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Fire and rain
Author: Raine Date: 10/22/2007 12:05:02

Good monday morning. First, before we go any further... let me send a HUGE round of applause to Red Sox Nation!!!! I think it is safe to go outside again, untie your shoelaces and do whatever you do regularly. The Red sox will be meeting up with the Rockies for the world series this year. Wow. Congrats. And yes, sympathies to the Indian fans out there.

So I woke up to the sound of rain this morning. Strange sound. The south could get anywhere from a half inch to an inch today. Not nearly enough, but we will take anything we got. Metro Atlanta is facing water rationing.

Yes, it is bad. So I am sure you could assume that people are pulling together to do something right? Wrong, instead, many in the tonier areas of town are trying to install wells on their property so they can continue watering the precious landscaping. You can read about it here. Make sure you don't spit out your coffee

Last week, Laura Askew, co-owner of Askew Drilling Co. in Jonesboro, scheduled a homeowner who had spent some $25,000 on plantings and is now past the 30-day window allowed for watering professionally installed landscaping. The total outdoor watering ban took the home-owner by surprise.

"He was real upset about it," she said.

With neighbors now routinely squealing on each other for outdoor illegal watering, drilling a well has become a sensitive proposition. Several homeowners who had wells drilled in recent days did not return phone calls or declined to talk on the record. The Grayson homeowner said she didn't want to call attention to her property.

I guess these people truly don't get it. A major city is facing not just a water shortage... but no water at all. Scary stuff. One town in Tennessee is already out of water.

Yet three years into the harshest drought anybody can remember, something new has been added to these timeless rural routines — something that could portend metro Atlanta's worst water-shortage nightmare.

Orme is dry: The mountain spring that has supplied it with water for more than a century has been reduced by the record drought to a virtual trickle.

So every other day, a couple of old trucks haul water all morning and afternoon from a country fire hydrant two miles away in Alabama to the town's rusting 17,500-gallon tank, up a dirt lane near the spring on Orme Mountain.

That is just one tiny town... imagine for a minute, millions of people facing something like this.

Over on the west coast, fires are raging again. The drought has ravaged California as well. one fo those towns is Portrero, btw. Portrero seems to be where the fires may have started. This town has been hotly debated lately as it is the proposed site for a new Blackwater training facility for... a law enforcement and military training facility.

A group that focuses on election integrity said Wednesday that a mail ballot is not a secure way to conduct a recall election for members of Potrero's planning group.
But Barbara Chamberlain, who heads an election committee for the group promoting the recall, said she's satisfied with the mail ballot for the Dec. 11 election in the backcountry community 45 miles east of San Diego.

The election is seeking to recall five members of the planning group who approved a project by Blackwater Worldwide for a law enforcement and military training camp on 824 acres in Potrero. (The company recently changed its name from Blackwater USA.)

The election has become a referendum of sorts on the project, which has aroused intense controversy because of environmental issues and concerns about Blackwater's role as a government contractor in Iraq.

County Registrar of Voters Deborah Seiler said she decided to conduct the ballot by mail because it is more convenient for Potrero's 505 registered voters. Ballots will be mailed out Nov. 13 and must be returned Dec. 11.

Rumour has it, the post office has burned down. :foil: I will be following this story today and others!

See you inside! Espresso bar is open, today's tea is lady grey and we have some donuts and bagels.
:peace:
Raine

76 comments (Latest Comment: 10/23/2007 02:44:16 by MMB)
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Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 12:21:11

Lady Grey???

I'm running on fumes...gonna need a large regulah and a crullah.

Comment by

Mondobubba on 10/22/2007 12:28:05

Quote by TriSec:

Lady Grey???

I'm running on fumes...gonna need a large regulah and a crullah.

Tri don't be so wicked retahded, get the bagel. Lower in fat n stuff.

How bout dem Sox! :high five:

Comment by

BobR on 10/22/2007 12:54:54

Morning, folks... :coffee:

Congrats to the Sox! :clap:

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 12:58:28

BTW, it's official; Republicans are caricature.

Today is our annual "Athen-o-ween". We'll be knocking off at 3:30 today and throwing open the doors to our families and childrens; the place is decorated and a good number of us are in costume.

The Boss (Jonathan) wanted us all to go with a theme this year....seeing that we've just gone public, JB suggested that we all dress up as "The Man".

Anyway....I dusted off my old chacoal grey pinstriped bankers' suit...I have on a crisp white shirt and a vintage "power tie". On the way out the door today, I thought the final touch would be my US flag pin on the lapel...

Anyway, I get to the office, take two steps inside the door, and one of my co-workers asks me...

"So, what are you supposed to be, a Republican?"

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 13:05:14

File under "Sox fans will be Sox fans...."

Last night, in the top of the ninth, with two away...

I swear I heard a chant of "Yankees Suck". But I may have been mistaken.

Comment by

starling310 on 10/22/2007 13:08:41

:banana:

SOX! SOX! SOX!

Comment by

starling310 on 10/22/2007 13:10:14

I did kind of feel bad for Chris Matthews. He looked like she, yes I am going to say this, "hurt his feelings."

Comment by

starling310 on 10/22/2007 13:20:32

:rofl:

It was a fender bender!

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 13:23:19

Good morning all.

I did hear the replay of Mike Malloy's Friday show last night on the Sirius machine and he did cheer Momma calling Chris "Fair Enough" Matthews a right-wing tool saying that he is also.

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 13:24:14

So I am sure you could assume that people are pulling together to do something right? Wrong, instead, many in the tonier areas of town are trying to install wells on their property so they can continue watering the precious landscaping....

Some businesses in and around Boston have done the same thing so they could get "off the grid" and not pay MWRA rates (which have steadily increased for about 15 years now, mostly to pay to clean up Boston Harbor.)

Chief among them is Legal Seafoods, who drilled straight down into the Boston Aquifer and now use all the water they want with complete impunity. There was some attempt to block them at the time, but the law that allows them to drill their own well on their own property has been on the books since the Colonial era...

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 13:37:50

Shut up and go back to the sizzler buffet.

Comment by

BobR on 10/22/2007 13:38:17

Someone should remind the right-wing tools that we are not at war, because - despite the pResident from calling it a "War on Terror" - Congress is the only part of government that can declare war, and they did not.

Comment by

BobR on 10/22/2007 13:41:10

Where's that video clip of a car crashing through the guard rail, flipping its way down the mountainside in flames?

Comment by

BobR on 10/22/2007 13:43:01

Stephie on Hardball:

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 13:45:29

Quote by BobR:

Someone should remind the right-wing tools that we are not at war, because - despite the pResident from calling it a "War on Terror" - Congress is the only part of government that can declare war, and they did not.

The right just loves that whole "Unitary Executive" idea as long as one of their own is in charge so they can dismiss any constitutional limitations as quaint unless someone like Hillary is in power than they will be screaming their heads off about the abuse of executive power.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 13:52:18

:rofl: Even malloy saw it! Good morning!!!

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 13:54:38

Good morning Raine.

Comment by

wickedpam on 10/22/2007 14:04:02

Morning! :hug:

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 14:11:28

That Kevin Miller from pittsburg looked like he ingested all the right wing talking points he could eat at a china buffet. :shudder:

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 14:15:27

This story just freeks me out.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 14:17:13

ooooh... caller with the tweety quotes.

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 14:24:01

I also noted this from my Media Matters e-mail;

On the October 21 edition of the NBC-syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, while discussing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) proposal to roll back a portion of the Bush tax cuts to pay for her health insurance plan, host Chris Matthews stated: "I think it's time for me to get in trouble again. ... I'm thinking about a woman who lives in the suburbs; she may not work outside the home. They're talking around election time -- the husband and the wife." Matthews, speaking first in the voice of the hypothetical wife, said: " 'I sort of like this Hillary, the first woman president. She's pro-choice.' And the husband says, 'You know, dear, you know, this is going to kill our tax bracket. You know that tuition thing we pay every couple of years for the kids, every year, we can't do that if we get a higher tax bracket. We have to pay more money.' " Matthews then asked Washington Post Writers Group syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker: "So, could the tax issue -- Hillary's threat to raise taxes -- throw a lot of women and men from the suburbs back into the Republican column?"[/quote}

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 14:26:50

Off to the doctor's office again.

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 14:27:45

McCain:

I have been pro-life my entire career?

Then why did you join the Navy and drop bombs on people, hmm?

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 14:28:02

These tools are fighting over who can be the most conservative!! Third party...

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 14:35:46

:rofl: Today's Sunday sermon from Oral Roberts! :rofl:

Comment by

BobR on 10/22/2007 14:44:50

Quote by Raine:

:rofl: Today's Sunday sermon from Oral Roberts! :rofl:

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 14:50:43

Ya know, every time I refill my pen, I can't help but ponder the incongruity of still writing with a fountain pen in the internet age...

And yes, I still use an ink bottle. We don't need no steenkin' cartridges!

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 14:52:09

Blackwater... the pride of a nation.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 15:07:33

Why is momma so smoky this morning?

Comment by

wickedpam on 10/22/2007 15:09:03

Fires in SoCal

Does it make a bad person that my Dad's in Anaheim and I don't care if the fires get their house?

Comment by

wickedpam on 10/22/2007 15:10:19

wow that does really make ya uncomfortable

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 15:10:22

Momma is lucky she is so bony and gristly; those daggers that came out of Chris Matthew's eyes had nothing to stick into.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 15:26:17

Oh dear... I hope david copperfield doesn't try to make this case go away.

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 15:26:48

Isn't the pun the lowest form of wit?

:thud:

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 15:28:10

Quote by wickedpam: Fires in SoCal Does it make a bad person that my Dad's in Anaheim and I don't care if the fires get their house?

Not at all mala. HE hasn't been much of a dad to you.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 15:29:34

Now that everyone had a chance to see momma ... am I wrong? Does she have an adam's apple? Does she have a coulterish jawline? That woman needs some southern cooking.

Comment by

wickedpam on 10/22/2007 15:29:42

I would agree with that. :hug:

Comment by

wickedpam on 10/22/2007 15:31:58

Quote by Raine:

Now that everyone had a chance to see momma ... am I wrong? Does she have an adam's apple? Does she have a coulterish jawline? That woman needs some southern cooking.

Southern and may be some Pennsylvania Dutch and some Italian.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 15:34:19

oh yeah.. pennsylvania Dutch and Italian!

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 15:36:40

I still like what Randi said about tweety, he is an opportunist.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 15:56:10

:puke: Eric Rudolph is lucky he is alive.

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 15:57:04

Quote by Raine:

oh yeah.. pennsylvania Dutch and Italian!

That would fill her up. We need to take her to dinner.

I'm back. :)

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 16:00:11

how did it go at the Dr. Liv?

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 16:01:13

OK. Lost one pound. I've got to make some adjustments in my routine if I am ever going to lose weight.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 16:10:56

wow, they really did boo americans. Wow.

Comment by

starling310 on 10/22/2007 16:12:42

That "debate" was for the "values voters," was it not? I wonder if that's where the boo's came from.

Comment by

wickedpam on 10/22/2007 16:19:26

Quote by livingonli:

Quote by Raine:

oh yeah.. pennsylvania Dutch and Italian!

That would fill her up. We need to take her to dinner.

I'm back. :)

I'm thinking stuff like potato pancakes, kuchen, apple dumplings and the like would fatten Steph up in no time at all.

Dang - no I'm hungry!

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 16:23:58

Quote by Raine:

wow, they really did boo americans.

Wow.

Who did?

Comment by

wickedpam on 10/22/2007 16:25:04

I was wondering that too - who boo'ed americans?

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 16:28:12

I wonder how many Americans when traveling abroad now say they are Canadians? Unfortunately that can't work for us in Canda.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 16:30:21

Ron Paul said that 75% or more of america wants us out of Iraq at the debate last night... They in the audience booed him.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 16:31:42

mmm. potatoe pancakes... MAla you are making me hungry!

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 16:32:56

SO here is what I think... we need to get Momma out of LA and to the east coast... have her do a little tour and we can all feed that woman!

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 16:36:08

Holy crap. Study finds peak oil happened last year. Much earlier than expected.

Comment by

BobR on 10/22/2007 16:36:38

wow - where did the morning go?... I was so deep into the salt I didn't even see those 3 hrs go by... :thud:

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 16:37:01

Quote by BobR:

Quote by Raine:

:rofl: Today's Sunday sermon from Oral Roberts! :rofl:

Oh my god! :thud:

Do not put it in the ear, or in the nose. He should have seen that Family Guy episode when those taking the chastity pledge were doing it in the ear.

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 16:37:39

Quote by Raine:

SO here is what I think... we need to get Momma out of LA and to the east coast... have her do a little tour and we can all feed that woman!

The New York contingent is down with that idea.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 16:45:33

Quote by livingonli: Oh my god! :thud: Do not put it in the ear, or in the nose. He should have seen that Family Guy episode when those taking the chastity pledge were doing it in the ear.

I liked when he said: AHnus...

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 16:50:13

Quote by Raine:

Quote by livingonli:

Oh my god! :thud:

Do not put it in the ear, or in the nose. He should have seen that Family Guy episode when those taking the chastity pledge were doing it in the ear.

I liked when he said:

AHnus...

But did you notice he never actually used the word penis?

"The male organ."

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 16:59:32

Quote by Raine:

SO here is what I think... we need to get Momma out of LA and to the east coast... have her do a little tour and we can all feed that woman!

Sign me up! I'm part Sicilian and married to a Cuban...she'll eat.

Hell, we'll roast a pig!

Comment by

BobR on 10/22/2007 17:13:31

Quote by TriSec:

Quote by Raine:

SO here is what I think... we need to get Momma out of LA and to the east coast... have her do a little tour and we can all feed that woman!

Sign me up! I'm part Sicilian and married to a Cuban...she'll eat.

Hell, we'll roast a pig!

Don't tell Dubya...

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 17:17:59

So we are going to head out for a little bit to see the Mandela over at Emory University. you can see it too!

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 17:18:00

So we are going to head out for a little bit to see the Mandela over at Emory University. you can see it too!

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 17:25:19

So there it is. When I get back I will send the invitation to Momma with the dinner entrees we will serve.

Comment by

TriSec on 10/22/2007 17:41:19

Sen. Obama and Gov. Patrick are going to be having a rally on Boston Common tomorrow at 6:30. Papa TriSec is going, but I don't think I'll be able to make it into town.

Such is the life of a retired liberal; he gets to go to all the good rallies.

:kickcan:

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 17:52:12

It's even worse when you work 4-12 with only some weekends off. You can't get to do much of anything.

Comment by

starling310 on 10/22/2007 18:15:06

Quote by Raine:

SO here is what I think... we need to get Momma out of LA and to the east coast... have her do a little tour and we can all feed that woman!

I'll sign up for the Vegetarian leg of the trip! Plenty of protein and good fat for Momma!

She won't even miss the meat. Err...hm....

You get my drift.

Comment by

starling310 on 10/22/2007 19:08:20

Seriously? Randi is lecturing Bill Maher about being kind to his audience!?!?

:rofl:

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 20:21:17

Quote by starling310: Seriously? Randi is lecturing Bill Maher about being kind to his audience!?!? :rofl:

HEllo Pot... meet kettle! :D

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 20:36:29

Quarter million people have been evacuated in SoCal. :o

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 20:47:21

Quote by Raine:

Quarter million people have been evacuated in SoCal. :o

I heard that all of Southern California from Ventura County to San Bernardino County to San Diego County is being declared a disaster area.

Comment by

Raine on 10/22/2007 21:21:47

YAY! Chris Dodd on the radio machine!

Comment by

livingonli on 10/22/2007 23:41:19

Tri, if you're looking for the Bruins game, it's on Versus tonight.

Comment by

livingonli on 10/23/2007 02:17:57

Anyone home?

Comment by

MMB on 10/23/2007 02:44:16

Congrats to the Red Sox

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Fire and rain
Author: Raine Date: 10/22/2007 12:05:02

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Fire and rain Author: Raine Date: 10/22/2007 12:05:02

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Fire and rain
Author: Raine Date: 10/22/2007 12:05:02