Back from a break...

As usual, I have let my blog slide...lots of excuses, plenty of reasons...most of them I've given before. But I am back, for now...

Primary reason I come back to the blog is to keep in touch with Beav...one of maybe 4 people from my days in the AF that I want to try to keep up with. One of the many things Beav and I have in common is our love of the Karaoke. He has been ROK'ing a while (be back this summer). The wife and I have found a new place to hang out. The County Grill in York County now has karaoke on Friday nights after 10PM. We go just about every week, the KJ is awesome (nowhere as strict as the one at York Lanes), and the selection is almost limitless. There are a few hardcopy catalogs, but you just write the name of the song you want to sing on the list...he has about 50,000 songs on his hard drive. Can't wait for him to get back so we can wow the crowds together.

PS Beav...I posted a comment on an older post of yours...I am ready for my interview.

Beav after a night on the town?

Check out the comic strip "Rhymes With Orange" for 12/8/2008 .

Uncle Sam's my boss again!

No, I didn't re-enlist or get a commission as an officer. I am now a civilian in the employ of the US Navy.

Basically the JFCOM folks I was supporting as a contractor loved what I was doing and didn't want to lose me so they offered to transition my contractor position to a GS position. So what does that mean? Well, the pay is about the same and the Thrift Savings Plan has a little better match than I was getting, but the primary reason is that as a contractor I was getting a total of 19 days/year for general leave (vacation + sick) and only 9 holidays/year. Now as a GS, my 11 years prior active duty service counts toward leave calculation (because I didn't retire). So I start out with 20 days/year annual leave + 13 days/year sick leave and 10 federal holidays and every base down day/extra day given to the military. 14+ extra days a year off is worth it I think.

Basically the only thing that has changed @ work is the source of my paycheck...oh, and the fact that I get to go to more meetings now since I can officially represent the gov't. They don't know what they have done...

It's been a while...

Okay not too bad...less than 3 months (barely) since my last post.

Okay, HERE is my Johari quad--it isn't really a square--if you want to add your insights into my personality. (Insights into - isn't that redundant?)

And no, before you even check, obsessive-compulsive/anal-retentive/stickler/picky isn't one of the options.

The Clone Wars...I Surrender

George, what have you done?

I went to see "The Clone Wars" with my 6-year-old daughter this past weekend. It was...okay. That is about as positive as I can get with this review.

And to answer the question above (since Mr. Lucas doesn't read my blog)--"I have completely sold-out. I have milked the Star Wars franchise for so long it is now completely dry, but all I know how to do is tug on that udder so I will keep on a-yanking until I die or the cow does." I understand that it has long since become simply a revenue source for Mr. Lucas...gone are the days when he had a vision and a real story to tell. That doesn't mean I have to like it. With A New Hope, Lucas paid homage to Kurosawa. Now he just pays homage to himself.

Enough with that...let's talk about the movie...

I was gonna write a bunch a stuff, but I found way to many other reviews out there, so I will repost one...

Aug 15, 2008, Eric D. Snider

The only thing slightly mollifying my hatred for Star Wars: The Clone Wars is that it's meant for kids, not adults. It's shallow, cheap, and silly, just like a Saturday-morning cartoon -- which is what it's supposed to be. The Clone Wars will launch as an animated series on Cartoon Network and TNT in October, and this movie serves as a sort of pilot episode.

The story is set between prequels 2 and 3, with the clone wars raging and Count Dooku's separatists fighting the Republic. In this episode, Jabba the Hutt's infant son has been kidnapped, and the Jedi Council tasks Obi-Wan Kenobi (voice of James Arnold Taylor) and Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter) with rescuing him. Why? Because Jabba controls space routes that the Republic needs to pass through safely in order to fight the war. This fact is mentioned at least a dozen times, in case the viewer forgets why the Republic wants to curry Jabba's favor.

While Obi-Wan participates in a less-important subplot that I have already forgotten about, Anakin goes on the rescue mission with his new trainee, Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein). Yes, surly Anakin has a padawan! And she's a teenage girl, and she's really spunky, and they get on each other's nerves! And they have to rescue a baby Hutt and take it to Tattooine! It's Star Wars: The Sitcom!

It's every bit as awful as it sounds, and maybe worse. The dialogue, credited to three TV-cartoon veterans, has Anakin and Ahsoka bantering and teasing each other relentlessly, though never in a way that's funny or interesting. It's always drivel like this:

ANAKIN: (as Ahsoka catches up to him in the heat of battle) I knew you'd get here eventually!
AHSOKA: Always in time to save your life!

Repeat that formula a hundred times and you get the idea.
Then there's the fact that Jabba refers to his son as his "little punky-muffin," Ahsoka calls Anakin "Sky-guy", and the battle droids' moronic personalities that turn them all into stooges, and Ahsoka's cutesy nicknames for everything (the junior Hutt is "Stinky," while R2D2 is "Artooie"). There's the ongoing battle scenes, which are completely devoid of suspense or excitement -- partly because we know who's going to survive them (we've seen the stories that come after this one), and partly because they're animated in generic, assembly-line fashion.

And then there's Ziro the Hutt, who is bound to become the most infamous Star Wars character since Jar Jar Binks. Ziro is Jabba's uncle, a jazz-club denizen who seems to be a gay pimp, or possibly a drag queen, and whose voice (provided by Corey Burton) sounds like a combination of Truman Capote and Droopy the dog. He is painfully unfunny comic relief in a movie that's already lousy with shtick, shenanigans, and cartoon lameness.

Say what you will about the Star Wars films, at least they never looked cheap. The Clone Wars looks cheap. The computer-animated faces are expressionless, and the general quality of the art is light years behind Lucasfilms' usual standards. They went with mostly no-name voice actors to save money, hired somebody cheap to bastardize John Williams' musical themes, and slapped together a movie that insults everyone's intelligence. Anakin's conclusion while investigating the kidnapping sums up the entire movie: "This smells like Count Dooku to me." Yes, Ani, it smells like Dooku to me, too.

Grade: D-

Got Drunk?

Recent quote from our President, the leader (sic) of the Free world...


Bush on Economy: 'Wall Street Got Drunk'

Explaining the current economic downturn to a closed-door fundraiser last week, President Bush said, "Wall Street got drunk."

"There's no question about it," Bush said. "Wall Street got drunk, that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras. It got drunk and now it's got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments."

Bush made the remark at a closed-door fundraiser for Republican Pete Olson, who is challenging Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas). No cameras were allowed in the fundraiser, but an ABC affiliate in Houston acquired the video and posted it on its YouTube page Tuesday. Last week, Bush indicated that he fears YouTube moments such as this making it to the web.

After asking a room of 400 supporters gathered for a fundraiser in Tucson, Arizona to turn off any recording devices, Bush said, "I don't know a lot about technology, but I do know about YouTube."


I don't know what bothers me the most about this. Could it be that President can only relate the current financial crisis in the terms of a drunken fratboy? Could it be that he knows he is gonna say something stupid and wants to make sure the cameras are off? Could it be that, regardless of whether he is going to say something stupid or not, the President doesn't want a record of what he says? Or maybe that he knows more about YouTube than technology, and the economy too, it seems?

Back from Vacation...Back to Reality

Was away...at the beach...but now I'm back.

While on vacation I finally unwrapped and watched the DVD "Across the Universe" which I have had since Christmas. And here's the review...

-----

I remember about 1 1/2 years ago seeing the first trailer for "Across the Universe". My first reaction was something along the lines of "Come on...give me a break...they are going to ruin the Beatles' songs" whilst images of Moulin Rouge filled my head. After looking up the movie online, I realized that there might be a chance that the film might be good...but I was still leary.

So I bought the DVD, but never got around to watching it. I took it to the beach because I knew that I would have time and since it was vacation (time to relax, not worry about things, etc.) if the movie turned out to be drivel and tripe, then oh well, at least I would still be at the beach and could easily make another Pina Colada to make me forget about it. Needless to say (what good is that idiom?), the movie was great. BTW, I did have a couple extra Pina Coladas anyway.

One of my hesitations going in was wondering how the vast scope of the Beatles songbook could be laced together to tell a coherent story. I knew that the background was Brit dude (named Jude, from Liverpool) comes to America, meets Lucy and falls in love during the tumult of the late '60's. So there was an expectation that the movie would be too political, too anti-war, too drug induced/trippy, etc. It was all those things, but I believe in just the right measures. A lot of the movie is told through the lyrics and the accompanying visuals...not a lot of dialog to push the story along. Mostly unknowns in the film, but very good appearances by Bono, Joe Cocker and Eddie Izzard.

Not every Beatles' song is in the film, hey, it's a 2-hour film...not a mini-series. For me it is kind of a love-hate thing for me. Having listened to The Beatles' my entire life, their music is ingrained into my being and I don't normally like other people re-doing the almost sacred. Take for example the soundtrack to the decent Sean Penn movie "I Am Sam". Loved the movie, the soundtrack not so much. About half the songs I liked because they were "true" to the original...not necessarily new artists trying to sound like the original, but trying at least to capture the original intent. The rest I could live without.

There are several good re-interpretations in this film however. One is "With a Little Help From My Friends". It starts out as the Sgt. Pepper's' version and morphs into the Joe Cocker version...very well done. But the best by far IMHO is toward the beginning when Prudence (yes...we have Lucy, Prudence, a Sadie and a Rita, along with Dr. Robert and Mr. Kite, more on this after the music discussion) is singing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". Here is my esteemed colleague's take on the music...

"The arrangements are sometimes familiar, sometimes radically
altered, and the voices are all new; the actors either sing or
sync, and often they find a mood in a song that we never knew
was there before. When Prudence sings "I Want to Hold Your Hand,"
for example, I realized how wrong I was to ever think that was a
happy song. It's not happy if it's a hand you are never, never,
never going to hold. The love that dare not express its name
turns in sadness to song." Roger Ebert, Sept. 14, 2007

The film is full of stunning visuals and interpretations (Check out the interpretation of "She's So Heavy"...wow!) However, the joy to be found is the multitude of references to other songs/lyrics/Beatles trivia scattered throughout the film. Of course there are the aforementioned character names...almost all of them are there. Some are a little obvious and you see them coming a mile away. Like when Prudence shows up in Sadie's apartment in NYC. She climbs up the fire escape, enters the apartment and makes herself at home. When Sadie sees her, she asks the other tennants, "Where did she come from?" Jude's reply? "She came in through the bathroom window."

Then there are the other small things that only the true Beatle-phile would pick up on...like when Jude (the artist) is sitting at a table sketching an apple. He seems to have "artists' block", so he takes a knife and cuts the apple in half as if in desperation to get a new perspective on his subject. Yes the apple is a Granny Smith...wonderful reference. We also have Lucy's brother Max (yes, short for Maxwell). When he meets Sadie to rent a room in her apartment, she jokes that he doesn't look like the kind of guy that would murder his grandmother with a hammer. Priceless! I will definitely be watching the film again...I am sure I missed the majority of the references...much like the first viewing of the video to "Free as a Bird".

Okay... a little wandering in my review...but it is good, go get a copy, watch multiple times for full effect.

I'm Back!

Okay, okay...I know. It's been over a year, and this makes only my 2nd post since oh, about Christmas 2006?! I was busy, sort of. Actually I just forgot about the blog as other things arose. It wasn't until I saw Beav at a former co-worker's retirement ceremony last week, and he chastized me for lack of upkeep that I got with it and created a Google account to I could access the blog again. Okay that's done, and here I am.

So what's been happ'nin' with me? I have changed jobs since my last post (and getting ready to change again), now working for a different gov't contractor (soon to become a gov't employee dong my current job) in a different location, but still within commuting distance from home. Good thing now is that my new location is about 1/4 mile from where the wife works, so we now carpool. Not bad seeing as how gas is 3 times what it was when I last posted!

I promise I will try to post at least once a week...maybe more. At least with the election coming up, there is always something I can rant about.

Later!

Sucked in by another reality show

Okay, I know reality shows are some of the most mindless drivel on television these days. But I have found one that seems to distill the enjoyable quality that links all good reality shows...schadenfreude.

The show is "Beauty and the Geek" on the new CW channel, Wednesdays at 9PM. Simple premise - pair up beautiful yet vapid women (Hooters' chicks, beauty queens, etc.) with genius yet geeky men (a singer in a Star Wars band, Trekkers, MIT grads, etc.) and the winning team at the end wins $250,000. Each week the team faces 2 challenges...one for the beauty (usually something requiring some sort of inteligence) and one for the geek (involving some sort of social interaction). Sterotypical, yes. Funny, hell yes!

Example - The beauties' task - find 3 books in the library using the Dewey Decimal System, inside which were the clues related to the geeks' tasks. I never thought I would enjoy watching the Dewey Decimal System make ditzy blondes cry. It was awesome. The geeks' then had go to a busy city street and accomplish tasks such as getting a woman to rub suntan lotion on their backs and getting the telephone # of a beautiful girl.

The team with the winning girl and the team with the winning guy each pick a team to eliminate. Those two teams go head-to-head in a question/answer segment, team answering the fewest questions correctly leaves. Girls have to answer questions related (loosely) to their challenge and likewise for the guys.

If you are looking for a show to either make you feel smart or make you feel socially adept (or both), check it out...at least once.

Post-yuletide Bliss

Okay...it has been a while. Work has become a localized area of extreme low pressure (a vacuum) and boy does it ever SUCK! It is bad when the team (well, those who are doing most of the work) disagree with the direction the middle management wants to go. To use an analogy (as I am apt to do), it is like being told to drive a train (going about 100 MPH) to a certain location, but you are being made to go on a track that happens to be on is going the wrong direction, and over a cliff. You know that failure lies ahead, you and others have voiced this fact multiple times, but no one (that has the power to change tracks) is willing to listen. Did I say that I LOVE going to work in the mornings?

Now that I got that out of my system, let's talk about the holiday: Christmas/Xmas/Kwanza/Hanukkah/Festivus/whatever you choose to celebrate or not.

I am not going to waste my time or yours venting about the idiocy regarding whose holiday can be celebrated/what decorations (or not) can be placed where. I wanna talk about the real meaning of the season (in today's day and age)...presents! Well, one of them anyway.

2 years ago, I bought the "Smile" album/CD that Brian Wilson released after 35 years. I was blown away and moved as no music had moved me before. I listened to it over and over, in the car, at home with the headphones. I had listened to it enough to identify that a 5-note section in one track is the basis for another track toward the end of the CD. It is truly a modern symphony, 3-related movements, each telling an individual story, but together the three comprise a grander vision. Yes, I think the album is great. I thought it would take a an equivalent genius to come up with any work that is on the same level and I thought it would be years before that genius came along.

Well, that work has been released and the genius behind it, like the esteemable Mr. Wilson, has been around a while. This genius of course is Sir George Martin and the work is the new compilation of Beatles' work "Love". Like "Smile" before it, "Love" begs to be listened to in it's entirety, in one sitting. The trip is one and half hours long, but covers much ground...primarily the middle-late era ("Rubber Soul" and later) during which Sir George was the producer. The juxtaposition of bass line of one song and the lead riffs from different song, overlayed with the vocal tracks from yet again another song are in almost all instances wonderful. In my opinion, track 14 "Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows" and it's seamless flow into "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and then further into "Octopus's Garden" is the best segment of a totally enjoyable disc. The best track, when taken by itself is definitely "Strawberry Fields Forever" which starts with an acoustic version (similar to that on Beatles' Anthology 2) and slowly transitions to the full orchestra version before your very ears. If you couldn't tell, I am a huge Beatles' fan. But this wondrous album is a perfect illustration of how the lads' music transcends time and generations.

When is a dunk in the water not a dunk in the water?

The White House said Friday that Vice President Dick Cheney was not talking about a torture technique known as "water boarding" when he said dunking terrorism suspects in water during questioning was a "no-brainer." In an interview Tuesday with WDAY of Fargo, North Dakota, Cheney was asked if "a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives."

The administration has repeatedly refused to say which techniques they believe are permitted under the new law. Asked to define a dunk in water, [Press Secretary Tony] Snow said, "It's a dunk in the water."

Link Here

You need help with your medical bills? Sure, as long as you don't drink, smoke, have lustful thoughts, etc...

Check out this wonderful cost-sharing program.

One of the benefits of the Medi-Share program?

You Will Not Be Subsidizing Unbiblical Lifestyles

Our Medi-Share members and their healthcare dollars do not subsidize abortions, drug addictions, or any other unbiblical lifestyles that inevitably lead to the premature destruction of the body, mind, and spirit.

I never thought that "Christian charity" was meant only for Christians. I guess "Do unto others..." was a mis-translation. Maybe it is better translated as "Do unto others (but only those like yourself)..."

But believe it or not, the very "red" state of Kentucky is moving to ban the group. It must be the work of those damn "activists" judges again!

Weird Al hits top 10

'Weird Al' Yankovic finally hits the top 10

NEW YORK (Billboard) -- Now this is weird. "Weird Al" Yankovic's new album, "Straight Outta Lynwood," has scored the enduring song parodist his biggest chart successes in a career that spans nearly three decades.

"Lynwood," Yankovic's 12th album, debuted this month at No. 10 on the Billboard 200, his first top 10 album ever. Meanwhile, the Chamillionaire parody "White and Nerdy," reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, besting his previous high of No. 12 with "Eat It" in 1984.

You can check the video out on YouTube Wierd(sic) Al - White and Nerdy

Gotta love it!

A recent incident that upset social conservatives involved remarks by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week. With First Lady Laura Bush looking on, Rice swore in Mark R. Dybul as U.S. global AIDS coordinator while his partner, Jason Claire, held the Bible. Claire's mother was in the audience, and Rice referred to her as Dybul's "mother-in-law."

"The Republican Party is taking pro-family conservatives for granted," said Mike Mears, executive director of the political action committee of Concerned Women for America, which promotes biblical values. "What Secretary Rice did just the other day is going to anger quite a few people." just a few?

Moral relativism

As much as the right in this country pushes the idea that they are the only ones with any morality and that the problem with the left is moral relativism, it just surprises me how much the republicans are always comparing their actions to those of former/current democrats...but only when pointing out that they are not as bad as the democrats..you never see them pointing out that the democrats did something better.

One example is the tried-and-true "Well, look at what happened under the Clinton administration" as the recent John McCain blaming N. Korea's nuclear test on the former president...not the one that has been in the White House for 6 years.

But today's quote takes the cake...

Shays on Foley handling: At least no one died

HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) -- Republican Rep. Christopher Shays defended the House speaker's handling of a congressional page scandal, saying no one died like during the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.

"I know the speaker didn't go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day," the embattled Connecticut congressman told The Hartford Courant in remarks published Wednesday.

"Dennis Hastert didn't kill anybody," he added.

Okay so what is the moral here? Don't get in a car with Ted Kennedy? Or is it Don't trust the right to do what is right?

New kid on the block

How much more of a mess can the Middle East become?

Egypt to Begin Nuclear Programme

Egypt has said it will re-launch its nuclear energy
programme after a 20-year freeze as it announced plans
to build a nuclear power station on the Mediterranean coast.

...and the ticks on the doomsday clock just keep coming faster and faster...

Well said!

From a blog I frequent...

Puppy Training Supplies Courtesy the WSJ
by soccerdad

From the Opinion Journal The Liberals' War: Why is the left afraid to face up to the threat of radical Islam? By Brett Stephens

Usually I try and just let this kind of nonsense pass realizing that it panders to a certain unthinking crowd that will just accept it without giving it a second thought. But for some, as yet, unexplainable masochistic impulse I decided to take a closer look.

Here's a puzzle: Why is it so frequently the case that the people who have the most at stake in the battle against Islamic extremism and the most to lose when Islamism gains--namely, liberals--are typically the most reluctant to fight it?

This opening paragraph left me going WTF. Why do liberals have more at stake? Certainly liberals don’t enjoy any more freedoms than anyone else. Islamic extremists have shown no proclivity of attacking liberals as opposed to conservatives. So what’s the point? Is it a strawman? I’ll take a stab at this in a moment.

This may be reading too much into Ms. Newman's essay.

I love this kind of nonsense, since it’s basically saying “yeah we are interpreting this in a self-serving way, out of context, but we’re going ahead anyway”.

Yet after 9/11 at least a few old-time voices on the left--Christopher Hitchens, Bruce Bawer, Paul Berman and Ron Rosenbaum, among others--understood that what Islamism most threatened wasn't just America generally, but precisely the values that modern liberalism had done so much to promote and protect for the past 40 years: civil rights, gay rights, feminism, privacy rights, reproductive choice, sexual freedom, the right to worship as one chooses, the right not to worship at all.

Lets look at the second part of this quote. Here I see some progress for the right. They are finally admitting in public and in writing that it is liberals who fight for personal freedom. And by implication, it is the right who doesn’t or does so with much less enthusiasm.

Now lets get to the crux.

An instinct for pacifism surely goes some way toward explaining the left's curious unwillingness to sign up for a war to defend its core values.

This statement is breathtaking in the magnitude of the logical jump one has to make to accept this at face value. Exactly how are the Islamic extremists going to undo the freedoms that the liberals have fought for? Exactly how are they going to force us to re-segregate the south, or impinge on the other rights that Mr Stephens listed? The irony in him mentioning privacy rights is priceless, although I suspect it was lost on him. Certainly for the Islamic extremists to actually and directly cause an abrogation of the liberties, would imply that they would somehow take over the US government. Clearly this is ludicrous on its face. What the Islamic extremists are capable of doing is to inflict fear, by the threat of more terrorist attacks. But the Bush administration has assured us we are now safer than we were.

Since Mr. Stephens as admitted to his relatively diminished interest in promoting liberties, I would like to offer an alternative explanation. The liberals, who are much savvier with respect to liberties, realize full well that the threat to our liberties and, in particular, to those mentioned by Mr. Stephens are not from Islamic extremists, but to the right wing administration whose leader sees the Constitution as a damn piece of paper. I mean how can we take seriously the musing on liberties by someone who admits that his side isn’t that interested in them. Just maybe the liberals who have fought the hardest for personal liberties have it right. It is the so-called “conservatives” who are exploiting the fear of future terrorist attack to restrict the liberties of Americans, employ torture, and spy on Americans. So unless the Islamic extremists hijack our government how will we lose the personal freedoms Mr Stephens lists? Is he suggesting that they are capable of defeating the US on its own soil?

From there, Mr Stephens article degenerates into a piece unworthy of a mid-level Conservative blog. We have the perfunctory reference to appeasement that is so last week. And of course what would a conservative based article on liberals be without a thinly veiled attempt to equate Islamism [having already made it clear that Islam is evil] and liberalism.

This is thin gruel indeed. Unfortunately I don’t have a puppy to train.

I love it!

Top evangelical: Don't believe our ads

A full-page advertisement in this month's Christianity Today warns that America's evangelicals may soon be on the endangered species list...along with spotted owls.

But the ad, which is endorsed by the National Association of Evangelicals, is a false alarm -- or at least an exaggeration -- according to the group's president -- Pastor Ted Haggard.

"We're church people. We always use fear and guilt to motivate people," Haggard told Bible Belt Blogger, punctuating the quip with hearty laughter.

The ad, which promotes the Battlecry Leadership Summit, a national series of meetings for youth pastors, contains the following warning. "Christianity in America won't survive another decade. Unless we do something now." It warns that young people are rejecting the faith in droves and that "current trends show that only 4% (of teens) will be evangelical believers by the time they become adults."

Reality, Haggard said, isn't nearly so dire. "Evangelicalism is exploding worldwide. We're growing rapidly in the southern hemisphere. We're growing moderately in the United States. We're declining in Europe... In the United States, there are some difficulties and I'm not going to get into that now, but we're trying to encourage people to solve these problems before they are created too severe."

It's unclear how the four percent figure was calculated. That number originally appeared in a book that was written nine years ago by former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary dean Thom S. Rainer.

The ad isn't confined just to Christianity Today. "Those ads all ran in Christian magazines in order to motivate NAE churches and others to do a better job at building youth groups," Haggard said.

But American Christianity will survive another decade -- even if the summit is a flop, Haggard suggests. "Right now, modern American evangelicalism is very healthy, very helpful and very thoughtful," he added.

So what ever happened to "Thou shalt not bear false witness"? Maybe it went away with the whole "love thy neighbor" thing...

Thank God we're free...for now

Okay, after a hiatus I am back. I guess I stopped posting in honor of Beav's journey south. Now that he made it out alive...on with the post.

Today's stories I find interesting...

CIA closed it's bin Laden unit

CIA analysis was that bin Laden's video released just before the election had the purpose of helping Bush get elected

Air Force officer's thoughts about how much America care/worries about what goes on in Iraq

And don't get me going about the recent flag burning amendment push...

I wanna see how they (GOP) handle this...

(emphasis mine)

BAGHDAD, June 14 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (who Bush visited and said was doing a great job this week) on Wednesday proposed a limited amnesty to help end the Sunni Arab insurgency as part of a national reconciliation plan that Maliki said would be released within days. The plan is likely to include pardons for those who had attacked only U.S. troops, a top adviser said.

Maliki's declaration of openness to talks with some members of Sunni armed factions, and the prospect of pardons, are concessions that previous, interim governments had avoided. The statements marked the first time a leader from Iraq's governing Shiite religious parties has publicly embraced national reconciliation, welcomed dialogue with armed groups and proposed a limited amnesty.

Reconciliation could include an amnesty for those "who weren't involved in the shedding of Iraqi blood," Maliki told reporters at a Baghdad news conference. "Also, it includes talks with the armed men who opposed the political process and now want to turn back to political activity."

1) If Bush is telling you you are doing a great job (a la former FEMA director Brown), odds are you are getting ready to do something stupid.

2) Okay, so let's get this straight...the Iraqi gov't that the adminstration supports, will basically be saying it is okay if you killed only American soldiers. Isn't that saying that it is an acceptable response to our presence there? So we are occupiers?

If the GOP goes along with this then we won't offer amnesty to illegal immigrants but we would support amnesty for those that kill our soldiers. Talking about your land of confusion! Where's the puppet of Ronald Reagan to press the launch button when you need him?!