Here’s a bit of good local news: just as the announcement of an opening on the council comes in, we also get word that a dedicated community servant will be running for the seat! Go, Pam!
These are breathtaking images: Earth From Above (via O-Dub)!
Gah.
I went offline at lunchtime today, thinking that the project I was undertaking would take a few hours. Ten hours later (isn’t that always the case?), I was back. So, I missed the global sell off and the launch of the Obama campaign’s response to the McCain’s campaign’s whining about stuff a guy did when Obama was a kid in Hawaii.
I’ll try to compensate for today’s lack of attention tomorrow…
I told you Sarah Palin has an unnatural attachment to the word “also.” What’s up with that?
I’m not making this up! Here’s it is, straight from the geezer’s mouth:
Now, John McCain has been treated for his recurring cancer (his treatment is possibly the only thing that stands between us and a truly terrifying President Palin) many times by the top doctors in the country. He’s had specialists and consultants and surgeries and treatments — do you think the staff at the Wal-Mart is going to be up to providing that kind of care? No? Then what, pray tell, does the uninsured person do when his condition is beyond the skillset of the Discount Doctor?
Picture this: you find a lump on your breast and you go to the Wal-Mart to have it looked at by a doctor. What does he do? Perform a biopsy right there in the Wal-Mart? No, he’s going to want to refer you to a specialist. The only problem is that you don’t have any health insurance! That’s why you’re seeking health care at the freakin’ Wal-Mart! So, what do you do?
Much like most of John McCain’s policies and proposals, this health care plan works out great for the rich, and for those, like John McCain, who have Congressional insurance — surely the best health care plan in the free world — but for the people who live in the real world, his plan is silly. Oh, it’s fine if all you have is strep throat — the Doc in a Box can give you a throat swab and write you a prescription for an antibiotic. But what if what you’ve got is rheumatoid arthritis? Lupus? Cardiovascular disease? A recurring melanoma?
Given the fact that John McCain’s health care plan calls for taxing the benefits you get from your employer and providing a $5,000 credit for buying your own insurance (have you looked at the cost of a year’s health insurance lately? $5,000 comes up a bit short, especially if you’re already struggling to pay for food and housing), his plan isn’t going to help get any of the currently uninsured into coverage. So, that brings us back to ERs and Wally World — do you think they’re up to managing your health care? Is that where you want to take your kid? If you lose your job (yeah — do you really trust a McCain economy?), is this what you’ll be left with?
I think we could do a lot better than this. Way better, in fact.
Another UPDATE: oh my god, we could be doing SO MUCH BETTER! The US has the worst. health. care. system. ever.
Well, it was quite cool this past week — it even dipped into the 40s during the night a few times, so it was a bit nippy in the mornings. It put me in the mood for hot, cozy soupy food, so on Thursday night, tomato soup was on the menu. Now, it was a busy day and the debate was going to be on, so I took a shortcut and used canned diced tomatoes instead of fresh ones. It makes for a very quick meal that way.
I’ve been asked on at least one occasion to provide recipes when I post food porn and this time around I thought I’d go one step further and include some step-by-step photos as well…
Once again, from the New York Times, a video/transcript so cool, you’ll watch to watch it again!
It’s a big day here at Chez 10K — Dear Daugher’s birthday. Hopefully, we’ll get to have a little fun family time this weekend…
Which all reminds me… DD is no longer going to be known as Dear Daughter here on the blog. We’re going to switch to real made-up names instead. There are a few reasons for this. First, a friend suggested that using the old usenet/message board convention is kinda creepy and dated. I can see that — it does go back a while and it’s not terribly creative. Plus, the problem with “DD” is that some people might actually pronounce it in their heads and start thinking of Dear Daughter as “Dee Dee.” With all due respect to anyone with that name, it’s not something Dear Daughter answers to.
So, like a lot of bloggers out there who want to protect the privacy of those around them, I’m going to start using nicknames for the people I talk about a lot. Henceforth, Dear Hubby will be known as “Ralph” — it’s a name he answered to in college (it amused a friend of ours to call him that, because that made us Ralph and Alice). And Dear Daughter will now be known as “Emmie.” Dear Puppy, brave soul that she is, has decided to go on the record with her real name, Nonnie, because it’s such a cool freakin’ name for a dog — it is supposedly a diminutive form of a Portuguese word meaning “little mistress of our home.” It’s also the name of a character in the very cool narrative told by Laurens van der Post in A Story Like the Wind and A Far Off Place, which Emmie and I loved reading together, over and over again, when she was a little girl.
So anyway, that’s a long way around to saying: Happy Birthday, Emmie! May this be your best year ever!
