Marty Kaplan, at Huffington Post

Very good story, about the founding fathers, etc. (Pls. see "Cheney Delusional?" below.)

Is it so unreasonable to wonder whether the charter [the Founders] wrote more than two centuries ago isn't insurance enough against the madmen who now rule us?

Cheney "Delusional"? (Updated)

I don't think so. Lying to and otherwise deceiving the public as a means to achieve a government's goals are explicitly contained in the Neoconservative philosophy, which dates back to the German-born Jewish political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973).

From Wikipedia:

Critics of Strauss also accuse him of elitism and anti-democratic sentiment. Shadia Drury, author of 1999's Leo Strauss and the American Right, argues that Strauss taught different things to different students, and inculcated an elitist strain in American political leaders that is linked to imperialist militarism and Christian fundamentalism. Drury accuses Strauss of teaching that "perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them." Drury adds, "The Weimar Republic was his model of liberal democracy... liberalism in Weimar, in Strauss's view, led ultimately to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews." [Emphasis mine.]

Sounds like Strauss turned out to be on the same side of the coin as the Nazis, and now his anti-democratic, un-American thinking has crept into the highest levels of our current government.

Having lived under despots themselves, our founding fathers were naturally opposed to any form of despotism or tyranny. In conceiving the U.S. government and embodying it in the Constitution, they didn't create a kingdom but a democracy, with an executive branch sharing power with the legislature and the judiciary. That's the form of government we were given, and it has served us well for many generations. I have no doubt in my mind that the founding fathers would find utterly repugnant -- and inimical to their democratic values -- the lying would-be tyrants who presently occupy the executive branch of government. Fortunately for us, and thanks to the founding fathers, they will be out soon enough. (That they got into office in the first place is a fluke, and one reason why I'm for abolishing the Electoral College through an amendment to the Constitution. Whoever wins the popular vote should become president.)

More on Global Warming and Evangelicals

Via Concord Monitor (?) via Digby at Hullabaloo:

Hardison, a parent of seven in Federal Way, Wash., a southern suburb of Seattle, has himself roiled the global-warming waters. It happened early this month when he learned that one of his daughters would be watching An Inconvenient Truth in her seventh-grade science class.

"No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation - the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet - for global warming," Hardison wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board. The computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is "one of the signs" of Jesus Christ's imminent return for Judgment Day.

I knew it.

James Wolcott on "Little Miss Sunshine"

"Little Miss Sunblock"

P.S. to "Health Insurance" Post Below

"How Can a $124.8 Million a Year CEO Make Health Care More Affordable?"

Read the story. There's also a Wikipedia entry on the insurance company in question.

And here's another goody.

"Washington Wakes Up to Global Warming"

Title of an AP story I found today in Salon. Glad to know something may be done about it before South Florida disappears into the drink.

This sentence struck me:

There is still plenty of opposition to action on global warming in both the evangelical and business communities, but the tide is clearly turning.

Anyone who doesn't believe that global warming is real and is being caused by CO2 emissions (and is thus reversible) should go watch "An Inconvenient Truth." This isn't a political debate. What are the evangelicals waiting around for?

Well, at least some of them aren't waiting around. I did some research and found this February 8, 2006 NY Times story ("Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative"):

Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."

Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life."

"For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority," the statement said. "Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough."

The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges. . . .

Good for them. It's about time they found a cause worthier than gay-bashing.

Quote of the Day, from FDR -- "I welcome their hatred"

Via Paul Krugman:

For the fact is that F.D.R. faced fierce opposition as he created the institutions — Social Security, unemployment insurance, more progressive taxation and beyond — that helped alleviate inequality. And he didn’t shy away from confrontation.

“We had to struggle,” he declared in 1936, “with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. ... Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

Patriotism

You can be a good patriot and not agree with George Bush.

Patriotism was drummed into me ever since I can remember. My ancestors fought in the American Revolution; one of them was a captain. I was always taught to honor my ancestors' sacrifice.

George Bush crosses the line when he accuses people who don't agree with him of being traitors. Just where is he coming from, exactly? His whole family is highly suspect when it comes to their patriotism. His grandfather bankrolled the Nazis. (Check this out, "How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power," from the Guardian.) What kind of patriots are the Bushes anyway, and who is George Bush to impugn the patriotism of other Americans? He comes from a family of war profiteers, or much worse -- the Nazis exterminated millions of innocent people.

George Bush went out of his way to avoid military service to this country and is now responsible for killing over 3,000 of our soldiers in an unnecessary war in Iraq, waged on lies.

He has countenanced an obscene spate of war profiteering, while depriving our soldiers of basic equipment needed for their own survival in combat.

What kind of a patriot is George Bush? Look at his background -- the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

Health Insurance

I'm glad I have it. It's very good where I work. I consider myself lucky.

I think though, on the whole, that private insurance companies ultimately cannot afford to provide universal health care.

Each insurance company has an enormous bureaucracy and a CEO making an obscene salary. Unless these companies go out of their way to exclude people who really need health care, they don't make a profit. They've each got to pay for their bureaucracy and their CEO, and then have money left over to pay dividends to shareholders. And they're all in competition to pay the fattest dividends.

Wouldn't it be better to have a system in which profit wasn't a motive when it comes to your health?

My father was in the insurance business. I had a personal, guided tour of Lloyd's of London way back when. (I was impressed. I saw that bell they ring when a big ship goes down.) I think insurance is brilliant. But I just don't think private insurance is able to handle the demands of a nation's health care. It's too expensive to be profitable.

Bush's Bad Foreign Policy

I'm no expert on foreign policy, but (as I've said before), I always thought Theodore Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick" was pretty wise. Then you have George Bush and the "Axis of Evil". Or: How to inflame your enemies and make them more inimical. Thank you, George Bush, for making the world a more dangerous place in which to live.

Here's some advice.

Boston Butt

Roast, that is. (It's pork.) They were on sale yesterday at Publix and I bought one, but didn't know how to cook it. Did some sleuthing on the Internet and ended up cooking it in the crockpot. Came out great. After being coated with spices (chili powder, garlic powder, celery salt and black pepper), it cooked in a liquid of equal parts of red wine, soy sauce and black coffee (!), to make one cup. Nice, rich jus. Very simple. I cooked it for 11 hours on the "Keep Warm" setting.

TGIF!

Re: the mess in Iraq, this seems sensible. From Steve Soto at The Left Coaster ("Is There Hope For Iraq?"):

But we do see progress here at home, when someone like right-wing pundit Charles Krauthammer now supports a sensible redeployment outside of Baghdad, which meshes with what John Murtha has been talking about for over a year.

(I first read about it on Andrew Sullivan's blog; I don't read Charles Krauthammer.) Krauthammer writes:

Right now there are only three policies on the table: (1) the surge, which a majority of Congress opposes, (2) the status quo, which everybody opposes, and (3) the abandonment of Iraq, which appears to be the default Democratic alternative.

What is missing is a fourth alternative, both as a threat to Maliki and as an actual fallback if the surge fails. The Pentagon should be working on a sustainable Plan B whose major element would be not so much a drawdown of troops as a drawdown of risk to our troops. If we had zero American casualties a day, there would be as little need to withdraw from Iraq as there is to withdraw from the Balkans.

We need to find a redeployment strategy that maintains as much latent American strength as possible, but with minimal exposure. We say to Maliki: Let us down, and we dismantle the Green Zone, leave Baghdad and let you fend for yourself; we keep the airport and certain strategic bases in the area; we redeploy most of our forces to Kurdistan; we maintain a significant presence in Anbar province, where we are having success in our one-front war against al-Qaeda and the Baathists. Then we watch. You can have your Baghdad civil war without us. We will be around to pick up the pieces as best we can.

This is not a great option, but fallbacks never are. It does have the virtue of being better than all the others, if the surge fails. It has the additional virtue of increasing the chances that the surge will succeed.

[Emphasis mine.] Sounds like some Right Wingers are becoming a little squeamish about all that blood on their hands. Also sounds like the surge isn't necessary to begin with and we should have followed Murtha's (Democrat) plan, which as I recall was roundly rejected by the Right Wing at the time it was proposed.

Almost TGIF

I have to say I'm not really for the "surge." I was against this war since before it started, believing it to be immoral in its conception. And it certainly has been immoral in practically every aspect of its execution -- from the killing and maiming to the torture to the destruction of the Iraqis' quality of life to the fomenting of even more hostility against the U.S. to the profiteering and corruption on the part of Bush's political cronies. So I'm certainly not in favor of anything that keeps this monster alive. I say get out. And from what I've read and seen on the news lately, this surge plan is a just another shitty idea. So what's new.

B. and I went out to a local beer bar (Jamboree) on Monday night -- we both had the day off. We hadn't been to a gay bar since our vacation in San Francisco (the week of Labor Day.) We even ran into a buddy from our old watering hole that closed down last year. Mind you, this bar is twice as far from home as our former hang-out was, but at least some of the construction on Biscayne Blvd. has been completed, making the trip to and from easier.

Sunday Night

Have tomorrow off for Martin Luther King Day. Excellent. B. has his usual Monday off.

Rented some movies tonite. While de gustibus non est disputandum, we thought "The Illusionist" was very good. "Snakes on a Plane" was horrible -- we couldn't even bear to watch the whole thing. Really stupid. "Flightplan" (with Jody Foster) was pretty bad. (We liked "Panic Room.") We'll have to watch "The Illusionist" again tomorrow since I was in the middle of making Gaston Beef Stew (for tomorrow) when B. put it on. One of his customers tonight had recommended the movie.

Was at the gym tonight. Also good. There's hardly anyone there on Sundays.

Regarding the "surge," this doesn't sound good (didn't read the whole thing). Of course the surge wouldn't be deemed necessary if we hadn't invaded Iraq in the first place and created such a volatile situation there. Better to have let Saddam Hussein remain in power than to open up this Pandora's Box. Bush, Cheney, Lieberman et al. still insist on linking 9/11 to Iraq as justification for this misadventure. Well, as I've emphasized before, Bush has killed more Americans in Iraq than died on U.S. soil on 9/11, and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

While I didn't watch "60 Minutes" (with Scott Pelley interviewing George Bush), here's this via Americablog, Bush lying about lying:

"You know better than I do that many Americans feel that your administration has not been straight with the country, has not been honest. To those people you say what?" Pelley asks.

"On what issue?" the president replies. "Like the weapons of mass destruction?"

"No weapons of mass destruction," Pelley says.

"Yeah," Bush says.

"No credible connection between 9/11 and Iraq," Pelley says.

“Yeah,” the president replies.

“The Office of Management and Budget said this war would cost somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion and now we're over 400,” Pelley says.

“I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha,” Bush replies.

“The perception, Sir, more than any one of those points, is that the administration has not been straight with…,” Pelley says.

“Well, I strongly disagree with that, of course,” Bush says. “So I strongly reject that this administration hasn’t been straight with the American people. The minute we found out they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to say so.”

Anyway, Saddam Hussein may now be dead, but Osama bin Laden -- Enemy No. 1 -- is still on the loose and recruiting ever more "killers" (as Bush likes to say) to his cause. Great job, George. You're really smart.

I was raised on James Bond movies and "Mission: Impossible" (the TV show). How much smarter it seems, and more practical even, to go after the bad guys (the real ones, that is) from behind the scenes, one-on-one, without resorting to war, much less never-ending war. I've always thought that if the Bushies hadn't been so preoccupied with Iraq from the moment they got into power (and before), the 9/11 attacks could have been averted. But enough looking back -- on with the surge!

More on the "Surge"

From The Left Coaster. I agree.

DSL is Down (Bummer)

Early Sunday a.m. (offline)

DSL connection is down (light is blinking on the modem). It went down while I was reading the NYT Sunday headlines. Called India (as instructed by Wizard) but their trouble-shooting was getting rather too involved and I was getting tired. Will call again tomorrow if it's still not working. It's getting late and I've gotta go to bed.

Had a weird call today from a lady who said she (or her son) was getting calls (hang-up calls?) from my telephone number. She specifically mentioned a call from this number at 12:20 p.m. today (Saturday, actually), before either B. or I had gotten out of bed. I told her it wasn't me and hung up. Maybe she had the telephone company put a monitor on my line, and that's why the DSL isn't working. I'm such a paranoid. Maybe it's George Bush's doing, with all the domestic spying going on (and increasing).

This isn't the first time the DSL has malfunctioned like this. I'm just hoping it'll be OK in the morning. (Getting the DSL set up here at the beginning took about a month! As I recall, it was a problem with their line.)

[Later Sunday: DSL working again!]

TGIF!

But I'm on call tomorrow so it's not so joyous. Cheers anyway.

I found this interesting. Lately I've watched a couple of shows on the plague. The plague spread most rapidly among the urban poor, who lived in squalid conditions. Before science discovered that microbes cause the plague, the conventional wisdom (in England at least) was that poor people were poor because they were out of favor with God, and that their wretched, "ungodly" lifestyle brought the plague upon them. The plague wasn't considered a problem for society but rather fit into God's "plan." They were only getting what they deserved. Sound familiar?

Perhaps if society operated from the premise that God doesn't exist, then progress (against disease, for example) could proceed more rapidly, much to society's benefit. Just a thought. (And I'm not a flaming atheist.)

Bush's Speech on the "Surge" in Iraq

I caught part of it on TV and read the whole thing. All I have to say is, good luck!

Ah, Domestic Life, Hearth and Home

New microwave oven on its new stand. To christen it, I heated up some collards and they came out great (the oven figured out the cooking time by its sensor--this is all new to me). Meanwhile I'd mistakenly bought this humongous oven on the Internet which didn't fit (at right, next to the old one). If I can't sell it at work or somewhere, I'll ship it back.

Here's Lucy tonite, lapping her water.

Decided to Put Something in My Profile (see "About Me" at Right)

Not a whole lot about me but that's enough for now.

I'm about ready to get back to the novel publishing business, which would mean doing less of this. I figure that's OK, since not many people read this anyway. It's not like I would have to hire a guest blogger while I was off tending to the other stuff, right?

I do this because I enjoy it and I think it help keeps me in practice. I never liked writing in diaries, but this is fun. (I kept a diary once and my brother would go to great lengths to snoop in it.) Besides, my life is not that interesting that I feel compelled to write about it on a daily basis. Here I like to share other people's insightful observations and then perhaps put my own two cents in.

P.S. I would think the Blogger spell checker would contain the word "blogger" but it doesn't.

Krugman on Monday

A good one. An excerpt:

The only real question about the planned “surge” in Iraq — which is better described as a Vietnam-style escalation — is whether its proponents are cynical or delusional.

Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thinks they’re cynical. He recently told The Washington Post that administration officials are simply running out the clock, so that the next president will be “the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof.”

Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for his research on irrationality in decision-making, thinks they’re delusional. Mr. Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon recently argued in Foreign Policy magazine that the administration’s unwillingness to face reality in Iraq reflects a basic human aversion to cutting one’s losses — the same instinct that makes gamblers stay at the table, hoping to break even.

Of course, such gambling is easier when the lives at stake are those of other people’s children.

Well, we don’t have to settle the question. Either way, what’s clear is the enormous price our nation is paying for President Bush’s character flaws.

This Is Rich, Eh?

"Bush Tax Cuts Offer Most for Very Rich, Study Finds"

What A Mess

What a nightmare. How many more people will die before this thing is over? Of course it should never have been started to begin with.

The commanders have acknowledged privately that the new Bush plan is almost certain to represent a last-chance option for persuading Americans that it is worth persisting with the heavy burdens of the war, with more than 3,000 American troops dead and overall costs that are nearing $450 billion.

There has to have been a better way for the oil companies to get the oil, without Bush starting a grudge match in Iraq. I'm now convinced that this is all about making Iraq safe for the oil companies. See this via Chris at Americablog:

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

Amen

"The Democratic majority in Congress has a moral responsibility to address all these issues: fixing the profound flaws in the military tribunals act, restoring the rule of law over Mr. Bush’s rogue intelligence operations and restoring the balance of powers between Congress and the executive branch. So far, key Democrats, including Mr. Leahy and Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, chairman of a new subcommittee on human rights, have said these issues are high priorities for them.

"We would lend such efforts our enthusiastic backing and hope Mr. Leahy, Mr. Durbin and other Democratic leaders are not swayed by the absurd notion circulating in Washington that the Democrats should now 'look ahead' rather than use their new majority to right the dangerous wrongs of the last six years of Mr. Bush’s one-party rule.

"This is a false choice. Dealing with these issues is not about the past. The administration’s assault on some of the nation’s founding principles continues unabated. If the Democrats were to shirk their responsibility to stop it, that would make them no better than the Republicans who formed and enabled these policies in the first place."

From an editorial in today's New York Times. It also mentions Bush's newly asserted power to open our mail without a warrant. What next? They're already tapping our phones and monitoring our online activities. Why do Bush and Cheney continuously flout the U.S. Constitution, with its unambiguous checks on executive power? Because they can get away with it?

We have a government of laws, not of men. That's pretty much what the U.S. is all about. Nixon said that "when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."* Bush and Cheney have reasserted it. Yet it's not what the Constitution says or implies. People with dictatorial tendencies ought not be occupying the U.S. presidency.

From BuzzFlash.com (October 29, 2002):

If Only I Were A Dictator, by George W. Bush

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Yes, George W. Bush has stated he'd prefer to be a dictator at least three times, according to BuzzFlash.com:

* * *

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. (Governing Magazine 7/98)

-- From Paul Begala's "Is Our Children Learning?"

"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked.

-- CNN.com, December 18, 2000

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it, " [Bush] said.

-- Business Week, July 30, 2001

By the way, here's the text of the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Here's a definition of "unreasonable search and seizure" from The Free Dictionary by Farlex:

unreasonable search and seizure n. search of an individual or his/her premises (including an automobile) and/or seizure of evidence found in such a search by a law enforcement officer without a search warrant and without "probable cause" to believe evidence of a crime is present. Such a search and/or seizure is unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment (applied to the states by the 14th Amendment), and evidence obtained thereby may not be introduced in court.

Furthermore, "the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 prescribes procedures for requesting judicial authorization for electronic surveillance and physical search of persons engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States on behalf of a foreign power." (from the Federation of American Scientists website)

_____________________________

*I can understand this desperate argument considering the situation in which Nixon found himself, but Bush and Cheney seem to be doing it out of sheer defiance and in contempt of our society's constitutionally-ensured freedoms.

* * *

Now THIS should be interesting.

I love this...

This here from Hullabaloo. "100 Hours To Turn America Into San Francisco." It's hardly a bad idea. (Follow the link from the post.)

Why does the Right Wing hate San Francisco? Could it be . . . the GAYS??

VOILA!

Took a lot longer to put together than I thought it would (like 4 hours), but it's done. (Thank goodness I had the electric drill to screw in all the screws, even though I had to keep switching out the two power packs off the charger since they don't keep a charge like they used to.) The cart replaces this, an old Salton hot cart that belonged to my mother. Time to get rid of it (Mom's been dead over 20 years.) The new, white microwave should be arriving soon.

TGIF!

Cats on the bed. They really don't like each other that much so I had to get this shot.

Had a full week. Glad it's over! Was rough on B. and I felt the pain.

Back to the gym tonight. My attendance had been spotty during the holidays. I'm exhausted but that's good. I sleep better and generally feel better when I go. Maybe I'll even try to get back on the bicycle. The bike trails around here are fantastic (FIU, Enchanted Forest, Arch Creek Park (which ends up at the Dairy Queen)).

Got some new glasses yesterday, rimless ones (progressive bifocals, of course). Took me a day to get used to them. Now I love them. I was happy with the Armani glasses B. bought me 2 years ago but my eyesight had further deteriorated. I had money left over in my flex spending account which helped cover the cost.

Today a piece of furniture arrived unassembled in a box, a cabinet for the kitchen. I'll put it together tomorrow. (I figure it'll take me 1 1/2 to 2 hours. My screwdriver/drill is charging as we speak.) It's got loads of storage (shelves behind a glass door on one side and 3 deep drawers on the other). The microwave will go on top. Plus it's on casters. A new microwave should also be arriving soon. We currently have a big, God-knows-how-old Litton microwave that works well but doesn't have a revolving tray. I'd sworn not to get a new one till it broke, but B. humiliated me into getting us a new one. I found it through Consumer Reports Online. It's a good one and should make us happy.

Another Bad Movie We Rented (Tonight)

"My Super Ex-Girlfriend." What an inane screenplay. It was almost too painful to watch. I'm not a big Uma Thurman fan, but I really felt embarrassed for her.

Whenever I watch this kind of crap, it always inspires me to get back to work on my own creative stuff. I've written a few novels and am in the process of buffing them up. Now that the holidays are over (that last month of the year is always a killer), I think it's time to revisit "The Homosexual Agenda; A Fantasy."

Tonight while B. and I were out renting movies and running other errands, we heard Mike Malloy on the radio (WINZ 940 AM) mentioning that he was back on the air in Miami. He also thanked his Miami listeners for their enthusiastic emails upon his return to the air. Mike Malloy is as straight as an arrow but has always stood up for gays against the Republican Party's campaign to persecute them for political gain.

Happy New Year!

Tonight when I was returning those movies to Blockbuster, I heard Mike Malloy back on WINZ 940 AM (Miami's Air America affiliate). Glad he's back. I believe his new show comes via satellite now.

I steeled myself to watch the "snuff video" of Saddam Hussein, taken with a cell phone. Not a lot to see, and just as well. I hope George Bush is happy now that his bogeyman is gone. I have to say I was rather touched by this account from Saddam's U.S. Army (?) nurse, as reported in The Guardian.

Thank God the Year is Over