Arkansas Blog

Trees sure are pretty.

ARK. BLOG: Maybe it's always this way, but I say the're the best ever. The trees around Win Rockefeller's home on Hill Road have been particularly spectacular this year and the ginkgo down the street is just about to come into its glorious golden own. Tonight's blow may do many of them in.

Too much wind today here for the leaves. All we have left are nekkid trees.

Wow. Election's over.
The good guys won.
Dialogue goes to hell.
That'll pick up in a week or so.

Why don't they make disposable trash bags designed to attach to your mower for leaf collection? Or why doesn't LR offer the service like they have in NLR where the monster vacuum comes by? Or why don't they make an affordable super vac that would suck up a whole lot of leaves very quickly? Or why don't we just decorate our yards with artificial trees, or stick to evergreens? We've put a man on the moon, and I'm still breaking my old back doing it just like Adam and Eve.

"Jack Wilson" dead at age 87. Click on Cato.

Eve had the idea of dressing up in leaves. Is that where we got the expression "cover-up?"
PV, you've hit on a subject I wish more inventors should put their minds to solving. While we put on more clothes, our trees are taking theirs off and running around "nekkid."
And don't forget, those guys on the moon didn't have any leaves to worry about.

Still, there's nothing like sitting on the back patio with a drink in hand and watching the leaves lazily drifting down as a slight breeze breaks them loose for their final plunge earthward. Newton needed an apple to think his great thoughts but I'm just as happy with a falling leaf.
Now, if you can just make it easier to pick them up afterwards,,,,

Rick,

Sorry, it didn't even last that long. Clickon docholliday to see the full story.

"... Even while courting the Democrats who will control Capitol Hill beginning in January, Bush is pressing for the current Congress, while it is still ruled by Republicans, to pass items deeply controversial to Democrats. These include legalizing his warrantless eavesdropping program, stalled in the Senate because of a Democratic filibuster threat, and confirming John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which Democrats have opposed.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said both items are crucial, and that Democrats should see their merits.

"I don't think you should look at these as necessarily provocative," he said.

Bolton has held the post on a temporary basis for more than a year, and Bush cannot make a second recess appointment of him. Without confirmation, he would have to leave the job in January.

"Look at his record. The point is, what complaint do you have with a man who has been so successful?" Snow said..."

So it's a ginko? I know the tree you speak of and, yes, in the next few days it's going to be amazing. I'm partial though, as it's part of my view from home.

ARK. BLOG: We anxiously await its evolution every year. From deep green, to yellow green, to gold. And then the golden carpet beneath the tree.

We walk past it every morning and some year I"m going to take a photo ever day for 90 days and win a prize for the slow-motion transformation series.

Dangerous neighborhood. Be careful. Lots of cheese-eating surrender monkeys in these parts.

We recently moved from a house with zero trees in the yard to a house with 7 mature oaks in the yard.

At the old place I would take care of the leaves one time -- at the end of autumn when all the leaves from neighboring trees had all fallen. No rakes and bags for me. I mulched them with the mower and put them in the compost.

It will be a different story at the new mann manor.

My dad (who at 79 rakes up each leaf as it falls from the sky) is giving me his old chipper/shredder.

To me there is something wrong with bagging up leaves and putting them by the curb. Everyone should have a compost heap.

This has been a beautiful autumn. And Wednesday morning after election day was like Christmas.

I just got home from seeing Borat. Saw it in Jonesboro, where they warn everybody who buys a ticket that it's VERY ADULT and full of MALE NUDITY.

I told them that I, also, am very adult and occasionally am nude.

The movie's great. First time I've laughed till I cried in years. It got me about 6 times like that. I don't want to over-hype it, but I had to take my glasses off to wipe my eyes, it was so funny.

If he had ever heard of Arkansas, he would have found much to mock here I'm sure. He probably DID hear about Arkansas, but went to Arizona by mistake.

"Rick,

Sorry, it didn't even last that long. Clickon docholliday to see the full story..."

As I listened to the unbelievably diplomatic/reasonable words coming out of Bush's mouth Wednesday I thought 'My god, it's like some alien has taken over his body.' Now...I know my instincts were right on. It was all superficial self-serving political rhetoric designed for show rather than substance.

Bush is pathetically stuck in his own allusion of grandeur to change in any substantive manner.

The trees are especially beautiful; and today was a great day!

Waxman prepared to investigate Bush government. So many areas to investigate he "doesn't know where to start."

Click on Cato.

Cacca is about to hit the fan in Benton Co.

Wed early morning - 45% voter turn out -

re-evaluated Thursday - 83% turn-out effecting the revesal of 5 races.

Today - some precincts coming in at 106% and more.

Yet another "revision" might well be on the way.

Whoever heard of a 83% turnout in a county the size of Benton? Someone has some splaining to do!

ARK. BLOG: Yes. I sent a note to some D-G reporters today. I simply don't believe the 83 percent turnout, not in a state with a 46 percent average and under 50 in Washington County next door. I await the truth. There's a blend of electronic and paper ballots there. The first thing they need to do is count how many people actually signed the voter books. Paper trails are critical. That's why I don't like the electronic machines.

I've never seen the tree in question, but it must be a male gingko. The female trees, about this time of year, drop berries that stink so bad they make you gag. There used to be one in front of Maxie's Pawn Shop during Maxie's last stand on the east side of Main Street. Pew-wee! The gingko stink served as an early warning device for anyone thinking about entering into Maxie's relentless grasp.

We were just finishing some last minute chores like sweeping the black walnuts off of the roof and cleaning the gutters when a wind made noise over the western side of our hollow. I watched the final leaves swirl like a flock of birds into the weather change; acorns nailing anything below. Winter made introduction loud and painful.

I hope that the sounds of subpoena and investigation are just as loud and only much more painful to the capitalist profiteers, military mercenaries, and evangelical charlatans that have distinguished this most incompetent and corrupt administration in U.S. history.

I have three gingkos in my yard. I put 4 inches of rich compost around them last year.

I bought the first one in 1981 and paid $20 EXTRA to get a guaranteed MALE

Big mistake.

After 20 years, it put on fruit in 2001. But of course the nursery that had sold it to me 20 years earlier was out of business.

It has produced fruit only in odd-numbered years, so there was no fruit this year. The leaves were unbelievably hot, brilliant yellow, especially striking against the dark green backdrop of pine trees.

We never noticed any odor from the fruit. However, a few times some know-it-all ignoramus would pick one up to find out why it didn't stink.

I tried to stop them -- "DON'T do that." But they just don't listen.

It's funny to see an ignoramus drop the fruit, try to wipe his hands on the grass, then run like hell, screaming, to find a water hose to wash off the smell. Otherwise, you'd never know the fruit was there. When the seeds germinate, I pot up dozens of little seedlings to give away.

The seedlings grow rapidly and people are tickled to death to get one or two. I always guarantee that the seedling will be EITHER male or female, but they won't know which for about 20 years.

Most of the gingko leaves dropped today during intermittent gusts of wind. As usual, they fell in a perfect circle of gold under each tree.

To Max and everyone else:

I know we've won 2006. But we still not forget what happened in 2004 and 2000. It was illegal and fraudulent. Check out these documentaries:

American Blackout: A documentary about October 2004 election irregularities in Ohio.
http://theconnextion.com/american_index.cfm?ArtistID=400&gclid=COb224r-vYgCFSjOJAodQ2C6LA

And all the corporate connections to the Iraq War. Dirty stuff:

Iraq for Sale:
http://iraqforsale.org/

Both of these sites have must-see trailers.

Woops. Here's the link to the American Blackout documentary trailer: http://www.videothevote.org/ab_19.html?id=Be7Yn0L02Ks

It's around 15 mins.

For what it is worth - my advice to the new leadership.

Shut up about impeachment - about invesigations into getting us into this crimminal war - people don't want to hear that crap, they know it and simply want it fixed.

Get a bright young ambitious U.S. Senator - set up a "Truman Commission" - investigate the "war profiteering" - it is stunning - the people will get that. Beat that drum for 2 years as the Bush and the corrupt R's let corporate America and the "government of friends" raped every single American.

Use parellels - $300,000,000 for new hospitals - not one new hospital....on and on.. Bubba will be foaming at the mouth come April of '08.

The dems will not come off as doing a witch hunt to the likeable Chimpster or vindictive - just want answers to where, what, when and how a trillion dollars has been spent. Win - Win.

Senators?

LETTER TO OUR LEADERS...

Dear Madame Speaker Pelosi and Senate House Majority Leader Reid:

The American people have spoken. The traditional media is now trying to speak for us. Do not fall for their meme, "The American people do not want subpoenas." The message was the EXACT opposite. We want PLENTY of subpoenas.

There have been several interviews now of you promising oversight, but backtracking and claiming you will not issue very many subpoenas. There is NO GOOD REASON why you should be making that particular claim. Your stock answer SHOULD be, "If a subpoena is warranted, IT WILL be issued."

The American people have given you the awesome power of subpoena. We expect you to use it, or we will take that power away from you in two short years. If you haven't learned your lessons while living in the political wilderness for six years, you WILL go back into exile.

The traditional media has nothing to gain from Republicans being INVESTIGATED and HELD ACCOUNTABLE for their actions. The American people do.

Again, use your power or we will HOLD YOU accountable.

Sincerely,

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Something tells me our Razorbacks are in for a wake-up call tomorrow. All this talk about going up in the polls and getting to the BCS.....bad hubris, brothers and sisters of the sacred bacon.

The Vols are just the kind of team to surprise our boys. Houston Dale better have one helluva game day pep talk ready, 'cause the team is going to really need in order to have a chance. He better be thinking of leading the team, and not just the band.

Something definitely is wrong in the county of Benton.
In some counties, it was found early on that as boxes were counted, the machine recorded a cumulative total, i.e., counting previous boxes and adding them all together.
That sounds like what could have happened.

Holly SMOKES!

Arkansas 39th Brigade Faces Possible 2nd Iraq Tour
Friday November 10, 2006 10:35pm

Washington, D.C. (AP) - The 39th Infantry Brigade of the Arkansas National Guard is among units being eyed by defense officials for are turn deployment in Iraq. The Guard's top general in the Pentagon says the Defense Department (website) is developing plans that for the first time would send entire National Guard combat brigades back to Iraq for a second tour.

The remarks by Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum Friday are the latest sign of how thinly stretched the military has become. Smaller units and individual troops from the Guard have already returned to Iraq for longer periods, and some active duty units have served multiple tours.

The move could include brigades from North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas and Indiana. It would force the Pentagon to make the first large-scale departure from its previous decision not to deploy reserves for more than a cumulative 24 months in Iraq. The 39th Brigade spent 18 months in Iraq, returning to Arkansas in March 2005.

I just watched the American Blackout video that JD posted. Everyone should check it out. It's 19 minutes long. Thanks JD.

http://www.videothevote.org/ab_19.html?id=Be7Yn0L02Ks

Democrats ready to issue subpoenas.

Click on Cato.

Subpoenas will be a good start, leading up to the impeachment of the WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.
Maybe even our very own, Pryor and Lincoln, can stop acting like Republicans and get some spine in their backs and kick this bunch of crooks out.
It's time.

Sheesh, I can't believe the priorities around here. No one is at all concerned over possible voter fraud in the SpongeBob SquarePants Top 100 Episodes Marathon that just wound up tonight. I mean, COME ON..."Karate Island," #!? Not possible. They must have used Diebold machines, I say.

Um...haven't gotten out of the house much lately.

The Jonesboro Sun reported Sunday that a candidate for mayor of Waldenburg received zero (0) votes. The electronic machine should have given him at least the two votes that he and his wife cast.

The other two candidates in the race ended up in a tie.

Tabulate this as another real confidence builder for electronic voting machines?

Funny video. Click on Cato

We want PLENTY of subpoenas. - Posted by: RLR
********
Great idea! This would be a good time to show that both parties are totally partisan and bent on political ethnic cleansing. The Republicans used the subpoena to successfully achieve beaucoup convictions and plea bargains in the latent Clinton years, now, Democrats can return the favor.

And just as the Democrats used that turmoil to some advantage, this will give Republicans and fence-straddling Democrats and independents the same opportunity to see that today's Democrats are as vindictive as they claimed yesterday's Republicans were.

Lest you get the wrong impression, I have no objection to investigating any wrongdoing and issuing subpoenas as fast as they can be signed. But for once, why not lead by example and start investigations professionally with dignity and authority instead of lighting the torches and parading through the streets, beating on every door to find a Republican to drag into court for persecution.

On Gunsmoke, Marshall Dillon was usually needed to calm the blood-thirsty mob so justice would be administered fairly and to the right person. I wonder who will act as Marshall Dillon for the Democrats?