Monday Friends Report, December 22, 2008

We had occasion to go downstate yesterday and stay overnight. The weather in the state has been brutal with sub-zero temps and high winds that have made even expressway travel a risky adventure. But we're there and back again with no trouble but a long tense drive.

Here, we are celebrating the DETROIT LIONS new record, 15 straight losses in a season. It is the best ever in the NFL. The only reason it isn't 16 straight is because they've only played 15. There is a rumor going around the state that perhaps the team has given up hope.

Now we are in the last month of the Bush reign and we don't know anyone who is sorry to see him go.
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ALICE - has had the back of her van bashed in by a snowplow. This is a piece of bad luck she didn't need, that's for sure.

BRENDA - Just in time for Christmas and the new year, in this terrible economy where jobs seem so scarce, she has found a very good new job with a publishing company. Congratulations and bless you on this new trail.

IRISH MIKE - sponsored a Guinness Club at his house last Friday because the weather was so terrible and the roads were difficult. Only his very best friends showed up. :)

TRASE - this is the week of the new baby. Will it be born on Christmas?

MARSHA - is traveling to the north for Christmas with friends and family. Everyone hopes she will miss all the bad weather, and that she will be safe.

FELIX - sends another report of his adventures on the Appalachian Trail (AT) ten years ago. He through-hiked it from Maine to Georgia that summer and about Christmas time found himself in North Carolina.

Location of Bald Mt. Shelter, S. of Rte 19, near Tennessee/N. Carolina border.

* click on the map to enlarge it
==

The Kid (Groovin' Moose) caught me and hiked through the DMZ with me. [It is an area of the Trail in Tennessee that the NPS took some land (I'm not sure if it was eminent domain, or not) and the locals weren't too thrilled with the idea. It is a rough area. I once encountered fishhooks hanging at eye level across the trail and a shelter was burned down. It is called that because of its similarity to a demilitarized zone, I believe. ] He said he didn't want me to hike through alone :-) . Kids. Oddly enough, I actually had two conversations with locals in their yards. Imagine that: Felix talking to someone. Anyway, a little while later, I took one of my 3 falls on the trip. Thought I broke my wrist. I didn't.

The next day (10 years ago Thursday) I left the hostel at about noon and headed up to No Business Knob. It would be the last time I'd see Groovin' Moose on the hike ... I was pretty much alone from this point on. That was alright, as it meant I didn't have to spend so much time explaining what I said.

It snowed pretty hard the last 4 or 5 miles. Very windy and cold. I stayed at Bald Mt. Shelter that night. That is where I met Hooper and Toto. I had a blast with those guys that night, even though I never saw either of them (they were in tents 'upstairs'.) I was once again suprised to be crossing paths with northbounders. It got very cold and snowy that night. I think [it] seemed worse than it was, though.

So..ten years ago yesterday was...December 19th, 1998. Miserable weather. It warmed up enough to rain, and the snow of the previous day had turned to slush.It may have rained, or snowed, or drizzled every step of this day. I remember when I got to Sam's Gap, it was pouring. There was lots of traffic ... As the traffic whizzed by, the long tails of water that followed them would, of course, hit me. It didn't matter, I was already soaked and cold. I finally made it across the road, and up to Hogback Ridge Shelter. It was good to get out of the wind and rain for a snack. That is where the announcement "Vote to Impeach" came through my headset. I had been listening to the NPR broadcast of the stuffy impeachment proceedings all morning. It definitely helped to take my mind off the ankle-deep slush I was trudging through.

SANDY - Her daughter is home for Christmas and will be attending the Coffee Klatch this week to watch all the natives frolicking there.

LAURA - a favored barrista, is celebrating a birthday this week. Congratulations.


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ETC.... :

IRISH MIKE - reports that at least 20% of the pharmaceuticals used in the United States are manufactured in China (Yikes) where they fall under the same sort of regulations that gave us poison dog food and toxic toys. This includes virtually all the vitamins sold here.

BILL FROM WNNCO -
has discovered the only really worthwhile "Buckeyes" and they seem to come in pairs.

ah, freedom!

Here is one more reason why the U.S. Constitution and courts have so carefully separated church and state.  Of course, the priest is perfectly within his rights to censor anything he wants in his religious domain, leaving his people as stupid or well informed as they are willing to accept. But, put him and his friends in charge of the government, ad they will do the same to you, and you, and me, and all of us. 

====

Priest removes Obama books from school

BLUE SPRINGS, Mo., Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A priest has removed two books about Barack Obama from a Missouri Roman Catholic school's library because of the president-elect's abortion position.
"I am very pro-life," the Rev. Ron Elliott of Blue Springs, Mo., told KMBC-TV, Kansas City, Mo. "Because of his stance on certain issues, I was asked to look into that matter."

Sunday silly Sites

Go get your non-gun weapons of murder and mayhem. CLICK

[referred by MIKE CARROLL ALMOST FROM CARROLLTON]
"This is a great little golf game. Enjoy playing and watch out for the last hole. I only played one time so far and managed a 48 but had 8 on the last hole." CLICK


[referred by SPARTY]
Hit Bush in the face with a shoe. Wonderful for burning off some of that hostility we all feel. CLICK

ONE MONTH TO GO!

The Loyal Opposition (#9)

Here is the latest in our parade of images created by the Loyal Opposition in our country, to the man who is going to be President.
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Wacko-of-the-Week, December 20, 2008

This week, it all gets pretty sleazy --- aren't ya glad?
______________________________

JOAN TUCKRUSKYE - PTA Vice President
Baldwin, L.I., New York  

BIRCHES is going to make a couple of disclaimers here:
1. We do not intend to tell anyone who to choose for sex partners.
2. We are not going to make any puns on the name Tuckruskye.

A Long Island PTA official has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child after police say she was caught half-naked in a car with a 13-year-old boy.


"Police say Joan Tuckruskye, a PTA official, was arrested after being found half-naked in her car with a 13-year-old boy.

"Joan Tuckruskye, 44, of Baldwin, N.Y., was found with the boy in the parking lot of Meadow Elementary School. When an officer approached the Nissan Pathfinder, neither was wearing pants, according to police."
CLICK
---
Silly woman. If she is guilty as charged of playing doctor with a kid, she has overstepped her mark. Doesn't she know that these sensitive matters should be left to the experts: Teachers and priests?

We can't have every Jane, Janet and Joan going around knocking the horns off our teenagers. How will it look if every back seat is filled with civilian practitioners, boffing our impressionable boys? It won't be long before those guys get the idea that other folks are simply sex objects.

So, Lady Tuck-roger, you are Wacko!

======
RUNNERS UP-
1. Brian Lafaver, Tygh Valley,Oregon, who drove his car, filled with his family, off the road and through a ditch and into a clearing in the woods, in order to drive into and kill a deer. He hit it smack on! It turned out to be a fake deer, put there by the State Police to catch poachers. The list of charges against Brian is extensive.

2. The two guys on opposite sides of the world with purple penises:
CLICK
CLICK

After all, 'tis the season to be jolly, and maybe folly.

This cartoon was passed on by JERRY -

Comments?

A Light Through the Leaves

"The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober."
- William Butler Yeats

addendums

to SPARTY - An additional Gold Star is awarded because the answers he sent got stuck in transmission. He knows all these people because he knows just about everything about American history.
=====


PAM - sent this caption, which made me laugh: "You're grounded, no more TV, no more wars, no more torture."

gestures

It seems the world has entered an age of pathetic gestures. Look around and you see more and more efforts by individuals or nations to make some supposedly important point, only to end up looking pathetically banal.

1. SHOE THROWER - If the guy hadn't been frisked and 'wanded', he probably would have carried in an AK-47 and blown away half the room. That would have been a notable achievement. Yes, he's become famous for his stunt, but to what end? Now he's bound for jail with several broken bones, his target is none the worse for wear and in fact bragging about his own magnanimity, and the whole incident has become a joke along lines the thrower evidently did not intend.

2. THE ISLAMIC MOBS - who are roaming the streets in far-flung cities brandishing shoes and signs and lionizing the show-thrower. These mobs will turn up at any incident from anti-Mohammed cartoons to the most recent shooting by an Israeli. And the effect? Nil.

3. GEORGE BUSH'S VICTORY TOUR - What could be more pointless than this trip to Iraq and Afghanistan? The man has fouled the nests of half the world, and now in his insistence that he's really a decent well-meaning fella, he's wandering around from military audience to military audience preening and crowing like a rooster who just got his diminutive rocks off. No one is buying this charade except possibly Rush Limbaugh, and historians are already lining up to laugh at him.

4. THE RUSSIAN NAVY - has been moving about the Caribbean, showing up in the ports-of-call of any country that might have spit in the eye of the U.S. in the last few years. It even sent a ship through the Panama Canal, the first time in decades. Why? No one in the world believes the Russian navy has a fighting chance in case of war, and coming under the silent guns of the American military couldn't be more pathetic.

5. ROD BLAGOFABITCH'S PUBLIC APPEARANCES - Does he look brave? Does he look innocent? Does he look gubernatorial?

Does he look pathetic? Oh yeah! That's the one, Pathetic!

The Loyal Opposition (#8)

From time to time, we present a look at how the opposition is depicting the new President. Here's a simple, direct, to-the-point graphic:

Thursday Morning Smile-Maker (74)

... Lean Your Ear This Way ...

We're Holier Than Thou

We do not shop at:

1. WAL-MART because we consider it a traitor to the U.S. and the people of the U.S. who work for it.

2. CIRCUIT CITY - because earlier this year they fired every one of their workers in the stores and replaced them with new, cheaper labor, thus ruining the lives of many and perpetuating the concept of exploitation of workers. This is what happens and will happen more often without either unions or government rules protecting workers in this country.

answers to the last Tuesday Quiz, Gold Stars

GOLD STARS TO :

ALICE and FELIX.
=====
The answers, the Secretaries of State and their Presidents:

1. William Jennings Bryan- Woodrow Wilson
2. Thomas Jefferson- George Washington
3. Madeleine Allbright- Bill Clinton
4. George Marshall- Harry Truman
5. James Madison- Thomas Jefferson
6. Henry Kissinger- Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
7. Daniel Webster- W.H. Harrison, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore

Latest caption challenge- responses

When it appeared online, this photo just seemed to be a contradiction in our understanding of the universe, so BIRCHES challenged some readers to provide a caption. Here are some of the captions provided by our clever friends.


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BILL FROM WNNCO - "Well...here's another degree I had to purchase for you."

FELIX - Nice to meet you.

JANET - Rare sighting: George H.W. Bush, George Washington, and George W. Bush.

ALICE - "Come on you guys! Kiss and make up. Let bygones be bygones."

IRISH MIKE - Gee wiz! Mom and Dad, I told you I would graduate.

ANONYMOUS - Anything is possible in Texas.

FELIX - It's a deal. I won't wear black, you won't wear blue.

LAURA - Just remember everything I've taught you~ as soon as you see a shoe flying toward you, hook to the left. It's what I do whenever Babs gets mad at me.

Monday Friends Report, December 16, 2008

Here in Mid-Michigan, the opinion has been almost totally in favor of the government giving the needed loans to the Big-3 automakers. Many of our people have made their livings working for one of the companies, or have been dependent in other ways upon their success.

If the government will come through with that money (there are still possibilities, one of them being Bush) it will make this holiday season even better. Below I give some others reasons why this holiday is wonderful.

Although we have a bitterly cold wind blowing here in mid Michigan, driving wind chills to below zero, and even though freakish rains in the past few days melted a lot of the snow, there are still predictions for more snow and the prospects that we will have a white Christmas.
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What's up with some people here

DASHMANN says he has been bad-mouthing Bush for 8 years, now suddenly, the fate of his pension from G.M. may be in Bush's hands. "If this decent and maybe final act of his administration comes to fruition, I guess I would have to owe him a big one that will make subsequent criticism from me very difficult indeed.

ALICE - says that we can't count on the U.S. pulling out the Blackwater Guards and other private forces when our troops come out of Iraq. Apparently, they aren't part of the settlement with Iraq.

FELIX - recalls that it was ten years ago this week when he was 'through-hiking the A-T' (Appalachian Trail) that he met and had a stare-down with a bobcat.

TRASE and SCOT - report that so far, the baby is still biding its time. The arrival of this child will make this holiday even more wonderful than it already is.

MICHIGAN BUCKS - reminder: The match between the U.S. Women's Soccer team and China, set for a 7:30 PM kickoff Wednesday night (Dec. 17) at Ford Field in downtown Detroit. Watch it when it appears on T.V. if you can't go in person. These are two of the greatest teams ever.

DIGG S - has taken a new job in California, and we'll miss him in this neck of the woods. He says: "Finally made it to LA after a 2400 mile journey cross the country in a 22' truck with my car on a trailer (I've earned my trucker creds.) while making a brief detour in Moab, Utah to see the Arches National Park (highly recommended). Settling in slowly and haven't bothered to unpack 90% of my stuff. Goes to show how little one really needs day to day."

MARSHA - has returned safely from Cancun.

GIGI - is telling the world that she is completely A-OK after her last checkup. She's a miracle survivor and proud of it! Another reason this is a wonderful holiday season.

PAM - says that her husband is recovering very well from recent surgery. Another reason why this is a wonderful holiday season.
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What Some People are Reading and Talking About:

SPARTY - sends a short article from the Detroit Free Press ( CLICK ) discussing the unfairness of foreign trade practices which add a tax to American cars, while foreign cars often have the tax refunded.

The $20,000 American car exported to Germany is saddled with the VAT (Value Added Tax) at the border -- which is imposed not just on the base price of the car, but the shipping and insurance costs as well -- and winds up costing $25,792 in Germany.

BILL from WNNCO - Commenting on the deepening crisis: "I keep saying that the next year will be "great theatre", however the reality is I hope that we just survive the next year. There are a lot of things that are at risk of collapsing. Not most things but a lot of things. The only selfish hope I have is that we are not majorly wounded by all of this."


JERRY: presents a different look at the problem:
(Click on picture to enlarge it)


SANDY (and others, actually) - sent a quotation from Garrison Keillor about Obama's election:

The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos, and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and when his opponents threw sand at him, he just smiled back. He'll be the first president in history to look really good making a jump shot.

He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters. At the same time, he knows pop music, American lit and constitutional law. I just can't imagine anybody cooler.

DASHMANN - really liked this commentary by Robin Williams about the Obama election:
CLICK
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Some Humor folks sent in :

from BILL from WNNCO : Why you shouldn't piss off a mathematician:
(click to enlarge the picture)


==

forwarded by MIKE ALMOST FROM CARROLLTON:

The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in
Washington DC this Christmas season.
This isn't for any religious reason, they simply have not been able to
find Three Wise Men in Washington ,
nor could they find a virgin.

There was no problem,however, finding enough asses to fill the
stable.

==
BILL - sends this example of what the new Obama government will bring us, a new Form 1040: 
click to enlarge


====

from JOE -



====

from JERRY

Add to your day - the sound of a golden voice

Kristin Chenoweth
CLICK

freedom of speech

This is why I love democracy: 

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OLYMPIA, Wash., Dec. 12 (UPI) -- A Kansas church known for its militant opposition to homosexuality wants to post a warning against Santa Claus in the Washington State Capitol.
A sign from the Westboro Baptist Church saying "Santa Claus will take you to hell" would join other religious statements on the third floor of the building ...

"So get this fact straight:

you're feeling God's hate,

Santa's to blame for the economy's fate,

Santa Claus will take you to hell."

Sunday Morning silly Sites

The Most Extreme Conditions Ever Seen on Earth CLICK

Last pictures taken of famous people before they bit the dust. CLICK


(discovered and referred by Dashmann) Go here to test the age of your brain. Even if you can't read Japanese you can easily figure out how it works. (Feel free to doubt the results, I did!) CLICK

IF

A history professor of mine once said that a good historian does not use the word "if".

Nevertheless, I keep thinking what the world would be like IF Bush had never been chosen President by the Supreme Court, 8 ugly, bitter,culturally divided, bankrupt, war-weary years ago.

Wacko-of-the-Week, December 13, 2008

SIR ELTON JOHN - knight errant



He sued (for 30  million dollars) a newspaper in London which he claimed "ridiculed him in its article and poked fun at the annual charity ball organised by" him.

Poked fun at him? Uh-h Is he serious?  (tee-hee) 

He lost.  Elton, dear fey spirit, enjoy your Award as this Week's Yellow Brick Wacko.  

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RUNNER-UP:

SHIRLEY GOOD, of Port St Lucie, FLA - It must be terribly embarrassing, if you've named your daughter surely good uhh, Shirley Good, to have to call the cops and have her carried away for being drunk, disorderly, and destructive in your home. Then, how embarrassing is it to have to go retrieve her from jail after the new charge of twisting the cops' testicles? Ah yes. A great lady for our Wacko column! You know, when she is good, she is very very good, but when she is bad she gets really nutty. CLICK


JOSHUA WEIGAND, of Boise Idaho. He called the cops because someone was trailing him dangerously in a car. The cops came and arrested Joshua because he was a break-and-enter burglar who was being tracked by the neighbor of the 90-year old woman he tried to burglarize. The principle of law here is this: If you're going to victimize old ladies, don't call attention to yourself! Remember this rule, children. It will help you out in your future endeavors. CLICK

Barney Fife Award, #12. Orange County, FLA, Sheriff Dept.

5 Months Later; Bones Found Near Missing Girl's Home

"An Orange County water meter reader found the skeletal remains of a child around 9:30 a.m. Thursday in a wooded area while taking a bathroom break near South Chickasaw Trail and Suburban Drive, less than half a mile from the Hopespring Drive home of George and Cindy Anthony, Local 6 News reported."

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Comment:  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha HA! 

noted in passing

Barney Frank, Congressman,
makes a thought-provoking statement:

"No. We’re not propping up companies ... We’re propping up individuals. The world doesn't consist of companies. The world is people. The country is people."

American Women's Soccer Team ...

is reloading.

Our Women's team is the best in the world. Now the American Women's Under 20 Team has won the Under-20 World Cup. Future continues to look bright!

note from the love nest

We have put up our Chinese made Christmas tree with our Chinese made ornaments and Chinese made lights dressing it up real fine. Now we'll put some Chinese made Christmas stuff under it and settle back for a good old Michigan Christmas. What in the hell did people do for Christmas before the Chinese jumped in? Frankincense?

This is the first year for us to use what reader SCOT calls a fake representation of a cultural symbol, (that is, a fake Christmas tree) and we struggled with the proprieties. Is it better to have for ten years, a tree made out of petroleum from China than go out and chop down a living specimen at the local tree farm? On general principles of tradition, it should be a real tree.

And, after all, the real trees wouldn't even exist but for the fact that someone planted them in the hopes of someone else cutting them down a few years hence. Then, in most places, the real trees wind up in a landfill where they stay for sixteen million years or something waiting for a weevil to find them and chew them up. Our local nursery will gladly take them back for compost, which they then use for growing more Christmas trees.

Soon there will be a new baby in our family. Then we can go through the debate about reusable versus plastic diapers.

Thursday Morning Smile-Maker (73)

(Tues quiz)

Aw, come on a few of you could take a few guesses and make Felix happy. (Actually it would make me happy, I don't really know how Felix wold feel about it.) And if you hit a few, you get a star!

concerning: "Hot Rod" Blagojevich

In a democracy, a political party should be a bonding agent for its own elected officials. If one of theirs does wrong, they owe it to the people to get rid of him. CLICK

The Democrats owe this country a full airing oF the Rod Blagojevich scandals -- and everyone who played ball with him. Do it now!

Tuesday Evening Quiz, 12/09/08

FELIX proposed this quiz. Here are pictures of famous Secretaries of State. Starting at the top and numbering them 1-7, can you tell who the President was when each was Secretary of State?

SEND YOUR ANSWER BY EMAIL
It has been a long time since we've had a Tuesday Evening Quiz. Felix has been asking for them. So, he was challenged to propose a theme and this is what he proposed.

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some notes

1. THERE WILL BE A TUESDAY EVENING QUIZ THIS EVENING,
posted here on BIRCHES

2.The world according to Tom McMahon: CLICK

System for determining if a recount is needed:

Monday Morning Friends Report, December 8, 2008

We under the BIRCHES have been concerned about the health of a number of people lately.

Bad weather is in the works for the next couple of days. Most people are willing to sustain the onslaught as we approach the holidays because who doesn't love a White Christmas?

Let's all of us who have more than enough find ways to share with those who don't This year, the number of needy is very high. Give some food, or a coat, or toys for kids you don't know. Try not to lose that impulse in the rush of the holidays.
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December Birthdays we know of among our Birchies

SANDY - Dec 7
CHRIS - Dec 9 (10?)
IRISH MIKE - Dec 14
JOE - Dec 23
TRASE - Dec 31

Travelers

IRENE - has arrived in Michigan from Australia for the holiday season. She and her husband have two small children who are seeing snow for the first time. The boy went out in the snow and built a fort. It's a male thing you know.

MARSHA - has gone to Cancun. She'll be traveling for Christmas to Ohio and Michigan, also. Her team, South Carolina will be going to a bowl game and she'll be traveling for that as well.

SUPERINTENDENT MIKE and his wife, SUE - are back from New York.

PAT C - will be traveling to Iowa and the Chicago this Christmas. Then it's on to Florida for much of the winter.
======

What's happening with some people we know:

MARGARET - is holding a family Christmas at her house this year.

TRASE - gets ever closer to that due date. December 18.

LINDA - says that she has an all-purpose year-round wreath and that she has hung an ornament from it, and now she's decorated for Christmas. She claims she won a tree and when it was sent to her, she plugged it in and the lights didn't come on, so she has a dark tree.

STEVE - knows where to get a free tree, but says he hasn't any ornaments. If you know him, you could chip in. Maybe you could trade for an elk burger.

MIKE almost from CARROLLTON - is demanding an explanation from lawmakers for why the price of natural gas is so high. Everyone watch your bills! Don't let them cheat you.

FELIX - reports that he and PILOT have been together for ten years now. December 6 is that anniversary.

PAT W - has been decorating for the holidays with a real enthusiasm this year.

SANDY - has gifted many friends with her homemade fruit cake. Despite all the jokes, lots of people like fruit cake, and especially hers, which she says is a traditional family recipe.
=======

What some folks are reading or talking about:

SPARTY recommends an article about Hillary Clinton that compares her with Eleanor Roosevelt. It's really very good. CLICK

ALICE - who has written before about the evils of the "Blackwater Group" sent a reference to this story about 5 of those guys getting indicted for murder: CLICK

DASHMANN - says: I wanna go somewhere warm!!!

JIM THILL - reports on his reading lately of Charles Dickens, an author he's come to like. Check out his blog for his comments, which we think are very well stated: CLICK

SCOT - is talking about the Michigan win over Duke. For basketball fans, it is well known. What it may mean is that the U. of Michigan is returning to a respectable basketball team. Letr's hope that means decent and fair play which hasn't -- unfortunately -- always been the case for this team.

meanwhile, SPARTY and IRISH MIKE and AMY - are gloating in the success of Michigan State's basketball team again this year. Their latest victim was Bradley. And their football team will be going to a New Year's Day bowl game against Georgia.

BRENDA - sends this picture which she calls "Born to the Cult":


MIKE almost from CARROLLTON - recommends this inspirational story of good deeds at Christmas: CLICK
======

a bit of humor from the readers:

JERRY - why you should send your good used clothes to Goodwill for recycling:


SCOT - "Truly we live in an age of wonder ..."
{YouTube site} CLICK

JOE - forwarded this list of things to do to maintain a proper level of insanity:

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With
Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars.
See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't DisguiseYour Voice!
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If they want fries with that.
4. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks . Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions,
Switch to Espresso.
5. In the Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write 'For Marijuana'
6. Skip down the hall Rather Than Walk and see how many looks you get.
7. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
8. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is 'To Go'.
9. Sing Along At The Opera.
10. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can' t Attend Their Party Because You have a headache .
11. When The Money Comes Out of The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'
12. When Leaving the Zoo, Start Running towards the Parking lot, Yelling'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'
13. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.

===

A Light Through the Leaves

It is better to sleep for no reason than to work for no reason.
pithy Scandinavian droplet of wisdom

add to your day: a little down home religiosity

Especially for
the Catholics
among us.
======
You were wondering what the hell those dour Protestants were doing in their dens?

Check it out. CLICK

..noted in passing..

Huge Stash of Marijuana Found in Ancient Tomb
CLICK for story

Sunday silly Sites

These are things stumbled upon or run across or tripped over while coursing through a bunch of stray vacuum tubes on the internets. If you run across any that seem to fit the category, please pass them on to BIRCHES.
========

A quiz/game: Where on earth? CLICK

Information on how to live in your car. Hey! The way things are going, you could wind up there. If you still have a car. CLICK

What people wore in the 'Gay Nineties': CLICK

?

Does anyone know what these two have in common?

Wacko-of-the-Week, December 6, 2008

Covenant Medical Center, Saginaw, Michigan -

(warning, this time it's personal)


Thursday, Covenant Medical Center right here in mid Michigan, sent me a bill saying that I was in danger of being referred to a collection agency if I didn't immediately pay my past due bill.

Friday, I received the bill.
Note: I received the bill one day after I had received notice that I would be sent to a collection agency for not paying it. Moreover, the bill is not due until December 15. I was a clever enough math student to figure out that December 15 is 10 days away. How does this happen?

This is not my only set-to with Covenant billing, this brick of the American health system which is so-o-o much better than any other health system in the world, like Canada or England or someplace socialistic like that -- (wink-wink). Covenant are serial annoyers and do it with a sense of haughty aplomb. When people like me feel offended and huffy, the supernumeraries at Covenant want to slip into that old "treat him like a crackpot" mode.

They have threatened me before even though I pay all my bills in a timely fashion, I have health insurance (which is after all, a form of socialism), and am responsible for only a small portion of the bills ---- and they have a competitor right here in town, another hospital that I could use. Before I get done dealing with these people on any given transaction, they have managed to screw themselves up thoroughly, and then they blame me, and then they threaten me, and then they say "oops!"

Thank God the doctors who send me there are highly competent.

This is really the old problem of the bureaucrat who walks into her office each morning feeling something like a sleepy God, annoyed at the prospect of having to deal with the unwashed public, and who, with caffeinated nectar in her cup, can wreak darkness on anyone who passes in her purview, like a squid spreads ink.

Enjoy your award.

a thought in passing

Just a whimsical mental bloom:

I see the wacko righties are trying to disqualify Obama from the Presidency on the grounds he's an alien, and Hillary from the State Department on the grounds she was a senator. This doesn't seem cricket. I mean, no one disqualified Bush on the grounds he's an asshole.

Barney Fife Award #11, Massachusetts State Police Department

Trooper decides to ticket lady in labor by roadside.

Jennifer Davis was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Nov. 18, her contractions just 3 minutes apart. Her husband, John, was trying to appear calm for his wife's sake, driving in the breakdown lane of Route 2. They pulled up behind a state trooper to ask whether they could continue using the lane to reach the next exit, near Alewife Station.

Not only did the trooper say no, he gave them a $100 citation for driving in the breakdown lane, made them wait for their citation while he finished writing someone else's ticket, and even seemed to ask for proof of pregnancy, Jennifer Davis said.

Read all about it, it's great! CLICK

recommended by Sparty

EXCERPT-- from an article entitled: Car company lawmakers envision could be a money-losing operation

But the car company ... lawmakers envision for the future could turn out to be a money-losing operation, not part of a "sustainable U.S. auto industry" that President-elect Barack Obama and most members of Congress say they want to create.

That's because car manufacturers still haven't figured out how to produce hybrid and plug-in vehicles cheaply enough to make money on them. After a decade of relative success with its hybrid Prius, Toyota has sold about a million of the cars and is still widely believed by analysts to be losing money on each one sold. General Motors has touted plans for a plug-in hybrid vehicle called the Volt, but the costly battery will prevent it from turning a profit on the vehicle for several years, at least.

The entire article can be found here: CLICK FOR DET. NEWS ARTICLE

Gary Brookins, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Click on cartoon to enlarge it.

Thursday Morning Smile-Maker (72)

Goodbye Odetta Holmes

Died today, a voice and a face with more soul than all the rest of Birmingham from where she came.

CLICK to listen

To Hell in a Herd

In this time of peak oil and declining standards of living, the idea that American life can go on as before, with the automobile redesigned to operate on electricity, is very alluring. If this can be done, then Americans in the near future may still run all over the country at leisure. They can still go fast. They can still have the privacy and freedom that individual vehicles bring. (Well, that is, if we are willing to reinvest in a bunch of bridges and roads that are crumbling all over.) This is what we all are hoping for, isn't it?

Think of how much less planning for your daily life is entailed in knowing there's a car sitting outside, and whenever you want, you can go ten miles or a hundred. No concern: just go.

One of our occasional readers, who prefers not to contribute in writing, has suggested that we will be reliant on rental cars, probably mostly electric ones, for much of our travel in the future, because paying for and maintaining private cars will become prohibitively expensive. And Jim Thill from Minneapolis wrote in an entry below (Fri. Nov. 28) that in the future people who are not rich won't be able to drive much at all.

Lots of people are suggesting that we will return to more public transportation, maybe buses and trains, where we'll have to bump elbows with droves of other humans.

All of this will require a readjustment in our national psychology. We are a footloose people, trained by time and circumstance to be free roamers. We can do it with minimal exposure to all those other idiots out there. Now, they may cut us off in traffic, but we don't have to listen to or see and smell them in the confines of our little mobile cubicles. We can keep them at arm's length, the distance between the car window and the little sliding door from which a hand delivers a Big Mac.

As we wean ourselves from private cars, I'm seeing a nationwide attitude readjustment in the works, made necessary by a rising of tensions when we rub against each other more often. How can we accept the idea that in order to get a bag of groceries we not only have to endure all the fools pushing wheeled baskets through narrow aisles, but now we have to get on a bus and sit next to an alien who smells like some strange food. Are we going to accept traveling to the Grand Canyon in the same space with some guy from Yonkers who's snoring like hell in a seat behind us? Someone else's rotten kids running between the seats? A bigot propounding fascist thoughts across the aisle? Someone else passing gas? Are all the routines of our lives to be shared with strangers, herding around like tourist groups in Hollywood? Yikes!

And remember, we'll all have guns!

The Loyal Opposition (#6)

Keeping an eye on what the other side thinks, graphically, of the winners of the election. Don't you appreciate it?
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Monday Friends Report, Dec 1 2008

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STEVE - has returned from his elk-hunting trip to Montana. Yep, he got an elk. Either he shot it, or he found a store that sells elks, because there are hundreds of pounds of meat he came home with. We're hoping to get a picture, hint-hint.

DASHMANN - sends this:

SPARTY - whose scorn for the University of Michigan is one of life's constants, sent this:
"I read this in the Free Press this morning - can't resist forwarding it to y'all."

"No statements on 'he said, she said.' No drama on lawsuits -- you know, accusations. I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous, and y'all know it. Y'all have been there for the last 10 months. I never seen nothing like it. You can have consultants talk to you, all that, but what prepares you for something when somebody throws something out there that's completely untrue, not even close to being factual? You got to respond to it, (but) you can't.

--Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez

BILL - recommends this video about the Brazil plant of Ford Motors. CLICK


DASHMANN - "Please be patient and wait for the 30 second ad to play.
You may be surprised at this summary of the people involved in the outgoing Bush administration. Happy Thanksgiving everyone." CLICK


BILL from WNNCO - has sent a Christmas card with topless young ladies as ornaments. The message says, "Breast Wishes."


FELIX - sent a picture "of some 'graveyard vandalism' that took place over 4 or 5 nights around Halloween at the graveyard where I'll be planted someday. The sheriff's department recently got two signed confessions and believe they'll get two more soon. At least four juveniles were involved."