So Much For Don't Ask Don't Tell

Raw Story:

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today circulated a letter among his Senate colleagues for signature that will be sent to President Bush in support of General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The letter will be sent to the White House tomorrow.

Coverage of General Pace's comments

and of his subsequent backtracking...

Because what the Pentagon (and the Republican Party) needs right now is more controversy...

When Rainouts Become the Norm...

Just got back from a friend's house where we watched the 'Stros younger players come into a tie game with the Braves and completely blow it open. Maybe there is some hope for this season with this crew of youngsters. They're sure going to make some decisions on the final cut day hard for Garner and company, especially Hunter Pence. He'll probably start the season in AAA at Round Rock, but I'm looking for him to come up to Houston by midseason.

Meanwhile, it's refreshing to see other media outlets paying attention to the Global Warming issue, even if they are riding on the back of the hot story topic of the month (although Al Gore's documentary was released last summer, and the subject of reports like this and this has been talked about for years...)

Sports Illustrated(italics are mine):

Global warming is not coming; it is here. Greenhouse gases -- most notably carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and gas -- are trapping solar heat that once escaped from the Earth's atmosphere. As temperatures around the globe increase, oceans are warming, fields are drying up, snow is melting, more rain is falling, and sea levels are rising.

All of which is changing the way we play and the sports we watch. Evidence is everywhere of a future hurtling toward us faster than scientists forecasted even a few years ago.

Here's the entire article.

The New Boss: Slightly (insert difference here) than the Old Boss

I don't know how Arthur managed to type this out without smashing his keyboard. He seemed a little more himself later...

Nicole at Crooks and Liars:

I'm so angry about this that my fingers are literally shaking as I type. The reasonable adult side of me is trying to find a reason why they are doing this–not enough votes, too much real work on their plate now to deal with a hypocritical issue, trying to keep focused on specific issues, etc.–but the far less reasonable part of me is ready to throw something. How many more people have to die for lies? How much more destruction must we wreak globally before we can count on our elected representatives actually doing what is right, not what is political?

Indeed...

Quite a second coming the Democrats' retaking of the Congress is turning out to be...

They're only mistakes if you get caught...

Raw Story:

At a press briefing this afternoon, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acknowledged that mistakes were made in the firing of US attorneys, and promised to "find out what went wrong, so it won't happen again."

Gonzales continued to assert that he stood by the decision to fire the attorneys.

"I stand by the decision and I think it was the right decision," he said.

So, he's promising to "find out what went wrong" with the process of the firing, and not whether the firings were justified and not politically motivated?

How many other 'mistakes' are out there that we don't know about simply because the right person hasn't spoken up or incriminating emails haven't been opened by the wrong person?

The Tenacity of Amendment I (despite repeated assaults)

The one thing I neglected to mention in my last post was the fact that the opportunity to express one's thoughts in a blog or any forum is an invaluable one. There aren't many other places in the world where it is as easy and permitted as here in the US. And yet there are people everywhere who risk life and limb to speak out and try to get their voices heard.

So, another reason to blog: Because you can.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Please do not feed the overactive brain...

My brain drives me crazy a lot of the time. It has this propensity to take off on its own and go wandering through the wilds of speculation on an infinite number of subjects. This happens without warning, and can last less than a minute, or it can go on for hours without affecting what I'm engaged in currently at work, or home, or in the truck, etc. The subject matter can range from the mundane details of my personal life (see this post), to why the world seems to be exceptionally FUBAR these days, to the more philosophical lines of thinking.

Not long after I started writing as regularly as I can I saw a post by Atrios which attempted to answer the apparently common wailing cry of many bloggers about why no one reads their writing, and it got me thinking about how I'm approaching it and why this blog's readership not a life and death affair.

I started writing back in April of 2006 not long after I created my Myspace profile in an attempt to chronicle the various trials and tribulations that I had and was still experiencing with my old Chevy trucks. After catching up to the present, I continued to write infrequently about what was going on in my life and what my thoughts were about certain subjects that I was moved to comment on. I vaguely thought that it might be interesting back-round and fleshing-out material for someone who might stumble across my page and wonder "well, all this is kinda interesting, but what's this clown's real deal?" Maybe it's a little bit of an ego trip, but, so be it. Once I saw that there were a few folks out there reading on a regular basis, I found that it was a good forum for me to write about some of the issues I'm more passionate about and get some feedback and/or other views.

I can't find the post to link to for the life of me, but Arthur Silber wrote that a blog is in essence an intimate emotional and intellectual diary the sort of which has never been known before (or words to that effect). This kinda cuts to the root of the whole affair, although I think he lays it on a bit thick with the whole "I don't care if anyone reads any of these posts/rants/essays" here. He may feel that way, but when one keeps repeating something over and over again, it gains the appearance of being an attempt to convince oneself (nonetheless, I enjoy his writing and hope that the pieces that I link to are useful to you). Maybe that's what this is for me, but I hope not. I like to think that I"m fairly well aware of my own self and what my intentions are.

When I started writing about the current course that the US is on at the encouragement of Arthur, I knew that there would be some folks reading what I had to say, which was encouraging, but not the primary motivator. I think I write for three reasons:

I like to write. I did a lot of it when I was in high school, and am not sure what happened in college and afterwards to diminish my output. Time was more of a commodity, but time is never a real factor if you really want to do something, as is evidenced here.

I feel very strongly about many issues in our world these days, and I feel that the more people know about them and how they are affected by them, the better. Even if they don't immediately act on them or never act on them at all, the fact that they were made aware of the issue in question is never a bad thing. this element was a less frequent (but highly amusing to some, the Jaybird in particular, mainly in terms of its format)facet of the blog until very recently.

My mind. My hyperactive, scatterbrained, sock-worrying mind. Hopefully this is a good way to relieve the pressure on my skull from all the thoughts cranked out by that overactive little bugger. Hopefully the release of some of those thoughts will also decrease the chance of catastrophic internal spontaneous combustion resulting from the high friction generated by all those random lines of thought rubbing against each other. I'm hoping it'll help with my dreams as well, since a lot of this cranial material will be put down on paper for all to see as opposed to clanging around for a while, getting bulldozed down into my subconscious only to be spewed back up when I'm in deep REM sleep in the form of wacky dreams that fade away before I'm even half awake (except for the one about the brown bag lunch where it was brainstormed to use "Like A Rock" for the Moon radio spot, right Skye?) I have no idea if there is any credence to this theory, but it sounded good when I read it in Christine long ago.

So here it is, in all its undiluted glory. I'm glad those of you who have been reading for a while are sticking it out. I am certainly not trying to tout myself as some genius prolific thinker on a level higher than everyone else. I have a tendency to rip off posts and throw them up after a cursory proof, mainly to catch spelling, grammatical, and HTML tagging errors, which results in some posts going up that have a slightly different tone to them than intended. If I piss you off, sorry, but I think that too much second guessing ultimately dilutes the attempt to convey true feeling and opinion. If I'm dead wrong on something I'm citing or trying to say please say something. Those of you who know me might be saying to yourselves "oh yeah, he always takes criticism well" and your experience justifies that, but I"d like to think that I've mellowed slightly over the years...

Any further right and they'll be on the left...

John issued a challenge to everyone to find examples of Fox's right wing slanted coverage of... well, everything, it would seem. There's a great compilation of some of the more extreme instances of this practice here.

Meanwhile, the list of fall guys in the Army Hospital Scandal keeps growing. I guess when a step like this is taken, our fearless leaders feel they have earned the latitude to go forward with a plan like this. I hate to think what the men and women in the military are feeling about the treatment they're getting from the government of the country they are serving to defend and protect. You have to think that they can only take so much mistreatment before something gives. With things progressing as they are, there's going to be another generation of neglected, misunderstood, angry veterans with nowhere to turn. What will happen when they decide to take matters into their own hands and make a statement of some sort to call attention to the shortcomings of the government that they fought for which has since turned its back on them? We saw what happened when Timothy McVeigh's frustration with our government boiled over after our last excursion into Iraq...

Some resources that are providing support to veterans and those currently serving can be found here, here, here, and here.