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2008-12-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

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Fucking Embarrassing

2006-07-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of stupid shit that makes you want to move to Canada.

War on Christmas Debate

2005-12-14T16:02:00.000-08:00

The anonymous blogger that I posted about yesterday (who I've just realized is named sean) has posted a lengthy reply to my comment on his site. This time I noticed that the comments are being moderated (not sure if they were before but I don't think so). So I'm going to post the discussion here for posterity just in case there is some level of dishonesty over there (no insinuation...yet). UPDATE: My comment was approved so maybe I just missed the required comment moderation previously.

sean had this to say:

Let’s see. First off, I’ve heard this phrase “war on Christmas” a lot this year. I guess other folks are picking up on this meme. But I’ve been crusading for Christmas for a long time but I didn’t know it was a war. I don’t think its an organized one. Back in the 90’s the city of Pittsburgh (I live near there) started this idiotic idea of promoting shopping downtown in December by instituting “Sparkle Season”. They had this little blue star that sparkled as a mascot and banners up on the streetlights proclaiming the joys of “Sparkle Season”. Nowhere did they mention Christmas nor any other holiday. It was a total load of politically correct BS and double-speak. They want people to come and spend their money but won’t acknowledge the reason that people are celebrating in the first place. And let’s be honest. It isn’t because of Hannukah that all that money is being spent. That’s a fine thing to celebrate, but its not the economic driver of the season. Neither is Ramadan. The number of people celebrating it is very small in this country, as a percentage of the population. And besides, from what I understand, Ramadan is not joyous celebration, its a time of fasting and penance. It is Christmas that drives people to the stores to buy gifts for others. And the city wouldn’t let the name of the holiday/holy day appear anywhere. City employees were instructed to wish people a “Happy Sparkle Season”. Pittsburgh become a laughing-stock until they abandaned it out of embarrasment.

A similar situation exists with large chain stores like Wal-Mart and Target. They forbid their employees to greet people with a “Merry Christmas” or even respond that way to people who first say it to them. Its silly. When asked about the policy, some pinhead at Wal-Mart actually wrote a response that claimed that Christmas was a mish-mash of pagan celebrations from all over the world while not mentioning Christianity as having a connection to “Christ’s Mass” at all. Even Wal-Mart executives couldn’t swallow that one and apologized for it. It was never clear to me what that wacko response had to do with forbidding a greeting of “Merry Christmas” anyway.

Last year, the mayor of Denver decreed that greetings of “Merry Christmas” were banned from public buildings. The Christmas Parade would now be known as the “Parade of Lights” and a local church group that had always marched and sang carols in the parade was now forbidden to take part. After this was publicized, the firestorm of criticism caused the rocket scientist mayor to rescind the order. So yes, maybe its silly to have to talk about this stuff over and over again, but if we didn’t, Denver’s mentally challenged mayor would have had his way.

There was also a story or two last year about some local governments forbidding some family from putting a creche up on their own property because they lived near the entrance to town. Apparently, the busybodies in local government thought that the proximity of the creche on private property to the town’s “Welcome to…” sign instigated a Constitutional crisis.

So you see, I find that its usually governments, large corporations, and other institutions, which are overwhelmingly run by the whiny, pompous, and bureaucratic politically correct crowd that are the offenders here. And they almost always go too far and abuse their authority in these matters. As I mentioned in my posting, I don’t usually hear about Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or any other religious group objecting to mentions of Christmas. In fact, I often hear about Jewish groups sticking up for the greetings and displays of Christmas decorations. Jewish people, especially, know about how a climate of religious intolerance starts out with fairly small, minor issues and grows. They don’t want it to happen to them or to us Christians.

As to atheists… well, I didn’t mention them at all. “Secular fundamentalists”, a term coined by (as far as I know) Jerry Bowyer, a local Pittsburgh talk show host, refers not to atheists generally, but to these whiny politically correct folk who think that the mere mention of something Christian is an offense. They go so far as to believe that even acknowledging the existence of a holiday that has become very secular in nature with icons like Santa Claus, reindeer, snowmen, and trees and characterized by rampant consumerism will still hint of Christianity and be an offense. They never seem to take the same strident tone when mentions of other religions come up. Apparently, either Christianity is the only religion that is offensive just by mentioning it or Christians being offended by mentions of other religions don’t count. Besides, the whole idea of mentioning or referring to a particular religion or particular holiday/holy day being an “offense” is ridiculous. Now, I suppose that some atheists may be secular fundamentalists, but I never implied that all atheists are secular fundamentalists. I never mentioned atheists. If you want an example of a secular fundamentalist then read this post. I think the woman I write about in that post qualifies. She also seems to be an atheist, according to her comments. But that’s not a causal link. Secular fundamentalists tend to be either atheists, marxists, new-age, or neo-pagan types. But not all atheists, new-age, or neo-pagan types are secular fundamentalists. Most marxists are, however… by definition.

So everyone should feel free to let rip with “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Hanukkah”, “Mediocre Monday” or whatever. If someone takes offense… well, that is *their* problem.

So there are my examples. But I never characterized it as a “war on Christmas”. You used that term not me. I’m simply recognizing that there have been more and more governmental bodies, corporations and other institutions trying to dictate what people can and can’t acknowledge to each other about Christmas over the past few years. The term “war on Christmas” implies that its some organized conspiracy. I don’t think that’s happening at all. I just think its rampant political correctness by the ultra-left ensconced in the various bureaucracies, and the spineless reaction of large corporations who want to make everything gray and bland to avoid any hint of controversy. They know the biggest whiners are the politically correct crowd, so they cave. And I don’t think even the politically correct wackos are organized about it. Its just they way they are. Religion is an affront to them, so they react against it. People having fun over a holiday that is primarily, in spite of the commercialism, a religious holy day is an affront to them. So they react predictably. And I, being political incorrectness incarnate, like to stand up, get in their face, and say, “no” to them. The whole tone of my post, in case it got lost in the typing, was one big grin on my face. I’m not interested in going after these folks hammer and tongs. I’m interested in bellowing “Merry Christmas” with a big grin, a big laugh, and a big slap on the back in their presence just to make them seethe. :) These are the type of folk who just can’t stand it when someone goes about their “merry” way, right in front of them, having a good time, and ignoring their edicts about the proper, politically correct way to behave.

And lastly, I have no idea what Bill O’Reilly says on the matter. I can’t stand the man. He’s pompous and full of himself. I don’t watch the show, its just way too annoying. I only watch two shows on FNC: the evening news show anchored by Brit Hume and the show “Fox News Watch” which is a media analysis show about how the media has reported on the news of the week. Both of those shows feature balanced panels of liberals, moderates, and conservatives and they all get a chance to talk without shouting.

To which I replied thusly:

I suspect that the “sparkle season” (which I haven’t looked up but will) is the result of a marketing scheme. A way to brand pittsburg as something different and special. I’d bet that “sparkle season” started not in the brain of an ultra-left, whiny, bureaucrat but as the careful studied result of dozens brainstorming sessions and focus groups. An enduring legacy of political correctness? Probably not? A desire to not acknowledge the “reason for the season” as it were? I doubt it. It was branding pure and simple. I just read that it lasted for 8 years and was simply retired without much fanfare. It sounds like the advertising scheme simply got old.

About Wal-Mart and target, it seems to me that they would like to be all inclusive because they want everyone to shop there. Obviously you disagree that it’s the right thing to do but I guarantee you that giving instructions on how to greet people is by no means limited to the holiday season. Anyhow, I’m sure that any greeting they give (in fact probably the vast majority of interactions that the employees have with the customers at all) are run through marketing agencies, psychologist groups, and focus groups until they find the one greeting or other interaction that elicits the most sales from its potential customers. In short, if using Merry Christmas were more advantageous in terms of sales, they’d be using it. In fact, Wal-Mart has likely found this to be the case now given the publicity from the likes of Fox News.

Individuals in governments have always made bad decisions. That is exactly why our Government was designed to have checks and balances. But a few silly decisions does not a movement make.

Now all that said, I think obviously we see some common ground when it comes to corporations. They market the holiday season in the same way that they market anything. The idea is to get you thinking about spending money on whatever product they are moving and nothing else. Don’t kid yourself for one second that now that Wal-Mart is using Merry Christmas (or so I’ve heard) that their grinch hearts have grown three sizes. They’re simply pandering. They’d hang upside down crosses and paint pentagrams on the ground if their focus groups indicated that would bring more people into the stores. I’m sure there are plenty of executives who are religious and maybe even deeply so. But it isn’t religion that is motivating them to sell their warez, and it isn’t religion or the fear of offending some massive mysterious group of people that is motivating them to greet you in a certain way. It’s money, pure and simple. Lots and lots and lots of money. Is it right? Is it wrong? I’ve got no idea. I’m quite disgusted by the whole corporate machine thing anyhow (Naomi Klein ruined me on all of that). What I do know is that as long as you’re in their store buying things and not interfering with other people buying things, they couldn’t care less about you or anything you have to say including Merry Christmas.

I would say you’re definitely right. The politically correct crowd does a great deal of whining. In this case, it is the crowd whining for Christmas political correctness that is doing all the whining.

He's got some good points, but I think he's far off base for some things. The Christmas season is the time of year that a vast majority of retailers go into the black. That's why they call the day after Thanksgiving (the busiest shopping day of the year) "Black Friday." Up until the last month and 6 days of the year, most retailers are sitting in negative numbers and they depend on a robust Christmas shopping season to bring them into the positive side. The vast majority of us experience Christmas as we experience just about everything else, through the TV and at the Mall. We are not in Church for a month straight reveling in the joy of Christ's birth (if that's what we believe). We are at home watching commercials that make us laugh or make us cry but mostly make us want to go out and buy what they're selling. So my argument is that this season is only about Christ as much as it has to be to get people to the mall or to Wal-Mart or whatever. But the bottom line is not religion, it is commerce. This country's economy (in fact most economies around the world) would collapse without the shopping season that is Christmas. Sure, on Christmas eve or Christmas day there are plenty who celebrate in their own way be it religious or not. But let's face it, it is not a personal religious reflection that makes kids run down the stairs in the morning. It is gifts under the tree.

So to everyone who reads this I wish you a very Merry Giftmas!

Activist Judge Cancels Christmas...

2005-12-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

The Onion, as usual, is on top of the story.

The supposed "War on Christmas"

2005-12-13T22:21:00.000-08:00

Those on the right swear it exists, those on the left mock it and them mercilessly, yes it's time to give season's greetings to the happy holiday tradition of fighting the War on Christmas. Today I hope to strap on some body armor and my kevlar and embed myself in the trenches, to ride along in the HMMWV's, to hunker down in the foxhole journalist-style (or at least curious observer-style) and find out what all the hubbub is about.

But where do I start? I could go right to the top, the supreme commander of the noble and righteous Corps de Christo, Bill O'Reilly. But really, I'd be as likely to get a response from O'Reilly as I would from Gen. Abizaid. Really to be honest O'Reilly creeps me out. From his horribly embarassing Loofa episode *shiver* to the new threats to "bring horror" to those who wishes someone happy holidays. I tried a google search but apparently this war on christmas (or at least the war on the war on christmas) was started sometime around the end of Thanksgiving (you know, the war on the war on Christmas starts earlier and earlier these days, pretty soon we'll be bringing horror on people by Halloween!). Any google searches were painfully out of date so striking up a conversation with the front line grunts in the war would be about as worthwhile as trying to access the supreme commander himself.

Enter Technorati. With the miracle of technorati I can a list of blogs that are discussing a given topic in order of freshness. Sweet! Finally I get to try to discuss this with someone who is right there on the front lines, someone who has the topic right there in the front of his or her brain. So who did technorati lead me to? A little blog (judging by the small number of comments - not that mine is huge or anything) called Small But Disorganized. If you read the link you'll find that the anonymous blogger is really into the christmas thing. The site is red and green, the title image is an image of a wal-mart-esque lighted natvity scene with the words "Merry Christmas!" prominently displayed over it. The link in particular is about a fantasy of going out and bringing all the "secular fundamentalists" to their knees by running up to each and every one of them in a department store (where we all congregate obviously) and wishing a very stern "Merry Christmas." I've found my front line warrior, time to engage.

My first line of questioning? Just who in the world are these people who are offended by the term Merry Christmas? Can you point me to them? If not, where did you learn about them? Here's what I wrote...

Ain't technorati grand? You're the first person on this side of the issue that I came across and I just thought I'd strike up a conversation about this whole war on christmas thing.

Just out of curiosity, who are these people that are offended by people wishing them a Merry Christmas? I'm an atheist, most of my friends are atheists, lots are Christian, some are Jewish, and a couple are Hindu [EDIT: I've met a couple of people who are Hindu, I can't really say that I know if they're offended or use the term Merry Christmas but the rest stands...]. None of us are at all upset by the phrase "merry christmas". In fact, I can't think of a single one of us who hasn't wished someone a merry christmas.

Now I know that Bill O'Reilly has insisted that there is some big secret legion of anti-Christmas / anti-Christian warriors out there that are driven by the one single solitary goal of ridding the US of Christianity and free will in general. But O'Reilly is insane. First of all, you should never trust anyone that tells you that any group of atheists could get together and organize anything let alone a massive country-wide conspiracy involving a massive media machine. Second, despite what everyone says, not only do we atheists not believe in God, we don't care who does.

But maybe I just haven't gotten my invitation. In which case, I'm pissed.

So anyhow, do you have some kind of link to an example of a "secular fundamentalist" who has taken offense at the term Merry Christmas? I would definitely like to hop on over to their blog (assuming they're a blogger, but really who isn't these days?) and ask them a similar series of questions. If you've got no example then I must ask where did you get the idea that there is a war on christmas at all?

I'll post this comment over at my blog (see, everyone's got a blog these days) and I've subscribed to these comments. I really am curious about all of this. Hopefully you can enlighten me a bit.

Here's hoping that we get a dialog going.

My God I love Jennifer Aniston!

2005-11-06T21:22:00.000-08:00

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Jennifer Aniston named 7 things that she'd rather talk about than everything the tabloids have been putting her through. The last two stick out for me:

The state of the world. How about that indictment?! And why did it take so long to respond to the crisis in New Orleans? Everything is imploding. It all seems to lead back to our dear president.

Radiohead. When are they going to make a new album? Where are they? Where did they go?

That just gets me all misty eyed...

My New Blog...

2005-10-31T15:45:00.000-08:00

So if you don't know, I've got a new blog. You can now find me at http://blog.mikelanestudios.com/. It's the blog for the business I'm building (slowly but surely) at http://www.mikelanestudios.com/. Come on over and take a look why don't you?

Spinning plates...

2005-09-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

While you make pretty speeches
I'm being cut to shreds.
You feed me to the lions
A delicate balance.

And this just feels like spinning plates.
I'm living in cloud cuckoo land.
And this just feels like spinning plates.
My body's floating down the muddy river.

-Radiohead

A new website to check out...

2005-07-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy of Dean Malaxos Photography

Dean is a new photographer friend of mine that I met on Dgrin. He has some awesome landscapes and he is a very talented wedding photographer. If you are from Portland and are looking for a fantastic wedding photographer, I suggest you check out Dean's site!

Pics from Thailand posted.

2005-07-01T00:50:00.000-07:00

A few shots of mine from Thailand. There's more to see over at my photography website.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I did have access to the net in Thailand, but I just wasn't ever in a good position to be able to post anything. Anyhow, I wanted to make sure that everyone knew that I had some Thailand pictures posted. Let me know what you think.

Bankok Blogging...

2005-04-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

You know you grew up in the 80s if you've ever seen this video

I do like it very much when the hotel that I'm staying in has free wi-fi internet access. Not too bad of a trip so far. I am scheduled to go to Chiang Mai of course, but they made it so we stay one night in Bankok (and the world's my oyster) before we head on up there.

The good news is that I've talked to some people who know the schedule of events that say we get a couple of days off in the middle and that our days don't go past 1500 or 1600 each day. So it shouldn't be too taxing and I should definitely get to go on at least one tour. If they have it, I'm going to go visit the Karen tribes to see if I can get any shots like this:

Women from the Karen Padauong tribe that lives in Northwest Thailand and Southeast Myanmar

Of course, I'm no National Geographic photographer so it may not be exactly like that, but you get the idea hopefully.

Come one come all!!!

2005-04-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Come on over and get your high quality at ease gear!

Were you just thinking silently to yourself, "Boy, I sure do wish I could find some moderately funny shirts and crap to show my solidarity with some guy with a website"? If so, have I got a deal for you over at the at ease Shameless Marketing Extravaganza! Proudly wear an inside joke like an "I don't know what you're going to eat" Bar-B-Q apron, tell the world how important you are with a "My Mom says I'm a catch..." T-shirt, or make everyone stare intently at your chest with a long life quote by Walt Whitman.

We're working hard every day to create new and exciting products so check back often!

El-e-va-tion!

2005-04-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

Finally a reasonable picture of the elipse from the U2 shows

Okay, so I wanted to point out exactly where I was for Monday's U2 shows. I think it's pretty clear that I was one of the lucky few. And to think that Dave Peck bought those tickets a mere 6 hours before the show started. Un freaking real. So all the U2 guys were out walking around on the elipse that you see there from time to time.

What a great night.

And now a moment in history...

2005-04-26T02:01:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the good old days? You know, way back when. Like when the administration still insisted that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq just waiting to be found. They said that they knew were the weapons were, that they were "in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

Well as it turns out, it is official, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, none, nada, zippo. All the proof the administration said they had, Tony Blair's dossier, everything wrong. Dead wrong (and now there may be up to 100,000 dead Iraqis to go with that). The tragically funny thing is that this ultimately makes Saddam Hussein more trustworthy than George W. Bush. Do you remember that big contriversial interview that Dan Rather did with Saddam Hussein on Feb 24, 2003? Here is a small snippet of a transcript from that interview:

Translator For Saddam Hussein: Thank you. The President says, the United States - the world - knows that there is nothing in Iraq of… whatever the noise has been made about. And I believe that that noise and the fleets that have been brought around and the mobilization that's been done were, in fact, done partly to cover the huge lie that was being waged against Iraq about chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

And it was on that basis that Iraq actually accepted Resolution - accepted it, even though Iraq was absolutely certain that what it had said, what the Iraqi officials…had kept saying, that… Iraq was empty, was void of any such weapons, was the case. But Iraq accepted that resolution… in order not to allow any misinterpretation of its position.

And, indeed, in order to make the case absolutely clear that Iraq was no longer in possession of any such…weapons. Iraq accepted to agree to deal with that resolution. That is why, when you talk about such missiles, these missiles have been destroyed. There are no missiles that are contrary to the prescription of the United Nations in Iraq.

These missiles were des - missiles that were proscribed - have been destroyed and are no longer there.

Hindsight is 20/20 you might say. Better to attack and not find them than not attack and get hit with them. Everyone thought there were weapons.

Not exactly

[July 17, 2002]RITTER: No one has substantiated the allegations that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction or is attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And of course that is the reason we have been given for going to war against Iraq -- because of the threat posed by these weapons. It has been nothing but rhetorically laced speculation, not hard facts, that have been presented by either the United States or Great Britain to back this up, and until they provide hard facts, there is no case for war.

...

RITTER: I believe Washington D.C. is using the concept of inspections as a political foil to justify war. America doesn't want to inspectors to return. The best way to stop war is to get the inspectors back in. I believe it should be the policy of the United Nations to get the inspectors back in.

Scott Ritter became the "liberal" media's pinata until his credibility was completely shot. Then we attacked and now everything that he ever said has come true.

Kind of makes you want to scream doesn't it?

Holy cow what a night!

2005-04-26T01:35:00.000-07:00

Just a short post for now because I'm tired as all get out but I'll post more tomorrow. Not only did we have general admission tickets to the U2 show tonight, 2 of the 3 of us won the random drawing to get into the elipse. Yeah, I was 10 or so feet from Bono. Awesome! Even better, a little while later I turned around and saw Eddie Vedder standing not 15 feet away from me. Totally cool! I even got to say hi to Eddie and he said hi back. Sweet!

What an amazing show and to be where I was...oh man it was just unreal.

Raise your hand if you saw U2 last night!

2005-04-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

ooh ooh, I did! I did!

Now raise your hand if you're going to be seeing U2 again tonight.

NICE!

More to the point, I'm going to be seeing U2 again and this time I have general admission tickets with a chance of randomly being able to go into the elipse to watch Bono and the rest of the band walk out right beside me! Holy freaking cool! I'm so excited.

The show last night was so awesome. Seriously, it was unreal to get to see U2 perform Sunday Bloody Sunday live. Well I'm off. I'll post more tomorrow I'm sure.

So you remember Adam Yoshida?

2005-04-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

So do you remember how I went on a bit of a rant the other day about Adam Yoshida and his ridiculous red herring? Let's flash back to the pertinent parts shall we?

Similarly, I’m against abortion for national security reasons. More abortions means fewer people, which means a smaller economy and fewer potential soldiers (or, alternately, more immigrants, which is also not a sustainable solution).

Boy, oh boy, has Tbogg given me the greatest idea of a gift for that crazy Canuck...

Protect our troops - from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship?

Plastic replica of an 11-12 week old fetus, 3" long, holding a firearm in its precious little hand, with an assortment of other military paraphernalia, encased in a translucent plastic ornament, with a patriotic yellow ribbon on top. Includes a metal ornament hanger. If only a womb were this safe, attractive and reasonably priced!

Show that you support the "culture of life" by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans.

Also available in a "Brown" model

This is a real product, from a real site, selling real products. This is NOT a parody. This is a real store.

It's amazing, someone else actually sees the world just like Adam Yoshida does!

Red State Priorities...

2005-04-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

South Carolina is well on its way to making cock fighting a felony punishable up to 5 years in prison but has tabled a domestic violence bill that would do the same thing for a man who abuses his wife. Both Domestic abuse and cockfighting are currently misdemeanors and thanks to boneheads like state Rep. John Graham Altman (R. Dist. 119-Charleston) domestic violence will remain so for at least another year.

Just to recap: The South Carolina legislature thinks that the lives of chickens are more important than the lives of women. And to think, Beth and I could possibly be moving there after this. Great.

And now the at ease wierd Google search of the day!

2005-04-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

Any site that is indexed on google and is linked from other pages gets some odd search engine hits from time to time. I thought this one was pretty funny. If you search the following in Google:

experimenting childs plants for school (grass) to see what one will grow stronger or faster with trash

You get at ease as the 23rd result. Good luck to the student in Bensalem Pennsylvania who is apparently trying to do some research on trash consuming plants (specifically grass). I'm sorry my site was no help to you.

This is kind of fun...

2005-04-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

10% Dixie

10% Yankee

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

This test asks questions like what do you call a sugary carbonated beverage Pop or Soda? I'm a soda man myself. There were some things I'd never heard before in that test. Pretty cool.

When it rains it pours...

2005-04-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

Adam Yoshida (my favorite nutcase) is at it again. Mr. loser waxes all poetic on what he sees as the grand delusions of the liberals. You know, there's nothing quite as close to the truth as an Adam Yoshida disertation on the merits (or lack thereof) of liberalism.

Witness Adam's first hypothesis. When asked why he thought people were social liberals by a liberal friend of his (a female which presumably means she is cute enough not to be caught up in the imaginary Yoshida liberal kill fest), he had this to say:

They’re under the sway of the illusion of the permanence of all things.

What does that mean you ask? Well good question. Leading linguists, scientists, and astrologers are hard at work this very minute trying to deduce any meaning from that statement. Preliminary findings leaked to at ease are that it is pseudo intellectual drivel from a particularly awkward guy with little or no social skills intended to attract a mate. That is science-speak for he's trying to get a little liberal tail by making them think he's smart.

Adam proceeds to go into a rant about declining fertility rates and fuel shortages that his imaginary friend told him won't actually happen. These arguments would certainly bring modern liberalism to its knees if anyone could figure out why we were supposed to care about fertility rates or what he thinks the future of the fuel supply was going to be.

This is all just fun banter leading up to Adam's primary conjectures. First that we can't allow homosexual marriage because that will affect the security of our country and second that we can't allow abortion because that means we are literally killing future soldiers before they are born. Have a look!

I view moral issues as national security issues. I’m not simply opposed to gay marriage because I believe that it’s an abomination against God, I’m against it because I believe that it’s a threat to our future security. The advance of homosexuality and other ideologies of personal indulgence threaten our security because they will surely weaken our resolve to resist future threats.

Similarly, I’m against abortion for national security reasons. More abortions means fewer people, which means a smaller economy and fewer potential soldiers (or, alternately, more immigrants, which is also not a sustainable solution).

So let's follow the logic chain on these shall we?

Homosexuals are allowed to get married
???
The US gets overthrown by China!!!!

Wow, scary stuff. What about the abortion thing?

The government isn't allowed to tell a woman what to do with her body
???
The US gets overthrown by North Korea!!!!

My goodness! Run for the hills!!!

The relatively astitute among you may be saying to yourself, "That's silly, Mr. Yoshida is simply trying to reinforce his arguments by making us afraid of the consequences." The really smart cookies out there will say to yourself, "That Adam is trying to get away with a red herring again." For the uninformed a red herring is a logical fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue.

No wonder this guy is such a loser.

Cat blogging...(Sorry Karlo!)

2005-04-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

So it appears that Stevens is all better now. For the uninformed he is our cat that had the runs ever since we got him. He used to be very small for his age with thin hair and now he's much bigger with a great coat and has the run of the house along with Sierra. He's hella cute and very fun to be around ... I no longer feel the need to drop kick him off the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

Very cool!

Friday's Random 10

2005-04-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

I personally prefer my Rio Karma to the iPod...

Time for this Friday's random 10!

Artist - Title

Tool - Stinkfist
Alice in Chains - I Can't Remember
John Hartford - Indian War Whoop [Instrumental]
Frank Sinatra - Luck Be a Lady
Prince - U Got the Look
David Byrne - Wicked Little Doll
The Clash - Brand New Cadillac
Nine Inch Nails - Ruiner
Cream - Mother's Lament
Alice in Chains - Would?

Marching towards a brave new world...

2005-04-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

The way I see it, Senator Frist is using the "religious card" for one of two reasons. First, and least disturbing to me personally, is that he (as a dirty whore politician) is trying to wring every last ounce of power out of the fanatical religious right as he possibly can. That is to say that he is fundamentally unconcerned with the ideals and goals of the fanatical Christians but is more than willing to use them to achieve any and all of his goals. Assuming this to be the case (and it may be, after all others in his party - like Bush - haven't found it necessary to pay back the fanatical fundies for their votes this past election), one has to wonder what it feels like to get so used and abused.

Second, and particularly disturbing to me, is that this is Frist's strategy to change this country into a theocracy. This seems to be a possibility because the right wingers are embracing the fanatical fundies like never before. Seriously, just listen in for a while to Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, and others. You'll start to see what I mean. This could well be a concerted effort on a part of the right to force religion into the Constitution - and could very well be payback to and the cementing of support of the fanatical fundies. If it truly was the religious zealots of this country that elected Bush and his conservative counterparts, what better way to ensure that support doesn't go away than to insert it into the Constitution?

The idea of a Constitutional Theocracy should make everyone nervous. What is Frist up to?

My New Business Card...

2005-04-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

In case it isn't clear my site is Mike Lane Photography. I have photography for sale. You can go there. I'll be here when you get back:)

So here is my new business card. Let me know what you think.

Do you know what I need? The perfect cheer!

2005-04-06T22:48:00.000-07:00

Ready? Okay.

Who's that guy with an MS degree? It's me! It's me! I said who's that guy with an MS degree? It's me! It's me! Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh uh huh uh huh.

MS DEGREE WOO!

Okay well so it isn't official but I am just now officially 100% complete with my final class. The paper and presentation submitted and it's time to bask in the light of having completed graduate school. I am totally going to start marking the box next to "completed graduate school" instead of just "completed college" or "completed some graduate school" from now on!

I'll be walking on July 30th in Phoenix in case you're wondering.

Last week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic

2005-04-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

Lucky Ducky comes out ahead yet again!

Ruben Bolling is a genius.

Wow...just...wow...

2005-03-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

From Digby (via Atrios):

The appointment of George Bush's leading hawk as head of the World Bank was heading for a crisis over his relationship with a senior British employee.

Influential members of staff at the international organisation have complained to its board that Paul Wolfowitz, a married father of three, is so besotted with Oxford-educated Shaha Riza he cannot be impartial.

Extraordinarily, they claim she played a key role in pushing the 61-year-old Pentagon official into the Iraq War. And the row comes amid claims that Wolfowitz's wife Clare once warned George Bush of the threat to national security any infidelity by her husband could cause.

A British citizen - at 51, eight years younger than Wolfowitz's wife - Ms Riza grew up in Saudi Arabia and was passionately committed to democratising the Middle East when she allegedly began to date Wolfowitz. She studied at the London School of Economics in the Seventies before taking a master's degree at St Anthony's College, Oxford, where she met her future husband, Turkish Cypriot Bulent Ali Riza, from whom she is now divorced.

After they moved to America, Shaha worked for the Iraq Foundation, set up by expatriates to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. She subsequently joined the National Endowment for Democracy, created by President Ronald Reagan to promote American ideals.

Bulent Riza said Shaha started to "talk to Paul" about reforming the Middle East. And New Yorker magazine's respected commentator Paul Boyer observed that a senior World Bank official "named Shaha Ali Riza" was an "influence".

When I heard that Wolfowitz was nominated to be the head of the World bank, I couldn't figure out why exactly. I thought it may have something to do with the Neocon agenda and the resource pillaging of Iraq. Step one was getting us to war, step two is using the World Bank to profit from it (and I may not be that far off). But who knew that he was being led by the johnson by his mistress?

You remember how the right called the left crazy?

2005-03-25T22:21:00.000-08:00

So you remember how the right wingers called the left crazy, that they were scared of what we'd do after the election, that we were unhinged, unglued, unstable, loony? Remember how they said there'd be bat-shit crazy liberals out in the streets with guns shooting any random hapless conservative that walked by? Remember how that was just political wing nuttery that never came to fruition? That was awesome.

In other news:

Man Trys Steal Gun to 'Rescue Schiavo'
A man was arrested after trying to steal a weapon from a gun shop so he could "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo," authorities said.
Michael W. Mitchell, of Rockford, Ill., entered Randall's Firearms Inc. in Seminole just before 6 p.m. Thursday with a box cutter and tried to steal a gun, said Marianne Pasha, a spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
Mitchell, 50, told deputies he wanted to "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo" after he visited the Pinellas Park hospice where she lives, Pasha said.
This is what happens when the President makes the demands of radicals gain legitimacy.

CNN has the details of another conservative murder plot:

...snip...
Authorities said Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, offered $250,000 for the killing of Michael Schiavo and another $50,000 for the death of Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who ordered Schiavo's feeding tube removed a week ago.
...snip...

It makes me think of the show OZ where the white supremicist rapist Schilinger says "any laws I broke didn't deserve to be laws." Ignoring the fact that plotting to kill someone because of this case is a irony tsunami, this is just scary. When the Free Republic board has to post a message that says "Mod note: Calls for violence will result in suspensions" you know things are getting out of hand.

Posting from SFO

2005-03-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

Raise your hand if you're on your way to Hawaii.

:D

I haven't been to Hawaii in nearly 4 years and well, that's just too damned long. The best thing is that I get to be there for nearly 6 days and then I fly to San Diego. NICE! This is going to be a good trip.

I have another great trip coming up too. I'm going to Chiang Mai Thailand on the 29th of April and coming back on the 15th of May. I'm attending a yearly US/Thai military exercise called Cobra Gold. It's hosted by the Thais and by the III Marine Expeditionary Force. Fortunately for this attendee, the III MEF spent so much time working on tsunami relief they feel that the don't really need to do an exercise. So what they are doing is having a week-long conference about the lessons learned from the tsunami relief efforts. The second week is going to be what the military calls a STAFFEX. Basically it's a computer exercise for the logistical staff work - in this case during a disaster relief scenario. All this means that I won't be so freaking busy like I was last year. Like I said, this year's exercise is in Chiang Mai which is Thailand's 2nd largest city. Unlike Bangkok or Pattaya, Chaing Mai isn't known for its nightlife, it's more of a cultural city located in the mountainous resort area of northern Thailand. So I'm looking forward to that. Also one cool thing that I found on the net recently is that Chiang Mai is close to where the Karen Tribe are located. They are known for putting brass rings around their neck to lengthen (or appear to lengthen) their necks.

Oooh, also before Thailand, just after this trip actually, I am finishing my last masters class. WOO HOO! I'll finally be done so I can get my life back. I won't have to worry about taking another class or writing a 10 page paper or logging on every day to make sure my participation gets counted. I'll get to have a "normal" life again. I can't wait.

...also, the plane that I'll be riding in just pulled up. It's a 777 and it's freaking massive. After today, I'll have been in just about everything (KC-135 is essentially a 707, 727, 737, MD-80, MD-11, DC-10, L1011, 757, 767, A340) except a 747 and an A380, maybe I can get that one of those knocked out of the way on my trip to Thailand (which will be commercial not milair...NICE).

This needs to be heard...

2005-03-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the blogging break. I've just been so swamped with school and work stuff. After I spend a few hours writing a paper the last thing I feel like doing is blogging. Besides, I really haven't found all that much to blog about recently. The Terri Schiavo issue, although tragic, is of very little concern to me since both Beth and I have living wills (and so should everyone else by the way).

What is a great concern to me is this post from Roachblog (found via Atrios):

This is something my Great Aunt Minnie would say when she really meant Holy Shit. I've posted occasionally about what I fear we have become; both as a military force and as a nation. I'm happy when I don't see news reports that stoke my fears.

I'm not happy now.

Suddenly, the count of prisoners dead in captivity is up to 108. Boy, that happened fast, didn't it? When I did my seven year hitch in the Navy, the gold standard for horrible, communist, totalitarian, non-Geneva convention deadly bastards who you never wanted to get captured by was the North Vietnamese.

They were happy if you died in your cell. They tortured. They hated. They abused just for perverse commie, Stalinist fun. They were the worst. Worse than Nazis, even, because the Nazis at least sometimes pretended to be civilized about POW treatment. The North Vietnamese didn't even pretend.

So how many American POWS died while captured by the insane and lawless North Vietnamese during the entire Vietnam war? One hundred and fourteen. From all causes. What killed the 108 (so far) reported in our custody?

Mostly "violent causes".

Maybe someone would like to explain WTF that means. I don't even want to try.

Amazing.

And now for something completely different...

2005-03-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

Sierra gets a little crazy for the photographer (Beth took this shot)

Seriously, Sierra is a great cat. She's a bit fiesty towards Stevens, but then again Stevens gives it right back to her. Hopefully we can get them to be nice to each other eventually.

Anyone know a good cat trainer? Yeah, me either.

You know what this country needs?

2005-03-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

Sweatshops (the 3rd world has them, why can't we?)
To get rid of that pesky 40 hour work week concept (who wants to work 40 hours anyhow?)
To keep workers from receiving overtime (I'm sure most people who get overtime just use that money to buy drugs and porn anyhow)
To prevent states from setting minimum wages that are higher than the federal minimum (minimum wages are so New-Deal era anyhow)
To make it so those who get tips don't drain the pockets of their employers by demanding a wage that is above the poverty line (poverty is all the rage these days I hear)

I say we just adopt the labor laws of a third world country. Burma maybe. Oooh or Vietnam! Indonesia is always a favorite. I tell you what, go to the Gap and pick out ten random articles of clothing. The country represented the most will be our new labor standard.

Find out more here!

Hat tip Atrios

Hilarious read of the day...

2005-03-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you read righties and their arguments are at least well thought out and somewhat cohesive (no Little Green Footballs and Anti-Idolitarian Rottweiler, I'm not talking about you). Sometimes those righties actually make you stop and think about your positions and ideals and see things (even if briefly) from their point of view.

Not today.

I present for you California Conservatives For Truth. Over at CC4T you can read such gems as:

Any parent with a child in a public school has likely discovered our education system is little more than a means by which liberals indoctrinate children with socialist ideology. If this seems a radical assertion, I assure you it is not. In fact, examples abound indicating its accuracy.

Take the "community box," for instance. How many elementary school kids across the country show up the first day of school, only to have their brand-new supplies pilfered by their teacher and thrown into one big box, to be distributed henceforth as said teacher sees fit? (Karl Marx also had very little regard for private property rights.)

and this:

Seems to me like the left is 100% in line with Communist thought.

Wow, did I nod off and wake up in 1955 or something? Note to CC4T, they compare us with terrorists these days. Terrorists not communists. Here, have some more Koolaid.

Maybe you're just being retro. I hear retro is the new black.

Random 10

2005-03-05T21:35:00.000-08:00

And now, this week's installment of my random 10:

Bush - Personal Holloway

Gang Starr - Intro (The First Step)

Billy Joel - Goodnight Saigon

Duran Duran - Ordinary World

Coldplay - Daylight

Alice in Chains - So Close

The Pretenders - Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Sheila Nicholls - Fallen for You

Feeder - Buck Rogers

Marcy Playground - Poppies

There's some ... uh ... interesting stuff in there this week. Gang Starr has made the Random 10 every time I have done it I think. Seriously, I haven't listened to them much at all since high school.

Oh yeah, I was totally into rap in high school. And I'm totally not into rap now. Actually, that's not entirely true. I certainly don't like "gangsta" rap. I think mostly because every song is about name dropping and talking about how awesome they are. The type of rap I like is either humorous, has a worthwhile message, or is self-depricating. A good example of this is the Pharcyde. Back in 1994 (when I got that CD), you didn't hear many rappers talking about how girls had passed them by or how they were depressed because a girl left them (but there's other fish in the sea that is). The black eyed peas or ugly duckling are great examples these days. Dave is really into rap (and not only the weenie rap that I like) so if you're interested in learning more, talk to him.

Anyhow, I'm still hammering away at the site and getting my pictures organized. I think my work is going to force me to reformat and reinstall before they'll let me on to the network. Kind of frustrating, but it'll give me the chance to get it set up exactly the way I want. I'm going to partition the drive. Any recommendations on partition size from anyone out there? I want to have an operating system/program files drive and a storage drive. I have 60GB's to play with so I figured I'd do 10/50. Would the program drive be too little or would it be okay?

Sorry it's been so long...

2005-03-02T20:52:00.000-08:00

I've been working hard on my photography website. It took me a while to adjust the pictures from the Windjammer Regatta and get them posted. Then I took to designing some spiffy graphics to spruce the page up a bit. Then I took the time to complain about the ridiculous lack of ability to make my site the way I want it on the support forums. They say they'll have a totally skinnable update, but they won't say when. That tells me that they are having some trouble and can't nail down a release date. If it isn't within the next year, I'll be moving everything over to a site that I host myself (maybe I should start reading up on linux, apache, mySQL, and PHP eh?).

I'm having a ball with renting the lenses. This weekend, I'm renting a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L Image Stabilized, Ultrasonic Motor lens. Supposedly, it is an absolutely spectacular lens. It's all kinds of fast (f2.8 over the whole zoom range!) so I think that I may try to find some kind of indoor event to photograph. I really need to work on getting some business cards. *click* Hey, I just took a picture of you that you might like, here's my card feel free to check it out. That's money in the bank!

Actually, I'm just kidding. I'd mostly rather see good people get great pictures. Many of you that read this (if there are still any readers out there that is) don't know that I was in martial arts (Tang Soo Do and Matsumoran Orthodox Shoryn Ryu to be exact) starting when I was 8. I know for a fact that if there was a photographer who got in there and took some great pictures of the contestants, every one of the students' parents would have been so unbelievably happy. I have a lot of pictures, but they're all from crappy cameras. I wish I had some great images to look back on.

So I'm excited about that possibility. There are some other events that I'm excited to photograph coming up. First up will be the Skagit County Tulip Festival - the same one that I got the picture of the little girl and the purple tulips. Next up will be the great weather of spring and hiking trips around the mountains. We'll be taking a trip with Reid (our house's Kato Kalin) down to his home town in Wallowa County, Oregon for Memorial Day. Next up will be the 4th of July, I seriously can't wait for that! After that will be the McChord Airshow where I'll be able to test my skills with wide angle shots of the parked planes and telephoto action shots of the flying planes. I'm also hoping that there will be some kind of hot air balloon festival around here some time.

I'm just crossing my fingers that I'll be around these parts for all of that.

So anyhow, I feel like I've got a lot to learn about photography, photoshop, and the business of selling both, but I'm having a hell of a lot of fun while I'm learning.

Finally...

2005-02-24T14:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, the URL is finally all set up. I am now the happy owner of my very own online photography business. You can go on over to www.mikelanephotography.com to have a look. Okay, I know, there are only 5 pictures and a bit of a message, but it'll get better over time. I am planning on modifying the look of the site and add my very own header to replace the smugmug header. If you have any inputs, please feel free to let me know and I'll see what I can do. Smugmug is limited in certain ways, and it may get frustrating but I hope not. I'm signed on there for a year, I suppose by this time next year I will be able to figure out if I like the site or if I can't stand it and want to move everything to my own server and do things my own way.

But no matter, for now, I am up and running with www.mikelanephotography.com. There will be more than 5 images soon and even more after this weekend's regatta. Come back often to see if I've got anything you'd like.

Also, if you are in the Seattle Tacoma area and you'd like to hire a photographer to cover an event, feel free to contact me. I am free most evenings and weekends but I will need 2 weeks notice so I can get all the necessary lenses and equipment.

I am so unbelievably excited!

2005-02-22T11:46:00.001-08:00

That's qute a lens you've got there fella...

I can't believe it. On a whim, I searched Google for "camera rent seattle" and one of the first results was Glazer's Camera. After a smidgen of looking around, I found out that they have an absolute TON of lenses available to rent for next to nothing prices. I am renting (if you're a camera buff, you'll like this) a Canon 35-350mm f/3.5-5.6L USM lens (pictured above - not sure if it is the IS or not) for $25. I can pick it up on Friday after 3:00pm and drop it off on Monday. I get that monster lens for the whole weekend for $25!

He was right before...

2005-02-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

The scourge of the right wing, Scott Ritter, says that the US is planning on attacking Iran in June 2005.

On Friday evening in Olympia, former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter appeared with journalist Dahr Jamail. -- Ritter made two shocking claims: George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and the U.S. manipulated the results of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq....

SCOTT RITTER SAYS U.S. PLANS JUNE ATTACK ON IRAN, ‘COOKED’ JAN. 30 IRAQI ELECTION RESULTS
By Mark Jensen

United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)
February 19, 2005

Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

Olympians like to call the Capitol Theater "historic," but it's doubtful whether the eighty-year-old edifice has ever been the scene of more portentous revelations.

The principal theme of Scott Ritter's talk was Americans’ duty to protect the U.S. Constitution by taking action to bring an end to the illegal war in Iraq. But in passing, the former UNSCOM weapons inspector stunned his listeners with two pronouncements. Ritter said plans for a June attack on Iran have been submitted to President George W. Bush, and that the president has approved them. He also asserted that knowledgeable sources say U.S. officials "cooked" the results of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

On Iran, Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism.

The former Marine also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George W. Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom," were not so free after all. Ritter said that U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%.

Asked by UFPPC's Ted Nation about this shocker, Ritter said an official involved in the manipulation was the source, and that this would soon be reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a major metropolitan magazine -- an obvious allusion to New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh.

On Jan. 17, the New Yorker posted an article by Hersh entitled The Coming Wars (New Yorker, January 24-31, 2005). In it, the well-known investigative journalist claimed that for the Bush administration, "The next strategic target [is] Iran." Hersh also reported that "The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer." According to Hersh, "Defense Department civilians, under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran. . . . Strategists at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military’s war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran. . . . The hawks in the Administration believe that it will soon become clear that the Europeans’ negotiated approach [to Iran] cannot succeed, and that at that time the Administration will act."

Scott Ritter said that although the peace movement failed to stop the war in Iraq, it had a chance to stop the expansion of the war to other nations like Iran and Syria. He held up the specter of a day when the Iraq war might be remembered as a relatively minor event that preceded an even greater conflagration.

Scott Ritter's talk was the culmination of a long evening devoted to discussion of Iraq and U.S. foreign policy. Before Ritter spoke, Dahr Jamail narrated a slide show on Iraq focusing on Fallujah. He showed more than a hundred vivid photographs taken in Iraq, mostly by himself. Many of them showed the horrific slaughter of civilians.

Dahr Jamail argued that U.S. mainstream media sources are complicit in the war and help sustain support for it by deliberately downplaying the truth about the devastation and death it is causing.

Jamail was, until recently, one of the few unembedded journalists in Iraq and one of the only independent ones. His reports have gained a substantial following and are available online at dahrjamailiraq.com.

Friday evening's event in Olympia was sponsored by South Puget Sound Community College's Student Activities Board, Veterans for Peace, 100 Thousand and Counting, Olympia Movement for Justice & Peace, and United for Peace of Pierce County.

Administration-led character assassination on Scott Ritter (again) in 5... 4... 3...

Request for input!

2005-02-18T23:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it looks like I may possibly have the opportunity to start making a little money from this whole photography thing. There is a guy that works with Beth who has a sailboat and sails in races. He said that there is possibly a big market for getting pictures of people's boats during the races. I'm thinking this could be a great way for me to get a foot in the door and maybe get my name out there. So I've decided that I'm going to set up a premium account over at smugmug. They have the best features that I've seen (but if you know a better place, feel free to let me know) and they let you set the pricing for pictures. One of the really nice things is that they let you have your own URL.

And it is that part which I'm hoping to pool the creative juices of anyone who may be reading this. I need a name for my virtual photography store. Something photography related would be good, something witty maybe, something memorable, and most of all something that can be made into a good URL that isn't already taken. If you think of something post it in the comments. Who knows, maybe your idea will be the one I pick! I tell you what, if you win I'll get you one of any sized image that I eventually post on that as yet to be named site.

Friday's Random Ten

2005-02-18T15:35:00.000-08:00

Kind of a fun Friday. I forgot that the Army usually takes down days on Fridays when there is a holiday on a following Monday (and vice versa). I remembered when I got to work and the parking lot was empty. So I went and got my car washed and my hairs cut and then went to go visit Beth for a while. More about that visit in a bit, but first this week's Random Ten!

Talking Heads - Love Goes To a Building on Fire

The Beatles - Mother Nature's Son

The Beatles - Glass Onion

Radiohead - Paranoid Android (that's familiar)

Gang Starr - Code of the Streets

Tom Petty - The Dark of the Sun

Mull Historical Society - Watching Xanadu

Violent Femmes - Old Mother Reagan

Elvis Presley - Suspicious Minds

Soundgarden - My Wave

Nice.

Photography thread...

2005-02-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

Picasa2 is pretty cool

Post a comment to this thread if you want to talk about pictures and photography.

You ever wonder...

2005-02-14T22:17:00.000-08:00

When they make a move of the week about Bush's downfall and impeachment, who is going to play the US Marine/high priced gay male prostitute who ends up getting a press pass from the administration and leaking classified information to out a CIA agent?

World O'Crap has more in case you don't know what in the world I'm talking about.

**Update** - Great, once Google indexes this, I'm going to get a ton of search hits for "gay male prostitute".

New blog feature...

2005-02-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a very nice and helpful haloscan user, I have implemented an RSS feed to my latest comments. You'll notice this feature on the right-hand side of the blog. The latest comment is on top (it refreshes every 30 minutes I think) and if you hold your mouse over the name a tool tip will appear that gives the title of the post to which that comment belongs. Sweet! Notice that I have also removed the send a care package link, but I will put Anysoldier Inc. on the blogroll in case you need to find it from at ease.

I have a couple of other things that I'd like to do with the blog. The Books I'm reading thing is a pain in the ass to update, so I think I'm going to create another blog that lists the books that I'm reading and then feed the RSS from that blog into my sidebar. There are a ton of things that I'm thinking that I can do. Maybe a list of my most recently watched movies and a quick personal rating. Fun fun!

After that, my next blog project is to go back to the color picker that helped me pick my blog colors and start working on different color designs for the blog. I'm not going to change everything though. My plan is to get a bunch of different color options to choose from and let you, the reader, pick what's best dynamically. I am also planning on revamping my title bar with some of my photography because it's getting a bit stale.

Of course, this may take a while since my UoPhx class is weighing down on me these days. I will be complete with my whole master's program by April. Graduation is in July and I will be putting my graduation announcement up on the Blog rather than sending an actual physical announcement to everyone.

This is so cool!

2005-02-13T02:11:00.000-08:00

Six Dancers

I found this site via Chaos Digest which I found via the most recent comment by a guy named Rob. You should go check both of the sites out because they're both great.

I may be paranoid, but I'm not an android...

2005-02-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

I'm not very good at doing weekly recurring posts am I? Here is the list of the first 10 songs that came up when I did a random playlist of all the tracks on my Rio Karma (aka. the random 10):

Corrosion of Conformity - Albatross (great song!)

Alice in Chains - We Die Young (how prophetic the lead singer died of an OD not long ago)

Blondie - Call Me (is it wrong to have liked this song since I was a little kid?)

Green Day - In the End (I'm not sure I've ever heard it)

Tonic - Soldier's Daughter (Tonic has some great songs and then they have some songs, I wonder which this is)

Nine Inch Nails - The Becoming (Ever so moody)

Soundgarden - Fell on Black Days (How would I know that this could be my fate)

The Magnetic Fields - All My Little Words (From the most recent CD mass buy, probably heard it, but I don't really remember it)

Radiohead - Paranoid Android (Oh how I love this song)

Bomb the Bass - Bug Powder Dust (Who? What?)

So there you have it, my random 10 for the week (or so).

Last week's Tom The Dancing Bug...

2005-02-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

Reuben Boling is a genius

Hilarious.

Goddamned liars!

2005-02-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

When can we finally say it? When is it okay to call someone in this administration a liar? Let's just say for the sake of argument that Condi Rice wrote an article in the Washington Post about 9/11. Let's also say she gave it an authoritative name like 9/11: For the Record and said something like "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration."

Flash forward to nearly one year after having read that theoretical column by Dr. Rice. What if we open the paper to find a copy of a recently declassified memo written to Dr. Rice by Richard Clarke (who was the counter terrorism chief at the time) just days after the new administration was sworn into office ... oh, I don't know, say 25 Jan. 2001. Maybe it would have looked something like this:

Hypothetically of course...

You are shocked ... shocked! ... to read that in the first days of the administration the counter terrorism advisor was nearly begging the administration to have a "principles level review on the al Qida [sic] network." Would you then consider the possibility that Dr. Rice told a bold face lie to make it seem that this administration had done everything it could to prevent 9/11?

There is more too. According to the Herald Sun:

Another document released by the archive said that from April to September 2001, the US Federal Aviation Administration received 52 intelligence reports on al-Qaeda, including five that mentioned hijackings and two that mentioned suicide operations, according to today's New York Times.

Interesting. According to that document there were 52 intelligence reports concerning al-Qaeda and the FAA in roughly 21 weeks. That's nearly 2.5 intelligence reports per week for nearly 6 months. These reports talked about hijacking and suicide operations. I seem to remember Dr. Rice saying something about that some time ago as well. If only there were some kind of massive instantly accessible database of information where I could get a transcript. Oh, wait, I know, I'll try that interweb thingy.

DR. RICE: Steve, I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking. You take a plane -- people were worried they might blow one up, but they were mostly worried that they might try to take a plane and use it for release of the blind Sheikh or some of their own people.

But I think that there's always a fine balance, but even in retrospect, even in hindsight, there was nothing in what was briefed to the President that would suggest that you would go out and say to the American people, look, I just read that terrorists might hijack and aircraft. They talk about hijacking an aircraft once in a while, but have no specifics about when, where, under what circumstances.

Okay, "once in a while"? I don't know about you by my definition of "once in a while" is significantly less often than 2.5 times per week (every third day or so). That isn't enough to make someone to take the President by the collars and say, "For God's sake man, wake up! Stop it with the faith-based crap and the moronic missile defense system for just one damned second and do something about this teeny little issue would ya"? Do we honestly need to know (or even expect to know) that at 6:00am Mohammed Atta is going to be in Bangor, Maine airport on his way to hijacking an airplane to beef up security a bit? What if the administration had upped security to its current level after, oh I don't know, 4 months of intel threats coming at 2.5 threats per week (if not sooner even)? Would 3000 people have ended up dying?

If they were Democrats, they'd be in prison by now. Actually scratch that, if they were Democrats, this wouldn't have been an issue because they would have done what they needed to take care of it. Are we sure that its the left that hates America because the right doesn't seem to give a crap until after it's too late.

Brit Hume should resign...

2005-02-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition defines the word "lie" as follows:

1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.

On February 3rd of this year Hume said the following:

Senate Democrats gathered at the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial today to invoke the image of FDR in calling on President Bush to remove private accounts from his Social Security proposal. But it turns out that FDR himself planned to include private investment accounts in the Social Security program when he proposed it.

"In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, quote, 'Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age,' adding that government funding, quote, 'ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.'

The full quote from FDR is as follows:

In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.

In this quote FDR is talking about 3 necessities. First, pensions for those who were too old to pay into the system at the time that it was established. Second, a system built upon compulsory contributions that would be self-sustaining (i.e. Social Security as we know it today). Third, a system of additional voluntary contributions that would increase the amount a person would receive when they became eligible. As an almost aside, FDR mentioned how his first step should be paid for and how it should be replaced (i.e. phased out by the normal Social Security system).

Hume deliberately misrepresented what FDR said to support his own position. FDR clearly was not interested in any type of private investment accounts as Hume specifically said that he was. Moreover, by comparing two things that were unrelated (extra, voluntary contributions - the thrid part of FDR's plan and not intended to be private - and the initial non-contributory pensions - the first part of FDR's plan that was to be replaced by the normal Social Security over time), by confusing one word "annuity", and sneaking in the phrase "government funding", Hume has specifically given people the idea that FDR wanted something which in reality he most certainly did not.

In other words Hume made a false statement and deliberately presented it as true. Since Hume's position on the issue is clear (he clearly wants Social Security to be privatized) this statement was a statement that was meant to deceive or give a wrong impression. In short, Hume's statement was the definition of a lie. He clearly knew it to be a lie and he said it anyway. That is why Hume must resign a news anchor for Fox News. He is not presenting news, he is pushing lies as the truth in order to support his ideology.

New journal entry over at Open Photo...

2005-02-10T11:39:00.000-08:00

Sunset Over the Fish Market

I have posted a new journal entry over at Open Photo along with plenty of new pictures. (If you don't see my name on the front page, simply scroll until it shows up.) Go have a look!

Hey guess what, Medicare is going to cost more than they said it would...

2005-02-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

File this under the surprise, surprise category. Let's take a trip down memory lane shall we? Way back in December of 2003 the Republicans did some underhanded political maneuvers to get Bush's Medicare proposal passed in Congress.

Recall how that bill squeaked through Congress only after some heads were cracked. A retiring Republican from Michigan, Rep. Nick Smith, even charges that supporters of the bill offered him a bribe in the form of financial support for the political campaign of his son. The bill was priced at the time at $400 billion over 10 years. After the deed was done (the specifics of which amounted to a huge giveaway to the pharmaceutical and health-care industries), it came out that the real cost will be at least $551.5 billion—a difference of $150-plus billion that will translate into trillions over time.

What's worse, the administration knew the real costs of the program would be much higher because the chief actuary, Rick Foster, had calculated that it would cost between $500 billion and $600 billion. But, in true Bush administration form, he was told he would be fired for telling the Congress the truth.

On July 6, 2004, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (IG) released a report stating that former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Thomas Scully pressured the agency’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, to withhold cost estimates of the Medicare Prescription Drug bill when it was being considered by Congress last year.

Foster has claimed that Scully ordered him to withhold estimates that showed the bill would cost between $500-$600 billion, well above the $395 billion estimate on which members of Congress were set to base their vote.

Specifically, Foster’s estimates were anywhere from 25 to 50% higher than those provided to members of Congress, and showed that rather than helping seniors lower prescription costs, the bill would be a windfall for drug companies, HMOs and insurance companies.

For instance, Foster’s estimates projected that the new plan would boost Medicare payments to private health plans by $46 billion (over 3 times the $14 billion Bush estimate), and that drugmakers would collect $100 billion more than the estimate provided to Congress..

Bush knew about Foster’s higher projections. On March 20, 2004, The Washington Post reported that, Trent Duffy, a Bush spokesman, acknowledged that the actuary's cost estimates had been sent to White House officials, including Doug Badger, a special assistant to President Bush who negotiated with Congress on the Medicare bill.

Now lets fast forward to today shall we?

The Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost taxpayers $720 billion over its first full 10 years, the Bush administration said Wednesday, offering a glimpse of how the program's price is expected to rise as baby boomers begin retiring.

The new estimate is far higher than the $400 billion the administration promised lawmakers when Congress narrowly approved Medicare legislation in 2003. It also exceeds the revised estimate of $534 billion that the White House issued just two months later, after the law was enacted.

But wait, there's more!

"Of course the costs go up when you add in more years at the end and more people are on Medicare," Karr said. Drug costs, which have been rising far faster than inflation, also are expected to be higher in those years.

White House budget chief Joshua Bolten said Wednesday the new price tag reflects $134 billion in savings the government expects over the period because states are paying some drug costs; $145 billion more from beneficiaries' premiums; and $200 billion in savings the program will create for Medicaid.

Added to the $720 billion price tag the administration is using, that would bring the drug program's gross 10-year cost to $1.2 trillion before the savings.

The $400 billion and $534 billion figures used earlier included the effects of projected savings and are comparable to the $720 billion estimate.

I said it once and I'll say it again. If you voted for Bush you voted for a liar, someone who will give the ultra rich and big businesses handouts while taking away services that the poor desperately need, and a downright immoral person. I have a feeling that this is merely the tip of the iceberg and we haven't seen anything yet.

It makes you wonder what it will take to wake people up.

More budget madness...

2005-02-09T09:23:00.000-08:00

This is getting ridiculous. First Bush makes his budget appear smaller than it is by leaving out OIF and OEF costs ($80 billion). Then he decided to leave out the cost of his social security non-plan (which could reach into the trillions). Now Bush is trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes by including revenue that doesn't exist. Specifically, Bush has included $1.2 billion income from drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling would raise an initial $2.4 billion in leasing fees, half of which would be shared with the state of Alaska, the Bush administration said in proposed fiscal 2006 budget documents released on Monday.

Democrats and moderate Senate Republicans oppose legislation to allow oil companies access to the wildlife refuge in northern Alaska.

With Republicans having a bigger majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives this year, the White House included the ANWR drilling plan in its proposed government budget for fiscal 2006, which begins on Oct. 1.

The administration said in its budget documents that it hopes to begin leasing tracts in ANWR in 2007.

The refuge, which is home to a variety of wildlife such as polar bears and migratory birds, stretches across 19 million acres (7.7 million hectares). The White House wants to offer 1.5 million acres (607,000 hectares) in the coastal plain for oil and natural gas exploration leases.

The Interior Department estimates the refuge could hold between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil. If the refuge was opened to drilling, it would take about eight years before the area reached full production of around 800,000 to 1 million barrels per day, according to the Energy Department.

We need to make people understand that this sort of thing would not have happened had a Democrat been voted into office. We need to make Bush own this by making sure people understand exactly what it is he is trying to pull.

How does the US compare?

2005-02-08T22:09:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of propaganda out there these days. Michael Medved begins and ends his show by reminding people that America is "the greatest nation on God's green Earth." It is to the point that to be taken seriously in just about any conversation you have to agree with that premise. If you don't agree then you're an America hater, a member of the blame America first crowd, a communist, terrorist sympathizer, or even an actual terrorist and are to be dismissed as a moonbat. In the opinion of those on the right if you disagree that America is number one then you think the troops are dying in vein and you therefore hate the troops, you hate America.

That is all propaganda of course. Medved uses that line to lure in listeners and to give himself that "Trust me, I'm a model American" sheen. Callers to the Sean Hannity show will regularly blurt out just how great of an American Mr. Hannity is before they say anything else (to which Hannity often replies that they are great Americans too which means apparently you only have to think Sean Hannity is a great American to be a great American - count me out I guess). America's sweetheart, Ann Coulter, uses the terrorist line to convince her followers that liberals are not to be trusted no matter what they say.

Fortunately, I still believe that most people put more emphasis on facts than in blathering idiots like Medved or Hannity. I would say that it is not the GDP of your country or the size of your military that makes that country great, it is the quality of life of the majority of the population that makes a country great. After all, if a person is constantly working then their quality of life is poor even if they are rich and if services like schools and health care are cut so that money can be spent on the military then the quality of life will be reduced. There is a correlation between GDP and quality of life (in the poorest countries, the quality of life is arguably the lowest); however, it is not necessarily the case that countries with the highest GDP have the highest quality of life. Take a look at the following metrics from Swerve Left:

In the EU, there are 322 physicians per 100,000 people; in the United States, 279.

The U.S. ranks 26th among the industrial nations in infant mortality.

The U.S. ranks 24th among the industrial nations in terms of economic equality. (All 18 of the most developed European countries have less income inequality between rich and poor.)

The U.S. homicide rate is four times higher than the EU's with the rates of childhood homicides, suicides and firearms-related deaths in the United States exceed those of the other 25 wealthiest nations.

The United States has only 4% of the world's population but contains one-quarter of the world's entire prison population.

The average paid vacation time in Europe is now six weeks a year compared to two weeks in the U.S.

By these metrics the US is not the best country on the planet. Our priorities are all mixed up. We could spend our money more wisely. We should be out of Iraq ASAP, we should begin downsizing our military and begin working with Russia to limit or even eliminate our nuclear arsenal (yes I do think that is a possibility and a wise decision). The Bush tax cuts should be eliminated, corporate tax loopholes should be closed, the budget should be balanced, the debt should be paid down, and social security should be enhanced. Americans shouldn't have to slave their lives away just so they can afford healthcare (and we shouldn't have to worry that if we lose our job that we won't have healthcare). The dismal infant mortality rate is inexcusable and is a direct result of a poor healthcare system where many mothers go without prenatal care because they can't afford it.

I will not give praise where praise is not due. America is falling short of its promise to form a more perfect union and I refuse to accept the title of "America Hater" simply because I recognize that fact. It is the right wing pundits on TV, on the Radio, and in the Blogosphere, those who use patriotism as a means to an end, those who are willfully blind to the facts of the world, are the ones that truly hate America and want to destroy her and rebuild her in their decidedly un-American image.

I wanna play!

2005-02-07T20:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, so apparently it's all the rage in the blogosphere to randomize your iPod and post the first ten songs that come up - that's ingeniously called the "random ten". So this'll be kind of difficult since I don't have an iPod; however, I do have a Rio Karma (which in my humble opinion is much better in lots of ways than the iPod) and said Rio Karma does shuffle the tracks and I just so happen to have shuffled them and for my next feat, I will proudly display them. So here we go:

1. Everclear - So Much For the Afterglow
2. Stray Cats - Rock this Town
3. Beulah - A Good Man is Easy to Kill
4. Alice in Chains - Sludge Factory
5. The Smashing Pumpkins - Thirty-Three
6. Menomena - Strongest Man in the World
7. Menomena - Trigga Hiccups
8. DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - You Got It (Donut)
9. XTC - Summer's Cauldron
10. Tonic - Bigot Sunshine

So there you have it: Pop Rock, Grunge, Alternative, Indie, and Rap. I can't believe that Menomena got on there twice and right next to each other. Raise your hand if you have ever heard of Menomena. Their CD is called "I am the Fun Blame Monster" which is an anagram of "The First Menomena Album". It rules and you should buy it.

Atrios has the digs about Bush's SS non-plan...

2005-02-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

If you're still one of those people that think that Bush's Social Security non-plan (don't forget, Bush has only hinted and propogandized, he has not given a plan yet) will offset benefit cuts with higher returns you need to head on over for some good information from Atrios:

NO. This is not even true in theory let alone in fact. Right now the closest thing to an actual Bush plan is "Model 2" from the "President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security" According to the scoring of the Graham version of the plan (which is essesntially Model 2 pushed forward in time a bit with an addon feature which doesn't affect the numbers here), a median income worker retiring in ~~2050,~~ 2070 will have his/her total retirement income, including private account annuity, in half relative to promised benefits and by a third relative to benefits projected to be payable ~~under pessimistic and internally contradictory trustee projections~~ by the CBO.

Follow the link and take a deep look at Table 2.

Hey righties, this is what you voted into office...

2005-02-05T23:41:00.000-08:00

From CNN:

According to figures obtained by the AP, Bush would slice a $600 million grant program for local police agencies to $60 million next year. Grants to local firefighters, for which Congress provided $715 million this year, would fall to $500 million.

He would eliminate the $300 million the government gives to states for incarcerating illegal aliens who commit crimes. It's a proposal he has made in the past and one that Congress has ignored. Also gone would be assistance for police departments to improve technology and their ability to communicate with other agencies.

The Environmental Protection Agency's $8.1 billion would drop by $450 million, or about 6 percent, with most of the reductions coming in water programs and projects won by lawmakers for their home districts.

The Bureau of Indians Affairs would be sliced by $100 million to $2.2 billion. The reduction would come almost entirely from the agency's effort to build more schools.

The $2.2 billion program that provides low-income people -- in large part the elderly -- with home-heating aid would be cut to $2 billion. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said the reduction would be "wrong-headed an inappropriate," especially with this season's jump in oil prices.

White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton said Bush has added hundreds of millions of dollars to the program since taking office and said his budget will provide "adequate resources to make sure we can assist low-income Americans."

The park service's budget would drop nearly 3 percent to $2.2 billion, largely due to a reduction in its construction account.

Several cultural agencies will get about the same as this year's levels, including the Smithsonian Institution and the national endowments for the arts and humanities, which distribute money to local groups.

Even on the plus side, Bush's budget will show constraint compared with previous years. That in part reflects his pledge to cut last year's projected $521 billion in half by 2009. One lawmaker said the budget will estimate that year's shortfall at about $230 billion -- well under the record $427 billion it will project for 2005.

But hey, at least the military will have an unprecedented amount of money:

Defense Department documents obtained Friday show the Pentagon's budget would grow by 4.8 percent to $419.3 billion -- $3.4 billion less than he planned to seek for 2006 a year ago.

See, what we need is billions less for poor people, the elderly, and the environment and billions more for the military. That's exactly what we need.

I trust I can rely on your vote...

2005-02-05T11:18:00.000-08:00

Girl in Tulips

It's not too late to vote for me over at Photo Friday. Last week's theme was "youth" and I submitted the above image. It is the first one that came to mind and it seems to be the picture that gets the most attention from people. I took it at the Skagit County tulip festival last March with my Olympus C-750UZ. If you like it, may I suggest that you hop on over to Photo Friday and cast a noteworthy vote for yours truly? I am number 469 on the list over to the left and all you need to do is click "cast noteworthy vote" on the top frame.

Sweet Jesus Bill O'Reilly is a moron...

2005-02-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

I was just listening to The Al Franken Show and they were talking with Joseph Minton the owner of Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly and I just wanted to blog it because it was so hilarious. So here's the story, Barbara Boxer is way up in Bill's craw. He thinks that she's a nut (which someone called him on and he said he didn't then said that whoopse he forgot). That part was funny, but it wasn't the most hilarious part.

If you'll recall the Condoleezza Rice hearings Senator Boxer said one line to which Rice rebutted and that exchange has been used to obfuscate the fact that Dr. Rice is in fact a liar:

...
Senator Boxer: And I personally believe -- this is my personal view -- that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. And I don't say it lightly, and I'm going to go into the documents that show your statements and the facts at the time.
...
Dr. Rice: And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before and what went on before and what I said without impugning my credibility or my integrity.

It was Rice's response to which the right wingers affixed their attention. They needed some way to make this an issue about Boxer not about Rice. Boxer was being irrational, Boxer was being a "nut", Boxer was impuning the credibility of Dr. Rice. Of course it begs the question, "Was Rice being less than truthful during the lead up to the Iraq war?" Furthermore, if she was being less than truthful in that job, would not that immediately disqualify her for Secretary of State? It was a dodge, punch, and run just like the whole "memogate" fiasco.

So Bill O'Reilly is on board with the obfuscation. I mean he's really on board. He's so on board with it that he decided to lead the charge and just outright lie about it. And when not one but two callers attempted to correct him on it, he chastized them for not knowing their stuff and that on his show you really need to know your stuff. That his show wasn't like the other radio shows and he was going to call you out when you were wrong.

O'REILLY: I don't have any problem with Boxer grilling Rice. But when she says to Rice, "You allowed your loyalty to the President to override your concern for the troops" -- that's over the line. Don't you see that?

CALLER: Did she say "for the troops" or "for the truth"?

O'REILLY: No, "for the troops."

CALLER: Okay --

O'REILLY: That's when she went over the line. When she started to make it, "Hey, you're a craven politician who will do anything for power, and you don't care about the guys dying in the sand" -- which is what she was saying --

CALLER: Okay. I thought she said "for the truth," because I do believe --

O'REILLY: No, she was talking "the troops" -- and then you saw Rice get her back up by saying, "Don't you impugn my concern for those troops over there. I was involved with sending them there, and I'm" -- and dah, dah, dah, dah --

Oh, but there's more from the same show...

CALLER: Yes, Mr. O'Reilly. I just wonder, why we are speaking against Barbara Boxer? I thought she was there doing her job. She was to question Condoleezza Rice on her past performance and her present performance. What she was going to do in the future --

O'REILLY: Well, you're puttin' a happy face on it, though. Lemme ask you a question. Boxer goes in and says, "Your devotion to Bush and your obsequiousness to the administration was more important to you than the welfare of our troops." I mean, that's grossly insulting, is it not?

CALLER: I don't think she did mention our troops.

O'REILLY: Yeah, she did --

CALLER: And you were just talking --

O'REILLY: [Caller], [caller] -- whoa. Yeah, she did. That's exactly what she said. And then Rice came back and said, "Don't you impugn my integrity. I have tremendous feeling for the sacrifices the troops have made."

So, [caller], you gotta understand if you're gonna come on The Factor, and you're gonna say, "Barbara Boxer asked all the right questions and did all the right things." And then I say to you, "What about this?" And you say, "I don't think she did it," when anybody following that hearing knows she did it -- Lis Wiehl?

LIS WIEHL (co-host): Mmm-hmm.

O'REILLY: OK. [Caller], how can we possibly take your analysis seriously? And I'm not saying this to attack you. I want you to call in again. I want you to be a listener. But, I'm trying to send a message out to everybody. If you're gonna call the program -- this isn't the usual talk show where you can just blather about stuff you don't know anything about -- I'm gonna ask you questions. I'm gonna ask you to back up your position with facts. Now, [caller] didn't know about that exchange, which was the most contentious exchange, and played on every news show.

I just love this. I really, really do. Bill is not only lying about what Boxer said, he is lying about how Rice followed up to what she said. See, Bill is the one who is woefully uninformed and, as he argues, "how can we possibly take [his] analysis seriously?" It's also hilarious that he asks for an amen from his co-host and she gives a sassy "mmm-hmmm".

So, if there is anyone who is an O'Reilly fan who is by chance reading this page (there are a few now and again), how is it that you can take his analysis on anything seriously knowing that this is the type of thing that he has no problems doing?

Stevens is getting on my nerves...

2005-02-03T11:13:00.000-08:00

If I weren't such a kind, caring, reasonable guy I think that Cat Stevens (the cat not the singer) would have been dropkicked off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge this morning. Seriously, the goddamned cat just won't shut up. It's tough to get any sleep at all. It sucks. We wanted to get a cat because we aren't able to give it as much attention as a dog (or a kid) needs right now but this cat throws that idea out the window. Even when we kicked the normal, sane cat out of the room and opened the bathroom/quarantine area and let Stevens into the room, he still meowed! What ... the ... hell! I'm just hoping that he's just in a kitten phase and just needs a bigger space to roam and a friend to hang out with. If this cat stays the same cat that he is right now for the rest of his life, we're all going to have some problems.

Come to think of it though, if I had to listen to Cat Stevens (the singer) all night long, I may drop kick him off the Narrows Bridge too.

Story behind the story of the Iraqi elections...

2005-01-31T20:46:00.000-08:00

I found this off of Cursor. Like I said, I'm not insensitive to the needs of the Iraqis and I do desire them to have their liberty -- I think we owe them at least that after all we've put them through. If I had my way, we would not have been in Iraq in the first place. Now that we're there, I would definitely be going about things in a much different way.

So what went wrong with the Iraqi elections? Ken Sanders over at Politics of Dissent enlightens us with the help of Electronic Iraq.

Iraqi Elections: Bush's "Resounding Success"
On Sunday, President Bush declared Iraq’s first “free” elections a “resounding success.”Perhaps that is true on a political level for the Bush administration. Perhaps it is true symbolically for the people of Iraq and even for the greater Middle East. However, beyond the political rhetoric and symbolism regarding the elections in Iraq, were they really a success, much less a resounding one?

First of all, there is serious question about how democratic the elections actually were. There were over 7,000 candidates on the ballot. Many of those candidates, for security reasons, were not even named on the ballot. Instead, candidates were grouped into lists, such as a “main Shia list,” several other Shia lists, Kurdish lists, and so on. In other words, Iraqi voters were more or less compelled to vote for an ethnic group, national group, or religious faction. The make-up of the ballot essentially prevented Iraqis from voting for a particular person or political party.

Second, Iraqis do not and will not select their prime minister or president. Instead, Iraq’s elections created a 275 member National Assembly. The National Assembly will select a 3 member presidency council. The presidency council will then ultimately decide who will be Iraq’s prime minister. Although it is not set forth anywhere in Iraq’s “transitional law,” the presidency council and prime minister will be selected from the 275 member National Assembly.

Third, the elections in Iraq will not result in local representation for Iraqis. Under Paul Bremmer, the U.S. decided that rather than divide Iraq into localities, the entire country would be a single constituency. Thus, any candidate who receives a 275th of the nation-wide vote will get a seat on the National Assembly, regardless of how many other candidates are elected from the same locality. This system creates a distinct likelihood of over-representation at the national level for groups with high voter turn-out. Theoretically, therefore, Kurds may end up being over-represented nationally since security in northern Iraq is much better than in other areas of the country. While this would be good for the Kurds, who have been oppressed for decades, it would not sit well with either the Shia or Sunni populations.

Fourth, while exit polls of questionable accuracy indicate a 60% turn-out by registered voters, there are entire regions of Iraq that never had the opportunity to register. As of January 29, the eve of the elections, neither the residents of Falluja nor Mosul were registered to vote or even provided with the forms to do so. Iraq’s third largest city, Mosul is home to nearly three million Iraqis. With at least three million disenfranchised Iraqis, and with millions of Sunni Iraqis boycotting the elections, the legitimacy of the elections comes into serious question.

(Remember the animosity and divisiveness that resulted from the United States’ 2000 Presidential Election? Imagine the millions of democrats who disavowed Bush as their president. Imagine the millions of republicans who condemned these democrats as sore losers and against the democratic process. Now imagine both sides armed to the teeth and, partly as a result of deep ideological differences, willing to kill and die for their respective causes. Now amplify that by a factor of ten and you have just imagined the tip of the iceberg in Iraq.)

Fifth, the Independent Iraqi Electoral Commission, whose members were appointed by Bremmer before the U.S. handed over “power” in June, set the rules for the elections. The Commission has absolute power to bar any candidate or organization and has done so. Those who have been barred by the Commission received neither due process nor an explanation why. Thus, the U.S., through its proxy, established the rules for the election and determined who could and could not be a candidate therein. Additionally, the International Republican Institute (IRI), an offshoot of the U.S. Republican Party and advocate of “democracy building,” has funded certain Iraqi campaigns, giving a distinct advantage. (The IRI’s board of directors includes Senators John McCain and Chuck Hagel, Congressman Jim Kolbe, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and former Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger. The IRI has been linked to financial support provided to coups in Venezuela and Haiti.)

Sixth, and most significantly, a new Iraqi government does not mean a free Iraq. There is no free press in Iraq - stories must favor the government’s point of view. Press “disrespect” for U.S.-appointed prime minister Allawi is prohibited. Both Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have been banned for their nonconformity. Furthermore, any new government is already bound by the laws enacted by the U.S. before handing “power” over to Allawi. For example, as with Sunday’s elections, the next plebiscite, to establish a permanent constitution, must proceed under Bremmer’s laws. Moreover, all of Iraq is to be privatized, open to 100% foreign ownership or leasehold for forty years. “All” of Iraq includes resources (think oil), amenities and public services. Additionally, the U.S. has made it perfectly clear that it will not permit Iraq to become a theocracy like Iran, regardless of what Iraqis might want. Having already invested over $100 billion and over 1,400 lives in the invasion and rebuilding of Iraq, the U.S. will not permit an Iraqi government that is contrary to U.S. interests.

Were the elections in Iraq a “resounding success?” Sure, if you are President Bush or someone who stands to make a buck (or a million) on a new stable, “democratic,” and completely privatized Iraq. If you happen to be an average Iraqi citizen, however, prepare to be disappointed.

(Special thanks to Jo Wilding at electronicIraq.net.)

Those who do not study history...

2005-01-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

Needlenose has found something interesting from the daily kos journals...

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote :
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

. . . A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam.

Something else interesting over on A Star From Mosul's blog:

thanks to the stupidity of the election commission, is that the indelible ink on the hands of voters will stay for a few days. So if some terrorist really wants to murder voters he doesn't have to do it on Election Day. He can just wait until the security cordon clears and then "inspect" fingers at random and murder at will.

Look, I want this to have been a successful election. I want Iraq to be well on its way to becoming a self-sustaining, vibrant democracy full of giggling children and dancing adults that can feed itself, filter its own water, and provide security for its own people. What I'd like more than anything is for Bush supporters to be able to give me a big old "I told you so". The fine folks over at Get Your War On said it best:

Click the picture to make it bigger if you can't read it

See the thing is that the propoganda pushers will have you believe that every last thing is a major accomplishment, that Iraq is getting better and better and that democracy is right around the corner. That our troops will be coming home soon, not sure when exactly, but definitely soon. The truth is that the facts belie all of that. The general consensus with everyone that I've talked to who has been to Iraq (and don't forget, I work in an office full of those types of people) is that the situation is stagnant or getting worse. We are not getting the whole story here folks.

Newsflash! Bud gets pants!

2005-01-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

Bud, my brother-in-law and owner/operator of Miller Pottery, has taken the unprecidented step of actually buying not one, not two, but three pairs of pants. We took him to the BX and got him two pairs of khakis and one pair of jeans along with two collared shirts, two pairs of dress shoes, dress socks, and undershirts. With the belt that I gave him, he is now all good to go!

For those readers who don't know Bud (aka James) you should know that he never ever wears anything but shorts. Ever. Well he does have a suit that he wears when he has to. He wore that suit to our wedding for example. But other than that, no matter how cold it is, James is always in shorts.

Or at least he was until now.

And, just in case it doesn't last for whatever reason, I decided that I needed to blog a picture so that all of the friends and family could look back in fondness at the fleeting moments when James actually wore something other than shorts on a day that wasn't a special occassion. Click on the thumbnail below to see a larger image.

So this is how Bush is able to push his programs...

2005-01-28T19:26:00.000-08:00

Well, we are slowly finding out that the Bush administration has its own group of journalists that are paid to push the Administration's agenda. First it was Armstrong Williams who was paid $240,000 for peddling the No Child Left Behind Act, then it was Maggie Gallagher who got $41,500 for pushing marriage policies, now it's the syndicated columnist Michael McManus pushing the Bush marriage initiatives.

This is just the tip of the iceberg I bet. It will be interesting to see just how far and wide this illegal activity has spread. It will also be interesting to see the adminstration's reaction to that activity and how they ultimately wriggle out of having to admit any culpability.

This administration is absolutely unbelievable.

The Christian Coalition would not approve...

2005-01-28T09:20:00.000-08:00

For Christmas Beth got us some tickets to see the Scissor Sisters. We've gone to a bunch of concerts since we've been here in the Seattle area but they've all really been Beth concerts. We've seen the Indigo Girls twice, OAR twice, Simon and Garfunkel, and it seems like there was another one. I'm more than happy to go to a concert with Beth but I can't say that I really like the Indigo Girls all that much. She would say the same thing about Radiohead.

Before Christmas we had been hearing the Scissor Sisters' song "Take Your Mama Out" all the time on the XM radio and thought it was fun and funky enough to get the whole CD. The rest of the CD is kind of odd, a bit like Pink Floyd meets the Bee Gees type of thing. Not really my cup of tea but hey.

Well what I didn't know is just how large their homosexual male fan base was. Seriously, the Scissor Sisters are to gay men what the Indigo Girls are to lesbians (and let me tell you, I have never seen so many mullets, vests and birkenstocks as I have at an Indigo Girls concert). There were all kinds of boys with boas and sparkles and makeup and multi-colored fauxhawks. One guy went all out in sort of a Boy George kind of look that included a sequined eyepatch. The Scissor Sisters definitely embraced that crowd and took the time to shun the religious right for a bit in their show which got a large reaction from the audience.

Oh yeah, and the opening act was a group called "Hey Will Power". They were pretty fun ... really, really gay but pretty fun none the less. All in all it was a good evening. Now, if we could just get Radiohead to go on tour in Seattle before Beth has to PCS.

New openphoto.net post up...

2005-01-27T15:04:00.000-08:00

I posted some new pictures and have done a new post over at my openphoto.net journal. Check it out and leave a message if you'd like.

Miscellaneous goings on....

2005-01-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

It isn't like there hasn't been anything interesting happening recently. It isn't like I've even been taking a vacation from the news. There has been several things that I said to myself, "I need to blog that." So in order to catch up, I think I'm going to post some of my more memorable thoughts from the past week or so.

We had the President get sworn in (for the last time hopefully) and in his inauguration speech he said:

The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

The title of this post would have been something snippy like "Paging Mr. Orwell" and I would have said something to the effect of Bush is actually saying, he has broadened his foreign policy to: "War is peace." I cannot think of a time when any other policy maker wanted to sell that ideology. Simply amazing.

We had Condoleezza Rice (yes, I needed Google's help to spell her first name) get promoted but not without a bit of grilling from one Barbara Boxer. If I knew Barbara Boxer, I would give her a big hug and tell her great job and that we need more Democrats like her. There are far too many people (*cough* Joe Lieberman *cough*) who when faced with the decision to vote in a liar to one of the most important government positions on the planet would say something like "But I hope and believe that the Senate today, across partisan lines, will resoundingly endorse this nomination and send the message to friend and foe alike that while we have our disagreements, ultimately what unites us around this very qualified nominee in this hour of war is much greater than what divides us." Note to Joe, Dr. Rice has been among the most divisive, duplicitous, awful figure in this administration. If there is anything that deserves to be a divisive issue it is the confirmation of Dr. Rice to the position of Secretary of State.

I'm sure there were other things that I was thinking of posting last week that I was going to talk about in here but in the middle of this post, Beth called and I went to lunch with her and by the time I got back I completely forgot what they were. Oh well, maybe I'll just try to keep up with the news and stuff this week instead of trying to consolidate it into one blog post.

Openphoto is progressing...

2005-01-19T09:41:00.001-08:00

Damn it I hate to lose posts. Blogger can be so crappy sometimes. Trying again...

I've been talking a lot about the openphoto.net project that I found with the help of Fark recently. As I mentioned, the site has a bunch of problems (it is still designated an alpha) but it seems that progress is being made. I have been emailing back and forth a bit with openphoto's site designer, Michael Jastremski, for a couple of days and I have volunteered my services with writing the site's documentation and help files and with any html work. I'm obviously not a pro at html but I can do some stuff (I did build this site after all) but I think I'm a decent enough writer and I can pretty much figure out how to use something if I fool around with it enough. Michael has written back that he would be interested in my help with the wiki and the html so I'll be doing some work on there.

I'm kind of excited because there really isn't anything else like it on the net anywhere (I spent a lot of time looking for free places to store and display my images recently so I know). I'm not sure what his situation with servers or storage or whatever is, I'm not sure how he's paying for everything or what his plans for growth are; however, I do know that it needs some love and the bugs need to be taken care of or people won't use it. Dave mentioned that he had some complaints with openphoto (bugs and such) and if anyone else who reads this has any other complaints or suggestions, please let me know and I'll pass them on.

Anyhow, there are a lot people posting a lot of great photos on openphoto so you should definitely go check it out. You can search my username (lanemik) to see my photos but for now you will only see 12 of them because you get a broken link when you click on the "more" button (another bug). You can also search out the word "tacoma" because all my pictures so far have been of Tacoma and I have set that as a keyword.

Search Goodness...

2005-01-18T23:29:00.000-08:00

Big couple of days for surfers of the interweb thingy to end up on my site. Here are a few of the search terms that got people to at ease in the past couple of days:

Yes, that's right, I am the numero uno, the top dog, the first result that you get when you go to MSN search and search out the term sex slaves. Sex slaves. Nice.

Sweet!

2005-01-18T21:09:00.000-08:00

Yes! Portishead is going to be putting out another album soon!

Sgt. Falafel O'Reilly takes on Central America...

2005-01-18T15:43:00.000-08:00

Well, Falafel Bill takes on a guest on his radio show that has the audacity to state the fact that Loofah boy has never been in the military and never been in combat. As to be expected, Capt. Heavy Breathing cuts off the caller and tells him to shove it in pure no spin style.

Have a listen!

Gah! I'm being so lazy right now...

2005-01-18T10:04:00.000-08:00

I don't know what the deal is. I can barely get myself out of bed in the mornings these days. The house is a wreck, I really haven't done much with my master's class that just started, and I haven't worked out in a week. I am making sure that the other living things in the house (you know ... the cats) are being taken care of, cleaned up, fed, and loved. Other than that I just sat around and watched the Sopranos all weekend long. Well, I'm done with the 4th season so I guess I got that out of the way. I'm not depressed or anything, I'm just ... blah.

Seriously, I've got to get my act in gear. The housekeeper comes tomorrow afternoon and ... ironically ... I don't want the house to be a complete and total disaster when she comes. I also want to get our room straightened out and the downstairs all put back together after all the Christmas excitement. Oh and I need to get my butt in the gym. I keep telling myself that if I've got the time to sit around for hours watching the Sopranos, then I've got the time to go to the gym for an hour. Maybe that'll get me moving today.

What else? The openphoto site still has a ton of bugs. I can tell that there have been some improvements, and I think that it could be great eventually, but it just isn't yet. I just now found out the link for my gallery (here) but the thing is that you can see the first 12 pictures and when you click on "more" all you get is an error page. Until the site builder gets more stuff in order, I'm going to have to post my images elsewhere. The thing is that I don't want people to have to log on to view the images, I want them to be able to see relatively large pictures, and I want it to be easier to upload the pictures. So I think that my chore right now will be to find another site.

I suppose I should talk about politics for a second. I got an email asking me to partake in various Bush inauguration protests on my blog. There are a ton of different protests out there. Some blogs will be blacked out on that day, some blogs will change their background to blue. It just all seems so ... passive aggressive. I guess it's an actual visible action so it isn't passive aggressive. Maybe it just seems childish. Like the turn your back on Bush protest or the not one damn dime protest. I don't know, it just seems like it won't really accomplish anything except give ammunition to those who would like to protray the left as crybabies or losers. It's just frustrating. There are so many people out there that really don't know the issues at hand. There are so many that just don't understand that the protesters are doing what they are doing because they have something meaningful to add to the discourse. I guess I just think that it is more effective to engage people rather than to try to shut them out.

I think I may have found a way to visually protest the actions of the President and his cabinet (not the inauguration, protesting the inauguration seems childish) in a way that may stir up a dialog. I read about someone who always wears a blue paper clip on his lapel. When people ask him if he knows that he has a blue paper clip on his lapel, he says "yes." When they ask why he says that he wears it in protest of the actions of the administration such as... I don't know if I'll wear an actual blue paper clip on my clothes (frankly, I'm much more adept at discussing things via writing than in person) but I think I could design one to put on the blog somewhere. I should maybe do that before the election.

So that's my political commentary for the day. Now let's see if I can get myself to do anything else. Anything at all. Anyone got any good way that they get theirselves motivated out there? I don't usually ask my readers for input, but maybe I should more often.

The iRod...

2005-01-13T23:09:00.000-08:00

Coming soon to an abusive household near you...

The General found this (also here) which inspired Tbogg to say this which inspired Hairy Fish Nuts to create the advertising that I posted above.

People, this is why I love the internets.

I found the image site I'll be using to learn...

2005-01-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, given that I have a brand new dSLR and that I am brand new to the world of the dSLR, I am going to be going through a definite learning process. Obviously, I would definitely like to get as much feedback about my pictures as I can so I want to post them online. As reader and fellow Progressive Blog Alliance member Cosa Nostradamus pointed out in a previous comment thread, posting obscene amounts of images on my site is a major detractor for all of you dial-up folks out there. That, combined with the fact that it's a pain to transfer images to a hosting site and input them into the blog means that I have been looking for better ways to do it.

Well I think I've found the better way. From Fark I learned about a site called www.openphoto.net. When I went to the site I found that they had an OpenPhoto Wiki that said:

The Open Photo Project (http://openphoto.net) is a free stock photo community devised and supervised by Michael Jastremski (http://oldtimeynerd.net).

Owing largely to years of prior research, the goal of o2 is to unite photographers and users through Creative Commons licensing.

* free image storage
* free stock photo library
* integrated licensing
* syndication tools
* open source
* your own (username.openphoto.net) website

Well, for my learning purposes I decided that was right up my alley. I can post photos, as many as I want, to the site where people can search through them, comment on them, and use them subject to the Creative Commons liscense that I want. Essentially the photos are free to download and display as long as I am credited and they are not used for commercial purposes. Everyone can choose their liscense for their own photos. So far there are around 1300 photos on the site but it is growing every day.

The other great thing about it is that it lets me set up a journal. The journal entries are tied to a thumbnail of a picture that will take you to an image that is a bit larger and includes all the EXIF information automatically (nice!). From there you can download the full resolution image and you can find other, similar images (based upon the keywords input by the person that uploaded the image).

If I do find myself selling my images eventually, I won't be putting them up on OpenPhoto.net; however, any images that I'm not planning on selling and any of the photos that I take while I'm still learning the ins and outs of the 20D are definitely going to be on there.

So check out my openphoto journal at http://lanemik.openphoto.net and let me know what you think!

A flurry of posting...

2005-01-12T01:07:00.000-08:00

I guess it's just been too long since I've posted anything political. Maybe my political juices are flowing. Maybe it's because there is just so much audacity within the administration that I feel that I just have to comment on it. Bear with me either way.

I've been blogging for a few months now and honestly there is a post or two that I'm particularly proud of; however, my posts pale in comparison to this post by Rude Pundit. Rude Pundit's post would be my blogosphere post of the week in serious contention for post of the month or even post of the quarter if I had such a thing as post of the week, month, or quarter. It is everything that blogging should be: intriguing, naughty enough that the New York Times wouldn't print it using the New York Post's printing presses, and has a very important message. It is, in short, entertaining and enlightening all at the same time.

I'd consider reading it if I were you.

I love it...

2005-01-11T23:50:00.000-08:00

The mega right-wingers over at Free Republic (that's Freepers to you and me Danny) have just heard that St. Mel (Gibson) has praised eeek! Michael Moore (the Devil incarnate) and has also committed the sin of sins by questioning the war in Iraq. It's difficult to tell which is worse since in their eyes apparently one reinforces the other; however, the discussion is priceless. It goes something like this:

NuttyWingerName: Did anyone hear that Mel said good things about Michael Moore and bad things about the war in Iraq?

UltraWinger: No way dude. I'm totally boycotting him!

UltraMegaWinger: Mel can't fool us with the Passion, he's a dirty liberal. Boycott Mel!

And on and on. It's just funny how they couldn't get enough of Mel for the whole "Crouching Jesus, Hidden Agenda" thing, but now that he's said two sentences that they don't like, they want to see that he never works in this town again. Just goes to show that if you don't fall in lockstep they want to keep you from saying anything at all.

"Grown accustomed to"?

2005-01-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

Profile of Tom Ridge's replacement Nominee Michael Chertoff on ABC News:

--snip--

Chertoff, 51, has been a federal judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 2003 and was the director of the Justice Department's criminal division from 2001 to 2003.

He has been concerned with the terrorist threat against the United States for a long time, and in 1996 argued in an article published in the New Jersey Law Journal titled "Tools Against Terrorism" that law enforcement and prosecutors need greater leeway in their pursuit of suspected terrorists, even if that involved a limiting of some of the civil liberties that Americans have grown accustomed to.

--snip--

See, it's funny, I was thinking that we have our civil liberties simply because we exist. Thomas Jefferson put it this way:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Why is it that the neocons are more than willing to quote that line when it comes to trying prove that the United States is a theocracy and are uninterested in the meaning of the sentence. We are endowed liberty merely because we exist. We are free because we are. Mr. Chertoff, I am not merely accustomed to civil liberty, I revel in it. I am glad every single day that I have the liberty that the founding fathers granted me and my fellow Americans (or have since been granted in the system the founding fathers built). Our society is based upon our freedoms and our government must acquiesce to them not the other way around.

Anyhow, this is just another unfortunate example of the kind of clones that Bush is filling his administration with. It is proof positive that Bush is completely uninterested in "reaching across the aisle". I'm not a big fan of Clinton partly because I felt that he reached too far to the right; however, he did work for bipartisanship in Washington: Clinton fought for NAFTA for example and he appointed a Republican Senator to be his Secretary of Defense. Bush has shown for the past 4 years that he is only interested in appearing bipartisan insofar as it will get him re-elected. This nomination is another in the long line of padding his cabinet with yes men and women.

The first of many EOS 20D pictures...

2005-01-11T10:54:00.000-08:00

I am really going to have to set up a photoblog. I know that I said that the pictures were going to ease up, but I figured that people would be interested in seeing my first EOS 20D posting.

Beth and Reid posing for the crazy camera guy.

The 20D is great. Very quick startup, very fast focusing ... and very big. I'm definitely not used to the size of the thing but I'm certain that I'll get used to it eventually. I've got it at work with me today in the hopes that I'll have a chance to sneak some pictures in later on. I even brought my new tripod with me. If I'm here until sunset, I'll get to have some sweet views of Rainer here on post. The colors are wonderful generally. If not, I'm going to head straight for the narrows bridge and see what I can get. I may head downtown and get some shots there too. I may not be able to get all of that in one day granted.

Anyhow, I'm excited.

I finally got it! My Canon EOS 20D is here!

2005-01-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

Find out more from Digital Camera Preview

Super-sweet. My 20D (see picture above) has arrived! I have all kinds of plans for what I want to do with it in the future. The plan is to take about 6 months to really learn all about the camera, to really delve deeply into all of its features and its limitations. After that, I'm going to get serious about shooting and selling pictures and doing photo contests. Ultimately, I want this to be a self-sustaining hobby or even something that I can make money with.

But for now, I've got the camera and I'm hella excited. I'll post links to pictures as I take them for a while I'm sure. I have to wait for the battery to charge first.

P.S. If there are any camera nerd types lurking around, that isn't the lens that I've got. It came with the EF-S 17-85mm IS lens.

When one cat just isn't enough...

2005-01-09T16:04:00.000-08:00

Meet Cat Stevens!

Well we thought that since we got one cat, we may as well get two! Beth stopped by the pound one day (actually the same day that we were going to meet Sierra from LaTricia who we met on Craigslist) and called me to tell me about a cat that she fell in love with. It was a little boy kitten that the pound said was about 2.5 months old. Of course, since it was a stray it had no name. And what better name for a boy cat is there than Stevens? Get it, Cat Stevens.

Anyhow, Cat Stevens has had a pretty bad case of roundworm and has had diarrhea since we've known him. We took him to the vet right away and they looked him over and kept him for a night. As it turns out Cat Stevens is a very scrawny 5 month old kitten with lots of worms. The vet was afraid that he may have Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). Since both roundworms and FIP are infectious to other cats the vet said that we should keep Stevens quarantined for a couple of weeks. There isn't any good way to test for FIP apparently and the test that the vet did do was inconclusive so we're supposed to just keep an eye out for signs. Among them are listlessness or loss of apetite. Believe you me, Stevens eats enough for two regular sized cats (he's got to feed the worms you know) and he responds to catnip as if it were speed: chasing his tail, running, jumping, playing, and just generally going nuts.

So, our thought is that we have a cute cat with worms. Well, we think he's cute anyhow. Hopefully Sierra will agree.

Argh! I can't stand Michael Medved!

2005-01-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

So it's my first political post in a while. I may be disappointing the good folks over at the Progressive Blog Alliance due to my lack of posting; however, Beth is very glad my blog has taken a turn for the non-political. Just so you know, my plan is to start up a photoblog that will, in part, be political. The catch is that, as I see it in my head at this point, there won't be any words on the as yet un-named photoblog so the pictures will have to speak for themselves. At ease is destined for a smattering of politics now and again, but it will mainly be about my life.

Anywho, I simply can't stand Michael Medved. There is a guy in my office that plays the Seattle AM conservative radio station all day long. It's just soft enough to barely hear which means you unconsciously tend to try to tune it in for some reason. I get to hear the drug-induced bloviating of Limbaugh; the inane, pseudo intellecutal drivel of Medved; and the insane, spittle-flinging rants of Michael Savage (who thinks the tsunami that killed 150,000+ people wasn't a tragedy) on a daily basis. If I were to work late, I could hear the falafel king and the vapid, sophist philistinism of Laura Ingraham. Is it any wonder I try to leave the office as soon as possible every day?

Anywho, the only Medved snippet that I can think of was when I was voluntarily listening to him on the "America Right" channel on the XM radio. He was debating a homosexual on the issue of homosexual marriage. Basically Medved's position was that homosexual marriage was the slippery slope toward NAMBLA legitimacy. He argued (presumably straight-faced) that if two consenting adults of the same sex were allowed by the state to marry, then the state would not be able to disallow a man and a boy from getting married. My presumption is that if you agree with Medved (or worse if you think that homosexual marriage is the precursor to beastiality or marriage to inanimate objects -- "do you Tom take this hubcap to be your lawfully wedded ... uh ... thing?") then any arguments to the contrary won't matter. That said, there are legitimate reasons that our government does not allow marriages with children not the least of which is to protect children -- who wouldn't necessarily know any better -- from sexual predators or being reared as sex slaves. Of course marriage is a contract and the last I checked one couldn't enter a contract with an animal or an inanimate object. Medved was, of course, not interested in logic; rather Medved was interested in finding a particularly emotional way of arguing a hot-button topic prior to the election so as to play on the fears of his listeners.

He's a fraud and an ultra-conservative of the worst kind.

Oh yeah and here's another thing that pissed me off. Medved argued with all of the seriousness that his trademark matter-of-fact tone could muster that since the members of the US military were volunteers they automatically became complicit in any ongoing military operations and therefore criticising said military operation is equivalent to criticising the troops. So it shows that Liberals hate America QED. I think my response was a very loud "Fuck you!" and to turn the radio. Medved was (and still does) use the people in the military to advance his arguments. If anyone on the left were to argue in a similar way they would immediately be labled a traitor and sentenced to the wrath of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders. That this particular argument of Medved's and many others like it are fallacious is hidden in a shroud of über-patriotism and a smooth, matter-of-fact tone. If you disagree with his argument you are either an America hater, an ultra-crazy liberal, stupid, or a combination of all three.

At any rate, I don't like him. Thank goodness for streaming radio stations and good headsets!

Geeze!

2005-01-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed some squirly stuff going on with my layout recently. Note to self, do not put the following on the #main class in the stylesheet: overflow:hidden. Just that one little snippet caused me a couple of hours of tweaking my code to figure out what was wrong.

Stupid CSS.

Where oh where could my little Canon Be?

2005-01-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

According to the fine people over at UPS, my camera is in (drumroll please)...

Hodgkins, Illinois!

Hodgkins, Illinois rated better than Hodgkin's
disease by 4 out of 5 people!

Dispite unfortunately sharing the same name with a cancer of the lymph system that is diagnosed in 7100 people each year in the United States alone I'm sure Hodgkins, Il is a very nice town. It is a suburb of Chicago (and really, what suburb isn't a wonderful place) located off of interstate 55 just 13 miles southwest of Chicago. As it is a suburb directly off the interstate near a very large city, I'm certain that Hodgekins, IL is absolutely chock full of fast food and sit down chain restaurants (a la Applebees...mmmm Applebees). In fact, rumor has it that if you were to visit all the fast food and chain restaurants in Hodgkins, you would travel nearly half the distance to the moon!

Additionally, Hodgkins has everything you'll need to satisfy your burning shopping desire. There is a Wal-Mart (who doesn't love Wal-Mart?), a Sam's Club, a Dress Barn and even a Dress Barn for Women! In fact there are so many stores and restaurants (nearly a dozen of each!) that it would be ridiculous to even try to mention them here. Instead, you should saunter on over to the Hodgkins Illinois Restaurants and Shopping page that the kind residents of Hodgkins have set up. Thanks Hodgkinites!

While you're in Hodgkins enjoying your McGriddle or your Applebees Riblets you would probably be remis if you missed out on the opportunities that await you in the hustle and bustle that is Chicago. Make sure to get started early particularly on a week day. If you catch the traffic at just the right time, those 13 miles to Chicago will fly by in 2-and-a-half hours flat! Once you're in Chicago, you should definitely take a ride on the El (that's elevated train to you and me Danny). Those trains take you to all kinds of fun places like Cabrini Greene and the Robert Taylor Homes. Why, you could spend all day just walking around mingling with the locals there! Golly, what a good idea those block grants that Nixon Gave to Chicago for "interstates" was. Thanks Dick!

Nixon meeting with a very important dignitary,
the King of Rock and Roll.

Once you've had your fill of Cabrini Green or the Robert Taylor Homes you should go and check out the bastion of higher learning, the veritable wonder of the western world, the modern-day ... um ... temple of education (and my *cough* alma mater *cough*), the Illinois Institute of Techonology. Stroll down the tiny urban campus and gaze upon the wonderful architecture of Mies van der Rohe.

Can you imagine what kind of genius it took to design a building like Perlstein Hall? Mr. van der Rohe, I salute you!

When you're done contemplating the intracasies of buildings shaped like boxes (wowee wow!) you should be sure to check out some of the food options you'll find in Chicago. Some say that Chicago pizza is the best, and I'm not one to argue with them; however, most people that say that like Pizzaria Uno or Giordanos. Go to one of these mediocre pizza joints if you want, but know this, the college students (the kings of finding the best pizza at the best prices) always get their Chicago pizza from Connie's. I should know, I was one of those college students. If pizza isn't your style, you should bravely head over to a burrito joint called El Faro for a burrito the size of a horse's head (I'm sure there's no horse parts in them either -- at least I pretend there aren't). After a massive meal you'll want to do what any other Chicagoan would do, get a 64oz pitcher of milkshake and gorge on a massive 10-scoop ice cream dish called the earthquake at a place called the Zephyr Cafe on the near North side of town. I can't imagine why I gained weight in college.

You'll need several days to digest all that food so you'll miss all the other sites. The aquarium is okay, the Field Museum is so-so, the art museum is neat if you like lions, and the Museum of Science and Industry is ... well that one's pretty cool. But you've got digesting to do and by the time you're done, we'll have to move on. So check in tomorrow to find out Where in the world is my new Canon!

The Miller Pottery Pot of the Week!

2005-01-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

In an effort to show a little solidarity with my brother James (that's Bud to you and me) and maybe to drive a few sales over his way so he can maybe buy some luxuries (like food for example) I've decided to post on at ease the pot I find most compelling as the Pot of the Week.

Bud gave this pitcher to my Mom for Christmas. Isn't it wonderful?

You too can own your very own pot from Miller Pottery. And remember: Buy this pottery and nothing need happen to your family*.

*Not a real threat, just a joke. Please don't come and cart me away to jail. Actually, I'm just quoting Bud so if anyone should be headed for the slammer, it should be him. Come to think of it, that would ensure that he has a roof over his head. But I digress.

Where in the world is my new Canon?

2005-01-04T09:49:00.000-08:00

Just yesterday I received confirmation that my new Canon EOS 20D camera (with EF-S 17-85mm lens, 1GB CF card, and misc extras) has shipped. While it is certainly fun for my wife and I to track the package together, I thought it'd be a lot MORE fun if I blogged its journey. I also thought that it'd be fun to post a little about each of the towns that my new camera visits.

So where in the world is my new Canon? Today we have confirmation from UPS that it's in Farmingdale, New York!

As of 4 Jan 04, my new Canon EOS 20D is in Farmingdale, New York!

So what exactly is there to do in Farmindale? Good question. I should think that first of all, if you are in Farmindale, NY you would be excited to be so close to the famous horror movie town of Amityville, NY. If you're ever in Farminton, maybe you should saunter on over to 112 Ocean Ave in Amityville and gaze upon the Dutch Colonial house that some have called "one of the most documented paranormal cases ever brought to the public eye". Man, that just screams fun, but you'd better do your research first. Try going to either The Amityville Horror - The Cover Up or to The Amityville Horror Online (which bills itself as "the World Wide Web's Largest Website on The Amityville Horror" - it's a no-brainer).

After you've gotten your pants back on (since they were scared off over in Amityville) perhaps you can go "change your life at Farmindale State." With over 78,000 alumni you can rest assured that you will find a legacy of excellence? Wait, a college is patting itself on the back for 78,000 alumni? Wouldn't any number of massive universities have millions or maybe even 10s of millions of alumni? Well I guess that means that those bigger schools have a legacy of excellence that is several orders of magnitude larger than Farmingdale State. You may as well skip that measly little college.

If you're an airplane buff, you can go to Republic Airport in Farmingdale and revel in the fact that you are standing in the very place where Erik Lindbergh (the grandson of another famous Lindbergh) took to the air at precisely 12:15pm on 1 May 2002 in a rickety $289,000 carbon composite, GPS enabled plane to follow in his Grandfather's footsteps and land in Paris. As you wipe the tears that are sure to form in your eyes after you realize just how death-defying a feat this brave soul took upon himself to accomplish, realize that because of him, you may well be the limber, mobile geriatric you always wanted to be some day for Erik Lindbergh flew that "epic" flight partly to raise awareness of rheumatoid arthritis. Perhaps now that we're aware of it, we'll someday find a cure. Thanks Erik!

No problemo!

That's a full day's worth of activities for sure! So go and reast your weary head and stay tuned for our next Where in the World is My New Canon adventure!

Buddhist Temple

2005-01-01T23:39:00.000-08:00

King's palace in Bankok Thailand

One last test should just about do it. I think I'm really going to like this flickr thing. It lets you post pictures easily and in the exact format you want. Methinks atease will morph into a photoblog eventually.

Self-Portrait

2005-01-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

Self-Portrait, originally uploaded by Mike Lane.

Testing with a landscape photo.

Testing 2

2005-01-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

Seattle Fireworks 2, originally uploaded by Mike Lane.

I'm not sure if I like this if I can't adjust the size to be as large as I want.

1 down, 8 to go...

2004-12-30T19:48:00.000-08:00

So Beth, my Mom, and I were watching some Alias (mmmm... Jennifer Garner) and we decided it was about dinner time. So Beth and I headed off to get some Pho for my Mom and I and some Pad Se-Ew for Beth. So we come driving back up to the house and my Mom's standing outside. We get out and her eyes are all watery and she said, "I think I killed your cat." Mom said something about the laundry room and crawling in the space between the wall and we had no idea what she was talking about.

So we all went downstairs to the laundry room to see what was up. Apparently my Mom was in the office and heard a thump thump followed by some meowing followed by a few more thump thumps and some more meowing. By the time that we got in there the meowing had stopped (which to a worried Mom could only mean that Sierra was dead). So Beth (the smallest of the 3 of us -- well the 2nd smallest of the 4 of us) shimmied between the water heater and the wall to see around the corner and into the space that neither one of us knew that we had until then. She could see that Sierra was alive and well albeit trapped because of various hoses and such.

So Beth figured out how far back Sierra was as best she could and I proceeded to pull out and unhook the dryer. We got a drywall knife and then cut a small hole in the wall. We were a bit too far, but I could see Sierra's tail. After a bit of coaxing, we got her to come on out of her hiding place. As we were all patting each other on the back and taking a sigh of relief I noticed that Sierra was heading back towards the water heater and I yelled "Watch her! Watch her!" She's not only curious, she's persistent.

Anywho, we nabbed her prior to having to go through yet another wall-cutting incident, put the place back together, put her litter box and food and water elsewhere and closed off the laundry room to all four-legged felines until we can get ourselves a door to block off the water heater space. It's kind of complicated, but at least we know not to take things for granted. Kitty-proofing is a never ending job I guess.

Hopefully if LaTricia (the girl we got Sierra from) is reading this (since I gave her the blog address -- I'm such a traffic whore) she won't want to storm right over here and take Sierra back. We're mostly good cat parents I think. Ummm. There really aren't any other places that she can get trapped in now. Honest!

Sierra enjoying a cat nap after her stress-filled evening

Our New Kitty!

2004-12-29T23:14:00.000-08:00

Well Beth and I decided to get a cat. After a couple of trips to the pound we decided to take a look-see on craigslist.com to see what we could find on there. As it turns out I think we found the perfect kitty. Her given name is Sierra and she's definitely an affectionate cat. Beth and I are looking forward to many happy cat years.

Oh, and the parents are happy because they know that it's just baby (grandbaby for them) practice.

Sierra is one affectionate cat.

Sugar Bear is a smidgen jealous.

When she wants lovin' she really wants lovin'!

Merry Christmas from the Lane's!

2004-12-25T21:45:00.000-08:00

Oh the feisty Miller children!

So here's what I've been looking forward to for months. I hope everyone had as good of a Christmas as I have been having! Working clockwise from the top (starting with the bearded guy) we have brother Dave, my Mom, Syl (Warren's Girlfirend), Brother Bud (aka James), Warren (aka Dad), our friend Jeremy, Beth, and a blank space for me. In the middle is tom turkey, he kind of went to pieces (yuk yuk). Anyhow, this Christmas ruled and things are definitely looking up.

Looks like Gregoire might just win...

2004-12-23T07:55:00.000-08:00

So I picked up the paper today and it said that Gregoire may just win the election. Apparently this has been a real soap opera of an election. She could win by a mere 10 votes. I really didn't see that coming.

She'd better be a good governor.

In other news the preparations for Christmas are going well. We're trying to minimize the amount of actual cooking that we'll have to do when everyone's here. Today is the day to decide what we're going to eat and to go to the Commissary to get everything we need. Dave just wanted to have a massive tray of sushi for Christmas. That would have been fine with me, but since I did blog about Turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce, hommade bread sandwiches and since Beth is big into traditions on some things (Christmas dinners to be one of those things) Dave was overruled. I set the ball rolling and I couldn't change its course, sorry Dave. We'll have sushi another time.

I'm also wondering what life is like for the guys at Marez these days. There are things that people that are unfamiliar with the military may not consider. First off, General Meyers said that it was a suicide bomber not a mortar (I was thinking that would have been an extremely lucky shot). So the security at every FOB in Mosul is likely ramped up extremely high. After we got hit with mortars in November (when the 2 guys I knew were killed) we went for a week or so of living inside the palaces where we work and wearing our body armor and helmets whenever we were outside (including in the chow halls). Likely everyone in Mosul is much more nervous about actually being on their FOB now. The guys at Marez may be eating MREs until a new chow hall is done. They may be eating them longer than that since the Turkish contractors that serve us our food may have decided that it wasn't worth it. There were times when the Turks would walk off the job because it wasn't safe.

I don't want to say too much though. William Li asked me a probing question about a statement that I made the other day. I asked why the Army couldn't spend the money to keep the troops safe. That has been something that he has heard echoed from other vets and wondered if there was something that the general public doesn't know. There may very well be. The thing is that if I were to specify what I meant, I may be revaling vulnerabilities to people that want to kill us. If I thought someone would get killed because of something that I posted, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Let me just say this: if the only protection people have is that their problems aren't revealed, then they have bigger problems than they think. There are simple measures the Army could take to protect its people -- although those things may cost millions of dollars. Maybe it's just me being selfish (since I could end up over there again) but I would think that the Army wouldn't mind dropping a few million dollars to protect its troops.

So the short answer is yes, there are things that you don't know. Steel HMMWV doors aren't the only measure of protection that the Army has been unbearingly slow to provide.

This makes me sick...

2004-12-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

So when I was in Mosul how many meals did I spend sitting in a cloth-sided dining tent? It must have been hundreds. Towards the end I was getting my meals to go and waiting until very late in the lunch cycle. The following article is why:

Workers and U.S. soldiers tend to the wounded after an apparent insurgent mortar attack on a dining facility during lunchtime on FOB Marez in Mosul, Iraq today. (Richmond Times-Dispatch/ Dean Hoffmeyer)
OPERATING BASE MAREZ, Iraq – Insurgents hit a dining hall tent at a U.S. military base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today with a suspected rocket attack, killing 24, including two soldiers from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion.

As of 11:15 a.m. EST, 64 were reported wounded; civilians may have been among them. It was around noon and hundreds of soldiers had just sat down for lunch.

The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and shrapnel sprayed into the men.

Amid the screaming and thick smoke that followed, quick-thinking soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot.

"Medic! Medic!" soldiers shouted.

Medics rushed into the tent and hustled the rest of the wounded out on stretchers.

Scores of troops crammed into concrete bomb shelters outside. Others wobbled around the tent and collapsed, dazed by the blast.

"I can’t hear! I can’t hear!" one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.

Near the front entrance to the chow hall, troops tended a soldier with a gaping head wound. Within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag. Three more bodies were in the parking lot.

The military asked that the dead not be identified until families could be notified.

Soldiers scrambled back into the hall to check for more wounded. The explosions blew out a huge hole in the roof of the tent. Puddles of bright red blood, lunch trays and overturned tables and chairs covered the floor.

Grim-faced soldiers growled angrily about the attack as they stomped away.
"Mother [expletive]!" one mumbled.

Sgt. Evan Byler, of the 276th, steadied himself on one of the concrete bomb shelters. He was eating chicken tenders and macaroni when the bomb hit. The blast knocked him out of his chair. When the smoke cleared, Byler took off his shirt and wrapped it around a seriously wounded soldier.

Byler held the bloody shirt in his hand, not quite sure what to do with it.

"It’s not the first close call I have had here," said Byler, a Fauquier County, Va., resident who survived a blast from an improvised explosive device while riding in a vehicle earlier this year.

Byler started walking back to his base when he spotted a soldier collapse from shock on the side of the road. Byler and Lt. Shawn Otto, also of the 276th, put the grieving soldier on a passing pickup truck.

The 276th, with about 500 troops, had made it a year without losing a soldier and is preparing to return home in about a month.

"We almost made it. We almost made it to the end without getting somebody killed," Otto said glumly.

At least two other soldiers with the 276th were injured, but it was not clear how serious their wounds are.

Insurgents have fired mortars at the chow hall more than 30 times this year. One round killed a female soldier with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division in the summer as she scrambled for cover in one of the concrete bomb shelters. Workers are building a new steel and concrete chow hall for the soldiers just down the dusty dirt road.

Lt. Dawn Wheeler, a member of the 276th from Centreville, Va., was waiting in line for chicken tenders when a round hit on the other side of a wall from her. A soldier who had been standing beside her was on the ground, struggling with shrapnel buried deep in his neck.

"We all have angels on us," she said as she pulled away in a Humvee.

Wheeler quickly joined other officers from the 276th for an emergency meeting minutes after the blast.

Maj. James Zollar, the unit’s acting commander, spoke to more than a dozen of his officers in a voice thick with emotion. He urged them to keep their troops focused on their missions.

"This is a tragic, tragic thing for us but we still have missions," he told them. "It’s us, the leaders, who have to pull them together."
Just hours before the blast, Zollar had awarded a Purple Heart to a soldier from the 276th who was wounded in a mortar attack on another part of the base in October.

Zollar eventually turned the emergency meeting over to Chaplain Eddie Barnett. He led the group in prayer.

"Help us now, God, in this time of this very tragic circumstance," Barnett said. "We pray for your healing upon our wounded soldiers."
With heads hung low, the soldiers trudged outside. They had work to do.

Lots of things going on in my head about this. First off, I was in Mosul but I wasn't at FOB Marez. In my final couple of weeks there we had been attacked by mortars every single day at lunch time which is why I was getting my food to go and eating it in the palace. Of course, I'm happy that I'm not in Mosul anymore which makes me sad that one of my first thoughts is for my own pathetic ass. Man, it just sucks so much. Why the Army can't pony up enough cash to adequately protect their troops is beyond me. I monitored the C-130s that brought these guys to Mosul, now in a wierd, maybe dumb way I almost feel culpable. I know I'm not obviously, I don't make those kinds of decisions or have any kind of pull, I know they'd be there if I existed or not, I know that I didn't fire the rocket. But still.

The 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division has a policy that when there is an incident and someone is killed they turn off the phones so nobody can call home. In a way I guess I can see how it would make a bit of sense in that they want the official channels to be the ones to notify the families. Still, I think it's a failed policy. If you know that your friend or family member is in Mosul or worse if you know your friend or family member is at Marez you just have to hope that they aren't one of the unlucky 24 or the hundreds of others that probably suffered ghastly injuries. You get to look forward to days of the kind of worry that I can only imagine with no phone calls. Ironically, you may be hoping that you wouldn't get any phone calls since they may be official ones.

I can tell you that 1/25 has their phones off today.

Man it's great to be able to run errands...

2004-12-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

I had a lot to get done today and although I got most of it done, I didn't quite get everything done. The biggie that I neglected was cleaning the house. Actually the house is clean it's just all cluttered with all my crap all over the place. I'm going to have to work extra super hard to clean it up since Beth is coming home tomorrow (yippee!). Finally things are going to get back to some kind of version of normal.

Well scratch that. They're going to be normal⁺⁺ since we're going to be having so many people around during the Christmas season. It's going to be a helluva lot of fun and it all starts tomorrow. First Beth is landing at around 1300 (that coupled with the fact that I have to learn how to feed our friend's/realator's/ex landlord's cats means that I've got to hustle with the house cleanup tomorrow morning) then later on that night my Mom is going to be flying in. In a couple of days after that Beth's Dad and Syl (his girlfriend) are going to be driving up. It's going to be a T Town Giftmas and our joint is going to be packed. Actually, it'll be the first big family holiday get together that Beth and I have ever hosted. It's going to rule!

One little political snippet just to show that I'm not all fun and games.

From Atrios:

NEW YORK -- A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

...

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

If Bush did authorize the torture, he could be found guilty of war crimes. From the Third Geneva Conventions Part I, Article III:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

(All emphasis was, of course, my own)

It is conceivable that the world could witness George W. Bush on trial for war crimes at the Hague a la Milosevic. Wouldn't that be interesting. I wonder if he'd scam a way to make it so Cheney coul sit with him on the witness stand at the trial if it were to happen? I shouldn't joke at such a serious matter. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

A response to a blog post...

2004-12-19T12:21:00.000-08:00

Since I've been travelling, it's been a little bit since I've had a chance to debate on Craig Harmon's blog Continuum: From Left to Right. Craig is definitely partisan and like all of us gets embroiled in attacks from time to time; however, he has specifically designed that blog to provide a location that people can come and debate where personal attacks and overly emotional arguments are not allowed. While Craig and I got of to a bit of a rocky start on his more partisan blog The Left Ain't Right, I think he's definitely on the right track on the Continuum.

Unfortunately my trip made me miss the Continuum's previous subject of what it takes to build a sound economy. One poster Samantha, who is as best I can tell an extreme right libertarian, posted an entry that can be found here. Essentially she is all for an absolute free market. Absolutely anything that regulates the market except for private property laws and "Christian ethics" is anathema in Samantha's opinion -- including things like liscensing and child labor laws.

I, being the extreme left libertarian that I am, felt compelled to respond to the post since I found it particularly disturbing. Her ideas, if enacted, would absolutely undo every protection our country has in place and would quickly lead the US to its demise. Be sure to read her post, and then read my reply below:

The purpose of a government is to protect its citizens, to foster an environment where the people can prosper and have free influence on the governing body. The governing body was designed to be transparent and minimally invasive to the lives of private citizens. This country was founded on such liberty.

Of course this is the ideal and no human institution is perfect. Among our greatest failings is our inability to predict with much accuracy the events of the future. It was simply impossible for the founding fathers to envision the industrial revolution. The concept of a corporation or a market was absolutely alien to them. That these bodies of men we call corporations would ultimately create the very same inequality among citizens and erosion of liberties that the founding fathers fought so valiantly against was simply in the realm of the unknowable. But the absolute brilliance of the founding fathers was that they gave us a system that could change and adapt and could solve new problems. It is still not perfect but our government is the result of their prediction that they could not predict the future.

In the early part of the 19th century the United States would have been very close to meeting nearly all of Samantha's ideals. This was a time at the beginning of the industrial revolution, things like the FDA were yet to be invented, trade barriers were more physical than legislated, there were no labor organizations or labor laws, and the western world was in the midst of the Victorian era of hyper-religious sensitivities. It was the times that lead to the roaring twenties and it was the first American economic explosion which lead directly to the first American economic depression.

Life in the 1920s in America wasn't all about doing the Charleston in speakeasies for everyone. Finding a job was difficult, finding a job that paid a worthwhile income was next to impossible. Families had little choice but to send their children to work in sweat shops just so the family could put food on the table. The ratio of corporate executive compensation to worker compensation was higher than at any time in American history except the history we've been making since the 1980s. Corporations were drawing more and more power and money and giving their workers less and less. When the market crumbled under the weight, the people found that the corporations had given them nothing, no job, no health care, no cushion to protect them in hard times, and no way to affect a change.

That is why the government stepped in first by creating jobs building up the American infrastructure and then by legislating rules beneficial to workers at the expense of the corporations. At last workers could unionize so they could pool their resources and take on the unimaginable power and wealth of the corporations. Finally, if workers did not get compensated fairly they had a means of getting that compensation other than being unemployed. For the first time in American history people could be certain that they could have lives outside of their workplaces and know that their young children would not have to endure the horrors of sweatshop labor. And if a worker was forced out of a job, they could be confident that they would have a safety net until they could find themselves work again. This was the renaissance for the American worker and I contend that it solidified a generation's will to fight and die for others in World War II. This was the foundation of the American dream and the economy did not plummet; rather, it skyrocketed. By the 1950s America's economy was 50% of the world's economy despite the fact that businesses no longer had free reign.

Corporations are filled with brilliant, industrious people that are well versed in manipulating the government. Monetary power goes a long way and many of the corporations grew to have more spending power than some countries. It is this unprecedented influence that the architects of the new deal were unable to fathom and is the fault of the system that we have today. The corporations have successfully lobbied to erode many of the economic protections that were in (or inferred from) the new deal. The 1980s (and more so the 1990s) ushered in a global marketplace where corporations are at the same time found in a country and not subject to that country's rules. There is far more sweatshop labor now than there ever was in the 1920s -- although not in the US. Physical barriers to trade are all but inconsequential so the last remaining barrier are government-imposed restrictions and tariffs. Environmental laws that have been under constant attack to the point that people in government question the validity of the science that says those laws must stay.

While manufacturing previously made up the lion's share of the economy in the US, that has since dwindled as evidenced by the empty factories in the rust belt and the exodus of factory jobs to the underdeveloped countries around the world. What the corporations have become better at than anyone could have imagined is disseminating information. Where our main products once were tangible, we now are mainly in the business of selling ideas. And it is the ideas that we are getting sold that are the most disturbing: that laissez faire is the best means of controlling the market, that individual freedom is tied in with corporate freedom, that fewer environmental laws actually makes sense, that corporate mergers equal more choice, that a bland, homoginized world where one cannot tell one place apart from the next is the ideal, that as go the corporate stock prices goes American prosperity. These ideas are not founded in reality but they are certainly excellent for the corporations' bottom lines.

As a country we must not only do what we can to stop the erosion of the new deal programs, we must also fight to build up the those laws that have been eviscerated by the corporate machine. After all they were designed to protect us and our nation's economy in the first place. Furthermore, in the new global economy, our country must accept and embrace its interdependence with every other country on the planet and take the lead to enact treaties and laws that will protect not only our own people but every people everywhere in the world. Laissez faire business practices are not new or novel ideas and our own history has shown that they simply do not work. The free market isn't free, the price for a free market is far too heavy for civil liberties and our environment.

There are many books on the subject a couple that I've read are No Logo by Naomi Klein and Jihad vs. McWorld by Benjamin Barber. Both of those books have impeccable references and lists of other books that you can read to learn more.

The only difference between Samantha's ideas and the administration's ideas is that Samantha is clearly a libertarian and the administration is among the most authoritarian that we have had since the Victorian era. I have no doubts that the Bush administration would dearly love to enact many of Samantha's ideas; however, they simply can't get past the idea that Americans need to be told how to live which takes a great deal of income and a massive government so limiting taxes to absurdly low levels simply isn't possible. I'm hoping that calmer, smarter heads will ultimately prevail and we'll find ourselves with a robust and ethical economy as opposed to a corporate anarchy.

If we don't, we will be going the way of the Romans soon.

I hate the Bank of America.

2004-12-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this selfishly half hoping that it will spark a little bit of outrage with the people who aren't in the military out there. I just got all of our held mail yesterday and just this morning went through it all. I was surprised to find out that there were three letters from the Bank of America in there. For anyone who doesn't know, our government travel cards are given to us by the Bank of America. There is no APR and our limits are high enough that if we need to get airline tickets, hotel rooms, and rental cars we don't have to worry about it. Anyhow, the letters were along the lines of you have an unpaid balance of $135, if you don't pay it we'll contact your commander and charge you an extra fee.

There are apparently a great deal of people who misuse the government travel card. People buy car stereos or trips to strip clubs when all they're supposed to use it for is travel expenses. Previous companies have had to eat a lot of expenses from people not paying things back or taking advantage of the 0% APR for personal stuff and have bailed out of the program. When the Bank of America signed on, they had a bunch of strict rules. I can definitely understand that they wouldn't want to be involved in a money-losing scheme, but they are so inflexible that it's ridiculous.

First of all, we have to use the government travel card to get rooms or airline tickets or rental cars. Instead of a convenience for people without the means of paying out of pocket and getting reimbursed, it is a strictly enforced rule. You cannot file your travel voucher without dispersing part of the payment directly to Bank of America unless you have your commander's signature. The kicker is that you are required to pay your bill on time no matter what. You could have used the card in a hotel in Germany on your way to a 6 month tour in a foxhole in Pakistan but if you don't find a way to pay your bill when the Bank of America says you have to pay your bill, they will charge you $29 a month until that bill is paid. It doesn't matter if there is absolutely no possible way for you to pay your bill, you could be a POW and they wouldn't care; if you don't pay the bill, you're getting charged. And keep in mind you don't have the option of not using the card. Moreover, they are absolutely unwilling to waive that $29/month fee and even if it isn't your fault, you'll have to pay it and the government will not reimburse you for that fee. So the government forces you to use the card, the government may put you in a position to not be able to pay the card thus incurring the fee, and the government will not reimburse you for the fee that they made you incur. It's aggrivating. Of course, my philosophy is, screw that, I'm going to use my own credit card if at all possible.

And that's part of the reason that these letters were odd, I don't recall having to pull the card out any time recently. The first two said pay us or else we'll charge you and tell your commander and the last one said we've just told your commander and we're going to charge you $29 in two weeks if you don't pay us. So, obviously, I called them right away. The wait wasn't all that long and when the lady came on the line I told her that I had a couple of letters that said I had an unpaid balance that I needed to take care of. So she asked for my vitals and then started to tell me how to pay the bill. The thing is, I couldn't really remember using the card for anything at all since around May which I recall paying off. So I asked her what the charge was. She said it was for a hotel room in Norfolk, VA. You may have noticed the fancy maps that I've put on the right side of the blog. They're a little small, but they denote the countries and the states that I've visited. If you look closely, you'll notice that I have never been to Virgina, not once ever. And I've never had a TDY planned for that location. The charge was apparently made on the first week of September and I KNOW that I hadn't made any travel plans for Virginia in September because I was busy getting my crap together to go to Iraq.

So I told her that and she put the charge in dispute. I asked her how they handled the letters to the commander. It seems right to me that if a letter like that was sent out because of a legitimate error, they should send out another letter that explains the situation. Yeah, no such luck. The lady said that they only send letters to commanders when people haven't paid their bills and that they don't send out any other letters. That, to me, is a giant crock of poo. If they are going to get us in trouble, the least they could do is to get us out of trouble if the situation warants it. The Bank of America is there to serve the members of the Government including the members of the military not the other way around. This absurd policy is not serving our needs, it is serving the selfish needs of the Bank of America.

Why does the Bank of America hate America?

Honey ... I'm home.

2004-12-17T23:48:00.000-08:00

Well that was perhaps the longest trip in the history of trips. Here's the rest of the story.

After I had posted my previous entry, I had a few hours to wait for the C-17 to depart. I called Beth and we talked for about 30 minutes. Someone else was waiting for the phone so I let him use it and I farted around on the computer for a little bit. Everything that is any kind of interesting is blocked on that base so I got tired of that pretty fast. What to do, what to do? Oh I know, I'll watch a movie on the TV in the little waiting area in the C-17 ops building. I thought I should probably ask them if they cared.

"Hey guys, do you mind if I watch a movie on this TV back here?"
"Not at all, in fact, have some popcorn!"

Well I just thought that was a fantastic idea. I went ahead and put a bag of popcorn in the microwave. Things were looking up. Of course if I were going to have some popcorn, I'd need some water and there was none to be found. I asked the guys if they had any and they said they didn't. Well I figured I'd be the nice guy and run and get some cases of bottled water that they have sitting around outside. When I got back, I noticed a very acrid smell. Just then, it hit me that the popcorn was burning. So I ran back to the waiting room and found white smoke pouring out of the door of the microwave. I promptly turned it off and as I was unplugging it the fire alarm went off. *sigh*

It was no big deal really, just some amazingly bad smelling smoke that really stings the eyes and the embarrassment of nearly burning the place down coupled with the fact that my wife works with these guys and word travels fast in the Air Force. So as I was cleaning the microwave I couldn't help but think that it was the perfect end to the perfect trio of days. I would only find out that the popcorn incident wasn't the final blow when I bashed the hell out of my head on the bus door as I was loading my bags. I pretty much needed to get home soon.

I ended up getting to Frankfurt on the C-17 that I was waiting for while popping my popcorn. Actually it was pretty uneventful except for the fact that I actually spent a few hours in Iraq (ahhh the Irony). I was pretty sure that we were either going to get attacked, the plane was going to break, or there would be some other pressing reason that I would have to stay there while the C-17 left without me. None of that happened and I ended up getting to Frankfurt in the mid-morning.

So about 24 hours ago I hopped on another C-17 heading for McChord. It was scheduled to make one stop but it was really the only choice I had. I get out to the jet and find that it's filled to the gills with pax and cargo and they very nearly didn't have any room for me and 3 other people. My fortunes had changed apparently and we were on our way shortly. Oh by the way, we get to make two stops, one in England and one in North Carolina now. The stop in England was uneventful albeit long but I was pretty sure that I'd be spending the night in NC.

For safety reasons, an aircrew can only work so long. Their duty day starts one hour after they are alerted and basically ends when they land. Because of the stop in England and because of some delays in NC, we were pushing up against the duty day for the crew. If things had been any slower in NC, we would have stayed there overnight. Once we started engines and they closed the door, I knew that we were well on our way. It took a long time to taxi and the load said that they were having trouble with their hydraulics. Now, given what I'd been going through since the 9th, the following scenario ran through my head: 1) this jet would be done, hydraulics problems do not lend themselves to flying or easy fixing, 2) we'd be there for more than just a night and I'd have to check in my guns, my secrets, and haul my damned bags all over the great state of North Carolina, and 3) there wouldn't be another jet along for days and each time other jets came in, they would think that ours was fixed so I would be stuck there until mid-January or so. Hey, you read my last post didn't you?

At any rate, none of that happened. We ended up taxiing out to the runway and I felt good as they pushed the power up and released the breaks. And as they almost immediately pulled the power back and slammed on the breaks I felt like my premonition was about to come true. I couldn't believe that we had just aborted the takeoff. I just knew that I was going to be there... Wait, what's this? They're pushing the power back up? They ended up taking off right from where they had come to a stop on the runway. I don't know what the problem was or how they fixed it, but I'm glad I was in a C-17. If that had been a KC-135, we'd have to use up the full runway to stop, taxi back to the end of the runway and then depart all the time keeping the hot breaks and tires in the backs of our minds.

Anywho... Nine full days later and I'm back in my house in Tacoma. It's a little late to call anyone so I'll be making all my "I'm home" calls tomorrow. Actually, there are a lot of things that I need to do tomorrow, but I'll start off with the "I'm home" calls. I'm glad that this trip is done. If I ever have to go again I can guarantee I'm going to do things differently (first off by not having so many heavy ass bags). But then again, I'm hoping that I won't have to go back.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Worst. Day. Ever. (post contains language that is not suitable for all audiences, parental discression suggested)

2004-12-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

Alternate titles include:
- I just flew from Mosul to Kuwait to Qatar and boy, are my arms tired
- I hear the Middle East is beautiful this time of year
- How I quit wanting to get home and learned to love traveling the Middle East
- For fuck's sake can't a guy get a break???

So you know how I said that sometimes things work way better than planned? I may have been a bit too optimistic. If my perception of the actual existence of luck or karma is wrong, that those actually do exist, then I have no luck and I am the Karma Police's Rodney King. Of course one could also say that I am an incredibly bad decision maker. Here's why.

I did get to Mosul earlier than planned and it was a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. I didn't even have to do much dragging of bags since there were people there to help me. That was good, I was happy to be on the move and things were really looking up. That's when I posted that (now hilarious) post about things working out way better than planned. As I was posting that (little did I know) a flight headed to Kuwait City International (KCIA from now on) took off. Keep that airport, KCIA, in the back of your head.

A little later my flight to Balad, Iraq was running a bit late, but there was confirmation that it was in the air headed this way. They were showing the first Lord of the Rings movie and I figured that I wouldn't be able to see all of it since Peter Jackson doesn't believe in editing. So after that movie ended, I went to see when the plane was expected since it was obviously late. Apparently the time had been pushed back until 30 minutes or so from that time but it was still on its way. No big deal. I'll just go start watching the second Lord of the Rings movie that was now playing and I'd be on my way in less than an hour.

When the second Lord of the Rings movie had ended, I went to go see what the deal was again. Apparently a helicopter had crashed on Mosul airfield and all other air traffic had been diverted. "Holy cow are you serious?" So I called the AMD, they said the flight that I was waiting on was going to be rescheduled for the following day (the 10th) at around dinner time. Keep this in mind, I could have taken that flight, been to Balad Iraq and then in Frankfurt by the wee early morning of the 11th. So I hung up with the AMD and I looked at the schedule and the next flight that was leaving was one going to an Air Base in Kuwait called Ali Al Salem -- not KCIA. Since I was trying to just get a move on and I wanted to get out of Iraq, I elected to put myself on the flight going to Salem and forego the Balad flight.

Success! The Kuwait plane arrived, offloaded a bunch of people and stuff and on loaded me and around 9 other guys. All my goddamned bags had been palletized so there wasn't an issue with having to drag my bags and the plane only had 10 people on it so there was all kinds of room. The initial happiness that I had came back once again. Hell yeah, I was on my way!

We landed in Kuwait and we were taken to the MCT (the people that I would be trying to get another flight from). The pallet with our stuff was dropped off and I went in to talk to the MCT to get myself on a flight heading to either Balad Iraq or Al Udeid Qatar (keep Al Udeid in mind). The lady who I talked to initially said that there was a Balad flight with a show time of 1700 local. I looked at my watch and it was exactly 0700 local time. That means I would show up in 10 hours and I wouldn't leave for 13 hours. All the other flights were full and the lady said that I should just get myself to KCIA (the international airport, remember?) because they always have flights that are going to Frankfurt. That didn't seem like a great idea because I misunderstood what she was trying to tell me. I thought that she wanted me to get on a commercial flight. So I called Beth to tell her what the deal was and Beth told me that she'd hoped that I got on the flight to KCIA from Mosul (the one that took off as I was writing the blog post two down from this one) because there were 2 C-17s going from KCIA to Frankfurt on the morning of the 10th, one at 1200L and one at 1400L. By this time it was around 0730L on the 10th and I was in Kuwait and they have Shuttle busses that take people to KCIA. So change in plans, I was going to go catch a C-17 and be on my way!

So I talked with the lady from before, told her I misunderstood what she was trying to tell me and asked what I needed to do to get on the shuttle bus to KCIA. She told me to talk to the people in the guard shack just 100 yards away and they would put me on a bus to camp Doha (a major Army installation in Kuwait) and from there I could get another shuttle to KCIA. Apparently a shuttle to KCIA had left right as I got there at 0700L and the next one was supposed to arrive at 0945L. They said to just go wait in the MCT and they'd call over there and have them tell me when the bus arrived so I could hop on and be on my way. At about 0940, I decided that I'd probably just head on out there since I hadn't heard anything. So I gathered the few bags I had with me and walked out to where the bus would be leaving (maybe 200 yards away). As I was walking there was a bus that pulled out and I looked at my watch and saw that it was 0943L. That surely wasn't my bus. I sat there for maybe 5 minutes and no other buses had shown up so I went to talk to the guys in the guard shack.

"The shuttle for KCIA left just a few minutes ago, sir."
"What? I thought you said that it was supposed to arrive at 0945L."
"It got here early and I called over to the MCT and 16 guys got on the bus. The bus driver called over here at 0945L and asked if they could leave early. Since I called the MCT like I said I would, I figured it'd be okay."
"You have got to be fucking kidding me. That was my bus that left? Holy fucking shit, I've got to catch a flight at KCIA in just a few hours. When is the next bus?"
"Let's see, my sheet says the next bus will arrive at 1145L."
"Fuck, man! I have a flight that's going to leave really soon, I've got to get there what the fucking hell am I supposed to do?"
"Sorry, sir, there's nothing we can do."

Holy shit was I pissed. I was more pissed then that I had been in an extremely long time. I just wanted to throw things and beat people up and yell at the guy that let the bus leave without me and just generally have an all out flying off the handle fit. So I walked to where the busses wait and yelled at the gravel for a little while. What the hell good would throwing a fit do anyhow? I was fucked; there was no changing that now. My only hope was that the next shuttle bus would get there early, maybe 1115L and would take off by 1145L and I might still have time to make the 1400L C-17. The next shuttle bus showed up promptly at 1145L and did not move one inch until exactly 1245L. We did not arrive at camp Doha until 1315L and the guy whose job it is to ride around on the bus all day said that the next shuttle for KCIA wouldn't come until around 1430L to 1500L. Furthermore, just to add insult to injury, that shuttle takes about 1.5 hours to get to the military side of KCIA (which is where I wanted to go) because they had to go to the commercial side first, where they would sit there for an hour and wait for any arriving people that needed to go to Camp Doha. He said that their bus was going to be there until 1415L and I could go grab some lunch.

So I went to the PX, grabbed some lunch and made my way back to my bags. The KCIA bus actually showed a bit earlier than expected and we departed at 1400L. True to the guy's words, we arrived at the military side of the airport at exactly 1530L and both of the earlier C-17s had already left. I wasn't too worried because I knew that there was another C-5 sometime later in the day. All hope wasn't lost.

"Excuse me," I said to the passenger terminal (pax terminal) guy, "I need to hop on a flight to Frankfurt please."
"Okay sir, may I see your out processing sheet please?"
"I'm sorry. My What?"
"The out processing sheet that you got from the 62nd out processing unit at Camp Doha."
"What are you talking about?"
"You have to out process at Camp Doha before I am allowed to put you on a flight."
"You have got to be kidding me."
"No sir, I'm not allowed to put you on a flight unless you have first out processed through Doha."
"I have to out process through Doha? How am I supposed to do that?"
"Well the Doha shuttle is waiting outside."
"You can't be serious."
"Sorry sir."
"But I need to get to Frankfurt."
"There's nothing I can do sir."
"But I... I just... Isn't there..."
"The only other way to get on a flight is if you have ACM orders."

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING!!!!!

When I was working on getting my orders from McChord AFB before I left on this TDY, it took me forever. They kept getting things wrong and there were all kinds of problems getting the right things. One of the things that I had to fight the hardest to get was Additional Crew Member (ACM) / Mission Essential Ground Personnel (MEGP) authorized. Essentially, if you have that one little thing on your orders, "ACM/MEGP Authorized" you can fly anywhere on any airlift aircraft no questions asked. I fought for it and now it was going to pay off big time.

The pax terminal guy sent me upstairs to talk to the airlift operations people so that I could be put on the flight orders as an ACM on the C-5 that was supposed to arrive later that night. Sweet! They were very nice, and everything was looking way up. It was about dinner time on the 10th (when a Balad flight was taking off out of Mosul most likely) so I decided to go grab some pizza from the little trailer that they have set up just outside the pax terminal. I went back in and watched Searching for Bobby Fischer on AFN in the pax terminal and ate my pizza. Just as the movie finished, the pax terminal people paged that I had a phone call. It was Beth.

"Hey babe, your C-5 cancelled."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah, I looked in SMS and there isn't anything departing out of there for at least 24 hours."
"Son of a..."
"There's an L1011 that is going from here to there. It says that pax can have weapons and it leaves in 4 or 5 hours."
"Yeah I guess I could... Crap, wait, I can't go ACM on an L1011 and I can't go space A unless I out process through Doha."
"Well why don't you do that?"
"Because to get there, find the out processing place, out process if they're open, and get back would take at least 4 and maybe 5 hours. I just can't do it. Let me talk to the pax terminal folks and see what I can do."

The lady that was working now was very interested in helping me out. There was obviously a shift change and I asked what I could do to get myself on a flight to Frankfurt. She said well you can give me a patch. Rrrrrip! I took off my 615th patch and handed it to her.

"Let's see, there's an MD11 leaving in just a little bit, we can get you on there."
"Sweet!"
"Okay, let me have your orders."
"Awesome. So how do I handle all those damned bags?"
"Are those all your bags?"
"Oh no, just five of them and that gun box."
"You have a gun?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Is it in a box that is obviously a gun box?"
"Well ... yeah."
"Crap."
"What?"
"You can't go on R&R chartered flights with guns and all we have is R&R flights."
"Oh man!"
"We have a C-130 going to Al Udeid. GDSS says that there is a C-17 going to Frankfurt tonight from there. I'll put you on that."
"You have got to be kidding."
"I'll send a couple of guys out here with a truck to help you with your bags."
"*sigh*"

So I went and sat down in the waiting area. Less than an hour later we were lining up and heading on our way to the C-130 that was going to take us to Al Udeid (we call it "the Deid"). The 130 took off at 2130L and landed at almost exactly 2300L. I tried to go straight into the Al Udeid pax terminal but it turns out that it had moved and they had revamped their processes. Everyone had to get an in briefing with the ATOC no matter how long they were going to stay there. What's more, before you could leave the building you had to check your weapon in. Even if there was a flight leaving in an hour, you had to check your weapon in, no if's and's or but's about it. So I had to sit there and listen to a briefing that I'd heard a half-dozen times before and fill out the transient data sheet and circle that I wasn't interested in an alcohol rations card when I could have been doing something productive like, oh I don't know, trying to get myself on a plane.

I got to the pax terminal counter at about five minutes to midnight on the 10th. The information that I had said there was a plane leaving the Deid at 0110L on the 11th. I knew I would be too late for the manifest, but I figured they'd probably help me out and get me on the plane anyhow. I was hoping the process would be quick since I really had to crap. When I heard the distinctive sound of the C-17 taking off, I realized that my luck had not changed. I had in fact missed that direct flight to Frankfurt.

"I'm sorry sir, you missed today's flight to Frankfurt," the Udeid pax terminal guy said.
"Yeah. I know," I sighed.
"Okay, let's see, we have a flight leaving for Frankfurt on the 12th at about 0530L."
"You don't have anything tomorrow?"
"No sir, I'm sorry, we don't."

Well I just wanted to curl up in a ball. I could see the totality of my trip to that point. I imagined that I had decided to go to KCIA straight from Mosul. I imagined that I decided to go to the bus in Salem at 0930L as opposed to 0940L. I imagined that I had decided to catch a flight to Al Udeid or Balad from Salem instead of catching the bus to KCIA. But I hadn't, I was in the Died, I was stuck and there was nothing I could do about it. If there is luck, I had none. If there is fate, this was my fate. If there is Karma, it is kicking me in the balls repeatedly.

So I put my name in for a flight on Sunday, I went to the bathroom as soon as I could, I checked in my weapon, and I went to go get a room. It was nice to get a shower and to be able to sleep on an actual bed. I got up and had some lunch and called Beth. She told me that I should talk to the guys at the C-17 ops in the Deid and that they could help me out better than the pax terminal. That made sense so I did just that.

Fortunately they had a flight that leaves out of here tonight and gets into Frankfurt in the morning of the 12th. That is what I'm waiting on right now. I've got a hard time believing it'll go. I'm sort of downtrodden at this point. I've been trying to think of the bright side in all of this. It isn't raining, that's good. It isn't 145 degrees, that's good too. I am getting paid to travel, that's something. I'm out of Iraq, that's really good. This isn't the worst thing in the world and I need to keep my head up. Everything that has happened so far has happened. What is past is prologue to this, none of it matters. Things are looking up, and even if I have to stay here for another day for some reason, at least I have showers and stuff.

Next stop, Frankfurt. I can't wait.

Best laid plans of mice and men...

2004-12-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

Well the first, best option didn't happen. Now I'm pondering my other options. I think I'm going to take whatever gets me to Germany the quickest. Unfortunately that means that I'll also have to go a lot farther. On the plus side, this will get me out of Iraq on the first flight out.

If that one craps out, I have something to fall back on. It's going to be a very, very long day for me.

Oh hell yeah...

2004-12-09T02:22:00.000-08:00

So sometimes things don't go so well and sometimes things go way better than planned. I thought I was going to have to drag all my crapola all over the middle east begging for rides to somewhere that could get me to somewhere else that could get me to Germany. I wasn't looking forward to the long ass day that it was going to be. The plan was to leave my base at around dinner time on the 9th and not get into Germany until 0100 on the 11th.

As it turns out there was a flight added today that will make this trip a short little one-hopper to freedom (the idea not the FOB)! Oh man oh man oh man I'm so excited.

I've been trying to decide what lyrics would be the best to post for this occassion. Really, this song has been running through my head for weeks so I've got to post it. It's such a fun song and it came with my MP3 player.

Frank Black & The Catholics - San Antonio, TX

motel alone decor perplexes
ringing in my ear and now the phone
in San Antone the State of Texas
hearing you my dear I’m all alone

put me in the cab I’m flying away
I’m glad to say I’m finally leaving here
put down the flaps I’m getting off
just two more stops the skies are very clear
I’m sitting in the back I’m flying away
I’m flying away I’m flying away

she had a dream call it a vision
he’d given her a little silver tool
and now it seems that day has risen
I’m bringing you your supernatural jewel

put me in the cab I’m flying away
I’m glad to say I’m finally leaving here
put down the flaps I’m getting off
just two more stops the skies are very clear
I’m sitting in the back I’m flying away
I’m flying away I’m flying away

The Alamo I’ve never seen it
maybe I’ll go there but I don’t know
and if I go well I won’t see it
thousand mile stare will take home

put me in the cab I’m flying away
I’m glad to say I’m finally leaving here
put down the flaps I’m getting off
just two more stops the skies are very clear
I’m sitting in the back I’m flying away
I’m flying away I’m flying away

How perfect is that song huh? Okay, so the internets will be hella limited I'm thinking. Moreover, I'm going to be spending time with Da Beffa and not with the computer. I tell you what, you may want to check back in on the 14th or 15th or so. I should be home home by then and I'll have all the internets I can stand.

So if all goes right, I'm going to be signing off until then although I should be able to make the occassional "I'm in [wherever]" type posts maybe. Mom, Dad, I'll call you guys when I get in the industrialized world.

*dances*

at ease

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