I [heart] Taco Bell

in part because they almost never get my order wrong. Now I know why.



Awesome.

Caturdays with Southern Dragon

If you've missed SD's Caturday series on the tigers we live with, you've been missing a real treat.

Meowy Christmas!

Light

winter solstice

[for reference]

health care reform presentation, covers various viewpoints, including the stupid [do these people really believe that we consume health care the way we consume groceries!??!?!?!?]

also includes a brief presentation by a member of pnhp.

The sun'll come back tomorrow

until then, there's puppies.

......................

Got to admire the old guys who can keep it up

I would go out and buy an iPhone tomorrow

if I thought this were really true.



This is the other app I'd get.

Becaue I like Dan Gelber

I'll post his latest plea for donations.

Friends-

Over the last two weeks, the Legislature was called into a Special Session to settle critical issues regarding mass transit throughout our state. The legislature bans fundraising during Session, but a loophole exists for “prescheduled” fundraisers. Because I felt it was only right to put my entire focus on my job as a legislator, I decided not to avail myself of the loophole and canceled all my fundraisers during the Special Session. I was the only candidate in this race to do so, and now I really need to make up for lost ground.

If you haven’t contributed to the campaign yet, I could really use your support now.

Fundraising is not a virtue, but in a state as large as Florida it is a necessity. Sorry for the hard sell but I’m proud of the way my campaign is conducting itself, and hope you are to. We need leadership that is not business as usual – and I hope you’ll support me because you believe that I will be different.

If you have already contributed please consider helping out again and passing this on to your friends and family.

Thanks again and have a terrific holiday season.

Dan

Continuing the theme

of cars and birds and toasty warm backsides...



I haven't won the lottery yet, so no heated seats for me yet, and besides, for less than $500 I got new brakes, a new battery, and the transmission fixed. Cheapskate that I am, no way can I bring myself to get rid of a car that both starts and stops on command, even if it closing in on a quarter million miles.

My inner cryptobiologist lol'd at this one

This one might come in handy someday

You decide

This was either the smartest thing I've ever done, petwise, or the stupidest.

I bought a bag of the beef liver PureBites dog treats and offered some to everybody. Instant hit, far more than the tripe.

Now I've got cats nibbling my fingers and licking the keyboard as I type, and the littlest cat grabbed the bag of treats and ran off with it. Cute, especially as she carried it over to the cat feeding station, dropped it into the food bowl, and only then started ripping into the bag.

If the camera had been handy, I would have tried to get you a picture, but I figured I'd better rescue the treats instead. Once I track down the camera though, I don't expect to have any trouble recreating the scene.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'll say one thing for the NY Times

they have way cool interactive maps.

Here's one showing the foreign-born population by county. The years go back to 1880, and you can set the filter to look at just one country of origin.

Just in case you were wondering, Miami-Dade and Queens are each approximately 50% foreign-born and in each the predominant group is from Latin America.

h/t Global Sociology Blog, where you can also find maps of corruption and government spending around the world.

Nope.

I'll take End Of The World for $500, Alex.

Email from Dan Gelber

It’s no wonder that Floridians are losing faith in their government. More public officials in Florida are charged with corruption than in any other state.

We have a state government that operates largely in the shadows; a campaign finance system that gives special interests way too much power; and too many of our public institutions seem totally beholden to everyone but everyday citizens. I spent the better part of a decade fighting corruption in Florida as a federal prosecutor, so I have seen this malignancy up close. There will always be those that find a way to skirt the law or engage in sleezy behavior, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t adopt measures intended to bring greater accountability and oversight to the operations of government.

Earlier this month, I introduced a series of measures that if adopted by the legislature, would go a long way toward that goal.

But - I can't do it without you. Help me lobby my colleagues by demanding reform!

As you can see below, many opinion makers in the state agree with me, but getting my colleagues in the legislature to make life tougher on themselves won't be so easy. We need to keep the pressure on:

"Corruption in Florida has become too prevalent in recent weeks for political leaders to ignore"
- St. Pete Times, 11/5/2009

"If there isn't enough outrage right now to justify strengthening anti-corruption laws, then when?"
- The Miami New Times, 11/6/2009

“A former federal prosecutor [Gelber] running for attorney general as a reformer...
- Tallahassee Democrat, 11/9/2009

“Mr. Gelber's reasoning makes sense...Floridians have a right to more transparency and better oversight at the SBA. It's their money, after all.”
- Orlando Sentinel, 11/17/2009

To help demonstrate to my colleagues that Floridians simply will not accept the way our government mistreats taxpayer dollars, I have launched an official petition.

Join me in demanding reform. Please sign my petition right now and help spread the word!

You can read more about the specifics of my reforms here. I'll keep you updated as this fight develops.

Thanks for all you do,

Dan Gelber

I should probably consider doing this

While I was out buying computer mouses, I stopped to pick up other cat-related necessities in bulk too. Except that I remembered the cat litter and catnip, but forgot the cat food, a fact of which I was forcefully reminded as soon as I walked in the door.

I never make a second trip for anything, being a real cheapskate and not wishing to give any more of my hard-earned $$ to the oil companies than I have to, but somehow I don't think I was going to get away with making the kittehz skip their supper and breakfast the next morning.

The cats always help themselves to the dog's food, no matter how much of their own they've got, but let one square centimeter of the bottom of the cat food bowl show, and unending world famine is about to strike.

Mousers

Here at chez hipparchia computer mouses are a favored prey:



but the predator/prey ratio is closer to this:



So I stopped at the store on the way home and bought the cheapest [$9.99] mouse in the store... the lighted [way cool blue] scroll wheel will be a help finding the mouse in a dark room [should I ever need that feature] but the eerie blue glow it's casting on the monitor screen is annoying.