Deja Vu All Over Again

Boy this sure looks familiar..............

In a swift victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House approved a historically huge $819 billion stimulus bill Wednesday night with spending increases and tax cuts at the heart of the young administration's plan to revive a badly ailing economy.

The vote was 244-188, with Republicans unanimous in opposition despite Obama's pleas for bipartisan support. Eleven Democrats voted against the measure, while no Republicans supported it.

1993 - not a single Rethuglican vote for the Clinton package back then, not a single Rethuglican vote for the Obama package now. Just shows the Rethuglicans do not care about the country just about the politics of power. They figure voting for the package can gain them nothing, it it works to get us out of this Rethuglican mess Obama gets the credit anyway, if they vote no at least they can say I told you so.

Cooper - The Great Escape Part Duex

Well, Cooper had a very good week, after Sunday's rampage, right up until Friday evening. Cooper was enjoying time in the yard with Molly and her friends, doing better every day with his walking on a leash for our morning stroll and settling in to the family well.

Even our male cat(Tux) has been explaining things to Coop, "If I am laying in a doorway I am not moving for you so get over it and all the play bowing in the world will not entice me to wrestle with you, so go away."

We were out for dinner Friday and of course talking about how well Cooper was doing, all the while unbeknown to us young Master Cooper had pulled the great escape part duex! So much for zip stripping the crate door closed.

The wife came home to a destroyed fios remote, oatmeal throughout the living room and utter chaos. I got home just in time to see the oameal being vacumed and was sent off to find a way to secure the crate door. Well I think we have it this time , 4 strategically placed carabiners should solve the problem

Cooper is still very upset by noisy cars and trucks but other than that and his escape excapades he is doing well.

Cooper's New Blog

I have had several requests for Cooper only posts if at all possible, well here goes, from now on all Cooper posts will be cross posted at www.curlydog.com/cooper

I Am Used To Wingnuts Making Things Up! Shuster I Expect Better From However!

As Media Matters points out the wingnuts are making things up again.

Summary: Leading up to President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony, several media outlets have advanced the claim that Obama's inauguration will cost significantly more than President Bush's 2005 inauguration. Citing "estimates" ranging from $150 million to $170 million in total costs for Obama's inaugural events, the outlets have compared the purported total costs in 2009 to the approximately $42 million in private funds spent on Bush's 2005 inauguration. However, these outlets omit the additional costs of security, transportation, and other expenses incurred by federal, state, and local governments in conjunction with the events in 2005 while including them in the projections for the 2009 events.

But I truly do expect better from MSNBC and the likes of David Shuster. Now the real question I have is, will Olbermann or Maddow call him out on it tonight?

The Curlydog's Bad Day

Well Cooper had a tough day today, seems he is a bit of a Houdini and escaped his his crate while we were at Church today. So we came home to an absolute mess(well Molly and Deb did), tore apart a hassock and chair(where Maggie used to sleep), a tub of cat liter, Molly's glasses case and a few other odds and ends.

Well quite the shock to arrive home to. So we will be modifying the crates locking mechanism and the door this evening.

Why Paper Trails Matter - And Why Does The Person Ahead Always Say They Would Concede If Behind?

440 uncounted ballots found -

Busansky said she thinks the uncounted
ballots were the result of a combination of human and mechanical error at
the Temple Terrace precincts on election
night, when two of the three optical scan voting machines
in the church apparently broke down.

Elections workers "were unable to get any information out of the machines to
find out how many votes had been tabulated at the precincts," said Busansky's
chief of staff, Craig Latimer.

The optical scan voting system uses paper ballots, so even if the machines
fail there is a paper trail. That's one of the benefits of the state-mandated
switch to paper-trail voting in 2007 after a disputed congressional race.

Without the paper ballots as a backup,
election officials said, the 440 votes would have been lost forever.

"If a judge orders us to recount the votes, we still have the paper ballots,"
Latimer said.

David Penoyer, who lost by 84 votes to Mary Jane Neale in the Temple Terrace election, said Friday he is
leaning toward legal action to get all the votes counted.

Neale said she hopes the controversy does not end up in a courtroom.

"If I were in David's position, I'd handle it like Al Gore did," she said.
"I'd move on."

Great Moments?

Nice Farewell Dave!

Alan Colmes - Can He Redeem Himself?

I used to listen to Colmes all the time on the radio prior to his stint with Hannity and Colmes (one of the fuuioest things Fraken ever did), let's hope that after all these years playing lackey for Hannity he will redeem himself, well here's a start.

Fox Noise Just Making Shit Up! - I Call Bullshit!

For those who came to check up on Cooper, sorry but I must rant occasionally:

From Think Progress:

Today, President Bush left for Camp David for what is expected to be his last departure from the White House via Marine One. During Fox News’s coverage of the event, hosts Martha MacCallum and Wendell Goler tried to rewrite history for Bush:

GOLER: This president inherited a budget surplus, but he also inherited what he called “the trifecta of bad times.” There’s the president headed out to Marine One right now. […] He inherited the 9/11 attacks. He inherited the recession and he inherited some tough times on Wall Street.

Goler did not provide any explanation as to exactly how President Bush inherited those attacks. Watch it:

Bush did not inherit a recession:

The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee has determined that a peak in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in March 2001. A peak marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession. The determination of a peak date in March is thus a determination that the expansion that began in March 1991 ended in March 2001 and a recession began. The expansion lasted exactly 10 years, the longest in the NBER's chronology [1]. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is the private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization charged with determining economic recessions, the U.S. economy was in recession from March 2001 to November 2001, a period of eight months. However, economic conditions did not satisfy the common shorthand definition of recession, which is "a fall of a country's real gross domestic product in two or more successive quarters," and has led to some confusion about the procedure for determining the starting and ending dates of a recession.

Bush was warned about Bin Laden

The White House said tonight that President Bush had been warned by American intelligence agencies in early August that Osama bin Laden was seeking to hijack aircraft but that the warnings did not contemplate the possibility that the hijackers would turn the planes into guided missiles for a terrorist attack.

''It is widely known that we had information that bin Laden wanted to attack the United States or United States interests abroad,'' Ari Fleischer, the president's press secretary, said this evening. ''The president was also provided information about bin Laden wanting to engage in hijacking in the traditional pre-9/11 sense, not for the use of suicide bombing, not for the use of an airplane as a missile.''

Nonetheless the revelation by the White House, made in response to a report about the intelligence warning this evening on CBS News, is bound to fuel Congressional demands for a deeper investigation into why American intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had failed to put together individual pieces of evidence that, in retrospect, now seem to suggest what was coming.

In the past few days, government officials have acknowledged for the first time that an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix had urged the F.B.I. headquarters to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools. That memorandum also cited Mr. bin Laden by name and suggested that his followers could use the schools to train for terror operations, officials who have seen the memorandum said.

Administration officials reached this evening said the warning given to Mr. Bush did not come from the F.B.I. or from the information developed by the Phoenix agent. Instead, it was provided as part of the C.I.A. briefing he is given each morning, suggesting that it was probably based on evidence gathered abroad.

The C.I.A. had been listening intently over the July 4 holiday last year, after what one investigator called ''a lot of static in the system suggesting something was coming.'' But then the evidence disappeared as quickly as it had arisen, and by August, officials have said, little was heard from Al Qaeda.

The warning of the hijacking was given to the president at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., where he was on vacation.

He created this mess!!

Earlier this year Mr. Bush used projections of vast budget surpluses to push through a huge, 10-year tax cut. Most of that tax cut went to people with incomes of more than $200,000 per year. Now Mr. Daniels tells us that the budget -- not just the budget outside Social Security, but the whole enchilada -- will be in deficit through 2004. Since the administration's phony budget math (''fuzzy'' just doesn't cut it at this point) gets phonier the further you go into the future, this means that we have effectively returned to a state of permanent deficit.

Curlydog Update!

Cooper is adjusting well and Deb and Molly are not far behind :0)

Deb and Cooper had an eventful first day together, yesterday, Cooper knock her down(cut her legs out from under her) and hand two accidents inside, but today was a much better day.

Cooper has quickly become accustom to his crate, even went in to take a nap in his crate this afternoon all on his own.

We discovered some old stitches on the bottom back of his knee looks like 4 or 6 that have been there for some time. kind of a weird spot, and the vet never mentioned seeing them when he was neutered this week. He does not seem to favor the leg, he allows me to touch the area but Deb couldn't.

He gets pretty nervous when we all go our own way, Deb to her office me in the family room and Molly in her bedroom , he wanders nervously between the rooms. He has had a few moments with the cats but they are working it out. Overall better then expected.

Cooper The Curlydog

What a great first night, Cooper(of course after surgery today) was an absolute joy on his first night home. He seems to have had more training than he showed at the County Kennel, he is interested in the cats but only wants to say hi. He has fallen asleep laying by Deb's chair and the cats have been wandering by. Here's another couple shots..........

Cooper Is Home!!!

Cooper the new "Curlydog" is Home!!!!!

Cooper is going to be a wonderful addition to the family, he is a friendly lovable young fella who just needs a little direction in life, I am just sitting and watching Molly and Deb get him settled, he is a little nervous but doing great. He feels safest when he is next to me so I kicked back in my chair and I am letting the girls get to know him.



Cooper is a little bit darker then Maggie was, currently weighs in at 70lbs, has an ear infection, which we knew about & will be quickly treated and resolved. He seems house broken, at some point in time was taught sit and down but needs some work. He seems to be very nervous about a come command, but once he is feeling a little less nervous overall and recovered from the snip we will get working on that.

I want to send a special thanks to Sarah at CBRRescue.com for the lead on Cooper and all the support through the 10 day saga!!!

Thanks to the Citrus County Animal Services, it was a frustrating process at times, but they wanted to be sure the right thing was done and you have to respect that.

The Curlydog Odyssey Continues

We are still on hold until morning, they have not heard anything yet.

The Orange County Animal Services did indicate they spoke to a neighbor that the
people who live(d) at the address did have a dog that meets Coop's description,
but no one has been seen at the house since the 1st.

The director at Citrus County wants to wait until morning to see if any calls come
in to the overnight voice mail.

If none do they hope to release for neutering in the morning....I think they are
paranoid because of the Dog Show in Brooksville....they fear being sued.

My theory is these people moved and decided they could not take Coop and were too embarrassed to turn him into Animal Services so they turned him in as a stray
at an animal hospital.

So let's keep our fingers crossed!

The Curlydog Odyssey

 I had hoped to be writing this evening about how excited we all were that our newest family was home with us, but alas, that was not to be.

I received a call this morning from the Citrus County Animal Services indicating that they had placed another hold on our adoption of "Cooper". (not sure how you place a hold on something that is already completed, but since I do not have Cooper and they sorta do, he is actually at the vets, we play by their rules.

It seems that there is a LARGE (23,000 entrents) dog show going on in Brooksville just down the road in Hernando County and there is some report of a missing dog. So they had just called the vet and placed the neutering on hold.

They had decided they needed to make sure they had taken every step to see if the dog could be returned. So they were going to have Orange County Animal Services place a 24 notice on the door of the last address they had for the original registrant of the microchip.

Now I really do not want to separate a dog from its family if at all possible, but I do have a few concerns, first the dog was recovered on the 30th of December, I first heard about the dog from CBRRescue on the 5th, I received only vague info as they were driving and did not have their notes handy, yet I found the dog within 7 minutes of browsing the Internet, how could they have not found their dog in 12 days? Second, the dog show angle makes no sense to me as the show started the 8th and ends the 18th, the dog was found the 30th and again if that were the case would it even remotely be likely that they(the owners) would not have found the dog. Plus the AKC shows no registration to the name that was on the original microchip registration.

I do believe they are doing the correct thing by placing the notice, I just hope it is not a case where someone who no longer wanted the dog suddenly feels guilty and obilgated to reclaim him.  I also wish they had taken that step before allowing us to get so invested in the dog emotionally, we were all very excited and Molly is heartbroken.

Well it either will be oor won't be, now we just wait and hope that the best thing for "Cooper" is what happens.

We should know at the end of the day Tuesday.

The New Curlydog - Cooper

Meet Cooper the new "Curlydog"





.....the pictures are from the shelters web cam, we will have more pictures soon(read that as "better pictures").

We decided we wanted to go with a rescue dug if at all possible, knowing how many animals are being turned into shelters as people struggle with the economy. So we called Chesapeake Bay Retriever Relief & Rescue about a dog they had in Atlanta that was just what we were looking for, Male and still young(about a year old), but Deacon was already adopted. However the folks at CBR Rescue pointed us to a dog they were trying to move out of a county shelter about 90 miles north of here. Male and 13 months old "Cooper" was on hold pending research of his microchip. After 3 days of calls back and forth the folks at the shelter had reached a dead end on the microchip, so we (Deb, Molly and I) went to see "Cooper" yesterday. He is absolutely beautiful and an incredible bundle of unbridled energy. I went back today to complete the adoption and we pick him up from the vet Monday evening (the shelter requires all purebreds to be neutered before delivery)

We are going to have our hands full, Cooper shows little signs of any real obedience training and is incredibly strong to go with all the energy. It's going be quite a change from our old girl, so stay tuned and we will continue to update you on Cooper's integration into the family.

"W" Achieves Major Goals For His Administration!!

Ol' George W had a few important goals for these past four years, two in particular reducing illegal immigration and the "war on porn".

Well he has succeeded at both, illegal immigration is down and the porn industry is begging for a bailout.

Too bad he had to trash the economy to actually have an accomplishment to boast about.

Our Police State

More Groups Than Thought Monitored in Police Spying
New Documents Reveal Md. Program's Reach

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored -- and labeled as terrorists -- activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a "security threat" because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: "civil rights."

According to hundreds of pages of newly obtained police documents, the groups were swept into a broad surveillance operation that started in 2005 with routine preparations for the scheduled executions of two men on death row.

The operation has been called a "waste of resources" by the current police superintendent and "undemocratic" by the governor.

Police have acknowledged that the monitoring, which took place during the administration of then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), spiraled out of control, with an undercover trooper spending 14 months infiltrating peaceful protest groups. Troopers have said they inappropriately labeled 53 individuals as terrorists in their database, information that was shared with federal authorities. But the new documents reveal a far more expansive set of police targets and indicate that police did not close some files until late 2007.
..............

The surveillance program became public largely because of documents released during a trespassing trial for Obuszewski, the nuns and another activist arrested during an antiwar rally at the National Security Agency. The documents showed that Baltimore intelligence officers were tracking them. The American Civil Liberties Union then filed public records requests with several law enforcement agencies. When the state police refused to release what they had, the ACLU sued.

O'Malley condemned the monitoring as a politically motivated mistake and moved quickly to seek answers. He appointed Sachs, who had prosecuted Catholic activists for raiding a Selective Service office in 1968.

Sachs called the spying a "systemic failure" that violated federal regulations and said police were oblivious to the activists' rights to free expression and association.

The Maryland State Police have changed their policies and plan to solicit advice from the ACLU, the General Assembly, prosecutors and police about regulations that would raise the bar for intelligence-gathering to "reasonable suspicion" of a crime.

Some activists have responded by redoubling their efforts.

Pat Elder, a Bethesda advocate who organizes a demonstration on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the gates of Lockheed Martin's headquarters, sent a public message to police last month on a local Web site.

"Did it ever occur to you that we're on the side of the good guys and you're not?" Elder wrote in an open letter to the NSA, the Maryland State Police and Montgomery police. "How do you think it makes us feel to know you're looking over our shoulders this way?"

A Little Blast From The Past

Al Rodgers from the DailyKos reminds us of the Smack Down Former Senator Norm (that was fun to type)received from George Galloway back in 2005....it is a long video but worth the watch.....fast forward to 6:30 then watch Norm get kicked about

Franken Wins!!!!!!!

Senate recount is complete; Franken up by 226

Norm Coleman's term as a U.S. Senator ended at noon Washington time on Saturday, and by evening his hopes of winning a second term had been dealt an expected but serious setback as state officials counted previously rejected absentee ballots in St. Paul.

Democrat Al Franken held an unofficial lead of 226 votes over Coleman, according to a newspaper tally of officials' count of the absentee ballots. Franken had led unofficially by 49 votes going into the day and gained a net 177 votes from the new ballots.

Now that the legally required recount is complete will Norm do the right thing and concede.

At a news conference Wednesday morning, Coleman said that Franken has a choice not to go through with a recount. According to Coleman, Minnesota history has shown that very few votes will change in a recount.

Coleman said the odds of anything changing with a recount are "extremely remote." Coleman also encouraged Franken to handle it the "Minnesota way" by not dragging it out in the courts.

Time to buck up Norm.