Well…I am running really late today and it all started by not getting out of bed until 7:30…I feel quite a bit better today since T has had her health issues resolved and now I don’t have to worry about her….there were no dreams last night and I am a little surprised since I did sleep okay but maybe it’s because it was a cocktail night last night….I can’t wait to get out on the bike this morning to see if I have the shifter fixed…I did tear the thing apart yesterday and figured out that I can change the cable next week when I have to so that takes a load off the mind…yep, even something as small as that weighs on me….I did find the tire liners online yesterday and got them ordered so they should be here by Tuesday or so…I am so tired of getting flats that I can’t wait…okay…this is where I normally say I’ll be back later for more but you know how this works on the weekend….I’ll try but no promises..
Part two….
Well…it has been a weird day….had to fix a flat on the bike again and spent most of the morning running around looking for inserts to put in the tires to prevent them….and it has been raining off and on all day so I stayed off the bike…I think I may have found why the shifter has been so hinkey lately but it will mean putting a new cable in in the next couple of days….can you use in and in together? Who knows…it looks weird to read but I think its sounds okay….I do feel a little better…no, that’s not right…I felt okay this morning but, as you know, there are times I allow myself to think a little more deeply than I should and it comes pouring out here…but, you’ve seen that before and you will see it again….I do have warts, after all….and I sometimes display them here for all of you to see….tomorrow I will get to a political one since I am going to splurge for the papers…
March 23rd
Well…I can tell already that this is not working….so I’m going to stop and come back later to continue….
Okay….it’s been one of those mornings where you have to stop and think about everything in your life and the frailty of it all and that’s not something that comes easily to an old guy that is staring mortality in the face…and it’s raining, and the bike is broken, and one of my best friends is hurting and there is nothing I can do about any of it….I feel my shoulders drooping as if there is a real weight on them….but, as always, I’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving…what else can you do? I feel hollow this morning…but I’m going to keep trying what normally works….put some music on and keep writing….
A few things….
Well…don’t really have a long form topic for today so I think I’ll just take a few things and add them into this one just to see where it goes…first, let’s look at the unintended consequences that are coming from many of the laws that the Koch brothers have sponsored through the right wing legislative organization called ALEC, whose sole purpose is to push the right wing agenda by writing laws that they hand to captive repub legislators across the US who then ram them through state legislatures. One of these laws is the “stand your ground” law in Florida that has been copied across 17 other states that says that people can’t be prosecuted if they shoot someone and claim self defense…the most recent case in Florida concerns an unarmed young black man that was chased by an armed citizen and shot and killed…with the killer claiming self defense…now, I’ve never seen anyone who thought they were in mortal danger run toward the person they felt was threatening…the NRA, ALEC, and the Florida legislators who passed this bill are as responsible for this young man’s death as the shooter. Okay….after that, the rest of the things I wanted to talk about seem pretty trivial so I’ll just leave it here….how can this happen in 2012 in the US?
March 22nd
Well…it was a nice, hot day yesterday and I think that helped me keep moving and and flexible…did not sleep well but I did have really weird dreams that included a DeSoto station wagon that used oil, Harvey Keitel, portable beard trimmers, good looking spies, and huge snowstorms…I wonder if you guys can make sense of that mess, I know I sure can’t….but I am proud of the weirdness….it looks like I may have some things to do today…I do have to do the grocery run today and then C is coming into town later so there may be a few beers in the future…I am worrying a little about T….she wasn’t feeling well yesterday and I haven’t heard from her yet today so, until I do, I will have some concern….I feel pretty good with the 3rd no cocktail night but that will end tonight….and I will have more for later even though I am ahead for the month….
Paul Ryan is still an idiot…
Well…just a short one on the new budget plan that ole Paul has put forth…I’m not going to bog you down with all of the numbers but just the two that define this mess that continues the repubs war on the middle class and poor….5.3 trillion dollars in cuts to programs for the poor and middle class…including gutting Medicare and social security…and guess who gets tax cuts? I’m sure you guessed it…the rich will get 4.3 billion in tax cuts…so, what this idiot has just said that we are no longer even going to pretend that we give a damn about anyone but the rich…and he justifies it by saying that anything that benefits the less fortunate will just take away their incentive to work and get ahead…never mind that the rich and corporations get much more in subsidies every year…does that mean that corporations will no longer have incentive to compete since they are getting corporate welfare? Oh, no….corporations are different since they are “job creators” so the rules don’t apply….as they don’t to the 1%…how did we get here? I am losing hope for our country if guys like this are allowed to stay in power…geez…
Who cares what the supreme court does on healthcare?
Well…I have been kind of interested in the implementation of the new healthcare law since it would allow me to buy insurance again that I can’t afford now…but, that’s not I want to talk about right now…I really want to talk about the political implications of the supreme court taking up the case for the individual mandate before the fall elections. Some of the pundits on the right think that no matter what the decision is, they have a winning issue for the general….but I see it differently…let’s take the either/or of the decision and see where that will take us. So, if the court rules against the individual mandate, I see the immediate result that the dems will be able to use the decision to connect it to the conservative debacle of Citizens United and say that this is an activist court that is not in the mainstream of American life…on the other hand, if the court upholds the law…the dems can say “see, I told you the law was legal” and hammer the repubs on their ignorance of the law and then start to shift the conversation back to the benefits of the law that the people will like once it is implemented….if a political novice like me can come up this off the top of my head…I’m sure we’re going to be able to deflate this issue quite easily in the fall…
March 21st
Well…it was another day yesterday with a long bike ride and almost the warmest day ever for March….other than that, there just is not much to tell right now…there were some dreams last night but just the normal, unremarkable stuff that doesn’t really merit commenting on….so I won’t….it looks like another day that will be a carbon copy of yesterday but that will be ending by the end of the week…I won’t be going back into jeans but it will be half thermasuit on the bike….not much to do today…I do have to go to the bank to deposit some cash so I can pay the electric bill and I may even buy the papers and have coffee, too…haven’t been out to the coffee shop in over a month so it may be fun to to sit outside there and read the papers….I’ll be back for later…I did have a late one from last night so look down and see….
A gaffe a day from these idiots…
Well…just a quick one on the daily gaffes that have been flowing out of the repub candidates and I’m not sure to laugh about them or just roll my eyes…is this shooting fish in a barrel? Yeah, it kind of is but it’s such a hanging curve ball I’m going to take a swing. Okay, I recognize that those last two were bad….Let’s start with ole Rick again, when asked about the unemployment rate, he answered that he “didn’t care about the unemployment rate” and his candidacy is about ‘freedom” and bigger issues than unemployment…how many ways is this one wrong? The one that I want to highlight is the fact that by this statement, Santorum has said that ideology and his right wing agenda is going to trump all of the rest of the problems the country faces…and there are issues that most of us think are more important than his war on everyone but conservative white people. Then, I have to say thanks to ole Mitt for another “let them eat cake” moment that came from questions about his desire to “get rid” of Planned Parenthood. When asked where poor women would go to get the health services that Planned Parenthood provides that they can’t afford to get anywhere else, the wonderfully obtuse Mitt replied “they can go anywhere, it a free country”….I really do wish I was making these up but I’m not…this is the quality of the field from the repubs and these are their ideas….so don’t let them dance around these issues…
Before I have lunch…
Well…just got back from the ride and thought I’d do this one before I get to making lunch…I guess I’ve never seen such a truth challenged bunch like the current crop of repub candidates…starting with ole Rick in Puerto Rico last week saying that for them to get statehood, they would have to comply with federal law that says they have to speak English…I don’t know if it ignorance or just stupidity but there is no such federal law on the books..nowhere…so that still leaves us with the fact that ole Rick is either ignorant of federal law, a great thing for a president, or he is just another of the repubs who are showing they are just not too bright. That brings us to the main event and the attack that ole Mitt made on Obama this week saying that is Obama’s regulatory overreach that is phasing out the incandescent light bulbs that are such energy wasters. First, Mitt, the law that is resulting in the demise of the old fashioned bulbs is contained in a law that was written and passed by a repub controlled congress and signed into law by ole GW himself…long before Obama even took office and long before any regulations on these bulbs could have been made by him. So, here we have supposedly the two best that the repubs have to offer both either showing their stupidity or deliberately lying just to mollify their base…what kind of governance should we expect from these guys? Geez…