BunkBlog

the friday five

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not? I think I am, but others contest it. I am picky about where things go, for those items I consider important. Other things just get shoved into corners as they fit.
2. Do you keep some type of planner with you and do you use it regularly? For the two years I was outside of a secure area and could use it, I kept my Palm/Clie with me at all times. Now, not so much. Use it a lot still, but not for work stuff.
3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now? At work, yes. At home, it’s covered with water bottles and books that we’re trying to sell via Amazon – so no.
4. Do you alphabetize books, CDs, and DVDs, or does it not matter? I used to, until the boy entered my life – now it’s no point.
5. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to organize? Either buying a house or organizing the Army Ball seating and invitations.

Bush and Blair nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.

Wage a war, get a peace prize? No way would the Nobel committee go for this one.
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This guy definitely did the world a favor. Darwin would be proud.

These two headlines were competing for attention on the CNN newsfeed just now:

Rumsfeld: WMD not likely at suspected sites
Rumsfeld: Iraq WMD will be found

WTF? Will they or will they not be found?

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like. I can’t think of a song I’m embarassed to like.
2. Name two songs that always make you cry. Taps, but none other reliably.
3. Name three songs that turn you on. Pick three random Prince songs.
4. Name four songs that make you feel good. Toughie… Touched by VAST, Boom by System of a Down, Diamonds and Guns by the Transplants, almost anything by Barenaked Ladies.
5. Name five songs you couldn’t ever do without. Sorry, no way can I narrow it down to five. I’ll do five artists: Concrete Blonde, Prince, Wagner, Cure, Depeche Mode.

Man amputates own arm with pocketknife.

Really, what more could I add to that? Dayum!

A little story about a raid based on the USA PATRIOT Act. It’s an enlightening (I just can’t stop using that word today) piece about where the Fourth Amendment is today.

CNN lists the Middle East road map highlights for us. It sounds an awful lot like every previous agreement, framework, or accord. Oslo, anyone?

Meanwhile, in the real world, things are less rosy.

Further proof, if any was needed, that both sides of the political debate in this country seem to feel it unneccesary to actually use reason or logic or the issues themselves in any discussion. Just throw around insults, that will certainly convince others of the rightness of your logic. Apparently, I’m a slobbering idiot. Yeah, ok.

For more examples, see Michael Moore on the left and Dr. Laura on the right.

I’m not liberal or conservative – I find both sides to be filled with self-important assholes. Ideologues of any type are frightening, as they tend not to think and just regurgitate what agitators with more intelligence have created. Buzzwords and slogans are wonderful things; they allow the intellectually inferior to have a voice. Unfortunately, they are so obvious in their inability to think or speak rationally that they grow tiresome.

And, enlightening people is against the wishes of all ideologues – they just want people to agree with them, not to come to an understanding of an opposing (or merely different) viewpoint.

I wonder why I didn’t get Level 6 if I had the same score. Oh, well.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Inferno Hell Test

This article spills the beans from some anonymous administration insiders. They fess up that we were never all that sure of the WMD in Iraq, but wanted to make an example of someone to show that we were tough on terrorism. I picture Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor doing the, “We bad, that’s right” schtick. Here are some excerpts from the article:
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All-Reality TV Channel Planned for 2004

Is there really anything I could possibly add to that headline? Yikes.

Finally one that isn’t completely lame…

1. What was the last TV show you watched? John Doe
2. What was the last thing you complained about? Probably the complete waste of a day at work today.
3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say? Um, I said dinner was yummy, does that count?
4. What was the last thing you threw away? The bottlecap to this cool Honey Brown beer.
5. What was the last website you visited? Something to do with “how freaky are you”.

After discussions with a few people of varying political opinions and geopolitical experience, I think we’ve come up with a theory that fits the observed facts in Iraq vis a vis the search for weapons of mass destruction. First and foremost, let me say that evidence and proof are two vastly different things, with proof being hard to fake and evidence being pretty easy to muck up. For an example, see People v. Orenthal Simpson, 1994.

Let me lay out some things we have to take as givens in order to move forward:

• Saddam is not an idiot. Anyone who can be a military and political strongman for over 20 years has a brain cell or two to rub together.
• Nobody in their right mind thought the Iraqi military had a chance in hell of defeating the US military.
• The US military has a great deal of evidence that Saddam had WMD and had plans to use them, including evidence that they were deployed in defense of Iraq this past month.
• Nobody is sure where Saddam is.
• The US has no actual verifiable proof of any current or recent WMD production or stockpiles. If they had proof, they’d be crowing from the rooftops.
• Saddam had a lot of money and he may not have left it all for American soldiers to attempt to recreate bad movies with.

Now, with those items as a basis, we can make some interesting possibilities. The one that the current administration is betting on, because it won’t make them look stupid and/or hotheaded, is that there are chem and bio weapons and that some of the currently incarcerated Iraqi leadership coughs them up.

Here’s the possibility I came up with.
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Just playing with an updating program named w.bloggar. Let’s see how this works…

I’m wondering if this happens to anyone else, or if it’s just me. I know pretty much everyone experiences deja vu on occasion. The source of these feelings is not understood, but I like one explanation in particular: your mind has a kind of electrical storm that causes an experience to pause before being processed. This causes you to experience the same thing after it’s already happened, so you feel like it’s doubled, although you cannot pinpoint when you thought it had happened in the past.

Now, my particular variant doesn’t fit that theory very well.
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Anyone who has children has naked pictures of their kids. They tend to tear off their clothing for no apparent reason when they are young, and they are cute as heck, right? So, if you were to get these pictures developed, would you expect to be arrested? Neither did Jacqueline Mercado.
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Howard Dean is not a man I necessarily endorse politically, but his article in Common Dreams, Bush: It’s Not Just His Doctrine That’s Wrong, is a good look at how Bush’s administration is a bit off. Unlike much of political debate the past two years, it’s a well-written and calm essay. Not once does he claim that Bush is not the president, unlike the bombastic Michael Moore. He focuses entirely on the policy decisions, foreign and domestic, that Bush and his cabinet have made.

Audi-oh is a device that says it can be activated by the music in your favorite club. Imagine when P Control comes on and it’s literally controlling stuff. What next?