Mon, Oct 31st - 3:32PM

132.2 miles
hot

144 recordings of 39 types, with 23% free.

So the Gospel was Mt. 23: 1-12.  Trust me to think of politics!

The Scribes and Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses. All things, therefore, that they command you, observe and do.  But do not act according to their works; for they talk but do nothing. And they bind together heavy and oppressive burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders; gut not with one finger of their own do they choose to move them. In fact, all their works they do in order to be seen by men; for they widen their phylacteries, and enlarge their tassels, and love the first place at suppers and the front seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the market place, and to be called by men "Rabbi."

Doesn't it sound like congresscritters?

I wore red, Rich's favorite color. I was wearing red when we met.

I can't choose.

The Pittsburgh family decided to hook up with Skype so they could talk to Rich and to me, too. So they called about 9 my time and we talked a few moments. I showed them my pink fireplace ("did you do that on purpose?") I said to wait till Monica arrived so I didn't have to wake Rich twice. So they said they'd stay online (though we'd stopped Skype.)  Indeed they did... till about a half hour before Monica arrived. I went in with Monica and told Vince to hook up, only they were offline. So I called them, said "get online!" and we finally connected.  They figured out how to get their picture up, and Rich hardly opened his eyes but he did wave.  All he wanted to do was to lie down again.

Then there was an 8-way Skype, the 4 of them and me, Bernadette, Vince and Monica.  This went on for about a half-hour, just in time for the Steelers game.  That was fun.

The rest of the day was sitting and talking, listening for Rich. He slept mostly. One time he looked at me because I was crying. Caught me, it's probably the first time. Monica had brought meatloaf, potatoes, and salad. Yum. After she left (Rich did tell her "goodbye") he got partway up on his own and was sitting in the closet. It was nice to have Vince along to help lift him.

And we watched Amazing Race.

And so to bed.  Rich was up twice during the night. I availed myself of Vince's power (since he woke up) again to life his dad.

John Hawkins: The longer these cities go turning a blind eye to the chaos & law breaking at #OWS, the more likely it is to end in violence.

Mon, Oct 31st - 7:05AM

132.2 miles
BRISK!

144 recordings of 41 types. 23% free.

Rasmussen: -20: 46/52

I lost 1.4 pounds this week, with borderline blood pressure.

My crazy cat-lady cousin asked for prayers, I thought but did not type:
Cathy, Rich is dying, I do not care about your cats.

I told him who was coming today, and that Father E. would be coming. "does Father know I can't hear?" I take that to mean does father know he's very ill.  Father came back into the bedroom (good thing I hid the boudoir picture of me!  Which is not all that scandalous) Rich sat up for the anointing and received Communion, saying "amen" in all the right places.  Later in Church Father mentioned him a couple of times.

The gardeners came.  They whip through in less than 30 minutes. It's great.

Vince arrived about 1 and Roni and family shortly afterwards.  The kids were a little afraid of Djadja, of hurting him.  RJ didn't know what to say... he wanted to know if Rich would be watching football tomorrow. No, not so much. Everybody sat around in the bedroom for about 10 minutes, then Rich lay down again.  There was good conversation back in the living room.  Bernadette came.  Finally, it was time for the Novato bunch to go home.  Roni was in tears.  The kids came back in to kiss him and tell him they loved him.

I went to Mass. I chose the 5:30 so I wouldn't see too many people I knew.  After father spoke a few talked to me and I took the messages back to Rich.  I had ordered pizza and brought it home. When I got home, Vince had been helping Rich.  Bernadette went off to her party, and we settled in for the night. I'm so glad Vince is here for the week.

Golfer-in-Chief Obama complains House Republicans not working hard enough

Elizabeth Campbell: A furious little person is bellowing at me to "CHANGE YOUR RULES." Maybe she should go to Cesar Chavez Plaza this morning instead of to gymnastics.

"As an American, I am not so shocked that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name. America gave him the White House, based on the same credentials."
~Newt Gingrich~

Sat, Oct 29th - 8:42AM

132.2 miles
sunny, mild

145 recordings of 43 types. 22% free.

Rasmussen: -22: 44/54

Again, math is hard.

On the Nook, 239 books, 22% space left.

A generally quiet day. I went in and lay down next to Rich and read. He finally woke up at 2 and I brought him out to the living room.  This time he didn't even hold onto the newspaper. I put him back to bed at 7:30.  The time in the bedroom with him was very peaceful. I also, while he was out in the living room, vacuumed the bedroom and picked it up a bit, since I think this is where he'll be from now on. The bedroom has not been (nor will it be soon) on the cleaning schedule.

I found 12 pairs of new socks. :(

The girls' history/government teacher called me.  They've been on a cruise and just got back. Nice call.

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas.

Muslims at Catholic U.

However, none of this is the most outrageous part of the story.  The most outrageous part of the story is that the Office of Human Rights thinks it needs six months to probe this complaint:

    A spokesperson for the Office of Human Rights told Fox News they had received a 60-page complaint against the private university. The investigation, they said, could take as long a six months.

I can solve this in sixty seconds: “Those offended by Catholic iconography should not choose a private Catholic university for their higher education.” That didn’t take six months or waste thousands of taxpayer dollars.  The very idea that this needs six months of investigation tells me that we need to eliminate the Office of Human Rights, and perhaps replace it with the Office of Minding Your Own Business and the Department of Having A Clue In The First Place.

American Action Network: Make no mistake, the scariest thing you could be for Halloween this year, is four more years of Barack Obama.

John Hawkins: The #OWS people getting upset about homeless people freeloading off of them is my fave story yet from the protests.

Joe Duhamel And now they see the ultimate result of socialism. It does NOT produce the wealth of free gourmet meals, but rather, rice and beans for all. Not sure if they will truly get it, though.

Bad luck. Yeah, right.

What does this show?  You make your own luck.  The regulatory adventurism and class-warfare policies pursued by this President has killed the natural recovery cycle and extended the misery for millions of Americans.  Whining about the “breaks” is what losing teams do to deflect attention away from their own poor performance, and this is no exception.

Thu, Oct 27th - 9:58PM

132.2 miles
chilly in the morning, OK later.

144 recordings of 41 types.  22% clear.

Rasmussen: -23: 43/55.

Wow, big savings!

Obama’s biggest change will, on average, put $8 in the pockets of student-loan debtors.  In contrast, Obama’s Making Work Pay tax cut added about $8 per week to the paychecks of all workers in the US for more than two and a half years.  Did this lead to an economic renaissance?  Not exactly.

The president understands that he’s not dealing with people who took out loans for math degrees.
myrenovations on October 27, 2011 at 10:13 AM

Math is Hard

I was moderately annoyed by two things last night... Rich spent so long in the bathroom (just getting his head together to go to bed) that my annoying little cat urinated on the carpet outside (on an area I usually have blocked, too...) I hit it with the enzyme stuff right away so I don't think she'll suddenly decide this is the place. And I've blocked it again, too. The other thing is mostly annoyance with myself, for all the times last month I went into the office and found Rich playing solitaire, and I didn't say "what about that list of who to notify and my pensions, etc?" I only asked him once, and I didn't particularly want to bring it up again on the theory that it wasn't displaying optimism.  I did think I had more time. At least he did give me passwords for the accounts. I notified an old high school friend on his hotmail account and now I've heard from a number of his friends.

While I was looking in the office for information, I found his Prostate Cancer book.  Sigh.
How I wish that was the only worry we had. Or even better, his knee pain.

I got him up about 11 today and out to the living room.  We started in the wheelchair but he started to say "I want to sit here."  "You ARE sitting."  But finally I understood he wanted the Laz-e-Boy back, and so I moved him and it and him to it. Then I gave him his newspaper. He then complained about the show I had on TV, Law and Order UK.  "I've already seen this twice this week."  Well, no, actually, no you haven't. It hasn't been on and you haven't seen anything that was on.  However, I changed the show. Crabby's good, it's a lot better than the lumpish acceptance of everything done to him.

And to sleep. He was pretty sleepy when the nurse came. I am still worried about the cough and she still isn't paying much attention to me.  I did have a question, since I know Rich's time is short, my question being what would happen.  I didn't have to ask, since she handed me a chart that talked about possible symptoms. As I suspected, he's in the "days" place. I knew this, but it's hard to see it in writing.

Bernadette came in the late afternoon. I had begun to worry because she was later than I expected. I took off immediately and went to the commissary.  I got milk for Vince's visit. They didn't have Tillamook cheese today, or breakfast pizzas. :(

Then she stayed for dinner.  We chatted. Rich semi-listened. I gave him his pain pills early.  After she left he opened his eyes and tried to read the paper. Checked on where his glasses were.  Then, about 8:30, he struggled to get up to go to the bathroom... ha, told him so.  I helped him out of the chair.  And so to bed for him. I'm so sad.

My brother posted a pie chart that purports to show why "we must occupy our country."  The only thing is, all the "green" stuff that is overshadowed by the money spent by the Pentagon is not in the Constitution, while defense actually is. So my reaction is to get rid of all the green stuff, like education and health, and then shrink the Pentagon budget, making a much smaller, though red, circle.

Kitchen Cabinet
From one of our fun-loving members:

My daughter just walked into the living room and said "Dad, cancel my
allowance immediately, rent my room out, throw all my clothes out of the
window, take my TV, and stereo, and iPhone, and iPod, and my laptop.
Please take all of my jewelry to the Salvation Army or Cash Converters.
Then sell my new car, take my front door key away from me and throw me
out of the house. Then disown me and never talk to me again. And don't
forget to write me out of your will and leave my share to my brother."

Well, she didn't put it quite like that.. she actually said...

"Dad I have decided to work for Obama's re-election campaign."

Gaiman interviews Pratchett

Michael Papadopoulos
Pratchett always struck me as a very cool and down to earth dude. When my dad first brought home a humble 33.6kbps modem 17ish years ago, one of the first things I did was discover the Usenet group devoted to his books. Imagine my surprise when I realised that, despite being richer than Zeus and having such unnumbered swarms of fans that their stampedes leave entire savannahs barren of all vegetation, he was there, on Usenet (posting as pterry), taking part in all sorts of pointless conversations and being all chummy with his fans, completely oblivious to the fact that he was basically our living god. The internet was a very wild, scary and unregulated place back then (full of not just trolls, but also Balrogs winged AND unwinged!), and it was astounding that someone as successful as he was even back then took so much time to talk to his fans. (AND still publish 2 books a year!) He's truly one of the most likable and humble celebrities on Earth.

(We've met him, actually had dinner with him and about 20 other fans, and got some door prizes, too.)

Wed, Oct 26th - 6:50PM

132.1 miles
chilly in the morning, OK later.

167 recordings of 46 types. 12% left.

Rasmussen: -21: 43/55

Poor campaigner.

That’s an old-style lefty ideology you got there, Mr. Prez.
NeighborhoodCatLady on October 26, 2011 at 8:10 AM

It's another sleepy day. I got Rich up about 10:30 because the aide was coming to give him a shower. He wasn't happy about that, but once it was done, I think he felt better. He told the aide he was embarrassed.  I put him into the wheelchair instead of his comfy chair. He doesn't look as comfortable, but he could get up more easily... only he hasn't.  So I think tomorrow it'll be the other chair.  Maybe.

They finally took the other oxygen away. I had a nice call from my sister. Then this afternoon we had a visit from a guy I haven't seen since shortly after my mother died, 20 years ago.  It was nice catching up a little bit.

I think I'll wait another hour, then take Rich to bed.  He woke up a few times, and actually, after the shower, he was awake about 45 minutes. He's had about half a protein drink. He's slipping away, and there's no way to hold on (apart from extraordinary means, which we don't want.) In God's time. I keep praying on the Come Pray the Rosary  site that he have a comfortable day and an easy death. 

John Hawkins.

– Sorry, but I’m not sorry that I support our civilized Israeli friends who want nothing more than peace over violent Palestinian savages who want nothing more than genocide.

– Sorry, but I’m not sorry for being extremely skeptical of manmade global warming because the “scientific” case for it seems to be primarily based on politics, not science.

Peter Schiff:  I employ 150 people, how many do you employ?

The House has passed 15 jobs bills, while the Senate has dithered and the president has dallied. Yet, Steny Hoyer still has the audacity to mock the House's efforts at a time of 9.1 percent unemployment. LIKE this post if you think Hoyer's out of line!

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive'. She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German). Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted. Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. President Obama won one year before becoming President for his work as a community organizer for ACORN and Al Gore won also --- for a slide show on Global Warming. In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER I'm doing my small part by forwarding this message. I hope you'll consider doing the same.. It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated! Now, more than ever, with Iran , and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth'. It's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

Wed, Oct 26th - 7:01AM

132.1 miles
cooler, a little breeze.
(darn it.)

165 recordings of 44 types. 13% left.

Rasmussen: -22: 44/54.

All the right choices.

Rich got up at 9:30.  He's hardly eating at all.  He slept in the chair all day.  He opened his eyes about 6 and I suggested he go to the bathroom.  Then I thought he might come back out and eat a little and maybe converse for 15 minutes or so, but instead he went to bed.

In the morning Bernadette brought the kids by.  Gareth said "Djadja I love you" and Rich said "I love you too" and gave him a hug.  Joanna smiled at him and he smiled back. Then I took J. so Bernadette could hug him and Joanna felt abandoned and started to cry.  Then we fastened them back in the car, and Gareth thought I was going with them to the library. (He'd already been.  "I played at the library."  He also told me a little about riding a tractor (well, a hayride) at the pumpkin patch yesterday.) When I said "no" he started to cry, too, so I sent poor B. off with two yelling kids. Bye, now.

In the morning I had another hangup so after yesterday, not hearing from anyone, I got annoyed. I called the hospice to ask if anyone would be coming, and to inform them I screen my calls.  Then I got a call from the chaplain, who likes St. Philomene and was familiar with Sharing God's Bounty.  From the nurse.  From the home health aide. Yay.

The nurse was quite a bit later than she'd said, almost 2.  She's nice. I had her read Vince's tribute to his dad, so she'd know a little more about him.  She talked to him about Scouting. I had him give her one of the wooden nickels.

Later, a visit from a friend from church.  This turned out nicely, too. Rich managed to give her a wooden nickel, too.

I took a quick trip to deposit a check. I asked my neighbor to peek in at him if I was longer than 10 minutes. I was actually a little under 20.  Rich never stirred.

I was really disappointed when he went to bed so early. I'd hoped to go outside with him today. Maybe tomorrow. I'll see if he isn't actually more comfortable in the wheelchair. He gets a shower tomorrow. He's not happy about that, but I bet he'll feel better.

Monica called. She pointed out that we were lucky he retired early, and we did a lot of the things we wanted. She tells me that Niki warned them this would happen, the sudden decline. I'm so so glad we had that family reunion.

I have been writing to a lot of his classmates from high school. I also wrote our godchild.

So incredibly sad.

Snicker.

"Like" if you agree: What Occupy Wall Street protestors and liberals like them don't understand is that for every massive government program they advocate, SOMEONE ELSE has to pay the tab.

Oh, I think they understand, they just don't care.

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, The Cutters, Bess Streeter Aldrich.

Mon, Oct 24th - 5:27PM

132.1 miles
so hot!

166 recordings of 45 types.  13% clear.

Rasmussen: -21: 45/54.

Don't interrupt your golf game.

It's nice to be the dictator.

His Job. (video).

Rich woke up about a half-hour earlier than I'd figured, and in fact that was about the right amount of time to change his clothes and get a little food into him.  Also I figured out the traveling O2 cannister.  I got him out to the car and ready to go just as Roni drove up!  Yay. So she went with us and helped get him into the radiation place.  The good thing was he entered the conversation with her.  He may be a little weaker than last week, but he's definitely more alert.  He was so much better than that disaster last week!

Back home, the neighbors had brought me a Hallowe'en decoration which I refused. I hope I wasn't rude. I don't want to give anyone the impression we're celebrating, better to be the Hallowe'en Grinch.

The hospice people never called, or perhaps they did but didn't leave a message. Idjuts!

Roni stayed around so I could take Abby in for her vet visit and shots (rabies, feline leukemia). I also ordered 6 months more of heartworm meds, and also got 6 months of the Frontline flea stuff.  The thing is, I hadn't checked on that, and didn't need it. The last time we had it marked on the calendar was July 5. I have lots and lots of supplies.  The only reason I didn't do it while Roni was here is Abby was traumatized enough.  Though they did trim her claws!  That's got to be a lot more comfortable for her, and probably for us as well.

Rich slept all afternoon, though he did show a little interest when Roni talked to him. Bless his heart. It's a long sad slog.  Roni says I'm doing a good job and I'm very patient.  I don't see what choice I have, it's not his fault that having two shoes confuses him. She gave me my much-needed hug.

Mon, Oct 24th - 9:27AM

"Load the ship and set out. No one knows for certain whether the vessel will sink or reach the harbor. Cautious people say, 'I'll do nothing until I can be sure'. Merchants know better. If you do nothing, you lose. Don't be one of those merchants who wont risk the ocean."--Rumi

132.1 miles
80s

161 recordings of 45 types. 16% clear.

Rasmussen: -23: 43/56

I can't decide.

Did he not get enough attention as a child? For all you single mothers out there, this is what happens when little boys grow up without a father. It’s no wonder he’s trying to destroy marriage and the family. He hates and is jealous of anyone who has a normal and happy family life.
Tommy_G on October 23, 2011 at 9:06 AM

I got Rich up about 10. He was heading off to change his clothes and I talked him into only changing his undershirt and jammie top.  He's having trouble with that. On the whole, though, he doesn't seem much worse than last week when Monica and family visited, and he sat and slept. 

He's confused about time, always thinking it's night when it's day and vice versa, and he at one point said "I don't have keys" while patting his pajamas.  On the other hand, when I woke him to Skype with our grandson Zach, he was responsive enough.  Zach couldn't hear his answers, so either Bernadette or I would yell them into the speaker. It was a strange list of questions. Rich told a joke and smiled a couple of times. This went on for nearly an hour, so he was exhausted when we were finished.

Rich's sister called. I don't know why I keep hearing "Cadell" instead of "Fidele" when she calls.  Anyway, we ended the call in tears.

Our judge-lawyer friend came for a visit. I think he was shocked. Bernadette was here so we all had a nice chat. I showed him the note from Vince and he was quite impressed.

I chopped up some peppers from the garden to stir-fry for dinner. That really sent me into a tailspin.  SO incredibly sad.

WaPo Ombudsman says the Koch piece was unfair.

You do realize that this is the left wing’s media’s new strategy, don’t you? Publish a hit piece that amounts to journalistic malpractice. Get lots of additional press for the hit piece until its false accusations are assumed true by a majority of Americans. And then quietly have your “ombudsman” criticize the piece, when no one is listening or reading. I imagine they even give the ombudsman a heads up: “Hey, we’re publishing this really sleazy piece on Rubio tomorrow, but we think it will help the democrats. You’re probably going to have to be all ‘Ooh, that was bad journalism’ in a couple of days, okay?” “Yeah. Got it. I’ll act real disappointed and stuff.”

Rational Thought on October 23, 2011 at 4:38 PM

"[WWII] and the years afterwards confirmed the doubts I always had about the ideas I was brought up on — (I felt) that liberalism, feminism, nationalism, socialism, pacifism, would not work, because they refused to consider human nature as it really is.” -- Sigrid Undset

Sun, Oct 23rd - 12:30PM

132.1 miles
80s.

165 recordings of 47 types. 13% clear.

Rasmussen: -23: 42/56.

I'm 2.7 pounds down with low BP.  Yes, I'm feeling less stressed.

234 books on the Nook with 22% left free.

Rich forgot about where I put his supplies. Get the oxygen simple and confuse him some other way.

Vince wrote a very nice note on Facebook. I found the magnify tool so Rich could read it.  Will he have alert time today? (Yes, later he read it. Maybe. It's hard to tell what's sinking in. Poor guy! And it is hard on the computer.  I'll try to print it up tomorrow.)

I looked at his hands today and they were so swollen I called the hospice to ask for some Lasix. (Unfortunately, he'd have to drink more liquid... this is probably due to the tumors pushing on his veins.) I was decidedly unimpressed with Vitas. The nurse's favorite words were "hmmmm let me see" but she finally got me a prescription and told me where to pick it up.  I dashed out for about 20 minutes, and burst into tears while I talked to the pharmacist.

I was hoping he'd start to improve a little, would wake up more, would maybe be interested in planning his funeral and the newspaper ad... That didn't happen. The only improvement I'm seeing is he walks a little better (so on the way to bed I nearly tripped him. I feel like I've totally blown the day.) He took about 3 hours to drink about 2/3 of an Ensure, and he only had a little of his chicken soup.

Monica called. Just checking up, and also she told me she can come any time.

Sat, Oct 22nd - 1:40PM

132.1 miles
80s.

163 recordings of 48 types. 14%.

John Hawkins
In a world full of enormously talented stand-up comedians who are barely managing to survive, how does Mr. Bean have a career?

Applause!!

Steve Jobs told 0bama he's headed for a one-term Presidency.

    Alternate headline: “Obama gets great advice from only man in America whose ego was bigger than his.”
Jobs was worthy of his ego.
Disturb the Universe on October 20, 2011 at 8:05 PM

Rich figured out the oxygen this morning. AND remembered we were supposed to go out.  So they have changed the oxygen, and he doesn't need to know that. And we didn't go out.  A nurse came out about the time we would have had to get ready to go.  This is when the radiologist's office called to say we were no-shows at the MRI. Duh. We were at the radiologist's office at the time, and she said the MRI wasn't needed, AND that she'd cancel it.

We may have been messing up the thyroid meds, not that it makes much difference. (And I finally got the decimal points right in my head, and we're actually OK.)

I called the family in Pittsburgh. And cried.

The new oxygen came.  This concentrator is a lot smaller with a looooooong tube, so Rich doesn't have to remember how to hook up the traveling O2 cannister any more.

The home health aide came by and left some supplies. I took off for 45 minutes to pick up a prescription and to shop at Walmart for some bathroom shelves. I ended up with a drawer set, and have put it into the tub. Odd, but efficient.  The shopping took me 5 minutes, tops, and checkout in quick check was 10. Glorp.

This afternoon one of Rich's former scouts*, a friend of Vince's, came from San Francisco to visit.  Rich perked up for a little while and talked to him.  Ken asked me to leave for awhile and I walked around the block. Rich says he was expressing thanks to him for being there when his dad wasn't. A very pleasant couple of hours. *We had him from Cub Scouts through Eagle.

Washington Post fact-checks Biden.  Turns out crime is actually down.

0bama Coattails turning into albatrosses.

It’s not that they don’t want him there. It’s just that they don’t have enough cops on staff to insure that he won’t get raped.
RBMN on October 21, 2011 at 12:51 PM

[Heh]

John Hawkins: What #OWS can learn from the Tea Party: 1) Bathe 2) Have a job 3) Don't crap in the street 4) Don't get arrested 5) Commies & Nazis suck

Sat, Oct 22nd - 9:01AM

'God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.' (Psalm 46)

131.8 miles
warm again.

161 recordings of 47 types. 16% free.

Rasmussen: -23: 44/55.

Uhloquence.

“Washington asking for more tax revenue is like an alcoholic asking for more cash before a trip to the liquor store,” Sessions says in the video. “Even if the alcoholic asked a millionaire for the cash, it doesn’t change the fact that the money’s not being wisely used.”---Jeff Sessions

Solyndra Rule?

The first thing today was to see Dr. Blair. I stopped in the chemo room for a second to say goodbye to the people we've come to know the last few months. Then caught up with Rich signing in... they had paperwork, stuff they should have had at the beginning. I objected to all the middle pages, medications, etc. "Excuse me?  We're dropping chemo today, we don't need all this, right?"
The doctor basically told us what we already knew, that the chemo was doing more harm than good and it was time to go to hospice. Rich agreed. He looked so terrible. The doctor said "don't think of it as giving up, think of it as a different path." So we said goodbye to the doctor ("I won't say it's been fun...") and he referred us to hospice. There are apparently  three in the area, and the doctor's assistant looked up the one with the soonest opening.

Then we had to go to radiation.  Rich was so unhappy about that. He was gasping for breath in the elevator and this little woman asked "how old are you?"  "six-puff-ty-pant-pant-nine." Then the horrid woman said "*I*m 86!" Whooptido, so great for you. How insensitive.

I drove him over to radiation. Then, finally, home again.  There's supposed to be three more radiation treatments. I semi-hate that doctor.  She also lied about cancelling the MRI, since I got a call on Friday that we had been a no-show.  "Dr. Bevan told me she would cancel it."

Vitas Hospice called almost before we got home, and Tina came out about 2:30 to do the admitting. While I was waiting for her, a woman from the church called to offer help, including vacuuming or dusting.  She apparently knows Rich, and the only way I could describe her to him was "she'll talk your ear off."  She said she'd been learning to usher last Christmas and Rich was such a joyful person.  Yes. That's something I miss a lot.

Hospice will do a lot for us. At no cost, since our insurance picks it all up. There's a home help who will help him with a shower, something that's been scaring me.  The nurse will come once or twice a week unless needed more often.  Call them anytime, 24/7. They have meds... in fact, this evening I got a couple. Most of the medications he's been taking are covered, so I don't have to go fetch a prescription ever again.  They have their own oxygen, so Apria will be picking up their stuff.

Rich is happy about the social worker helping me with paperwork. I'm feeling some relief that I don't have to do all this alone, someone else will be helping to make him comfortable. He was alert through most of her (very long) visit, and signed everything himself and answered most of the questions. He said no CPR, no hospitalization, just be with him as he passes.

The sense of relief, however, didn't keep me from weeping and wailing at Bernadette. I'd asked her to come this afternoon, and was a little surprised when she then wrote and asked if she should come this afternoon.  She had missed my note and volunteered her prescence on her own. It was nice to have her.  She shared one of the meals Monica had brought me.

And so, the last stage of this extremely long sad trip.

Fri, Oct 21st - 12:14PM

131.8 miles
colder, cloudy

159 recordings of 49 types. 16% clear.

Rasmussen: -22: 45/54.

I can't believe I didn't mention Rich's doctor appointment yesterday.  Dr. H., his primary care physician, looks like he may have finished Little League last year.  I see why Rich liked him, though, he really does seem to care for Rich.  He was recommending Hospice, since the chemo is doing more harm than good.  We have, of course, been thinking of it. I had asked Rich before the previous CT scan what he wanted to do, and he didn't really know.

Up really early to go in for the radiation consult.  The radiologist is very nice, but she did lie to us.  (That and, when she said we didn't need the MRI and I said I'd cancel, she said "oh, just don't turn up.") The lie was "one treatment."  Turns out she really intended to do 5. Rich got tattooed and we waited and waited... we were there from 8:30 to almost noon. We had to use the oxygen at the clinic. My poor guy.  The idea of the radiation is to shrink the spinal tumor so he isn't paralyzed. He got carsick on the way home (another lie, "no side effects.")

He had trouble filling out the forms. Spelled "daughter" "daugoughter." This is so sad.

Rich then slept for about 6 hours.  When he woke up, he asked "what's going to happen?" I said "with you?" and we had a long talk about Hospice and stopping chemo.  He's been interested in people coming in here since Dr. H. mentioned it.  I said "I thought I'd have more time" and he agreed.  He never made up the list I wanted of who to notify. Maybe if the palliative care works he'll feel up to it. Vince says a friend of theirs has a father-in-law who stopped chemo and feels enough better to go out to eat. I would like that but don't need it, but it'd be nice if Rich could enjoy food again. It would be nice if he didn't have the constant diarrhea. If he had more energy. And if he could think again. 

He said "I'm leaving you with the lox cans" and I said no, the oxygen was a rental, and also it isn't actually lox. So I think our decision is made unless he changes his mind tomorrow.  I checked to see if he should take the steroid for pre-chemo anyway, and the answer was no. We're seeing the doctor and then going over to the radiation clinic (grrrr.)

I wrote Bernadette and Roni asking them to come (B. tomorrow, Roni next week) cause I need a hug.

0bama says Republicans don't want to help.

Charles Payne vs. OWS.

Residents getting annoyed.

DagnyTaggart: 10/19/11 17:11: Tea Partiers have their rallies, then clean up and leave. That's because they are the ones who have to go to work on Monday to pay their taxes.

Gregory of Yardale: 10/19/11 16:58 :The nerve of some people, thinking they should have the right to live in a safe, quiet neighborhood just because they are productive, law-aiding members of society. /sarc

Allen West says MLK would not have supported OWS.(video)

Obama Says #OWS Is Like the Tea Party… Except for the Sh*tting on Cop Cars, the Rape, Mass Arrests, Theft, etc.

Narcissist!

0bama says he's made all the right choices.

    All the choices, Mr. President?  All of them?  What about…

    The choice to appoint multiple tax cheats to your cabinet, including your current Treasury Secretary?

    The choice to keep insisting on closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, even though the public opposes this prospect — which was repeatedly blocked by a Democratic Congress?

    The choice to throw a lavish birthday party for yourself, replete with a barefoot Conga line through the White House, as the threat of a national credit downgrade cast a shadow over the country.

    The choice to file a lawsuit against Arizona’s law that authorizes state and local officials to help the federal government fulfill its woefully unfulfilled responsibilities — and that your Attorney General admitted he’d never read, even as he publicly denounced it.

    The choice to include two provisions – 1099 reform and the CLASS Act – in your unpopular healthcare bill that are so unaffordable and unworkable that your own administration has since abandoned them.

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand,  and The Man from Laramie, Thomas Flynn.

Thu, Oct 20th - 9:24PM

131.8 miles
hot

161 recordings of 50 types. 13% free.

Rasmussen: -22: 44/55. Expiration time.

The pharmacy called. There was a prescription from last Thursday that I hadn't picked up. Panic!  So I rushed over, and it turned out that it was something he already had, and he had enough for a couple of more days.  And, of course, this is when the radiology people and the  MRI people called. I called back, and even though the radiologist wants the MRI first, we're going to radiology at 0830 tomorrow and the MRI, in Roseville, at 1245.  Eeek.  Will I be able to keep him in Oxygen?

So Rich was asleep in the living room and I told him I'd be back in an hour. I raced to the commissary and raced through, got a bit stuck in line when my cashier (I usually do self-checkout, but this time I had 50# of dog food, and kitty litter, etc.) didn't know how to do coffee.  I looked at the bill, $38.29 for coffee? I don't think so. This took a little while to sort out.  Then on the way home I filled the gas tank. Yay me. I made it back within the hour.

In the afternoon, Father Eduino came over. I believe he was shocked to see Rich.  Rich woke up a bit for him, and he gave us both Communion. On his way out, I said
"Father, quit smoking!" "Did Richard smoke?  Maybe it's something else." "No, it's the cigarettes." "Well, people live to be 80 and smoke." "Keep telling yourself that."

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, 7 Willows, Ann Brashears, and The Man from Laramie, Thomas Flynn. (the last two are library books on my Nook!)

Elizabeth Scalia
"Stipulating that I am not wholly out of sympathy with the “Occupy Wall Street” movement—I wouldn’t mind seeing a few bankers frog-marched, as long as the politicians and bureaucrats who colluded with them wear leg-shackles, too—it is nevertheless worth noticing that the very same people who were duped into amassing enormous student-loan debt at the behest of a government unable to project so simple a cause-and-effect equation as “easy loans equal tuition spikes equals more loans” are now advocating for greater government control over their lives. The street rhetoric roughly translates to: “the government is corrupt and too stupid to know how to write and administer student loan policies; let it manage everything.”...The young people sleeping in the parks and on the streets are calling for a revolutionary supervision of all our lives, and they trust that once it’s in place, they will be given all they want, and they will be happy because life will almost be fair. But when they realize that America has become the land of “give me,” rather than “please take,” they will perhaps, finally, comprehend their callings.

John Hawkins: Obama criticizing someone else for being too close to Wall Street would be like Rick Santorum ripping someone else for being too pro-life.

Wed, Oct 19th - 6:12PM

131.7 miles
hot

161 recordings of 49 types. 13% clear.

Rich had a blood test this morning, and even with an appointment, we ended up waiting 45 minutes.  Then he needed to go to the bathroom, and somehow got all tangled up with his oxygen.  I had to straighten this out.  The whole oxygen thing is a great mystery to him.
That's another thing I miss: he's a very intelligent man. I don't know if it's just because he can only think about his misery or if the lack of oxygen actually killed some brain cells, but he's lost a lot.

Then we went to the bowling alley to clear out his locker and say goodbye to his (shocked) friends. It turns out that the lady who is in charge of the leagues just lost her husband to colon cancer. I had called the Pittsburgh siblings yesterday and found out that big brother Ed is doing OK, possibly even eating more than he used to.

The doctor called.  The tumors in Rich's lungs have grown, hence his shortness of breath.  To more concern to the doctor is the tumor (dammit) on his spine. He's worried it's impinging on Rich's spinal cord.  He ordered an MRI and a radiologist's consult. I spent the rest of Monday waiting for them to call, but no luck. It's apparent to me, though, that I cannot leave the house longer than an hour.

Father Eduino isn't feeling well enough to come visit, but will try tomorrow.

I found a catalog with t-shirts, including one with Rich's saying: Growing Old is Mandatory, Growing Up is Optional. (He used it when I turned 40.)

Daniel Hannan.
Please understand, my Leftie friends, that what has taken place since 2008 is anything but capitalism. In a capitalist system, incompetent banks would have been allowed to fail, their profitable operations sold on to their competitors. Shareholders, bondholders and some depositors would have lost money, but taxpayers would not have contributed a penny.

How Obama should support Occupy

"No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce." -- Thomas Sowell

Mon, Oct 17th - 4:16PM

131.7 miles
hot

156 recordings of 50 types. 15% free.

Rasmussen: -22: 45/54. 0bamateurism of the week.

I forgot to mention the gardeners started yesterday. It was great, but I'll have to check the gate after they leave.

I went to church early today and gave Father our address and a time tomorrow we'll be free.  Then I went home and basically waited for Monica.  Rich is really befuddled by the  oxygen, so I've taken to going into the bathroom with him to sort it out.

Monica brought at least two weeks' worth of food, as well as lunch (which is enough for three meals) of a pasta dish and spinach salad. Yum. Mark headed outside to trim the hedges in back. (He couldn't get it all, too high and deep, but he made a dent and got it away from the wires.) The girls were bored. Charlotte played in the playroom and took all the Fisher-Price sets out... reliving her preschoolhood, I'm guessing.  Genevieve helped her father.  Both played with Pharoah. Rich mostly slept while we talked around him, but woke up when they were about to leave, long enough to say something and appreciate the card the girls made him and get hugs. (Bernadette also came by after work.)

Bernadette and Monica are very different sisters, and it's odd because B. is Roni version 2, and Roni and Monica look like sisters, no problem.

Monica was glad she had a chance to talk to Rich when he was lucid, at Lexi's party. It was a sad parting, though at least he was aware of them then.

Mon, Oct 17th - 6:54AM

Terri Christofalos Burl: I heard a story on Hannity's radio show Friday night that broke my heart. The woman owns a small sandwich shop and the stench in the area has driven her customers away & these thugs are threatening her every day. Hannity ended the call by telling her that he will order lunch from her for everyone on his staff. These losers don't know what their cause is about and they are the generation of take take take without giving back. It's sickening. I will end by saying that I AM THE 53%.

John McJunkin: yet another distinction from the Tea Party, which never had any longevity or persistence-oriented goals, just to reduce taxation and government intrusion. OWS made the fatal mistake of promising an ongoing spectacle, and indeed, with today's 24 hour news cycle, they'll have to get increasingly outrageous and/or bellicose to stay on the front page. The good news is that many Democrats have endorsed or complimented them, and when the fecal matter strikes the oscillating rotary air circulation device, the right will be able to staple together some very effective campaign ads. Thanks for pointing this out, John - you just put a little spring in my Sunday afternoon step! ;)

Doug Lambert:  David, with all due respect, have the people being protested against actually taken anything somehow from these crushed people? I would say that there should be a BIGGER beef with the unreasonable union demands that continued to pile on business; The environmentalists and their unelected comrades in the EPA, etc who will NEVER be satisfied with any progress to the point of oppression; AND excessive taxation & regulation that have tipped the balance point with some enterprises finally left with no choice but to pack up and leave, or just hang it up....Maybe the out of work people should have been at the TEA PARTIES. Perhaps with less government stepping OUT OF THE WAY, and taking less of everybody's money, there would be MORE left to the people to spend on stuff, thus driving demand, and need, and jobs. Not much of what I'm seeing at these OWS events seeks anything but, in the end, MORE government-- and transfers of wealth, creating NOTHING in the end, but more demand... not for goods, but FREE STUFF.

Oh, I don't think so. (That MLK would have supported them.)

Interesting that Obama chose to say the OWS protesters are challenging the “excesses” of Wall Street — because the excesses of the OWS protest are precisely what would surely have been objectionable to Dr. King. The great Civil Rights leader led an intentionally moral movement — and that morality was evident both in the goal it sought and in the manner in which Civil Rights protesters sought it.
...The kids camped out on Wall Street haven’t exactly occupied the area with reputability. The instant gratification ideology impelling the protesters is everywhere expressed — in sleeping-bag sex, in drugged-out meltdowns, in litter-filled spaces. Even if the ends they aim for are just (arguable), they haven’t pursued them honorably....
Then, too, it seems the protesters are looking less for work as they are for the material benefits of work. They fail to see that excellence is its own reward. But Martin Luther King Jr. upheld the dignity of work itself.

Sun, Oct 16th - 9:43PM

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

-- Saint Teresa of Avila
Feast Day October 15

131.7 miles
80s

166 recordings of 60 types. 12% free. It's time to take off the Yo Gabba Gabbas. I don't have a chance to use them. I taped them in May and June, when I was still babysitting regularly. "Sleep" I did in February!

Rich woke up with a nosebleed. Then he went back to sleep and slept till 12:30. And I cried. A lot. I haven't been telling about that because I know Rich reads this, but I fear that's no longer a consideration. My enthusiastic, vital, intelligent, interested, strong husband has turned into a frail, weak, befuddled old man. It breaks my heart.

Bernadette and I went over to the Parish Festival.  (She picked me up so I could have beer!) It's a lot smaller than it was years ago, but the school folk are very enthusiastic. There were only a couple of things for Gareth to do, and I didn't manage a picture of him fishing either time we did that.  The other thing was the cakewalk and he won, so they chose a dozen cupcakes.

I had dolmas from the Iraqi booth, and my usual Philippine lumpia. Saw a lot of people who wondered how Rich was doing. Father Eduino says he'll come by on Monday.

Bernadette got two gift certificates, for Goore's and See's candy, at the auction and I bought two tickets to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  (Hoping to go back with Rich, but I'll find some use for it.) Then I went to the wine wheel and put all my remaining money on it, and won a bottle of Jack Daniels. Rats, I think I'd have preferred a cheap wine. Oh, well.

When we got back, Rich was awake, and talking to our neighbor.  He has a bit of good time, then goes to sleep again. He went to bed about 8:30.

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, and A Light in the Window, Jan Karon.

Gorbachev's visit brings more than 6,000 people. In Laramie!

Scott Ott
?"I can help you kick this terrible habit," said one alcoholic to another. "Here, have another drink."
US to Play 'Very Major Role' In Helping Europe: Geithner.

Ben Hart
Does anyone think these Occupy Wall Street protests are not orchestrated by Obama and George Soros as way to deflect blame from the total failure of Obamanomics?

A Piece of 0bamacare Crumbles.

You have to wonder just how bad of an idea this was, especially considering the plug was pulled by the same administration that gave the green-light to Solyndra. But I’ve got ten bucks that says Team Obama ends up throwing the blame on Romney and his advisers.

Gotta read it to find out what's in it.

Obama Surges to Another New Record – Third Straight Year With Trillion Dollar Deficit.

An Open Letter to Occupy Wall Street

You’re bored, lazy, entitled and want everything given to you on a silver platter, preferably by someone (previously) richer than you. Also, banks and corporations—except Apple—are evil. Many of you are also batshit lunatics...
those that are enabling your psychosis are doing it for their own power trip, and their interest lies only in prolonging your torment. They sit in their ivory towers rubbing their palms together, and they sneer. Because let’s face it: October has been a dreadful month for media and liberals, and if it weren’t for you, they’d have to focus on actual boring news, like the jobs bill, the President’s approval ratings, and his administration’s scandal Doublemint twins: Solyndra and Fast and Furious. But now they have you, and you’re…colorful, and easily manipulated...
Powerful people are exploiting you, because you are exactly the kind of conformist sheep that you rant against. When groups who align with you against corporations are corporate entities themselves, complete with pension funds, 401k’s and health insurance, they are in it for the long haul, and they just won the protestor army lottery. I’m talking about AFL/CIO Chief Richard Trumka, Wall Street billionaire George Soros, millionaire propagandist Michael Moore, and $400 flannel shirt wearing rapper Kanye West.
...You are protesting for the sake of protesting, and you have become a joke. You insist on wallowing in self-made filth while your “movement” has become a worldwide punchline...
You are the problem, Wall Street Occupiers, not the change.

The Official OWS Commercial.
The tragedy of this idiocy, of course, is that many of the 99 percent really are hurting terribly and yet the only way to pay for their “solutions” would be to tax … the 99 percent. The chump in the White House knows that perfectly well but he’s too gutless to break the bad news until after he’s safely re-elected or else the GOP would pull something close to 99 percent at the polls next year.

Heh.  How long before OWS is a "Rovian plot?"

Jim Treacher: If you think everybody should have a job, as long as nobody gets rich enough to hire anyone, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

Sat, Oct 15th - 9:31PM

131.6 miles
80s

167 recordings of 61 types. 12% free.

Rasmussen: -19: 47/53.

We want jobs, but we won't pay. (0bamateurism.)

T-shirt, Explore the Past

Nook, 229 books, 23% left.

I forgot to tell about a couple of things when Roni was here.  Rich was fairly well out of it but tried to tell us how to get cactus seeds out. Only, he forgot the name, so he was talking about zucchini balls, which was quite puzzling.  Later, he remembered he had a file with some special papers of Roni's, about her scholarships and suchlike.

Rich had his CT scan about noon, so we tried to hook him up to the smaller canister. It seemed to be pouring air out, and in fact emptied out in the car.  There's something wrong with the regulator.  So he had about an hour and a half without the oxygen. I called Apria and someone came out, finally, and replaced it with one that actually works.

I looked up the SMUD medical equipment rate discount.  I thought they had to have something like that. This thing will be on 24 hours a day or so. I hope Rich can print the form up tomorrow.  At least before we see the doctor again.

Bernarob got a truck! Yay!

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, and Home to Holly Springs, Jan Karon.

John Hawkins: Personally, I don't want Occupy Wall Street to go away. I want them to stay in the public eye indefinitely & get much more media coverage.

Lance Nelson It must be painful to the media to have to portray such a feckless group as having some sort of historical significance, other than the long term results of public education and social engineering. They are like Billy Mays selling some piece of junk that was obsolete 30 years ago.

Terri Christofalos Burl Yeah, I want them to keep pooping in public, making an absolute mess of beautiful Zuccotti Park and acting like the lowlifes that we know them to be. Maybe then everyone will get a clue about what's really going on!

Don Surber:
From Andrew Breitbart: “These are the same types of groups, the anti-WTO crowd that in 1999 attacked Seattle, attacked Starbucks, threw trashcans through the windows of Starbucks. This is the same group of people that created ‘Camp Casey’ at President Bush’s compound or house in Crawford, Texas… The anti-war movement has now been co-opted as a means to divert attention away from the Tea Party and on to an organization that shifts the blame from the government forgiving these out-of-control loans to their political cronies to the banks — many of which took the bailouts. It is a sleight of hand for the benefit of the Democratic Party and for the benefit of President Obama to change the onus away from the government policies that created our failed economic system.”
...
Do not allow the media — or me — to get away with portraying this as a bunch of trippy kids trying to re-enact the 1960s. Powerful people want to use these choreographed protests to assume more power.

USCG officer spit on:
Had even one Tea Party rally resulted in 140 arrests, defecation on police cars, speakers calling for a violent French Revolution-style change in society, or members of the military getting attacked with spit and epithets, would the national media have offered such a balanced report — or would the media have used any of these incidents to warn America about the latent hate and violence in the movement?

It is possible that in the short term you might be right. But in the long term things would progressively get worse as new generations of potential producers produce nothing without being incentivized to do so. But your future is only possible if there is no purging of undesirables. And name one Communist or Socialist revolution when all the producers weren’t purged? The inevitable results of course were economies that collapsed entirely followed by brutal oppression of all so that the ruling elite could stay in power. NotCoach on October 14, 2011 at 10:48 AM

John Hawkins: Working on a non-political column for Pajamas Media. Suggest differences between winners and losers in life.
        Curby William Graham That's easy. Just compare the Tea Partiers to the Pee Partiers.

Sat, Oct 15th - 10:22AM

131.6 miles
warmer

167 recordings of 61 types. 13% clear. I just took 30 scheduled recordings for today down to 7.

Rasmussen: -18: 47/52.

0bamateurism of the day.
I’ve got an idea — why don’t we let taxpayers keep their money to make their own investment decisions, and have the federal government stick to providing for the national defense and regulating interstate commerce?

T-shirt, Nuts and Berries.

I missed a couple of phone calls yesterday. My neighbor wanted to borrow some raisins, and Rich's bowling teammate called to see how we're doing. Rich says he's giving up bowling. I am so sad to see all his enthusiasms go away.

Yesterday Rich stayed in his jammies all day. Today it was chemo day.  He's very bad.
His numbers were OK, so once I got him into a chair, I went to Mass at the Retreat House. It seems the doctor wanted to see him, and they offered to wait for me, but he went on in by himself and I caught up with the doctor when I came back.  Dr. Blair is not at all happy that the thoracentesis didn't improve Rich's breathing.  He thought maybe hospitilization (me: "what did Rich say?" Dr: "not much.") I would prefer not because I think he might feel better at home.  The dr. ordered another CT scan ASAP and oxygen. I turned on the cellphone and we got this all arranged while Rich was still getting the chemo.

I got home safely then almost had an accident backing into our driveway. I'd waited for the cars behind me and didn't see the one in front. I must not let stress make me stupid!

The oxygen came.  Rich, sitting like a lump, barely could be coerced into saying hi to the guy, but then once he'd had some, while Tim was teaching me how to use the various canisters and things, he was able to concentrate to sign the papers. I didn't want to take that power away from him.

It is almost a miracle how much better he is. Steve called by Skype and Rich was able to talk to him for almost an hour. I have great hopes for this.

Jim Treacher: Note to Rahm Emanuel: Venture capital is when you venture your OWN capital.

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand,  Home to Holly Springs, Jan Karon, and some Hugo nominees.

Fri, Oct 14th - 8:06PM

131.6 miles
partly cloudy

167 recordings of 62 types. 13% left.

Rasmussen: -16: 45/53.

Who runs the Senate?

Drudge compares Pittsburgh 2008 to Pittsburgh today. OMG.

T-shirt, Phil Frank Run for the Seals one.

I went to church in the morning and then stopped at Raley's for Rich's medicine. Unfortunately, the one he really wanted wasn't there. The thoracentesis people had said that Rich's doctor should get him oxygen, so he called and talked to them and also mentioned this one drug.  So tomorrow they'll test his oxygen and will go from there, and they faxed the prescription to Raley's, so I got to go back in the afternoon.

He slept all day but he came too enough to show me again how we pay bills. I actually enjoyed this. There were a couple of times I had to help him because he didn't see something or forgot something, but mostly it was him showing me, and us working together, and I loved it.  My guy was back, at least for an hour or two. I've been missing him.

0bama's Teachable Truthiness Moment.

Chris Ellsworth:  Judy - The Smallpox was brought by DeSoto 200 years before 'Our Government' existed. The 'Map' is a snapshot. The Shawnee came from the southeast coast and were pushed into the Ohio valley where they made war and enslaved the tribes that were already there destroying ancient Woodlands Tribes in the Process. Natives here as well as all over the world were human and War is a natural Human Function.

2012 can't come soon enough.

Should liberals support Occupy Wall Street?

TruthOut:
If the federal government increased spending on infrastructure, gave teens jobs cleaning up their neighborhoods, gave state and local governments the funds to keep teachers and firefighters employed and encouraged employers to shorten work hours rather than lay off workers, we could quickly get the economy back to full employment.

If the federal government quit trying to do everything, the locals could do all this without first sending the money to Washington.  Locals know what needs doing, and if they didn't have to send all this $$ to DC where the bureaucrats waste it, what needs doing would get done.

John Hawkins: Now liberals compare their every riot (&) street protest to the civil rights movement –- which was only necessary because of them. - Coulter

John Hawkins: The longer Occupy Wall Street protests, the more Dems will feel compelled to stand w/ them & the more the public will despise them #winwin

Yeah, I know someone who's proud to have occupied the Air and Space Museum.  I can't imagine they made any friends or convinced anyone... more likely they pissed a whole bunch of people off, like I would have been if I'd been planning to visit the museum.

This week: Paula Deen said, "[Michelle] probably ate more than any other guest I've ever had on the show. She kept eating even during commercials. You know what their favorite foods are - it's hot wings, you know, those kinds of foods that are not necessarily top-of-the-list healthy foods."

Fri, Oct 14th - 7:20PM

131.6 miles
cloudy, gray

158 recordings of 56 types. 16% free.

T-shirt, Pixar pelicans, "mine!"

Today Roni came for the day. Of course, she turned up after I had gone to the commissary and taken the groceries in and put them away.  It's all in the timing!

Rich was pretty sleepy. He wasn't much company.  However, Roni and I talked a lot. In the afternoon we went downtown, to L street this time, to his clinic.  There was a long wait to start with and a long wait while he was having the thoracentesis. I'd hoped he would feel better, but it wasn't apparent that he did. They took out 15cc. of fluid, about half an ounce, it doesn't seem like much.

Roni brought me a coffee plant (I guess I'll be able to handle world-wide shortages now!) and later bought me an orchid.  Lovely.

After we got back home Rich went back to sleep and Roni and I figured out how to hook up Skype on my laptop.  We tested it with her Android, and lo, it works!  This is mostly to make it possible for Steve, who is unable to come here, to see his dad.  Of course, he was elsewhere when we were ready.  Grumble.

I sent her off in time to get home while it was still daylight, or close. It was really nice.

Oh shucks, I forgot Rasmussen. The 0bamateurism is Electric cars in MPG.

The Not So Silent Majority By Proliferocks.com
Nancy Pelosi accused the TEA PARTY of being "Astro-Turf" but for the most part the MILLIONS involved were totally grass roots. This "Occupy WallStreet" movement however has almost all of the THOUSANDS involved being manufactured and union paid astroturf...
Anyone in a union right now should be organizing to vote them out.

Jim Treacher
Critics say Occupy Wall Street and the rest of the "Occupiers" have no clear message, but that's not true. Here it is: "We're losers and it's all your fault."

Oooh, that smell!  Can't you smell that smell?

Double standard...
That’s the rule of mainstream media coverage: If they agree with a group’s politics, any amount of misbehavior can be overlooked; if they disagree with a group’s politics, any amount of misbehavior can be concocted. They’ve given up even trying to pretend otherwise. Which is why they’re on the wane. Which is why you’re reading this.

I know two wrongs don't make a right, but the irony is delicious.

James Taranto

“The left got what it wanted in 2008: a liberal president with a sweeping agenda and big Democratic majorities capable of enacting it. The result has been a great and failed experiment in progressive politics and governance. In due course, one hopes, the left will absorb some lessons–but for now, they seem to be suffering a nervous breakdown.

“That is one way to understand why so much of the liberal establishment is rallying behind Krugman’s Army, as the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests are known. Everything they believe in has failed, so they are turning nihilistic.”

The 1960s Radicalism will help elect a Republican.

“Photos confirm what I suspected: that most of the protesters are kids looking for their Sixties rush. Naked girls are painted in psychedelic colours. Handsome boys lounge around in cable-knit sweaters. Angry, doomed youth wave signs in the faces of frustrated policemen. Numbers are exchanged; kisses are snatched behind the barricades; disease is spread. This is what every generation of liberal has tried to recreate since 1968, be it the Watergate protests, the Battle of Seattle or the Stop the War Movement. I know this because I, too, once grasped for my 1968 moment. In 2003, I joined the sweaty ranks of the antiwar campaign. I was honestly motivated and intellectually sound, but I can’t deny the heady anticipation that a life of protest would lead inexorably to drugs and girls. I got the drugs but not the girls, and woke up several months later in a squat surrounded by Trotskyite bores who seemed far more intelligent when I was stoned. Zabriskie Point it was not…

“Protest is exciting when you are young, and everyone deserves their chance to burn something down. But the political reality is that voters don’t actually want the wheels of Capitalism to stop turning. They don’t want free love or a rainbow nation of stoners. They want a job. That’s why Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have made a big mistake in expressing sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street movement. They’ve endorsed a happening that is moral in principle but politically toxic. Ordinary voters – the boring, unpretty folks who get up every day and go to work and never once complain – will reject it at the polls. The silent majority will be heard eventually, just like it was back in 1968.”

Violence will be Necessary.

“India, the result of Gandhi, is 600 million people living in maximum poverty.

“So, ultimately, the bourgeosie won’t go without violent means. Revolution! Yes, revolution that is led by the working class.

“Long live revolution! Long live socialism!”

Wed, Oct 12th - 10:19AM

131.5 miles
gullywashers, RAIN!

159 recordings of 59 types. 16% left.

T-shirt, dinos Solid Liquid Gas. Roni gave me this one. It's so funny!

Rich had a followup appointment with the eye doctor today. And the rain held off till we got there, but while he was seeing the doctor I ran out to the car and got the umbrella. The doctor wants to see him again in December (oh, please please please), but his eyes are good.  They were yellow, and I was glad to know it's because the doctor put drops in them, not jaundice.

I then drove down the freeway in the hard rain, scary, to Bernadette's.  Rich didn't want to come in and he said not to bring Joanna out to see him in the rain, but Bernadette overrode him and I took the baby out to him.  He smiled and stroked her cheek.  Joanna smiled back. This is one of the harder things about Rich's illness: I'm afraid this much-loved grandchild won't remember him at all.

Then I took Gareth. On the way home I wanted to check where tomorrow's appointment would be. The rain was pelting down and the freeway was awful, not because of terrible drivers but because of the spray. I was glad to turn off and get on J street. I drove past the location, and didn't see the clinic. OK, then, we'll go home and check it out.  Rich, however, wanted to go back and check again.  I turned around, and drove past, only a schoolyard where the address was supposed to be. I thought maybe he had the address wrong. He thought we needed to look again, but at least this time I wasn't a mile and a half towards home when I turned around. I turned into all the parking lots and we checked.  Then I approached a 4th time by going into the Safeway lot to check.  Finally Rich said (total time, about 20 minutes) "I guess we should go home and check."  "What a good idea" I said.  Voices had been raised. 

At home, I called the clinic and then realized it's on L street. Ooops.  Never mind.

Gareth had a quiet day. He loved the dog being all excited. He made the train puzzle and wanted to do the 48-piece dinosaur puzzle. I had to help with that. I made the 16x3 frame and then he could figure out the inside.  With help.  After lunch I worked a church worksheet with him, discussing "match", "same", "different." He told me what dot was next and I drew the connect-the-dots picture.  He played with the colors a little.  We watched a Blue's Clues.  And he read or had me read a lot of books. He was playing with his little cars but wanted to put them away, so I said "are you a giant?" "Yes."  And the big success was he told me he had to go potty and pooped there.  Yay!

I got back on the freeway to take him home.  White knuckle all the way, though the only really bad part was as I was merging. I looked there but didn't see the spray-colored pickup without his lights on. So he was a bit of a surprise there at the last minute, and never mind that it would have been his fault.  But we didn't crash and I made it to Bernadette's at 20 or 30 mph.  Gareth was sound asleep. 

I decided to come home up surface streets. I'd heard there was an accident on that route (which turned out to be in the other direction)... and on the freeway on the way home.  I'd prefer the surface where the spray doesn't rise so high and blind you. And it was long but safer.  Rich was still asleep when I got home. I sure hope the thoracentesis helps him tomorrow. It's so sad seeing this vigorous strong enthusiastic man lose everything.

Slovak stopping Greece bailout.

"You sound almost nationalist." Oh, the horror!

Just imagine what it might be like if Obama actually listened to what some of his advisers had to say.

Texas Sparkle

People like to compare these Wall Street protesters protesting to the Tea Partiers. The biggiest difference as I see it, is that the Tea Party people understand who the real culprit is…..an overreaching ineffective government and the policies of Pres. Obama. These protesters scream about Wall Street influence, but cannot seem to point their finger at our President, who has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician over the past 20 years.

John Hawkins: Actually, fast & steady wins the race. It's just that you usually have to start at slow & steady to ever become fast and steady.

David Burge: Remember Martin Luther and his 95 theses? Say hello to the crustpunks and their 95 feces.

John Hawkins: If we don't have sex on top of this picnic table, Wall Street has won! #owspickuplines #occupywallstreet

Video

Tue, Oct 11th - 9:06PM

131.5 miles
partly cloudy

162 recordings of 58 types. 16% left.

Rasmussen: -23: 42/56.

I went to church early.  Then we had lots of company today.  Nick's parents came for awhile.  Then Bernadette came by after work and stuck around for a couple of hours, and Nick came.  His anniversary is tomorrow. We talked about that and his wife and soon-to-be daughter, who already has him wrapped around her newly developed little finger.  Nick will become a major next spring.  We discussed whether he'll go on to Lt. Col. so Rich will have to salute him. In his dreams.

Rich slept through much of this, but woke up to join in the discussions now and again. He even smiled a little.  Nick cheered him up, I believe. He stayed and visited for a couple of hours. It was nice to see him.

I walked over, before the company, to the nearby school park to check on a cache.  The last person to look for it was told it had been removed because of too much traffic.  This neighbor lives next to a SCHOOL!  And this cache was put in long ago, not that much traffic any more. Sure enough, it was still there.  Grrrr.  Then we (Pharoah and I) walked into the nature area and saw not one, but TWO, hawks.

Another hard call. I went with My Pet Goat.

Hypocrisy of the day.

Climate, Weather

7 October 2011 12:03PM
Blimey mate you're in for a drubbing on these threads they all believe that every occurrence is due to human sinfulness.

American Autumn.

They are in favor of open borders, presumably so that exotic Third World peasants can perform the labor to which they are noticeably averse.
...the great advantage of mass moronization is that it leaves you too dumb to figure out who to be mad at. At Liberty Square, one of the signs reads: “F**k your unpaid internship!” Fair enough. But, to a casual observer of the massed ranks of Big Sloth, it’s not entirely clear what precisely anyone would ever pay them to do.
Do you remember Van Jones? He was Obama’s “green jobs” czar back before “green jobs” had been exposed as a gazillion-dollar sinkhole for sluicing taxpayer monies to the president’s corporate cronies. Oh, don’t worry. These cronies aren’t “corporate” in the sense of Steve Jobs. The corporations they run put “people before profits”: That’s to say, they’ve figured out it’s easier to take government money from you people than create a business that makes a profit.

drtom312: 10/09/11 10:31

Just Say No to Communism
31 August 2011
Folks,
There is one (1) good thing that has come out of Obama’s 2.5 years in office.
During the Obama administration, the people of the United States of America, an historically center-right, God-fearing, pro-market democracy, have been witness to a real-time experiment in almost pure Marxist/communist-style government, complete with central-planning, government edicts and mandates, an exponential increase in government size, regulations, agencies, and rules, avoidance of the will of the people, economic mismanagement, and lots of long speeches.
This all is a result of “Change We Can Believe”, which change we now know to be mass unemployment, destruction of the currency, massive accumulation of unsustainable Federal debt, all of which results in a US economy which is declining.
Obama, et al, have made it clear to the American people that Marxism/communism does not work. This is an expensive, but extremely valuable lesson for the average American. This is a lesson that has NOT been taught in the American educational system, which has a bias to the Left. This lesson has been taught via the experiment of the Obama administration’s policies, performed in public view, which has made it clear to even the politically unconcerned, average American that Marxism/communism does not work.
America needs jobs, not speechs, not Communism.
Perhaps we should thank Obama for the lesson?
Respectfully,
Tom Johnson

Harry Reid's Nuclear Blunder.

When Reid was in the minority, the nuclear option was an “abuse of power.” Now that he’s in the majority, it’s simply business as usual.
...In other words, trampling the rights of the minority when you are poised to become the minority isn’t particularly smart. Reid may come to regret his nuclear hypocrisy if he becomes minority leader again in 2012. Indeed, he may have just given the GOP the key to undoing the Obama agenda.

Jim Treacher: Apparently, 99% of America consists of stupid, filthy, freeloading hippie freaks who can't clean up after themselves. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/eyewitness-history_595200.html

Allen Stegall It's more like 29%, but they do represent 99% of the nation's body odor.

Jenn Oates
The amount of energy in the universe? Zero sum. The amount of water in the hydryosphere? More or less zero sum (yeah comets bring some in, but we can't create it). There are things that are zero sum, but WEALTH is not one of those things. Because someone else has it, and a lot of it, doesn't mean it's been taken from you, or your ability to create as much of your own as you can. It's not a pie that is divided up because everyone can make their own dang pie.

John Hawkins
If Democrats in Congress were serious about #occupywallstreet wouldn't they stop taking campaign contributions from Wall Street firms?

John Hawkins "You can demonstrate all you want on Wall Street. The problem is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!" -- Herman Cain

Just protest.

Great article.

I went into San Francisco yesterday to celebrate our military industrial complex and on the way saw the Occupy San Fran crowd. This is what I saw. (warning graphic photo)
I covered the naughty bits. This is the movement the dems are proud of. This is the crowd Obama has ginned up. I’m not a prude and I know this is san fran, but there were a lot of family’s with children also walking by this guy on the way to watch the Blue Angels.

I’d say there were about 100 people. Maybe less. There were many more people just waiting in line for one of the porta potty stations over by the Fleet Week celebration so I think that’s a good sign.

You just can’t miss that Ron Paul sign either…

Ampersand on October 9, 2011 at 3:07 PM

Evacuate Wall Street
This would be hilarious, except that we all know who will pay the costs of cleaning up after this literal and figurative defecation, don’t we?  It’s not going to be these slackers.

[If ever there was a need for a blow torch...]

Worst OWS advice ever.

0bama's behavior is getting worse.

Tue, Oct 11th - 7:29AM

130.0 miles
sunny

165 recordings of 58 types. 14% left.

Rasmussen: -22: 43/55.

T-shirt: Instant Human

+1.1 pounds for the week, this has to stop. I understood why it went up yesterday after my pigout at the clinic, but why even more today?

Today I went down to Safetyville, meeting Bernadette there for a fireman's chili cookoff. I was a bit early so went to find one geocache, and then got to the place 15 minutes before I said we would meet... and there she was in the parking lot, two cars over. Her traffic had gone better than planned and she was trying to figure out what she would do with the kids waiting for me.  So that went well.

We bought our tickets and got our wristbands and went to check out the activities.  Gareth loved watching the ladder extend.  He was amazed at getting to sit in a firetruck, even wearing the hat (which never happens.) We got coloring books and stickers and got to talk to people. I learned our fire extinguishers are way way dead.

I was with Gareth at a spinner and he spun the dial.  Then he was supposed to answer a question. "True or false: you should have a smoke detector on every level."  I whispered to him "say yes" and he did.  They gave him a coloring book and asked how old he was, and he told them!  This little boy grows up more every day!

We tasted the four chilis and had different favorites. We bought raffle tickets and didn't discover till after we'd left that we must be present to win.  There was an unwitting $10 donation from each of us. As we left we got to see the helicopter (which had landed earlier) fairly close, and toured the State's mobile command center. Gareth managed to find the one button they didn't want him to push.  And so back to the cars, Bernadette off to see a friend, me to get one more cache before I got home.

Rich was sleeping when I left, after an 11-hour night.  He was sleeping when I got back. He was up maybe a total of 2.5 to 3 hours all day. Worry worry.

I talked to the gardener and he gave me a price and I told him to talk to Roni. Rich, later, said we should get the back hedge trimmed.  I said it could wait (I'll ask if I see them, but I haven't noticed them on the street recently.)  He'll start next week. They'll come every week. I'll police the yard and keep the dog in, but otherwise, stay out of their hair.

Speaking of the dog, he's too young to be cooped up all the time, so I took him for a walk, and ended up on some streets I haven't ever walked on, nice neighborhood. This in aid of getting myself in better shape, too.

I think the “deficit reduction” just got a whole lot harder — probably impossible — since President Obama has unleashed his “anti-austerity” mobs. Any efforts now to trim the budget will be met with riots. And it isn’t conspiracy theory to say this has been Obama’s plan all along. What we have to do to get this country back on track financially will never occur. If we get a GOP Congress and White House in 2012, they’ll be trying to cut the runaway spending at the same time they’ll be needing to call out the national guard in America’s cities. Obama destroyed America’s economic engine — the middle class — and has co-opted the very people he purposefully destroyed into his mob, has them out in the streets begging for government checks and calling for the heads of the producers, while the folks in the White House laugh their asses off at how easy it all was.

Rational Thought on October 8, 2011 at 9:04 AM

Ed Morrissey: "If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I'm not your President. You have that president already." #vvs11

Ed Morrissey: Romney praises Obama as the Republicans' greatest recruiter at #VVS11

Pooping on the Police.

Compare this filth and degradation with the pics you say of the Tea Party rallies. The photos tell it all.
- RealityBites, Bluemont, VA, 08/10/2011 17:31

I'm sure these defecating fools represent the heart of the democrat party to most of the rest of us civilized people. I'm betting they're unemployed because they're unhireable. I'm a small business employer and I would never EVER consider employing ANY of these primates.
- Pete, Los Angeles USA, 08/10/2011 17:29

Jim Treacher: After Jon Stewart's dumb rally, lefties patted themselves on the back for not leaving the place a trash-strewn disaster. So much for that.

0bama: Ballot Box Poison: Pittsburgh Democratic candidates would be better off campaigning with a Cleveland Brown than their own president.

[Heh]

Mon, Oct 10th - 6:36AM

127.2 miles
sunny

165 recordings of 57 types. 15% left.

Rasmussen: -23: 42/57

0bamateurism of the day:
Let’s spend 3% of our GDP in order to get 2% back! That sounds like Obamanomics, all right. And it also sounds like a better deal than we got from Porkulus I, when we spent nearly 6% of our GDP in order to get, er, almost nothing back.

Prep T-shirt.

Nook: 224 books, 24% storage. (I'm going to have to get an SD card at this rate!)

Rich felt well enough to go out to the softball complex today.  He got 11 softballs and also brought home a cache that had been scattered around just in time for the rain.  Luckily, though, the ammo can remains, so once it's dried out, it can go back.

Rich even drove the car over there. I regard that as a good sign. It tired him out, for sure.

John Hawkins: Why should anyone care what Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Roland Martin, & the other perpetually offended race hustlers think is racist?

Comments on the protestors.

Cain's Post-Racial Promise.

A significant part of Mr. Obama's appeal in 2008 was the color of his skin. Supporters were willing to overlook his lack of executive experience and any number of other significant shortcomings in order to elect the first black president. The 2012 contest will tell us whether the country is done patting itself on the back. Let's hope so, because the Obama presidency to date is nothing if not a harsh lesson in the perils of identity politics.
...Black individuals who don't see themselves primarily as victims are a threat to the political left, which helps explain why MSNBC commentators have derided Mr. Cain as a token and why Jon Stewart has mocked him in tones that evoke Amos 'n' Andy or Stepin Fetchit. To secure political victories, Democrats need blacks to vote for them in unison. Independent thinking cannot be tolerated.

AP Fact Check. Does 0bama listen?

Of course, he could be BOTH a liar and incompetent.

Michelle Malkin has more.

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, and Home to Holly Springs, Jan Karon.

Sun, Oct 9th - 4:56PM

127.2 miles
clearing, some rain

161 recordings of 59 types. 16% clear.

Rasmussen: -24: 42/56. 

My pet goat.

Smithsonian T-shirt today.

I've been dreading the news today at the doctor, but actually it was a bit better than we feared. Rich's blood count numbers were all up, with the red blood cells and hemoglobin still low.  The back scan shows something in his lower back between two vertebrae, possibly a tumor but also possibly a compression fracture or arthritis.  The doctor wants an X-ray to resolve this. The CT scan was mixed, some tumors smaller, some bigger.  The worrying thing was the fluid on his lung, so next week he'll have a thoracentesis to remove it... a needle in the back to draw it out. Sounds just lovely. We have the appointment for that, and a blood test first tomorrow, but the X-ray hasn't yet been scheduled. See the doctor again in 2 weeks.

A lady "graduated" today, her last chemo, she is cancer free.  There was clapping and even a certificate. She had baked a gorgeous pumpkin roll. I had some of that. A day-old donut which they gave Rich but he couldn't eat.  AND, when we came back from seeing the doctor, a cookie, since I didn't see there was more pumpkin roll and thought it was all gone.  Really overate, shame on me.

There's a teenage girl getting chemo.  She came in with some nice jammies and her own quilt. The quilt is pink, with handprints and signatures in various blocks, made by her family. What a great idea!

A protest or a temper tantrum?

There’s something pretty immature about blaming other people for your situation in life. There’s no question that the incestuous relationship between business and government is a bad thing, that’s why I’ve said repeatedly that the answer is to get the government out of those situations where it is entering into “partnerships” with business and picking winners and losers through direct and indirect subsidies. Those are the situations in which business is indeed taking advantage of taxpayers and it ought to be stopped, but to a large degree that won’t happen unless and until we drastically reduce the size and scope of government involvement in the economy.

(yet the OWS group want to go in the opposite direction.)

I will believe they are serious when they march on Washington. Until that time, my educated guess is that these are all Obama re-election rally’s. dirtseller on October 6, 2011 at 9:07 AM

We’ve become Greece in less than a year?
What are they protesting?
They are against other people struggling, working and earning more than they are earning? How stupid is that?
Van Jones wants an Anti-Tea Party using so-called Tea Party rules? All the Tea Party events I’ve witnessed were pretty tame, and highly patriotic. This stuff is just plain thuggery.
Standard Progressive political stuff, really…this is the face of the New America Obama promised way back in 2008…and the great unwashed will somehow win?
Obama got this stuff going, with his Saul Alinsky rules and his Uncle Frank inspiration and his band of thugs from Chicago….and his spending of other peoples’ money to satisfy more and more already on the public dole. Promise everybody free stuff, is that how Obama thinks?
OK, Obama, let’s hear from you? Are you in favor of these street thugs? Or are you going to do something that will clear the streets?
Or, are you going on yet another vacation?
coldwarrior on October 6, 2011 at 9:10 AM

    If you really want to protest somebody, shouldn’t you be camped out on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC?
….This manufactured outrage by the Liberal left is more about energizing the base and the demagoguery of their political opponents than it is about real change in the system.
This is the same Move-on…Code Pink crowd that was so outraged about War but then turned around and defended it when a democrat started running the War machine.
They used the difficulties of war and exploited the sacrifice of our Soldiers to score political points and win seats on the Hill……
….Now they want to exploit the failed economy, that their democratic supporters share a huge part in destroying, to demagogue their political opponents and distract from Obama’s failed Presidency.
Remember…When Bush was President…the buck stopped at his desk and all the signs and chants from the leftist were directed at him…..
Little to none of these OWC protesters are holding the “Wall St.,bank rolled” President Obama responsible for anything.
The OWC protests are nothing more than selective,manufactured outrage by the left in a desperate attempt to hold onto political power.
“War on Wall St. is not the Answer!!!!!”
Baxter Greene on October 6, 2011 at 9:15 AM

K Paul Boyev Wait, wasn't [Jobs] a capitalist? Didn't he create an EVIL CORPORATION??
[One whose products most of those protestors are using, no doubt.]

0bama hits disapproval high.

Do you like green energy and spam?
I do not them, Bam-I-Am.

Craig Summers Silly kids, didn't they read the story about the Goose and the Golden Eggs?
Who else will pay them the $20 / hr minimum wages? Dead men pay no wages.

Jim Treacher: Too bad Solyndra didn't make solar-powered buses. This guy would fit right under one.

John Hawkins: #occupywallstreet is about a bunch of lazy losers who don't work demanding that the people who do work give them money.

Mark Shea.

Lefties are typically good at seeing what’s wrong–You’ve got cancer!”–and historically dreadful at treating the problem–”You should abort your baby because who wants to born into a world with cancer. Then sterilize yourself because in a world with cancer, sex is our only joy. Expose your neighbors to radiation to make sure the cancer is fairly distributed. Also give us all your money and we’ll make sure it is spent wisely, something you can’t do because your life is so hard due to cancer. Then commit suicide because there’s no God and life sucks.

[and yes, he picks on the right, as well.]

This was in the context of the street agitator/community organizer type violent mob scene, now recognized as organized via Soros and union thugs turned loose to exploit the young mush for brains crowd who can’t articulate what they are even there for – Wall Street – while using the convenience of all the filthy lucre small area businesses rather than provide porta-potties for their personal needs!! (kris)

Betsy:

But the protesters in Wall Street complaining about the evils of capitalism just can't understand how capitalism improves the lives of everyone. Would they prefer to have European-style socialism which is now on the brink of total collapse? How much was the common man helped by the communist societies that grew up in the 20th century? It is only capitalistic societies that have led to advances in medicine, technology, food production, kitchen appliances, transportation, you name it. Where do they think the money is going to come from to hire the people holding up signs announcing their student debt?
...The unreported side of Occupy Wall Street - all the people who have been put out of work because the OWS people have been blocking off their places of employment. Yup, if this trend spreads to other cities, I can't see it winning many fans.

7 Fatal Missteps.

Sat, Oct 8th - 5:52AM

127.2 miles
hard rain

163 recordings of 60 types. 13% free.

Rasmussen: -24: 42/56. Only 36% believe that human activity is primarily to blame for Global Warming. Forty-four percent (44%) think long-term planetary trends are at work. Most think President Obama believes human activity is the cause.

Ineffective politics. Obama seems almost as intent on alienating his allies as much as his opponents.

Barack ØBlama on the 2012 elections as Democrat politicians begin to hide from him and reject even photo ops with him:
    “The difference is, you’ve got me!”
ExpressoBold on October 5, 2011 at 8:55 AM

[Yeah, Claire McCaskill is washing her hair or something.]

T-shirt: the same as yesterday, shock!  Hey, it's still clean.

I spent most of the day sitting around watching television.  Rich seems to feel a little better, thanks no doubt to the steroids he takes pre-chemo.  I'm nervous about tomorrow's doctor visit.

Tonight I went over to the reading group at Presentation. I wasn't sure I would, since we had a gullywasher going on just an hour before. It was good, but unfortunately the last of these.  Next week Father Ice-Cream has a meeting and then he's doing a series on the changes in the Mass. (I may miss the first one, since if Rich feels well enough we'll go to Yuba City that night and I must babysit in the morning, when the alternate one is. Oh, well.) We got about a third through the Introduction to the Devout Life, by dint of skipping the meditations. I'm doing those one a day as recommended so this book will take some time.

Father Ice-Cream recommends all the things I used to do when I was at Rocky Boy, as recommended by the priest there: daily Mass, frequent Confession (at least once a month), daily Rosary (which I'm doing this month anyway because it's the month of the Rosary), a half hour of silent prayer (Father N. suggested an hour) and a half hour of spiritual reading (which may have been in Father N's hour), and a daily examination of conscience.

"A liberal’s idea of being chivalrous is to hold the car door for you before driving you off a bridge." -- Ann Coulter

Newt: Fire Chu

"As President, I would have fired Secretary Chu for so grossly mismanaging taxpayer dollars. Furthermore, to protect taxpayers, I would have blocked any additional loan guarantees until a full investigation had taken place into the mismanagement and potential corruption in the loan for Solyndra."
...
On Chu’s watch, the Department of Energy co-signed for a $535 million loan to a company that promised to make solar panels in the most expensive way possible using the most expensive materials available for a market already glutted with cheap foreign competitors. The loan was used to build a second factory to expand Solyndra’s ability to make solar panels no one was buying. This made no sense, yet Chu signed off on the loan.
...
I am hardly a fan of Newt, but at least he is not dumping on a fellow Republican over a hatchet job in the Washington Post. Yes, sadly I am talking about Herman Cain.

Gingrich says 0bama should be held accountable.

Oh, come on, Newt: you know that’s not how Chicago-upon-Potomac works. Let’s review:

    1. The government borrows public money via moronic legislation and Democrat tools give it to idiots with low animal cunning.
    2. Their low animal cunning dominates initially, and the idiots give the kickback to the Democrats.
    3. Then the idiocy kicks in, and the idiotic ventures end, well, idiotically.
    4. The Democrats blame Bush horoscopes Tea Parties.
    5. ???
    6. Profit!

A history of lies.

Accessories to Murder.

Is CBS Covering up Fast and Furious?
We live in a strange era, in which our dominant news organizations consider it their most important function to prevent certain news from reaching the eyes and ears of the public.

Brad D. Buchanan · Top Commenter · Edward C. Reed High School
This is absolutely terrifying. I feel we are well beyond any sort of "chilling" effect, and gone into cryogenic freeze. This worries me far more than Dan Rather's fake Air National Guard memo about president Bush.

Occupy Wall Street?  Grow Up!

Lovely People… Obama Supporters Chant Against StL Tea Party: “F**ck All Y’All… F**k All Y’All” (Video)

Paulson forced Banks to take Cash.

Joe Abrahamson: The sad thing is that so many people don't remember that the banks were forced into taking the money by the Gov. It was a move for Gov control of the banks. The banks were forced into taking the money and forced to abide by the rules of the bailout because they had taken the money.

John Hawkins: No one has fought the power this effectively since Rage Against the Machine signed with Sony.

Joe Mariani: There's something so pathetic about these parasites on their parents' wealth wearing designer clothing and posting to FB or tweeting on their iPhones while protesting "corporate greed" that a word has yet to be invented to adequately describe it.

Jim Treacher: Teabaggers think they're entitled to the money they've earned. Self-Worthers think they're entitled to the money the teabaggers have earned. (I'll forgive him "tea-baggers" since he's being ironic. When someone uses it as an insult, I stop reading them, just like someone using the N-word.)

Ginger Cochran: By looking at the crowd pictures, I have never seen a more self indulgent, deluded, and pretentious fools in my life. The NYPD is showing much more restraint that I would....Ignorant brats being played for fools by an evil man who has already destroyed more economies and countries than most of you have even read about.

The Little Ice Age

Steve Jobs died. I wasn't aware of how much he'd been involved in: Pixar! GoE really loved the NeXT.

Jenn Oates: Someone just posted on HotAir: iRIP. Classic.

Hot Air:That’s the crucial difference between Apple and Microsoft — Gates made computers easier to use but Jobs made them objects of wonder. He made magic, literally. There’s no greater epitaph.

I wonder how many of the bozos taking part in the Occupy Wall Street protests are walking around with an I-Phone or other Apple product? They are railing against the very institution that allowed Jobs (and others) to bring to them the technological innovations they enjoy today. Apple went public with an IPO in 1980, three years after its incorporation. If any of those older moonbat protesters had the foresight to have purchased 100 shares of Apple in 1980 at the IPO price of $22, their $2,200 investment would be worth well over $300,000 now. But they would rather get free handouts from the government.
May Jobs rest in peace.
The Good Doctor on October 5, 2011 at 10:32 PM

Free Ponies will be the Death of America.

I am going to try to suppress the overwhelming urge to mock people who think every United States citizen deserves to be paid $20 an hour for not working, or that Wall Street ought to pay a trillion dollars (which I am told is a figure that is more than twice the total equity of every firm on Wall Street combined) to replant rain forests. Nor will I comment on people who are surprised that they don’t have marketable skills after spending $60,000 on a degree in jazz flute in any economy. While the people who have contributed to these websites are clearly not very good at life skills (or math), there are lots of people who have been legitimately knocked on their keister and now find themselves unable to pay bills they know they owe but simply don’t have the money for.

Wed, Oct 5th - 10:23AM

I enjoyed Dick Cheney's book, and took some notes on the Nook as I read it.  I wasn't sure if the notes would survive when I archived the book. (They do.)  Therefore, I copied the first few, particularly his Laramie years.  My comments are in italics.

p. 38: in the summer of 1963 in Rock Springs, was a different matter.  Many of my friends had just graduated from Yale.  Lynne, after spending a semester in Europe, had graduated summa cum laude from Colorado College.  And I was sleeping off a hangover in the Rock Springs jail.

I was in Rock Springs for a few days in the summer of '63!

p. 39: In the fall, I moved to Laramie and enrolled at the University of Wyoming.  UW is a school with many virtues, not least of which in my day was that, regardless of my previous academic record, they had to accept me because I had graduated from a Wyoming high school.  The tuition was $96 a semester, and I moved into a $45-a-month, one bedroom furnished apartment that fronted on an alley.

p. 40: In late September 1963, not long after I'd started back to school, President Kennedy came to Laramie to deliver a speech at the university's War Memorial Field House. I stood among the crowd of thousands and listened to him deliver an eloquent call to public service.

September 25, in fact. I was there too.

p. 40: When he had finished I left the field house by a back door and saw his motorcade pulling away.  He was riding in an open convertible and hundreds of students were running after him, wanting a last glimpse as he departed the campus.  He had inspired us all, and at a time when I was trying to put my life back together, I was particularly grateful for the sense of elevated possibilities he descrobed.  When he was killed only two months later, the mood at the university was especially somber.  Everyone remembered that he had been with us so short a time before.

p. 41 But our honeymoon afterward was one night in the Holiday Inn in Laramie, Wyoming.

Where I had my rehearsal dinner.

p. 41 With an elevation over seven thousand feet, Laramie was known for its challenging winters.

p. 42 We packed up the '65 VW bug we had acquired and headed for Wisconsin through memorably cold January weather.

The month before, we had moved from New Mexico to Illinois in OUR VW bug.  We also had a dog and a cat.

p. 43 our first child, Elizabeth, who would be born in Madison on a warm day at the end of July.

p. 48 the only suit I owned, an electric blue one that had caught my eye at Jon-N-Jax Men's Shop in Laramie...

p. 52 University of Wisconsin

looks like they've been radical for a long time

p. 54 The next summer in Madison, a van loaded with explosives blew up the Army Mathematics Research Center in Sterling Hall

p. 60 SEPTEMBER 1970 Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, died of a heart attack while hosting a summit of the Arab League.

We were in Paris for our 5th anniversary. Read it in the International Herald-Tribune.

p. 62 At OEO I also learned about the unintended consequences of government intervention in the marketplace. I remember, for example, one OEO proposal that promised to help migrant workers by moving them from Florida to South Carolina and teaching them to grow azaleas.  It sounded great until someone asked how many azalea growers there already were in South Carolina...

p. 63 Mary Claire was born on March 14, 1969,

2 months before Steve

p. 63  Antietam, Manassas, Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Fredrichsburg, and Harpers Ferry:

btdt

p. 65 the inflation rate that had hovered comfortably around 1.5 percent at the beginning of the 1960s had climbed to 5 percent.  The unemployment rate had nearly doubled to 67 percent.

p. 66 economy

We need him now!  He'd get the supercommittee into shape! 

p. 67 Khruschev became expansive.  He said that sometimes in order to be a statesman, you have to be a politician. If the public sees an imaginary river in front of them, the politician doesn't tell them there's no river. A politician builds an imaginary bridge over the imaginary river. Nixon told the story as though there was guidance to be found in it, and I took his point to be that if the piblic thought food prices were a problem, the politician should offer a solution, thereby preserving his ability to make statesmanlike decisions another day.

p. 67 it didn't matter how smart we were or how many regulations we wrote.  There wasn't any way we could intervene without doing more harm than good.

good!

p. 67 when something as big and ham-handed as the federal government tries to run something as complex and dynamic as the American economy, the result is sure to be a train wreck.

p. 69 For nearly a decade, price controls on oil and gas acted as a dis-incentive to achieving the fuel efficiency that we finally came to recognize as crucial.

so then what was the problem after that?

p. 84 President Nixon had given his assurance that the U.S. would help the South Vietnamese resist a renewed enemy attack, but the antiwar forces in both houses of Congress were able to cut off funding that would have been necessary to support - or save - our South Vietnamese ally.

p. 89 Ford believed that Helsinki would open the door to a debate the Soviets could never win, while giving courage to dissenters and protestors across the Soviet empire.  And time would show that he was right.

p. 108 Ford was exactly the kind of person Americans say they want in a president, but didn't know it when they had him.

p. 109 June 1977 [he drove to Casper]

When we moved into this house

p. 117 The tobacco companies supplied free cartons of cigarettes to the Nixon and Ford White Houses, with each pack in white and gold boxes bearing the presidential seal.

p. 121 our [Representatives'] salary ($57,500)

!!

p. 127 Republicans could once again become the majority in the House.  But to do it, he argued, we had to quit being polite to the Democrats and go after them-a tactic that drove some of our more senior members right up the wall.

p. 128 Most [Abscam]

Murtha skated

p.129 not, in my opinion, illegal. [also about Murtha]

later events showed Murtha's true character.

p. 132 former President Carter was actively lobbying against the U.S. position.

borders on treason

p. 132 [Ford's] state funeral.

Carter looked like he'd swallowed something vile. I think he knows he won't be eulogized as much.

p. 137 Jim Angleton died. I never learned what it was he wanted to tell me.

suspicious timing

p. 140 Congressional track record of leaks of sensitive information sufficient to worry even the most apologetic advocate of an expansive role for the Congress in foreign policy-making.

p. 140 The boundless view of Congressional power began to take hold in the 1970s, in the wake of the Vietnam War.  The 1972 Senate Foreign Relations Committee's report recommending the War Powers Act, and the 1974 report of the Select Committee on Intelligence Activities (chaired by Senator Frank Church and known as the Church Committee), both tried to support an all but unlimited Congressional power.

and now the executive is taking it all.

p. 141 No President can ignore Congress and be successful over the long term.

!

p. 166 Many at the Pentagon had a deep distrust of the media that was in part left over from Vietnam.  There was a view--which I shared--that unduly negative reporting had helped sour public opinion on that war.  The Tet Offensive, for example, was presented as a devastating blow to our side, when in fact, we dealt out punishing losses to the North Vietnamese. Operation Just Cause deepened my conviction that the press ought not be the final arbiter of whether we have won or lost a war.

p. 169 After forty years, we were seeing the Iron Curtain lift and the Soviet threat diminish, and it was happening in a peaceful and promising way. I had no doubt that the United States military was the most effective single reason for the transformation we were witnessing. The victory of the West in the Cold War still stands as a preeminent historic example of peace achieved through strength.

p. 180 King Fahd and President Mubarek would prove to be two of America's most important allies in the region.

p. 191 putting a matter of the nation's security in the hands of the 535 members of the U.S.  Congress could be a risky proposition.

p. 194 On January 12, the resolution made it through the House handily, 250-183, but it was close in the Senate, 52-47.

p. 195 the solemn obligation of America's civilian leaders to probide our soldiers with a clear mission and the resources to prevail.

sigh

p. 197 [Powell against embedding reporters] expressing robust views on the subject in very strong terms.

p. 204 "The allied troops were certain to use nuclear arms and the price will be too dear and too high." [Tarik Aziz]

p. 208 draining of the marshes near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, displacing thousands of the predominantly Shiite Marsh Arabs.

genocide

Wed, Oct 5th - 8:30AM

127.2 miles
rain

163 recordings of 61 types. 14% left.

Rasmussen: -24: 44/54.

He "supports" the military.

T-shirt yesterday, "In Dog Years, I'm Dead." This is not one I can wear to chemo! Today, the Three Stages of Dinos One.

Someone took umbrage at a link I put up yesterday about Holder knowing about "Fast and Furious" and lying about it.  She said "Jan, I am fond of you, but please think thru the issue before you post this kind of inflammatory nonsense!"  It's the second time she has expressed disappointment in me. How arrogant. My response this morning...

"DA, I'm sorry I disappoint you, but I have a lot on my plate at the moment and somehow meeting your expectations is not a high priority."

Rich slept well, clear till 10:30.  That was nice, but then he kept falling asleep out here. I think maybe he was awake all of 3 hours total. His eyes are better, but of course we can't relax, there's always something.  And the something this time was sudden vomiting of the Ensure.

Roni called to organize a visit next week.

And the rain finally came. I washed the king sheets and made the two beds, and it's lovely and warm in there.

William Jacobson:

Our mainstream media is biased beyond comprehension, trying to bury Obama’s 20-year association with his mentor Jeremiah Wright while putting a painted-over rock on page 1. How many parishioners at Wright’s church did WaPo interview as to Obama’s claim that he never heard Wright’s race-baiting and anti-American speeches, even though they were sold in the lobby?

John Hawkins: Rick Perry camped somewhere that had a racist name before he camped there! Stop the presses!

The Smart and the Dumb

John Hawkins: We will happily go back to the days when we lived shoeless, in rags, in dirt floor shacks to get rid of corporations.

Lance Nelson wont it be great to once again achieve the 35 year average lifespan we had in the 1700s? I also am salivating at the opportunity to live without modern dentistry....

Occupy Wall Street.
The only person who seems to know why they are there is Frances Piven. I saw a cartoon with an anarchist, a union member, and a Communist marching together, all three thinking "first we win, then I'll take these other two out." I really hate George Soros.

John Hawkins: As far as I can tell, #occupywallstreet seems to be demanding we convert to Communism or....they'll continue to protest. Not a scary threat.

Washington Examiner

Tea Party rallies took place throughout the nation, including smaller towns and rural communities — where as thus far Occupy Wall Street has been an urban phenomenon. This is important, because on any given day in a large city, there are people protesting stuff — what I saw here wasn’t much different than what I’ve seen many times on any given day when I lived in New York City, in places like Union Square or Columbus Circle. This just happened to be a higher concentration of people in one place. Also, the Tea Party movement’s backlash against big government is a lot closer to a mainstream opinion in America than the socialist, Marxist and anarchist messages of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.”

Hot Air: The left-leaning media is having its fantasy moment here, but the primary beneficiary of Occupy Wall Street is probably the GOP.

Occupiers as Mindless Drones.

Demands What do we want? Not sure. When do we want it? NOW!!

Michael Moore. 

John Hawkins: Why aren't there more black Americans at Occupy Wall Street? Is it because the protesters are racists?

Hank Williams, Jr. Actually, it was a fair (though not wise) analogy. He wasn't saying 0bama is Hitler, he was saying he is the enemy.

    Totally inaccurate statement. Obama is not even close to Hitler. He’s only killed a few hundred Mexicans. Compared to Hitler, he’s a piker.
    fossten on October 4, 2011 at 9:29 AM

Democrats don't want fair elections.

Redistricting has been straightened out a little in California.  In any case, it is in the Constitution.  But these "democracy" types don't want ID or proof of citizenship. It's a lot harder to use a credit card than to vote: really bad priorities. I favor dead people being disenfranchised, definitely.

The White House is Screaming Mad over Fast and Furious.

"And I’m certainly not the one to make the case for DOJ and White House about what I’m doing wrong. They will tell you that I’m the only reporter–as they told me–that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it."

[By "reasonable" they mean they've stopped reporting news.]

Michelle Antoinette

More.

I love the Buchanan Poster!

Wed, Oct 5th - 5:54AM

127.2 miles
cloudy, cold

161 recordings of 58 types. 17% left.

Support the troops... (0bamateurism.)

Ow ow ow. Somehow I twisted my elbow and does it hurt! I figure it was either helping to move the picnic table to storage, or perhaps putting up the Steelers flag yesterday. In any case, last night I had a hard time sleeping because I kept hurting it.

Vince was all ready to go wash the car today, but I decided Rich was right, I'd rather talk to him. His visit was such a blessing! I got ready for the cleaners (which involves getting the recycle bins and the pet food and the litter box out to the carport).

I found two pairs of glasses.  Maybe the pair I lost when Teddy and Lexi were here (under the bed, I found them when I was digging the cat out) and certainly the pair I lost last week that I was convinced I'd put down in the house so I wouldn't have them outside.  Those I found in the cucumbers.... so apparently I went onto autopilot and picked the glasses up.  This means there's only one other pair mysteriously lost in this house.

Finally, sadly, it was time to take him to the airport.  Then I went to the commissary for more chicken noodle soup and a few other things. I got myself some candy and wasabi peas. Back at home, there were THREE cleaners working away and Rich was hiding out in his office.  I grabbed my Nook and sat outside till they were done.

I hadn't managed to find an elbow brace in the BX, so I drove down to Rite-Aid and got one. It feels really good.

Roni sent a couple of lovely T-shirts, one with a dinosaur in three states, solid, liquid, and gas; the other is the Nemo seagulls saying "Mine. Mine. Mine."

Our neighbors came over with a couple of cupcakes and candles and sang to me.  About an hour later, I suggested to Rich he should wish me a happy birthday. He'd forgotten. The shirts and cupcakes went right over his head.  And he never asked about my elbow.

(The brace worked fine overnight, but the inside of my elbow got chafed.)

Birthday greetings from, in no particular order, Steve, Linda B., Carolyn, A.J., Lynn, Miriam, Catherine T., Brenda, Allan, Oona, Linda Y., Carolina, Jackie, Nancy McF., Jacquie, Michael L., Marilyn, Kenneth, Bryan, Colleen, Mary U., Venomous Kate, Figgy, Penny G., Mike Jensen, Kim Fraga, Monty Wolf, Father Troy, Nils Eddy, Debby, Sue, Christa, Alisa, Rhonda, Janna, Zora, Fiona, Karl, Ben F., Linda F., Kris, Renee D., Julia, Niki, Ina, Marilyn, Kenneth C., Beth C., Renee A., Ana, Alan, Alyssa, Paul M., Paul S., Paul, Pagan, Kaprice, Baseball Mary, Bruce R., Joy, Sue A., Scott F., Diane, Dianne, Michelle, Kathy Y., Eileen, Katie, Karen, Bernadette, Carol&Frank, Joy R., Roni, Ken, Elizabeth M., Jenn, Monica, Kathy P., Rick, Carol W., Sharon, Charles M., AliRose, Monika, Astrid, Lisa W., Ned, Linda B., UtahChaz.

Not too bad a day.

Tue, Oct 4th - 7:05PM

127.1 miles
A little cooler

159 recordings of 58 types. 18% left.

What was the 0bamateurism of the Week?  Again, a lot of good choices.

Vince and I went to Church.  Father asked who was visiting, and he remembered Vince, asked me how Rich is, I said not too well and told him about our anniversary.  So when it came time for birthdays, I told Vince I wasn't going to bring it up, it would be too much.Rich had made up the envelopes, including a donation to Sharing God's Bounty, which I  After Mass we talked to a lot of people and everyone's praying for Rich.  And for me.

Then this afternoon I left the menfolk watching football and went out to Davis to see the King and I.  I turned in Rich's ticket and shortly afterwards someone bought it. He's a dad of a clarinetist in the orchestra. 

They did well, but when I burst into tears at "Hello, Young Lovers" I realized that I probably wasn't emotionally stable enough to see the whole thing with the King dying at the end.  I was getting homesick anyway, so I left at intermission and came home.  The boys were still watching football, of course.  Vince had fixed up the scratching post, and thought he was done, till I reminded him that washing the car was on the list, too. He almost got started, but Rich told him not to.  Why? I asked Rich. He said "because I'm a nice guy."  Gee, thanks a lot. Grumble.

Later, it turned out he wanted Vince to stick around to talk. I said something about "you could have talked while I was gone" but Rich looked at me like I'd grown another head.  They had a nice talk about Vince's work.  Rich's voice is beginning to come back.

I'm so glad Vince came! Rich has cheered up enormously. I suspect the chemo holiday is helping, too.

Larry Sheldon
How come? How come the government that can say infallibly what the weather is going to be like in a hundred years can't get the forecast for tomorrow right? How come the government that can say infallibly what I should eat, what my children should study, and what I should think, can't decide if a man committed the crime that he committed? How come the government that knows exactly how much money I need, and how much of the fruits of my labors I need to keep for myself, can't figure out that most of the money going out is going to a fraud of one sort or another? How come? Inspired by Don Surber of the Charleston, West Virginia, Daily Mail

John Hawkins: If the Occupy Wall Street protesters put as much energy into finding a job as they do into protesting, they wouldn't have time to protest.

Sounds whizzy.

(There are echoes of Obamacare here, with government mandates and government subsidies propping up a Potemkin marketplace.)

He's lying, what a surprise!

1 in 5 bought Ford because it didn't take a bailout. That would be us, too.

Gimme gimme gimme. Soros strikes again.

Tue, Oct 4th - 1:32PM

127.0 miles
80s

156 recordings of 55 types, 18% left.

Rasmussen: -21: 46/53.

I'm up 1.3 pounds for the week. I don't imagine that pizza last night helped at all. Borderline BP.

T-shirt, Wyoming cowboys.

Back in 1974 we lived in Arkansas.  Rich had been RIFfed from the Air Force and there we were, with three kids and no job.  The unemployment was a whopping $79 a week, which Rich supplemented by helping a friend paint houses and getting paid under the table.  So I put my faith in God and went off birth control... and got pregnant.  Shortly after that, Rich got a job in California, we somehow managed to sell our house (that was definitely fate, or God, working for that one) and moved to Novato.  And when my Mom came out to be with us for the baby's birth, she ended up in the hospital herself.  And Vince was born, and things eventually straightened out.  I was thinking about this today, he's my symbol of hope.  His coming this weekend has been a real blessing, reminding me to put my trust in God and it'll all work out somehow.

Vince continued his yard work, trimming the rosemary and the privet in front. Then we went to Bernadette's to go to the Elk Grove Giant Pumpkin Festival. There were ducks, and pumpkins, and a scarecrow contest (this picture is of Bernadette's entry.)

I'd thought both kids were coming, but they left Joanna home with her molars and her snuffles.  Just as well, she wouldn't have had a good time.  Gareth seemed rather stunned at first, but really liked the ducks and choosing a pumpkin. Or ten. He finally got the idea and then, of course, wanted to take every pumpkin.  Bernadette left him two and got two herself. 

He had "chicken rings" for lunch and Vince had something asian and I had a burrito meal. Yum.

Afterwards we went back to Bernadette's and admired the garden.  Gareth wanted in the trampoline and Vince found it fun.

Rich was quite active yesterday, so he was really tired today. He spent most of it sleeping.  However, his eyes are beginning to clear up, anyway.  Vince mowed the front lawn and finished the trimming. It looks great.

Dick Durbin and Warren Buffett change their minds.

Holder must go!

A survivor (ignore the rest of it right now. This part is hopeful.)

John Hawkins: Know who the greediest people in America are? They're the ones demanding the gov't give them more of the money someone else worked for.

Democrats Oppose Democracy.

because the problem with democracy, as seen by liberals, as by National Socialists, is that voters have an inexplicable habit of electing conservatives. The elites really shouldn’t let this happen; or, in any event, should deprive the voters’ preference for conservatism of any practical significance. That is what a great many Democrats really think. As the Obama administration sinks beneath the waves, the Democrats’ anti-democratic urges will continue to rise to the surface.

Cain ties Perry. The buzz over Cain’s sudden momentum will obscure the fact that Obama gets the lowest job-approval rating in the WaPo/ABC series at 42/54, which is also the highest disapproval of the series.

Sat, Oct 1st - 8:41PM

125.5 miles
90s

160 recordings of 57 types. 16% left.

Rasmussen: -22%: 46/53

0bamateurism of the Day: they do have a plan to build the additional bridge — only that construction won’t take place for another four years.  It also won’t finish until 2022.  That’s hardly the immediate work that Obama’s job-creation stimulus bill promises.  Even if all the funding got committed now, it would take almost two years to break ground, not from lack of funding but because of all the government red tape that has blocked this project for most of the last ten years.

I forgot to mention that Wednesday night I made it over to Presentation for the reading group. I'd gotten the book on the Nook: St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life. I had to try twice: the free Google one was terrible, so many scannos. I initially thought maybe I could do it, but it was unreadable. I then spent a whopping $2.99 for a decent copy.

It turns out I hadn't missed just 1 meeting, I'd missed 5.  However, he was only on chapter 6, about 20 pages in. To my disappointment, though, Father Ice-Cream only talked for about 40 minutes. 
 
Today, finally, no doctor visit.  But Vince came for the weekend!  I made my way to the cell-phone lot just fine, but when he called I told him 5 minutes. I underestimated my ability to get lost in a place I've been a hundred times. First off, I turned onto the service road, which put me a couple-hundred feet from the terminal but no way to get there.  Then, on the right road, I discovered the recent construction had closed the road I've always used, that I had to go past terminal A, taking care to stay out of the parking garage, and eventually to the new front of terminal B and to the very end, where my kid was convinced he'd missed me. Oops.

On the way home we discussed Rich's condition and the list of chores I had for him. At the house, Rich was happy to see him. In fact, it was a pretty good day for my guy: he stayed awake, he smiled, and his eyes look better. His voice was a bit better, as well.  He showed Vince the geocoins, and later he helped set up to mow the lawn.  What a good job Vince did on the back, it's great.

V. showed me his gap in his teeth. Somehow I hadn't seen it in July: this is where his baby tooth finally fell out. (I blame myself as probably the stress while I was pregnant with him meant no second tooth there.)  He has a spacer in now, and a very happy oral surgeon who'll put in a tooth eventually.

We all went to bed early: once we'd cleared out of the living room Rich came back to it, but I slept better.  Last night I'd worried until past 1 when he came back to the bedroom and after that I slept like a baby.

Experts: Unicorns arrive next year.

Surprise, 0bamacare won't save money.
For the past two years, ObamaCare critics have repeatedly predicted this outcome.  If the White House now can only provide guesswork as to why premiums are escalating faster than ever, it proves their incompetence at being the architects of a national controlled economy, and the folly of that venture at all.

On the Nook, I can't see how to RETURN the library book. I guess I just have to wait till it fades away.  Fortunately, it's not all that popular. I learned about Max Brand, though.  A very prolific writer (Fredrick Faust) who, at 51, became a war correspondent and was killed in Germany. On the Nook, I now have 215 books.  34% space left.  The battery has been pretty good after a terrible day when the electrons were just pouring out.

Biden admits you can blame 0bama, now.

PJ News Break with Scott Ott, www.pjtv.com
"The White House quickly clarified Biden's remarks, noting that during the first two years of the Obama administration Democrats were in charge of only the House, Senate and the entire Executive Branch" -- Scott Ott

John Hawkins
At the same time they have an Occupy Wall Street protest, Obama is holding Wall Street fund raisers. Who will the protesters vote for? Obama

”The greatest thing about Facebook, is that you can quote something and totally make up the source.” – Benjamin Franklin

grumble: he gets the TV all day tomorrow for football, all day Sunday for football, and of course Monday night.  So he's taken over for football tonight. It's only a mild grumble, I'm glad he's awake and paying attention.  All in all, this has been a pretty good day.

Reading: The Bible (1 Machabees), The Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, and Summer of Fire, Linda Jacobs.

Sat, Oct 1st - 6:10AM

Rich's stats last month:

And: 2 pens, 2 camo scarves, question die, emory board, 8 costume jewels, x-laser token, box cutters. Sigh. He hasn't been out since the 9th.

For me, 10.2 miles in September, .4 pounds up, 39 pages. I may start the new one today.

Last month I read 8 books, went to 0 movies, 0 plays, 10 Masses.

We (mostly I) found 10 caches last month, and we're at 7800.  We're 210th in the world (I assume people ahead of us are not logging for some reason, since we were 228th last month and I know a lot of people have been doing power trails) , and 14th locally (Same people not logging. No way we went up.)

In proofing, where did September go? I'm in 1043rd (out of 36999 proofers) place in the first proofing round, with 873 pages proofed, 17th (out of 4392) in P2 with 23523 pages, 550th (of 922) in P3 with 469 pages and formatting 649th place (3459) with 1020 pages.

In Flickr I have 41112 pictures, with 89822 views, and 197 sets to work on.