In Fact, They Did

Per Gail Wilensky, senior fellow at Project HOPE and former HFCA administrator, in today’s New York Times:
Republican Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Richard Burr of North Carolina introduced a bill in the Senate that was co-sponsored by Republican Representatives Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Devin Nunes of California in the House in May of 2009. This is a substantial bill that bears some similarities to the proposal by Senator John McCain during the 2008 campaign. House Republicans introduced a smaller, more incremental bill in July. While neither of these efforts received any serious consideration, they do provide Republicans with a legitimate claim of alternative ways to approach health care reform, at least in the near term.

The Authoritarian

One of the best descriptions so far of Martha Coakley: authoritarian.
Her handling of both the notorious Tooky Amirault case and her comments about the lesser-known Jason R. Beatrice matter pretty much proves the point.
Jason Beatrice’s 4 year old son was molested by a 71 year old Guatemalan janitor in a public restroom in a Bristol County Market Basket.
Beatrice slugged the janitor and both were arrested.
Martha Coakley’s office wasn’t directly involved, since the case was handled by the Bristol County DA.
She did defend the father’s arrest, though, saying that her office didn’t approve of do-it-yourselfery: “We can’t have people taking the law into their own hands. The father should have waited for the police.”
And I suppose allowed the perp to continue to manhandle his son until the cops sauntered in?
The janitor was released on personal recognizance and subsequently skipped the country, returning to Guatemala. At that point, charges were dropped against Beatrice because there was no victim.
Read about it here.

Gardener’s Diary

It was in the forties yesterday, and predicted to be about the same today.
A small crew from the Fairgrounds has been cutting down trees and bushes around the perimeter, to make room for more cars. They claim their property line runs up to the embankment.
Yesterday, they cut down a stand of 12-year old trees at the edge of the yard. I find it hard to believe that it’s been 12 years since they cleared, but there you are.
I’d been thinking about hiring someone to take down a couple of felled trees on the far right side. The guys from the Fair agreed to cut up the biggest one, which certainly was good of them, and I took care of the smaller one, a relatively lightweight pine trunk. That was the last of the yard cleanup, and I’m very pleased to have it done.

Karma, On Hold

Anger has been spilling out of me lately, and the flap over Brit Hume’s repeated suggestion that Tiger Woods convert to Christianity has helped me figure out why:
I’m waiting for karma, but on a Christian timescale.
I want justice, but in this lifetime. I want to see those who have injured me or my family or my friends “get theirs”, not by being reincarnated as terrified prey for the denizens of the deep, but here and now, so we and everyone else can see it.

Rotisserie

I blogged on Christmas about what a nice job my new Ronco rotisserie does on chicken.
Over the weekend, I cooked a couple of salmon steaks in the basket. These came out better using the rotisserie than broiling or grilling.
As a nice bonus, every moving part on the unit, including the door, can be put in the dishwasher.
I picked up a lean little pork loin on sale at Family Foods and figured to try it next.

New Year’s Eve – Retrospective

We may have a new tradition in the works, New Year’s in Providence.

All in all, it was a successful trip.

For one thing, the dire weather forecast turned out to be moderately wrong. I did have to drive in snow to Providence, and did hit a nasty squall on the way.

After stopping at Newport Creamery in Seekonk, by the time we got to the hotel, the snow had stopped, and it turned into a nice evening to be outside.

I got back home around 4 and unpacked, changed the litter in Fluffles’ box and fed him, and did laundry.

Splurge

Yesterday, James was nice enough to go out with me in wind chill of 0 degree weather to the Wareham Home Depot.
This was a stop on the way to Target, so he could cash in his Christmas gift card.
I’ve been looking for drawer and cabinet pulls for the kitchen and finally settled on this one from Amerock.

Continue reading Splurge