Where Are My Keys?

Well done, Sir..

 

Doesn't this position somewhat contradict the Pro-Choice platform?

After all, it's not a person until it is born, right?   Explain this then.

The White House Visitors Office requires that an unborn child—still residing in utero—must be counted as a full human being when its parents register for a White House tour, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

White House Visitors Office director Ellie Schafer sent an email to a Capitol Hill staffer Tuesday morning explaining the process for registering an unborn fetus for a White House tour:

We have received a number of calls regarding how to enter security information for a baby that has not yet been born.

Crazy as it may sound, you MUST include the baby in the overall count of guests in the tour. It’s an easy process.

LAST NAME: The family’s last name

• FIRST NAME: “Baby” as a first name
• MIDDLE NAME: NMN as in No Middle Name
• DOB: Use the date you are submitting the request to us as their birthday
• GENDER: if the parents know put that gender down if not, you can enter either M or F as we’ll ask you to update it at the time of birth
• SOCIAL: As they will not have a SSN and are under 18, you will not need to enter this field.  Again if the spreadsheet asked for a social enter 9 zero’s (not the word nine zeros but 000000000 and yes it happens!)
• CITIZEN/CITY/STATE: The citizen, city and state should be entered the same as the parents

Meet Oscar..

Over the weekend, there was an addition to the WAMK family.  We rescued a nice boy from Denver Dumb Friends, and brought him home.  You can see him here on the car ride home:

Once we got home, he was introduced to Genevieve, our yellow lab, and we set out for a stroll around his new neighborhood:

After all that excitement, someone found his way up on the bed, for a well-deserved snooze:

I'd say someone is fitting in perfectly..

Blaming the victim..

Here in Denver, we had a dramatic rescue the other day.  A dog fell through some ice on a local lake, and couldn't get out.  Fire and Rescue showed up, and was able to pluck the pooch from the icy water.  The local NBC affiliate, 9 News, had the owner, the pooch, and the fireman that rescued him on the morning news yesterday to celebrate the happy ending.

As the anchor got out of her chair, kneeling on the floor next to the dog, she got up in his face a little, and got a bite to her face.  The fireman jumped right in, gave her first aid, and got her to the hospital.  She had surgery, and is recovering from a bite to the lip.

 

The owner of the dog was then cited for not having the dog on a leash, and the dog is now quarantined for 10 days to observe for any signs of rabies.

This poor dog was obviously still traumatized by the initial incident, and is then placed in a television studio, a place full of unfamiliar sights and sounds.  Then a stranger gets too close, and he reacts in defense.

And now the owner gets a citation, and loses his dog for 10 days.  The dog, still recovering from a terrible experience in a frozen lake, is now forced to be away from home and his owner for 10 days, probably scared and confused as to what is happening around him.

I feel for the anchor getting bit, but doesn't every parent teach their child to use caution around strange animals?

It's that time of year..

Girl Scout cookie time!  The little Duper has joined a Daisy troop (Daisy->Brownie->Girl Scout), and has already unloaded close to 40 boxes of Thin Mints to suckers friends and neighbors.  She'll get a patch for her uniform, and everyone gets to enjoy delicious cookies.  Win-win!

 

Multiples levels of disgust here..

A 36-year old retired teacher found and cared for an infant alone in a tent, wearing only a "onesie" and mittens in rainy, 40-degree weather at an "Occupy" event.

An infant’s cries rang through the Occupy DC encampment in McPherson Square Wednesday morning, and when a group went to investigate they found only a baby girl alone in a tent, wearing a onesie and mittens.

Soon after, authorities said, a man had been arrested and the girl — who was unharmed — was in the city’s care.

The campers notified U.S. Park Police officers and then cared for the girl until help arrived, according to Kelly Canavan, 36, a retired Prince George’s County school teacher who has been living at the camp.

D.C. Fire/EMS workers checked on the girl around 10:30 a.m. She was fine, according to Sgt. David Schlosser, a Park Police spokesman, and is now with the District’s child protective services department.

About 30 minutes later, Schlosser said, a man returned to the encampment and identified himself as the baby’s father. Police arrested the man, charging him with attempted second-degree cruelty to children.

“Mid 40s, rainy, onesie, alone,” Schlosser said, describing the circumstances that led police to arrest the man

As a parent, I'm disgusted that someone would:

• Leave an infant unattended
• Not have a child properly clothed in inclement weather
• Leave an unattended infant in a public place

As a taxpayer, I'm also disgusted a schoolteacher is "retired" at age 36. 

I hope this guy loses custody of the child.  Remember when this happened at a Tea Party event, and how the MSM lead off the evening news with the story?

 

 

Did Santa bring you what you asked for?

I both gave and received with the same gift (I am a master of multitasking, after all).  I was able to commission the Official Artist of WAMK to paint WAMK World HQ (no, not the shutters and the trim, an actual image of the house).  We have been collecting pieces by this local artist for several years now, and she was gracious enough to do this project for me.

Here is the finished product:

   

Ho Ho Ho!

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

Hey, did you hear?

In all the excitement of Barney Frank deciding to retire, you may have missed the news that longtime friend of WAMK (and the official realtor of WAMK as well) Riles33 got engaged over the Thanksgiving holiday.

No date set for the wedding, but step in the right direction!

First, JDJ did it, now Riles.  What's next, Obama cutting taxes, and eliminating thousands of Government jobs?

The elephant in the room..

Instapundit has a post up on the impact of taxes on your 401(k) plan. This comment from one of his readers gave me pause:

UPDATE: Reader John MacDonald writes: “When they reach 70, they have to make withdrawals but since the banks are only paying 1.5% , their retirement principal becomes depleted at a faster rate. Financial planners used to factor in returns of 7-8% when figuring how long their clients’ money would last. That’s been thrown out the window….that’s a story the media haven’t written about. Middle class seniors thought they would be OK, but aren’t so sure today… they haven’t made money on stocks they held since 2000. …to add insult to injury, banks have been paying an anaemic 1% on CD’s….If they saved $500,000 for example over 40 years, it would throw off $30000 @ 6% but @1% it’s a puny $5000…Lots of belt tightening ….and no hope on the horizon.”

Made me think of the CD the fetching Mrs. P and I opened for the little Duper 12 months ago.  We selected a CD for her that was earning a whopping 1.09% at our credit union.  It had a 15 month maturity (Feb '12).  We chose the shorter term, because of the fluctuation in rates at the time.

That same CD today pays .45% for 12 months.  To get close to the rate we had for 15 months, we will have to roll it over into a 3-year CD (1.24%).

In other words, it's taking almost three times as long to earn what she made in a little over a year before.

Granted, she won't be needing that money anytime soon.  But as any investor knows, the power of compounding interest is an amazing thing.  The secret, of course, is to invest money early on, at a decent rate, and compounding works its magic.

We already know that the policies of the Obama Administration are going to cost our children in the form of higher taxes and fewer services in the future.  But today, our kids are having their pockets lightened  with minuscule interest rates on their savings.