And?

Head's fucked as always, but I think I'll set out with a camera and see what happens.

Later. Mid-afternoon now after a walk down the way along the lake looking for another bird image for tomorrow. Many of them will mug for food and sometimes they confuse a man with a camera with the grocery delivery guy. No luck. A bus ride downtown, a BART ride to Rockridge, a walk to the local book store that has a big discount calendar blow out sale at the beginning of every year, back on BART with a calendar, back on the bus, back home now with the head no better, the head no worse, the sun streaming in through the balcony window listening to NPR on the radio. Maybe I'll vacuum the living room. Odd, but having all that stuff scattered around the living room for so long it got very little traffic and the rugs with a little cleaning actually look pretty good.

Lake to bus to BART to store to BART to bus to rugs. This doesn't worry you? Brain on lame?

Nah, most of us do very well with empty heads. The trick is to keep yourself interested and not worry what you may be interested in. If it's rugs one minute, then that's a good minute. It's the cheap whiskey that gives me pause. Well, lets me more accurate: it's too much cheap whiskey that gives me pause. There are many others, most of them more or less obvious.

The amendment to the FISA law passed today in the Senate giving the telephone companies retroactive immunity for breaking the law by allowing the administration to tap every one of their phones (here, there or anywhere) without a FISA warrant (without supervision by the courts or Congress). The House version of the bill doesn't include amnesty, so there's still a reconciliation required before it can be finalized and signed into law.

I remember the FISA law itself when it was passed after the abuses discovered in Watergate where it specifically made it a crime for a phone company to turn over phone calls, email and the like to the government without a warrant (which the FISA court passed out like popcorn before or after they were asked making me wonder why the administration is so frightened they might have to tell us about it), so we're back to where we were in the breaking and entering days of the Nixon administration.

One of my senators (Feinstein) voted with the Republicans. Depressing. We're one step closer to never knowing what Bush and his boys have been up to, what has them so upset with the idea that Congress and the FISA court might learn who they've been watching. I wonder if their illegal program came up with something they've been able to threaten Feinstein with about her husband? He does big time business with the government. One day in the future there'll be another post Watergate-like Church commission and everyone will shake their collective heads and go tsk! tsk! tsk! over the abuses they've discovered that are going on right now.

Bitter old man.

Well, it gives me something in my old age to get excited about. But I digress (again). It's three in the afternoon, the News Hour is on television, there's a set of primaries today that the news people will discuss into dust: all of these things give me pleasure. Will I vacuum the living room rugs? Sure. Takes but a minute. Will I maybe, if not do laundry, then change the sheets? Maybe. Change the sheets. Today. Tomorrow.