laurieanichols

Snow again in Blandford.

laurieanichols — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:18:30 +0000

I woke up this morning and lo and behold snow, I feel as if I had forgotten what it looked like, it has been fairly rare this year. I drove down to town and the drive was so beautiful with the branches covered with snow and the surrounding fog making it seem unwordly.

The snow isn’t going to stay, by Monday the temperatures will be back up to the forties and our winter wonderland will melt away. We will be back to the depressing brown, dead vegetation look everywhere, spring hurry!

CAPTION THIS: Mitt Romney’s Baby Photo Op FAIL

laurieanichols — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:58:54 +0000

I have been waiting for Romney to be seen with a baby and this photo supports my theory that Romney would be terrible with babies. Our President is a natural with babies, they stop crying when he holds them, our President is also amazing with his dog Bo, there is a beautiful picture of the President and the first dog running side by side and our President certainly knows how to croon a tune. Romney has a nice enough voice when he sang America the Beautiful yet he fails horribly in the dog department and this photo is a dud in the baby department. Our President blows Romney away with babies and dogs and that says something.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Peter Orszag, Former Top Obama Adviser, Takes Issue With Portrayal In New Book

laurieanichols — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:49:20 +0000

I grew disenchanted with Peter Orszag more and more when it became obvious that he was a deficit hawk along the lines of Tim Geithner, who has operated at the behest of Wall Street more than anything else. My distrust came from the fact that these two men were listening to those men from Wall Street who, through their short sightedness and greed blew up the housing bubble until it exploded down all around us and then cried like babies when it was time to pay the piper. Instead they made out like bandits while the rest of working America suffered and is still suffering. To add insult to injury, Orszag left the administration to go work for Citigroup, the most useless of all the banking groups. It has produced Robert Rubin who led Clinton to repeal Glass-Steagal and further deregulate the Commodities/futures market. Citigroup has had to be bailed out by the tax payers since the 1980′s when they went playing with fire in Mexico and Venezuela. Orszag is an example of the dangers that we have when the revolving door only sees the Wall Street, big banks, military contractor players come through it into Washington, be it within the administration or congress and so the needs of the “people” get drowned out by the needs of those powerful few.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitt Romney Super PAC Republishes 2007 Romney Ad, Violating Finance Laws, Watchdog Says

laurieanichols — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:31:18 +0000

This is not the sole example of questionable ethics, according to an investigation done by a reporter at “The Nation” two of Romney’s key backers made billions off the auto bailout. When Romney criticized the Obama administration for doing away with the pensions of non union workers in favor of the unions, Romney was accusing the wrong party. It wasn’t the Obama administration who had raided the pensions, it was the two gentleman who head the private company that was working with the Administration in the bankruptcy deal who cleaned out those pension plans. Those two made a fortune and when this investigation makes its way to the mainstream media which I think that it will, it will be interesting to see if and how Romney explains this away.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Being without the hubby.

laurieanichols — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:40:08 +0000

This week my hubby has flown the coop and embarked on an exciting career journey with the largest construction management firm in the Northeast. I am so happy because he is excited, happy, challenged and back where he belongs, in charge of big projects, meeting a variety of people and telling them what to do. This new position has him away from home, in the big city of Boston. So it is a little weird, especially with the remote control. Fast forwarding is his job and he is very good at it. Now it’s just me alone watching t.v and no one manning the remote, I could do it but it gets in the way of my writing and reading on my iPad. Not the worst thing in the world, but having the hubby take care of the nightly viewing of shows was really nice. I miss his company, the house has been quiet and I haven’t laughed all day. I’ll get used to it once again because before this dry spell, my husband was often away from home in New York and Boston and it was a way of life for us. I have to say that hearing how happy his voice is over the phone makes me very happy. I’m sure that he’ll be happy to know that I miss him.

A Box of Chocolates

laurieanichols — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:15:28 +0000

Hazelnut chocolate balls

I would hope for a hazelnut nougat inside my chocolate, I once made brownies with hazelnuts and they were to die for, I haven't made them since because they are too dangerous for the waistline, that is how good they were. Could not stop at one or two.

GOP Candidates Make Misstatements In Republican Debate

laurieanichols — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:05:03 +0000

I would have loved to see the moderators, especially after the third or fourth debates, to have been armed with these facts and to have been to call out the candidates whenever they said something untrue. It wouldn’t have been that difficult for the moderators that have done so because these candidates say the same things over and over again, as if repetition makes it true. Romney and Gingrich are especially guilty of that. To see them scrambling and clarifying their statements and positions would have made for both entertaining and enlightening debates. Wishful thinking on my part, oh well.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Gang That Couldn’t Bomb Straight

laurieanichols — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:28:02 +0000

Mr. Scheer, I have been thinking along the same lines, that instead of propping Iran up as the next “Iraq” why haven’t we been focusing our eyes onto Pakistan? We cannot afford another military conflict resembling Iraq or Afghanistan, Israel’s present day government which mimics our far right GOP right now, needs to address their own home grown economic issues instead of spoiling for a fight with Iran. I don’t know what the the E.U is thinking as well. They are in economic turmoil, they have just been engaged in a military conflict with Libya and now they are also getting adversarial towards Iran. Diplomacy must be engaged but it doesn’t seem that anyone is interested in going that route right now. What are they thinking?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Tax Plan Would Close Some Loopholes But Open Others

laurieanichols — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:13:43 +0000

All this back and forth should make for a better tax code, healthy debate from all sides theoretically should produce the best outcome. But then we get congress and no matter how the tax plan gets changed or even if it doesn’t get changed, the chance of it getting passed aren’t very good. It is interesting however that the economic plans proposed by the presidential candidates; Santorum, Romney, Gingrich and Paul, Ron Paul is the only one whose plan doesn’t add too much to the federal deficit. As always, when the republicans are amongst themselves, deficits don’t matter, yet put President Obama in the room and the argument shifts. I am pointing it out because it is a matter of principle, the whole debt ceiling debacle that went on last summer because of the republican opposition and their recalcitrant stance on any measures for those who were feeling severe economic pain really rankles to this day and to see the candidates show their true colors about their indifference to deficits when it suits their purposes is a little too much to bear.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

National Foreclosure Settlement: Several States Using Funds From Deal To Close Budget Gaps

laurieanichols — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:56:49 +0000

If those funds are used to shore up any programs that are directly related to the foreclosure crisis and the unemployment crisis, the two are intertwined, such as medicaid, food programs, funding for educational programs then I can see why the governors would want to divert the funds to further aid their constituents. However, I would be completely against using those funds to make up for any lost revenue due to additional tax cuts for corporations or the wealthy such as a la Gov. Chris Christie.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost