My birthday is Friday and it’s been a helluva ride this past year.

A year ago, I’d just totalled the Miata and rolled up a few thousand in hospital bills I had no way to pay.

My credit card debt was overwhelming and the income was dribbling and insufficient.

I was depressed, he understated.

This year, I’ve got no credit card debt, I was able to make what for me are substantial donations to my church, AA and both my children and still I have money in the bank.

This year, the kitchen floor is tiled and not just a gray, mottled concrete pad.

I’m driving a much newer and more luxurious convertible.

I’m not depressed.

While my lovelife is neutral, that’s a step up for me.  In the ordinary course of events, I’m making myself miserable because I don’t have a girlfriend, because I do have a girlfriend, because i don’t have the girlfriend I want and the one I want won’t speak to me and the one I have won’t shut up, some other variation on that theme.

I’ve rather recently seen both my children and grandchildren and just completed an absolutely wonderful, terrific, fun visit with my sister MindOverMary.  My mother is in very good health, for which I’m grateful.

I’m not as healthy as I might be, but considering my age I have no complaints.

While I’m not serene, I’m mostly content.

I just celebrated 12 years of sobriety in my 12 step program.

My “hates” are political and aren’t personal — I don’t know of any relationship I have that is a “hot” personal dislike, especially on my part.

I think I’m likely to go to Santa Fe for a summer vacation in a short time.

I’m extraordinarily grateful for the close friendships and connections I have and the weekly get-togethers for exchanging personal news and views.  It’s the best part of my social life by far and very satisfying to me.  Just last night, I had dinner with Oz, Deb and The Gary and it was a wonderful break from my internet obsession of Sunday evening.

Last year, I hated hated hated the work on my desk.  This year, I have fun stuff to do that makes me happy as well as making me money.

Bottom line:  I’ll be happy this birthday.  Thank you.

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Well, I indulged in a little retail therapy Sunday afternoon and bought underwear.  Is there really such a thing as $40 knickers for men?  Anyway, bought some after being amazed that there’s a lot more choices than tighty whities and garish boxers these days.  They are SO damn comfortable!  I couldn’t believe it.  I was dancing around and…

well, here’s what it looked like at my house.

Looked pretty good shakin’ my ass, bitch, didn’t I?

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Where did the universe come from?  It’s also the God question.  Several of us touched on it in a Red Cup convo the other night.

Here‘s a primer on “brane” theory about multiple dimension cosmology at Science News Online and then HERE is a bit about what happened before the Big Bang at “Bad Astronomy” blog.

I find this stuff fascinating.

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The newest technology fad, Apple’s iPhone, … well, THIS says just about all there is I’d want to say.

“How to kiss someone passionately” is an amusing video that I pass along to my fellow bloggers (who shall remain nameless and unlinked) and readers who, like me, are on a “dating hiatus”.

Really groovy article in the NY Times about the Mayan Apocolypse.  New Age alert!

Eleanor Clift writes in her Newsweek Column:

Under the guise of national security, Cheney has gotten away with curbing civil liberties, condoning torture and launching an unnecessary war. He’s also chipped away at environmental regulations and done myriad favors for his friends in the business world. His stealthy intervention undermined former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman and led to her resignation. He shapes tax policy and energy policy and whatever else strikes his fancy, installing himself as president of Corporate America.

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COMMENT

How can an elected office-holder of such a description not be on trial for impeachable offenses?

 I honestly think a very serious argument can be made, based on evidence available publicly, that Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney are war criminals in the very literal sense of the word.  I believe their command role in ordering torture, international kidnappings and imprisonment incommudicado and hidden from international human rights inspections deserves serious international judicial inquiry. 

While I reserve comment as to the President of the United States, it seems clear that impeachment proceedings are required for the honor of the country. 

I believe impeachment proceedings are also appropriate to inquire into the roles of Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Cheney, if not Mr. Rumsfeld, for their conspiracy to violate constitutional safeguards by means of warrantless wiretaps among other examples.  According to at least 30 senior Justice Department executives who were willing to resign their jobs over the matter, the White House continued operation of a presidentially approved extrajudicial and ultra vires unconstitutional violation of several of the first ten amendments, our “Bill of Rights”, and that this gross illegality was done with premeditation and malice aforethought after appropriate warnings.  In my mind, this is not merely a violation of their oath of office, it amounts to treason, a most vile undermining of the liberties of Americans and, therefore, of the world.

I believe Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld deliberately misled this country into a voluntary war of aggression for the ulterior motive of personal power.  The power-mad idea of the “unitary executive” became nothing more than imperialism in disguise.  I believe these warmongers KNEW that there were no weapons of mass destruction nor ties to 9/11 nor even al-Qaida.  I believe it was a pretext as much as Sudatenland was merely Hitler’s excuse to roll into Poland.  They manufactured this war in Iraq for reasons of their own.

I honestly believe they should be impeached, convicted and handed over to The Hague for further criminal action.

In my opinion, this is the worst administration in our nation’s history and has been a complete disaster in every single area of government.  They have perverted our social compact by concentrating literally incredible — unimaginable! — wealth in the hands of a very few individuals, just as they have taken dictatorial political powers into their own hands.  This is not the democratic republic of the United States of America, it has become a wage slave version of an ascendant Old Confederacy, an imaginary aristocracy of “gentlemen” who know best for the rest of us, a landed gentry to benignly rule a nation of serfs and an empire of savages needing their guiding hand toward “civilization”.  Rudyard Kipling would have recognized these sabre rattling colonials from a half mile away.  I suggest we delegate someone to sit them down and read them the last chapter of a Mussolini biography.

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