allied is 3 years old today.
That's 59 in blogyears. Happy to me.
Time for an emotional fractal party.
Hey class of 2001, children of RageBoy--Happy anniversary to all of yous too.
November 5, 2004
Caffine chips and puffs
I've been so tired the last couple of days that suddenly, around 11 a.m., in the middle of working, I basically pass out. Today I didn't even get under the covers. I just put my head down, slapped on the alarm, and snoozed off to dreamland.
It's time to move my office again. I've been working on the king-size bed over the last month. I relocated from the living room couch in early October. I do this every so often for a change of scene. It's a lot easier than getting a new job, especially since this job is the best one I've ever had because I have no boss. Except me. And I'm a pushover.
George tells me that when you reheat day old coffee, especially in the microwave, it has less caffine in it. I get expensive coffee, so I rarely waste it. Which means that every other day I'm reheating day-old coffee, and I'm wondering if what he says is true. That would explain my dumb-headed sleepiness every couple of days.
During my siesta, I dreamed that I smoked. November 4 was my 4 month anniversary. How weird. This dream wasn't your typical "oops, i smoked" dream. It was luxurious and enjoyable, and if I didn't know better, I'd think somehow I really did smoke. It felt, tasted and looked so real, so familiar. I even remembered that I wasn't supposed to be doing it, but not with a jolt--with more like an oh yeah. I remember quitting. This sure tastes nice.
At dinner tonight I chipped my bottom tooth. Not the old chipped tooth, but a new one. I did it by being over excited about the eggplant parmesian from Whole Foods. Half way through I bit down on the fork with such gusto that I jammed the prong right down into my lower tooth. What's up with that? Suddenly I've got Arnold jaw? BAM! One chew, and chaos ensued.
Jenna followed me up to the bathroom convinced that she saw me lose my entire bottom tooth right before her eyes. "OH YAH, OH YAH MOM, YOUR TOOTH IS G-O-N-E!" She mistook a piece of chicken breast for my tooth, thankfully, although she still steals glances at my mouth every hour or so to make sure my teeth are all there. "I really thought I saw your tooth gone, mom. That was so freaky!"
Anyway, it's not a big chip, and it wasn't a big nap, and I don't have dental insurance, and it wasn't a real cigarette, but all of these events added up in their smallness to lend some excitement to what has been a state of numbness these post-election days.
I'm grateful for that.
Diebold, Rangers and Pioneers, and "The Fox Guarding the Henhouse"
This Diebold/Ohio scandal is not new. We should have been all over O'Dell last year.
Published on Thursday, August 28, 2003 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Voting Machine Controversy
by Julie Carr Smyth
COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
Blackwell's announcement is still in limbo because of a court challenge over the fairness of the selection process by a disqualified bidder, Sequoia Voting Systems.
In his invitation letter, O'Dell asked guests to consider donating or raising up to $10,000 each for the federal account that the state GOP will use to help Bush and other federal candidates - money that legislative Democratic leaders charged could come back to benefit Blackwell.
They urged Blackwell to remove Diebold from the field of voting-machine companies eligible to sell to Ohio counties.
This is the second such request in as many months. State Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, asked Blackwell in July to disqualify Diebold after security concerns arose over its equipment.
"Ordinary Ohioans may infer that Blackwell's office is looking past Diebold's security issues because its CEO is seeking $10,000 donations for Blackwell's party - donations that could be made with statewide elected officials right there in the same room," said Senate Democratic Leader Greg DiDonato.
Diebold spokeswoman Michelle Griggy said O'Dell - who was unavailable to comment personally - has held fund-raisers in his home for many causes, including the Columbus Zoo, Op era Columbus, Catholic Social Services and Ohio State University.
Ohio GOP spokesman Jason Mauk said the party approached O'Dell about hosting the event at his home, the historic Cotswold Manor, and not the other way around. Mauk said that under federal campaign finance rules, the party cannot use any money from its federal account for state- level candidates.
"To think that Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple folks on their board who support the president is just unfair," Mauk said.
Griggy said in an e-mail statement that Diebold could not comment on the political contributions of individual company employees.
Blackwell said Diebold is not the only company with political connections - noting that lobbyists for voting-machine makers read like a who's who of Columbus' powerful and politically connected.
"Let me put it to you this way: If there was one person uniquely involved in the political process, that might be troubling," he said. "But there's no one that hasn't used every legitimate avenue and bit of leverage that they could legally use to get their product looked at. Believe me, if there is a political lever to be pulled, all of them have pulled it."
Blackwell said he stands by the process used for selecting voting machine vendors as fair, thorough and impartial.
As of yesterday, however, that determination lay with Ohio Court of Claims Judge Fred Shoemaker.
He heard closing arguments yesterday over whether Sequoia was unfairly eliminated by Blackwell midway through the final phase of negotiations.
Shoemaker extended a temporary restraining order in the case for 14 days, but said he hopes to issue his opinion sooner than that.
© 2003 The Plain Dealer
[[More on Rangers and Pioneers]]
November 4, 2004
A Wave of New Voices--GOOD!
As I surf through blogspot blogs tonight, I come upon several new blogs started in the last few days around this critical election. Not all are US blogs, but all I've seen have started writing based on the fear and disbelief around an America run by far right zealots. This is one, for example. Welcome to blogging. And good writing.
The best thing that could happen is that more and more intelligent voices emerge and grow strong between now and 2008. That they inform, move, resonate. And the new wave of the rule of Bush may inspire just that.
And for you dumbfounded folks overseas...
You think you're confounded? Not sure what to make of your American blog friends? Wondering if it's really true that we're lamebrained numskulls? Deciding whether you can tolerate hanging out with people who've been good friends because they are obviously "not your kind of people"?
Yah, well, imagine being you and living here. That's what it's like for the rest of us.
good day.
In this time of turmoil for half the nation...
Let us remember: Stavros' folks' place is still for sale.
We get the top bunk!
Walkin' in a Wiki Wonderland.
Oh my gosh. I just made my first contribution to a WIKI. I added Phil's blog to the list of CEO blogs on the New PR WIKI. I was ever so tempted to delete Alan Meckler's blog. That blog is such a bad example of a CEO weblog. But I didn't delete him. That wouldn't have been right.
Hold on girl.
WIKI. I've been reluctant, worried that I'd slip into collaboration nirvana never to reappear. I thought'd be hard. But it wasn't.
mmmmm. it was sweet.
I feel compassionate all over.
Naming Is Power
David had a great post about reclaiming and/or reframing language that has been adopted and frequently skewed by The Oposition. I added mine:
COMPASSION: The symantics of Compassionate Conservatism must be demystified and destroyed. I had a soccer-mom explain to me on the phone last week that she was voting for Bush because she considers herself a Compassionate Conservative--a term she thought she had just invented until I let her know that Bush and Pubes before him have been using the term -- along with many other phrases that make the simple minded feel important -- for years..
Publicans, please understand that I don't want your compassion; I don't need your compassion. To show me such, in your eyes, gives you power over me. So save it. Keep your pitty, your tolerance, and your motherfucking compassion. I'll do just fine without it.
HE CAN RUN BUT HE CAN'T HIDE: It was very easy for "W." toss this phrase about in the final four weeks of the election. He got a hard on simply from being able to remember it. He used it and saw that it jazzed up his base of elitests and idiots quite nicely on the final leg of the campaign trail. Well, I am claiming it now. Mr. Bush, you can run but you can't hide. Unlike your friend Bin Laden, who, it seems, can both run AND hide, thanks to you.
PRAYER: I talked with a woman checking me out at Walgreens this morning. I see her there frequently--she works lots of hours. When she asked how I was doing, I said tired and pissed about the election. She said, "You're tellin me." And we began talking. What do we do now. Can you believe it. There were no color lines between us. We talked about the war and her boys. And when I took my bag she reminded me--what we do now is pray. THAT'S RIGHT, WE PRAY TOO. Publicans, you do not have a monopoly on prayer or God. You do not have a monopoly on Christ. You do not have a monopoly on salvation or forgiveness.
Those are the three I'd like to add right now.
Thank you
I'd also like to add GET OVER IT to my list. Get Over It is the most frequently employed post-election mantra on the part of the publicans. "Get Over It" was also their rhetorical weapon of choice after W. stole the 2000 election. I am reframing it to mean Get Over Yourselves, and directing it at the hypocritical members of the right like Rush It's-Vicodin-Time Limbaugh, and Bill I-Like-Your-Tits O'Reilly, and Alan Cheney-Raised-an-Abomination-But-Vote-For-Him-Anyway Keyes. All of you and all of yours, get over your pseudo-moralistic selves before I do it for you.
One of the bright lights during camaign season just got bad news.
Elizabeth Edwards has breast cancer.
Like that family hasn't been through enough.
Well crap.
Sudan Government Prayed for a Bush Victory
The conflict, which has left at least 70,000 people dead, has created what UN officials say is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
How does he sleep at night?
...The ruling elite in Khartoum prefers a Republicans in the White House because it is seen as not as harsh as the Democrats.
Guess they haven't seen him with his flight suit on.
November 3, 2004
Just About Right, All About George.
No, it's not 404. Well, then again, maybe we all are. Read carefully.
sick.
I don't know this country's mind any more, let alone its heart.
"They elected a polite David Duke in Louisiana, and someone who doesn't believe gay people should teach school in South Carolina, and a creep in Oklahoma, and somebody who's fairly obviously drifting into the fog in Kentucky. The pretty clearly indictable DeLay tactics in Texas worked like a charm. These are all victories won on grounds on which we cannot compete. When gay marriage trumps dead soldiers in Iraq, how do you run a race without dissolving into fantasy?"
mad.
Fuck You, Bush. You Fucktard.
For the rest of us... some things to read.
Eliminate TV.
Live online where you will find communities of smart people.
David does language. Weinberger/AKMA in 2008.
democrat.com on the fascist motherfuckers in power.
The Rich, Dumb, and Faithful Re-elect Bush: "As Senator John F. Kerry prepared his concession speech Wednesday morning, it became clear that the rich got in bed with the dumb and the faithful to deliver power over every branch of the United States government to a corrupt Republican Party that will do anything, including steal votes and lie, to gain and hold political power."
InterimTom: "Part of the mystery of strongly divided elections is understanding how anyone can vote for the other guy. Part of the reality check USians will face is, how realistic is the rhetoric of healing and union that new-waveian solutions spout with such facility?"
Not. And thank God.
Resist the Borg.
And for every blog pundit online calling for cooperation and civil discourse, an end to disagreements, and a need for pledges among bloggers and citizens to unite us, I say:
BLOW ME!!!!!!
You want a mandate of unbiased blather, go get your journalism degree and write for print, kay?
And while you're at it, take your bastions of morality with you--Bill Adulterer O'Reilly and Rush Drug-Addict Limbaugh. Save a seat at media training camp for George DUI Bush. They could all use a refresher course.
Unite this, you sack of hypocrites.
