This morning was some sort of Asshole Contest on the drive to work. No less than three pickups (gotta love Texas) attempted to prove which of them was the biggest jerk – swerving through lanes, avoiding blinker use, causing as many other drivers as possible to slam on the brakes…
It’s a good thing I don’t live in L.A. these days – I’d be a living Road Rage poster boy.
I’m not surprised by recent revelations regarding Karl Rove, as anyone with a brain could see it coming a mile away. I’m somewhat surprised that he actually got caught, since this administration is absolutely fantastic at keeping things hidden.
I’m disappointed in two groups lately – politicians and the intelligence professionals I know. Politicians are disappointing pretty much as a matter of course in recent decades, and increasingly so with each passing year. As the whole Iraq War/Wilson/Plame controversy rages, it shows a distressing willingness on the part of a political party to put the harming of another political party above the safety of American citizens and the intelligence network we work so hard to build.
When Valerie Plame was outed as a covert agent, it didn’t hurt just her career. It hurt the ability of this country to gather intelligence which was vital to supporting the War on Terror. If the War on Terror is the most important thing in the minds of the current administration, why would they harm our fragile human intelligence collection ability just to score public relations points with the press? It’s astonishing, it’s disgraceful, and it’s par for the course in recent years.
I’m also disappointed in some of the people I’ve known for years in the intelligence community. It’s hardly a surprise to most people that the military and (by extension) the intel community are largely Republican. What might surprise some people is how many of these supposedly intelligent and highly-trained people are able to go along with the most convoluted justifications for the poor behavior of some politicians. Just because the President is Republican doesn’t mean he can do no wrong. Nixon was a Republican and he didn’t get forced from office by Democrats, but by his own party.
Yesterday I was privy to a conversation wherein two intelligence professionals, each of whom had more than two decades of experience in the Mideast area, were discussing how absurd it is that the Democrats are so obsessed with Karl Rove leaking Plame’s identity and blowing her cover. Why shouldn’t the Democrats be obsessed with this? We should all be obsessed with it, because it is part of a bigger campaign to discredit the press, abuse the intelligence community, and falsify materials to further an agenda which is not supported by facts. Intelligence professionals should be interested in truth and not in political agendas. To apologize for someone leaking classified material and damaging our ability to collect intelligence on Bad Guys is, in my mind, onconscionable.
This goes for any political party, by the way. Sandy Berger swiping classified material from the National Archives is just as slimy as Rove outing Plame. Anyone who is that cavalier with classified material should go to jail and never be trusted by any other American again.
I’m also disappointed to hear the President say that he will fire anyone in his administration who is convicted of a crime. Last year, it was anyone who was involved in leaking classified material, the year before that it was anyone who was involved in the leak of Plame’s identity. Nice to see that he keeps raising the bar on what will constitute an offense worth firing someone. Of course, this is a President who has fired nobody ever, as well as never once vetoing a bill. Sounds like he doesn’t want to make tough decisions except in the case of throwing our military on a bonfire.
I leave you with one thought. Take it any way you please.
The oath of enlistment that I took when I was active duty includes the phrase, “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
The semi-return of the Friday Five.
1. How far do you currently live from the place where you were born?
About 5000 miles.
2. How many times have you moved in your life?
18
3. What was the shortest move, in terms of distance? The longest?
Shortest was probably moving from the apartment to the house in Sierra Vista. We just cut through a parking lot and drove half a block. Easy. The longest was moving from Korea back to Texas – almost 7000 miles.
4. Have you ever moved for school? Love? Work?
Sure.
5. Did your family ever move when you were a child? How did that make you feel? (either moving or not moving)
Where do you think the first ten moves came from? Didn’t particularly like moving, especially the “new kid” syndrome at school.
Because Jenn tagged me and I’m a sheep…
Total books owned:
Somewhere upwards of 300, but I’m not counting them!
Last book purchased:
V for Vendetta (if non-comic book, Year’s Best SF 9)
Five books that mean a lot to you:
Ender’s Game
The Long Run
Foundation Trilogy
Lolita
Ape and Essence
Tag five others who you’d be interested in having do this meme:
Mike
Lysa
That’s all the people I want to torture. 🙂
Once again, the challenge is to identify the lyrices without resorting to Google. Anyone?
Yo, I used to check out lyrics upon the format
Build with skill with technique. Computer A-DAT
My lyrical form is clouds on your brainstorm
I get hyped think thought flow. Acrobat, sink the track, pump the track
Dance missions,clubs like spores react by. Strong visions
And hurrying more. Reflects on the dancefloor
Flow it up and having now people showing up
Packing crowds jam packed venues
Needles collapse, while atmosphere continues
Sprinkle that,
Winnin’ like that, movin’like that, hittin’ like that
The melody is phat
Yeah, I’m on the energy source
The cosmic force
I had some custom shoes made at the tail end of the Dot-Com Era. They were cool. I actually still have them, although they’re kind of worn to the point of being slippers. Anyway, I wandered over to their site tonight, just out of curiousity about what new designs they might have. Last time I headed over there was maybe a year ago. Tonight I discovered they seem to be gone. There is another site with a similar name (Customatix Kix) but I’m not 100% sure that’s the same crew, and they don’t do individual shoes.
Damn. I was kind of thinking about getting another pair of uniquely Gary shoes sometime this fall. Oh, well. Guess it’s Big 5 specials for me. *sigh*
As mentioned earlier, the Congress has now passed the bill that makes it harder for anyone to declare bankruptcy. Well, anyone but large corporations that donate millions to politicians, that is. Any bets on whether the President will develop a conscience and veto it? Yeah, me neither.
Pretty sure I saw JabberJenny down by the Concho today, with her family. I was a bit distracted trying to corral The Boy, as usual, but how many women in San Angelo have short dark hair with pink streaks, and a couple kids in tow? That’s my thought too. 🙂
Alex had another birthday party to go to this afternoon – grabbed a present from the cache in the closet. That is a tradition I’m going to keep up for as many years as kids will let me get away with it – we bought up a bunch of cheap toys at after-Christmas sales. Makes it really easy when one of his classmates has a party. So, this party was at the Rink; Alex has never skated before so you can imagine how much fun that was. Interior monolog: “must not laugh at him…must not laugh at him” heh
 |
You scored as Parade Prince. You are the Parade Prince. You know that you are funny and make everyone around you feel better. You’re funny and smart and witty.
|
Which Prince ERA are you?
created with QuizFarm.com
Drivers in San Angelo seem to be especially bad, although I’ve noticed a trend toward increasingly rude behavior on the roads the past two decades nationally.
This morning added evidence to the growing pile of “SUV drivers are assholes” reports. As I was driving east, a woman who was parked on the wrong side of the road to my right pulled out and made a right-hand turn in front of me without turn signals into the oncoming lane of the road. It was another block before she had moved to only straddling the middle of the road instead. By the time we got to the stop sign she didn’t even slow down for, she had finally found her way to the right side of the road.
Then, a few minutes later, I almost got my rear bumper removed by a guy in an SUV who decided he needed to change lanes at the same time I was. The difference being, I had a turn signal and he didn’t. Somehow, this seemed to infuriate him and he drove off in a huff, just to make a right-hand turn not one block later.
As Bill Hicks said, “The People Who Hate People Party” is a good idea some days.
Crasch pointed me to this, and I’m intrigued by GlobalFreeloaders, as anyone who’s ever romanticized the notion of backpacking across Europe would be. What a concept – a network of people who all volunteer to let other folks crash at their place when they’re in town. Not that anyone would want to visit San Angelo, but if so – I’ve got a futon.
bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /
Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.
If you woke up and I was in bed with you, what would be your first thought?
And now you’re supposed to post this same question on your blog/journal/bloxsom/whatever and see who responds.
I love the Green Day album, “American Idiot” – it’s been on my MP3-playing Clie for the past several months, I have it on the MP3 CD at work, etc. Today is the first time I’ve ever heard the title track on the radio (butchered heavily, of course). They played it on the local “best variety” station (like ClearChannel but lower production values), with no comment. I guess it took winning a Grammy for redneck radio to give ’em a listen. Think they realize that most of the slams made in that track are directed at folks like the majority of this town? Probably not.
Silly “where have you lived (not just visited)” meme…
La Puerta de Santa Maria, Cadiz, Spain
Long Beach, CA
Hayward, CA
Detroit Lakes, MN
Frazee, MN
Stockton, MN
Bellflower, CA
Anaheim, CA
Monterey, CA
San Angelo, TX
Ayer, MA
Tokori, DongDuCheon, Korea
Monterey again
Anjungri, PyongTaek, Korea
Tacoma, WA
Anjungri again
Monterey again
San Angelo again
Sierra Vista, AZ
San Angelo yet again
I purposely omitted Fort Leonard Wood, MO – where I had Basic Training – because that ain’t livin’. Eight weeks of bizarre hours and irritating Drill Sergeants. Yay.
I took The Music Awareness and Taste Test at OKCupid.
Steve Vai
You scored 90 awareness and 70 taste!
Oh my good God…you’re Steve Vai. Master of all things related to music itself, able to recognize a good tone at the drop of a hat. You may need to brush up a tiny bit on your taste, just to be a little more accessible. Otherwise, you rock everything.
Standing at the vending machines…
D: I didn’t get what I wanted.
B: I hate when that happens. I pushed Dr. Pepper the other day and got Sprite.
D: No, I got what I ordered, just not what I wanted.
B: Huh?
D: They never have anything I truly want in this machine.
Previous Entries
Categories
Tag Cloud
Blog RSS
Comments RSS
Last 50 Posts
Back
Void 
Life 
Earth 
Wind 
Water 
Fire