Yeah. Love the Housely Stupid Cane Tricks. Betcha Laurie has a friend with a cane. I'm like, hoping NSA got a hold of me and busted my records for, like, "Wire" plotlines. Wouldn't they feel stupid? "But she said 'harbor, smuggling, and drugs'. I have to stay and fight cause nobody wants an emigre' like me. Until the new snark-based economy develops.

New Salon article: Killing the CIA

In Goss, Bush found the perfect hatchet man to take vengeance on a despised agency. Now Goss is gone, scandal looms -- and the CIA is ruined.

...

But despite urgent pressures to report to the contrary, the CIA never reported that Saddam presented an imminent national security threat to the United States, that he was near to developing nuclear weapons, or that he had any ties to al-Qaida. Moreover, analysts predicted a protracted insurgency after an invasion of Iraq. Tenet, despite the lack of cooperation from the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, acted as backslapper for the administration's policy.

The White House was in a fury. The CIA's professionalism was perceived as political warfare, and the agency apparently was seen as the center of a conspiracy to overthrow the administration. Inside the offices of the president, the vice president and the secretary of defense, the CIA was referred to as a treasonous enemy. "If we lived in a primitive age, the ground at Langley would be laid waste and salted, and there would be heads on spikes," wrote neoconservative columnist David Brooks in the New York Times on Nov. 13, 2004, citing White House officials and "members of the executive branch" as his sources. Reflecting their rage, he called on Bush to "punish the mutineers ... If the C.I.A. pays no price for its behavior, no one will pay a price for anything, and everything is permitted. That, Mr. President, is a slam-dunk."

eta:

On April 21, 2005, his mission dictated by Bush's political imperatives, Goss became CIA director. Immediately, he sent a memo to all employees, ordering them to "support the administration and its policies in our work." He underscored the supremacy of the party line: "As agency employees we do not identify with, support, or champion opposition to the administration or its policies."

He installed four political aides to run the agency from his offices on the seventh floor at Langley. Within weeks, an exodus of professionals began and then turned into a flood. In the Directorate of Operations, he lost the director, two deputies, and more than a dozen department and division directors and station chiefs out in the field. In the Directorate of Intelligence, dozens took early retirement. Four former operations chiefs, horrified by the carnage, sought to meet with Goss, but he refused.

New study on monkey drunkenness:

Monkeys drink more alcohol when housed alone, and some like to end a long day in the lab with a boozy cocktail, according to a new analysis of alcohol consumption among members of a rhesus macaque social group.

Sadly, the article does not answer the question "How drunk were the researchers before they decided that getting their lab monkeys drunk would be an AWESOME idea?"

Internet addiction test. I score 29-"You are an average on-line user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage."

Basically, I think, because I have no stress about being online forever, and because I don't hide it.

I got a 26. Same spiel.

I scored 35, which is average.

Basically, I think, because I have no stress about being online forever, and because I don't hide it.

Well, they do say:

Everyone's situation is different, and it's not simply a matter of time spent on-line. Some people indicate they are addicted with only twenty hours of Internet use, while others who spent forty hours on-line insist it is not a problem to them. It's more important to measure the damage your Internet use causes in your life.

The internet doesn't damage my life, hence, not a problem.

36, probably because I am secretive and an insomniac.

If you can answer those questions, however, you don't really need the test. What I want to know is: who the hell fantasizes about getting online? That's like fantasizing about, like, walking the dog.

Also, with some of the questions, like

2. How often do you neglect household chores to spend more time on-line?

It's not my internet obsession that's the problem there.

who the hell fantasizes about getting online? That's like fantasizing about, like, walking the dog

Having written LJ posts in my head on the drive home, I did have to answer "occasionally".

wrod.