My Birthday, Let Me Show You It Again and Again

We went down to visit with my husband David’s parents tonight, for dinner and to celebrate my birthday one last time. My birthday was actually last Saturday, which was pretty fun as it was the last full day of vacation. We spent the evening with my college friend Arne, catching up and drinking delicious beers at Coopersmith’s Ale House in Ft Collins.

Then on Sep 27, I celebrated my second birthday, because the first year we were dating, David thought that was my birthday. Also, my father-in-law got mixed up and thought it was the 26th, so they called a couple of days later on Thursday, and we celebrated over the phone while David was out of town on business. Also at work, the goofy birthday decoration has been over my desk all week, and I finally got the card that went around our team on Friday, so that makes Sep 30 an official birthday for me now, too.

And now, Oct 1 too. Dinner was pretty good; we went to Lubey’s in Tinley Park, which actually has a pretty charming downtown area.

Done with birthdays now, I think, for this year.

I still haven’t uploaded my photos from the trip, or gone through my tweets to remind myself of what happened when, but I hope to do that tomorrow. We’ll see.

But my birthweek has been awesome fun, at least! Why limit the fun to a single day?

Attaboy Joe: Deadbeat Dad @RepJoeWalsh Whips Up A Crowd Of… Hundreds

The biggest part of this story isn’t that Joe “Deadbeat Dad” Walsh was a late addition to the speakers’ list at the Illinois Tea Party Patriots’ “Teacon 2011” event in Schaumburg at the Renaissance Hotel.

It’s that attendance in this story was reported to be about 600 activists, where only yesterday they were expecting at least a thousand, a lot fewer than attended last year’s “Right Nation” thing. Even with Glenn Beck headlining – and this year’s Right Nation has been pushed back, probably into 2012 in order to not conflict with this shindig and to be closer to the dates of the first primaries and caucuses. Meanwhile, one of the organizers of “Teacon” was a no-show to his own event because Gawker.com dug up an old arrest for soliciting a prostitute last year. Which, predictably, has been dismissed as “old news” by the inevitable GOPer hack, in a local story that noted that the organizer, Steve Stevlic, skipped the event.

However, Deadbeat Dad Joe Walsh made sure not to skip the event, and at one point verified that someone was filming or taping while stumbled over dropping his big bombshell of a talking point:

“You sent — is this on film? — terrorists like me to Congress,” Walsh said. “You sent us there. We didn’t get there on our own. They sent us there to be bold.”

No, Joe. They sent you there because they were pissed off that they couldn’t stop the Obama juggernaut, and only the angriest old GOP farts in the 8th District of Illinois bothered to vote in the primary and you were the only Tea Partier they liked, and they got the vote out for you in the final in a squeaker. But what have you done for them? You spend all your time in makeup.

Lately, you’ve kind of been an embarassment to the district, and it’s clear you couldn’t care less about IL-08, because you’ll be running in IL-14 due to redistricting.

And now you’re running down the GOP leadership. Boy, for a guy who ended the campaign a few hundred thousand in the hole, you sure talk like you don’t need their money. I hope this comes back to haunt you when it counts.

Freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh used a convention of tea party activists Saturday to assail GOP leadership, contending House Speaker John Boehner is trying to quell dissent because of a mistaken fear that Americans believe Washington is dysfunctional.”

John Boehner is a great guy. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s a great guy. They’re good folk who have the best for this country. The problem is, they’ve been there too long and they’re afraid to fight for this country,” Walsh told more than 600 people attending TeaCon 2011 in Schaumburg.

Walsh said Boehner”pats us on our heads, and says, ‘Republicans, don’t make trouble. Don’t make waves. Let’s just be quiet, shhh, and we’ll get President Obama out of office in a year.’ “

And of course, it’s hilarious that there were a lot less than a thousand little people in the room, but maybe the important people skipped your lunch talk.

via Walsh: GOP leaders too afraid to fight in Washington – chicagotribune.com.

A New Low In Teabaggery: Boycotts are Un-American (Except for the Boston Tea Party, That Is)

Here’s a fine post to really blow your hair back, commenting on a really dunderheaded statement by Mike Huckabee in a NYT piece about online activists pressuring companies not to give financial support to anti-gay hate groups. It includes some of the quiet ways big retailers like Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Wal-Mart have channels for donations to certain groups, which on the surface are doing “good” work, but actually have ties to or directly support hate groups. And these hate groups claim the right to hate because “it says so in the Bible” as a God-directed mandate.

So here’s Huckabee’s commentary on the issue.

“This is economic terrorism,” said Mike Huckabee, the former pastor, governor and presidential contender, who is a paid CGBG consultant. “To try to destroy a business because you don’t like some of the customers is, to me, unbelievably un-American,” he said in an interview.

As Shane Smith over at One Utah righteously fires back, these people don’t know their own history. The original Boston Tea Party wasn’t just a boycott (activists convincing people not to trade or do business with an oppressive enterprise), it was economic terrorism, because they destroyed the product and prevented the public from deciding for themselves whether they would pay the hated tax on tea by purchasing from it from British importers.

Also, the original Tea Party was fond of inappropriate dress-up, too. Why would the local Indians toss the tea chests in Boston Harbor? It makes as much sense as the fat guy in the powdered wig who tries to get on the evening news by showing up at Rethuglican town hall events and this weekend’s “TeaCon” in Schaumburg. Which is where my idiot Congressman, Joe “Deadbeat Dad” Walsh is spouting off with the other famous greedy mean people, pretty much as we speak. In an interesting side note, “TeaCon” is only expected to have about a thousand paid attendees, along with a rally by one of the Democratic candidates for Congress in the district, IL-08 (Walsh won’t be running in this district, he’s running in the 14th).

Anyway, as a tonic to all that crap going down just a couple miles from here, here’s Shane on the un-American concept of boycotting that Huckabee’s complaining about:

Un-American. Like the moral majority doing the same thing in the 80′s? Or like the people who bought french wine and champagne to pour it in the toilet because those moron french thought there were no WMD’s? (Aside: how did that work out BTW?) Or like every conservative radio show host ever telling you not to shop at a store chain because they said “happy holidays” rather than “merry christmas”?

Actually, screw all that, maybe these conservative morons have heard of a movement from the founding of the nation known the goddamn Tea Party?! That ring a bell you ignorant slack jawed bible banging bile spewing moronic piece of…..

Sorry, breath, pause, count.

I mean I know that intellectual honesty is right out as soon as we talk about a preacher from the south running on a rightwing ticket. Not to mention a televangelist, so honesty is pretty much not even in the possible cards. But can you at least have the tiniest vague sense of who we are as a nation and the history we hold? Un-American? Fer chissakes the entire country is built on the concept of a free market! I don’t always like it, but there it is. A far bigger influence on this country than christianity (which you ignorant morons are always telling us is the foundation of the country, forget the mostly deist founding fathers or the outright flight from religious persecution, this is a christian nation, right you stupid zombie worshiping pile of ignorant spew from the very bowels of….

Wow, sorry. Let that happen again didn’t I?

I am just saying that a little history might be in order here. The Tea Party was one of the seminal events in the birth of the nation. In fact more than simply choosing not to buy the tea themselves, they tried to enforce that position on everyone. They actually destroyed the tea in question, so no one could buy it. A comparison would be if you actually went to the places of business that support these anti-GLBT groups and took their products and burned them in the parking lot. That is economic terrorism you stupid putz, the good old fashioned “roots of our nation” kind of terrorism that you and your mindless ilk support when you march around with tea bags stapled to your hats, but are to motherf’ing stupid to realize is the heart of….

Damn it.

Look I am going to lie down for a bit.

Actually… I could really use a really hot cup of tea. Using loose tea leaves, because I am a loose (tea) woman.
via “You keep using that word…” | One Utah.