Hello, Friends!

Goodbye, Friends!

I'm outta here.

I bet you're thinking this is a juicy, dramatic, GBCW with bonus FU, yes?

Well, click onward to find out if you're right.

I know. You're busy. Work. Family. Activism. The freakin' holidays on top of it all. I know. Trust me.

Maybe something's been nagging at you. That one thing you just gotta do, and it's just slipped your mind what it is.

You're commuting or cooking supper or studying something and it's right there in the back of your head but by the time you've got a moment, it's gone.

I understand. And I don't make judgments.

But right now, it's my job to remind you. Yeah, even to nag you a little.

Because, you gotta do it.

At this point, you're scowling and saying "DO WHAT, KIM?!?!?!"

Patience, Grasshopper. All will be revealed below the fold.

I am an uninsured American.

That pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

I honored a young man I think of much like a nephew, who I'm proud to know. We are all luckier for his service to his country. He's a great human.

I think of him this Memorial Day with a desperate prayer that he will never be remembered as one of the fallen. I don't think I could bear that.

So,what was my one wish before going to Annapolis?

I hope to God Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush are not the commencement speaker!

Who was the speaker?

Dick Cheney.

And what did I do?

[proceed quickly to There's Moreville to find out!]

I'm going to Annapolis for a friend's graduation. I hope to God Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush are not the commencement speaker!

I had no time to say what I needed to say here in my original post that got eaten, and even less time to even try to repost it.

Very very quickly, here's my position.

A military general took over the NSA and broke that agency's charter by spying on Americans.

In the name of 'national security' which no less a monster than Hermann Goering said would pacify all who cried out for liberty, Hayden carried out an unconstitutional and criminal order for spying, collecting phone data, and basically eradicating the privacy and liberty of Americans.

This scares me. It ought to scare you.

10. Tell him they're performing late term abortions in the Moriale Convention Center.

9. Have an ordained minister perform several hundred gay/lesbian marriages on Bourbon Street.

8. Tell him that they're about to disconnect the feeding tube of a brain dead woman in Biloxi Mississippi.

7. Suggest that they're doing stem cell research in the Superdome.

6. Get Halliburton to submit a no-bid contract to rebuild the levees.

5. Tell him some Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are stranded on Grand Isle, Louisiana.

4. Get word to him that some "Pioneer" or "Ranger" campaign donors are trapped on Magazine Street.

3. Tell him some billionaires who need tax breaks are in Jefferson Parish.

2. Put a golf course down Canal Street.

1. Tell him that Osama Bin Laden is in Arkansas.

http://www.jeffgannon.com/

But, you know, it's kind of not a blog.

In a real blog, you post, and you leave a direct link for replies so that you might engage the public in dialogue with you, and with each other.

This? Well, it has a 'write me' link on the left. And some blurbs Jeffy thunk up all by his widdle 'journalist' self. But replies and dialogue, like one could have even if one had something as simple as Typepad or Livejournal?

No.

Oh and Jeffy says he won't be answering questions about his 'private' life - you mean the private life where you publicly displayed your erect penis, ass, and urination on the internet for the express purpose of selling your body and being paid by anyone who desired your services as a 'top' which means you will engage, for pay, in anal intercourse with them as the non-receptive partner?

Not so private there, Jeffy. It might be your former life but there's nothing private about selling your body on the Internet.

I have a naughty idea. Below the fold.

"MALE ESCORT INFILTRATES AL-QAEDA
Bin Laden Promises Overhaul of Clearance Procedures
Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden promised a "thorough review" of al-Qaeda's clearance procedures today after reports emerged that an alleged male escort had successfully infiltrated the inner circle of the terror network."

More below the fold:

Not to pat myself on the back too much, but I think I got that one pretty much right.

It's the ultimate question isn't it: if it was wrong for Saddam Hussein's sons to torture people, then how can it be right for Alberto Gonzalez to condone torture as a national policy? Both Hussein's sons and Gonzalez's condoned torturers believe they are serving their leader and their country. They're both doing it for 'safety' and power. There is no difference. None.

If you agree, I have a few suggestions below the fold.

This is not that sort of diary.

I'm going to curse. I'm going to grumble. I'm going to bitch. I'm going to say the most hate-filled and insulting - and thus the most heartfelt - things I can say about Bush and the GOP.

When I get home from work tonight, I have a bottle of California red wine that will be consumed.

Join me below the fold.

I am disgusted and angered to the depth and breadth of my soul about this smear on Kos and Jerome. I think it's just fucking outrageous. I certainly let the WSJ and that turd Suellentrop know the facts, and my opinion.

And when I say "angry" - believe me, I mean it. Geneticists will some day discover that there is a mean gene that rides along with the gene that gave me my fair skin, freckles and red hair, because this redhead has the fabled redheaded temper, and it's been a fight all my life to control it.

I said that by way of emphasizing what I'm going to say next:

Read on!
 

If you want to drop me an email, please ask for my address by popping me a quick note as a comment reply.

I'm sorry but I feel more comfortable that way for now.

That's all. Thank you.

Here's the blurb that accompanied the headline on TP:

Confirm Gonzalez, Strengthen Bin Laden
"By using torture, we Americans transform ourselves into the very caricature our enemies have sought to make of us." So writes Mark Danner as he makes the case for rejecting the nomination of Alberto Gonzales. If we confirm the man who made torture possible, we confirm that America no longer stands for principles. And the terrorists win. (NYTimes , free reg. req'd.)

Keep goin'  --->

(1) I'd rather live without a toilet than with a dead computer.
(2) You can spend a lot of money at CompUSA very quickly.
   (a) Every time you go into CompUSA to check on the status of your computer or bring them disks necessary for the repair, you spend more money.
   (b) They know this.
(3) Alcohol and Fireworks Don't Mix.
(4) No, really, don't ask.
(5) If and I'm just saying if someone were to say, get a serious burn on one hand from something rather like (3) but more attributable to a faulty fuse on a firecracker, Oxycodone is Your Friend.
(6) Don't wanna go back to work tomorrow.
(7) My dripping bathroom tap happily plipplopping water into my mostly-clogged sink sounds like some sort of expensive feng shui peaceful zenlike water device.
(8) So I got free feng shui! Yay!
(9) Considering how much I spent at CompUSA, that's a good thing
and...........read on

There. I said it. I hate this Christmas. So much has happened this year - Howard Dean being defeated, my dog died, my father died, Kerry lost and I am one year older and not where I want to be.

Crap on Christmas, and New Year's can kiss my ass.

That's all.

Use this space to gripe if you want to.

http://www.alternet.org/election04/20689/

Lakshmi Chaudury, in the first of a series called "Take America Back" focusing on what went wrong in the 2004 election, showcases Adam Werbach's November 3rd Thesis.

http://www.3nov.com./

Werbach thinks that people want to believe in something, even more than they vote to serve their economic interests. The desire for fulfillment controls votes more than economic status.

He has some very interesting points.

This is worth a look.

What do you think?

If so, do you have any thoughts to share on this book, or "Balkin's other works?

It seems, just on very cursory examination, that Balkin has something to say about how we're forming and acquiring our ideas, and that might dovetail nicely with Lakoff. I'm thinking of all this in the context of the broader goal of recapturing the American imagination about who and what Democrats are, and a sea change in the rhetoric used by our party, about our party, for our party, and to Americans.

Thoughts?