Remember when John Edwards paid $400 for a haircut and that was such big news? “What an elitist!” “This is absurd!”, barked the talking heads. Turns out he was cheap.
Apparently, the McCain campaign paid $22,800 to stylist Amy Strozzi in the first part of October. After spending $150k on her wardrobe, they are shelling out $1000+ a day for Palin’s makeup. Uh, can’t give that back to charity!
What’s important to the McCain campaign, style or substance? McCain’s foreign policy adviser was paid $12,500 over the same time period, about half as much. That’s two parts style to one part substance.
$150,000.00 spent on clothing? Let’s see. She has been on the ticket for less than two months. That’s $75K a month / $2.5K a day…for her wardrobe. That’s more money on clothing in a month than Joe the Plumber makes in an entire year!
But she does need to look good while going around calling Obama an “elitist”.
When I first met my wife, I told her I was a “Conservative Christian”. She likes to laugh about that now as the word “Conservative” now means “Intolerant” and “Christian” has been usurped to mean “Judgmental”. At least that’s how the news and politicians portray it. And that’s a shame.
Recently the Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann said that she suspected a great deal of “Anti-American” people were serving in our Congress. And Obama is “Anti-American” as well. And Palin goes off and talks about parts of “real America” and “real Americans”….what is this crap? It’s intolerance by people who claim to be both Conservative and Christian.
An intervention is when loving members of a family reach out to a troubled member, call them out on their bad behavior and collectively apply pressure for them to change their ways. Just because family members tell Uncle Joe, “Hey, Uncle Joe, you drink all the time, gamble away your family’s money and beat your wife – it has to stop”, doesn’t mean they are “Anti Uncle Joe”. Not at all. It means they actually care more about Uncle Joe than the enablers who vehemently defend Uncle Joe.
It is a shame that people who have lived their lives helping others are now being labeled “Anti-American” by “Conservative Christians”. It’s not just a shame, it’s downright insane.
Colon Powell, the man who stood in front of the world with a vial of salt and scared us all into going to war with Iraq has now broken with the Republican party and endorsed Barack Obama.
Powell Scaring us with a vial of salt
Powell now says that his security council testimony is a “blot” on his record. He had originally cautioned against the overthrow of Saddam but eventually caved and played the role of a good soldier. When he starting understanding and expressing discontent with the fact that he was duped by intelligence based on some graduate student’s paper, Andrew Card asked him to resign and Condoleeza Rice took over. Cheney and Rumsfeld had their way and the good soldier was indeed carrying a big fat botch on his back.
So now he endorses Obama. Is this big news? Yes and no. The Bush and Cheney faithful will be dismissive and treat him like Chris Buckley. But for everyone else, it’s a bit of a signal. And it will likely take a news cycle or two. Hopefully it will affect some of the retired soldiers in Florida.
Maybe Obama will offer him his old job back. I would love to hear that. “Hey General, how about serving on my cabinet…I promise you will be heard this time.”
There is a lot of evidence that says that the collapse of honey bees would produce extreme hardships for the human population. I have become very interested in CCD since the problem seems massive and worldwide. This year I stopped by the observation hives at the Atlanta Botanical garden and became fascinated with the beekeeping process and the necessity of beekeeping.
I have met several people who have hives in their back yards. Apparently there is a law in Georgia that says that anyone can have bee hives essentially anywhere. So Atlanta has the unique atmosphere of encouraging urban beekeeping. I can’t imagine that my neighbors would be pleased with hives in my yard but I’m still considering taking the beekeeping course offered by the Metro Atlanta Beekeeping Association in January.
This is one of those things that just makes sense from a local perspective.
