11:30AM  Today is my mother’s birthday.  I need to take off in an hour or so, and don’t know how much I will end up doing.  I’m having a surprise party for her this evening and have a few errands.  I just learned that my beautiful GeorgieW has liver failure and is not responding to treatment.  I’m waiting for Dr. Franklin to call me.  She is so beautiful, a long hair gray, with such an attitude. I rescued her when she was about a month old.  Now I know why she has been hiding for so long.  Doc is sitting here by me.  I don’t know what her feelings on the subject are, but now I know why she has been so clingy the past few days.  For some strange reason Doc seems to have this sixth sense about these things.  Several days before I knew Clancy was terminal Doc was all snuggles to the point where I knew something was wrong.  After Clancy died she stayed close for a few days then went back to her usual Doc Holiday self.   

 

The only thing that has salvaged this day is the fact that I’ve been able to pick up the Braves – Dodgers game off the MLB site.  As long as I can listen to some baseball, it’s okay. 

 

Midnight:  I am wiped out.  The party was a huge success.  My 77 year old mother and her pace-maker consumed 1.5 bottles of Champaign. I talked to my father a few minutes ago.  He poured her into bed, where she has basically passed out. Tomorrow she will sleep late and wake up with out one little trace of a hang-over.  My condo is trashed.  I ended up with about 45 minutes to wrap a half dozen packages for her party, and pull them out of packing boxes.  This is one time when Ebay truly came in like the cavalry.

 

The dear feline lovers at the Pet Praise and Prayer Blog have offered prayers and a candle for GeorgieW.  It is one of the sweetest things I’ve seen in years.  I was feeling sad, today.  While visiting with one friend, I learned that another friend I’ve not heard from in months lost her only child right before Christmas.  Then when I heard about the storms today, how dare I feel sorry for myself.

 

So, tonight is short.  I am tired.  Miss Piggy is exhausted from playing in all the wrapping paper.  Rumsfeld is exhausted for playing with Miss Piggy.  Brunhilda has already called it a night.  I think she has the right idea.

 

Contrary to popular opinion, immigrants are not the drag on society you think they are.

 

You know, I think UFO science solving the Global Warming problem is as logical as anything algore  has come up with.  Makes a heck of a lot more sense to me!

 

Charles Krauthammer on why a return to the moon is worth it!

 

 ISLAM, IRAQ, TERROR

 

Islam’s plans for Europe.  

Is OBL still alive? 

 Is the Muslim Brotherhood a threat to the US?  

Yesterday I mentioned that I was wondering if GWB’s plans for Iran and Syria were Machavillian in scope.  Today’s American Thinker   is pondering if that’s not just what GWB needs to be.  Maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way.  GWB is a poker player.  Wonder what he’s up to?

 

REPUBLICANS

Novak has a RCP column on the ‘conservative void’ in the GOP. Is there a void or are things just changing?  Has today’s version of ‘Conservative’ – which is far more ‘conservative’ than anything Ronald Reagan ever envisioned, gone as far as it can go, and must ‘moderate’ to get back to the conservative practices of Reagan?  I’ve been blogging about this for nearly a year.  Segue to the NY Sun piece about Giuliani and CPAC. 

 

“…The fact is, the base is already fairly comfortable with Mr. Giuliani and is quite seriously considering his candidacy. It's primarily a few gatekeepers — such as Mr. Keene, Focus on the Family head James Dobson, and Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — who stand truly dead-set against him. And these gatekeepers are becoming increasingly irrelevant in a party that wants to find its way out of the political wilderness and, to some extent, blames the more extreme elements of the religious right for leading it into the woods in the first place….”

 

This evening at my mother’s party I was talking to a friend who is a member of the RNC, proudly sporting his Giuliani button.  We were discussing this very subject.  Like he said, a good Republican votes for the elephant because he sure can’t stomach voting for a jackass!  He thinks we need something of a ‘course correction’ to bring us back towards the conservative principles of Reagan. 

 

PRIMARIES 2008

 Drudge’s anti-Giuliani bias is showing again.  This time it is a hit piece about Giuliani and the draft, while contrasting with Drudge’s bias for Romney. 

 Richardson in Iowa.

 In 2005 Giuliani won the CPAC straw poll.  Why all the bellyaching about Rudy and conservatives?

 Giuliani has highest approvals and likability of any candidate.

Romney guilty of breaking the 11th Commandment.

 Is the Politico’s piece on Giuliani’s judicial picks a hit piece?  Today the theme of the web seems to be pick on Rudy day.

 

Did John McCain say American lives have been ‘wasted’ in Iraq? Okay, are we getting back to the real John McCain? Recently he has not been as much of the media darling because of his ‘conservative’ take on things.  Is he now pandering to the media?  I think this is not a good development.

 

It appears as though Giuliani took the Spartanburg, SC Straw Poll this evening, with Duncan Hunter running a close second.  Hunter’s people worked like crazy to get second place.   McCain’s showing isn’t good.  Considering Giuliani’s organization in SC isn’t all that much, I think it is a moral victory for his camp.  I think Romney could also be a big loser when one considers the fact that the county chair is a huge Romney supporter. On the other hand, Spartanburg isn’t as conservative as either Greenville, Anderson, or Oconee Counties so I would like to know who pulls those counties.  I’m afraid Tancredo is going to have a good showing in Anderson, where there is a resurgence and hints of major white supremacist goings-on there.

 

 Flap says Giuliani is “NOW” the frontrunner.