I really hate to say "I told you so"...

But all those people I've been writing to for years who have replied (when they've replied) that off-shore drilling is safe and necessary and that there would probably never be a spill or accident because the oil companies know what they're doing??? I told you so! I told you that yeah, they know what they're doing like the Captain of the Titanic, and it's too dangerous to keep temping fate this way.

Now we've got a gusher going at a rate of at least 200,000 gallons per day with a slick currently covering the approximate area of Puerto Rico (3,500 square miles+). The shrimp and oyster industry in LA and MS is completely ruined for probably the next few years, just as it was finally recovering from Katrina and in this economy. BP is saying it will continue spilling for at least another 8 days before they have any hope of stemming the flow with - get this - a dome that they're going to put over the site of the busted pipe (which, personally, I can't imagine will actually work), and another 3 months before they have a "relief well" drilled to divert the oil to another rig. We're screwed. And God help us if the oil gets into the Gulf Stream. Seriously, God help us because no one else will be able to at that point. Good job, BP.

I also think it's hilarious in a completely not funny way that our governor, who until recently has been a Republican, was against off-shore drilling (because most of the state is against it) until he was elected, then he was for it because it was popular in the Republican party, and now that he's an Independent because that's his only hope of being elected to the Senate, and this has happened, he's against it again.

I'm not particularly pleased with Obama on this issue either because he's been trying the impossible to do task of placating the Republicans to try to get them on his side way too much on these energy issues, saying coal, nuclear and drilling for oil is largely okay. The Republicans will oppose him, whatever he does, unless he becomes one of them and does exactly what the party line is. And even then they might oppose him just on principle. Best to tell them what Bush told the Dems all these years: my way or the highway. Because I do not agree with trying to placate people whose main motivation is money and power for themselves and their backers and the status quo because it preserves the other two. At all. I think it's all disasters just waiting to happen. And since the worst that can happen with a wind mill is a bird can fly into the propellers and get chopped into little birdy bits, I'm thinking that - despite the fuming of traditional energy corporations and the cost to set green methods up - it is the way to go. Seriously.

Wow!

Fillings went fine.

I was linked to this today by a friend. It is an impressive rant calling the Republicans on their hypocrisy and corruption. It's awesome! Usually something this vehement would get me all stirred up and pissed off at the Republicans too, but this time that didn't happen. I'm just a bit blown away...

In unrelated news, I saw "Inglorious Basterds" last weekend. Meant to mention that before. I liked it okay... Wasn't the greatest movie ever, but wasn't the worst either and it had some good moments. I thought all the actors, with the possible exception of Mike Myers (while I generally love him, all I could think of during his scene was his SNL sketches and other goofy movies... I suspect it was the make-up they had on him), did an amazing job. The movie did pique my interest in learning a bit more about the Nazi higher-ups. Got as far as the people who were in the bunker at the end before I was just too disgusted to go further. Sick, sick people. Like we didn't know that. I think looking at these people as human beings makes them all the more monstrous and horrible rather than looking at them in more abstracted ways, as many movies do.

(Pardon my language below. It couldn't be avoided.) Did not know this: Hitler probably carried on some kind of highly inappropriate relationship with his niece Geli for a number of years, beginning in her teens, which ended with her suicide at the age of 23. He started seeing Ava Braun socially when she was only 17, and she tried to kill herself twice at 20 and 23 respectively for reasons that are unknown to history, but possibly the attempts were staged to manipulate Hitler, who was still reeling from Geli's death when she made her first attempt. When Adolf and Ava finally did kill themselves, Ava was only 33... Hitler also had his German Shepherd, her four puppies (less than a month old) and Ava's two Scottie dogs killed the night before Ava and he committed suicide. This seriously bums me out. It wasn't the dogs' fault who owned them... and... and... puppies! Hitler also saw another German movie actress who killed herself, or was murdered by Gestapo (it was never clear apparently), when she was 31. So, on top of being a mass-murdering fuckhead, a racist and bigot to the nth degree, a megalomaniac, and head of the original fucking Nazis (and I'm sure I'm leaving out a number of horrible things that he was here, but for the sake of brevity, let's just leave it at that), he also very likely was an incestuous pedo, who killed his own dogs and drove women to suicide. Just when you think Adolf Hitler couldn't get more fucked up as a person, he does. Seriously, NO ONE should EVER be compared to this guy.

Because I needed another reason to hate Smithfield Foods...

So now they're probably in some part responsible for the swine flu pandemic. Nice one, guys.

I actively boycott Smithfield Foods products and all subsidiaries (and Paula Deen too... She's their celebrity spokesperson)... not that I ever bought all that much pork in any of its various forms, but now I'm quite conscientious about it.

For those who are unaware of Smithfield's dubious reputation,, check out this Rolling Stone article (be aware, there are graphic images) about the atrocious way they operate their facilities inside the US where there's supposed to be regulations to stop this flagrant corporate irresponsibility. God only knows what they do in other countries where health, safety and environmental laws (not to mention, laws for the humane treatment of animals) are not even up to our standards (which are obviously too low if Smithfield gets away with these things).

Smithfield refutes many of the claims made in this article (interestingly not my favorite part with the quotes from the guy who started the company about just how much he laughs at the EPA investigators)... However, it is interesting to note that due to at least one of the health concerns detailed in the Rolling Stone article - water contamination - North Carolina had enacted a moratorium on hog "concentrated animal feeding operations" (CAFO's or "factory farms") in 1997, which was extended repeatedly until 2007 when it was allowed to expire... Not that the moratorium was particularly effective. South Carolina, Virginia and Quebec have also passed moratoriums limiting CAFOs and the methods employed at such facilities, and I know that Florida has laws detailing the amount of room a pregnant sow is supposed to be allotted (so they can't be kept in crates barely large enough for them to breath in, forget about moving, as they had been until the referendum was passed). I honestly don't know what's being done about curtailing dirty hog farming in those states right now, but I'd be willing to venture the answer is "not enough."

*cough, cough*

Well, I feel as if I dropped off the face of the earth of late. I can't sit here too long, but I want to write something so I'll be brief.

I have the flu. I missed three days of work this week, but I should be able to go Monday. I'm getting better, but slowly. I also think I might have bursitis and/or tendinitis possibly in several location in my right hip (based on quite a lot of research this week while I've had little else to do). I went to the doctor last weekend about it, but the doctor wasn't in, so I had to see a NP. No offense to those out there who have taken that path in life, but NPs are and always have been utterly useless to me in private practice. They always tell me I have something I don't have and invariably misdiagnose me and then it has to be correctly diagnosed by the doctor at a later date. This time, it was no different. I won't go in to all of it because it makes me far too angry and I really want to scream at the woman what an idiot she is. Just one of the many things she did wrong, was that she gave me a prescription for the same GERD meds I've been taking over the counter that aren't working for me, but she didn't tell me that's what she had done because they have a different name by prescription. The only real difference is that they charge about 10 times as much for it. This after I explained to her what I had been taking and that it didn't work and I needed something else. Can we say, why do you have a job? I think we can. The NPs who work at CVS though, what gems they are. Always very knowledgable, polite and helpful. So as soon as I have a day free from working, I have to make an appointment with an actual doctor and go back to find out what's really wrong with my hip, as well as this stomach pain that my doctor has previously told me is scar tissue in my duodenum... Only problem is that the duodenum is higher up. The location is classic for the start of chronic appendicitis. I think I might have to demand some actual tests rather than just relying on his guesses. An ultrasound. Some blood tests. Something. Or maybe I should find a new doctor. That's a possibility too. *sighs*

As far as the flu goes, I'm mostly just coughing and sniffling now, but I don't want to get sick again so I'm taking it easy this weekend until I'm sure it's well and truly going away...

My hip is why I can't sit here for long. It hurts to sit at the computer. I don't know if it's the height of the desk, the chair or what, but I just can't do it. I also wonder if I originally hurt my hip by spinning too long and too vigorously. I wonder if others have had similar injury. Because the NP didn't believe me and looked at me like I was the stupidiest person ever to come in to her exam room. Hey, just because I don't get my repetitive motion injuries by typing, ballet dancing or running marathons, doesn't mean they aren't real, lady.

In other news, I have only the toe of the first of Jensen's socks to do. I'm waiting on pictures of his feet. ... Yeah, pictures of his feet. I want to know wheather he has particularly broad toes or not. I also got the handcards I ordered. Can't remember if I mentioned that or not. They're nice. I've been blending some of the alpaca Ilana sent me with some lambswool that wasn't carded to my liking and was difficult to spin on its own. It's fluffy and beautiful.

The garden is doing very well. With the flu, I haven't been able to be out in it at all since last Sunday, but it's doing all right. My dad's been watering for me, and that's really all it's needed. There's a lot that should be done, but nothing that absolutely must be done for at least another week, which should give me enough time to finish getting over this flu.

The new issue of MaryJane's Farm came in the mail today. It is beautious and filled with gardening stuff and recipes. *my eyes are all aglitter* Especially interesting to me is the article on people who are turning their front yards into vegetable gardens. What a fantastic idea that is for those who have soil in that location that will work for them. Us... all our good soil is in the back. Oh, sure, we could always amend the soil in the front to get it up to snuff too, and we are for the flower beds that are already established, but our front yard is the size of most people's back yards, so a full-scale effort there is not going to happen any time soon. Still, I had my friend Joe help me out today by putting down new top soil in one of the beds and planting it with the summer and winter squash seedlings that I never found room for out back. Now there are some of all varieties in both locations. :D

SOB!

God damn President Bush and his cronies to Hell for this, if such a place should exist... which I don't really believe it does, but I sincerely mean that for the love of all that's Holy. Something that makes them sorry for what they're doing needs to happen to them, and since Divine Retribution seems more likely than anything else, I must petition for that. Look at what he's doing now!!!! And what the EPA is letting him do!! Stupid useless tool of the Big Polluters that the EPA is... People who work at the EPA, who are in charge of rubber stamping this, you should be extremely ashamed of yourselves for your betrayal of your purpose, the American people, and your children. I'm sure you're not at all ashamed, but karma will remember you, I hope.

Why can't Bush just sit on his hands for his last weeks in office? Surely he knows how much the country and the world hate him and that something like this will not endear him to anyone except the coal companies??? But perhaps I've answered my own question and Bush has fat retirement plans to get to courtesy of some corrupt indulgence from the coal companies themselves, if he just makes sure that this gets through while he's the lamest duck to ever be lame, huh? Idiote! (Because I have to link to something that makes me laugh... This post is otherwise too infuriating.)

Tendinitis, terrible thunder storms, road rage, ruined yarn and still mostly a nice day...

Can't remember if i wrote on here or not... I'm afflicted with tendinitis at the moment, due to too much knitting too fast. really, it was only one day of too much too fast, over a week ago, and still, can't tempt it apparently. It was feeling better, so I forgot to wear my brace when i went out today, drove all afternoon and so now it's back again. and the brace is making capitalizations and typing in general rather hit or miss. but it doesn't hurt to type, since typing wasn't what caused the injury, the muscles and tendons don't move in quite the same way. Driving didn't either, but it hurts after doing a lot of it because i guess i hold my wrist at an odd angle while driving.

it's been horribly stormy all day and into the night. the roads are wet and visibility is questionable sometimes. so i was driving home from the citrus park area, turning right onto a road where you can't turn right on red because visibility to the left is obscured by the odd angle of the intersection, even on a good and bright day, let alone a rainy, totally dark night and there are two signs that say so, plain as day, one hanging next to the traffic signal and one right next to where the cars stop in the turn lane. So I'm waiting... waiting... and waiting some more for the green light. A white truck pulls up behind me, starts honking his horn after i don't move (cuz... uh... waiting, like the sign says to), and then some more, and then he just leans on it. Then the cars behind him start up. i don't know, maybe they didn't care it was a no-right-turn-on-red stop either, or they couldn't see the sign from where they were or they were honking at the asshole to stop his whinging. *sighs* Well, i went because i could actually see well enough to tell that the road was clear, because the guy was being so damn insistent and as i was speeding up to the speed limit, the white truck guy sped around and past me, after getting up on my bumper, honking his horn and flipping me the bird, and i could see the profile of his face, he was yelling at me. i know he couldn't see me because of the dark and the angle of the street lights, but i flipped it right back at him and told him to go fuck himself. i was pissed. I don't get pissed often, but when i do, watch the fuck out. i tried to speed up and catch him, but maria, my friend who was in the passenger seat, told me not to and to let him go, so i did. i didn't want to, but i did. i was hoping for a red light ahead of us so i could pull up right behind him and lean on my horn, danger be damned. he needed to feel my wrath. but alas, no. he sped off into the night, at what had to be about 55 or 60 mph (in a 45 zone), judging by how fast he was accelerating compared to me, weaving in and out between other cars, at night, with rain coming down and the roads slick. Him = Not Too Smart! no one needs to go somewhere that much, i don't care what. so, I'm hoping and praying karma kitty catches up with him and he either gets a fat ticket or wraps his truck around a tree for his rude and reckless behavior. something tells me he needs to be told by the universe to slow the fuck down and maybe a nice little accident will knock his head loose from his ass. who knows? the rest of us might get that lucky...

*sighs* so I came home and, in my idle rage, I looked up some hoodoo curses. There's nothing i can possibly do that wouldn't possibly kill him, since I don't have anything personal of his to make him sick... Pretty my only curse option would be to bury an effigy meant to represent him in a graveyard, and if it worked, he'd die in a karmicly appropriate sort of way. and that, now that I've calmed down, seems a bit extreme. No joke...

... But! i did finally remember to link this HooDoo website I've found quite useful for answering questions about Supernatural in the right hand column. Fascinating stuff, that... I think it's very interesting that, unlike other similar belief systems where magic and spellwork is a major part of it, cursing with malicious intent seems to be a recognized and not-at-all-discouraged part of hoodoo... in fact, it seems to be a rather large component. And the negativity doesn't get reflected back onto the person who works such curses... The curses seem to be regarded as fully deserved by those who are cursed. Hoodoo seems rather unique in this respect. Perhaps the system works this way to give individuals that feel they've been wronged activities to perform in order to have their grievances redressed, to channel their rage constructively without resorting to actual violent action, but at the same time acknowedging that they have every right to be angry and want revenge... I don't know... random, spontaneous thoughts...

Also, at the moment I want to get some witch bottles for my windows, just because... I'm curious though if I'm supposed to put anything in them if i just put them in the windows. it only says what to put in them if they are to by buried under a threshold. i guess they're kinda like dream catchers, in that they capture non-corporeal things that might want to do harm, but they're glass and sparkly instead of made of string and pretty woven things...

So when i got home (and part of why by the time i got on the computer i was still pissed enough to look up curses), i found all my good yarn that had been in closed bags on what i thought was (and up til now had proven to be) an inaccessible shelf pulled down and ripped apart and wound all around the living room by the cats. I'm mean, really, this had all been up there for an entire year and none of the cats even attempted to get to the shelf before because it's at a very odd angle from all the places they could jump. But tonight, at least one of them got adventurous. Probably Amaya. :/ Not cool, man! So I had to clean all that up. The good news is that only two balls are now ruined to the point where i can't use them for what they had been intended. unfortunately they were two that i really needed and will be rather costly to replace (well, really any of them would be somewhat costly to replace). so I'm thinking of not replacing them and using/doing something else. i was lucky that the two balls of Kidsilk Haze survived, as well as the one Cotton Wool and one Felted Tweed were mostly undamaged. even so, the Calmer, which was intended for Susan's Christmas present, and the Summer Tweed, which had been intended to finish Zinzi's long over-due Dashing mitts, are broken up with huge sections shredded or the fibers are so weakened by cat teeth that they just can't be used. *sighs* so frustrating. so i don't know what I'll do about the calmer yet, but i came across an interesting pattern last week that i think i might be able to do for zinzi's mitts and they'll work out even better than the previous idea. Maybe with Andean Silk, Main Line, or Shine Worsted. I'm leaning more toward the Shine Worsted because it's a cotton-blend... because I'm afraid of triggering an allergic reactions for her with some of the animal-derived fibers (it's why i picked the summer tweed, which is cotton-silk, in the first place). Just in case. Obviously, I've been thinking about this... So perhaps the incident with the cats was a fortunate accident. So, Miss Zinzi, if you're reading this, what colors would you prefer? Purples still your cup o' tea? If so, then perhaps the Crocus, Wisteria or Bachelor Buttons of the Shine Worsted yarn? If not, then please, what colors are you feeling for your mitts?

Overall, however, today was a good day. Went out with Maria and Laura for pizza, then to the bookstore for studying for GRE/GKT/State Department tests respectively... got some of that done (*shifty eyes*), checked out magazines, and then got more pizza at Mellow Mushroom for dinner... Today was a pizza kind of day. Veggie pizza. *nods sagely*