Peter T hit it exactly on the head: Probably when people feel helpless, they use any outlet they can find to express themselves. This is an important historic moment, so I for one am content to see what people say.

I know I've said too much this week--and owe Daylia an apology for hammering the point home.

This has been a horrible week, all things considered, starting out by policing the yard for shuttle parts and then watching Bush ratchet up the rhetoric and the color code warnings. I am headed out of town for a couple of days (aren't we all glad!) and feel nothing but contempt for the situation as I find it: I'll try to park in remote parking so I don't have to clean all of the shit out of my pickup truck just to drive into the airport. They're doing visual searches of each vehicle that enters now. As it is I offloaded the boxes of recyling stuff (haven't been by the bins at school to drop it off yet) and the toner cartridge that might look suspicious (MailBoxes, Etc. sends it back to HP for free if I remember to take it in) because these bulky items could cause some concern for whoever has been hired in the lowest-paid federal positions on record to search vehicles.

The man I voted for won the election with the popular vote, but isn't there taking care of things without bringing us to the brink of war. That man, by the way, is equipped to handle all of this. He served in the regular miltary, and didn't go AWOL for a long time then get off the hook because of family connections. He was smart, went to good schools, got good grades (had the excellent good sense to have Tommy Lee Jones as his roommate! but I digress). . .

Time to pack up and leave this alone for a while. Good thread. Lots of rage to discharge somewhere.

SRS