On the depressive side of blogging

I am not, personally, bipolar, although I know and love people who are. However, my approach to blogging turns out to be pretty bipolar. So: January mania fueled by content challenge and the thrill of emerging from the depths of solstice-land; and now February, a blessedly short month, it's true, but not much fun. I've gotten behind on the reading of the blogs I read, and I've gotten behind on the thinking, and I am feeling a bit miserable about the future.

The bird flu just keeps on coming, closer and closer. We are unprepared, of course. (Disclosure: retained by Avian Influenza LTD, publicity campaign, Bird Flu: It's the New Black Death. Yada yada yada).

24-year-old public affairs officers (Bush-Cheney campaign interns) are dictating the contents of NASA press releases and presentations. They claim that the Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion." What are we, in third grade: "Fact or opinion?"

And the NSA wiretapping thing? I can't even go into it. Peter Daou nailed it, depressingly. I haven't read everyone's live blogging, not even Glenn Greenwald's. So far what I've managed to glean is that Alberto Gonzales pointedly did NOT take an oath before testifying. The program itself has been useless, at least as far as terrorists go, but why wouldn't they also spy on their political enemies? As Digby points out, that's what they do! Bob Herbert (yeah, paywall) asks "Has the National Security Agency referred your name to the F.B.I. as a result of information it picked up from its illegal domestic eavesdropping program?" Probably not, but I can bet the NSA has listened (machine-listened, only, probably, but still) to us. We make plenty of overseas calls.

Oh, and USA Today says that "Telecommunications executives say MCI, AT&T and Sprint grant the access to their systems without warrants or court orders. Instead, they are cooperating on the basis of oral requests from senior government officials." Nice. VoIP, people. VoIP.

Creepy election-postponement doings in Arizona!

Oh, and did you know that the other day John Negroponte testified to Congress that he didn't think the President had ordered any assassinations on American soil.

Here's someone in Cleveland who was arrested for putting up posters.

And here are some NYPD officers complaining about NYPD tactics for dealing with protestors.

And the budget. Oh, the budget: "President Bush today proposed a $2.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2007 that would cut billions of dollars from domestic programs ranging from Medicare and food stamps to local law enforcement and disease control, while extending most of his tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date."

Everything sucks. Emigration Threat Level remains Elevated.

Oh, and I'm taking a Naturalist correspondence course . And reading a book called Wild Fermentation, which includes a recipe for ginger ale that I can't wait to try out.