Tag: Open Thread

I went to a local “cat show” and I was taken a back for a moment when I walked in and saw rows of cages. I guess I thought they would all be hanging out on recliners like at my house. We have an awesome recliner that has heat, massage, and was actually made in America, and it looks comfortable. I can’t actually verify that because I am nervous about sitting in it. I don’t know what will happen if I do. The overlords might punish me.

hey hey we’re the republicans

Late Night News

Iraqis see red as U.S. opens world’s biggest embassy

By Howard LaFranchi, The Christian Science Monitor

Thu Apr 24, 4:00 AM ET

…

“It is a symbol of occupation for the Iraqi people, that is all,” says Anouar, a Baghdad graduate student who thought it was risk enough to give her first name. “We see the size of this embassy and we think we will be part of the American plan for our country and our region for many, many years.”

The 104-acre, 21-building enclave – the largest US Embassy in the world, similar in size to Vatican City in Rome – is often described as a “castle” by Iraqis, but more in the sense of the forbidden and dominating than of the alluring and liberating.

…

Designed according to what are called the “Inman standards” – the results of a 1985 commission on secure embassy construction headed by former National Security Agency head Bobby Inman – recent embassies have been built as fortified compounds away from population centers and surrounded by high walls.

…

The $740 million compound – expected to cost more than $1 billion a year to operate – was originally expected to cost $600 million to build and was to open in September 2007. Design changes and faulty construction caused repeated delays.

…

But even the embassy’s opening may not be assuaging diplomats’ concerns about assignments in Iraq. Last week, the State Department warned that it may start ordering employees to serve at the embassy next year if more volunteers do not come forward for the 300 posts expected to open.

But wait!

Thursday,  I  Think Strangely About  Serious  Shit!

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Well! This is strange… doing TITS, ASS again…

I haven’t been, for a month of Thursdays….

I’ve been hung down, brung down & all kinds of mean, nasty, crazy things….

I’ve had the flu, the Nipah virus, the malingering grippe, & the Andromeda Strain!

I almost didn’t come back, just so I could see what I had next!

Luckily for me (& you!) I have an Great Friend nocatz…

who stepped up to the plate…who was my pinch-hitter…

& did a damn fine job of it too, batting a thousand!

I’m thinking maybe nocatz should be the TITS,ASS man!?!!

Gettysburg.

When I was but a lad one of my few enjoyable experiences in Boy Scouts was camping one weekend in Gettysburg Pennsylvania.  Among other memorable events I got to take a wizz on Ike Eisenhower’s fence.

That was not the main program.  Mouldering away in some dusty storage box is my uniform shirt with my “Blue and Grey” patch.  This was 2 days of structured hiking and lectures covering salient features of the Union and Confederate lines from all three days of conflict as well as some visits to local tourist traps like the Cyclorama.  We might have visited the Cemetery for a recitation of the Gettysburg Address but if so it did not make that strong an impression on me.

Little did actually, because of the structure.  First you did the Union line, all three days, and you started out in Gettysburg and worked your way down to Little Round Top visiting each monument in line, listening to the lecture from the Scout Guide Book read by the Scoutmaster or designee (suck ups) and copying the appropriate phrase from the monument into your proof book that you turned in at the end of the hike so you could get a passing grade for not being a slacker.

It’s not very hard walking, about 10 miles a day, but it does take about 10 or 12 hours because of lectures and breaks and it kind of goes Day 1, 2, and 3; Day 3; Day 2.  The next day you do the Confederate line.

About early afternoon, on the second day of your stay, when it’s hot and the sun is high in the sky, you arrive on the edge of the wood on Seminary Ridge across the field from Emmetsburg Road and the monuments you visited the day before and you visit the monument of Edward Porter Alexander.

Then you walk across the field, climb over the fence (probably don’t let you do that now), cross the road (looking both ways as good Scouts are trained) and visit the monument of Lew Armistead (if you are as lazy as I am you have already copied down the magic phrase the day before so you can kind of ignore this part).

And then you walk back and continue your tour.

I frequently wish that I could visit again now that I am no longer 14.  I would surely structure it differently and pay more attention.

After July 3rd, 1863 the Army of Northern Virgina was no longer able to conduct offensive operations in Union territory.  Until April 9th, 1865 all they could do was retreat with occasional local counterattacks until they were destroyed in a trench warfare battle of attrition in front of Petersburg.

On July 4th, 1863 John C. Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg.  People who don’t understand that Generals study logistics and not tactics sometimes argue about the relative importance of these 2 events.  I say this-

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,

Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

I recently had the opportunity to see “The Devil Came on Horseback” on the National Geographic channel (where it will be shown again Friday at 6 p.m. EDT).

It is the story of a U.S. Marine Captain named Brian Steidle, who takes an ‘oversight’ position in Darfur, armed only with a camera, to monitor a cease-fire between the Muslim north and the Christian south.