TGI Friday

It has been a long week.

Last night I came home and found a big Styrofoam box on my doorstep from Omaha Steaks. There was a greeting offering condolences to Barbara for the loss of her mother. I unpacked the box and put the steaks in the freezer, after Barbara comes home we can thaw some out and see what they taste like.

Yesterday I went to John's school for to discuss his transition from high school in a year. I left the meeting feeling more positive about the future than I have from similar meetings in the past. At the end I mentioned that I had probably spoke more than I had ever in all the previous meetings since Barbara was not there to answer all the questions. She certainly is more up on the answers to those questions than I am.

From all reports the funeral last Monday was a success. Barbara has close to 100 first cousins and is one of seven children so it makes sense that the church would be packed. Barbara gave the closing prayer at the service, and James and Rachel participated in a grand children's chorus. I wish I could have been there of course but it just wasn't feasible.

John has been spending a lot of quality time with his attendant this week and will spend more this weekend. Should be fun.

Just Found a Red Sock in the Laundry

Found this on the way to something else. If you need a laugh.

LA Rally: Oprah Winfrey

What a great speech. I am almost convinced.

Sonny and Cher

I have to say this made me tear up a little bit. This was (is still really) one of my favorite songs. Made me think of old friends that sometimes I get reunited with.

The Onion does Romney

Mitt Romney Defends Himself Against Allegations Of Tolerance

Red State Update: A proper send-off for Chris Dodd and Joe Biden

Language warning:

Back to normal

Rachel flew back to Utah yesterday for her last semester in law school. Time flies whether or not you are having fun, but it is always fun having Rachel around. Barbara goes back to work on Monday and if I can get John up Tuesday morning he will be heading back to school also.

Red State Update on the Iowa Caucuses

A redneck satire on the elections.

Slate V- Explainer: How to Caucus

From my dad on his birthday: Wise Old Saying

Don't sweat the petty things,
Don't pet the sweaty things.

Club says winning essay in Hannah Montana contest was a fake

If I wasn't already cynical enough, I read this in today's newspaper. Apparently the girl's mother helped with the winning essay. She did admit that the information was false though.

Club says winning essay in Hannah Montana contest was a fake: "GARLAND — A 6-year-old girl who won four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert with an essay that falsely claimed that her father had died in Iraq won't be going to the show after all....

"We did the essay, and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win," Ceballos told Dallas TV station KDFW on Friday. "But when (Caulfield) asked me if this essay is true, I said, 'No, this essay is not true.' "

*'Twas The Day After Christmas*

From my dad....

Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the house, Every creature was hurting-- even the mouse.

The toys were all broken, their batteries dead; Santa passed out, with some ice on his head.

Wrapping and ribbons just covered the floor, while Upstairs the family continued to snore.

And I in my T-shirt, new Reeboks and jeans, Went into the kitchen and started to clean.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the sink to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the curtains, and threw up the sash.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a little white truck, with an oversized mirror.

The driver was smiling, so lively and grand; The patch on his jacket said "U.S. POSTMAN."

With a handful of bills, he grinned like a fox Then quickly he stuffed them into our mailbox.

Bill after bill, after bill, they still came. Whistling and shouting he called them by name:

"Now Dillard's, now Broadway's, now Penney's and Sears Here's Levitz's and Target's and Mervyn's--all here!!

To the tip or your limit, every store, every mall, Now chargeaway-chargeaway-chargeaway all!"

He whooped and he whistled as he finished his work. He filled up the box, and then turned with a jerk.

He sprang to his truck and he drove down the road, Driving much faster with just half a load.

Then I heard him exclaim with great holiday cheer, "ENJOY WHAT YOU GOT ... YOU'LL BE PAYING ALL YEAR!"

Author Unknown

Bad Santas

From Slate...

The End of the World

All is well....

How the Southern Baptist Convention has tried to keep its members from becoming Mormons. - By Neil J. Young - Slate Magazine

I listened to the podcast version of this article this morning and thought I would pass it on. I thought there were more than a couple of interesting insights. Click on the link to see the entire article.

How the Southern Baptist Convention has tried to keep its members from becoming Mormons. - By Neil J. Young - Slate Magazine: "As the race for the Republican presidential nomination heats up, the competing theologies of the front-runners are getting as much attention as their differing policy proposals. Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon and the former governor of Massachusetts, faces a tough challenge from Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister and one-time governor of Arkansas. Huckabee's surge in Iowa owes itself in part to the strength of evangelical voters there who like his values and dislike his competitor's faith. He has catered occasionally to those supporters with sly references to their belief that Mormonism is a cult, such as his recent musing—which he later apologized for—in a New York Times Magazine cover piece: 'Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?'"

Twas the Night Before Caucus: The Democrats

Kind of funny

Mitt whopper fib: he didn't see his dad march with Dr. King

Interesting development. So much for a family legend. As I recall a lot of Mormons thought that MLK was a communist because that is what J. Edgar Hoover told then apostle Benson.

Sent to you by davidaustex via Google Reader:

Mitt whopper fib: he didn't see his dad march with Dr. King

Great Caesar's Ghost, I knew folks say Mitt Romney will say or do anything to get into the White House, but cripe -- there's a whole lot of bearing false witness going on...

The Phoenix's David Bernstein decided to dig into the GOP Clown Car occupant about Mitt's assertion that he watched his father march with Dr. Martin Luther King during the civil rights era in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. He recounted this fable not once, but twice -- first in his Faith in America speech ("I saw my father march with Martin Luther King."), and again on Meet the Press, where he said:

"My dad marched with Martin Luther King. My mom was a tireless crusader for civil rights."

From "Was It All a Dream?"

[W]hile the late George W. Romney, a four-term governor of Michigan, can lay claim to a strong record on civil rights, the Phoenix can find no evidence that the senior Romney actually marched with King, nor anything in the public record suggesting that he ever claimed to do so.

Nor did Mitt Romney ever previously claim that this took place, until long after his father passed away in 1995 - not even when defending accusations of the Mormon church's discriminatory past during his 1994 Senate campaign.

...And, Mitt Romney would not have known about the event, let alone had a chance to "see" it. He was at that time in the middle of his two-year mission for the Mormon church in Le Havre, France. By his own description and others', he was cut off from virtually all contact with his family; and at the time, King's Grosse Pointe appearance was no more than local news.

Oh my -- and it gets worse. You have to read the response from the campaign. It's after the jump.
Mitt was also aided and abetted by David Broder in perpetuating this falsehood, and the Detroit Free Press took a look at its archives and there's no Romney to be found at the march, for religious reasons:

Romney's campaign cited various historical articles, as well as a 1967 book written by Stephen Hess and Washington Post political columnist David Broder, as confirmation that George Romney marched with King in Grosse Pointe in 1963.

"He has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb," Hess and Broder wrote in "The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the GOP."

Free Press archives, however, showed no record of King marching in Grosse Pointe in 1963 or of then-Gov. Romney taking part in King's historic march down Woodward Avenue in June of that year. George Romney told the Free Press at the time that he didn't take part because it was on a Sunday and he avoided public appearances on the Sabbath because of his religion.

Broder could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

What was camp Romney's response to the charge that Mitt had his facts wrong about his daddy marching with Dr. King? (protect your keyboards):

"He was speaking figuratively, not literally," Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for the Romney campaign, said of the candidate.

Hat tip goes to David at Blue Mass Group, who said:

Faced with the unfortunate reality that Mitt was making things up, his campaign has retreated into a hilarious Humpty-Dumptyism about what it means to "march with" someone. You see, it doesn't mean that you were actually there. It means that, well, you participated in a march about a related topic on a different day, and maybe you thought about the guy while you were doing it.

a deterrent to holiday spending

Emily sent out a link to an interesting and sober web presentation. Below is a teaser from YouTube. Click on the link above to see the entire presentation.

Quick Change Artists on America's Got Talent

Now this is why I have a blog, so I don't end up sending stuff like this to everyone I know. Someone at work sent me this video, luckily I found the same thing on Youtube. It is pretty darn amazing (the video clip that is).

Wrong Gift?

It's that time of year again....