Ciuapilli's Halloween Costume

Isn't Ciuapilli Lopez adorable as a Unicorn? Lot of candy for this princess.

Pilli and Me

 

Progress in Avenal

one day I will move back but at least it will be new and improved.

Job nearing completion

Joe Santino/The Progress As of Monday afternoon traffic was still being controlled by four-way stop signs at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Skyline Boulevard. (November 2, 2005)

Confusion reigned last week, as the striping was added to the one mile of newly resurfaced State Route 269/Skyline Boulevard through Avenal and the new traffic light was turned on to a blinking red light.

Completion of this job has been anxiously awaited for several reasons to give some drivers a clue as to how to proceed through the intersection and get some light on the intersection.

To install the traffic control lights, street lights were removed - making for a very dark intersection - and with the stop light turned on there is once again light at the intersection.

Although a blinking red light was confusing to some drivers, many more got the idea that the intersection was now a 4-way stop. Some were not sure when it was their time to proceed, while others moved through with caution.

At council last Thursday, Community Development director Steve Sopp reported the green light was to be turned on Friday, but that did not happen. It did give local drivers the weekend to get used to having to stop in all four directions before proceeding through the intersection.

Delay of getting the roadway striped and the light turned on was not caused by Caltrans, it was a contractor and the delay is costing him money.

The traffic light was paid for through a Safe Routes to School grant. A second grant that was first discussed for a light at Skyline and San Joaquin Street, is being used to purchase a new street sweeper. The sweeper has been received and will soon be put into service.

Arlene Santino, Editor

(November 2, 2005)

Weekend Wedding Pictures

Remember you can click the picture for a bigger size and if you want the orginal size email or leave me a comment.

The court

Bride and Groom

 

Fuzzy

 

At the table

 

Depantsing the Groom

 

Watching the Party

 

Someone's Bald spot

 

Las Girls Silva

 

Silva Men

 

Yeah what he said... Bring it locos

From THE LEFT COASTER

Democrats: Make GOP Efforts To Install Scalito Through Nuclear Option A 2006 Campaign Issue

The simple truth is that the Alito nomination should not only please the wing nuts, but it should also please the Democrats as well. In fighting this battle, which was waged at this time to take our attention away from last Friday’s indictment of Scooter Libby, Democrats will need to have the right framing in fighting this battle, as Jeffrey Feldman notes over at Daily Kos. Such framing includes reminding voters that Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were more enlightened with their high court judicial selections than Bush, who has shown that he was quick to jettison Harriet Miers due to evangelical pressure in favor of a conservative male who supports positions that Miers would abhor. After all, it was just last week that Bush was touting how much of a groundbreaking woman Miers was in her profession. Bush told us that the Miers pick would be great for the court because she didn’t have a judicial resume, but instead had real life experiences as a woman breaking down barriers. Yet this week, Bush has forgotten all those words in touting the long conservative judicial track record of Alito, who seemingly takes the position that women have their place, as second-class citizens, barefoot and pregnant.

The American Taliban has jerked their strings on George W. Bush, and now Bush has given them a candidate they wanted all along. The talk of a filibuster by Democrats has yet to start, and there is the threat of the nuclear option already being unsheathed by some inside the Taliban. To Democrats, I say: don’t run from these threats; embrace them. Tell the media that it is time for this country to have a debate about the rights of women both at home and in the workplace; it is time to have a debate about privacy; and it is time to have a debate about whether this country will move forward together into an enlightened future of healing and policies grounded in this country’s basic values, or move backwards into the world of submission and repression so comfortable to the likes of George W. Bush, James Dobson, and now Samuel Alito.

To wit: Alito would overturn the Family and Medical Leave Act; Alito has ruled in favor of race-based and disability discrimination; he would overturn Roe v. Wade; and for the topper, he ruled that there was nothing wrong with the strip-searching of a ten year-old girl who wasn’t the subject of a search warrant.

A president with a 39 percent approval rating doesn’t get to stack the courts with narrow-minded ideologues. If the GOP Senate blows up the filibuster to install another conservative Catholic male, Democrats should make it clear that voters, especially women and the youth vote, will be reminded of this every day between now and November 2006. As Democrats hang the Social Security privatization effort around the necks of incumbent GOP senators and representatives next year with senior voters, they should now be vocal about hanging the Alito vote and filibuster battle around the necks of vulnerable GOP senators with women and younger voters as well.

So GOP, you want to threaten the nuclear option? Bring it on.

Steve Soto

Thank you

From John Alter from Newsweek

The good news about the president's bad week is that even his conservative backers are no longer willing to keep quiet when they think he's wrong. And Fitzgerald was so impressive that the normal White House response—to savage the critic—was not an option this time. So Karl Rove survives, but the fear he stoked is easing. Four years after September 11, we're beginning to get our democracy back.

I hope we do get our democracy back and look back at this time in shame and disgrace. So a big shirt popping Thank you mr. Fitzgerald... maybe your the Great Gastby after all.

Halloween Pictures

Ciuapilli and the Family's Carved Pumpkin.