The bail-out didn't pass. There is panic on the streets. The democrats are being blamed. Life as we know it has ceased to exist. At least, that seems to be the prevailing view...

Can someone explain to me why the democrats are being blamed for the bill failing? The republicans are, by a large majority, the ones who tanked it. So how in the hell did the democratic party get the blame? And why in the world are we worried about bailing out Wall Street anyway? Yes, I am aware of some of the ramifications of what has been happening. I am also aware that the bail-out bill, had it been passed, would have taken *at least* 2 years to really be effective anyway. So in the short-term, things would have continued to be tough and miserable for the whining masses.

The bill was rushed. Does no one consider the fall-out if that huge "saving" didn't...ummm...save? We are already in trillions of dollars of debt. We are fighting a war that we can't possibly win BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT US THERE, and spending billions to do so. And if we spent such a huge sum of money on something that didn't work - then where would we be? What happened to the notion of battening the hatches, tightening your belts, and riding out the storm?

And why the hell do I want to pay over $8000 in our household (the current figures are over $4000 per working person) to save Wall Street, when I had no say in how they managed to screw themselves up? Why does WS get the wonderful gains when the market is riding high, but we have to fix 'em when it's not? If Average Joe gets himself in a big bind and ends up declaring bankruptcy, I don't see WS riding in on a white horse to save him...so why are we?

If you can't run a business as a business and manage to stay in the black, then you're doing something wrong. Fix it. Don't expect the government to figure out a way to fix it for you, or (to borrow from something else I read) you're throwing the company a life-jacket without actually teaching them how to swim. This particular metaphor has a lot of meaning to me - having been in the Coast Guard, where I have seen all sorts of idiots get into trouble and require assistance BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T PREPARED. They didn't do what they should have done. Just like Wall Street, the airlines, and now the flippin' car makers. If it isn't viable, folks - then do something else. Anything else. Where it won't affect those of us who are barely staying afloat as it is before you decided to jack everything up.

I hear underwater basket-weaving is making a come-back....

Just some reflection...

I don't think I've *ever* watched an election as closely as I'm watching this one. There is so much as stake right now - and I'm absolutely terrified about the possibilities of the future, depending on who is elected. I can't stop reading the news, online and otherwise. I talk about it a lot (to the annoyance of many, I'm sure). I think about it almost constantly...How different our future might be from anything my generation has ever known.

I grew up knowing that my body was my own. I was raised to be respectful and proud of my body - but I was also raised knowing that if something were to happen, I could make the call as to how I would want to be treated. For example - I was raped several years ago, by someone I thought I could call a friend. I still have issues with it and continue to adjust. I can't even fathom if a pregnancy had come out of that. Even worse, if I was then told that I MUST bear the child to term, regardless of whether I plan to take care of it. Hatred can be a dangerous thing, and I guarantee you - had I been pregnant and forced to keep the pregnancy, I don't know how that would have affected me. I honestly don't know if I would have been able to keep the child - and if I had, if I would have been able to look at it as separate from the trauma. How would that be fair to either of us?

I don't think people are aware of the ramifications of Roe vs. Wade being repealed (and yes, it really could happen). Think of all the children that would flood the adoption system. The children that would be abandoned. Even worse - the children that would grow up knowing that they weren't loved like they needed to be, but were kept because that was the only option.

Here's another scenario for you...it's too far back for women my age to remember, but the documentation is certainly there. Back-alley abortion clinics, where the pregnancy was not always the only thing terminated. Women dying a bloody, painful death. In some cases, families left without a vital member if a rape was involved. Now granted, these days it wouldn't be quite that bad. I have little doubt that there would be sympathetic doctors and/or nurses out there somewhere who would set up lucrative practices. But why should it be illegal for a doctor to take care of a patient? Why should it be illegal for a woman to have full control over her own body? And in this day and age, why in the world is this a concern that we should even have?

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: Most religions that I know of require a person to offer themselves, to willingly join and convert. It has to be free will. I don't believe, and I haven't ever seen, that this includes being forced to abide by the rules and by-laws of a religion because someone else says so. If it is a sin to have an abortion, then that sin is between me and my God. I will be the one offering up the accounting in whatever afterlife, not whoever took away my right to choose. Let me make my own mistakes and take the consequences of those actions on my own. You're not my mother and you're not my God - so you have no place in the discussion of what rights I have for my own body.

And yes, I pray every night that this never becomes any more of an issue than it already is. Not only for myself, but for the future of my daughter and her daughter and so on down the line.

Hmm. Makes me wonder - does that mean that if this election turns out as I'm hoping, that God answered my prayers? What does that say for the drive to overturn Roe vs. Wade based on religious ideals?

OK, that's it. I'm making plans to rob a bank, and then I'm going into politics. Because apparently, if you're rich and/or a politician, you are exempt from the rules and ways of life that everyone else must live by.

For example - McCain has attacked Biden's assertion that the wealthy should pay more taxes and do their part for their country. Now, of course that's ridiculous! Why in the world should the people who have more have to pay more!? Let those who weren't born with a silver spoon take on the added burden of the nation's debt of several trillion dollars. Serves 'em right for not working harder to make more money, what with the plethora of jobs available and the reasonable cost of living! Lazy ingrates.

As for politicians, well...that's obvious! If I become a "public servant", then I no longer have to abide by the law and the rules that the rest of the country must observe. I can hire and fire at will, regardless of just cause. I can use government money (remember, the middle class will pay the debt anyway) to fund ridiculous projects - and then keep the money when those projects peter out (with full deniability, of course). And if, by some strange chance, someone should actually call me out and attempt to investigate my actions - I don't have to participate, and might be able to stall for so long that nothing EVER happens! I can ignore subpoenas, and instruct others to do so as well. I can make sure that any potential big-mouths are so concerned about their jobs that they will bow to my superior wisdom. If I play my cards just right, I might even have a chance of being elected to one of the highest offices in the land - where I can go virtually unchecked! I tell you - what a wonderful land we live in.

So there you have it. My reasons for deciding to rob a bank (I mean, isn't that what the government essentially does these days?) and go into politics. Maybe next election, Palin and I can run together! Imagine the fun we could have...My slogan will be something along the lines of what has been happening the last 8 years:

"Work with me to make the rich richer and let the middle-class pay the debt!"

Light a match today!

So, the topic of banning books has been in the news a lot lately, due to the rumor that Sarah Palin asked a librarian for information on how to ban books during her time as Mayor of Wasilla.

I frequently ask myself why someone would want to ban a book. To keep others from reading something that might connect with them on some level. I have come to the conclusion that it is about control. Oh, sure. They say that it is to protect innocent children from reading such heinous material. Because, really - reading about saving the environment (The Lorax by Dr. Seuss) or learning about growing up and how to stay healthy (It's Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris) is most certainly going to corrupt minds. I mean, it's surprising that the entire nation hasn't just broken out in uncontrollable orgies and tree-hugging!

No, it's about control. These parents (that's who it is 99.9% of the time) want to not only control their own children, but everyone else's as well. These are the parents who look down their noses at anyone whose parenting differs from theirs. Who believe that they, and only they, know best how to raise the nation's children so that all the little children can grow into zombies. And these are the parents who are terrified that their narrow-mindedness might just be proven wrong if children are allowed to think on their own. Individuality is scorned, and cookie-cutter is best. So, if the rest of us irresponsible and careless parents will not do what needs to be done, they are happy to take up the mantle for us.

There is nothing ahead but anarchy and chaos if these children are allowed to broaden their minds and grow independently of their parents' choices and opinions! Imagination will lead to the devil! So, please - support your local book-banning organization today. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory must be stopped!!

Demon in Disguise

I don't understand the direction this election has taken. For example, I have a very close friend who has been a democrat for as long as I've known her. She believes very strongly in environmental causes. She believes in women's rights. She does not believe in NCLB and its related garbage. So why is she planning on voting for McCain?

Here's the problem - many people, my friend included, believe that Obama simply hasn't provided enough concrete examples of what "change" means to him. That means that they also don't understand how it would affect the country as a whole were he to be elected President. And as human beings, we tend to prefer the known (even if it clashes with our entire belief system) than to trust in the unknown.

So, while McCain successfully keeps all attention on his running mate and not on the important issues at hand, Obama flounders and looks for a way to fix it. While McCain and Palin both lie and distort the truth repeatedly, neither of them is addressing the important issues: education, the environment and the economy being a few of them. While Roe vs. Wade looks into the abyss, the "news" agencies gossip about Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter.

Until Obama can rally and begin to point out the crap for what it is, and begins to give solid examples of what "change" we Americans could expect, liberal white women will continue to flock to McCain and his VP candidate. Like a horse being led to slaughter, they will walk blindly into the trap that McCain and his GOP pals have laid, and will hand over any hope this country has of righting itself from the last 8 years. And then, only after the noose has tightened, will it become apparent that sometimes the known element really is the demon in disguise.

Are You Kidding Me?!?

Whoever this woman is, let me just take a moment to be grateful she's not on the PTA of any school my children might ever attend.

*Moment of silence*

Ok, carry on. How ridiculous is this? Listen, I'm not a huge fan of McCain, but this would hold true regardless of political party - a responsible parent does not sacrifice their children's education for politics. And the notion that someone "famous" or "well-off" can lift up an entire school just by enrolling their children? Absurd.

Face facts, folks. The only way our schools are going to have a chance is if we stop muddying up the waters with BS like this. Does it matter where Obama, McCain, Biden or Palin send their children? Not unless they are enrolling them in "Bombmaking 101". Does it matter that our educational system is failing across the board? That as parents, we count ourselves "lucky" if we live close to a good public school instead of expecting them *all* to be that way? That we can spend billions upon billions of dollars fighting a war that has nothing to do with us but cannot manage to find the funds to make sure our children have the knowledge to compete in an increasingly global world?! Hell, yes it does!

Where a candidate sends their children for an education means nothing. What a candidate can do about our failing educational system means everything.

Like the rest of us?

I was driving around today, getting son #1 to school and listening to a radio program, when I heard someone say that Sarah Palin is so wonderful because she is "just like the rest of us". Now, I know she projects that image (as she is supposed to), but I think I'm offended at the notion that she is just like me. Here's why:

1. I have never been under investigation for misuse of ANYTHING - let alone misuse of the power that comes with a public office. Sarah Palin is not undergoing just one investigation, however. She is in the middle of TWO. Concurrently. Unless I'm missing something, that certainly does NOT make her like the majority of Americans.

2. I have never endorsed the gunning down of any animals as a sport, let alone when it's done by airplane. In my mind, that kind of takes away any sport that might have been involved in the first place. Now, don't get me wrong - my family hunts deer and elk. I grew up hunting. But...it is not done for sport. We eat the animals as part of our food for winter, and we go into it with a profound sense of thankfulness for what we have.

Last I checked, wolves are not eaten for food. Not by humans, anyway. And even if they were - following a wolf pack in a plane and shooting animals down without AT LEAST taking the time and making the effort to track them down yourselves marks a hunter as less than honest and extremely lazy. In fact, I hesitate to use the term "hunter" for something like this.

Here's where we get back to Sarah Palin - as Governor of Alaska, she has not only allowed this travesty to occur, but she has openly ENDORSED it! I refuse to believe that I am "just like" her.

3. I believe in a woman's right to choose. Period. The driving force in the camp trying to remove this choice is that "it is a sin". Well, maybe it is. But I believe that sin is between a woman and whatever God she chooses to believe (or not) in. And the cornerstone of almost every religion is that 'true salvation' comes when a person CHOOSES to believe and repent - not when that choice is made for them by someone else. My body + My soul = My choice.

Having said that, I'm sure people would wonder - and the answer is no. I have not had one. I don't know if I know anyone who has. I'm not even sure that I would be able to convince myself to have one, regardless of circumstances. But that does not take away from the fact that I should be able to make the choice of what goes on with my body.

I'm sure it's obvious where Sarah Palin comes into play regarding this, but...if she has her way, the right to choose will no longer exist. Roe vs. Wade will go the way of the wolves in Alaska. Terminated from on high by someone who feels they have the right to play God.

So - am I "like" Sarah Palin? No. And I hope that I never become like her, for the sake of my daughter's freedom, the wolves' lives, and the existence of honesty in public office.