FOOT Fetishing
I'm. So. Psyched. For. FOOT.

My co-leader Alexander finally arrived last night. He's going to be great! We've done a little bit of planning this morning and will go out to eat together tonight to bond before the arrival of the froshstorm.

I facebook searched all my FOOTies online. They sound really cool, seriously. I think I'm in love with them as a collective. Two are in D-port. I can't pick favorites...that's the hard part.

Our route is very nice. It's moderately hard - we summit two peaks including Bear Mountain, the highest in CT, but we hardly do any hiking the first day at all. Unfortunately, we have to hike down a steep and confusing trail in the dark on the last morning to make it to our bus pickup on time. Supposedly we have some very nice views and waterfalls.

Six day trips are arriving today. The chaos begins...praying for dry weather.

The annual I Love Yale/FOOT/New Haven entry
I love Yale!

I love FOOT!

I love New Haven!

Note to self: read this again in December. Laugh bitterly.


But seriously. I forgot how green it gets here! The weather is great; though rain is coming, it's scheduled to miss the two arrival days of the freshmen. Which I can't wait for!!!! All the preparation has been pretty fun, too. These people are just awesome, and I have my own little room in Bingham with a beautiful windowsill to sit in. I am so psyched for the trip and meeting all the frosh! I'm also dying to start classes. I looked at my textbooks in the store and want them now.

I'm so glad I'm here. So so so glad...

No! Not Peru!!!
Rumsfeld's smuggled his dirty little self into my beloved Peru, which I believed safe from all things Bushist, says the NYT.

I'm sure his face was in their newspaper, besmirching its once pure pages. Oh woe.

I still want a Prius...
Apparently, it is possible to modify these cars yourself, adding enough battery power to hit 250 mpg. That's just plain brilliant. I'd probably have to go to a gas station about four times a year.
Read more about it here.

The Must-Read Op-Ed of the Month
Forget your summer reading for English class, kids. Frank Rich's piece in today's NYT should be required reading for all Americans. I give you the last two paragraphs:

WHAT lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central.

Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.

The Curse of the Moral High Ground
The worst thing about being on the morally responsible side of the culture wars is that while you operate within certain ethical constraints, your opponents will stop at nothing to win. For all the smear campaigns the Bushocons have put on over the past ten years -- with considerable success -- there was always some satisfaction in knowing that at least the Democrats, for all their failings, never stooped to such shameless lows.

Unfortunately, sometimes the temptation to resort to enemy tactics is too strong, as the gorup NARAL Pro-Choice America found out. In a TV ad, the group tried to portray John Roberts as a supporter of violent pro-life protesters, such as those that blew up an abortion clinic in 1998. However, it was later pointed out that this "support" was a Supreme Court brief that Roberts wrote in 1991, way before the attack. The brief actually limited the federal help available to abortion clinic owners seeking to stop blockades by protesters. Not nice, certainly, but not exactly advocating violence, either. The god of humor Jon Stewart put in best: if you bought the Thriller album in 1983, you're supporting child molestation.

I'd like to see as many anti-Roberts ads out there as can be genreated , providing they're true.

My Favorite Americans, Part II
From Reuters:

A U.S. Air Force colonel has been charged with painting obscenities on parked cars bearing pro-President Bush bumper stickers, police said on Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, who supervises 41 full-time and part-time reservists at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, Colo., is suspected of vandalizing 12 cars at Denver International Airport over a six-month period...

"Lieutenant Colonel Fecteau has been charged with one count of felony mischief and six misdemeanor counts related to the vandalism," Jackson said.
...

Police set up a bait car with a pro-Bush bumper sticker, parked it at the airport with a surveillance camera, and waited. On July 1, the camera recorded a man spray-painting over the bumper sticker with an expletive.

The full story can be read here.

My Favorite Americans, Part I
Cindy Sheehan is great. Along with , the co-founder of Gold Star Mothers For Peace has been camping out in Crawford, TX since Saturday and spoiling the President's 50th vacation. She won't leave until Bush comes out to explain to her why her son had to die in Iraq. A large number of supporters have joined her. If you're interested in supporting her either in Crawford or from afar, check out www.meetwithcindy.org

The sad thing is that, as noble as she might be, she wouldn't be out there right now if her son had not been killed. Sometimes that's what it takes. I wonder how many more have to die for our whole country to wake up?

The Global Struggle Against Obervationally-Based Notions (or, The War On Science)
Bush signed the Honestly-Why-Bother Energy Bill today, completely consistent wiht his nonchalance re: global warming and his recent comments on the value of teaching Intelligent Design theory alongside evolution. Please tell me what is wrong with this man...and all the people that work for him...and 40 percent of the country.

By contrast, BBC Online has a huge, multi-feature section on environment and climate change, which is much more comprehensive, glamourous and visible than anything in American papers. Included in this are interviews with eight teens from Japan, Canada, Kenya, India, Ecuador, the US and the UK, who contribute their ideas for a improving the planet. This might well be the Big Issue our generation faces, and it's heartening to see young minds at work on solutions. If only people listened to kids...

Trailhobbit's Wish List
Dear Santa,

Since I am uncertain just how wired the North Pole is, I don't know if you are among the readership of my Rambling Blog. However, if you do read this, please take note:


Yes, I'm quite aware that it is August, but hear me out. Ordinary folks have to order these from Toyota several months in advance. It is possible that in your case they might make a special exception, but these days you never know.

Thanks lots!

-T.

PS: Is your sled a hybrid? You might want to try to maximize your reindeer milage. Reindeer are a non-renewable resource, ad they're in trouble because the Bush brigade will be drilling in their refuge pretty soon.

PPS: Could you put an extra piece of coal in Novak's stocking for me? What about explosives?

Peace.