slowly but surely, my country is going down the tube. what has happened to our great nation? legislating from the bench. for those of you unfamiliar with the term, it's when the court system--usually either a state or the federal supreme court--decides that they should be doing congress' job, and pass laws. a fairly recent example of this was the ruling in massachusetts, where the state supreme court said that the legislature had to pass a law allowing gay marriage. more recently, and just as frustrating, the federal supreme court decided that the detainees at gitmo (guantanamo bay, cuba) can have access to american courts. and american lawyers, who will be paid for with american tax dollars. so that kinda pissed me off. also, i don't believe that the supreme court is right in this case... not even close. the detainees/prisoners/whatever-we're-calling-them-now are not US citizens, so the constitution and the idea of constitutional rights do not apply to them. neither are they signees of the geneva convention, which means that it also does not apply to them. so, theoretically, these guys should be SoL (sh-t outta luck), but our supreme court apparantly thinks the "rights" of terrorists are more important than our national security.

yeah, sorry i've been a little slow on the updates. i've been busy filling out job applications like there's no tomorrow--which is entirely possible if i don't get a job this summer. oh well. stuff happens.

in the meantime, i realize my reader ("fan") base is probably pretty small, but i want to urge anyone reading this to NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, pay to watch michael "i'm not fat, i'm big-boned" moore's new film farenheit 9/11. that man is a disgrace, unworthy of being called an American. at this critical moment in our nation's history, he is one of the best allies the terrorists we are hunting down could hope for.

i realize this effort may be pointless. there is a good chance that my friends are the only people reading this, and they wouldn't watch the "movie" anyways. if anyone else receives this message, remind your friends to avoid supporting mr. bin laden. i mean moore.

Drinking Games; or maybe just drinking

Ok, so the last list of drinks i did didn't turn out looking like it was supposed to. so here is the new, updated version.

Good Drinks
--Strongbow: a hard apple cider. apple-y enough that it tastes good, but alcoholic enough that you know what you're drinking
--Smirnoff Ice: vodka with a hint of lemon; and, at only 5% alcohol by volume, something you can drink quite a bit of. apparantly it's better here than in england, so i'm looking forward to it.
--Smirnoff Black Ice: similar to "regular" Ice, but with more citrus flavor.
--Raspberry vodka: somebody had a really good idea with this. if you like berry flavored stuff, try this.
--vodka (double shot) with lemonade: i've been told i was a girl for liking this, but she was kinda drunk at the time, so we'll ignore that comment. i'll have to compare it to a hard lemonade sometime.

Decent drinks
--Mead: honey wine. one of those things i kept reading about, so i figured i had to try it. i could still taste the wine a little to much (don't really like wine), but it had a nice honey aftertaste.
--Guiness: one of two things that i absolutely had to try while in england (the other was a cuban cigar). i have to say i was a little disappointed; but i've heard it's only good in ireland, so i'll have to give it another go someday.
--Kaluah: i'm normally not a big fan of coffee flavored stuff, but this was pretty decent.
--Rum & Coke: i had never had rum before, and i don't like coke, but i have to say that they mix pretty well.
--vodka (Absolut): definitely better as a mixer, but not too shabby on its own. i can see how alyssa was corrupted by those russian ballerinas.

Bad drinks
--Jack Daniels: in its defense, it was served to me on the rocks. but if i'm just taking whiskey as a shot, i'm not going to waste money on something like Jack.

i'm sure i've forgotten something, but those were the basics. now i can get back to updating about other stuff, whatever that may be.

Also, rather belatedly I realize, I'd like to make a small tribute to the late great Ronald Reagan. If anyone reading this could observe a moment of silence in his memory, that would be great.

damn. i started a post with "well" again. one of these days i'll get away from that.

Well, believe it or not i'm still alive. unfortunately, jet lag does seem to work both ways. i've been waking up really early in the morning, because my stupid body clock still thinks it's 8 hours later than it really is. oh well.

needless to say (but i will anyways), the trip was awesome. if you ever have a chance to travel to britain, i would recommend it. just make sure to avoid glasgow. it's got one really nice park, and that's about it's only redeeming factor. hopefully at some point i'll have a full rundown of the trip, but that may be a while in coming... i still need to finish my journal up, and i'll probably be working out of that. also, hopefully i'll be able to get back into a regular pattern of updating this; we'll see. for now, farewell.