I was planning on doing a little bloggin' about Abortion, which is coming up as an issue and is sort of poorly articulated by a lot of activists on the left. I probably will throw my two-cents in the ring later on, but when I read this post by Patti, I thought, "heck, just link to that."

She's got a nice, refreshingly balanced view, and hits a lot of points that I think are important when discussing the fundimental issues. Also some creative use of graphics. Go read.

It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll; that is the fucking truth. No matter what your field, your pursuit, it is a long way to the top if you don't want to compromise. Free as in freedom, baby.

After a long day of work I was tempted to pack it in: take a bath, read a little, ponder my navel and so forth. But I'd been inside working all day. I made a few calls. Franz was going out, some place on the Bowery, some girls from Barnard. So in spite of the 15-degree wind chill factor I motivated and rode in.

I've been trying to ride more. With all the biz-travel and then the snowstorm, I haven't been getting out on the wheels a lot in the past month. It makes me soft, leaves me nervous and pent up not to have the physical release. Really I should be going to the gym and/or practicing a little yoga on my own, but nine or ten miles of city riding is good enough to keep me chugging along.

It's a pretty good experience, riding with the fixed gear. It takes some getting used to, and initially it's somewhat terrifying; the margin for error is tighter than riding freewheel; your legs directly connected to the machine. But once you get the hang of it, terror becomes thrill as you realize that the system works, you can handle it, and your power has increased. The only thing I can compare it to is playing Wipeout on the ol' Playstation, when you'd upgrade to a new class of ship.

The trick is building and maintaining momentum. You have only one gear, so you have to keep your cruising speed. On the straightaway this is no problem: because there's so much less friction in a fixed-gear system, you can maintain a higher median velocity with the same effort you'd put out on a regular bike, and your ability to accelerate is just awesome -- you can really stomp on the pedals and make things happen.

One gear means it can be hard to keep up on hills. You have to hump it a bit getting over the bridge -- just another man-made hill, really -- but revving up your engine is what this is all about, right? With good music this can even be a meditative process, you own Private Psychadellic Reel.

I personally really enjoy dropping into a social situation fresh from this kind of exertion, this exercise of Human Power. It makes me confident to the point of being a little cocky, like I'm of a different species, especially if the surrounding atmosphere is at all rarified. I used to love riding to the Upper East Side when Sam would get me odd jobs there at an Opera where he was Technical Director. It's such a rich and stiff 'hood, I got all sorts of classist kicks thundering in as a sweaty outsider.

When you've had a good roll in the winter time and you stop to lock up, unslinging the big heavy chain that's now mandatory in this city, it makes a loud clink hitting the pavement; a big gesture. You're breathing hard, and you unzip your jacket to cool off for a second, let the trapped perspiration does it's evaporative thing. Your head and body emit steam. It's sexy.

There is a whole gestalt to making this a part of your life, and it's as big an influence on how you look at the world as driving or walking or taking mass transit as your mainstay. These choices about how we get from point A to point B color the way we see the world, and I'm pretty happy with mine.

We were told they'd be financing their own reconstruction by now. Huh. Things fall apart.

The attack in Samarra began at 7 a.m., when a dozen men dressed in paramilitary uniforms entered the shrine and handcuffed four guards who were sleeping in a back room, a spokesman for the provincial governor's office said. The attackers then placed a bomb in the dome and detonated it.
...
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but some Iraqi officials pointed a finger at Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the terrorist group believed to be responsible for many of the attacks on Shiite civilians and mosques over the past two years.

This sounds more like the work of old-school Ba'athists than Qaeda to me, though maybe they're all part of the same network at this point. It's a cold-blooded move, destroying a holy site, designed to provoke maximum outrage after years of instability, hardship and violence. It's working:

Later, the Basra police took 10 foreign Arabs who had been jailed in connection with terrorist attacks from their cells and shot them to death, apparently in retaliation for the shrine bombing, a police official said.

Sistani issued another statement on Wednesday warning the faithful not to attack any Sunni holy sites. But the angry mobs had already begun shooting, firing rocket-propelled grenades and setting some mosques on fire. Imams at three Baghdad mosques - Al Sabar, Al Yaman, and Al Rashidi - were killed, the Interior Ministry said. A fourth imam, Sheik Abdul Qadir Sabih Nori of the Amjed al-Zahawi Mosque, was kidnapped, officials said.

More than 25 Sunni Mosques have been attacked in Baghdad, some of them totally destroyed. There have been additional acts of reprisal throughout the country. If the political and religious leaders are unable to quiet the storm, US forces are going to be in a very complex and dangerous situation.

As long as this violence doesn spill over to our people, it'll remain a minor story. If violent civil disorder persists and Americans are caught in the crossfire (or worse, pinned into their bases and then attacked by opportunists there), it could be the bloody beginning to a new chapter this saga of misfortune, malfesance and incompetance.

I think it's going to continue getting uglier. Brace yrself.

UPDATE: it's going to get increasingly politically tricky too... when you've lost O'Reilly, you've lost a lynchpin of support.

Not an administration firing on all pistons:

President Bush knocks over some lab samples as receives a tour of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory... in Golden, Colo. Bush's trip to the site is part of a two-day, three-state trip to promote the energy proposals he outlined in his State of the Union address. Along the route, Bush has touted longer lasting lithium-ion car batteries and solar roof panels that can turn homes into mini power generators. Bush's visit to the government lab comes as his administration scrambled over the holiday weekend, just before he arrived, to restore the jobs of 32 people laid off in budget cuts.

That's a photo caption, by the way. Emphasis mine.

Energy is an issue nexus I care about quite a lot because I believe it's central to our ability to maintain a good standard of living, rebuild the American middle class, and also to raise up people around the world who are less fortunite. Sort of pathetic to see it made into a complete political shell game by the Republicans.