January 20, 2009

Seven Years, Two Months, and Seven Days

The title of this post is how long I've been working on this preposterous little project of mine as of today -- the day Barack Obama took office as the 44th President of the United States.

From the very beginning, I've been saying the hardest part of the project would come after Bush left office -- and nothing that's happened in the interval would make me suppose that was mistaken. The basic situation hasn't changed since 2002: the Bush gang has committed crimes against humanity and war crimes by policy, and made a concerted effort to subvert the laws of the United States in order to commit those crimes. They MUST be prosecuted -- that has been my objective from the beginning, and remains my objective today. Not for the sake of politics, malice, or spite, but for the sake of reason and the safety of the United States.

I believe Barack Obama is a good man with the makings of a great President. I've supported him from the start. He's made one big mistake so far -- keeping Gates as Defense Secretary. I understand the reasoning behind that decision, but it's still a mistake. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it -- there was going to be a huge learning curve at DoD in any case.

Then there's DOJ, and I'm very pleased with the appointments there so far -- the bad news is that they have a truly ghastly mess on their hands. It's going to be very interesting to see how they handle things going forward.

Then there's me... The reason I've been so quiet lately is that I've been very sick the last four months. The good news is that it's not as bad as I'd feared so far (knock on wood pending the results of a CT scan done last week), but but the bad news is that it's still not so good: mild to moderate emphysema, chronic laryngitis caused by acid reflux, and a nasty bit of pneumonia that now appears to be gone thanks to a double course of antibiotics. That leaves a "suspicious mass" in my left lung, hence the CT scan... but my theory is that it's related to the reflux and the pneumonia. At any rate, it is what it is, and I've actually improved quite a bit the last two weeks -- the laryngitis is much improved and I'm finally getting my appetite back from nearly zero a month ago.

The worst thing about it was that my ability to concentrate was greatly reduced and it all made me very lethargic, but that's improving too, just in time to try to figure out where things are going from here...

Regards,

Charly