24

Twenty Four. It's the age when you've just finished your schooling, you are starting out on a brand new spiffy life just chock full of hope and opportunity. Or, nowadays, not so much.

Twenty Four. It's the name of the TV show that tried to excuse the Gitmo Heresy of torture.

Twenty Four. It's the percentage of Connecticut voters who support our president and his policies. Some say Connecticut is just a blue-er state surrounded by the bluest of blue states, out of touch and passed over. Others say Connecticut is a bellweather, and where CT goes, so goes the nation. With two Republican moderate congressmen up for election and likely to lose their jobs, and one democratic senator vowing to run independent if he doesn't win the primary, it looks like a shakeup is in the air. Wether it's a prediction for the whole country or just a storm in a bottle, time will tell.

Wooooooooo Hooooooooooooo

Rush Limbaugh gave himself in today, on drug charges. Our favorite hate spewer now has a mug shot to match Delay's. One single charge of doctor shopping. Darn. And if he pays the thirty thousand, and goes to his drug rehab classes, he gets a clear record in a matter of months.

I would not call it justice, but at least he was arrested.

What a Gorgeous Day!

Too bad I was inside the whole time!








Ooooh greenery!

Another Reminder

Arianna Huffington has an article about Ken Lay's trial, and points out that the elephant they're not talking about is more important than the crimes they are whining about.



So, as a reminder, here's what we must not forget:

Lay didn't become "Kenny Boy" and an intimate FOG (Friend of George) because of his folksy charm. Enron and its executives doled out $2.4 million to federal candidates and parties in the 2000 election -- including $113,000 to the Bush/Cheney campaign. Lay and his wife also gave $100,000 to Bush's 2000 inaugural fund (Skilling chipped in $100,000 of his own), and another $5,000 each to the Bush-Cheney 2000 Recount Fund to help assure there'd be an inauguration. What's more, Lay even gave W's folks a ride to their son's 2000 inauguration on an Enron plane.

It was money well spent, buying Lay and his company what Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record) has called "extensive access" to the epicenter of American political power. Access and influence.

For instance, in the early days of the Bush administration, while Enron was still flying very high, Lay and his company were given unprecedented input on the makeup of th Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the agency charged with regulating Enron's core business. Lay was allowed to personally put the screws to FERC chair Curtis Hebert in an effort to change his views on electricity deregulation. Hebert resisted, and was soon replaced by Pat Wood, Lay's handpicked choice.

Representatives of Enron also had at least six meetings with Cheney and his staff as part of the VP's secretive Energy Task Force., the last of which occurred just six days before the company revealed it had vastly overstated its earnings, signaling the beginning of the end for the energy giant. These meetings included at least one between Cheney and Lay. It was at this meeting that Lay handed Cheney a memo that gave the administration its marching orders on how to handle the 2000-2001 California energy crisis -- a crisis that we now know was largely rigged by Enron and other energy companies. The crisis cost the state an estimated $45 billion.

There's more, click thru for the rest.

Wednesday Dragon Blogging

Lest We Forget

Remember


I found this at Carbon Paper

Lest We Forget : The human face of our elective war

That lies have devastating consequences

That the death toll rises daily

That Amazing Sky!

Spring has sprung!

The trees are blooming, the sky was full of these soft bellied clouds, roiling in the wind.




Our only pets, these goldfish were 10
cent feeders three years ago. The big one in the middle is called stealth. He was black when he was little, and he was the only survivor of the blue heron and white egret depradations. Now we have a fine black net over the pond, so the fish can relax.







Finally Forsythia! It seems like there's one in every yard, around here. Along with Daffodils, forsythia is the first flower to bloom in the spring. We get a few pink trees, and the hardy tulip magnolia is starting to bloom, but the fruit trees will be a couple weeks yet.











The crocus are my favorites!

Unveiling the Water Garden

* as always, click on the pics for a larger view.




This year, the watergarden wintered under piles and piles of leaves. In this pic it has been partially blown off, so you can see the structure that Hubby builds over the pond to keep it from freezing. It's mostly 2x4's, with a pair of hinged windows, covered all around with tarps, and then heaped with leaves. We pipe air in under the stream all winter, from the basement where the furnace is. Warmest room in the house!


Last weekend, Hubby had stripped off all the winter paraphanalia, and started the stream. We quickly had a 10 gal/day leak. With a pond that only holds 150 gallons, that would get problematic. There were only two places the leak could be: under the stream(in the plastic under the stones), or the pipe that returns the water. So, we started stripping back the stone, to get at the plastic.

Five years will allow alot of muck to build up, and this stream needed a good scooping out.

While Hubby went to the garden store to get new plastic and hose, I mucked out the stream, and stripped it down to the underlayment. It was soft sand, lined with foam rubber (you can also use old carpet, just to keep the plastic from being punctured).





Funny, we didn't find any leaks under the plastic. Must have been the hose.












The new plastic arrived, and we got busy putting the
stream back together. Hubby decided the old purple plastic was good to go under the new black layer. More protection couldn't hurt.


We put the new hose in a new more accessible track, and started arranging stones to cover the plastic. The new flex hose is sticking out of the waterfall in the pic to the right. We went from 1/2" to 3/4" hose, so we could get 50% more flow.




Nearly finished here. Lots more detail work, but the main stones are in. *Whew* All that stone! My fingerprints are worn off. It took me a couple of days before I was moving again.






Finis!
The fish are happy.

Bush Pushes Health Savings Plan in Conn

Bushco was here yesterday to pimp his new smokescreen.

The problem with Bush is that he's cried wolf way too many times for us to believe a word that falls out of his mouth. He's proved himself so incompetent that my son came to me yesterday and said "So, what's wrong with my insurance, Chimpy is pushing it." My son so insisted that his insurance was now defective that I had to do a comparison.

I have insurance provided by my hubby's employer. I just ended up in a walk-in clinic with a sinus infection on a Saturday. I paid my $75.00 co-pay, and I just got a bill for the rest of the $140.00 : seems I have a personal $500.00 deductible. That means I pay all this with the sixty Cents on the dollar that I get after taxes. Our insurance policy, self insured by a world class corporation, pays a percentage after the co-pay and deductible. I have no real limit on the amount of money I'm liable for. Also, because the Corp self insures, they can legally say "we don't pay for: HIV, AIDS, brain tumors, etc etc etc". And, they can tell me which doctors I can choose from. If my preferred doc is not on the list, I get to pay all. And, I cannot have a health savings account, because I have too small of a deductible.

In contrast, my son's insurance starts at $1500.00, and covers EVERYTHING after that. He has a medical savings account for his normal doctor visits and dental, but if something really bad ever happens, he's only liable for $1500 a year. And, he pays for the rest BEFORE taxes.

Oh, yeah, and his policy costs about one tenth what ours costs. Course, he's in his twenties, and we're in our fifties.




Chimpy must have gotten this idea from somebody else...

Pics on the way to work

Bushco's coming.

Oh Great! I just heard on the radio that Bushco is coming to our state today. He is going to tie up the 95, the main one of our two main highways, during rush hour.

Thanks!




*not*

April Fools on Me!

Yep folks, that would be snow. Big fat flakes pouring down out of the sky as I speak. Yikes!

DeLay DeLay DeLay

Rove said Democrats are attacking DeLay because they have no ideas of their own.

"I think they're just desperate," he said. "They're not offering ideas in the debate, they're not being constructive, and so some of their members are taking potshots at Tom DeLay."


Remember, Rove always accuses the Dems of whatever he's doing or feeling.

Ha Ha Ha, it don't look too good for them...

...and in other news, Crooks and Liars has the video of Finegold taking on Faux News' Chris Wallace, and wiping the floor with him. So, how long have regular news talking heads been interrupting and talking over their guests?? (I'm so out of that loop...)

Another Open Letter to Lieberman (whom I have absolutely no respect for)

Dear Sen Lieberman,

I'm writing to find out what all is being done to rebuild NOLA, and why it's taking so long to get the full thing funded. You were so hot to give rich people tax breaks, and bomb innocent cities in Iraq, that you've broken the fed treasury. Incompetence permeates the republican party that you've been so cozy with.

I want you to know that we are watching what is being done, the Hurricane season is soon to start, and FEMA is still in shambles. FEMA should be broken out of Homeland Security, so they can't keep stealing it's funds for other (stupid clandestine spying) programs. Please hire back Pres. Clinton's administrator, he did a great job - give him what he wants, whatever it is, and chop chop!!! Are you all sleeping on the job there or what?

NOLA cannot be rebuilt properly without it's full population, so get on it and protect the city(and the rest of our Gulf Coast)! This is what you get paid for, no? Without it's heart and soul (former residents) that city will be just another Disney facade. Who wants to pour money into a tourist trap of the worst psudo sort? It won't last long like that. Put it back together like it was, only safer.

Sincerely,
SBGypsy

*inspired by Shakespere's Sister
** sent less impudent versions to my other Senator and Congressman

NBC 30 rejects Move On ad

*click the title for the link


NBC has declined to air an ad paid for by MoveOn.org, calling it misleading. I call bias, and have emailed the station to dress them down for it. I am so sick of Network TV schilling for Bush and his minions!


You could contact NBC 30 here

Wooo Hooooooo

Delay's out!!!



Succumbing to scandal, former Majority Leader Tom Delay intends to resign from Congress within weeks, closing out a career that blended unflinching conservatism with a bare-knuckled political style.

Republican officials said Monday night they expect the Texan to quit his seat later this spring. He was first elected in 1984, and conceded he faced a difficult race for re-election.

~ snip

But Democrats said the developments marked more than the end to one man's career in Congress.

"Tom DeLay's decision to leave Congress is just the latest piece of evidence that the Republican Party is a party in disarray, a party out of ideas and out of energy," said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.



...And here I am, doing the victory dance!



UPDATE: a new version of an old Elton John song, just for DeLay

Hattip to Shakes Sis! Truly snarkalicious!

A new stream

You have no idea just how much I long for some greenery...




The forsithia is not even budding yet.




The water flows along, but we need this rain badly, all that rain we got in February fell on frozen ground, and drained off into the sea.

Bush is Having a Hard Time

US struggles to recruit disaster chief as new hurricane season looms


WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of US
President George W. Bush is struggling ahead of the looming hurricane season to recruit a new federal disaster management chief after several candidates turned the job down.

"Seven of these candidates for director or another top FEMA job said in interviews that they had pulled themselves out of the running," the New York Times said.

~ snip ~

It said those canvassed for the job so far were "unconvinced that the administration is serious about fixing the Federal Emergency Management Agency or that there is enough time actually to get it done before president Bush's second term ends" in early 2009.

"You don't take the fire chief job after someone has burned down the city unless you are going to be able to do it in the right fashion," Ellis M. Stanley, a general manager of emergency planning in Los Angeles and one of those called by the administration, told the Times.

The report said Bush is now likely to nominate R. David Paulison, a former fire official who has been filling in for the past seven months, to take the job permanently.

"To a lot of people that would be an insult," said Craig Fugate, the top emergency management official in Florida, who said he also had been interviewed but then withdrew his name.

"They have been publicly out looking at how many different names and everyone turned it down and they come back and ask you?" Fugate told the Times.

With much of New Orleans and the Gulf coast still to be rebuild and widespread criticism of the government's slow response to Katrina last year, the White House is looking for a seasoned disaster official.

And all I can say is, "Har de har har har". No one wants to be the next scapegoat as global warming makes the Gulf coast unlivable, yet people insist on living there.

My mom had a saying, whenever we would bring things on ourselves:

"Now, put THAT in your pipe and smoke it!"

Check out Morning Martini

Go read this post over at Pissed Off Patricia's. Gosh, I wish I'd said that!!