The lore of nutcrackers...

Rather than visions of sugar plums looking at these Christmas Party Invitations and greeting cards, made me think about the lore of nutcrackers and how they go beyond the Christmas Party invitation season. Nutcrackers supposedly bring good luck, legend has it that they represent power and strength. Beyond invitations Christmas Party season, the nutcracker also has a role in The Nutcracker, a popular holiday ballet. When you get ready to order Christmas invitations, www.cardsshoppe.com will let you make unlimited changes at no cost, email your proof to you within one hour during their business day and they will print and ship your order the same day it's approved. With or without the nutcracker...

Jacob S. Hacker thinks Blue Dogs should support the public option

Hacker shares his opinion in today's Washington Post part of which:

The fate of health-care reform hangs on what President Obama and leading Democrats do in the next few weeks. In particular, it hinges on an effective response to moderate Democrats in the House -- known as "Blue Dogs" -- who are threatening to jump ship.

And...

Yet the Blue Dogs have mostly ignored the huge benefits of a new public plan for their districts. They have also largely ignored the disproportionate benefits promised by new federal subsidies for low- and medium-income workers. Right now, large swaths of farmers, ranchers and self-employed workers can barely afford a policy in the individual market or are uninsured. They will benefit greatly from the premium assistance in the House legislation promised for workers whose earnings are up to 400 percent of the poverty line, from additional subsidies for small businesses to cover their workers, and from a new national purchasing pool, or "exchange," giving those employers access to low-cost group health insurance that's now out of reach.

There's a lot of pressure being placed on the Blue Dogs, there are quite a few articles out there taking them to task in addition to the one above, another example from the New York Daily News. Even with the new numbers from the CBO, this Washington Times article points out what the Blue Dogs are worried about:

Blue Dogs have said they won't support a public health insurance option that is based on Medicare rates. They say Medicare rates are not distributed evenly and put their rural areas at a disadvantage.

They're also concerned that small businesses are going to be hit too hard by the "pay or play" requirement. And Blue Dogs say the shape of the bill doesn't do enough to limit the rising costs of health care.

It's interesting that some of the Democrats are saying they don't need the Blue Dogs, if they really didn't need them, there wouldn't be so much pressure to get them to agree...

Bobbing for Apples...

One of the fun things about looking at different Halloween Invitation designs is they show quite a few of the traditions that go beyond the invitation Halloween aspect. Take bobbing for apples, while it's shown on many Halloween Party invitations, it actually existed before Halloween as a harvest custom where the young unmarried people would try to bite into an apple floating in water or from a string. The first person to bite the apple was the first one expected to get married... Whether or not you bob for apples, you can get unique and exclusive Halloween Invitations at www.invitations-shoppe.com, where you also get free shipping and ten free Thank You cards with each order...

Elections have consequences and so do confirmation votes

That's the title of this Washington Post article by Dan Balz. Having some insight into how Hispanics feel since my husband's family is all Hispanic, I can't say I agree with all that was written. Especially the underlying belief that all Hispanics supported Sotomayer's confirmation.

They didn't...

So while Balz writes:

There is some political risk for the Republicans for their near-universal opposition to a Latino nominee, given the reverses the party has suffered in the past four years among this important and growing political constituency. But most Republicans have concluded that those risks are manageable.

I don't expect much of a risk, those who were Hispanic who lean Republican/Conservative are not going to change their support if it is based on ideology, those that lean Democrat/Liberal are not going to change theirs.

Issues like abortion invoke strong emotions from that part of my family, they are strict Roman Catholics, who may bend a bit when it comes to the issue of divorce, don't bend on believing that abortion should be reserved for saving the life of the mother. My position as a Roman Catholic that I personally don't support abortion but I do not believe it is my place to tell another woman what she can do with her body and thus it should remain legal, is too "liberal" of a position for them...There is concern from them as to what Sotomayer's position will be on abortion, hence many of my relatives did not openly support her, even the ones that are Democrats...

Ever wonder about wrinkles?

I had a friend once who was really into Sharpei's, she had two of them, so whenever I hear anyone talk about wrinkles in any shape or form from the best wrinkle creams to complaining about wrinkles in their clothing, I automatically visualize her one puppy...who was one of the most wrinkled ones I'd ever seen, similar to the image of the puppies shared here. I realize since I am approaching 50 I should be more concerned about wrinkles, but I don't think I'll ever have to worry about being that wrinkled to the point where I don't smile when I hear them mentioned...

:-)

Obama says police acted stupidly...

Realistically it would have been smarter for the President to have just stated he didn't have all the facts on the case of the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates rather than what he said that's gotten headlines:

As for Gates, "I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

This of course has created reaction, Crowley's union predicts Obama will regret remarks with it being stated as a clarification from the White House that the President didn't call the officer "stupid" -- which is word games, if you say "the Cambridge police acted stupidly" you are basically calling the officer "stupid" -- at least from what I understand of the word "stupidly":


–adjective
1. lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull.
2. characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless: a stupid question.
3. tediously dull, esp. due to lack of meaning or sense; inane; pointless: a stupid party.
4. annoying or irritating; troublesome: Turn off that stupid radio.
5. in a state of stupor; stupefied: stupid from fatigue.
6. Slang. excellent; terrific.
–noun
7. Informal. a stupid person.
Origin:
1535–45; < L stupidus = stup(ēre) to be numb or stunned + -idus -id 4

Related forms:
stu⋅pid⋅ly, adverb
stu⋅pid⋅ness, noun

The weight loss struggle...

Some of my family and some of my friends have struggled off and on with weight loss, and unfortunately it's not quite a simple for them as to click here for weight loss supplements, they've tried most of them with limited success. It's frustrating for them, just as it's frustrating for many people in the same situation. Part of the frustration is not seeing fast enough progress, but the weight didn't appear over night, it won't go away overnight...

Roethlisberger...Shades of Kobe Bryant?

When I read about the lawsuit filed against Ben Roethlisberger I immediately thought of the similarities with the Kobe Bryant case. While in this case, the woman did not file criminal charges and is going right to a civil filing, we have accusations of rape and then rumors of a consentual relationship with some mental health issues.

In the Bryant case a settlement happened with the dollar amount not being known, at this point, Andrea McNulty is seeking $380,000 in medical fees plus an unspecified amount of punitive damages.

Though some are calling this junk journalism...

Black cats and Halloween...

Black cats often are associated with Halloween, on more than just Halloween Party Invitations. Beyond the decorative aspect of invitations Halloween and black cats, black cats get a bad rap, having owned several, my luck never changed one way or the other (smile). There are a huge amount of Party Halloween Invitations to select from, unique and exclusive designs are out there on sites like Holiday-Invitations.com, where they give you the chance to view your Halloween Party Invitations before you buy, they have a patented instant preview feature so you know before you order your Halloween invitation or any other invitation is how you want it.

Israeli Settlers Versus the Palestinians

In this week's Time Magazine...Israeli Settlers Versus the Palestinians. It really does not share that much information from the perspective of Palestinians, there's just a few small comments thrown to try to give the impression that the article is not biased, but...I recommend reading it because it clearly demonstrates what the US or any nation is up against when trying to deal with the issue of Israel, Palestine and the settlements...

Health care the costs, reality and the concerns...

First there is this piece in Newsweek referencing Ted Kennedy that will muddy the political waters since it's subtitled, "Inside the fight for universal health care" and that is not what Obama nor Congress is considering...Nor if you read the four page article written by Robert Shrum, listed as a "friend and long time speech writer" is Kennedy calling for a Universal Health Care program as some fear, ala Canada.

All Americans should be required to have insurance. For those who can't afford the premiums, we can provide subsidies. We'll make it illegal to deny coverage due to preexisting conditions. We'll also prohibit the practice of charging women higher premiums than men, and the elderly far higher premiums than anyone else. The bill drafted by the Senate health committee will let children be covered by their parents' policy until the age of 26, since first jobs after high school or college often don't offer health benefits.

Then the cost factor as David Broder points out, the current proposal despite Kennedy's claims does not appear to save money:

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told the Democrats that they were about to bust the budget. None of the bills he had seen contain "the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount."

"And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs," he said.

Elmendorf is not alone in arguing that the legislators ought to go back to the drawing board. A day earlier, Mike Leavitt, the last secretary of health and human services in the George W. Bush administration, told me and other reporters that the House bill "does nothing to solve the problem of the escalating cost of health care."

In a separate phone interview, Ken Thorpe, an academic expert who worked on the Clintons' effort 16 years ago, said, "There is nothing in the current legislation that will reduce private insurance premiums" -- and not nearly enough to contain the rising costs of Medicare.

Which creates editorials like this one from Miami that the current plan will hurt small businesses.

I agree with Kennedy that we have taken way too long to address the problems of American citizens not having access to or being able to afford health insurance, but I fear in the rush to make it look as if they are finally dealing with this issue? They are making mistakes...

Maternity clothes have come a long way...

It used to be back in the day when I was pregnant with my children that you could pretty easily spot a maternity outfit and most of them were not very attractive, it was just one of those things that you had to face when you had a baby. Now, maternity clothes have changed, there are some items that I look at that I'm tempted to want to wear even though my baby-having days are long since past. What's also nice is some of the prices out there, looking at Kiki's Fashions they have a whole section of items that are $10.00 or less and they also give you a way to save 20%, just use the word "blogfriends" in the coupon code section when checking out.

They also offer a nice line of plus sizes, which I know used to be a problem and still is a problem if you are trying to find maternity items locally and you are trying to be cost conscious. Of course the other thing to point out about way back when, was the internet and internet shopping wasn't available either...

Democrats against Democrats on Health Care...

I received this via e-mail:

Lisa Renee -

Vote Now
We need your help with an important decision.

Democracy for America has teamed up with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee to run tough ads pressuring Democratic Senators who've taken millions of dollars from health and insurance interests while standing in the way of one of President Obama's top priorities -- a public healthcare option.

The question is: who do you want to see us pressure first with TV ads in their home state?


Our ads don't pull any punches, because it's up to us to make sure Democratic elected officials feel some heat if they're on the verge of opposing the President and 76% of Americans who want a public option.

Here are eight senators who may stand in the way of the public option -- along with the total amount of money they’ve received from health and insurance interests. Who should we target first with local ads?

Sen. Max Baucus $3,973,485
Sen. Evan Bayh $1,565,088
Sen. Kent Conrad $2,154,200
Sen. Dianne Feinstein $1,749,887
Sen. John Kerry $8,994,077
Sen. Mary Landrieu $1,653,943
Sen. Joe Lieberman $3,308,621
Sen. Ben Nelson $2,214,715

The problem is of course that they are basing this on a poll of only 1008 adults that if you actually read the polling data? Was not an accurate representation of American voters, here are the political persuasions of those polled:

Strong Democrat ...21
Not very strong Democrat ..10
Independent/lean Democrat ...10
Strictly independent ...18
Independent/lean Republican...9
Not very strong Republican ..7
Strong Republican ...14
Other (VOL) ..7
Not sure ....4

If you take the time to read the full poll, and you have faith in such polling, only 33% think Obama's health care plan is a good idea - 32% think it's a bad idea and 30% don't know. The actual question related to the public plan is not shared accurately - the poll question actually was:

34a. In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance––extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?

Extremely important ....41
Quite important ....35
Not that important ..12
Not at all important ...8
Not sure ....4

This same polling group also feels that by a margin of 44% that we should initiate a military action against North Korea...Not to mention 20% of them have a unfavorable opinion towards Muslims. Five percent of them were not sure who they voted for as President and 18 percent didn't vote. The largest percentage of the polling base as far as employment? Retired at 27%...Thirty nine percent stated they went to Church more than once a week.

These are not stats that match up to the Average American voter...BUT if you are going to cite this poll as being accurate then you can't cherry pick one question, and the reality is this same group that thought there should be a public option either doesn't support or doesn't know if they support Obama's health plan by a 62% majority.

Which means most of American, including those polled, either don't support this plan or don't know enough about it. I tend to believe with the latter because there is so much misinformation out there, it's hard for the Average American voter to even know what they should believe.

My life as a season...

I was born the first day of Spring, and while I love Spring, I've often wondered what it would be like to have been born in the Fall, there aren't many opportunities to have a theme party for a Spring birthday, beyond Mardi Gras, which while fun, doesn't have the same appeal as a Fall themed or Halloween Invitations as a birthday party. I suppose though that it would be very possible to have a party in the Spring and still use Invitations Halloween style as a theme and a party, after all it would give people the chance to dust off their Halloween costumes more than once or twice a year and while it would be hard to find them in the store, Cards Shoppe are online 365 days of the year. With the thousands of different styles out there, it wouldn't be that hard to find a Halloween Invitation that could be used in the Spring and with the Mardi Gras items that are out in Spring? It'd be easy to combine the two. Hopefully we'll be in the new house by Spring which would mean the actual space to hold a party would be possible...

Sotomayor gets some GOP support..

With the way Congress is divided on both sides of the aisle it's not really surprising that a few Republicans would voice their support for Sotomayor. What the Washington Post finds significant is this:

None of the endorsements was particularly surprising; instead, the significance came through Martinez's and Lugar's standing. Lugar is the Senate's senior Republican, first elected in 1976, and he has long been a leader of the Foreign Relations Committee, while Martinez is the only Hispanic Republican in the Senate.

Snowe said Sotomayor "appears neither rigid nor dogmatic in her approach to the essential task of constitutional interpretation."

As also pointed out the huge deal that was expected with Frank Ricci that some compared as a possible "Anita Hill" never happened. I watched Anita Hill be questioned, that didn't happen because no one treated Ricci the way she was treated...

Though I do have to say I think Patrick McIlheran really gets it:

From this, two possible outcomes emerge. One, Sotomayor is confirmed, and it turns out her conversion is real. Wise Latina? Nah, she's an umpire in the Roberts mold. Result: Conservatives win.

Two, she's faking. She's confirmed and becomes a reliable liberal vote to mutate the Constitution into what she's sure the writers would have made it had they been as smart as modern liberals. Result: No change from the man she replaces, David Souter, and Obama loses more credibility with independent voters.

Either way, what's become clear is that the week that was supposed to be the humiliating rout of old white guys in the Senate has turned into the surrender of judicial liberalism. That has become the philosophy no potential justice can admit to, even when her president owns the Senate. Whoever in the administration coached Sotomayor knows this: A conservative Supreme Court is not at odds with America. It is its reflection.

It's not too early to be thinking about Christmas...

I know, the summer heat is here and you might be thinking - Christmas? But it's really not too early to be thinking about the holidays, especially when it comes to Christmas Parties. While of course you aren't going to want even think about mailing out your Christmas Invitations out now, there's no reason to not start thinking of what type of a theme you want perhaps inspired by whatever Christmas Party Invitations you find at a place like Cards Shoppe It's also not too early for planning out the date so you can make arrangements, especially if you are going to make hall or other reservations. I've often thought about doing a formal Invitation Party Christmas thing, but I always procrastinate and then? It's too late because others have their dates set and their travel arrangements made. This year? I am at least looking at Party Christmas Invitations, so perhaps this will be the year. :-)

Newsweek reporting Sotomayor Is a Shoo-In

What bothered me is not that Howard Fineman believes she's a shoo-in but how he thinks she can be one, he states:

If she keeps her cool and her answers learnedly vague, the lifelong New Yorker will make history this week.

I'm fine with the "keeping her cool" aspect of it but "learnedly vague?" Yes, the never ending let's not really be honest about anything, we'll just give you a legal song and dance...

If that's the case then why even bother with these hearings? Why not just create some type of an advanced judicial bar test and if she passes it? She's a Supreme Court Justice, if she fails? Sorry...try again next appointment...

That would save all the expense, all the drama and at least create appointments that could say they were truly "learned"...

I love this license plate....

Kate and I were in the car the other day and I spotted this at the light. Thankfully I had my trusty camera with me...

Real invitations versus e-invites

I know the internet is used by many of us and it's much simpler for people to send and e-vite than to take the time to order or buy party invitations, then address them, then mail them out. Yet I'm still a fan of getting things in the mail, for one simple reason. On any given day I get hundreds of emails, I've discovered it's really easy to read and forget to mark something down that I'm invited to via email than it is to have the invitation on my desk...While I have a webcalendar, I'm horrible at remembering to update it and if a story breaks or something else comes up that I have to deal with? Days can pass before I remember again, which if I do remember, is the nice thing about using gmail, it's easy to search for things, since I thankfully keep my desk in better order than my memory? What I have tried to do with e-vites is print them out...

Did the liberal media create Rush Limbuagh?

I read Carl Cannon's article, Sarah 'Barracuda' Palin and the Piranhas of the Press twice...Once upon a time I didn't believe that there was a media bias, but the longer I blog, the more clear it becomes. In my own home town a similar situation has happened, the local daily newspaper has it's own bias, it has a history of selectively going after some, trying to destroy their lives and lauding others. The local talk radio basically does the same thing, but of course most times directed with the opposite intention of the local daily.

It's easy to see if the local daily attempted to be as objective as they claim they are then the anger and the frustration as well as the controversy wouldn't exist to fuel talk radio. Is it really the fault of just the liberals though is something that I wonder. As Cannon points out:

Concerns about "liberal bias" arose in this supposed Golden Age, but we had an answer for that: Sure, reporters are liberal, we told our sources, but the publisher is conservative. The ideal being peddled was that, yes, a Depression-era reporter making $8 a week will likely pen pieces extolling the New Deal, but meanwhile the owner/publisher is commissioning editorials lamenting Franklin Roosevelt's assault on capitalism. It sounds esoteric now, but when newspapers were king it worked. (It might still work: The lone news outlet in North America that still operates under this model is The Wall Street Journal. Its editorial pages have been conservative for decades; a recent study found its news pages to be the most liberal in the mainstream media. Guess what: The Journal is the largest circulation paper in this country.) But I digress.

This means that the reality is it is the owners of these media outlets, not the reporters who control the show, both in print and on television. It's completely understandable that people prefer to hear, read and watch news from a position that supports their own personal biases, they want affirmation that "they" are the ones who are correct and the "other guys" are the ones who are wrong. There are still journalists out there that try to actually inform as to the varying sides of an issue but it is growing more rare.

The media did go after Palin, but so did the blogosphere and I believe that had an impact because our media is being impacted by the internet in their desire to keep readership...

Cookies and e-coli

I was checking the news outside of our area, and on the Rochester, New York news it was reported that while Nestle company recalled batches of Tollhouse cookie dough last month the strain of the disease found in the cookies doesn't match the strains that made people sick. It makes you wonder how quickly a Rochester medical malpractice attorney will get involved. It also makes me wonder exactly how many strains of e-coli could have been in the cookies in the first place for there not to be a match and how reliable the testing is....