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Showing posts from September, 2012

ID-ing a different angle on the new voter ID law

I think I've noticed something about the new Voter ID law that went through in PA this year, that no one else has noticed. I'm hesitant to post it on facebook or tell any official for purely partisan reasons and that is this: It could turn out to have a bigger effect on Rs than Ds. My reasoning is based on the power it will give the Judges of Election at any given precinct, where the JoEs will hear the voter's name called when they arrive, with either a D or R after their name. Then when they hear that there is a discrepancy with their ID, the JoE can then apparently decide whether to let the person vote or not, after hearing, or in most cases just knowing by sight, what party the voter belongs to. At the risk of being labeled a racial profiler, even though this has nothing to do with that, I'm thinking of the two biggest cities in PA. With one million or so more Ds in the state than Rs, particularly in Philly and Pittsburgh, there may be more of a chance of abuse

Wait, wait...there's a National Center for Fathering?!

One of my goals as a dad is to never hear any of these negatives from Emma: 5 Things Your Daughter Wants from You The National Center for Fathering has done research and found the top five things daughters want from their fathers: 1. Daughters longed to hear their fathers communicate love and encouragement. "The best thing my dad has ever done for me is let me know he loves me." "I wish my father would say, 'I love you.'" "When my dad encourages me, I feel like I can do anything." 2. Daughters wanted their fathers to take time to strengthen their relationship. "I wish my daddy wouldn't work so much and spend more time with me." "If I could add one thing to our relationship, I would add time." 3. Daughters asked their dads to communicate with them more and give them guidance. "If we talked more truthfully, we would have a better relationship." "I wish my dad would talk to me more and give me advice.&

If you like to watch, this site's for you

As often seems to happen in journalism, this article waits until the final line to get to the bigger point, so I'll show it here before you go and read the story, which is about an older woman who started a web page where you can pay $5 to watch people having "normal" sex, which frankly, I have surprisingly little interest in doing, watching sex, that is, not doing it (and for the record, even less interest in watching people having abnormal sex!): “The issue I’m tackling is not porn,” she said. “It’s the complete lack of open, healthy dialogue around porn and sex.” Now here's the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/fashion/cindy-gallops-online-effort-to-promote-real-not-porn-fed-sex.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120909 I like to say that the answer to the huge majority of the letters to Dear Abby is one of two pieces of advice, only one of which Abby ever gives. The one she frequently correctly gives is to recommend counseling, usu

We need to go on the offense against the defense (budget)

There was a great article in the NY times the other day by a Journalism professor of all things, explaining how the Romney/Ryan budget will impact us: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/edsall-the-ryan-sinkhole/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120910 People complain that Romney hasn't said enough about what his plan actually is, but this article is a big help, showing how he'll cut things like education, food and drug inspection, workplace safety, environmental protection and law enforcement. But my favorite thing from this is a comment at the end of the article: "If the American Friends Service Committee is correct and I trust they are, all the combined military spending amounts to spending of $2.2 million a MINUTE and accounts for 60% of the 2013 discretionary budget. No other discretionary budget category is above 6% of the discretionary budget( Health & Human Services & Education 6% each; State 5%; Other programs 4.5%; Homeland Securit

I'll bet he's heard of Michelle Bachmann though

One minor anecdote from the recent convention: Cheryl and I were sitting at a bar the final night, eating dinner, watching MSNBC which was turned up loud enough on the 20 or so TVs that we could actually hear it over the hundred or so people is this amazing bar (Note to self: Find 10 Blocks South beer locally and drink more of it). Cheryl started up a conversation with a 20-something well-dressed black man at the table next to her, where he was sitting with a friend. They started talking politics and he mentioned how he'd like to get more involved in it when he has time. I joined in the conversation from time to time and at one point when John Lewis came on the screen we were all watching, I asked him if he knew who he is. He did not. I guess I would have been slightly surprised if he had known, but that's such a shame. From Wikipedia: John Robert Lewis (born February 21, 1940) is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district , serving since 1987 and

Boop boop be doop

Yesterday I sent an email to a guy who writes a column called BoopStats for the Philadephia Daily News and specializes in surprising stats and today I came across this in the paper and on their website: Don't Come Back, Shane Phillies and Dodgers have both fared better without Shane Victorino this season. Posted: Wednesday, September 12, 2012, 2:58 AM Sometimes there are numbers that we simply can't explain (but we're sure there are more than a few BoopStats readers that will be happy to explain it to us), and this is one of them. We've always been a big Shane Victorino fan, but winning baseball just seems to have deserted him this year. Consider that when the Phillies or Dodgers had him on their roster this season, they are a combined 63-78 (.447). Over the time Victorino was on the other team in 2012, those clubs are a combined 82-61 (.573). In addition, loyal reader Jamie McVickar points out that the season-long numbers put up by Phillies current cente

One guarantee - this will become my most viewed post. SO proud.

One of the features of blogger.com is that they can tell you how many people visited your site, what countries they came from and what they wrote in any given search engine to find your site. Here are 4 of the top 5 things people typed into a search engine that resulted in their coming to my site: huddle porn politics sports sex scarlett johansson military ball scarlett johansson's head size I think there is a lesson to be learned here to buff up my pageview count. Tomorrow I'm changing the name of my site to: Scarlett Johansson military huddle head ball porn But seriously, I don't know which confuses me more: what the heck "huddle porn" is or why it would lead to my site. But this is one question I am plenty fine not knowing the answer to.

But then I probably lost most of my audience after the "balcony" post last week.

I found myself wondering this morning whether people feel shortchanged when they visit this site, since there is so much about one of the three topics - politics - that this blog professes to be about and doesn't hit on the one topic that more people might hope to be see more of. So, recognizing that likelihood, I'll send out this quickie: I’m trying to only think good thoughts about yesterday’s Eagles game. A great defensive effort. A great run game. But yeah, terrible QB decisions, terrible mental discipline (penalties). They bring in Foles to start and all problems solved! I hope you're happy now.

Well that, and she has a point, I do need that

As Cheryl and I finished our usual goodbye this morning before I headed out to work, "Usual" meaning a big fat kiss and long hug, she said to me that we need to get serious about a fitness program so we can both be here for each other for a long, long time. (Come to think of it, she may have said she wanted me to be here a long, long time, so we know who she was mostly referring to.) She then specifically referenced a male friend of ours who has gotten himself into great shape over the past year or so, saying how great he looks and if he can do it, so can we, and now we know that by "we" she meant me. Now most husbands might feel threatened by her reference to how buff this male friend of ours has become, and might wonder if she might be thinking of him, and not me, in physical terms and might get a little freaked out and might be overwrought with DOUBT AND ANGUISH AND RAGING PARANOIA. BUT NOT ME, NOOOSIREEBOB, NOT ME! I'm totally secure in our relationsh

Well, that and all the parties. They were good too.

So, yeah, Bill Clinton's speech was my favorite part of the actual convention itself, but in thinking about it today, and sorting through all the facebook posts people had sent, the memory that brought me the biggest smile was of the very first day when we happened on the MSNBC outdoor studio and watched them do a show. It wasn't so much seeing the show or Cheryl and me making fools of ourselves to get on TV behind Chris Matthews (well, I made a fool of MYself, Cheryl not so much), it was more that the excitement building toward the whole week was still so palpable. I'd taken such an I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it approach to the whole week and now, here we actually were, together, enjoying the goofiness and electricity of it all. It seems silly, but of all the experiences I'd want to go back to, that is at the top of the list. Not seeing the various media and political celebrities a few feet away or being there for so many of the amazing speeches. Though keep

Oh, right. It was Bill Clinton's speech.

As we were eating breakfast at a Charlotte Pancake House before starting our 10-hour ride home, Cheryl asked me what my favorite part of the convention was. I had to tell her to wait to ask again when I had finished processing the news delivered moments earlier that a certain person had just incurred a $1900 car repair bill that we had committed to paying on their behalf. She had not stopped and pulled over when her car started to overheat a few weeks earlier and voila - 1900 of our dollars that I would rather have used for 2 round-trip tickets to Ireland later, she's back on the road. Cheryl kept trying to make me feel better by explaining all the reasons it might have happened or why I shouldn't be upset, all of which were legitimate reasons, but I eventually told her that she'd be better off commiserating with me and feeling my pain than to try to defend what happened. I told her that I was most affected by the fact that I had not been apologized to or thanked for cove

No, no, thank YOU!

So many things I want to post to the blog today, but feel like I shouldn't until I do a final entry on the convention. But I've made the executive decision to hold off on that entry so I can post a few other things, the first of which is to thank everyone for the enthusiastic and supportive comments on facebook and twitter and this blog about all the photos and comments Cheryl and I posted. I really tried to imagine myself back home reading someone else's posts and wanting to experience it as best I could through their experience. My fear was that the posts were coming across as self-promotional or hey-look-at-me type stuff, but since all the replies were so positive, we kept going. And even just today, I've had a number of additional thanks for all the posts. So, really, thank all of you. It was such an amazing week and I know it sounds funny to put it this way, but it was all the more fun, knowing all of you were enjoying it with us!
President Obama nails it: "Now, our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right. They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan. And that’s because all they have to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years: “Have a surplus? Try a tax cut.” “Deficit too high? Try another.” “Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!' "
Great tweets:   "Ask Osama bin Laden if he's better off than he was four years ago." FACT CHECK: You'll get no response.   "It's like John Kerry's been sitting on a big can of whoop-ass for 8 years."   ‎"John Kerry on a mission to turn Mitt Romney intro the GOP caricature of John Kerry."   Daily Kos: "Mitt Romney actually is what Republicans pretended John Kerry was. " ‎ "Never thought I'd see the foo fighters open for Jim Clyburn." ‎ "Scarlett Johansson was born a poor white incredibly hot child."
Great lines from the convention tonight: "Sure, Mitt Romney loves our lakes and trees. He loves our cars so much, they even have their own elevator. But in Romney's world, the cars get the elevator, and the workers get the shaft. You know what I'm saying!." - Jennifer Grandholm, Michigan Govenor "You know, if private equity Mitt Romney met Governor Mitt Romney he'd do what he says he likes to do: He'd fire him. And outsource his job." - Brian Schweitcer, Montana Governor "Clinton arithmetic" makes an appearance in Schweitzer's speech—his explanation for how be balanced the budget in Montana. John Kerry: "They forget that we are exceptional not because we say we are, but because we do exceptional things." "Despite what you heard in Tampa, an exceptional country does care about the rise of the oceans and the health of the planet." "The only thing exceptional about today's Republicans is that almost
Another day of uncertainty, that turned out well. I reported to the volunteer sign-in around 2, again unsure as to whether I'd get in, since word was that many volunteers were turned away the night before, and waited in a succession of lines, moving forward anywhere from 30 to 100 yards until we finally got into the arena. I got a really disappointing assignment where they first put me, in the media room, doing plenty of nuthin. Occasionally someone asked me a question, but there were any number of others who could have answered them. Finally at about 7:30, I was rotated back into the same great room I'd been in the night before, which was great, until I was then rotated back out at about 9:30, just as the best speakers were coming on! So I stayed there for about 20 minutes, making small talk with a secret service guy and a few other security folks and where I had even less to do than I had at the previous two locations. (The most interesting thing I learned from the Secret S
An amazing day yesterday - everything I could have hoped for. The day started early for Cheryl especially. Whose idea was it to schedule delegate breakfasts for 6:45am!? She was there for the start but I waited til 8:30 or so to go over, since I would be in an adjoining room as a guest, watching on closed circuit TV. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the main speaker this particular morning and she was really fired up. After the breakfast, I went to hang at the hotel for a few hours, but Cheryl went in to a Woman's Caucus luncheon. I finally headed in on a shuttle bus around 1, and with the route being blocked and re-routed due to a motorcade, it took almost an hour to get in. My volunteer shift was to start at 3, so I had time to grab a quick lunch of Bojangles chicken, which is a popular fast food around here. It wasn't bad, actually, consiering I never eat fast food. So when I reported for duty about 15 minutes early (my co-workers at North American Land Trust will be shocke
Before I give another update on the convention, just a moment of nostalgia. 30 years ago today, my friends Frank and Rose Neal met me outside the Playboy Casino in Atlantic City to pick me up and take me back home, thus completing my 4871 mile bike trip across the USA, from San Francisco to San Diego to Oklahoma City to Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Vermont and finally down to PA and AC, NJ. Having lost 20 or so pounds over the length of the trip, it took me about 2 months of good eating upon my return to put it back on. Although the weight loss went away, the memories haven't faded a bit. Thank goodness.

DNC Convention Day 2

Another day, another party or two. We slept quite late after the late night Sunday night, and got downstairs to catch one of the DNC buses by 2 or so. But after an hour wait for a bus, we gave up and just called for a taxi, which, luckily, another couple split with us. The ride into town is only about 15 minutes, but the last 10 blocks take longer than the first 5 miles, so we just got out and walked the rest of it. The transportation system has been a complaint from everyone. Very hit or miss. When we made it into town for the street party - CarolinaFest - Cheryl, to my dismay, wanted to go into the Convention Center to buy pins and goodies, so I agreed we could get that out of the way, under the assumption that the good stuff would sell out by week end. So we spent way too long on that, predictably, but it was all for the best, because while we were in line to pay, Charlotte got hit with a huge rainstorm. So we lucked out, both by missing the rain, but also, when we then went out t

Who got the bounce? Not Mitt Romney!

How to look like an idiot...or a pogo stick...on national TV starting at about the 6:15 and 8:45 marks before we left to catch a bus: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#48888083
One of the many things I've learned over the years that my parents told me that turned out to be true, is that sex is indeed better if Love is involved. One of the many things I've learned over the years that my parents did not tell me that turned out to be true is that sex is also sometimes better if a little danger is involved. I never knew I could have so much fun on a hotel balcony!

Convention - Day 1

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to write here, seeing as how we didn't get OUT OF BED UNTIL 12:15! But there isn't much scheduled for today, so that helps. Yesterday was pretty low-key, as there were only two things scheduled and one was a 2-hour training session and one was a party. I could get used to that schedule 5-6 days a week. In the training session, there were probably 200 people in the room, and I kept looking around and thinking, "This is a sight you'll never see at a Republican Convention." It was made up of probably 60% people of color. I was definitely in the minority. There was a lot of enthusiasm but also a not unexpected amount of confusion that was really well handled by the speakers, who answered every question at the end very carefully and directly. I cut out a little early from the training, since they were covering some things that didn't involve me. If you hear on the news that some catastrophe happened involving a poorl