Just Not Gonna Do it

(okay, it ain't the most interesting read in the world, but dana carvey shows up at the end of this interview and i about shit my pants. the emphasis way down there is mine. enjoy)
President Bush on 'NYT' Spying Scoop: Not Main Story of Day By E&P Staff Published: December 16, 2005 2:30 PM ET
NEW YORK
In another lengthy interview with a TV news anchor, following his sit-down with NBC's Brian Williams earlier this week, President Bush has taped an interview with PBS's Jim Lehrer, to air tonight. As part of the interview, Lehrer tried to press the president on the major scoop in The New York Times, and now other newspapers, today on the White House approval for the secretly spying on Americans by the National Security Agency. Here is that portion of the transcript.*
MR. LEHRER: First, the New York Times story this morning that says that you authorized secret wiretaps by the National Security Agency of thousands of Americans. Is that true?PRESIDENT BUSH: Jim, we do not discuss ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country, and the reason why is that there's an enemy that lurks, that would like to know exactly what we're trying to do to stop them. I will make this point. That whatever I do to protect the American people, and I have an obligation to do so, that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people.
MR. LEHRER: So if, in fact, these things did occur, they were done legally and properly?PRESIDENT BUSH: So you're trying to get me to talk about a program--
MR. LEHRER: Yeah.
PRESIDENT BUSH: --that's important not to talk about, and the reason why is that we're at a war with an enemy that still wants to attack. I, uh--after 9/11, I told the American people I would do everything in my power to protect the country, within the law, and that's exactly how I conduct my presidency.
MR. LEHRER: Well, Mr. President, with all due respect, wouldn't you think--don't you believe that answer is going to lead people to believe that you're confirming that in fact you did this?PRESIDENT BUSH: We don't talk about sources and methods. Don't talk about ongoing intelligence operations. I know there's speculation. But it's important for the American people to understand that we will do--or I will use my powers to protect us, and I will do so under the law, and that's important for our citizens to understand.
MR. LEHRER: I don't want to "beat a dead horse" here, Mr. President--
PRESIDENT BUSH: Okay.
MR. LEHRER: --but the story is now all over the world.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah.
MR. LEHRER: I mean, it's on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington post, every newspaper in America today, and it's going--it's the main story of the day. So--PRESIDENT BUSH: It's not the main story of the day.
MR. LEHRER: Well, but I mean in terms of the way it's being covered--
[Simultaneous conversation.]
PRESIDENT BUSH: The main story of the day is the Iraqi election.MR. LEHRER: Right, and I'm going to get to that.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Okay.
MR. LEHRER: But I mean, is it correct to say that the National Security Agency is normally told to do surveillance only on international calls rather than domestic calls, without reference to this specific thing?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I--Jim, I know that people are anxious to know the details of operations, they--people want me to comment about the veracity of the story. It's the policy of this government, just not gonna do it, and the reason why is is that because it would compromise our ability to protect the people. I think the point that Americans really want to know is twofold. One, are we doing everything we can to protect the people? And two, are we protecting civil liberties as we do so? And my answer to both is yes, we are. ...

They Call Me Ashmael

so, here's what i'm noticing about washington so far. the liberals are becoming the puritanical fiends they claim to abhor on the other side of the fence. as of last thursday, smoking is not only not allowed in any public building but it is now the most repressive anti-smoking state in the country. a person may not smoke within 25 feet of a public building or air vent or any other conduit which may transmit residue to those inside said building or air vent.
now, before you non-smokers fling stones at me let me just say that i am and have been fine with not being allowed to smoke inside. i'm used to it since i come from california. and, in general, i approve of it. i don't smoke in my own house...unless required to. but the level of "god smite them down" rhetoric i've been hearing and reading since thursday is disturbing, to say the least. one person quoted on a local news show went so far as to compare me to a child molester. okay. i only have one thing to say about that. i'm willing to smoke in the middle of the street if that's what you want, but i will not sodomize juveniles while dodging traffic. that's just rude and inconsiderate.
as for the extremely high taxes on cigarettes i have to wonder who is making out here. the northwest is a designated smoking area. always has been. will smokers quit, because the cost is high? will children not start, because the cost is high? probably not. and when the out-of-pocket cost of quitting aids is just as ridicuously high and the addiction is so strong it seems sensible to presume that the state is in the business of lining its coffers at the expense of smokers and has no real interest in helping them to quit.
i'll tell you this: the medical community and pharmaceutical companies don't want me to quit. somewhere down the line i may become a cashcow for them. lung cancer puts me at the top of the money i.v. and repeated "attempts" to quit with no solid backing by the very people who make the quitting aids makes me a repeat customer for their very overpriced comestibles. have any of you read the instruction booklets? all of the steps, that if followed, ensure success, but it's still up to me to be strong. no talk about nicotine being one of the 3 or 4 most addictive substances known to humans. a couple of websites to go to (including phillip morris).
i'm not whining...much. i am responsible for my life. if i really want to, i can be strong. but all of this really is large companies' attempts to make money off of the weak.

also, the seattle city council will be voting on whether to outlaw sales of single beers and strong wine (fortified) at stores in certain parts of the city in order to "cut down on public drunkeness". as bad as this may sound, mostly it's only the poor, homeless and marginal segments of our society who purchase alcohol in this fashion. most of them aren't driving. they're walking or using public transportation. or sleeping in the alley. the serial drunks tend to buy a pint and park it in their back pockets.
and remember, it was the seattle city council (maybe not all of the same people as now) who swept ALL of the homeless out of the business district downtown when the WTO came in for a conference on the late 90's. they did so, as well, when clinto came through on a campaign stop before his second term. the funny thing about the WTO incident is that it just allowed protesters that much more room to shut everything down and, of course, massive riots and carnage ensued (i stayed at home with a twelve pack and watched it on tv, laughing my ass off).

so, i guess all that i'm saying is that it's funny and kind of sad when those who throw stones and epithats at those they abhor begin to resemble them. and it weren't for beer and cigarettes i would take over the world.

$6 A Flipping Pack!?!

so, my first week here is done and the second looms. i have to admit that this move hasn't been without regrets. i miss my friends even though i tended to not answer the phone or door when i was there. i miss the local watering hole within walking distance. i miss the coffee shop and its familiarity. i miss going into work and knowing exactly what my responsibilities were and not having to worry about the intangibles. i miss not having to think; everything was so rote that i didn't need to wake up.
this new adventure is an anxious time. i don't know what my new work responsibilities entail. i don't have a new bank account. my company vehicle is nowhere to be seen. everything about my new house that must be paid for i have to pay. my new tombraider games won't load on my computer. i have yet to get renter's insurance on my belongings or have a walkthrough done on the house by my landlord. i haven't repaired the window airconditioner i broke (when i was forced to) after i locked myself out of the house my first night here. my kitchen things are still mostly in their boxes, because it's easier to hang out on the computer and drink beer. i'm down to my last traveller's check, because safeway wouldn't cash my payroll check. and the car is low on gas.
certain solutions are in order. as for the company car, i think that the company will be paying for my personal car's gas and mileage. i mean, the offer letter i signed said i would be provided these things and it's been a week. so, my opinion is that i am covered one way or the other.
i will give the finger to "being on salary" and go open a bank account tomorrow. (my manager let me know on my second day that leaving early or arriving late could make a bad impression on the hourly employees...duh. so, according to him, if i need to address moving issues i should come in early or stay late to make up for time lost).
but it's beautiful here. i can see the cascade mountains from my front porch and part of mt. rainier. i get a glimpse of the olympic mountains on the way to work. and i see water, water everywhere. it's always green here. the temps aren't too bad so long as that biting little breeze stays away. the cat is having a blast now that she found an easy way onto the roof. and, except for the asshole amount of taxes on cigarettes, life seems affordable.
but don't get me started on paying over $6 at safeway for one lousy pack of smokes. lecram, we need to talk.

Say It Ain't So, Joe...Oh Yeah, Joe's An asshole From Way Back

this is the kind of shit that strikes terror in the hearts of "normal" people. joe lieberman replacing donald rumsfeld? i have the deck of trading cards depicting our current (for the most part) administration as twisted serpents. if joe takes over for donald, do i get a freebie from the card company? or should i go for the bobble head doll? because that is what joe will do, and has been doing since even before he "ran" for vice president way back when. jewish vote...gimme a fucking break. chameleon vote is more like it. joe will do anything for re-election. and he will harm anyone who gets in his way. so, here's the link.

Straight Outta Vladisvostock

huzzah to my comrades in the vodka belt. up with the hard working class, down with the fascist dogs: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4489792.stm

okay. so there is no forced air in the joint. the only heat is from the cute little gas fireplace. okay. setting up base camp there then. and waiting for the oxygen tanks before making the final ascent into the clear blue cold. huddling around a small fake fire is no camp in the woods, let me tell ya. one good thing about the cold, though, is that the cat is easier to catch now that it's frozen. i sold the refridgerator and put everything outside in the backyard...just kidding. the fridge is now being used as the warming oven. just kidding, i've decided to raise chickens and it's now an incubator.
i finally bought a shower rod (it's cheaper to buy him than rent him by the hour) and curtain so i can bathe properly. i'm pretty sure that the owners of the house think hygeine is a fascist ploy to keep us distracted from the government's effort to take over the world. i, also, think they go to hempfest and burningman (isn't that a town in england?). up until now bathing was not so important. i had only myself to impress and, since i am so impressionable, it didn't take much to convince myself that everyone else must stink too.
i remember when i moved up to seattle in 1992 the first thing i noticed was that everyone was giving birth to twins and triplets. it was an oddity to be sure. this time around the trend seems to be black eyes. i guess the doors have a lot of pent up rage.
work is work over the first two days. i have no idea what i'm doing, although i have no idea what anyone else is doing. they gave me my own cell phone/radio, which is cool. the battery's dead and they have no extra charger, which is cooler. i look important, but don't have to answer it.
i'm waiting on my company vehicle. evidently the siberian motorwerks is on strike until the spring thaw and world yak milking competitions are done with. i've been given the second day smoke break talk:
"thou shalt not encourage others to be like you".
"thou shalt not look like you're enjoying yourself".
"thou shalt not bring up the fact that there are now more smokers then nonsmokers in this office".
"for it makes me look petty and resentful".
"and no god appreciates having that thrown in his face".
"and i can smite you with my Big Stick".
actually, my boss is okay so far...just a bit hopped up on the bean. i was going to recommend decaf, but just then his head began to swivel 360 degrees. maybe tomorrow.
by the way, washington men are evidently very ugly (the straight ones anyway). everywhere i go the chicks are digging me. smiling at me and all that. a two year old actually scribbled her number, spit it at me and gave me a drool-hither look. i asked her what hobbies she was into and she said "gumming". reminded me too much of my grandmother.
but then she said "breast feeding".
hold the phone. suddenly, we have something in common. but i thought about it and the whole diaper changing thing (as intimate as it may be) is kind of a turn off. so, i said, "nah. i got a ride. but maybe i'll call you. check you later". her mother was pretty impressed by that and told me HER curfew wasn't until 10 pm and we could get together after her weekly "So, You're Pregnant Again And Still Two Years Shy Of Your High School Diploma" class. i'm going to see what's on tv first.
which brings me to my newest moneymanking scheme: a tee shirt that says "Chix Dig Bloggers". i mean, we all know it's true. think about it. we spend an inordinate amount of time telling the world just how hip, cool, educated, stone cold foxy and worldly we are and then we log off and have sex with groupies, right? tell me i'm wrong. i bet a donut to a dildo you can't...
or is it just me?

SSM In The Wasizzle!

well. wow. what an interesting and eventful trip it was just to drive 900 miles straight up the map. as some of you know i recently accepted a promotion within my company that required me to move from the sunny locale of central california to the, uh, not as warm climes of washington.
i left yesterday afternoon after a last coffee with lecram at javawava. i figured if i left at 4 pm and pretty much drove the whole time (with a couple of naps) i would bypass rush hour traffic in sacramento, portland, olympia and tacoma (which can be the worst - everyone is now living where i am and commuting to seattle). everything started off well. in fact, the first six hours were amazing in their effortlessness. then i got to redding, ca. the traffic sign advisory was flashing, so i tuned my radio to 1610 AM to hear what was going on. i was still two hours or so from the oregon border. what the advisory had to say was this: "Interstate 5 is closed due to snow conditions at the Oregon border. There is no time estimate as to when it will be reopened."
being the foolhardy soul that i am, i drove as far as i could. upon being greeted by the CHP and told to turn around, i did. i checked into a motel in the town of Shasta Dam at about 9:30 and proceeded to finish a john grisham book. i also watched the late news only to see pictures of a massive storm that had decided to wait a day before pouncing. the Vivarin i'd taken two hours earlier wore off at about midnight. the cat woke me up repeatedly and at 4:30 AM i got up, did my usuals, made coffee and went out to check the car radio for an update on the highway conditions. i got static. the night still being in firm control of things i decided to pack up ( takes longer than one might think when a cat is involved) and hit the road, hoping for the best. i stopped off at a roadside mart just outside Shasta Dam in order to check weather conditions and buy a set of snow chains ( the Spyder chains that came with the car lacked one essential ingredient...the 13 mm torque wrench that tightens them on, which i found out at 5:00 AM).
all of this being done and being told by the toothless old hag running the store that she had no idear whut wus goin ahn up in them hills i set out to find out.
evidently, nothing was going on. the whiteout blizzard had changed to torrential rain. worked for me. i made my way over the syskiou mountains at about 30 miles per hour, scared out of my wits. it was pitch black, rain running sideways and bigrigs trying to blow me off the road as they made up for lost time. not that i blame them. and not that i'm smart enough to realize that if they can drive fast then the road must be okay. but there was ice and slush and general squishiness under the tires.
when the sun finally came up the world was glorious. snow covered everything but the road. and i'll tell ya: there's nothing like driving through oregon after a snowstorm. all forest and all white. unfortunately, interstate 5 through oregon is THE WORST STRETCH OF HIGHWAY IN THE WORLD!!! running water everywhere! you like hydroplaning? move to the great state of oregon. every 2 minutes i was hitting a small patch of standing or running water that had nowhere to go but up my tires' asses. and at 70 MPH (once i was out of the siskkious) it gets a bit annoying. i work for an engineering firm that works the assholes who build these damn highways and the oregonian state shovel holders are numbnuts as are the engineers who drew out the plans. gawdawmighty! oh, and the speed "limit" in the mountains is 65 MPH unless there's a curve or 400 that need to be taken at 50. but get into the flatlands and everything's 55 or 60. what the fuck?!? AND oregon seems to be in the process of fixing interstate 5 so as to make it more interstate-like. i drove through there 5 years ago and said shovels are still in said same place. with the same workers still looking busy leaning on them. in the snow.
but i digress. it was not snowing, only raining in sheets. and i'd only lost 8 hours. not a big deal since i don't start work until monday. and i knew if i could make it through Grant's Pass without any more weather anomolies i would be in like flint. i stopped at a rest stop early in oregon to ask a trucker about it and he said "wet pavement all the way down". cool. top speed. hit the curves flying. and he was right. all rain, no ice.
so, there i was coming into washington making up time like there's no tomorrow. and washington, well pssht. easy money. doesn't snow in western washington until late december, early january. i stopped off at the first rest stop to call my rental people and let them know i would be at their office around 4:30. after some fun chat about I-5 closing the night before and all of that, my contact let me know the snow was coming down like crazy where she was and they were shutting down early. i laughed and said i'd use the combination for the house key she'd given me to get in when i arrived and rang off. as soon as i walked away from the pay phone (some 3 hours away from my destination) it began to snow. i asked a man walking up if he was driving from that area and how the weather was. he told me he was coming from california and it couldn't be as bad as it was the night before when he was allowed to drive over the siskious with chains and four wheel drive. i wanted to walk over and smack him a good one. so damn smug. so damn right.
so, it snowed for the last three hours of my trip. at one point i was driving 40 MPH behind a trucker and wondering if i was going to spend another night in a motel just a stone's throw away from my new house. but i decided that as long as the locals were driving...so was i. there were times there when i couldn't see more than 50 yards in front of my windshield. there were times when the snow spray blinded me. but it was beautiful. what a way to be welcomed back to my favorite state. an early storm, a white wonderland, christmas come early. when i found my new place finally (found the other one on the same street first that my landlords hold and had to ask directions, because the street stops and takes up again somewhere else) the lawn was covered in white, but the fake fire furnace inside was on and the house was toasty. still can't figure out how to turn on the forced air yet.
the place is straight out of the tower district from my home town. very cool, very comfortable (except for the fact that my stuff that i sent with a mover hasn't arrived yet so i'm sitting on the floor as i write this and will be sleeping on the floor for who knows how long). but why does whirlpool make refridgerators and microwaves and fridgidaire makes ovens?

Feel My Ire, Burn In Fire!

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 - Republicans of all stripes want to cut taxes, but rarely have they been in so much disarray about whose to cut.
If House Republicans and President Bush have their way, more than half of tax reductions over the next five years will go to the top 1 percent of households, those with average incomes of $1.1 million.
House leaders are pushing a $63-billion tax-cutting package that would extend President Bush's tax cut on stock dividends, protect oil companies from a windfall profits tax and shield people caught using illegal tax shelters.
The Republican-controlled Senate, by contrast, has passed a bill that would cut taxes by $59 billion but ignore Mr. Bush's top priority, and that contains two other provisions that have provoked his wrath.

The Lost HNT

not so nekkid maybe for some tastes. maybe too nekkid for others.

trip on this. it was 1979 or 80. i was 15 or 16. visiting my friend in aptos. it's a hussong's cantina tee shirt. a sexy cool sweater. and one succulent turkey sandwich. and isn't that what being thankful is all about? not knowing you look like a dork while you're acting like one? and then someday you see the picture and are glad you did this? so damn thankful.

and half nekkid thursday can be yours here for only one kiss.

The Clock, She's Ticking. Time To Saddle Up

Last Fresno Bee rant while still in Fresno (letter to the editor):

Whoa! When Vice President Dick Cheney says "We never had the burden of proof" about Saddam Hussein's alleged WMD's as a defense against not being able to find a single one even when that was the foremost reason given for going to war along with Hussein's alleged ties to Osama bin Laden...one has to ask whose responsibility it was. After all, we made claim after claim about the WMD's and purported "irrevocable evidence". It was written in stone as far as we knew.But, suddenly, proving it is not our responsibility. It's Hussein's. When did this happen? When did we earn the right to accuse, but not be held responsible for inaccuracy? If you sling the stone you have just declared yourself innocent of all sin. Or you have a very good lawyer. So, which is it? Do we know the WMD's exist or are we throwing ourselves on the "it seemed like a good idea at the time and you can't prove otherwise" court?

SSM Speaks From His Perch

even the conservative members of congress are fed up with our "losing in iraq? no, we're not. look at the shiny object i'm dangling in my other hand" policy our administration is handing out and being gulped up by the limbaughs, hannitys, o'reillys and coulters in our midst. the tide has turned. the public (that's us by and large) is waking up and smelling the carnage. there is almost no one who hasn't heard of or read about Plamegate; or about those 16 words delivered to congress on tv that promised death and destruction to us if we didn't let bushco. bomb and kill tens of thousands of iraqis; or the fact that not one WMD has been found in iraq; or that not one shred of evidence has been brought forth to connect iraq to al quaeda before we began our "liberation". who among us has witnessed coffins being brought back from iraq that contain a soldier at night so the media can't photograph it? who among us has not read almost continously that all abuse of "detainees" was commited only by low-ranking soldiers and that it was done without the consent or knowledge of their superiors? who among us has not read of our administration denying that it condones or uses torture, but will veto any bill that forbids it? who among us is not cognizant of the fact that alberto gonzalez rewrote US rules to allow torture? who among us thinks that withdrawing our troops signifies failure on the part of our country as a whole? other than that we allowed it to happen at all? coming to our senses and stopping this is not failure. finally understanding the depths of our administration's depravity is not failure. remembering that we as a nation come from and stand for something larger than a small cadre of "elected" officials who have managed to stamp out almost all oversight into their actions is not failure. to me, what defines failure is the inability or unwillingness of we as the people to watchdog our representatives. when we agree with an elected person on many things we tend to overlook the other less savory components of their actions. as an example, if a senator agrees that abortion is reprehensible and works to overturn laws that allow it, we turn a blind eye to his or her laundering of money. if a congressperson speaks out against the war, we turn away from and try not to acknowledge that they accept political donations from the very corporations that are reaping obscene profits from that war. "politics make for odd bedfellows" is as anachronistic a phrase as exists. we either stand for something as a people and a nation or we don't. do we believe that "democracy" should be spread militarily around the world? or do we believe that we should continue to lead by example? our administration believes that leading by example is coherent with the policy of military expansion. do you? 2,179 military deaths is but a drop in the bucket compared to any of our previous wars. and all of those were based on democracy. but only a few were actually started by us. we used to have an isolationist policy. so long as we were left alone we would leave everyone else alone. do what you will, just don't bring it here. but times have changed. now, we truly live in a global village. what happens in zimbabwe affects us here. a tsunami on the other side of the world affects us here. an earthquake in pakistan affects us here. a superflu in asia...you get the drift. so, planes flying into our "headquarters" is a serious thing. it requires retaliation. it demands revenge. it needs an answer written in blood. this is how we think on a primal level. we must have retribution. this is older than romeo and juliet. this is older than cain and abel. it is tribal, it is spec-ial, it is reptilian...except for the fact that those entities we consider animals don't ascribe to this. so, it is not older than us. it IS us. and when we talk about breaking the cycle of abuse or violence within generations, this is really what we speak to. this is the intrinsic conundrum. we break the cycle (if we can) of our parents or their parents and we consider ourselves healed. we don't ask the bigger question, which is: where did that person i consider to be the founder of my disfunction get it from? humans created emotional conflict, but we won't address it on an eonic level. we cure ourselves at $150 an hour and lay the wreath of our woes at the feet of those who came before us. we don't see this as a perfidy to the generations before us who tried just as hard in their own capacity to fix everything. we see only the reality given to us by those in power. and, in my eyes (and only as an american), that reality is "we are right, the world is wrong; we need more, the world needs less; we deserve it, the world should be punished for denying us our god given right as a great nation". in other words, haven't we been the shining beacon of hope for too long? haven't we given more to the world in terms of technology and humanitarianism and education and medicine and...everything? isn't it time for us to reap the whirlwind? the world should belong to us. we have spent 300+ years teaching ourselves and the world about freedom and democracy. 300+ years! isn't that eyeblink of a timespan enough? forget the notion that empires of ancient lasted much, much longer only to fall. forget that we stole all of our laws and "ethics" from them. we are for real. we count more than any who came before us. we are right. even if we've forgotten every "fix" we've tried to make to the world around us in the past. even if we've forgotten every "leader" we've put in place in a foreign country who turned into a homicidal manaic. even if we've forgotten every doctrine we've let our leaders pass that affected another country, but did nothing to improve the plight therein. does it mean we shouldn't continue to try? no. does it mean we need to take a close and nonending look at what we do and who we let administer all of these ideas? yes. and that's what we keep forgetting. "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom" is a motto that we tend to believe means always watch for enemies without. but much more often it is the enemies within (those who would prosper at the expense of others). if we cannot properly maintain ourselves, how can we honestly approach others about their behavior and expect them to receive us in more than a contemptuous manner? one more motto that comes to mind is "loose lips sink ships". and that is exactly what we are being told to adhere to right now. except that the people telling us to zip it are the ones flapping their gums and destroying anyone who disagrees with them. you and i walk through metal detectors, bomb detectors, shoe checkers. but we're instructed to keep our mouths shut when it comes to asking questions. anyone who questions the government and its behavior is deemed irresponsible and unamerican. and we let it go. it's all too big for us. the vastness is mindboggling. and we have kids to get to the soccer field. and bills to pay. and a festival to work on. and a career to concentrate on. just too much for one person. and that's what the very people we elect to represent us end up expecting. too much distraction, not enough focus. we are such good consumers. we'll buy almost anything if the ad is well done.
below is a paragraph from a speech given by a conservative congressperson. i included this quote here, because it is the one which makes me mad. the rest of the speech is eloquent and timely (in the sense that those we elected are now smelling the wilted roses). in particular, this guy says the war should be personalised. how much more personal can it get when upwards of over 100,000 iraqis have been killed? and how many sons and daughters of congresspeople have actually been sent to iraq or afghanistan? the answer is less than 10. that being said, the following and its link are very interesting:

"This war needs to be personalized. As I said before, I have visited with the severely wounded of this war. They are suffering. Because we in Congress are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, it is our responsibility, our obligation, to speak out for them. That's why I am speaking out."

ScarySquirrelMan Will Be Up A Tree Until Further Notice

as if i wasn't already. the dreaded moving date speeds ever closer. i finally have a moving company to ship my pitifully few pieces of furniture and ghastly many baseball trading cards ( retirement fund). i still don't have a place to live up there in the Great Northwest, but am working towards remedying that. my BMW still sits in the driveway looking at me with its huge Aryan puppy dog eyes as if to say "was ist los? hast du gone completely verkacht?" as i try to sell it and drop the price almost daily. eventually, the price will be so low i'll go into debt when someone actually buys it. and probably owe them lunch, too.
anyway, it's become fairly obvious by now to all of my thousands of readers (dear, dear little people) that i am become a bit busy. patience, my preciouses. patience. parting is such sweet sorrow. but we shall reunite, you and i. in a land much greener, a land much wetter, a land much fishier. where the skanks are real animals and everybody knows their names.
until then, buck up little fellas. and watch out for falling coconuts.

(update) i meant skinks, not skanks. and, uh, upon reflection, i don't think there are any up there. so, i'm going to leave the original spelling intact and hope there are some of the former instead.

In that vein, I feel I have something to offer

i been tagged. by APJ no less. kind of fun even though i had to actually count my posts by hand.
the rules:
1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Post the fifth sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.

"from 7/12/05 is the context of the 5th sentence" that is the title:

That's a goddam goodlooking sandwich
she's eating all alone
enough for me and the twin I never had
and I'll have it too
if I have to break both
her glazed face and her diamond teeth
my last repast
paisley pastrami and
lettuce so latticed that it
couldn't hold its folds
ain't sittin' so pretty
like two lovers in love should
I'll break her fucking arms
the one holding the food
and the one holding his wood
and he looks like a guy
who can't get it up without-
goddam that's a goodlooking sandwich
grease slips soft and over
her busy little lips
red red meat and moist moist green
shoving their way past her gullet
musky dusky cheese and wet dripping
au jus
a Picasso of a poorboy
a thick quick slice of Van GoghI'll break her arms
both fucking one of them
just to force it whole
down her throat
it's that goddam goodlooking a sandwich.

who am i going to tag? dunno. mongo only pawn in Game of Life.

And Now For The "News"

Love it, absolutely love it. This soap opera will go for at least three seasons and will draw an audience of none after the first few episodes. but it's well acted, dynamic, great directors and shows the promise of a dead body or two.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051104.html

well, at least Kerry figured it out (unlike Gore), but that cuts no ice when the Democrats had four years in which to ensure that this never happened again. in fact, why would one want a president who couldn't press for the truth when treason is on the line?

this article states that republicans don't like eminent domain. huh? in my city of fresno, the reps take to eminent domain like a duck to water. it's how one does business. never mind the historical buildings. it's how all pols do business when it comes to ensuring "renewed interest" in a crappy part of town. doesn't matter if it george bush or anyone else. the congress passed a bill making it easier to invoke this policy and all cities are taking advantage of it as quickly as they can.

Eviction Notice

for those of you so bored you actually check in on my blog to see what i have to poop about i'm sorry to say that i will be a mite busy in the coming weeks to maintain a consistent whine from here. i have chosen to move to poulsbo, washington within a month. so, i will be involved in boxing up, throwing out, selling off and giving away whatall i can in order to lighten my burden during the actual drive up there. it's a very exciting and scary time for me, but i hope to be back to my usual curmudgeonly self sometime in mid-december after i've established myself up in the Great Northwest where the rain is deep and the women Norwegian.

need a diversion from what is truly the essence of our current administration (i.e. outing an undercover government employee for political gain and then letting subordinates lie about it to the FBI and a grand jury)? okay, but it's a quickie. alito (the new supreme court nominee) thinks the following two rulings are okay:
1) strip searching a 10-year-old girl, and
2) that a married woman must receive the permission of her husband before receiving an abortion.
look it up. 'nuff said. now, let's get back to outing karl "seig heil" rove and dick "lech mich am aschlach" cheney. the bushbaby we won't ever be able to touch, because i believe he really doesn't have a clue what's going on. other than that he has actually had to start watching television to get his news.

Oh, Happy Friggin' Halloween To Me!!!!!!!!!!

from ABC NEWS comes nothing but the sweetest aroma of dead skunk this boy has ever laid nose to (yesyesyesyesyespleasegodletthisbethereason
fitzgeraldhasn'tchargedrovewithanythingbecausehe
wantstoputthescrewstolibbyandgethimtotalkin
exchangeforlesstimeinprison):

Time Reporter Says He Learned Agent's Identity From Rove

Matthew Cooper Says I. Lewis Libby Confirmed Information

Oct. 31 2005 — - One of the reporters at the center of the investigation into the leak of the identity of an undercover CIA officer, says he first learned the agent's name from President Bush's top political advisor, Karl Rove.
Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper also said today in an interview with "Good Morning America," that the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, confirmed to him that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative.
A grand jury charged Libby on Friday with five felonies alleging obstruction of justice, perjury to a grand jury and making false statements to FBI agents. If convicted, he could face a maximum of 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines. Libby was not charged with the crime that the grand jury was created to investigate -- specifically, who leaked the name of Plame to reporters in 2003. Rove has not been charged.
Wilson, who went to Nigeria in 2002 to investigate whether or not the country was supplying Iraq with uranium to make weapons of mass destruction, opposed the war. He said he found no evidence of such an exchange in an op-ed in The New York Times. Wilson has argued that the Bush administration revealed his wife's identity in order to silence his opposition to the war.
"There is no question. I first learned about Valerie Plame working at the CIA from Karl Rove," Cooper said.
Libby has since claimed that he heard the Plame rumors from other reporters. Cooper disputed that version of events. "I don't remember it happening that way," he said. "I was taking notes at the time and I feel confident."
If a trial goes ahead, Cooper said he would name Rove as his source of the information.
"Before I spoke to Karl Rove I didn't know Mr. Wilson had a wife and that she had been involved in sending him to Africa."

yes, virginia, there really is a traitor

want a good timeline of how our administration fucked themselves into a "wagons drawn into a circle" sort of thing while them damn unpatriotic liberals fling arrows at their buttocks? read this from the washington post.

In Memorium: Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks died today at the age of 92. While some will claim she was merely doing what she was told to by militant blacks and was no forward-thinking hero, remember that she was the one who agreed to take her life in her own hands and make a stand. She could have said "no". She could very rightly have said that it was too dangerous for a black woman to make such a public demonstration of defiance. But she didn't. She was a simple living person who chose to take on the establishment. She chose to say "no" not to possibly foolhardy bravery, but to foolhardy ignorance. So, light a candle, say a prayer of thanks and remember to give that "seat on the bus" to someone less fortunate than you.

JMill Doin' The Perp Walk, Journo-Style

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Tom Stall Scores Again!

(October 15, 2005) Indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay today released a video entitled “Earle’s Gone Wild” in what he described as the first phase of the “Mother of all smear campaigns” launched against Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle, who brought conspiracy and money laundering charges against him.
(omigod, this is like so funny)

Life Update

For those of you who know me and/or actually read my tripe, it's time to update you on my life situation. I will be flying up to Washington this Sunday evening to look at the Poulsbo lab for my company and meet the staff there. My bosses have decided (quite wisely, I might add) that they can't afford to let me work for another company (the usual story: skeletons, mob hits and all that). So, they are paying for the flight, hotel room, rental car and food. I'll return Monday night late. What's going on is that I posted my resume on monster.com and suddenly different companies were very interested in my talents. And I made it known that I wouldn't mind relocating to Washington (love the weather, seasons, culture, produce, snow, real fires in real fireplaces, the fact that spring is announced not by birds but by comely young women peeling off their clothes to show lots of leg and arm and neck and collarbone in public...makes a guy appreciate females anew each and every year). I lived in Seattle for 9 years, so I know.
Anyway, my company is ready to offer me management of the lab up there. I really like working where I'm at, but there is no room for growth. I am a technician who has reached most of my limits as such. And a very good friend is my manager at present, so I would never do anything to get his job. Hence, the only way to stretch my wings is to move to another lab or company.
Also, I got the weirdest email about my car. I have been told to consider the BMW sold and to pull my ad. Further, a check will be sent to me and I will deduct my price plus $100, then transfer the balance to the representative who will pick up the car. I'm down with that. There is one ethical dilemma, though. When this gentleman emailed me previously expressing interest, he asked me my final price. I had decided to drop it by $1000 and told him so. This was two or three days ago. Today he sent me three emails. The middle one asked me what my final price was (even though he had decided to buy it already). I'm thinking of sticking to the original price, because that is what is still showing on the car ad website AND I have received two other emails expressing interest at that price. I have not responded to that particular email. I feel that if he is wheeling and dealing and not reading his emails, then perhaps it's my call and reverting to the original asking price is ethically okay. Help me out on that one, would you folks? Especially since his first email of the day said he was going to send me a check for $5,500, but the third email said he was going to send me one for $7,500. Plus, I can tell this car is not for him. I can tell he is a reseller and most likely will be selling it in Europe (he's an English bloke who will be over there on business while his rep picks it up and I think the oversize of the check is for shipping to Europe). Either way, whoohoo for me. Thinking of moving has me all atizzy about what to keep, what not to keep, how to move it, where to move it (if I don't a place rented before I get there) and what to do with a second car I don't drive. He has one week to send me the check.
What a day. Hope yours was as weird as mine.

So much for Pain Management

When did the party of small government become its evil twin? quite a long time ago, actually. the evil twin, however, is still very much a growth industry.

And Dick Seemed Like Such A Nice Guy

(from the U.S. News)
Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Cheney clips right-wing objections (10/5/05)
Press fumes over Bush timing (10/4/05)
Standing by DeLay, somewhat (9/29/05)
DeLay indicted in Texas probe (9/28/05)
More from Washington Whispers
More from Nation & World
"It's certainly an interesting but I still think highly doubtful scenario," said a Bush insider. "And if that should happen," added the official, "there will undoubtedly be those who believe the whole thing was orchestrated – another brilliant Machiavellian move by the VP."
Said another Bush associate of the rumor, "Yes. This is not good." The rumor spread so fast that some Republicans by late morning were already drawing up reasons why Rice couldn't get the job or run for president in 2008.
"Isn't she pro-choice?" asked a key Senate Republican aide. Many White House insiders, however, said the Post story and reports that the investigation was coming to a close had officials instead more focused on who would be dragged into the affair and if top aides would be indicted and forced to resign.
"Folks on the inside and near inside are holding their breath and wondering what's next," said a Bush adviser. But, he added, they aren't focused on the future of the vice president. "Not that, at least not seriously," he said.


John Nichols Tue Oct 18, 1:08 PM ET
The Nation -- Well, of course, the investigation of who leaked
CIA agent Valerie Plame's name -- violating the federal law that bars the "outing" of intelligence operatives -- has come around to Vice President
Dick Cheney' name. While it may be news to the Washington Post -- which headlined a breathless report on Tuesday: "Cheney's Office Is A Focus in Leak Case" -- the fact is that Cheney and his aides have been likely suspects from day one.
No prominent member of the administration had more to lose as a result of the 2003 revelation by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, that the White House's pre-war claims regarding
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been inflated than did Cheney -- who, to a far greater extent than
George Bush, had a hand in shaping the arguments for going to war, plugged them in media appearances and defended them after all evidence suggested his pronouncements had been wrong. It is important to recall that, while Bush may have deliberately fuzzed the facts in his 2003 State of the Union address, it was Cheney who leapt off the cliff of speculation with the pre-war declaration that, "We know
Saddam Hussein's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
No key player in the administration was more at odds with the
Central Intelligence Agency than Cheney. Indeed, Cheney's badgering of the agency to come up with "evidence" of Iraqi WMDs and al-Qaeda connections was so aggressive -- he regularly stormed into the CIA headquarters to demand a briefing and then, when the information did not fit his biases, demanded that someone else brief him -- that members of the House Intelligence Committee complained in a reprimanding letter, "These visits are unprecedented. Normally, vice presidents, including yourself, receive regular briefings from (the) CIA in your office and have a CIA officer on permanent detail. There is no reason to make personal visits to the CIA."
No top office within the administration was better positioned than Cheney's to gather the information that was used to attack Wilson and his wife and to peddle that information to the press. In fact, as Joe Wilson told me in an interview about the leaking of his wife's name that we did early in 2004, "With respect to who actually leaked the information, there are really only a few people -- far fewer than the president let on when he said there are a lot of senior administration officials -- who could have done it. At the end of the day, you have to have the means, the keys to the conversations at which somebody might drop my wife's name -- deliberately or not -- a national security clearance, and a reason to be talking about this. When you look at all that, there are really very few people who exist at that nexis between national security and foreign policy and politics. You can count them, literally, on two hands."
Wilson added that, without a doubt, "the vice president is one of those people."
And no one, repeat no one, in Washington is known to be more vindictive than Dick Cheney. So the notion that Cheney would not only have been aware of but in fact delighted in punishing Wilson by ruining the career of the ambassador's wife is entirely plausible. By all accounts, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating that prospect as his long examination of crimes that may have been committed in relation to the Plame leak draws to a close.
Does this mean that the vice president will be indicted by the federal grand jury that is currently examining the actions of White House political czar Karl Rove and, more importantly, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby?
Don't bet on it.
Libby is blood-oath, fall-on-the-sword loyal to Cheney. A Reagan-era State Department hand and Congressional staffer who came to know his future boss when Cheney was serving in Congress during the 1980s, Libby went with Cheney to George H. W. Bush's Defense Department -- serving Secretary of Defense Cheney as Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Strategy and Resources and Deputy Under Secretary for Policy. Libby was then a founder of the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century, which promoted the vision of American Empire that Cheney and his staff had cooked up in their controversial draft Defense Policy Guidance statement during their final days at the
Pentagon. And when Cheney returned to the corridors of power, as vice president, Libby was at his side.
But the Cheney-Libby partnership is not merely a power and policy connection. Their relationship is more father-son than boss-surrogate. Libby vacations with Cheney at the vice president's $2.9 million villa in Wyoming, and Libby's access is such that he is welcome to invite friends and compatriots along to enjoy the skiing near Jackson Hole.
The likelihood that Libby would give up a relationship that has buttered his bread for the better part of a quarter century is even more remote than the likelihood that Rove would turn on Bush.
Yet, no one who knows about how Cheney and Libby operate will doubt that the two men had no secrets from one another during the period when the attacks on the CIA, in general, and Wilson and Plame, in particular, were taking place.
The vice president is a famously hands-on player. He personally requested information about claims that the Iraqis were attempting to obtain uranium from African countries -- the issue that Wilson examined in 2002, when he was dispatched to Africa and found that the claims were not credible. And while Cheney now says that he knew nothing of the report that Wilson produced before the war, the former ambassador has never believed him.
"If you are senior enough to ask the question, you are senior enough to get a very specific response," said Wilson. "In addition to the circular report that was sent around as a consequence of my trip, I have every confidence that one way or another the vice president was briefed as well." Yet, it was the vice president who continued to claim, long after Bush had dropped the line, that Saddam Hussein was a nuclear threat. And Cheney always went much further than Bush or others in the administration when making that claim. Indeed, it was Cheney who specifically stated prior to the Congressional votes on authorizing the use of force in Iraq that, Hussein had "resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." Cheney claimed in the same speech that, "Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten American friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."
It is certainly reasonable to argue that Cheney had more reason to strike out at Wilson than anyone else in the administration when the former ambassador revealed the truth in a New York Times opinion piece that appeared in the summer of 2003. And, while Cheney may not have done the deed directly, it is comic to suggest that the vice president -- who was in constant contact with both Libby and Rove around the time of the leak -- could have been unaware of any serious effort to discredit Wilson by "outing" his wife as a CIA agent.

Normally, I'd say my life is so-so. Not much movement anywhere, just hanging tough and wondering where the next punch is coming from. You know, weathering the storm or the lulls between. But something exciting has happened. I put my resume on the internet and I got hits (not punches). Two outfits contacted me. One was a recruiter for a San Jose firm that's looking to pay someone $45,000-50,000 a year to do what I do. The other was a regional heavyweight. I turned down the San Jose gig, because...well...it would mean moving to San Jose. The second I submitted my real resume to and am hoping they would like to talk. I don't know that I would accept that offer either ( I do like my current employer). However, my current employer has an automatic printout anytime an applicant puts a resume on monster.com and it matches up with their search words. So, they saw it. And they freaked. It's now possible that I will be offered a promotion and transfer to Poulsbo, Washington. I want to go back to WA if possible and financially feasible. So, stirring the pot has been good. I found out that it's a major seller's market for someone like me. There are no qualified technicians out there to handle all aspects of an engineering lab. Makes me feel good finally for sticking this out for over 5 years and getting as many certifications as I can.
Also, that bad BMW I own finally got a hit on cars.com. Who knows? If someone wants to buy it they'll find it to be a sweet, sweet ride.
So, I'm happy as a restless soul can be. Which is what I think I now have figured myself to be. I guess I always was, but thought I was just unhappy or hard to satisfy. Perhaps, I just refuse to settle when I think something on the horizon is calling to me. perhaps i simply refuse to commit. whatever it is and whatever happens, I now that change is the only constant. And, once again, I rush to embrace it.

Let's Get Serious

If "talking" to "regular" people is all it takes to be President, then I'm voting for Mickey Mouse. Remember that the Generals on the ground in Iraq have recently stated that one (ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!) Iraqi battalion is ready for operations sans American military supervision and accompaniment. ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!
In this "talk" the "grunts (read: officers and one Iraqi soldier)" are much more upbeat. Hmmm....why might that be? Because maybe (just maybe) they were vetted, coached and threatened? Nah...couldn't be. our president would never stoop to such levels, such abrogation of moral honesty. Why, if a leader of our society were to do something such as that then he should pilloried. And Bush is not an immoral man. Look at what he's done to find the culprit who outed Valerie Plame. Look at what he's done to find the person who fabricated the Niger uranium claims. Look at what he's done to corner the Iraq/Al-quaeda link liar. Look at what he's done to stop poverty. And AIDS. And genocide in the Sudan. And global warming (have you heard that the Northwest Passage may be open again within the next decade?). Look at what he's done to slow the bank accounts of the corporate mightys. Look at what he's done to ensure our domestic tranquility at the expense of "spreading" "democra-fascism" throughout the world. I mean, come on. People, this President has pushed us further toward global likeism than any leader since...uh...well, you get the point. A heck of a guy. FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! BOO-YAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the Democrats, Liberals, Europeans, Africans, Asians, Canadians, Russians (and all of those damn new countries under their sway), UNers, World Courters, World Bankers, World Tribunalers, and all of the other global thinking people are full of ess-aytch-eye-tee. Poo Poo.
P.S. And Greenpeace is anti-human.

Why'd I Even Blog?

Plamegate:
From Murray Waas in the National Journal comes this breaking story.
From Democracy Now comes Amy Goodman's interview with Murray Waas this morning.
And from 9/29/03 we get a White House press conference with Scott McClellan soon after this story hit the media.
...You know, I was going to spend my time today researching political stories and see what caught my fancy. I was in the mood and feeling ornery. Ready to spew forth my own little brand of venom on the Bush badministration for its hypocricy and discomboobulated conswervatism. Man, I was there. In the zone. Locked and loaded. A 5000 pound missile with words stenciled on it that read "Say Hi To Nixon For Me". or "Benedict Arnold Shoulda Had A Hung Jury". Or "My Bosses Went To Iraq And All I Got Was Bombed". But noooooooo.......! I find that I'm bored and all I want to do is watch TV. So, that's what I'm going to do. Ta.

Quag-Miers

it's a funny pickle. harriet miers is nominated by bush to the supreme court and the group that goes ape-banana-shit over it is the right wing. obviously, her lack of ANY judicial experience should raise two eyebrows straight to heaven. obviously, her statement that bush is a genius should cause ANOTHER tsunami to happen and this time roll right over the biblical lands. obviously, she is strong on rolling back abortion rights...or is she? obviously, she's big on constitutional interpretation...or is she? obviously, she has no track record on anything...or does she? james dobson claims that (from conversations he's not allowed to discuss) she's anti-abortion. other pundits claim they've been told that "on background" she falls right in line with the Right. democrats look up from the foxholes they've chosen to inhabit for the last five years and can't seem to find the weapons they brought into battle with them. instead of talking about her lack of judicial experience, why aren't they rattling sabres over bush's claim that her faith is enough? why aren't they agreeing with the Right who opposes her and then informing the public that the reason george will is against her is because she hasn't proven herself conservative enough? that is the real reason the Right is against her. it's not the lack of good lawyering or the lack of ever having been a judge. it's that her paper trail isn't cohesive. the conservatives don't consider john roberts a true conservative. he's not religious enough. now they have a fundamentalist, but she's not legal enough? come on. bull....shit. the Right realizes it bought a pig in a poke with roberts. he may turn out to be a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who will work to overturn every "liberal" ruling from the past 300 years or so, but they can't bank the farm on it. they feel that they are OWED. owed by this administration that they helped elect. owed by bush who claims visions from god (no one else seems to be that close to the Almighty other than him in the administration, though. noticed?). now they want a justice who will tell the congress in nomination hearings that god will kill all of their firstborns if he/she is not voted onto the bench.
and the dems sit by and wonder what the next step in acting more civilized is. note to dems: civilized is a word 86'd by webster's because it's "archaic, nondemonstrable and naive to the max". get on board the reality bus. miers shouldn't be on the court, because she's a wolf in sheep's clothing. whose wolf is what everyone is debating. but it's clear to me that she is bush's wolf. he's nominated her on the "trust me" ticket. in other words, he will not give out any concrete specs for her viability. why? that is the question. it may be that she has none other than her unswerving loyalty to bush. and the possibility that she helped cover up his national guard days.
necessity is the mother of invention, but
graft is the bastard of hubris.

No Title, Because That Would Most Likely Be Misleading And I would Never Want To Do That To You And (After All) I Am Already The Cosmic Gallactic Univ

(ersal Big Head In The Sky Who Loves A Huge Hummer Of A Post Title)
wow. it seems today's my day. if you know my previous posts, then you know that i posted a resume on monster.com. that was when? Saturday or Sunday? Maybe last Friday? Yeah, I think it was Friday. Hmmm...took longer than I thought.
When I got home today from work I found a message on my phone from a materials supplier who wanted to talk to me, because he has two openings. His is a company I know well. I test against it all of the time. I create asphalt mix designs (actually making asphalt in my lab) from its material and specifications in order to see if the material will do what it wants it to do. He called from L.A. Who knows where he has openings for. It could be L.A. It could be San Jose. Or Fresno.
Then I logged in to my email. On the bulk mail page I found two messages of interest. One was from the guy who called me. Very good so far. I decided to talk to my boss before answering that one. But then I read the second one. It was from a "head hunter" who may have not read my resume all of the way through. It's for a job in San Jose. I have most of the prerequisates, but I don't have a "Degree in Science or something equivalent". I wrote her back to tell her this. I also wrote that if the degree had any waiverability to it I would be interested. She wrote back almost immediately that the degree waiver had been lifted if the applicant had good enough experience (and, unfortunately, has experience in word, excel and something else). she says the pay should be $45-55,000 with benefits and a company car. i know i'm already either:
a) out of my depth
b) dealing with a company that is desparate for qualified talent.
Either and both could be the case. Don't even think for a moment that I know how to downplay my expertise. I love my knowledge and talent in the lab. I'm one of a rare breed who chooses to stay in the lab. A lab technician by definition makes the least amount of money per hour. Most technicians start in the lab and move on, because they want state wages when they can get on field job. Lab techs who stick it out become valuable commodities. As an example, I know more about asphalt and how to make it then my degreed managers do. I also know more about soil than most engineers do, because i used to deal with it every day. I looked at it, kneaded it, compressed it, stretched it, tore it apart, broke it down, reassembled it, theorized about it. Engineers know what it's supposed to do. Technicians know what it does. An amazing concept in many ways.
Engineers spend so much money to attain a piece of paper that states they know soil or asphalt or concrete. With that paper they can earn $50,000 right out of college. But they may not know what friable clay actually looks like. They may not understand what "heavy flushing" means when they look at asphalt. They may not know how to recognize "rootlet voids". When looking at a blueish soil from the foothills what would they say? Can they tell you what the Valley normally uses for an asphalt emolliant on highways? What is the minimal degree faranheit atmosperically allowed when paving in the Valley? When are you allowed to use a laser temperature gun as opposed to a metal asphalt thermometer when inspecting paving on the mat?
I can answer these questions. An engineer can't always. But an engineer can use a calculator to solve for an angle on a slope. An engineer can tell you how steep your hill can be and still build on it. He can formulate a theory based on my tests that lets you manifest your dreams.
I can't do that. I can only help. I can only provide reality. And both are equally important. But the engineer can look at what I've done and extrapolate. I cannot look at what he's done and interpolate.
So, the Astros will be playing the Cardinals. Who will be playing the White Sox? It's still up to chance.

Indiana Means In Diana And Nothin' Else!

we here at dyerama central, known clearinghouse of information, wish to pass along the following alert to anyone residing in the state of indiana: your rights to assisted pregnancy (i.e. you're infertile and wish to go the surrogate route, you're unmarried or gay) may end soon. a proposed bill has been introduced to the Health Finance Commission. it is Request Number 20061258. within this "request" is a line which states that an unmarried person may not be an intended parent. further down (and it's long) is a section that would require "intended parents" to describe in detail their lives and livlihoods (okay on the surface). however, within this list is: "values" and "relationships". read further and one finds that the bill would require one to list any and all "faith-based" associations and activities. evidently, this proposed bill has the backing of the commission's chairperson, state senator patricia miller. however, yesterday she withdrew this bill from consideration. one wonders why. one's mind boggles. one shakes the magic eight ball for insight into how this neanderthal was ever elected. then one checks the map that shows all 50 states, peruses past statewide voting tendancies, and shrugs. unles, of course, one has been to indiana in the past lifetime...then one doesn't even have to look at stats. one just knows.
p.s. ginandtacos has a good line on this topic as well. look to the october 6 entry.

fed up in fresno

so, i decided to post on monster.com and whore out my expertise. i did this, because today i found out that a field technician who is returning to washington and was going to quit working for my comapny was offered a lab manager position in poulsbo. he has no lab experience whatsoever. he evidently is a great field tech, but...he has none of the below. when i accepted employment with this company i made a point of telling it that i would be willing to relocate in order to help the company (and myself). i think that i am in the grips of yet another behemoth that will hold me back at all costs in order to keep me where it wants me. at my last job i was told i was their "secret weapon". in other words i did such a good job that they would never tell me when a rival company was interested. but they would tell lesser qualified employees about openings elsewhere. simply put, i am a bit put out. i can run 98% of an engineering lab's tests (plus, i have learned a few tricks that aren't in any test manual). i can run a lab. my only weakness is that i will tell managers where they can stuff it when i think they are being unreasonable or supercilious. so, does anyone know of lab openings at an engineering firm in washington? i'd actually like to move closer to my parents and one of my brothers and his family (who live in spokane). i'm tired of being the player not to be named later.

and i'm willing to post tattoos.
Laboratory Technician, Level 3

(blank) and Associates
Clovis/CA

I currently run all asphalt tests for this office. I am engaged in all phases of asphalt mix designs. Tests I am proficient in include: Hveem and Marshall compaction, stability, stability and flow, bulk specific gravities, theoretical specific gravity, solvent extraction, asphalt content via ignition oven, gradations, sand equivalent, coarse and fine aggregate specific gravities, CKE, particle size analysis, atterburg limits, L.A. rattler, tensile/strength ratio (asphalt), all soil compaction, expansion index, direct shear, soil permeability, cleanness value, durability index, unconfined compression, resistance values (soil), concrete cylinder compression, fractured faces, flat and elongated particles, unit weight, moisture determination (oven and microwave), material finer than the 200 sieve, Concerning field work, I am proficient in concrete specimen sampling (all phases), aggregate and oil sampling at batch plants, asphalt sampling from the roadway, batch plant supervision and inspection.I currently hold certification of Caltrans 105, 106, 125 Aggegrate, 125 Asphalt, 201, 303, 304, 308, 370, 382.I am Nicet Level 1 certified.I am ACI Field certified.I have been a co-manager of an engineering laboratory. I have been certified in all of Caltrans field concrete requirements. I have passed multiple government security clearances for field work.I have my Troxler Nuclear Gauge Safety certificate.I have more than 5 years experience in this field. My strength and enjoyment is in the lab. I am currently in the process of attaining my ACI Lab certificate and will be attempting to attain my NICET Level 2 certificates in the next month. Also, I will most likely have 8 more Caltrans cetificates as well in that time.I am a self starter and require no supervision.

HNT I got NOTHING!!!!!

i got nothing this week. so i reversed color on this tat. i like it. but i still got nothing. no story, no nothing. my life is a chasm of work hell right now and i literally don't know what day it is. lecram had to correct me earlier today when i thought it was tuesday.
but that is one good looking tattoo. better than the real thing. and you can still see the ribbon in the dancer's hands. happy HNT to all and to all a good fright.

Tabula Rasa

okay, maybe it's a cheap shot...but i'd swear i can see the president's lips moving. now let's see him drink a glass of water.
anyhoo, his doll is perhaps the next supreme. be aware, be vary aware. and to those of you who might make the assertion that charlotte mccarthy over there is maybe not so zealously partisan because it's on the record that she donated to al gore's campaign fund...think about who was gore's campaign chairman at the time-none other than democrat-turned-republican (insert triumphal music cue here) texas's now-governor rick perry. big raspberries.

next topic: the DOD has better things to do, it seems, than repay families who bought body armor and whatnot for their soldier-children when the DOD wouldn't (even though congress ordered it to last year). tsk, tsk. but maybe that money is going to the starving children of Sudan. no? well then, it must be the victims of hurricanes katrina and rita. wrong again? huh...
(by the way, two sidenotes here on the 'canes. did anyone else think on the song "walking on sunshine" and notice any irony? also, everyone knows that tornadoes target mobile home parks and wipe them from the face of the earth. that's a given. but recently there have been articles about 150,000 mobile homes springing up out of nowhere after these 'canes. so, do the tornadoes waft them up into the air, take them out over the atlantic, hand them to the hurricanes [who clean them up, polish them, get rid of the residents] and the hurricanes bring them back ready for new inhabitants? not that anyone really is. only about 5000 of the 150,000 are actually being resided in. just wondering.)

"Lady Thatcher met Mr DeLay as as one politician meeting another. It was in no way a business meeting." um, how can that NOT be a business meeting? they're politicians for crying out loud! that's all they do. they eat it, breathe it, live it, crap it and bugger it. delay does not go anywhere without an agenda. least of all, to england...oh wait, it was a golf outing. perhaps, he just wanted her advice on how best to swing a mashie. there are a few other tidbits (rumors) on thatcher's health and decline thereof. i can't say i didn't admire her after a fashion and it would be a shame for her to lose her mental prowess. casting aside the falklands photo-op war, she did much to bring england back into the mainstream of world politics. she was more than smart enough to realize that the dollar was once again invincible, reagan was on a major roll and the Cold War was being won by him. when you are no longer the world's biggest power, what do you do? well, the smart leader places her money on the biggest and strongest horse. this she did and it was the right thing to do at the time. which is more than can be said of many world leaders at any given time in history.

oops, charlotte mccarthy ( i mean, harriet miers) time again. here is her resume. then she says this: "The wisdom of those who drafted our Constitution and conceived our nation as functioning with three strong and independent branches has proven truly remarkable" and i wonder where she was vacationing when terri schiavo was being batted around by the republicans who accused the federal and supreme courts of activism in refusing to become involved in a private matter and threatened them with physical retaliation. or when the supreme court actually agreed to step in and stop the 2000 presidential vote recount? does an independent judicial branch do what the white house tells it to do? does it interpret law as decreed by a 250-ish year old manuscript and allow as how only men are created equal? thomas jefferson and ben franklin were were very wary of instituting laws that, once in ink and signed, could be used by the few to oppress the many. and they both knew it could be done through "strict interpretation" easier than through verbal manipulation.
enough for now. as everyone knows...i hate politics except when it hates me back.

friday night fights? Swing and a Spliff

oh my. it's friday, isn't it? it was monday and now it's friday. it was monday, then it was tuesdaywednesdaythursday and tonight it's not. i need a moment to do a system check...minor knot in the mid-back region next to the spine (curable with Heinieken10, per hour x2, low-level headache and small blister on finger from busting ass all day today so that tomorrow will only be a long short work experience (see above prescription); beer fluids level is acceptable (but can be topped off); red sox are beating the yankees. cheers.
okay. everything's fairly in the green.
so, let's chat. i'll open up the floor to questions first. anyone? no? you sure? great.
looking to the news:
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. the link really is to a story, but when i was at the end of it and saw the threat...well, call me immature. call me reactionary. call me...The Pale Writer.

Storms in U.S. divert gaze from worsening Iraq...yeah, remember this one? that "war" over "there"? wasn't going so well, people dying, soldiers getting blown up, constitution in crisis and all that? still happening...yup. didn't go away. except from the papers, of course. it seems judith miller being freed from jail is more newsworthy than 62 iraqis being blown to pieces along with 5 of our soldiers. karen hughes handing out books about our presidents to children in istanbul (by the way, the four photos on the book's cover were of washington, kennedy, lincoln and...you guessed it...bush) is also more noteworthy. but the iraq "experience" is still kicking up dust in the rear view mirror and gaining again. unless, of course, we can generate another diversion.

some time ago i was sent a link by lecram to a site that traded photos of dead iraqis from american soldiers for free porn access. lecram did not send it for prurient reasons. he sent it to inform me of a gruesome and immoral "hobby" going on. i did not blog about it. instead i sent it to a fellow blogger. he posted about it and sent it to other friends who could investigate it. little did we know at the time that this would become something of news importance. we were just trying to get the word out about this atrocious site. now, i find who the first blogger was to see it and post about it. don't click on the link unless you know italian. now, though, the press is beginning to run this story and ask questions. like "how can it be legal to trade desecration of the dead for 'lolitas-r-us'"? this link gives multiple links to those in the press picking up the thread. and about time. the site started as a place for soldiers to post nude pictures of their wives/girlfriends (huh?). it eventually morphed into what it is when the site's owner was sent pictures of iraqi dead (civilians, insurgents, terrorists...what's the difference, right?). he chose to then open the porn up to anyone who would email him or post macabre shots. and give free access to retail porn. i can understand soldiers using morbid humor to relieve the daily stress over there. cops do it, too, over here. we civilians tend to not understand the pressures constantly placed on soldiers. they are not the decision or policy makers. they are the front line holding the decisions and policies together on a shoestring budget and no armor for their trucks. and getting shot at and blown up...however. trading death for what one can only hope is a good 30 second jackoff is just wrong. FUCKING wrong! there is plenty of free porn to be had out there (and way more fun). more than i can shake my stick at. one doesn't have to buy a dime's worth in order to get off. so, there you have it. straight from the ass's mouth. my moral two cents, which is worth $.00014 less than it was when you started reading this post.

The Senator's aide chuckled rather loudly and said, "What VA? By the time this administration is done there won't be a VA." cue villain theme music, an offstage "bwahahahah!!!" and four shots of something strong. the Veteran's Administration actually works? despite the budgetary cutbacks they've experienced over the past 6 years or so? go figure. they should be bankrupt by now. they should be mere rubble under the boots of Small Government Nazis. we should be watching old soldiers lining up for the "special showers". that's how much conservative compassion this administration has had for those who served our country (for better or worse) in times of war and peace. once again: front line grunts paying the political price instead of those politicians on both sides of the corporate boardwalk who try to gut needed programs in order to free up money for their pet pork. at the moment, this IS a republican pogrom. but politicians will be politicians no matter who's in power. sell to the highest bidder and hope they have really good lawyers who can hide the shady dealings, reword untimely sales of stock and redistribute focus when it it all spills out (what politico can honestly think nowadays that the BIG fuckups will go away? especially with us fuckass bloggers getting involved).

now, it's important to remember that the Texas District Attorney is well known for his indiscriminatory pursuits of justice. and it's important to remember that a cia agent's outing is still not solved at the highest level. this man in Texas has managed to convince a grand jury that Tom (How To) Delay should be indicted for conspiracy (granted, grand juries merely rule on the general news). this indictment follows in the footsteps of not less than three rebukes by the House On Ethics and Reform in the last three (?) years. the majority leader has a few marks on his record? seems to me that if his scoresheet belonged to me i would be paying very high insurance rates and unable to secure loans or any kind of real financial help. but How To still has the public backing of the largest insurance company in the world: the republican party. if things went this south for me i'd be worried that the check cashing place on the corner wouldn't really hold my check until monday.

the one time i ran afoul of the law (in any meaningful way) was when i got really, really, really drunk and insisted on driving. it was a barbecue after a matinee at second space. we started at one actor's house where we drank beer and ate. then we went to the "english" pub where i used to work and drank guinness (notice how i separate beer from guinness?). after some games of real cricket we sojourned to the roadhouse. i had been given $5 by a friend who couldn't go and had told me to buy a kamakazi and drink it for her. when the gang got to the roadhouse one of my compadres talked the bartender into giving the two of us a pitcher of kamakazis for the same price. i remember saying to him "that's damn slick". then i turned to view the pool table. then i woke up and was driving through a school fence at 3 a.m. the only thing that woke me in time was the cigarette ember burning into my hand, because my head was slumped down onto my arm. at the station i blew a .27. at the court appearance to plead guilty to drunken driving 2 or 3 months later the prosecuter's assistant's jaw hit the floor when the judge read off my blood alcohol level. so did i actually. i hadn't heard what it was. and i immediately thought of how i drove right through the fence without hitting the posts and no car rammed me and nobody was hurt. and only one word came to mind: wow. i'm alive.

and all of this makes me think of my cat who expects me to feed it, house it and then leave it the fuck alone. this is the tabby translated into siamese. holy cat on a cross, saint francis. i don't know her name, but thumper is her game.

HNT Goes Coastal

we walked into the theater and claimed our spots. we were first in line, the three of us. picking seats in that back row (because that's usually the safest place in a Neo-Surrealist show) we began to enjoy our beers. lecram had run out after the previous show and bought a fifth of C.C. you see, the Neo-Surrealists are what some might categorize as "drunken fools on a parade float with four flat tires and nowhere to go". in plainer words, they don't care what happens so long as they have fun and make us have fun in the process. but i don't agree. i think they have a master plan to show themselves as aliens, take over the world and then redo mount rushmore to make it look like mojo nixon, lyle lovett, ed wood and all of southern culture on the skids. oh, and they're drunk. the Neo's, that is.

so, they we are. lecram has handed me the fifth. i have yet to open it. i had been drinking most of that afternoon, but it was all beer. i don't like to mix beer with the hard stuff on the weekend. so, i left it capped and sealed. then, daniel walked in and asked in his childlike voice "so, where that drink?". or something to that effect (one year it was "who's got the fucking booze?"). i have to admit now that the bottle was for him and his cohorts. i have learned over the past 4 years that (when walking into one of his shows) one should come well stocked.
but i digress. we're here for the show.
well, i don't remember how it started other than lights down. but the lights down part was pretty good. then a man was rubbing northern quilted toilet paper through his crack while yelling at the quilters that the stitching was'nt tight enough. then really bad carpentry...hit a bit close to home. at one point a mime fucked up a heckler. the c.c. came back out for the portrait session. somewhere in there, they threw cheese at us. generik and i were given chocolate as a love gift by a naked man whose genitalia always reminds me of a lotus blossom on the pond. i mean literally. and that's all i mean... shut up.
there were bouncy balls with a black light. a "go fly a kite" song. zuskha wasn't there this year and she is my favorite techie in the world, because she's really pretty and got naked for the show last year. in fact, there were 4 or 5 naked women in that booth. where'd that go?
so anyway. i'd broken the rule of the festival that said no pictures allowed during a show. well, i didn't break it really. when daniel was hanging out before the show and told me he was doing the "love" skit i told him about HNT and asked him if it would be okay to use him for it. he agreed and told the actors that there would a flash during the skit. but when it started i couldn't do it. he was on top of his game that night. i've seen that skit 4 times now and this year was by far the best (even though it wasn't zuskha). it was tight. and i didn't want to interrupt it. so, i didn't get The Shot. what i got was bathroom humor:

disgusting. immature. freakish. not the high brow i was expecting. i felt dirty afterwards. i hate myself now... i ate his chocolate.

Roger Roger, Over Rover

president bush wants to allow the military to wander our streets and tell us what to do in the event of a(nother) catastrophic event. contrary to popular belief, there are some critics of this plan. and this is the government which i think broke our basic agreement with it by not protecting us from weather beyond our normal control. so, i do not give the benefit of doubt any more. and this proposal of bush's is ludicrous at best. at worst it's ...well, i don't see a worst. i see fascism. i see a strangelovian operetta filled with all of the "worst" things that our government can think of to throw at us in times of stress in order to divert with either a new scare (and reason for continued patriotism) or an old triumph (and reason for renewed patriotism). the only reason we went crazy down in new orleans after the flood was because we thought we had been left to die. i watched it from the west coast and couldn't believe my eyes. i couldn't believe what i read. it started bad really quickly and then it went straight to hell. but do i think that letting the military step in as if it's martial law is right? why, wouldn't that basically say that the government has quit the business of our safety if it means giving up afghanistan and iraq?

have you heard of the davis-bacon act of 1931? neither had i until today when i read that president bush had suspended it. go here to find a summary of it. or go here to read the actual act itself.
evidently, federal contractors working to rebuild any area damaged by the recent hurricanes need not pay a local area's prevailing wage (don't read that as union wage...not even close!) to workers hired. in louisiana that prevailing wage is about $9 per hour. many of the people who would apply for these jobs are the very locals put out by the storms and in need of jobs and money. now, they will work for minimum wage or thereabouts. if they can even get the jobs. word is going around that the contractors are trying to hire as many undocumented workers as they can find.
apparently, bush looked at the money he was willing to let go of to help the storm reconstruction and looked at the amount of bodies needed to do the work and sagely decided that the only way in which to keep the budget under control was to roughly halve the wages. hey, let's all give a damn hearty round of applause to those white house bean counters, huh? kudos to youse guys! and let's not forget that oh-so-humble white house counsel who looked into the murky, murky past and saw an opportunity to do good for the common citizen by suspending a major law that protected the common citizen up until today, but was now "keepin' the kid down on the farm". big, big shout out!
hell, you'd think the "citizens" down around the Big Easy would be more than grateful for this government handout. minimum wage? so what? it's a job and those folks who were dumb enough to choose to live 6 feet under sea level should be grateful to bush for this show of generosity. and they should just get to work and tote that cotton. damn, i love this country! what a great way of life! now shut up and eat your gruel!

Can We put Bush's Face On It?

Official Announcement

The government today announced that it is changing its
emblem from an Eagle to a CONDOM because it more
accurately reflects the government's political stance. A
condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the
next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you
a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.

i like to write to the Fresno Bee with my pompous, self-serving genuflections. it beats actually doing anything concrete to change society. the following are the most recent two i wrote and considered sending. enjoy, hate, froth, writhe, undulate...whatever. i'm becoming pretty damn cynical, so i don't really care much anymore.

It seems the media and the populace at large are content to be enthralled with Mayor Autry's taxpayer-paid excursion to Louisiana where he is conducting a touchy-feely, goodwill tour full of newsbites.Yet I have not seen or read of one instance in which a family has been issued an invitation to our city while they sort out their affairs at home. Are we really looking to bring 300-400 evacuees here or are we merely paying for a re-election junket? Autry looks good "getting down" and yucking it up with selected Lousianans, but what is he actually doing? I'm beginning to seriously doubt that a few busloads of displaced poor people will be allowed to enter our county. It's really the "thought" that counts anyway, right?

While we focus on Mayor Autry's re-election tour in Louisiana it may be time to, also, think on how we might respond to a natural disaster happening closer to home. We now know that we can't rely on the federal government to protect us in any manner resembling that which it agreed to when any of us became citizens. That agreement involves our government protecting us from harm to our bodies and our properties from individuals or events that endanger our basic way of life. That is democracy. In return, we work hard and tithe a certain percent to its coffers. This is the big question. What did we receive from it when Katrina hit? Answer: platitudes, assurances, denials, finger pointing and death. There will be a next time and chances are the response will be the same without common outrage forcing change at the highest levels. This is an American tragedy. Not White versus Black. Poor versus rich. American. How do we not let our government simply wipe this blood off its hands? If we don't speak up, shout out, then history is doomed to repeat itself.