(no subject)

Still on a profound Dr. Who buzz today, may have to ask my sis to keep an eye out for ninth Doctor books while she's in London. I think there are one or two out and I certainly wouldn't mind laying my hands on them. I just cannot get enough of this one, and to think he only lasted 13 episodes...*sigh*

Anyway, a big thank you to tersa for my gorgeous Ravenclaw scarf. I can't wait until the weather gets chilly enough to wear it *hee* Also a thanks to her and cyranocyrano for braving my stomach virus and allowing me a couple of hugs. I don't *think* I'm contagious any more, but you just never know, do you?

I'm at my wits end with the old laptop and its audio issues. It is most firmly not the audio drivers at fault, nothing seems amiss with any of the software that I can see and the thing does seem able to produce system beeps. But I have no volume control, and when I get into Multimedia the entire audio part is grayed out. What this means is beyond me. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them.

Must get back to exercising tonight, absolutely must.

Speaks for itself

Molly Ivins says:

The vote on invading Iraq was 77 to 23 in the Senate and 296 to 133 in the House. By that time, some liberals did question the wisdom of invasion because: A) Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and B) it looked increasingly unlikely that Iraq actually had great stores of weapons of mass destruction, since the United Nations inspectors, who were on the ground, couldn't find any sign of them -- even though Donald Rumsfeld claimed we knew exactly where they were.

Since my name is Molly Ivins and I speak for myself, I'll tell you exactly why I opposed invading Iraq: because I thought it would be bad for this country, our country, my country. I opposed the invasion out of patriotism, and that is the reason I continue to oppose it today -- I think it is bad for us. I think it has done nothing but harm to the United States of America. I think we have created more terrorists than we faced to start with and that our good name has been sullied all over the world. I think we have alienated our allies and have killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did.

I did not oppose the war because I like Saddam Hussein. I have been active in human rights work for 30 years, and I told you he was a miserable s.o.b. back in the '80s, when our government was sending him arms.

I did not oppose the war because I am soft on terrorists or didn't want to get Osama bin Laden. To the contrary, I thought it would be much more useful to get bin Laden than to invade Iraq -- which, once again, had nothing to do with 9-11. I believe the case now stands proved that this administration used 9-11 as a handy excuse to invade Iraq, which it already wanted to do for other reasons.

It is one thing for a political knife-fighter like Karl Rove to impugn the patriotism of people who disagree with him: We have seen this same crappy tactic before, just as we have seen administration officials use 9-11 for political purposes again and again. But how many times are the media going to let them get away with it?

The first furious assault on the patriotism of Democrats came right after the 9-11 commission learned President Bush had received a clear warning in August 2001 that Osama bin Laden was planning a hijacking.

Batten down the hatches: This is the beginning of an administration push to jack up public support for the war in Iraq by attacking anyone with enough sense to raise questions about how it's going.

And all I can say is, amen.

Someday in America?

via Rising Hegemon:

Yesterday, Spain, following on the heels of Canada, approved Gay Marriage.

This was despite the strong opposition of the Catholic Church.

Telling are the polls which show that 7 out of 10 spaniards supported legalizing Gay Marriage.

This movement cannot be stopped, the right-wing surge is going to recede and this, and other progressive steps will come.

Let's hope it starts in 2006, I think it will.


It just saddens me that America can't be at the head of this movement rather than trailing along sullenly behind.