Monthly Archives: July 2008

Happy Independence Day!

We are taking easy today.  We did do some light running to pick up a few things for our trip next week, but we did forgo the gym.    I feel guilty about it, but happy on what I got done in the way packing.  So I stayed active regardless.  And we spent the day watching the John Adams Miniseries on HBO again as they ran them back to back.

People are setting off fireworks.  I love fireworks that sparkle.  I hate ones that do nothing but noise….annoying.  I really don’t carry for neighbors setting them off.  I prefer seeing a pro display….I’m a snob.  I wonder if the people setting them off have any idea or reflection of why they are part of the 4th.  Here is a little history lesson, it is replicate the sound of battle during the Revolutionary War.

When I was little, I lived on an Army Post in Maryland and every 4th they would do an reenactment of the a battle between the British and the Continental Army.  That was 4th of July to me….not the parades and all the stuff that small town America does.  It also gave me my love and appreciation for our Founding History.  I know I’m a sap about it, heck I have a carry a copy of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence in my purse.

Here is some interesting articles on Patriotism that Time ran :

The War Over Patriotism

**This really explains the difference in how the Dems & GOP see it differently and it is sad that it makes such a division.  It really is a combination of both….loving your country regardless, but knowing our faults and dirty and always strive to improve and attain what we should be ideally.  To me, if you do not question and challenge your government, then you are not much of an American….not what the GOP believes, who they label traitors.  Our country is founded on speaking out and taking our government to task.

McCain and Obama on Patriotism

**From the candidates themselves.

The Declaration of Independence: The History

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

2008 05 11 133

Politics

For all those women who are upset that Clinton lost, do you really want McCain?  Because he will set women back even further :

Feminists for McCain? Not So Much

 How antichoice is John McCain? Let’s leave the psychological tea leaves out of it and look at his record. In his four years in the House, from 1983 to 1986, he cast eleven votes on reproductive issues. Ten were antichoice. Of 119 such votes in the Senate, 115 were antichoice, including votes for the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions and for the “gag rule,” which refuses funds to clinics abroad that so much as mention abortion. In 1999, the year he said he opposed repeal of Roe on health grounds, he voted against a bill that would have permitted servicewomen overseas, where safe, legal abortion is often unavailable, to pay out of their own pockets for abortions in military hospitals.

His record on contraception and sex education is just as bad. He voted against a 2005 budget amendment, sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton, that would have allotted $100 million to reduce teen pregnancy by means of education and birth control. He voted to require parental consent for birth control for teenage girls and to abolish Title X, which funds birth control and gynecological care for the poor. He voted against requiring insurance companies to pay for prescription contraception, when they pay for other prescription drugs–like, um, Viagra. The beat goes on, and on. With a handful of minor exceptions (he voted to confirm prochoice Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher after voting against prochoice Dr. Joycelyn Elders), he has a just about perfect antichoice record, including votes to confirm the Supreme Court nominations of Thomas, Roberts and Alito.

**NO ONE is going to tell me what I can do with my body!  And his stance on sex education?!?  No way.

Loving John McCain

Flip-Flop Free Pass

It is a challenge to find an issue on which McCain has stood his ground in the face of opposition from his party’s extremist establishment. “How about abortion?” you ask. Well, speaking to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle in August 1999, McCain explained, “Certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America” to be subject to “illegal and dangerous operations.” And McCain today? “I do not support Roe v. Wade–it should be overturned.” McCain says he favors a rape and incest exception for abortion prohibitions, but his party’s platform refuses to allow for any such exceptions. If the candidate plans on fighting to get this restrictive party plank changed, however, he has kept that information secret so far. What’s more, McCain has voted for every one of Bush’s judicial appointments, all of whom oppose a woman’s right to choose. What about gay marriage? In 2006 McCain was one of only seven Republican senators to vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment; two years later he told Chris Matthews, “I think gay marriages should be allowed” when states decide to legalize gay unions. Today McCain not only opposes gay marriage but favors denying benefits to unmarried couples, period.

McCain’s addiction to politically convenient flip-floppery is even evident regarding the issue with which his “maverick” reputation is most closely associated–political reform. Recall that much of McCain’s reputation as a reformer derives from the partnership he forged with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold to try to reform the nation’s campaign finance laws. He did so, he said at the time, out of a sense of remorse over his involvement with the “Keating Five,” when he helped himself to free flights on Charles Keating’s jets and asked regulators to go easy on the corrupt financier during a period when his wife happened to be Keating’s investment partner. McCain received an Ethics Committee reprimand, and he has consistently pointed to his regret over his role in the scandal as his primary motivation for his commitment to the issue, over the objection of many in his party.

That’s the theory anyway. And it is one so widely accepted by McCain’s fans in the mainstream media that many do not feel an obligation to examine McCain’s behavior anymore to determine whether he bothers adhering to the laws he wrote. Time managing editor Richard Stengel, for instance, explains that “McCain is so pure on this issue, ever since the Keating Five when he saw the light…. McCain has toed the line about lobbyists, about campaign fundraising.”

In fact, McCain’s devotion to remaining within his much-proclaimed ethical guidelines is a far murkier matter. It’s not just his close friendship and professional relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, revealed by the New York Times, that causes so many titters–it’s that McCain flew on the private jet of Iseman’s client Lowell Paxson and repeatedly carried out legislative favors on his behalf. Paxson wasn’t the only client of Iseman’s who appeared to get special attention from McCain; the Times documented other instances where legislation introduced by McCain dovetailed with key priorities of other companies, in the telecommunications and cruise ship industries, represented by Iseman’s firm–all of which contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his presidential campaign.

**This article is a must read for those who don’t see how the media gives McCain a free pass.

2008 June Powell Butte 0148

Just Saying Hi

Just stopping in and saying hi.  I’ve been totally bombarded with work the last few days.  I have numbers flashing before my eyes…icks

Doesn’t help that we have had more power bumps in the last few days then we have ever had in Florida.  We keep losing our damn network and oh, have I mentioned today how much I hate comcast…..gggrrrrrr

It is currently thundering and lightening.  We haven’t been able to see Mt. Hood the last few days due to the smoke from the California fires.  It may be a good thing because it kept it cooler then they were predicting so I’m not bitching.  I can’t believe I’m saying this after this winter and spring, but we could use some rain.  Our lawn is getting more brown then it does in the winter….wierd.

Good news, that has totally rock, I’m able to fit into my sizxe 12 Lee jeans…..grin  I can’t sit down, but I can zip them up.  =)  My trainer is proud of me since I’m only client from my old trainer that is progressing.  I’m like, I’m paying for this, I don’t want to give my chocolate because of blood sugar and my family has a history of heart issues….I’m going to lose weight, I’ve done it before.  I just need help, it is harder as you get older.  So I’m pretty happy about that.

Well, I’m keeping this short because I need to defrag my laptop.  I don’t remember the last time I did.

2008 June Powell Butte 0253

How to spend $ Millions

 

Torn_Rose

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3469271

Ten essentials, just to get you started:

1) Screw up, deny it, then fight by using every lawyer and dime you have. Roger Clemens just sold his Bentley, reportedly to pay legal bills. Marion Jones lawyered herself broke before she finally copped and went to prison. Paging Mr. Bonds, Mr. Barry Bonds.

2) Buy a house the size of Delaware. Evander Holyfield was in danger of losing his 54,000-square-foot pad outside Atlanta, and it’s a shame. He had almost visited all 109 rooms! FROM $300M UP TO $27M DOWN? EASY.

3) Buy many, many cars. Baseball slugger Jack Clark had 18 cars and owed money on 17 when he went broke. And don’t get just boring Porsches and Mercedes. Go for Maybachs. They sell for as much as $375,000—even though they look like Chrysler 300s—and nobody will ever know how to pronounce them, much less fix them.

4) Buy a jet. They burn money like the Pentagon. Do you realize it costs $50,000 just to fix the windshield on one? Scottie Pippen borrowed $4.375 million to buy some wings and spent God knows how much more for insurance, pilots and fuel. Finally, his wallet cried uncle. The courts say he still owes $5 million, including interest. See you in coach, Scottie! (For that matter, why not a yacht? Latrell Sprewell kept his 70-foot Italian-made yacht tied up in storage until the bank repossessed it, in August 2007. He probably sat at home and cried about that—until the bank foreclosed on his house, this past May.)

5) Spend stupid money on other really stupid stuff. In going from $300 million up to $27 million down, Mike Tyson once spent $9,180 in two months to care for his white tiger. That’s why Iron Mike’s picture is on our logo!

6) Hire an agent who sniffs a lot and/or is constantly checking the scores on his BlackBerry. Those are the kinds of guys who will suck up your dough like a street-sweeper. Ex-Knick Mark Jackson once had a business manager he thought he could trust. Turned out the guy was forging Jackson’s signature on checks—an estimated $2.6 million worth—to feed a gambling jones. “And it wasn’t like I was a rookie—I was a veteran,” Jackson says. The only reason he says he’s getting some money back is because he didn’t …

7) Sign over power of attorney. What’s it mean? Who cares? Just sign! The guy you’re signing it over to knows. And while you play Xbox, he’ll be buying large portions of Switzerland for himself. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar let an agent named Tom Collins have power of attorney once, and it cost Kareem $9 million before he figured it out.

8) Spend like the checks will never stop. Also known as the Darren McCarty method. Despite earning $2.1 million a year, Red Wing McCarty, who started a rock band called Grinder, went splat by investing in everything but fur socks ($490,000 in unlikely-to-be-repaid loans) and gambling large ($185,000 in casino markers). In other words, a Tuesday for John Daly.

9) Just ball. Don’t write your own checks. Don’t drive your own car. Don’t raise your own kids. Just be a tall slab of skilled meat for others to feast on. Not to worry. It’ll be over before you know it.

10) Most of all, set up a huge support system around you. It’ll be years before you’ll realize they call it a support system because you’re the only one supporting it. They’re all on full-ride scholarships at the University of You. “Guys go broke because they surround themselves with people who help them go broke,” says ex-NBA center Danny Schayes, who now runs No Limits Investing in Phoenix. “I know all-time NBA, top-50 guys who sold their trophies to recover.”
________________

#10 I have seen too many times with my own eyes… Sadly…

How Do I Feel?: contemplative contemplativeI be jammin to: Elvis – Suspicious Minds

Door to Door Bullies?

Torn_Rose

A few months ago we saw a story on the local news about how 8 solicitors in the Hillsboro area (I think) were arrested after making threats to people who said “no” to them so that story was on my mind from the start as I go over this.

We have had solicitors come to our door many times over the years, mostly in Florida where we actually had a woman barge her way past me into our house when I opened the door to see who it was, I mean quite literally she pushed past me and walked 5’ to Pauline and handed Pauline her card as I stood there thinking “What the fuck just happened?”, of course when we told her we wasn’t interested in her wares she gave us attitude but whatever.

The vast majority of the solicitors in Florida were Mormons who I got to deal with too many times since I worked from home and Pauline didn’t, so I would guess at least once a month I got a new Mormon coming to my door which after 4 or 5 times I just ended up yelling at them from my office to go away and leave me alone.

We currently live on the very Eastern edge of Gresham in the Powell Valley area, it’s a fairly nice area, new homes etc, but it’s sort of in middle of “nowhere” as homes go since the city boundaries end less than a block from us, so I wouldn’t expect having many solicitors coming to us. How wrong I was.

About 2 months ago some dude rings our bell and starts off with “Hey dude, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by yadda yadda yadda…” in a tone that made me think I know this guy, or at least he knows me so I am trying to think who is this guy talking to me like he’s my buddy until I look behind him and see a “meat wagon” so I cut him off from his babbling and asked “What do you want” which he says he has some meat to sell.

Ok, honestly, I have never heard of a door to door meat salesman before so this was new and kinda weird but that is what Portland (area) is about isn’t it?

I POLITELY tell him no thanks and please don’t come back, he utters something I didn’t really hear so whatever, I close the door and go back to my business.

About a month later the door bell rings  and I open the door expecting to see a friend of ours a 6’4” 220 lb black man and instead I see a 5’8” 200 lb white guy…. So imagine my surprise as I stood there thinking “WTF”…

Than I have the biggest case of déjà vu ever, so I am standing there “stunned” for a few seconds since I was expecting someone else, and I was in such a deep sense of déjà vu I wasn’t sure what was happing, I hear this dude who looked all too familiar tell me… “Hey dude, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by yadda yadda yadda…”

It took about 10 seconds to realize this is the same guy who I just told last month not to come back, and he was giving me the exact same speech he gave me last time. So I again cut him off and said “Dude, stop, you was just here a few weeks ago and I am still not interested and I said do not come back, so stop coming here.

He gets all sarcastic with me and goes off with “oh I was here before was I? When?” which I told him a few weeks ago and again to stop coming and I close the door rather irritated and turn around to go upstairs and I hear him talking shit to me through a closed door.

I open the door and asked him to repeat what he said and all he says “Have a nice day sir” which I tell him that is not what he said and we exchange words for a few minutes and it gets rather heated. I asked him “YOU COME TO MY HOME UNINVITED AND GIVE ME ATTITUDE????” And it got even more heated which I just told him if he wanted to make a move, I am right here, that is when he realized my button has been pushed as far as it will be pushed and started to walk away, I was pretty pissed.

He’s walking away, still talking shit to me when I notice his driver trying to stare me down so I asked him “Would you like to join this conversation?” and he flips me some shit and the other guy gets in and they start to leave when I tell them “why don’t you get a real job and stop bothering people at home” which causes the driver to get out and he pops off “I make $1000 a week, what do you make?” at which I laugh at him and they go away.

So I think this time, they will remember me and will not want to come back and I won’t be bothered by them again….

Again, how wrong I was.

Today, the doorbell rings, I go down and answer it and it’s a different dude with a different truck, but same BS line “Hey dude, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by yadda yadda yadda…”

WTF? Is this the company policy to say this to everyone?

I cut him off and being polite but stern and I tell him he is the 3rd person in less than 2 months to come here and I’m sick of it, take us off your route. He gets all pissed off and starts giving me attitude which I laugh and said “yeah, that’s the same BS the last guy tried, that won’t work with me, so go away and don’t ever come back and tell all your buddies to leave us alone.” I close the door as he talks more shit to me.

I get upstairs and realize this is bullshit, so fuck it, I grab my phone and wallet and I call the police to report this and I jump in my jeep and I track them down a block away as they was bothering another house, I give the description of the van, of the guys, tell them the past problems, the name of the company “4 seasons food” (nothing shows up on Google) and license plate number, since I parked right next to them I’m sure they know who I was talking to as I was letting them flip me off and try and stare me down as I laugh and tell the dispatcher what they are doing, I tell them where we was and fallowed them to the next house where they was clearly very pissed and talking to each other on what they should do now.

The dispatcher takes my report and tells me they have had an increase of complaints over aggressive solicitors so they will be sending a patrol car out to look into this. I hang up and come home and immediately Google “No Solicitors” signs, I find a nice red and white one for $8.99 and start to buy it when I get to the shipping which is $9.99….. Um…. it’s 3″x6″ and flat…

Fuck That… I made my own and hung it next to the doorbell.

Sheesh….

How Do I Feel?: bitchy bitchy