in the first season, disc one.

Needless to say that before I got into the third episode I was completely hooked.

Yes, I apologized to the first guy and sold him the series is amazing. (and it is fresh and new, and fast paced morsel of pure entertainment)

But the real question is; why didn't I pull my head out earlier? "it happens" you say?
You have to realize that I did this with a long list of wonderful shows; (I am thinking back as far as I can)

Letterman- took me a year to connect
Seinfeld- same story. Now I have all the episodes memorized
The Office- Both the US and UK version
Weeds- another worthy HBO series

I just don't listen.

Ari Gold for President!!!

Xbox 360

2008-08-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

My boys have an xbox 360 with a fair multitude of games. They play on a 61 inch HD flatscreen whilst lounging on a nice leather couch.

When I was the same age, I had a stick that I could play with outside in the dirt.

I am positive that if I had a similar gaming set up that I never would have gotten past junior high school. So how is it that these boys get better grades than I did?

Being closer to 50 than to 45 and having taught for 25+ years, I am amazed at this generations ability to process information. I am amazed at their ability to multi task so seamlessly. I am amazed at their ability to handle a schedule, considerably more complicated than mine was at that age. I am amazed at their ability to handle stress.

But mostly I am amazed that while they enjoy "panorama xbox" I am watching those worthless Vikings loose, yet, another game on a 14 inch portable in the laundry room.

Yeah, they are spoiled

PS. Call of Duty 4 is the most amazing video game I have ever played!

DNC- Denver

2008-08-27T04:43:00.000-07:00

Hillary gave a great speech. I am not a fan but this was an effective motivating moment for the Democratic party. I am very interested to see what happens in St. Paul. Does McCain really want Bush on the stage?
fascinating times!

Two Questions I heard while shaving.

2008-08-26T04:53:00.001-07:00

Television is my alarm clock. This morning I heard a question and a statement.

Statement:

"Not long ago John McCain was traveling around the country trying to get folks to vote to privatize social security. One of the investment vehicles he touted were 'sub-prime mortgages".....

imho= I hope he has the sense to choose a VP with an economic pulse.

Question:

"Are you better off than you were when George Bush took office"

Of course the answer is no, but how many areas of our lives is the answer no.

here at "2 focus Inn"
Gas has doubled
Portfolio is down by 30%
Medical costs are way up
income has pretty much flat lined
inflation (food is breaking my bank...of course a 13 and 14 year old boys don't help)

My question:
What is better now than it was 8 years ago?

Polls? accurate?

2008-08-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

Who gets called by pollsters?
People with "land lines" get called by pollsters.
Which demographic has "land lines"?
Which demographic doesn't?

To what extent does this impact polls?

2008-08-24T09:17:00.002-07:00

2008-08-24T09:17:00.001-07:00

Youtube is the best thing in the world

2008-08-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

This is "The Real Group".
talk about killer ears....

Paul Desmond was the best.

Michael Brecker tenor sax
Mike Stern looses his mind on his guitar solo
I actually taped this back in 82'

perspective

2008-08-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

approx. 4.4 million Iraqi citizens are currently displaced from their homes.

more

2008-08-20T14:45:00.001-07:00

Double edged

2008-08-19T05:42:00.000-07:00

While I would love to see Tim Pawlenty given the VP 'nod' so that Minnesota can dump that hump, it would be just our luck then to have McCain win and TP does to the country what he has done to MN. True he would only be the VP and what impact can they actually have? (see; dick )

Worse than high school student council.

2008-08-19T05:35:00.001-07:00

Why do we have to wait until now to find out who the V.P.'s will be?
Why do we have to wait until after the election to find out who the cabinet is?
Why do we have to wait until after the election to find out who is 'appointed'?

In reality, the sum of what we 'don't' know, is greater than what we 'do' know.

Don't you want to know who will be on the team? If candidates had to announce positions prior to the election we would know the qualifications ("good job Brownie!") of people in high office.

Why would this idea not be a change for the 'good'? Maybe then the candidates would actually appoint qualified people for the thousands of positions that are filled with each new President.

bout that time

2008-08-11T10:37:00.001-07:00

Excellent comparison

2008-08-11T08:48:00.001-07:00

Obama: "Hi i'm a Mac"
McCain:" Hi i'm a PC"

because I have few original thoughts I stole this from lolifes blog.

video post

2008-08-10T09:14:00.001-07:00

Todays info on WBC

2008-08-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Brad H. we have another link to current Westboro Baptist Church info.

What is wrong with these people?

2008-08-09T07:29:00.000-07:00

Westboro Baptist Church

Sometime last week someone from the Westboro Baptist Church read about the murder of Tim McLean. (the 22 yr old Canadian man killed on the Greyhound Bus)
This someone must have participated in a meeting with others of like mind and it was decided that God wants them to protest at this young mans funeral. Did they pray for the family? for the deceased?, for the accused? or for the others on the bus? Or did they simply "use" this horrific story to promote a personal agenda? Striving to get publicity?, striving to inflame, striving for self-aggrandizement?

They are protesting against Canada....the country..

"The group intends to picket the funeral of 22-year-old Tim McLean to tell Canadians his slaying on July 30 was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and divorce and remarriage."

I am amazed at the restraint of humanity to allow this "freedom of speech" to occur.

I am sure that no one at the Westboro Baptist Church feels shame for the repeated acts of cowardice and insanity. This is just fine because there are enough of us in the world that are ashamed for you and of you.

double click for larger readable image.

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2008-07-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

Conservative Republicans?

2008-07-29T07:17:00.000-07:00

Did they blame the crew of the Titanic or the Captain? The buck stops at the top. We know that Congress basically sucks but when you sit in the Oval Office you are in charge and get all praise and all blame.

This is the President, this is the country.

2008-07-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

Things I won't miss. #1

2008-07-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

Bush Legacy

2008-07-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

"history will treat him well"

I read this statement in a comment over at Lolifes blog. It made me, once again, really think about the last 8 years. Maybe it is because I lean to the left, but I can't list very many positive things from this President/ Administration. Apparently I am not alone in this thought. I "googled" the words 'bush legacy' and as you would guess a billion hits popped up. I only scrolled through about three pages but nothing positive jumped off the screen.

So I tried "bush, history will treat him well" and the first site explained things quite well in my opinion

"Staycation"

2008-07-26T08:14:00.001-07:00

When finishing up with my summer employment one of our choreographers asked if I was taking my family on a vacation before school starts. I said "no, we will simply hangout at home, unplug the phones, lock the front door and kick it by the pool". She says "cool...enjoy your 'staycation'.

Apparently this new word is the summer trend for 2008. The price of gas has a economically significant number of Americans staying at home this summer. While I am currently enjoying my personal 'staycation', I wonder about the massive impact this will have on the millions of small business's that depend on 'the traveler'.

We are supposed to prepare for a potential 30-50% increase in natural gas and fuel oil this coming winter. While that seriously is lame, it does not scare me. We will not freeze to death and we still can afford to put gas in the vehicles. I will do the following; let magazine subscriptions go, quit the health club, drop my landline, stop eating out, wash my own car,
and experience a 'staycation'.

If true, very sad, very typical, very republican

2008-07-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

If you're not guilty...why then?

2008-07-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

I viewed this at http://www.lolife.com/blog/

2008-07-07T06:05:00.001-07:00

Limbaugh: ‘I consider myself a defender of corporate America.’

In a New York Times Magazine profile released online today, right-wing radio talker Rush Limbaugh declares himself "the intellectual engine of the conservative movement." Described by reporter Zev Chafets as "less a theoretician than a popularizer" whose "concerns are economic," Limbaugh proudly says, "I consider myself a defender of corporate America." Limbaugh’s claim is supported by the aggressive manner in which he acts as a "pitchman" for products on his show:

Some simply run their usual ads. Others use Limbaugh as their pitchman, which costs them a premium and a long-term commitment. And lately he has created a new option. At a much higher rate he will weave a product into his monologue (To a caller who said he took two showers after voting for Clinton in Operation Chaos, Limbaugh responded: "If you had followed my advice and gotten a Rinnai tankless water heater, you wouldn’t have needed to take two showers. And I’ll tell you why. . . .")