Sitting in the embargo box...

Saturday morning, Omaha, Kouryou-chan, and I go out to get our heads of hair trimmed, cut, whatever. We drive all the way into Seattle for our very reliable trimmer, and Kouryou-chan is actually wonderfully well-behaved as she gets her hair cut, and then I take her on a walk around the neighborhood, visiting a used bookstore and a bead store, while Omaha gets hers done. Omaha takes over an hour, but when it's all done, she looks wonderful. Her cutter trimmed a lot of hair off her head, which will hopefully make her feel coller, but it's still got all the length and the layering job in front is very sexy.

I had my hair done by a handsome young man named (not kidding about this) Hung, who's queerer than a Texas Republican's grasp of mathematics and who was a little freaked out about my being married and my open appreciation of older men-- mostly in the context of a conversation with the salon's owner, Bear, as we discussed whether Patrick Stewart or Sir Ian McKellan was the hotter male in X-Men 2.

We hit a few garden spots, including McClendon's, which is having a half-off sale on a ton of things, and we pick up some flowers and grass seed. We hit a sandwich shop for lunch, and Kouryou-chan of course flirts with everyone. She's impossible.

By the time we get home, there are just a few hours left in the day before we're scheduled to go to kendaer, tabbifli's and their third partner, who I'm not sure has an LJ, home for a dinner and get-together. The drive there is uneventful, but it's still forty minutes out. At least the directions we were given were complete and precise, giving me no trouble. They have a gorgeous house, filled with cats. Tabbi cooked a marvelous dinner and we played a word trivia game called B'Thumped, which I won, to my surprise. Kouryou-chan was kept stunned downstairs with the Disney version of Robin Hood.

Sunday, we ran out to get groceries, but stayed home and worked. Sort-of. Omaha did more planting, and we gave the kitchen it's weekly cleaning, but I couldn't work up the energy needed to bake anything after that. Most of my spare seconds I had my head down in a book-- I ripped through Honor Harrington VI, VII, and IX in about six days, so I haven't gotten any writing done at all. Yeah, by this time it has become 'Saint Honor and Her Magical Treecat,' but what the heck-- it's fun and Weber's one heck of a good writer. The fact that I can fit them onto my PDA means that I have two or three at the ready.

I love my country but fear my government.

The Department of Homeland Security, we were told, was to protect us from terrorists. That's its assigned job. To protect us from terrorists, foreign and domestic. It's not to be used for any other purpose.

As some of you may know, there's a hilarious showdown going on in Texas whereby the Democrats are attempting to prevent the Republicans from steamrolling over a century's worth of law, and redistrict Texas in such a way as to give Republicans a clear majority of members in the delegation Texas sends to the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas procedural rules prevent filibuster. But the Dems could prevent the plan from coming to pass by refusing to show up, thus preventing quorum and, by the rules, preventing the redistricting law from passing. So the Texas state Democrats have fled to Oklahoma, where the Texas Rangers have no authority.

Now we learn that the Republican speaker of the Texas Legislature (who apparently is authorized to do this) issued "apprehend for duty" warrants for the Democrats. Okay, all this is legal under state law and, ludicrous as it seems, is just state politicians screwing other state politicians. But, what should scare is us that the Dems holed up in Oklahoma were exposed by the Homeland Security Department's Air and Marine Interdiction and Coordination Center, at the request of Texas officials.

The use of the Homeland Security Deparment for partisan political purposes is beyond frightening. It's illegal. And if it's written off as a "harmless mistake," by Republican-led public officials, and no procedures are put into place to prevent if from happening again, you should be more than frightenend. You should be furious.

I know I am.