Well…it was a disappointing day yesterday with the Wings losing the first playoff game….but the rest of the day was okay and I have to stay positive…and today will be a good one, I hope, but I need to get the coffee going and load up the slow cooker for later so this one is going to be short for now….I did have dreams in the later part of the night that included travel to either Canada or England…and undercover police….not much else so I don’t know why I’m sharing that. Going to get back to the slow cooker part…be back later for more now that I’ve caught up for the month….
All posts by James DeVol
One more thing about jobs…
Well….I was going to append this one to the last one but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that it deserved its own even though this one will be short…..does anyone else smell a rat with the precipitous drop in new private sector jobs last month? I think there was just too much good news coming out of the labor market, which would undoubtedly help Obama in the general election…so what do the friends of the repubs do that run most of the business in the US? They take one for the team and stop hiring to support the repub line that the economy still stinks and Obama should not be reelected. I normally don’t really support conspiracy theories, but the repubs are well known for rewarding businesses that give them money and support the party line (think Halliburton) and I would not put it past them that they are using all of the coercion and reward that they can to win the election…and those in business that will benefit the most from a repub president are all too happy to comply by hurting the economy and the middle class for their personal gain…geez…
A couple of things…
Well…have been watching some sports this aft so I haven’t really gotten my brain into the political gear that I need to make some sense of the things that I see happening…but, a couple of things have come up that I wanted to comment on…first, I thought it quite clever today when Obama described behaviors of Saint Ronald of Reagan that would have prevented him from even getting the nomination in today’s repub party…under full disclosure, I voted for Reagan… a mistake that I have had years to savor…what Obama was getting at was Reagan’s pragmatic approach to governance, and the fact that he advocated raising taxes on the rich to have them pay their “fair share” and this was at a rate that was more than 25% higher than it is now….if any repub these days even hints at wanting to do the sensible thing and combine budget cuts with tax increases to help decrease the deficit, they would be run out of town by the rabid tea partiers aided by ole Grover Norquist….it is kind of neat to see the shapes of the general starting to appear and I just can’t see how Romney can win after lurching so far to the right in the primary…alienating women, hispanics, independents, and everyone else except the extreme righties…..and there just is not enough of them to win a general election….can’t wait to see Karly Rove and his super pac spend a 100 million dollars and lose….geez…
Let’s Go Red Wings!
Well…it is the start of playoff season in the NHL and my team goes off tonight against Nashville in what makes me feel really uneasy for the first time in the past 20 years….and yet, there is a component of excitement, too, that I quite enjoy….nevermind that almost all of the sports commentators pick the Preds, anything can happen in the playoffs. Oh, crap, I’m now spouting cliches instead of just talking about this wonderful time of the year…a time when I put everything else on hold, get my workouts and bike ride in early, and switch into the gear in the middle of the afternoon….the past couple of playoffs have been different with the group scattered and tending to the new phases of their lives but I am slowly getting used to it…getting used to following the game with a few of us by text as the thing unfolds but still sharing the good and bad…and that is a good thing, just different…but times and lives change and we need to be able to roll with it…I’ve gotten better at it lately…crap, this one was supposed to be about the Wings…not my life…so let’s get back to it….I am a little encouraged that we will have everyone back but Helm for tonight’s game but I think some of the guys aren’t quite up to speed from their injuries….I will predict this, and probably look ridiculous tomorrow, Frantzen will get a hat trick tonight and we’ll win 4-3…..I will try to keep up with commentary after every game so look for it tomorrow….Let’s Go Red Wings!!!
One last thing….the Tigers go this aft with Verlander on the mound and the last undefeated record in the majors…should be a good one against the Rays….
April 11th
Well….it was a day out yesterday…lost at pool but it was a hard fought week so I feel okay about that….another night of post apocalyptic dreams with guns and abandoned houses but I don’t remember the cause of the societal breakdown…it was weird but okay….the car seems to be okay but I think I need to start looking for another one…it is just worn out and rusting away slowly so I think I need to start doing the pre-work to find the Miata…but, not today…I have to do the grocery run to get ready for the Wings first playoff game and I think I’ll just concentrate on that…may have lunch with T today but it’s kind of iffy so I’m not going to count on it…do need to find the Wings gear and get ready for tonight but I do need to ride the bike today if it’s not snowing…right now, though, it’s water and couch time for a few minutes…more later…
A new twist on ACA…
Well….this is going to be a short one on some new study that was done by a repub who is a Medicare trustee saying that the ACA, or “Obamacare” will add 340 billion dollars to the deficit over 10 years…and I just love how the press has picked this nonsense up as “fact” when it is just another facet in the total war the repubs are waging on Obama…and they are hoping that throwing these huge, baseless numbers around will scare people into voting for the repubs in the fall…the only problem? The person who authored the study admits that he deviated from normal practices when doing his calculations…but he did say ‘trust me”, not the GAO or the CBO or any other agency that have run the numbers…but just trust me, my assumptions are correct and everyone else’s are wrong…an it is just a coincidence that my numbers are just what the rest of the repubs have been saying….how many times do we have to hear “trust us” from the repubs before we automatically know they are going to lie in the next breath….I’ve had enough, how about you? Geez….
April 10th
Well…getting at this one really early today…it’s about 5:30 am but I couldn’t sleep so I thought I do this right now…it was kind of a fun day yesterday with some good news for a change and I don’t know what to think about that…let’s start with the car….went out Sunday to shoot pool with Tom and had what I thought was a rear wheel bearing that started to make noise…but the noise stopped on the way home and hasn’t come back yet…so that was the first good thing…the second one was getting the taxes done and finding that I only owe the feds 200 bucks versus the 2K that I expected….and then, last night, I had a nice night out with G and we laughed a bunch with no arguments….all in all, a pretty good day as my days go…didn’t sleep at all, though, but I’ll take that as a trade off any day…not much to do today…I am going to take a day to just smile at the sky today and maybe get that spider alert completed…it is going to be too cold to go out on the bike today and I think my right thigh ( really, both of them) can use the rest. I will get back here later for another one and since politics has been kind of boring lately, I may have to branch out to other topics…should do one on the Wings since the playoffs start tomorrow…more later….
I’m trying….
Well…it has been such a struggle lately to get these out but I am going to keep trying as long as it takes….I find it funny that the right has been taken aback now that Obama has figured them out and has started to fight back where he hoped for compromise in the past….and they are just screaming about his attack on the Ryan budget and the fact that he is using numbers against them…especially since they don’t believe in numbers at all, or they failed at math in high school, I’m not sure which. It is just like any bunch of bullies, when they get challenged, they sit there and try to turn the fault for the bullying back on the victim…but I’m not calling Obama a victim…he brought a lot of this bullying on himself by trying to compromise when the right had made it clear they would not compromise on anything….it’s like the right is surprised that he is not just rolling over and taking it and they don’t know how to react to it….being exposed as the party of no ideas must hurt…and I just love it…
April 9th
Well…it was a long day yesterday…was going to shoot pool with Tom but forgot that the bars were closed…at least some of them…and one of the rear wheel bearings on the car started to make noise…but, by the time I got home, the noise had gone away….I am going to check it out today but I don’t have the tools to take it apart anymore so I’m not sure what I’m going to do…maybe just not drive it…who knows? I feel kind of crappy today but I know it’s a bug this time…so, I’m going to go back to the couch and heal up for a while….
Okay…got the workout in and feel a little better but I’m still sweating like crazy so I know I have something…I may even skip the bike ride…I did read the online papers but it still isn’t enough to get good topics so I may have to go back to the real ones to keep this thing going…yep….it is a bug….my stomach has gone to hell and I am sweating standing still….so, I am going to stop here and head back to the couch…more later…
April 8th
Well…running normally today with Man U on and last week’s Mad Men coming on in a minute…yep, a pretty boring life when those kind of things excite me…but it does help pass the time while I wait for the temp to come up enough to go out….it was cold riding out to get the paper this morning and the wind was just brutal….I did have a little fun yesterday with meeting the twins and V over at Logan’s but the rest of the night was kind of a letdown…the Wings lost in a shootout and that puts them on the road for the first round of the playoffs….okay…I’ll be back later…want to watch some of the match…