Hey, who appointed that bastard Bolton? (No more holidays for me)

[TayTay]

Geez, I go on vacation and that bastard gets a UN posting. Damn.

Anyway, I had fun in Scotland. Great, wonderful people full of un and humour, great conventions (full of pissed off scientists who might just go nukular if they hear one more ID debate) and much truding up hills. It was great.

More later. Jet lag settin in. Just wanted to pop in and let you know I survived my trip (and 13 days without internet acceess. No more of that.)

[JI7]

1. welcome back

it must have been good to get away for a while.

yeah, but while appointing Bolton wasn't a good thing it did show the Dems were succeeding in stopping him in the Senate.

[TayTay]

5. True dat. But he ramins a friggin bastard.

I saw the appointment news on CNN international. I threw pillows across the room. (Which is turns out I am allergic to anyway. Who knew? I had these lovely feather -down pillows and a feather -down comforter and I am grossly allergic to same. I came back with extreme hives all over my face, neck, arms and hands. My friend and I simply shortened it to say I got 'The Plague' in Edinburgh. Why can't I be allergic to something that isn't luxourious?)

One good conversation I had:

Little man rolling down the street on his bicycle at about 7:30 in the morning one day last week. He stops when he sees me out on the curb, indulging me vices.
Little Man: "Do you know where such and such is?"
Me: "No, I don't. I'm not from Edinburgh. Sorry."
Little Man pauses for a minute and considers my accent.
LM: "Are you Canadian?"
Me: "No, American."
He gives me a exasperated look and rolls off. (I am convulsed with laguhter at this.)
A few minutes later.... I see the Little Man rolling back down the street and he calls out to me:
LM: "Are you a Democrat at least?"
Me: "I am, I am."
Little Man takes off his cap and doffs it to me. (Hard to do when you are beginning to roll downhill on a bicycle.) Again, laugh, laugh, laugh.

Yeah, the whole 2 weeks were like that.

I also went and visited the William Wallace National Monument. This features (among many things) a man dressed as a 12th century knight, complete with huge sword, battle ax and various knifes and such. (Which is what Wallace actually looked like, not as in BraveHeart.) I had my picture taken with the knight and started talking with him. We started talking light politics (world situation came up frequently, bacause, ahm, I'm an American.) 'William' called himself a "Internationalist, socialist, pacifist." He was the first fully-armed pacifist I had ever met.



And so forth and so on. More later when jet-lag isn't in me so much.

[whometense]

14. That is a great story!!

And welcome back!! You were seriously missed.

[globalvillage]

2. Welcome back.

Log out and get some rest. It's ugly here today.

[WildEyedLiberal]

3. Heya

Hope you had fun. Now leave DU or else all your peaceful vacation vibes will vanish. Seriously. Nasty stupid people today.

[Island Blue]

4. Welcome back!

Glad you made it home safe and sound. You missed much madness but never fear, there'll be more tomorrow (and the next day, and the next day, and the day after that ...).

[politicasista]

6. Welcome back

:hi:

[MH1]

7. Welcome back!

Sounds like a wonderful time!

Go rest now...you will need it, unfortunately.

But if you need a pick me up and haven't read this one recently:

http://www.americanwindsurfer.com/mag/back/issue5.5/Kerry.html

I'm sure you have seen it before, but I hadn't and it is truly wonderful...if it's been a while I bet it's worth a re-read. sandnsea posted it on an earlier thread and said she thought some more pics had been added since the original issue.

[ginnyinWI]

8. glad to see you back, TayTay!

You were missed. :pals:

[jillan]

9. Welcome back world traveler!

Loved your story about the man on the bicycle.

Make sure you catch up about Cindy Sheehan. That's the great story since you've been gone.

[sandnsea]

10. Scientists without the internets?

How does that happen? :)

Glad you had a good time, can't wait for the pics. And do the Scots have any sort of back up plan to save us all???

[TayTay]

12. The Scots don't, but the pissed off geeks might.

I thought I was thoroughly pissed at the * Admin. Ha! I am like a little pond pretending to be an ocean against the amazing loathing that the scientific community holds for this Prez.

I went to Scotland for fun and to attend the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention. I have been to a lot of these cons. The contents of the more than 300 panel discussions range from year to year. A lot of time the topics vary from discussion of the purely fictional and how the writing process works and so forth to light discussion on topics in the movies (and how the science is usually all wrong) to fun panels about the process of writing pure 'fantasy' (ala 'Lord of the Rings.') These are indeed geek fests, but also wonderful and incredibly intelligent heavy-lifting discussions about trends in science, politics, history and so forth. Some really, really smart people go to these things and I go to find the crumbs that fall off the tables of these really bright people.

There was an amazing number of political discussions this year. And a lot of it was scary stuff. There were discussions about the coming plagues that will probably develop into globe-spanning pandemics. (Think the Avian Flue that is just on the horizon.) It is also very, very likely that bio-terrorists will get and mutate some of the more common viruses that are out in the world. These are some of the folks who have developed the political and medical and scientific plans that are supposed to prepare the country (and world) for these probable events. They are being completely ignored. And pissed doesn't even begin to describe their reaction.

I was at one panel discussion where one scientist(geek) was talking about organizing to defeat Rethugs. He worked at the National Science Foundation, * is his boss, and there isn't a single employee in the entire place who tolerates *. (And this guy risks his job to criticize the current Admin, because they are such a vindictive lot.)

We are in trouble. These corporatist, head-in-the-sand, know-nothings have to be removed from office. The planet is running out of time in regards to global warming, food supply problems, energy resources and so forth. And no amount of hand-waving about 'It will be alright, we just have to trust * and God' is going to put these problems off.

(Oh, and Edinburgh is a hoot and a half. Loved the place. The Scots pride themselves on producing scientists and engineers and are very proud of their achievements. But the Scots I met had one overwhelming message to America, 'Clean up your act and change your Pres. We despise him.')

[wisteria]

11. Welcome back! You have been missed!

[emulatorloo]

13. Would it surprise you to hear that some DUers blamed DEMOCRATS

for Bolton's appointment?

Glad you had a great time in Scotland. . .get some sleep!

[karynnj]

15. and of course declared Kerry's comment too weak

[TayTay]

16. Thanks to all for the welcome back!

You humble me. Thanks a lot.

The Bolton appointment was not unexpected, but it was still a weasel move. I thought Kerry's statement was great. (Read it here today.)

Boy, the loonies have been out on DU lately. Is there something in the water or what? I can see bein upset that * appointed that idiot Bolton, but it's not the Dems fault. In fact, it's to the Dems credit that Bolton never made it through the Senate in the first place. The international coverage of this appointment was negative. The guy has no real power and is perceived as either a puppet on very tight strings or as a temperamental second banana who can be endured, just barely. Neither perception is especially good.

I think the Dems did a good job blocking this idiot. And I'm proud of Sen. Kerry's role in this. So the loonies can go jump in the loch, er, lake.

[rox63]

17. Welcome back TayTay

You've been missed! I'm glad you enjoyed Scotland, and you've let the Scots know that we're not all idiots here. I've got my plane ticket for DC next month. Let me know if you're still thinking of going. There's going to be a big DU Meetup down there: http://www.brainshrub.com/dcdumeetup

:hi: