PSoTD

Gotta like a guy who can apologize.

President-elect Barack Obama called Nancy Reagan on Friday to apologize for a remark about seances he made during his first news conference earlier in the day.

President-elect Barack Obama's spokeswoman says he apologized to Nancy Reagan for "offhanded remark."

When a reporter asked Obama if he had spoken with any ex-presidents since his election on Tuesday, he responded that he had spoken to all former presidents "that are living."

"I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances," he said.

Nancy Reagan, wife of 40th President Ronald Reagan, was derided in 1988 when his former chief of staff Donald Regan revealed in a book that the first lady had consulted an astrologer to determine the president's schedule.

Obama apologized to Reagan "for the careless and offhanded remark," Obama transition team spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said. Video Watch Obama make the seance remark »

"The president-elect expressed his admiration and affection for Mrs. Reagan that so many Americans share and they had a warm conversation," Cutter said.

With Love

I know it's all in jest, but I can't help it, I must be an old fogie now. I just can't get on board with any request that ends with ", bitches!". It's a big turnoff to me.

I guess nothing else is working for them.

McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said Saturday that an Obama presidency combined with Democratic control of Congress would lead to bigger government.

“Now they do this in other countries where the people are not free -- government as part of the family, taking care of us, making decisions for us,” she said during a rally in Sioux City, Iowa. “I don’t know what to think of having in my family Uncle Barney Frank or others to make decisions for me.”

Philadelphia Flyers still winless since Mooselina dropped the puck for their opening game.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Several lineup changes couldn't help the Flyers find their way in San Jose last night.

The Flyers, despite two goals from Danny Briere, blew a 3-1 lead and dropped a 5-4 overtime decision to the San Jose Sharks before a sellout crowd of 17,496 at the HP Pavilion.

In the overtime, Dan Boyle scored from in close with 1:25 gone as the Sharks improved to 5-1.

The Flyers remain winless (0-3-2). They played with more vigor than during Thursday's 5-2 loss against Colorado. But they were also outshot, 45-17, by the Sharks, who played the night before in Anaheim.

First Dude Todd Palin and Republican senator Norm Coleman at a rally in Minnesota.

Memo to the Right Wing Wacko Concern Trolls for Joe the Plumber!

Halsey Frost has owned his own company "Frostworks",since this marriage announcement in the NY Times in 1992 so he chooses to not give himself insurance. He also employed his wife as "bookkeeper and operations management" prior to her recent 2007 hire at the "medical publishing firm". As her employer, he apparently denied her health insurance as well.

His company, Frostworks, is located at 3701 E BALTIMORE ST. A building that was purchased for $160,000 in 1999. The buildings owner is listed as DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIAL DESIGN CENTER, LLC whose mailing address is listed as 104 S Collington Ave which is the Frost's home. The commercial property he owns is also listed as the business address for another company called Reillys Designs which leads to the question of whether rental income is included in the above mentioned salary total

The current market value of their improved 3,040 SF home at 104 S Collington Ave is unknown but 113 S COLLINGTON AVE, also an end unit, sold for $485,000 this past March and it was only 2,060 SF. A photo taken in the family's kitchen shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass front cabinets

I sure gotta admire your respect for a citizen's privacy.

And now it's time for another episode of the right wing wackos favorite gameshow .... The Guilt By Association Game!

Today's password is "David Ifshin".

Ifshin, you see, had been a vehement anti-Vietnam radical. He had even gone to Hanoi at the height at the war and given a speech denouncing the American pilots dropping bombs on North Vietnamese civilians as “war criminals.” The speech was broadcast repeatedly in the Hanoi Hilton, where McCain was being held captive. More than a few people thought Ifshin was guilty of treason.

Ooohh ... scary bad evil America hater commie!! Kill him!! Kill him!!!

Well actually, he's already dead. But wonder whose close friend he was?

Banished from Right Wing Crazy World!

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Either I didn't know or didn't remember...

Those who like to honor Columbus would have us believe that bringing up the darker side of the explorer is an attempt to blow the man's memory off course.

But these facts of genocide and land theft are not part of a revisionist, false history. In his own words spelled, out in his personal diary, Columbus acknowledged his scheme to subjugate the Taino Indians: "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."

Columbus' men rounded up 1,500 people and selected 500 as slaves to be shipped off to Spain. Two hundred died en route. This did not deter Columbus, who, according to historian Howard Zinn, later wrote: "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

Some defenders of Columbus fall back on the rationale that he was just a man of his time, with the prejudices that prevailed. But one of Columbus' own contemporaries, Bartoleme de las Casas, a Spanish colonist turned priest, spent his last years trying to wash the indigenous blood from his hands by calling for an end to the slave trade.

John McCain is going to find out this country is better than he thinks it is. I hope.

Here's a game that you can spend quite a bit of time trying to master.

And then, sometimes, never get around to it. Here's a bit of catchup:

Anyone out there use MailList King? I've had this saved for over a year for a client that was curious but eventually decided not to run their email list through their own servers. I'm still curious.

Quantcast has an interesting review based on traffic of the top visited sites on the Web.

One more web-based question - anyone have any experience using Blue Archer?

I have three or four "newspapers of the world" web sites bookmarked, but haven't settled on one yet as a favorite. Maybe onlinenewspapers.com.

Sometimes Google Trends tells you more than you want to know about the depth of the online public. Spanx underwear?

At some point I was planning to write about The Livermore Earthquake of 1980, since I experienced it and it was quite a sensory experience, but I haven't gotten around to it and not sure I will, other than to say that it scared the hell out of my Grandma.

I dunno, could it be The Naked Clown Calendar?

My wife and I enjoyed this new series last year until its momentum was stopped by the writer's strike. Tonight is the season premier, hopefully the writing and the story lines are as compelling as last year and we look forward to the interesting acting approach Damian Lewis gives to cop Charlie Crews.

Oh, and of course, Sarah Shahi!

Head Like A Kite

Time to Jumble!

New Metallica. I can't say that I understand this video but it sounds pretty cool!

My first exposure to Metallica was their infamous City Island concert (which I think ended concerts on City Island). The Cult opened for them promoting their Sonic Temple CD (which was their best CD ever).

Metallica had just released "And Justice For All". There was a giant model of "Lady Justice" with her scales and a couple of very large naked boobs on the stage. They'd played just about everything off Justice, and more importantly off Master of Puppets. It was a rainy twilight and thousands of black T-Shirts pumped their fists in the air. Surreal. I was hooked.

Fkkk the Black Album. Give me Master of Puppets! The new CD is a welcome throwback.

Not my favorite song off this record but not bad.

In case you need to know what time it is in, for example, Kiritimati.

I don't plan to take any such photos.

Beyond belief, it's starting to become fashionable to visit places for the enjoyment of watching the local menfolk brandish deadly weapons. In Italy, soldiers in body armor were recently deployed to stand vigil around potential terrorist sites. The Financial Times reports that in Rome, where a thousand of them appeared this summer, patrolmen quickly became tourist fodder in their own right.

Bristol Palin's baby daddy is headed to the big party in Minneapolis!

What happened to leave the kids out of the national politics and respect their privacy? I guess they are there as role models for teenagers trying to ruin their lives.

Okay, we apologize. But we're not marrying her.

The harbour city of ancient Rome seems like a cool stop while we're in Rome, but timing is everything - not sure we'll be able to do it.

This Wikipedia entry of my old high school doesn't contain any information about freshman initiation. Back in the old days, I watched a few of my peers have to ride down Boot Hill on a Big Wheel, which usually lead to a crash and considerable rolling over at the steepest part. I think they used to put kids in garbage cans and roll them down the hill as well, at least that was the legend. Freshman initiation was usually imposed by senior class boys on freshman boys.

Hopefully this means that "freshman initiation" is no longer part of the high school culture. Seemed kinda stupid at the time, seems really stupid 30 years plus out.

A couple cards were passed around my office this afternoon for everyone to sign. One was for a baby on the way and one guy is tying the knot. Interestingly, I was able to write the same line on both of them.

"Better you than me!"

Like everyone else, there are people in my past that I've completely lost track of, and I'm at a point in my life where I'm curious as to where they are. I also recognize that people do google-searches of their own name, and of people they know, and so I'm kind of hoping that by posting the names of a few people that I'm curious about, I might find out more about them from the googlesearch. If this post does draw you in by the name, and you want to contact me, just use the email on the side. If this actually works, I might end up doing it again.

Michael Korposh, of Harrisburg
Lisa Ricks, of Livermore
Craig Kingscott, of Livermore
Terry Bantz, of Muncie

"I looked at that and I thought, 'Oh my that looks like Jesus on the cross.' It was just like wow," she says.

Family and friends agree with her. Her daughter says, "I thought it was pretty cool." But Kelly Ramey's friend, Sue Edelman, sees something different. "I looked again and I thought a horse head."

Kelly says her husband has a special name for it. "He calls him Cheesus."

I had been feeling uninspired about blogging recently until Cheeto Jesus directed me to spread his Gospel of Cheesy Orange Goodness!

If you're looking for the closest place to your barbecue to get your propane tank filled for your barbecue, check this search engine out.

It is amazing that people can claim that going to a location to follow the idiocy of completely moronic dicks is somehow a church.

Being a member of Westboro Baptist Church is basically saying that you have no problem associating with some of the biggest dicks - emotionally and intellectually, not physically - in the world. Do these people tattoo WBC on their forehead? Why not?

At least in the area of faith...

Are Vermonters heathens?

Not exactly, but they are less religious than people in most other states, according to a national poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which combines results for Vermont and New Hampshire, suggests that people in the two states pray less often, are less likely to attend weekly services and are less likely to believe in God with absolute certainty than are people in the rest of the nation.

Nationally, about 71 percent of the nearly 35,000 people polled said their belief in God or a universal spirit was absolutely certain. In Vermont/New Hampshire, the response was 54 percent — which while still a majority was considerably lower than the national rate.

Results show Vermont/New Hampshire consistently logging the lowest or nearly lowest levels among states in what the pollsters call religious commitment. About 23 percent of the Vermont/New Hampshire respondents attend religious service at least once a week, compared with 39 percent nationally. Thirty-six percent said religion is very important to them, compared to 56 percent nationally.

Nobody else is going to understand this, but I felt like labeling this park in Livermore as I've remembered it since senior year in high school...

On April 28, 2007, I emailed myself this search on wishing wells on Yahoo!.

Why? It's a bit of a long story, exciting with the turgid action of sump pumps and theoretical underground springs flowing beneath houses on their way to the Conodoguinet Creek here in Camp Hill. Short story - I've been planning for quite a while now to dig a hole to place a dry well, complete with varying shallows of rock and gravel sizes, in an effort to get the sometimes thousands of daily gallons of water that my basement sump pump forces into my front yard BACK into the ground, where I believe a spring lies. And over that dry well? Well, back in April 2007, I thought it should be a faux wishing well, although now I think a metal and wood bench will do just fine.

The wishing well isn't really the issue. The issue is the date. It's been over a year now, and here's the progress I've made:

I bought a dry well tub.
I decided on getting a bench rather than a wishing well.

TADA! No wonder I run a small business rather than a industrial empire, with such effort and results. Can you say "put it off" as often as I can? I think you can beat me, but only because I'll procrastinate about saying it.

The real feat that I don't feel like undertaking is the digging. I dug a hole half as deep and half as wide for a Smoke Tree I planted about 7 years ago, about 10 feet away, and it was a pisser. My front yard is clay and shale and bigger freaking rocks, all under a thin veneer of grass. When I see bigger freaking rocks, I mean the kind that are big enough that you decide to stop digging. Too thick and too big in horizontal coverage. That's okay when you're planting a tree. That's not okay when you're spending an afternoon putting in a dry well.

So this post is my marker, my promise to myself that I will do this eventually this summer - or fall. Okay, that's procrastinating, but it's not the kind of procrastinating that would take it into another year, well, unless the weather was bad, and something else came up, and I hurt my knee, and blahtedyblahblah. No, this is the year. I promise.

And yet, I keep thinking it is...