Melanie had her heart in the right place back in 1969.  Most people are "beautiful," especially if you just give them a chance.  Sometimes you just have to reach out to them.  The trouble is, most often, we just don't take the time.

                               Beautiful People - Melanie Safka

Those of you who read these blogs have probably had your fill of lists and links this past couple weeks.  I know I have.

My list is short, with one item on it. 

I'll call it the "F" list for FranklinNow.

My list:
 

1.  You, the readers of my blog (this one and my Righty Blog if you go there, too).

Thank you for reading in 2008 and I wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year!

What's a Port-A-Party?

I'll don't think you'll be finding a Porta-Party at any of my parties.

If you are having a New Year's Eve party tonight, you may find there are more non-alcohol drinkers there than you expected.   Someone has to drive home unless you are having the group sleep over, and that's unlikely.  Why not serve a non-alcoholic punch that's festive, instead of just soda, along with your other beverages?

Here's a punch that's like one huge ice cream soda with an almond twist to it.  And if you want, you can serve Peppermint Schnapps or Kahlua or Brandy on the side for those who are drinking.  People love this punch, but you need a large punch bowl.  Make the punch base ahead of time.  It just takes a few minutes.

White Christmas Punch

2/3 cups water

2/3 cups sugar

1 tsp. almond extract

5 oz. evaporated milk (small can)

1 pint vanilla ice cream, softened

1 and 1/2 (2-liter) bottles Slice or other lemon-lime soda

Cook water and sugar until sugar has dissolved.  Add almond extract and evaporated milk.  Refrigerate.  At serving time mix softened ice cream and slice into sugar mixture in large punch bowl.  Add a small ice block if desired.

Actually, do you find anything wrong with the family in the picture?



The Duggar Family, before the latest arrival Photo by: Beth Hall / AP




The photo is of the Duggar family of Arkansas.  This photo was taken after the birth of their 17th child.  This month the Duggars gave birth to their 18th child, Jordyn-Grace, by C-section.  You may view the current family photo here.

The children seem happy enough in the photo.  I wonder what mom is telling her son.  Perhaps that he is going to be in charge of his sister some day.  You see, that's how the Duggar's work.  How else could parents take care of 17-18 children on their own, while home schooling and running their own "church?"  The kids work on a sort of buddy system where each older child plays parent/teacher to a younger sibling.   According to their mom, Michelle, on a CNN American Morning interview in 2005,  "They help them with their little phonics lessons and games during the day and help them practice their music lessons. They will play with them or help them pick out the color of their outfit that they want to wear that day, and just all of those types of things."  

I thought being a parent and making the choice to have a family was the responsibility of the parent's?  This little army of children doesn't seem to ever get to be children in my book.  Of course, someday they will get to venture out.  And there are worse things that could be happening to these children.  But should that even be said? 

Who supports the family financially?  In part, their show on TLC.  Right...their family is a regular little television production.  There are a few other families like this on TLC, Little People, Big World with the Roloff's comes to mind.  I've never seen the Duggar's but I have seen the Roloff's.  Talk about one messed up, spoiled, dysfunctional family (in my view) from the way they are portrayed on their television show.  I can see why the families are tempted to sign on to these shows in the first place.  That income must be a great help when the families are in need.  See, you tune into a show like this out of curiosity to see what it must be like to go through life like the Roloff family, a family of part little people and part regular sized people.  But then TLC literally turns them into entertainment instead.  But when you start seeing the families now living in their mansions, taking out-of-this-world trips and doing all sorts of odd things after they were saying they were struggling, the shows are not "reality" anymore. "The Greatest Show On Earth" comes to mind instead.  Now is that what is wanted for these 18 children?


For those of you wondering, The Duggars are said to be conservative Baptists who endorse the Quiverfull movement.

I normally try to forget my birthday...I like to forget that I'm over 30!

But I am just so happy that this January 21st I get to watch the Season Premiere of Lost Season 5 on my birthday.  It's practically an all night event, so I can forget about how old I am and concentrate on more important things.

Namaste.

Let's hope it's a wimper.

But something is rumbling and grumbling  in Yellowstone National Park, and it's not the bear's stomachs.  There were dozens of tremors on Monday.  There have been tremors before, but not so many at once.  Is an eruption in the future?

"Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come.

Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it's very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

"They're certainly not normal," Smith said. "We haven't had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years."

 

Click to Continue

No one thought that the up and down relationship between President Elect Barack Obama and incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was going to go away, did they?  It matters more than ever right now that Obama show his support for his choice for this position.  Now that Hillary Clinton has to jump right into Condoleezza Rice's shoes at the get go in a job where she isn't always going to be welcomed with open arms, she needs all the support she can get.  She also has to deal with her past in Washington and that of her husband, President Bill Clinton and his foreign relationships.  I'd say Hillary Clinton is going to have a lot of sleepless nights ahead of her.

"As incoming President Barack Obama's secretary of state, she will have to overcome a view of some in the Arab world she is more interested in supporting Israel than being even-handed.

Once she stops being a U.S. senator from New York to take her new job, Clinton could find herself pursuing the same Middle East peace that eluded her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in the final months of his presidency in 2000.

University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami said opinion polls he conducted earlier this year in Arab countries indicated Clinton was viewed as someone who, like her husband, would work to advance Middle East peace.

"Bill Clinton had a much more positive image in the Middle East (than George W. Bush) and Hillary is seen in a similar light," he said, adding that her past support for Israel would not necessarily count against her."


Click to Continue

Remember...going GREEN costs money.

It doesn't ever come cheap.

Asthma sufferers are finding that out now with the release of new "green" inhalers this week that cost five times more.  Healthcare providers fear low income asthmas sufferers will not be able to afford treatment in some cases.  Currently, there has been hoarding of the non-environmentally friendly inhalers which are less expensive.  There are over 20 million asthma sufferers in the U.S.

That's just one example.  Look at the difference with light bulbs for another example...regular or even Christmas lights.  It doesn't matter what it is, if you want to save the environment you are going to pay for it, so you had better get used to it. 

Now if there's something we know about in Wisconsin, it's emissions testing.  At least in Southern Wisconsin.  And emissions are an important part of being environmentally friendly, right?

So, what about the Zamboni?  Well, in Wisconsin we know all about Zambonis.  And in Canada they certainly know about Zamboni's, too.  Well, Wired has a great article about Zambonis going GREEN

"If you were sucking fumes after your last triple lutz, it's probably because your local skating rink uses a fossil-fuel burning Zamboni to keep the ice slicker than Rod Blagojevich's hair. That's why Toronto is resurfacing its ice with the zero-emissions all-electric IceCat."


Continue reading about it

HERE

You may have read by now that two teen-aged boys were arrested in Oak Creek for allegedly stealing 32 cans of Spam.

I'm guessing it was for a practical joke, but you never know.  As I mentioned in my blog on Spam back in November, Spam production is at a high due to the economy.

Otherwise, I'm thinking the boys must not have ever tasted Spam before.

Do you shop Amazon.com?  Those of you who read my blog consistently know that I am an internet shopper.  I almost never shop at a mall unless I'm forced to because of time.  One of the first places I check to shop online?  Amazon.  Why?  Price.  One of the important things for me when I'm shopping online?  Free shipping.  Can I get that at Amazon?  Almost always.  Do they have everything I want?  Of course not.  But I check there first.  And, I can instant reviews from other consumers right at my fingertips right on the site for almost every product.

I love Amazon.com

While other retailers, etc. had a drop in sales this year, "Amazon says 2008 holiday season was 'best ever."

"Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. called this holiday season its "best ever," saying Friday that it saw a 17 percent increase in orders on its busiest day -- a rare piece of good news in a season that has been far from merry for most retailers, including online businesses.

Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company said. It shipped more than 5.6 million products on its best day, a 44 percent rise over 2007, when it shipped about 3.9 million on its busiest day.

The company did not provide dollar figures and wouldn't say whether the average value of orders had changed, and the jumps it reported Friday are in line with increases Amazon has seen since it started releasing the figures in 2002."

Click to Continue

What's the real motivation for the owner of the  273-acres of land in Shanksville, PA to still be holding out on the sale of his land for the memorial to the 9-11 victims on Flight 93?  Is it greed?  It is his property, after all.  Should we allow the government to seize the land in order to meet a deadline in time to have a memorial completed? 

"Most of the remains from the tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, were never recovered, making the bowl-shaped crash site in the western Pennsylvania countryside an unofficial cemetery and, for surviving relatives, sacred ground.

But efforts to buy property for a national Flight 93 memorial have bogged down in federal red tape and a protracted land dispute, angering family members and risking plans to hold a dedication ceremony on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The delays have prompted an advocacy group, Families of Flight 93, to ask President Bush to personally intervene during his final weeks in office to allow the federal government to seize the land needed for the memorial and to allocate part of the money for the project.

[...]

Landowner Mike Svonavec of Svonavec Inc. of Somerset, Pa., said the National Park Service and Flight 93 groups are "trying to make my company and myself look like the bad guy in this."

Click to Continue

 

Did you hear about the angel appearance last November in the hospital room of then 14 year-old Chelsea Banton?  Do you believe in angels?  Not that that makes any difference...because Chelsea and her family do.  And that does matter.  They told us about it on December 23rd.  It's not the first time we've seen pictures of what people tell us are angels.  It won't be the last time, either.  Do you believe in angels?

"On the afternoon of Nov. 5, as family and friends prayed about the decision, a nurse practitioner called Colleen's attention to a monitor showing the door to the pediatric intensive care unit.

“On the monitor, there was this bright light,” Colleen recalls. “And I looked at it and I said, ‘Oh my goodness! It looks like an angel!”

Colleen pointed her digital camera at the monitor to take a photo of the image, but the “first picture wouldn't take.”

She tried again and succeeded. The image gave her a peace that stayed with her when hospital staff removed Chelsea's oxygen mask.

And then, “when they took the mask off of her, her stats went as high as they've ever been.

“Her color was good, and the doctors and nurses were amazed,” Colleen said. “The nurse practitioner who saw the image in the monitor said, ‘I've worked here 15 years, and I've never seen anything like it.'”

Chelsea was removed from intensive care on Nov. 14 and went home three days later.

Her mother believes it was a miracle – attended by a very real angel bathed in light at the door to the pediatric intensive care unit.

“What was so ironic… is it was a rainy day,” Colleen said. “It had been overcast all day. And the sun only came out at that point.”

To those who doubt her story and photograph, Colleen Banton says: “If they doubt it, that's fine. … But I know what I saw, and the picture's untouched. I didn't make it up. That's just something that I believe."

Click for entire article

If you answered no to that question, are you absolutely positive?

In these harder economic times, someone you may know could very well be suffering hardship that you are not aware of when it comes to putting food on the table.  They may have a job loss, lay off, or high medical bills from an illness in the family or extended family.


No worries...You still have New Year's as a holiday to make a food donation to someone less fortunate or to invite someone to your home.  Or perhaps you have a creative idea of your own.

"With a big spike in the number of Americans heading to food banks, people who want to help are getting creative – from corporations to state governments to individuals.

Food pantries across the country have reported a 30 percent increase in how many people are coming in for a bag of groceries, many of them for the first time. That has prompted more corporate and individual donations, but not nearly enough to meet the sudden demand. And so antihunger advocates have put on their thinking caps.

Groups like City Harvest in New York are urging corporations such as BlackRock Inc. to skip their annual holiday party and donate the money to help the hungry instead.

Dozens of yoga centers like Riverdog in Old Saybrook, Conn., are holding "Yoga for Food" events: bring a bag of groceries and get a free class. "

Click to Continue

 

Every year we hear about them.  

New Year’s Resolutions. 

People might ask you whether you have made any yet.

Me?  I don't make New Year's Resolutions.  I figure, why should I wait until the new year to decide to do something that needs to be done?  If you want to change something about yourself, or if you need to do something, just do it.  That way you know it will get done.

In my case, I feel if you need to wait until the new year to make a point of completing something,  then you are probably headed for failure, or perhaps you are probably in for something that is a struggle.  But if you are a person that really needs a resolution to be motivated...then go for it.  A little motivation never hurt anyone.



USA.gov has a list of the most popular New Year's Resolutions:

Popular New Year's Resolutions

Airplane crashes are far and few between.  But let's face it, it could happen to you.  After the crash last week on the runway in Denver, it's time to realize that when the flight attendant is standing before you giving you those instructions, perhaps you should be checking out exactly where those exits are on that aircraft.  And maybe it's a good idea to really understand s few more things about what you need to do in case of an emergency.  Because while it's rare to have a crash, it could happen to you.

"In 90 seconds, a fuel fire can burst into the cabin, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA reports that 56 percent of people survive serious airplane accidents and, by following the key steps below, you, too, might be able to walk away from a plane accident.

Five crew members and 110 passengers survived when Continental Airlines flight 1404 veered off the runway during takeoff and burst into flames Saturday evening. Thirty-eight people sustained injuries in the accident. "


Click to Continue and see a video on "How To Survive A Plane Crash"

 

Who even thinks about chemical weapons in our own country?  Of course we don't, but we have them.  Stored from many years ago.  But the army has been working over the years to destroy them, and it's a dangerous job.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Army destroyed the last chemical weapon filled with deadly nerve agent at the Anniston Army Depot on Wednesday, a milestone the military said virtually eliminated a Cold War-era threat to the region.

The depot’s chemical weapons incinerator burned the final land mine loaded with VX nerve agent less than 5½ years after it began destroying a total of about 293,000 gallons of deadly VX and another nerve agent, sarin.

The last of the sarin was destroyed in 2006.

Click to continue

The Lincoln Bible belongs to all of the people of the United States.

It is a rare artifact and you are risking harm being done to it.

You are not President Lincoln.

"Barack Obama will be sworn into office with the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used for his first inauguration in 1861.

The move further extends the parallels that Mr. Obama has drawn with Lincoln since he announced his candidacy for president in February 2007 in Springfield, Ill.

The bible Abraham Lincoln used on Inauguration Day in 1861 was on display Tuesday in Washington. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

This will be the first time an incoming president has used Lincoln’s Bible, which is part of the collection at the Library of Congress. (New presidents are not required to swear in on a Bible, but most have done so, and most use their own family Bible.)"

Click to Continue

A record turnout to Bethlehem.

That is what's being reported.

The "Merriest Christmas in years."

No, not about presents.  Not about money.  Not about lists.

Bethlehem.

But amid the Christian spirit "militants, fireworks, mortars, bomb shelters."

Peace on earth, good will toward men.

Merry Christmas to all.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Pilgrims and local Christians celebrated Bethlehem's merriest Christmas in eight years Wednesday, with hotels booked solid, Manger Square bustling with families and Israeli and Palestinian forces cooperating to make things run smoothly.

The festivities in the West Bank town contrasted sharply with Hamas-run Gaza, just 45 miles away. While revelers in Bethlehem launched pink fireworks from a rooftop, militants fired barrages of dozens of rockets and mortar shells at Israeli communities and sent residents scrambling for bomb shelters.

Crowds gathered around nightfall outside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, ahead of the midnight Catholic mass that is the holiday's highlight. A dozen pilgrims from India, Canada, Britain, the U.S. and other countries sung impromptu renditions of Christmas carols.

Click to Continue

Rather than duplicate a Podcast of last night's meeting at City Hall, I'm going to direct you to Fred Keller's BULLSEYE where he as a full recap of last night where the Franklin License Committee rejected the Stipulation offered by Franklin special council Roger C. Pyzyk and attorney Andrew Arena for Christopher Matecki, owner Buckhorn Inn. 

Please visit BULLSEYE HERE




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Due Process in Franklin will continue Tuesday, December 23, 2008, 6:00 p.m. at Franklin City Hall.

Due Process in Franklin will continue just one year shy of the deaths of two people...Gary and Barbara Kitchen.


****Help Support The Revocation of The Buckhorn Inns Liquor License - BULLSEYE - Keller*****


Franklin Who Are The Fools? December 5, 2008

Eddie Lynn Keck - Case Closed - Sept. 8, 2008


Breaking - Eddie Lynn Keck Sentenced - Sept. 3, 2008



Buckhorn Tavern In The News Again - Aug. 23, 2008


What's Missing From The Franklin Common Council Meeting Agenda? - Aug. 18, 2008


Franklin City Government - Remember That Due Process? - April 7, 2008


Due Process - When? - January 31, 2008



Buckhorn - Due Process - January 8, 2008