Farewell Butch Cassidy

Paul Newman has passed away at 83.Younger generations remember him as Butch Cassidy, my son knows him as Doc Hudson from "CARS". I know him as one of the most inspiring and talented, good looking men ever to grace the silver screen. He will be missed.

IT PASSED!!!

In the midst of all this national financial crisis, the primary debates and gas prices it was hard to not worry everything else sitting on our governments plate of responsibility was going to get pushed aside.

I'm happy to say that yes, our senators and congressmen can actually do more than one thing at a time.

When the nation and the news were concentrating solely the "bailout" and the power struggle between Obama and McCain, the senate passed bill Senate Bill 1738 - The Protect Our Children Act

Thanks to everyone and the 6 million people that emailed their senators in the last week telling them there was no other option but to pass this bill.

As long as the president signs the bill, which it's said he has every plan to do so, this will be a law and the machine will be turned on to start putting an end to these scumbags that are lower than shit on flees.

When the law was passed to regulate and track pseudoephedrine products (Claritan-D, Advil C&S etc.) it reduced Meth labs, production and crimes by 75%. Pseudoephedrine was/is a primary ingredient in the production of Meth.

It is my sincerest hope this law will have an even greater affect on child pornography, rape, molestation and expolitation.

Personally I think we should be an unihabital island in the south pacific somewhere, stick them all on it and let them rape and kill each other.

Cheers!
Tara

WAY COOL!! - Personal Reply from My Senator

When was the last time you received a personal reply from your Senator? Me, never until today.

Last week I posted an important blog post regarding the Predators to Prey - Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act.

I personally emailed both of my Senators asking them to support this bill. Today I got an email back from Florida Senator Mel Martinez (R).

Here is his response:

Dear Mrs. Conklin:

Thank you for contacting me regarding child exploitation. I appreciate hearing from you and would like to respond to your concerns.

On June 28, 2007, Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) introduced the Combating Child Exploitation Act (S. 1738). This measure would require the Attorney General to appoint a Special Counsel for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction to coordinate policies and strategies for the prevention and investigation of child exploitation cases. S. 1738 would establish an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to address on-line enticement of children, child exploitation, and child obscenity and pornography cases. S. 1738 would also establish a National Internet Crimes Against Children Data Network Center to assist the ICAC Task Force program and federal, state, local, and tribal agencies. S. 1738 was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary where it awaits further approval.

In any just and moral society, it is essential that we do all that we can to ensure that children are protected against exploitation and abuse. Please know that I will keep your views in mind, and should S. 1738 come to the Senate floor, I will support it.

Again, thank you for sharing your views with me. If you have any other further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me. In addition, for more information about issues and activities important to Florida, please sign up for my weekly newsletter at http://martinez.senate.gov.

Sincerely,

Mel Martinez
United States Senator

What a stand up guy. He's definitely got my vote for whatever he runs for in the future. :)

The vote goes to the floor today. I do hope you voted!

Tara

Predators to Prey - Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act.

It's time to stop talking and time to start doing something.

Copy this blog post on your own blog and spread the word. Send it as an email to everyone in your address book. There truly is power in numbers.

Time is short, we only have until the end of the month to get legislation passed to help put and end to child predators. Hundreds of thousands of children are victims of sexual abuse each year in our country.

In the physical world, a predator or child molester is usually someone a parent or child knows—someone who might even be trusted by the family. Online, however, it can be a different story. Predators can use the Internet to seek out children they don’t know. When they succeed in establishing and maintaining contact, the informal nature of the medium itself is partly to blame. The usual caution that kids might exercise away from the computer—walking to school, for example—can gradually erode. By the time a child agrees to meet a predator face to face, he or she no longer thinks of that person as a stranger.

The Internet can sometimes seem like the Wild West for child predators—a place that largely operates outside the law. While trading in pedophile pornography is illegal, lack of adequate funding means law enforcement officials are able to investigate just 2 percent of their leads. And, according to Interpol statistics, only one-half of 1 percent are ever prosecuted.

"What you are going to see is going to shock you to the core, but I'm asking you to please don't turn away," Oprah says, "because this is happening in our country to our children in the United States every day."




The map behind Oprah shows how quickly one pornographic image of a child being molested can spread. It starts with the large red dot from a computer in Washington, D.C. Within 24 hours, it has spread all across the United States—from coast to coast and north to south. "This is just an average day in America—24 hours," Oprah says.

"We're seeing sexual abuse including oral penetration, vaginal, anal penetration," says Michelle, another analyst at the Center for Missing and Exploited Children "We see children with dog collars on their necks. Kids with plastic bags over their heads. Foreign object insertion with these children." The demand for new videos and photos is so high that authorities report tracking increasingly brutal pornography with younger and younger victims.

"For once, you and I can do something about it!" Oprah says.

Due to the sheer lack of resources, law enforcement is unable to follow up on the majority of leads they have.

The PROTECT Our Children Act will:

• Authorize over $320 million over the next five years in desperately needed funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation.
• Mandate that child rescue be a top priority for law enforcement receiving federal funding.
• Allocate funds for high-tech computer software that can track down Internet predators.

Act Now!
Your U.S. senators will be voting on the bill soon, so it is crucial you contact them immediately.
Go to www.senate.gov to find contact information for the senators in your state. Search for your senator by name or state by clicking on the arrow from either dropdown menu. Contact information is provided here. To send an e-mail, click on "Web Form" below his or her name, and e-mail your letter to make a difference!

Choose your senators and sort by "State". Fill out the form for each senator. Under issue or subject choose "Crime" or "Judicial" or "Justice"

Call Your Senators
If you choose to contact your senators by phone, be sure to tell them, "Vote yes on Senate Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act."

Write to Your Senators
If you choose to write a letter, fax, telegram or e-mail, you may use the following sample letter—and modify it how you see fit.


Dear Senator:

I know that you believe, like I do, that we must do everything possible to protect children from sexual predators. That is why I am asking for your help.

Last year alone, U.S. law enforcement identified over 300,000 criminals who were trafficking in movies and pictures of young children being raped and tortured. Experts say that one in every three of these criminals has local child victims. Many of these child victims are infants. Child pornography trafficking over the Internet has given us a trail of evidence that leads straight to their doorsteps, but the vast majority of these children will never be rescued because investigators are overwhelmed, outnumbered and underfunded.

As your constituent, I urge you to do everything in your power to pass the PROTECT Our Children Act (S. 1738, Biden-Hatch). This bipartisan legislation passed the House 415-2, but it is now the victim of petty partisan politics.

Now that we know where these children are and how to protect them, there is no excuse for the Senate to fail to take action this session.

Thank you for listening and acting!

[Your Name]

Here are some links to get educated:

Net Safe Kids
Family WatchDog
Child Predator Busters
National Sex Offender Registry

You don't even have to get off your butt to do anything. Here are the steps to take:

1. Copy and Paste or send a letter to your senators NOW.

2. Get Informed, check out the links above to see what you can do to protect your children.

3. Copy this blog post on your own blog and spread the word. Send it as an email to everyone in your address book. There truly is power in numbers.

Please don't delay. Millions of children are depending on us!



(content provided by Oprah.com)

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Offer real value

There is always much work to be done. There is always great value to be created.

Plenty of problems are waiting to be solved. And each problem represents opportunity.

All kinds of dreams are longing to be realized. Those dreams add incalculable positive power to life.

Choose to tackle the difficult problems with effectiveness and persistence, and you will gain great rewards. Learn to deliver the real value and substance that the world seeks, and your efforts will always be in demand.

Conditions are constantly changing, and yet some things will always be true. Those people who make themselves the most useful will enjoy life's richest treasures.

Choose to be creative, flexible, productive, effective, efficient and generous with the best that is within you. Offer real value to the world, and the world will surely return the favor in abundance.

-- RM

GoodBye Angel - In Loving Memory of My Mother

I've been away....again. Sadly this time it's not primarily due to my laziness or being overworked. This time it was beyond my control.
ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) took from me swiftly and brutally.
She was only 60 and still brilliant and beautiful and vibrant.

I've lost my Mother, my pillar, my angel, my friend, my inspiration and my greatest strength. In the end she wanted my father by her side and her three girls to be able to say goodbye.

Her wish was granted and we were and did, before she took her last breath. Dad stayed by her side until the end.
I was able to still see her before she slipped into an unconscious stupor and although she wasn't able to talk or write, she was able to give me her very last hug. I lay on her breast as I did when I was a baby. I cried and with what little strength she had, she gently stroked my hair as if to say "Don't cry baby, it'll all be alright".
She said she wasn't afraid and I knew she was tired of fighting, tired of being tired and tired of being trapped in her body.

Her favorite films were "The Lord of the Rings" and as she lay sleeping in bed, I sang to her the last song "Into the West". Slowly I watched her slip away.

I couldn't do anything but cry and put my feelings into words.

Was,

did,

had.

These are words I use every day in my daily speech and conversation and I have never given them a thought. But this week they have not only been foremost on my mind but I’ve had to contend with the fact they are now used to refer to my mother.

In talking about her it had always been in present tense.

She lost her battle with ALS this week but the ultimate reality she is never coming home has not completely registered with my subconscious. I do not even know where to begin to express my grief and sorrow at the emptiness she leaves in my heart. It is like a rose bush in which the rose has been prematurely plucked and the vine still reaches toward the sun. But all that remains are the thorns. In time the branch will heal and the thorns will lose their bite but today and for the near future the wounds bleed deeply.

Her memory is everywhere in the house she loved so dearly. Her smell lingers heavily on clothes still neatly hung in the closet and folded in her drawers. The last book she was reading still lies on a table. A half finished blanket rests in a basket of yarn patiently waiting to be finished. Notes in her hand are found scattered about. Her footprints can still be seen under the desk where she worked up until a few months ago. In the quiet of night her voice can be heard in gentle whir of a ceiling fan. She is everywhere.

In the first few days of her passing, Dad and us girls spent time together laughing, crying and learning how to move forward in lives that no longer include this woman whom we all cherished and loved beyond measure.

We’ve slowly started reading through the notebooks of her words as in the last few months she lost her ability to speak. It grieves me beyond words to see how she suffered and yet tried to keep strong and from falling into despair. Her daily struggles are documented along with her unfailing strength; her faith and her incredible will to persevered and maintain grace in the gradual loss of dignity and quality of life. Her written words not only offer insight into her physical fight but provide testimony to her unbelievable capacity to soldier on even in the face of death. She showed the world she was the captain of her destiny up until the end.

There were very few people who disliked or disapproved of my mother but even those few would find it difficult, if not impossible, to deny she commanded respect and admiration. Whether it was her genius IQ or her magisterial personality, it was easy at first glance to find yourself intimidated in her presence. But her deep level of humility, her grace and overwhelming beauty captivated nearly everyone she met.

She was simply magical.

I can’t believe how much I miss her already and it feels as if a light has gone out of this world. The sorrow comes at times in unbearable waves but she would not have wanted us to allow ourselves to be pulled down into the current and drown. So we stand strong against the torrent, using her memory as an anchor, and let it wash over us. I understand we are now forever mired in the sea of sorrow but in time it will lose its’ ferocity and will only lap at our feet like the evening tide. Until that time we will continue to laugh and cry but inevitably find peace knowing she has found eternal joy. She has finally shed the bonds of human mortality and like a bird freed from a cage she now flies free around the Universe that had always so fascinated her, coming home to rest at the feet of her Father. She was and now forever will be, our Angel.

-------------------------

"Into the West"
In Honor Of Mom



Barbara Cassada
October 1947 - July 2008

I'M RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!!!

Ok all, to heck with politics the old fashioned way. It's time for a change!

I'm throwing my hat in the ring and here's the latest on the news. Come check it out and show me your support.



Ok well maybe not but you're still welcome to write me in as candidate. :)

Cheers!

TLC

Return of the Mashed Potato Head

After the last couple of months that how I feel honestly. Like my brain has been through the grinder and now resembles a pile of mushy mashed potatoes. Since Christmas I've been on "GO" and have unfortunately just landed head on into a "larger than life" pile-up.

I've missed my blog-family so much and first want to say hello to you all and thank everyone who stopped by while I was absent to just wish well, wonder where I wandered off to or peek in on me. I'm still here and kicking.

I want to send special Hello's and thanks to Teena, Piia, Tom, Michelleopal, Nancybug, Marsha, Jolynn, Chissy, Ebyjo and Deb Killa for coming by just to because you were thinking of me. You're all so special to me.

After the holidays we got a new manager who micromanages us to death and is as fake as a $3 bill. Granted she's done some good for us as our last manager was completely uninvolved in anything we did. She's just been quick to jump to conclusions and the company is hiring more of everything except coding analysts. There's over 75 clients now, 6 account executives, 6 program managers and still only 3 coding analysts to handle all 75 existing clients. Not too mention they are signing more clients every month. It's exhausting trying to keep up with the work. And so much of it is redundant since almost every client needs the same applications programming modifications and they don't have ways to do them any easier. I've been working weekends just to try to catch up.

We decided to take a few days to go rest at Disney World last weekend but the work just gets behind when we do.

My mother started suffering from neuromuscular deficiencies a little over a year ago and sadly the doctors had diagnosed her with Lou Gehrig's disease. She's only 60 and in the prime of her life. She's intelligent and fun and in the past couple of months she lost her ability to talk, walk without the aid of a walker, move her feet, and it's very hard for her to swallow, cough, drink and eat. It's so hard to see her suffer like this and go through all of this. And there is no cure. My Mom and Dad have been my rock the last couple of years through my rocky marriage, daily struggles and life changes. I can't imagine my life without her and now I have to start learning. She deteriorating very rapidly and it scares me to think of how she is going to be suffering and especially how scared she must be. I hold to hope as hope is all we have at this point. Hope for what I'm not sure but hope is what is there.

Life gives us challenges and I know the strong don't curl up into a ball and just pity themselves but that doesn't mean we take it any less hard than those who do.

It's hard being present for my son and husband. But I know we'll all get through this. I know that life balances itself out and something good will come of the pain, the grief and the hardship. Life never come with free gifts. A good thing will have it's bad and a bad thing in turn will offer the good. I guess that's my hope there. I have to be there for my Dad, for my Mom, for my sisters, for my children. They need strength and help. Not pity.

It's all just gravy on the mashed potatoes now.

Tomorrow is Monday and the beginning of another hectic week.

One day at a time. That's all we can live is one day at a time.

Love you all.

TLC