Another guest post - also excellent - thanks, Elizabeth!

Hi my name is Elizabeth Norton. I am a mom that is a little out of her element here but I happy to be guest posting on this blog. I asked my husband what I could write on that has to do with a Sport, Politics, and Sex since I am guest blogging on Jamie's Blog. I wasn't sure I was up to tackling the job. I am a pretty conservative person when it comes to sex, I am "confused" (according to my husband) when it comes to politics and I have almost no interest in sports unless the Phillies are winning. In that case I may be slightly delighted. (ok, so I wear a lot of red and act like I have been a "phan" the whole year....don't judge).

Even though I am under qualified to write on these topics because I am clueless. (yes Clueless....my husband Confirmed) We have summed up my post to say this....... (Below is his contribution to this post)

Remember that time when...... Politician, Governor Christie. used New Jersey money to ride in a helicopter to see his son play in a baseball game and how we fought about it? I blame Governor Christie for not getting sex that night. ( you can find my husband on twitter to give him a high five at @DrivesmeCrazy)

Family values are ones that are to be respected. Do I LOOOOVVVVEEE the fact that Governor Christie used state funds to use a helicopter to see a baseball game.....no......however I am sure that the NJ Governor was not landing on the baseball field blind. I am sure he thought through this and knew there would be conversations all over New Jersey like the one that was held in my living room that night, on the radios the following week and in the news that day. Was it wrong? I bet if you ask the son if he shouldn't have come to the game he would have said no. The son has pretty much given to my state "HIS" father. (one more thing that we need is a political driven son alcoholic) One baseball game, that he couldn't even stay the whole time at because of meetings, will be sure to remembered by his son. I call the backlash risk being a good dad! What do you call it? (Tell me in the comments below)

As far as any other actions taken by Governor Christie, I am not so sure about them. He has taken benefits away from a lot of hard working people that will only prove to have issues in the future. If we make the good teachers search for other employment, the good cops become business men, and so and so.......we will only be left with the teachers that could care less of our students and corrupt cops that run our streets. Do we really want that??? (Tell me in the comments below)

New Jersey has been spoiled for a long long long long long long (did I mention LONG time?) It is about time to cut spending but really at what point is the spending that we are doing worth while.....personally I feel education and protection go hand and hand in the world of importance. To cut there is to be cutting of our nose in spite of our face and waving a flag saying NEW JERSEY is stupid.

Governor Christie, next baseball game make sure you are there for your son. Try to take a less expensive mode of transportation to get there....try a train ticket....(ohhh wait the train system in New Jersey SUCKS-add that to your fix to do list....Cape May County doesn't even have a train station) and then after you watch a baseball game think of the people that aren't playing baseball because they are protecting your A$$...

A Guest Post from Rachee!

All I Learned in Life I Learned From the Radio

Editor's note: Hello Blog Friends! I'm Rachee from http://www.sayitrahshay.com/ and I'm putting the "GER!" in swinger baby! I'm posting on Jamie's Blog as a part of a blog swing put together by Elizabeth Norton. I am a mom to a tween (The Bee) and a library chick among other things (want to know more...shameless self promotion...see my blog for more!)

 My kid is at that age where sometimes I kinda don't like her. Yup, she's a tween that in between age of young child and teenager and there are days that I am ready to throttle her and days when I just want to hug her. Lately I have been counting my blessings. I work with children daily and am proud of the person that she has become. The Bee is not perfect; she is a regular kid so I was surprised when she told me that she wanted to start watching the news.

I cannot tell a lie; as much as I pretend otherwise, in my household we can tell you more about Oprah than Obama. More about The Dougie than the debt ceiling and more about Beyonce than Boehner. We, I am a pop culture junkies and I have got it bad. It wasn't supposed to be this way; during the last presidential campaign The Bee and I we followed the campaign of Obama more faithfully than any Top Model marathon. Nightly...ish we watched the news and saw what was going on on the world and we kept a few politico type blogs in my RSS reader that we would check out in between playing The Sims and other online games. However one evening The Bee requested that we watch something on Cartoon Network, another night I got caught up in some marathon or another (I'm such a sucker) and the slowly, slowly the local news was replaced with something else, the world news was left unwatched and now I feel like I need to play catch up.

When I mentioned to The Bee that we were going to start actively watching the news, she fully exercised her tween-ness and declared that our television viewings were like the time she spent with her grandfather.

"Mom! She said, "We don't have to know EVERYTHING and besides, I'm a kid!". How can I argue with that? But I remembered that indeed I was the parent and help firm. It's been an interesting experiment. A few months ago we got rid of cable and hadn't done the digital switch thing. When I made the decision I was only focused on the saving money aspect and decreasing the amount of time we, I, spent watching crap TV. I never counted that I would miss that vital time after work spent getting a recap of the day or the chirping of Matt Lauer, Al Roker and Ann Curry in the AM.

Gah!

To fill the gap I've been listening to NPR. I reasoned something was better than nothing and I am not the biggest fan. The Bee loves Morning Edition. Go Figure! As I rush to make breakfast, slurp coffee and get the day started I keep the radio tuned to our local NPR affiliate and as I listen I've noticed that more and more The Bee is listening with me. When I am yelling at the radio, she has chimed in with an enthusiastic word of of her own. As we drive to school, work, wherever she has asked what a few things mentioned mean. We are by no means politicos but no longer are we total ignorant of current events that are not surrounded by movies and celebrities.

So far so good. At this point in time The Bee and I are by no means well versed in all things politics but we can offer an opinion of world events, can follow along with talk of the debt ceiling and have much to say about local and world events. It's a good start but I can see the tide turning. The other day as we got into the car The Bee mentioned that at The Dad's house her favorite station is a local radio station that she wanted to give a listen to. When I balked at changing the station she looked me in the eye and said, "It's OK. The news will be there later."
Oh tweens!

- Rachee

This was a guest post from Rachee. To read more from her you can find her at http://www.sayitrahshay.com/.


I am so glad you met Rachee! I am not blogging here today. I am at http://www.afatherknowsless.com/ blogging today. I hope you see me there!!!!

Tea anyone? No, you're good? Well, the rest of us aren't.

How is it that interest in and self-decribed affiliation with the Tea-Party has dropped, but their influence in Washington has increased?

God blessed us, everyone

I've occasionally debated...with myself...as to whether Religion has had more of a net positive or negative affect on the course of world events, and I've finally swung from the negative to the positive, based on this one observation:

Although hundreds of thousands of people have been killed through the years in the name of religion, hundreds of millions have been helped just by folks of any given religious body, be it a Southern Baptist mega-church or a tiny Quaker Meeting, helping each other out in times of woe, when we need it most.

The faith-based charities get attention as does the missionary work in foreign countries to help those less advantaged than us, but in the end, it's the person-to-person love, assistance and attention given to our fellow worshipers, that I really think wouldn't otherwise happen, that really tips the balance for me.

Out right-winging it

Paul Krugman:


"President Obama has made it clear that he’s willing to sign on to a deficit-reduction deal that consists overwhelmingly of spending cuts, and includes draconian cuts in key social programs, up to and including a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. These are extraordinary concessions. As The Times’s Nate Silver points out, the president has offered deals that are far to the right of what the average American voter prefers — in fact, if anything, they’re a bit to the right of what the average Republican voter prefers!


Yet Republicans are saying no. Indeed, they’re threatening to force a U.S. default, and create an economic crisis, unless they get a completely one-sided deal. And this was entirely predictable.
First of all, the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.
As a result, Republicans are automatically against anything the president wants, even if they have supported similar proposals in the past. Mitt Romney’s health care plan became a tyrannical assault on American freedom when put in place by that man in the White House. And the same logic applies to the proposed debt deals."

Dailykos: "Yes, yes, Paul Krugman is a crazy Nobel Prize-winning maniac. But even many Republicans—even many George W. Bush-serving Republicans—have been saying the same thing. Some have been all but pleading for Republicans to take a damn deal already.
None of the stuff of this presidency is controversial, in fact (it's certainly hardly "socialist" or even left of center) except insofar as it's a Democrat proposing it. That's all it takes. If a Republican president proposed a few trillion dollars of deficit reduction (not that one would, based on the plain historical evidence, but let's just go with the premise), he would presumably be lauded as the Great And True Hero of Conservatism. When Republicans tried to tackle healthcare, during the Clinton years, what they came up with as their preferred conservative solution looked a great deal like what Romney did, and then what Obama did. Then it was sound and business-friendly: now it's socialism and utterly intolerable. It's been, what, only a decade and change?

The finest recent example, though, has been the battle against the latest socialist conspiracy: efficient light bulbs. It literally was a Bush-era plan. From 2007. And yes, Bush signed it. Four short years later, those efficiency standards must be an infringement because a group of conservative crackpots got together and decided that, well, it just plain must be.

Bad: I'm not sure there's any way to express just how silly these people are. Worse: even now, most of our press is bound and determined not to point that out."

Serving whine by (not at a) party...and gender

I guess everyone has a certain number of whiners in their life. I certainly know quite a few, people Cheryl calls the "They done me wrong gang". People who seem to always be complaining about one thing or another, and usually because of someone or something that is conspiring against them.

It struck me today that the vast majority of women I know who fit in this category are all Dems and the vast majority of men I know who are like this are Republicans.

And it also reminds me of something I saw in an article recently that I really liked: "The only thing you have complete control over is your attitude."

I love you, Woman!

Remember how it used to be so verboten for a man, heterosexual or otherwise, to tell another man that he loved him? It's still a little unusual, but not unheard of. I can thnk of a couple guys I've said it to - Mike Rellahan, Jim Burger and Martin Bradfield immediately come to mind. There are many others I could as well - Dave Nich, Jim Daly. I don't know if I ever said it to Dennis before I died but I hope and think so. I know he knew it anyway.

It struck me yesterday, when I was wishing my friend since kindergarten, Lisa (Butz) Hart, a happy birthday, that it would probably not be okay to tell her I love her. I know that she would know what I meant and would correctly read absolutely nothng into it, but if I put that on FB, I had no doubt that someone would see it and wonder about it.

So in thinking about it more today, I sent it to her in a private message, saying: "Hey, I was going to say this in my happy birthday note, but it seemed too public, so (i'll) say it (here) without anyone trying to read something into it that isn't there. A birthday seems the easiest time to say it: I love you, Lisa! I'm so glad you're an enduring part of my life, if too occasional and not enough frequent. I'm so lucky to have people like you and Jeannie and Livvy whom I feel so close to, kind of a semi-, maybe completely unconditional love thing, that everyone should have plenty of in their lives. So thanks for that. :-) "

It's just a shame I hesitate before saying that to anyone at anytime I feel it.

Also known as Bizarro World

From the dailykos:

So, just to recap: In Far-Right Republican World…

Blowing up the U.S. economy is preferable to raising taxes a little bit on the richest Americans to help stabilize the U.S. economy.

Spending taxpayer money to help the poor and elderly is bad, but spending taxpayer money on subsidies for mega-profitable industries that don’t need them is good.

"All men are created equal" means all men. Except the gay ones.

"Our #1 priority is jobs jobs jobs" means "Our #1 priority is anything but jobs jobs jobs."

The fact that voter fraud is not a problem means voter fraud is a huge problem.

The fact that climate change and oil dependence are huge problems means climate change and oil dependence are not problems.

George Bush wasn't president for eight years---we went straight from America-destroyer Bill Clinton to America-destroyer Barack Obama.

If Republicans in the House and Senate vote to end Medicare in favor of health care by coupons, and it turns out to be a blunder of epic proportions, it never happened.

Rupert Murdoch is the de facto Minister of Information

Talk of secession is taken seriously.

Everything you need to know about science is in the Bible.

Suffering builds character, which is why we need more of it.

The prime directive is the destruction of one citizen---the guy in the White House---even if it comes at the expense of the other 311,747,129 citizens.

Can we agree that we just never agree

In the course of a facebook "conversation" about Ds vs R's and their sources of information, I was recently surprised to hear the same conservative facebook friend I referred to in the post below as being upset at how all her D friends think exactly alike, based on what moveon and dailykos tell us to think and I was shocked. As proof of her conclusion, she said she receives constant emails from various D sources and they all say the same things.

I was shocked that she'd said that, partly because her evidence was so specious, but also because I wished she were right! It could never have been more true what Will Rogers said about not being a member of an organized political party, because he was a Democrat.

I wish we Ds were in as lock step as the Rs. I see that as a strength of theirs and a weakness of Ds. I actually envy them for that, tho it strikes me regularly that I rarely ever hear any original thoughts from my conservative friends that didn't first come form the Rush Limbaugh/Fox/Mitch McConnell crowd.

I have another facebook R friend who thinks I am only progressive in my thinking and to declare that I am a moderate is at best disengenuous and at worst, a lie. And it got me to thinking about all the beliefs that are usually attributed to Ds that you'll virtually never hear me defending or taking up the cause for:

Global Climate Change
Abortion
Gov't funding for NPR
Unions
Opposition to merit-based pay for teachers
The Federal Department of Education...or Commerce
Carte blanche gov't spending
Keeping Social Security and Medicare exactly the way they are now

I'm not saying I necessarily support or oppose any of those things, but I do know that you can't put me in lock step agreement with typical left-wing talking points on any of them. ANd I know there are more, so I'll add to that list as I think of them...just please don't tell moveon lest I get kicked out of our party.

Or maybe I'm just too damn dumb to understand

Recently a conservative facebook friend posted a link to her facebook page entitled: "The science is settled: US liberals really are the dumbest creatures on the planet".

And I have to admit, it kind of, well, smarted. As I tried to think why, I decided it was for two reasons.

1 - I had more respect for her than to post such a thing. It was more insulting to her than it was to liberals, and I didn't like thinking that way about her. I felt my respect diminish and it made me feel bad to feel that way. I really felt kind of down after I saw it and was too embarrassed for her to even reply to her post.

2 - More importantly, it provided me a look at how I post things on Facebook, making me wonder if I've ever stooped to such levels, and without remembering anything specific, I have to conclude that I probably have.

I think in general, the links I post to FB are meant to educate moderates to things they don't usually have access to through the conservative mainstream media, who generally post what the corporate world wants them to know. Also impacting the media? How incredibly inept Dems are at getting out a unified or even coherent, well-articulated message.

So, to my handful of loyal readers, of which the friend I referred to above is one, if I post anything as divisive or mean-spirited as that, please refer me back to this post and ask me as politely as possible, but not as impolitely as I deserve, to take it down, and to apologize.

For once Bill Kristol has it right

Contrary To GOP Claims, U.S. Has Second Lowest Corporate Taxes In The Developed World


During negotiations regarding raising the nation’s debt limit, congressional Republicans have defended tax loopholes for corporations, claiming that America has a high corporate tax rate that is stifling economic growth and job creation. But the Center for Tax Justice (CTJ) has crunched the most recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Office of Management and Budget, and the Census Bureau, and finds that “the U.S. is already one of the least taxed countries for corporations in the developed world.”
As a share of GDP, the U.S. had the second lowest tax rate, behind only Iceland. This statistic flips on its head the often-repeated Republican charge that America has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world (which is only true on paper). In 2009, U.S. corporate taxes had fallen to only 1.3 percent of GDP, from 4 percent in 1965.
Conservatives love to point out that other OECD countries have lowered their corporate tax rates in recent years, but they conveniently ignore that “these countries have also closed corporate tax loopholes while the U.S. has expanded them.” As CAP Director for Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden has noted, the U.S. is actually a very low-tax country across the board.
Recently, conservative commentator Bill Kristol chastised his own party for pretending that lowering the corporate tax rate is a cure-all for America’s economic woes. On Fox News Sunday, he interrupted a panelist who again tried to assert the U.S. is suffering from a high corporate tax rate: “Republicans are making a mistake if they focus on big businesses and corporate tax rates. Corporations have a ton of cash. The corporate tax rate is not killing big business in America.”

The GOP presidential candidates have almost uniformly introduced proposals to radically lower the U.S. corporate tax rate. For instance, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) wants to reduce the corporate tax rate to 15 percent and eliminate all taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest income and inheritance. CTJ put the issue succinctly in a tweet this morning: “Dear US Corporations: You pay 2nd LOWEST tax rate in industrial world, so quit whining or move to Iceland.”

That's some crazy shit, man

Things I spend way to much time thinking of: What makes the feces of a bat any crazier than anyone else's? And just how crazy can it be anyway?

Werthmore prediction

Some year, before Jason Werth's enormous contract comes to an end, the Nationals will finish ahead of the Phillies in the standings. I'm predicting 2014.

I still say we should ban mirrors anyway

If your thoughts mirror mine, are they the exact same, or the exact opposite?