Well, its done... our country betrayed

Its Christmas in July for Bush and Cheney. The Senate betrayed our nation and passed the so called "FISA compromise" bill. Don't be fooled, this was no compromise; Bush and Cheney got everything they wanted.

Unbelievable, and unbelievably sad for our country.

Ken

Tomorrow: No Hope for Our Country

Tomorrow, the Senate is set to grant Bush and Cheney everything they wanted with respect to telecom immunity and warrant-less wiretapping by voting to support the FISA compromise bill. It was supposed to happen today but the vote got delayed until tomorrow so everyone could attend the funeral of a recently deceased conservative hate-monger. They are going to do this despite hundreds of thousands of calls from American's everywhere who have said over and over again that they consider the warrant-less wiretapping of Americans illegal and that the telecomm communities that helped Bush and Cheney do this to be held accountable in a court of law.

But, check out Glenn Greenwald's analysis of what tomorrow's vote means and the join me in mourning for this great nation... we'll have just taken the next step of killing the vision for this country as determined by the Founding Fathers and becoming just another totalitarian government.

George Orwell is laughing at us!

Ken

[Update: Also read Ars Technica's review: they say "The new FISA compromise: it's worse than you think".

Race Results

So, Max and I ran (walked) in this year's Bolder Boulder, a 10K race that had over 50K participants this year. Joining us was Max's friend, Cole, who couldn't do the race with his Dad and sister, because they were actually running (fast) and achieved very respectable results.

In contrast, here are our results:

Max:

Official Time: 1 hour 55 minutes 10 seconds.
Official Place: 45,185 out of 48,955 finishers

Ken:

Official Time: 1 hour 55 minutes 12 seconds
Official Place: 45,188 out of 48955 finishers

Yes, as Max and I casually walked towards the finish line, I stumbled over a dropped water cup and the little rascal beat me by two seconds, and two other people squeezed by me while I was recovering. (It was a very dramatic scene.)

Just some related observations:

Fastest Female Time: 32 minutes 49 seconds (just 36 seconds behind the record)
Fastest Male Time: 28 minutes 32 seconds (just 40 seconds behind the record)

National Record in 10Ks for racers age 7: 40 minutes 47 seconds
National Record in 10Ks for racers age 39: 34 minutes 33 seconds

So, Max and I have a lot of room for improvement.

Time to start practicing for next year! (You never know, maybe we'll actually run next time!)

Ken