Me: Evie, you don’t need to play with Mommy’s nail polish.

Evie: But I want it.

Christy: It’s okay.

Me: Are you sure?

Christy: Yes.

[Erick exits to get lunch]

[Erick comes home]

Christy: It’s all your fault?

Erick: What?

Christy: Well . . .

[Evelyn enters the kitchen with nail polish painted all up her legs and arms]

Erick: Hrumph.

Christy: It’s all your fault.

A quantum of data collected with a thermometer, according to Evelyn, who usually says she needs her “temperchurch and her medicine” because she “feels bad” [insert fake cough here].

I suspect it is possible to be driving on the interstach (”enter - stay - ch”) and get a temperchurch at the same time.

Canada has committed suicide, I regret to report.

A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl’s grounding, overturning her father’s punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet, his lawyer said Wednesday.

The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting “inappropriate” pictures of herself online using a friend’s computer.

Barack Obama *says* “no lobbyists allowed.” Barack Obama *says* this applies to the DNC.

Of course, he has a problem.

While Senator Obama ordered the Democratic National Committee last week to stop taking donations from lobbyists, the co-chairman and lead fund-raiser for the host committee for the Denver convention, Steven Farber, is a lawyer and federally registered lobbyist with Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Schreck LLP, a firm with offices in Denver, Washington, and elsewhere.

“Not only that, they’re a donor,” an advocate of tighter regulation of political funding, Stephen Weissman of the Campaign Finance Institute, said, pointing to the firm’s logo among several dozen “partners” on the host committee Web site.

This comes on the heels of me pointing out that two of the DNC’s vice-chairs are registered lobbyists.

So what is the Obama campaign going to do? They say John McCain is not allowed to talk about this. They say John McCain is hypocritical to harass Obama on this because he has so many connections to lobbyists.

Best I can figure, Obama must staff his campaign with high school dropouts because they very clearly don’t understand the meaning of the word hypocrisy. Hypocrisy means you, Barry, set standards that you, Barry, are failing to live up to.

Pointing out your hypocrisy is not itself hypocrisy — it’s actually shoot fish in barrel.

My first piece of legislation finally passed out of committee today, My second piece of legislation has already been enacted. This particular legislation is to do away with euthanasia by gas chamber in favor of lethal injection of animals.

There was no controversy in Council when this first came up. I think most all of Council has signed on as a co-sponsor. All the opposition came from the Mayor’s Office. That office is worried about the budget year. Because there were so many animal control ordinances put forward, the Chairman of the Public Safety Committee created a subcommittee on animal control to consider the legislation.

During the subcommittee investigation, the head of Animal Control said he needed about $150,000.00 to get lethal injection up and running. Curiously, on his inventory list he said he would need stethoscopes. Rabbi Schlesinger, on the subcommittee, asked why they did not have them already. Animal Control is required to check each animal before disposal.

The head of Animal Control admitted that Animal Control in Macon does not do that. He said they pile all the animals in the pin together, lower them into the gas chamber, and then raise them up. They make a visual inspection to see if any of the animals are alive. They then leave the animals for a dump truck that carries them off to the landfill.

The animals are not sedated. It is not uncommon for animals in such a situation to tear each other apart in a panic.

One of the ladies from the Humane Society told how on several occasions animals that had been euthanized had been recovered from the land fill still alive.

Over the course of several meetings, the head of Animal Control lowered his initial cost estimate to roughly $50,000.00. To address the Mayor’s concerns about putting this into the already tight 2009 budget, the subcommittee recommended that this legislation not go into effect until July 1, 2009. That would give more than a year to prepare for the transition.

Today, the legislation finally made it back to committee. The Mayor’s Office informed the committee that, while the Mayor views animal control as a priority, he will veto the legislation. The Chief of Police chimed in and said that if the legislation passes and there is no funding in one year he will shut down the pound.

The City Attorney chimed in and said — get this — that passing this legislation was committing future revenue to future events. He made it sound like this is highly unusual. Last week the City Council voted to spend $2 million over several years beginning in 2010. It seems to me all the committee was doing was stating that the method of euthanizing animals must change. Sure there will be budget concerns, but that is no different from any other legislation.

In the end, the committee voted 4-1 in favor of the ordinance. Yet again, Larry Schlesinger and Tom Ellington were the grown-ups, both speaking in favor of the ordinance. Those two always have this annoying habit of saying more in one sentence than I can say in a paragraph. Ha!

It’s amazing to me that the Mayor could find $15,000.00 to move a model of a boat to City Hall, but given one year and one month and a full time grant writer he does not think this self-proclaimed priority of his is worth signing into law.

This is not an issue I ever cared about until people in the community raised the concern. As Rabbi Schlesinger said, the community really does want this. And I believe I have the votes to override the veto.

Christy took Evelyn downtown on Friday while I was working. They passed City Hall and Christy told Evelyn, “That’s where Daddy goes to his meetings.” Evelyn kind of gave her a “huh” and Christy said, “That’s City Hall. That’s where Daddy goes to his meetings.”

Evelyn responded, “Oh. That’s where Daddy goes spanks those people.”

Hahaha

Evelyn, Christy, and I headed out to the grocery story last night. I put Evelyn in her car seat and accidentally snagged the belt of her car seat on Evelyn’s leg. She protested.

“Sorry Charlie,” I replied.

“I’m *not* Charlie,” Evelyn protested. “I’m Evelyn.”

I laughed and told her, “Sweetheart, that’s just an expression.”

“Sweetheart, I am *not* an expression,” she emphatically explained. “I’m an Evelyn.”

I had a hard time staying composed on that one. And she was aggravated that I’d laugh.