When you see this, post it, (or pass it on however you can).

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"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

-- President Bush, April 2004, nearly three years after he authorized secret domestic surveillance by the NSA without court orders or warrants.

Quote courtesy the transcript of Bush's speech, taken off the official White House site.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040420-2.html
---

I'd say "Impeach the Bastard!" (After all, Nixon got impeached for pretty much the same thing: doing his damnedest to make himself king). But then, we'd get stuck with President Cheney, who's worse. If we impeach Cheney, we'd get Rice -- sure, we'd have a black woman president, but she has shown no signs of being anything but Bush's apologist. If we could impeach the whole stinking lot, and have a new election, I'd go for it in a heartbeat.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled seasonal jollity.

Argh!

Okay, so the land line phone at my old house (Where Dad still lives) is over 30 years old, and the quality is, to put it mildly, crappy. Just this last Friday, it was out entirely: dead line, nothing, nada, kaput. And they didn't get around to fixing it until Monday (luckily, he has a cellphone, but that quality isn't much better, and depending on where he stands in his own house, he can get hit with Roaming). So the phone gets fixed on Monday, and he reports that the modem sign on-speed is the fastest its ever been -- at a whopping 24000 baud (uh yeah, that's all phone line, not modem).

So tonight, I go to call him, and wish him a "Glad Yule!" and the phone has been ringing busy for three hours. And, of course, he has his cell phone shut off.

So, I wonder, is the phone dead, again? Or has he dropped dead? I have a very strong suspicion that it's the former, but, as his next of kin, I feel it's kinda my responsibility to doublecheck. So, I decide to call AT&T, and ask them to verify the state of the phone line (a service which costs 12.50!). If they tell me it's off the hook, I'd call his neighbor to go check on him. But each time I've called AT&T, I get the message that "All service lines are currently busy, please call back later." (at 8:00pm -- hardly the height of business hours, is it?)

GRRR!! This puts more evidence in the basket on the "phone's out" side, only it's not just his phone, this time.

Still, I wanted to talk to him!!

(no subject)

A
Gla
dYul
e,Y'all
!!
(and a very merry Midsummer, too!!)