And now random thoughts...

• Don't think the Dems have everything going for them. The Supreme Court still has the Republican majority as shown in their latest decision to uphold regulation of TV, straight down party lines. Repubs 5, Dems 4 - Personally we spend way too much time censoring boobs and f-words...and not enough time censoring gun battles, blood and violence. But it's good to know the checks and balances of our 3-tier governmental system is finally working again. (hint: the past 8 years, each tier has been held by a republican majority, basically eradicating any checks and balances our system desperately needs)
• Let's keep it in perspective people: The "regular" flu kills on average 36,000 Americans each year. What's the "swine flu" at? 5? If you are not super old or super young, you'll be fine. Another reason I don't want to arm people in this country unless they prove they aren't panicky and nutty like these "wine"-flu-nut jobbers.
• This stuff's been on my mind lately:
  "Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. President.Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives
  "The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this." Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921
  Mark Twain, Letter to the Alta Californian newspaper, May 28, 1867: "Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it, or even diminish it."
  Harry Anslinger got Congress to make marijuana illegal. Anslinger, who as America's first drug "czar" marched into minority communities much as other "leaders" were doing in Europe at the same time, testified before Congress: "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others." While other racist gunmen of 1937 such as Hitler and Mussolini, along with their political legacies, have been rejected and buried, the legacy of Harry Anslinger lives on as official U.S. government policy.
• And here's the list of Republican obsessions since Obama took office: his birth certificate is fake; he uses a teleprompter too much; he bowed to a Saudi guy; Europeans like him; he gives inappropriate gifts; and his wife shamefully flaunts her upper arms. Oh, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and even accepted a book from him! Rubbing conservative noses in the fact that our new president can read! - Bill Maher
• The real NRA "nut" says: "If the government can take our guns, then after that they can take our freedoms." But what happened with the Patriot Act was the government said: "No, no, no. Keep the guns, just give us the freedoms." And they said: "We get to keep the guns!" They just really want the guns, so they can protect the guns. - Dana Gould
• Conservatives almost by definition are the reactionary party, we [liberals] charge ahead, we do things, we probably go a little to far, then the conservatives come in and don't do anything for awhile. - Howard Dean
  

-