It little profits that an idle king, by this still hearth, among these barren crags, match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole unequal laws unto a savage race…

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel.  I will drink life to the lees!  All times I have enjoy’d greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those that loved me and alone, on shore;  and when thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades vext the dim sea…

I am become a name for always roaming with a hungry heart!

Much have I seen and known- cities of men and manners, climates, councils, governments.  Myself not least, but honour’d of them all.  And drunk delight of battle with my peers far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades for ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use.

As tho’ to breathe were life!  Life piled on life were all too little, and of one to me little remains; but every hour is saved from that eternal silence, something more…

A bringer of new things; and vile it were for some three suns to store and hoard myself and this gray spirit yearning in desire to follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle.  Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil this labour, by slow prudence to make mild a rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere of common duties, decent not to fail in offices of tenderness, and pay meet adoration to my household gods when I am gone.

He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port.  The vessel puffs her sail.  There gloom the dark, broad seas.  My mariners, souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me- that ever with a frolic welcome took the thunder and the sunshine, and opposed free hearts, free foreheads…

You and I are old.

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil.  Death closes all, but something ere the end, some work of noble note may yet be done; not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks.  The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs, the deep moans round with many voices.

Come, my friends,  ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.  Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows, for my purpose holds- to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down.  It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, and see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides and tho’ we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are- One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses, Alfred- Lord Tennyson

So.  You’re not looking for meta or political, but the personal reminiscence or poetry.

Well on Wednesday you’ll get typeset Tennyson, but today you get me and Kools.

I used to smoke Kools, the worst cigarette in the world because it’s Mentholated and filtered with asbestos.  I’d smoke until my lungs felt “brown”.

One time, while I was smoking Kools, I got invited to a party with a bunch of people I didn’t know.  They also didn’t smoke and the girls were kind of cute and interesting and I didn’t realize at the time how much I stank.

Eight hours later I emerged (having been welcomed and accepted and indulged in what I most desire which is intelligent conversation with peers) and I got in my car and right after I fired it up I fired up a Kool.

And right after I turned the corner out of sight I parked and barfed my guts out from the sick.

Did that stop me?  No.  I went on to smoke and not smoke.  I finally started (I’m done now) once again at a High School Reunion where I practically ripped open a cigarette machine for a pack of Merits because I felt inadequate.  So did the girl with the biggest tits in second grade who was right next to me and would have banged me in the hall if my fiance hadn’t been in the ballroom.

Gotta love reunions.

From there I went on to a point where it was kind of a bonding ritual between me and the dad.  He’d always smoked and so had his mom and dad.  They liked the smell and so do I.  You can smoke in my car if you like, I’m already dead.  I know exactly how long it takes to smoke a Kent III King- 5 minutes because that’s how long our mandatory breaks were.  Smoke them to the stub and crush them in the tub I have my last ashtray hanging around unclean to remind me what my lungs look like.

But there came a time when I decided I was done so I went on the gum and it’s been a while.

Ah. Everyone still loves Don Vito and the Corleones on the rock hard hockey puck chicken circuit.  At least that’s what they say to my face.

Why I even had my friend Vincenzo drop by.  We were very civil.

While I sometimes speak ex cathedra there is only one capo di tutti.

I wish to make it clear that 200 – 500 words and a graphic is only a suggestion for a front page piece, not a requirement.  It’s actually rather easy to be Front Paged here, all you have to be is good.  We’ll make it look pretty if you don’t have artistic sensibilities to be offended.

Not that being good or Front Page aspirations are a requirement to post- you get 2 (count ’em) TWO! essays a day so you can easily change your mind about what’s important, follow BREAKING!!! developments if you care to.

On the other hand there are three Pony Parties a day (@ 9, noon, and 6) if all you have is a comment for an Open Thread and Muse in the Morning, DocuDharma Times, and 4 at 4 are also there for your convenience.

We encourage participation of all kinds.

Maybe Monday.

I want to keep on this FISA/PAA attack because Obi Wan, it’s our only hope.  Or is it?  Greenwald says it’s the only way into the bowels of this administration’s misdeeds, but probably not there are so many of them.

935 Lies

The blogger on top of the details is (as you might suspect if you’ve been paying attention) Tim Tagaris lately of the Dodd campaign.  He may be posting elsewhere, but I’m mostly running across him at Open Left (ttagaris@dK, 1 diary a day bites kos- we were 0 == ‘Hide’ before you!).

His latest is time stamped 14:46:21 PM EST and practically all of it is-

Hearing now that Reid filed a 30-day extension and then filed cloture on that extension. If cloture is not invoked on Monday at 4:30, we’ll then vote on invoking cloture on extension.

Previous to that he posted-

Now! We might have a showdown

by: Tim Tagaris

Thu Jan 24, 2008 at 14:05:25 PM EST

Here’s where we stand right now to the best of my knowledge.

There will be a cloture vote at 4:30 on Monday.  There are two potential outcomes here.

a.) Republicans get 60 votes.  In which case, there will only be one amendment pending to the final bill, and that is Feingold/Dodd on blanket warrants, I believe.  That will get tabled quite easily (much like Judiciary was today), and then the Intelligence Bill as we know it will get a a vote for final passage. b.) We stop Republicans from getting 60 votes, and we’re right back where we left off today — with no agreement on whether or not there is a 50 or 60 vote threshold to pass amendments.

Why is this a big deal?

Well, because there are a number of amendments out there that would serve as “poison pills,” forcing a presidential veto.

Before people got all bogged down in Thug debate crap we had this-

FISA: Republican Temper Tantrums

by mcjoan

Thu Jan 24, 2008 at 03:11:18 PM PST

We need 41 votes to prevent this. That means flipping members of the gang that caved on the Leahy amendment and/or Clinton and Obama returning to DC for the Monday vote, which is very likely given that the SC primary will be over and that is the night of the state of the union.

If the Democrats can hold together on this one, if they do more than just 41 votes but actually hold together as a party against this massive Republican abuse, this bill can be derailed. And this is a massive Republican abuse. Every Democrat who had an amendment pending, and that includes Diane Feinstein and Sheldon Whitehouse, need to vote with the Democrats to prevent cloture on Monday.

Hit the phones, e-mail, and faxes hard until Monday afternoon, folks. We need to flip as many of these as possible.

And from emptywheel on FDL this action list-

The Republicans have refused to allow an “upperdown” vote on any amendment since the Leahy substitution amendment went through. They’ve called for a cloture vote to vote on the SSCI bill, with just one minor amendment.

…

… several of these amendments, though they propose something the Administration has said would be okay, would really cause Bush to veto the bill.

The idea is cloture allows Bush to conduct his spying as he wants to, with Congressional approval. Whereas Reid wants to deliver what Bush has said he needs, rather than what he really wants but won’t admit to.

…

We’ve got three and a half days to get at least three of the following people to flip their votes from the vote on the Leahy substitution:

Bayh (202) 224-5623 Carper (202) 224-2441 Inouye (202) 224-3934 Johnson (202) 224-5842 Landrieu (202)224-5824 McCaskill (202) 224-6154 Mikulski (202) 224-4654 Nelson (FL) (202) 224-5274 Nelson (NE) (202) 224-6551 Pryor (202) 224-2353 Salazar (202) 224-5852 Specter (202) 224-4254 (What the hell–he had an amendment ignored today, too)

…

We can win this one.

These are the posts referenced by Glenn Greenwald in his next to last update before he urges you to tune into Tim Tagaris.

So there you have it.  The current situation as far as I know it.

Of course there were thousands of comments in the live blogging threads.  Good luck.

Quisling

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian army officer and fascist politician who served as Minister President of German-occupied Norway during World War II from 1942 to 1945. During this time, he claimed to be the head of government while the constitutional government was exiled in London. After the war, Quisling was convicted of high treason and subsequently executed by firing squad. His surname has become an eponym for “traitor”, especially a collaborationist (see Quisling).

It was once my job to host a delegate from the international part of my club, a visitor from Norway.  While we were traveling around we happened to pass through New Haven and I mentioned it was the home of my favorite traitor- Benedict Arnold.

“Benedict Arnold?”, all innocent she.

“Vidkun Quisling.”

She practically spat at me.  “How do you know about him?”

I read history for if we forget we are condemned to repeat it.

Glenn Greenwald has two pieces of wisdom today-

For apologists of Democratic Party passivity, who claim endlessly that Democrats can stand for nothing because they’ll lose elections if they do, such a claim is not only craven and self-destructive, but factually inaccurate as well. From a new poll released today, commissioned by the ACLU:

Majorities of voters on both sides of the political spectrum oppose key provisions in President Bush’s proposal to modify foreign surveillance laws that could ensnare Americans, according to a poll released Tuesday. The survey shows nearly two-thirds of poll respondents say the government should be required to get an individual warrant before listening in on conversations between US citizens and people abroad. Close to six in 10 people oppose an administration proposal to allow intelligence agencies to seek “blanket warrants” that would let them eavesdrop of foreigners for up to a year no additional judicial oversight required if the foreign suspect spoke to an American. And a majority are against a plan to give legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping. “Across the board, we find opposition to the administration’s FISA agenda,” pollster Mark Mellman said Tuesday.

…

The argument that Democrats should allow chronic lawbreaking because doing otherwise is politically risky ought to be too corrupt an argument for anyone even to entertain. But for those who believe in that calculus, it’s also just factually false.

Consequences for ignoring congressional subpoenas: None

Your Harry Reid-led Senate in action-

(H)e wants to spout this Bush claim that the Senate must comply with the President’s orders immediately because he wants to pressure and shame Dodd, Feingold and any others who might support them out of filibustering telecom immunity and new warrantless eavesdropping powers. Dodd is ruining your weekend, preventing your fun retreat, not letting you go to Davos — all because he wants to grandstand with “talking this to death.” The President said he wants this done and we must give him what he wants and now, and I am acting with my good friend Mitch McConnell — who is explicitly hoping to bully the House into passing the same bill in one day that the Senate passes, just like happened back in August — to make sure this all happens with as little disruption and debate as possible.

If and when telecom immunity is passed (thereby forever extinguishing any hope of investigating and obtaining accountability for the President’s illegal spying programs), and the Bush administration (and subsequent presidents) are vested permanently with vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers to spy on Americans, it will be because Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership conspired to ensure that it happened. They aren’t just standing by meekly, failing to oppose it. They are actively enabling it with as aggressive a posture as the Republicans could possibly have employed had they still been in control of the Congress.

UPDATE: For an excellent summary of just how radical and invasive these new warrantless eavesdropping powers are that Senate Democrats are about to enact, see this comment here, complete with citations.

Harry Reid.

So have you ever had it happen that you had to call up technical support?

Yes, well… I’ve been on the other end of that line and that’s one reason why I’m very considerate when I have to call.

So tonight I’ve been struggling with my cable company (hopefully for the last time) and my DSL provider and the manufacturer of my Wireless Router.

Here in Stars Hollow the BIG game was the one between the Pats and the Chargers and right after kickoff the cable went out.  Then it was on again.  Then it went out.  Then it was on again, but the picture was fuzzy, but when I unplugged my VCR and DVD it was less fuzzy but the cable modem still didn’t work.

Did I mention the BIG game?

So calling the cable company was of course useless because the lines were jammed, but the wrinkle is that I have a wireless sharing arrangement with my neighbors (who pay me off in blueberry muffins) and some of them called MY technical support hotline wondering what was up.

“Look at the Patriots!” I said and when they replied it was snowing in Foxboro I said- “There you go!”

I do have DSL also so I popped that right in the loop, but got the same result I always have before, which is that while it would plug right into any particular computer it would just not talk to my Wireless Router at all.  So I was fine but everyone else suffered and while that may seem a metaphor for our age to some I was unsatisfied with the result.

I had other boats that needed floating and the rising tide was not doing it.

You see it all has to do with your DHCP setting and I have pages of variations that don’t work and was reduced to the last refuge of the desperate.

Of course I experienced the same frustrations that everyone always does, the endless voice mail “Press 3 if you having problems with this menu” and the inevitable “We’re sorry but all our technicians are busy at this time.  The estimated hold time is…  Please leave your name and number and we will call you back.”  I’ve never actually had that work.

The DSL people were hopeless.  “You have WHAT kind of Router?  Never heard of it.”  Trendnet BTW, sold in CompUSAs across the country by the gagillion (I’ll miss CompUSA, the Manchester one is within driving distance and now I’ll have to order early and wait overnight).

So I took a nap and at 3 am I got right through to the Trendnet dude and 6 settings and reboots later here I am, just as obnoxious as ever.