Seen On DC Busses

Wisconsin's New Poet Laureate

I'm so excited!!! The State of Wisconsin has announced it's new Poet Laureate and it's none other than the delightful and talented Marilyn Taylor!!!!!

(Who, if you haven't already guessed, is a friend of mine.)

She's also one of the most talented formalist poets that I know - and I'd say that even if I didn't know her - because it's true and I'm pretty ruthless about the truth when it comes to things poetic.

Congratulations, Marilyn, you rock!!

Presidential Web Site

This is just so cool.

When was the last time your government bothered to ask you what you thought or what your story was?

When was the last time anyone asked you?

Recognize Anyone?

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

These Are the Tasks

These are the tasks the past has laid
before us. It's time. Be undismayed.
Rebuild the earth to house the weak.
Comfort the sick, protect the meek.
Give honor to the men who’ve paid

the price that war extracts. They've prayed
for this. We've seen our nation frayed
by strife. It's time. It's change we seek.
These are the tasks

that must be balanced out and weighed;
The peace restored; all debts repaid;
all fears allayed. It's time to speak
with clarity – each voice unique
yet one with hope and unafraid.
These are the tasks.

YES WE CAN

YES WE WILL

YES WE DID!!

Florida Robo Calls - The Last of the Lies

Automated calls paid for by Republican John McCain are going out to voters in South Florida, portraying Democrat Barack Obama as an ally of Fidel Castro.

Voters hear: "This just in! I'm calling on behalf of John McCain to tell you that at 1:28 PM today, the independent news agency Reuters reported that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro endorsed Democrat Barack Obama as 'more intelligent' than John McCain. Castro said America will become a country where 'an extremist can legally acquire a sophisticated modern weapon on any street corner.' That's just why a thug like Castro would endorse Barack Obama. Don't given Castro what he wants. Get to the polls now to vote for John McCain and stop Cuban-like policies in America."

What Reuters really reported:

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban's former communist leader Fidel Castro on Tuesday praised Democrat Barack Obama as "more intelligent" than "old, bellicose" Republican John McCain, but said that he was officially neutral in the U.S. presidential election.

The ailing Castro, 82, said in a column published in state-run media that neither of the candidates running in Tuesday's election was concerned with the world's most pressing problems as they campaigned to lead what he called "a parasitic and plundering empire."

Obama, Castro wrote, is "without doubt more intelligent, cultured and calm than his Republican adversary."

McCain, he said, is "old, bellicose, uncultured, not very intelligent and not healthy."

Quoting from a letter he wrote to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Castro said if McCain wins "the danger of war will increase."

"When this opinion (is published), no one will have time to say that I wrote something that can be used by one of the candidates in favor of his campaign," Castro wrote.

"I had to be and have been neutral in the electoral contest," said Castro,

Castro also said the U.S., which has imposed a trade embargo against Cuba for 46 years, had a long history of racism and that Obama's selection as the Democratic presidential nomination had "astonished" many because he is black.

He warned that Obama "will run growing risks in the country where an extremist can legally acquire a sophisticated modern weapon on any street corner."

Poets and Voters

Voting day stories to warm the heart.

Just Do It

Go vote!!!

Found on a Poetry Board - Obama's Everywhere!!

Campbell Brown Gets Bullishly Biased

Today Campbell Brown came out swinging - insisting that Barack Obama broke his promise not to take federal campaign funds.

The fact is, there was no "promise." What existed was a pledge which Obama signed (although no one else, including John McCain ever bothered filling out) and which agreed to pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve the public financing system. Obama contacted McCain way back in the beginning - before funding was decided upon - to invite him to discuss the acceptance of such funds. McCain never returned the call.

Sometimes rudeness really is it's own reward.

I've always liked Ms. Brown but that's two in row for her. Last Monday she was indignantly insisting that "diva" was a sexist remark and that the word itself meant an ambitious or successful woman.

Agreed, "diva" is sexist. However, it does not now, nor did it ever, mean "ambitious" or "successful." A diva may very well be successful and ambitious but it's the way in which she pursues her ambition and enjoys her success which gives meaning to the phrase. A diva is difficult, a diva is rude, a diva cares nothing for those other than herself, a diva is ruthless and cunning and petulant. One can be successful as hell and still not be any of those things. If fact, most people would prefer their ambitiously successful ones not to be any of those things.

The RNC included, apparently.

It is biased and bull to complain about a word being used when one apparently does not understand the meaning of the word they are complaining about.

Makes Me Proud to Be From NW Indiana

Dozens Of Call Center Workers Walk Off Job In Protest Rather Than Read McCain Script Attacking Obama

By Greg Sargent - October 27, 2008, 5:18PM

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

"They walked out," Williams says of her daughter and her co-workers, adding that they weren't fired but willingly sacrificed pay rather than read the lines. "They were told [by supervisors], `If you all leave, you're not gonna get paid for the rest of the day."

The daughter, who wanted her name withheld fearing retribution from her employer, confirmed the story to us. "It was like at least 40 people," the daughter said. "People thought the script was nasty and they didn't wanna read it."

A second worker at the call center confirmed the episode, saying that "at least 30" workers had walked out after refusing to read the script.

"We were asked to read something saying [Obama and Democrats] were against protecting children from danger," this worker said. "I wouldn't do it. A lot of people left. They thought it was disgusting."

This worker, too, confirmed sacrificing pay to walk out, saying her supervisor told her: "If you don't wanna phone it you can just go home for the day."

The script coincided with this robo-slime call running in other states, but because robocalling is illegal in Indiana it was being read by call center workers.

Representatives at Americall in Indiana, and at the company's corporate headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, didn't return calls for comment.

The Vet Who Did Not Vet

What's Worse Than a Cat Stuck Up a Tree?

A horse stuck inside one.

Good Grief, Sarah Palin

The other day she didn't know what a vice-president did and now she's unsure what a feminist is - or if she is one.

Now I Understand Why John McCain Wrecked 5 Planes and Lost The Last Presidential Primary - He Just Doesn't Learn

My husband and I are not registered Republicans, neither of us have ever signed up to receive mailings from The Republican Party. As far as I know, neither of us have ever received a mailing from the Republican Party - until today that is.










Nice, huh?

If it didn't work on the campaign trail and it didn't work in the debate and it didn't work on television commercials what on earth makes them think it's going to work in my mailbox?

Actually, on second thought, it DOES work. I'm sending another $25.00 to the Obama campaign - and oh yeah, I'm forwarding this to them, too.

Is There No End To the Badness?

First there was the little matter of $21,000+ worth of airline tickets and hotel rooms for the Palin children being charged to The State of Alaska. (Huh, I wonder when "Kids Fly Free" became a government perk?)

Then there was the "other little matter" of $150,000+ worth of Sarah Palin campaign-clothing (as well as clothing for her spouse and children) being paid for by The Republican Party. (Now isn't that just where all you Hockey Moms and Joe Six-Packs wanted your hard-earned $25.00 campaign contributions to go to?)

Now there's THIS!!! Sarah Palin, looking mighty damned well-dressed, I might add, told Brandon-the-Inquisitive and a group of his fellow 3rd graders that a vice president "is in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it's a great job and I look forward to having that job."

I think we were better off last August when Sarah understood how to dress herself and didn't understand what a vice president did.

Oh wait, she still doesn't really understand either of those things, does she?

PoliticalMatch.Com Introduces Joe the Plumber To Lisa the Lemming

According to Ed Rollins, Joe (the plumber)is a real guy living in Toledo, Ohio. He is representative of the millions of hardworking Americans who get up every day and go to work, and raise their kids and contribute to their communities.

I've got news for you, Ed. Joe may be a real guy living in Toledo but he's hardly representative of the millions of Americans in this country. Nor is he anyone whose opinions would count for too much with many of the other "real guys."

For one thing, many of the "guys" are "girls." And not many of them, guys OR girls, complain to a presidential candidate or a camera about the make-believe taxes that it'll cost them when they buy their first make-believe business with a make-believe salary - all the while pretending it's reality. Nor do they lead people on by claiming to be "undecided" when they've already registered as a Republican. FOr that matter, most of them aren't even home in the middle of the day chasing down a candidate who's walking around in their neighborhood - they're at work - and they, unlike Joe, can't afford to take the day off, not even if they're dying.

Not only that, most of them, unlike Joe, are already paying their taxes on their real property and their real income. In other words, they don't avoid their obligations and they don't have liens against their property for overdue and unpaid back taxes.

You do a grave disservice to the majority of working class Americans when you appoint a man like Joe the Plumber their representative. Even more so when you compare his influence upon them to Colin Powell's. Colin Powell has earned respect - he's proven himself time and time again to be a man of principal and honor while Joe the Plumber has, so far, proven himself to be capable of lying through his teeth on national television and of successfully avoiding the tax collector for the past year or so.

Call me crazy but I, personally, find Colin to be just a bit more credible. And his opinion counts for a hell of a lot more than Joe's does when it comes to foreign policies and economic principals.

Hell, now that I think about it, they've got the same plumbing credentials. I might trust him to fix my toilet, too. Might as well since neither of them are licensed to do so.

The difference is, I'd trust Colin to say so - Joe's already proven he won't mention it if you won't. And he'll deny it if you do - and then ask that you quit picking on him and leave him alone because it's the bogus questions that are important, not the character or the honesty of the bogus plumber asking them.

For what it's worth, I completely fail to understand why we must all be Joe Six-Pack or Joe-the-Plumber or Soccer Sarah - just who exactly benefits when we're all so neatly packaged and pidgeon-holed for mass consumption? And why is it decreed that it must be so?

Do we all act that much like lemmings? Does the McCain campaign think that if they can only scare us enough that we'll all congregate on the same cliff and follow them down?

Or do they just wish we would?

Not the "Real Virginia"

A McCain campaign aide, Nancy Pfotenhauer, told MSNBC today that northern Virginia is not part of the "Real Virginia." It was not, as you might think, an attempt to excuse McCain's failure to nominate a real VP.

This follows on the heels of John McCain's brother referring to the region as "Communist country."

The McCain spokesperson went on to discuss the rest of the state in a high-pitched, barely audible frequency: (h/t Jake Tapper)

"I did say outside of north – well, I mean real Virginia, because northern Virginia is where I've always been, but real Virginia I take to be the – this part of the state that is more southern in nature, if you will."

Someone better tell Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

Maybe they oughta let John McCain know, too, since his Washington DC residence is a 3 bedroom condo in Arlington, Va.

For that matter, the 9/11 dudes really screwed up - they thought they were bombing an American Landmark - instead they bombed The Pentagon - located in the heart of "Communist Country."

Not the "Real Virginia"