Saturday, November 10, 2007
I Owe You
BTW, this site is overdue for an "Amy Update".
Things have happened, both in day-to-day life, and in terms of doctor's pronouncements.
I will make that the first priority for the next time I have to write at length.
Things have happened, both in day-to-day life, and in terms of doctor's pronouncements.
I will make that the first priority for the next time I have to write at length.
Blog Changes
A few days ago, I took the "Listening" area out of the right hand side. Tonight, I took the "Reading" part out.
Frankly, I haven't been listening to any music for weeks, maybe months. No time. I listen to talk radio to and from work. My life, recently, has precluded listening to music any other time.
As for reading, the only reading I have been doing in the last few months is on "the can". Mainly, it has been magazines that I have built up. I'm, still, working on finishing military history journals that I purchased in the spring of this year.
I've spent the last year + trying to simplify, and prioritize my life.
It hasn't been easy.
Actually, it would be more honest to say that the more I try to cut the extraneous out of my life the more "extraneous" piles up. It has gotten to a point where the reading of books has ceased, the regular listening of music has ceased, ... regularly accessing my most creative outlet has ceased.
Look at how often I have posted to my blog over the last year.
(This is my main creative outlet. ... The blog design, it's content.)
I sat down today about 1:45 PM at the computer.
My wife and I agreed that, for me, it was going to be a day for me that was all about reading the source material I, normally, write from, and blogging.
It was almost 10 PM tonight before I began to, seriously, read the material. Look at the time stamps for my posts.
It's kind of frustrating.
But, I need more of this. After work tomorrow, I don't have to go to work again until Wednesday. I'm going to try to get through more of this.
We'll see.
Frankly, I haven't been listening to any music for weeks, maybe months. No time. I listen to talk radio to and from work. My life, recently, has precluded listening to music any other time.
As for reading, the only reading I have been doing in the last few months is on "the can". Mainly, it has been magazines that I have built up. I'm, still, working on finishing military history journals that I purchased in the spring of this year.
I've spent the last year + trying to simplify, and prioritize my life.
It hasn't been easy.
Actually, it would be more honest to say that the more I try to cut the extraneous out of my life the more "extraneous" piles up. It has gotten to a point where the reading of books has ceased, the regular listening of music has ceased, ... regularly accessing my most creative outlet has ceased.
Look at how often I have posted to my blog over the last year.
(This is my main creative outlet. ... The blog design, it's content.)
I sat down today about 1:45 PM at the computer.
My wife and I agreed that, for me, it was going to be a day for me that was all about reading the source material I, normally, write from, and blogging.
It was almost 10 PM tonight before I began to, seriously, read the material. Look at the time stamps for my posts.
It's kind of frustrating.
But, I need more of this. After work tomorrow, I don't have to go to work again until Wednesday. I'm going to try to get through more of this.
We'll see.
Friday, November 09, 2007
How Long Before the A.D.L. Kicks Out All its Jews? - HUMAN EVENTS
Okay, I admit that Ann Coulter is easy to dislike. On the other hand, so is George Carlin.
Carlin is a comic with leftist/libertarian views. If you watch or listen to any of his comedy specials/CD's from the last few years, then you can't help note the political rants he ends each of the them with.
Coulter, on the other hand, is a conservative apologist with comic pretensions. It's sometimes easy to miss in her columns, because her brand of comedy is best spoken, not written. Case in point, I have never read "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter". I own a copy, though. The reason is that I listened to the book on CD. Ann Coulter read her own book for the CD. I have tell you that she was hilarious!
This column is worth a read.
BUT! Keep in mind that you are reading the words of someone who has taken the art of sarcasm to heights that aren't matched by much of anyone in either the comedy or political commentary realms in America today.
What better way to illustrate the absurd than be absurd in doing so?
Carlin is a comic with leftist/libertarian views. If you watch or listen to any of his comedy specials/CD's from the last few years, then you can't help note the political rants he ends each of the them with.
Coulter, on the other hand, is a conservative apologist with comic pretensions. It's sometimes easy to miss in her columns, because her brand of comedy is best spoken, not written. Case in point, I have never read "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter". I own a copy, though. The reason is that I listened to the book on CD. Ann Coulter read her own book for the CD. I have tell you that she was hilarious!
This column is worth a read.
BUT! Keep in mind that you are reading the words of someone who has taken the art of sarcasm to heights that aren't matched by much of anyone in either the comedy or political commentary realms in America today.
What better way to illustrate the absurd than be absurd in doing so?
This Crap Kind of Infuriates Me!
I am talking about the first section in the page that the title of this post links to. It's the part entitled "Appeals Court Considers Enemy Combatant Case".
It quotes a question from the Christian Science Monitor:
"But does he (the President) have the authority to whisk a civilian in the US suspected of being an Al Qaeda sleeper agent into indefinite military detention without charge?"
To give you my perspective, I am a soldier. The US Army requires that I receive regular instruction in the "Law of War", to include the Geneva Conventions.
According to what I have learned, the answer is a qualified "yes".
What do I mean by "qualified 'yes'"?
Well, according to what I have learned, the President, and, by extension, the various agencies of the Executive Branch of the Government (like the military), are within their rights to summarily take a person that fits this definition and execute them, at their whim and/or leisure.
This is the definition of the term "spy", under the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions allow for the execution of spies, or any lesser penalties, that the offended government choose.
So, by incarcerating them indefinitely, under the Geneva Conventions, is letting them off light.
Think about it.
During WWII, POW's and enemy spies that we captured were jailed (if not executed) for the duration of the war. No one looking back at history thinks of this as extreme or unjust. The attitude is more of "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred."
Did I miss something? Did we capture bin Laden? Did any part of al Quaeda anywhere surrender to the US?
I haven't been able to keep as close an eye on the news as I would like lately, but did I miss where we defeated all the Islamic extremists that have devoted their lives to destroying the Western way of life? I figure that there, at least, would have been a memo at work about that.
I haven't seen it.
Shot at 2005-09-25
It quotes a question from the Christian Science Monitor:
"But does he (the President) have the authority to whisk a civilian in the US suspected of being an Al Qaeda sleeper agent into indefinite military detention without charge?"
To give you my perspective, I am a soldier. The US Army requires that I receive regular instruction in the "Law of War", to include the Geneva Conventions.
According to what I have learned, the answer is a qualified "yes".
What do I mean by "qualified 'yes'"?
Well, according to what I have learned, the President, and, by extension, the various agencies of the Executive Branch of the Government (like the military), are within their rights to summarily take a person that fits this definition and execute them, at their whim and/or leisure.
This is the definition of the term "spy", under the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions allow for the execution of spies, or any lesser penalties, that the offended government choose.
So, by incarcerating them indefinitely, under the Geneva Conventions, is letting them off light.
Think about it.
During WWII, POW's and enemy spies that we captured were jailed (if not executed) for the duration of the war. No one looking back at history thinks of this as extreme or unjust. The attitude is more of "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred."
Did I miss something? Did we capture bin Laden? Did any part of al Quaeda anywhere surrender to the US?
I haven't been able to keep as close an eye on the news as I would like lately, but did I miss where we defeated all the Islamic extremists that have devoted their lives to destroying the Western way of life? I figure that there, at least, would have been a memo at work about that.
I haven't seen it.
Shot at 2005-09-25
What's in the 'Middle'
This is a great article that discusses the various definitions used, primarily, by politicians to define what is meant by the term "Middle Class".
By the way, the article is by Alan Reynolds. He is a contributor to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Some interesting quotes from the article:
Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign bus is called "The Middle Class Express." She says, "America's middle-class families have been invisible" to President Bush. "For middle-class Americans," she pledges to "extend the tax cuts including the child tax credit, the marriage penalty relief, and lower income tax rates that they currently pay." Ironically, all of those tax cuts were enacted in 2003 by a president accused of forgetting the middle class.
---
A recent CBS polls defined middle class as those with incomes of $30,000 to $75,000. Yet that amounted to only 44 percent of those who described themselves as middle class to CBS pollsters. In reality, we can't know tell if $75,000 buys a lot or a little unless we ask whether that refers to single-person households or large families and whether they live in Honolulu or Little Rock.
Polls tell us that nearly everyone with incomes from $30,000 to $200,000 think of themselves as middle class. That encompasses 73 percent of all families, with fewer than 5 percent earning more.
---
In a sense, politicians are nonetheless correct to depict the middle class as struggling to make ends meet, because that has always been true. If people had no budgets to worry about and no trouble buying whatever they want, then they wouldn't be middle class, would they?
The article goes on, sometimes at dizzying lengths, to show how the press and politicians have manipulated numbers to prove how great or bad things are for the middle class at various times, to the benefit of the agenda they are pushing.
By the way, the article is by Alan Reynolds. He is a contributor to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Some interesting quotes from the article:
Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign bus is called "The Middle Class Express." She says, "America's middle-class families have been invisible" to President Bush. "For middle-class Americans," she pledges to "extend the tax cuts including the child tax credit, the marriage penalty relief, and lower income tax rates that they currently pay." Ironically, all of those tax cuts were enacted in 2003 by a president accused of forgetting the middle class.
---
A recent CBS polls defined middle class as those with incomes of $30,000 to $75,000. Yet that amounted to only 44 percent of those who described themselves as middle class to CBS pollsters. In reality, we can't know tell if $75,000 buys a lot or a little unless we ask whether that refers to single-person households or large families and whether they live in Honolulu or Little Rock.
Polls tell us that nearly everyone with incomes from $30,000 to $200,000 think of themselves as middle class. That encompasses 73 percent of all families, with fewer than 5 percent earning more.
---
In a sense, politicians are nonetheless correct to depict the middle class as struggling to make ends meet, because that has always been true. If people had no budgets to worry about and no trouble buying whatever they want, then they wouldn't be middle class, would they?
The article goes on, sometimes at dizzying lengths, to show how the press and politicians have manipulated numbers to prove how great or bad things are for the middle class at various times, to the benefit of the agenda they are pushing.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
FINALLY!
As always, I encourage you to follow the link embedded in the title to this post, so you can understand what I am talking about.
The article in question is about the Westboro Baptist Church. I am sure you have heard about them. They are the group that goes around protesting at funerals for fallen service members.
To give you an idea of what they are like, I will post a quote from the AP article that I linked to:
Members promised to picket future funerals with placards bearing such slogans as "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."
...
The group believes that U.S. deaths in the Iraq war are punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality. They say they are entitled to protest at funerals under the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion.
They were recently ordered to pay $11 million to the family of a Marine, after protesting at his funeral.
As someone raised as a Christian, and is currently a soldier, I find their behavior to be the exact opposite of what they claim to stand for.
I'm not saying that they are wrong, as Christians to be against the war, or homosexuality. That they choose to express this at the funerals of fallen soldiers, and the verbage they choose is what I find to be contradictory to the book that they claim guides their beliefs.
Let me illustrate:
Jesus said:
Matt 5:4
Blessed are those who mourn ,
for they will be comforted.
NIV
The apostle Paul told the Christians in Rome to:
Rom 12:15
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn .
NIV
Given their behavior, I have a real difficult seeing how they are "blessing" those that are mourning, or mourning with them!
Given the fact that the first quote was from the mouth Jesus (the Christ in the word Christianity), I have a hard time seeing where they can be truthfully claim to be attempting to follow this person.
I hope the father of this poor Marine takes them for all they are worth.
The article in question is about the Westboro Baptist Church. I am sure you have heard about them. They are the group that goes around protesting at funerals for fallen service members.
To give you an idea of what they are like, I will post a quote from the AP article that I linked to:
Members promised to picket future funerals with placards bearing such slogans as "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."
...
The group believes that U.S. deaths in the Iraq war are punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality. They say they are entitled to protest at funerals under the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion.
They were recently ordered to pay $11 million to the family of a Marine, after protesting at his funeral.
As someone raised as a Christian, and is currently a soldier, I find their behavior to be the exact opposite of what they claim to stand for.
I'm not saying that they are wrong, as Christians to be against the war, or homosexuality. That they choose to express this at the funerals of fallen soldiers, and the verbage they choose is what I find to be contradictory to the book that they claim guides their beliefs.
Let me illustrate:
Jesus said:
Matt 5:4
Blessed are those who mourn ,
for they will be comforted.
NIV
The apostle Paul told the Christians in Rome to:
Rom 12:15
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn .
NIV
Given their behavior, I have a real difficult seeing how they are "blessing" those that are mourning, or mourning with them!
Given the fact that the first quote was from the mouth Jesus (the Christ in the word Christianity), I have a hard time seeing where they can be truthfully claim to be attempting to follow this person.
I hope the father of this poor Marine takes them for all they are worth.
