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The Golden Flush Award /Click Image for Past Winners
Usually this is an after thought…” Oh, wow, year’s over, let’s get a person of the year”… And then once we elect one, we go… “holy crap… we totally forgot so and so….”
So to try to stir up some old simmering coals of memory, both mine and others, and perhaps even to (heaven forbid) get some debate going in the blog sphere, I thought I’d make an initial run on Thanksgiving Week, and then add people into the nominating category as others mention various ones I should kick myself for forgetting.
It will also force me to review the year which is something I rarely do… because face it, as a human being, I am slave of the moment…. If I did this last year, come December 14th the entire world would have been turned upside down and all the old priorities of 2012, would in one day become trivial….
And so starting early gives me the chance to make the argument for each of those I decide to enroll with your kind recommendations included….
Julius Cephus: Particularly this one man organized and stopped an end run around the Port of Wilmington. The Kinder Morgan deal did not go through, and the Wilmington Port is bustling like never before… Kinder Morgan was to strip the union of power, and drop the rates of pay, further dampening the economy of Wilmington proper. It was also the first defeat of a Lavine-Markell development project, .. Fisker and Bloom had gone forward without a hitch. Julius and other’s push back resulted in a General Assembly motion that stated they, not the governor, had final approval. It was the first time we were exposed to the current Governor’s manipulations. They were to play a significant part across this year’s tapestry.
Steve Newton: A blogger who has written infrequently, but effectively. His piece on SB 51 is what alerted us to the end run being performed by Dave Sokola on lowering the current standards being used for educating teachers. It is brilliant. It took an evening of reading the legislation line by line and cross referencing it with Steve’s analysis, to understand the huge negative impact this bill would cause. By the time this was done, the Bill had already passed the Senate unanimously without comment, and with an friendly amendment added that was voted upon without even being read. Some public outcry was mustered within the House, both in committee and on the floor, but under the Governor’s direction, the Speaker of the House, pushed the bill to the floor before significant outcry could be mustered. Only 4 House members were not on record for it’s passing. Our educational schools now have to water down their teaching standards to meet the new law. Steve also has brought the Highmark story to Delaware. His research in the increase of medical costs in Western PA as a result of knocking out competition by unfair practices, leads one with a cold chill of what to expect in Delaware’s future. We are already there. As an insurer, Highmark is only paying medical claims in its own affiliated clinics. As the new Blue Cross/Blue Shield owner, that is a huge percentage of Delaware’s residents. None can go to any other hospital. He has properly fingered Karen Weldham Stuart for not catching this prior to implementation. Without Steve, this would have passed unnoticed. The News Journal still has not once mentioned the takeover of Delaware’s health field under one owner.
Ernest Lopez. If Kennedy were still writing Profiles of Courage, he should include this man. Ernest Lopez is a conservative, and voted with Libertarian values to pass the gun legislation recommended by Markell and Biden. Reflecting the views of his district, instead of taking the threatening message sent to him down from the NRA, he voted for his district. A very vocal minority, who is always vocal, and always in the minority, swore they would unseat him. He disregarded their idle threat, and voted both his and his constituents conscious. A major billboard was put up to call him out. His vote caused the passage of us now requiring background checks at public gun sales. Now a certifiably insane person cannot slap cash and get a gun. It is a no-brainer, and Ernie was the only Republican with brain enough to even know what a no-brainer is….
Cathy Cloutier: her vote allowed gays to marry. Again, she is a Republican who said enough is enough… Tired of voting against her conscious just so Sussex County would not flip over to the Democrats, she finally did not toe the line and voted along the lines of her own constituents, all overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage. In doing so, she went against the entire grain of her party, who firmly feel that gays are second class citizens, even though most Republicans in office are closeted gays.
Bethany Hall Long: on the same vote, made a viable personal decision, and also voted for the legalization of gay marriage. Unlike Cathy’s vote, this was accomplished at great personal sacrifice, for all of those in her personal life, were solidly against this policy from taking effect. In voting for what was morally right, she had to contend against those whose influence she could not escape. She went with the correct vote, over the easy one. As a result, Gay marriage is now legal in Delaware.
Paul Baumbach: gave great ammunition against the fight for SB51, and later against HB 165. Both bills which will damage Delaware’s education for years to come. He was one of the four who put up a fight on the House floor. Paul also arranged for the meetings in Newark to discuss the new Power plant that figured in this past week’s election.
John Kowalko: also was against SB51, HB 165, as well, being against the power plant. In fact, John was the first person to sound the alarm over how big the power plant would be. Without his big voice, it may have slid through unnoticed. The power plant has defined northern Delaware politics since September.
Kim Williams; responsible for HB 40 which investigates Charter School’s meddling into our educational systems. She was as an acting state representative, allegedly refused entrance into a committee hearing on education, for fear she might say something damaging to the bill being rushed through…. She brought to the public’s knowledge, that the Charter School bill was drafted illegally without public input, and the charter group constructing it, was also under FOIA, to which the private group denied. The Attorney General backed up her assertion, that the bill was formulated illegally but their decision was moot, because the bill was passed both houses anyways. Kim Williams also in the HB 40 task force, led the group to realize that charter schools unlike public schools, do indeed filter those entering charters to weed out those who might lower their test scores….
Mark Murphy, Rodel, Sweeney, Hefferman, and the Fake Educational Reform Establishment: I almost purposefully did not post this. Although the first person’s name is usually followed by explicatives whenever mentioned, it is unlike Voldermort’s, still getting mentioned. Mark Murphy was not put in his position based on his ability. He was placed there for his loyalty to the cause of corporatizing public education. Markell pulls the strings, Murphy figures how to get it done… It is hard to make a puppet the most influential person of the year… So I was going to skip him… But at the last minute, remembered that every time he or anyone of these make an op-ed, it resonates as gigantic news. The entire community rises up to counteract each op-ed, usually with the word “lies” thrown liberally about…. So, they do exert an influence. I looped all of them together, as the group of liars in a Greek play, who stand on the stair steps and taunt the protagonists. Well,… they are part of the play…….
Dan Short: Sometimes villains get noticed too. Primarily a single issue candidate, who personally supports the NRA, he actively campaigned and organized to create enough backlash so Markell’s gun laws could not get enough votes… Without him, there is a possibility that all four of Markell’s gun control pieces of legislation would have passed both houses of Delaware’s legislature. Dan Short should be given the credit for stopping them.
John Sigler: Single handedly by his very brief tenure as the re-elected head of the Republican Party, he pointed out through his pigeon shooting, just how inept the Republican Party was at everything else. With his leaving, all fissures cracking the Republican bedrock, were impossible to ignore. Blogs split. The IPOD’s split. Former candidates of the same party just months earlier, now not talking to each other. The Delaware Republican Party is dead; no it is past dead. More dead than a pigeon shot inside a box by John Sigler, former head of the Delaware Republican Party.
Nancy Willing: Her blog, the Delaware Way, is the go-to site for local information. Whether about Dover, about New Castle County, about any of New Castle County’s associations, Nancy combs all sources and puts them down in aggregate form. Heavily involved in the Power Plant controversy, The Delaware City Rail Yard controversy, Barley Mill controversy, the Woodlawan controversy, the Kinder Morgan controversy, the Charter School Controversy, the Common Core Controversy, Nancy has who is saying “what”, and links to “why”. One can expend less energy by using her blog to follow all the stuff the News Journal neglects, in a few quick empty steps.
Amy Roe: a head of the Sierra Club, who emerged from nowhere to lead the fight against the power plant, and give quite a run against the establishment candidate. Becoming the face the anti- power movement could coalase behind, she gave the anti power plant movement both dignity and grace. Coming up short only 115 votes, she has awakened Newark now politically as never before… The power plant if it goes forward, now has a strong group of Newarkeans against it. Hopefully they will be monitoring it regularly and helping authorities keep in in compliance with all local law.
Tom Gorden; although much quieter than his first term in office, Tom Gorden is rapidly rolling back the privileges the previous Clark administration handed over to our state’s top developers. The Barley Mill plaza which had a green light, is now parked at a red. In a big sea change, though handled quietly, community groups are now no longer persona non grata in county government. It is no longer accepted as a matter of course that the Woodlawn Trust will be gobbled up by developers. If enough fight can be mustered, it can be stopped. Furthermore, with Tom there is closer coordination with the City of Wilmington, than we have experienced anytime in our lifetimes. In the county, local policing has been stepped up, particularly in neighborhoods prone to crime…
Dennis Williams: Came in with grand expectations, which looked deliverable for a while. The tide is turning and his relevance on this list, is because every day, the headline reality in Wilmington’s streets, brings his electioneering boasts back to haunt him, like a sizzling hot branding iron. Time, Dennis, to say “Damn the torpedoes… Their punk asses are going in jail no matter which blowhard on City Council spouts off,before mine gets tossed in jail for impersonating a mayor..”
Alan Levin: Jack Markell’s second in command, he was instrumental in defending Markell’s position on Kinder Morgan and the port, as well as the new power plant for the data center. He also had a hand in keeping Dole in Delaware, and worked to slip the power plant past a slew of unsuspecting Newark City officials.
Jack Markell: had his hand in everything. He was behind Kinder Morgan’s takeover. He was behind SB 51 and HB 165. He was behind the illegal charter group, requiring HB 40. He also was the driving force for the four rational steps to gun legislation, 2 of which were passed. He was also the driving force behind the passage of gay marriage, signing the bill in the chambers just moments after its passage. He also supported the transgender bill in its travels through the labyrinth of Legislative Hall. He as behind keeping Dole in Delaware. He was behind changing an icon in Millsboro away from pickles, over to poultry. He pushed the bill to curtail Flowers. Despite your opinion over whether these were good or bad, they still showed a ubiquitous and wide reach across the state of Delaware. Seems like nothing got done that didn’t have his fingerprints all over it.
John Young: As head of Christina board, John Young led the board in standing up to Mark Murphy and Jack Markell, by refusing the RTTT funds slated for his district. Although some hired fools, (Jea Street) tried to paint Young into a corner, it served the opposite purpose and gave Young a platform. For the fist time, Common Core was getting publicly bashed. For the first time, many were finding that aligning themselves blindly to this sham of improving standards, was probably going to hurt them politically in the next couple of years. It was the fist salvo back, so the damage estimates were not high, but it did open eyes of many who had been on the sidelines of all educational issues, making them also become vocal in fighting Common Core. His blog Transparent Christina has channelled a lot of detailed information into the Delaware market, and had made Common Core an apprehension, instead of the savior it was supposed to be….
Kilroy: Kilroy has always been haranguing over education. In fact he was doing such a good job I left that issue alone for years, because other issues for me, like the economy and elimination of guns from the hands of the mentally ill, were more important. But as the issue has shifted back into the limelight, Kilroy’s hard hitting is making its mark… Kilroy is blunt, and right now, that is the language that needs to happen. Blunt descriptions of what takes place in the stratosphere of he academic field…. Kilroy often breaks stories before the News Journal, especially ones embarrassing to the Murphy/Markell cartel of education. If you have read Kilroy over the past couple of years, you would already know that Common Core is not the panacea we have been promised. It is a power grab for taxpayer dollars, financed by Wall Street itself…. If you think otherwise, you haven’t been reading a balanced reading list….
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That is what I have so far. In retrospect I am surprised that education has played so much, as even I have only come to that topic lately… But if one looks over the News Journal op eds, education really did dominate the discussion in the 2nd smallest state this year….
I may have forgotten some big ones. To reiterate, that is why I am posting this early, to catch those big mistakes as they get brought to my attention….
Google dismantled Safari, to access private data from iPhones.
They deliberately overrode the security setting set by each individual, to find out the browsing preferences of those individuals…
Those individuals specifically set their security setting so their information would not be given out…..
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Earlier today I wrote that gigantic penelities need to be levied in today’s world, to protect information.
It is too easy to steal, and any type of security to prevent such stealing is cost prohibitive.
So. fine them… Fine them so it hurts……..
The only reason they tried it, was because they could…
And hat’s off to Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, for finding, calling Google on it, and forcing Google to disable that program….
I think a proper fine would be a full year’s earnings for Google Inc.
Since Google follows me, this story is obselete by now, but if you hurry, you may see for yourself…
I spent an hour roaming through Google looking for a story I heard today on WDEL… It was impossible to find.
That story is the one featured below, describing the savings the Obamacare had given to Seniors: over $1 Billion, or spread over 2 million benefactors, and average of $550 each…
$550 each.
You would think that would be some news, right? At least lead the Google stream? But even surfing with tags like, “Senior’s save $550” or “Medicare saves $1 billion” or, “Obamacare saves money in prescriptions” only pulled up Romney’s promise to abolish Obamacare, or Cain’s and Perry’s numbers their pulling Obamacare would save Corporate America.
I wasted over an hour.
Then, I got the bright idea to switch to Yahoo. Within one second, I had all the stories I needed.. I didn’t even change the type. Went from 0 to full…
What’s up, Google?
One of the nice perks one gets for doing things like this, is that you hear things…
So, instead of celebrating New Years as I normally do, I watched my computer screen.
As of midnight yesterday all of the holds, misdirections, scams, coverups, on search engines of blogs not favorable to former administration,….. expired.
It was amazing to see. At 11:59 I had one Google page, At 12:00 it was completely different. Previously unless you knew exactly what to search for, my posts were difficult to find. However, reading through today, I see quite a few of you have taken what I’ve said and run with it…
It made me proud of what I had accomplished over 2009 and in a subtle sort of way, made me want to get back into the blogging spirit…. which, I admit, I had placed on hold while pursuing other interests…
I wholeheartedly encourage each of you to Google your own pages, and see if you can denote the differences one minute can make… The evidence of this validity should be obvious to you at a brief glance…
As mentioned there was no public announcement. You had to see it…
I did, and the evidence is on each or your pages today….
That’s a fact… lol.
Ok, by now all of you are sure of your presidential candidate, Senator, and Congress person… You may not think that you have made up you rational mind, but if you ask yourself who you would vote for today, ….. you know.. Face it , it’s not going to change…
But if you are anything like the rest of us in Delaware, state rep, state senator, insurance commissioner, county commissioner, levy court, you draw a blank… “I’ve heard bits and pieces, ” you stutter….
So where do you go to find stuff? What are the candidates really like?
You could trust the News Journal… But blogs have destroyed their credibility and proven that their endorsement can be bought as well…. You could listen to WDEL all day long, and here what those motivated to call in, have to say… But any kook can call in…
You could go to their websites, http://www._________.com and scroll through the most boring of accolades known to man… “Blah, Blah, I’m great, blah, etc…..”
You could also wait until someone showed up at your door and vote for them because they cared enough about your neighborhood to walk its streets. But that would leave 95% of Delawarean completely out of the loop…..
Or….
You could just Google up a candidate’s name and see what people have said about him over his whole life.. If its all bad, he probably won’t do this state any good; if it is all glowing, then he probably will. At least the chances are on your side…. You can also judge the demeanor of those making the praise or scurrilous remarks… do they even know what they are talking about? Are they rational, or do they just have an ideological bone to pick…. “socialist, pinko, gay, communist, etc…”—boring.
For instance, lets start with a no brainer… The governor’s race… Markell vrs Bill Lee
First Jack Markell….. Now Bill Lee for Governor
See what I mean? It is kind of obvious why polls are showing Markell approaching a 70% advantage. If you only read the News Journal, you would think it was still a close race…
Ok, now the fun one… We compare Gandalf to Sauron… First we Google Matt Denn…. and then Google his antithetical opposite, Charlie Copeland.… Wow, talk about opposites…
Insurance Commissioner? Google Karen Weldin Stewart and then her opponent John Brady…. Tom Savage is the independent who also on the ballot. The best one to carry on Matt Denn’s tradition was not who you thought it was going to be, now, was it?
OK, Senate races… If you live in the Chateau Country, properly known as the 4th…(because if and when they get to the bottom of the fifth, they are all drunk.) Google Dr. Katz and John Clatworthy. LOL… that’s my humor for the day.. Ok for real this time… for Dr. Mike Katz for Senate…. I think that is the first time a Delawarean candidate has been beaten off the front page by an animated cartoon…. If you have time, its a good cartoon. But those not already having their arms twisted by either candidate, can readily see who would provide a different perspective to our state legislature…. If there is anything our General Assembly is in sore need of, it’s a new direction.
Next is an important battle for the soul of Newark: State Senate District 6: first John MacKenzie; next Liane Sorenson.
(Ok, I’m getting tired, and my list is long.)
State Senate 10
Bethany Hall-Long
James Weldin
State Senate 16
Harold Stafford
Colin Bonini
State Senate 17
Brian Bushweller
James Hutchison
State Senate 18
Gary Downes
Gary Simpson
State Representative 4
State Representative 7
State Rep. 8
Quinton Johnson
Martha Sturtevant
State Rep. 9
Rebecca Walker
Dick Cathcart
State Rep. 10
Dennis Williams
Robert Valihura
State Rep. 11
Charles Old
Gregory Lavelle
State Rep. 17
Michael Mulrooney
David Lee Osborne
State Rep. 18
State Rep. 19
Robert Gilligan
Joe Sakeley
State Rep. 21
State Rep. 22
State Rep. 23
State Rep. 24
Daniel Basara
Bill Oberle
State Rep. 25
State Rep. 26
John Viola
Jeremy Filliben
State Rep. 27
Earl Jacques
Vince Lofink
James Spencer
State Rep. 29
State Rep. 31
State Rep. 32
Brad Bennett
Donna Stone
State Rep. 33
State Rep. 34
Bruce Hamilton
Donald Blakey
State Rep. 35
Aaron Chaffinch
David Wilson
State Rep. 37
Helen Truitt
Joe Booth
State Rep. 38
State Rep. 39
State Rep. 40
Barbara Hudson
Clifford Lee
State Rep. 41 “God’s Country”
John Atkins
Greg Hastings
New Castle County Council District 12 (The only County Race This General Election)
(My apologies to the City of Wilmington… Those living within the city proper, should have the picture of what to do by now…. )
Kent County Races
KC Register of Wills
Levi Court 3
Levy Court 5
George Sweeney
W.G. Edmanson
Kent County Comptroller
Georgette Williams
Steven Artz
Sussex County Races
Sussex Clerk of the Peace
Sussex County Council 2
Sussex County Council 3
There you have it. What was originally started as a comparison between the two Lieutenant Governor’s candidates Google pages, has grown into the most definitive place to find out about Delawarean politics in the world…
Anyone wanting to know about anyone of their candidates upon the ballot, can in less than five minutes, make up their mind… It is my hope that putting this information out there so all can see it raw, will bypass many of those middle men who have wrongly meddled too many times in this state’s politics… Furthermore, I hope that it will circumvent the ignorance that most of us have when we go to the polls, and suddenly struggle with choosing one of those on the bottom of the ticket…
As I look over my work, I realize that this will be a forever changing document, subject to the rules of Google’s algorithms… As Duffy, LG, and I will attest, anyone with $40,000 to spend could get a nice opening page supporting their candidates. Because of that, this collection will be freshest as soon as it is first published… I highly recommend that each candidate take a screen shot and save it, as proof of future tampering…. Your audience is fairly savvy. If anyone is caught tampering, they sleep in the doghouse for an election season.
Happy voting, and this time, let us make a real difference…..
Courtesy of Department of Defense
There has been some bantering about on some of the local blogs about a “war on Christmas” being undertaken by a large majority of unseen beings…..Those beings go by many names….liberal, conservative, Jews, atheist, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc,etc……
Forgive my aloofness, but I seem to be skeptical about this war….Christmas, at least from my perspective, seems to be alive and well….
The majority of my household are actually looking forwards to its coming.
I have been known to startle people who hardly know me, by stating that I still believe in Santa Claus…..This little bell I have still rings for me when I shake it, and legend persists that as long as one still believes in Santa, they too can hear it’s crystal clear tones……
Hopefully, after I explain how I rationalize this belief, you too perhaps may be persuaded to believe again in Santa Claus, no matter how jaded you think you are today……..
Years ago, I began thinking about this question when I heard either as a story or a joke, about a child who not only believed in Santa, but questioned the sanity of those who did not? According to this child, those out there who did not believe in Santa, were absolutely daft!….After being told there was no Santa by his older sibling, he responded with the question: “if that is so… then how come everyone all over the world gets presents from him on Christmas Eve?”
Wiser heads may chuckle at the story….But….heads much wiser than that,…..may realize that this kid has a point…….
Why is it, …if one stops to think, that everyone gets a present under their tree on Christmas Day? Almost to the point that it matters little of what their religion may be? And what is it that makes this illusion persist, despite the didactic railings by Bill O’Reilly who as America’s Grinch, emphatically persists that there is “No Santa Claus” and never will be? (Tell that to his staffer who sued him for harassment: no Santa Claus indeed)?
Something forces the myth to continue, for an awful lot of trouble is undertaken by grownups of all ages to insure this tradition continues……
Some blame “Crass Commercialism” for the “war on Christmas.” More than likely they are just weary of standing in line, while they do their part to propel our economy forward….For in honest truth, if Christmas were abolished, our entire retail structure would collapse in shambles. Most of our retail outlets operate in the red all year until the start of black Friday shopping…… So a life without Christmas would be very bleak indeed: featuring unemployment, depressed wages, revenue shortfalls, cutbacks, more pink slips….
At the bottom of this”War on Christmas”, lies the question of why human beings spend so much time, energy, and effort on making other people happy? Is this trait prevalent in any other species of animal,… or plant? Does it make evolutionary sense that when one can ill afford to survive economically, that he undergoes further hardships to insure a smile on someone else’s face? From a logical perspective, it makes little sense at all…..Yet we still do it religiously.
This season, duty bound by a Pollyanna, I had no choice but to stand in line, at the last minute for what i thought was a perfect gift for someone I barely knew….(if anything at that time, I was grumbling in Scrooge fashion as to why I cowardly lacked the guts to just hand over a piece of American currency.) In the line in front of me was a young lady, I would guess of college age, buying two perfume sample kits, with assorted scents inside one case……At 17.69 apiece, it came to over 35 dollars….That’s over one third of a C note…..Being that this was no Paris Hilton in front of me, (my bad luck again), and remembering my past financial situations each semester that I returned home for the holidays, I thought that this poor person must love whoever was meant to receive those trinkets, a lot…..For why else would they spend money they so much needed for themselves, ….on someone else….And this person was not alone. As I looked to my left and right, at the 30 some checkouts open, and lines ranging between 5 and 10 per line, it was obvious that this poor person in front of me, was not a misguided, overly sympathetic, communist….sacrificing herself for the good of all…..She was part of the human equation, powered by something deeply rooted inside us, who was just like everyone else…..As I walked out to my car, still pondering the significance of what had just happened to me….I had to wait behind a line of 15 carts ahead of me, going through the security checkpoint at the front entrance……As I looked over the carts, all full, in front of me, I realized that at least 1500 dollars was leaving that store that very minute…..$1500 a minute yields $90,000 an hour… On this early shopping day, (this store being open for fifteen hours) means that on that day, more than likely, $1,350,000 was being spent on people other than the shoppers themselves….That was just in one store. There were 5 such mega stores in the mall I was shopping, all doing the same brisk business, and by multiplying that by the number of malls nationwide…..one gets a sense that Christmas is not dead, dying, or losing its oomph….It is as strong as ever.
So where is this “War on Christmas” coming from…..A quick look at the Google Page “War on Christmas” provides some answers…..All the picks lifted by Google’s algorithm show past-their-prime commentators desperate to maintain their ratings….and no one else….So is this “War On Christmas” just a made up thing, a ploy to capitalize upon the masses emotions, in order to drum up ratings for a network? (How come all of these commentators work for Fox?). Are we being hoodwinked by our news purveyors just so they can charge a higher rate for their advertising dollars?
According to Google: apparently so…..
So anyone who promotes the “War on Christmas” must be immediately suspect as trying to sell us a ball of wax in the form of our hero, Santa Claus…..
For like it or not, these television radicals like John Gibson and Bill O’Reilly, are way off base….There is a Santa Claus and proof of it is in every checkout line across this country…….It may not come in the form of a man who plays with elves, and kills grandma as she stumbles home on Christmas Eve……, but it is there, regardless of religion, regardless of creed, regardless of race, regardless of sexual preference, regardless of economic status, regardless of political persuasion, regardless of nationality, regardless of geographical location. It is there;….somewhere deep within our genomes the “Spirit of Christmas” lies, dormant through most the year, until a sudden ringing of a bell, activates it into action…….
It is this so called selfless “Spirit of Christmas” that pervades our planet this time of year, that I call “Santa Claus”. And I do believe in him…I do believe, I do believe…..With all my heart I believe that Santa Claus is alive and well and that under billions of trees, presents will appear inexplicably this Christmas day, often under trees that could ill afford them……And that is how with no trace of shame I can look in the eye of a 5 year old who has had his vision shattered by his older sister, and tell him not to worry, that there truly is a Santa Claus and pending his behavior, there will indeed be something to look forward to on Christmas Morning….
So my dear friends. As I read through what I have just espoused, perhaps without some common bond of emotional understanding, my argument may appear weak to you and ineffective……But if by some small chance, it touches a nerve and causes you to re-evaluate your own perspective on these wonderful Holiday’s,…………(so wonderful that we will be paying its bills for months to come)……..please accept it as my humble present to you dear readers, for all you have given me this past year………
So with all the warmth and sincerity that I can muster, going to all of you outside the perimeter, no matter how, when, where, or what your religious preferences may be, and knowing that we all carry the same gene deep within our beings:
Merry Christmas, friends. Merry Christmas….
With less than two hours to go ahead of the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) was up 69.9 points at 13836.69.
On the day when Google’s stock hit a record worth of $175 Billion:
The S&P 500 Index (SPX) rose 8.63 points to 1,527.38 and the Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) rose 18.84 points to 2,673.13.
Although anything is possible……………………as of this point, it looks like “someone” is out of 4.5 billion dollars.
Ever since Google was complicit in working with the Chinese, I have been watching it’s characterization of my site. We all know the formula for how the links are ranked, but occasionally some bizarre things happen upon that page.
For example when I have come out hard against certain of our public officials, holding them accountable for things as I should, the links, locations and descriptions, that have been consistent for months, suddenly are different. If one wanted to presume, he could comment that those links shown were an attempt to embarrass me or more likely, dissuade someone from looking further. Now those of you who read me, know this can hardly bother me. I can embarrass myself without help….. easily…..
But tonight Google was acting strangely on several sites within our blogsphere. The search would go nowhere. Of course the sites were available; one could easily click them from another location. And on Google, other non pertinent sites came up immediately, but for some reason some (the ones I wanted) were disconnected.
I am most concerned because Delaware Liberal, one whose site I visit a lot, has disappeared from Google. Well not completely , but their standard location…. spot 3 down from the top of page one…… is gone. Instead, you may find an archived version that says “Howard Dean Kicks Ass” posted on 11/15/2006 in the location of what used to be Delaware Liberal.Net’s prime spot……
Other search engines are not affected. On those Delaware Liberal Net ranks at the top.
Back to the inconsistencies on my list, My featured cached post comparing the treatment bestowed on Paris Hilton, versus the pardon received by Scooter Libby, has temporarily replaced my post of Biden, which has remained in that spot for a long time. Yet my statistics do not show a single hit on that topic. So based on Google’s formula, why would it change? This happened once before, and 2 days later, again no hits were involved, reality reemerged.
Don’t know how many of you check your Google page , but seriously, I think now would be a good time to start. Those of you who do not poke around in areas where officials become uneasy, probably have little to worry about.
But if your Google page is being changed, for whatever reasons, at least you will be aware of it…….
kavips 
