Sean, Rush, Glenn - They're all Progressives!

Another letter to the editor of my local newspaper this morning, tries to associate Hitler banning Christmas in Germany to people's objections in line with separation of church and state today.

"Hitler and his fanatical followers made an intense effort to abolish the traditional Christmas celebration in Germany.  He substituted the winter solstice, and Father Winter as gift distributor as a December holiday.  The people rejected the attempt.  It did not succeed then, and it won't succeed now."

I laughed.  Where do these people get this drivel?  I suppose, but I cannot confirm (or at least haven't tried), that someone on right-wing-nut-job radio or TV planted these "facts".

But then, a light bulb went off above my head!

Ohmygosh! This whole Rush Nutjob, Faux Noise, et al...is actually a brilliant Progressive conspiracy!

Oh shit! How freakin' dumb have I been?

It's so simple too.

All of this, based on an argument so old as to have been all but forgotten. The argument used to be made that women, black people, etc. (blond people?), were not smart enough to actually vote in our democracy.  As time went on and we all evolved and fought for our rights, women and African Americans did win their right to vote.  Much has been said over the years since then, about "they live among us, they breed, and they vote!" Usually these statements are contained within a derogatory email containing a picture of some unfortunate fool or as an advertisement for the website, www.peopleofwalmart.com.

That's what the Progressive elite are doing - without any doubt in my mind now - pointing out that there really are people too stupid to vote!

Yes!  I am saying that Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes...they're all Progressives!

By spoon feeding all the ridiculous drivel, convincing these poor fools of "facts" that are stupendously simple to refute - they are proving the notion that there is an entire subset of the population that are too stupid to vote. This portion of the population are so stupid, uneducated or unsophisticated enough to be dangerous in wielding a precious vote that effects the rest of this nation, and may place its very sovereignty in jeopardy.

I couldn't have considered this a viable explanation, if they had merely stuck to opinions.   When all these insidious Progressives work tirelessly to convince their sorry followers of facts that don't exist, well, that's where their ploy is exposed.  The brilliance comes in when they choose facts and events that took place when many who were there during the events and experienced them, are still alive to refute their claims based on first hand experience.  Even in the issues such as the foundation of this country, these followers make such mistakes regarding significantly documented facts and opinions such as those found within the writings of Thomas Jefferson himself, as well as others.

Indeed, the claims being bandied about today are so absurd as to be ignored by any authoratative historians and biographers.  Unfortunately, those very historians and biographers who could and would refute the claims have been all but silenced by the mainstream media, with the excuse that such claims are so ignorant, no one is seriously believing them.

Oh! But they are.  So much so, those silly claims are getting such common play that they're on the verge of becoming accepted.

Acceptance.  Therein lies the fatal flaw of the Progressive Ploy.

Oops.

T'was the Night Before Christmas

"Twas the  night before Christmas and all through the house, 

There were empties and butts, left around by some louse.
And the best quart I'd hid by the chimney with care
Had been swiped by some bum, who'd discovered it there.
My guests all had long since been poured in their beds
To wake in the morning with god-awful heads.
My mouth full of cotton, hung down in my lap
Because I was dying for one more nightcap.
When through the north window there came such a smell
I sprang to my feet to see what the hell...


And what to my wondering eyes should show up
But eight bloated reindeer, hitched to a beer truck.
With a little old driver who looked like a hick
But I saw it was Santa, as tight as a tick.
Staggering onward, those eight reindeer came,
While he hiccoughed  and belched as he called them by name;


"On Shenley! On Seagram! We ain't got all night,
You too, Haig and Haig, and you too  Black and White"
"Scram up on this roof, get the hell off this wall,
Get going you dummies, we've got a long haul."
So up on the roof went the reindeer and truck
But a tree branch hit Santa before he could duck.


And then, in a twinkling I heard from above
A hell of a noise that was no cooing dove.
So I pulled in my head and cocked a sharp ear,
Down the chimney he plunged, landing smack on his rear.
He was dressed up in furs, no cuffs on his pants
And the way the guy squirmed, well I guess he had ants.


He had pints and quarts in the sack on his back
And a breath that'd blow a freight train right off the track.
He was chubby and plump and he tried to stand right
Be he didn't fool me, he was high as a kite.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to work
And missed half the stockings, the plastered old jerk.


Then putting five fingers to the end of his nose,
He gave me the bird...up the chimney he rose.
He sprang for his truck at so hasty a pace
That he tripped on a gable and slid on his face.
But I heard him burp back when he passed out of sight,
"Merry Christmas , you rum-dums, now really get tight!"

This I found in my father's papers.   This item is undated, but appears to have been written by him in the late '50's or early '60's. Pops and his bunch were hip, cool and definitely the party crowd.  I would guess this was actually a collaboration of a few of them.

EMERGENCY CIRCUMSTANCES: Low Humidity & Your Pets

A local vet clinic here has seen a dramatic uptick in the number of cases of cats with urinary and kidney problems since Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009, some requiring surgery. They hadn't seen any cases in 8 months, then suddenly, over the last 3 days, there's apparently been nearly a dozen, one of them being one of our cats, Arlo!

In bringing Arlo home to recuperate last night, getting him to drink is not much problem, but urinating is another thing.  You can't pee if you don't have enough to go through your kidneys in the first place.

Where's it all going?

We realized that this problem may correlate to excessive low humidity due to the recent extreme cold temperatures, and dry beautiful skies as we have here.  The humidity in my home is 30%, and that's with humidification techniques, best as we can manage.  It's just 32% r/h outside right now as well.  Everything is still frozen.  Even if I boil hot water, it won't vaporize and disperse, it just evaporates, so a humidifier won't work any better for now.

The best way to keep yourselves and your pets hydrated is to simply drink more water.   Unfortunately, that's not so easy to get your pets to do.  Here's the recommendations from the vet:

• Place multiple bowls of fresh water around the house, and keep changing them out a couple of times per day.  You'll be surprised at how they'll drink from a new bowl more readily than the same old bowl they usually drink from!

•  Put the stoppers in your bathtubs and sinks, and fill sinks and tubs with a little water for evaporation.  If you can place a tray of water in the sun, or in front of a fan, this will create some evaporation.  Evaporation is based on the surface area of the water, so more surface area, more opportunity for evaporation. 

• Use a syringe if you have one, to gently force a little water into your pets, every hour or so until this weather breaks.

As for Arlo, when I did the syringe, I thought he'd have a cow. He wanted more, and quite happily took three more syringe-fulls right away.  The other cats were just as cooperative, once they realized it was just water.  And Charley the Wonder Dog too.

Good luck - I know many of you all over the country are dealing with similar weather conditions, I doubt many of us realized that this could be a problem for our pets in this manner.

If you have any questions, leave a comment, I'll try to help in any way I can!