BunkBlog

Some soldiers at Third Brigade Combat Team have been told that they need to reenlist for present duty assignment or go to Iraq which means they’ll get stoplossed and their enlistments will be extended indefinitely anyway. Althought they aren’t literally being told this, it is implied.

bq. “There’s probably a lot of places on post where they could put those folks (who don’t re-enlist) until their time expires. But I don’t want to rule out the possibility that they could go to a unit that might deploy,” said Healy.

So, they just might get sent to Iraq, there’s just no way to be sure. But, hey, we’ve got an offer you can’t refuse. Reenlist for Third Brigade and you won’t have to go to Iraq (so far as we have planned right now). Then, when the global war on terror is over (surely in less than three years, right?), you’ll be free to get out with no more Stop Loss looming.

One of my coworkers this morning attempted to declare a jelly donut as a near-complete food. There’s jelly, which (theoretically) means fruit. The donut itself has eggs, milk, and grains. Sounded good to me, so I ate three.

OK, not really. The banana muffins someone brought in were good, though.

Anyone want to give me a massage? Didn’t sleep well last night, for some reason, and now my shoulders are tight. Sitting at a computer all day won’t help, I’m betting.

Ah, well… off to work.

Citing Effort to Fight Terror, Vladimir Putin has put forth a plan to return to the days of Soviets choosing the political leaders of each country, and each Soviet answerable only to the President rather than to the citizenry.

Under Mr. Putin’s proposals, which he said required only legislative approval and not constitutional amendments, the governors or presidents of the country’s 89 regions would no longer be elected by popular vote but rather by local parliaments — and only on the president’s recommendation.

Sounds an awful lot like a return to pre-1992 to me…

Kerry says failure to deal with regime led to nuclear threats…as if Clinton dealt with the DPRK any better? Or Bush 41 or Reagan? For whatever combinations of reasons, we haven’t had a consistent policy dealing with North Korea in the past 20 years; I wonder what Kerry supposed we should do about them.

This analysis of CBS’s documents seems pretty thorough and convincing. The superscript and completely different signatures are interesting. Not to mention, the document used as a “proof” of forgery was done with Word’s default settings: 1.5 inch margins. Normal margins are 1 inch per side; even assuming the document was created on the old mil-standard paper, that leaves a half-inch anomaly for any clerk worth his salt in 1973. Wonder if the people who created these apparent forgeries are working for the Left or the Right. If the Left, they should not be trusted with anything ever again; if the Right, congratulations and well-played.

Now, if someone would please get the political discourse back to something that resembles current issues, please? Like I give a rat’s azz about what either of these two twits did in 1968 or 1973. Geez.

Reuters reports on the latest Congressional Budget Office findings, which show a 200 billion dollar increase in the projected long-term deficit compared to reports just six months ago. I’m sure this will be attacked and trumpeted by the two candidates in the next couple weeks.

Bush blames the 2001 recession, the costs of the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the war on terror for the growing budget shortfall.

Yeah, I’m sure the tax cut didn’t do anything at all to reduce our total budgetary inputs. Do you suppose the politicians who run our country can even balance their checkbooks?

If you saw the RNC at all, you know the podium had a less-than-subtle cross on it. Some people objected.

Karl Rove told CNN he did not think the podium’s decorative woodwork looked like a cross.
“My God, where do they come up with this stuff?” he said. “Does it look to you like it’s a cross? I don’t think so.”

Yeah, right.

Kerry now claims that Bush is Unfit to Lead, a sharp change to his earlier approach. I still wonder at the ability to focus on the Vietnam War as the most important issue of this election.

Why has Kerry not explained why he was so credulous as to quote discredited reports about military abuses 30 years ago? Why has he not brought up any details of his 20 years in the Senate? And are all of his speeches filled with vague promises, or just every one I’ve seen or heard a piece of?

On the other side of the political fence today, was the Republican Convention just a chance to bash the Dems or what? It’s an interesting contrast – the DNC stressed Democratic party people and issues; the RNC stressed Democratic party people and Republican issues. Very vitriolic this week. Looking like an ugly election.

Driving down a four-lane one-way street this morning, I had the interesting experience of watching someone turn left from the second lane right in front of a motorcycle officer of the local PD. The officer, sensing an easy ticket, did . . . nothing at all and drove away.

This is such a typical move by the police here. The only laws they enforce seem to involve speeding in school zones. Park on the wrong side of the street? No problem. Park on a corner, rather than the required 15 feet away? Still good. Run every stop sign in town? Hey, you’re from Texas. Never use your turn signal? That’s okey dokey. Go 22 miles per hour in a school zone, with no children within a mile? Busted!

Is it any wonder we have more accidents in this small city than in the much larger Midland-Odessa area? Our drivers suck and the police let them.

This morning, I heard a minor celebrity on the radio say something that was actually entertaining: George W. Bush is the only President I can think of that I’m sure I could beat at Trivial Pursuit.

Hehe

I love Tom Tomorrow. Check out This Modern World for an entertaining glimpse at the logic of the Dubya.

About 3/4 of the way down this page, the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, makes an ass of himself on national television.

On “Fox News Sunday,” the Illinois Republican insinuated that billionaire financier George Soros, who’s funding an independent media campaign to dislodge President Bush, is getting his big bucks from shady sources. “You know, I don’t know where George Soros gets his money. I don’t know where – if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from,” Hastert mused. An astonished Chris Wallace asked: “Excuse me?” The Speaker went on: “Well, that’s what he’s been for a number years – George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he’s got a lot of ancillary interests out there.” Wallace: “You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?” Hastert: “I’m saying I don’t know where groups – could be people who support this type of thing. I’m saying we don’t know.”

We just don’t know. That’s the Karl Rove approach to smearing people – make it ambiguous. Maybe Ann Richards is gay; we just don’t know. Maybe John Kerry shot himself to get a purple heart; we just don’t know. Maybe George W. Bush screwed a goat on his ranch last week; we just don’t know.

There are a lot of things we don’t know. Speculating wildly about things with absolutely zero evidence is not the way we should expect our elected leaders to behave. But maybe we just don’t know.

I know I said I’d have tile photos up “as soon as” the family returned from Holland, and it’s been weeks since then. Better late than never, here are some pictures of the new tile, in bathroom and kitchen. Unfortunately for contrast, we don’t have any good pictures of the yellow kitchen before we started working on it. It was hideous, though.

I can’t wait to see how the Dems spin this to make it sound like Bush is not doing anything to stop the attack ads.

It’s pretty well documented that Karl Rove is a devious attack dog, so I don’t doubt that there was some backroom encouragement of the Swift Boat Veterans for Political Gain, but now that the President has promised McCain that he’ll sue to stop the 527 ads, it should be interesting to see how the Kerry campaign (and its supporters) react.

I’m sure the fact that the liberal 527s have outspent the conservative 527s by at least an order of magnitude has nothing to do with Bush’s condemnation of them. And the fact that the lie-filled first SBVFTT ad has received national attention that has caused the race to swing a little back toward the Republicans is just a happy coincidence.

This Mackubin Thomas Owens article says things very clearly and cogently that the Swift Boat Veterans for Political Gain have missed. If Kerry is proud of his military service, why was he ashamed of it in 1971? If he thinks of his fellow veterans as a band of brothers, why did he call them war criminals in 1971? Was he cravenly attempting to curry favor with the Democratic party and the anti-war groups then, or is he trying to curry favor now? Which position is his true core belief?

Read the article – it’s good.

We had a good weekend, following the Texas Wine Trail. Wow, did we try a lot of wines. Of course, we’ve now outgrown the wine rack. And, what are we gonna do with 20 wine-and-cheese party trays?

Next, we must plan a pretentious wine and cheese party, obviously. Gotta have an excuse to break open the Raisin wine. Or Holiday Rouge…

Oh, and the B&B in Fredericksburg was amazing. We spent many hours relaxing in the hot tub, even while it was raining. We biked around F-burg and its environs (over an hour this morning – ow), and we ate good food. Fantastic romantic weekend.

Speaking of living in the land of cretins, I can’t see Garden State in this town, even though the movie is doing fantastically well. It is not scheduled to come to San Angelo…at all. This may change, but still – sucks.

Today we got the first shipment in the WineMaster membership I started. Is it really really pretentious to belong to a “wine of the month” club, or just an admission that we live in the most cretinous part of the country?

When we were first dating, we went to a local restaurant, where we were offered any beer we wanted. “Pyramid Pale Ale?” Uh, no. “Pete’s Wicked?” I don’t think so. “Newcastle?” Sorry. Then we proceeded to tell him maybe he should just give us the list of what they actually did have, to humor us. “Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Lite, Coors…” Yeah, so the same crap as anywhere else. Not exactly “any beer we wanted” was it?

Oh, the wines this month? South African white blends. Should be decent sippin’ wine. 🙂

How many of the “100 Science Fiction Books You Just Have to Read” has Gary read?

1 Childhood’s End Arthur C. Clarke
2 Foundation Isaac Asimov
3 Dune Frank Herbert
4 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick
5 Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein
6 Valis Philip K. Dick
7 Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
8 Gateway Frederik Pohl
9 Space Merchants Frederik Pohl
10 Earth Abides George R. Stewart
11 Cuckoo’s Egg C.J. Cherryh
12 Star Surgeon James White
13 The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch Philip K. Dick
14 Radix A. A. Attanasio
15 2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke
16 Ringworld Larry Niven
17 A Case of Conscience James Blish
18 Last and First Man Olaf Stapledon
19 The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham
20 Way Station Clifford D. Simak
21 More Than Human Theodore Sturgeon
22 Gray Lensman E.E. “Doc” Smith
23 The Gods Themselves Isaac Asimov
24 The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin
25 Behold the Man Michael Moorcock
26 Star Maker Olaf Stapledon
27 The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells
28 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne
29 Heritage of Hastur Marion Zimmer Bradley
30 The Time Machine H. G. Wells
31 The Stars My Destination Alfred Bester
32 Slan A. E. Van Vogt
33 Neuromancer William Gibson
34 Ender’s Game Orson Scott Card
35 In Conquest Born C. S. Friedman
36 Lord of Light Roger Zelazny
37 Eon Greg Bear
38 Dragonflight Anne McCaffrey
39 Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne
40 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein
41 Cosm Gregory Benford
42 The Voyage of the Space Beagle A. E. Van Vogt
43 Blood Music Greg Bear
44 Beggars in Spain Nancy Kress
45 Omnivore Piers Anthony
46 I, Robot Isaac Asimov
47 Mission of Gravity Hal Clement
48 To Your Scattered Bodies Go Philip Jose Farmer
49 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
50 The Man Who Folded Himself David Gerrold
51 1984 George Orwell
52 The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson
53 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson
54 Flesh Philip Jose Farmer
55 Cities in Flight James Blish
56 Shadow of the Torturer Gene Wolfe
57 Startide Rising David Brin
58 Triton Samuel R. Delany
59 Stand on Zanzibar John Brunner
60 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
61 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury
62 A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller Jr.
63 Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes
64 No Blade of Grass John Christopher
65 The Postman David Brin
66 Dhalgren Samuel R. Delany
67 Berserker Fred Saberhagen
68 Flatland Edwin Abbott Abbott
69 Planiverse A. K. Dewdney
70 Dragon’s Egg Robert L. Forward
71 Downbelow Station C. J. Cherryh
72 Dawn Octavia E. Butler
73 The Puppet Masters Robert A. Heinlein
74 The Doomsday Book Connie Willis
75 Forever War Joe Haldeman
76 Deathbird Stories Harlan Ellison
77 Roadside Picnic Arkady Strugatsky
78 The Snow Queen Joan D. Vinge
79 The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury
80 Drowned World J.G. Ballard
81 Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut
82 Red Mars Kim Stanley Robinson
83 Upanishads Various
84 Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
85 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
86 The Lathe of Heaven Ursula K. Le Guin
87 The Midwich Cuckoos John Wyndham
88 Mutant Henry Kuttner
89 Solaris Stanislaw Lem
90 Ralph 124C41+ Hugo Gernsback
91 I Am Legend Richard Matheson
92 Timescape Gregory Benford
93 The Demolished Man Alfred Bester
94 War with the Newts Karl Kapek
95 Mars Ben Bova
96 Brain Wave Poul Anderson
97 Hyperion Dan Simmons
98 The Andromeda Strain Michael Crichton
99 Camp Concentration Thomas M. Disch
100 A Princess of Mars Edgar Rice Burroughs

I’ve actually tried to read Startide Rising several times – it’s a snoozefest to me. And, I dispute the inclusion of fantasy drek on a list that claims to be Science Fiction. Science Fiction doesn’t resort to “here be magick” to explain things.