October 21, 2008

STOP IT

Dear John McCain,

You're crusin' for a bruisin'. Seriously.

We sent your campaign money. And you've spent several dollars of it sending me junk mail every day asking me for more money.

Stop doing that.

All you're doing is making me mad I got on your mailing list. It's not making me want to send you more money.

But I did like the photo of you and Sarah that you sent. It's on the fridge. (And I'm totally going to be Sarah Palin for Halloween.)

Knock it off with the mail. Please.

Sarah

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STIMULUS

Oh yeah, are we getting another stimulus check? Really?

Can we refuse it?

Because last week my husband bought me a Garmin for my birthday, I bought a handgun, I dropped some money buying clothes for my new job, and I had to pay for a fertility treatment.

We're doing a plenty good job of spending our own money right now. I don't need to spend someone else's.

Stop taking money from a taxpayer and handing it to me to spend. Cuz I'd just buy a Glock.

Oh wait, on second thought...free Glock. Hand it over.

Some rich guy is out his hard-earned money and I get a free gun. Sounds totally fair to me, right? Sigh.

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October 20, 2008

GETTING THE AVERAGE

Some Soldier's Mom left a comment at AWTM, and this part caught my eye:

... and you just want to ask Barrack Obama, "Since when did it become acceptable in America to punish hard working people by taking their money and giving it to others because you think that's "fairer"? and that you can't imagine how he justifies giving tax "refunds" to people who don't even pay taxes! You see this as taking your "A" grades in school and giving them to people who got lower grades to make it "fairer".

Did I ever tell you that this is exactly what happened to me in France? I took a literature class, and we had some paper to write. After they were all turned in, the teacher reprimanded the class for missing the point of the paper. She explained what a good paper would've looked like. I felt pretty sure that what I had written was close to what she was looking for, so I was in the catbird seat. But then she laid this kicker on us: She had decided to go ahead and average all the grades and give us the average. I ended up with a C.

I wish I were making that story up. Or I wish it had been like a trick on the teacher's part, a way to teach us a lesson. Nope. It was real and the grade stuck.

I had done the assignment correctly and I got a C. Someone else who had turned in an F was feeling pretty awesome at this point.

I don't see how that's even remotely fair.

And Some Soldier's Mom is right that it's a good analogy for the taxes.

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October 19, 2008

AT LONG LAST

At the Milblogs Conference, during the tribute to our fallen, I mentioned Bunker Mulligan. Or, I tried to: I immediately choked up and barely managed to sob the words out.

It's been three years since the death of a man I never met, and it still hurts that much.

A while back, I found this old comment he left:

There are just too many things in this country I haven't seen to go wandering around the world looking for more. I still haven't been to the Black Hills, and I want to see Yosemite again. Washington is one of my favorite cities in the entire world--so much to do there. I've been four times and still want more.

I keep trying to plan a road trip from Corpus Christi through Big Bend to Vegas, then back along the northern route to the Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, then back to Corpus across the Llano Estacado and Comanche Country.

There will be time for golf when you get back!

He didn't get to do these things. We didn't get to play golf.

Mike is buried in San Antonio, and I had to see him while I was there. We located his marker and my friends stayed in the car as I got out to pay respects.

The sobbing started even before I saw his name.

bunker.jpg

I had tried to think of something I could leave there for Mike, but I couldn't come up with anything and was empty handed. My fellow SpouseBUZZ author Toad surprised me with the most perfect idea: he had brought a golf ball and a Sharpie for me.

I left Mike a little note on the golf ball and then sat there and wept.

bunkercry.jpg

I still miss him so much.

And I want this blog post to be better, because he deserves better, but I just don't know what else to say.

Damn, this weekend was rough.

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FOUR DAYS AGO CALLED

I'm catching up on some blogs and came across this hilarious post-debate line by Varifrank:

SO - we no longer ask our Presidential candidates any questions that involve the military?
[...]
Three debates and I don't get any answers on these and many other important issues, I get the equivalent of what it feels like to have two used car salesman run back and forth and "ask their manager" if they can get me a "discount on the price for the undercoat" ( an undercoat that I don't want or particularly need, but will be forced to take to get off the car lot with my wits and my wallet mostly intact.)

Heh.

Also, two tax posts, since I just lurve talking about taxes.
One, from Kim du Toit, on what John McCain should say.
Two, some nuts and bolts on the Obama plan from a The Corner reader.

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October 18, 2008

I AM HERE

I bought Stranger Than Fiction because AWTM liked it. So much of Palahniuk's stuff in this book reminds me of blogging. Take, for example, You Are Here:

Okay, okay, so maybe weÂ’re headed down a road toward mindless, self-obsessed lives where every event is reduced to words and camera angles. Every moment imagined through the lens of a cinematographer. Every funny or sad remark scribbled down for sale at the first opportunity.

A world Socrates couldnÂ’t imagine, where people would examine their lives, but only in terms of movie and paperback potential.

Where a story no longer follows as the result of an experience.

Now the experience happens in order to generate a story.

Sort of like when you suggest: “Let’s not but say we did.”

The story—the product you can sell—becomes more important than the actual event.

One danger is, we might hurry through life, enduring event after event, in order to build our list of experiences. Our stock of stories. And our hunger for stories might reduce our awareness of the actual experience. In the way we shut down after watching too many action-adventure movies. Our body chemistry can’t tolerate the stimulation. Or we unconsciously defend ourselves by pretending not to be present, by acting as a detached “witness” or reporter to our own life. And by doing that, never feeling an emotion or really participating. Always weighing what the story will be worth in cold cash.

That is how a hardcore blogger lives. Every life experience is seen through the lens of how it's going to be blogged. Everything is a vignette, put out there for all to read. And while you're living the joy or sorrow of a situation, in the back of your mind you're also composing the blog post about it.

It's a way to process. A way, like Palahniuk says, to step outside the situation a little and view it as a "detached 'witness.'"

Because sometimes you need that.

Like today.

I'm not pregnant.

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October 16, 2008

ON A JET PLANE

I'm leaving soon to start my journey to SpouseBUZZ Live San Antonio.
More later.

And yes, I am more than freaked out by this.

I can't even talk about it anymore.

I am an emotional, ridiculous mess today. I feel strung out and beaten.
God, I hope that means I'm pregnant.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:19 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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October 15, 2008

I CALL HOGWASH

John Murtha, classy as ever.

Mr. Murtha said it has taken time for the state's voters embrace a black presidential candidate.

"There's no question Western Pennsylvania is a racist area," said Mr. Murtha, whose district stretches from Johnstown to Washington County. "The older population is more hesitant."

Hogwash. My grandparents live right over the border in small-town Western New York. My 83-year-old grandmother is most likely voting for Obama.

Quit pointing out imaginary racism, Democrats.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:17 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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OBAMA'S TAX PLAN

Obama's proposed tax credits:

Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year.

We're so far from the concept of a "safety net" here that it's sickening. And there's more, as The String Beans say:

There's another catch: Because Mr. Obama's tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge "marginal" tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of "making work pay," but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you're a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery -- among many -- of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama's 95% illusion to go unanswered.

So both poor and rich people have a "disincentive to working harder" under the Obama tax plan. Boy, that sounds like a winner for the future of America.

(via CG)

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SNORT

We've all seen the clips of how stupid McCain voters are.
But all Obama voters are genuises, right?

(via Ace)

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October 14, 2008

I WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU

All my hiatus has done is remove the outlet for my thoughts; it hasn't slowed down the thought process or made me able to ignore the news. So I'm sitting here, itching to blog, and I realized that my moratorium is self-imposed and all I need to do to blog is just log in.

A few links for tonight:

A comment from Varifrank on Vodkapundit's post about the danger of a Democrat president plus a Democrat Congress:

Be careful “Benjamin”, if “comrade napoleon” discovers that you are causing dissent amongst all the animals here on the farm, he will deal with you as surely as he has dealt with “Boxer”.

Ok, now that the animal farm parable is out of the way, I can continue my response in the right context.

A question to all - How many of us already feel that its simply too dangerous to our homes to display a McCain/Palin sign on the front lawn or a bumper sticker on our car? How many of us dare not speak against “Comrade Napoleon” or his ilk while we are at work for fear of repercussions to our careers?

Ok, now which of us thinks that after the election is over that it will all suddenly become calm and business like with respect for all from those who are victorious against those of us who have lost?

Right. Just as I thought.

Also, a post at Cold Fury, suggesting that I oughtn't take that pledge to respect an Obama presidency. Interesting reading.

And I'm making my way through the comments at Dr. Helen's post about when it might be appropriate to "go John Galt."

Many commenters have started. God help us.

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October 11, 2008

MY MOM IS MY BIGGEST FAN

OK, I just have to say this hilarious thing.

My mom said tonight, "You can't stop blogging. You're doing a disservice to the hundreds of thousands of people who read you."

HA!

I said, "Um, try like 300 people."

My mom thinks I am way awesomer than I am.

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October 10, 2008

FRAMERS

The Mrs has a neat post about what she'd do to change the Constitution. In it, she quotes Thomas Jefferson on his irritation with how people were interpreting the "promote the general welfare" phrase. I have never thought about that before, that the framers lived to see argument over what their words meant. Would that we could ask Jefferson a few more questions today...

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THE GOODY BAG

That post I wrote the other day about how health care is not a right?
Bill Whittle does it and does it better.

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SUCKER FOR ADVERTISING

I am the absolute worst sucker for food advertising. A pizza commercial comes on, and I want pizza. I see a Blizzard on TV, and I want one. It's become a running joke in our household that if there's food on TV, I will want it.

I just watched last night's South Park, and I immediately had a craving for Chinese food. I had to google to even find a restaurant around here.

Mmmm, that was a good treat.

Good thing this only works on me for food; otherwise, I'd be at the Tahiti Village timeshare or tangled up in a Bow-Flex. And working for T. Boone Pickins.

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LINK

Peggy Noonan:

But these were not the great causes. Neither party has clean hands. Or rather, both parties have dirty hands. Here is the truth, spoken by the increasingly impressive Sen. Tom Coburn: "The root of the problem is political greed in Congress. Members . . . from both parties wanted short-term political credit for promoting homeownership even though they were putting our entire economy at risk by encouraging people to buy homes they couldn't afford. Then, instead of conducting thorough oversight and correcting obvious problems with unstable entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, members of Congress chose to . . . distract themselves with unprecedented amounts of pork-barrel spending." That is the truth.

And yet at the debate, when one citizen-questioner invited both candidates to think aloud about the responsibility of our representatives in Washington, they both gently suggested she was cynical.

She was not cynical. She was informed.

Why would anyone trust either candidate to help dig us out of this if they can't speak frankly about what got us into it?

(via CG)

And a comment here:

The biggest problem though isn't the candidates, it's the populace. Article II of the US Constitution, dealing with the powers of the presidency, is only a page long. In there, you will find nothing about tax reform, health care, retirement management, economic stabilization, hope, change, or straight talk.

We, the people, have lost our sense of direction. Instead of thinking about the president simply as someone who represents us on the national scene, we think of him or her as our leader which was never supposed to be the case.

The office is practically a figurehead, yet those around us treat it like an elected dictator, always giving the office more power to 'save us from ourselves'.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:32 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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IT MAKES ME LIKE HIM EVEN MORE

Last night I was thinking about how everyone loves positive reinforcement. How even us hardened jerks like to hear that we're not all bad.

So I sent Neal Boortz an email.

I briefly said that I enjoy his show, that I took some heat for agreeing with him on voting, and that I was simply emailing to give him some positive feedback, which I'm sure he gets little of. I just wanted him to know that not everyone hates him.

His contact page says, "I probably won't answer your email. I rarely answer any emails. We get over 2000 a day ... do the math. Web Guy and Cristina will forward intelligent messages to me. If you're writing in to tell me you hate me, that's fine."

But he wrote me back. How awesome is that?

Even Neal Boortz has a soft spot for a compliment.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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October 09, 2008

VOTER FRAUD

Ruth H was right in her comment saying that she will have a hard time accepting Obama as her president since there has been so much voter fraud. I too am dumbfounded at the shenanigans that have been uncovered and the general apathy towards it. Rachel Lucas has the scoop.

Posted by: Sarah at 01:44 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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RED DAWN

When my husband got online yesterday, I had just read this ridiculous article at Slate about how, if they remake Red Dawn, they better remake it with the Americans as the bad guys and Iraqis as the Wolverines. Husband's sarcasm meter went to eleven:

Husband says:
I don't remember the Wolverines kidnapping people for ransom and executing people in other religious sects
Sarah says:
yeah
Husband says:
or making videos where they behead Russian soldiers
Husband says:
I also don't remember the Soviets rebuilding hospitals in Colorado or training a new American army and giving them classes on human rights and proper detainee handling procedures
Husband says:
not like we're giving previously oppressed religious and ethnic minorities a voice in their government or anything
Husband says:
because I'm sure the Russians had their doctors assisting Georgians in hospitals and buying books for schools

Posted by: Sarah at 01:37 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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October 08, 2008

THE LITTLE THINGS

I'm concerned about the little things that reveal Obama. Thomas Sowell explains why the little things matter:

Seemingly unrelated things can give important insights into someone's outlook and character. For example, after the Cold War was over, it came out that one of the things that caught the attention of Soviet leaders early on was President Ronald Reagan's breaking of the air traffic controllers' strike.

Why were the Soviets concerned about a purely domestic American issue like an air traffic controllers' strike? Why was their attention not confined to "the real issues" between the United States and the Soviet Union?

Because one of the biggest and realest of all issues is the outlook and character of the President of the United States.

It would be hard to imagine any of Ronald Reagan's predecessors over the previous several decades-- whether Republicans or Democrats-- who would have broken a nationwide strike instead of caving in to the union's demands.

This told the Soviet leaders what Reagan was made of, even before he got up and walked out of the room during negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev. That too let the Soviet leaders know that they were not dealing with Jimmy Carter any more.

(Found via CG)

Posted by: Sarah at 03:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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