Inspiring video of Charisma Carpenter, courtesy of Three Beers Later

Dear Richard McEnroe of Three Beers Later featured this video of Charisma Carpenter from the UPN series, “Veronica Mars,” which is how I found it. I enjoyed Ms. Carpenter’s work in “Buffy” and “Angel.” I am embedding the video here for its inspirational value on account of learning via a little Google research that Ms. Carpenter worked off 50 pounds she gained during her pregnancy to play this role. Ms. Carpenter’s success is an example I can use to get my conscious and subconscious minds cooperating to produce my own weight loss success, according to the goal achievement program Stuart Lichtman details in his book, How to Get Lots of Money for Anything — Fast, which I advertise here both because I find his techniques very helpful and because I’m an affiliate.

That is my story and I’m sticking to it.

There ARE homes that are green AND fortune-creating

This single family home is an example of a design by Fortune Creating Buildings of an affordable house that is both green and fortune-creating.
This single family home is an example of a design by Fortune Creating Buildings of an affordable house that is both green and fortune-creating.

Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon “Dilbert,” recently had a piece in the Wall Street Journal on what it’s like to design a green home and get it built in California. Short version: hijinks ensue, but not necessarily comfort or savings.

I was struck by the following observation by Adams because it is one of the most basic principles of Fortune-Creating Architecture, aka Stapathya Ved (boldfacing mine):

Few things make a home less liveable, and more of an energy hog, than improper orientation to the sun. I’ve lived in two homes with that issue, and it causes a variety of problems. For example, all of my dreams involved trying to extinguish fires using nothing but my ingenuity and a full bladder.

Amen. (Fortune-creating buildings face east or north.)

There IS one company in the U.S. that has been busily putting together ALL the pieces required to create homes and commercial buildings that are both green AND fortune-creating — not surprisingly, it is called Fortune-Creating Buildings (click to see photos of their work). I am one of just a few hundred people in the world trained as one of their Vastu Coordinators and in the coming months I’ll have more to say. But I thought I’d mention the company now, since Adams is quite rightly pointing out that there are many obstacles to building a green home, so it’s worthwhile knowing about a company that has so much experience and worked out so many of the kinks — and which has designs for homes ranging from modest and affordable to custom palaces.

By the way, I’ve been in fortune-creating buildings and they really do have a very special quality of serenity, beauty and comfort that feels most nourishing.

Maryland Public TV interviews show why Jim Rutledge is the Republican who can beat Barbara Mikulski in November

I’m still phoning it in — Anthropocon has the YouTube videos of Maryland Public Television interviewing the leading Republican candidates for Senate in the primary in September, Jim Rutledge and Eric Wargotz.

I endorse Jim Rutledge — free of charge. I plan to post a video of a conversation I had with Jim on July 3 this week. He understands the policies that create wealth and jobs — and he connects with people and gets them believing in themselves and America again. THAT is what will turn around our country’s fortunes.

A Conservative Lesbian endorses Mattie Fein for Congress — no charge, Mattie, this one is on the house!

When Stacy was in California interviewing Mattie Fein (R CAND, CA-36) he called me and gave me a chance to talk to her — on account of phoning it in, instead of writing my own post I’m linking Stacy (who has useful info on the points made in the video), Moe Lane (who has a video interview with Mattie) and Ace (who links Fein’s campaign site) if you want more, but I really do endorse her. Mattie Fein is the best candidate for Congress to replace the current incumbent, Jane Harman, who has profited from the sale of dual use technology to Iran.

UPDATED: What if the conservative blogosphere went on strike?

I see from posts at dear Attila’s (here, here and here — or click the last one and scroll down) that there is a controversy over “blogola” created by the Daily Caller in an attack on Dan Riehl and Ace at Ace of Spades HQ. And I see a confession from Smitty at The Other McCain.

“Blogola” is a neologism for payment-for-favorable-posts to bloggers. The only reason that I am not offended that no one thought I was important enough to buy off is that I don’t believe anyone in the Right Blogosphere is getting blogola. If anything, it is the other way around — it is the Right Blogosphere that is the goose laying golden eggs for conservative candidates and the Republican Party and getting starved in return. Even getting lip service — don’t go there — would be an improvement since it would demonstrate the possession of a clue.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News contributes additional valuable perspective on the Daily Caller’s accusation of blogola, which I urge you to read because he knows everybody — even me — and goes WAY back. I wish I also could link a post he wrote recently on why wealthy Republicans should be supporting bloggers on the Right, especially since the Left financially supports Leftist bloggers, but I can’t find it. In July John wrote an excellent piece on the “7 Things the GOP Can Do for the Right Side of the Blogosphere,” and here is what he had to say about the GOP financially supporting Republican and conservative bloggers:

So, all that being said, here are some suggestions for how the GOP can better work with bloggers.

1) Funding help: There’s a weird dichotomy between the way the Left and Right view the new media. The Right views it as a capitalistic enterprise where individuals succeed and fail on their own merits. The Left views it more as a collaborative effort where they’re working as a group to advance their goals. This plays into everything from the way both sides approach stories, to fundraising, to raising capital for new media ventures.

That last item is one in particular that deserves some more attention. Most of the people on the Right side of the blogosphere are starved for funding. They can’t afford to improve their websites, advertise, expand, etc. because they simply don’t have the money to do it with. People ask why there’s not more journalism on the right side of the blogosphere. The biggest answer is that they simply can’t afford to do it. Even a lot of the more successful bloggers still need to have day jobs and the ones that don’t can’t even afford to rent a car, drive a few states over, and stay in a fleabag hotel for a couple of nights. The money needed to do those things is out there, but it’s being spent to fund losing campaigns, to help defray the cost of print copies of magazines, and to help think tanks fund blogs nobody reads and give fellowships to people without audiences.

Granted, the Republican Party can’t get away with directly funding blogs, but, they could put us in touch with big donors. They could also buy some ads, not only to reach out to their base, but to help fund the people on their side.

In July, Jimmy Bise at The Sundries Shack also addressed the problem that conservative bloggers are taken for granted and starved for money by the GOP and wealthy conservatives when HuffPo tried the “everybody does it” justification for the corruption of the Leftist Journolist bloggers and reporters who coordinated their news coverage to advance the Democratic agenda and Obama. Jimmy went through what a list of top tier conservative bloggers do to both blog and make a living, then a second tier where he placed himself and … I consider this quite an honor … me. I urge you to read the full piece, which comes to the following conclusion:

What all that means is that most of us on the right don’t have the time the left thinks we do. We’re not so fortunate as to have a number of sugar-daddies paying our bills so we can hang around the virtual water-cooler and chit-chat. Heck, even the time we spend at conventions like CPAC and Right Online (which many of us pay for out of our own pockets) is spent more on chasing down grist for the blogging mill than it is hob-nobbing with our fellow bloggers.

The truth is, a vast gulf exists between how right-wing bloggers do business and how it’s done on the left. Most of that difference revolves around money, and the free time that money purchases.

However, Because Ace, in the post I linked above, predicted that very soon there will be a shakeout in the conservative blogosphere where even major bloggers quit because they have to make a choice between blogging and making a living, I can’t help wondering, as my headline notes, “What if the conservative blogosphere went on strike?” Why should we just starve to death when we can make the GOP understand they really will miss the water when the well runs dry? What if we all go dark for a week or two? Would the people and organizations that exploit us miss us enough to cough up some steady dough? I just posted that I’ll be phoning it in for several weeks, so obviously I’m on board with a strike. As for when, there’s no time like the present, and during the election season strikes me as the time when we have the most leverage.

My current project

I have some clutter to clear and organizing to do and while I’m working on that, something in my schedule has to give and it’s going to have to be the blog rather than my father’s care. I’ve noticed quite the correlation to keeping up with my own fitness program and being able to think better and get more done,* so I can’t cut that, either.

Until I finish this project, my plan is that I will link the stories that ordinarily I also would write about, or I will do slice-of-life posts, including reports on my heirloom tomatoes. I also will write about what I’m learning on my journey back to health.

Writing my e-book on the conservative case for gay equality is my next project, which also will take time that would otherwise go to the blog. I hope that most of my dear gentle readers will enjoy the change of pace and cheer me on and that the rest will be patient and bear with me.

I do hope to work in being able to attend the Restoring Honor rally in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28; the 9/12 March in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12; and HomoCon in New York City on Sept. 25. I’ll report on each event I attend. But that will depend on reader donations. I finally have the energy and mental clarity to write long projects, so I AM working on becoming financially self-sufficient without depending on donations.

*New gentle readers: I’m not a clutterer — it’s my nature to be orderly. However, hypoxia from very advanced obstructive sleep apnea damaged my brain’s executive function abilities. My organizing abilities have only started to come back in the last few months after seven years of working to regain my health since my obstructive sleep apnea was diagnosed and I began using a CPAP respirator when I sleep.

UPDATED — THANK YOU!: If you can’t go to the Restoring Honor rally on Aug. 28, please donate to send me

The Restoring Honor rally at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial will be held in Washington, D.C., this Saturday, Aug. 28, from 10 am to 1 pm, and if I can attract or generate at least $160 by 5 pm on Friday, Aug. 27, I can attend. That’s the amount I need to pay Awesome Nephew (who is putting himself through college) to take care of Dad, plus gas, tolls, parking and lunch after the rally with members of GOProud.

I would really LOVE to go. I thank my donors in advance, whether your donation is financial or good thoughts. I also very much appreciate the gift of their precious time that all my dear gentle readers give me — I strive always to respect that and make this blog worthy of your attention. I wish you all every blessing always.

Update, 8/26/10, Thurs.: $160, $135, $125, $115 to reach my goal. Thank you!

Update, 8/26/10, Thurs. night: Thank you to the generous and kind donors who sent me money — the target of $160 has been met, so I can attend the Restoring Honor rally!

Update, 8/27/10, Friday, wee hours: Thank you, dear readers of Little Miss Attila — if you consider it a bonus to annoy James Wolcott by sending me to the Restoring Honor rally, since I now have the money for that, why not get a jump on riling him by donating to send me to the 9/12 March on Washington, for which I also must raise $160? By the way, part of that is for my food, gas, tolls and parking — and Awesome Nephew’s compensation is half the rate I’d have to pay anyone else. Donations beyond the $160 for the 9/12 March will be applied to replacing my Flip video camera with an HD model that takes memory cards, has a plug for an external microphone and which can be mounted on a tripod — plus the mic, batteries and memory cards — that will total around $250. I will strive to make the most of the opportunities and tools you provide me.


Update, 8/26/2010, Thurs.: I’ve arrived! This post has been shame- and hate-linked by Vanity Fair’s James Wolcott, who is clueless about both conservatism AND the Transcendental Meditation program, while trying to shame me with both! FAIL and FAIL, James! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Here’s the short course on conservatism, James. Conservatism is about individualism, capitalism and liberty. It is comprised of four groups, two of which have mutually exclusive goals and values: fiscal conservative/social liberals (i.e., small government, low taxes, minimum government regulation of social/sexual lives); libertarians (really, really small government and little or no government regulation of social/sexual lives); fiscal conservative/social conservative (i.e., small government, low taxes, imposition of that person’s church/values on everyone else through the coercive powers of government); social conservative/fiscal liberal (totalitarian control of government and social/sexual lives by that person’s church). I am a fiscal conservative/social liberal and only by coming into the conservative movement have I learned the best arguments for my equality as a lesbian are based on conservative values of liberty and adherence to the Constitution. All the REAL action for gay equality is coming from the Right and conservatives. The Democrats lied to the gay community to get its money, labor and votes by promising to repeal DOMA and DADT and pass ENDA — then when they had control of Congress and the White House told us they’d keep their promises when hell freezes over. You’re the sucker, James, not me.

Regarding the Transcendental Meditation program, in 1978 I became a TM-Sidha, which means I am a yogic flyer. Maharishi never shamed people. What he talked about was the development of higher states of consciousness, which he could do because the TM movement teaches the technique that is the most pleasant and fastest path to higher states of consciousness. The TM movement offers enlightenment to every individual, fulfillment to every religion, and invincibility to every nation. Do not use the TM movement or Maharishi to shame anyone, ever.

A surgeon learns what hospice care can do to improve the end-of-life experience and reduce medical costs

I’ve been providing end-of-life care for my loved ones for most of the last 10 years. Hospice care did so much to improve the end-of-life experience for my late life partner and my mother that my father had me make arrangements so that he can have it, too, when his time comes. (New gentle readers: my father is 94 and has congestive heart failure. I live with him and take care of him.)

How to make end-of-life care choices is something I will be writing about in an e-book, but today I came across a piece from The New Yorker by general surgeon Atul Gawande describing how he learned about what hospice care could do for his patients who were approaching the end of their lives that I think is excellent and worth reading. The only bit that I think will stick with most conservatives is his remarks detailing how the “death panels,” which were stripped from Obamacare would both prolong lives and greatly reduce medical costs. Actually, the death panels are still there because it is their job to ration care — he means the discussion that was mandated about end-of-life care choices.

Frankly, given the attitudes of the people in charge of implementing Obamacare, I think it is appropriate to reject the belief that their intentions would be wholesome for both the individual and society. This is tragic — as you will see — because compensating doctors for the conversations required in making end-of-life care choices AND making it easier to have the option of hospice care and acute care at the same time really would improve the quality of life at its end, give a lot of dying people both more and better quality time AND save trainloads of money.

Here’s a sample:

Outside [after my first visit accompanying a hospice nurse at a patient’s home], I confessed that I was confused by what Creed [the hospice home healthcare nurse] was doing. A lot of it seemed to be about extending Cox’s life. Wasn’t the goal of hospice to let nature take its course?

“That’s not the goal,” Creed said. The difference between standard medical care and hospice is not the difference between treating and doing nothing, she explained. The difference was in your priorities. In ordinary medicine, the goal is to extend life. We’ll sacrifice the quality of your existence now—by performing surgery, providing chemotherapy, putting you in intensive care—for the chance of gaining time later. Hospice deploys nurses, doctors, and social workers to help people with a fatal illness have the fullest possible lives right now. That means focussing on objectives like freedom from pain and discomfort, or maintaining mental awareness for as long as possible, or getting out with family once in a while. Hospice and palliative-care specialists aren’t much concerned about whether that makes people’s lives longer or shorter.

Like many people, I had believed that hospice care hastens death, because patients forgo hospital treatments and are allowed high-dose narcotics to combat pain. But studies suggest otherwise. In one, researchers followed 4,493 Medicare patients with either terminal cancer or congestive heart failure. They found no difference in survival time between hospice and non-hospice patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Curiously, hospice care seemed to extend survival for some patients; those with pancreatic cancer gained an average of three weeks, those with lung cancer gained six weeks, and those with congestive heart failure gained three months. The lesson seems almost Zen: you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer. When Cox was transferred to hospice care, her doctors thought that she wouldn’t live much longer than a few weeks. With the supportive hospice therapy she received, she had already lived for a year.

Obama expects to be president ‘eight to 10 years’

In 2008 Obama’s last chance to get me to vote for him passed when he selected Joe Biden as his running mate instead of Hillary Clinton. The hot button issue that made me look to McCain/Palin was my hope that McCain would be more supportive of strong borders and against illegal alien amnesty than “Open Borders” Obama. Stop laughing.

Since I was a lifelong Democrat and proud liberal and so were all my friends, I figured I had better do my homework to explain my heresy so I started reading Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg and before I knew it, I got hooked on the hard stuff: conservative blogs. I kept an annotated list of links to stories that I thought were particularly persuasive for conservatism, or damning about Obama. However, I lost one of the most important ones and could not find it by Googling. I am very glad that it caught neo-neocon’s eye, too, on July 23, 2008, and I found it again when she linked it this spring. I am cleaning house of tabs in Google Chrome I’ve been saving to write about one day — my Firefox tabs are another story — and I just want to get it into my blogstream, as it were (boldfacing mine):

He bows to nobody

Obama was arrogant to begin with, but it seems that the adulation he has gotten from the press and the public in his race towards anointment as Democratic Presidential nominee has driven him and his crew to new heights of self-admiration. I don’t think the proper word is “narcissism” in this case; it’s megalomania.

Here’s one quote, from spokesperson Susan Rice, after citing what a world traveler Obama is as his qualification for comprehending international affairs:

He bows to nobody in his understanding of this world.

And then there’s Obama himself, in Monday’s interview with Lara Logan:

Logan: Is this trip partly aimed at overcoming that perception that, you know, there is doubt among some Americans that you could lead a country at war as commander in chief from day one?

Obama: You know, the interesting thing is that the people who are very experienced in foreign affairs I don’t think have those doubts. The troops that I’ve been meeting with over the last several days, they don’t seem to have those doubts.

So the objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years….

[and a bit later] Logan: Do you have any doubts?

Obama: Never.

Show me a person without doubts and I’ll show you an arrogant—and dangerous—fool.

The link in neo-neocon’s piece doesn’t go to the original story at Fox News any more, but waddaya know — with the exact quote from neo-neocon and Google I see that Rick Moran also wrote a piece about this for American Thinker:

No presidential candidate in memory has had the unmitigated arrogance to assume he will be re-elected for a second term. The example of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush should be all that is necessary to disabuse a candidate from entering that territory.

But Obama is oblivious. And not only about arrogant remarks that reveal his casual relationship with the facts. After all, unless he believes he can get Congress to repeal the 22nd Amendment, his two terms will end after 8 years.

Obama taught Constitutional law — and he didn’t know the maximum a president can serve is eight years? If anyone ever wonders why I started writing about the best unifying explanation of Obama’s behavior as president — besides his being a sociopath — is that his destruction of America’s economy is his fire in the Reichstag and that his Enabling Act is coming — this “others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years” is what launched me down that path. Whenever Obama says he will back a program over the will of the American people even it it means he’ll just be a one-term president, it gives me the shivers, because when you feel secure that you will be president-for-life, you only need the one term.