One More Cup of Vacation Before I Go...

Before the embers of Summer '08 for us teacher types turn cold, I'm heading out for a camping trip to the Weminuche Wilderness of Colorado. I know it's an empty complaint in a world of the two weeks of vacation per year, but we professional public school educators have only got five or six days left at this point. The Weminuche is a great, secluded place to get the 'ol brain recalibrated for next week, when the staff meetings and other craziness will start all over again.

And heading out this morning I ran across these two quotes from Emmylou Harris, who besides being just about the prettiest, prettiest-singing person on the planet also turns out to share a passion for baseball:

“All I do during baseball season is watch games. I was so pumped the other night when Greg Maddux stole a base! My team is the Braves, but they don't stand much of a chance.”

and

“We don't really have any baseball fans, except for my stage manager, who is a Cubs fan, and my road manager, who is a Red Sox fan,” said Harris...“Unfortunately for the guys in my band, they have to sit and watch the games. As soon as the show is over, I get on the (tour) bus and watch (ESPN's) 'Baseball Tonight.' ”

And yeah, some of you, more cynical, baseball fans are thinking "the Braves?!?" But folks, this is Emmylou Harris we're talking about here. Cut the woman some slack for having a misguided (angel) point of view folks, she's a big-time baseball fan...and sings real, real pretty.

Think I'll head out of town humming the tune to Emmylou singing "Pancho & Lefty". Kinda corny maybe, but it's Emmylou Freakin' Harris people. She could sing a transcript of a George W. Bush press conference and it would sound good.

Have a good last week of recalibration my teaching colleagues...

Fun With Google and Sitemeter

According to Sitemeter, in straight succession this morning residents of the following cities have run across this humble blog after performing the following searches:

• Chateau-Tierry, France: searching for "el vado court"
• Perth, Australia: searching for "lance armstrong tips"
• Mangaluru, India: searching for "planet where extraterrestrials live on"
• La Jolla, California: searching for "terri cole seattle washington"

In trying to connect the dots to solve the mystery of why these four consecutive events would occur, some parts are easy. "Terri Cole" and "extraterrestrials" for instance. Still, no grandly unifying thread seems apparent. I'll keep thinking about it while pursuing my own Google search on just where "Mangaluru" is and whether they have a UFO museum there.

P.S.: Hey, Mangaluru means "auspicious place" in Sanskrit! Maybe I need to get back to work.

Join "Stink For America"!

I realize I'm late jumping on the bandwagon, but at least I'm bringing a catchy name to the table.

For years I've vacillated on biking to work, primarily because I just don't trust my fellow motorists. At all. But, like many others, the price of gas has helped me overcome my completely rational fear that some jerk in a Ford pickup will either try or succeed in running me over.

It's been great seeing all the other cyclists on the streets of our fair city the last few weeks, and while some of you have been pedaling to work for years and years, we in the bandwagon contingent are stoked to join in, except for one small detail (well, besides the being run over and killed detail).

That detail: by the time I make it up the hill at MLK to the intersection at University I am a sweaty, panting, mess.

Perhaps more importantly, I stink. Like a muskrat exiting a Louisiana swamp. Not to mention the whole bike helmet hair thing.

So I've been thinking things over, and we newbie bike-to-work people have two choices.

1. Construct eloborate plans to shower at work, adding significant minutes to our commute and giving us that creepy "yikes, I just took a shower at work" feeling.
   
2. Take pride in our stinkiness.

I'm going with Option Two, and ask others to join "Stink For America", an organization that celebrates how godawful smelling cycling-to-work folks by pointing out (in as irritating and condescending a manner as possible) that:

• By stinking we are patriotically lessening U.S. dependence on foreign oil
• By stinking we are benefiting the environment (well, except for the immediate environment around us in our stinkiness)
• By stinking we are doing our part to reduce the pathetic obesity problem in this country
• By stinking we are lowering the overall expectations of personal hygiene in the workplace, thus possibly allowing other, non-cyclists, to pretty much stop showering/bathing altogether and thus help to conserve water.
• By stinking and having bike-helmet hair we help the self-esteem of fellow workers by helping them say to themselves "yeah, my hair looks stupid, but at least it doesn't look as bad as that guy who bikes to work".

I'm sure there are plenty of other societal benefits to "Stink For America", and those willing to stink are encouraged to supply them. Meanwhile, I have to go stink it up for a meeting at Satellite coffee. Those permanent laptop coffee fiends at the coffee shop are in for an olfactory treat this morning, I tell ya.

P.S.: After riding today I'm not only Stinking For America, I am Injured For America. I took some photos of the result of my classic endo at Lead and 4th (hmmm...perhaps cautiously applying force to the front brakes is the way to go), but you can't tell how horribly disfigured I am from the self-inflicted accident, primarily because of my pre-existing inherent degree of horrible disfigurement. Some scrapes, bruises, and cuts, with a nice little impact kiss spot on the helmet.

Anybody who doesn't wear a helmet because it messes up their hair is...well you know.

Please Make It Stop Now! Move Election Day to 7/29/08

Dear Scot --

Barack recorded a special video invitation for you to join him at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Watch it now and make a donation of $5 or more before midnight this Thursday, July 31st, and you could go backstage with Barack:

--from email sent 7/28/08, one of the 47 such postings your humble blogger will probably get today on the subject

Maybe you're like me and have indicated enough interest in an Obama Presidency to make the colossal mistake of getting on some e-mailing lists.

Ugh.

I'm finally unsubscribing today to "Obama for America" and I could claim it was in response to his vote on FISA, but it's really just my unwillingness to put up with Election '08 at this point.

And we still have 99 days to go? Must I go into a total "kill my television/internet/electronics of all kinds" mode to successfully avoid this thing? And I like politics! Well, sorta. Think of those seven or eight remaining "undecided" voters nationwide who are getting carpal-tunnel from trying to avoid Election '08 on their remote controls while simultaneously trying to find out who is winning the far more important contest on "American Idol" or "Insert Reality Show Here"?

Faithful reader(s) of this blog will note that I'm big on the idea of a 90-day campaign, tops. I know many argue that limiting the campaign is unconstitutional as it somehow limits free speech. Not to mention that it provides Wolf Blitzer with a job. But who is a continual campaign really geared for besides Mr. Blitzer? It certainly can't be "undecided" voters and non-voters...they are doing mental somersaults to avoid thinking about the damn election.

Meanwhile, those who do follow this stuff pick sides, get all giddy when the opponent makes a "mistake" and try, very unsuccessfully, to change other people's minds. A total waste of time.

And a total waste of money. Maybe I'm more frugal than most, but I'm not paying $5 to "go backstage with Barack". I have no interest with going backstage with him, having a beer with Big O or trying to drive the lane in a pickup basketball game with the guy. I just want the guy to win the election.

But then I've never understood the "I shook hands with the guy so I must vote for him" mentality. And I've always distrusted anything resembling a cult of personality. Which, if you think about it long enough, is what this whole Election thing tries to be about. For instance, if you're really into this Election thing intersperse viewing the upcoming national party conventions with clips from Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will". It will all start to blur within about 15 minutes, especially if you can switch the 2008 coverage to black & white.

But I'm not going to try to think about that, or anything else regarding Election '08 after this Tuesday the 29th. At least at the Presidential level. I am officially declaring the campaign over tomorrow (the last Tuesday after the last Monday in July), and will simply put my fingers in my ears and go "la, la, la, la, la, la, la" whenever I hear/see/taste/touch/smell anything remotely pertaining to McCain or Obama or Ron Paul or Bob Barr or Cynthia McKinney or the Electoral College or "swing states" or "latest gaffe" or any of that.

Wake me up when the rest of your come to your senses and we can concentrate on organizing the many parties dedicated to celebrating the exit of our current President. Come to think of it, I fully support a continual campaign to celebrate the end of the Bush 43 Presidency. I'm wailing on a party favor and wearing a stupid conical hat with "Ding Dong The Shrub Is Gone" stenciled on it even as I type.

"I'm Barking with post-W Presidential Delight, even if Cynthia McKinney wins!"

A Little Backstory On the Two Percent APS Raise

Firmly in the "news you thought you had already heard quite some time ago" department, us APS teachers are getting a 2% raise this year. And yes, that's the raise the Legislature approved months and months ago.

Meanwhile, as the Journal has pointed out in a series of stories that have all said the same thing, insurance premiums for teachers will drown out much of the raise, with gas prices performing a coup de grace on beyond what's left.

I have little to add on the subject, but will point out a little, uh, point left out of the discussion. And no, it's not some bitter remark asking why the Hell we have a teacher's union when they can't fight for anything beyond a 2% raise. In fact, my measly point is anything but bitter.

It is this: public school teaching actually pays pretty good these days. A few years back, when teachers in New Mexico were paid at a level commensurate with a barrista at Satellite Coffee, the union and others fought for a three tier pay scale.

A number of shiny, flaming hoops were instituted for teachers to mind-numblingly jump through, such as a "dossier" (more about that sometime soon), leading from Level 1 (galley slave) to Level 3 (respectably paid galley barrista and whip-holder). It seemed to take forever for the pay to match the Level, but the last two years have seen a 25% pay jump for many of us Level 3 dweebs.

25% is a good chunk of change, especially for us "experienced" teachers who were used to experiencing near-poverty conditions for years and years.

So I'm not feeling like I have much to gripe about with a 2% raise this year. True, if I belonged to the Teamsters I would probably be out threatening APS Board Members kneecaps with a crowbar after being insulted with a 2%. Also true, if this 2% bullshit continues for the next three years I will certainly be investing in a new crowbar.

Still, I'm letting this one slide, and would rather focus on non-pay matters, such as the creeping tendency of schools to want teachers to become mindless automatons reciting scripted curriculums just because the school has "failed" meeting No Child Left Behind standards. Good teachers are already leaving because of this, and some schools have already become glorified Slyvan Learning Centers.

Now that's something worth breaking out the crowbar for.

P.S.: I spent a soul-crushing half-hour yesterday calling State and District trying to find out when test scores would be made public. In every instance, the support staff I spoke to would reply with "what test scores?" and claim that I was pretty much the first person to call their office asking about these scores. Ah bureaucracy, how I have missed you this summer. And no, I haven't found out when the scores are hitting the schools or media yet.

Newly Formed South Valley Lakefront Properties

Our little hobby farmette in the South Valley has picked up, I'm guessing, almost 3 inches of rain in the past two nights. I saw a posting of just over an inch from the National Weather Service from our Monday night rains. I haven't seen such a post from last night's absolute deluge, but the little "total precipitation" radar view had us squarely in the 1.0-1.5 area, and I'm guessing we were at the high point of that.

As a result, the very occasional body of water we pompously refer to as "Lake EsterKey" is at its highest point in the eight years we've lived down here. You might have seen news reports of mighty mud rivers sweeping cars off Rio Bravo at Broadway. And much of the rather ill-engineered wall o' dirt at University and Rio Bravo is now directly on the road surface at University and Rio Bravo.

Nothing so dramatic here, but our horses and goats have been equipped with SCUBA equipment and flippers nonetheless. Our glorified lawn tractor and manure spreader sits marooned on a distant island, much too far away to do any stall mucking today. Pity.

In a few weeks all this monsoon stuff will be forgotten and Lake EsterKey will be like those throaty toads resoundingly heard throughout the neighborhood last night, hidden once again. But last night was alot of fun, for the toads especially I'm guessing, and who knows, we South Valleyites (ians?....icitos?...anders?) might again win the monsoonal thunderstorm lottery again tonight and things down here could get really interesting.

As in rejoining the Gulf of Mexico, really old school sea bed and all.

Burque Babble Calls Heather Wilson "Frighteningly Irrelevant"

"Heather Calls Obama "Frighteningly Inexperienced"-- Bruce Daniels, ABQJournal.com 7/22/08

Really, soon-to-be-former Representative Wilson? Hmm...what sort of fun can we have with this word in regards to our very own Lame Duck Congressperson?


How about:

"Heather Wilson: Frighteningly Doomed to B-List Fox News Analyst Hell"?

Or...

"Heather Wilson: Frighteningly Tied to NippleGate For the Rest of Recorded Time"?

Perhaps....

"Heather Wilson: Frighteningly Reminds Burque Babble of Patricia Madrid, Which Is Just Damn Frightening"?

Fun word.

Texas, Somebody Else's Texas

City Limit Sign, Moran, Texas 7/21/08

Upon arrival at the Texas/New Mexico border east of Roswell I solemnly declared yesterday that I will NEVER go to Texas again, burying very close relatives excepted.

Extremely close. Cousins, uncles and such...not gonna happen.

It's not all the State's fault, and it's not really the fault of all the people in the State. More like a culmination of things the description/analysis of which would be neither interesting or insightful.

Texas sucks. And as a resident of the place for 26 years I feel both perfectly free to make such an assessment and a little sad about it. But there ya go.

Again, I won't get into the boring particulars like heat, humidity and a steamy tropical forest of evangelical oppressiveness. No, that would be a waste of everybody's time.

Just a couple of parting movie house photos to hang on the blog wall and glance at from time to time as a way of remembering a Lone Star State that ain't all bad.

Real movie house and downtown environs, Eastland, Texas, 7/21/08

Fake movie house used as set for "The Last Picture Show",
Archer City, Texas 7/18/08

Happy Trails, Texas. Happy Trails.

My Brush With Banking Deregulation Infamy

Hey, look at me! I'm indirectly famous by virtue of being a bonafide IndyMac Bank customer! No, I'm not making that up!

I come back from Seattle and find out that the Feds took over my mortgage, and I'm a bit pissed that Greta Van Susteren or Anderson Cooper hasn't called me up for an interview or something. No, I have nowhere near $100,000 in an IndyMac bank (or to my name, for that matter), and I wasn't in one of those long lines on TV demanding my money.

I guess when you have a mortgage at a failed bank you don't go stand in line and demand the bank take your monthly mortgage payment. Instead, you get this irrational scenario in which you NEVER have to pay your mortgage now because the bank is out of business.

Unfortunately, that irrational thought has not proven to be true, AND Anderson Cooper hasn't even tried to interview me yet. Kind of a non-event, so far, from this angle.

And yes, I am a little envious of those ultra pissed-off people shown on TV waiting in long lines outside an IndyMac branch, but it's mainly because many of them have over $100,000 at a bank, whereas I'm lucky if my average balance gets over $250. What with my mortgage payments and all.

From the look of things, it appears many others may be joining me as members of failed financial institutions. But, for now, I have a level of vague celebrity (in my mind) I will cherish for as long as possible before Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the whole home lending market collapses into a large, steaming pile of 1932 all over again.

But I will have been among the first, and nobody can take that away from me. I'm still ready for that TV interview, by the way, just give me a call Anderson, Greta, Keith Olberman. Hell, I'll take Matt Lauer at this point. Like a flood victim along the Mississippi, this fame thing can't last forever.

Find the Cost of Freedom, Buried in Our Ears and Groundwater

So I'm sitting here trying to listen to this fairly early (i.e., not so mad yet) Beethoven Septet on KUSC online, when the "Sound of Freedom" once again drowns out Beethoven, birds singing out my window, my wife asking where all the coffee went this morning, and everything else sonic.

And, as always happens when I hear the "Sound of Freedom", two questions spring to mind:

1. Do we really need all these military jets in a world where the U.S. invasion of a country takes about 30 minutes, but the ground force, door-to-door guerilla war takes years and years and years and years?
2. How much does flying these military jets in neat, yet deafening, formations cost?

I read that the U.S. Military is responsible for around two percent of U.S. oil usage, which may not sound like much but you need to remember this is the gas-guzzling United States we're talking about. The 132.5 million barrels of U.S. military usage estimated in 2007 dwarfs the oil consumption of entire countries like Israel and Ireland.

Yeah, I know those countries are small. But if my division is right, the U.S.Military would place just above Sweden and below good 'ol Iraq on this graph.

The "Sound of Freedom" is the Sound of Money Hemorrhaging at something like $4.25 a gallon for jet fuel.

And speaking of hemorrhaging, I also read this morning that jet fuel at Kirtland AFB is contaminating the groundwater table and has been for some time.

And, I'm not making this up, my online music (now a Segovia guitar piece) just got drowned out again by the Sound of Military Days Gone By. Vroom-vroom taxpayer dollars. Vroom-vroom.

New Yorker Cover Proves Lazy Extraterrestrials Live Amongst Us

This just in: I'm a lazy bastard.

After a week's vacation up Northwest, I have returned to some thigh-high weeds (pictured above), a novel thigh-high in its own weed-like thorniness, and about ninety-eleven chores that need to be done before I head out of town again to the long-avoided South (it's a Summer of revisiting past lives, perhaps more about that later).

Yet, despite all this that needs to be done, especially those weeds, all I can do is fixate on the response to this New Yorker cover:



By this time, having, in my extreme laziness, slept in well past 8:00, we're probably up to at least one million blogposts and 73 million comments about the above cover. Yet, I can't help wasting my lazy bastard time perusing the never-ending "Outrage!" from Daily Kos folks about this thing. And, worse yet, insipidly adding to those 1 million plus blogposts myself.

I can't tell what's funnier, the cover or the "Outrage!".

I tend to spend far too many important lazy bastard hours reading Daily Kos, often in the same way irritating drivers slow down to see if there are any bloody bodies thrown from vehicles crashed along the Interstate. I can't remember a thread getting 2400 comments in quite some time, "Breaking: Impeachment!" and "Developing: Bush/Cheney Sucks!" included.

I find some threads on Daily Kos informative, others comforting in that "oh, these strange people actually agree with my me on something" sort of way. Then there are threads such as "Outrage!" that reaffirm the fact that I am an alien from another planet who cannot really join the human race because, after all, I'm an alien (but not in that Scientology crazy Thetan level digested alien sort of way) and am missing important chromosomes or a certain arrangement of genes necessary to be classified as homo sapiens.

And that just makes the "Outrage!" even funnier.


Here's that cover again:


Don't worry, I won't ruin it through dissection. It's just damn funny. Life-affirming (for an alien) funny. Perhaps there are other (non-Scientology) aliens among us who, like me, love the Hell out of Barack Obama (FISA vote notwithstanding) and cannot look at this cover without getting a big-ass smile on their pointy, triangularly-shaped alien face.

Klattu barata nikto baby!

Now if I just had me some space-age, extraterrestrial weed-killer that wasn't bad for Planet Earth. Must not have packed that when I left my home on Planet Satire. Oh well, maybe I should finish this 15th cup of coffee and look at a few hundred more posts of "Outrage!" instead.

Back Within Seattle's Overloving, Sinister Arms

Lake Union, the ubiquitous crane, and
a quickly reducing number of seafood-related
warehouses from the 11th floor of the Pan Pacific Hotel

--9th and Terry Ave., Seattle, Washington

I had pretty much decided not to post anything from here, but ran across the 756,423rd Duke City Fix thread about "Flying Star", and couldn't help myself. Yeah, okay, I definitely could have helped myself.

Having lived here for a few years from the start of the boom in 1988 to the consumer packaging of "grunge" in 1993, I have been hesitant to return to Seattle and environs. And yes, part of the reluctance stems from the fact that the city holds some bad memories, including the fact that I was making like $16k a year in a city when, even back then, $16k a year was barely, barely subsistence level.

But another, bigger and perhaps more generally pertinent reason is that this town embraces much of what Albuquerque is not, especially in areas I am passionate about. Mass transit, self-sustaining identifiable neighborhoods, greenery, water. Coming here is philosophically like scratching really hard on an old scab, hard enough to get past the simple pleasure of the scratch and entering that pain/pleasure threshold as the wound starts to get bloody again.

In short, this city has too much of what I want, and that is scary. It is full of large-scale Microsoft/Starbucks mogul-funded projects (the new downtown Public Library, Benaroya Hall, etc.), a massive professional sports stadium(s) complex right next to downtown, and a pub on almost corner with eight quality micros on tap. It is areligious, not afraid of high taxes, and, at least in Summer, the perfect temperature.

So what's the problem? Why aren't I living here now? Why did I ever leave?

The problem, for me, is that Seattle and environs beckons like some sort of heaven to which permanent residence involves a hazy deal struck with an ultra-green, crunchy-liberal LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) deity you can't tell is God, Shiva, Satan or Bill Gates.

To further the weak analogies, this town is a Pandora's Box of social planning leftyism, the Las Vegas for people who hate everything about Las Vegas, the cool, temperature-perfect place the Sirens were trying to lead Ulysses toward (in his mind, if I were Ulysses, and who doesn't think they are Ulysses).

See, the place is already ruining me, throwing tons of lame literary references before me which I seem to have control over regurgitating. Seattle is a vile, gourmet coffee temptress, and I must leave its environmentally-friendly clutches pronto. I must run away from its scary combination of desirability, good civic taste and evergreen trees. Must....escape...evil.....mind-velvet......clutches.....

But not before going to today's Mariners game, having dim sum in the International District, drinking a post-game beer in Pioneer Square and taking public transit back uptown to look at the sailboats filling up Lake Union.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll find a restaurant tonight as good as "Flying Star". Man, this place makes me even more incorrigible than my usual high, unseemly standard of incorrigible. Utterly insufferable.

Will the Last Newspaper Dying Please Turn Off the Lights (of truth/beauty/etc.)?

Some people show data and statistics to advocate for something, which we, as readers, immediately distrust because we know all about lies, damn lies, statistics, etc.

Some folks think that because one has a "blog", a "blogger" (I still prefer using "jenga!", personally) is against print newspapers and has joined some sort of jihad against print journalism.

Combining the two points above, some might get the impression upon seeing the stock market figures below that I, a so-called "jengaist!", am happy that newspapers are circling the drain at a high, increasingly smaller circle rate.

I'm not happy about it. It's just there (prices from Bloomberg at blog post time 7/3):

McClatchy
Price: 5.46
Daily Change: -.039
% Daily Change: -6.667%
52-week high: 28.73
52-week low: 5.45
1-year return: -76.826%

Gannett
Price: 19.59
Daily Change: -.240
% Daily Change: -1.21%
52-week high: 55.27
52-week low: 19.32
1-year return: -62.477%

E.W. Scripps
Price: 2.91
Daily Change: -.050
% Daily Change: -1.69%
52-week high: 3.78
52-week low: 2.70
1-year return: -15.856%

Note that Scripps' 16% drop in price over the last 52 weeks is smaller simply because they have been tanking for a longer time.

Brutal. And no, I'm not happy about it. But have a Happy Fourth, anyway...even if you're not a fireworks fan (or really a fan of tribalistic "the country in which I happen to live is better than your country by virtue of my having residence in this country" crap).

Has Senator Bingaman Gotten His Civil Liberties Groove Back?

If you're like me, your response to the words "Senator Jeff Bingaman" are usually: "meh". Although I'll admit I've never actually said the word "meh", that's just seems to be the latest agreed upon version of what was until recently "whatever".

Bingaman, "meh".

I know from the "liberal" perspective Bingaman has been better than chopped liver (i.e., Domenici), but rarely exciting and sometimes simply frustrating. True to this, it appeared Sen. Bingaman was going to go along with the FISA "compromise" murkily making its way through Congress last week.

Now comes news (well, it's actually been around for a few days, but I'm just now starting to really understand it) that Senator Bingaman has an amendment to the FISA legislation that would address one (of many) problem(s) with it, namely the idea of "retroactive telecom immunity" for all the blatantly unconstitutional things the Bush Administration asked of and was slavishly granted in years past regarding phone records.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) puts it:

EFF has signed an open letter in support of the Bingaman Amendment [PDF] along with the ACLU and eleven other civil liberties organizations, and urges all members of the Senate who care about civil liberties and the rule of law to champion it. The amendment wouldn't cure all of the problems with the bill, and is no replacement for a strong no vote on final passage, but at this moment it looks to be the last best shot at saving the litigation against the telcos from an early death.

To which I say, "right on" (early 1970s "Sesame Street" usage variation). Good on Senator Bingaman even if:

1. The co-sponsors of this amendment include Sen. Arlen Specter. Shudder...shudder. Man, the things you gotta do to get things done in the U.S. Senate. Creepy.
2. The FISA legislation is SO complicated that I'm still not sure this is the way to go here, and I'm not so terribly sure if the "cool" Senators (Feingold, especially) know how to best handle the situation either.
   
3. We're all really, when it gets down to it, waiting for the electoral process to put a gigantic microfiber pillow down on the Bush Administration's aged, Constitution-bashing head and asphyxiate the pernicious bastard. 201 days to go!!!!
4. The Bingaman amendment and much of the post-Bush constitutional cleanup will involve audits by entities like "Inspector General", which will really suck if this is the Department of Justice "Inspector General" because BushCo has so poisoned agencies like DOJ that getting traction on silly things like "The Constitution" ain't gonna be happening for at least a decade.
   

Still, "right on" Senator Bingaman, and I take back some of the bad things and "meh" (see point above) that I've said/thought about you over the years. Now about that offshore drilling....