Iraq Votes: A Day in History

Well, they did it!

I am soooooo proud of this country and the Iraqi people! Yeah, things weren't perfect. Name me any time in history that is. As long as humans are imperfect, history and historical events will be also.

But today is a good day. A day to be savored.

Tomorrow, some numnut will probably explode a bomb. Pray that the bomber dies, and no one else.......

More thoughts on this day via my Lone Star Times posting.

Have a great day!!!

Voting...... A Courageous Act

I think as American's, we forget how revolutionary voting really is.

Here is a reminder. (click on the picture)

If you watch this and don't get a lump in your throat, you are stone dead or a terrorist.

Lone Star Times Cross Posts.......

Here are some more posts I have made at Lone Star Times:

Reflections on MLK Day: Showing Kids how far we have come
Sour Grapes and Rice
Liberals: "We Support our Troops" NOT!!!
Example 1,325,667: How far has the Mainstream Media fallen?
Friday Nights are for Sci Fi Geeks!

If you like Sci Fi, take the phone off the hook!

"Geekfest" begins tonight officially at 7:00.

• Star Trek: Enterprise 7:00 on Channel UPN Channel 20 (Warner Cable Ch 4)
• Battlestar Galactica 8:00 on the Sci Fi Channel (Warner Cable Ch 60)

For more inoformation, see my Lone Star Times post.

Racism & Slurs: Real Examples

I've grown so accustomed to hearing "you are a racist" over literally, nothing, that it takes your breath away when you read THE REAL THING........

Why aren't these people being sought out for "Hate" crimes?

When I read about Armstrong Williams' betrayal taking money for opinions, I had several thoughts:

• Hey, what a capitalist! (wish I could get money for my opinions; I would be rich!!!)
• Too bad he did it as he did, seems fishy and betrays trust
• What a shame that such a fine columnist is going to be so marginalized from now on; no one will ever trust him again as writing his own/real opinion.

I did not understand the other part of the equation. Now I do. That is, all "conservative" or "Republican" minorities are thought to be taking some kind of "payoff" for their opinions; "on the take" somehow. It is the only possible explaination as to why the different thinking "brothers" are different. Armstrong Williams has now proved the suspicion to be true.

Thanks Michelle for explaining this in very graphic terms..... It's not your fault. I wish I could send you a can of mental disinfectent so you could somehow, "sanitize" your thoughts. It would be difficult not to dwell on some of this bilge. You need some peace and quiet (especially with small children).......

Battlestar Galactica vs Battlestar Galactica

Sometimes, unemployment (along with a broken foot) has it's benefits.

While I am sitting here at the computer working on sending out resumes and answering email, I usually indulge in Spike TV's weekday lineup: , 7 Days at 9:00 (a show that I liked, but missed a lot) 2 eps of DS9 and 2 eps of STTNG. Friday, guess what came on? "Trial and Tribulations"! SWEEEEET! That afternoon, I watched the Trouble with Tribbles on DVD. Even sweeeeter!

But today, I am taking in original Battlestar Galactica. The new series begins this Friday night (with a re-run of the 2 part pilot episode on Tuesday and Wednesday night!).

You know, after watching this some, I think making Starbuck a girl was not much of a stretch. Both of them had great hair (Dirk Benedick had longer hair.) I just watch "old" Starbuck get in touch with his feminine side in order to get into the uniform of another officer..... Hell, I think the new Starbuck is tougher than the old..... (Please understand, I had a massive crush on Dirk Benedict. I even used to watch the A Team just to see him. Which, by the way, Barclay (see STTNG) was in.....)

Baltar? Why???? Here he is telling two Centurion guards to "exterminate" all humans. What did he plan for himself? He would be the last human being. No mate? No children? What good is money if you can't spend it and "flaunt" it? (Note: I just heard that the deal was that Baltar's people were to survive, and the people "subjugated" under Baltar..... The Cylon said "how can you trust someone that wants to see his whole race exterminated?" My point exactly. Even the Cylons got it.....)

I also didn't realize how good it was to listen to the opening score, in it's full glory trying to emulate John Williams. Stu Phillips did a pretty good job......

Lorne Greene. I loved him in this part. Not muchi different acting from Bonanza, but that's what make him so great in this role. If you found your niche, why screw it up? Again, lots of similarities between him and Olmos.

Oh well, the first couple of episodes are pretty good, but then it goes down hill.....

I am looking forward to seeing the Battlestar Galactica. According to posters from the UK at Ain't it Cool, the new episodes were even better than the pilot. Now that is a winning combination! How often have you watch a great Pilot only to see it get mutilated by the follow up episodes.....

We'll see if the UK posters and the USA watchers agree!

Target: Charitable Donations

Hugh Hewitt has written extensively on Target's decision to banish Salvation Army from their storefronts during Christmas.

To recap, Target says their "attorneys" had advised them to not allow solicitation at their stores, because this would lead to some activities that Target does not desire.....

Many people were outraged at this, and decided not to buy from Target this Christmas season.

Target said that they anticipated this reaction, and planned accordingly.

Did this have any financial impact on Target? According to Hewitt, yes.

Today in my newspaper, The Houston Chronicle, there was a very nice circular that highlights, in a subtle way (as subtle as a full color, tri-fold advertisement will allow you to be), their charitable contributions.

On the front, are nine very nice pictures of people doing variable everyday things over the following caption:

Every day Target gives back
to the community in countless ways.
At every moment
lives are touched.
Possibilities are discovered.
Hope is found.


There's a few people we'd like you to meet.

Inside are pictures highlighting Target's goodness and mercy. I'm sure they are very nice, good corporate neighbors. But you have to ask, why did they feel the need to spend as they did, on such an advertisement to show they are good and kind? I'm sure the Chronicle is not the only newspaper in the nation to have this advertisement.

All this money, all this effort..... they should have cut a check to the Salvation Army (the same size as the what the advert cost) instead of the advert. I think it would have made many of us if not happy, at least OK with Target......

Lone Star Times Cross Posts.......

I've posted more to the Lone Star Times:

• Tsunami Aftermath: First Hand Accounts
• Do you believe in mistakes?
• What are Diplomats Really Like? (With a front page mention here)
• Blogs: They can change things, even in directions you may not expect

Mistakes.....

I posted a story on Lone Star Times about a mistake that saved a Marine's life titled "Do you believe in Mistakes?" posted here. David Benzion, the Managing Editor of Lone Star Times, posted essentially the same story (same origins, Blackfive), except the entire email is quoted. He also added that Dan Patrick intervied the mother mentioned in the story, Becky Williams. (Another big difference in my story: I didn't mention the word "tampons" in the title which did not make it quite so sensational......)

I would like to add a couple of updates of my own.

My brother, a volunteer EMT with Cy-Fair, (and a "Paid" Firefighter with the Port of Houston) keeps pads in the emergency kit because they are very effective with bleeding situations.... (or at least they used to)

Also, I was telling my best friend, who is a nurse, about this. She told me about a time that she used tampons on a plane flight back from Jamaica to stop a very severe nose bleed on another passenger (the guy had a little too much coca recreation, if you know what I mean).

Both of them wondered why the feminine hygiene makers are not packaging their products as medical "bandages" since their products are so effective. But as my friend the nurse put it, maybe it's best they don't. The Pentagon could buy tampons a lot cheaper as they are than if they were packaged as something else.

Torture.... The real story

Here's an excellent and lengthy article on torture technique's the U.S. has been using.

The other day on Hannity, a liberal was going on and on about how we couldn't use torture. The caller said that if we needed information from a prisoner, we should tell him that he should give up the info because we are a good nation, and his cause would never win.

Right......

But the Kandahar prisoners were not playing by the army rule book. They divulged nothing. Prisoners overcame the [traditional] model almost effortlessly, writes Chris Mackey in The Interrogators, his gripping account of his interrogation service in Afghanistan. The prisoners confounded their captors not with clever cover stories but with simple refusal to cooperate. They offered lame stories, pretended not to remember even the most basic of details, and then waited for consequences that never really came.

Some of the al-Qaida fighters had received resistance training, which taught that Americans were strictly limited in how they could question prisoners. Failure to cooperate, the al-Qaida manuals revealed, carried no penalties and certainly no risk of torture a sign, gloated the manuals, of American weakness.

Even if a prisoner had not previously studied American detention policies before arriving at Kandahar, he soon figured them out. It became very clear very early on to the detainees that the Americans were just going to have them sit there, recalls interrogator Joe Martin (a pseudonym). They realized: The Americans will give us our Holy Book, they'll draw lines on the floor showing us where to
pray, we'll get three meals a day with fresh fruit, do Jazzercise with the guards, . . . we can wait them out.

Even more challenging was that these detainees bore little resemblance to traditional prisoners of war. The army's interrogation manual presumed adversaries who were essentially the mirror image
of their captors, motivated by emotions that all soldiers share.

It is hard to understand just how different the war on terror is compared to any other conflict we have been involved in fighting. I am very sympathetic to the idea of outlawing all torture. However, a rational discussion should be held. Frankly, While torture is distasteful, I think psychological "torture" is just fine.

I don't think we should be like the torturers we are trying to rid the world of (like Saddam Hussein). But at the same time, we need to fight this war. There is a lot of room between torture and simple questioning with out any pressing.

A Geography Lesson Works!

My mom, a retired teacher, commented the other day that she could not understand why more Westerners did not recall their geography lessons on earthquakes and Tsunamis.

Well, one did.

Well done Tilly. Well done.