I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Jackie - it's normal for summer here. It is a sub tropical climate. A bit unusual to have it in the morning though.

Blue sending big hugs. Furbabies are so important. Kia kaha- stay strong

Kam, things are good as gold here and this place is not to bad either.  Come on you lot we are not some remote uncivilised place, we even get Fox News here too, hehehe. Yes NZ is a small place which has made even countries like the USA stand back and take notice. We still won't let your warships in here because you won't say if they are carrying nuclear weapons or if they are nuclear powered, this place is nuclear free and relatively GE free as well.  NZ is a very beautiful country with wonderful scenery. Our biggest city is only 1.5 million and the country is 4.4million so we are small.

And most of Australia is very similar to NZ, yes parts of the east coast would be more like California but not entirely. I love visiting Australia because the scenery is so varied and very dynamic. We can have a lot of fun with the Aussies and even some good fights but don't be mean to either of us cause we will just join forces and support each other.

Was looking for something funny to put on another thread when I realised that hen houses and foxes had very different meanings for me and you. Most were politic which wasn't what I was looking for. Its funny that we speak the same language but that things can have very different meanings.

Blue:  Virgil is in my thoughts as are you. 

Not: I knew this stuff, but haven't done it for a few years - I'm a litigation type of attorney.  Thanks for the reminder.

VIRGIL - we're all surrounding you with LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, please get well, hugs to Blue & Ray too...

SO, SO, SO wrenchingly painfully hard when a beloved furbaby is sick, he knows how much you love him, Blue.

Us too....

Rush must be so proud:

It’s one thing to incite boycotts, stir the outrage of millions, inspire hate in one of our two genders, even shed advertisers like…well, Rats Leaving The Sinking Ship, but when one man’s big, fat mouth can gas business so badly a top radio company tumbles right off the NASDAQ, you know things have taken a turn.

All Access reported today that Dial Global, one of the largest radio programming companies in the country, has chosen to “voluntarily delist from NASDAQ” for the following reasons:

“Based on our current financial projections, absent additional debt or equity capital from third parties, we anticipate that we will breach our debt leverage and interest coverage covenants for the quarters ended DECEMBER 31st, 2012 and beyond. Such expected non-compliance is a result of several factors. We believe our 2012 results were adversely impacted by, among other things, late cancellations in ad buys (which we believe was a by-product of the election and renewed economic uncertainty), competitive factors, such as a greater diversity of digital ad platforms (into which ad budgets have flowed) and increased competition from our major competitors, and advertisers’ response to controversial statements by a certain nationally syndicated talk radio personality in MARCH 2012.” [Emphasis added.]

Translation: Rush Limbaugh’s Fluke Diatribe and the subsequent exile of advertisers from his show and, it turns out, talk radio in general, ultimately crushed programming star Dial Global…right off the NASDAQ.

While Limbaugh’s show is not affiliated directly with Dial Global (he’s syndicated by Clear Channel),Daily Kos lays out the connection:

The Limbaugh team produce content that is carried, and made available (in radio industry parlance, syndicated) by Clear Channel’s talk radio subsidiary, Premiere Networks….Premiere Networks has contracted with about 40 Cumulus radio stations to carry Limbaugh. Same for other radio networks, such as CBS and Dial Global

Many of us anticipated that the first real fallout from the advertiser boycott would come next year, when Cumulus contracts for the Rush Limbaugh Show expire. We did not anticipate that Dial Global would be the first network to fall because of the advertiser boycott (and the other issues identified by Dial Global).

And fall it did. And while there are clearly other issues contributing to Dial Global’s decline, let’s not forget their own statement of cause included the following –  “advertisers’ response to controversial statements by a certain nationally syndicated talk radio personality in MARCH 2012.” Clearly the many grassroots campaigns boycotting advertisers who continued to support Mr. Limbaugh and his particular brand of hate-speak had their impact. Dial Global’s ultimate tumble makes clear that some “trickle-down” theories actually do work.

I am sitting here under two blankets in my 59 degree house with a broken furnace on the first day of firearm deer deason. No my DH is not hunting but "the guy" he is going to call is and we have to wait to call him until sometime this afternoon. It will be in the fifties toady and thirties overnight and we have power and have not been hit by a storm but BRRR.

I am doing my part. there are two big pots of chicken stock cooking on the stove and I will bake brownies later.

I did want to say that it is getting harder and harder for some people to pretend they have the moral high ground when people are beginning to see that what they are standing on is a pile of organic fertlizer of the bovine variety.

Rosemary, good luck with the furnace.  Hope it can be fixed soon!

Blue, I'm thinking of you and Ray and sweet Virgil. Little guy must be freaking out. Please update when you can. In the meantime, hold him and love him.

I don't much care for Ms. McCain, but she is making some very intelligent remarks about the future of the regressive party.

I rarely look into the mirror now. It's cracked. It's disorted. DH and I were discussing the subject of hate this morning. Magnanimously we agree that hate is due to fear and insecurity and a closed heart. But the haters don't want to open their hearts or their minds. It's way easier to spew lies and more hate to validate their positions. I don't think we can change any of that, yet I "hate" to give up on such a large section of America...

AnneW - crossposting - I too was amazed to see the level of HATE - think it's more than fear & insecurity.  I do think racism comes into it, and the FACT that the United States of America is going to be "browner" and more  (THANK GOD!) diverse than it ever was - with ALL of us working together - and appreciating the CONTRIBUTION everyone makes to the community.

"Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" and the 1950's aren't coming back - and when they WERE around, millions of us were not living the lives they represented.  MILLIONS OF US.  The "dominant" culture in the USA is no longer White, Anglo Saxon, Protestant ( does anyone else remember when the word WASP was used) - and good riddance to it!  We are a nation of immigrants, always have been, always will be, and I still like to remind my DAR ( remember, Daughters of the American Revolution from your youth?) friends - that MANY MANY of the early, ah, immigrants were TRANSPORTED ( also Australia of course) convicts, debtors, and those who came to the shores then OCCUPIED by Native Americans, came for RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

Sorry for the rant, once a student of Howard Zinn ( Boston University), always, etc.  People's History of the United States might be a book some of the current haters would benefit from reading.

{{{{{HUGS, HUGS, HUGS to Virgil.}}}}

Belinda, I especially liked reading the comments below Ms McCains comments

Belinda....thanks.  I really enjoyed that article.  Like Anne I don't favor Ms. McCain all that much but she has identified much of the Regressives problems.  Fairly well too.  If they could tear themselves away for long enough from their "programmers" who daily steal parts of their brains, they would be able to see WHO their real enemies are. 

I think I have said before and maybe it is ok for a repeat......if you are truly a RESPONSIBLE person you will gather information from RELIABLE sources -- and make your own determinations.  Not let some stupid whining entertainment system control your brains.  Or...on the other hand, you can go down with the ship.....like the Limbaughs and Hamnitys of this world. At least Ms. McCain has the guts to face it all.  Even if I don't care for her, she is not afraid to be realistic and not take the garbage in-garbage out route.  Good for her.

Jackie

All fingers, toes and paws crossed here for Virgil (((blue)))

I like Meghan McCain.  She has spoken up all along about the extremists and taken the flack she got as a result (most all of it aimed at her gender and her weight and ignoring the substance of her comments).  She's pro-life but makes it clear that she does not want to make that choice for others and has supported gay marriage.  She was born and raised in Republican circles and is understandably going to have a hard time leaving them completely but does not like what her party has become.  Neither do I.  It is people like her who may be able to take the party back from the crazies and I wish them well.  We really do need 2 reasonable political parties to keep things in balance IMO.

I had an 'OMG next week is Thanksgiving' moment yesterday.  Followed by a trip to the grocery store ... where I met up with a whole bunch of other people who must have had the same brain flash.   

Hope your furnace problem is minor and they get it fixed quickly Rosemary!

I love that we have our Aussie and NZ friends here too.  I remember that some time back we had a very funny case of "whoa ... say what???  that doesn't mean here what it means there" but I can't recall exactly what it was.  Darn swiss cheese brain.

WR - Fanny Pack!

Well said Kam......

Jackie

Gold medal gymnast, I think?