Campaign 2008, Already?

It's somewhat exhasuting to have to see candidates out on the trail, raising money and potential votes for an election that's 17 months away. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that interest groups CAN finance certain types of campaign ads in the weeks before the general election. I'm not any sort of political strategist and I'm not one of the "key demographics" anymore either (the new one is the single anxious female). I can tell you what this ruling means to me. It means that there will most likely be a lot more campaign ads for us to watch during this election. If special interest groups are going to foot part of the bill for commercials, this frees up funds in the candidates' coffers to start the ad torment early. In fact, if you happen to live in Iowa, you can see the first Obama ads today! I wonder if that sets any records for earliest presidential campaign ad? I plan to have my mute button close by for the duration of the campaign season. Stay tuned in coming months for my commercial count.

Pants man lost his lawsuit against a Washington DC dry cleaner yesterday. Did anyone seriously think he deserved to win? Our dry cleaners lost a pair of pants that went with a suit earlier this year. My husband was pretty upset. It wasn't a new suit, but it was a suit he happened to like a lot. We gave the cleaners a couple months to locate the pants, hoping in vane that someone may have accidentally taken them home and would return them. That didn't happen. The dry cleaners gave us $50 in free cleaning to compensate for the mistake. We found that to be a fair settlement. This nut was offered as much as $12,000 in compensation that he turned down. And in his case, he never proved that the pants were actually lost. The cleaners have a pair of pants that have the number of his claim check on them. So many questions accompany this lawsuit. This guy spent thousands of dollars on rental cars so he could go to other cleaners. Why not buy a car? Who expects to get alterations done the same day? I hope Judge Pearson gets some counseling. He's in dire need of it. The bright note in this is that a fund has been set up to help the dry cleaners pay their legal fees. Marc Fisher reported in his column in the Washington Post today that more that $35,000 has been raised, but well over $100,000 is needed.

We are now into day 6 of summer vacation. Days 1-4 were a little rough, but things did settle down yesterday. This is my first summer with my kids. In the past they've been in daycare and with summer babysitters. Now they've got mom. And the puppy. Puppies are a lot of work for little boys who just want to play video games and watch TV. Puppies chew on game controllers, feet, butts, backs, shoes, toys, arms, ankles, pajamas, etc, etc... Today we'll go to swim practice in the morning. Then the 5 year old and I will go to the pool where many of his friends from school will be hanging out for swimming lessons. It's going to be hot and humid again today. I had hoped to go to a local farm to pick berries but I think it'll be too hot for that today, plus my sources say strawberries are gone and it's too early for raspberries. If anyone is actually reading this, I hope you have a lovely day.