State of the Union

Our President has been with us for a year.

I didn't vote for him, although I had hopes for him.

He has managed to dash all hopes that I had. In its simplest form, he lies.

He apparently thinks we proles have no memory, and that we don't know that he promised to air debate on (among other things) health care.  This did not happen.

He promised bipartisan efforts, then shut out the opposing party, saying "I won!"

He promised that the Constitution would be uppermost - then appointed Czars to do things not constitutional, effectively nationalized industries, gathered up a crew of hangers-on in high offices for which offices the first requisite seemed to be having failed to pay taxes.  You and I would end up in jail for such silliness - his buds get high-visibility well-paid jobs - which pay comes form us proles.

His wife has hired more assistants than the past 20 presidents' wives have found either needed or useful - all of which are paid, you guessed it, by us.

He makes generals wait - not a good thing, and gets troops killed just by doing nothing.

He believes we are all too stupid to breathe unassisted, and that there is not a question that he has not heard so he has all the answers - and all the answers involve growing government.  He fails to understand that Government produces no profit, and sucks the life out of profit-producing organizations by demanding tribute that is used to pay , guess what, more government "workers."

He says no lobbyists will be around to influence anyone, but apparently he meant that no more than all of them will be allowed through the door.

His congress creates libraries of rules for us regarding how health care will be managed, and then exempts itself from those rules. 

It's time to unelect the house of representatives - all of them and get some folks in there who are truly interested in representing the interests of the folks who put them there.

It's also time to return the selection of senators to state legislatures, although I don't think I'll live to see that happen.

I still believe that the Founding Fathers had their heads screwed on straight, and that we tamper with what they devised at our own peril.

/end rant

New Rant(s)

I hate working 7 AM to 3 PM.  I hate even worse getting up at 5 AM to be at work at 7 AM.

I think it's prophetic that a democrat did not get Ted Kennedy's seat - not that it was ever his anyhow, although the folks in Massachusetts were probably shielded from that fact.

I think that the Constitution is not subject to alteration except by the means it established, and I surely am tired of the way so-called czars are being appointed to bypass the constitution.  Someone needs to uncerstand what, historically speaking, czars were.

I think Bull Riding is a great sport, although I have no interest whatever in participating.

I think it is a damn shame that courtesy can't be legislated, because if folks would be courteous we'd have a lot fewer dead and damaged people on the highways.

I think it is not the job of the President to dictate to folks what is good for them.

I think that people need to make their own decisions, and take the heat when the decision is wrong - and learn from it.  It's an old axiom that good judgment comes from experience, much of which comes from bad judgment, and that that axion is important to remember.

I think it is getting late, so I'm going to bed.

Zero dark thirty

When I was in the Air Force, that was the time we had to get up for certain shifts, and I always hated being up before the sun. For many years I have worked 10 to 6, 11 to 7 or similar hours during the day, giving me plenty of time to wake up in the light, have breakfast with my wife, have some extra coffee, and arrive at work reasonably awake.  It even gave the folks around me time to determine which problems were theirs, so I could start right away on real problems, and not misoperations.

Well, I just changed to work 7 to 3 - and I hate getting up around 5 AM. Maybe I can change it back in a couple of months.  I hope so.

It's cold around here right now - global warming seems to have gone into hibernation.  I thought all along it was crap, and some purloined emails (and the fact that the global temperature has been static for almost ten years) only served to underline that belief.

But it is even too cold to think about starting the motorcycles, let alone riding one of them for more than about three minutes, and it is my personal rule (be kind to engines or some such bull) that I never start one up if I am not going to ride it for at least 20 minutes.  Usually I ride to work when I can, but not when it asks for frostbite before even getting on the highway.  We did have one day the weekend before Christmas that it was really nice, and I rode over to visit our then-pregnant daughter, and really enjoyed the ride - it was cool, but not really cold.

I gotta write some emails - I owe one to a friend in Germany, and a couple more.  Maybe I'll do that tomorrow as soon as I get to work; right now I gotta get some sleep - 0 darh 30 approaches!

New Arrival

I could have just stayed awake.

Lia Joy Phillips, our newest grandchild, appeared about 5:30 this morning - all 8 pounds 7 ounces. 

She has the normal appendages and such, is noisy at times and quiet at others, and I am sure she will lead our Elizabeth a merry chase from time to time.

Another miracle at which I can marvel.

Happy Birthday, Lia!

Never boring around here

It's almost midnight - and the phone just rang.

Our daughter is in labor - only several days late, but a couple of days before they would take her in and induce her. I'm too old for the excitement I think.  Another new life is coming.

I remember when this daughter was born - I was there.  I am at heart a simpleton, theologically speaking - but the day she was born, I was present for a miracle - the birth of a live child, and as far as miracles go, it is the only one I ever needed.

But I had a few other miracles that day, too - I gained an understanding of the reason recovery from a surgical (C-section) delivery seemed so tough.  I watched the doctor cut her open from hip to him, then stick his arms inside up to (it seemed) his elbows to pull out the daughter that had decided she wasn't coming out any other way.  I got to watch the very first hours of this daughter's life, and literally see her grow, change and gain strength.

Now, there's a granddaughter coming. By the time I get up in the morning, she might be here.

Of course, we are getting snow now, supposed to be continued through tomorrow evening, just to keep life interesting.  Happily, my son-in-law has a Subaru, which is good for a trip to the hospital - and since this child is number two, you might think he'd be used to it - but I'm sure he's going nuts anyhow, and will be asleep on his feet by the time we get there tomorrow. 

Merry Christmas to all.  I guess I ought to get some sleep....

But it's something good, a thing to be celebrated - a new life!

Merry Christmas

I know, I am early - but I heard about something this morning.

I have heard of folks giving kidneys to other folks.  Today I learned that I know someone involved in such a case.  Without being too specific, a husband happens to be a match for his wife's brother - tested as a last resort when there were no matches - for whatever reason there's a match.

Surgery should occur before Christmas is actually here.

This is giving of oneself in its purest and most personal form - what Christmas should be all about.

Quite literally, it is the gift of life.

Snowy Saturday Morning

I woke up this morning and looked outside to see the first real snow of the year. I had heard there might be a dusting - but if this is a dusting, I don't want to be around when it snows in earnest! The Weather Bug on my TeeVee says it will go away tomorrow and we'll be back to motorcycle weather on Monday, but I think I'll wait until it arrives before uncovering the big Kwacker.

I hope this is better tomorrow morning, or our parking lot at Church will be a disaster, and there will be more choristers than congregation - but we'll be there anyhow.

I had a laptop from a friend most of the week - it got infected, and was a beast to clean up. I had hoped just to get lucky, put in a new drive and scan the old one and have it clean up, but it was not to be - after a couple of hours with the recovery CD's and scans, I swapped the drives back and it was still not right - something had been altered that Norton could not find, so I ran a repair on it, then spent more time finding my friend's data and putting it where he could find it. He will have stuff to reinstall, but at least I found all his data and pictures. I had intended to take it back to him today, but I think in view of the weather I'll take it to him at church tomorrow since we'll both be there.

Other than that, it was a quiet week - a couple of small chores for The Queen, otherwise major cleanup on the music collection, and some remote server maintenance for other folks occupied my time - and I also found a few e-Books I had not read in many years, so I read them, too - some vintage Heinlein juveniles and such.

Now I have server stuff to do, the downstairs computer to make work, the upstairs nedia center computer to make work, so I guess I ought to get about it.

Have a good Saturday.

Thanksgiving

I know, it's been over for almost a week - but today is the first time there has been time to think about it all that hard.

I've been alive almost 68 years - and I guess, considering the number of dead people I know that I should be most thankful for that, and I am. I'm grateful that I can still work and that there are folks that value what I can do.

I've been married for almost 42 of those years, and can still remember the good old single days, and have to concede that they weren't all that great. My wife is a very patient lady, and puts up with a lot, but she's still here, and together we have three good kids, some grandkids and will have another before too long. I can still be musical under the direction of my wife, and enjoy the experience.

I'm still riding my motorcycle, and proved this past Sunday that I can still pick it up if I need to, not that I wanted to know that....

I'm grateful for our families - for our parents who are long gone, for values they instilled in us, for experiences involved in growing up in a small town, for siblings and cousins aplenty, for summers in the Pittsburgh area with cousins and friends, and for shared experiences with neighborhood friends.

I'm grateful for all the ladies that have entered and left my life over the years, even though sometimes things ended badly - each taught me something of value, and I cherish the memories of all of them. I'm particularly grateful to my wife - she has put up with a lot over the years, and has been supportive through good times, bad times and truly horrid times. I am not a perfect person, and she has grown pretty good at overlooking that fact.

I am grateful for having served in the Air Force. My enlistment may have been triggered by a fear of the draft, but the experiences, education, and travel that that four years brought were a large piece of my education and maturing process. I enjoyed what I did in the service and would go again in a heartbeat. I appreciate our troops, support them, and get a wee bit irritable when I hear them denigrated - those who speak ill of the Service as a career and of those who choose to make it a career are fools at best. I recommend to everyone exiting high school that consideration be given to a term of service. I went in at 19, was single and rather aimless, and it gave me experience and purpose - and taught me at least 200 things I never in my life wanted to do again!

My gratitude for family influence gets greater with each year - and as I grow older I am amazed at just how much my father and grandfather knew that mattered - and how much many better educated people knew that didn't matter. My brothers and I each went our own way and survived the experience, learning all the way, and we are still civil to one another. I wish one brother was on the east coast instead of where he is - as we grow older we find it harder to get together on any regular basis, although when we do it seems that conversation picks up where it left off, and the time between meetings disappears.

My father and his brother were two very different people - and I am grateful for having been able to get to know both, even though Uncle Bob was in California, and we were not. I have traveled for work some of the places I have been employed, and family that wandered to California have always welcomed me when I was able to get to their area. Uncle Bob was the person who introduced me to Disneyland, a time I'll never forget, when I had first returned from a prolonged stay in Germany.

The time in Germany was something I'll not soon forget - learning the land, the people, the language, and exploring on my motorcycle. There are people I met there who are still with me, even though I've not seen them since 1966; learning experiences that could not be repeated anywhere else, and lessons about people and places that I carry with me.

All in all, it has been interesting so far, and my gratitude goes out to people without number who have helped me, counseled me, commiserated with me, taught me things, introduced me to exotic foods, different languages, and other ways to look at the bits that make life interesting, and to my various family members, without whom it would have been really dull!

Thanks, all of you - you have helped shape what I am today - take credit for the best parts, and blame the worst parts on my humanity.

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Doing What I Do

I'm an info systems specialist, who does odd jobs for a living. I'm one of the people who, when asked "Do we have this information and can we get it in this form?" says yes, no, or I'll look into it.

I've been in Info Systems since the late 60's, and one thing that is becoming more apparent each year is that everyone knows things and presumes that among the things known is how something has to be done to be effective.

More and more, when someone wants something, that someone will take up a lot of time telling me what to do and, often, how to do it. Nobody any more tells me what it is that they hope to accomplish, which would go a long way towards getting an optimum result.

Where I work, most of our data is stored in Oracle - partly because one of our major systems is purchased and was written to use Oracle, and partly because it is a good product, with a long life and a solid company behind it. It is also reasonably easy to use when I write stuff in the language I use most of the time, and while there is a lot that I do not know, I understand how stuff is stored and have written enough code that I can usually do whatever is needed if the data exists in any rational format.

Just an example - I was asked to strip down a Personnel database and a Mobile Phones database so the bosslady could load the resulting files into Excel and use Excel to find out what phones were in use by people who weren't our employees any more - so we would know to turn them off. A couple of fields from one and a couple of fields from another, creating two files.

I had designed both databases, and knew they could be tied together in retrieval, so I did what was asked, and in one file added one field from the other database, giving one of the files all the info needed to avoid writing the Excel program. Then I thought some more about it and wrote an extract to create a file showing only phones assigned to people who were gone.

In the end, the person who actually had to use the data was as happy as a clam to get only 79 records to deal with instead of 800+ with only some labeled as needing attention. The person who originally directed that I do this was dismayed to see that there was no longer a need for the Excel program to do the comparison - but ran it anyhow and it worked, and it verified my results. I'd've had it two days earlier had it been clear what we were trying to accomplish - which was to find out if we had any cell phones assigned to people we no longer employ.

Then this morning I found that there was to be an inventory comparing our vendor's data about who was using what phone to ours. I found that wity minimal massaging I could download from the vendor site a detailed statement, parse it and pass it against our equipment and personnel databases and come up with a list of mismatched names - reducing the number of records to be examined from 1400 to around 200 - but this time I was asked if there was a way to take the vendor data and validate it against our data.

I guess the message here is if someone is going to be doing something for you, rather than let your preconceived notions of the process guide the request, explain what the desired result is and let the professional pick the methodology. If the pro is a pro and needs more information, you'll get more questions, and if no more questions are needed you'll probably get a happier result a lot faster than if you try to guide the methodology.

Enough of my grumbling. Have a good evening, y'all.

On aging

I am 67 years old. I don't feel old, but each month it seems that I know someone else who is now dead, and I don't like that at all.

I'm all out of uncles and aunts. The ranks of cousins are slowly diminishing, and parents are long gone. High school classmates are going, and friends from Air Force days are dying - some older than I, and some not.

I guess my uncle's death got to me more than I realized. I knew he was old and had lived longer than anyone expected, but it was still a shock to know that he was gone - particularly a few days after talking to my wife about taking time for a trip to California to visit him, deciding that I had to do it before the year ended. In the past year I have sung at more funerals than in the five years that came before this past year - and it is a trend that disturbs me greatly. The only up side is that none have been for any of my kids....

As I was riding my motorcycle in to work this morning, I was thinking about my next high school class reunion, which is being organized now and should occur next year sometime - and it will be our 50th. I don't want to miss it, and I hope that we get a really good turnout. I volunteered many years ago to get a database of the members going, and have located a good number who were missing - but there are still ten or fifteen members that nobody has seen since graduation - and nobody knows if they are alive or dead.

The motorcycle seems to give me time to think about stuff that just never comes to mind when I am elsewhere. I'm glad I still have one and happy still to be able to ride it and hold it up, although I've reached the age where it is really hard to pick up if it is laying on the ground. I hope I can continue to ride for more years - it's almost the only solitude left to me, and gives more pleasure than I can explain, and I don't know why, because I go to work the same way whether in the car or on the bike - but on the bike I arrive more cheerful and relaxed.

I digress - it's late and my brain wants to shut down. I think my own mortality is beginning to impinge upon my sense of self. I mean, I know we all have to go sometime, and I am sure if my health goes to hell in a big way I would prefer to be gone rather than to stay around and use up resources and space - but I am still working full time and no way ready to consider that that might be all there is. There are too many places I've not seen, too many interesting people I've not met, and too many memories neither written nor shared, and, of course, too many amends unmade. I guess maybe I am getting old, but I sure don't have to like it, and I don't.

Maybe I ought to just hang it up and go to bed for today. Tomorrow is another day, there should be no rain, so I can motorcycle tomorrow, too, and I'll feel better when I've done that. So I'm gonna take this train of thought and stuff it under a pillow, get on my CPAP mask, and sleep.

G'nite, all.

Veteran's Day

I know, it was Wednesday, and it is now Friday - but it has taken a little bit for all this to percolate to a point that I could talk about it.

I saw a T-shirt in a catalog today - it said:

Home of the Free
Because of the Brave

and it made think a bit, about history, about the military, about veterans I have known, and about this great nation.

My uncle just died - the last in my family of his generation. He was a soldier in World War 2, and a POW in some Stalag in Germany. He was a hero - he didn't start out to be a hero, it was thrust upon him, and he accepted the duty. He was seriously mistreated as a POW, and never thought he'd live to the age of 90, but he did.

Veterans are special people - because they understand something about commitment that is no longer taught in schools. Uncle Bob was a depression kid, and knew hard times. He was a gentle man who worked with his hands - an artisan if you will. He did many things I never knew about, and he never would discuss his POW years with me. He thought that his life was more than just that period of confinement, and he was right to a large degree - there was more to his life than just that period - he had a wife and two daughters who were and are in their own right special people.

My father was not in the military - but he was a valued member of the team in Berlin that held up one end of the Berlin Airlift. If you don't know about the Airlift, shame on our educational system, because it was a part of what cemented our friendship with the German people, and served to underscore our commitment to what would become the cold war.

But for this generation, we might well be speaking German (or Japanese) now.

As time went by, it seems that patriotism has become passe, or even unfashionable, and love of country has been replaced by love of self.

The activities at Fort Hood, and the subsequent statements by our so-called leaders are beginning to worry me. We are forgetting from whence we came, and we are busily being apologized for by a set of leaders that doesn't seem to have learned history.

I am myself a veteran, although a cold war vet and not a "real" war vet. What i and those with whom I served did was not well known - indeed up until recent years it could not be discussed as it was classified. I am proud of my service, proud to have done what I did, and proud to have known many others who did the same sort of work, and did it very well.

I saw a bumper sticker that said "If you are reading this in English, thank a Vet."

Veteran's day must stay Veteran's day and not be diluted by being named something else. If we permit that, then the veterans have died in vain. History is not irrelevant. It must be known and taught, otherwise we'll get to do it all again. We have to stop coddling those who would do us violence, and start once again calling things what they are, not what we wish that they were.

Meanwhile, think on those veterans of yesterday, and the vets of today - they are doing things that need done for all of the rest of us - can we not at least show them respect for that?

Shooters, Fanatics and Political Correctness

Am I the only person in the world who finds it odd that our president urges caution, and urges us not to assume anything about the Fort Hopd Shooter, yet he himself went off not even half-cocked at that cop in New England who confronted his pal, mr gates (lowercase purely intentional)?

What am I failing to understand.

First of all, if ever there should have been a backlash against American Muslims, it should have been about the day after 9/11 - and it didn't happen. Unlike some folks in other places in the world, we do not permit ourselves the luxury of mob rule, and the American Muslims among us are far more likely to be good Americans than they are to be Jihadisti.

Does anyone else recognize the irony in a guy who is born in the USA of Jordanian parents calling himself a Palestinian? There's a red flag right there that got ignored for too long.

If there was any doubt about his intent, the choice of weapon (a pistol with magazines up to 30 rounds available, firing ammunition designed to defeat the vests of law enforcement personnel) and location (the place overseas troops go to turn in their weapons) should dispel any doubt about his intentions.

I am naturally suspicious of folks whose primary allegiance is to other than this great nation - particularly those who would be citizens and accept the benefits that that citizenship confers. I am suspicious of those who identify themselves as something else first, and then American. I am not German-American - I am American and if anyone cares my ancestry is German.

I am also suspicious of those who come here and then expect the nation to remake itself in their image. Come on, folks - if the place you left was superior, why did you leave? If, for instance, you consider us to be weak folks and think Sharia law is more appropriate, why did you not seek out a place to land where that is how things are run? Can it be that our ease acceptance of others causes some to think we are weak?

I have lived in other places for extended periods as a consequence of military service - but ultimately I returned home, because I am an American, and being something else required alterations in feelings and custom with which I was not wholly comfortable.

We need not fear unreasoned backlash against any group, but we do need to fear being so politically correct that we are afraid we'll piss someone off. That's cowardice, and it sets our values to whatever outsiders would have, not what we ourselves hold to be true.

Fort Hood was an act of terrorism on American soil. It took advantage of a number of circumstances peculiar to America, and it is time that we stopped trying so damned hard to be 'understanding' and called it what it is, Terrorism. Terrorists are, in my opinion, at their best when three days dead.

On rights, on earning rights, and on responsibility

I wish I could take credit for this, but I can't - someone else put me onto it. It's worth reading.

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom. When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.

'Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?'

She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'

They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.'

'No,' she said.

'Maybe it's our behavior.'

She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.'

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms. Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.

Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'

By the way, this is a true story. (Click on this link if you want more information: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/nodesks.asp .)

Please consider passing this along so others won't forget that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by the Veterans of the United States Military.

This lesson is no longer taught in schools, and in many places the military is ridiculed as the last place for those who otherwise might be homeless. The notion that the military is a place for losers is belied by the fact that we still speak English - had our military been other than dedicated, we might be speaking German or Japanese right now. All the talk by the appeasement monkeys accomplishes very little unless others recognize that there is intent to follow through on all promises of reaction.

In the last few days, we have remembrance of events in the world - the wall in Germany coming down and 9/11 here on our own soil.

It's also a time for remembering heroic efforts like the Berlin Airlift which helped keep a city from starving, and convinced the Bear that we were sincere in our wishes that the city stay at least partly free and its occupants not be starved into submission. It was thought to be an impossible task - our military personnel and civilian personnel showed that not to be the case.

We have lost most of that generation, but a few remain. We must be certain never to lose the memory of those heroes of yesteryear lest we repeat the actions that brought about the need for them.

/dismounting soapbox

Monday, another damn beautiful day!

It's a great day for a motorcycle ride. Alas, it is also a day during which I am obligated to work, or at least to put my face in the place.

It's also a sad day. I learned this morning that my father's only brother died late yesterday, the last of his generation within our family. He was 90, and a World War II Stalag survivor, and I wish that I had been able to be there when at last he felt like talking about his experiences there. I had hoped to visit him again one more time, but have had no excuse to travel to the west coast in quite some time - and before I could organize a trip, one of the prime reasons for the trip left us.

This has been a hard year for older folks among us. My brother's mother-in-law and my father's brother died within weeks of each other, and with them died some very interesting recordings of personal history.

Uncle Bob was 90 - an age that he never expected to reach, as his health had been impaired since his return from Europe and the war. Upon return, he joined his wife in California, and we were to see each other only seldom throughout the years, although it seemed when we were together that the conversation picked up from yesterday, and that we knew each other well.

We have only one relative left from the generation of our parents - both my wife and I have lost just about everyone from that generation, and we now have no place to go to learn of events from that generation's time except for books (and of course Google....) We have never known, and hopefully our children will never know the adversities which this now nearly departed generation faced over its lifetime - indeed we are not equipped even to imagine some of the hardships that particularly the veterans faced and overcame. We are aware that the world is a better place for their efforts, their bravery, and their unwillingness to settle for second best.

I fear I wax philosophical. At any rate, Uncle Bob has left the earth, and in leaving has left a hole in our lives that cannot be filled. Over time the edges of that hole will get chamfered and be less severe, but the hole itself will remain. Hopefully the next world has the rewards he earned and that he can enjoy them.

Sunday

It is Sunday, and I slept through church, but stayed here at home to do it. There were several things I had that I wanted to do today - but it is 72 degrees out, the sun is shining, it's November and I'm going motorcycling!

Should be a perfect day for it - not too much wind, and few clouds. The only question is, really, where should I go?

I think maybe I'll know when I get there.

Have a truly wonderful day!

Honor

Apparently there's a lot about being a Muslim that I don't understand.

In Arizona, a father used his Jeep to run over his own daughter and the mother of her American boy friend. His daughter was comatose for several days before dying. The murderer fled the country. So much for honor - an honorable man would not have killed his own child and then run, but stayed and stood for his principles.

Her sin that called the family honor into question consisted of deciding to marry whom she pleased, to get a college education, and make use of social networking used by most Americans in that age range - in other words, become too westernized.

Children are neither property nor are they pets, to be killed out of hand at the whim of a parent (unless, of course, they are not yet born...) and that one who comes here from another land has done so little of the homework as to believe that such an action is proper simply boggles my mind.

Apparently, however, the Powers that Be have decided that it necessary that we softpedal this behavior in order to avoid causing offense to folks who by their very behavior are not civilized, and are not therefore owed any special consideration.

From the reading I have done over the years, this sort of behavior is not something that the Prophet would have either encouraged or applauded - it is the mullahs that have encouraged this sort of barbarious behavior.

Now, if folks that live in Iraq want to behave this way, it is not necessarily any of my concern - they find it OK, and we are not required to take such action if we live among them, nor are we required to approve. We are, however, required not to interfere if such actions are in accordance with the law of the land in that part of the world.

Normally, Americans are a pretty tolerant bunch. We don't however allow such actions to be taken as a matter of law.

As a father, I can state without fear that many of the things my children have done would not have had my approval had they asked, and some might well have embarrassed me, but none dishonored me - the reflection is upon the adult doing the deed. I don't believe in collective guilt, and at some point my children stand or fall on their own. If they ask for my opinion, they get it and if they ask for my help in an endeavor that is not dishonorable they'll get all that I can give.

But once a child is an adult, there is no more that I can do - they then have their own identity.

I wonder - had that child been a son, would that so-called man felt free enough to kill him, or are sons more valuable? I think I know the answer, and it pleases me not one damn bit, because it does even more to devalue women.

At some point a stand must be taken, and such people must be held accountable - and folks who would join us here in this great nation have to understand the rule of law - and understand that such behavior is intolerable in a free nation.

I sincerely hope that that barbarian father is caught and returned to face the justice he has denied his own daughter.

Fort Hood

For some time now I have been waiting for a terrorist act on US soil. I think it finally showed up. Now that our leadershit is busy apologizing for us to all the available tyrants and despots, I expect there will be more - the natural result of appeasement and attempts to stall off a confrontation that only gets worse when delayed. Think what you will of George Bush, his actions kept the terrorists offshore - and now that the anti-Bush is in place, the terrorists are assured that if they act the only thing they'll reap will be more apologies and "understanding."

Make no mistake - the Islamic terrorists have only one plan - the elimination of anyone who finds Sharia law to be anything less than ideal. Ladies, get used to being cattle again, because that's how they like it. They are not interested in compromise, and their understanding of understanding is not agreeing to disagree, but capitulation.

One of the things that frightens these folks so about us is that we are a pretty tolerant bunch - they don't understand that folks who have disagreements do not have to kill one another over them. They feel that one of our strengths - the willingness to learn about others and adapt - is a huge weakness, because in the process of thinking there are folks who might be swayed to a point of view other than that with which they grew up - in short, they fear folks who think their own thoughts and are guided by them. They'd rather be surrounded by folks who don't think at all but do what they're told.

In that regard, they have a lot in common with Nancy Pelosi, although she'd be the first to go if they were in charge because, as you know, she is a mere woman, and woman can't be educated and are suitable only to keep the house, do what their husbands decree, make babies and take abuse.

I am no fan of warfare, but I believe that sometimes it is the only thing that works - appeasement only delays it (read the history of the World Wars for a set of good examples of this) but absent a regime change in the recalcitrant nation, appeasement eventually results in devaluing of the mores of the nation doing the appeasing, or its subjugation.

I am also slowly coming around to the belief that one of the qualifications for higher office ought to be prior military service. Most of our leaders today have no understanding of the military, and are inclined to treat it as if it were a gang of thugs, stupid at best. This is not the case and we have been proving since the war in Viet Nam that when the military is run by dithering civilians, people die unnecessarily. We are about to prove it again in Afghanistan - the President dithers, the generals are left holding the bag - insufficient resources, no direction yields dead soldiers who did not need to die. This is unconscionable unless you subscribe to the belief that the military is composed of folks better left out of the breeding pool.

Enough. In summary, I think Fort Hood is only the beginning. I'd like to be wrong. I think our Commander in Chief is in over his head, and innocent soldiers will die. I think that Congress has no credibility at all because they won't subscribe to the health plan they are going to try to force on all of us and won't make their plan available to all of us. I also find it stupid that they will fine us and jail us for not taking their "Health Plan" which will cost more and deliver less than I paid for years buying my own private health insurance.

And, if anyone cares, I did serve. I am a Viet Nam era vet who served four years in the Air Force Security Service.

Have a nice day.

Elections

Interesting results not far from us. Things to come?

I just heard about the Fort Hood shooting, and have to wonder how it can be determined that it was not an act of terrorism?

All this done by a shrink no less, apparently because of horror stories his family told him, or some such utter rubbish. Ought to send the SOB to Gitmo....

I'm angry. I'm also angry that he'll probably be found to be schizophrenic or somesuch and will never serve a day in durance vile.

I'd better go to bed, before I get really pissed! It was really miserable riding home this evening - I hate it when Daylight Savings goes away, and it is dark when I go out on that roof, find my motorcycle and start it up to go home. I feel so much more tired when it is already dark at go-home time. Tonight was cold, and between rain showers - I didn't get wet, but the streets were snotty and so were the commuters....

G'nite, y'all. Tomorrow will be better.

Wednesday's Ramblings

Furlough day today - A special day, granted by the Police Department and the City of Baltimore, during which I get to stay home and not get paid - which is not necessarily wrong, but is something I would prefer to have a way to arrange from time to time, but can only arrange when decreed by a higher authority.

The city can direct that I take a day off without pay - but there is no easy way for me to take a day off without pay without incurring raised eyebrows and questioning looks. And sometimes I'd like just to take a day off, even if it meant not getting paid for that day, just to save vacation and sick leave for times when I really was relaxing or sick.

Today I had Grandfather Duty - drop off and pick up a grandson from private school, as nobody else was available to do this, the school is close to home, and I had a furlough day I had to use. I didn't get much else done because of timing, but I did arrange for transport for said grandson with alacrity and timeliness.

It's not that I don't need money - the stuff gets away from me faster than I can believe - but once in a while I'd like to choose not to earn on a given day. I'd like to retire, but with the best of will I can't see it happening before 2012 or so and maybe not then if I can keep on being productive. I like what I do, and am not ready yet to hang it up - I'd just like to take a motorcycle or mental health day once in a while, unpaid and not open my future employment to question.

So today was a furlough day, and I stayed home, and got some stuff done on the server; made some space, created some ISO images to mount instead of burning to optical media, things like that - and clean up some space, standardize some MP3 tags - I guess I got a lot done.

But what I didn't get done that I ought to have done instead includes dragging some cat5 up into the living room because wireless is not fast enough for my media center PC, replace VISTA on this machine with XP because at least drivers for XP are available and reliable, and loading the VISTA that used to be on this machine onto the IBM IntelliStation that is waiting downstairs for the last half year for me to get around to getting it turned on and working.

I should also have gone outside and pumped up the suspension in my Honda so it won't fall over in the carport, and checked the tire pressure on the Kawasaki and the Volvo. Maybe I should take another furlough day tomorrow and do those things, since it won't be long before it is just too cold for me to want to go outside and do things like this.

I'm missing choir tonight for my once-a-month Ramblers meeting. I get there all the time in the summer, but in the winter it is tough because it comes on Wednesday, along with choir rehearsal. I married the choir director, she has expectations....

So it's time for the first Bones fix of the evening, then it is off to Ramblers, then back for more Bones. Then sleep then work.

Just another day, I guess.

I forgot why I started this; getting old, I guess, so I'd better wrap it up.

Y'all have a good evening.

Government Budgeting Problems

I have the good fortune to work in a relatively large city as an employee of the Police Department. This means I fall under civil service, and when the city is running low on money, they give us days off without paying us.

I understand how that happens, and this is not a polemic about the fact that these things are necessary, but it is an expression of wonderment at the procedures used.

Here, there were three levels of furlough for civilians -

1. Earnings up to $50k - 5 furlough days
2. Earnings up to $100k - 8 furlough days
3. Earnings over $100k - 10 furlough days

The days were to be taken whenever, and the deduction, instead of occurring during the cycle in which the days were taken, was spread over the balance of the payroll year.

Someone who thought that the folks in range 1 probably need everything they make, and was more interested in getting a bunch of Fridays off than in getting rich, offered to take those days as added furlough days allowing the other folks whose days he was taking to avoid losing money - and in the process save the city more money, since his pay was in range 2 of the furlough groups.

The offer was made, but it went nowhere. No explanation was offered as to why the city wanted not to take the opportunity to save more money - it just could not be done.

The individual involved did try to do something good for his fellow workers and for the city, and the offer was not even acknowledged, nor was a reason for the impossibility ever offered.

How it can be that a city so troubled that it can't make a payroll without hacking away at the number of days of work its employees has can afford to fail to double the savings in one small area is beyond me - but it did happen just as I describe - I was there.