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I have not been all that thrilled with the political campaigns going on so far. McCain is my choice but it's mostly a default choice. I'd much rather Bobby Jindal were running - but hopefully one day he will.

I am now JAZZED to vote for McCain with his choice of Sarah Palin as VP!!! WOOT!!!

It's not just that she's a woman (if that were my only criteria I'd have voted for Shillary). It's that her ideals are MY ideals. She is a true role model for women like me and those growing up in today's society. She is tough as nails (I've heard her nickname is Sarah Barracuda) and not afraid to stand up for the good ol' boy network to get things done. (She stood up against her own party and opposed the Bridge to Nowhere.)

I love that some of Messiah's supporters are questioning her experience. hahahahahaha Do they really want to go there? She has more experience than he does and he has the gall to run for the presidency itself.

I haven't been "excited" for a ticket in a long time. Now I'm ready to get a McCain / Palin bumper sticker and t-shirt. :) I have a feeling that she will run against Shillary in a future election. I DO want to see a woman (or a person of "non-white" color - like Jendal or Michael Steele - I would love either of those guys too) in the white house but that is not the only reason to vote for someone. It's nice to have the right ideals in a candidate - being a woman is just icing on the cake.

She's a great speaker too. She just thanked Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton for paving the way. That's classy. And smart. :) My MIL was excited to vote for Hillary even though she doesn't agree with her ideals. She just wanted to see a woman in the white house before she died. Now she can vote for someone with her ideals and get a woman in the second highest spot in America. And perhaps one day the highest spot. Woohoo!!!

No, not the state.

I've been watching the situation in Georgia with concern. Even though I'm not old enough to remember the "bad ol' days" of the Soviet Empire, the fall of the Empire in 1989 somehow had a profound and memorable impact on me.

Now, under Putin (as if he really stepped down) and the former KGB, Russia is stretching its muscles once again.

Some people have said that Georgia provoked Russia but that is NOT the case. Georgian troops entered THEIR OWN territory (yes, it is still Georgian territory even while it is disputed by the Southern Ossetians) after being fired upon the day before by Russian sympathizers (militia) in South Ossetia.

Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

I am 25% Ukrainian by birth and would love to know more about that side of my genealogy. The Ukraine is watching the Russian conflict with fear and trepidation.

“On the evening of the 7th, the Ossetians launch an all-out barrage focused on Georgian villages, not on Georgian positions. Remember, these Georgian villages inside South Ossetia – the Georgians have mostly evacuated those villages, and three of them are completely pulverized. That evening, the 7th, the president gets information that a large Russian column is on the move. Later that evening, somebody sees those vehicles emerging from the Roki tunnel [into Georgia from Russia]. Then a little bit later, somebody else sees them. That's three confirmations. It was time to act.

“What they had in the area was peacekeeping stuff, not stuff for fighting a war. They had to stop that column, and they had to stop it for two reasons. It's a pretty steep valley. If they could stop the Russians there, they would be stuck in the tunnel and they couldn't send the rest of their army through. So they did two things. The first thing they did, and it happened at roughly the same time, they tried to get through [South Ossetian capital] Tskhinvali, and that's when everybody says Saakashvili started the war. It wasn't about taking Ossetia back, it was about fighting their way through that town to get onto that road to slow the Russian advance. The second thing they did, they dropped a team of paratroopers to destroy a bridge. They got wiped out, but first they managed to destroy the bridge and about 15 Russian vehicles.

The peacekeepers had a military objective, and the first rule of warfare when you're talking to the media is not to reveal to your enemy what you're going to do. So they weren't going to blather into a microphone and say well, actually, I'm trying to go through Tskhinvali in order to stop the Russians. So what did he say instead? I'm here to restore constitutional order in South Ossetia. And that's it. With that, Georgia lost the propaganda war and the world believes Saakashvili started it. And the rest of the story...you know.”

Let us not forget the cruelty and brutality of Soviet inspired actions...

Many Western camera crews were robbed at gunpoint ten meters from Russian tanks while Russian commanders just stood there smoking their cigarettes while the irregulars...that happened to a Turkish TV crew. They're lucky to still be alive. Some of the Georgians were picked up by the irregulars. If they happened to be female, they got raped. If they happened to be male, they got shot immediately, sometimes tortured. Injured people we have in hospitals who managed to get out have had arms chopped off, eyes gouged out, and their tongues ripped out.

Michael Totten deserves our support and that includes monetary donations. He does not work for any mainstream news outlet. He works for himself and his readers and is solely supported by reader donations. He does AMAZING work.

I tried logging in to my own website's administrative panel and got this freakishly scary error page saying my certificate expired.

Well, yes it did but I also renewed it like a month ago. I am just having a very hard time getting it re-installed. Why it needs to be reinstalled is beyond me. Why can't it just be renewed and voila be done?

I hate technical things like this. It makes no sense and it is overly confusing to my puny mind. I just want to click a button and be done with it. Unfortunately I have two different companies to work with - one is the SSL certificate company and the other is my Host. Yes, it would be easier if they were the same company but at this point getting it that way would be even more complicated and I don't want to deal with it.

I would be willing to PAY someone to take care of this for me. Sheesh. My website designer company did do this for me the last few times but they are too busy now ... I've been dropped. *sigh*

So if you try to go to my website don't get scared okay? :) Nobody hacked it and it hasn't been taken over. I'm just lame and need to get my act together.

What is with my body? I turn 3o and suddenly I fall apart?!?

A couple of weekends ago, Trooper and I went to an agility demo for Fido's Farm. I loved it and had a great time - and I'm sure that Trooper did too. He got to meet all kinds of fun and new dogs and people. He wanted to eat my lunch (I had a hot dog) but he had to settle for his kibble.

However, that night I could hardly walk. Both of my knees hurt SO bad. I've never had bad knees and I didn't do anything particularly strenuous at the demo. We were there for 4 hours and worked hard but I don't remember wrenching anything.

Ever since then my knees have fluctuated between dull aches and severe, cringe inducing pain. Today I ran a couple of errands - it didn't take more than 2 hours - and then I ran around cleaning up the house to get ready for our foster puppy's new family.

And now my knees feel like balloons...lead balloons that are pulsating.

What the flippin' heck? I hate taking pills but my mom says I need to take ibuprofen. *sigh*

And it's Sunday night...I hate Sunday evenings. It means work starts tomorrow and I'm reminded of all the things I did not accomplish over the weekend. The never ending list of chores with not enough hours in the day.

The good news? I had a fabulous time shopping and bought over $200 worth of product and spent less than $15. Woot! Coupons rock. :)

I feel really old. Granted, 30 is not old. But it used to be that I was the youngest kid on the block at work. I was the "young pup" who everyone teased about being young.

Yeah...those days are so over. *sigh*

The interns at our company are just babies. They are so young that they don't even know Seinfeld references!!!

We had these amazing cupcakes on Tuesday and I just ate the "muffin top" and threw away the "stump" ... the intern just gave me a blank stare while my other coworkers laughed. I asked if he ever watched Seinfeld and he shook his head.

Oh dear Lord...I apologize to all those who I teased when I was younger about not knowing certain shows - or when I asked my mom what a "record" was.

Seinfeld is a classic. It's completely inappropriate and wonderful. My coworkers and I use lines from Seinfeld all the time. I still watch the reruns.

And it's now a show that "old" people watch. *sigh*