heavenly bodies
Crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter early Monday evening. I knew this was coming, but I didn’t pay much attention to when. I stepped onto the side porch Monday shortly after 5pm, and this is what I saw in the southwest sky. And yes, it gets that dark outside here by 5pm this time of year in eastern Massachusetts. Full size pic in the gallery.
so they loaded up the truck and they moved back to Wasilla, yeehaw
I would just love to have known what thoughts were going through Senator John McCain’s mind at the moment pictured here on election night. He had just finished what I considered to be a graceful concession speech, albeit a speech interrupted by ugly and inappropriate outbursts from his gathered supporters. After the speech, and at the time of this photo, he gave Sarah Palin a rather stiff and cold embrace. After McCain turned away, Palin’s body language gave a visible sigh. My guess is that his thoughts included an ugly word that he’s been known to use from time to time and that also rhymes with runt. Maybe he said “see you next Tuesday, Sarah.” And with today’s headlines, the knives are out and we’re finding out what a truly historic over-reach the selection of Sarah Palin was. She thought Africa was a country. She didn’t know what countries were involved in the NAFTA agreement. She had tantrums that brought staff to tears. She once greeted two of McCain’s top advisors wearing only a towel and suggested they chat with her husband Todd for a bit (whom sources described as “laconic”) until she was ready. And the big shopping spree to outfit her and her family for the campaign? It was apparently far worse than has been reported to date. One insider described it as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast.”
nutty business
From an excellent, fair and balanced article in The Guardian about ACORN, the latest distraction from Fox “News” and their ilk:
Here are the facts. Acorn verifies the legitimacy of every registration its canvassers collect. If they can’t authenticate the registration, or it’s incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic (“fraudulent”, “incomplete”, et cetera). They then hand in all registration forms, even the problematic ones, to elections officials, as they are required to do by law. In almost every case where you’ve heard about fraud by Acorn, it’s because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that’s been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers. Most officials who run to the media screaming “Acorn is committing fraud” know all of the above but don’t bother to share those facts with the media they’ve run to. None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it’s voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.
You’ll hear that Donald Duck, Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and (new this year) the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team have all had fraudulent registrations submitted in their names. That’s true. And we know this, why? Because Acorn told officials about it when they followed the law and turned in those registrations, flagged as fraudulent.
What you won’t hear is that federal law requires anybody who does not register to vote in person at the county office to show an ID when they go to vote the first time. So, unless Donald Duck shows up with his ID, he won’t be voting this November.
When you pay people to register voters, as both major political parties do, you are going to get some fraudulent registrations. ACORN is aware of this and follows the law as required. There really is no story here, outside of these rogue canvassers turning in registrations that will never result in a vote.
Today’s fun link: Palin as President. Absolutely hysterical until you click the red phone. 
more of the same
USSA
Take a look at just two little points of the proposed $700 billion (minimum) federal bailout of the mortgage asset mess in this country:
Sec. 8. (Review) — Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Sec. 10. (Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt) — Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.
That’s $11.3+ trillion dollars. The public debt of this country, after this proposed bailout, is now approaching $38,000 each for every single man, woman, and child in this country. But do not ask for any accountability from the federal government for how far deeper they are driving us in debt, because their decisions are not subject to review by any authority whatsoever.
They say we are in a financial crisis, and we should fear the consequences if immediate action is not taken. And we are told the government is acting in our best interest. I’m not an expert in economics, but I’m also not deaf and blind. This song sounds familiar. It’s the same way we invaded Iraq. It’s the same way we tortured “enemy combatants.” It’s the same way we greatly expanded domestic surveillance.
The public debt is now underwriting the elite class in this country. One morning recently I woke up living in the United Socialist States of America. I wish the rest of the country would wake the fuck the up and take notice.
thanks, askimet
I just caught this alert on my dashboard in leatheregg.com’s WordPress dashboard — nearly 50,000 spam comments caught by Askimet. Considering there are days when I still get 4 or 5 comments going into moderation that Askimet doesn’t catch, I’m pretty happy that Askimet exists. That’s a lot of potential spam to manually trash.