I keep forgetting what year it is...

Ok, class, who can tell me what amendment to the Constitution protects our right of privacy? No one? Well, that would have been Amendment IV of the Bill of Rights, but we've done away with that nuisance.

President George W. Bush defended a secret order he signed allowing for eavesdropping on people in the United States, as he fought on Saturday for the renewal of the anti-terror USA Patriot Act.

In a rare live radio address, Bush said the monitoring of phone calls and e-mails without a warrant was a "vital tool" to protect the United States against an attack and criticized leaks about it to the news media.

Now, seriously, how funking stupid does he think we are? Because it's holiday season, we've all got Alzheimer's and don't remember he and his cronies barking this all over the place? Yet, Bush now says...

"There was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the attack of 9/11. I've never said that and never made that case prior to going into Iraq."

What the eff is going on?

Turn away.

The only bit of my dream I can remember is that I was at a house party. I was wandering around, enjoying the festivities. At times, the house was much like my parents house. As I walked down the steps into the basement, my friend and co-author, hoodedvoodoo was there. Except he looked different. Close-cropped, military-haircut bleached-blond with a big walrus mustache, looking a bit like a modern Robert E. Lee. He expressed his joy in seeing me, hoping that I was at the party, but then kept his face averted from me until the dream changed.

This happened in another dream several months ago.

Baby animals are cute so we don't eat them.

Since I'm in awww-new-kitty mode, I found this adorable.

When your Rain Dance is more like Riverdance?

TOP TEN SIGNS YOU'RE NOT A VERY GOOD SHAMAN

10. Your drum and chant ends with "Hey! Macarena!"

9. You find your animal totem in the other world, and it pees on your leg.

8. Your psychic visions are interrupted by commercials.

7. You're making a medicine wheel when someone comes up and starts yelling, "That's my steering wheel!"

6. Bored with the sweat lodge, you ask the guy beside you to pull your finger.

5. You're asked to put out the sacred fire in your apartment.

4. You put on the wolf skin and begin chanting, and then you hear a growling sound in your ear.

3. You're spirit guide did ten years in the state penitentiary, wants to know where the action is.

2. You believe you're taking a mind-altering substance, then your wife asks where her birth control pills are.

AND THE NUMBER ONE SIGN YOU'RE NOT A VERY GOOD SHAMAN...

1. You thought Soul Retrieval was a James Brown song.