Factcheck.org

Oh, the national debate! In general, this article can serve as a guide to help sort out a lot of rumors/lies/falsehoods fairly quickly. Just something for everyone to keep in mind.

Article: That Chain E mail Your Friend Sent You Is Likely Bogus. Seriously.

Quackies

I'm loving this.
I think it might just have to go in the bug's new room....

Political Perspective

Waterloo

March 21st, 2010 at 4:59 pm by David Frum

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

Original Article here.

Fear & Loathing

Our house sold. It's not our house anymore. This is exciting and sad and moderately terrifying all at the same time. Nothing good in life is accomplished through fear. And yet I'm approaching this next phase from this unfortunate and worthless mental space.

"What if the next house isn't as good as this one?"
"What if we're too far away from the people we love?"
"What if the schools are terrible?"
"What if I hate it and I just want my old house back?"

This is not productive. And it's certainly not making the most of an exciting (and hopefully rare) moment in our lives. This is our next phase. Our new start. As parents. And grown ups. We're thinking about school districts and taxes and parks and recreation. What?!? Grown-up stuff.

And so I will not be filled with fear. And I will not look back in sadness. All of my happy memories from this little house can be packed up and moved to the next one. Once we find it.

A little muffin to go with that coffee....

I don't mean to seem insensitive, but there is something that bugs me. It's this: moderately skinny girls don't get to complain about their weight after they have babies. There. I said it. I realize that weight loss is a fairly personal subject and the post-pregnancy flab affects lots of people in lots of different ways for lots of different reasons. But still, body identity is a huge part of how you see yourself and maybe even more so after you suddenly produce an adorable offspring and now have to learn how to see yourself as a mother, on top of all of your previous important roles. And somehow if you fall into the "you're not so bad" category you don't get to publicly lament the loss of your skinny self.

So I was made skinny. It's just how I am. And after two kids I kind of wondered if I'd feel like "me" again. I accept that pregnancy changed me. But I still wanted to return to feeling like me. Someday. Somehow. And so, today, I put on a pair of pants that I loved when I was working. That's pre-Eliana and definitely pre-Parker. The old-me pants. And they fit.

I'm not gonna lie. There's a little muffin-top going on. But not a ton. I'm on my way....

(Oh, and something else I must confess. I found the pants because my mom cleaned out my entire, huge, walk-in closet and put everything in neat, color-coded stacks. Amazing. She did it to help us sell the house, but I'm directly benefiting from the hard work. Thanks, Mom!!)

Mmmmm......Coffee

First things first. Coffee is delicious. Uncle Chris made me a wonderful cup of cappuccino last week with rice milk. Yum. Here's to your health. And wishing I could make anyone in my house drink rice milk.

And today I'll be stopping by Starbucks for a nice latte as we clear out way too early in the morning for our little Owens Street house inspection. Here's hoping the old girl gets an "A."

So on that note, here are the best Grocery Store coffees.

And while we're talking about coffee, lets' ponder this.

Happy Tuesday!

Moving On...

I don't really think anything ever changes. Nothing is really, truly different. Maybe circumstances change. Or you look at things from a different perspective. Or you grow fearful or angry or lose that youthful optimistic outlook. I'm feeling this as I age. But I don't want to. But all in all, who you are and what you are, are well, fairly static.

So selling our house will bring a lot of "news" but things will really just be the same. Us. A home. Friends. Family.

Moving is exciting. And terrible.

I'm seeking my inner-optimistic self and re-charging so that when we find the right one we will know it. We'll know it's ours. We'll know it's home. We'll see it. And even though everything will change, everything will feel the same.