I am not an anarchist. I am not a communist. I'm not even a libertarian. But I have come to hate our government with the same sort of loathing as I have for child molesters, vivisectionists, and the people behind the Old Navy ads. Today, let me present the couple of things that have made me most angry in the last few days.
Earlier today, I read this: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/monahan1.html. This is the story of a man who, by his account, is slapped with trumped-up charges at the Portland airport, and the saga of his failure to see justice done. Admittedly, one account can be wrong; perhaps he's lying. Perhaps there was a horrible misunderstanding. But you hear of a new incident like this every day, and they can't all be liars. He's right for sure on one thing, though. We're not turning into a police state, we're already there. Or have you tried going someplace without your travel papers lately?
Then there's this: http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29919. Legislators in Georgia are looking to require women to seek a "death warrant" via a jury trial before they can undergo an abortion. Hello? Are we on the same planet here? I don't see a blob of protoplasm with the viability of a sea urchin in the Mojave as being a citizen of the state. Sure, there's that "potential human being" argument, but then, so are the ova I drop every time I have a period. What's next? Are we going to outlaw menstruation? How about we have a jury trial about that?
And to round it all up, we have http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/20/technology/20MONI.html. Nobody would quietly accept a national phone-tapping service, or a Federal letter-reading service, but we just aren't getting the same outrage over our Internet services being monitored. But do we really need more intelligence, anyway?
I've read in various accounts looking for 9/11 blame from several sources that the intelligence agencies have had plenty of data. They just couldn't sort through it to filter the signal from the noise in an efficient fashion. It was that quest for efficiency that has led us to our modern-day Department of Homeland Security-cum-Schutzstaffel. Not to mention the fledgling TIPS program, like the Hitler Youth, except adults can play, too. How long before we start getting "disappeared" for writing inflammatory material like this?
I would urge you to write to your legislators, but I'm feeling a little too bitter today. I've gotten too many letters from my Congressional representative saying, "Screw you, I don't care what you say, I'm voting the way I feel like it." Writing whiny little letters trying to change my elected officials' minds is just not working. I'm at a loss for a way to fix this before the next election; until then, I'll just try to help everyone see how angry this is making me, and how angry it should be making them, too.
Yeah, Merry Christmas, folks.
In one week, Sasha will be turning seven months old. That said, I figured maybe it was about time we got her nursery done, so that was my grand design for the weekend.
We really truly did start on this room several months ago. When we began, it was half white wood paneling with metallic aqua grain, and half pink walls with a teddy bear wallpaper border. We removed the paneling to discover rows upon rows of nail holes to be spackled over. We had the windows replaced by a professional. And then, weeks and weeks passed...
When Sasha started approaching the six-month mark, I started on that pesky wallpaper border. I scored it, I sprayed it with "Dif," and I set about to scrape that sucker off.
Unfortunately, the border was made of some sort of paper that had become indistinguishable from both the glue and the wallboard beneath. After doing battle with a two-foot strip, I conceded my loss and retreated. The border wasn't coming off, and the field of combat was devastated by the ravaghes of war. If that wallpaper border had villagers, they would be starving this winter.
So I went to find alternate methods of getting rid of the dastardly teddy bears and their nasty salmon pink home. My secret weapon: wet sanding. Thus began a war of attrition. Twenty minutes at a time, night after night, and the bears lost more and more ground. Finally, I prevailed, and the border was gone.
This was a major landmark on the way to finishing Sasha's room.
Yesterday, we washed the walls, spackled, and purchased paint. The spackle fumes were overwhelming. I had wanted to prime yesterday and paint today, but as with all things in my life, every step took a lot longer than I had expected.
This morning, my plan was to finish sanding before Sasha's swim class, and then quickly prime before we left for the afternoon, and quite possibly paint before bed. However, we all (even the baby!) slept in until 9:30, so we had no time.
I primed the room after Sasha's noontime snack and nap. I expected it to take, oh, an hour at most. I set to doing the trim around the windows, and the corners and edges first... the windows alone took 20 minutes. Each. Two and a half hours later, I trudged out of the room, priming finished. But the paint will have to wait for another day, or series of days.
Pray for me, my friends. This room will be the death of me.
My kitchen is: Please, don't even ask.
Man, the news today makes makes my blood boil.
First, there's this:
Patriot Act arrest: PHOTOGRAPHER ARRESTED FOR TAKING PICTURES OF VICE PRESIDENT'S HOTEL
Just why are we letting our Constitutional rights be stripped away like this?
And then there's this: Feds Label Wi-Fi a Terrorist Tool
So apparently Wi-Fi is a TOOL OF TERRORISTS. What, they can't subscribe to an ISP? Of course, we all know the Internet is EVIL which is why we need .kids.us. To protect our children from THE EVIL INTERNET.
Hey, why don't we just have the CIA shoot everyone who uses the Internet as a terrorist suspect, since the CIA is WITHIN ITS LEGAL RIGHTS TO DO SO, as we learned last week?
This has got to end. I don't care what your party affiliation is. I don't care who you voted for. Our government representatives are rolling over and letting the founding principles of our nation, like, say, due process of law, be quietly ignored without even an argument. Where's the opposition party?
Our executive branch is assuming broad powers to wage war without the Contitutional requirement of an Articles of War being passed. We live in the time of a shadow government and a parallel legal system for "terrorists." We're poised to make McCarthy look like child's play. We must not let this happen. Write to your elected officials. Do it today.
Sasha is six months old now. She is gaining a certain amount of mobility. And as we knew was inevitable since the day she was born, her reign of destruction and menace has finally launched itself.
She started slow, crumpling a catalog that lay all unsuspecting with the dust bunnies under the sofa. Soon, she moved up to clawing at the remote control and heaving it toward her mouth at any opportunity. She even pulled over a stick lamp.
Ah, but Sunday night, Sunday she achieved a level of destruction few babies her age can attain.
It was an ordinary Sunday night; Matt was watching TV, and I was on IRC while nursing the baby to help her nod off. Her teeth have been bothering her lately - I think we'll be seeing one in the next couple of weeks. As a result, she's been having more trouble falling asleep than typical. So...Sasha became distracted. She sat up and looked around. She saw her daddy.
Daddy saw her.
Sasha got excited and stood up and flailed her arms around.
Daddy came over to take her, and...
Sasha grabbed the lip of my glass of soda and pulled it right onto my laptop keyboard. Yes, folks, at the tender age of six months, Sasha has demonstrated a capacity for property damage that most children require a drivers' license for.
I immediately shut the machine down and mopped up what I could. Then I let it dry overnight. But alas, there was no power to the machine. I have since disassembled it to clean up what soda residue I could find. Today, I plugged it in again and tried to power it up, and was rewarded with an ephemeral flash from the power lights. It didn't boot, but it's better than I got before.
In a related story, on Monday night, I ordered a new Dell laptop. The Inspiron 8200. It weighs twice what my poor, beautiful VAIO did, but I imagine it'll be that much harder to knock it over.
And Sasha? Since then, she's threatened further damage to our possessions, but nothing has topped her Sunday night. She did get into daddy's baseball cards this morning, but only knocked them over. If she gets the idea to chew on baseball cards, then we do have potential for more expensive consequences.
My kitchen is: pretty filthy. Ew.