writingbylori.com

So the other night a poster on a message board gave me a brilliant idea. She thought I should write a blog on the people you run into on the web, and I took it a step further and queried a magazine and wouldn’t you know it, I heard back right away from a magazine interested in the premise. The idea is for me to follow several boards (I already do) and basically write about the posters. Obviously, I won’t use real names. So I prepared a little questionaire for anybody who would like to help me out. We are lucky on this board that we have a pm feature, so nobody would have to worry about their email address. However, if you would prefer, I’ve set up a disposable email address to send to. The address is messageboardlori-survey@yahoo.com Please answer the questions in whatever way you interpret the questions to mean. Obviously, there is no right or wrong way. Again, no names will be used. If I need to use a name I’ll make one up. I thank you all in advance for your help.
Here are the questions:

1. Who are you?

2. How old are you?

3. Where do you post from?

4. Why do you post?

5. What is your favorite website?

6. What is your favorite all time thread?

7. How many people have you met in person after meeting on a message board?

8. How long have you been posting?

9. How many boards do you regularly post on?

10. Tell me something you want me to know.

How can you hate a man who knows that his mom is behind his success? I honestly don’t get all the Bush bashing.  I think he has a great sense of humor!  Welcome To My Hanging

Talking Baby Doll….Scary

So this baby doll says things like “Islam is the light!”  I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want my little girl having this doll.  No matter what your beliefs are, I don’t think these innocent looking dolls should be sold like this.  If Fischer Price actually believed that this crap was ok, they would advertise it as such.  Or at least put on the box what the doll says.  But NOOOOOOOOOOO….they are sneaky and hide it.  Unsuspecting parents get home and their little girls open these cute little dolls on Christmas morning…what a shock.  Fischer Price is definitely on my “Do Not Buy List”  What the hell is the world coming to when even toy companies are trying to push this crap down our throats and using our innocent children to do it.

Ok, another rant.  It seems like I’ve been having a lot of rants lately, but what the hell is wrong with Bush? He’s pardoning all of these drug dealers and embezzlers, but these two men who were doing their jobs still sit in prison! 

I would expect this kind of crap from a democrat who believe in turning their backs on the military and law enforcement and coddling prisoners, and not making criminals responsible for their actions, but Bush to leave these two Border Patrol agents who were just doing their jobs rotting in prison is beyond belief.  I for one, as an American citizen and furious and bit insulted.  What the hell is he thinking?  It’s time we as citizens of the United States let Bush know that we have supported him, we have defended him, we have spent A LOT of time and energy countering the liberals and the liberal media, trying to give Bush a fair shake and then he pulls something like this?

I have sent him an email and I beg of you to do so!  We must let him know that these men MUST be released! We have stood by him, even when we may have questioned some of his actions.  The least he should do is to do the right thing!  Please folks, let him know how passionate we are about this issue.  Time is running out.  If he doesn’t pardon them, we know they will sit there for at least another four years, because we know Obama won’t back up law enforcement at all.  Call, email, snail mail….any or all….please let him know!  It is imperative!  Remember if these guys can be imprisoned for doing their jobs and our Republican President doesn’t step in, what might happen to you when we have such a weak and un-American President?

Ok, this is a gripe that isn’t quite political, but it can tie in there.  I just want to say that this country was founded on christian principles.  So why is it wrong to be a christian now?  I get so sick and tired of people tramping on my rights to say Merry CHRISTmas.  I don’t want a freaking holiday tree, I want a CHRISTMAS tree. 

I saw an article today that some atheist group put up a placard at the state capitol in Washington.  Apparently, it’s ok because there is also a Nativity Scene and a holiday tree.  WTF?  What has this country come to?  I know that things are cyclical and the pendulum swings and all that garbage, but when is it going to swing back to common sense? common values? common decency?  I am so disgusted by this entire thing.

Would it do any good to call our elected officials about this?  I just don’t know….how do we fix this problem?  With our political issues we can contact our representatives and we can get them voted out of office if they screw up too badly.  But this?  The only thing I can think of to do is to pray for the state of our country.  I’m going to challenge everybody who reads this to please, please take just a minute each day to pray for our country.  That is the only way we are going to get back to the principle values that our country was founded on.

I found this to be interesting but not surprising, I’ve been saying all a long that the Bay Area and So Cal combined have a larger population than most of the rest of the state put together. The same holds true for Chicago and the rest of Illinois. It seems that the cities lean left and the rest of the country leans right. I’d like to see a map of welfare recipients compared to these maps.

According to Barack Obama, “there are no blue states, no red states, only the United States of America”. That is the rhetoric one should expect from a president-elect, intent on overcoming the inevitable polarisation of an election campaign. Given the oppositional nature of politics in a democracy, however, it seems likely that a divide between Obamaland and McCain Country will continue to exist. But where exactly are these two political entities?

In 2004, a satirical map of Jesusland and the United States of Canada made the rounds of the internet, showing a red-state heartland bounded by a few coastal and northern blue states, joined up with the US’s northern neighbour Canada. That country’s perceived liberal political culture is seen by some as more in line with the ‘leftist’ leanings of the Democratic party, which dominates the blue states.

This year around, Jesusland has taken a beating, and the victorious blue states no longer feel as if they need northern comfort. Nine states have switched from red to blue: Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado in the west; Florida, North Carolina and Virginia in the south, and Indiana, Ohio and Iowa in the midwest. As a result, Obamaland consists of four separate chunks of territory, with West Virginia awkwardly poking its two panhandles into the largest of those four areas.

Interestingly, McCain Country still consists of one contiguous territory, but if the freshly defeated senator from Arizona would want to visit the outgoing president Bush on his Texas ranch, he would need to drive all the way north to Cheney Territory (i.e. Wyoming) and then south again through Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma to avoid ‘blue’ country. East of the Mississippi, and with the exception of Florida, redness is a southern thing. The northernmost ‘red’ point on the map, east of the Mississippi, is the aforementioned northern panhandle of West Virginia.

Obamaland fragments into a thousand little pieces when the map’s focus shifts to victories at the county rather than the state level. Obama tends to win in densely populated urban centres, that look isolated amidst all the rural red, which now reaches its northern zenith east of the Mississippi in upstate Maine. That little red island in a blue sea is the reverse of most of the rest of the map.

Obamaland’s terra firma is fragmented into a few large chunks: in the Northeast, west of the Great Lakes, a cluster in the southwest, and clinging to the West Coast.The rest are smaller archipelagoes and islands in an ocean of red.

These two cartograms and many others analysing the outcome of the 2008 US presidential election can be found on this excellent page at the University of Michigan, maintained by Mark Newman of the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems. Many thanks all those who provided me with a link to this page.

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old California rancher, whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man.

Eventually the topic got around to Barack Obama and his bid to be our President.

The old rancher said,”Well, ya know, Obama is a ‘post turtle’.”

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’ was.

The old rancher said,”When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’.”

The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain.

“You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he is up there, and you just want to help the poor idiot get down.”

I tend to surf the web to see what other’s are talking about, and how the response is to those posts so that I can get an idea of what is important to web surfers.  In doing so I found a post on trapshooters.com from a man that I have such tremendous respect for.  The post was about writing to our elected officials.  This post got me to thinking that yes, I do email my officials, and I know that I’m more politically driven than a lot of people, so I decided to issue a challenge to my readers.  I would like for my readers to contact their representatives at least once during the next month about an issue that is important to you. 

If you’ve agreed with a vote your representative made, let them know.  If you’ve disagreed with a vote, let them know.  If you have a very strong opinion about an upcoming vote, let them know.  Remember, they work for you!  How are they supposed to know how you feel if you don’t tell them.

For me I know it’s an exercise in futility when I contact my Senators.  My Senators are Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.  They are both absolutely worthless.  They are so liberal and out of touch with so many Californians.  We have a unique situation here in California.  The thing is that California has two polar opposite populations.  We have the cities, mainly the Bay Area and SoCal.  Most of the city dwellers are ultra liberal and/or welfare recipients.  These are generally liberals.  Obviously, the welfare recipients are liberal because they know that the conservatives want them to get off their lazy asses and get a job and take responsibility for themselves.  Anyway, unfortunately the population of these two major areas is greater than the population of the rural areas of the state, so even though these are just two areas, they control the vote.  I understand the same is true for Chicago and the rest of Illinois.  Anyway, given this situation, for now we are stuck with worthless Senators.  Thankfully, we have a reasonably good Congressman.  Although, George Radanovich did vote the bailout.  I did contact his office and tell him they he totally screwed up on that.

Here are a couple of tips for being taken seriously when you contact them-

1.  Be respectful.

2.  Be firm.

3.  Know what you are going to say and say it succinctly.

4.  Thank them for their time.

5.  Don’t curse, name call or threaten.

Here are the links to contact your Representatives:

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm

This is a right and duty of the great people of the United States of America.  You vote, you have a right to be heard.

I found this on another blog.  It’s hilarious.

“Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post

WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government’s executive branch.

“I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration,” said Obama. “He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet.”

Clinton said he was “excited and honored” by the appointment, and would work “day and night” to defeat all the key policy objectives proposed by Mr. Obama during the campaign.

“I am gratified that the President-Elect has entrusted me with this important responsibility,” said Clinton. “I’m looking forward to getting back behind, and under, the Oval Office desk again. As I have told the President-Elect, I pledge to do whatever I can to serve his historic administration by making sure that none of that bullshit he talked about during the campaign will ever see the light of day. Americans can rest assured that he will be safely confined to the East Wing, as far away as possible from any potentially dangerous office equipment or nuclear buttons.”

The long anticipated naming of Clinton to head Obama’s Oval Office team comes after a week that saw Obama appoint dozens of Clinton associates to his transition team including John Podesta, Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, Larry Summers, and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hundreds of other Clinton Administration holdovers are rumored to be in line for remaining appointments, including Bill Richardson, Janet Reno, Webb Hubbell, Chelsea Clinton, zombie Vince Foster, and zombie Socks the cat.

“Let’s face it, it’s obvious I’m in way over my head here,” explained Obama. “Anyone paying attention knows I am a disaster waiting to happen, and who can blame them? I mean, just look at the stock market. That’s why I think it’s in the best interest of the country that I hand over the reins to people who, whatever their ethical shortcomings, at least have a faint clue about what they’re doing. Come on, man. I’ve got a 401-k, too.”

While the naming of Clinton appears to have momentarily calmed jittery financial markets, it sparked ripples of disapproval at liberal websites like Huffington Post and DailyKos. The progressive blogosphere was an early key source of support for Mr. Obama’s candidacy, but a steady stream of Clinton-era appointees since the election has left some charging that he had betrayed his campaign promises to bring them to Washington as part of a sweeping culture of change — a charge that Mr. Obama vehemently accepted.

“Oh, for crissakes. Are you kidding me? Are you friggin’ kidding me?” asked Obama. “Of course I betrayed those goddamned idiots. Have any of you actually spent five minutes with them? I have, unfortunately. Nothing personal, but I wouldn’t trust these internet windowlickers with a plastic spork from Taco Bell, let alone a freaking $3 trillion dollar budget global superpower. Look, I may be naive, but I’m not stupid. And if Kose or Koz or whatever the fuck his name is thinks for one second I give a rat’s ass about who he wants in charge of the Treasury Department, he’s even stupider than he looks.”

“Look, I’m sorry I kinda snapped there, and pardon my French,” added Obama. “But I just spent the last two years surrounded by these starstruck moonbat retards, and I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna spend the next four with them parked in the next cubicle over.”

Obama also announced that he had accepted his own appointment of himself as an Assistant Undersecretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“It’s a fairly low-stress job that I’m reasonably qualified for,” said Obama. “I really can’t do much damage there, and it will give me plenty of free time for Oprah specials. Plus work on my next autobiography and re-election campaign.”"