What are the odds that the Bush administration will abuse all this monitoring phone records stuff? Apparently really high.

Well, that sure didn't take long.

From Salon:

When a Washington Post/ABC News poll found last week that 63 percent of Americans approved of the NSA's collection of information about virtually every telephone call made in America, we were so skeptical that we didn't even pass it along. Maybe we were guilty of thinking "from the gut," but the poll seemed to be taken too soon to provide an accurate read on public opinion, and its results didn't square with what we know -- or, at least, what we think we know -- about the importance Americans place on their privacy.

It seems that we were right. A new USA Today/Gallup poll taken over the weekend has 51 percent of Americans disapproving of the NSA program and 62 percent saying that Congress should hold hearings immediately. A Newsweek poll comes up with a similar result; in it, 53 percent of Americans say they think the NSA "goes too far in invading people's privacy."

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Hello Monday folk. Not being at work is a good time. Being at "work" where the people you are supposed to be meeting with don't know about you - interesting. Could be frustrating, but I am just enjoying the free time it provides, in between trying to get appointments.

Best creationist quote ever?

From Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis:

All scientists start with presuppositions. If you're starting point is 'we can explain the origin of the universe without the supernatural,' that's a bias.

eta: from a blogger:

Of course, what that bias is called is "science" and Ham is ag’in it.

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Thanks for all the happiversary wishes!

Sadly, all the links everyone's providing to indications of rampant and ramping-up major crazy in the current administration are making me really depressed about just why the fuck Zmayhem thought it would be a good idea to bring another child into this world. Or at least this country. It's just that I'm not sure that, at already closing in on 40, my fertility would have held out until the next Gore administration.

are making me really depressed about just why the fuck Zmayhem thought it would be a good idea to bring another child into this world

Because we're going to need a new generation of liberals to fight this sort of thing, that's why!

We need more Buffista sprog to take over the world and not allow this sort of thing to happen again.

All you Buffistas who want kids? Get to it!

I just got the fax numbers for my Congressman and my two senators. I'm going to write a letter tonight and fax it tomorrow. I'm so done with this administration. These three need to stand up and not allow this shit to continue.

making me really depressed about just why the fuck Zmayhem thought it would be a good idea to bring another child into this world.

Puh-leeze! If people didn't have children during the Black Plague then Europe would be one big, dispopulated garden right now. Hmmmm, maybe she's got a point.

People always get bent out of shape about the news. Historically, this is not such a bad time. No influenza epidemic. No WWII. No Civil War. No Black Plague. No fall of Rome. No slavery (not in the American South sense anyway). No lynchings.

Of course, this doesn't change the creeping sensation that Bush is gradually going publically insane.

During my nihilistic yout, my favorite professor said something that really turned me around. "Every generation has reason to believe it will be the last."

Of course, this we during the nuclear mayhem that sent me on the Great Peace March, (i.e. REALLY good reason to think we would be the last--dont' get me started on why we are even less safe now, but I digress) but the truth is, all through human history terrible things have either hung over our heads, or come to horrible fruition. cue Elton John But we are still standing.