Amazing

And here I thought Lucas was the King of Hubris (in the Sci Fi world anyway).

Rick Berman on ENTERPRISE, STAR TREK XI and Future Plans, Developing Project with Brent Spiner

He claims it wasn't the quality of the show that resulted in its cancellation. He also talks about the shows on Sci-Fi and how their budgets are half what Trek's was. (and amazingly they produce better shows! IMNSHO) I guess my initial impression was right, the man's an idiot.

---

The Final Word on STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE: "These Are The Voyages..." Reviewed

Harsh. Very harsh. But most of his points seem dead on (if a little extreme). Weak writing over the course of the entire series. Capable (even good) actors given lousy dialog with feeble motivation. Decent ideas poorly executed. Plot holes you could fly a starship through.

'Even in death, the show defiantly sticks to an ill-conceived concept of characterization and seems to lament that the audience just never "got it."'

I agree, it's the producers who never "got it." (while being convinced of their own infallibility)

---

I made the mistake of starting to read some of the comments on this review and (of course) the angriest of them are barely legible, diametrically opposed and make no sense whatsoever.

I've known I shouldn't look at that kind of stuff ever since I first tried to find out what fans thought of Voyager by reading a Trek news group and only finding "Klingons can kick Jedi ass" ...

"Why am I tied to this table,

and where are my pants?"

From the Girl Genius today. But disturbing in a humorous way nonetheless.

The first week with Matt and Dad here is nearly gone. Busy weekend planned, brunch tomorrow (lower attendance though), Andy's house in the evening then maybe see "Sith" on Sunday. Plus the chores that have to be done. But it seems when Matt takes his meds he's not as unruly. Except he needs to stop fixating on the cat and leave her alone so she'll get over behing mad at him. She hides behind me whenever she can lately.

They're here

Well Dad and Matt got here during the Midnight game last night. So far so good. This is definately going to take some getting used to.

Jack repeated a phrase he'd heard in reference to "Revenge of the Sith". It seems Lucas is only capable of "Medusa dialog". Dialog which turns the actors who have to say it to stone. hehe

We've got the brunch on Saturday and then Aaron is coming to town so we're going out to Andy and Kerry's new house that evening. So it will be Sunday before we can go see Sith. Then we'll see what I think but Jack and Andy both said it was good so I'm not trepitious (is that a word?) ... Nope, not according to dictionary.com. Okay, to figure out how to spell the word I mean ... nope, nothing. Well I'm not anxious about seeing the film. As if anything could make me expect more that drek by now.

Work progresses on the Star Trek game. Final votes aren't in yet on which era but I've started reading all the books I need and make packets for everyone to help generate their characters. Jack wants to play a Somoan security guard. In fact he wants to play a different red shirt guy every week, making sure he gets kills each time so he's got a new one the next week.

Well

Dad called while I was in the shower this morning. They're in Miami and he says they'll leave to time things to arrive here around 5ish when I should get off work.

However today is Tuesday and we play Midnight on Tuesdays. So it should be interesting.

Whew

I avoided going to the theater this weekend and The Film still made a big pile'o cash. Ah well, as if it wasn't going to. I did see Ep II on Sunday evening. It's a fine film if you can turn off the voices (not all the sound, the music and the sound effecs are still good). I will probably go see it next weekend, if Matt behaves well enough for me to take him.

Dad is supposed to leave today and it should be a two day drive. But if they left this morning then they could be here tomorrow evening, just in time for the Midnight game. D'oh. We're almost done with that game and they tell me they want to play Star Trek next. So I'd better get hot.

The Musical Baton

Okay, Dooley passed me this thing so I guess I'd better blog.

Total volume of music files on my computer
1.45Gb (1,568,154,531 bytes in 793 files)
The size and number of files is a bit deceptive since playlists and album art is in there as well. But for the most part I own all this music on CD with the exception of a half dozen songs from the 12th though 15th century (an old Irish song called "Minstrel Boy", a few national anthems and the like) and one Toby Keith country song Erik bought for me ("Beer For My Horses").

The Last CD I bought was
Hmm, maybe Amazon has it listed since I probably bought it there. Oh wait I know. The soundtrack from "Freaky Friday". There was a cover of "What I Like About You" by a band called Lillix that I really enjoyed.

Song playing right now
Nothing but the playlist that goes most frequently right now is ... Looks like "Steve McQueen" and "Hole in my Pocket" by Sheryl Crow.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or mean a lot to me
Five huh? This is cyclic as I find new things I like a lot.
"Steve McQueen", Sheryl Crow (great motorcycle song)
"Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead", Warren Zevon (wasn't that a movie?)
"Ebay", Weird Al Yankovic (any number of Weird Al songs can go here)
"We Didn't Start The Fire", Billy Joel
"Beer For My Horses", Toby Keith & Willie Nelson (this so should be a theme song for one of the Cav regiments)

Five people to whom I’m passing the baton
Well, I probably can't think of five people who read this but we'll try;
Aaron, Tricia, Dillb (who hasn't posted in weeks), Woodsmall and Mary. (d'oh, Dooley already hit up Woodsmall)

Yes

The answer is "yes".

A Malevolent Magazine?

The White House wants to be able to put out "news" without anyone calling them on it.

And reporters use "anonymous sources" to put out garbage and not have to bother with any of these pesky "facts" people are always harping on.

The White House lecturing the media on ethics is the illustration in the dictionary under the definition of "hipocracy". But why would anyone be surprised by the White House trying to deflect attention from it's own mistakes and lies? All of Iraq is one giant deception they used to divert attention from the fact that Bush had no idea how to deal with problems at home. Or his plan was simply intended to put money into the pockets of his CEO friends and supporters.

Well someone named Andrew Sullivan makes a lot of allegations I haven't seen anywhere else about torturing detainees to death and some other things. Based on the performance of the media the last few years I'll wait for any other "facts" which shed more light on all these allegations ... Ah, he's just some bozo who blogs (which is to say that anything he posts has no more basis in fact than anything I post here). He says a lot of things about incidents at Guantanamo Bay but I see no verification and it seems to me that using the detainee, who has every reason to hate the US and make up all kinds of baseless accusations, as a truthful source is as bad as believing the White House.

I would feel a lot better if there were some sort of independent investigatory authority appointed who could look into the situation unbiasedly. Having the Pentagon investigate itself isn't really going to prove anything given the nature of the military.

There is an amusing piece in there on a site called "Think Progress" comparing Newsweeks lack of fact checking and using a single unconfirmed source (reading further they used not only a single source but a single source who was five times removed from the documents in question, talk about a tenuous connection! "I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy") with the Presidents exact same activity when he tried to justify invading Iraq. Nice. This is what I think intelligent commentary should contain. It doesn't directly condemn either side but cleverly points out the irony and allows us to come to our own conclusion comparing McClellan's comments in both cases to illustrate the Administrations "flip-flopping" (why yes, that was a poke).

Harumph!

I finally got to read the piece where Lucas claimed it wasn't his fault.

He was saying that the people who didn't like Ep I and II were us old fans who had been with him from the beginning. People under 25 liked the films just fine. I don't know that many young people so I'm having difficulty verifying this claim. I talked to Brian, who's 28, and he said he liked them but he also said that his only criteria for liking a film is whether it entertains him. And they did so he liked them.

However I think a bad movie is still a bad movie. And while the cast is impressive for those films, for the most part, the dialog is really bad and the plot is sketchy at best. Special effects are cool but they don't make a whole movie most of the time.

So it's NOT your fault?

Lucas: "There Are Two Kinds of 'Star Wars' Fans"

So it's not that you made a sub par pair of movies with wicked cool special effects, a mostly awesome cast and a script many people wouldn't wipe their ass with ...?

I looked at your record, dude. Except for Indiana Jones (which Spielberg made good I suspect), American Graffitti and THX 1136, all you've ever done is Star Wars. You'd think that eventually you'd get it right.

You had one really cool idea at just the right time and you've milked it for billions. In several respects that's quite an accomplishment. Making all that money from one simple idea. Creating a whole genre which spawned so many movies and so many ideas (some of which were much better than anything you did). Giving a generation of youth a dream which spawned a whole lot of innovation and new ideas.

I can't read the article since it's bandwidth appears to be swamped, so I can't comment on what you told them. But the idea that you're a creative filmmaker who makes good movies? No. I don't think so. Too many bad things outweigh the (two) good ones.

Hello Mr. Black Pot ...

This is Mr. Black Kettle.

Newsweek Needs To Do More Than Apologize, White House Says

Talk about double freaking standards!!!

Well, I went to the White House's website and submitted a comment to them telling them what I thought (black_pot == black_kettle; - but not in that terminology). We'll see when the FBI starts watching me.

Flawed "reporting" by "journalists"

"Newsweek"

Well, they're half right. It comes out weekly.

Now it seems that reports of desecration of the Koran (and I saw another spelling, "Quran") by MPs at Guantanamo may have been mistaken. It seems the authors of the article took two failures to deny as confirmation of truth. Guess they weren't familiar with the scientific principles and proof of theories.

I could, at this point, make all kinds of disparaging remarks about their intelligence and/or common sense but my guess is that "failure to deny" as truth isn't such an odd thing in journalism. And it's a well known tidbit that "facts" have little to do with "reporting" anyway!
[puts on his raincoat to weather a storm of protests]

I, on the other hand, was wrong

When I assumed that all the old jokes about Military Policemen being dumb were just that, jokes.

Nine killed as Afghans rage at US

Finally something to tell us (presuming it's accurate) what "desecrating the Quor'an" (I've always seen it spelled Koran) at Guantanamo meant.

How could anyone think that doing something like flushing a Koran down the toilet would accomplish anything but anger, fear, hatred and despite. Sure it's gonna upset the person you're interrogating, but they had to know that word would get out, especially as the Abu Ghraid investigations are done and people being punished for it.

Rocket surgeons ... rocket freaking surgeons.

Still not wrong

Whoa, lots of people are tagging the Administration for not admitting it was wrong.

Apparently yesterday when the Cessna 150 ventured into the restricted airspace above the White House and most of Washington (including the current and a former First Lady, the Vice President and the President's Chief of Staff) the President was out riding his mountain bike. And he wasn't told about what happened until he was finished his ride some 46 minutes later. Couldn't be disturbed I guess. Or didn't care.

Spinning his wheels

Another one ... well I can't find it on Google News now, but it reported that Scott McClellan (the President's Press Secretary) had use the word "protocol" 34 times in a 25 minute talk. Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department.

No, I was never in the Army, why do you ask?

Okay this is pretty freaking bogus (if it's true) and makes it look like the Army is as inept as the Bush Administration. The reserve general who commanded the Military Police brigade to which the Abu Ghraib abusers belonged was demoted and removed from command. It seemed like senior officers were finally being held responsible. Fine.

The colonel who commanded the Military Intelligence brigade to which the interrogators belonged was fined, reprimanded and relieved of command. Fine.

However the charges the general was demoted under were "dereliction of duty and shoplifting". An odd combination. And now it comes to light that the shoplifting charge was a misunderstanding. She was in a shop on an Air Force base in Florida and pulled hand lotion out of her purse to use. Then her cell phone rang and she put the lotion back and was rummaging around for her phone. The security guard saw only the part where she put the lotion in her purse. The sales clerk cleared things up pretty quickly. However when she was promoted to general she failed to list this "arrest" on her security questionaire.

Talk about a lack of professionalism. And they wouldn't provide information after the charges were levelled substantiating the shoplifting charge. Is common sense now banned by regulation? What are we (the Army), the freaking CIA? Or worse, Congress? Sheesh!

Flush please

What is the deal with people who don't flush the urinal or toilet in public restrooms?

* Are they trying to save water?

I can kind of applaud that except that most toilets I've seen are the low flow type so you're not wasting a whole lot of water when you do flush it. And hello? The planet is three quarters water ...

* Are they just lazy?

Okay, if it's this one I'm going to officially Hate You. And it's not like I don't know whereof I speak. I've been known (if by no one else but me) to be pretty freaking lazy myself. But I try not to let that impact other people, I try to clean up after myself and to leave things I find as I would like to find them (picking up after other people sometimes).

* Do they want to splash their water soaked urine on my butt?

If so then hope I never find any of you doing this since I will feel obligated to return your urine. Immediately. On your shoes!

* Do they not notice that they've finished and it's time to flush?

If so then I hope that you walk in ... well I was going to say "walk in front of a bus" except that would be pretty traumatic for the bus driver and the passengers. And while I may want them removed from the gene pool so as not to pass on this trait (there are enough people out there not paying attention thank-you-very-much), I don't necessarily want other people to have to suffer because of it. So let's say I hope that you, in your oblivious state, walk off a cliff. A tall one. While it might be traumatic to the bird you hit on your way down I think I can live with it. And the bird can probably dodge anyway.

Morality

Okay, which is more morally wrong? Raising taxes or cutting Medicaid to the poor?

I don't know the verbage but I do seem to recall the bible telling us we should help the poor and downtrodden. I don't recall anything about not raising taxes. (I don't want a tax hike any more than the next fellow but I'm not particularily disposed to the poor dying so I can avoid it)

A lot of states are now having problems in their budgets with Medicaid. Missouri apparently leads the pack with the size of their cuts (I refuse to say 'our'! I voted against Blunt). And working a minimum wage McDonald's job puts you above the new guideline's lower income limit so you aren't eligible anymore. Missouri's lower limit will be at the Federal minimum for the program. Nice!

And $600 million in cuts means we'll lose $380 million in Fed aid to the program, so the real lost is closer to a billion dollars. It's been said that Missouri is going to remain the "Show-Me" state and show other states what not to do. Wasn't it Mark Twain (a Missourian IIRC) who said that some people (states?) exist only to serve as a bad example?

Movies this weekend

Oh, I got three more rentals from Netflix. "Frequency" (which I haven't watched yet), "Girl, Interrupted" and "King Arthur". I really liked Girl, Interrupted. An interesting treatment of the mind we may find inside ourselves and how the outside world may look upon it as crazy. The security of being crazy and the fear of the unknown. Wynona Rider and Angelina Jolie were great. Both close enough their characters that they tapped into their own emotions to power the character and produce a fine effort.

The other ... well yea. I thought when Disney produced the last Three Muskateers film that this was the worst remake of a movie ever. I presumed that nothing was the same but the names of the characters, although I did enjoy Oliver Platt's performance and I enjoyed Charlie Sheen and Keifer Sutherland. Well and Tim Curry is always fun. This film (King Arthur) is so hideously bad that you can't really claim that the character's names were the same. Yes, there was Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawain, Galahad and ... Bors. Yes, exactly! Who is Bors and what bearing did he have on the Arthurian legend? And why are the Romans the bad guys? And why are Merlin and the Britons fighting Arthur and his "Sarmatian" knights? Well I was going to ask who the Sarmatians were next but it appears that may have some historical basis in fact. This made me question my opinion of it (facts? from Hollywood???), but a quick poke at rottentomatoes.com shows what a dog this is (32%).

I was unable to make the connection and it drove me away from the movie. Some of the fight scenes were well done but some were silly (how on Earth are you supposed to protect someone from arrows with a buckler???). None of the acting impressed me and the script was limp at best. I'd heard of none of the actors, however, so I wasn't disappointed by that except for Keira Knightly (Guinevere). No idea why she painted herself blue and was an accomplished archer though.

Well time to head home. Need to get some liquid electrical tape so I can fix the sunglass widget I fasten to my glasses. Need to make sure I do the machine tonight also.

An interesting point

I was listening to NPR this morning and they had a piece on George Soros. Apparently he spent $27 million during the last election to prevent Bush from being reelected. However one of his main goals is to spread democracy, as is Bush's proclaimed goal. Interesting.

However it seems that his main objection to Bush isn't like mine (that he lied to us and thus we can't trust anything he tells us) but rather that the man refuses to admit that he's wrong. There's definately something alarming in someone who won't admit to being wrong, either the possibility before hand or the fact afterwards. And one of the essays on Mike Stackpole's website used that point as well, that Bush could never learn or improve if he never admitted that he had made a mistake or was wrong. To my mind this implies progress, learning. And if you can't go forward then you're stagnant. Or worse, going backwards.

Okay

Since I've been taken to task on my stand on evolution, let me clarify where I stand on the issue.

My point is that I don't think religious education (aside from certain historical perspectives, ala the crusades, etc.) should be covered in public schools. I think that students should be given a good general education in English, a foreign language, communication (writing, reading and speaking), history, society (social studies), math and science. Sufficient information and knowledge to function effectively in modern society.

However I don't think this is all they should learn since little of this would help them (I believe) form a solid base of ethics and morals. I think that education in your church (whichever faith you or your family may believe in) should assist in education about what society considers right and wrong, how to evaluate things in that perspective and a system of ethics/morals. This is one of the two most important things young people should learn, how to behave ethically and morally (the other is how to think but that's a whole separate debate). For people who don't believe in organized religion I would think this would fall back to the family/home.

And I don't disagree with the idea that we should present other theories about the creation of the Earth and life on it. However staging hearings about ONE other theory and not inviting opponents to that position strikes me as putting blinders on, sticking your fingers in your ears and humming "lalalalalalala" so you won't hear anything you don't like/agree with.

I won't say it's the height of stupidity since I think that would insult a few people who read this that I love and respect (and it's a bit stronger than I really intend), but it does strike me as pretty silly.

Scopes Monkey Trial revisted

Been reading now about the hearings in Kansas.

We know that none of the witnesses are pro evolution but still some of it strikes me as ludicrous.

Two of the three board members haven't completely read the proposal. Great. So they may approve it without knowing what other crap is in there. Great.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/11582882.htm

I've no idea why an associate professor of horticultural science should be a valid witness (more so that say, a construction worker or a car salesman) on evolutionary biology. Granted that plants do evolve but I would think a biologist is a better (re: more relevant) witness.

And the Earth is only 100,000 years old? So carbon dating is total bunk?

"Molecular biology and other science" doesn't support evolution?

I guess I want some of what these guys are smoking! And here I thought all they grew in Kansas was red clay ...

Discpline

Well word came out that the Army will discipline one general for the fiasco at Abu Ghraib. However it's the reserve general who was in command of the brigade to which the abusers unit belonged. She's getting demoted from Brigadier General back to Colonel and having a letter of reprimand filed in her official record. That will pretty much guarentee the end of her career.

While this isn't bad or wrong, she was in command and thus responsible for everything any of her soldiers did or do, I'm not sure it's sufficient. There was no information about whether she had ever been to Iraq while her units were deployed there. So how effective can she be from 2500 miles away? Granted she's responsible for their training and thus by extension any behavior which is deficient may be at least partially blamed on training, I don't think the three other general officers who were cleared could be held blameless. But then I was councilled before for taking too much heat for my soldiers.

I mean General Sanchez was in command of the theater at the time and he could conceiveably be held accountable for creating or maintaining a command environment which would allow this sort of incident to occur.

But then the upper echelons of the military are very definately an Old Boy network that takes care of itself. Kind of appalling really ...

Lucrezia Monkfish

Okay that means nothing, just a name from the Girl Genius comic. But I'm coming up short for names for the entries. Ah well.

Friday. Good!

We had a division wide meeting this morning and then the 'spring cookout' at lunch. Nothing big.

Still can't get sendpage to work on snoopy-devel. Justin was supposed to put an mx record in exchante/dns so we could verify the last bit (got paging to work internally on the machine earlier). But it didn't take and now we have it but have to wait for the cache on exchange to drop the old info and search for the new. Waiting. A lot of that in sysadmin stuff.

Got Matt signed up for two sessions of "Camp Adventure". Cost me but apparently $400 a month for child care is about the going rate. Need to find something for before that starts on 13 June. And sign him up for the following ones if he likes them. It's schedule works out pretty well. Start time of 0830 so I can drop him off shortly after 8 and still get to work in good time. It ends at 1630 so it may work out that he needs to stay and play or something until around 5 but that's not bad. I just hope he takes to it so it's something he'll enjoy. Need to get his room set up this week I think.

Got some 36" blinds for the back window but decided that they should be mounted ouside the window because that's how the front blinds are. So last night I got two 39" ones. Going to have folks over for the brunch tomorrow but we'll go see the Hitchhiker's film in the afternoon. So I'll try to get the blinds up on Sunday.

Only two more sessions for the Midnight game. So we should start talking about what we're going to play after that. Jason will be leaving at the end of this month and Jack a couple of weeks after that. Sharon is going to France this summer but will be back. Been thinking of asking Marlin/Yvonne to join the group. That would keep us at 5, which is a good workable number.

Figures

That Woodsmall would know that acroynm.

---

I read a review of Revenge of the Sith by Steven Speilberg. He gave it a thumbs up and told us we'd cry at the end of it. I wonder what the cause of our crying will be ...

---

I meant to blog about my latest cell phone experience but it slipped my mind. And now I've been trying to find something for Matt to do during the day while I'm at work.

Well the ok button on my Motorola v66 went west and I couldn't look at any of the entries in my address book. But I could still use it to make and receive calls. However last weekend it turned off for some reason and I had turned on the security lockout feature. So Monday it required a login to activate. And since the ok button was broken I couldn't use it. And I tried before and you have to log in before you can even answer a call. So for the most part the phone was gone.

So I considered what to do. I hadn't been favorably impressed with T-Mobile. The salesman hadn't told me there was going to be an activation fee and so when I complained about it, T-Mobile removed it from my bill way back when. Point in their favor. However the last six or seven months my bills have been messed up pretty much always. Point against. So they're even and I have no reason to stay with them, unlike Sprint, whom I detest.

I find out that the University has a contract with Sprint, Cingular and US Cellular and one of the features of those contracts is discounts for faculty and staff members. Sweet. I go look up the page and it's 13% on monthly charges, no contract, a 20% discount on accessories and no activation fee. Nice.

So I head to the Cingular store and get a Motorola v180 with a $30 a month plan. The guy (who seemed nice and had been in the Missouri National Guard also) had me sign a contract and told me about the activation fee. He did give me 25% off on the belt clip I bought. I leave all happy to have a cool new phone.

I spend some of that evening (this was on Monday) playing around with it putting phone numbers in (we couldn't get the numbers off my other phone since I couldn't unlock it) and learning the menus. I found the place where you could deactivate the web services (since I figured I'd be charged for those I wanted to have a safeguard so I wouldn't accidentally start something I'd have to pay for) and some other things. In the process of this I got my "SIM Blocked" accidentally. Playing around more and reading all the documentation (including Cingular's website), I couldn't get it "unblocked" (the documentation talked about an unlock code and a security code but had nothing about being "blocked").

So Tuesday morning I take it by the store on the way to work. They put in what I find out is a PUK and get it unlocked. Great, all happy again. When I get to work I find out that I've set it to prevent all outgoing calls. Not so good. In the process of trying to get that fixed I manage to block my SIM again. "Okay, I know I need the PUK for that" I think. Having seen the phrase ("PUK") on their FAQ, I go back to Cingular's site. Turns out it says "call us" for the PUK. I do this a bit later and have a long talk with thier tech about security on the phone. I find out that if you enter the code wrong three times it burns out your SIM and it costs you $25 to get a new one. Not so great. He gets me unblocked however so I'm good again.

Now I'm afraid to do anything with it and kinda unhappy about the whole burning out the SIM thing. But in the process of trying to find the unlock and security codes and get them set I manage to block is again. So I head to the store again at lunch time. This time the guy gets it unblock and gives me the two PUKs the phone has so I can unblock it myself next time. He doesn't know how many times you have to enter the wrong code before the SIM is burned but it's the PUK, he tells me, that triggers this. I get security on the phone fixed (I hope) and can use it but I'm fearful of playing around with it very much now. I also find out that it's not really Cingular whose fault this whole thing is, it's Motorola since it's their phone. Nice, thanks much Motorola.

So I put a reminder on my calendar in two weeks to decide if I want to stay with this phone and Cingular. I also notice that the webpage telling us about the discount says "13% off selected monthly recurring charges". What's "selected" mean? Got to find the person who knows the contract and ask that question.

Tanstafl

See who can decipher that acronym.

Isn't it always freaky when you venture a little into a new field and you have to learn all the acronyms for that. I can't remember what I was doing but the letters were all gibberish compared to what I already now.

---

Saw that PFC England's sentencing was declared a mistrial by COL Pohl, the military judge on the case. Her buddy, PVT Graner (who is apparently the father of her child and later married someone else), testified that he thought the pictures were for training and were depicting an "authorized use" of "prisoner handling" techniques. Bunk. IIRC he was a corrections officer IRL so I would have thought he would have known that leading naked prisoners around on a leash isn't proper "prisoner handling". He was just upset she pled guilty and seemed to be out to screw her over. I heard yesterday that the testimony was supposed to influence the jury during her sentencing hearing but if it ventured too far into defending her actions rather than mitigating them, it would be considered a defense and if you're guilty you don't need a defense so if you have one then you must not be guilty. Kind of left handed logic but what about the legal system isn't?

So her plea deal is thrown out and the case goes back to the post commander for action. He can start it over again. But if it goes bad for her then she may get the full sentence, 11 years IIRC. I saw a site yesterday that listed the outcomes of all the actions except one taken against the accused. Ganer and hers would be the longest sentences. And still, no senior officer has been charged (and probably won't). I would think a command environment that allowed this to happen is at least "conduct unbecoming an officer" (Article 34 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice). And they should bring charges "for the good of the service." But they won't. Not during this administration. It might be interesting in a few years to watch for a tell-all book and see what this has done to the careers of those in command during this fiasco.

I know that on the one hand it made me ashamed to have served in the Army but on the other, glad I was an Engineer rather than Military Police. We can look at this as the example of what Engineers do.

---

And it seems Kansas has regressed back into the 19th century. Their education department has decided that Evolution is only a theory and in the interest of fairness, other theories about the origin of life must be presented to student. Phrased that way it certainly sounds reasonable. And the creationist are now calling themselves proponents of "intelligent design."

Hearings on the issue have been cut from 6 days to 4 and they're only hearing from proponents of this new theory and not the evolutionist. That's gonna be fair and present all the evidence, now isn't it?

Apparently there are debates raging in at least 9 other states across the country, not all of them southern (okay that might have been an unnecessary poke, after all, Kansas isn't a southern state). Missouri is considering a bill which will require textbooks to include at least one chapter taking a "critical look" at evolution.

---

High school cheerleaders in Texas are apparently shaking their booty too much. They have a new law coming up banning "overtly sexually suggestive" routines. Seems it was introduced by their Democrats who were disgusted at their "shaking their behinds". So Dems can be uptight prudes too! (it's not that simple but I couldn't resist taking the poke)

No mention of what the definition of "sexually suggestive" will be.

Misc

Finished reading the SW book. Not bad but not good. And Luceno makes use of the "m-word" in a few places. It had a sufficiently annoying cliff hanger ending so it's probably going to tie directly in to the movie.

Talked to Alan in the Op Center on Friday about the film. He's still overwhelmed by images from his youth and the eye candy special effects so he's going to see it opening day. The rest of us plan to try to wait until the following weekend on the precept that the success of a movie is directly related to it's opening weekend sales and if we wait a week our $15 won't be included in that number. It's still going to have a blockbuster opening but at least we can delude ourselves into thinking that we sent George a message.

The latest batch of movies from Netflix included "Playing by Heart" which was interesting. And "As Good As It Gets" which was really good. I may buy that one.

Oh, and my phone is acting up. One of the buttons isn't working and a few weeks ago, fearing losing it and having someone find it and rack up calls, I turned on the security lockout. So now it asks me for the pass code. I can enter it without a problem but the button which allows me to say 'ok' is broken so I can't use it. I suspect that I can't even answer calls with it. So I guess I need to go get a new phone tonight. I was going to get blinds for the dining room so that whoever sat on the east side of the gaming table on Tuesday evenings wouldn't be blinded but I guess the phone is higher priority.