In'eresting....

The president's overall approval rating is 42 percent in a new Time poll, the lowest since he took office. But it's not clear whether Bush sees what's happening around him. Time warns of the president's "increasing isolation," life in a "bubble" that his aides says "has grown more hermetic in the second term. . . with fewer people willing or able to bring him bad news -- or tell him when he's wrong." One White House aides tells of taking so much abuse when he had to confront the president on something once that he ended up with dry heaves afterward.

So maybe the president wasn't "tone deaf," as we've said before, in his first responses to Katrina. Maybe he's created an environment in which the only tones that are played for him are the ones he wants to hear. And maybe the White House is trying the same tactic with all of us now. Remember 9/11. Remember 9/11. Remember 9/11. The war in Iraq? It's about 9/11. Hurricane Katrina? It's just like 9/11. That song has played pretty well for four years now, and the White House apparently thinks it will play well enough for another three and a half.

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Huey Lewis en espanol.

Hip Hip Hip todo el mundo
Hip Hip asi Hip ser square.

that may not actually be correct, since that was from high school spanish class.

I just got a new ergonomic keyboard. I loves it, but it forces me to type much more two-handed than I normally do. Perhaps this will lead to me actually touch typing.

So maybe the president wasn't "tone deaf," as we've said before, in his first responses to Katrina. Maybe he's created an environment in which the only tones that are played for him are the ones he wants to hear.

Maybe they have a thing for nines the way some people have a thing for seventeen?

Jews have a thing with 7 and 13, mostly. And some of them deliberately go against the use of the general dates. Hmm.

Oh, and people don't have a thing with 17. 17 just is. It's like, people don't have a thing with chocolate - it's the essence of the chocolate that creates such responses.

ION, the work I have been swamped in and had to come in on Saturday for just got a glowing review from teh people it went to. YAY team!

Yay!

Dates (and time) are funny -- I'm pretty sure my mother arrived home from Japan the other day only three hours after she had left, if you use local time at both ends.

Jews have a thing with 7 and 13, mostly.

13 is the representation of ... hai? How do you spell that? in English?

Happy Birthday, billytea!

So maybe the president wasn't "tone deaf," as we've said before, in his first responses to Katrina. Maybe he's created an environment in which the only tones that are played for him are the ones he wants to hear.

So he isn't naturally stupid, he's created an environment that keeps him from getting information. Which leads to stupid responses. I find willfull and deliberate ignorance considerably worse than natural dimness. What's the L&O phrase they bandy about? "Depraved indifference"? I don't know if that's legally accurate, but is sure seems like an appropriate term.

I thought this was a good article about how Bush blew it.

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Happy birthday, Billytea!

Wow, lot of birthdays clustered around here.

I had two birthday parties Saturday night, and another this coming Friday, too. People have lots of sex between Thanksgiving and Christmas?

ION, I just read some serious school-related scuttlebutt and I want to spread it far and wide, but I guess I shouldn't. It's killing me, though!

Wow, lot of birthdays clustered around here

and more to come!

t looks innocent