Congress demures

Leaders are not demure; they are bold. We see few signs of boldness from the 110th Congressional Democrats. Leaders are courageous. So afraid they will be accused of "not supporting the troops," Democrats in both chambers continue to authorize funds for the war in Iraq. Demure means modest and "modest" is the perfect word to describe Senator Reed's leadership style. Senator McConnell has his way with him over and over. Yesterday saw Congress again putting off confrontation over the Iraq war with OCP (our current president). I call him that to remind myself that he is in office on a temporary basis -- 475 more days.
"Senate Approves $150B in War Funding" announces the 10/02/07 MyWay News. To quote,

Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Monday's 92-3 vote comes as the House planned to approve separate legislation Tuesday that requires President Bush to give Congress a plan for eventual troop withdrawals.

. . . While the Senate policy bill authorizes the money to be spent, it does not guarantee it; Bush will have to wait until Congress passes a separate appropriations bill before war funds are transferred to military coffers.

Just because you "do not have the votes," does not mean you give every vote away to the Bush administration. "Living to fight another day" is not happening with the Democrats, and it probably will not happen this year. They are not listening to us . . . again.



My favorite blogging tools, used for compiling today's post:

1. Browser: Mozilla Firefox -- I like it better than Internet Explorer.
2. Home Page: My Way -- "No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding"
3. Aggregator: Bloglines -- By using folders, this keeps all your RSS feeds in order. I like the original better than the Beta version.
4. Toolbars: 1) Mozilla's Bookmarks extension, is more convenient than a drop-down for the links I use every day. 2) MyWay Speedbar. This is an old favorite I am unable to relinquish. Some don't like it.
5. Search: Dogpile- "All the best search engines piled into one."
6. For clipping: Clipmarks -- A Group Clipper, quick and easy.
7. For note taking: Google Notebook -- try this out! Always available, easy to use and habit-forming.
8. For fun blog writing: ScribeFire -- More fun than the regular Blogger writing form. Always available, a good way to begin drafts without leaving the page you are currently reading.
9. Strip HTML tags -- I use this for cross-posting from S/SW to DailyKos, because of Blogger's incompatible HTML coding.
10. New York Times Link Generator -- This keeps your NYT links always "live."
11. US Government Web Portal -- I use this daily. "My tax dollars at work."
12. Technorati's "most popular" tags -- This allows me to join in "where the action is."
13. ipings "pings" your feeds to let the world know when your blog is updated. Free and easy to use.
14. Hit counter: SiteMeter -- Free, and the best, in my estimation. It is an old friend.

My tricks of the blog writing trade:

• Keep two windows open as you compose (tiled horizontally or vertically, depending on the copy) in order to make cut and paste, make links, etc.
• Pay great attention to your title and lead paragraph, if you want to optimize your chances of routinely getting into searches. I am always so pleased when one of my posts turns up on the first page of a search pertaining to something that is currently in the headlines. This is a recent Google example: "ways to understand the Protect America Act."
• I routinely go back and forth between the HTML form and the rich text form as I write. I learned enough HTML so that I could conquer spacing and the other graphic elements of the page. It is the way to see exactly why something does not work. But it is lousy for composing, for getting good word flow, or for catching typo errors.
• Remember to use spell check. Form a habit of using it at the same place in your writing routine.
• Fight for the white space. Break up large blocks of text into manageable bites.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics congress war Iraq
Cross-posted at The Reaction.)
My “creativity and dreaming” post today at Making Good Mondays is about the core elements of writing and creativity.