Sat, Nov 7th - 7:02AM

Durant's Rousseau and Revolution, p. 606
241.0 miles
sunny, cool

2.4 pounds up this week, (ouch) and my Blood Pressure high.

96 recordings of 41 types.

Rasmussen has -11 approval number for the Big Zero, and a 47/52 overall.

The day started with a dentist visit. Yesterday we cut up our credit cards, due to a sudden unexplained charge of $14,000 to something that looked like a Jewish charity, so I started out by telling them I'm not paying them today. Sadly, the receptionist I've come to know and love is "no longer with us" (?) and I was explaining this to a stranger.

The hygienist said something about the geocache and I said I was embarrassed and she said don't be, the other dentist and his wife had sticks up their rears(!) The cleaning started late but went well.  She told me that if the gum swelling hasn't gone down in a couple of weeks I should go see the oral surgeon again. Ack.

Then I'd seen something wonderful in the Bass Pro Shop in Harrisburg, so Rich thought it would be a good idea to go to the local one (60 miles away) while they still had it. I ran a pocket query and off we went to Manteca.

To begin with, I couldn't find the pretty green sweatpants I liked, but picked up two, a brown and a black, since the jogging suits I have are now too big.  I also found a nice pair of cargo pants. I tried everything on and approved, and was ready to quit, a little sad to have missed them, when lo!  There they were. These are just a tish too tight, but I'm confident they'll fit well soon, once I drop the trip 5 pounds. So I was happy with that. I'll be able to get shoes here, too, I believe.

Rich got some camo tape and we browsed around some more, then went caching. One thing we're doing now is passing out tokens for EatStayPlay.com: If I pass out 50 into active caches, 3-5 at a time, we'll get a free geocoin.  The first place we went was a cache we'd tried for a couple of years ago but it was gone. This time the ammo can was there, no problem. We found 8 caches, couldn't find 2 and were muggled out of a couple of others.  We also got rid of 14 tokens, not bad.

A Couple of Cartoons.

Google and Facebook, how two Giants Can Transform the Landscape.

Michelle Bachman:
Social Security is broke, Medicare is broke, Medicaid is broke – and all of them were created with the best intentions. But we have to face reality. Our deficit is at an all-time high. Our debt is nearing $12 TRILLION with no signs of slowing. We’re on a crash course for financial ruin. This isn’t conjecture, it’s basic economics.

Klavan has new slogans for CNN.

Europe Angry over 0bama's Indecision on Afghanistan.
Obama got feted by Europeans just a few months ago by underscoring his distaste for American arrogance in assuming leadership of the West.  Now, however, when the chips are on the table, Europe looks to the US for leadership … and see exactly what they professed to love earlier this year.

("Let me be clear" is 0bama's "tell" for when he's lying)

This "makes the White House look thin-skinned."  Ya think?

More.

"The tags for his presidency so far seem to be Radical, Naive, FDR, Jimmy Carter, Socialism and Screw Up." (Allen S. Thorpe)

Old Hat, Daniel Henninger

Democrats Ask New Jersey Secretary of State to Ignore Mismatched Signatures on Absentee-Ballot Requests.    Typical!

Reading: Rousseau and Revolution, What If? edited by Robert Cowley, the Bible (Zachariah), Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, Lean Mean Thirteen, Janet Evanovich, Common Sense, Glenn Beck, Don Quixote, Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk, David Elkind, Low-Carb Dieting for Dummies, Katherine B. Chauncey.

Fri, Nov 6th - 11:58AM

Durant's Rousseau and Revolution, p. 606
240.2 miles
still windy

Sadly, maybe yesterday's blood pressure was an anomaly. It's high/high borderline today. Rats.

95 recordings of 43 types.

Rasmussen: -11 approval index, 48/52 ratio.

We hadn't seen Gareth for two weeks, so it was obviously time for a visit! He's beginning to babble and sometimes it's recognizable words. Since he has shown he can use the glider to escape his confines, the glider is gone.  Therefore, Rich was sitting on the coffee table.  He held Gareth, who suddenly realized there were wonderful things on the mantel, like speakers and the TV!  When he was put down, he figured out how to climb onto the coffee table.  Then, on his own, he started to stand but decided that was too scary.  So when he'd gotten down again, they moved the coffee table away from the fireplace.   It's interesting watching him work out elaborate schemes.  His follow-through, fortunately, is that of a 17-month old, easily distractable.

Dems to Lieberman, You Lie.

Victor Davis Hanson, Guantanamo Laureate . 0bama lobbied lots of stones, and now lives in a glass house.

"Personally, if I were a terrorist suspect, I’d rather be picked up by a Special Forces team in the Hindu Kush, be shipped to Cuba, have my case reviewed by military lawyers, be allowed a Middle Eastern diet, and be provided with a Koran and arrows pointing to Mecca than simply wait to have my head exploded without warning by a Hellfire missile, while sitting inside my mud-brick hideout in Waziristan alongside my soon-to-be-incinerated family.

..."Even the charismatic Barack Obama cannot convince his liberal base for long that it is horribly wrong to waterboard Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the planner of the mass-murdering on 9/11, but perfectly fine to incinerate an al-Qaeda suspect along with noncombatants in his general vicinity."

Phone calls in 0bamacare.

Uncle Sam Wants Queue.

Dennis Miller refers to Pelosi as an "overly botoxed, room-temperature IQ, harpy."

Sarkozy Fights the Islamisation of France.

James Taranto:

Even more risible, though, is the claim that the administration "is going to speak truth to power." Hello, Valerie? Your boss is the president of the United States! No one is more powerful. As we suggested Friday, it really seems as if Obama and his men do not understand what it means to be president. Because their power is constrained--thank you, Founding Fathers!--they labor under the delusion that they are powerless.
...
The job of those in power is not to "speak truth to power," though it would be nice if they spoke the truth once in a while. It is to exercise power responsibly. The effort to bully Fox News Channel would be an abuse of power were it not so pathetically inept.

Barack 0bama is Doing My Job: Why America Needs Him to do His. Huffington Post, of all places.

Thu, Nov 5th - 8:33AM

Durant's Rousseau and Revolution, p. 606
240.2 miles
windy!!!

Well, that little trip gained me 5 pounds. I guess it'll take a lot longer to lose them again.

99 recordings of 46 types.

Rasmussen: -11 approval index and 49/51 ratio.

The heater company was supposed to come make their inspection and bring the registers for the back today sometime between 8 and 10. There were delays, delays, and finally Rich called them and told them forget it.  Then we went out to the vet and picked up our animals.

This was definitely the most expensive part of the trip. Spooky was screaming so loudly he could be heard for miles.  Abby just hid in the back of the carrier. Pharaoh was thrilled.  Abby's eyes are clear: we have some medicine for the next time they start to ooze. At home she went under the bed and didn't come out for about 6 hours.  Spooky forgave us right away.

How government works.

John Bolton, Our ditherer in chief:

Beyond the disquiet (or outrage for some) prompted by the president's propensity to apologize for his country's pre-Obama history, Americans increasingly sense that his administration is drifting from one foreign policy mistake to another. Worse, the current is growing swifter, and the threats more pronounced, even as the administration tries to turn its face away from the world and toward its domestic priorities. Foreign observers, friend and foe alike, sense the same aimlessness and drift. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had to remind Obama at a Sept. 24 U.N. Security Council meeting that "we live in the real world, not a virtual one."

Examples of weakness abound, and the consequences are readily foreseeable.

Sanjita Chakraborty: We've had the deadliest month in Afganistan that we've had since the war began in 2001 because this man won't make a decision...because all he cares about is power and doesn't give a damn about this country, its people or its military. Yes Bush spent a lot of money and could've done a better job but look at some of the big ticket items he spent it... Read More on: 9/11, Katrina, Rita, Tsunami...so yes, he HAD to spend the money. Don't get me wrong, I think there was still wasteful spending but NOTHING like we see now. And why are we looking back anyway...we are where we are now and let's move forward and FIX stuff. If he thinks Bush was in the wrong with everything, DO something about it to FIX it, stop wasting time and energy pointing fingers. This man makes me so angry that I want to turn off the news and stop reading anything about what's going on...at the same time I need to stay informed because he's a liar...Mr Obama...YOU LIE!

Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America.

The Post-gracious President.

I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way:

A noble and altogether proper sentiment, made somewhat less so by (a) reports of how much golf he’s been playing and (b) the inconvenient truth that there are troops in the field being endangered by the lack of reinforcements.

Ma Bird: Obama, speaking to troops, said "I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, we will back you to the hilt". (unless you're in Afghanistan---he also vowed same day not to be rushed into Afghan decision)

Dr Zero:
 "Every available dollar has been taxed and spent, and not one single problem the Left demanded the sacrifice of our wealth and freedom to address has been resolved. Not one of their programs has worked, and none of their cost estimates have been accurate, to within an order of magnitude."

Panic button: "In the recent past, we have watched the White House and its branch offices gaze glassily past Iran, the Taliban, North Korea and Moscow in hot pursuit of their real enemy, which appears to be the dissenting media."

Wed, Nov 4th - 11:01AM

Durant's Rousseau and Revolution, p. 606
240.2 miles
?

I got up in time to see Carol off. Rich was up early enough to see Ed for awhile. He claims he might come visit next spring. I'll believe it when I see it.

I tried to upload all the pictures I'd taken to Flickr, but it was taking forever and I finally put them in a flash drive. This is all to avoid the stupidity of two years ago when I deleted them before I'd copied them. There were family pictures and all. Once I gave up with Flickr, we had enough time to dash back to where the reunion had been and pick up the cache there. It was the furthest away on my circle of 100 nearby caches, but we hadn't even thought to look when we were going to the parties, so it was niggling at me.

About 3 we went off to the airport. Got gas, turned in our car, turned over our bags, went through security.  The airport charges for its wi-fi.  Grumble. This was a bit early to eat, maybe in Detroit.

Or maybe not.  The plane was late taking off, and then the taxi-ing in Detroit is crazy long.  Our plane was the other side of the airport, up and down escalators and about a mile of moving sidewalk.  We arrived just in time to get on our plane.  Rich worked in a bathroom break, but I didn't. Oh, well, maybe we'll eat in Minneapolis.

Or maybe not.  We were something like #17 for takeoff and had to circle Minneapolis before landing. We arrived just before 9 and they were closing the place down. We got vending machine sandwiches and made do with the trail mix and beef jerky Rich brought and the peanuts they gave out as snacks. At least we had a long enough layover (and were at the next bay in the same terminal) so I could go to the bathroom.  This was the long leg. We arrived just before midnight, and were home just before 1.  A very long day, and Detroit is a nightmare.

0bama, Carter, Reagan .

Irate and Independent

Laura Ingraham slams Charlie Gibson

0's embarrassment.  He promised to reform the world the last time he was in Berlin, and has delivered... nothing. So he won't go to the celebration of the fall of the Wall.

The Guardian wipes Israel off the Nobel Prize map.

Ann Althouse wonders about the Copenhagen conference, and why people would fly to it.

Why 0bama has such a thin skin :

Obama is a man-child from the worst side of the 60's hippie/Marxist counterculture, a 40 something adolescent in the thrall of a political and moral philosophy unmoored from any burden like reality or responsibility. This Emperor is completely naked, sans clothes and not mature enough yet to shave.

Mark Tapscott .
0bama's Minions are Ingrates . [It's almost like they're not serious about governing, only about scoring political points.]

Bishop calls Patrick Kennedy "ignorant."

Clintonian Defense of our Nixonian President.

What if he can't govern?

Having no substantive achievement in his life other than his own political career, Obama's claim to the throne was that he claimed the throne. Much like the proverbial dog chasing the car, now that Obama has caught the throne, he doesn't know what to do with it....
When it comes to governance, what if the One who campaigned on the theme of "yes we can," just can't?

Rasmussen has 29/41 on health care, -12 approval for 0bama and 47/52 approval index.

Tue, Nov 3rd - 7:51AM

Durant's Rousseau and Revolution, p. 606
240.0 miles
sunny, cool

We went to church. Then when we'd changed our clothes, we made a quick trip back to Aliquippa to pick up that cache that we'd missed last week.  This time the guy was gone.  It was quick, then.  We had a couple of hours till the game started, so we went for a few more closer to the house.  One we drove through every single parking lot in an area before we located the way to get to the cache, and then couldn't find the cache, but the others were quick finds.

Back to the house for the game. Afterwards we walked around the neighborhood. One of the neighbors really goes all out for Hallowe'en. 

After dinner, Rich's brother Ray and his wife came over. Sue's having a real hard time with her mother.  She also says that now she regrets choosing to spend more time with her family than the inlaws lo these many years ago. It's understandable.  She feels she doesn't see enough of her son and his family. I would have liked to see them, but it's partly my fault for not alerting them we were coming.

This broke up about 10.  We said goodbye to my sister-in-law in case we miss her tomorrow. The oldest brother-in-law came up from the basement and headed to bed without even saying hi to his brother.  Was he in a huff?  I don't think he knew Ray was there.

0bama doesn't understand it's not Bush who's suffering.  He's all about campaigning, and not about governing.

Democrats encounter 0bama hangover. Rasmussen has a -10 approval rating (strong approval and strong disapproval) and 48/51 approve/disapprove.