There's no doubt that Senator Al Franken has arrived. Consider his direct accusations aimed at the current version of the United States Supreme Court. In a thumbnail, Franken charges that the Court has worked hard to crank out pro-business rulings that curtail critically important and long-standing individual rights.
President Obama has failed to keep his campaign promises regarding faith based programs and transparency--so far. Admittedly, Mr. Obama worked hard and accomplished much since January 21, 2009. His accomplishments include assembling his administration, getting appointments approved over irrational GOP opposition, trying to include insane Republicans into his cabinet, promoting and signing an $800 (flawed) billion stimulus package, dealing with the budget (and additional appropriations in violation of promises to keep war funding inside the pentagon budget), dealing with Swine Flu, taking international trips, repairing international relations and making an important nomination to the Supreme Court. Yes, Virginia, it’s only been since January 21, 2009! It hasn't been even six months and the poor guy is getting crucified for what he HASN'T yet done. Cool off, chill out a little and consider these proposals (MY proposals): If Mr. Cheney actually speaks—which he no longer does because he prefers not to be questioned further about secret assassination squads he apparently set up and then ordered the CIA not to disclose such actions to the Congress as mandated by federal law. Mr. Cheney has now abandoned his defense to a surrogate, Liz Cheney, who performs her role of defender for the former Vice President based upon her dubious qualifications of being Mr. Cheney’s daughter and a Bush administration appointee in the State Department (which was ignored in the Bush era!). You see, the music died.
Back when our "new" car reached the age of 10, we considered buying something more up-to-date. But then the economy tanked and we postponed.
I also am holding a rarely used "old" car that is 17 years old. It qualifies under the new Clunker Bill, wherein it is worth $4500 in trade in. I've put about $4,000 into it and driven it nearly 1,000 miles since I bought it for 2 grand in 2005. Not a very good deal. But it is only worth about $2,000 according to Kelly Blue Book.
We obviously don't really need a second car, but it does seem like a good time to buy. So, do I save money by selling the old car off for maybe $1,500 and cut my losses? Or should I invest in a new "new" car that qualifies for the trade-in and relabel our "new" car as the spare?
The word "texting" sounds harsh and garbled when it comes out of a speaker's mouth. A sentence where "text" is used as a verb, such as , "I texted him yesterday but he didn't text me back," instantly summons an image of a slack-jawed, gum-popping teenage girl- all ignorance and frivolity. The words just sound stupid. Don't blame me- some of us Gen-Yers fought off the term "texting" the same way we did bad fads like Crocs and Ugg boots. Even deep into the aughts, years after "texting", we still said "sending a text message" instead. "Texting" prevailed however, for the same reason that Crocs and Uggs became ubiquitous: aesthetics aside, it was damn comfy and easy. "Texting" might make for an ugly-sounding word, but it came out more smoothly and quickly than the correct "sending a text message".
I once saw this activity at the turtle exhibit at the local zoo, and it didn't take a biologist to tell me that I was not misinterpreting what I was seeing. These turtles seem incredibly almost-human, even though they didn't smoke cigarettes afterward. Captured here in living color close-up, I'm posting this video as an animals-in the-wild education video: Watching this reminded me of watching David Attenborough "Trials of Life" series with my then four-year old daughter. One of these exquisitely filmed Attenborough videos, which was on the topic of animal reproduction, included more explicit animal sex videos than I could ever had imagined, including elephant sex. At first I wondered whether I should be letting the video keep running. While I was contemplating my options, my daughter looked up and asked, "Daddy, what are those elephants doing?" I found myself saying, "Those are elephants having sex." I didn't offer any further explanation and my daughter didn't request one. We quietly watched the entire video and now, 7 years later, my daughter doesn't seem to be emotionally damaged from having seen the episode. Oh, and according to doctors polled by the U.K. Guardian, having sex before going to bed is the second-best way to have a good night's sleep. The winning solution was for couples to sleep in separate beds.
