Monday, November 01, 2010

The candidates are all out shaking hands today...


































And yesterday!

Howard Dean and Rep. Peter Welch, campaigned with Peter Shumlin!
As the trio traveled to breakfast spots around Burlington, Dean was the one many diners most readily recognized and wanted their photos taken with.

34 comments:

  1. Bright, honest candidates are First, and Howard Dean is ever First among them!

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  2. Back in town and gettin' caught up...

    Merciful Heavens! What wonderful news for Ally and all her [extended] family!!!!!!!

    Lordy, puddle! What a pronunciation poem!


    Went up to help Naomi purchase a new car, a Honda Fit (AKA Jazz):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5dIzY7yvRA

    She's happy as a clam at high tide--it's her first (and new) automobile, just before the bus she has been depending on turns into a pumpkin. Got just the color she wanted (as in the video above), and didn't get taken too badly. She managed to work in about ten hours' driving lessons in the past week, and several more with Daddy on Saturday and Sunday with her new car; she seems OK for her commute to work and other predictable things. Honda is just about giving money away--0.9% financing. The Fit/Jazz is a very nice small automobile--incredibly roomy, lots of features one wouldn't expect in an entry level vehicle, plenty zippy, and easy on the gas. Good solid feeling. All in all an excellent vehicle for city use.

    TTFN

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  3. Very nice choice, Alan, colour included. The video is funny! I watched it with the sound off, cheered when I saw the books, and laughed when I saw the typewriter! (Not a laptop? Ha!) Amazing that it can hold a bicycle standing up!

    YAH!!! We are super delighted about Ally's news!!


    Anyone who needs a dose of cuteness, don't miss my last post on the last thread. ;-)

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  4. Dean sighting: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20101101/NEWS03/101031014/-1/TOPICS0206/Shumlin-partners-with-Welch-Dean-to-woo-Chittenden-County-voters

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  5. Bright. Sunny. COLD ~~ we haven't made 40ยบ yet, and it's past noon. . . . Guess winter really is coming. . . .

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  6. Freedom Of Screech
    College | North Carolina, USA

    (I’m an Admissions Officer and am working at a college fair. We are not religiously affiliated. I run into an alum.)

    Me: “Hi, is your daughter interested in [college]?”

    Alum: “I’m an alum. Class of ‘83.”

    Me: “Fantastic! I’m Class of ‘04. Can I answer any questions for you?”

    Alum: “I won’t be letting my daughter look here. I have some issues with how [college] is being run. God is not happy with you, and neither am I.”

    Me: “I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am. If you’d like, I’d be happy to take your comment back to the Vice President of-”

    Alum: “Are you aware that you let in students with liberal views and speakers with socialist leanings?”

    Me: “Ma’am, we have a great deal of speakers on campus with a variety of view points.”

    Alum: “The school has gone downhill since we let in those people! So I’ve stopped giving money. You can take that back to them. You’ll no longer see my $25 a year.”

    Me: “Ma’am, as an alum myself, I’m proud to have graduated from a school that encourages both freedom of thought and speech in our students and speakers.”

    Alum: “You don’t need freedom of speech if you let Jesus think for you.”

    http://notalwaysright.com/freedom-of-screech/6616

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  7. You know, puddle, that just gives me cold chills. Because I know there are a multitude of people out there who would totally agree with Alum.

    btw, I don't know if you remember the ridiculousness of "ebonics", not to mention the not-so-subtle insult of it. But since so many of the tightie-righties can't spell for beans some have suggested they speak "teabonics".

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  8. listener, yesterday's photo is a knockout! It should be on the cover of a book or something.

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  9. Alum: “You don’t need freedom of speech if you let Jesus think for you.”

    Dear God!

    The funny or maybe pathetic thing is, if you actually *read* the Gospels you find that Our Lord is dead set against divorce but, other than that, he's perty derned lefty. I've always wondered how Bible thumping wing nuts manage to miss that.

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  10. I feel sad reading this, because I know a number of people who take a Christian right view who would never ever suggest that there shouldn't be freedom of speech and thought, and who would shake their heads over anyone suggesting that belief in Christ means you don't have to think for yourself.

    If this story isn't just fiction then it's highlighting an exception. I'm serious. There are people who lean in that direction but not to that extreme extent. I think it's at very least a dramatisation.

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  11. Well, since it's a website, and anyone can report a story, I suppose it could be fiction. But I live around people who pretty much put their brains to sleep because the believe that being their flavor of Christian is at conflict with using it. Since the Mormon church has come out in favor of the 6,000 years scenario, my brothers and sisters are faced with issues I never had to deal with.

    A discussion about same with my younger sister 10 years ago, revealed her belief in the 6,000. But, but, but what about carbon dating? "It just doesn't work. It isn't scientific." She's NOT stupid. But she is a believer. . . .

    And NO, I don't think that all do this.

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  12. I wonder if it means anything when Election Day falls on All Souls Day. Heh.

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  13. I doubt it. Most politicians don't seem to have souls. Howard always excepted, of course, among notable others. But most of them seem to be all about themselves and let the devil take the hindmost.

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  14. I know someone, an Evangelical minister, who believes in the six thousand years. He went to an excellent university. He's very intelligent and great fun to talk to. But he is absolutely certain that the world was created in six twenty-four-hour periods, six thousand years ago. It totally baffles me. He doesn't seem troubled by my being Catholic, but my acceptance of, "belief in" as he would say, Evolution and modern theories of Cosmology troubles him deeply. He is a good man and a sincere Christian. I both like and admire him very much. But I cannot grok certain elements of his belief system.

    By the same token, there are Catholics who blindly accept what the Church teaches, or what they think the Church teaches (they aren't always quite the same thing) without ever engaging the brain. Belief can be a strange thing.

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  15. I agree with Susan. Hell, not Purgatory, seems the likely destination for all to many politicians.

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  16. Dad said we'll go vote in the afternoon. But when I mentioned that Sis probably won't come with us, that it will just be him and me, he laughed and said, "We might as well stay home then." And, really, there doesn't seem much point, since he'd vote a straight Republican ticket and, presumably, vote Yes on all three ballot questions, while I'd vote a straight Democratic ticket and vote No on all three questions. So, the net result would be the same as if we stayed home.

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  17. My first hubby used to say that. I said, "Fine. You're welcome to cancel out my vote. But you'll have to get up off your butt to do that, as I am going to vote. . . . " And I did. And he often did.

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  18. My first hubby used to say that. And I said, fine, you're welcome to cancel out my vote, but you'll have to get up off the couch to do that, as I AM going to vote. He often did.

    I always envisioned him canceling out someone else's vote, while MY vote was in the group that made a difference, lol!

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  19. I love that picture of Howard. He looks so relaxed. Isn't he the cutest thing? I think I may be a crushie.

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  20. LOL Funnily enough, that's actually the way I look at it too. I suppose one never imagines that it's one's own vote that gets canceled out.

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  21. Although, come to think of it, canceling out a Republican vote is a pretty worthwhile thing to do.

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  22. Giants just won the world series!

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  23. *blink* They did? I've been so out of it, I didn't even realize the World Series was going on. Duh.

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  24. I prolly wouldn't either, but Rick's a Phillies fan, and they lost the National League Pennant to the Giants last week. . .

    Last time the Giants won was in 1954 when they were still the New York Giants. . . .

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  25. Of course it could be insanity.

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  26. The New York BASEBALL Giants...

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  27. I guess I'm just an irredemable idealist. I really think most politicians are sincerely trying to do what they think is best for the country. That's why Howard said, "To get an A on your citizenship report card, you need to run for office."

    I mean, when you look at what politicians have to go through every two or four or six years, it's hard to imagine anyone doing that for purely selfish reasons. Just trying to help those you agree with get elected is more than enough of a drag for me. (Yeah, there's the satisfaction when you're successful. But Obama is the first candidate I've actively worked for that made it.)

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  28. Right. And when was the last time the Cubs won theWworld Series? Heck, when was the last time they were *in* the World Series?

    Glad I'm ideologically a South Sider.

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  29. Our old Panasonic DVD/VHS player/recorder with hard drive croaked a while back. I ordered what I thought was the current model, but it turned out to have no hard drive, and didn't work well with our Panasonic TV or read discs we had burnt on our Mac. So back it goes for a refund. It seems that there is so much copyright protection on cable and satellite TV here that there is no significant market left for DVD recorders with hard drives, but we really use ours (especially for Japanese TV). I found a model made for Europe and the Near East for sale through a store in NYC that sounded like it would do the job. Got it in and discovered we needed adapters for the coax cable connections; the European ones are different. Went online and found a source in Los Angeles. Hooked it up this evening and everything seems to work! No VHS cassette drive, though. That being the case, we will get our old one repaired (have to send it to Texas). Yay for the Internet!

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  30. Oh--and I thought the Giants won the right to go to the World Serious rather than the World Serious itself; but I could well be mistaken. I'm culturally deprived in that department.

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  31. Nope. The won the pennant *last* week. *This* was the series ~~ National League took it, lol!

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  32. On Saturday there was a lot of cheering from various apartments at Naomi's apartment complex in San Mateo (a little south of San Francisco).

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