Friday, November 18, 2005

Can Senators Read?

I hate to link to obviously conservative website but given that it directly quotes people, seems legit to me.

Lazy Senators

UN Oil for Food: Update

Letting ya'll know about new developments in the Oil for Food debacle perpetrated by the UN. Seems to be that certain french politicans had some very good reasons to oppose the US liberation of Iraq. Makes you feel real confident in the UN and french talking points eh?

New News

Resentment or frustration

So i was thinking this morning as i sit here sick as a dog about what the result of success here in the US is and abroad. Not only in a mass level but how do we historically look at people who have accomplished large success and who reap the benefits from them. Historically in the US, we have bitched about those individuals that have large amounts of power and money but have not done alot to really hate them. We looked to them at times as people who beat the system and they deserve whatever they can get. Its hard to know why we do this, whether we actually think that they deserve it or because we would those same perks in their position. It you look around the world and in a gorwing movement in the US today, we can see that that is not typical. The world generally is assuming that people who have large amount of money or power are doing things illegal or at least moral. There is an inherant distrust of our economic superiors. Thats seems kinda odd to me. I was thinking about this because as we look at how powerful the US has become not just in military means but also in its economy, we can wonder if its really what we do that makes other countries resent us or if its that fact that we are such a powerful country. Do our actions matter to other countries and people or are we to be hated because we have such power? Its interesting to think that the only way we can be well liked around the world is when we are saving other people or giving handouts. If we were an isolationist country even with all this power, would we still be unliked around the world?

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Ass Spelunker of the Week Award

Young America's Foundation

Listed below is an email sent to a student organizing an event with a LTC returning from Iraq as the main speaker. This email is from a Professor John Daly in Warren Community College. This is the type of shit that calls out people. Stuff like this makes me so pissed of that people like this, invariably from either the media or academic institutions, are actually tolerated. And he finds her flyers offensive. I have no words that are strong enough to convey how mad i am that shit like this occurs.

Dear Rebecca:

I am asking my students to boycott your event. I am also going to ask others to boycott it. Your literature and signs in the entrance lobby look like fascist propaganda and is extremely offensive. Your main poster "Communism killed 100,000,000" is not only untrue, but ignores the fact that CAPITALISM has killed many more and the evidence for that can be seen in the daily news papers. The U.S. government can fly to dominate the people of Iraq in 12 hours, yet it took them five days to assist the people devastated by huricane Katrina. Racism and profits were key to their priorities. Exxon, by the way, made $9 Billion in profits this last quarter--their highest proft margin ever. Thanks to the students of WCCC and other poor and working class people who are recruited to fight and die for EXXON and other corporations who earning megaprofits from their imperialist plunders. If you want to count the number of deaths based on political systems, you can begin with the more than a million children who have died in Iraq from U.S.-imposed sanctions and war. Or the million African American people who died from lack of access to healthcare in the US over the last 10 years.

I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won't dare show their face on a college campus. Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people's needs--such freedom fighters can be counted throughout American history and they certainly will be counted again.

Prof. John Daly

Whiskey Pete..White Phosphorus...

Since alot has been made about the use of artillery shells with white phosphorus in the last week er so i thought i should drop in my observations on the matter. Listed here is a site with a fairly typical description:

White Phosphorus Article

Now when i read this, a few things strike me pretty quickly. Firstly, I don't wanna trust any reporting from a site that can't get spell checker (white phosphorus or white phosphorous). Secondly after we look at this story we need to actually figure out what white phosphorus does and how it is used. White phosphorus has been used by many different militaries for the past 60+ years. It is used as a smoke creating agent. Yes it can cause burns from intense heat because it oxidizes very quickly in air at high temperatures. However, it is a solid and remains a solid. It would be almost just as easy to brush off as, for example, wood chips from a fire. It does have a tendency to stick to human flesh however but not the the degree that it actively seeks human flesh. Also to actually get hit with WP you would have to be very close to it. Close enough in fact that if the artillery shell that landed contained HE instead, you would, instead of being burned, would be blown apart or covered in shrap. The other two uses for WP are in flares (although not common) and tracer rounds. In a flare it is pretty much impossible to use it offensively because flares come down very slowly and the WP would burn out before it came near the ground. In a tracer round, the round burns for less than one second and is traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. There is neither time nor amount of WP for it to actually burn anything. In addition, WP is not very good at creating fire in the first place. Although it does burn, the burn is centrally contained, similar to a lit cigarette. If i threw it into a dry pile of leaves and left it, a fire might start but just throwing it at someone isn't gonna light them on fire. In addition, there is no treaty in the world that bans the use of WP. So in my opinion, all this conjecture about the use of WP as a "chemical weapon" is from people who don't know what they are talking about. You'd have to imagine if we really wanted to use a chemical weapon for the use that we are being accused of, we could come up withe something better, even napalm is far superior for doing what they accuse our military of doing. So either they are wrong or we are using an illegal weapon, very poorly, in a stupid method. You make the call.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

John Courage

I found this beer last year and it quickly became one of my favorites. However i got it at Keith St. in clemson and havn't seen it anywhere else till i just found it again at the Plez-U. Its an english amber ale with a moderate amount of bitterness but far less than any IPA. It doesn't have any of the nasty esters that develop the fruity taste but does have a hint of a malty taste common in many english ales. The amber taste really comes through strong. If you havn't had it, try it.

UN for the Internet

Something that doesn't make any sense to me this morning is why the UN thinks it should be allowed to have control over the internet. For those of you that don't know, the internet is governed by ICANN, an organization overseen by the Department of Commerce. Starting today, or rather last nite due to time difference, there is a UN summit dealing directly with how the internet should be governed and who has the control. Apperently the UN thinks that it should have jurisdiction over the content of the internet and its running. Nevermind the fact that the internet was first created in the US, the US put forth large amounts of money in the early years developing the technologies, that there is admittly no problems with the current governence, or that fact that the last large project the UN oversaw, the Oil-for-Food program, had corruption on a massive scale that funnelled billions of dollars inappropriately to say the least. In addition, no one has been fired for having billions of dollars funnelled to Saddam. Thats not exactly true, one guy did get fired but he got his job back with back pay in 2 short months. What exactly has the UN done to think that it is qualified to take over how the internet is run when it can't point to any successes that would indicate it would go well.

UPDATE:
It seems the rest of the world has thrown in the towel already on the issue and the delegates at Tunisia have agreed to let the US handle the internet. Apperently unilateralism can work...

Torture....AHHHHHH!

Here is the problem i have with the torture amendment. Three problems actually. The first is that sometimes torture does work to get you the information that you need. There isn't always time to slowly break a prisoner that has very important information that needs to be found ASAP. Its unfortunate and a shitty business but sometimes it works. An experienced interrogator should be able to tell whether the person is telling the truth and get it from them. The 2nd problem with it is that the definition of tortue varies so much. Is having someone walk aroung with panties on their head torture? How about making them be sleep deprieved? No steak? There is no concensous definition on what torture is so how do you outlaw it. That leads to the 3rd and the most important point. If you do set what is and what is not torture, you lose the advantage on a prisoner because he (or she) knows what you can and can't do. If you know you can only be put through so much and they can't actually cause you physical pain for example then you gain a mental edge. The open door to what they COULD do is massively important.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Where i'm coming from:

Just so that whoever reads this knows where i am coming from and hasn't really talked to me about politics, or beer for that matter, let me hit you with a little background on me. I spent the first 18 years of my life living in Columbia MD. Not a bad place if a bit dull. Was raised by a dad thats a lawyer and a mom thats a nurse that stayed home the first few years of my life then went to work at a hospital and now is a school nurse. Never moved though my rents did get beach house a little over a year ago. Have one sister and one brother who are both older than me. Jeff (the brother) is 5 years older and has a very similar (biting) sense of humor and we both are passionate about football. He is a EE for the DoD and also is a professor up at UDEL. Anne is 24 and is in law school right now and works for the DoJ as a paralegal. She also has a so ugly is cute dog named Bridgette that likes to annoy my dog Clancy. At college I started as an engineer and am still here trying to graduate. I think i was pretty affected by 9/11 and i after months of thought i joined ARMY ROTC at the end of my freshman year. Loved the idea of serving my country but couldn't put up with the politics of being an officer so i enlisted at the end of my sophomore year before i contracted. Spend 9 weeks at Ft. Benning then 12 more at Ft Gordon to become a 25Q qualified radio operator. Now i have been in for 2.5 years and got promoted 2x to make Sergeant and be a team cheif. Currently we are looking to get deployed in the summer of next year around the August September timeframe. In my views I am right of center and consider myself a realist. So, all my opinions are coming from someone who "put my money where my mouth was" about the war. I tend to think that freedom is the most essential thing in the world to guarentee people but i also try to look at the big picture of what affects most people instead of looking at individual cases, as tragic as they may be. I hope that this gives a pretty good inpression of how i think so that even if you disagree with me, and if you do go ahead and tell me why, you know why i think like i do.

1st Post

Well since its it my first post i have to assume that just about no one is reading this. And if you are, you probably know who i am and what i think. My purpose with this is more for something to do during classes that get boring and pointless than anything else (although self gradification is nice). I did think that it might not be a bad idea to post stuff if i get deployed though, so if i do end up in the sandbox anytime soon, i will have somebody post letters that i send back letting ya'll know what is really going on. Neat huh? Also since i like to send links to people, i will post stuff here that is funny or just odd to me. Now i'm gonna just sit back and soak this up for a while.

Jim