Happy Mugday, uh, Monday

Today's extremely brief post includes the following:

* postal workers' garment options,

and

* my new favorite blog.

Today's News from Planet Crazy

Okay, so, let me see if I understand life on Planet Crazy with President Crazy of the United States of Crazy.

We, the taxpayer, can pay to bail out a partially-government funded entity from which we borrowed (and are paying back) money to buy a house.

We, the taxpayer, can pay for a loan to JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns with mortgage-backed securities as collateral. (See above on borrowing money we funded with our taxes in the first place.)

We, the taxpayer, can fund our own debt with a tax rebate.

We cannot however, be fiscally irresponsible by letting Medicare recipients get care. After all, who cares that doctors will no longer accept Medicare patients because they simply cannot afford to? Those silly doctors. All they care about is the hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical school debt and malpractice insurance they owe.

Perhaps doctors should start working with hedge fund managers to use mortgage-backed securities as payment to the Medicare system. That way, whenever a home-owning Medicare patient arrives for treatment, the government will get paid with the money it originally loaned to the Medicare recipient to buy his/her house which came out of his or her taxes anyway.

Well kids, that's another episode of Life on Planet Crazy with President Crazy here in the United States of Crazy.

Tomorrow: Lifting offshore oil bans so that we can use mortgage-backed securities to buy homes for oil-soaked harbor seals in Iraq!

From Watergate to 2008

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The seminal political moment of my youth was the Watergate scandal. I remember with relative clarity the shock, dismay, and sadness my parents expressed that the freely elected President of the United States had illegally wiretapped the DNC headquarters. That like some organized crime thug, he just decided that it was okay to break the law to get what he wanted.

And now, the Congress is actually going to vote into law the ability to spy on anyone, anywhere, without any legal review.

If you're reading this, I suggest you do your part to stop this. For a better sense of just how far we've fallen, read this from today's issue of The Washington Post.

Are we that worried about our mortgages and gas prices? Why in heaven's name aren't we worrying about our freedom?

Happy Birthday, America...Have a Stiff Drink. You Need It.

So, no post tomorrow, just these for today.

If you haven't ever read 'em, do it. They're good documents. Pretty short as these things go.

The are our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

I am moved to tears of sorrow and anger as I read these, knowing just how many of these precious safeguards have been gutted by our current King George.

So, Happy Birthday America. You had good people to help you back then. I hope you have more like them soon.

Unable to Concentrate...Science to the Rescue!

I'm willfully avoiding work, due to a severe case of Summer.

So, I'm reading instead.

Science can be very entertaining.

From BSG to BFO

Now, for all three of my readers who watch "Battlestar Galactica" you probably think I'm going to write about the season finale. No. I'm too upset that I'm being made to wait SIX MONTHS to see 12 more episodes so that I can watch them all die miserably or something equally depressing.

And, as far as Barack Frakkin' Obama, I'm too upset about his recent FISA/telecom immunity vote to write about how I snarked at the O-campaign volunteer who tried to recruit me last night. Poor kid. I chewed his ear off about gutting the Fourth Amendment and what a missed opportunity to really stand up for a true voice for change.

But, I'm not writing about that.

I'm actually going to write that fake 'n bake works! I'm pleasantly surprised. Now, for the uninitiated, that's dihydroxyacetone....AKA, fake tanner. It smells weird, but it makes your skin a lovely shade of toast...no cultivation of carcinoma necessary!

Despite the whole "stand-there-in-your-birthday-suit-sticky-while-it-dries" element, I'm pleasantly surprised.

I blame Coco Chanel, who, after her trip from Paris to Cannes, cultivated the tan among the previously belly-white upper class French. And the rest is dermatological history.

Okay, additional random flotsam and jetsam:
* Hubby has been quite the jet-setter with a trip to Vegas, then sailing on the floating wine rack. (The French really know how to build a boat.)
* Lord Covington rules. I never thought I'd love a car as much as I love LC. Wax puppets for everyone!
* Weather is interesting. It was 90 degrees in Providence on Saturday, yet an hour a way in Beantown, it was 65 and foggy.
* Weather is interesting, take two. I'm so done with this forecast, "Partly cloudy, humid, with a chance of severe thunderstorms in the morning. Clearing in the afternoon, but with a chance for more severe thunderstorms between 6 and 8." It's been three weeks now. This is not Florida.
* Work is still very silent, but I have a nice chair now.

And really, there isn't much else. Oh, wait, the Zoenator rules.

Welcome, Lord Covington Cooper of Cambridge

So, it's been a really long day. And, granted, I don't live in a bombed-out foxhole in Baghdad, so as days go, I suppose when I say "long", it's not that long.

I fetched Husband after work, and sat in miles and miles of traffic on our way to get Lord Covington Cooper of Cambridge (AKA, our new car, a Mini Cooper S Clubman). Yet, we were foiled: Just a mere 10 miles from our destination, the long-suffering BMW tossed a shoe.

Thank god I grew up in the north suburban bedroom community of Reading. We were conveniently located but a mere few miles from family, and placed a plaintive call for help. A Mum-bearing Volvo soon arrived. (Yes people, a 240DL wagon....what would you expect from my Mum?)

Husband went off to collect Lord Covington, and I stayed with the Beemer waiting for AAA.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Let's just say that no matter how long AAA tells you they will be, they always take at least and hour-and-a-half.

Needless to say, when all was said and done, I was provided for in a most comfortable fashion: Sister fetched me and offered a bottle of a fantastic chardonnay. Mum brought Husband to the car dealership and Lord Covington is now ensconced in our garage. The Beemer is in the capable hands of 128 Tire and Auto (the family mechanic) and shall be serviced accordingly.

All in all, you couldn't ask for a better night.

The hard part is: A day will come when I can't call that phone number and go, "Mum, can you come get me?"

But tonight I could.