i have the best pirate dog ever.

do you know why?

it is because she is napping under my left elbow.

earlier today, miss josie dog was napping across my lap here on the sofa, but i needed to get on the laptop to enter things into quicken. she is also a fine fine dog.

i think we're on the downward slide here. i think this is what living in rome was like, towards the end. there are so many little things that happen, so many little things that contribute towards the landslide. i ignore a lot of them, wring my hands over them and then just go on.

i'm still going to call my senators and representatives about the president's policy of doing illegal surveillance on american citizens, though. you should, too.

Molly Ivins - Molly Ivins: Bush must admit he has done something very wrong - sacbee.com

This could scarcely be clearer. Either the president of the United States is going to have to understand and admit he has done something very wrong, or he will have to be impeached. The first time this happened, the institutional response was magnificent. The courts, the press, the Congress all functioned superbly. Anyone think we're up to that again? Then whom do we blame when we lose the republic?

(if it asks you for a username and password, try cpunks/cpunks.)

it's starting to be the time of year where i have to start seriously working on wiscon. and i am reading over the ideas list for this year, and this is going to be an *amazing* convention. more ideas will end up being suggested; some of the ones on this list won't get used.

but wow. i am so psyched.

(are you coming to wiscon? if so, yay! i'd love to chat with you there! if not, why the heck not?)

they look so so blessedly happy. i hope that should i ever get married again, i look that happy at the ceremony.

the link takes you to more pictures of same sex couples getting married in the united kingdom. sir elton john and his husband are also particularly cute.

yet another reason for me to be paranoid about having health insurance.


Daily Kos: Culture of Life: Pull the plug on conscious patients - W's law.:

No one here can forget the spectacle made over the death of Terri Schiavo, whose brain had died long, long ago. But in Texas, the law George W. Bush signed as governor allows doctors to inform the family that further treatment is hopeless (and costly) and Pull the Plug. Literally.
In the latest case to escape the Culture of Life warriors, Tirhas Habtegiris, a young woman and legal immigrant from Africa, was CONSCIOUS and responsive when removed from a respirator and allowed to die.

she was removed from the respirator due to "economic considerations", a relatively new law in texas signed into effect by our current president.

carrie, i'd love to hear what you have to say about this one, and any other texans out there reading this.

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

i am totally stealing this from trista.

go add yourself to my map!

http://www.frappr.com/betsysfairandbalancedstuff

i want to know where all of you are!

even with the list of things that are making me crazy right now, there's one really good thing that stands out.

i don't have a brain tumor.

seriously; i had an mri (for other reasons, no tumor fears) two weeks ago, and while they were looking for other things, were there a brain tumor in there, they'd have noticed.

i mention this because a friend of mine isn't so lucky. her tumor, which the doctors thought was completely removed/in remission, is back. and she's back in the hospital.

i don't know her very well; i know her husband a little bit better. but they are sweet good people and they deserve nothing but the best of things.

this is not good christmas news.

everyone out there think good thoughts for them, okay? internet good vibes probably don't cure brain tumors, but it's hard to see where they'd hurt.

i am a near freakish fan of subways. i think subways are cooler than anything. better than cake.

wikipedia, source of all useless knowledge, has a category named Lists of metro stations, which lists metro stations for various subway systems around the world, from tbilisi to calcutta to brisbane.

i am currently making the happy happy face.

still at work. i have a sneaking suspicion that i'm going to be at work for the rest of my life. one of my applications is done gone and broke, and someone needs to be here so the vendor can work on it. that someone is meeee.

every time i start writing this, i find out that i have more things to say about this article. so, here's a short list.

first, thank you, frank murkowski. i don't think we agree on nearly anything else, but thank you for the worker's protection bill you sponsored.

second, karma is a bitch, mr. delay. a stone cold bitch. and i am taking some comfort in that right now.

and as for third, i haven't got one right now, but i'm sure i'll come up with something more to say later.

some excerpts from the article.

But as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Frank Murkowski became furious at the abusive sweatshop conditions endured by workers, overwhelmingly immigrants, in the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, of which Saipan is the capital.

[...]

DeLay fully approved of the working and living conditions. The Texan's salute to the owners and Abramoff's government clients was recorded by ABC-TV News: "You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system"

Later, DeLay would tell The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin that the low-wage, anti-union conditions of the Marianas constituted "a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It's like my Galapagos Island."

Contrast that with what then-Sen. Murkowski told me in a 1998 interview: "The last time we heard a justification that economic advances would be jeopardized if workers were treated properly was shortly before Appomattox."

murkowski wrote a bill to extend the minimum wage to the marianas, and got it through the senate. delay kept it from ever being heard in the house.

i had been told their names before, but i had forgotten them.

Geneviève Bergeron (1968-1989)
Hélène Colgan (1966-1989)
Nathalie Croteau (1966-1989)
Barbara Daigneault (1967-1989)
Anne-Marie Edward (1968-1989)
Maud Haviernick (1960-1989)
Maryse Laganière (1964-1989)
Maryse Leclair (1966-1989)
Anne-Marie Lemay (1967-1989)
Sonia Pelletier (1961-1989)
Michèle Richard (1968-1989)
Annie St-Arneault (1966-1989)
Annie Turcotte (1969-1989)
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (1958-1989)

they all died, 16 years ago, because they were female, and because they dared to study engineering. i choose to remember them and not the man who killed them.

(thank you, james, for the poke and the list of the names.)

and now, for serenity the movie, as reenacted by hand puppets.

warning, it does in fact hit all the plot points, so if you're averse to spoilers and haven't seen it yet, don't go look.

with that, i introduce to you, serenity, aka Emergency Naptime Procedures Implelemted

it includes such fabulous lines as:

Fans:..........................................................WHAT.

(and if you've seen the movie, you know *exactly* where it is that we were all saying that...)