It's over.

Last night Ray and I watched the series finale of Six Feet Under. It was very sad, but we both liked the episode very much. We especially liked the end, showing the end of each character, which, after all, is the basis of the show.

I have to say, I'll miss this show. Like I said before, I had grown to love it more and more with every season (although the fourth one wasn't as exciting as the others,) and this one was really good.

I loved all the characters, more or less, so I'll miss them all. I'm glad Willa made it, I felt horrible for Keith's demise, loved his wedding to David, liked Claire's wedding to Ted, and generally felt really sad for everyone's death, especially Brenda's.

Again, I'm still very sad, and my heart his heavy as if I had lost a good friend.

I guess the only good thing about the end of the show is that Alan Ball, its creator, will now be able to produce another great movie like American Beauty or another amazing show like Six Feet Under.

The weekend at Nancy went very well. Saturday night her son, Cliff, joined us for dinner. He's funny and nice, and we had only seen him once before many years ago, so it was nice to see him again. Nancy is doing well and has two more weeks before she starts working again (she'll teach two classes.) She made tacos for dinner, and gorgeous frozen margaritas, always a welcome addition if you ask me. ;) The kids were good pretty much the whole time, and both Nancy and Cliff were very impressed of how well mannered they are. Ray and I were very pleased and proud of them. Unfortunately, our friend Joe, who was supposed to check on the dogs while we were away, couldn't get in the house (key issues,) which meant that the girls were locked inside, with neither food nor water (they had water, but Mina always dumps it out and Diablo doesn't drink if we're not there -- she must have a pause mechanism someplace that gets engaged whenever we leave!!), and above all without medication for around 24 hours!!! Incredibly, they held whatever they had to do (Mina pooped like 7 or 8 times once we finally let her out!!) and didn't make any mess... well, if you don't consider the mess Mina makes every time we leave now because of her separation anxiety. Poor dear, I wish I could make her feel better. Anyway, we let them out, fed them, gave them their meds, and they were fine, althoug Mina drank so much, she threw up twice (I'm sure her nerves were wound like a spring by then, and that's what caused her to feel sick.) All back to normal now. Kids in daycare, Ray and I at work, dogs at home. Same old routine. How amazingly boring and welcome a routine can sometimes feel.

Going to Nancy for the weekend. Gonna be fun.

My yoga teacher Deb is back. Great class today!

This post by Michael pointed me to this article on The New York Times, which frankly was quite saddening.

A couple quotes:

[T]he simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.

I was speechless. I already knew it, but seeing it printed like that, like the truest of facts, hurts deeply. This is supposed to be America, the land of the free, the pillar of democracy, and we can't even expect our vote will count for something, anything.

But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy.

And for this the press should be forever ashamed. Michael Jackson might make you sell more ads, but where is your integrity as a journalist? No wonder people are growing less and less trustworthy towards the media.

And the most worrisome quote:

Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.

Democrats right now have the excuse (truthful, I must admit) that they can't do much against Bush or the Republicans who commit crimes (Rove) or ethical violations (DeLay) because they don't control either house of Congress. I'm not so sure they would do anything even if they were in charge of one, but if they did, you can rest assured that many more scandals would come to light, and it would be disastrous for the Republicans and for the image of the US abroad.

Nevertheless, morality, justice, and ethics (not to speak of vengeance) would require them to expose the GOP's lies, crimes, and misdemeanors.

Unfortunately, having seen the Republicans in action in the past few election cycles, I don't really see how the Democrats, who are mostly spineless when it comes to frontal attacks, will be able to prevail, either in 06 or in 08.

I just read this article on the Washington Post about Cheney's latest rant.

What a moron.

Here's his quote:

The vice president cited the darkest days of the American Revolution, when the war was going badly and ragtag rebels were ready to go home until George Washington rallied them. "They stayed in the fight, and America won the war," he said. "From that day to this, our country has always counted on the bravest among us to answer the call of duty."

There is so much wrong about this sentence. First of all, how dare he compare the American Revolution, when the people leaving on this side of the Atlantic were fed up of having their lives sucked up by the Crown of Britain and decided to fight back, with the war in Iraq, which was started because of a desire for vengeance or a thirst for oil, or both.

Second, is he comparing our men and women currently fighting in Iraq to ragtag rebels? Because that's what he said. Mr. Vice President, our military is supposed and believed to be the best trained and organized in the world. How can you call them ragtag rebels?!

Third, is he trying to compare George W. Bush (who should be impeached and removed from office for sending this country to war based on lies and for attacking a sovereign country that had not attacked us instead of going after the harder to fight but real enemy that was, and alas still is, Osama bin Laden,) to George Washington?!!? So Reagan and Lincoln are not enough anymore, now we're going directly to the guy at the top of the list?

Preposterous. Bush is not even worthy of admiring a portrait of George Washington. Not that he'd recognize one if he saw it...

Finally, when he talks about the "bravest among us to answer the call of duty," does he realize that neither he nor Bush are among them, since they never served?

Space Shuttle Discovery left California a little while ago piggybacked on a specially modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet to go back to Florida.

The images are just amazing, and speak for themselves.

Just came back from a lunch-date with my hubby. It was good. We had sushi. I'm liking it more and more. It's his last day of vacation, so I feel bad for him, especially since he didn't really do anything special or went anywhere. But at least he enjoyed a couple of days to himself, and this afternoon he's treating himself to a nice hot-stone massage. Good for him. He deserves it. It's Friday, so tonight, supposedly, is my movie night, but I haven't decided if I wanna go or not yet.

Quite an eventful night yesterday. Just before leaving work, Ray called me to let me know the doctor was looking for me. I had a physical last week, and was waiting for my test results. I called, and a nurse (the doctor is on vacation this week) told me my cholesterol isn't too good (201 total, just 1 above the limit, not too bad, but my HDL -the good one- is 39, 1 lower than the minimun, and my LDL -the bad one- is 142, 12 above the maximum; overall not good.) Unfortunately, she also told me my heart is inflamed, which can't be a good thing (my Cardio CRP is 8.7 on a scale of 1.0 to 10.0, where anything above 3.0 is considered a high cardiovascular risk.) The doctor ordered me to start taking the baby aspirin (81 mg a day,) which gave me pause because that's usually what's prescribed to older people with a heart condition or something like that, and I'm only 33. :-( I have another appointment with my doctor in two weeks, at which point I'll find out more about this. Can't wait to know more. I hope I can get better, that it's not irreversible, but I really don't know what to think. I've discovered I have high cholesterol around 7 years ago and ever since I've tried to lower it, but nothing works, not dieting, not exercising, nothing. And I'm not a junk food eater, so it must be genetic for me, which wouldn't be a terrible thing, I guess, since in that case the body would probably adapt to it. But this, I'm afraid it's much worse, and if I can't lower the inflammation, it could spell trouble for me ahead. We'll see. ... Anyway, for the good news, last night the kids' social worker brought us the final documents to sign for the adoption. So now we're just waiting for the judge to approve it, and that's it. It all should happen within a month. :-) ... Oh, one more good thing: Nicole yesterday didn't have any accidents and wore the same underpants all day long!! That's a lot of progress. Our little girl might be getting it already! Let's hope...

In recent days I've come across a few quotes by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that frankly left me totally floored. Here's one from this article from The New Yorker:

“The Constitution is not a living organism,” Scalia has said.

This opinion is unfortunately shared on the Supreme Court by Justices Rehnquist and Thomas and I cannot stress enough how much I disagree with them. Here's why.

The American Constitution is such a brilliant document, I cannot imagine its framers meant for us to interpret it not according to the times we live in, but according to those in which it was written. Society changes, people's needs and views change, laws supposedly adapt. Why then, not the Constitution?

Moreover, why stop at the Constitution? If we are supposed to live according to the way the framers thought and lived, then are we supposed to get rid of our cars, electricity, heating and air conditioning, voting rights for blacks and women (which weren't contemplated by the original document), and so forth? God forbid. Then why should we run our lives and business according to the lifestyles of 200 years ago? It just doesn't make sense.

Of course the Constitution is a living organism. How sad it would be, and how miserable would we all be, if it weren't.

And here's another one, this one from latimes.com:

In the blistering dissent, Scalia, joined by Rehnquist and Thomas, said "Coloradans are entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct." Scalia added that the majority opinion had "no foundation in American constitutional law, and barely pretends to."

I think I have to agree with Scalia that Coloradans, and whoever else for that matter, are entitled to be hostile toward homosexuals, just as I am entitled to be hostile toward the NRA, the religious right, Bush, Osama bin Laden, and whoever else is hostile towards me or my family and friends. That doesn't mean that that hostility can or should be made into a law, which is precisely what Coloradans had done.

Being entitled to feel hostility toward something or someone is nothing more than a personal feeling, an opinion if you will. There is a big difference between having an opinion (which falls under the protection of the Constitution) and making it the law of the land, so that everyone else now has to obey and live by that opinion.

That's called tyranny.

Alas, Justice Scalia is on his way to become the next Chief Justice if or when Rehnquist quits or dies (which I'm sure Scalia prays for every single day,) and I quiver at the thought of having such a troglodyte sitting on the most important judicial seat in the country.

Some have suggested that his ascension to Chief Justice might actually be a good thing because his opinions will be more widely spread and heard, and so more and more people will be aware of his radicalism. However, the power that comes with being Chief Justice will still be in his hands, and the damage he might do with it far outweighs the benefits of exposing his degenerate mind.