Ruby, one of the house cats, has taken to shacking up in my room when Ella isn't around.

Right now she's on my bed right in the middle of a clean towel. She is alternating between flicking her tail, chasing it, leaping into the air, tackling her own hind leg then deciding it needs to be cleaned.

Ah, the endless imagination of cats.

Mother: We couldn't get the remote control car to work.
Me: Oh, just bring it in, we can take a look at it.
Child: How can you bring it back to Radio Shack if Santa brought it, mom?
Mother: ...
Me: Oh ...uh ...Santa has a commercial account with us. He's gotten so busy lately he does a lot of outsourcing.
Child: Oh, ok.

I was listening to an MP3 of George Carlin's "Kickin' it in NY" show. In one part he talks about homelessness (which he re-casts as "houselessness" since a "home" is an abstract idea). He laments that if the "greedy cocksuckers" businessmen (his term, not mine) could find a way to make a buck off the so-called "war" then we'd see the streets clear up "pretty goddamn quick."

You may have heard of "Good Samaritan Laws." In short, these refer to a type of statute (found in the U.S., Canada, etc.) that does two things; compel people to give aid to those in need and proect people who give that aid from lawsuits (within reason).

Today I was reading about the 1,000-2,000+ dead in Haiti after Tropical Storm Jeanne. Local infrastructre has been utterly overwhelmed. Thousands have swamped the only aid center but only one doctor is on duty. The police are crippled because their only vehicle was not working and they've resorted to placing barbed wire around the station so they don't get killed by the twenty inmates that escaped during the storm.

Isn't this solvable if someone wanted to, really? What would it take? Five million? Eight million?

Why are there no such laws that govern the actions of countries in such situations, similarly compelling them to do what is in their power to help those in critical danger?

Just a thought.

A decent amount of pain in my right leg sent me to the hospital two days ago. Yep, I have another blood clot. DVT. w00t. *sigh

I'm on coumadin (the active ingredient in rat poison, a blood thinner). Taking four days off from work to stay off it. The concern is not so much the pain from the inflamation but the possibility of part of the clot breaking off, traveling to the lungs and causing an embolism.

So if you don't see any more entries here, you know why. =)

I went into an Army-Navy surplus store this week. Out of curiosity I asked the manager/owner about the polticial leanings of the people who purchased stuff. I asked about Kerry's Vietnam service and the Swift Boat allegations and about Bush's Vietnam dodgings. The guy behind the counter felt that the anti-Kerry material was damning and shrugged off the draft-dodging of Bush. I didn't argue with him. In fact it was kind of clear he couldn't figure out what my position was and was a little uncomfortable about committing himself without that information. But again, I was just there to listen, not to debate. I figured he would have a unique perspective given his clientele.

Why do people have a seemingly bottomless capacity to get all fired up about something when it's the Other Guy who is doing the Wrong Thing, yet a seemingly bottomless capacity to go through the most extreme contortions to pretend that the facts simply aren't there when it's Their Guy? Why can't people just call bullshit "bullshit" when they see it? This trait seriously makes me lose hope for humanity in general.

Back to my extremely dense Alan Watts stuff...

News does one of two things these days; either it does straight, non-critical reportage or it leans dramatically to either one side or the other. The result being that you either watch partisan news that tells you what you want to hear (Fox News, IndyMedia) or you listen to something that simply echoes the bullshit.

NEVER have I been so disgusted with American politics as I am right this moment. The GOP holding it's convention later than ever in its history and in a town it has never held it's convention in before? Bush wrapping himself in 9/11 is disgusting.

Just the other day he told a reporter that he didn't believe the war on terror was winnable. HELLO? Ever hear of Orwell? IS ANYBODY FUCKING LISTENING?

I'd like to take some comfort in the idea that there is a breaking point, a line which the American people would not allow to be crossed, but we all get our information from the same three sources, ultimately. Is it any wonder we all have the same opinions? Sure, we're free, but that's because we're all drinking the same Cool Aid.

Remember when Clinton fucked Monica? Remember Rush saying repeatedly about how "character matter[s]?" Bush lied in '94 when he said his father didn't get him into the Texas Air National Guard. In fact he was pushed ahead of several hundred men while having the worst possible score without flunking outright. We know this because the guy who pulled the strings just admitted it. I guess it doesn't matter when the guy is a Republican.

To one half of this country I say "fuck you, you can have him. Enjoy." To the other half I say "enjoy your goddamn television."