i totally screwed myself yesterday by complaining about how i had no work. the jinxed-gods decided to work me over by giving me enough crap to do until 6 or 7 tonight. yes, it may seem hypocritical and, well, whiney for me to complain about having too much work when just yesterday i was asking for more, but you don't love me for my consistency and maturity.
so if anyone wants to grab a drink after late-ish work time to avoid the reagan traffic crush, send me an email.
we added some new links to the sidebar over there - not other blogs, but just links to some photo albums i've taken since we started the blog in august 2002. so you can see photographic evidence of everything from the terrifying ivrean orange-throwing festival to apple-picking in charlottesville to a recent bbq at tommy's. peruse at your pleasure.
we're also thinking of redesigning so the template isn't so boring at rote at some point, and when that happens, i'll have a slew of new links to add to the blogroll. there are a ton of blogs out there that i read daily, but have been too lazy to link to, from whatevs.org to mihow.com to wunderkinder.org to www.ffoggy.com to queserasera.org to taleoftwocities.org to etc, etc, etc. i mean, if you're as bored as i am at work, you're going to have a pretty massive blogroll. TK.
well, whoring out for cancer research. again. apologies.
i just created a donation page online that you can use to give me money towards the lombardi cancer center and support me running the marine corps marathon. that is a very wordy sentence. but this is easier than paypal or writing out a check - you can just use your credit card. all donations are secure. and they are, of course, tax deductible. here's the link: http://www.justgiving.com/PFP/catherineruns
i promise not to turn this blog into fundraising whore central, but, as i've said before, i would really love to get $10 from everyone who reads, whether i know you personally or not. i know it's a lot to ask, to donate to a person or a cause you might not really care about. but basically, if you don't give me money, you are saying you love cancer. well, just kidding. but it goes without saying that this is a worthy cause, and i would be extremely grateful for any donation that you can afford. grazie.
this washington post editorial rips the bush administration a new one. and rightly so. in regards to the pentagon memo that basically said the president is above the nation's laws in regard to torture:
...This week, thanks again to an independent press, we have begun to learn the deeply disturbing truth about the legal opinions that the Pentagon and the Justice Department seek to keep secret. According to copies leaked to several newspapers, they lay out a shocking and immoral set of justifications for torture. In a paper prepared last year under the direction of the Defense Department's chief counsel, and first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal, the president of the United States was declared empowered to disregard U.S. and international law and order the torture of foreign prisoners. Moreover, interrogators following the president's orders were declared immune from punishment. Torture itself was narrowly redefined, so that techniques that inflict pain and mental suffering could be deemed legal. All this was done as a prelude to the designation of 24 interrogation methods for foreign prisoners -- the same techniques, now in use, that President Bush says are humane but refuses to disclose.There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy -- even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice. Even on paper, the administration's reasoning will provide a ready excuse for dictators, especially those allied with the Bush administration, to go on torturing and killing detainees.
where i sludge through mindless celebrity crap (and, um, enjoy it...) so you don't have to.
