He Went Back To Ohio

...but his city was gone.

Ohio's Attorney General, Mark Dann, resigned this week. Amid a giant sexual harassment scandal. Two women have filed suit against staffers of Dann's, who were fired earlier in the month. In true mafioso style, one of the women's offices was tossed as an intimidation tactic after the two were fired. (Something the organized crime folks love to do.)

Kind of a bitter irony that Dann entered the AG's office promising to clean up corruption in Columbus. Cronyism, giving jobs to old buddies, remains alive and well. The old boys network is still viable and intact.

Governor Strickland made a statement to the press which said that whomever he appoints to serve out the remainder of Dann's term will be someone, "mature." Read that as old white dude, folks. Because that's what he means.

I don't know which irritates me more, the fact that Dann's youth and inexperience worked against him, that he gave important jobs to buddies who weren't qualified, or that he overstayed his welcome by leaps and bounds. He should have stepped down before it got this far. In my ever so humble, that is.

The local news has been having a field day with this, doing a big "I told you so!" I've had a gutload of it, enough already, which is why I haven't written about this before. It has been going on since April, when the Columbus Dispatch wrote an expose` about the lawsuits.

I get despondent from time-to-time about politics, hopeless that it will ever change. The same terrible cycle gets repeated over and over, as the band Carbon Leaf says, love, loss, hope, repeat.

I went to a Rotary club lunch a week or so ago, with some friends. Around the table, the Dann scandal was the topic du jour, along with a discussion of pushing someone at my table to run for a township trustee position.

"Hell, no." She said. "Why would I want to get involved with that mess?"

Someone else at the table joked that those who should run, never do, and the conversation turned to other things.

There is a lot of truth in that. I think you've got to be a pretty big sociopath to run for President, and that there is a good chance that people who could truly change things never stand for election. That's a shame; but the ultimate beauty of the system is that anyone can run for a local office. The downside is that you've got to get your hands dirty and raise some money to do so.

Dann's parting shot (besides not shaking the gov's hand and stalking out of the press conference, immaturely and rudely) was that he was going to help his wife sell dishes on the internet. Good luck with that.

Scooter's been sentenced t'JAIL!

Scooter Libby has been sentenced to 30 months in jail for being the biggest blabbermouth in history. Also perhaps the most forgetful person in history, his testimony recorded in depositions that were played at his trial were rife with "I don't recall(s)" and "I don't remember(s)."

I have said before that I firmly believe that President Idiot will pardon Scooter either as one of his last official acts as president in 2009 or more likely that he will issue a pardon before Scooter even serves one day in jail.

I think he should go to jail. I think he should serve every single day of his sentence. I don't think he ought to get any special treatment because he is famous (or infamous, as the case may be). He had no right to leak the name of a CIA agent, but he did it anyway. Then, when he was caught out, he worked hard to obstruct the investigation into his wrongdoing.

I feel for the agent that he outed. Here she was, pursuing her chosen career, by all accounts she was good at it and liked it, and the Idiot Administration fucks it up for her. Thank Yew Dubya! Way to go!

However, I also think that the Veep should have been charged with something, (don't ask me what, I'm not a legal expert) because I'd be willing to bet Paris Hilton's inheritance that Scooter didn't come up with the brilliant plan to out Ms. Plame all by his lonesome little self, I'm sure that plan came from on high.

There are 593 days left in the Bush presidency. I found a countdown clock!

Extraordinary Rendition

I have wanted to write about this for a long while, but stayed out of the debate until now. This is the process by which the American government has been taking accused terrorists to a third country, not the accused's homeland and not the United States, to interrogate them. This practice is so incredibly counter to every ideal this country was founded on. Let's just toss the Geneva Conventions completely aside, shall we? The Idiot Administration is not only complacent in this program, but an advocate of it. NPR had two stories on Morning Edition that talked about this unbelievable situation, the first about the ACLU suing a Boeing subsidiary.

As more and more of the process is exposed to the light of day, it becomes more and more horrifying. Not only did the government do this, but they had help from civilian companies, even support. Jeppesen Dataplan is accused by the American Civil Liberties Union of actively assisting the CIA by doing what Jeppesen does every day, which is provide logistical support to help maximize fuel economy and fastest flight plan routes for civilian and government contracts. In short, the lawsuit is about a company profiting from torture, which thankfully IS still illegal, even though the Idiot Administration seems to think that torture itself is all right.

There is a village in Texas missing its idiot! Personally, I can not wait until he goes back to Crawford, settles on his ranch, and disappears from public life. That statement alone is probably enough to get me an FBI file, sigh. Being anti-Bush is not the same as being anti-American. I get so tired of explaining that.

The second thing Morning Edition broadcast about this reprehensible program was about the European viewpoint. Sylvia Poggioli had a report about a conference that took place in Italy, on counter-terrorism. Did you know that Italy has indicted 26 Americans accused of kidnapping in connection to the extraordinary rendition program? Which is awesome, even if they never do get to prosecute the case. The Europeans are particularly critical of extraordinary rendition, (as well they should be. So should we all.) and of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Their view is that ER is no different than government sanctioned kidnapping and torture.

They used a phrase in the report that particularly amused me, "ghost prisons." And while I know what they mean is the off-the-books secret detention facilities that the CIA apparently has all over the world, it made me giggle because I wonder if they have EMF readers.

The end of that report had a quote that I'd like to highlight, where one of the interviewees said that whoever the next president of the United States is, damage control and restoring US credibility with Europe and the Muslim world will be one of the first priorities. We can only hope.

Egad, has it been so long then?

Every day I come across things I want to write about. Things from commentary about a report from NPR to the strange leaf I saw to new music that The Summit shares with me to tangents that spring from a myriad of other bloggers like Scary's, Misty's, Zoe's, and Dooce's blogs, how what I read about makes me want to say something else. Unfortunately, I live in the real world, where I have a full time job, a home to care for, a daily commute to and from work (won't someone PLEASE invent a Thought-Writer so I can write blog entries in the car?) and a plethora of other things that I do each day. So it has been about 13 days since I posted anything new. Which is a bummer, because I love the writing process and I take incredibly silly pride in this project, wanting to share my wit and wisdom (or lack thereof) with the world.

So! What’s been happening? Well, I’m watching the Foley scandal unfold with barely suppressed glee. Heard Newt Gingrich on NPR on my way into work this morning talking about “liberals” forcing this into the news 5 weeks before the election, and Newt annoys me on so many levels, but honestly, Newt, could you not have complained without sounding like “Everyone’s out to get MEEEEEEE”? Barely suppressed glee, of course, because the Republicans could well end up losing some House or Senate seats over this whole mess, and that would be a SPLENDIFEROUS thing, people. Dan Savage has had some wonderful things to say about Foley, and you ought to check that out.

There’s Scary and Misty’s new project, Done a Poo which although tacky, gross, and possibly completely inappropriate is the funniest thing I’ve seen since the first time I caught “The Osbornes” on MTV. Maybe you have to be completely fucked up to appreciate it, but Misty’s photos of Dubya are priceless. (I think they’re both geniuses, myself.)

Then there is this lunatic, who thinks that the recent school shootings in America are due to (wait for it) THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS. Can you believe this? Ban HP, ladies and gents, and you’ll have the end of school shootings in the US. Right, cause we never had school shootings BEFORE Harry came along, and all the OTHER countries where Harry has been printed (notably ENGLAND) have sooooooo many school shootings due to the popularity of Harry Potter. To pull a quote from one of the HP books, “Load of old tosh.”

Which brings me to my Halloween costume. I love Halloween; it is possibly my favorite holiday. I have never stopped dressing up for Halloween. My sainted mother made many of my costumes growing up; a Native American Princess, a clown, a really cool pilgrim, and she helped me make over a costume purchased from the local theater’s production of Evita so I could go as a Flamenco dancer one year in my teens. I only stopped going Trick-or-Treating after my sophomore year of high school. In my defense, I do have a sister who is 9 years younger than me, and I took her with me. But I’ve been a witch for about the last 10 years, in the sense of the Wicked Witch of the West. And I’m tired of that witchy costume, so I’ve put together a fantastic HP-esqe costume. I’m a random Gryffindor student, not any one character in particular. At a local thrift store, I picked up a long sleeved white button-down shirt, a grey sweater vest, and a burgundy and white striped tie, which while not authentic WAS a dollar and fifty cents, so it will work just fine. From eBay I got two embroidered patches, one that says “Hogwarts” and one that says “Gryffindor” (no, I have not decided which patch will go where yet) and from Whimsic Alley, I got a FABULOUS cloak/robe/whatever you want to call it and a pin that says “Prefect”, because if I had been born a Brit or an Aussie, I would have been a prefect in school. I had to exchange the cloak for a smaller size (WHOPEEE, the extra-large was way too big) but the new smaller one will be here any day. And why, pray tell, am I gushing to the interweb about my Halloween costume? Of course, so that I can tell you that I’m throwing a Halloween party!!!

I’m getting a t-shirt for DH that says, “This is my fucking costume. You got a problem with it?” If you know him IRL then you will know that’s so perfect it isn’t even funny. We’re such opposites; I would dress up for a costume party any day of the year and he would do it on the 10th of never.

I haven’t determined the menu in its entirety yet, but I think I’m going to have candy, (can’t have a Halloween party without CANDY), pumpkin cookies, caramel apples with nuts, pumpkin mousse pie tarts (more about those in a minute), and I’m stymied about what else to have. Fall favorites round these parts tend to be apple dumplings (no, not for a party of 40+, I’m NOT making 40 apple dumplings), apple cider (yah, maybe, but only if I can find some way to booze it up, cause the cider I’m talking about is not hard cider, and my last party’s non-alcoholic punch was wasted on my boozy friends), pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pecan pie….and there’s nothing really of substance there. I would make some big pot of hot soup, but then there’s the problem of serving it in small quantities….

The pumpkin mousse pie tarts are something that I came up with all on my own, and I’m really excited to share this. In the interest of full disclosure, this is a recipe that started its life in my recipe book from a friend who had done Weight Watchers. But I don’t like the texture of the original recipe, and I messed with it until it became something not at all like the original. The recipe will make maybe 60 bite-sized tarts, or you could also put the filling into a 9 inch graham cracker crust and have a nice big pie instead. This tastes better and the texture is better too IF you make it a day ahead of time. Being low in sugar and low in fat, it is an excellent substitute for pumpkin pie, which is really actually quite bad for you.

Pumpkin Mousse Tarts

Ingredients
1 (3oz) box fat free sugar free pudding, vanilla
1 cup fat free milk
1 (8 oz) small tub fat free non-dairy whipped topping (such as Cool Whip)
1-1/2 cup pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just pureed pumpkin)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spices (or a like-sized combination of cinnamon, ginger, & allspice)
60 fillo dough shells (like these)

Equipment
1 LARGE bowl
whisk
icing decorating bag or a large zip top bag
star tip

To Make
Whisk the pudding into the milk in large bowl until it thickens. Add spices, then pumpkin and mix well. Gently fold in the whipped topping until well blended. Fridge overnight or at least 8 hours.

Place star tip on icing bag. Fill icing bag with mousse and pipe into fillo shells. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve. Could be garnished with a dollop more whipped topping, but I don’t usually bother.

Eat lots of them. They’re mostly fat free and mostly sugar free too.

What’s been going on in YOUR world?

Soundtrack: Jonny Lang’s new CD, Turn Around