Arkansas Blog

Although it was rumored that reps of the Family Dollar Bowl (Dec 13, Pangburn Twin Bleachers Stadium) were in attendance today, the Hogs loss to the Gamecocks has knocked them out of consideration.

Too nice a nice last night at Punkinhead to be in shape to go outside today. I think I bruised my heel dancing, and I know that's why the back of my knee hurts. Oh, to be thirty-three forever.

In related news, representatives of the Sani-Flush Bowl are still interested in the Hogs.

Obama planning on reversing much of Bush's disastrous rule on climate change and other issues:

P.S. (Eff Bush for putting us behind 8 years.)

========
Obama Positions Himself to Quickly Reverse Bush Actions on Environmental, Social Issues

By Ceci Connolly and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 9, 2008

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse the president on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.

Here's some great new music for a Saturday night:

It's A New Day - will.i.am

Do the clicky

Great vid, NVR! Obama is my generation's Kennedy--at least that's what we're all hoping for.

Me too JD. Kennedy's election was the first election I waa old enough to have awareness of and interest in. When I saw Obama speak at the 2004 convention I told a good friend of mine that if he ran, I'd vote for him. I'm so thrilled that he did run and I did have that chance.

I look forward to the next 8 years. I really don't think that if Obama's first term goes well that there is any Republican that will be able to beat him in 2012. The Democrats need to be looking ahead to 2016 and grooming some younger standouts in the Democratic Party to step up. Biden will be too old to run. We will once again have an election where the outgoing VP will not be running. If the Democrats have given the country a great 8 years and come up with another impressive candidate, the future will continue to be bright.

Oops--meant "was old enough"

It was sorta moist and cold in NWA today. I stayed in. Didn't even walk the dog.

Naomi Klein wonders if Obama can stop the final BUSH Heist.

excerpts
" The first order of business -- and one that cannot wait until inauguration -- must be halting the robbery-in-progress known as the "economic bailout." I have spent the past month examining the loopholes and conflicts of interest embedded in the U.S. Treasury Department's plans. The results of that research can be found in a just published feature article in Rolling Stone, The Bailout Profiteers, as well as my most recent Nation column, Bush's Final Pillage.

Both these pieces argue that the $700-billion "rescue plan" should be regarded as the Bush Administration's final heist. Not only does it transfer billions of dollars of public wealth into the hands of politically connected corporations (a Bush specialty), but it passes on such an enormous debt burden to the next administration that it will make real investments in green infrastructure and universal health care close to impossible. If this final looting is not stopped (and yes, there is still time), we can forget about Obama making good on the more progressive aspects of his campaign platform, let alone the hope that he will offer the country some kind of grand Green New Deal.
....
Stopping the bailout profiteers is about more than money. It is about democracy. Specifically, it is about whether Americans will be able to afford the change they have just voted for so conclusively."

worth a read indeed.
.

Alarming news from the Old Country-

One third' of teachers back lessons in creationism

The Independent
By Richard Garner
Friday, 7 November 2008

Nearly one in three teachers believes creationism should be given the same status as evolution in the classroom, according to a poll of more than 1,000 teachers published today."

on blue name

A little night music for all.

Clicky.

Loved it Cammack!

Good one Cammack, thanx.........

Jake, please post your video once more...first time was too jerky for me to watch, perhaps

a second shot will be better.

ALiJB and I still in a glow over tues. night..........WOW

A man in Little Rock calls his son in San Diego the day before Thanksgiving and says, "I hate to ruin your day, son, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; 45 years of misery is enough."

"Dad, what are you talking about?" the son screams.

"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer," the father says. "We're sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her." Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. "Like heck they're getting divorced," she shouts, "I'll take care of this!"

She calls Little Rock immediately, and screams at her father, "You are NOT getting divorced. Do not do a single thing until I get there. I am calling my brother back, and we will both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?" and hangs up the telephone.

The old man hangs up the phone, turns to his wife and says, "Okay, honey, they're both coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way!"

Now thats the way to get the kids home, if you want them.....wink wink

Wanna bet we have sex in the White House on Jan 20, 2009?????????????

So nice to see a vibrant WH again, 2 darling little girls, a puppy, mom and dad who can't

keep their hands off each other........ohhhhhhhhhh be still my heart.

Max,

It's taken me a few days to really understand how soundly Obama was defeated in Arkansas. I mean by any standard he just got hammered here. I do have to point out that while all those Central Arkansas counties you love so much (with the exception of Pulaski) voted about seven points less for Obama than they did for Kerry...it was good old Benton County that stepped up a bit for Obama. Just kind of ironic as NWA always bugs you so much.

If you had told me that any Democratic could pretty much do seven points a county worse in Arkansas than the liberal Kerry from Massachusetts...I would have said you were wrong.

Also...I don't buy that Obama campaiging here would have changed it. I think he looked at internal numbers and said it was just pointless.

If I was going to run against Blanche I would start collecting pictures of Blanche and Obama and run tv spots featuring those snapshots....then add a little copy about how often she voted with him and presto you got yourself a campaign theme.

Anyway...I'm just fascinated by the depth of his loss here.

What a lovely day. Mrs. Archaeopteryx and I made our monthly pilgramage up to the state capitol and had lunch at Taziki's on Cantrell (decided to go there based on a positive Times review). It was great! Then we stopped at Barnes and Noble and were surprised to get to meet former Senator David Pryor. He was friendly, talked to us for about five minutes, had an anecdote about Warren (where Mrs. Archaeopteryx works), then remembered our names when he autographed our copy of his autobiography. He seemed genuninely delighted about Obama's election (although not so much by the Arkansas results). He reminded me why I had voted for him every chance I got.

A little Cajun for fun??

clicky

today was a buisy day at work!!, So glad im off tomorrow! you sure can tell tis the season!! I think the store i work at will run out of shit to sell because sence the ecomony is on its low,. well,,there going to second hand stores for cheaper stuff.

Here are some tips about buying crap at a second hand stores,,

1. Clothing,, look for tares or slight stains or how much it shrunk,,it will shrink more!!
2. Look at the prices of the crap your gonna buy!
( You might get a better deal at Wal-Mart!!)
3. look for chips and small cracks on glass items like coffie pots!!
4. And we cannot forget the nastiest idea,,second hand underwear!!!! Never purchase!!

you all have good seasons!!!

Another Short Fairy Tale (for eLwood)

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl "Will you marry me?" The girl said, "NO!"

And the guy lived happily ever after and went fishing a lot and hunting a lot and played golf a lot and drank beer and left the toilet seat up and farted whenever he wanted.

The End

Since I'm too lazy (think ethanol) to retype, here's what I posted to the trial lawyers on Wednesday:

This has been a new day. What I hope I see this day is not the end of 8 years, but of the 40 years that the Democrats have been wandering in the wilderness.

It was 40 years ago that LBJ sacrificed his political career to push through the Civil Rights Act. He knew then that he was losing the south for a generation. There had been that disagreement at the 1948 convention that briefly created the Dixiecrat party, but up until 1968 the Democrats still relied on the old FDR coalition, which required that they look aside from the racism in the south, and accept the votes of yellow dogs for whom Abe Lincoln was still a despised demon lurking outside the bedroom window. (Don't get me wrong; there was plenty of Joe the Plumber racism in the north, but Joe voted union and the south was the reliable block.)

1968 was also the year we came to accept that our most charismatic leaders would not live to see an election, and that the entrenched leaders of the Democratic party would eat their own children in the same park where last night tens of thousands came to celebrate a new day. Those were hard times, and there have been hard times since.

What Lyndon Johnson effectively said in 1968 was that, someday, the Democratic party would no longer need to rely on the votes of white racists to govern. The Carter and Clinton administrations, for all that I admire both men, were not the new day because Jimmy and Bill ran as the Democrats most likely to resemble Republicans, both catering to the south in their own way, which may well have been the only way they could have gotten elected.

What Barack Obama has proved is that it is no longer necessary for a Democrat to fear the code words for racism like redistribution and socialism (even though the average voter is clueless that the Republicans have redistributed enough wealth from the middle class to the wealthy since the days of Saint Ronnie to put us back in the days before the Great Depression, and that it was George Bush's administration that nationalized the credit industry, and made it necessary to do so).

With any luck the next stage will be that it will no longer be necessary, at least on the national stage (Arkansas still has a ways to go; I've always said I came here for the geography, not the conversation), to kowtow to those who would use the power of the law to punish those citizens who disagree with their religious beliefs, and would force women to bear children they do not want, and would dictate to parents the prayers their children must pray in school.

Perhaps, someday, it will no longer be necessary to pretend that corporate profits and executive bonuses are a sacrament delivered from the deity.

It only took Hercules a day to clean the Augean stables. The mess that Obama will inherit has been building for 40 years, and it may take him and his successors another 40 to set it right. We are living at the end point of 28 years of what George H.W. Bush called "voodoo economics," which was about the last time a Republican told the truth about economics. There will be hard economic times coming, but maybe we will eventually switch metaphors from "trickle down," a phrase particularly poignant for those of us raised on the farm, to "a rising tide lifts all ships."

For the first time since I was a junior up at Kansas, when Bobby filled us to the rafters and had us cheering louder than Jo Jo White sinking a game-winning jumper, I have reason to hope that America can appeal to what Abe Lincoln called our better angels. This new day has been a long time coming; let's hope it will be a long time here.

Jake,
And the girl went on with her life, married an intelligent, wonderful man, has great kids, a fabulous home, a dynamic career, and owns two businesses.
And hubby still leaves the seat up and farts at will.
LOL, Kiz

To our credit, I'm still pinching my self but I heard on local KUAF today that Washington County
went Obama.

Someone correct me if I heard wrong. I cannot find Washington County results anywhere. 2006 the ADG did a complete breakdown.

.

Apparently, this Will guy is not liked very much because everyone seems to fart at him.

Jake, don't care what you guys do, we all please ourselves in this house, but is it too much

to ask a fellow to LOWER THE DAMN TOILET SEAT so a lady doesn't have to stumble, in the dark,

sit down on cold, hard enamel with her ass hanging in toilet water??

I'm easy....don't ask for much.

eLwood--blue name should link to the NYT interactive map. You can click on the state to look at county vote totals. According to this map Washington County went for McCain 55% to 42%.

Silver, good assessments....

Jazzy - everyone in my family has to put the toilet seat down or the boxer thinks it's his second water bowl!

"I heard on local KUAF today that Washington County went Obama. Someone correct me if I heard wrong."

eLwood, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported November 6 that with all 118 precincts reporting, the Washington County vote was McCain 37,915 and Obama 28,965.

Amen silverback! Tell me something jazzy. Was that ALiJB sitting across from you at Rumba the other night? I talked to a nice woman sitting next to your daughter but she never told me her name. Been wondering about that ever since.

Everybody have a lovely Sunday of relaxation....knowing our country is still racing in the wrong direction, but at the pit stop in January we're getting a new driver. A little relief is around the corner, hopefully a lot of relief will roll over us in the years ahead. We won! And though I'm still finding it hard to be gracious, we need to remember how to be nice and not be sore winners like you know who.

Thanks for the election results guys. I was listening while getting boxes of venison out the
car.
Damn! But Little Rock and Pine Bluff sure did a job!

Good little story jake but mine was more clever.

Silverback and JD great posts too. I'm stumbling all over my desk. Suppose to be part of forum on
economics of disaster capitalism on Mon evening. Haven't decided my entire bibliography.
"Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" is on the list. Naomi Wolfe's recent book of the same title will be there too.

Anyone have any suggestions of anything really brief (articles essays)? With links if you have them. Just read the NYT article of two weeks ago how Paulson stacked the bail-out team with insiders from Goldman-Sachs assuring that operating capital for regional and local banks will dry up thus making a second bail-out necessary. Paulson and company are not addressing the mortgage crisis as was reported.

G'nite.

Jazzy, what the hubster and I have discovered after nine years of marriage (come Thursday) and almost seven years of previous co-habitation (get y'alls minds outs da gutter -- most the time we had roommates, and co-habitating was a matter of fiscal practicality) we discovered the true secret to domestic bliss...

separate bathrooms.

Palin Hoping to be Named Ambassador to Africa

(Posted November 6, 2008)
Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska has reached out to President-elect Obama's transition team to indicate her interest in being named "ambassador to the nation of Africa," the governor confirmed today.

.

HAHAHAHAHA, elwood. my first laugh for the day. that's funny stuff.

Goof, what's the boxers name?? What color? aren't boxers just the greatest?
My first year in over 22yrs to not have a boxer in my life. Kind of sad, but hey I've got a great dane who thinks he is a poodle size lapdog and a weiner dog name Gracie. Life is never dull

Hope seeing this will generate some smiles this fine Sunday morning.

There are several pages to click through, but I found it worth it.

clicky.

Ah, boxers...one of my good friends introduced me a few years back to Arkansas' boxer rescue (link). Though I'm partial to so-called mutts, her boxers are amazing dogs--personable, playful and full of wonderful slobber. And, the rescue gang at Boxar is, like so many rescue organizations, full of dedicated folk who save an amazing number of boxers/other dogs. I'm always amazed by the tenacity, self-sacrifice of folks who set their comfort aside so they can help abused/abandoned animals. Heroic folk, everyone. I just don't have the strength of character to do the rescuing first-hand (behind the scenes, yeah). I'd have an illegal number of animals at my house and I'd be running from assault charges after I witnessed first-hand what some folk can do to animals...neither are very effective rescue strategies. (Yes, the same goes for those who unselfishly give their time/resources to help needy/abused children...special people all.)

Loved your joke, durango; and loved all the night's music...especially ' New Day.' I'm still so giddy over Tuesday's results...I'd be skipping if possible. And that's just from for knowing the end of Monkeyboy Hell is nearing. If I allow myself to think that Obama might actually rescue our environment, help poor folk, sick folk, stop Congress/Dubya from giving our great grandchildren's future to Wall Street and help our poor over-worked, under-appreciated soldiers (at least make sure no soldier loses a home/farm/etc while away fighting our wars)...I'd be singing and skipping. What an incredibly resilient system of governance we have...to go from Hell to Hope in eight years is amazing (gave me delightful whiplash). I'm so proud of my country!! (WE'RE going to have to work on Arkansas...somehow.)

Cammack--That was great and so inspiring. Hope others will take a few minutes to read through the messages.

Hello all, I'm late to the party but trying to catch up.

Mama Kat, we do have our own bathrooms, Frenchie calls mine *the transformation room.*

Its not so much him as the g'sons and son-in-law who always dash in IN A HURRY.
I tell them they disrespect women when they leave the seat up.

DBI...that was ALiJB across from me next to my daughter, I call her my 3rd daughter, such a
good young couple. She is the one who MADE me get on the blog yet she seldom comments
but reads every word.....................hello lovely Mag and girls.

Late to the party here too.

We solved the toilet problem by always shutting the lid when flushing, because we didn't want the water spray to go all over the bathroom. Kills two birds with one stone. Can't shut the lid without putting the seat down too.