--- As much as it

--- As much as it slays me to link to the Washington Times,
I’m going to do it anyway, because---for once---they’ve published
an article with actual sources. Usually, they’re the worst purveyors
of shoddy journalism you can find. It’s easy to see how they’ve
made a name for themselves and developed a loyal following: they’re
the one newspaper with a distinctly conservative bent in D.C.. If
you’re a D.C. resident, and you’re sick of the Post, I
could see where this would be the newspaper you’d want to subscribe
to. That said, however, they would do themselves a HUGE favor if
they’d actually list sources and stop printing some of the stuff they
do. Some of the articles they’ve published are worthy of Jayson
Blair. If they’re not actual fabrications, they’re just
inflammatory pieces that play to their deeply conservative base and are
not worthy of being called journalism. This article, however, is pretty
darn good, so I’ll consider it worthy of linkage here. You, the
average Cake Eater Chronicles reader, are meant to infer that I think
this a worthy newspaper. It is not. But they did get this one right.
The husband sent me this
via email this morning, and I about laughed my fool head off. I can
just see the campaign lawn signs for Dennis’ senate run. The husband
produced a variety for your enjoyment.

and

Now, I adore Dennis. He’s one of those people who calls it like he
sees it. And he, obviously, doesn’t mince words while doing so. I
find it shameful that Monday Night Football fired him for being too
literate. That was the only season I ever tuned in: he made it fun for
me. No matter how literate or erudite he is, however, he just doesn’t
have it to run against an entrenched California senator. He’s a smart
guy. I’m not going to deny that, it’s just that any race he might
enter is potentially doomed. I don’t care how much money he’s got
in the bank and might be willing to spend on an election: the Dems
would bankrupt themselves to make sure he was defeated. Arnold’s win,
I believe, actually surprised them. Not the average, wired Democratic
politico in Sacramento, but more the average “I always vote
Democratic,” Joe. Joe was undoubtedly stupefied that the petition
effort succeeded, a recall was set, that the effort wasn’t thrown out
by the Ninth Circuit. Joe undoubtedly spouted off every chance he got
about how Davis was re-elected last year---legally---and that the
recall was illegal as such. Joe definitely went to the polls two weeks
ago and voted against the recall and for Davis, simply for the reason
that Davis is a Democrat. This is the type of person the Democrats,
particularly those who are coming up for reelection, are going to be
mining for support of the financial and organizational types in any
upcoming races, particularly in Boxer’s reelection run. This is
notion of direct democracy doesn’t sit very well with most
people---from either party. But the notion of an outsider running in a
normal election does seem to raise the ire of a goodly number of
organizational persons for whom politics is their entire life: they
don’t know what to do when an outsider runs other than come out with
their guns blazing. Yet, to have the guns blaze in the first place,
they’ll need the support of Joe Democrat and after the recall, Joe
Democrat will get up off his butt and will work it off to make sure
nothing like Arnold’s victory ever
happens again. Boxer is in no way a “vulnerable” senator. There has
been no popular uprising against her that I know of. I haven’t even
heard of any distinct grumblings in her direction. She’s pretty much
kept her nose to the grindstone in D.C. and has done what she could to
bring home the bacon for her state. That’s fine and dandy. That’s
what senators are supposed to do. While I can understand how electing
Arnold might lead pundits to think that his election will start off a
massive electoral revolt, I just can’t see it
happening---particularly in terms of a well-supported, inoffensive
senator, like Barbara Boxer. Why do I hold this opinion? Because I live
in Minnesota. My state was governed by a former professional wrestler
for four years, and people, including myself, got sick of his antics.
If Jesse had run for re-election, my gut tells me he would have been
soundly defeated. What was new and refreshing when he originally ran
became excessively obnoxious by the time his term was coming to an end.
And guess who replaced Jesse? An entrenched state politico. Now, I’ll
grant you that Arnold is too smart to give Playboy
an interview where he claims he wants to be reincarnated as a 38DD
bra---and it would probably play better in California than it did
here---but it all just depends upon what Arnold actually does with this
wellspring of support he received. If he does well and does what he
claimed he could do---and it works out---he could have the coattails to
get Dennis elected to the Senate. It could just as easily come back at
him, too. And he’s walking a much finer line than most politicians
are subjected to because of his celebrity status. I would hope that
Dennis, however, would be smart enough to realize that a. it’s too
early to be making any sort of assumption about Arnold’s coattails
and b. that no matter how famous you might be, it doesn’t mean
you’ve automatically got the groundwork laid for an election. Unlike
Mr. Schwarzenegger, Mr. Miller has not spent years laying the
groundwork for a run for public office. "Arnold did not just come out
of the blue and do this," Mr. Horowitz said. Horowitz is completely
correct on this point. It’s been rumored for forever that Arnold had
gubernatorial ambitions. He got out there and did the work required to
make it a possibility before he attempted a run. Arnold attended party
functions; he got to know the insiders; he put himself out there,
supported initiatives, and took the heat for his ideas. Arnold worked
to make himself seen as a serious candidate. Dennis would be an
interesting candidate in that he’s got the brains to make it work,
but I doubt that he met the Chairman of the California Republican Party
before he got on Arnold’s bandwagon: Arnold undoubtedly has known
this person for years. This means that Dennis would have, at the very
least, a two-front battle to fight: getting the Republicans on board and trying to unseat an invulnerable senator. But those are the major
battles: there are plenty of minor ones to fight as well. As California
has all of those electoral votes, and the presidential nominees are
always out there, this campaign would also be a national deal: in
essence the timing is off because a presidential race is on in full
force. He would have to fight off any Democratic Presidential Nominee
who needs to win California to acquire the Oval Office while
campaigning for Boxer at the same time. And, lest we forget the other
side of the equation, Dennis would also be forced to take a significant
amount of heat because he's a Bush supporter---and let's face it, Bush
is not really popular in California. It's a toss-up as to who ignored
the other better in the recall campaign---Arnold or Bush---but I think
it was Arnold who was savvy enough to tell Bush to stay the hell away.
There are also fundraising battles to consider. I think Dennis has got
it good financially, but let’s face it, unless he invested REALLY
well, he doesn’t have the chunk of change that Arnold had to rely
upon. And the biggest battle of all will be fighting the miles of
cringe worthy video footage of Dennis spouting off about one topic or
another from his talk show days that any smart Democrat is salivating
at the chance of using in issue ads. This is a lot to beat down for
even the most experienced politico. Unless the finger of God came down
and granted a few miracles, I don’t see how he could possibly be
successful. I’d love to see him run, but I just don’t think the
near future is the time for such a run. He’d be slaughtered. And
that’s sad because I’d really enjoy him talking about Robert
Byrd’s former Klan membership on the Senate floor. C-SPAN would
actually be worth watching for a change.
--- And now for something completely different.
I am sick and freaking tired of these Japanese Ladybugs that seem to be
swarming in my back hallway and finding their way into the apartment as
a result. Ugh.
The weather’s been spectacular since I got back from Florida.
Mid-70’s, sunny, leaves falling. It’s classic Indian Summer weather
and it’s been nice. What is not nice, however, is that we have been
swarmed with these stupid ladybugs as a result of the warm weather.
When the husband and I got back from our walk last night, we arrived at
our back door and saw the hordes of the little things and were grossed
out. Now, it should be said that the husband is not afraid of any type
of insect and is a supreme hunter of them. But last evening, he looked
up as he took off his shoes, saw the plentiful array of ladybugs, said,
“eeew” and slid in the back door and quickly as he could, avoiding
the problem entirely. I don’t know exactly what he was thinking. That
perhaps because I don’t have a problem with squashing the little
things, I would take care of it? Could easily be the case. Whatever he
was thinking, I have no clue about it, but he skipped on the problem
and it was left to me. We’ve never had this problem before
and---assuming this ladybug infestation has been a problem in previous
years and I just never noticed---I suspect the reason we’re getting
hit now is because of the renovations the slumlord performed on the
Cake Eater Duplex last fall. I must admit, the renovation was the
product of our whining, so, if you really wanted a practical example of
chaos theory, this would be the one for you to include in your doctoral
dissertation. God help you when you have to defend it orally, but
that’s not really my problem, is it?
Anyway, I digress, as usual. When we moved in, the Cake Eater Apartment
had steam heat, which meant big clunky radiators were placed under
every window---and we have a goodly number of windows. There was no
venting whatsoever in the apartment. For the first few years that we
lived here, we had no issues with the heat, other than the only
thermostat was in the downstairs apartment, but that was easily
resolved with a fair amount of communication with the neighbors, asking
them to kindly not broil us to death. Two winters ago, however, the
ancient boiler in the basement started acting up. And it was beyond the
husband to fix. The husband is a good handyman, and he’s infinitely
easier to ask to fix something, rather than our building manager, who
could be best described (read euphemistically) as unreliable.
But the boiler was beyond him. The dang thing kept crashing. You’d go
to bed and it would be working just fine, and in the morning you’d
awake to frosty temperatures in the apartment. After calling the
manager and getting him up from his hangover (whoops---did I say
that?), he’d come over and fix the thing and things would be fine
until the next time it crashed and you’d have to phone again. Well,
the manager finally relayed the need for a new boiler to the Great
White Hunter slumlord. We celebrated. Jumped up and down for joy that
the slumlord was finally going
to do something about this great, yet unloved, house we live in. This
is, however, where the chaos theory comes in: ask for a new boiler and
you will get a forced air furnace with all of the requisite venting
running through the attic that you can handle. This is a problem, you
see, because the attic has old wooden venting slats that no one has
ever bothered to board up. All sorts of wonderful insects fly into the
attic, and subsequently into the apartment, through these slats.
Insects we’ve never noticed before because we never had vents. This
summer, there was a wasp nest up there; now we are dealing with
Japanese Ladybugs. They’re swarming in the back hallway. I counted
while I sucked them up with the vacuum yesterday---I got thirty-three.
And that was just in the back hallway: I’m not talking about the ones
who have made it into the bathroom or hang out by my favorite seat on
the sofa. It’s revolting. I just went out there and there are three
new ones. I left the vacuum cleaner out just in case. So, there’s
your practical application of chaos theory. Instead of a butterfly
beating its wings on one side of the globe and subsequently causing a
typhoon on the other, you have: bitch
greatly about broken boiler---forced air heat and new venting
installed--- ultimately resulting in swarms of Japanese Ladybugs.
Simpler than the butterfly/typhoon example, eh? Make sure you mention
me in your dissertation acknowledgements.
--- When I was writing yesterday’s post, wee bastard’s battery died
and I lost some information. Unfortunately, I did not notice this until
this morning. Whoops. I would like to thank my guest bloggers for all
of their hard work. I was amused. I hope you were, too. And in exciting
news if you’re interested in the husband at all, you should know that
he has a new blog called the TPS Report,
and you can get there by following the link at the top right of this
page. You should know that the husband makes his living telling all of
those people who have chief as the first word in their
professional title what they do and do not need for IT solutions.
He’s a strategy guy: he looks at the big picture of a company and
finds what will work best for them. The TPS Report (and he explains the
meaning behind that title in one of his posts) is mainly devoted to his
ideas in this area. I’ve long said, in a non-biased way, that the
husband is one of the smartest people I know. And I mean that: he’s
got a genius IQ. He has a BIG brain and is able to grasp concepts much
more quickly than most people. All right, there’s your mandatory bit
of nepotism for the day and I’m outta here.