Orange alert again.

Pardon me for the use of profanity, but whoopty shit. I don't really care at this point. It's gotten to the level where I look at my country's government and preface damn near anything any of its official representatives say with a brief mental flashing of the finger, because I don't believe 'em any more. Oo! Scary! Al-Qaida! Oo! Scary! Dividend taxes! Oo! Scary! Somalia! Etc. Granted, it's almost certain that something they're saying is true and dangerous, but there's so much bullcrap being flung around on all political sides that I no longer give a rat's ass about the stuff they feed to the newspapers. Looking at foreign news sources is no better, because they pretty much all have the unspoken axiom of 'oh, by the way, America stinks, here, why not throw this nice big rock'. I still read, of course - I have to, because otherwise I have nothing to act on and I cannot let myself not act - but the foreigners seem to hate us and want our money, while our government has pure contempt for most of the population and wants everyone else's money. So why should I believe any of them? They all have axes to grind and every last one of them is expecting me to enthusiastically oil the whetstone, one way or another.

What makes a person so poisonous righteous
That they'd think less of anyone who just disagrees?
He's just a pacifist, she's just a patriot
If I said you were crazy, would you have to fight me?
...
So we read and we watched all the specially selected news
And we learned so much more 'bout the good guys
"Won't you stand by the flag?" Was the question unasked
"Won't you join in and fight with the allies?"

What do we say? We're only 25 years old
Twenty-five sweet summers and hot fires in the cold
This kind of life makes that violence unthinkable
We'd like to play hockey, have kids and grow old...

Bugger it all, man, I'm living my life, thinking my thoughts, writing my words, and voting my vote the way I bloody well feel like and bloody well want to. All you official news sources get a great big THBBBT; just because I'm reading you doesn't mean I have the slightest bit of sympathy for your point of view. I'll take your news, but keep your ideology to yourselves, because I'm not listening and I don't believe a word of it. You can take as much space as you want on the bookshelves and you can try to take as much space as you want in Congress, but the last patch of America either side will get is the patch inside my head.

Oops.

I purchased Greyhound tickets to get me and mountainspeak from New York to Philadelphia this weekend to go see the Mutter Museum. I found out today that it's possible to take NJ Transit from Penn Station to Trenton, and then the regional SEPTA system to 22nd Street and Market in Philly, for a lot less ($15.50 round trip for NJ Transit, around $7ish for SEPTA). Unfortunately, since I bought the tickets so far in advance, they're non-refundable. No point in trying to cancel them now...

On the bright side SEPTA would have required us to change vehicles several times - train, walk to station, take different train, walk to station, take bus, walk to station, take trolley. My sister knows the area, but I don't, so it's probably just as well. A little galling, but just as well. And the other bright spot is that Greyhound doesn't do reservations and doesn't especially care what time we travel, so if I'm in New York bright and early, we can leave from Port Authority at 9 AM and get down to Philly around 11 AM (if the gods are kind) or 12:20 (if the gods are realistic), even though I bought the tickets with intentions of leaving on the 10 AM bus. Plus there's the whole part about leaving whenever is convenient. I can deal with that. Sound good to you, mountainspeak?

I"m jumping aboard, too.

( The BBC hundred-book meme, and the Locus Magazine SF/F reader poll book meme. )