I'm angry. But I'm not shocked. Nothing that Bush does or says anymore surprises me. However it doesn't make it right. Richard and I were talking earlier tonight about it and we both agree on something - Impeachment. Democrats have been saying "impeachment is off the table" because "he isn't worth it". Leader Pelosi? You know what is worth it? Our country. The rule of law. Just because this jackass has only 18 months left in office, doesn't dismiss everything thats been done. Its about doing the right thing. Quit being spineless and lazy.

Bush said in his statement:

My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.

So Valerie Plame hasn't suffered? Her children? Or how about the undercover agents Valerie Plame Wilson was working with. All of their lives (as well as ours seeing as they were working on WMD) were put in danger.

Furthermore... That little issue of the Clinton impeachment, which republicans like to repeat over and over, is that it was not about a sexual indiscretion but rather lying under oath, and obstruction of justice. Serious high crimes they yelled! But one of their own does it... is indicted by a republican, tried by a republican and even reviewed by a republican appeals board.... *sigh* then its all political theater, right? Thats what we're to believe?

I don't often agree with Hillary Clinton, but tonight I do..

"Today's decision is yet another example that this Administration simply considers itself above the law. This case arose from the Administration's politicization of national security intelligence and its efforts to punish those who spoke out against its policies. Four years into the Iraq war, Americans are still living with the consequences of this White House's efforts to quell dissent. This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice."

Before anyone thinks I fell off the face of the earth.. I've just been busy.

Busy working on a project for niece Olyvia's birthday that didn't turn out so well, and required several days of knitting to be frogged. And then theres the usual mom stuff with the never ending laundry, dishes and toys scattered everywhere. Not to mention voicing my frustrations to the 8, 7 and 5 year olds on the importance of using that hamper right.outside.their.bedroom.doors. Really, how hard is it to actually put dirty clothes IN that hamper, not IN FRONT of it? Or how hard is it to put your toothbrush back in the holder, not on the back of the sink? Or how hard is it to turn the light off in your room when you leave it? Or how hard is it to actually close the refrigerator and not leave it ajar? Or heres a goodie.. how hard  is it to pick that Magna Doodle up off the kitchen floor, you know - the one you left there, so like, Mama doesn't trip over it and nearly rip a toenail off?

So anyway, I've frogged the project for Olyvia and restarted another to match the super sweet hat I already made. Pictures later this week (I hope!) utilizing the new homemade light box I put together last weekend.

Over and out.

Harumph!

It was a fine enough Friday. That is until I got out of bed!

A business phone call that seriously degraded the further it continued. Over health insurance of all things. I can sum it up in three words: Bait And Switch. Then a "supervisor" that was a total prick to me after hearing my complaint about a fee I was not told about. Outright lying, insisting on things that just didn't happen. Sigh. I fully plan to file an official complaint with all appropriate parties.

My dryer is squeaking. It still works. But its squeaking. I can hear it all the way into the office from the laundry room. Its driving me nuts. Now, I want to buy a new refrigerator this summer.. an energy star model, because I'm confident that our dinosaur side by side is causing the outrageous electric bill. If I have to throw a dryer repair in there too.. I am not going to be happy.

Small children. Seriously. What happened to my sweet baby boy? He suddenly turns three, and I kid you not, I'm a heartbeat away from putting him in day care, just to save my sanity. So far today he has un-made two beds, not just pulling the top blanket off, but sheets, mattress pad, and all. Hes proceeded to dump a box of crackers all over the living room floor and perform the Mexican Hat Dance on them. And last but not least, he FOUND a packet of Pop Rocks (????), opened them, and dumped them on his head. Take all of that, and toss in the rest of the normal three year old stuff, and you have a mama with frayed nerves and a serious headache.

Oh.. that too. I go to look for Tylenol. Nope, out. Advil? Nope.. none of that either. I've resorted to taking DayQuil because it has Tylenol in it.

Sure enough, my mercury is in retrograde.  As of 11:13PM last night. Effing planets.

I did finish the sweetest hat last night for Olyvia's birthday. But I'll blog about that when I get the embroidery done. I fear if I touch the camera today, it may break.

Of course you noticed as soon as the page loaded.. I decided to go for a change of scenery. I'm still not entirely happy however, so expect over the next week or so, to see some different blog themes, as I "try them on". Of course while I go through this, I'll also be whining and stomping my feet at Richard, to finally make a little bit of time to customize some stuff for me.

With that said, I've been having a blast with some of my new widgets. I did finally locate and install a widget that allowed me to ban visitors by IP address (namely, the Little Man. If your new and not familiar with our stalker, Little Man, read the archives between January and now). Anyway, I've continued to track him trying to come in and he hasn't been able. Yay ban plugin!

 

ETA, I keep changing it.. what do you think?

I haven't posted on politics in quite a while. Just too much outrage for me to articulate said outrage without looking like I'm batshit crazy on some rambling tirade. Between dead soldiers in Iraq, the politicization of just about every agency in government, including but not limited to the sick cover up of incidents involving the rescue of Jessica Lynch and the death of Pat Tillman, and more GOP congressmen getting caught with their hands in the Abramoff cookie jar. SIGH.

There are a hand full of conservatives that I continue to have immense respect for. Mostly because we can debate such issues intelligently, and without insulting each other. One of them posted on his blog on Election Day, November 2006, how "Democrats are unsuited to govern this country". I laughed to myself back then when I read it, but today it really bugs me, especially when we look at the Bush administration running up our national debt, the list of GOP congressmen who have already been indicted, are about to be indicted, or at the very least, find themselves being investigated. Or the ones who tantrum "support the troops" but don't even attempt to provide our military with the training and equipment they need. Oh, and so much more.. but we get back to that "batshit crazy rambling", so I had better stop now.. believe me, I could go on.
Anyway, the point of this post and the cause of today's anger, a piece I read on alternet...

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?

The answer appears to be yes. There is more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret White House e-mail system for Karl Rove and dozens of White House staffers. This high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote- from server-hosting contracts, to software-writing services, to remote-access capability, to the actual server usage logs themselves -- must be added to the growing congressional investigations.

And that my friends, is just the first three paragraphs of a four page article.

Oh.My.Gawd.

In 2004, there was a running joke among democrats, or perhaps it was more a conspiracy fear.. that somewhere in the West Wing, on Election night, one could find Karl Rove tapping away at his keyboard, switching and swapping vote totals.

To even think, this is remotely possible leaves me to wonder why the hell are WE, Americans, trying to teach other nations how to form a democracy? Its shameful.

But something else I read, that made me smile..

George McGovern (yes, THAT George McGovern) writes an opinion piece for the LA Times..

It is my firm belief that the Cheney-Bush team has committed offenses that are worse than those that drove Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew and Atty. Gen. John Mitchell from office after 1972. Indeed, as their repeated violations of the Constitution and federal statutes, as well as their repudiation of international law, come under increased consideration, I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over.

I'm energized this morning. I'm so proud to be a democrat today. My party's leadership stood up and did the right thing. Did what we asked them to do last November when we went to the polls.
Though some in the media are trumpeting this as a partial win for Bush because he has promised to veto the house bill. I say its a win win situation for the country, the troops, us. If he does go the veto route, his war ends sooner than September 2008 when the bill asks troops to pull out.

Mark Twain: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.�

Peace Train by Cat Stevens

Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again

A day late, and a dollar short (aint that the truth!)

But anyway, yesterday was my three year blogiversary. I intended to post to celebrate, but the day got away from me (A girl scouts outing, a sick kid, a cooking marathon in the kitchen including baba ganouj, chocolate chip pumpkin bars, and Carole's chicken tomato stroganoff. I know - weird combos, but I had some cravings)

Anyway, its been three years.

Heres to many more!

Despite waking up to impending chaos, I actually woke up lacking yesterday's grumpies. But the impending chaos was just that..

I was laying in bed this morning and was awaken by the sudden stop of the fan I keep on my side of the bed. I picked my head up and looked at my alarm clock, and it was off. I sat up to look outside, assuming we would be blanketed with snow or ice, and this was the cause of the electricity going off. Nope.. no snow or ice. So I got up and walked into the kitchen to find Richard standing there making coffee, and power working. Odd.

So we went about checking out what it was. The ceiling light in our bedroom worked, but none of the outlets. Further investigation showed that the ceiling light in the sunroom was also not working. Hmmm. Off to the basement went Richard to check the fuses. He reports that he did indeed find a blown fuse and replaced it, but still, the power was off in the outlets.

Since squirrels have been the bane of our existence lately, I cursed a little, knowing it was them. It had to be. The little shitters must have gone and chewed through a wire. We talked it over, and decided that after I finished taking the van in to have the brakes replaced, we'd go up into the attic crawlspaces and investigate. Off I went to get ready for the 11AM appointment, getting my knitting ready so I'd have something to do while I waited, finished packing up packages that needed to go to the post office. Then.. upon opening the door to the sun room to go out to the van.. SMOKE.. BURNING SMELL.. PANIC! I run to call 911, Richard runs to the basement to shut down the electricals. Throw coats on kids, scurry them to the van, and by that time, lots of City of Syracuse firemen are running up my driveway. With them they carry hoses, ladders, pick axes, fire extinguishers. All I could do was just pace in my driveway, thinking the house was about to go up in flames.

Well...

Turns out that the fuse that Richard found that was blown, magically turns on the baseboard heaters in the sun room which we never use (all this time we thought they just didn't work at all). A rubbermaid bin that was pushed up against the baseboard heater was melting and nearly catching fire. THANK GOODNESS this happened during the day when.someone.was.home.

So, once the firemen are gone, I now have 15 minutes to make it to the van appointment. No biggie, right? Brakes, rotors, not the ideal time for these to go, but we can manage this. Turns out, not only are we requiring brakes and rotors, but the rear drum brakes are frozen up solid and need to be replaced (400 bucks additional!) The sway bar joint or something or other on the front drivers side, gone - another 200 bucks. The transmission fluid needs to be flushed - another 100 bucks. Oh, and the icing on the cake - "Ma'am, did you realize your state inspection expired 6 months ago?" NO, I insisted, the sticker says July 2007, to which he replies "honey, thats your registration"... All I can think is - FUCK! (I need to mention at this point of the story, Wisconsin does not have registration STICKERS on the front window, they go on the plate, and there are NO vehicle inspections - I mistakenly assumed that "7-07" was the inspection) Needless to say, I budgeted front brakes and rotors, so thats all that was fixed. We'll have to deal with the rest at some point, but today was out of the question.

Homeward bound again, so we can investigate the mysterious electricity outage, where we used the voltage detector thingie in the basement and found no power whatsoever going to the back of the house. ODD. Go back to the fuse box and Richard swaps out the fuse for the bedrooms despite it showing no signs of being blown with another and badabing... we have power again.
Bleh! Anyway, the moral of this story... don't waste your grumpiness on a day when you have nothing to be grumpy about!  Oh, and "sorry nastly little furry squirrels, you escape judgment this time - this time only"