I have to confess a certain admiration for the way Burris is acting. He knows his story and he's calmly sticking to it. Yeah, he could use an extra talking point or two, but that calmness is refreshing.

Gud, ITA. I'm getting tired of Reid in gereral and wish the Senate Dems would pick a different majority leader.

WTF?

Among the ongoing political theater in Washington, questions swirled in the nation's capital today when first lady Laura Bush introduced the new Bush china -- with a price tag of more than $550,000 -- less than two weeks before she and President Bush move out.

[link]

I swear, I'm expecting them to set the White House on fire before they leave. Sheesh (in lieu of some stronger statements).

I'm still waiting for the New Madrid fault to go off, Yellowstone to blow, and California to have "the big one" before the inaugural just to add to Obama's plate.

Or Bush to send troops to Israel. Or Al Qyda to attack something. Or Bush to preemtively pardon Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al. Or what Gud said.

I'm still waiting for the New Madrid fault to go off, Yellowstone to blow, and California to have "the big one" before the inaugural just to add to Obama's plate.

Yeah. Plus there's this to worry about: Mystery Roar from Faraway Space Detected

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Space is typically thought of as a very quiet place. But one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected.

The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it.

...

Many objects in the universe, including stars and quasars, emit radio waves. Even our home galaxy, the Milky Way, emits a static hiss (first detected in 1931 by physicist Karl Jansky). Other galaxies also send out a background radio hiss.

But the newly detected signal, described here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, is far louder than astronomers expected.

There is "something new and interesting going on in the universe," said Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Some possibilities:

• Praxis is about to blow up.
• A Doomsday Machine
• We had a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak, very dangerous.

If I understand correctly it's six months per year.

Ah, that makes more sense.

But still, if you're going to be a legal resident of somewhere it doesn't seem rash that theye'd want you to, you know, RESIDE there. If after 35 years he has no wish to be a citizen for whatever reason that's his business...

alright, I'm going to have to go and dig up his letter again in order to rant properly.

It's really amusing catching up on the political talk and various brouhahas while listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack.

Brings up some really interesting mental images.

Also? Split pea soup has aged nicely.

Ok, found it...

As a US Permanent Resident for over 35 years I and my family are required to stay never more than 6 months outside the US if I am to qualify for Naturalization. In my career as an international banker and with my overseas family and other obligations this requirement has resulted in endless disruption in my life and has cost me hundreds of thousands to ferry everyone back and forth countless times, to and from the land of the free.

— K F Khan, NY

I'll check the list, but I don't think "free to live anywhere and turn into an American" was on it.

Maybe its his tone that annoyed me?