Neo-Hippie Ramblings - I'm a Non-Conformist Just Like All My Friends

Trying something out

2006-08-24T07:17:00.000-05:00

If you scroll to the very bottom of the page, you'll find some text that's almost invisible, just below the page counter. This is being generated randomly, and will change every time the page is reloaded. I figure, if the government is going to treat us all like suspects, we might as well make them feel useful by acting suspiciously.

Please Support Laura in Relay for Life

2006-03-01T06:33:00.000-05:00

Laura at Can't Keep Quiet is participating in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life this year. Please stop over and lend her some support.

Bake Sales for Body Armor

2006-02-01T08:03:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted from Bring It On:

In the next couple of weeks a new site will be launched called Bake Sales for Body Armor, it is a not-for-profit site that will be dedicated to rasing money to buy body armor for the less fortunate men and women of our Armed Forces that cannot afford to buy it on their own. This not-for-profit is being endorsed by Bring It On! because we feel it is a disgrace that our own government cannot properly equip our brave men and women of the Armed Forces.

Bring It On! also felt that this is something that cannot wait and have decided to raise money in advance of the launch of Bake Sales for Body Armor. Please click on this link to donate and get a bumper sticker or shirt to show your support for this cause, all proceeds will be donated to Bake Sales for Body Armor. This is a non-partisan issue, the lives of our soldiers are at stake, please donate now!

After donating you can use this to put on your site and help get the word out.

And now a word from the creator of Bake Sales for Body Armor, Tammara Rosenleaf, who is a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Helena Peace Seekers, Just Don’t Go and the Prairie Chapel 12. Tammara’s husband Sean is currently serving in Iraq. Tammara can be reached at: tammara@bakesalesforbodyarmor.com

ok friends,

as many of you have been aware, charlie anderson of iraq vets against the war, and i have been working on this little project called bake sales for body armor.

this is because despite our government’s best and fervent insistence, we keep getting reports of soldiers who do not have it, and are in iraq, which is a stupid place to be in the first place, but really bad without body armor.

we know that the military says that they get the armor to those who need it the most, but the others need it none the less. at this point we have not heard of any one still lacking the breast and back plates, but some are still lacking the delt and side plates… the very things that were just such a hot topic when it came to the recent pentagon study regarding mortality and the marines… if you haven’t read this study and want to, let me know…

our web site dedicated to this effort will be going up in the next two weeks, it is being worked on by a really good designer, and what we have seen looks wonderful. you’ll all love it.

our first real bake sale will be feb 11, here in helena, but we will be looking for folks who want to host sales in other places, and there will be a place to post them on the site. we also plan to have a virtual bake sale, where you can down load pictures of baked goods with a receipt for your tax free donation, if you just want to donate to the cause.

we have the pay pal account set up, it will go up with the website, and a way for folks to sign up people who need things is also going up.

which brings us to the point where we say that this site is not limited to body armor alone..we will always put a soldier lacking armor at the top of the list, but, anything else a soldier needs over there, we will try to get for them…

our very good friend and sponsor, at bring it on, has come up with a fundraiser to support this cause. i’ve given you the link below… what i really like about this is that it addresses the need for the body armor, at the same time as it says… “What the hell do all these yellow ribbons have to do with real support of the troops”

(Self) Censorship, or, Feel Free to STFU

2006-01-16T07:30:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted to Bring It On

I had something totally different in mind for this post. (Sorry MLK Jr. — someone else will have to talk about the state of racial equality in America today. Pretty sure it’s covered, dude.)

Today at the Roller Rink

Something that happened this afternoon got me thinking about the fundamental difference between ‘thou shalt’ and ‘thou shouldst’.

We took the girls to a birthday party being held for a five-year-old cousin at a local roller skating rink. The parties (there were four being held simultaneously) were supposed to start at 2 pm and the rink owners had no intention of letting anybody into the rink even a moment beforehand. It was also very cold here in Dreary Erie today.

The net result of all this was that about three dozen annoyed parents and their little kids were crammed into a small entry foyer at 1:55 pm waiting for the rink to open.

One of the parents whose kid was having a birthday party (not our group) went up to the window to talk to the owner about something. I was too far away to hear the conversation, but the parent was obviously ticked off as a result. Pushing back through the crowd, he said loudly, “that guy is a fucking asshole”.

Now, I’m a big fan of the F word. I love it. I use it daily, if only in my head. It fills a niche where no other word could ever fit. It’s also quite possibly the most versatile word in the English language.

‘Fuck’ conveys, through subtle inflection, the entire range of human emotion. Anger: Fuck You! Bemusement: Fuuuuuck!?! Agreement: Fuckin’ A, Dude! Disbelief: What the Fuck? Disgust: What. The. Fuck. Amusement: Fuh-huh-huck! Horror: Oh. Fuck. Panic: Fuck Me. Passion: Fuck me. Excitement: Oh My Fucking God! Despair: Oh, Fuck. Emphasis: I Mean Fuck…

That said, it’s also not a word that I use around my kids. And it’s certainly not a word that I want for my three-year-old add to her vocabulary just yet.

So anyway, some guy at the roller rink is acting like an obnoxious dipshit in front of a group of little children. Obviously not what the majority there wanted. So what’s the answer?

This is where the difference between ‘thou shalt’ and ‘thou shouldst’ comes into play.

What could we do? We could pressure the owner into adding a ‘no obscenity’ rule. Kick the guy out. Ban him for life. Sorry Jack — hit the street — no refunds, no returns. Thou shalt not say ‘fuck’.

Or, we could take it a step further. Send angry letters to the town council. Pass an ordinance. Levy a fine. Throw his ass in the klink. Thou shalt not say ‘fuck’.

Hell, we could take it even further than that. We could beat our breasts crying, “Protect the Children — Amend the Constitution”. Thou shalt not say ‘fuck’.

On the other hand, we could take the ‘thou shouldst’ approach — which is exactly what someone in the crowd did. “Watch your mouth — there are little kids here”. End of story. The guy wasn’t happy, but he didn’t say anything else offensive, either. He already knew better — someone just had to remind him.

If we’d been in a bar the situation would have been different. There’s no law to say that I couldn’t take my kids there, though I shouldn’t and never would. But if I did, I’d have no right to yell at the guy for cursing. Different environment; different social norm.

One size does not fit all.

The Big Picture

Every few years now, some genius in Congress has had the brilliant idea that the Internet needs to be censored in the name of decency and/or protecting children. News flash: it ain’t gonna work. Trying to do so will inflict harm and waste a buttload of money. Child pornography is evil and despicable. And it’s already illegal — no new legislation necessary. If you know where to find the scumbags publishing it, nail them to the fucking wall. Period. It ain’t rocket science.

Regarding for the garden variety ‘bad stuff’ on the Web: as a parent, it’s my right and responsibility to protect my children from exposure to images or ideas that are likely to harm, corrupt or traumatize them. My right. My responsibility. Not the federal government’s. (For Christ’s sake, if you feel the need for the government intervene on behalf of children, push to fund something like WIC, Head Start, or school lunches.)

The ability to self-censor exists in every television now being produced. It’s been that way for years. Chances are excellent that it’s in the TV already in your home. Likewise, software is available for free, or a very low cost, to self-censor Internet access. When my kids are older, I’ll enable it.

Far more importantly, though, I make a point of knowing (and limiting) what my kids are watching on television — and when they’re old enough to start Web-surfing, I’ll also make a point of knowing where they’re surfing, what they’re downloading and who they’re talking to. That’s my right, my responsibility. Not the federal government’s.

I suspect that the ’save the children’ line is a grade A load of crap, anyway. It’s more a matter of “the social norms ain’t what I believe they ought to be. Quick, Jethro, we better legislate!”

More ’shouldst’. Less ’shalt’. I mean fuck…

Tags: internet censorship, self-censorship, social norms, fuck, profanity, first amendment, freedom of speech

Stupidest Coupon Ever

2006-01-11T23:24:00.000-05:00

I think I may have found it: the world's stupidest coupon. Am I reading too much into it, or does a late fee coupon say "Our late policy is so incredibly shitty that we have to give you a break just to try to lure you back in here!"

At least she gets it honestly

2006-01-10T07:15:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to think that our 5-year-old might turn out to be a bit of an iconoclast.

She recently made a few 'enhancements' to the Barbie Dress Up Kit she had asked for for Christmas.

::g::

Weaning America from the Oil Teat

2006-01-09T23:46:00.000-05:00

I just got the February issue of Discover in the mail today. One of the featured stories this month is an article by Amory Lovins, who has a lot of sound, practical suggestions for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

This isn't a tofufest either -- it's very pragmatic stuff that doesn't rely on either exotic, undeveloped technologies or unrealistic changes in the way that we live. Rather, it's a lot of small, workable suggestions that add up to big differences in a number of different arenas.

The February content isn't out on Discover's website yet, but you should be able to pick up a print copy at any newstand now. Do check it out; it's worth a read.

Amory Lovins
Discover magazine
alternative fuels
hybrid engines
SUV fuel efficiency
carbon fiber composites
thermoplastics
foreign oil dependency
energy policy
fossil fuels

Bring It On 2.0

2006-01-09T07:23:00.000-05:00

At long last, Bring It On 2.0 is online. All the good stuff is still there, but we've ditched Typepad, moved to Wordpress and added some really cool features like a comment rating system and 'red and blue' diaries to encourage users of all political persuasions to participate.

Be sure to check it out.

My poor little blog, Paganmas, et al

2005-12-29T07:26:00.000-05:00

My poor little blog is being neglected. Been very busy overall, and what online time I do have has been devoted to Bring It On lately. More smart content, more discussion, more traffic, more stupid people to abuse, what else can I say? Looks like this site will end up being my Phun with Paintshop Pro blog, for the most part -- that's what's driving a lot of the traffic now.

Well, that obviously-pagan winter solstice holiday we slapped a Baby Jesus sticker on and called 'Christmas' has come and gone once again. Can't say that I enjoyed it an awful lot this year. Seemed like it was "the holiday season" forever. By mid-December I just wanted for it to be finished. Now all that's left is New Years Eve, which isn't much of a holiday unless you're into serious drinking, elbow-to-elbow crowds at the bars, or both of the above. Which I'm not. If there were a holiday with a ganja theme, now that I could get into.

Going to visit the family, though, which should be nice.

Black Spy and White Spy, despite having received a fair number of cool toys each -- including many intended to encourage cooperative play -- still seem to prefer picking one toy and fighting over it. Grrr. I'm thinking coal next year. Except they'd probably just fight over whose piece was bigger...

The Dark Descent

2005-12-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

I've been losing more sleep than usual these days, simply because I recently bought an incredible horror anthology called The Dark Descent and instead of brushing my teeth and going to bed, I've been brushing my teeth and then standing around for another half hour finishing up whatever story I've been sucked into.

I've been a fan of horror fiction since I was in my early teens -- sometimes sneaking in books that I wasn't allowed to be reading because they were too 'adult' in nature - Stephen King, John Saul and the like. By high school, I'd read just about all of Stephen King and Dean Koontz's published work as of that time. I can't stomach Koontz anymore -- he's far too formulaic and the characters are so flat that they cause papercuts.

King I still like, when it's clear that it's really him writing. Unfortunately, I think there are a fair number of ghost-written novels out there bearing the Stephen King name (Insomnia stands out in my memory as obviously not King, but there were some other ringers as well). I've always liked his short stories better than his long fiction, anyway.

Short aside: saying that you enjoy Stephen King is taboo for an English major, especially a creative writing major (which I was). A lot of his work is pure escapism, admittedly, but some of it has a 'there there'. Case in point: You Know They Got a Hell of a Band, which has a fascinating subtext when read allegorically.

Clive Barker is a more recent favorite -- although Orson Scott Card also put together a kick-ass collection of stories in the horror mode back in the early 90s, called The Changed Man and the King of Words.

Let me reiterate, though, The Dark Descent is incredible. A lot of old favorites, as well as many excellent stories that I've never encountered before. (Theodore Sturgeon's "Bright Segment" has been playing in my head like a snuff film for two days now -- that and Clive Barker's "Dread", which is easily one of his best.) I'm only about a quarter of the way into the book and I'm already itching to get back into writing fiction -- something I haven't done seriously in about ten years.

I didn't put this blog up to hawk books, but if you like horror stories, this is one that you'll definitely want to get your hands on. Buy it, borrow it, check it out of the library or stick it in your pants the next time you're browsing through Borders. But definitely get a copy in hand.

Finally Got the Christmas Tree Up

2005-12-09T07:07:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's just because the kids are so young, but I seem to remember decorating the tree being something of a bigger deal when my siblings and I were growing up. Our five-year-old was somewhat interested in helping, but mostly just fought another skirmish in the ongoing Spy-vs-Spy drama that dominates her relationship with her younger sister.

And on the subject of pointless skirmishes, the whole 'Merry Christmas' vs 'Happy Holidays' thing is extraordinarily stupid. There's been a lot of discussion on Bring It On, so I'm not going to regurgitate that here. The guest post today from Matthew61 is really good, check it out.

Unless you feel that the 'Christmas Spirit' is about the need to dominate a 'my god is bigger than your god' argument, it would all seem to be rather silly. "I came here to buy a [cheap plastic toy] assembled by a Chinese prison laborer or eight-year-old child in Malaysia (pick one) for my spoiled, over-privileged kid, and you'd better acknowledge that this holiday is about Jesus Christ, or else!" I'm not sure if that's funny or sad. It's definitely ironic, though.

Ever smelled your own eyeballs burning?

2005-12-02T23:15:00.000-05:00

I did, this morning.

P & I realized a few months back that we'd seriously overestimated the amount of money in our pre-tax medical account for this year. Rather than lose the money at end-of-year (stupid law, but that's a rant for another day), we decided to use it toward LASIK surgery for me.

I think that there are about three categories of people wearing glasses. My wife is in one category, which is 'glasses make things crisp but I can function fine without them'. My grandfather is at the other end of the spectrum, which is 'I'm legally blind even with glasses, but they help me a little so I wear them'. Up until this morning, I was in the last category, which is 'I see fine with glasses, but I'm totally useless without them.' Remember Velma crawling around on the floor looking for her birth control goggles? That was me.

So anyway, I was at the LASIK center for about 2.5 hours this morning, about 2 hours of which was spent sitting in a hallway, in between sets of pre-op photos and a whole bunch of eyedrops.

The surgery itself involves having your eyes propped open using something akin to the setup from A Clockwork Orange, having the transparent protective layer over the lens of your eyeball sliced open and popped up like the lid on a shampoo bottle, and then having a computer-guided laser smooth out the imperfections that caused your nearsightedness in the first place. It's quick, and pretty much painless, but having your eyeball sliced open and having your vision suddenly go to shit is a scary thing nonetheless. So is the smell of your eyeball cooking under a laser. The Valium they gave me beforehand helped a little. Something stronger would've been ideal.

(The computer-guided part of the process probably makes some people feel better about the procedure. Being in the software quality assurance field, though, that part totally freaked me out.)

But here I sit, twelve hours later, without glasses. My eyes are still recovering from the surgery, but I can already tell that I'm going to see at least as well without glasses as I did with them. After having worn them all day, every day, since elementary school, it's unnerving not to have them on. (Never wore contacts because they seemed like a pain in the butt and I don't like the idea of touching my eyes.) I keep 'startling' because of the sensation of not having them, and try to reach out to find them.

Weird, but cool.

Odds and ends with a high school theme

2005-11-29T22:24:00.000-05:00

Must be the fact that we went to visit family this past weekend, but I have a bunch of stuff floating around in my head and a lot of it's tied to high school in one way or another. That was half a lifetime ago now. Ouch.

Classmates.com: Made the mistake of signing up for the basic account, out of curiousity. Now the bastards won't leave me the hell alone - they're sending me spam out the pooper. But one old friend who I actually would like to talk to sent me an e-mail through their ~~internal~~ infernal system, and I can't read the damned thing unless I sign up for a 'gold' account. That really, truly sucks. Not sure if I'm gonna pony up the cash or just try to track him down outside of their site. Grr.

Not Quite Scheherazade: Found out that someone I knew back in high school writes Not Quite Scheherazade, which I'd run across a while back, and really liked, without realizing that the author was an old acquaintance. Kudos, A.S., on a great blog.

Alcohol: I've never been a confessionalist, as the few of you who read this regularly will know. But someone very close to me has let a drinking habit slip way out of control and it's quite alarming. Not sure what happened, or exactly when, but somehow having a few too many on 'special occasions' has apparently turned into a situation where every day is a 'special occasion'. Not good.

Being Clark Kent: Apparently all these years in front of a keyboard have finally paid off. Typing was the only class I ever got a 'D' in during high school. I truly sucked -- something like 13-14 wpm at top speed. I realized today at work that I was typing amazingly fast (for me) -- probably over 60-70 wpm -- while not even looking at the monitor, and not making any mistakes. Woo-hoo!

Head scratcher

2005-11-21T07:12:00.000-05:00

Cheney's flexible guy. You can't see it in this picture but he's actually doing a split.

The McCain anti-torture amendment is "unnecessary and duplicative," but the CIA needs to be exempt or the President will veto it. Riiiiiiight.

Because the Abu Ghirab investigation clearly got to the root of the problem of POW abuse and nothing like that could ever happen again.

FDA's Morning-After Pill Decision Probed

2005-11-14T22:48:00.000-05:00

Don't remember for sure if I posted a rant about this when I first read about it. Either way, there's one coming right now...

Apparently, when it comes to the issue of reproductive rights, nothing less than total fucking domination and the absolute legislation of morality will suffice. Sieg Heil to the Rabid Reactionary Right!

I mean really, what degree of asshatted, howling-abyss psychosis does it take to combine the premise that abortion is an abhorrent thing with an all out war on every attempt to provide sex education and contraception?

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. It defies all description.

It's not about helping women. It's not about being 'pro-life'. It's not even about sex, really. At the most fundamental level, it's about the need to inflict one's own view of the world on everyone else at any cost.

I'd love to live in a world where nobody wanted or needed an abortion. A world without incest or rape. A world where couples weren't ever having sex unless they were emotionally and physically ready, and weren't having kids until they were all of that, plus financially ready as well. But I live in this world, the real one, and I understand intellectually why abortion needs to be an option, even though the thought of it makes my heart ache and my skin crawl.

I'd love to see fewer abortions -- I'd love to see zero. Not by making them illegal, but by making better alternatives available, practical and affordable.

News flash: Pretending that you're going to somehow spread the Gospel to the entire fucking human race and magically turn the entire fucking world into clones of Ward and June Cleaver is not one of those alternatives.

Supporting adoptive charities is kind and noble one.
Supporting the availability of reliable, affordable contraception is a socially and fiscally responsible one.
Supporting factual sex education in the education system, combined with the availability of resources to help parents hold a meaningful, open dialogue about sex and sexuality with their children - within the framework of their personal religious and moral beliefs - is perhaps the best one of all.

And if that doesn't fit into your need to tell other people what to do, then do us all a favor and shut the fuck up.

A Quiet Moment to Reflect

2005-11-11T23:06:00.000-05:00

Ever stop to think about how the rest of the world must see us?

Holy Trap, It's a Stooldriver!

2005-11-11T07:42:00.000-05:00

Our two-year-old, E., learned a few entertaining words recently. She can't pronounce 'screwdriver' quite right, so it comes out as 'stooldriver'.

She picked up 'holy crap' from one of her older cousins, but says it as 'holy trap'. We're not doing anything to correct that one. ;)

Don't Let the Door Hit Ya in the Ass on the Way Out

2005-11-09T07:07:00.000-05:00

From AmericaBlog:

"Intelligent Design" proponents SLAUGHTERED in PA election
by John in DC - 11/09/2005 01:51:00 AM

Ok, this my friends is what a real mandate looks like. The GOP and their religious right cronies got slaughtered in Tuesday's elections. Other than Texas, which was to be expected, they lost, big time everywhere (CA is still being counted at this hour).

Basically, the local voters in the Pennsylvania anti-evolution controversy threw out EVERY SINGLE ONE of the wacko Republican anti-evolution wingnuts who were sitting on the school board. ALL OF THEM, GONE.

Now that's a mandate.

(Hat tip to Atrios.)

Technorati tags:
AmericaBlog, 2005 pennsylvania election, intelligent design, mandate

US Using Napalm in Iraq

2005-11-05T21:14:00.000-05:00

From Project Censored:
Reviewed by Cole Ryan and David Abbott

The U.S. has been secretly using napalm in Iraq despite a 1980 international ban on the use of incendiary weapons by the United Nations. The US never signed the UN protocol banning incendiary weapons and uses semantic deception to cover up the use of napalm by calling the weapons firebombs or Mk-77s.

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1928.shtml
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0617-01.htm
http://aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=5875
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1518692,00.html

Technorati Tags

Iraq War
Napalm
Crimes Against Humanity
Firebombs
MK-77s

Cross-posted to Bring It On.

A greater opportunity to get myself into trouble

2005-11-02T22:22:00.000-05:00

...as my wife so kindly puts it. ;)

As of yesterday, I am a contributing member of Bring It On - the group blog that I've been addicted to for months now. Woo-hoo!

I'll spare you the embarassing Miersesque gush, but suffice it to say that I've been walking around with a shit-eating grin on my face since I found out.

Like-minded liberals, heated political discussions, daily Dubya abuse, a handful of pet trolls and more page hits in a day than I get by myself in months. What's not to love?

Happy Halloween - My Favorite Holiday

2005-10-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

Generally, I try not to toot my own horn, but I do carve a badass pumpkin. That's an original design, not a Pumpkin Masters stencil.

Here's a repost from January (not sure why I was thinking about Halloween back in January -- probably just feeling burnt-out from all the Christmasing).

Top 13 Reasons why Halloween is Better than Christmas

13. Marshmallow ghosts

12. Roasted pumpkin seeds

11. Mr Bones candy in the plastic coffin

10. Putting out a masked scarecrow in a chair on the front porch two weeks before Halloween, replacing the scarecrow with yourself on Halloween night and waiting for the neighborhood kids to knock on the door

9. Dressing like your favorite sci-fi/fantasy character without 'outing' yourself as the supreme geek that you are

8. The kids don't really need to eat all that candy, but it's such a shame to waste it...

7. Carving pumpkins

6. It majorly freaks out the fundamentalists, but Wal-Mart supports it wholeheartedly (although there is some concern among astrophysicists that this paradox may eventually rip a hole in the space-time continuum)

5. Snack-sized Butterfingers

4. Any adult women's costume involving hose or stockings

3. Deck out your house well enough and the Jehovah's Witnesses and/or Mormons may walk right on past without stopping

2. Flaming poop

1. Zero pressure - if you want to skip the holiday completely (except for maybe handing out candy for an hour or taking the kids around the block once or twice in a storebought costume) nobody cares

Ooh, this is too much fun - Einstein Blackboard

2005-10-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

The church sign generator was fun, but this is even better!

A shortcut for creating Technorati tags

2005-10-24T22:21:00.000-05:00

Something practical for a change: A simple formula for creating Technorati tags automatically in MS Excel.

I can only speak for myself, but I tend to use Technorati tags less than I would otherwise, simply because they're kind of a pain in the ass to string together. To get around this, I just wrote a Microsoft Excel formula that will generate a valid Technorati tag from a text string.

=CONCATENATE("<a href=""http://technorati.com/",(SUBSTITUTE(A1, " ", "+")), """"," tag=""ref"">",A1, "</a>"))

To use the formula, do this:

Open a blank Excel workbook and paste the formula into cell B1.

Copy the cell you pasted the formula into, select the entire column B and paste the formula into the column.

Type each tag into its own cell in column A.

To use the tags, just copy the populated cells from column B into your html editor. If you're a scatterbrain like me, you might also want to protect column B so you don't inadvertently delete the formulas.

Your spreadsheet should end up looking something like this:

Don't say I never gave you anything. ;)

Ever feel like you were living in The Twilight Zone?

2005-10-24T06:26:00.000-05:00

I do, and it's not just flashbacks from my college days.

I saw a news clip this morning (from Meet the Press) in which Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R - TX) suggested that the hefty cost of indicting key White House officials had better be justified by charges more serious than perjury.

White House... perjury... hmm... does that remind you of anything?

So I dug back a little bit, and read Sen. Hutchinson's position on the Clinton impeachment. From that statement:

However inappropriate the behavior of the President was, the legal issues in the impeachment trial do not deal with this relationship. All accusations against the President here relate instead to alleged attempts to prevent the disclosure of this relationship in a pending civil rights lawsuit against the President in an Arkansas Federal court and to the public. That is the critical factor that has brought us to this extraordinary moment in our Nation's history when we are considering whether or not to remove from office the President of the United States.

Now here's the funny thing: I think her position has some merit. Not sure if I agree that the gravity of the charges justified the cost and disruptive nature of the impeachment proceedings, but she raises some entirely valid points. I guess cost wasn't as big a concern back in 1999, when we had a balanced budget and before we'd poured over $200 billion dollars into a quagmire called Iraqi Freedom.

Unfortunately, Sen. Hutchinson also seems to have a very short memory regarding her own position -- that the perjury charges against Clinton were simply the tip of the iceberg. Here's the thing: the expected perjury charges are based on the White House retribution for a former public servant's refusal to help fabricate evidence to justify an illegal war that's killed and maimed thousands of US troops and tens of thousands of civilians.

Technorati Tags:

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson
Bill Clinton
downing street memo
yellowcake forgery
Valerie Plame
Meet the Press
CIA
Scooter Libby
Karl Rove
Dick Cheney
Patrick Fitzgerald
Joseph Wilson

Lost - A rare foray (for us) into 'grown-up' TV

2005-10-23T22:46:00.000-05:00

P and I borrowed the first season of Lost from a coworker. We've been able to watch the first four episodes so far. I'm enjoying it. I have a couple of theories about what might be happening, but nothing I'm ready to commit to yet.

I don't get to watch many 'grown-up' shows anymore. Most of my TV time involves annoying animated characters, talking animals, a boy with a lightning scar on his forehead, or giant monsters that trash Tokyo.

We watched X Files religiously until it started to get lame. Ditto for Millenium. The last two shows we watched regularly were Buffy and Angel. And I was totally hooked on The Shield for the first two seasons -- but I started missing episodes when we had my nephew living with us and got so far behind that I just gave up trying to tape it. P found it far too violent, so she didn't watch it anyway.

I detest reality television, so I get the impression that I haven't missed much over the past few years. Like I said, though, I'm enjoying Lost.