It's raining, it's pouring

I woke up around 2am to the sound of pouring rain. I woke up nearly every hour on the hour and still it was coming down in buckets. The condenser for my air conditioner is right outside my window and the rain sounded more like hail bouncing off it. It kept me up most of the night.

sigh

So, now I'm sleepy. And, it's still pouring out there, the rain still sounds like hail, so there's no point in napping.

I'm just sort of putzing around, getting nothing much done.

"No Supreme Court nominee in the last 35 years has exceeded Harriet Miers' overall range of experience in courtroom litigation; service in federal, state and local government; leadership in local, state and national bar associations and pro bono and charitable activities," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Right... and there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq too.

If you missed it last week, TruthOut.org has the transcript of former VP Al Gore's speech to a gathering at The Media Center last week, entitled The Threat to American Democracy.

At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.

The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy's future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom.

It's a fascinating speech and I hope you can take the time to read it in full.