mycatharsis.com

First, hope everyone out there had a Merry Christmas. Unfortunately, that may not be so. I find stories like this one proclaiming more Americansstressed and depressed interesting. I do think there’s a phenomenon where, since we are so able to meet our basic needs, that instead of becoming stress free, we merely transfer that stress to other areas of our lives. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good reasons to be stressed and depressed, but I can’t get past a basic positivity that reminds me how good we have it. Especially when you look back on history, through the thousands and thousands of years of human existence, we have, in the past 50, increased our living standards by multiples again and again. When I think about what we have compared not only to these past generations, but plenty of people living today, I find it hard to stay too depressed for too long.

Fascinating what’s happening now over the Jose Padilla case. First the Bush administration goes to court to protect what they see as their right to hold him indefinitely as an ‘enemy combatant’. The Fourth Circuit AFFIRMS the position of the Bush administration and says “absolutely, you have every right to do it!” Then, when it becomes clear that the Bush administrations victory will be appealed to the Supreme Court, the Bush administration quickly tries to transfer Padilla to civilian custody. They ask the Fourth Circuit to abandon the decision they made in September, the very victory Bush fought so hard for! The Fourth Circuit refuses to do that, and suggests, in a harshly worded opinion written by conservative and Bush favorite J. Michael Luttig, that this seems to be a bald-faced attempt to avoid judicial review. Finally, the administration appeals to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Roberts, who I believe has review power over the Fourth Circuit, claiming that the Fourth Circuits refusal to overturn the VICTORY they handed Bush in September, was an usurpation of ‘executive power.’ Follow all that? Me neither, but it does seem clear that the administration is desperate to avoid having Padilla’s case reviewed by the Supreme Court.

If this was Bill Clinton holding an American citizen for over three years in military custody with no rights and no charges, conservatives everywhere would be outraged. As much as I like Bush in many areas, his administration is dead wrong on this one. Just because we are at war is no reason to ignore the Constitution. The administration almost seems scared to have their tactics brought before the Supreme Court. Should they be?

Thankfully, the Borders was nowhere near sold out of A Feast For Crows, they had plenty of copies in hand. On the one hand, I’m about 100 pages in, but on the other, I am taking my time reading this time. The complexity of this story is such that you really need to reread passages time and again to remember who’s who, where they’re going, etc. I’ve never read like this before, but now I’m taking a few moments after each chapter to mentally rehash it, remind myself what just happened, to whom,etc. Maybe it’s the lessons of reading the first three, but it’s definitely necessary.

Great book so far. Definitely as good as the first three. Maybe my opinion will change after I read the full thing, but I don’t think so. There is just something about the way George RR Martin writes. It’s almost like this level of writing is effortless for him. Like Gretzky or Jordan in his prime, the brilliant becomes mundane. You expect him to be this good, and anything less would be a surprise.

Recreationally speaking, my cup really runneth over this month. Not only does the sequel to my favorite book series ever come out, but so does the sequel to perhaps my favorite video game, at least as far as the XBox goes. College Hoops 2K6! I’m not sure i”ll pick it up first day, though. I gotta find out first if I can import my 2K5 legacy into it, as I’m still playing that. I’m about 10 seasons in and sure don’t want to start over from scratch if I don’t have to. Go Villanova, hehe.

Today’s the day! A Feast For Crows is finally out! I put myself into self-imposed exile early last month, avoiding all newsgroups and message boards related to George RR Martin, in the hope of avoiding any spoilers. Don’t have a copy in my hands yet, I’m sure hoping the Borders near work isn’t sold out.

found thanks to the folks at midwestpundits.com. according to this test, my beliefs closely match those of Adam Sandler and Donald Trump. Considering the alternatives (conservative: Bill O’Reilly and Jerry Falwell, totalitarian:Osama bin Laden and Darth Vader, and liberal: John kerry and Hillary Clinton) I guess it could certainly be worse.

You are a Social Liberal (66% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (65% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

The good news for me lately is that my month long wait to get cable connected in my apartment seems to have weaned me off what little tv I had been watching (Adult Swim is the exception of course, I’ve yet to find a show in that bunch I don’t like), but unfortunately that means my Moxi box is filling up with unwatched programs. I had thought I only had about 25 hours of space (according to the techs), but recently found that instead I currently have 35 hours of shows waiting to be watched!
One of those was a fascinating documentary I caught a few minutes of on the History Channel, called “Time Machine : Rumrunners, Moonshiners And Bootleggers“.

The hour or so of it I’ve watched so far has been fascinating in the parallels you can draw between the failed prohibition of alcohol and the current failed war on drugs. From the increase in potency and use of the harder substances (why make a gallon of beer when a gallon of whiskey is easier, cheaper, and returns a bigger profit?), to the increased danger in the substances being used (bathtub gin, replacing corn in whiskey with sugar then, homemade meth now), to the sudden counterculture “hipness” of certain illegal activity (the hip flask was the bong of the 20’s), to the propaganda machine at work extolling the horrors of the “Demon Rum”, to the successful efforts of a few well-meaning but misguided people who saw the role of government as a moral force and in the process ripped apart the fabric of the society they were trying to save. It’s almost stunning, in these shows and web pages, you can go right down the list and say, ‘yep, that’s happening today, that too, and that!’.

It seems as if the default action nowadays is to look back at prohibition and laugh at this misguided attempt at sobriety. But on the other hand, it only took 12 years before even the proponents of Prohibition had seen what chaos ensued when the outlawing of intoxicating liquors only served to create an unregulated market. We either do not have that same wisdom today, or have just become desensitized to the perils this current misguided attempt at looking to the Feds to enforce morality has wrought.

the surreality of what is going on in new orleans is just beyond belief. a complete breakdown of order in an american city that just last week was completely normal. it does seem to be a reminder of just how fragile even our affluence can be, how vulnerable we still are. obviously, with the media’s taste for the sensational, i gotta wonder what the reality on the street is compared to what we see on tv. but all signs are that it may just be as bad as they are saying. widespread looting, armed gangs roaming the streets, national guardsmen and the u.s. military working in a state of ‘urban warfare’ inside an American city! and I think the worst absolutely has to be the fact that evacuations of hospitals and the Superdome are being suspended because American rescue personnel are being FIRED AT by american citizens! to me personally, i think that is the most stunning, surreal thing of all.

and the attempts by politically motivated people to score points off this disaster are beyond disgusting. the biggest retard has to be Robert F Kennedy Jr (all apologies to the mentally disabled, certainly not to RFK though), for suggesting a republican governor was to blame for a FRIGGIN HURRICANE! not to mention the environmental movement as a whole, which is looking more and more like chicken little every day, suggesting global warming as the culprit for every single weather event that is the slightest bit out of the norm. for god’s sake, the bodies are still in the streets! the water is still rising, and many of a liberal persuasion are already trying to lay blame for a natural disaster at the feet of an opposition party. considering my libertarian beliefs on many issues, I’ve been wondering if I can call myself conservative, but the tastelessness shown by many on the left have left no doubt in my mind that whatever I am, i’m definitely not a liberal…

is a miracle worker for getting red wine stains out of a carpet! At least if that wine is Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot. Thank god, hehe. just rub it in with your fingers and then wipe off with a damp sponge.

no idea, but here’s hoping Richard Posner is hanging around a Washington area hotel. Or for those hoping for a non-judge, how about Ron Paul?. Ok, so maybe neither of those are likely, but after much political discussion lately, I’ve decided I’m much more a libertarian conservative than a social conservative, so I’m hoping maybe even more so than most conservatives that Bush’s Supreme Court pick is a judge who believes in the constitution and for me particularly, state’s rights. Heartened that the one candidate everyone is talking about today, Edith Clement, is a member of the Federalist Society. After one horrid month in June of Supreme Court decisions, where legislatures are rushing to stem their own power given to them by an activist court (medical pot, eminent domain), you gotta wonder if it’s already too late to stem the flow of increasing federal power over the lives of all citizens, but you gotta have hope, and that’s why this pick is a hugely important one. Anyone in the mold of Clarence Thomas, William Rehnquist, or Antonin Scalia, in that order, would be great with me.

It looks like it’s going to be a bad month for me posts wise, with only 4-5 posts so far and it already close to the 20th of the month. I’ll blame being kept busy moving stuff into storage and getting ready for my month-end move, yeah, that’s the ticket.

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Pals2,
originally uploaded by Torrie.

I’ve been wanting to try out the ‘blog this’ feature of Flickr.com for a while and figure this is a good chance. I sure hope the cat and dog I get in the next couple months will get along this well. It’s definitely preferable to a demonstration of the food chain in action taking place within my brand new apartment. Unless, of course, the golden is simply licking the cat down to make him easier to digest.

Is really a hell of a show.

The first hour long tv drama I’ve gotten into in years, probably since the X-Files. The only non [adult swim] series being recorded on my Moxi currently. Very interesting, hard not to watch.

Of course, if Republican Senator Ted Stevens has his way, this show will disappear quicker than the idea of a small and limited federal government! No doubt this show has some of the coarsest language and situations I’ve seen. Sometimes it’s central to the story, as in the blackmailing of Aceveda, and sometimes it’s not, as in the constant run of four and six letter words. But it’s still some of the best television out there right now …