Flash, Slobokan’s Golden Retriever succumbed to cancer. Slobokan’s written a very touching tribute at his site.

Our condolences Slobokan.

Remember back when the Fairness Doctrine ruled and for every editorial opinion on the evening news there was also an editorial response? And remember when both of those had a disclaimer saying something like “The views expressed in the preceding/following are not necessarily the views of this station.”

Now Samantha Power, formerly one of Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisors, tells the Scotsman that Hillary Clinton is a monster (off the record). As it was in the middle of the interview, the Scotsman decided to print it anyway.

Then she apologizes including this statement:

These comments do not reflect my feelings about Sen. Clinton, whose leadership and public service I have long admired.

And I wonder how what she said doesn’t reflect what she feels. It seems a little contradictory.

So taking the old Fairness Doctrine type disclaimer and the apparent contradiction in what Samantha Power said and what Samantha Power said, I came up with a new disclaimer:

The Samantha Power Editorial Disclaimer
The views expressed in this weblog are not necessarily those of the author.

She’s now resigned as well.

It’s that time once again!
Time to “spring ahead” with our clocks! At 2:00 a.m. local time Sunday set your clocks ahead one hour to 3:00 a.m. unless you are in Hawaii, Arizona, or Puerto Rico who don’t participate in Daylight Saving Time.

There is no “s” at the end of Saving by the way. It is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time.

This is also a good time to change the batteries in your smoke detectors!

Had them all up on the sofa with me the other day. It was so cute. The black ball is Bitsy, Raven’s in the middle wearing the sweater, and Liath is on my leg.

The City of Chicago is considering a law banning tiny plastic bags because drug dealers use them for transporting and selling small amounts of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, crack, and methamphetamine.

Of course! That’s the answer! Ban the little tiny bags and the dealers won’t have anything to transport their drugs in! Why didn’t anyone think of this before?

It’s the Question of the Day at The Capitol Fax Blog (on my Daily reads list – great for Illinois state politics!).

The Chicago Sun Times has this:

Lt. Kevin Navarro, commanding officer of the Chicago Police Department’s Narcotics and Gang Unit, said the ordinance will be an “important tool” to go after grocery stores, health food stores and other businesses. The bags are used by the thousand to sell small quantities of drugs at $10 or $20 a bag.

Navarro referred to the plastic bags as “Marketing 101 for the drug dealers.” Many of them have symbols, allowing drug users to ask for “Superman” or “Blue Dolphin” instead of the drug itself, he said.

I don’t know about you, but I am very scared by Lt. Navarro. He wants to go after grocery stores, health food stores, and other businesses?

And grocery stores, health food stores, and other businesses are involved in the selling of illegal drugs in what capacity?

I use these little tiny bags all the time. I use them to hold and ship jewelry, to hold beads and gemstones, to sort buttons and hold and store many craft items.

I also use them for my children’s medication when we go on day trips or on longer trips. Doses can be easily separated by time to be taken and child and take up so much less room than medicine bottles. The little bags can easily be carried in a pocket or wallet, try that with prescription bottles. I use them for several doses of over the counter analgesics too. It’s a lot easier to carry a tiny bag with 2 or 3 doses of Excedrin Migraine than it is to carry the 100-pill bottle around.

This is so incredibly stupid that I can hardly believe it’s true, except that it’s Chicago and that explains a lot.

Winter, the dormant season, dies and rebirth comes with spring. We watch for the temperatures to rise, the snow cover to melt, and the green of new growth to show peeping from the earth or budding on the trees and bushes.

We may also start to think about life changes. We grow up, get married, have children. We start to think about our own mortality. As we accumulate more and contribute more to our families, we have a need for life insurance, to compensate – if only somewhat and only financially – for our loss.

Some of us have life insurance through our employers,  our employer insures our lives for a multiple of our salary. We may have the option of purchasing more insurance through our employer as well. But generally that doesn’t cover a non-working spouse, and that insurance doesn’t follow you if no longer work for that employer.

So while employer paid life insurance is a great benefit, it isn’t offered to everyone and, of course, those that aren’t employed don’t have employers to pay it. That’s where cheap term life insurance can come in. It’s an inexpensive way to cover a non-working spouse, or a working spouse whose employer doesn’t offer paid life insurance. It’s also a way to supplement an employer paid insurance policy. Peace of mind is priceless.

In the afternoon. I’ve not been feeling well for a few days and I didn’t get anything ready in advance..

Yesterday was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss. My very favorite Dr. Seuss book is Green Eggs and Ham. Later this week, at school, Little Guy will be wearing a red and white striped Cat In The Hat Hat on Hat day.

We saw a hilarious movie last night. Death at a Funeral. A story of complete family dysfunction. The old uncle no one can stand, the fiancé who has mistakenly taken something other than Valium at his future brother-in-law’s flat prior to going to the funeral. It all starts when the wrong body is delivered to the house by the funeral home and it goes from there. Alan Tudyk (Knight’s Tale, Firefly, Serenity) is brilliant in the role of Simon the fiancé.

According to IMDb the tagline is From director Frank Oz comes the story of a family that puts the F U in funeral…

Arrived overnight… this photo was taken at 4 am

Change seems to be the word of this election season. But is change always a good thing? Should change just happen, regardless of the consequences?

Mrs. Clinton is running on change, but she also wants to go back to the 1990’s when her husband was president. She speaks of her 35 years of experience (which is impossible for Mr. Obama as he would have had to have started in politics by age 11 or so to even match Mrs. Clinton).

Then too, since Mr. Bush can not and Mr. Cheney chose not to run for the office of President in 2008, change is automatic.

Castro has announced that he does not aspire to and will not accept the office of President. This is a change that is not a change. A year and a half ago he announced that his brother Raul would be running the country because Fidel wasn’t feeling well. This new announcement only solidifies that. And the change to Raul didn’t really change anything for the Cubans did it?

Of course some change is good. Changing your clothes when they are dirty is good. Changing your diet when your current diet may not be the healthiest for you is good. Changing a baby’s diaper when soiled is a very good thing.

If you can make change that will save money or increase efficiency – or both at once – such as changing your brand of dish soap to one that works better and costs less than your current brand is a good thing.

Changing your brand of dish soap to one that costs more and doesn’t work as well is not.

Especially when you throw away a perfectly good bottle of dish soap to use the new one.

I guess what I’m saying is don’t just go changing things to change things. Look at what you want to change, look at what effecting the change will entail, look at what the consequences of the change will be. Then decide whether to make the change or not.

Kate pointed me to them! Thanks Kate!

How do you like them?