Quotes of War

I read a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln. I don't know if it is truly his or not. I am a big Civil War buff and I don't remember seeing it before. If it is true it has some resonance today ... "All dreaded it, all sought to avert it, ... And still the war came". Cold say the same for a civil war in Iraq today.

Some good Colin Powell quotes:

• "War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support".
• Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule for Iraq - “You break it, you bought it ... ”

And finally a primer on the Powell Doctrine also known as "Powell Doctrine of Overwhelming Force":

"After the end of Persian Gulf War in 1991, Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlined his vision for efficient and decisive military action. His plan is now referred to as the Powell Doctrine, although there is not an actual formal document named as such. Powell, currently the U.S. secretary of state, has recently invoked the Doctrine in articulating the justifications for the Bush administration's preparations for war in Iraq. Essentially, the Doctrine expresses that military action should be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged".
Wikipidia

Thoughts of the War

February 25, 2006 10:00 AM At Work

Just finished reading an article I had saved from the December 36, 2005 edition of the LA Times called "Struggles Don't End With guardsman Return" (LA Times). I watched the news about the Shia shrine bombing and all the civil war talk. Than I read an article like this. You just have to wonder. Was it, or should I say, is it all worth it? I should add that I was in full support of the war from the start.

I have nothing but support for all the troops and the war effort. But there comes a point where I just have to think the hell with them. They don't want us there. They blame us for everything. And all they want to do is kill each other in the name of Allah. I am mad and tired of it and I say LET THEM!

We send young recruits and middle-aged guardsman over there to fight and die in our name. When they get back they should have the best care money can buy. Their families should not fall apart while they are gone because of a lack of anything. Tax cuts be damned .... Cost should not matter.

As I said I supported the war from day 1. Not the Bush administration's handling of it.

Ohno For Gold !

Apolo Anton Ohno won the gold in the 500 meter speed skating final tonight . I love to watch this sport. This guy is the greatest. Got to love his spirit and .... truely a great olympian. Sad to say the games are all but over.

Miracle On Ice ... No Not This Time

Twenty six days to the day. One miracle on ice ... One flame out. I can remember watching in 1980. It was a Sunday morning. I was never prouder to be an American and a hockey fan. Now I am too embarrassed to watch. Millionaire spoiled "kids" who would rather complain (see Mike Modano) than win. I thought they were going to be different this time. Going to the woman's games and practicing with them. But in the end it was the same as last time and the time before that. Maybe in 2010 the next generation will take over and show us something. Than again with these guys to show them the way ... Maybe not.

In the New York Times - "Mike Modano, the star, trashed whatever was left of the team he was supposed to lead ... Twenty-six years after a group of amateurs from the United States staged a so-called miracle to upset the Soviet Union, Olympic hockey was reminded of the downside that well-heeled professionals can bring to the Games. Even though some other Olympic teams took charter flights to Turin, and the United States did not, it was unlikely that Modano would receive much sympathy from the curlers, the bobsledders and the aerial skiers. ... The United States cannot stay, and they have not learned how to leave". Nothing Inspirational About Modano and American Team - NYT
New York Daily News - Modano goal:whine, not win

And than there was Canada. Now that is a whole new story ....
Great Depression, Gretzky 'devastated after Canada's loss - The Calgary Sun

Bush didn't know? What again?

After all that has gone on you would think you heard it all. Iraq, WMD, Katrina, sir Cheney's hunting problems, and on and on. You would think the president would make it his business to hear it all. After all it IS his business. But no not George.

Than came the ports .....
Seen on MSNBC.com "The White House said Wednesday that Bush was unaware of the pending sale until the deal already had been approved by his administration". What?

Bush faces rebellion on ports deal - MSNBC.com

From the New York Times "...which is already turning to the question of whether the Bush administration cut some corners in speeding the review through the approval process, to avoid the scrutiny that could touch off a political firestorm".
Big Problem, Dubai Deal or Not - The New York Times

And on it goes ... As George Bush's (and by default our) world turns.

Daily News

• OK so first we encourage any and all kinds of drilling for energy. Than we keep our inspectors in the office so they can't keep tabs. Now that is an energy policy! Washington Post - "Energy Programs Trump Conservation"
• Meanwhile the Chinese are getting tougher on environmental corruption. Seems somebody is going in the right direction and somebody in the wrong ... LA Times - "China Toughens Stance on Environmental Protection"
• And I think I know which is which Seattle Post Intelligencer - "EU urges greater U.S. environment effort"
• Meanwhile in the oil fields ThreatsWatch.org - Nigeria's Oil War

Curl Gurls

I wrote this at work a couple days ago and never got it posted. Than I found out today my girls were eliminated. I am going ahead and posting it anyway.

February 16 .... They call them the "curl girls" - the US women's curling team. A cuter group of olympians you have never seen. Maybe not as beautiful as some have been (a group of pole-vaulters from the 2000 Sydney summer games comes to mind). But for outright all-American cuteness they can't be beat.

So now I am watching and trying to understand the sport. This from a person whose daughter has been playing field hockey for over a year and still doesn't understand the rules! Also this sport is pretty hard to figure out when you only see it every four years. Start with the equipment - stones, brooms, cigarettes, and pitchers of beer. OK those last two are my personal additions.

But the curl girls have gotten my attention. And, if you have gotten this far, yours too. You will be watching for them on TV. Don't lie .... You will.

Curl Girls
Women's curling roundup NBColympics.com

People it's just a RACE!

Come on people it's just a race. Sure it is the Olympics but still just a race. When you are 20 years old it's better to enjoy life while you can. There will be plenty of other races and with her talent probably more olympics. So with all the other problems of of the world .... just let the girl have fun!

Said Jacobellis "I was just really having fun with the sport. I was enjoying the moment. I stopped paying attention."

Seth Wescott, the gold medalist from the United States in the men's snowboardcross, happens to be the boyfriend of gold medalist Tanja Frieden. He said "The aesthetic of the sport, the style aspect, is what draws all of us into it. It's in many ways an artistic expression. The freestyle aspect of it is where the soul of the sport lies. It would have been a shame if she didn't go for it."

Simply put life is too short ... don't take to seriously and enjoy it while you can!

So I Took This Quiz ........

You scored as Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica). You are leery of your surroundings, and with good reason. Anyone could be a cylon. But you have close friends and you know they would never hurt you. Now if only the damn XO would stop drinking. Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 81% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 75% SG-1 (Stargate) 75% Serenity (Firefly) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 69% Moya (Farscape) 69% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 63% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 56% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 56% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 56% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 56% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 44% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com TV Squad (TV Blog) Battlestar Galactica @ SciFi.com

Funnies of the Week

Funniest stuff I heard recently:

"Last week was Runway Week, and this week is the dog show. Boy, we got bitches coming and going." - David Letterman

"President Bush said today that he is standing behind the Vice President. Way behind him." - Jay Leno, on the shooting.

Cheney Jokes

There is just no escaping all the Cheney jokes. It's just to good a topic for late night or any other comics. But the 78 year old victim's condition turning a little sour put somewhat of a damper on it all. As Jon Stewart said "I am downgrading the story from incredibly hilarious to still funny but a little sad."

The best has to be Steve Martin writing in the Huffington Post:

"Vice President Dick Cheney, while hunting wild geese in the Rose Garden, accidentally shot President Bush twice, once in the heart and once in the head. "I didn't really shoot the President twice," said Cheney. "The second time I shot him, I was president. It wasn't until my third shot, where I accidentally shot my own foot, that I had shot the president twice."

Cheney Shoots Three Presidents In Oval Office Mishap

Quail Hunting

Ok now sing with me ... To the Aerosmith song ... "Cheney's got a gun, Cheney's got a gun ... ". What goes on with these people? He couldn't even call the BOSS till Monday? Think what would happen if you or I shot someone and didn't tell. I mean I know hunting accidents happen (I'll stick to fishing myself) But you don't shoot if you don't know what you are shooting at. Kind of like Iraq. Shoot first and figure out what you hit later!




Now his I found too funny. But I did "borrow" it. So go to my friends at Wonkette to read more.
For Future Reference
Wonkette




Update 2/14/06 - 1:58PM Just had on the news. So maybe Cheney did have it in for the poor lawyer. Oh never mind. They say it was a heart attack ..... I guess that will happen to anybody who hears the words "The VP would like to go quail hunting with you."

Muhammad Cartoons Part II

The whole thing continues to intrigue me.

The Toon-ifada - One Christian's Perspective

The Perspective of a Western Muslim - Chicago Tribune

Muhammad Cartoons

Cant" get over something I saw on the news this morning. Thousands of people protesting the Muhammad cartoons. All chanting in unison .... "Death to Denmark". I never thought I would hear that. It has to much of a ring to it. It sounds to nice. Sounds nowhere near as vile as the old standby "Death to the Yankee dogs"!

From the New York Times
"As leaders of the world's 57 Muslim nations gathered for a summit meeting in Mecca in December, issues like religious extremism dominated the official agenda. But much of the talk in the hallways was of a wholly different issue: Danish cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad.

The closing communiqué took note of the issue when it expressed "concern at rising hatred against Islam and Muslims and condemned the recent incident of desecration of the image of the Holy Prophet Muhammad in the media of certain countries" as well as over "using the freedom of expression as a pretext to defame religions."

I always thought that freedom of expression or speech meant just that. Not that the cartoons are right. I think it was in bad taste but come on they are just cartoons. Dont' we as a world have bigger problems?

The New York Times

Make A Dead Man .... Oops ... Can't Say That Here

OK how bad is it getting. A song written 25 years ago. Heard on the radio everyday. Being song with a barely audible mic. And the NFL, in terror of god knows who, finds it necessary to censor a word. ONE word. When will the powers that be in this country realize most people don't care and really don't know until they tell us we missed it. So in honor of the NFL and censors everywhere .... today I will blast The Stones on my stereo. Well at least till someone comes (can I use that spelling?) home and tells me stop. Next year your Super Bowl half time show Wayne Newton!

If you start me upIf you start me up I'll never stopIf you start me upIf you start me up I'll never stopI've been running hotYou got me ticking gonna blow my topIf you start me upIf you start me up I'll never stop
You make a grown man crySpread out the oil, the gasolineI walk smooth, ride in a mean, mean machineStart it up
If you start it upKick on the starter give it all you got, you got, you gotI can't compete with the riders in the other heatsIf you rough it upIf you like it you can slide it up, slide it up
Don't make a grown man cryMy eyes dilate, my lips go greenMy hands are greasyShe's a mean, mean machineStart it up
If start me upGive it all you gotYou got to never, never, never stopNever, neverSlide it up
You make a grown man cryRide like the wind at double speedI'll take you places that you've never, never seenStart it upLove the day when we will never stop, never stopNever stop, never stopTough me upNever stop, never stop, never stop
You, you, you make a grown man cryYou, you make a dead man comeYou, you make a dead man come

Rolling Stone Reveiws

Day After The Super

So it wasn't a bad game. Wasn't one of the best ever either. No blow out at least. Finally found myself cheering for Seattle even the I am from Pennsylvania. Just have to root for the underdog if my team isn't there. I really could not see why the Seahawks were the underdog anyway. I thought going in they were the better team. The bookies must know something I don't.

I am glad for "The Bus", Jerome Bettis, great story there. Play and win your first Super Bowl in your hometown than retire. Careers don't end much better than that. And I always did like Steelers coach Bill Cowher. If he doesn't look like a football coach nobody does.

So really in the end I guess I didn't care who won.

Now the important stuff. The commercials!

Winners:
Bud Light Secret Fridge
Budweiser Superfan (Clydesdales game with streeker)
Nationwide Insurance Fabio
ESPN Mobile Sports Heaven
Anything from GoDaddy.com
godaddy.com super Bowl

Loser:
Pizza Hut - rated by my son Sean - even with Jessica Simpson - didn't like the commercial or more importantly the product.
Blockbuster - Maybe a good deal but my god it was shown to many times

View Them All:
ifim.com Watch The Super Bowl commercials

Best and worst of Super Bowl Commercials
by Katie Favazza
Town Hall

Super Sunday Has Arrived

Time to make the chli and nachoes and hit the couch. That greatest of unofficial holidays has arrived. I still have not gotten over my beloved Eagles losing last year. Maybe the Steelers can win it for Pa and Govenor Ed this time. Will just have to wait and see.

Best part (unless ofcourse the Eagles are playing) is watching the commercials. Hope there are some good ones this year. I really can't remember last year .... to many tears!

Top Ten Super Bowl Commercials from the Kansas City Star:

Joe Posnanski's top 10 Super Bowl commercials
1. Apple, 1984 (1984): Woman wearing a headband throws a hammer at Big Brother and smashes all the old concepts of Super Bowl commercials.
2. Coke and Mean Joe Greene (1980): The kid offers up his Coke. Mean Joe tosses the kid his football jersey. America says “Aw!” (Even though nobody is quite sure how that kid snuck into the tunnel.)
3. E*Trade, Monkey (2000): A monkey dances on top of a trash can to “La Cucaracha” while two men in plaid clap along. Then the words: “We just wasted 2 million bucks. What are you doing with your money?”
4. Budweiser, Whassup (2000): Friends greet each other with the eternal beer catch phrase “Whassup?” This led to countless follow-up commercials, including one where yuppies greeted each other by saying, “What is up?”
5. Reebok, Terry Tate, Office Linebacker (2003): Terry Tate goes around the office smashing office workers who commit various office misdeeds, like forgetting to include cover pages. “Productivity has gone up 42 percent,” the CEO says. I have no idea how this was supposed to sell sneakers.

Get the rest:
The Kansas City Star

Super Bowl Commercials - Have We Lost Our Minds
Huffington Post
Robert Schlesinger
Sat Feb 4, 1:59 PM ET
I have a couple of friends who are going to miss the Super Bowl but plan to Tivo it. In a twist that can only happen one day a year, they're going to d'beep-d'beep-d'beep past the football and watch the commercials.
I have another friend who is working overseas and plans to watch the game live, but is having someone record it for him here in the states and send him the tape ... so he can watch the commercials.
I didn't bother to point out to him that all of the commercials will undoubtedly be online well before the VHS tape wings its way across the pond. And I didn't even realize that putting the ads online is just the tip of the ice-berg -- companies are developing specific web-sites and buying search engine key-words to back up the $2.5 million they're plunking down for the ads.
Hell, today's New York Times has a listing of which ads are going to be on in what quarter.
And you can be sure that almost as much air time on "news" shows will be devoted to dissecting the ads as to dissecting the game on Monday.
Which calls to mind the question: Have we lost our collective minds?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Super Bowl ads as much as the next person (well, OK, obviously not as much, but enough). It's like an advertising All Star game. It's great that they're better than the usual pap foisted on the Tivo-less teleivision viewer.
But ... they're advertisements.

The Huffington Post

Who Hates Their MTV

I had bookmarked this coloumn from LA Weekly awhile ago. I always wanted to put in on if I ever started to do one of these. I know it is long but it is to good not to read it all!


Who Hates Their MTV?

Written by NIKKI FINKE
How the rebel network sold its soul for bimbos, princesses and bucks
Let's talk about the end of civilization as we know it, in this case signified by the rise of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County and My Super Sweet 16, the logic-defying successors to the creepy I Want a Famous Face and that scummy Cribs. We feel your pain. We, too, remember when MTV used to be all about the issues — subversive and usually liberal. Now the network is all gab about the glam lifestyles, love triangles, mean girls and staged cat fights on these impossible-to-ignore unreality shows starring spoiled simpletons ...... Consider, for instance, this recent column in the Penn State Daily Collegian: “The saying used to be ‘I want my MTV.’ But for the last few years, all I can say is that I hate my MTV. I wish my friend Holden Caulfield was here. He would tell you how phony, superficial and just plain crappy that network has become. No music and no real substance . . . Does anyone believe money buys happiness? You would if you watched shows like Sweet 16 or Laguna Beach. Gag me with a spoon... MTV has hijacked who we are right now...”How that writer would have howled had he heard Mr. MTV Network himself (since 1987), Tom Freston, Viacom’s co-president and CEO, boast at a Goldman Sachs global confab on September 21 that his company has created a “hit machine,” which he described as a “consumer-obsessed, terrific, program-development model.” The result is that “We take 25 cents of every dollar that is spent on cable.” Freston may actually believe what he says: that “the philosophy at MTV is constant experimentation, constant pushing the needle.” But to what end? He semi-apologized to the analysts for putting on shows like Cameron Diaz’s Trippin’, which he termed a “pro-environment show essentially.” Said Freston: “We knew it wasn’t going to be a big ratings success. But when we thought in terms of the pro-social part of things we do, and the image part of things we do, it made a lot of sense.” What he didn’t say was the truth: We only ran that show because this really hot celeb who dates Justin Timberlake hosted it ...... Once upon a time, MTV meant something. Sure, there was commerce, and lots of it. But there also were milestones, ranging from Live Aid, to Rock the Vote, to the Motor Voter Drive, to anti–status quo news and politics aimed at younger demographics. Meanwhile, one news report this week says CBS boss Les Moonves is considering MTV entertainment chief Brian Graden to sex up CBS News. It's Graden who bears responsibility for all the crap on MTV now, having developed sickening fare like Laguna Beach, The Osbournes, Pimp My Ride, Jackass and Newlyweds.“I’ll tell you exactly the day the music died on MTV,” former VJ Adam Curry (from 1987 to 1994) told me last week when I called him in London. “It was when the game show Remote Control came on air. It was a tremendous success. People were, metaphorically speaking, running through the hallways because all of a sudden there were major fucking ratings. That was the knife. And after that, they ran Beavis and Butt-head, and so on .... Kind of pathetic that the MTV Overdrive Web site plugs style news from the beach babes, who advise: “Wear oversized sunglasses, the bigger the better.” (No wonder the girls all look like they’re in the Witness Protection Program.) Clearly, this kind of contrived pablum is more palatable when it’s shot with high-tech digital cameras, made to seem like a movie, features surf wear and skimpy sundresses, and stars peroxide bimbos and six-pack-abs himbos. How we hang on every word of the riveting dialogue, like the wasted way that heartbreaker Jason Wahler (yes, these dimwits have last names) keeps responding to every probing question from his series of lovesick girlfriends with a simple “Dunno.”Determined to kill off still more of our brain cells, MTV just announced a third season of Laguna Beach. In fact, the producers are in the midst of interviewing prospective cast members. Good luck: There’s something like a 20-page application to fill out. (Note to parents: Lock up your teens lest the cameras catch — as they did with Jessica this season — your daughter saying she’s a slut.) For next season, the producers are lobbying for access to the local high school. Not to worry, though: No one’s tampering with the concept. The old gang will come home occasionally to mingle with the new gang. All will swap spit — that is, when they’re not swapping phone numbers for Hollywood agents and publicists.Yes, it’s sad but true: The entertainment business has spawned yet another brood of infamous no-talents mistaken for iconic figures .... with Lindsay Lohan (at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel). For now, they are 15 minutes of fame away from hitting bottom and begging to take part in the next Reality TV All-Star Reunion Show for dumbed-down Bravo .... As for My Super Sweet 16, MTV has gone out of its way to showcase the most shocking examples of obnoxious teens and their over-doting parents. The result is a world where a coming-of-age party is imitative of Hollywood Babylon, with red carpet and VIP rooms (which exist solely to distance the popular from the not-so-popular in the nastiest way possible). We’re confronted by foul-mouthed scions demanding that their personal fantasies be indulged down to the last detail, no matter if that means horse-drawn carriages, couture clothing or Mercedes/BMW roadsters. Meanwhile, we’re bewildered by this I-wanna-be-a-princess, I-deserve-the-best attitude they all seem to have for simply existing. Who’s to blame: Princess Di? Paris Hilton? Disney movies?The first Real World featured seemingly spontaneous angst over racism, sexism and homophobia. Now, MTV’s best-watched series has devolved into nothing more substantive than sordid bed-hopping. And Dubya might have been dumb enough to invite Ozzy to dinner at the White House, but we now know the Father Knows Best image MTV gave us of The Osbournes was complete bullshit. Behind the scenes of those palatial digs and those decadent dinners and that compulsive shopping was an entire brood eventually headed to rehab for addictions and eating disorders.My own disappointment with MTV occurred in 2003 during the run-up to the Iraqi war. That’s when Stephen Friedman, the vice president for public affairs, told me the network was compiling footage both pro and con the invasion for a big hourlong broadcast. It was going to feature young Marines going off to Kuwait, and anti-war activists like Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The old MTV would have gone ahead and made the documentary with a deliberately liberal point of view, conservatives be damned. But again and again, Friedman told me that MTV’s role was to “show all sides” — yet he mischaracterized the anti-war movement as “a small and vocal minority.”In fact, MTV’s flabbiness on the issues was directly related to the increasing scrutiny that the Federal Communications Commission was giving media companies. No company was a bigger advocate of mergers and acquisitions than Freston’s Viacom at the time, and the FCC had regulatory control over that. But even that paled in comparison to the FCC’s 24/7 decency watch following Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction on that Super Bowl show organized on CBS by — you guessed it — Freston’s MTV. After that mishap, Viacom begged for mercy from the howling right-wing hordes.At MTV, executives like to say, “We worship at the altar of our audience.” But O.G. VJ Curry, who set up MTV.com in the pre-commercial days of the Internet and is now nicknamed the father of podcasting, wants to know “Just who is MTV’s customer these days: the viewer or the advertiser? Some of the great things you’re talking about that MTV did were actually fought for and put on the air by passionate individuals, who themselves were really talented kids who made it happen, then moved on. And there was compassion for it from an executive level.” Curry sighs, “But those kinds of people aren’t there anymore.”Instead we have Kristin, and Talan, and Jason, and Alex M. frolicking in Laguna Beach. It’s an appropriate time to remember it was Dante who said, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality.”

LA Weekly

Bob Woodruff and Why They Go

Found in Washington Post on Monday January 30 in a column written by Howard KurtzWashington Post Staff Writer:


"Along these lines, I was really struck by this piece by the LAT's Alissa Rubin:"The truth is that we are working in a war zone where no rules apply. No one is safe: not Iraqis, not Westerners, not men, not women. For most journalists in Iraq, it's hard to be honest about danger, even though we talk about it all the time. We follow daily reports about the number of roadside bombings, suicide attacks and abductions. We chart violence the way other people watch the weather. But talking about the danger in Iraq for what it is -- my life, my death -- is too scary. So we make it ordinary. 'Oh, did you see any gunmen on your way over, there were some at the intersection yesterday, and would you like a cup of coffee?'"To family and friends not in Iraq, it is incomprehensible why you came here, and certainly why you returned twice, three times -- in my case, over and over for nearly three years. I could say something like 'The cycle of risk and survival makes life more valuable,' but that wouldn't be true, although some journalists do become addicted to the danger, to the high of sidestepping death."For me, at least, what is true is that once in a while as a journalist you get the chance to witness history, a moment when tectonic plates shift, when more is at stake than you ever imagined you would touch or see. It's the adrenaline surge of being in a place where people's lives are in the balance, where every decision counts and where what you're writing might, might just matter. And you feel more alive than you've ever felt -- but you're also often closer to being killed. You notice I wrote 'often.' I needed a qualifier."

The Washington Post