Trout & Swami

My favorite radio personalities getting ready for some football bet payoffs creates a little local area controversy! Rio Rancho is the next town west and the fastest growing city in the state.

A Real Mother

There was a lovely news story about Jane Hambleton of Des Moines, Iowa who sold her son's car after finding booze in it. He broke her rules and paid the price. She wrote all about it in the ad she put up offering the car for sale.

Congratulations, Jane!

Click title for link to story.

Iowa Caucus

So the Iowa caucus is done. Surprisingly, Obama took an exceptional lead almost right from the start. It looked like Hillary was second for a while, but late news reporting has her in 3rd place now with Edwards squeaking into 2nd place.

Huckabee was not all that big a surprise given the current state of the Republican party.

Things haven't gotten raucus yet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22484066/

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20080103_obama_wins/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/02/AR2008010201870.html?nav=rss_email/components

Did I mention???

There is going to be an independent criminal investigation regarding the CIA's deletion/destruction of those interrogation tapes I mentioned a few weeks ago. There is just a point where government HAS to be transparent to us ordinary folks and I think this is one of those things that demands transparency. The AP said "The Justice Department opened a full criminal investigation Wednesday into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, putting the politically charged probe in the hands of a mob-busting public corruption prosecutor with a reputation for being independent.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced that he was appointing John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee the investigation of a case that has challenged the Bush administration's controversial handling of terrorism suspects."

Later in the story, another agent was quoted as saying ""He'll suck the political air right out of the investigation and just go after the facts," said Mike Clark, a retired FBI agent who investigated Rowland. "He's going to do it his way and just keep digging." This is too important to let go of -- we need this examined fully in the light of day with full transparency.

You bet bet your sweet patooties I thought out at the universe, "Oh, please do suck the politics out of it!" It's only reasonable.

This in the Tuesday news made me happy! I'm just writing about it late.

Hobbled Again

Just a few short weeks ago, I posted a pic of my left foot propped up on a stool because I'd twisted it. I muttered something about being surprised it wasn't my weaker, right ankle.

On my first day, on the first clear sunny afternoon of the new year I set out to take my lovely dog out for a walk. Less than five minutes later I was sprawled on the ground eyelevel with crystals of quartz still in the process of being worn by wind and friction down to grains of sand, sand and crusher fine. I thought I heard my right ankle pop, but can't be sure that the sound was exactly a pop. There is a moment where there is a surge of fiery pain exploding and merging with the roar of the freeway in the background. All the while I know this has happened on the first afternoon of the new year. My [I]new year.[/I]

So while I just wanted to walk my dog, her walk got cut short which is hardly fair because she enjoys it so much. For that matter, so do I. Walking has become something where I've been rediscovering my center. Walking lets me see nature and our habitat around us with a fresh eye. It's something we disconnect from when we're working indoors all the time, but the intimate embrace of knowing our surroundings seems so important to me. Somehow today, for the second time in as many weeks, I just stepped wrong and got brought down low. I hobbled home, DH helped make me an ice pack. We iced my ankle down for a couple hours and I napped for a bit. After waking up, I got my new Ace bandage and wrapped it up. So here I am now, alert in the middle of the night with my foot propped up on a stool.

I sure hope this is not a harbinger of things to come.

The Patriots Rock!

16-0 says it all! Next stop: the playoffs!

Yah yah yah!!!

Ohh... and did you see the Redskin's spank the Cowboys today? All in all, my football weekend was pretty good.

Alive... It's Alive. My Computer, That Is.

My computer has been reborn, reformatted and reloaded. Yes... I lost some data. Mostly old artsy fartsy pictures that I use for wallpapers. To be honest, I just boldly deleted the porn before taking my computer to Dr.D's. The files I *needed* to keep were backed up on a separate disk. I do so love USB disks. So nice and compact!

So I'm downloaded and installed new versions of things like Spybot Search & Destroy, AVG anti-virus, MailWasher (have I mentioned that I really love Mailwasher?), and Ad-Aware. Oh.. and Iconix for email validation from companies. It tells if its 'real' or phish.

Then there was my iTunes to mess with. Whine, whine, whine. Had to reauthorize the computer, but it wouldn't synch because of the "other" lost playlist. But I did get my all my bought music files back. Spent about 4.5 hours tonight importing stuff from my CDs.

Made a kick ass dinner tonight for me and DH. Fettucine with green chile alfredo, steamed brocolli and sauteed chicken breast seasoned with Italian herbs, garlic, fresh pepper and salt. Nice & simple and really good! Kind of a slightly belated anniversary dinner. Shoulda made it for dinner last night, but we were both too wiped to worry about eating.

DH brought home a DVD of Spiderman 3 to watch which made me take a time out from reorganizing my computer. It was good and the rest was nice. My eyes feel like I haven't blinked in days even though I know that's not true.

Phew... A Pardon

Some of you may have been following the story of the Saudi woman who was raped and initially sentenced to some 90 lashes for being 'in the company of a man not a member of her family' just prior to the rape. Her lawyer protested the sentence as unfair and unwarranted (basically speaking), so the judge in the case modified the sentence to 200 lashes "for speaking to the press."

I guess having 4/5th of the world outraged had some influence - King Abdullah pardoned the woman "in the interests of the people."

But lets call it what it is. It is double speak, folks. It means that he's capitulated to pressures from the US and other countries. It does NOT mean he wasn't supporting the judges. But it's real hard to maintain a defense of a judgement like that when some 4/5ths of the world agrees a sentence like that for a rape victim is beyond barbaric.

I sure hope the young woman and her loyal husband are able to stay safe and find safe haven if they choose to leave the Kingdom for a more tolerant country and that they live a long and fruitful life.

Purple, On My Feet & In From The Cold

That's my foot over there. Nice bruising, eh? It's even prettier in sunlight. It looks the same way on the inside too. Just from a simple misstep.

The good news is that the swelling is down to near normal, I can put my weight on it and walk normally. Well, mostly normal. If I move or shift weight too quickly it hurts like a sonovabitch! I suspect it's a real good thing I lost the weight I did this year before hurting my foot. It could have been worse.

Friends, it's cold outside! I set fresh water out for Raven about one o'clock this afternoon. Took her on a walk around three and saw that it had started to skim over with ice. That was with the bowl in the sunlight!

I bundled up good, but even thermal bottoms under my jeans didn't stop the breeze from pushing the cold into my thighs and making them feel like the fat layer was turning into a solid like lard! I've been home from that walk almost 4 hours now and still feel like bits of that thigh fat are still thawing out. I'm so grateful this isn't Tulsa, Chicago or Minot... or any other even colder place.

The walk was good for me if not a little slow going. We went over to Hyder park and I scoffed the law and let Da Dawg off her leash so she could play with some of the other dogs there after she did her business and I finished scooping and disposing of it. Even before getting Raven, it has been one of my routine walking places for years.

It's a good place to people watch too. Today I was rewarded with seeing three young men playing croquet near the SE corner of the park. All dressed in black, but one especially stood out in his knee high lace up Doc Martens with bloused black cargo pants, steel chain key or wallet fob draping down the side of his leg in a graceful arc, black bomber jacket open at the throat revealing tats up to his collar line, wearing a watch cap. He stood there calmly with what looked to be a home made square mallet insouciantly shouldered like one would a tennis racket, while waiting for one of the other players to complete their move. It's not the image one usually associates with croquet which makes them stand out.

Oh, how about the Justice Department today trying to tell Congress to back off on those CIA tapes that got destroyed? Congress is not liking that "back off" warning very much. Neither do I. The CIA is between a rock and a hard place since they were first ordered "Get that information and if you have to, use stronger interrogation techniques, including waterboarding to get it." by the administration. Now they're in a three way tug of war between Bushies Administration, the Justice Dept AND Congress... 2 branches of government bickering over the same stick and each wanting different results? Hot potato, hot potato!

Tin Man

Did you see Tin Man on the Sci Fi channel? I really got a kick out of it and hope it gets released on DVD soon!

Now, I read all Baum's Oz books growing up, and they weren't all nice nice stories. The "Wheelers", for example, scared the bejabbers out of me, chasing me in my nightmares for a few years. So Tin Man's dystopian take on OZ didn't break my heart at all. The overall package worked from storyline to sets to costuming....

Three cheers and all that!

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