The Guild 10-25-2003 Iraqi's have long memories.....

cnn ^ | 10-23-2003

[lodwick]

Good morning, everyone.

Happy hump day

[MaeWest]

Good morning everyone.

WTF is going on with our health these days?

I'm afraid we're all aging.

[daisyscarlett]

Just a couple of questions before a SD County Wildfires update...

First, why does David Gest have to sue Liza? I mean, won't he get at least half of everything she has in the divorce? and this is not a question, just a comment, on the Slick lies about Tony Blair-how stupid was he to make that comment about Tony having a problem and not taking care of it?

The fires continue to rage here in SD County and the Air Quality is the worst it has ever been. Very bad and health authorities tell us that it will be at least a week after the skies are cleared before our bodies will be back to normal.

Today our hearts are pulled toward Julian, a quaint mountain town about an hour from San Diego in the mountains...a very old former gold panning town now famous for its apples and antiques. All buildings are wood and very old and the fire is heading for the town. There are a wall of firetrucks and firefighters lining the town and prepared to douse it if the flames get there.

Over 1000 homes have been destroyed and that count will go way up today. Two big fires are heading toward each other and if they merge, well I won't speculate about that. Am learning much about fires - our firefighters are doing their best, fighting fire with fire, using helocoptors and all sorts of modern equipment and zillions of manpower, but in the end, Nature is in Control...It is humbling...

A tattered U.S. flag is about all that is left of this destroyed home in Crest, Calif., a rural community east of San Diego, early Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2003, after the area was hard hit by a wildfire Sunday. (AP Photo/Jack Smith)

[lodwick]

Grandmothers:

One little boy put it very well when asked what a grandmother was. He said: “A grandmother is a lady who has no children of her own, so she loves everybody else’s. Grandmas don’t have anything to do except be there. If they take you for a walk, they slow down past leaves and caterpillars. They never say ‘hurry up.’ Usually they’re fat, but not too fat to tie your shoes. They wear glasses, and sometimes they can take their teeth out. They can answer questions like why dogs hate cats and why God isn’t married. When they read to you, they don’t skip words or mind if it’s the same story again. Everyone should try to have a grandmother, especially if they don’t have television, because grandmas are the only grownups who always have time for you.”

Cheers guys.

[lodwick]

[mountaineer]

Thanks for the update. Stay safe! My family lived in the San Fernando Valley for three years when I was a youngun, and the worst we experienced was a mild tremor that threw some gophers into our swimming pool - now it seems like so many more earthquakes and fires happening so frequently! My heart just aches for the folks who have lost their houses.

[Iowa Granny]

I've been out most of today tending to my MIL who twisted her ankle. I took her for xrays and we're waiting to hear what the next step is.

It appears this item has not been discussed:

Dean’s weapon of mass destruction
Howard Dean’s campaign upset a leading senate Democrat with its press operation. Senator Carl Levine, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, accused Dean of shooting-from–the-hip. The flap is regarding the Senate Armed Services Committee’s approval of the promotion of Maj. Gen. Robert Clark to lieutenant general. It seems the gay community has lobbied against Clark’s promotion because of the handling of a murder investigation at Fort Campbell in 1999. Subsequently Dean has tried to take political advantage of the situation by issuing a release dated Oct 23 on his website asking supporters to contact their senators to block the promotion. There were substantial errors in the original release. The first release by Dean said that Gen. Clark was being promoted to the 2nd highest rank. That would have been a promotion to Army’s Vice Chief of Staff, not Lieutenant General. The second mistake was saying that Clark never met with the parents of the murdered victim, which was not true. The Dean campaign has put up a new release, which omits these factual errors, but has failed to post the fact that the release is revised or the date of the revision.

http://www.iowapresidentialwatch.com/CandidatesUpdates/News/news3.htm

[lodwick]

Best wishes for the MIL and her gimp ankle - solid thinking getting it diagnosed pronto.

One of my genius maintenancedudes, failed to do so, and now he's going to spend the rest of his life doing a very credible "Chester" impression...

January beans - 803!

Go Beans Go...my new favorite team.

[Iowa Granny]

MIL's foot is broken. They put a restraint on it until the swelling goes down, then they will set it. I sure didn't get much done today.

[lodwick]

God, Family, Country

You did today what you had to do today.

Big ups to you - and this may take our grain prices even higher.

[mountaineer]

Clearly, Daffy Doctor Dean is making good use of his hit squad, that private investigator he hired to dig up dirt on his fellow Dem contenders. Too bad he couldn't get the facts straight, though (yeah, that's a shame).

[mountaineer]

This was posted at LGF:

Look who was left off the invitation list for last night’s Presidential Ramadan dinner: Muslims scold Bush over outreach, from the Washington Times.

Although the guest list included 92 persons, several Muslim organizations who differ vastly with the White House on political and religious issues complained they were left off the list. Passed over, Mr. [Mahdi] Bray said, was the Muslim Students Association, American Muslims for Jerusalem, the Islamic Society of North America, Project Islamic Hope, the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations of Greater Washington and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Looks like someone in the White House has a pretty good idea which groups are spreading jihad in the US.

LGF

[BigWaveBetty]

Good morning!

Howie's confused....

Dean declared himself a "metrosexual," the buzz phrase for straight men in touch with their feminine sides, as he touted his accomplishments in "equal justice" for gay and lesbian couples.

But then he waffle.

"I'm a square," Dean declared, after professing his metrosexuality to a Boulder breakfast audience with an anecdote about being called handsome by a gay man. "I like (rapper) Wyclef Jean and everybody thinks I'm very hip, [oh please.] but I am really a square, as my kids will tell you. I don't even get to watch television. I've heard the term (metrosexual), but I don't know what it means." Full Story

Taking bets on who will try to one up Dean with a confession they're gay.

[BigWaveBetty]

...And many happy returns.

[Iowa Granny]

Part 2 of the Caucus story:

Politicians wisely build equity in caucuses
By DAVID YEPSEN
Register Political Columnist
10/30/2003

---

On Tuesday, we were discussing the presidential caucuses and the Iowa-bashing that comes with them every four years. To continue:

Some critics say Iowa holds caucuses just to benefit financially. Actually, they're not worth that much. The few million dollars spent on the caucus-related TV commercials, hotels and restaurant tabs are a tiny part of Iowa's $90-plus billion economy. And for all the ego trips we get, we also have to suffer through stereotypical television cut-aways of tractors, hogs and cornfields. That happens despite the fact that relatively few farmers participate in caucuses. (Iowa has 2.9 million people and fewer than 100,000 of them farm. But don't try to tell that to a big-city television producer looking for pictures.)

Also, some critics often ask why Iowa doesn't have a primary instead of a caucus. It would be easier for more people to participate in a day-long election than show up at a night meeting, right? Perhaps, but precinct caucuses are the way Iowa's two political parties have chosen to organize themselves for most of the state's history, and today they're protected by a political deal.

When the early caucuses started taking on national significance, New Hampshire started getting antsy because Iowa risked taking attention away from its primary. So in 1983, the state party chairmen, Dave Nagle in Iowa and George Bruno in New Hampshire, made this bargain: Iowa would hold the first caucus and New Hampshire would have the first primary. Instead of fighting between themselves, they'd work together to keep other states from jumping ahead of either. That's why Iowa Democrats report "delegates won" on caucus night, not the "body count" of how many people show up for each candidate. For Iowa to adopt a presidential primary today would violate the Nagle-Bruno pact, although Republicans in the Granite State don't seem to care that Iowa Republicans just do a straw poll at their caucuses.

Iowa also has relatively honest politics. There aren't bosses here. It's a fair place where candidates can compete without having to spend lots of money.

Precinct caucuses are also important to the parties outside the presidential campaign. They are a huge organizing tool. Caucus meetings identify neighborhood people who care about politics and issues, raise a little money and organize for the fall campaign. Iowa is one of the most politically competitive states in the nation today because of it all. All citizens profit from that competition.

There are other, less tangible benefits. Over the years, the nation's best politicians, best staffers and best journalists have worked this state. They eat corn dogs at the State Fair and leave with horror stories about our weather in January.

But they also come to understand the people and problems here, and that is worth a lot when it comes to the national debate. It's doubtful presidents would care as much about the concerns of rural America if the whole selection process were just left up to some big-state primaries.

Isn't this a goofy way to nominate presidents? Of course. We can all think of "better" ways to do it. Trouble is, the country can't agree on any one of them. As a result, simple inertia keeps Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the nomination calendar. Iowans should never be so parochial as to close out other options, but we shouldn't get conned into trading one flawed process for another, either. For example, if you like money in politics, you'll love replacing Iowa and New Hampshire with a national or regional presidential primary.

As it is, the process changes and evolves each cycle. The "money primary" has replaced Iowa and New Hampshire as the first real contest in presidential campaigns. South Carolina has moved its primary to the week after New Hampshire, something that gives Southerners more of a say in picking presidential candidates. Aren't other Americans still cut out? Unfortunately, yes. But the mission of the two parties is to win elections, not run debating societies. It's in the political interest of both parties to get their nomination fights over with quickly.

Another factor keeping Iowa and New Hampshire first is the sitting president. The odds are the occupant of the White House is a person who has done well in one or both of these early states. That individual has no particular desire to change the rules of a nominating game he or she just won.

And some presidential wannabe is always making political investments in Iowa and New Hampshire with an eye to reaping dividends in a future presidential campaign. These investors have no desire to change the calender and wipe out their equity. For example, New York Gov. George Pataki is coming out next month to keynote the Iowa GOP's big fall fund-raiser. The following week, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton shows up to help the Democrats at their big fall event, the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.

They sure aren't coming here for the fall foliage. Or the pork chops.

http://www.dmregister.com/opinion/stories/c5917686/22566074.html

[Iowa Granny]

Happy Birthday, JL.

[pubmom]

Just popping my head in the door to wish you a very "Happy Birthday!"

[mountaineer]

Taking bets on who will try to one up Dean with a confession they're gay.

You're right. So far at least half of them are newly Jewish. It's just a matter of time!

Happy BD, lod.

[mountaineer]

ELIZABETH Smart wanted to play herself in the CBS movie about her nine-month ordeal of kidnapping and sexual assault when she was 15. Mark Lasswell reports in next week's TV Guide that when she was rejected for the title role in "The Elizabeth Smart Story," Smart asked her parents, "Why don't they want me?" Ed and Lois Smart, who authorized the movie, have been everywhere lately promoting their new book, from Katie Couric on "Dateline" to the cover of People magazine. But even they have to agree it would have been a bad idea. (PageSix)

[mountaineer]

Liz Smith writes: REMEMBER THAT guy who married Liza Minnelli, the one who turned out to be a lightweight, mismatched with a heavyweight? Word from Hawaii has him being seen around wearing his lei and squiring Chandi Heffner, the controversial adopted daughter and heir of the late multimillionaire Doris Duke. Fast work. Next week's tabloids make mincemeat of this guy.

GAG alert - Hillary's on the attack against President Bush:

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) delivered her sharpest attack yet on President Bush's handling of foreign policy - reviving speculation she may challenge him for the presidency. Clinton's speech slammed Bush for excessive secrecy that she suggested shields the American people from the truth about Iraq and 9/11 intelligence failures.

She even suggested the administration was trying to hide casualty figures in the Iraq war. [No shame]

"We must always be vigilant against letting our desire to keep information confidential be used as a pretext for classifying information that is more about political embarrassment," she said.

The hard-hitting tone of her comments come at a time when poll numbers indicate public confidence in Bush's foreign policy is slipping. And it prompted some to speculate Clinton was keeping presidential options open. full story