Nine

"Bravo two-six this is tango three niner, roger, one-five troops, two BRDMs. Enemy dispersed, over."

And these bozos are in charge of protecting us from terrorist???!!!()(#%*)#$(%$

Homeland Security Admits Privacy Errors in Anti-Terror Effort

Sheesh!

Eight

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, add one hundred and fire for effect."

They're taking down all the "motivational" posters that they have on the walls. They're replacing them with images of tigers and from around campus.

They were doing the "lobby" this afternoon and there were several of Jesse Hall and the columns. I wondered what the titles of them were and decided that Jesse Hall should be subscripted with "The Center of a Great Bureaucracy".

And then the oxymoronicism ... (hmm, is that a word? what word describes the degree of the property of being oxymoronic?) of the phrase "Great Bureaucracy" struck me.

Delicious irony even.

But talking about work in blogs is sometimes dangerous. So enough of this nonsense!

Seven

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, shot, out."

...

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, splash out."

...

Read some interesting things today.

Affirming our Way to Victory in Iraq

This seems to indicate (or predict?) that the administration may be intent upon ignoring the report of the Iraq Study Group (84 pages?) and instead use a power point presentation (56 bullet pointed slides) by someone named Frank Kagan. It compares what they may do with what President Johnson did in Vietnam in 1964.

Slide five seems to be indicative of most of the content of this "plan";

---

Victory Is Possible

• 1.1 million ground forces/400,000 in Iraq
  
• America contained ethno-religious conflict in Bosnia/Kosovo--we can do so in Iraq
  
• American resources are great: 300 million people, $12 trillion in GDP compared to 25 million Iraqis, $100 billion GDP in a country the size of California
  
• Success requires effort and will, but we need not choose to lose
  

---

It seems to hold with the American solution to the Vietnamese problems. Throw money at it to make it go away.

Great! More of the same.

And, a different view of the Christmas story.

Is Christmas about Reproductive Rights?

The thing I like about this (besides the new view of using Mary, mother of Jesus as a role model) is the phrase "Forced Childbirth Movement" for the pro lifers. Given the amount of pain involved in childbirth I wonder if this could be considered torture, forcing a woman to endure that.

Six

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, add fifty, over."

Okay, Wednesday I went to Urgent Care about my leg. The same shooting pains up and down it as I had back in April so I suspected that I had pinched the nerve again. The doctor confirmed it after examining me. He had me loosen my belt and when I redid it my pants were loose. So I undid it again and looked at the space between my belly and the waist. Damn. (later on yesterday evening when I took my belt off hoping the pain would be less I kept having to pull my pants back up so I had to put it back on) I wonder if I have any old pairs of pants left from back when I was skinnier.

I went to the church last night for Karate, hoping I could do some stretching or maybe some katas. Not so much. But Austin was there so I went hope to get his Christmas stuff. The Boy had been playing games all day long (I turned the internet on before I went to work) and hadn't even *started* his chores. So when he heard me pull into the garage he ran out and started unloading the dishwasher. Wednesday (his first day on break) I had gone home after Urgent Care so it was unreasonable to expect him to have them done. Yesterday he chose to play instead of doing his work first so this morning I didn't turn the router on. And I have karate again so I'll be home late, so he'll have all day to think about it. I suspect that he'll do better for a little while and then fall back into his patterns. At least his school work isn't failing this year (so far).

But I realized that when I can't do karate I feel like I "let down the team". But it's not really a spectator type of thing. I can learn a little from watching them work or trying new things but nothing is as good as getting out there and doing. Then the leg pain shoots up and down and it's "not so much".

Five

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, shot, out."

...

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, splash out."

...

This proves that gamers can be fscking morons too!

Nintendo Responds to Lawsuit

It seems idiotic that people who accidentially throw their wii remote into their TV think that it's Nintendo's fault. Some lawyers somewhere see the potential to earn a fat commission on this as well, but then we know there's lots of lawyers like that.

The comments also seem to indicate that people think they're idiots for filing this but their spelling and grammar suck just as much as any place else.

"When you have a game which simulates the throwing of an object (i.e. Wii bowling), you have to expect that some people would let go of what they're holding in their hands. It's not stupidity, just human reflect."

What, exactly, is "human reflect"? The Wii looks like a person?

"The people who let go of the controller are not having human reflex especially since you don't actually throw a bowling ball at the pins. You genitally place the ball on the lane. ..."

There's the problem! They're genitally placing the things.

So I really don't think I want to play a game which involves my genitals and their game remote. I guess I won't be buying a Wii any time soon. (apparently I wasn't the only one to catch this slip) Okay, most of the comments are moronic as well. That's why I don't read comments genitally ... er, generally.

Four

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, drop four hundred, right two hundred, over."

Duty.

I've been thinking about this some lately. Especially since people are out at work for various reasons and need someone to cover their operations center shift. I was in here all day yesterday, this afternoon, tomorrow morning and then my 2nd normal shift all day Friday. I suppose it puts me out where I have to interact with people instead of hiding in my cube all day.

The nerve in my leg (left) is pinched again. Shooting pain up and down my leg most of the time. I need to think about something else though. It doesn't stop the pain but it does seem to be lessened if I don't think about it. It did make it hard to sleep last night, I woke up at 5 and took some pain meds. Where did I put my two-year old percoset?

Three

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, shot, out."

...

"Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, splash out."

...

Got about half of the Christmas baking done. And all the ice cream. Made three dozen English Muffins on Saturday. Karate on Sunday and then I tried Hardee's Red Burrito again. It was pretty good but I learned you should always eat the nachos before the burrito. But the burrito was *huge*. And they were over 1k calories for each, so I guess it was good I had 125 minutes of calories burned.

A few other people still need to turn in their requests.

And the Boy still hasn't given me a Christmas list. He's gonna be pretty disappointed I think.

Two

Bravo two-six this is tango three-niner, grid four-one-seven-five-six-one, troops in open, IDPCM, over.

The media are like cats, in the following ways;

• they tell you something you already know
  
• if they aren't telling you something you already know, they're telling you the same thing sixty-two freakin' million times
  
• they think the universe revolves around them
  
• they believe you should worship them
  

They do differ in one respect. They're mostly useless while cats can purr and you can pet them. And they often make me feel better about the universe in general. (while the media points out endlessly to me how miserable the universe is)

Apparently North Dakota isn't the only place that fringe freak religious cults live.

Child Sex-Abuse Cases Rock Ozarks Religious Group

I listened to part of this on the way to karate yesterday after work. It was pretty disturbing and I have no idea what kind of mindset leads men to behave this way or their wives to support them doing it. I'd imagine that Baptists everywhere are ashamed they take that denomination in their name.

And what kind of an attorney will defend these men? (on the one hand it would be the expected answer to that question but could it be a lawyer who *believed* that they really were innocent? I suppose it could be one that believed that everyone deserved the best defense no matter how heinous their crime ...)

They don't fear him? That's because you've programmed them, sir. You started when they were children and trusted adults absolutely and you isolated them from anyone who might challenge this. And they have no outside source to tell them how wrong things were. I, for one, know that there is a Very Special Circle of Hell reserved for you and it's quite likely you could be elected King there.

The media, who lambasted him endlessly only weeks ago, is now proclaiming what a visionary Rumsfeld was.

Iraq War Seen as Rumsfeld's Pentagon Legacy

They certainly make him sound brilliant in this piece. I'm willing to admit that he could very well be a very intelligent man. And that his plans for transforming the military from the colossus built to stave off the cold war to a new military could have been great. However he seemed to me to be incredibly abusive of the people who worked for him, especially if they disagreed with him, and he seemed to be one who denied reality (in the same mold of the other important folks in this administration) no matter what.

Why would he prevent anyone from planning for after the invasion of Iraq? What sense is there in that? What was he thinking would happen???

One thing became incredibly clear, he simply wasn't the man for the job and I'm certainly glad he quit. We'll see how the next guy does.

Congratulations to Prince William, who graduated from Sandhurst today.

Prince William graduates from Sandhurst

He'll be serving in the "Household Cavalry's Blues and Royals". Sometimes I think the British Army got the best names for their units. That certainly sounds more dramatic than the "3rd Armored Division". (although the "101st Airborne Division" stirs a certain something, but that's from their history)

Well that's all I can remember. At least I remember the cat thing that popped into my head.

One

"Juliet four bravo six-two this is romeo eight tango three-niner, fire mission, over."

There, that pedal on the floor? The one on the right ... Put your foot on it and press down. Slowly. Not that slowly. That will make the car go.

I've gotten some responses from the gang on my "what baked goods that I can make do you want for Christmas?". I made Jack's last weekend along with two extra loaves of cheese bread. Last night I started the batter for snickers ice cream for Marlin & Yvonne. I told her I would try to make her English Muffins red and green so I need to get some food coloring. We'll see how well it works. Brand and Bobbi gave me their votes, but I still need to hear from the rest. I don't want to have to go into a baking frenzy when something else is supposed to be going on. I have enough stress from my seemingly (perpetually) missing "Christmas Spirit". Oh and the boy isn't going to get anything if he doesn't give me a Christmas List. D'oh!

Why does the NPR station I listen to (KBIA) chop off some of the national news to give me local news that I've heard twice already this hour and aren't really concerned with in the first place? Elson Floyd is leaving as the UM system president. So what? It's not like I see him every day and he gives me my daily taskings or anything.

Tom Delay has a website now (http://www.tomdelay.com). Oh great. Word I read (I refuse to patronize it) is that it's for the people who think Rush Limbaugh is too warm and fuzzy. More right wing freaks who want to tell me what color toilet paper I have to use. Great.

Oh and another site now claims that babies become gay from soy milk formula. Where did I put the link to that? Ah, it came from blogher, Delay does blogging right?, (Soy is making kids 'gay'). Okay, so who is this guy? I find no scientific credentials but he does run several "ministries".

Last week we had a snow storm that dumped 18 inches of snow on the place. Today the high is supposed to be 58 degrees. That doesn't bode well ...

Terry Pratchett Rocks. Just so you know.

Never, ever, ever start reading a series before it's entirely finished. So therefore, had I followed that rule, I wouldn't have started reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen series until Steven Erikson was dead, given that it's supposed to be 10 books when it's done. (Five is in the works now)

We had our testing in karate last Sunday. Two hours at the beginning, five hundred burpies (a squat thrust with a pushup in the middle), 450 body twists and 1,000 situps (or crunches). Then the questions, which weren't too bad since I had been plugging the info into my brain for a week. Except I failed to recall that Doctor Kano was the founder of Judo. Then the kata. Only one for me this time but I wasn't as relaxed as I had hoped. And the kiso and bunkai. So now I'm a green belt with one brown stripe. I have to pick up some dye at the store tonight so I can make sure I'm ready for our promotion ceremony.

There was more, particularily snarky or funny comments but they've fled now. I need to start carrying around a pad like Brand so I can write them down. Ah well.