Our kind federal government is going to give you back $600, hell, maybe even more. And they want you to go go out and spend it. Go on. Spend it on something that makes you feel real good. I till kick the economy into high gear.

Me, I've got my eye on an All Clad dutch oven, costs about $500 new. It'll be great for all that nutritious food I'm cooking at home now that I've read the "Omnivores Dilemma." It will make my my organic chickens taste more organic; my braised grass-fed beef taste more grass fed. It will help jumpstart the economy. What a great way to contribute, because I really want this pot. I really do. The reviews say it cooks like no other. It's magic.

And I really want to help. I wanna feel good about being American again. So why do I feel empty when I think about being American? Why do I feel like a piece of shit? Why do I want to use that pot to cook my sorrows away? How come, if I want to make America better, all that's being asked of me is to  spend?

We've all heard it; the Republican's without Responsibility ™ chatter, "fear fear afraid fear fear terrorist fear fear. . ."

Yesterday, that chatter, combined with showing some documents that can't be discussed with us because they're "classified," resulted in our Senators and Representatives taking another whak at The US Constitution

I learned to view the US Senate and House of Representatives as serious offices where serious debate took place; where intelligent men (and more recently, intelligent women) pondered the problems that faced our nation are carefully took steps to address those problems. Those steps included research, debate, and conversations with their constituents.

But it wasn't until yesterday that I realized gullibility, not intelligence, is the key to legislative action. More below the fold.

No, I'm not talking about Kos's idea of Libertarinsism; I'm talking about the Libertarian Party Seems they've jumped on the pork-smashing bandwagon as the way to gear up for 08.

Below the fold is an email I got from them. It's the first email I've received from them. I don't know how I got on their list (and I'd really like to know that, I'm pretty careful with the email address this was sent to. Since it came, I thought I'd put it to good use and post it here for the record.

After watching the Republican efforts to fund third party candidates during the last election cycle, I think we should be paying attention to the Libertarians and to where they're getting their support. We may be looking at the politics of "divide and conquer" to minimize Democratic victories in '08. Remember who we're in a politica war with -- a party that could envision a permenant Republican majority. They will assume Dems have the same goal, and act accordingly.

I'm sick of us. We complain, we whine. We want a withdrawal. We want representative government.

But we're cowed.

We won't pick up the freakin' phone and dial our Senator's number, "it won't matter. It's never mattered before," we think.

And I'm here to tell you, if that's you I'm describing, you're no better then the fox-watching voters who pulled the lever for Bush in 2000 & 2004. You've abandoned your responsibility as a citizen.

Iraq War Author's Forum On c-span now.

Amazing stuff, will pull this down in a few minutes, just wanted folks able to to tune in.

Water's asking if invasion of iraq was a neo-con plot from before bush's election.

I love Countdown. Don't need to explain the love here, to the choir.

But I switch channels when it gets to the celebrity news. So I just suggested a format change, and I'm hoping others here will echo the change: Dropping the celebrity news for the three top stories you won't hear in the MSM.

Update 2: The title is based on a news story, not on Fitzpatrick's fingerpointing at dKos. As I say in the story, the dKos reference tracks back to Murphy and MYDD. That does not change the import of this -- another threat to limit access to "social networking technology" under the guise of protecting children. I'm a recovering journalist. Long ago, I set up a google alert on Daily Kos while writing a story about Bill in Portland Maine for a Portland, Maine paper. Never bothered to disconnect it, it provided a pretty window to see how the world reacted to our good work here.

Yesterday, that google alert turned up something interesting: a story in the The Doylestown  Patriot on the race between the Republican incumbent, Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick and Dem Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania. Google picked the story up for me because of the following sentence:

Fitzpatrick recently introduced legislation to protect children from child predators on social networking sites such as Dailykos, Blogger and MySpace.

I miss Armando.

And I'm dissapointed with him; and every other poster defending the right to blog anonymously.

I'm also dissapointed in anyone who things it's okay to disclose private information.

But they are two distinct issues. The first is about net courtesy; in a world full of bots looking for personal information, posting private info is wrong.

But that doesn't mean that the right to post anonymously is sacred; in fact it makes it harder for us to effectively participate in public discourse.

Last night on "Countdown," Olbermann and his guest, Jonathan Alter, discussed the conventional wisdom: the US does not have enought troops to invade Iran. It's all talk; we've got to use diplomacy, they agreed. We don't have the manpower to invade. (updated with link to transcript.)

There's no doubt the military is strained; and while recruitment goals are occasionally met on a a month to month basis, according to US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers, it ain't easy:

In the annual "Military Risk Assessment and Threat Mitigation Plan," Myers reportedly stated that the level of deployed troops meant that future wars could not be carried out as quickly and with as few American casualties as the Pentagon has planned. The assessment itself is classified, but several American newspapers reported on the findings through leaks from top military officials.

A senior Defense Department official quoted in the Los Angeles Times said, "The assessment is that we would succeed [in future wars], but there would be higher casualties and more collateral damage. We would have to win uglier."

This morning, I was disgusted at some of the comments about immigration on this front page post. Late afternoon found me cooking dinner, or supah as we'd say here in Maine,  wondering why it still disturbed me to hear so many people wanting to deport people who have obviously broken our laws.

As I pondered immigration and snapped the tough ends of a bunch of beautiful asparagus, I began wondering who's hands had picked it. The asparagus was the embodiment of a spring that still hasn't got a grip here in the northeast corner of the US. I checked the two rubber bands that wrapped it, and sure enough, "product of California," was stamped on them. So there's a really good chance that an illegal immigrant from Mexico harvested my asparagus.

Thursday, I contacted each of my Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, to ask them not to support renewal of the Patriot act. As I recall,  I said it was against the spirit and wishes of the People who live in Maine, where we value our freedom. In Snowe's, I compared it the McCarthyism, though I did not use that term, trying to be more subtle and create less hostility.

And it was an eye-opening lesson on how difficult it can be to make your voice heard in the halls of political power in this country.

I have not heard back from Susan Collins office yet. I received an email from Snowe's office yesterday, after she voted for cloture, voted in support of the Act, and I wanted to share it and my thoughts on it with you, after the fold.

I received a Christmas card today, not unusual for this time of year. But this card made me cry. It's from my counsin's daughter. She's serving her country in Iraq -- her ticket to higher education.

Bobbie Blue, her family nick name, sent me a poem. It's a Christmas greeting that made me cry.

It's below the fold.

It's clear that a verifiable, auditable voting trail for all US elections is crucial. It's equally clear that Kossacks have already decided it's one of their primary goals for the next two years.

This morning, a freind sent me the following link to verified voting, an organiztion working toward that very end.

And, joy of joys, the software used for this tracking project is open source. Here's a post on sourceforge

We already know he's an addict who abused alcohol.

But I wonder if he's an abuser in the sense of domestic abuse, which, at its core, is about self control.

This is from a domesetic violence website called New Beginnings

They say Bush is ahead in the polls. But the GOTV effort this year clearly favors the Dems, and it's equally clear that the GOP is laying the groundwork to challenge new voters in swing states. In Iowa, there's a battle shaping up over absentee ballots. Sec. of State Chet Culver (D) has sent out absentee-ballot requests to all Iowans, no matter thier party. Democrats have requested to vote absentia 3 to 1 over Republicans.

The Des Moines Register has a story this morning that lays the groundwork being done by the GOP. Buried in the story is this update on handleing absentee ballots, I put it first because it demonstrates how craven the GOP smear campaign is:

President George W. Bush is not a true conservative. If you have any doubts, just take a peek at American Conservative. He's made a number of strategic decisions during his reign-on-terror that may cost him dearly on Nov. 2. It's certainly cost him the support of many of the writers for this right-wing magazine.

Brace yourselves, some conservative voices to ponder below the break.

They're at it again. Whether it's discouraging voters from registering, frightening newly-registered voters with investigations that might discourage them from going to the polls, or news stories that make people think they might be investigated if the register, it's now open season on unregistered and unlikely voters.

Two things to remember here: if you're volunteering to register voters, it only takes one bad apple to spoil everyone's efforts. Keep it clean.

And if you see a fear-mongering story like those below, speak out. Write a letter, do something, to make sure every eligible voter in your community has the right and the ability to help decide this election.

CBS has been flooded with emails about Dan Rather and the TANG memos according to the Toronto Star.