Happy Leap Day! (on Friday)

It only shows up every 4 years, so do something special for yourself!

And, if you don't like this, at least you have March to look forward to, which is National Frozen Foods month.

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Quote I read the other day:

"Some people are like slinkies - completely useless, but they make you smile when you push them down the stairs."

Eddy's in the spacetime continuum

I noted previously how the Senate appears to be distantly behind the curve, recently banning a CIA practice that the CIA itself banned 2 years ago.

Turns out that it's just temporal dissonnance: I flipped on C-SPAN2 this afternoon to see what they're discussing these days. To my obvious surprise, the date noted in the upper right corner was "1/29/08".

Huh, whew knew they could do that?

Huh, go figure!

Because idle hands are the devil's playthings
and because I've yet to secure full time employment
and because I'm rather partial to participating in a participatory democracy, I applied to be a worker bee for Washington state's primary election on Tuesday the 19th.

Here's the "careful what you ask for" part: The county elections board contacted me and asked me to be an Elections Inspector at one of the sites! Beyond managing the staff's shifts and breaks, I'll be responsible for the materials getting to and from the polling site, setting it up, assisting staff and voters, then properly repacking all the supplies and transporting them back to the county's offices with a staffer who is a member of the opposite party.

I love this and I'm totally psyched. It's not every year I would have the time and energy to do this, so I'm pleased to take advantage of it now!

And, the irony is not lost on me that the election I become involved in is when the party I am supporting has decided not to count any votes (we're having a so-called "beauty contest" election). At least when I complain about it in the future to my state's party leadership, I may be able to complain with more authority! ;-)


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On an unrelated note, I got my hair cut today, it was way too floppy there for a while. I took this picture with our Mac's built in camera - technology is fun.
Anyway, Hi Everyone!!

You may want to get a piece of paper and draw a horizontal line across it with arrows on each end.
This line indicating time, or "timeline", will help sort out the sequence of the following events:

*CIA director Micheal Hayden barred its interrogators from using waterboarding in 2006, shortly after he took over leadership there.

*So the Senate, in its ahead-of-the-curve thinking, decides TODAY to ban the CIA from using waterboarding.

Next up on the Senate's docket: We will no longer tolerate the distribution of disease-ridden blankets.

Let's Play Ball

I have not followed the Congressional hearings and Mitchell report on doping in baseball very closely, so I will admit the possibility that I missed a key point somewhere along the way.
That said, as a casual observer I have yet to hear anyone state clearly why it matters so much as to require these sorts of resources.

Perhaps Congress has nothing better to do.
Perhaps Congress doesn't know it has something better to do.
Perhaps Congress does have something better to do but doesn't want to do it.
Perhaps Congress thinks we think this is what it should be doing.

Either way, I'm pretty sure that the very worst thing that could happen to baseball should Congress ignore it completely is nowhere near the scale of importance of what could happen to our nation if Congress ignores revising FISA court regulations, doesn't prepare for the economic consequences of the ill-concieved stimulus package, or the fallout of the EPA's recent declaration that states do not have the authority to enact stricter environmental regulations than the Federal government.

They just don't make banks like they used to

Time was, you used to be able to trust banks to protect your precious belongings.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004177006_webmeth11m.html

And here I thought I was the only one who mistook my money for a baggie of meth.

Badger Badger Badger/Footy Footy Footy...

http://www.koreus.com/files/200406/badger_football_england.html

Song sticks in brain, like gum on shoe.

By now, most of you know Obama won

Washington state went overwhelmingly for Obama. How overwhelmingly?

Reading the state's Democratic party stats, I learned Clinton only won 1 jurisdiction in the entire state. Most of the jurisdictions shown are counties, though some of the larger counties were subdivided; ours was King 46th, if you're curious.

I was really surprised - though not disappointed - at how many apparently like-minded people live in my state. Don't even get me started on how much better this process has been here than if I still lived in Virginia, where the political parties can actually advertise IN the polling place. (Note: perhaps they're not *supposed to*, but they do.)

I'm so juiced at the prospect of having a president who represents a generation newer than the boomers, appears to understand the pragmatic necessity of talking with adversarial nations rather than acting like a child holding a grudge, and doesn't trigger the sort of vitriol that the name 'Clinton' does.

Oh yeah, and Clinton essentially improperly voted to turn over the power to declare war to the Executive branch(based on an intelligence report she never even read), and I don't know how I could trust her to then become the head of that branch. Given that the Constitution is the standard by which we judge all other legal concepts, disregarding the checks and balances part of it is troubling.

Really, doesn't this stuff keep anyone else awake?

"I'm a little caucus, short and stout....

... here's when I vote, and here's when I shout."
(gold, I tells ya)

Today is caucus day for both parties in Washington state. What is caucusing? It's intended to be the opportunity for people to argue the merrits of their preferred candidate, and for undecided voters to learn more from their neighbors about how the candidates will address key issues.

Below is an excerpt of a note I wrote to my friend Jeannie, who helped me learn more about my choice, Obama:

I [...] got myself in fighting spirit, and went to the caucus.
The line simply to get into the building was unbelievable; the poor caucus volunteers looked kinda freaked out.
Eventually we all found our caucus rooms and signed in with our vote. My precinct had 7 delegates, 5 went to Obama and 2 went to Clinton. Woo Hoo!!
Paul and I then took off, as the sides were pretty set at that point.
This caucus was so much larger and unruly than the last one I went to, where there was actual opportunity to talk with people and discuss - really, this was just a vote where you had to be present and go through a bunch of inconvenient hoops. To my satisfaction, a woman had brought with her a proposal to make Democratic party primary votes count. I hope it passes at the state level!

Anyway, I thought your little reporter soul would like to know how it went for my precinct. I even managed to talk Paul into going, who was initially resistant.(He called it an interesting experience in arcane democracy.)

In the 2004 caucus, there were still so many candidates (Kerry, Edwards, Kucinich, Clark, Sharpton, and probably 1-2 others I can't remember) that there was functional value in caucusing. This time around, though, it's hard to imagine too many people having so little preference as to consider voting for the other guy/gal.

I'm just pleased that my precinct went the same way I did; more often than not I feel like odd man out, so this was a nice change.


And then there's this take on things:

Sex advice columnist and editor of The Stranger Dan Savage reports from his caucus location in Seattle:

Maybe the caucus system works--when precincts have at most 10 people in them and no one gives a fuck about the election. But it's total pandemonium right now at Stevens Elementary. The lines to sign in--for for precinct--stretches all the way across the gymnasium. Lines to sign in for other precincts intersect with our line and no one is keeping order. Thank God for our neighbor: She commandeered a dozen sign-in sheet from the table and brought them to the end of the line so we could register our preferences and get the hell out. Here's hoping our sign-in sheets got back up to the precinct table: we didn't hang around long enough to find out.

Note to the Washington State Democrats: Please don't put us through that bullshit again. Don't waste our time. Let us vote in a primary. Yeah, yeah: The caucus system is supposed to build community, or something, since we're all supposed to gather together with our neighbors and talk about who we're supporting and why, and make appeals to the braindeads--excuse me, the undecideds--blah blah blah. But the only thing neighbors at Stevens are discussing right now is what a bullshit waste of time this is. You're going to need smaller precincts, and a lot more precinct sites, and a lot more workers, or you're going to need to go to a primary system.

It ain't all gloom and doom

I know there's been a thread of grouchy sarcasm in my last few posts. Maybe it's because I'm preparing to get all feisty at this weekend's caucus - go Obama! Either way, here is the rectification:

Paul made his unbelieveable chocolate cookies last night. After a 2 week long craving, they are sweet indeed!

My dad is sounding and feeling better after a l-o-n-g year of some hard medication.

I plugged our printer into our new mac today and was printing within 30 seconds; it was *actually* plug and play as advertised! SO nice when things work.

I've started journaling a little again, which gives me material that I'll soon edit and throw up on my other blog, ItMightBeDrivel.

Today is the beginning of the Year of the Rat (Xin Nian Kuai Le!), which is my year. In fact, according to wikipedia, I am a Water Rat because I was born in 1972. According to a Chinese Astrology webpage, water represents cold, black, wisdom, and lust. Also, it turns out that 2008 is supposed to be a very lucky year for Water Rats. So I've got those going for me, which is nice.

Had the chance to reconnect with some people I've not really talked with in years at a friend's birthday party last weekend. A real treat, and nice to take a moment to realize how many really quality people I know.

Freakshow Romney dropped outta the race, so I already feel 10 times better about any of the remaining candidates.

What next? A couple warm-just-from-the-oven chocolate cookies, a glass of milk, and a pbs show.

Geek? Yes.
Warm and content? Yes

Show Me da Money!

Well hot damn, turns out the guvment is gonna send me and mine a check for about $600. Wooo HOOO!
Why, with that I could go out and buy me that Sony PlayStation 3 I've been wanting, plus some really good games.
Or, maybe we could take that money and buy a new copy of Photoshop for our small business.
Of course, we could always just pay our $580 monthly medical insurance bill.
Stimulus my foot.

Dumb Question from Dumb Blonde

Listening to NPR and reading the news, I began to wonder:

How will our government afford funding 2 costly wars, bail out homeowners for 5 years, and send all of us a check in the next few months during the beginning of a recession?

Okay, I admit I may not be fully blonde. And this may not be a fully dumb question.