Some recent snapshots

"Cat and the Pat"

Wyatt: Now that was a championship quality belch!

Marsha and new friend, Darius Rucker.

Bill from WNNCO and his sons, Erick and Chris. Will race anything on wheels.

Matt, son of Gigi and Sparty, holds talk with high school kids. He is a top mover and shaker with the State Republican Party.

This red-bellied woodpecker hit our window and showed every sign of having a broken wing. But when I picked him up to check him out, he flew out of my hands. Now, every day, he comes to our peanut feeder. He's as welcome as wealth.

Friend, Cal.

Our beautiful bar tenderess, Rachelle!

Oct. 20, 2010: Flourishing greenery on our back deck, weeks after it should have frozen out. Thank you Ma Nature for the beautiful fall.

Fall colors at the woods by Steve and Brenda's house.

Stop signs at Allendale and Brockway. What is the reasoning? Everyone should stop twice? Someone in the County Road Commission got a great deal on new stop signs? Or has an investment in the company? Or the jobs are so intricately defined that the same people who put in a sign can't take the other one out?

Bud and his new Dodge Calibre

another little quiz

In what American city was this photo made in about 1910?

Where and why?

S. Korea is a really rich country. N. Korea is a basket case.

S. Korea has a population of almost 50 million. N. Korea has a population of nearly 25 million.

S. Korea has had 60 years to prepare itself against an attack from N. Korea who threatens to do it quite frequently.

So, why are we there?

anyone? ....

Here is a subject about which I am naive and ignorant, so maybe you all can help me out here. I see that there is a new translation of the Bible about to hit the nation. No one has read it yet, but it's already controversial. CLICK

This is a reliving of the history of all those other translations which have been criticized. Let's say that God actually did inspire the first Bible, he (or she or they) has not, evidently, indicated a preference among all the translations, which are after all, merely translations. Is it OK to read one, by the way, in a Russian translation?

Feel free to comment.

quoted without comment

It's really too late for both parties. They're unreformable. They've squandered their legitimacy just as the US enters the fat heart of the long emergency. Neither of them have a plan, or even a single idea that isn't a dodge or a grift. Both parties tout a "recovery" that is just a cover story for accounting chicanery and statistical lies aimed at concealing the criminally-engineered national bankruptcy that they presided over in split shifts. Both parties are overwhelmingly made up of bagmen for the companies that looted America.

James Kunstler: Source: CLICK

It's Caturday

Cat's Instruction Book.

Attack anything that moves under a blanket.

The answer to the little quiz on Tuesday is posted in comments below the picture.

Letter from DASHMANN

Dashmann continues to find the Republicans detestable, perhaps because they continue to be so:

======

"The same congressmen, mostly Republicans, who want to borrow lots of money to maintain the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, today voted down borrowing a lot less money to extend jobless benefits for 3 months. (Merry Christmas all you lazy unemployed people)

"This is the same day General Motors made its initial public offering of stock on the New York Stock Exchange, after receiving loans from the Obama government, thereby preserving over a million jobs in the process, not to mention the spin-off businesses needed to support the auto firm. Those loans were widely opposed and criticized at the time by those same Republicans.

"And now Republicans vow to make Obama fail in his last 2 years as President. That means NOTHING GOOD can happen to the country the next 2 years, lest Obama be given any credit for anything good !!!

"What kind of patriots comprise the Republican party and whose side are they on???"

Yes, we're so well infromed

If you run into Alice, be sure to ask her about her trip to the PennZoil shop. You will laugh really hard.

Salvatore Giunta.

For some reason,

I feel proud myself, even though I never went near a battlefield.

Quiz

What Happened Here?

Take your best guess.

Serious or non serious answers accepted.

The do-gooders agenda

U.S. News
Ban on circumcision proposed in San Francisco

Here's the story: CLICK

An opinion statement: It started with a war on meat eating. It spread to the war on tobacco. It spread to a war on fat people. And then, it's extended to what the fast-food restaurants are allowed to serve. And now, the holiness of our genitalia! I'm not sure what will be next, but I would like to suggest this possibility: Requiring men to sit down on the john when they urinate.

mistake

Here's my feeble attempt to correct a common mistake.

Everyone who detests what the Republicans stand for these days, is not necessarily a Democrat.

====

BTW: Has anyone out there heard any proposal from either of these political parties for actually creating jobs?

Sent By SPARTY

--- (From The Nation)

This chart shows how the rich are getting much richer than ever in the past few years. How will this serve democracy?

anyone besides me think we ought to impeach Justice Samuel Alito?

I'm going to call my Senators, or write them a letter, or maybe an e-mail.

There are more comments being added to JABBERWOCKY below. Thanks.

P.S. - The article from Newsweek recommended by Mike is very good.

Click on this line:="http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/06/klein-the-do-lots-111th-congress.html"

The U.S. military has concluded that the missile firing off California was not a missile firing at all, it was a contrail from American Airlines fight 808. There you have it folks, the absolute "gospel truth." I'll go with that.

What would you do?

This is the latest DASHMANN challenge. He asked his e-mailing friends what they would do in the following circumstance, and he gives the answers he received. Add your comments, please.

=========

What would YOU do with her ??????

From Georgy Ann Geyer’s column11-4-10

http://www.uexpress.com/georgieannegeyer/?uc_full_date=20101104

Let me tell you a story -- about me. I'm warning you so you can check out, should you want to. You see, I had worked nearly 50 years, done everything right, paid all my car, home and health insurance premiums, etc. Then three years ago, after I had to have a nasty 10-hour cancer operation, my private insurance company canceled me. I was costing it too much.

No matter that, all those years I was healthy, the insurance folks were busy as little bees investing my fees for their profit. No matter that this was their contract, not only with me, but effectively with the entire American people.

No, it had all come down -- as in thousands of similar cases every year -- to simple greed on the part of the insurance companies.

But the worst part has been that, when I have told individual Americans who are against the health care bill my story and asked them, "Then what would you do with me? Put me out on the street?" none of them answer me. And maybe this really IS what we've come to.

What would YOU do with her ??????

==============

Here are the answers I received ------- I leave it to you to decide who takes the more thoughtful approach to things

Right Wing answers –

“I guess we'll let Obama take [care] of her like he said he would. Actually I don't see a problem. Maybe you should check with Snopes”

Three years ago? I would have complained to my Democratic congressman and asked him to do something. However, that would have been futile as he wouldn't have been capable.

Independent answer –

I would do what every American would do. Republican, Democrat or Independent. Pass a healthcare bill like the parts

now implemented in the current bill. This part is a no brainer. We just don't need 2700 pages of what no one has read and don't have a clue what all of the implications are.

Left wing answer –

As the old Neil Diamond song goes: Except for the name and and a few of the details my story's the same one. It's so very sad about Georgy's plight. The good ole American tradition is to have a spaghetti dinner and other fund raisers. What we real needed years ago( T. Roosevelt proposed it about 1906) and still need is universal, single payer, non'profithealth care. I sure wish I knew how to answer this question in the now with compassion and real solutions.

Jabberwocky

Fascinating that the Deficit Reduction Commission set up to study how to reduce the debt from 13.8 Trillion as well as the Trillion dollar deficit, has proposed a plan that:

1. They say cannot be passed.

2. Still will not result in a balanced budget.

3. Only reduces the deficit by .75T and the debt by not one penny.

Now, I am one of those 7 Billion people on this swirling orb we call Earth, who does not understand the fine art of MACRO-economics, but, I say this: Everyone who thinks we can reduce spending and get ourselves out of this horrible economy that Bush and the Democratic Congress created in 2003- 2010, is nuts! This includes every politician -- evidently, every Republican just elected, and some of the Democrats -- who is calling for "lower spending and no new taxes!"

We are living in monumentally corrupt times. When I peer through my future scope, I see violence on a MACRO-scale. As the middle class dwindles and the wealthy class gets wealthier, there will be big trouble.

Where in the world ... ?

... is the American sense of perspective?

By watching BBC News I have discovered something very interesting and enlightening. President Obama's trips to India and Indonesia seem to have been quite successful in alleviating fears of foreigners that the Americans are filled with hate for them, showing that we are not hostile to Islam in general, and that we are still a country of tolerance and democracy. He was enthusiastically received in both nations.

Friendship and cooperation were his themes; he spoke with honesty and understanding. He got friendship and enthusiasm in return from his audiences and the large crowds who came to cheer him and Mrs. Obama. I didn't really get those messages from American TV.

Of course, I am not watching as much "news" as I used to, but I have the impression that CNN thinks (in-as-much-as a huge American corporation can actually "think") that he was pandering to his Muslim background, ignoring American hostility towards the world, and trying to give away American jobs. As the new American generations would say these days, "WTF?"

Unidentified Flying Missile

A missile was launched off the coast of California. The Pentagon says it does not know what the missile was.

I don't believe that.

NOTE: SPARTY sez:

A great line from Dick Cavett on the CBS Morning program today - He said he felt bad for John McCain in 2008 when he picked Palin - "He aimed low, and missed."

NOTE: A new DASHMANN Challenge is coming soon.

that Boner charm

I understand that John Boner will be the next Speaker of the House. He says he's a good, Christian American. In-so-far-as he's a well known liar, I would like to point out that I have seen neither his birth certificate nor his baptismal certificate, and until I do, I assume he's a foreign born Hindu, and that his first loyalty is to Nepal.

This just HAS to be the headline of the day:

"Pope Defends Family while Spain's Gays hold 'Kiss-In' "

It's Caturday

Cats' Instruction Booklet:

Go anywhere you want in your house,

but don't break their valuable things.

The DASHMANN Challenge

The Following posting is from Dashmann:

About 9 days ago I sent an e-mail to the people who send me right wing stuff, asking them if they could point out any Republican legislation in our country’s history that had been as beneficial and well accepted by the general public as the Democratic sponsored Social Security and Medicare programs.

For a week, no one could come up with anything positive, but I did get a lot of tirades berating SS and MED , despite most of the same people taking full advantage of those programs.

When challenged about accepting benefits from programs they did not believe in, one correctly pointed out he had contributed to them so why not?

A couple people pointed to the Republicans providing national security, despite the worst homeland attack since Pearl harbor taking place on a Republican President's watch, and the perpetrator is still alive and free!!!

Finally my cousin in Alaska, who sends me occasional right wing stuff, but not the mass e-mail Enquirer type lies and half-truth things, came up with Abolishment of Slavery put into law by Republicans and their President Lincoln, and vehemently opposed by southern Democrats!!! I agree that this may be the most important and far reaching resolution ever passed.

She and one other person also named the Civil Rights act of 1964, and while it was well supported by Republicans, it garnered slightly more Democratic votes and 2 Democratic Presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, were in office at the time. The same southern Democrats successors again were its biggest opponents. But it was truly an example of the parties working together to do what was right for America.

Now we come to today, and the same Republican party that began the civil rights movement over 150 years ago, has shifted 180 degrees and now wants to make everybody afraid of anything that isn’t white or Christian !!!

Furthermore, the Republican leaders, Boehner and McConnell have declared that getting rid of Obama is the most important thing they have to accomplish, even at the expense of stifling any recovery that may be underway, because that recovery would make Obama look good in 2 years.

That about wraps up this subject, but I leave the right wingers with one more question.

Will the Republicans and Tea Partiers you are electing try to do what is right for America, even though it may lead to Obama’s re-election in 2 years ???

If not, you may as well send me to Washington –I can vote NO on everything as easily as they can at a fraction of the cost !

Goodbye Sparky Anderson

"He wants to do so good so bad."

The Tiger's second sad death of the year.

note from JERRY

note from Sparty

From Hendrick Hertzberg in The New Yorker - with all the rehashing by all the pundits, this is probably the most perceptive comment I've read/heard:

"President Obama and the Democrats kept the Great Recession from becoming the second Great Depression. But the presence of pain is more keenly felt than the absence of agony."

More disasters yet to come? I hope so.

The Democrats engineered and operated their own destruction in this election, and Obama egged them on. They deserved this calamity and now they have it. I hear he's admitting it. This will make him smarter than most of the minions barely toiling in Democratic sinecures across the country, who I'm sure are puzzled by the whole thing. They will now have to try to find a new constituency because I can't imagine what combination of interests will make them viable in four years. And good riddance to them if they totally fall apart.

Here is something with which I heartily agree, from this morning's New York Times: CLICK

welcome John Boner. I never liked you and never will.

Hello Chaos

The biggest changes I see as a result of the election are these:

1. There will be a new Speaker of the House who appears before the cameras al the time, instead of only occasionally like Pelosi did. He will be talking about how terrible the other party is, just like he always has, and the deadlock in Congress will not be resolved, although he will find a lot of Democrats ready to sell out to him.

2. There will be more lies on television. This is a natural consequence of some of the crazy people now coming into office, as well as the old-guard liars. There may be a new Liars Caucus in the Senate.

3. Obama will now get nothing passed. The Republicans will now get nothing passed.

4. The wealthy on Wall Street, etc., will be doing even better.

5. The Congress, already hopelessly corrupt, will continue to be hopelessly corrupt.

6. The Democratic Party will continue to wander on leaderless, but this time, straight for another electoral disaster in 2012, by which time, Obama will have mealy-mouthed himself into history.

HOME

WE ARE HOME

- from the vacation most people didn't now we were on.

I've heard it's not good to broadcast that you will be gone, especially on Facebook.

However, it's good to tell everyone you're home.

Smiles to you all, and there will be more, later.

Now, I'm going swimming!

Change I could believe in

President Obama has refused to endorse for election, a Democratic candidate for Rhode Island governor who is much more conservative than the Independent candidate.

Well, bully for him! The only problem is, he refuses to endorse the independent, as well. This is spineless.

The Democrat, Frank Caprio has told Obama to "take his endorsement and shove it."

If the liberals in this country, Democrat or otherwise, had any leadership as bold and certain as Caprio, we wouldn't be in the mess we are, I think. Millions of people out there want the country to solve the problems of the nation in a less belligerent, plutocratic, and self-centered manner than Republicans offer, but not in the helter-skelter, aimless, pettifogging way that the Democratic Party has offered recently.

We need leadership on the left! Haven't had any effective leadership in years. Where's our hero riding to the rescue?

Good Bye Polly

We note the passing of Polly, the cat that ruled the home of the Dashmanns. She died yesterday, still a sweet and lovely young lady who managed to survive 17 years on only one kidney.

It's Caturday

This cat owns

Felix

And offers herself

as a towel

Green-Up?

IRISH MIKE, shown here, was talking this morning about the "greening" of the country in recent years. He is, himself, very much of a conservationist and advocate of advancing green technology.

He was saying that countless businesses and whole industries (even including the military industry stationed abroad) is making more-and-more use of new green technologies, completely free from government control or coercion. This is because so many are finding it saves money, or makes money.

He can tell you specific examples. Anyone else see this happening? Seems as if, maybe, the whole movement is taking off on its own steam.

========

FOOTNOTE:

See here: CLICK

Update

The DSCC - Democratic Senate Campaign Committee - wants me to send them $212,000 before midnight. Should I do it?

money grubbers

The Democratic Party, and a full stable of their bright stars, keep asking me for money. The reason? If I don't, the Republicans will take over Congress. Well, I admit that's not a good idea, but I can't throw too many laurels at the gang of Dems who're running it now. So, not a dollar will I send. Is that evil?

Friends Report - Oct. 20.

A few snaps from a gathering:

extension of a conversation with a friend.

Among all those wandering around in a daze, we must include all those Republicans who somehow think they are the ones entitled to be angry, or "mad as hell" as they often say (unable to stretch themselves to something more original), or "pissed off" as they often say, trying to sound hip in a world they don't understand.

You couldn't be farther from the truth.

No one is more pissed off than the liberals of this country who have watched their former political party roll over and spread its legs for interests that are completely inimical to the programs and reforms that they supposedly stand for. This is the party of Wall Street bailouts without a jobs program, of human equality platforms without gay marriage laws, of "the party of the common man" without a law to deal one way or another with the illegal immigrants. This is the former "democratic" Democratic Party that couldn't pass a health care reform act that didn't provide fabulously for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. This is the Democratic Party that complains about Republican campaign finance shenanigans, but which wouldn't dream of using its congressional majorities to correct these clear abuses.

The generation now entrenched in power is not able to correct these problems, because they are too rich. Like the Congress they tolerate, they have sold out their politics to their pocketbooks. Unlike the protesters and anti-war placard wavers they once were, they are now complacent in the repose of their TV rooms, enjoying the benefits of a comfortable lifestyle that unions and the Democratic Party gave them.

So it will be up to the next generation to give this country it's figurative (or maybe even literal) Reichstag fire house cleaning. Where we might go from there, I cannot imagine.

Lately I have been intrigued by a notion I picked up from an article I read.

The theme was that the age of great discoveries is over. The reason being given is, that humankind has now solved the great mysteries which it is capable of imagining. Beyond what we have answered there is a universe of questions which the brain of this species is not capable of reaching.

strangely encouraging

Honestly, I am absolutely opposed to murder, but there is something strangely satisfying in seeing the thugs go back to sticks and stones. No Uzis.

Baltimore cop killed in parking spat

Published: Oct. 17, 2010 at 7:21 AM

BALTIMORE, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- A man killed an off-duty detective in Baltimore with a blow to the head in a parking dispute, police said Sunday.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Baltimore Sun Detective Brian Stevenson, 38, was struck on the head with a brick or piece of concrete Saturday night.

IT'S CATURDAY

Kiss up to them, and then ...

Remind them who's boss.

Scratch their noses.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Lots of friends have October birthdays, including FELIX, SPARTY, MARSHA, and BILL. They are all the same age, too, at least to the best of my memory. I believe they are all 17.

colorless

So far, no Democrat has appeared at my door to ask for my vote, nor sent me a flyer explaining their position on issues, nor bothered to explain to me how their political party should have failed so badly to live up to the trust the voters gave them last time around.

But, they keep sending me solicitations for money. Every day on my email. Every day! Send us some money! And these solicitations are not from the candidates themselves, but from their supporters and front groups. They can get to me without any problem at all. But not with the right message.

I believe that many Democrats are trading on "past glory." This is the glory that former generations of public servants earned and which they now wish to inherit. Medicare, Social Security, the EPA, etc. -- these are the accomplishments of your fathers and grandfathers. What do you have to offer? A messed up health care reform, a Republican-like plan to bail out the bad folks "on Wall Street" and the auto industry which has so badly treated our country.

What a miserable bunch you are. What a sad and colorless pack of pure "politicians" led by nobody.

funeral

We attended a funeral this morning for our friend, Vince DeAgostino, and I thought how very appropriate the ceremony was. Although we have not been friends for a great length of time, I think I knew him and Olympia well enough to make an evaluation of the funeral. The Mass was beautiful, and it was ornamented with all the traditions and rituals of a perfect Catholic observance. These are the protocols with which he would be comfortable, that he has known and appreciated all his life. He has been sent on his way ("here he comes," said the priest, notifying Heaven and God of his transit) sent by those who deeply respected and who loved him, and there is no doubt in anyone's mind that he has arrived at precisely the destination he hoped to reach.

Not all funerals, to my mind, are appropriate to the deceased, not because they have been evil or undeserving people, but because such funerals often represent an image of the cosmology definitely not attuned to the departed. So, funerals mostly represent an ethic particular to those who are left behind, and not those who are undertaking their last great adventure. I believe that this morning's ceremony was perfect. Arrivederci, to a very good man.

Contemplate this absurdity:

lakes of doom

I wonder how many lakes of putrid, poisonous, industrial crap of one type or another are lying behind inadequate "earthen embankments" just waiting to swamp homes and towns? And this threat is universal. Today it's central Europe, and that's just a start, because central Europe/western Russia is known as the most industrially polluted region in the world. (A dam broke in Hungary and its sequel is imminent there. Lives and property have been destroyed.) CLICK

In recent years, dams have broken in Kentucky and Tennessee and filled the landscape with filth.

I've had it to up to my ears with the "tree hugger" charge of people who think that's some sort of argument against environmentalist who try to call attention to this sort of looming disaster. Yes, I'm a tree hugger -- as are most of my friends -- and yes I believe that resources should be set aside to clean up these messes, if possible, before towns are submerged and more rivers are destroyed.

We are so good at reacting to disasters, why can't we get better at predicting them and averting them? More power to the environmentalists out there, including one of my sons, Steve, who are struggling to make a difference in this holy war.

It's Caturday

Spend lots of time every day

staring out the windows.

That's where the enemy lives.

Goodbye Vice DeAgostino

A friend in my life for a short time

And a friend of great cheer

Now I'm official

OFFICIAL STATEMENT:

I am not a witch -

Not a warlock.

Not a shaman.

Nor anything interesting.

I am you.

:-)

FRIENDS REPORT - Oct. 5

Some Pictures and notes. Pics can be enlarged by clicking on them.

LIAM: from the top.

=====

Scene from the EDDY BAND concert in the park. A really good way to spend some time on a warm summer evening.

=====

DASHMANN and his grandson BRENDEN at work. (Sort of).

Which one looks happier?

=====

ALICE - caught the bus and went to Washington for the big "One Nation" march last weekend. She couldn't be more thrilled. She says, "Nothing meaningful will happen until people at the local level get off their asses and get inolved!"

=====

WYATT and dragonfly.

=====

DIGANTA - send an email recommending this: When you see Fox News on a television in a public place, ask to have the channel changed to something else. Almost always, it will be done.

=====

The high winds downed a tall tree at the COOKE'S home.

=====

BRUCE and WYATT
=====

SCOT and PAT hide behind the wine stash. Discovered anyway!

=====

SPARTY recommends this short opinion article concerning reform of education in this country. CLICK

I echo his recommendation.

=====

MARI and BUD

=====

GIGI - sent me this ( CLICK ) clever commentary, which gave me a great chuckle and caused me to think who it might apply to. Glad it says "she":

I will stop complaining when I'm dead, she said, so I got out my day planner & told her I'd love to pencil that in.

=====

MARGARET and JOE:

=====

DASHMANN - says this: "Karl Rove is kind of like the hockey player that you hate when he is playing for the other team, but you would love to have him on yours.Don’t you wish he could be bought and work for our side ????

Democrats are so f...ing spineless I can’t stand it sometimes ."

=====

BILL - came back from the races with a serious limp his week.

Here's his picture on another racing occasion:

Keep on communicating, friends.

State Dept. warning

Sarcasm warning:

The US STATE DEPARTMENT warns you that you are not safe these day in Europe. You may be blown up or shot or kidnaped. So, you are warned to be very, very vigilant. Watch closely those around you - be suspicious - and do not use public transportation unless absolutely necessary. In Frankfort, Germany, be especially vigilant if you see an elderly person with a penchant for free speech, as they are known to be particularly dangerous.

However, if you see someone who is acting furtive and who looks like perhaps a person from the Middle East or South Asia you must disregard that person. If you see anyone wearing a headpiece usually associated with Afghanis or Pakistanis, they also may be ignored. The reasons are very complicated but our current thinking is that we don't want any Americans profiling their possible killers and then running away. That would be improper. The best advice is to just avoid everyone if you can, and if you can't, call the gendarmes or the bobbies, or the polizei on everyone who comes near.

Be safe out there, Americans!

Social Miscellany

1. Have you ever noticed that these flyers from J.C. Penney and other stores never show their clothes on old, fat models? How am I supposed to make a choice based on clothes on skinny kids?

2. We do not have bedbugs. Any of you who do, please don't come crawling into my bed.

3. Michigan's football team won again, but it won't be long before they run into a team with a good defense as well as a good offense. Then, they're going to lose. (Probably next Saturday. I just think State has a better team.)

4. In the Tri-Cities there are more plays, concerts, things-to-do (even sports, with the Spirit and Loons), than we have time or cash to attend. What a great thing to have so many good choices. And it's easy to go to Ann Arbor or E. Lansing for even more choices. Don't ever say there isn't anything to do.

5. If you haven't read Andrew Heller's essay on Page 2 of Saginaw News "Diversions" about fathering of 23 children, you really should.

It's Caturday!

Instruction Booklet for Cats:

Establish your rights of ownership

to any spot in the house.

Home again

I've been away from the BIRCHES a lot this week, and I've been short on postings. Ah-h well. All is back in order. For now.

Add to your day -- American Gospel

Listen to some 'gospel' -- It's glorious.

CLICK

1. We are climbing Jacob's Ladder. (x3)

Soldiers of the Cross.

2. Every rung goes higher and higher (x3)

3. Do you think I'd make a soldier (x3)

4. Rise, shine, give God the glory.

5. Keep on climbing, we will make it.

6. Do you, do you, want your freedom?