• The cozy confines of my liberal bias

    These figures come to you courtesy of the Associated Press (7/20/2004),

    – 890 American military personnel have died in Iraq since March 2003, when military operations began.
    – 752 American military personnel have died in Iraq since “combat operations” ended on May 1, 2003.

    —

    I hear that the current administration is now interested in pursuing a possible al-Qaeda / Iran / 9-11 link. Personally, I think this is just groovy. Why, this could be the beginning of a foreign policy not seen since World War II. First, we blame all of our domestic problems on terrorism. (“Why have your wages, adjusted for inflation, fallen or at best remained stagnant over the last ten years? Terrorism is to blame!”) Next, find a group of people, preferably a country, to pin it on. Once you’ve picked a country all you have to do is invade – and waaah lah! You’re taking charge! You’re the man with the plan! You’re taking the bull by the horns and shoving a grenade up its keester! What you leave behind won’t matter; your problem is the next election cycle – not more long term problems like global stability. So what if there are more terrorists in Iraq now than before the invasion. With the current education system, your average citizen can’t say “self-fulfilling prophecy” three times fast, let alone define it. Casualty reports and allegations of prisoner mistreatment may be a problem, but remember that you have an advantage: the control of information. If you know it’s bound to come out, control its release. You’d be amazed what presentation can do for a message. For example: what ever you do, don’t allow pictures of flag draped coffins coming off of the plane. Let them eat numbers. Numbers may be upsetting, but a picture is worth a thousand numbers. Pictures were an absolute disaster in Viet Nam. (Who says we don’t learn from history’s mistakes?)

    Ah, but in all seriousness, I have to fess up. In my own uneducated, relatively uninformed way, I kind of thought Iran was a better “harborer of W.M.D. / link to terrorism” candidate than Iraq all along. It’s too bad we used up all of our credibility on the wrong side of Mesopotamia.

    All of this would be a fantastic entry, if only more people weren’t upset about foreign policy after all. Oh well, I had fun writing it anyway. Sometimes flexing a little cynicism can be fun, if not a little cathartic. You are now free to return to a more moderate message, already in progress in a media outlet (not owned by Uncle Rupert) near you.

  • About the laundry

    Yesterday morning my wife asked me to do some laundry.

    “Cheryl? The sum total of whites in the hamper equals six. That’s four socks and two shirts. Are you sure you want that done?”

    To make a long response short, she answered in the affirmative. Sometime later, she asked if I had made any progress with the laundry.

    “Cheryl, there were only six things to wash. I think I can somehow manage to fit that into my busy Sunday schedule.”

    If you are not new to this site, you know that I am a male of the species. If you are a fellow male of the species, you know that any sarcastic statement regarding housework has approximately a 92.3% chance of later being used to swat you in the head.

    At around 10:02 p.m., my growing bride asked me if I had finished the laundry.

    “DOAH!”

    I really ought to try harder to control my sarcasm.

  • A legend in his own seat

    Who among us hasn’t dreamed that they would publish a personal web site and attract dozens of visitors from all over the county? Yes, it’s a dream come true. Why just the other day I checked my server log and found that an unprecedented sixty (60) requests had been processed by my server for my little guideline spreadsheet. If each one of those requests represents an individual, then that’s almost as many people as I send Christmas cards every year!

    You might think that this is an exercise in self-depreciating fun; and while you would be right on target, I will admit that I was a little surprised to see even that many hits. I can count the number of people who really care about updates to this spreadsheet on two fingers; and since sixty is greater than two, it is a surprise. Then if that were not enough, my server log registered its first hit from a search engine (for the search: “child support guidelines”).

    Don’t worry folks; I’ll always be “Johnny from the block.”