The SFVT come up every now and then on a military forum I frequent. A current member of that group was trying to paint them as apolitical, composed equally of all political parties, guys who just wanted the truth out. I decided to do some research and take him to pieces.
I'm not quite sure where I stand on the current conflict between Israel and Lebanon. I'm not firmly on either side because there are elements on both sides that are in the right, and both that are in the wrong. What I do know is that somebody needs to work this out because otherwise it won't end well. The problem is, some people out there do not want it to end well, and in fact they see this conflict as a sign that the end of the world is near and jesus is coming soon. This movement is called Christian Zionism.
The Primaries are coming up, of course, and I was doing my homework prior to registering. Problem with absentee voting as a military servicemember overseas and away from home is that I don't know who the hell these people are, you know? Since I'm registering Democrat I was looking at the 2 Democratic challengers to Judy Biggert in IL-13. Regrettably, my home of record is about 10 minutes south of the southern border of IL-6, so I'm not gonna be able to vote for Tammy Duckworth. IL-13 is looking pretty interesting though. I'll lay out the candidates, Democrat and Republican. The cream of the crop, the bug-crazy guy, I save him for last.
I'm not going to bother writing about Judy Biggert, she's a standard Republican Congresscritter, nuff said. And she's the incumbent and it's the challengers that are interesting.
Many of us have noticed a few things. Things that have stopped being covered in the media, things that exist for a time but then the articles mysteriously disappear. Transcripts, not only of White House events but even of talk shows on TV are altered before posted on official websites. The focus of public outrage is easily shifted from one topic to another, and those of us with an attention span are left wondering how everyone else doesn't notice that something is wrong. We were at war in Afghanistan. We still are, people are still deployed over there, but now we are at war with Iraq. Except that things must be going fine in Iraq, because now the big story is Iran.
There's been a lot in the news recently about Iran and nuclear weapons. The perspective from which most people are looking at the situation is that Iran will turn into another Iraq, and we'll screw ourselves over with another war we can't win, and we'll go on and blunder in anyway. Partly true, but it misses the big picture. The threat here in this situation is a global one, not limited to Iran. In fact, it could be argued that Iran's role in all of this is extemporaneous. I'll elaborate.
Shortly after the FISA and wiretapping story broke, some idjit wrote the Stars and Stripes praising the President for the program. I wrote in a reply. I was very surprised to see that reply published in the paper today, especially since both times I've written before, they've had me redo it a few times for clarity and brevity, and they've needed to get a bunch of info from me. I guess this time I just got it right the first time, and taking a look at it in the paper, I really think I did. My goal was to educate on the issue of FISA. It's been horrendously distorted by right wing elements in the media; we aren't saying that the government shouldn't listen in on Al Qaeda. By all means, go ahead. If they find probable cause and get a warrant, they can listen in on me talking dirty with my girlfriend. I'm not happy about it, but that's how the rules work. The problem with "illegal wiretapping" is not the "wiretapping", it's the "illegal". So here's the letter I was replying to, and my own letter afterwards.
Recently I picked up a graphic novel at, of all places, the BX. I had no idea what it was or what it was about, except that it was a DC-Vertigo title and therefore likely to be pretty good. Turns out it was really good. Afterwards I found out that they're making a movie of it soon, which looks to be really good.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Basically, the U.S. Ambassador told Canada they better not let their candidates say any mean things about us in their elections, and Canada said "Bite me, eh?"
Canadian Bacon anyone? Oh, wait, Freedom Bacon. Excerpts after the break.
I'm a nerd. Not just a nerd, but a gamer nerd. One of the games I play is made by White Wolf, it's called "Vampire". There a version set in the modern time called "Vampire: The Requiem", and there is a version set in medieval times called "Vampire: Dark Ages". No matter the era, it's a very political game. Being very old, vampires have little better to do then politics, and they've got decades, if not centuries or even millenia of experience.
I'm back on Okinawa and out of Iraq, and I got my internet connection hooked up today.
I probably won't be posting as much as I had been though, because here I've got lots of IRL stuff to do. No more twelve hours shifts in a power plant staring at a computer screen, you know? But I keep fighting the good fight in my way.
Some of my gamer friends are talking about moving to New Zealand when they get out of the military, both because it's fricking Middle Earth, and because nobody has any great desire to go back to the United States.
And in other news, I got my thankyou letters from PFLAG, GFW, Feed the Children, the Red Cross, Massas for Congress, and my ACLU membership card and window sticker. That last bit I'm guessing will have my bosses sweating.
Well folks, Websense is back on, and DailyKos is blocked under the category "Message Boards and Clubs". This means that unless Websense goes off, I will be offline until I get back to Okinawa in 2-3 weeks. See ya then.
Yes, this really really sucks. Not a whole lot I can do about it. Maybe somebody noticed me and decided to lock things down again because of it, but more likely one of the officers at COMM got a bee up his butt or he noticed that Websense is off (many people still had no clue and it's been off for a month), and he told the COMM guys to turn it right back on. Either way, no more comments or diaries from me until I get back to Okinawa or, if I'm really lucky, until they turn off Websense again. Keep fighting.
-This message has been posted by my non-military buddy Antero, with my permission. I'm jabbausaf and I approve this message.
[I'm Antero, and I approve this approval of this message!]
The brunt of hurricaine Katrina missed New Orleans. Had it hit directly, nothing could have spared the city. On Monday, we thought NO was in the clear. We soon found out we were wrong, as the levees broke and water poured through the cities.
Bush can't stop a hurricaine, nobody expects him to or holds him responsible for that. But the levees, flood control projects, and the lack of the National Guard, well, responsibility for that falls squarely on his shoulders.
Update [2005-8-31 9:18:3 by jabbausaf]:I showed the first article to a coworker. He said it better then I ever could.
"That's so fucking stupid."
Indeed
There's plenty of fucking morons out there saying that Cindy Sheehan is providing encouragement to terrorists. That American soldiers are dying because of her. There's a whole fucking lot of this on the "Cindy doesn't speak for me" tour, and what a load of crap that is. CNN pointed out the other night that they're acually funded almost entirely by MoveAmericaForward.org, which I got a kick out of. Anyway, what I want to know from these fucking mental giants is this:
Found these on the SFTT forum, thought you all might like them.
Activist Judge: A judge who attempts to protect the rights of minorities--most especially homosexuals--against the tyranny of the majority.
Alarmist: Any respected scientist who understands the threat of global warming.
Allies: These are foreign government officials who accept and follow anything that Republicans demand, even if detrimental to their respective nations.
Alternative Energy Resources: New locations to drill for oil and gas.
American Interests: Anything that would benefit the financial needs, assets and wealth of US big corporations to the complete exclusion of American people's interests, like in the case of invading Afghanistan and Iraq to protect "American interests."
I opposed the Iraq war from the start. I thought I had a few pretty good reasons for it (still do), chief among those that I didn't think the people running the show could run it well, and I thought we had bigger threats on our table to deal with. The people running the show were way too eager to go in and not really thinking about the aftermath, they had financial ties to a lot of the companies that were looking to make a lot of money from the whole deal, and we still had unfinished business in Afghanistan. But that's in the past, you know. Not a whole lot I can do about it now except bring it up around election times as an example of prior bad judgment. Now we're stuck, we got to figure a way out.
