Townhall.com Kills Off It's GOP Elephant

Republican Website Portal Shows Dead Elephant on Frontpage

Yesterday was a tough, but not unexpected day for the GOP, as Democrats retained control of the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. California voters, meantime, defeated all eight of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ballot proposals."

Ouch. I guess the truth hurts, even for die hard GOP'rs.

Politics: The Insourcing of Jobs: Immigration bill gets support - Metropolitan - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Immigration bill gets support - Metropolitan - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

This is an article that I found Dvorak talking about on his blog. It really upsets me. To think that you are going to increase American competition by hiring immigrant teachers frustrates me. What about giving an incentive to Americans to become teachers? Would that not help to increase competition here while also creating higher paying jobs for the best teachers. Not just the people that will come here to do it cheaply?

This article is frustrating to say the least. As a teacher I find it offensive to suggest that Americans can't teach. What we have is a society of people that do not value the job. Whether by pure salary or status in our American life, teachers are not valued today. If teachers were given competitive salaries and benefits many more Americans would decide on careers in teaching.

Regardless, I teach because of the students. This slap in the face to hard working American teachers will not stun me. I already know my government does not appreciate the work that we do. But, I will not let it stop me from doing the best I can. I know the value and that is all that is important in my life. I just wish that we had enough people in America that agreed with me. We could turn this thing around by focusing on getting the best to teach and mentor our kids so that they are then competing at the highest levels in the world.

But it is not about that. It is about bringing in cheap labor to fill jobs that we have decided not to fund. Lovely, it all comes down to the American dollar.

Politics: Election Day 2005

This is hard to believe. If I didn't hear it myself, I wouldn't believe it.

DailyKos: VA-Gov: Dirty tricks, the robo call

Here's is an MP3 of the robocall from an answering machine. The quality is a bit ugh, so the transcript is included.

Robocall MP3

[Voice of Tim Kaine] I am running for Governor and I am not afraid to tell you where I stand.

I am conservative on issues of personal responsibility. As a former Christian missionary, faith is central to my life. I oppose gay marriage. I support restrictions on abortion: No public funding and parental consent. And I've worked to pass a state law banning partial birth abortion.

Paid for and authorized by Honest Leadership for Virginia PAC.

Registration number 05-034.

So here's the deal -- the Republicans took statements Kaine has made and spliced them together to put together this out-of-context call. The horrible music in the background is there to mask the splicing.

This call is being played in liberal areas. A different spliced version of the call, talking about how liberal he is on choice and all those other hot-button social issues, is being played in conservative areas.

And it's all being funded by the Republican Governor's Association, as Bob at the Swing State Project has noted.

So is it a reason to vote for your local area Dems? Maybe not. But a good reason not to vote for the GOP. Dirty tricks, lies, and scandals. And a war that is out of control. Will Dems gain seats of government today and foreshadow 2006 when they take back Congress?

The Silly Internet: Baseball of Paint

As this couple would surely testify, nothing enhances a marriage like spending 28 years applying 18,655 coats of paint to a baseball. Truly, a life well lived.

It is stories like this that make - life worth living & the internet a fun thing!

Politics: Torture is Choking the President

Check out this article by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek:
Psst... Nobody Loves a Torturer

The article points out that things turned south in Iraq just after Abu Ghraib. Today the President made headlines when he announced, "We do not torture." To which many people around the world said, "Whhhhaaaaa????" The collective moan was audible, even in conseravtive Texas.

The President should take a harder line on this. Instead of denials of wrong doing, he should admit that lines were crossed. Even if it was unintentional, it does seem as if the lines of interrogation into torture have been crossed. So, admit it and then fight it. He could back John McCain's legislation that makes it clear what the Americans can and can't do. But, the White House is actively trying to defeat the measure.

Will this President ever learn? The American people don't care if you screw up. They care if you cover up and deny. We all make mistakes. No one is perfect. But, those that claim to be rub us the wrong way.

It rubs those around the world the wrong way as well:

A few months before the scandal broke, Coalition Provisional Authority polls showed Iraqi support for the occupation at 63 percent. A month after Abu Ghraib, the number was 9 percent. Polls showed that 71 percent of Iraqis were surprised by the revelations.

Ouch. Want to know why Iraq is not going anywhere anytime soon? The bucks stops at you Bush.

TheCrazyInternet: Man Leaves Millions to His Cat

I don't know what is more amazing in this story... the fact that dood left all his dough to his cat... or that he amassed his millions "living simply" as a gardener in public service.

Man Leaves $1.1 Mill to his Tabby

Political Cartoon: "Super Dome"

Karl Rove Pictured as "Super Dome: You really don't want to know what's going on in there.
This one cracked me up.

The Weekend

Great weekend here in Houston. The weather this time of year is just incredible. We are going through a bit of "Indian Summer." When we went out to the grocery store at 7pm tonight, my car said 86 degrees. Wow.

Aidan really enjoyed his time at Gabe and Anna's on Saturday. They had a big air filled "Moon Walk" machine for the kids. Aidan went in while they were unwrapping presents for the twins. He was laughing and stumbling around like crazy in there. Silly boy. Only one and he thinks he's so much bigger and older.

We turned Aidan's car seat around and now he is a big boy. He faces the front now and it is super nice for me. I can just turn around and see him. He probably won't sleep as much now in the car. He has too much to look at now.

Tonight we got back from the grocery store and we were carrying in the bags and setting them on the floor in the kitchen. Aidan grabbed a tomato sauce while Norma wasn't looking and dropped it to the floor. The glass broke and he had sauce everywhere. I walked in and Norma had him held up in the air and all I could see was spaghetti sauce on his feet and legs... which of course I thought was blood! I was a little freaked out. He was ok though. And we are just minus one jar of sauce. There was a big old pile of sauce on the floor, it smelled good while I was cleaning it up though.

I am a combined 16-2 right now in my two fantasy football leagues. One of them is a family league and it is neat to play against Norma, my dad, my step mom, my sister and her boyfriend. Also in the league are a few of my buddies I have worked with at different companies. My teams have been so lucky this year. No injuries. Everyone is having a great season. Each week I wait for the entire thing to collapse like a house of cards, but I keep winning.

On one of my teams I have Ladanian Tomlinson. He scored 5 touchowns today. Amazing.

My Texans and Rockets are looking pretty bad right now though. Texans lost their 7th game today and it was a game they really should have won in Jacksonville. The Rockets are without their top player T-Mac. He has an injury that could keep him out a month. At first, I was like... "Well, it's the beginning of the season, it'll be fun to see some of the other guys play for a few weeks and then we'll be even better when we get T-Mac back." After losing Saturday night to the Hornets... I feel differently. I want T-Mac back now. :(

Tonight I am recording a 2 hour special on the History channel about the Crusades. Looking forward to cutting the video up and showing it in class. It is simply odd how often the History channel is showing something that we are currently studying. We start Ch 9 the Middle Ages on Tuesday.

Tonight I also went for a good long run. A long run at this point amounts to a mile and a 1/2. I am super out of shape. After being as sick as I was for months... it is time to get things back in gear. I really need to work hard and get myself back to where I was last spring. One day at a time. I'm pretty beat tonight. And I will be "feeling it" tomorrow.

Well, I finished my notes for Tuesday tonight and now it is bed time. G'nite blogreaders.

Yeah! Another grading period in the books

I haven't been posting many blog entries this week. It has been a very, very busy week at work. The final week of a grading period is always hectic. It is filled with many students rushing to get work made up, parents emailing and calling about why their "Johnny" is failing, and double/triple/and quadruple checking the gradebook to be sure everything is right.

I graded about 200 projects on World Religion in the past 4 days and I am beat. It was worth it. The kids did a great job. I just finished posting 10 of them in my classroom. It will be neat to see the kids walk around and check out the 'best of the best' next Monday.

Now it is time for a nice relaxing weekend.

Planning on making a nice big chicken paramsean and angel hair pasta dinner tonight. It will be great to do a little cooking, have an awesome meal, take a walk with the baby and just relax.

On Saturday we are looking forward to going to a friend's house for their twins 2nd birthday party. It will be cool to see how big they have grown and to see if Aidan will want to play with them now. The last time Aidan saw them, he was sooo small. Now he's a 'big boy.' :)

The bell is about to ring... and the week is about to be over. Yippee.

Bush’s popularity hits new low

Bush’s popularity hits new low - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

60 percent disapprove of his performance.

This is not good. Not good for this country. We have 3 more years left with this President. Sad.

Politics: Assualt on the Middle Class

Well, folks... not that I told you so, but... yeah, I told you so:

CNN Video Segment: Bush's Tax Shuffle to Put the Squeeze on the Middle Class: President Bush's tax reform panel released a report that included proposals that hurt the middle class. CNN's Lisa Sylvester reports (November 2)

Just another reason I can proudly complain... because I didn't vote for this guy. Every day another piece of information comes out that just makes me shake my head.

Democrats close Senate to push war probe

CNN.com - Democrats close Senate to push war probe - Nov 1, 2005: "Democrats close Senate to push war probe"

Isn't it about freaking time?

Deal struck to advance investigation on prewar intelligence

Tuesday, November 1, 2005; Posted: 8:12 p.m. EST (01:12 GMT)
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, invoked this rule when he asked that the Senate close its doors to discuss prewar intelligence.

1. On a motion made and seconded to close the doors of the Senate, on the discussion of any business which may, in the opinion of a Senator, require secrecy, the Presiding Officer shall direct the galleries to be cleared; and during the discussion of such motion the doors shall remain closed.

2. When the Senate meets in closed session, any applicable provisions of rules XXIX and XXXI, including the confidentiality of information shall apply to any information and to the conduct of any debate transacted.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats forced the Senate into a closed session Tuesday to pressure the Republican majority into completing an investigation of the intelligence underpinning the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Democrats demanded that Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts move forward on a promised investigation into how Bush administration officials handled prewar intelligence about Iraq's suspected weapons programs.

The probe would be a follow-up to the July 2004 Intelligence Committee report that blamed a "series of failures" by the CIA and other intelligence agencies for the mistaken belief among U.S. policymakers that Iraq had restarted its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

The Republicans have put this off for 18 months. It is about time Harry Reid and the Dems put their foot down. The American public deserves to know how we were misled. Will it happen? It is an election cycle in Congress next fall and there are plenty of Republicans that want to step away from partisanship and appear to their constiuents that they are eliminating government corruption. It's pretty simple really, if they don't they may be voted out anyway. So it's possible they will play ball and we may get a few answers.

I know one thing is for sure... this was a bunch of CRAP:
Jan. 28th, 2003 State of the Union Address
“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” -- President Bush