Who is Blagojevich really talking to...

... with his tour of the media?

OBAMA

I think the tour is an implied threat to tell what he knows. I doubt Blag goes to trial.

Cat Update for Pamela

He is adjusting remarkably well to his new life inside. To say the least.

Dogs are okay but I won't be working at home until April or May so they are alone during the days.

Yup, we are creating jobs, that's for sure. And it is a good thing, since apparently under the Lord Merciful Messiah Obama white men can't work construction any more. HT Hoosier Boy

Construction

Junk pile: Thanks Fire!

One thing I never thought about in a fire. A huge amount of stuff gets wet, frozen, broken, smoked or generally crapified.

This is a 6-foot stack of crap. This crap came from every nook and cranny in my house. Last week it was in a crap stack in what was once my great room. You have to go through the crap, piece by piece and make an inventory. I hear the insurance then gives you a pittance for your crap.

Text of Rick Warren's prayer

Almighty God, our Father:

Everything we see, and everything we can’t see, exists because of you alone.

It all comes from you, it all belongs to you, it all exists for your glory.

History is your story.

The Scripture tells us, "Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is one." And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.

Now today we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time, we celebrate a hinge point of history with the inauguration of our first African American president of the United States.

We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where a son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven.

Give to our new president, Barack Obama,

the wisdom to lead us with humility,
the courage to lead us with integrity,

the compassion to lead us with generosity.

Bless and protect him, his family, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet, and every one of our freely elected leaders.
Help us, O God, to remember that we are Americans--united not by race or religion or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all.

When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you--forgive us.

When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone--forgive us.

When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve--forgive us.

And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes—even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve, and to seek the common good of all.

May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy, and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet.

And may we never forget that one day, all nations--and all people--will stand accountable before you.

We now commit our new president and his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life—Yeshua, 'Isa, Jesus [Spanish pronunciation], Jesus—who taught us to pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,

for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

Inauguration reaction

After listening to the inauguration speech, all I can say is if Obama can do all that, what's he going to do on the eighth day?

After 3 hours, my reaction:

He starts out saying he is humbled, but his agenda is anything but humble. It strikes me as either naive or insane.

After Reagan won, his motto was: It's morning in America! As a young liberal at the time, I remember thinking: Who was unhappy? I was really happy with Carter. I thought everyone was thrilled with him.

Now I listen to the "we are one" crowd and I think, who is more unified now with the looney left than they were before? I can't see it myself. I don't feel unified.

But I did LOVE Rick Warren's prayer that among other things called for more civility. That would be great.

Coming to America soon!

According to the British Taxpayers Alliance, the top 10 useless government jobs for 2008 include:

* "Street Football Coordinator £19,887," plans street soccer games for the local children who apparently are unable to get the games going on their own.

* "Sport and physical activity development officer - £34,695-£37,368," nags locals to play sports or exercise.

* "Climate Change Manager: £34,542-£38,562," nags locals to think green.

* "Sex Work Strategy Co-ordinator £27,594-£29,762," thinks up something to do with all the prostitutes about.

* "Food Policy Officer. £30,598-£33,291," nags locals into eating what the city government wants them to eat.

* "Senior Play Ranger. £28,778-£31,068," plays with the local kids who, apparently, can't play on their own.

10. "Parenting Coordinator. £27,594-£29,728." nags parents into raising their children in the government-approved fashion.

Toot takes up residence in my office

I say again: I'm allergic to cats and they give me asthma. But I'm kind of enjoying Toot in the temporary office. Toot looks happy to be out of the -17 weather, too!

Expensive Inaugurations are Good When Democrats Are Spending The Money

Brent Bozell spells it out. When Bush threw a pricey inauguration, the AP attacked him and listed everything else he could spend the money on. Now that we're teetering on the edge of a depression and Obama is going to spend twice as much on his inauguration, AP thinks it's awesome!

You have to love the media. No liberal bias, though. No, indeed.

Holy Moly

Soo Cold out there. I captured the kitty Toot and have confined him to the office.

The lovely and talented Pamela did send me a link to a solar water heater, which I still might get. But it is just too cold for a small cat to live outside.

So I'm living with him inside, allergies and all...

ah choo!

Fire update: We're in the house with dogs, but no chest of drawers!

There is 4 inches of Globally Warmed snow on the ground with subzero temps predicted for tomorrow.

I am afraid for our kitten, who still lives at the burned house. I had a heated water bowl and cat mat for him, but they require ELECTRICITY.... exactly what we don't have at the old house right now. I've been going over with food and water every day. I'm afraid the weather will be so bad I won't be able to get to him one day this week. Food I can load up but water freezes in an hour or so. He has to drink fast. He's been crawling through our crawl space and going up through the burned out floor into the house. It is so COLD in the house but no wind. He found a memory foam mattress pad that was left in the house and is sleeping on it. I piled feather pillows around it so he can snuggle in. (Smoke restoration people don't do feather pillows so they are still in the house).

Does anyone know of a kind of battery powered heating thing I can put water in for the cat?

I'm at work in a new office about 20 minutes away from our temporary house, and the muttleys are hanging out in the garage of our temporary house, their necks properly ruffled as Pamela requested. You might have seen the comment my husband Mark made in another post, that he put in a dog door. He's my hero! So there is progress. We're hoping we might be back in our house in June (please God, not JULY!)

I admit I've been whining quite a bit recently and have been not at all the inspiration that Patrick thinks. (But thanks for the thought :-)

We have borrowed a lot of things from friends and neighbors for our temporary house. Insurance company rented some furniture, but sheesh, I never thought of how many things one has to bring into an empty house. I got a set of pans for Christmas that I am using. And the sheets I wanted for Christmas, we are using. At one point I was longing for a simple trash can. (We finally bought one) Now I am dying for a chest of drawers. We can't find one to rent or borrow. We don't have that many clothes, but what we do have are all over the floor of the spare bedroom, in boxes. Can't find anything. I've been running back to the burned house looking for extra hangers on the thought that maybe we can hang EVERYTHING.

Children Coerced to Come Together and Worship "The One"

In Chicago, 800 kids from two elementary schools were rounded up to create a 150 foot, helicopter-viewable portrait of Barack Obama.

Pay special attention to the worshipful reporting from the true-believers at MSNBC. How wonderful it all is, all the children getting together to show their love of and obedience to our new Glorious Leader.

Just makes my heart go pitter-patter.

No dogs home yet, but tomorrow we move

Thursday our dogs will be with us!

Most splendid

What I am listening to over and over... The late Jeff Buckley.


Hallelujah

Fire update

We have finally seen an adjuster, 12 days after our fire! Holidays, vacations, etc., made it impossible to get one there sooner.

We have a temporary house, thank God, that we'll move into on Tuesday. Hotels can get very uncomfortable when they are not in a vacation spot. :-)

Thanks Pamela, JuneBug, Kevin, Fish, and everyone for your comments.

Our furniture has been packed off for cleaning. We lost very very few personal things, like pictures and such. The fire really just burned out the floors and walls on the south side of our house.

I hate working on this laptop and I am sick of this hotel.

We'll get the dogs back on Tuesday!! Yippee!! Little guys have probably lost hope.

Haven't had the heart to take any more pictures.