Saving My Sanity

I'm one of those empaths. You know the kind....

The ones who always seem to want to help, even if they don't know how.
The ones that feel what others feel, and feel bad for them.
The ones that speak, but words get twisted and you end up looking like an idiot.
The ones that want to save the world, but from behind a curtain of anonymity.
The ones that are caught between a helpful heart, and a rational mind.

That's that biggie. Helpful heart, but a rational mind.
It's something I've struggled with my entire life.
(If you're keeping track, it's also the perfect victim profile for the narcissist and/or sociopath.)

I've struggled with being different my whole life. I see things, invisible connections, from people to

Dislike the President? Which One?

The scenario playing out today in the news..... Oh how quickly people forget....or maybe they weren't paying attention because it was their guy in office at the time? Or maybe they quietly passed the legislation and kept it under the radar?

Either way, it's irritating to watch one side complain that the president is banning a certain religion because he hates them, or because they are countries that his former business doesn't have dealings with or maybe it's because those countries don't like the color blue? Who the hell knows.
And it's irritating to watch the second side complain about the first side's bitching.

But the truth of the matter is that the list of countries were not the current president's list. And the law for them was signed in January of 2015 to take effect January 21, 2016.

Boston Eclair Cake Goodness

First, let me say this is NOT my recipe.  It comes from here.
But it is a fabulous recipe! OHMYGIDDYAUNT is this delicious.
But I warn you....more than one piece and you might go into diabetic coma.


And easy? Did I mention this was easy? Yes, it is...a tad time consuming...you really need about an hour, plus time to refrigerate...about an hour and a half total. Not long in the grand scheme of things.

But it's still easy!

If you want a breathtaking dessert to bring to a potluck, or to wow your boss when you have her over for dinner? This is it. Trust me.

I Am Only One

It occurred to me...that people only see things one sided. Their side.

But there is so much more to life, to vision, to this big, big, world in which we live.

There are more than two sides to everything.
Top and bottom. Yes. But there's also left and right.
Black and white. Yes. But there's also gray.
Up and down. Yes. But there's also sideways.
Water can be hot, cold, frozen, wet, dry, vapor gas, or steam.
One way isn't the only way.

Of Emails, Scandals, and Justice Part II

...and so it goes, that any law abiding citizen shall be deemed plebeian and named 'pissant' for the governmental ruling class has ordered themselves above the laws they enact.

It seems that while us commoners lay quietly sleeping, the governmental ruling oligarchy changed the Rules of the House. Where it once said:

It shall now be amended with the following wording (approved on Jan 3, 2017) as such:

  (j) Member Records.-- In clause 6 of rule VII--
    (1) redesignate paragraphs (a) and (b) as subparagraphs (1) and (2):
    (3) in paragraph (a) (as so designated), insert '' as (2) designate the existing sentence as paragraph (a); and described in paragraph (b) ' ' after  '' Resident Commissioner ' ';
    (4) add at the end of the following new paragraph:
     Commissioner in the performance of official duties are ''
(b) Records   created, generated, or received by the congressional office of a Member, Delegate, or the Resident Delegate, or Resident Commissioner has control over such exclusively the personal property of the individual Member, Delegate, or the Resident Commissioner and such Member, records. ' ' .  

Did you catch that? The rules have just changed. It means that from now on any official record (paper, email, note, or correspondence) of any kind and in any form are the sole property of the congressional member, individually.

You're probably thinking, "so what?" right? I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but here's where I see the problem...

I'm going to assume that everyone is familiar with 'pleading the Fifth' where an individual can invoke the Fifth amendment to not say anything because in doing so, it would incriminate him or herself.
Well, there is a similar rule regarding documents. It's called the Act of Production. It does not apply in all cases, just certain cases where an individual is most likely guilty. (emphasis and wording is mine)

To receive protection under the "Act of Production" doctrine, a person's very act of producing the documents (Hiibel vs Sixth Judicial Dist. Ct., 124 S. Ct. 2451, 2460 (2004)) must have all three components: be (1) compelled, (2) testimonial, and (3) incriminating.

It's not enough to just say, 'Hey, no. I'm not going to produce them because I fear incrimination.'
No, the documents themselves must "furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute him/her."

In other words, if the very documents requested can be used to prosecute you, then well, just invoke the Act of Production doctrine. Yay. Prosecutors must find another way to nail you to the wall.

And Congress has now made it so that any member's documents/records (created, generated, or received) by their office,  are now the sole property of that individual.
Individual. Not Office.

This means that those documents no longer fall under the Freedom of Information Act for they belong to the individual member (yay for personal privacy exemptions!), not the office, agency, or department. Federal agencies are required to disclose any information requested under the FOIA unless it falls under one of the nine exemptions which protect interests such as personal privacy, national security, and law enforcement. Remember that a request for a document which does not qualify as an "agency record" may be denied because only agency records are available under the FOIA.

Protection is available only to individuals, and only covers the testimonial aspect of the production itself, not the contents of the documents.
And congress just made all documents (records) created, generated, or received the personal property of the individual.
It means that a congressional member can now invoke the Act of Production.

How's that for a clear and transparent government?

Of Emails and Scandals and Justice

From the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI Investigation on former Secretary of State Clinton:

…US Intelligence Community (USIC) agencies determined that 81 e-mail chains, which FBI investigation determined were transmitted and stored on Clinton’s UNCLASSIFIED personal server systems, contained classified information ranging from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET/SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM levels at the time they were sent between 2009-2013. The USIC determined that 68 of these e-mail chains remain classified.  In addition, the classification determination process administered by the US Department of State (State)….identified approximately 2,000 additional e-mails currently classified as CONFIDENTIAL and 1 e-mail currently classified as SECRET…..were transmitted and stored on at least two of Clinton’s personal server systems.

*bold and italicized emphasis is mine.

 This is big, people. HUGE. Not only has the former Secretary of State sent and received security classified e-mails on an unclassified personal server, but the very department for which she was responsible has a

Healthy Cooking

I've been a registered user of Mealime for a few months. Let me tell you, I love this site.  You can choose the number of meals/recipes you want to cook in a week, as well as narrowing down the types of meals you want.

Vegetarian? No problem.
Classic meat-based meals? Got it.
Lots of fish? Swim on down.
Paleo? Bring it on!

You can specify your allergies and restrictions, the number of persons eating, and the biggie....you can tell them the foods you DON'T like.

You get a picture of the finished product, an interactive grocery list where you can check off items you already have, and a recipe guide.

And you get this all for free!

You can join for $6 a month ($4 if you pay $50 at once for the year), and you get even more benefits like calorie and nutritional information, build meal plans from your favorite recipes, etc.

Here's a sample, simple meal of chicken and carrots:

You should try it. You've got nothing to lose, and if you DO like it, join!

(and no, I am not being paid to advertise Mealime. I just love it!)

Southern Ice and Northern Fire

Like most people, it's fun to laugh at southern drivers in inclement weather. It's like watching a toddler who just learned how to walk try to run, not understanding why he's suddenly face-down on the floor.

I live in the north. Today, it happens to be a temperature of -1 and the windchill is -15 (which is technically the temperature that matters because that's what you FEEL when you are outside). We haven't had snow in a month. That's unusual. Winters here are normally more snowy than this season has been. When we do get snow, it's 3 or 4 inches two or three times a week, or 7-12 inches all at once.

And you know what? This southern California-raised girl loves it. I love snow. Always have. And now that I live in the north, I want more snow.

The north has snow removal down to an art. It's awesome. Get 10" on Sunday night, main roads are plowed and you still have to go to work on Monday morning. It is just how it is. If it weren't this way, the northern states would close from Thanksgiving to the Spring equinox. But,

Why You Should Stop Copy & Pasting Posts on Facebook

Why you should 'share' the post, and stop copy & pasting posts:

Many viral hoaxes explicitly tell you NOT to share the message, but specifically instruct you to copy and paste it to your status.

The answer is that by copying and pasting a message, you are creating another instance of the message that is not dependant on the original.

So, for example, if 5000 people share a message by clicking Share, and for some reason that original message was removed (for example, deleted by Facebook for being fake!) then all those 5000 “shares” will vanish, at the click of a mouse. To surmise, if the original post being shared is removed, so does all of its shares.

The same doesn’t apply if you copy and paste a message, then post it. If 5000 people copy and paste a message to their own timeline, and the original gets removed, you still have 4999 instances of the message remaining on Facebook, since they are all separate posts, independent of each other.

Do everyone a favor- help cut down on spam, hoaxes, fake news, etc simply by SHARING the post, instead of copy/paste - that way, when a post is marked/reported as spam/hoax/etc and gets deleted, they ALL get deleted.

Info courtesy of:
 http://www.thatsnonsense.com/hoax-posts-ask-copy-paste/