Happy New Year!

I, for one, can't believe we are on the eve of a new year already.

Here is a funny little year in review from JibJab:

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Anyone have any good plans for ringing in the new year? We really don't either. We are supposed to go to a friend's house tonight but, truth be told, I just can't seem to get myself excited about it. Maybe I just need to get moving and get the blood flowing. Maybe do some shopping later, and I'm sure a few shots at the party will do wonders too. lol
In any case, I hope everyone has a very safe, happy, and prosperous new year.

Part of the Problem

Don't ask me how C-SPAN 2 ended up on our TV but we've been listening to Greg Simon spew to students from American University for about half an hour now. And what exactly is he talking about? The merits of raising gas prices to $4 an gallon again to subsidize other things.
And why? Well one of his reasons is because the government knows how to spend our money better than we do. When it came up that people wouldn't be happy about the government raising the price he said it isn't about the individual but about the common good. OK what ever.
Then when discussing the cons someone brought up high food prices and he said that people would just have to buy local and eat what is grown locally and in season. OK so how about the people that live in the North where fruits and veggies don't grow in the winter?

Here is the video. It's really long but you can watch bits and pieces of it to get an idea of what this putz was saying.

And by the way who is Greg Simon. Well if you watched any of the video you would know by now lol. Seriously though, he used to be the chief domestic policy advisor to VP Algore and has recently been named to Obama's transition team. Sign of things to come.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas from Georgia!!

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This is what I mean!

As we wait for Santa to arrive I surfing the Internet and I came across this article about President Bush and VP Cheney sending personal letters and privately visiting the families of fallen troops and visiting with wounded troops.

For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.

The First Lady on why these meetings were kept private:

The first lady said that many of the meetings have been kept private because "these are such personal times when people grieve. And we grieve with them. And these are not times when you would want a camera in the room or other people around. They are very emotional, personal times.

I like this story, love how the President took the time out of his day to just sit around with these two soldiers and just talk to them and visit with them beyond what was scheduled.

Some private meetings with soldiers have been publicized at the request of the soldiers themselves. When Mr. Bush met with Spc. Max Ramsey, who lost his left leg in 2006 while serving in Iraq, and Sgt. Neil Duncan, a double-amputee injured in Afghanistan in 2005, it was Sgt. Duncan who asked for news coverage.

"I wasn't sure my buddies would believe me," Sgt. Duncan said, joking with the president. When Mr. Bush had visited him at Walter Reed, the sergeant had vowed to run again, and did so on the White House South Lawn's jogging track in July 2007.

Although it was a Wednesday, Mr. Bush - who had scheduled a brief run - pulled the two soldiers through the trees to the White House pool after their jog.

"The group of us just sat there for like two hours maybe and chatted. On a whim, he just took two hours out of his schedule. ... We talked about personal things, how he feels about the war, what's been hard, what it's like being the president, some of the most difficult times for him. It was very, very cool - priceless."

When I read this article all I could think about was Obama and how he scraped his trip to visit wounded troops at Landstuhl when he found out the media couldn't follow him.

Speaking of Obama, he's on vacation in Hawaii staying at some multi-million dollar place but each morning he has taken the time to Marine Corp Base Hawaii. Are they there to meet with the Marines and their families? Are they there for a morale visit? Well that depends on whose morale we are talking about. They have been going there every morning to work out. After the workouts it's back to the multi-million dollar pads. What, you didn't actually expect them to stay there did you?

Obama and wife, Michelle, made their early morning trek to Marine Corps Base Hawaii just northeast of Honolulu as they had done during the last three days. After about an hour at the base on Wednesday where he went inside a gym for a workout, he walked over to greet more than 60 people who waited for him. The president-elect shook hands while onlookers took pictures with their cell phones and digital cameras.

The only reason these people got this impromptu photo-op with him was because they happened to know he was there and waited outside for him. Had they not been there then Obama wouldn't have been bothered to meet with anyone on that base. Once again he cares more to hit the gym than visit with the brave men and women that serve on the base. So much for a cause close to their heart. What's really sad is that only about 60 people bothered to show up.

Eco-Nuts

File this under the Eco-nuts gone, well, nuts. Seatle refuses to salt frozen roads

Some of the highlights:

"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation.

So what he's saying is that they are trying to create a skating rink out of Seattle roads?

"If we were using salt, you'd see patches of bare road because salt is very effective," Wiggins said. "We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."

Correct me if I'm wrong here but is Puget Sound not a body of salt water? He makes it sound like they are dumping radio active waste on the streets and that Puget Sound is going to turn into a barren wasteland if they clear the streets with, god forbid, salt. By the way isn't salt a naturally occurring mineral that occurs in the water and the land? And I just love how he admits that if they used salt it would clear the streets right up; salt, dangerous substance we sprinkle on our food for flavor.

Seattle also equips its plows with rubber-edged blades. That minimizes the damage to roads and manhole covers, but it doesn't scrape off the ice, Wiggins said.

That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can't: melt it.

The city's patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.

Criminals of Seattle here is your chance!

Cheryl Kuck, spokeswoman for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, said her city prepared the streets last week with the "anti-icing" spray. Once the snow started, Portland used chemical de-icers, followed by plowing with 55 plows and treating trouble spots with sand and gravel.

Although the city had plowed 29 of its 36 major routes, "nothing is clear," Kuck said late Monday afternoon. "This is a difficult and challenging situation that's going to take us a long time to recover from."

And another environmentally nutty city refuses to use salt and nothing is clear, and it's going to take a long time to recover. Of course this wouldn't have happened if they used some salt.

If I lived there I would take my box of salt and sprinkle it out in the street in front of my house, hopefully start a trend with the neighbors. We did it in Germany once to clear the sidewalk in front of our building. It works, and it's so safe you can eat it! This is just ridiculous.

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

Actually it's been looking like Christmas but at my house we are officially ready for the holiday!

For the last two nights Little Dude and I have been candy making fools. We made pumpkin fudge (sounds weird but it is really really good), and pralines (it's been really hard not to eat it all lol) and tonight he wants to make more so I'm thinking we'll make chocolate fudge.

Today I braved the mob and finished my Christmas shopping. I woke up bright and early and made my way down to the mall, which was pretty empty that early, and took advantage of the sales to buy $500 in winter coats for $100. I love getting a good deal. Then I went from wally world to wally world looking for cammo seat covers for Army Dude's truck. There was only 1 left at the first one, so I left and went to the other store and they only had 1 left too. Do they order these in odd numbers or do people only buy 1? And who the heck would buy just 1 seat cover? Weird. So this time I bought the 1 seat cover and went back across town hoping that no one felt the need to buy just one seat cover.

Speaking of Christmas shopping, Little Dude and I went to Target the other day to do some more Christmas shopping, we were walking through the books when he spots a book with Obama on the cover. He picks up the book, reads the title, looks up at me and says: "Ugh mom, the last thing I want to see when I walk through the store is a picture of Obama on a book. That is one book I will not read. I just can't believe he is going to be our president!" OK, thanks seven year old dissenter. I keep telling him that those are things that a seven year old shouldn't worry about but at the same time it brings a smile to my face.

All that we have left to do is wrap all the presents, which for me is 100x's worse than having to brave mobs at the store and the traffic jams to get there. That will come tonight, unless something better comes up like another family tournament of Mario Kart!

Just Another Reason...

Why I absolutely can't stand when the Obamas claim they care about the military so much.

I complained about it a few times during the campaign, especially when he would bring it up in the debates and then there was that clip where he said he would cut funding and another where he said he thought about joining the military once but didn't think it was important. And I would cringe every time I saw Michelle having a "town hall meeting" with spouses at military bases. It always seemed to disingenuous.

But according to Michelle military families are going to be one of her "issues" as first lady:

I would be honored to be first lady. I would work daily on the issues closest to my heart: helping working women and families, particularly military families.

Fast forward to the present day and the Obamas want to move into the Blair House (guest house across the street from the White House) early because their kids start school January 5. Unfortunately for them it will not be available until January 15, which is the traditional move in date for president elects.

OK, as part of a military family all I can think is cry me a river.

But it gets better! On Friday's Good Morning America they had a segment on this story and David Wright tells us the this little nugget of information:

The White House kindly offered up temporary accommodations on a nearby military base. The Obamas politely declined.

HA! Michelle dear, by either moving to Washington on the 15th or staying on the military base you'll finally have one thing in common with a military family: Uprooting your family at a not so convenient time for you school aged children or living in military housing (although you'd be staying in a much nicer house than most other military families). But I guess you are too good for either. I really get a kick out of the fact that they declined to stay on a military base when she says that military families are an issue close to her heart. I guess we are like a charitable novelty. One of those things that sound good in theory but god forbid you have to live where they do for 10 days (horrors!). She always seemed so insincere when talking to these military spouses, bored even. She never cared about them before but all of a sudden they are dear to her heart? I always thought she was trying to repair her image after saying she was proud of her country for the first time in her adult life and that America was a downright mean country. And now I believe that even more.

So next time I hear her or Obama try to tell us that they support our military or that the military families are dear to their hearts I'm going to think about him saying he didn't think it was important to serve, that as president he'd cut defense spending and that they declined to stay on a military base when the Bush administration was trying to accommodate them in their desire to move to DC early and then I will throw up in my mouth a little.