I'm moving on June 1st unless everything seriously goes to shit. Back to Boston or thereabouts. The goal is to get a TEFL cert and get the fuck out of this country. I seriously need a different perspective. I feel like I'm forced to either live in a hole or be poisoned by the half-assed media and the half-assed people I talk to every day.

Speaking of the half-assed media, here's something interesting...

Remember that memo circulated to Republicans that noted Terri Schiavo was "a great political issue … and a tough issue for Democrats" and "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue?" Florida Republican Mel Martinez has owned up to it ...only not really. He blames it on an aide who he claims wrote and distributed the memo "unilaterally." The senator expressed "profound disappointment and regret" at the memo.

Right. Bullshit.

The memo was leaked to the press on March 19th. It took them nineteen days to figure out the origin of the memo? Think about this. If Republicans were so "disappointed" and regretful of the wording of this memo, where is any indication they said, "hey, who the fuck wrote this piece of shit?" when it was first distributed?

No, they embraced it completely and it is 100% in-line with their agenda. They are now lying to you because it turned out that the vast majority (82%) of Americans didn't approve of their meddling. And they'll get away with it because our press is a hoarde of traitorous sycophants who have truly taken the Bush administration's warning of being "careful of what they say" to heart.

God bless each and every one of 'em.

Senator Martinez fired the aide. "Listen, take the fall for this, nobody will give a shit in a year. Here's $200,000, bye."

Ever notice -- from Abu Ghraib to Iraq intel to Terri Schiavo -- that it's always a lackey who takes the fall? It's never the boss who owns up to the problem and pays for it?

Actually, that's not true. Plenty of people have publically taken blame for the intelligence failure but everyone who did got promoted.