The First Step To Recovery Is Admitting You Have A Problem

Today our mentoring group took a trip to Ludwigsburg to see the palace there. It was pretty cool, but I've seen so many castles and palaces in Europe by now that they're all starting to blend together. They all seem to be the same (with the exception of Ludwig's palaces in Bavaria).

Anyway we naturally had to go through Stuttgart with the train. Stuttgart, being a big scity, is the only city within 300 miles of Tübingen that is in possession of a Starbucks. We passed through Stuttgart and were almost back to Tübingen when 3 of us decided we really wanted Starbucks. So what did we do?

We got off the train, found the next train to Stuttgart, and went all the way back just to get Starbucks. It took about an hour to get there, an hour to enjoy our coffee and grab a Doener for dinner on our way back to the train station, and an hour to get back.

Man....It was so worth it. I swear, if it didn't cost 10 euros round trip, I would go to Stuttgart every morning just to get my coffee there.

My name is Matthew, and I am a Starbuckaholic.

Also: You Knew It Was Coming...

I gave you all up-to-the-minute updates on the status of my DJ when I was waiting for it, didn't I? Well, we're going to repeat that little tradition with my iPod. As of 43 minutes ago, Mr. iPod has arrived in Anchorage, Alaska fresh from the factory in Shanghai. He is now being sorted and loaded on whatever plane is heading to Pennsylvania.

Man, I freaking love FedEx tracking. It's perfect for OCD perfectionist control freaks such as myself.

And Of Course Your Daily Dose of Ann:

"The sickness of what liberals have done to America is that so many citizens — even conservative citizens — seem to believe the job of a Supreme Court justice entails nothing more than "voting" on public policy issues. The White House considers it relevant to tell us Miers' religious beliefs, her hobbies, her hopes and dreams. She's a good bowler! A stickler for detail! Great dancer! Makes her own clothes!

That's nice for her, but what we're really in the market for is a constitutional scholar who can forcefully say, "No — that's not my job."

We've been waiting 30 years to end the lunacy of nine demigods on the Supreme Court deciding every burning social issue of the day for us, loyal subjects in a judicial theocracy. We don't want someone who will decide those issues for us — but decide them "our" way. If we did, a White House bureaucrat with good horse sense might be just the ticket.

Admittedly, there isn't much that's more important than ending the abortion holocaust in America. (Abortionist casualties: 7; Unborn casualties 30 million.) But there is one thing. That is democracy.

Democracy sometimes leads to silly laws such as the one that prohibited married couples from buying contraception in Connecticut. But allowing Americans to vote has never led to creches being torn down across America. It's never led to prayer being purged from every public school in the nation. It's never led to gay marriage. It's never led to returning slaves who had escaped to free states to their slavemasters. And it's never led to 30 million dead babies.

We've gone from a representative democracy to a monarchy, and the most appalling thing is — even conservatives just hope like the dickens the next king is a good one."