exmearden

Do you recognize this document?

Subtitle: When is a pocket veto not a pocket veto?

 

Article 1, Section 7, Clause 2 If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law

There have been so many Bush crimes, so many little ones and big ones.  This is my first 2008 personal "V-8" moment. Bush's "pocket veto" of the Defense Authorization Bill on December 29, 2007. 

Yeah, so I'm a bit slow - give me a break. I've been on vacation.

But Congress hasn't been on vacation.

(also on Docudharma and Dailykos)

Salve, atque vale, G'Kar.

Come, my friends 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.

Olmsted, 38, dies in Iraqi ambush; 1st casualty of '08

"I'm sorry" isn't enough, really.

Rest in peace, Major Olmsted and Captain Thomas J. Casey.

"I'm dead. That sucks, at least for me and my family and friends," he wrote. "But all the tears in the world aren't going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.)" Major Andrew Olmsted

Who wants to live forever?

What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away from us Who wants to live forever  Who wants to live forever?

I watched as you passed by and thought I felt your breath for just a moment on my face, a gentle faerie vapor in the still air of the night. I brushed your hand in my dreams with my hand, an ethereal transfer of warmth from my flesh to spirit to your incorporeal flesh. That moment of space between life and death was filled, again, too briefly with transient comfort of your presence. 

But touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
And we can have forever And we can love forever

(also published in modified format at Dailykos)

Hunting grounds

My fourteen-year-old Whitechin wandered off in August. He rarely left our apartment and when he did, it was in the form of a devious escape.

At the height of his best years, he weighed over 20 pounds and could easily jump to the top of a six to seven foot fence from a crouched stance on the ground. Anytime some one laid on the floor to watch television or do yoga or cut construction paper for school projects, it was his cue to circle around and head butt other foreheads with his own triangular wedgehead. He could butt hard enough to cause a headache and he took great feline pleasure in the skill.

It's a wonderful life

(crossposted at Docudharma and Dailykos)

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Driving home from work overwhelms me if I let it. I see the hundreds of drivers in their solitary cars, some passengers, few passengers. I realize I, too, am alone in my car on a drive that could be achieved with far less stress and daily environmental angst if a decent light rail or a well-planned bus system existed in the Northwest metropolis I live in. It takes an hour and a half one way and three buses to attempt to public transit it to work from where I live, and a mere fifteen to twenty minutes by car. I have a car to drive, which is either a hybrid or a beater Nissan Sentra, both of which cost way too much of my income in insurance and gas costs with two teenagers at home.

	You - you said - what'd you say a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what?
Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down that they... Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars?