All right, who threw the bucketful of water?
What a world, what a world.
--Spent most of the weekend dealing with a feverish, fretful WildChild. Poor little guy had his usual low grade fever, feeling all out of sorts reaction to Friday's immunizations. Repeated applications of children's Tylenol & Ma's rocking chair were the only successful remedies. Or as he told my daughter yesterday morning "Ma gave me medicine and made me all better!"
--I did manage to catch bits & pieces of the Iraq election news coverage....enough to get disgusted & turn to something else. First, because they were trying to make such a big deal out of the 40 some-odd people killed. Not to trivialize the deaths or anything, but I'd be willing to bet there's more people murdered or killed in traffic accidents on our election day. (Turns out I'm correct at least on the traffic accident part) Second, after it became evident that the election was proceeding very well, they all started with the "well sure they had the election, but now (insert appropriate pending doom)". The only redeeming factor in the start of the Michael Jackson trial today is that the media will now forget that Iraq even exists.
--Would someone please hand the King of Cut 'n Run a Clue? Here's a news flash for Mr. "Let 'Em Sink or Swim": No one cares what you think, you corpulent malignant toad.
--Speaking of clues, here's one for Kerry: You lost. Go home. (See, e.g., Al Gore)
--Finally, on a lighter note, did you see the 'analysis' of Tony Blair's doodles over the weekend? Seems the notepad actually belonged to another "an aggressive, unstable man under enormous pressure, struggling to keep his irritability under control". Heh. (Link via Fark)
I took WildChild yesterday for his next round of immunizations....which didn't sit too well with him. Most of the way there he was insisting he didn't need any shots, and I was explaining that shots were a good thing because they kept you from getting really sick. Finally, he seemed resigned to the fact that he was indeed getting shots. Until we were playing in the waiting area while the public health nurse was getting everything ready.
"I no get shots today?" he asked hopefully.
"No," I replied. "You have to get shots today."
"Awww, crap!" he exclaimed loudly.
I almost choked trying to keep from cracking up. He said it with all the disgust of a world-weary, obnoxious teenager.....or Cartman. Even though it was funny (and I may be hopelessly old-fashioned) I don't think "crap" is an appropriate word for a 4 yr. old to say. So I told him that wasn't a nice thing to say, and that he should say "Oh, good grief!" instead.
Which has been one of his favorite sayings lately, along with something no one has been able to understand but sounded something like "Oh Farris". He told my daughter he heard it on one of his Charlie Brown movies, but it's had everyone stumped. I finally heard him say it yesterday and asked him to repeat it.
Hmmm.
I heard a distinct 'd' in the middle, and a 'stk' sound at the end. And he has a tendency to slur the syllables of long words together. Then it hit me.
"Oh fiddlesticks?" I asked.
"Yeah" he replied. And repeated it.
Another linguistic mystery solved.
Unfortunately the other language problem resurfaced last night when I made him go take a bath.
"Awww crap, Ma! I don't wanna take a bath."
I reminded him more firmly that we do not say that, and he should say "Good grief" instead.
"Good grief Charlie Brown!" he giggled and scampered down the hallway.
Never a dull moment when that one's around.
The Rogers bomb squad was called in yesterday when a water department worker thought he'd found a bomb.
Rogers Police Sgt. Jerry Tyler said the object was a product containing a substance to purify water.
"The object was made of three-quarter-inch PVC pipe and was duck-taped to the meter," Tyler said. "It looked like a pipe bomb."
'Tweren't a bomb at all, just a little hillbilly ingenuity.
Is there anything you can't fix with duct tape?
I've spent part of this afternoon attending a HIPAA Security seminar. What's so cool about that you ask? I didn't have to leave the house. I watched it online via MS Live Meeting. It was just like being in the same room as the presenters. You could even ask questions via the internet or by phone. Pretty sweet.
I wish we could fulfill our yearly requirement of 12 continuing legal education hours that way.
Hint, hint.
One of the most fun things about being a lawyer is the great stories you hear from other attorneys....usually about something incredibly dumb your client or witness said or did on the stand. Law student Russell's got a good one.
My Crim Pro prof today talked about when he was a law student doing volunteer habeas corpus motions for San Quentin inmates. One time in particular he was feeling pretty confident about winning the guy's release, because the judge leaned forward on the bench and asked the convict, "So, if I let you out of San Quentin, just what are you planning to do?"
When his client answered, I'm sure his prof wished the very gaping maw of hell would open and swallow his client whole just to make him shut up. We've all been there. Unfortunately all my really good stories happened in juvenile court, so my lips are sealed. But if you've got one, leave it in the comments.
Remember, we're laughing with you, not at you.
Honest.
I imagine you've all heard about the horrendous train wreck in LA yesterday, allegedly caused by a 'suicidal' driver.
Authorities said the deadly rail disaster was caused by an aborted suicide attempt by Alvarez, who parked his green Jeep Grand Cherokee on the tracks. Alvarez also had slashed his wrists and stabbed himself, but the injuries were not thought to be life-threatening, authorities said.
Let me help you out here, Juan. Next time cut up the highway, not across the street. It'll work much better that way. Think that's cold? Maybe, but I don't believe this guy was suicidal at all....at least not "I'm so depressed and life isn't worth living" suicidal.
Let's look at some evidence.
Alvarez's sister-in-law, Maricela Amaya, told the Spanish-language Telemundo TV network that he had separated from his wife, Carmelita, three months ago. She said Mrs. Alvarez obtained a court order to keep her husband away from her, but he had tried to see his wife and son.
"He was having problems with drugs and all that and was violent, and because of that he separated from her," the sister-in-law said in Spanish. "A few other times he went around as if he wanted to kill himself. I said, 'If you're going to kill yourself, go kill yourself far away. Don't come by here telling that to my sister.' "
She said Alvarez also had threatened to commit suicide in front of his son.
What kind of person threatens to kill himself in front of his kid? I'll tell you. A passive-aggressive control freak who wants to strike out and do as much damage as possible. This wasn't a cry for help. This was a "look what you made me do bitch and it's all your fault".
Warped yes. Insane no.
And I'll bet the court will agree. Alvarez is now sitting in jail, arrested on the suspicion of murder.
Appropriately so.
Can anyone recommend a good PHP editor? Cuz I need one. Real bad.
*sigh*
I'm starting to really hate Tuesdays. Drive to Bentonville for a 7:45-9:00 am PHP class. Drive back to Fayetteville. Do homework & class prep. Drive back to Bentonville for an endless 6:15-9:00 pm C++ class. Drive back to Fayetteville. Stay up til midnight because I'm too tired to sleep.
Here. Have a little whine with your breakfast.
You can thank me later.
I had control of the remote last night (Mike was playing Doom), so we watched this. I thought it was fascinating....not so much the movie itself (Rossellini is a bit artsy for my taste). But the entire movie was shot on location in Berlin in the summer of 1947.
Talk about your collateral damage. Wow. It's one thing seeing the destruction in still photographs of the era. Quite another to watch an entire movie shot in and around the ruins that were Berlin at the time.
Amazing.
So the Supremes have held that it's ok to let a drug dog sniff your car during a traffic stop as long as he finds something. Scary implications for civil liberties aside, Justice Souter bluntly points out the blindingly obvious error in the majority opinion:
Dogs lie, on occasion. Even the best trained ones.
If you've ever owned a dog, you know exactly what he means. So to base your entire constitutional argument on the necessary proposition that drug dogs are sui generis (or unique, in English) and rarely/never alert on a false positive is just plain ridiculous.
Sui generis my eye.
My present job hunting efforts are rather half-hearted.....in order to graduate this spring AND keep up my GPA I can't really work, but I keep my resume out there because I could always drop a class & postpone my graduation for the right job. But I've run into a most perplexing problem caused by including my attorney training & education on my resume. I either get calls from IT headhunters who apparently get so freaked out that I'm also an attorney that I don't get callbacks, or I get calls from businesses that secretly want to hire an attorney for bargain-basement prices.
My first encounter with the latter came recently with a series of interviews for an IT/legal/managerial position, a job for I was perfect. But their laughable offer included the rather ironic demand from a lady with magenta-streaked hair that I cut my pigtail (Hey, no judge in two states have had a problem with it, so kiss my ass), and the even more ridiculous demand that I wear a 'professional' suit to work every day, all for the miserly sum of $12/hr. Riiiight. For a comparision, first-level help desk starts at about $11/hr., as do hog feeders.
Next I got a call from an auto supply store (???), which I didn't bother returning. And today I got a call from a realtor/appraisal business looking for someone to do filing & data entry. Riiiight. And I'll just bet the 'data entry' just happened to involve doing all the documents for real estate sales & closings and paid about $6.15/hr.
Sorry folks, but if you want to use that part of my brain, you're going to have to pay. A lot.
So here's my conundrum. To avoid this kind of hassle, should I leave the attorney portion of my resume off?
I don't think I should, it smells unethical to me.
What do youse guys think?
Now here's an idea whose time has come. (Registration req'd)
A University of Arkansas at Fayetteville architect thinks that a mass transit rail system could decrease traffic congestion and promote better development in Northwest Arkansas’ largest cities.
Stephen Luoni, director of UA’s Community Design Center, is trying to get $2.28 million for a study that could back up his claim.
Luoni has proposed studying the feasibility of a 32.5-mile transit system that would use diesel trains and run from southern Fayetteville north to Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville. The transit line would run on tracks built by the Arkansas-Missouri Railroad for freight trains, Luoni said.
There would also be a spur line out to XNA from B'ville....an excellent idea. I would hazard a guess that WalMart vendors and/or executives are large percentage of the traffic in & out of XNA daily. And if we could catch a train to the airport instead of paying $30+ to park our car there for a couple of days not to mention schlepping our luggage the 1/4 mile from the parking lot to the terminal, you can bet your ass we'd ride it....even if we had to ride to B'vlle first.
And if we could catch a train to B'vlle every morning to work & school instead of battling the 50,000+ idiots on the Dale Earnhart Memorial Speedway, a/k/a I-540, why that would be just heavenly. I'll bet there's a lot of other folks who would agree.
About two-thirds of the 172,585 people the U.S. Census Bureau counted in 2000 in the Fayetteville-Springdale urbanized area lived within one mile of the railroad tracks, Luoni said. That density could support such a rail system, he said. "It would relieve highway congestion," Luoni said. "We also have minority and lower income populations that don’t have a lot of transportation options."
The fact of the matter is that if you don't have access to a vehicle here, you're pretty much screwed. Mass transit is almost non-existent, so many lower income families find themselves in the no-win situation of can't get a car b/c you don't have a job and can't get a job b/c you don't have a car.
Of course, a rail system isn't going to start anytime soon, it's at least 10 yrs. out. But if this area continues to grow over the next 10 yrs. like it has over the last 10, I shudder to think what the traffic will be like.
A redneck Chicago most likely.
I had no idea that today was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I wondered why there was a small group of 'protesters' (10 or so) over by the mall intersection mugging for the tv cameras. We were sitting at the light, making fun of their signs....though since WildChild was with us, we sorta had to temper our remarks.
Prolly the dumbest sign we saw said something like:
"Keep your hands off my body.
PRO-CHILD"
Funny, I said. She looks way too old to be a child.
Mike starting saying something about yelling at her "Lady, trust me. I have no problem keeping my hands off THAT body." But I shushed him before he could.
They were gone when we came back by....not sure if it was because the tv cameras left or because of the wind chill in the teens.
No staying power, our protesters.
Remember the Arkansas Guardsman who sued because his enlistenment was extended? Now it seems he wants to re-enlist for 6 yrs.
Spc. David Qualls (search), 35, has volunteered for another six-year stint in the National Guard, Capt. Kristine Munn, a National Guard spokeswoman, said Thursday.
"It's interesting, knowing his past," Munn said. She said she wasn't sure if Qualls would qualify.
Ah, but what Fox News left out is the rest of Captain Munn's quote, which I saw in our local news.
National Guard spokeswoman Captain Christine Munn says Qualls had volunteered for additional service. She said wasn't sure if Qualls would qualify or if he would be able to collect a 15-thousand-dollar bonus. [emphasis mine]
Gee, guess he decided the Guard wasn't so bad after all.
Mike, being mildly insane, got WildChild a new toy. It's a snowman, encapsulated by a sphere. When you pull the trigger repeatedly, the sphere spins, and opens up to reveal the snowman inside. It also plays really annoying electronic music, and is attached to a tube of candy....small, pellet-like candy a little smaller than Tic-Tacs. WildChild was playing with it this morning after breakfast, and decided to conduct his own little experiment.
Hypothesis:
What will happen if WildChild pours the candy in the opened sphere while it's spinning?
Result:
WildChild gets in trouble.
I was alerted to said experiment by the sounds of hard candy being thrown all over the living room. We have hardwood floors, so it sounded like someone repeatedly throwing handfuls of gravel on a tin roof. I picked up a full handful of it, but I doubt I found it all.
Good thing Sollie likes it too.
There's been a bit of a local kerfuffle the last few days over the discovery that the Lowell Police Department had been taping all calls to the station.....even calls that were eventually transferred to other offices like the fire department and city attorney's. But I've been wondering just how this all was discovered, and especially how the news leaked out. Now I know.
Around Nov. 22, police Lt. Randy Harvey was routinely checking the department's logged calls when he discovered an "inappropriate telephone conversation" between [city attorney] Cook and [animal control officer] Cooper, according to a Dec. 16 memo written by Police Chief Joe Landers to the Benton County Prosecutor's Office.
"The conversations revealed were unethical, immoral and unprofessional in manner," Landers wrote.
Ms. Cook and Mr. Cooper allegedly were having a little office romance. Not such a big deal you say? Ah, but it seems they're married.....and not to each other. Neither apparently were aware that phone calls transferred from the police station were taped.
Oopsie.
Cook told [Police Chief] Landers she and Cooper were "in love," but Cooper told Landers he wasn't sure where the relationship was going.
We all know what THAT means, don't we? That's one of those "let's just be friends, it's not you it's me" lines. They'd been better off if they'd remembered one of life's little truisms:
Don't shit where you eat.
Just look at what I'm missing because I no longer attend court in beautiful downtown Jay, Oklahoma.
JAY, Okla. An Arkansas man is accused in Delaware County of biting off part of the thumb of his estranged wife's boyfriend.
This should be good.
Forrest told sheriff's deputies Staneart was trying to poke him in the eye and said he tried to poke Staneart's eye.
Forrest said his right thumb ended up in Staneart's mouth and Staneart bit down, taking off part of the thumb.
Sure, it's always fun until someone loses an eye.
Or a thumb, as the case may be.
Alek of the infamous Christmas lights webcam hoax was kind enough to e-mail me today: (reprinted by permission)
Rita,I tried to comment on your blog entry about my fun little christmas
lights hoax, but it wouldn't take the comment ... but here's what I was going to say:Glad you guys enjoyed it ... and yea, I was pretty surprised nobody
ever asked anything difficult - heck, I could have done this another year if
I hadn't decided to approach the Wall Street Journal to break the
story.BTW, some of the TV video coverage was pretty funny - see
here.Happy Holidays,
alek
The TV video coverage is hilarious. You can also read a full explanation of how he did it here.
I can't wait to see what he does next year.
--Great neighborhood for children: Rude, noisy children who will trample your flowerbeds and steal your Christmas decorations.
--Immaculate home: Owed by anal-retentive type who will refuse to sell to you because your jeans aren't starched and pressed.
--Secluded: Accessible only by helicopter....and very long rope.
--Cute dollhouse: Perfect size if you're a doll....a very small doll.
--Cozy: Your family will be forced to sleep stacked like firewood.
--Motivated Sellers: Desperate to unload this decrepit moneypit on any unsuspecting buyer. Keep both hands firmly on your wallet while touring these home as they have been known to suck spare change right out of the pockets of passers-by.
--Window Treatments Do Not Convey: Be glad. Be very, very glad. See also, Statue in Yard Does Not Convey.
More when I find them.
Namely me. My car's in the shop....new brakepads and a wheel bearing. It was supposed to be done at 3 pm yesterday, which of course it wasn't. Since that left us with one car and Mike had to be at work & I had classes at 7:45 am and 6:15 pm respectively, I spend most of the day shuttling between here & B-ville....at best 30 min. drive one-way.
Bleh! I hate that.
But my car's supposed to be available for ransoming (to the tune of $400+) after 10 am today.
Subaru. Inexpensive & built to stay that way....unless you have to have them worked on. Then plan on selling a kidney or comparable body part.
Or two.
An editorial in today's WashTimes alleges more proof that at least one of the See-BS docs were faked. His reason?
Easy — for the weekend that 1st Lt. Bush was supposedly ordered to report for his physical, May 13-14, 1972, the Ellington Air Guard Base was closed. It was Mother's Day. Except for emergencies, Air Guard units never drilled on Mother's Day; the divorce lawyers would be waiting at the gate....The drill weekend for May 1972 was the following weekend, May 20-21. A survey of the pay and flight records of several of the Texas Air Guard members of that period shows no activity for May 13-14, but drill pay vouchers and flights for May 20-21.
So why, Mr. Campenni asks, would the commander order someone to show up for a physical on a date when no one would be at the base?
There's more.
While CBS, in its rush to judgment, might have missed this fatal flaw in the Burkett memo, its investigative law firm, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP, cannot be excused. Why? Because one of their investigating lawyers was informed of this fact on Nov. 15 and given a list of seven witnesses who worked in the same offices with Jerry Killian every day in 1972. (Disclosure statement: I was the source.) The panel report makes no mention of this, and a canvass of most of the witness list reveals no contact attempt by Kirkpatrick & Lockhart.
If what he claims is true, that's pretty damning circumstantial evidence.
Good Grief. I'm ashamed to even admit I know this guy.
Representative Roy Ragland of Marshall has filed legislation that would require school textbooks to define marriage as it is defined by the amendment approved by voters.
Defined as in 'between a man and a woman'.
I see Rev. Roy hasn't gotten any smarter as he's gotten older.
I may never go back home again.
Sheesh.
--Tony is trying to burn out my eyes. EEEWWW!
--Susanna has a nice first report from her Blue Debris tour.
--Craig is still among the disappeared.
--Adam has a couple of interesting posts I'd love to comment on....if his comments worked properly that is.
--Jennifer's having a bad day too. Maybe it's something in the water here?
--Finally, to whomever came here looking for advice on 'living with a sociopath', I have two words for you.
Run, fool.
This particular antibiotic has the unfortunate side effect of making me just a wee bit cranky *ahem* and my mood hasn't improved this morning after discovering:
I think I'll go back to bed and start today over again later.
Much later.
There's never a MLK day passes but what I don't think of, and raise a glass to, a local judge who has been departed now for several years. He was, alas, one of the last of the old school judges. He demanded respect for the law and the bench, and would not tolerate discourtesy in his courtroom. Tall and lanky with a shock of white hair, he resembled an Old Testament figure raining fire & brimstone down on any attorney unfortunate enough to raise his ire by making a misstep in his courtroom. He had one of the sharpest legal minds I've ever encountered, especially on procedural rules, so it was fairly common for all attorneys to be raked over the coals by him at some point. Since I was just beginning my legal career during his last days on the bench, I was of course terrified of him.
But for all his excellence on the bench, he had a few quirks. One was that he refused to close his courtroom on the MLK holiday, but instead closed it for Robert E. Lee's birthday. As I remember, it had nothing to do with race. Rather it was his way of protesting the change to one, all-inclusive Presidents' Day holiday. Or something like that. He may've been as racist as the day is long for all I know, but I never saw or heard of him treating anyone differently in his courtroom, no matter what their race, religion or creed.
Another quirk he had involved his open-docket court day. For all you non-lawyers, this was the day in which you did your uncontested probate and family law matters....divorces, guardianships, etc. You didn't have to call up & set a specific time to get these matters heard. You just showed up in his courtroom around 8:30 am and signed your name on his docket sheet. Once he took the bench, cases were called off in the order of the signatures on the docket sheet.
And that order was very important, you see, If you were first on the docket sheet, you were almost guaranteed a thorough ass-reaming from this judge. (All the local lawyers knew this, and it was almost funny to watch all the jockeying for position on the docket sheet sometimes.) I once watched an attorney get chewed out for filing an uncontested divorce in his court because neither his client nor the defendant lived in our county. Now this was perfectly legit due to a recent ruling by our Supremes that any county in Arkansas was a proper venue for a divorce of Arkansas residents. But this judge refused to follow the ruling because, as he explained at great length, our Supremes were wrong. (Too long to go into here, but it was based on the legal rule that a court only has jurisdiction over property that is located within that court's county. And since most divorces involve property division, things can get messy. I can't say I disagree with his reasoning.) The attorney made the mistake of arguing with the judge, which only made matters worse. I just sat back & enjoyed the show. The attorney is one of those dickwad sleazebag ambulance-chasers that give the rest of us a bad name.
I had cause to remember that scene when, months later, I had an uncontested divorce in his courtroom. I thought I was safe, 3rd on the list....but the first 2 cases were simple matters of paperwork. I had the 1st case involving witnesses. Awww, shit. I knew I was going to get it, but I soldiered on. When my last witness finished, I waited for it with bated breath,
And boy did I get it. A blasting lecture on some arcane procedural rule only tangentially related to the circumstances of my case. Halfway through it I realized that if he had to dig that deeply to find something to lecture me on, I was doing pretty good. My side of the conversation was limited to a very respectful "Yes, Your Honor" and "No, Your Honor" and when he finished, I said "I will take care of that. Thank you, Your Honor". And I hustled my livid client out the door before she could get cited for contempt of court.
After calming my client down and sending her on her way, I decided to beard the lion in his den.....mostly because due to the peculiar circumstances of the case, I wasn't totally clear on how to fix things to the judge's satisfaction. And I certainly didn't want a repeat of the morning's performance.
The judge and I had quite an interesting discussion in his office. He was extremely polite, and answered all my questions....he was, in fact, the epitome of what a judge should be. He seemed delighted that I came back to explain the circumstances and to explain why the procedural rule he cited was unworkable for my client. We agreed upon a solution, and he granted my client's divorce without question when we came back to court.
He even smiled at me throughout the proceedings. And yes, when it was over, my hands were still shaking so badly that when I handed his clerk the order to be signed, she asked me if I was alright. "Yes ma'am, I am now" I replied with a big sigh of relief. She got a big giggle out of that.
So here's to that judge, wherever he is.....though it may be the case that heaven doesn't want him and hell's afraid he will take over. The legal community isn't nearly as interesting without him.
Salùd!
UPDATE: Jim very nicely pointed out I am correctly called an alumna, rather than an alumni. I've corrected my egregious Latin error. Thanks, Jim!
Ellen at amcgltd has found the ultimate in tacky:
If that don't beat all.
Now I'm nominally a UofA alumnus alumna since that's where I got my law degree, but I've never been a rabid Razorback fan. It's been my experience that most of the really rabid Razorback fans are either BMOC fraternity/sorority types reliving their glory days, or people who never went to college there but really wish that they had.
I am neither.
Put me in that casket and I'll haunt you for the rest of your born days. And I'll be waiting for you in the afterlife just so I can kick your ass.
Throughout eternity.
One thing I'm enjoying about all my forays into the land of bad website design, a/k/a realtors online, is the funny doublespeak and misstatements I find. The notorious "fixer-upper" is being replaced with "needs a little TLC", which I translate as "needs wrecking ball & demolition crew". "Secluded" in this neck of the woods translates as "need 4-wheel drive & winch to get there". "Wet weather creek" equals "prone to flash flooding". One ad even proudly proclaimed that you could pee off your deck without the neighbors complaining.
I am so not kidding.
But my favorite find of the week was in an ad for some undeveloped acreage, which boasted the property had "one sided fencing". Must be some new-fangled Mobius strip fence. That's no good. It would confuse the hell out of the dogs....and how would you put a gate in it?
Yes, I know what they meant. It still cracked me up.
You know, I understand all the medical (and legal) reasons why I can't write my own prescriptions, but......it still chaps my butt to have to pay almost $70 for a doctor's visit (not to mention wasting an hour of my time) just to get some medicine for yet another damn sinus infection. Let's face it, I've had about as many sinus infections as Carter has little pills. I know the symptoms better than most doctors.
Hell, Sassy can diagnose it before I even have any symptoms. 2-3 days before any drippy green stuff appears, she'll start trying to get me to let her clean out my damn nose. And every time, 2-3 days later, symptoms appear. Maybe I should get her licensed as a pharmacist. Heh.
Or even better, find a doctor whom I could call up & say "Hey, my dog's trying to lick my nose again. Call me in a 'script." And that doctor would say "OK, Rita. Thanks for calling." And send me a bill for $20. Wouldn't that be great?
I'd try that with my present doctor but I suspect she would call in a prescription for me alright.
It wouldn't be for antibiotics though.
Matt's church's tsunami relief effort is just a few dollars short of their fundraising goal, so go help them out. And remember, there's nothing saying that you can't boost them way past their goal you know.
On a related note, Matt reports that Miss Vicki has landed safe & sound with the relief group and will soon be hard at work making sure the donations are used to help those who need it most.
God love ya, Miss Vicki, you're a helluva good person.
Safe travels until you're back home again.
--To clarify, the big chunk o' tree didn't fall because of high winds or anything nasty like that. It was a dead, rotten, hollow tree half that had gotten so waterlogged from all the rain we've gotten that it just split & fell due to its weight. It had been looking unstable for a while, to the point that I'd gotten leery of standing under it....even though that was one of Sollie's favorite pee spots. I'd been bugging Mike to call the landlord to come & cut it before it fell on the power line this winter, but he thought it wasn't going to come down anytime soon. (Oh hush, the times when I'm right & he's wrong are so rare that I have to rub it in a little.) Anyway, as you can see, it was a pretty big chunk o' tree. The photo's a little dark, but I couldn't wait any later to take it because I had to leave to go.........
--Look at the new house my daughter & SIL are buying. The house inspector they'd hired was doing his inspection yesterday morning, so I tagged along just so I could finally get a good look at their house. Pretty nice for subdivision housing, though I was laughing to myself on the way there because I was thinking it was one of those subdivisions that you wouldn't want to try to find your house in after you'd had a few. Mike calls them 'cookie-cutter' houses. But it'll make a good first home for them. Not wanting to be an interfering MIL, I kept most of my negative comments to myself. Like how the drywall finishers did a pretty shitty job running the corner bead. I've been in and around construction for most of my adult life, and I know what it's supposed to look like. I even did a bit of drywall finishing back in the day when I was much younger (though no one would teach me how to walk on drywall stilts because, well, I was pregnant at the time). Which will prolly come in handy because.....
--We're getting more serious about looking for a new house, new to us I mean. We've pretty much ruled out the new houses we've seen.....kitchens just aren't big enough in the new ones. We both want a big kitchen because we both like to cook.....and for some reason, our kitchen seems to be the heart of our house. Everyone just seems to congregate there, so we'd like to find one big & open enough that we aren't all tripping over each other and the dogs. Plus, we're looking in areas that have the best investment potential, i.e., likely to be re-zoned commercial or to be developed. Which also means older houses, and to be in our price range, prolly a fixer-upper. Not that big of deal as long as they're structurally sound. Mike has a lot of construction experience back in the day, and two of his brothers are pretty handy at that kind of thing. (Right Bill?) Plus, my other BIL has a heating/AC business and has always been good to help out his wife's lil sister. We may be calling on them to help a brother out, because......
--We've found this house that looks like it might need a bit of work. I'm not sure we can swing it financially, though it's priced under market value. It's close enough to where Mike works that he could walk to work most days, and in an area that will prolly go commercial in 5-10 years. But one of the first things it would have to have is new paint. I call it the 'Pepto-Bismol' house, though Mike says it looks like someone drank Pepto, then drank coffee, then threw up. It's a positively putrid pink, with bright fuschia trim and shutters. It's hideous. I can't imagine the person who would look at that and think that was attractive. But. It has potential. It's a two-story psuedo-plantation style house, paint it white w/dark green trim and shutters, replace the sagging privacy fence with a new, neat & trim white one and it would be very nice. At least on the outside. I haven't seen the inside yet, and given the hideous outside colors I shudder to think what the inside looks like. So it's still in the maybe column, as is the big A-frame out by the airport that I'm planning to drive by & take a gander at today.
--Finally, for something completely different, take a look at Sassy and her new chewtoy. I'm not telling who the political figure represented is because I'd prefer to avoid Google. But I think you can see it well enough to figure it out.
Heh.
If half of a large tree falls in our yard, and no one hears it, do we still have electricity? Surprisingly the answer was yes this morning....even though the power line running into our house is on the ground. (I'll put up some photos later, as soon as there's daylight enough to take them)
But from the sounds of our refrigerator compressor and the way the lights keep browning out, we don't have full power. So all non-essential electrical items have been shut down until the landlord & power company can get everything fixed later today.
Of course that doesn't mean my laptop. Sheesh.
I can't believe you even thought that.
Mayor Dan has gotta be crying in his organic cafe latte this morning. The AG has delivered his opinion and the answer is NO, the Arkansas Supremes mandated 25 mills allocated to schools cannot be included in a Tax Increment Financing district. (AG opinion here)
I love the smell of being right first thing in the morning. It smells like.....'I told you so'.
The AG goes on to say that the Legislature could amend the TIF legislation to include said 25 mills, but that would likely face a constitutional challenge. Plus, if the Legislature re-directs the money from those 25 mills to a TIF district, then the state would be required under the Supremes' mandate to pony up the money to replace it.
Good luck getting that passed. Ha! Like that'll happen.
Meanwhile, Mayor Dan is busy exploring other funding options.
The city of Fayetteville and Washington County could use their 7.2 mills of property tax, even though the loss of 25 mills from the project means the bond issue would take longer to pay off.
The Fayetteville council could vote to put up $3.5 million of its reserve funding as collateral when the bonds are issued to tear down the dilapidated hotel.
Or they could try to pass a sales tax increase, which they've also been discussing. None of which is going to be popular with the local constituency. Everybody's all for spending large sums of money.......until it's coming out of their own pockets.
Then they start asking the hard questions, like "Why do we need to pay for this?"
The honest answer is "We don't."
Judge Michael Chertoff reportedly will be the next nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security. Hometown Arkansas boy Asa Hutchinson had been rumored to be in the running for the position, but I never took that too seriously.
Asa's been eyeballing the Gov.'s position next election, since our Rev. Gov. Huckabee is term-limited from running again.
Just you wait & see.
So See-Bee-Ess has finally issued the much-ballyhooed "please don't sue us" CYA report on its discredited Bush memo, saying it is shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover its stories weren't being properly confirmed. *yawn* Who cares? Is there really anything unexpected in the report? No. So they fired 4 people, so what? Do you really expect anything to actually substantively change in the way they do things at See-Bee-Ess? Let me know how that works out for you.
This story is infinitely more interesting. (Link via The Corner)
The criminal probe into why former Bill Clinton aide Sandy Berger illegally sneaked top-secret documents out of the National Archives — possibly in his socks — has heated up and is now before a federal grand jury, The Post has learned.
Looks like ol' Sandy Pants may have some 'splaining to do.
Matt & Miss Vicky have a new blog puppy. The first person to correctly guess the breed gets a free blogad from Matt.
She is too cute.
I've been trying to convince Mike that our next dog should be one of these. For some reason he remains skeptical that we need a massive, drooling dog that weighs 150-200 lbs.
But just think of the fun we'd have with the UPS & FedEx guys.
I'm so jealous. I would love to have a position like Spoons' new job.
Persecuting criminals is fun!
Today's newspaper (registration req'd) mentions something interesting in its "100 yrs. ago today" feature:
PARAGOULD — Bethel, five miles south of here, is excited over the depredations of wolves or other large wild animals. Several men took their dogs out to run down the wild beast. Near the center of a woodland the dogs came upon the animal, but refused to attack it, and beat a hasty retreat.
Timber wolves used to be a big problem for early Arkansas settlers. Most of us forget, and tree-huggers refuse to acknowledge, that not only did wolves frequently kill livestock and even dogs, but also were known to attack humans. (What, you think stories like "Peter & the Wolf" and "Little Red Riding Hood" were just figments of some writer's imagination? Not so.)
Timber wolves are bigger & more aggressive than grey wolves, and were pretty dangerous to man and beast.......like the one my great-grandfather & his neighbor killed back in 1916. (story & photo here)
Like I always say, there's a good reason why we don't have them anymore.
The saga of the former home of the Clintons continues. As you may remember, at last report the University of Arkansas had made an offer to buy the home for about $100K over its appraised value. And I kept thinking while following the story the owners' name sounded familiar. It should've.
James and Janet Greeson bought the home at 930 California Boulevard in 1983.
James Greeson is a professor of composition and music theory at UA.
That's pretty sweet, isn't it? But wait. There's more.
UA’s "first priority" for the house would be to hold the property until the [city] commission can acquire the home, Pederson said. "If trustees approve the purchase, we’ll be fairly patient with the city," Pederson said. "They want to use it as a museum, and that’s why we would sell it to them. We didn’t want it to be sold to another private individual."
So the university is buying a house from one of its professors at substantially more than the appraised value in order to sell it to the city.
Fayetteville. One of the biggest small towns you'll ever live in.
Jim Calloway, Director of the Oklahoma Bar Association's Management Assistance Program, has started a blawg directed at helping us use technology and such to improve our law practice. But even if you're not an OBA member, Jim's tips are a great resource for any attorney.....like this post about the Best Free Online Reference Sites.
Go check him out.
I've been watching, with growing amusement, the impending disaster of our Mayor Dan's Grand Plan for 'revitalizing' the downtown Fayetteville area by using Tax Increment Financing district(s). (A TIF basically works by allowing a municipality to earmark property tax moneys for special urban renewal projects.) Mayor Dan and our esteemed city council recently created a TIF district, which was primarily aimed at renovating a long-defunct hotel off the dowtown square. But Mayor Dan's Plan has hit a slight snag.
As the value of property within the district increases, the increment is divided between the school district, for debt service, and the project plan. At issue is the constitutionally mandated 25 mills for educational equity, which generates nearly all of the money used for TIF projects.
If the 25 mills is exempt from the increment, TIF would not generate enough money to pay for projects.
Everyone is waiting for the state's Attorney General's opinion on whether or not the 25 mills can be included in a TIF. Though the AG's opinion is merely advisory, it's fairly certain that if the city goes ahead with the TIF, there's going to be a lawsuit over this issue....especially since the Fayetteville school system just got broadsided by a $39.9M estimate of costs to upgrade their schools to meet the new court-mandated educational standards.
No problem, said Mayor Dan. The city can just loan the necessary money to the developers.
If tax increment financing cannot be used for the redevelopment of the Mountain Inn, the city may want to loan the developers the $3.5 million to start the project, Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody said Wednesday.
The money for the Mountain Inn could come from the proceeds of the Wilson Springs Business Park sale if the General Assembly takes away the option of tax increment financing, Coody told residents gathered for a special Ward 2 meeting.
Oops, he really didn't mean "loan", because, umm, that's illegal.
Though it would be illegal for the city to loan developers money to start the Mountain Inn project, the City Council may designate $3.5 million to secure bonds, explained Fayetteville City Attorney Kit Williams.
The council must approve bonds for the Mountain Inn project on Jan. 25, at which time it must also approve an emergency clause so that the bond ordinance would take effect immediately, according to a memo written by Steve Davis, director of finance and internal services.
Bonds, yeah, that's the ticket.
It is important to be cautious in making decisions, Williams said, because the TIF law has yet to be interpreted by the Supreme Court and $3.5 million would be attractive to plaintiffs ’ lawyers. "Misuse of tax payer money is always illegal exaction. Before we do anything at all we need to do a lot of care," Williams said. "(The earmark) should only be used as a last resort in order to save the project."
Ya think? At least someone employed by the city appears to have a little common sense.....though the most frustrating thing about being an attorney is that clients too rarely follow the advice they're given when it disagrees with what they want to do.
Me, I'm just sitting back and LMAO at the whole mess. I think anyone who was fool enough to vote in a former land developer as mayor deserves exactly what they get.
Armstrong Williams, a syndicated columnist, and the DOE are been questioned about a possible breach of ethics.
A company operated by syndicated columnist and commentator Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 by the Education Department. The goal was to deliver positive messages about President Bush's education overhaul, using Mr. Williams' broad reach with minorities....The contract required Mr. Williams' company, the Graham Williams Group, to produce radio and TV commercials featuring one-minute "reads" by Education Secretary Rod Paige. The deal enabled Mr. Paige and other department officials to appear as guests on Mr. Williams' programs.
Mr. Williams, one of the leading black conservative voices in the country, was to persuade other black journalists to talk about the No Child Left Behind Act.
The DOE says that this was a "permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures". Which may be true as far as it goes. The question isn't about what they did. It's about how they did it. There's nothing wrong with spending taxpayer moneys for publicity to educate the public about governmental programs.....as long as there's public disclosure about whom is paying for the publicity.
Even if what they did was legal, that doesn't necessarily mean it was ethical.
Shame on them all.
Sen. Clinton's former campaign manager has been indicted for filing a false campaign finance report.
Did you ever notice that charges of financial irregularities seem to follow her around like stink follows shit?
HaHaHaHaHa (Link via Drudge)
It was a whopping 9 degrees this morning, wind chill 0 to -10....and snow. Guess whose car doors and door locks were frozen shut this morning? Yeah, I think putting the de-icer in the trunk was a bad idea. It was frozen shut also.
The weird thing is that it's now partly cloudy but it's still snowing.
How does that even work?
Mike & I are fairly seasoned travelers, so we usually manage to get through airport security without problems. He carries the laptop and any electronics; I carry our meds and sundry items that we don't trust to our checked bags. So I was kinda surprised last week when we were leaving out of XNA & I got pulled out of the security line for a search.
(Some uninteresting but explanatory background: I usually just carry a small backpack. But since we both had head colds, there was more medicine than usual....not enough to use a carry-on suitcase but too much for my backpack. So I'd divided everything up between my everyday purse & backpack.)
The TSA lady asked me if there were any sharp objects in my carry-ons. I said no, there shouldn't be anything. Are you sure? she asked. Not as far as I know I said. She then proceeded to give my two carry-ons a very thorough search, frowning the whole time. I'm standing there wondering what the hell triggered all this? She then took my purse over to the scanner & ran it through a second time. I have no idea what was going on..........until she pulled my mini-Leatherman utility tool out of my purse.
Yeah, I kinda forgot that was in there.
So I'm standing there, embarrassed as hell, as she takes it over to her supervisor. The supervisor came over & started to lecture me about how I wasn't allowed to take it on the plane. I interrupted him (politely) and explained that I understood that but since I normally didn't take that purse when I traveled, I had forgotten that it was in there. And I apologized. Profusely. He then very nicely allowed me to take it back down to the ticket desk & ask them to put it in my checked bag. I was pleasantly surprised when we unpacked later to find that they actually put it in there. (Thank you, US Airways!)
Being a supportive husband, Mike stood out there past security laughing his ass off & pointing through the entire thing since I had nagged him all morning about not forgetting to put his pocket knife in our checked bag.
I can't say that I blame him.
I'm sure you'll be happy to learn, as was I, that I am ranked #1 & #2 for the Yahoo search string "lovely rita is nasty".
Learned minds may disagree with that result.
No, I do not sit around and Google my name to see how (in)famous I am. It was just one of the stranger things that showed up in my referral log this morning....along with "military tank birthday cakes".
BTW I rank second for that one.
Too funny.
After spending a few days in central Florida, sunny & highs in the upper 70's (think NW Arkansas spring without all the pollen), may I just say it rilly rilly sucks to return to highs in the low 30's and rain that may turn to freezing rain when the temp drops down into the teens tonight. We're gonna have to hurry up & get rich enough to become a couple of those much-curséd Florida snowbirds.
Travel trailer and all.
Back to the land of the chicken houses safe and sound....and very tired. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed.
Now if I can just stay awake long enough to get there.
Hope everyone had a safe & happy New Year's celebration. We'll be out-of-town for a few days, and I'm not sure whether we'll have internet access or not.
See you all Tuesday!