October 11, 2015

Do you remember the abandoned kitten I found in my back yard last summer?

He was scrawny, malnourished, crusted with fleas, yucky eyes and so close to death that flies had already laid eggs on him.

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I really didn't expect him to make it, but he proved to be tougher than I thought. Here's my Boogie Man a little more than a year later.
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He has turned out to be a great little cat and quite the handsome young man, don't you think?

August 27, 2015

Former Little Rock School Board Member Dianne Curry Running for US House

LITTLE ROCK - A former member of the Little Rock School Board said Wednesday she's running for a U.S. House seat in central Arkansas, the first Democrat to launch a congressional bid in the state for 2016.

Dianne Curry said she was running for the party's nomination to challenge Republican Rep. French Hill in the 2nd Congressional District. Hill was elected in November and is seeking a second term in the House.

"I feel that I have the ability and I have had the ambition for a long time to move forward," Curry told The Associated Press. "For me, this is an opportune time to move forward and represent the people of my community."

<snip>

Curry said she'll detail her campaign proposals in the coming months but that she wants to focus on health, education, jobs and the economy.

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/106779/former-little-rock-school-board-member-dianne-curry-running-for-us-house

August 24, 2014

Do y'all remember my post about the dying kitten I found on my doorstep a few weeks ago? New pics!

The poor little thing was about 4 weeks old, emaciated, flea encrusted and covered with flies (and their eggs). I brought him in, bathed him, offered him food and water and prepared a warm place for him to die. To my surprise, he survived!

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This was taken a few days after I found him in late June. Not much to look at.

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This was taken in late July. Still a little ratty looking, but getting better.

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This was taken a few days ago while we were enjoying a little time on the front porch.

Gone are the icky eyes, the picket fence backbone and washboard ribs. Did you notice that shiny coat, those bright eyes and how muscular he's getting? He is developing a real personality, too, full of piss and vinegar, but still a lovey when it suits him. I've had to introduce him to the squirt bottle when he gets a little too rough, but he's learning. My legs look like I've been running through a briar patch bare-legged, but I'm healing. He sleeps with me every night and has learned that sleeping on my face is not allowed, but other than that, I make a pretty good cat bed.

I had initially named him Critter, but I found myself calling him Boogie (as in the Full Tilt variety) so often that he has had a name change. And just like a kid, when you buy him a new toy. . . .

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And all he wants to do is play with the box.

July 3, 2014

Critter update with pics.

It's been about a week since I posted anything new. Critter continues to thrive. He's eating dry kitten food along with the wet food and is using the litter box consistently (yay), although he doesn't have the hang of covering up yet. He's alert, playful and affectionate. When I wake up in the morning and when I get home from work, he's waiting for me.

He has gained some weight, his backbone doesn't poke up and feel like a picket fence anymore. I can't let him sleep with me yet because he wants to lay on my face. We'll work on that. When I hold him, he wants to maintain skin contact.

It's hard to get a picture of him awake because he's always moving.

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As you can see, he's still pretty small.

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His coat is still a little rough, but his belly is nice and rounded now.

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Checking out the new kitty cube.

January 19, 2014

Freedom Industries files for bankruptcy

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201401170030

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Freedom Industries, the company that fouled thousands of West Virginians' water with a chemical leak into the Elk River last week, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday.

Freedom owes $3.6 million to its top 20 unsecured creditors, according to bankruptcy documents. The company also owes more than $2.4 million in unpaid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, and the IRS has placed at least three liens on Freedom's property, demanding payment.

The unpaid taxes date back to at least 2000, according to a lien filed in 2010.

Under the bankruptcy code, Chapter 11 permits a company to reorganize and continue operating.

The filing also puts a hold on all of the lawsuits filed against Freedom Industries. Since the leak last week, about a mile and a half upriver from West Virginia Water American's plant in Charleston, about 25 lawsuits have been filed against Freedom in Kanawha Circuit Court. The company also faces a federal lawsuit.

more at link

October 13, 2013

The Ten Hardline Conservatives Pulling the Strings of the GOP Shutdown

http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/11/the-ten-hardline-conservatives-pulling-the-strings-of-the-gop-shutdown/

Much of the coverage of the government showdown has focused on a relatively small group of hardline conservatives within the Republican caucus who have backed their party’s leaders into a fight they didn’t want.
As Ryan Lizza noted in The New Yorker, these lawmakers mostly represent very safe, heavily Republican and disproportionately white districts that don’t look much like the rest of the country. Many of those on the front lines are recent arrivals to Capitol Hill, and they’re pushing a leadership they see as having been too willing to compromise with Democrats in the past.

It’s an important angle. Yet it also obscures what should be an obvious question: Since when do freshmen senators or one- or two-term reps push their congressional leadership around? Historically, it’s been the reverse. And since when does a newcomer to the Senate such as Ted Cruz (R-TX) have the right to tell House Republicans what to do? If there’s only a relatively small group of lawmakers who think defunding the law is a dandy idea, why has every budget resolution with such a provision won more than 200 Republican votes in the House of Representatives during the showdown? Why is this supposedly silent majority of Republicans so docile? Why don’t they push back?

More at link.

Be sure to click through to the interactive feature.

October 6, 2013

Deadlock.

The President cannot give in.

<snip>

House Republicans have shut down the government and are threatening to keep the government shuttered not in order to delay further discussion on a pending bill, but rather in an attempt to rewrite the history of the legislature, to override a Constitutional law that has already been decided and judged constitutional before the Supreme Court.

<snip>

If we allow extremists to hold us hostage, they will continue to hold us hostage and we open the door to any extremist who disagrees with the majority.

If they are successful, then the very next use of this tactic will be its use to defund any portion of our civilization that the outvoted minority vehemently disagrees with, from abortion to immigration to energy to climate change to gay rights to evolution right on across the political spectrum to oil drilling and nuclear power to gun control to the military to law enforcement.

http://www.stonekettle.com/

October 4, 2013

Arkansas Attorney General Approves Medical Marijuana Ballot Language

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has approved the wording of a proposal for next year's ballot legalizing medical marijuana.

McDaniel on Thursday certified the proposal submitted by Arkansans for Compassionate Care, clearing the way for the group to begin gathering the 62,507 signatures needed to place the proposed initiated act on next year's ballot.

The proposal would allow patients with qualifying conditions to purchase marijuana from nonprofit dispensaries or to grow their own marijuana if they don't live close to a dispensary. A competing marijuana legalization measure certified by McDaniel is nearly identical, but does not allow for patients to grow their own.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care was behind a medical marijuana proposal that voters narrowly rejected in November. Several other marijuana legalization proposals have been submitted to McDaniel's office.
http://www.ktts.com/news/Arkansas-Attorney-General-Approves-Medical-Marijuna-Ballot-Language-226392471.html

August 25, 2013

I'm listening to Gov. Jindal on MTP. He keeps repeating that Republicans want to

"repeal and replace Obamacare". However, I haven't heard any discussion of a Republican plan. Have I missed something?

April 21, 2013

And They Are Us

http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/04/and-they-are-us.html?m=1