I am fortunate in that I live a comfortable life in the United States, where I have heard that we have a government that protects “freedom of speech.” As a test, I thought I’d quickly summarize what I think about my government.

1. I do not “support our troops.” I do not honor people who are trained to use violence to solve problems, regardless of whether their intent is to promote freedom around the globe or not.

2. I think my president, George W. Bush, is mentally ill. My understanding is that he believes that a nonhuman being (”God”) speaks to him, often at night.

We’ll see whether jackbooted thugs come and arrest me tonight.

After bungling around with wireless drivers, the wireless-tools package,
and Google for a few weeks, I had an interesting thought. I knew that a
guy named Carl in California had gotten his wireless working pretty
easily using Slackware, which I had tried earlier with the same error
symptoms as with Ubuntu. In all cases, it sounded like everything was
working correctly, but that my wireless card’s radio was turned off. At
one point, someone suggested that the screen brightness switch, labeled
“Mobile - Normal,” might also control the wireless card.

I thought, “Maybe there is *another* switch that controls the wireless
card.” I looked along the top row of function buttons. Hmm, what’s that
little antenna graphic? I pressed F1, and since then the wireless
has worked beautifully. I can even click the wireless on and off, and it
functions seamlessly– no difficulties bringing the connection back up.