It’s been hell of a week….

This is an open thread where we will leave at the door talk of Sarah Palin, Abortion, Feminism and any tangential discussion that could lead us back to anything controversial. We’ll have plenty of time to sort things out later!

I wish this is where I was right now and hopefully I’ll be doing something like this starting next Thursday!

Happy Friday Everybody!

Hillary Clinton: Ready to Lead on Day One

It’s amazing how many page views the Palin name draws to Web sites like the Huffington Post. Over 3500 readers have so far taken the time to comment following a post by the teenage Levi Johnston claiming that Palin resigned because of money.

The attacks on Palin, already intense from both the right and the left, have continued to heat up since the Alaskan governor announced her resignation a week ago this Friday. I once trusted Ellen Goodman to be fair-minded columnist, but she, too, has found it necessary to second guess Palin and throw her under the bus:

“All options are on the table,’’ she says. But ironically, the soon-to-be-ex-governor and speaker, author and celebrity has only one option. Authenticity? The only job left for Sarah the former Barracuda is to pretend to be a candidate for president. In the middle of a midlife meltdown, the quitter is now the teaser.

Ah, well, Goodman probably got her share of web site traffic today.

Oddly enough, even former critics of Hillary Clinton are now making favorable comparisons between the way Hillary has handled the vitriol from good old boys on the left and the right over several decades and Palin’s decision to resign in the face of the onslaught threatening to destroy her and her family, including ridicule of her infant son Trig who has Down’s syndrome.

Note the issue at hand becomes how “they” handle the attacks, not whether or not the attacks, whether sexist or otherwise, represent ethical behavior by news reporters.

Secretary of State Clinton has remained silent throughout all of the media madness surrounding Palin. During the general election, there were those who urged Clinton to debate Palin on the abortion issue and other matters, but despite the fact that Palin once made a snide remark about her, Clinton wisely held her peace. She knew better than to get involved in an exchange the media would have quickly labeled a “cat fight.” Earlier, she ignored the bait during the primary when Michelle Obama felt compelled to sling a little mud her way.

In the meantime, Clinton has continued to work hard in her new position as America’s top diplomat. Six months in, it should not surprise anyone that the Obama Administration is now receiving high marks in foreign policy while failing to make the grade on the domestic front. It just goes to show you: Clinton was ready to lead on day one; Obama wasn’t.

Tidbits:

7th grader and mom Anna Amador sue California elementary school over right to wear pro-life t-shirt

A mother is suing a California elementary school on behalf of her 7th grade daughter who she claims was asked by school administrators to remove a t-shirt with a pro-life message on it.

The 13-year-old student was wearing a shirt with two pictures of a growing fetus with the words “growing, growing, gone,” on it as part of “National Pro-life T-shirt Day,” FoxNews.com reports.

The mother, Anna Amador, says in the complaint that her daughter was treated unfairly and was humiliated when she was forcefully dragged to the principal’s office at McSwain Elementary School to remove the shirt. She was in 6th grade at the time of the incident.

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House overwhelmingly rejects signing statement

The House rebuked President Obama for trying to ignore restrictions to international aid payments, voting overwhelmingly for an amendment forcing the administration to abide by its constraints.

House members approved an amendment by a 429-2 vote to have the Obama administration pressure the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards and require a Treasury Department report on World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) activities. The amendment to a 2010 funding bill for the State Department and foreign operations was proposed by Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), but it received broad bipartisan support.

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Firefighter will be witness against Sotomayor

WASHINGTON – Republicans announced Thursday that they plan to call a white firefighter to testify against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor during her Senate confirmation hearings that open Monday. New Haven, Conn. firefighter Frank Ricci’s reverse discrimination claim was rejected by Sotomayor.

GOP plans to showcase Ricci during the Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings indicate her critics will make racial bias a central theme of the hearings on President Barack Obama’s nominee for the high court, who would be the first Hispanic to serve there.

Sotomayor was part of an appellate court panel that rejected Ricci’s challenge to New Haven’s decision to scrap the results of a promotion test because too few minorities scored highly enough to qualify. The Supreme Court reversed the ruling last week. Republicans point to Sotomayor’s decision as evidence that she might let her personal and political views — particularly a belief in racial preferences for minorities — taint her decisions.

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Roland Burris won’t run for Senate seat in 2010

Sneed has learned that U.S. Sen. Roland Burris has decided not to seek election to a seat he fought the government to keep.

BLESS THOSE PIONEERS!

Wandering the super market the other day, I was once again struck by the number of people maneuvering their carts up and down the aisles with cellphones plastered to the side of their heads. Blocking passage, holding up lines, carrying on as if they were the only ones in the store without a care in the world about anyone else’s time or schedule. How easy it is when engaged in conversation to ignore what else is going on around you while you, and whoever is holding this joint discussion on the other end of the umbilical cord, decide which brand of peas is the best choice!  Canned, fresh, frozen? Let’s just stop the line right here in the middle of the aisle and try to figure out which selection is best of for us! And by the way, did we get any mail? What’s the dog doing? Did you water the lawn? How did we ever manage to get through a shopping expedition without this communication in the past? Which brings to mind the Pioneers.

A brief lesson in history informs us that this hearty and adventuresome group, trekking off to the wilderness 200 years ago, did so without even the benefit of the US Mail. Communication was rare in letting the folks back home know just where they were and what they were doing for impossible months at a time. Supermarkets as we know them did not exist. They were faced with having to gather, shoot, and grow your own food. Survival depended on what nature and the elements could provide. Varieties and choice had yet to be invented by Campbell’s, Birdseye, and Pepperidge Farms.

The Pioneer did not have a cellphone at his disposal but had he I wonder , when out there in the wilderness, tracking down squirrel or a bird for the table that night, have phoned home to inquire if the little woman preferred a large, small, or combination critter as he trained his sights on the prey? Was her taste running to gray, black, or feathered? How many pounds should he bag? Had the cow been milked? Had Pony Express dropped by? Was the creek up? Any sign of Indians?

It boggles the mind that these ancestors of old managed to get by without the constant need to be forever “plugged in” to the inanity of this form of communication. Topics which used to be discussed and mulled over were left to the dinner table. Not so today. Today we are unwitting witnesses to some of the most private and inane conversations without regard or a care of who else may overhear. Cellphones have become the number one accessory to every outfit, event, and circumstance in our lives. They travel everywhere!

Church, wakes, restaurants, the beach, sporting events, PTA, work, movies, appointments, travel, and bed! Few are more than three feet from these phones at any given time, even when being recharged. They can be found in handbags, pockets, cars, carriages, waistbands, bathrobes, swimsuits, and uniforms. God forbid that one is ever out of range, or miss a call that will take us away from what is going on right in front of us. We used to make lists of what we needed when grocery shopping. Not any longer when you can just call home and be guided up and down the aisle by a voice instructing us on just what to throw into that cart. One can make the argument that this method is a guarantee that the right purchase will be made thus eliminating the need for a return. I say boo hoo! If you have no idea what brought you to the store in the first place, and relying on a voice imitating NASA to assist you in your search, then you do not deserve to have been issued the keys to the car to make that trip from the outset.

Bless the Pioneers! They settled this vast country with few landmarks and some pretty sketchy maps. And they did it without the aid of a GPS or a cellphone accompanying them along the way. But had it been different, had the cellphone been around then, we would more than likely still be 150 years away from the progress we have now as that plucky Pioneer would be expected to stop what he was doing to answer that all important question, “Whass up dude?”