Pixie Place II

I won't call it a work in progress - partly because everything is that, and partly because there's a blog by that name and I don't want to belittle him. But I was futzing with WordPress today... Pixie Place II! Not very original, but I'm not all that clever.

May have to change the font...but at least I like the picture! Your opinions are valuable to me, so please leave suggestions in the comments over there! Thank you for stopping by, and fercryinoutloud, STAY WARM!

Wise Words

I stayed up late last night. I got up far too early this morning and ended up "working" longer than was good for my shaky hold on sanity. So here are some bits of wisdom I've seen around, just to prove I haven't died and gone to meet my Maker. I'm going to bed!
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Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work. ~William Arthur Ward

Firelight will not let you read fine stories but its warm and you wont see the dust on the floor. ~Irish Proverb

Do or do not. There is no 'try.' ~Yoda

Dear Sir, Your profession has, as usual, destroyed your brain.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.
-- Socrates

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
-- Abraham Lincoln

You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all.
-- Earl Weaver

During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.
-- Mickey Mantle

Gossip is NOT "news"

I don't care what anyone else thinks - gossip is ugly for the subject and for the ones doing the gossiping. "Murder by character assassination" kills ME as surely as it hurts the one I talk about. I won't go into any holier-than-thou spiel about how 'nice' it isn't, I'll just say I've been the gossiper and the gossipee in my time running around the sun, and neither one have improved my opinion of either myself or others...in fact, just the opposite.

Now, along with regular celebutard gossip, we have the granddaddy of yellow journalism on tv and online creating a sister gossip site for sports. Isn't that just...pathetic. But you KNOW it's gonna make a ton of money for the gossipers and those who tattle. Ick.

From JewishWorldReview.com, Mitch Albom - one of my all-time favorite sports writers - and writers in general, I think - tells about the launch of a sports-gossip enterprise that will make the National Enquirer look like "Fun With Dick and Jane." As the headline states, "There's nothing sporting about gossip as news."

The fun just never ends

Track-A-Crat links to Hot Air, who has a lovely little poll on the Obamateurism of the Year. Swallow your drinks and put your feet on the floor so you don't tip over in your chair. I don't know how you could narrow it down to eight finalists, but sacrifices must be made, I suppose - eeny, meeny, minie, MO...!

Government is a meddling presumptuous pain in the neck.

John Stossel has such a way with words! HIS title is "Free Stuff From Sam." Mine is the next to last line from his column, and I like it MUCH better.

There are more column links at JewishWorldReview.com. Binyamin has very able assistants who have come forward to help him out, and I am grateful for them. He could really use a staff, however, so if you can spare a buck or two, please send it on to them. With MY thanks!

My Chief is home this morning, wants to talk...converse...what's up with THAT??? It's early - if I have to talk to the cats at this time of day, I do, but I'm not always very NICE! This new shift is gonna take some getting used to...I take Fosomax (generic) on Wednesdays, so haven't even had coffee yet...but it sure smells good!

Handsome Son-in-law has a nasty cold...mine isn't any better than it was yesterday. Got the Cousins today, first time this week. Ugh. Gonna be a long, long day. Y'all go have a terrific day, MAKE it a good day, and thanks for stopping by!

UPDATE: If the Cousins are coming today, they are much later than usual...
UPDATE2: Not that it matters to you, but the Cousins arrived just before noon and were gone again by 2:30...slow work day for their mama, hope tomorrow is better.

Number Three

Bob Tyrell's column has something to say about BarryO and His Band of Weasels. BarryO has brought some real 'pieces of work' to his administration, and some of them have the job on a very temporary basis. Sometimes shills and sycophants who worked well at a campaign level really aren't good company at the National level. They say things or do things that cause pain and embarrassment to their Emperor - can't have THAT! I need a pick-me-up this morning, and Tyrell provides much in the way of snark. I love snark.


My guess is that Dunn's expressed admiration for Mao is the cause of her departure. For this revelation, I suppose we have to thank Fox's Glenn Beck. He aired a tape of Dunn notifying an audience of students at St. Andrew's Episcopal School near Washington that this cuddly little butterball of a tyrant — who oversaw the murders of some 70 million people — is one of her "favorite philosophers." The other one, she said, is Mother Teresa, who killed no one, as far as we know. Dunn adduced both as moral exemplars for the assembled youths. Her point was something about setting out to do things you really want to do regardless of criticism. If I followed her, she saw both Mao and Mother Teresa as variations on the old Sinatra standard "My Way." In moral and practical terms, Dunn's advice to the students was confused.


What is more, she stretched the truth when asked to defend her speech. On CNN, she attempted to explain that when she spoke of Mao as one of her "favorite political philosophers," she was speaking ironically. The phrase was, she claimed, "intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat — at least with a certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing." Ah, Dunn's war with Fox continues.

I don't know about you, but where I'm from "stretching the truth" is the same as lying. I don't believe for a minute that she intended irony.

Wonder who's next to open mouth and change feet. Stay tuned!

“$250 here, $250 billion there -- eventually you destroy an already teetering entitlement system.”

Feeling a bit tapped out today, and part of it is worry I may have taken on too much, come tomorrow...but we'll see how that works out when the time comes. I'm REALLY looking forward to Saturday, because I need a few hours to just do the fiddling around that HAS to be done SOON. Nothing major, life-changing, or difficult - there are simply some things I want to do that are tedious and mind-consuming... that is, TIME consuming...that I seem to require alone-time for. I lose my place easily, and when working on the computer, that can be frustrating as all get out, so...well, enough. You get the idea, you're not idiots.

That being said, I read an article by Ed Feulner you might find interesting - A Tale of Two $250's. Great analysis and information!
Two exerpts:

The recession has driven prices down across the board, and the cost of living has actually declined by almost 5 percent. Because of that, and because Medicare premiums won’t increase next year, spending analyst Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute estimates that the average Social Security recipient will have about $725 more in purchasing power next year. So, reasonably, Social Security plans to skip the COLA.

But not if the Obama administration can help it.
...
More than a decade ago, lawmakers passed a law that was supposed to solve that problem by capping payments to doctors. According to the law, fees paid to doctors under Medicare will be slashed by 21.5 percent this year, and by 40 percent over the next five years. Of course, no lawmaker wants to be accused of cutting payments to doctors. So every year lawmakers in both parties vote overwhelmingly to override their own law.

Tricky bastards, our Elected CongressWeasels. It didn't start with this batch, but now that we KNOW, we really outta t'row da bums out.

Chicken-little governance comes with a steep price tag

David Harsani at Townhall.com:

If TARP recipients are under the thumb of a pay czar, what about other corporations consenting to Washington aid or accepting contracts -- a group that grows with each misguided stab at stimulating the economy? And why stop there? Why not make all compensation fair?

"I don't think that's healthy, and I don't like it," Camden Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America, said of the pay czar's cuts. "These are decisions for boards of directors to make, not the government. I think this is a very slippery slope."

Why I read Lileks

James' post today at the Bleat is far from one of his best - and I'm not going looking right now to put up that link, you can find many FABulous writings in his archives - but this line hit me right between the eyes...so to speak:

What we see as a breathing space or a sign the worst is over is probably just the gap between swings of the two-by-four.

I better shower so I'm more awake when it comes around.

Useless time-wasters

I wandered over to Margo's Maid's Shadowlands. She posts some of the strangest stuff. In continuing on past her links, I came upon this. Now, I'm an expert at doing something so I don't have to DO something (which is the reason these blogs exist, isn't it?), but it hasn't come this far just yet. So far, I've managed to stick with cooking and blogging to waste my time - and yours!

Monday, Monday...

Can't touch that day. Amazing, isn't it, what a few recreational drugs could make possible...