With the crush of having three graduate courses which have four months worth of work squeezed into just over a month, I don’t have much time for blogging. But this three-day weekend is helping me out.

Grad school is intense, with lots of tedious work and pretentious snarkery, but I still have straight As and we’re more than halfway done. These three classes are the nadir of the year, at least for me: research, science methods and teaching/learning. They have their engaging moments, but for the most part, they’re pretty dry and far removed from reality. But hey, you jump through the hoops, you get your job, you get on with life.

Speaking of reality and the three-day weekend, I see that « President Gore will speak on Martin Luther King Day », and he has some choice words for the Usurper:

‘In a major address slated for delivery Monday in Washington, the … President is expected to argue that the Bush administration has created a “Constitutional crisis” by acting without the authorization of the Congress and the courts to spy on Americans and otherwise abuse basic liberties. Aides who are familiar with the preparations for the address say that Gore will frame his remarks in Constitutional language. The Democrat who beat Bush by more than 500,000 votes in the 2000 presidential election has agreed to deliver his remarks in a symbolically powerful location: the historic Constitution Hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution. But this will not be the sort of cautious, bureacratic speech for which Gore was frequently criticized during his years in the Senate and the White House. Indeed, his aides and allies are framing it as a “call to arms” in defense of the Bill of Rights and the rule of law in a time of executive excess.
‘… Former U.S. Representative Bob Barr, the Georgia Republican who served as one of the most conservative members of the House, plans to introduce Gore. Barr, an outspoken critic of the abuses of civil liberties contained in the USA Patriot Act critic who has devoted his post-Congressional years to defending the Bill of Rights, refers to the [emperor]‘s secret authorization of domestic wiretapping as “an egregious violation of the electronic surveillance laws.” Count on Gore, who has pulled few punches in the speeches he has delivered in recent months, to be at least as caustic.’
—The Nation

Now when Bob Barr teams up with Al Gore, you know it’s getting weird and serious. While I applaud tomorrow’s effort, more people who are actually in power need to start growing a spine and chanting ‘Impeachment!’ as often as the mikes are on. Yes, I know Dracula is waiting in the number two spot, but if they actually bring impeachment charges, he’ll just have yet another heart attack and keel over. In the meantime, Denny Hastert can get indicted and we’ll make it a clean sweep of all the fascist bastards.

Bring it on.