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.