Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Horsey Face and the Teeth That Go Every Which Way But Vertical

Let me spin you a tale of very ugly clothes, uglier teeth, and an even uglier faux pas.

 

As you know, I’m considering converting to Islam but I’m still learning. I’m probably 80% ready to convert. Being a true addict I usually resist authority and doing it ‘their’ way of course, so I resist saying anything in Arabic, I resist a specific dress code just for women, and a bunch of other stuff. But I’m learning anyway. More information never hurt anyone. Ok that isn’t entirely true. Onward!

 

This past Saturday a very learned professor from Pakistan was going to be at the Islamic Center here in Omaha. Mack really wanted to go and I thought that would be cool too. Hence began the quest for a hijab (headscarf).

 

You don’t wear a bikini to a Catholic church. You don’t go to a place of worship and then disrespect those who have set the rules. If you want to be welcome somewhere, you follow the rules and you act respectfully. Perhaps a hijab is not my cup of tea, but I wasn’t there to make any statement. I went there to fit in and learn.

 

So our search for a hijab (not something easy to find here in Omaha) leads us to Sister A, who is married to Brother Why Yell, who got Islam in prison. Sister A wears a full hijab (not the ninja one) as well as an abaya. While at Sister A’s place trying to get an underscarf, she mentions that she sells Islamic clothing and would I like an abaya for our wedding in October. No thanks, I would like to look attractive, not walk around in a bedsheet. “Oh, I don’t wear hijab all the time. I just want to respect the mosque and the people who will be there.”

 

Apparently, Mack thought that was not enough explanation.

 

“Yes, we’re not extremist or fanatic muslims!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he says, to the hijab’d, abaya’d muslim sister sitting before us.

 

Oh Holy Lord, I could not believe he said that. I said, “ALEX! You mean ORTHODOX, right???????”

 

He finally realizes his booboo. “Uh, yes, that’s what I meant.”

 

Sister A goes, “That’s good cause I was starting to get a little offended there.”

 

So off we go to the mosque after I am all hijab’d up. I looked pretty fetching even with the hijab. During the lecture, we hear Brother Why Yell profess the date he became a muslim and go OFF about not being down with the enemies, the people who don’t follow the legalistic side of Islam. He of course is then lectured with why is he not following the example of the Prophet, who never preached such a thing.

 

Later on, Mack and I are talking, and Mack has a few choice things to say about Brother Why Yell.

 

‘I don’t understand why he’s going on and on about how long he’s been a Muslim. Who cares? Islam gave him everything in his life – not returning to prison, he has a business, a beautiful wife…”

 

To which I reply, rather cattily, because you know that’s how I roll, “A beautiful wife? Her teeth go every which way but vertical!!!! God he sure must suffer during chupa!!” At which time I move my head back and forth, mouth open, positioning my hands and fingers pointed in a such a way as to represent fangs. LOL. Oh goodness, we were laughing SO HARD. I had a hard time going to sleep last night because I kept chuckling.

 

“Oh. I guess she is a horsey face,” he says in his charming accent.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Miss Prioritay.

So I have this friend and her name is…….hmmmm…..uhhhhh SouthernBelle. No, that’s a mouthful to type. Ok how about SB?

 

So SB calls me up, she’s telling me about the drama with her 15 year old. She’s a 35 year old single mom that I work with. Nice girl. Very small, very tan, very sun damaged, very high alcohol intake 5 foot tall woman. Big old trauma history- her mom was a wreck while she was being raised, chaotic early home life. You name it.

 

Well we’ll call her Miss Prioritay.

 

Ok so Miss Priority has this drama with her son. I thought that’s why she was calling me, that situation is pretty hectic. But I’m wrong.

 

She’s calling me about her boyfriend drama. Mack calls her the Toku Hunter – this means FWB Hunter. I can’t explain it further than that. If you don’t understand, I’m terribly sorry. But this is work email, sorry dudes.

 

So I gave her some advice about her son, which she will not take. My advice was – get thee to a family counsellor. Your string of boyfriends and bad living situations didn’t help. But she’s not going to do that. So that was five minutes.

 

We’ve now spent 31 of the last 36 minutes talking about the boyfriend. Aye carumba. Miss Prioritay, the KIDS come first, not your TOKU! Oh well. She will learn. Still a nice person. Not the best friend I’ve ever had. I hemmed her jeans; she whines about giving me a ride home, though it’s two miles away. She wants her music CD, which will take about two hours to download, but she won’t come over to my house and visit. Whatever. Oh well, some people just have issues.

 

 

Monday, September 15, 2008

Buy and Hold: Not Just for Stocks

Well I sure have been having fun with my eBay business. It is so rewarding to buy things for $5 and then sell them for $25-$30. All I had to do was hold onto them since last summer. Wow! I just sold $60 of stuff for over $200.00. This is so cool!

I have found a niche on eBay and it is selling clothes and shoes to very large people. I make more money on size 13 shoes than anything else. The trannies and crossdressers apparently just adore me. And those trannies and cross dressers will not buy stuff that is not sexy, either. They are not down with that at all.

I'd better get out to the stores and make sure I am picking up those wonderful end of season discounts so I'll have some stock next spring and summer when they're back in season! Yay!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Obama's Tax Plan will Help Working Families; McCain's Won't

I sooooo wanted to gleefully send this to my conservative relatives, but why bother? They would be OFFENDED. Lol.

 

Link to this article: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/a_new_stitch_in_a_bad_pattern.html

 

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A New Stitch in a Bad Pattern

September 2, 2008

A McCain ad wrongly claims Obama plans "painful tax increases" for working families. And who's talking about deficits?

Summary

McCain's new ad puts another stitch in what we've called his pattern of deceit on Obama's tax plan. This one claims Obama and congressional Democrats plan to push forward "painful tax increases on working American families" and that they will bring about "years of deficits," "no balanced budgets" and "billions in new government spending." 

The ad is plain wrong about higher taxes on working families. In fact, Obama's economic plan would produce a tax cut for the majority of American households, with middle-income earners benefiting most. As for "years of deficits," exactly the same claim could be made about McCain's program. It's unlikely either Obama or McCain would balance the budget, and both are projected to increase the debt by trillions.

Analysis

We've already reported on at least three other ads, in both Spanish and English, from Sen. John McCain's campaign that distort his rival's tax policy. The ads claim that, for example, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would raise taxes "on the sale of your home" and that he has a "history of raising taxes" and that he wanted to raise taxes on "families" making just $42,000 a year.

Claims like these have led us to say that McCain's campaign is engaging in a "pattern of deceit" when it comes to describing Obama's tax plan. This most recent ad fits right into the template.


Tax Counter-Spin

The ad says Obama and “out of touch Congressional leaders” plan to implement “painful tax increases on working American families,” and it shows an image of a family presumably upset about an impending tax increase. But, as we've reported numerous times, Obama proposes a tax cut for the vast majority of households.

We spoke with Len Berman, director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, which has produced one of the most authoritative analyses of the two candidates’ tax plans. When we asked him if Obama’s claim that he would “cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families” was true, Berman told FactCheck.org that it was “consistent with our estimates.” Overall, the TPC found that Obama’s plan would produce a tax cut for 81.3 percent of all households, and a cut for 95.5 percent of all households with children.

Under Obama's plan, the TPC estimates that people (or couples) making between $37,595 and $66,354 a year would see an average savings of  $1,118 on their taxes. 

Under McCain's plan, on the other hand, those same individuals would save $325 on average — $793 less than the average savings under Obama's plan.

Put It on Our Tab

The ad also claims that Obama and congressional Democrats would bring about "years of deficits." But (and we've reported this before, too), the fact is both candidates' economic plans would fail to bring an end to deficit spending, and by that measure, McCain's is worse than Obama's. According to the TPC analysis, Obama's tax plan would increase the debt by $3.5 trillion by 2018, while McCain's plan would bring about a projected $5 trillion increase in the same time frame. The TPC also found that:

Tax Policy Center (Aug 28): Neither candidate’s plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.

The Obama campaign maintains that the Tax Policy Center's estimates don't account for Obama's proposed spending cuts, including things like ending the Iraq war. But those cuts will not come close to balancing the budget, and Obama has avoided promising a balanced budget during his first term.

McCain, however, has said he will balance the budget by 2013. Experts remain skeptical. In early July, The New York Times quoted Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition — a bipartisan fiscal responsibility advocacy group — as saying the claim was "unlikely":

Robert L. Bixby (as quoted by The New York Times, July 8): It’s feasible to balance the budget by 2013, but very unlikely under the policies Senator McCain has proposed. The spending cuts are far too vague to be counted on for significant savings and, even if they were more specific, I can’t see how they would come close to offsetting the level of tax cuts he recommends.

McCain senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin sent The Washington Post's editorial board a copy of McCain's plan in support of the candidate's claim. But the board concluded, in its July 14 editorial, that the plan was "not credible."

So the ad's claims about deficit spending and "no balanced budgets"? They could be applied just as easily to McCain as to Obama and the Dems. And we're not sure McCain really wants to go there.

-by Emi Kolawole

 

Friday, September 05, 2008

One Ring to Rule Them All...


One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

lol I just had to put that in there.

Well, we have picked out the Ring. Quite a journey, this one. First we started at Nebraska Diamond. Some might say they are a rip off joint, since we found a source to get a better ring from at less than half the price they quoted us, but it's probably more of an informed consumer thing. It only took me about ten days to go from a very expensive ring to the same thing but must less expensive. I'll be getting my ring next month. :)

Here is a picture.