Children See. Children Do.

The Gospel According to The DMV

Ummmmm - do the words "separation of church and state" mean anything in Florida?

So far it's not law (or gospel) but it's a-comin' if some Florida lawmakers get their way.

Rep. Kelly Skidmore, who is a Catholic lawmaker who voted against it had this to say: "I believe the "I Believe" plate is inappropriate for the government to produce.

"It's not a road I want to go down. I don't want to see the Star of David next. I don't want to see a Torah next. None of that stuff is appropriate to me."

Personally, if they're gonna allow a Christian plate, they damn well better be prepared to allow Jewish plates and Muslim plates and Mormon plates and Bhuddist plates as well.

Because none of "their stuff" is appropriate for the likes of us, either.

Little Lies Don't Count When Hillary's Doing the Counting

Hillary says she's winning the popular election because............."as of today, I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else, and I am proud of that. It's a very close race, but if you count, as I count, the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida, then we are going to build on that."

Which would be well and fine if, several months ago, she had not entered into an agreement with Barak Obama, John Edwards and the entire Democratic Party that the cast-too-early-in-violation-of-party-rules votes in Michigan and Florida should not/would not/did not count. Hillary herself said "Michigan doesn't count for anything." Hillary was the only Democrat on the damn ballot in Michigan - Obama and Edwards having both had the decency to remove their names from an illegal primary election. Interestingly enough Demoocrats in Michigan had a choice between Hillary and "uncommitted" and "uncommitted" won 45% of the popular vote.

Read entire story here

Hopefully, it's going to be a moot point since Obama is projected to win in most of the remaining primarys and will not only maintain the correctly reported "popular vote" lead that he holds now but he will also overtake even Hillary's Michigan and Florida inflated count.

I just don't understand how, since she apparently has no problem breaking deals or going back on her word with her own party, people don't seem to think that she'd have a problem breaking deals or going back on her word with people/countries/governments in general.

Are her supporters that trusting or are they just that naive? Anyone who ever winced at the pity being poured upon a victimized Hillary when Bill finally 'fessed up, anyone who ever wondered how on earth a spouse could be so blindly unsuspecting, anyone who ever wondered how one person will not/cannot see their own betrayal coming - they all better be ready to not just sympathize with and/or admire Hillary's strength in the face of disgrace, but to BECOME Hillary.

Because if by some miracle she gets elected - it'll be her supporters turn in the dupe-chair.

LATE POST: More about the amazing flip-flopping, vote-mongering, mind-changing Hillary on Slate.

The Moran Church and Mass Stupidity

Ok, I admit it, I am an elitist snob when it comes to grammar and spelling. Not so elitist that I can't deal with the occasional misspelled word or the inevitable typo (Lord knows I make them with amazing regularity) - but enough of one that it makes me cringe to read most of the "reader responses" which are attached to news-stories on The Internet.

Example:

Stupid is as stupid want to be. How sad to be so wanted to be looked at that you will damn neer kill your self hope you got your look at me fix.

33 words, right? And without even trying hard, I count 3 really simple-word spelling/compound word errors, 2 missing words and 4 missing punctuation marks.

That's 9 mistakes in 2 (should be 3) sentences. I'm not a math whiz but jeez - that's a lot!!

Here's one more -
Some body pissed in the gene pool...kids here all the crap and lies abaout drugs and religion....so they stop beliveing adults what is right and wrong.....so they get more stupid...Did youlisten to the stupid women who are so brainwashed in the MORAN CHURCH Polygamy cwenter...they are in mental out space........religion really is the cause for mass stupidity

Some body? Kids here? Abaout? beliveing? youlisten? cwenter? Mental out space?? MORAN CHURCH?

And this person is railing about mass stupidity??? Kinda makes you wonder what church he goes to, doesn't it?

It's so sad to think that these opinions and remarks are made not by 3rd graders but by adults....and most likely they are adults with decent jobs and what passes for reasonable intelligence in an oral setting. It's even sadder to think that the people writing these things believe that they may have a chance at swaying public opinion with their crudely spelled, badly worded and poorly punctuated pronouncements.

It's even sadder when you remember all of these remarks are being made on a computer - and all computers have a common function.

It's called spell-check. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

And with that - I am off for Passover in New Jersey.

Presidential Passive-Aggressive Behaviour, Anyone?

Cokie and I, we agree on something.

Picking Up the Red Phone

The Excuses According to Bill:

" Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y'all see all that? Oh, they blew it up..............
And you woulda thought, you know, that she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this. And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11 at night, too."
Yep, Bill, you got it - this is surely the woman I want to be picking up the dreaded Red Phone at 3AM.

Poor Poor Tired Old Hillary. It's a damn good thing she's got Mr. Bill to look out for her.

Hell, he's so gallant he'd probably even answer the phone for her if it came to that.

Hopefully it doesn't.

Because, honestly, I don't like him any better than I like her.

Which is to say - not at all.

So much for the midwestern, middle aged, uneducated, blue-collar white woman theory.

Clintons, Lies and Videotape

Well, they've done it again. It's Bill backing up Hillary this time - just in case we'd forgotten the original Hillary-esque lie about her "war zone" experiences.

In spite of numerous rebuttals to Hilary's claim that her visit to Bosnia was the first visit made to a war zone by a presidental spouse since Eleanor Roosevelt's day - Bill Clinton once again "misspoke" the following: "And I think she was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone.

How 'bout the only thing Hillary and Eleanor have in common is a propensity to trust untrustworthy men - and Eleanor was smart enough to establish another residence once she found out about Frankie's affair with her staffer. The implied comparison stops there.

Besides that, does the name, Pat Nixon ring a bell?

How 'bout Viet Nam?

How 'bout "Pat Nixon visists Viet Nam" for those of you too young to put it all together by memory?

For that matter, how 'bout "Barbara Bush visits Saudia Arabia" a few weeks before Desert Storm hit the fan?

How 'bout comparing some "war zone" pictures?
















How 'bout voting for Obama?

Or maybe even Pat Nixon.

Cats and Dogs and Pretty Trees

We've spent the last 3 days in Massillon, Ohio attending the funeral of my last remaining paternal uncle. Until this past Thursday, I'd not been back in the area since 1976 or so. It's so strange to revisit a place where you spent a good deal of growing time. I thought I'd be totally lost, but I found myself recognizing things like churches and gas stations and spontaneously remembering how to get to my grandmother's old house where I'd spent two weeks of every childhood year.

I've changed - all of my relatives have changed - the landscape has changed - but the house, the house remains the same.

Maddie, St. Paddy and Dom