mi hombre no necessita huevos de tortuga

For anyone who needs help translating, that means that "my man doesn't need the eggs of turtles."

I have been posting more pictures recently but this one is a little racy, so I will just link to it...

It's not that racy, feel free to click...just a spanish model in a swimsuit.

I am not sure what is weirder, the fact that spanish men eat sea turtle eggs to improve their "potency," or the fact that some public service announcement is using a hot spanish model announcing to the world that she prefers men that don't eat sea turtle eggs...

Katrina

A hurricane has hit the coast near Biloxi and New Orleans and while the winds did a lot of damage it appears that the flooding and storm surge did more.

Thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who has been affected.

I'm not an elitist, I'm just better than you...

If you haven't seen the "letter from the blue states;" I recommend it....it's pretty funny, and comedy does have a way of disarming.

here's a link: http://www.smays.com/default/2005/08/embarrassed_to_.html

After all, a majority of my age group watch the "fake news" of John Stewart more than the "real news" of CBS.

Not to pee on the parade of secession, but clearly we are not red states and blue states, we are little blue enclaves of densely populated cities--that are far more liberal than the rest of the country as a whole---amongst a sea of "red".

some humor

If you are easily offended by course language I recommend watching this and then very carefully attempting to predict when the cursing will start and stop by holding your hands over your ears and then releasing...

http://www.illwillpress.com/tech.html

pet peeves are my pet peeve

what does pet peeve mean?

regardless, I always enjoy the level to which people take their pet peeves seriously, as though their idosyncratic behavior in response to something that many other people would find completely normal is justification in and of itself for odd behavior on their part....

that may not make any sense, so let me provide an example: I know people that won't read an email if it requires "scrolling."
What if the answer to all of the world's problems are at the bottom of the page?
Steve will not read a message unless the "subject line" is filled out and descriptive of what the message contains.
What if I trick him? I think I will try that, I will put the entire messsage in the subject line and then in the message, I will put the one word description of what the message will contain....
I have a friend that refuses to listen to messages.
What if I call him and say, "I can't call you back but I am stuck under a truck, so please come get me or I will die."

Jobenads

I once was required to write a philosophical metaphysical theory, and as I recall, the professor and I were not exactly seeing things eye to eye (in fact I believe it was the start of my "issues with authority" streak)

Anyway, I fancied myself a scientist and decided to attempt to explain the universe by breaking it down into infinitely small particles. Take the smallest particle we are aware of....let's say a quark although I bet scientist have broken those into smaller parts...and no matter how small you get you could split it into 2...that reduction ad absurdum will approach nothing and the very smallest thing would be called a "jobenad."

To this day I have no idea what she really wanted, but it was certainly not what I gave her...

SOLD!

I attended the foreclosure REO auction and as I suspected, I was not terribly interested in either property....not as interested and the high bidder was.

Good learning experience, though. A little excitement during my lunch break...

One sold for 60k and the other for 37k and to be honest, I cannot imagine how either one will be a profitable venture for he high bidder. Both were rough, and the one that sold for 37 was just recently on the market at 49 and didn't sell, so one would have to assume that nobody offered even 40 for it....so this poor guy just bought it for what I would imagine is more than it is worth and then he will put some money into fixing it...

Like I said, interesting learning experience.

fireworks and children...

That's my oldest on the left and my youngest on the right, I am the blurry guy knealing in the yellow haze.

over there

I know that it has stirred up controversy, and some vets have proclaimed it to be good while others say its bad, but I have really enjoyed Bochco's new cable program Over There.

It is, of course fictionalized, and sensational in ways, but the story lines so far seem completely plausible. There are technical inaccuracies to be sure, but all in all, it is some of the most compelling programming I have seen.

It doesn't have a huge political axe to grind, either, it appears so far to not be even considering dealing with the political justifications for war, it is much more about the 5-10 individual soldiers doing very difficult missions, and all of the attendant moral and ethical dilemmas that can and surely do arise in those extreme situations.

Highly recommend it, I think it is on at 9:00 pm on Wednesdays and then it reruns at 10. (check your local listings)

speaking of old economies....

I have laid the foundation, the financial groundwork if you will, for my coming world dominance through hegemonic and imperial aquisition of lands.

I will be attending an auction on Thursday, and if Bob Barker is there (if the Price is Right), I might have my first money pit...I mean investment property.

I owned two houses at once in the past but it was long, painful, and not profitable in any way. You can see why I would want to repeat the experience....

But, to link it to my last post, my intentions would be to exchange something of value (my money) for something else of value (a house that no one wants and the lender foreclosed on). I will then put a minimal amount of elbow grease into it, elbow grease is of a lower viscosity than most other greases and therefore can spread evenly without any thermal breakdown. And then enter into another exchange, giving up the house that no one wants to someone who has money (that I want). I also intend to perform these exchanges in such a fashion that in the first exchange I give up less than I receive in the second exchange. I will keep the difference and name it "profit." It's a crazy idea, but it might just work. I wonder if anyone else has tried such a foolhardy endeavor...
Isn't capitalism neat?

New Economies....and other unicorns

Something I have noticed frequently on blogs, especially the prophets of blogging, is the seemingly endless stream of predictions that blogs will replace old media, that traditional forms of media are dying, that this "new economy" is what will replace it.

They will reference the fact that thousands are started every day and that large percentages of people read them and that content is no longer king etc....

see here for an example...http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2005/08/23/who-wants-to-own-content/

And while Jeff is eminently qualified and more experienced in all things media than I will ever be, I think that they have gotten disracted by something shiny...

I can say that because I can pontificate and ruminate about damn near anything I want without any qualifications...that's what a blog is, an unsolicited opinion or musing...but let me try to back up my point.

Capitalism, ie "business" is all about the voluntary exchange of goods or services predicated on a mutually beneficial desired result (either real or imagined).

I have shoes and no money, you have money and no shoes....maybe we can work out some sort of exchange....

It's pretty simple, Adam Smith referred to it in this from the "Wealth of Nations"--- It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.

Or try this: Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.

My point is this, blogs are worth exactly as much as is put into them. (very little) There is nothing of value to be exchanged--which is why no one pays me for it. I give everyone on the planet my free opinion, and they give me their free time. Neither of us would enter into the transaction if it cost more than that.
If, on the other hand, I was attracting sooooo much attention that millions of eyeballs were giving me their time, then possibly some third party would find that valuable and I would have something (of perceived value) to provide and they would exchange me something that I value....(same old advertising economy with a new medium)

The more that bloggers predict the triumph of blogging, the more it seems obvious that it is not a "new economy" but simply a new medium in the same old economy....

lack of updates

sorry for the lack of updates. no excuses....

while you wait check out my links...
smays is great
jollymon is always full of jamba
the best of the web is like, the best...of the web

I have soccer practice tonite witha bunch of little munchkins, so I intend to indoctrinate that fiery aggression into each of their little minds and then head home to start a new thought...

I'l give you a hint (here is the teaser) it will be chock a block full of autralian idioms.

nice bridge

I can imagine that this was a railroad bridge that was built in the 30's due to some make work program to give some of the poor folks in rural Missouri something to work on...

Last weekend the water was very much higher, I crawled out onto the bridge (there is no floor) and stood out on one of the support beams. I am not sure what drives me to do stuff like that, but I have been doing it ever since I was old enough to scare myself. I am sure it is indicative of a pathological psychotic issue...

my better half

for anyone who has wondered aloud, who is this djobe, and what poor woman is stuck with him? Yes, that is a self portrait smirk...

new Dell

I bought a new Dell, and I guess that is the catalyst of the new format....

It's funny how wanting to share can turn into an obsession...

Now that I have the pix thing figured out, look for plenty of wild shots, some are going to be easily explanable, and some will not.

Edward R Murrow

For what it is worth, the quote at my mast head is an Edward R Murrow quote, and therefore more valuable than a mere mortal's quote....

Another bad beat

When your short stacked, you have to weigh your options.

A pocket pair is nice.....

A pocket pair of sevens won't hold up...

Who doesn't love the game?

SS DD

If you are a frequent guest, you may notice a new look. If you are not, (a frequent guest) then you won't. (Same great content, with fewer calories)

I am also going to write more extensively about stuff I like and get at least partially away from all the political vitriol....'cuz we have all the vitriol we need.

I spent the weekend kayaking with some hippies in the rain, we found some great spots where the current was strong enough to literally surf, if you could get your boat in the "sweet spot" and it was exhilirating to sit in a rapid, with the rush of noise surrounding you, and balancing yourself in a tumultuous current.

I think I have some photos of a trip when the water was calm, I didn't bring my camera on the most recent one, because of the water hazards....water+digital camera=problem.

No excuse, sir!

My best friend growing up, and best man in my wedding and basically the closest thing I ever had to a brother is a Captain in the United States Air Force.

He tells me of some of the more amusing stories of going through one of the most difficult training programs ever devised, first year at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

According to him, there is only one possible answer to a "why" question. And that is, "no excuse, sir!"

It's simple: you can think of lot's of those types of questions---why are you so stupid? Why do you keep breathing? Why are you tired? The questions can even be phrased in a more stealthy version of a "why" question. ex: How come you let one of your squad fall behind?

I have an enormous amount of respect for him and his ability to persevere--- through what at times must have been a hell on earth that was never going to end. He came out the other side, a stronger, more intelligent man than when he entered.

One of these things is not like the others

Remember the Sesame Street game? We see four objects, a mop, a broom, a push-broom and a police car and it poses the question, "which one of these things is not like the others?"

Well how bout this little bit of equivalence in the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

This so-called "kinship care" is the largely unseen fallout from a confluence of social problems -- parental drug addiction, incarceration, mental illness and, more recently, military service -- that have left about 2.3 million children in the United States raised by their relatives, mainly grandparents.

So we have four "social problems" as contributing factors to "kinship care," right?

I know that pointing out the media bias is old and boring and ho hum, but sometimes it creeps into the strangest places. I don't think Americans care if there is a slant to their news, they just prefer to have the "journalists" admit their own agendas...

man-bites-dog

BY JAMES TARANTO Tuesday, August 16, 2005 3:08 p.m. EDT
The Crippled-Vet Ploy

There's plenty of blame to go around for the appalling spectacle of Sheehanoia, but one name that hasn't been mentioned is that of John Kerry. Kerry might have invented, and he certainly pioneered, the tactic being employed by those who are exploiting Cindy Sheehan to further their political agenda. As he explained to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971:

"I called the media. . . . I said, 'If I take some crippled veterans down to the White House and we chain ourselves to the gates, will we get coverage?' 'Oh, yes, we will cover that.' "

Do you remember the media spectacle in Crawford, Texas, a year ago? It was precisely the crippled-vet ploy. Kerry sent triple amputee Max Cleland, who had been defeated in his 2002 Senate re-election bid, to deliver a letter to President Bush demanding that the president denounce the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. This move was stunning in its audacity, though not its effectiveness: Here was Kerry, staking his campaign on his authority as a Vietnam veteran, appealing to the authority of another Vietnam veteran in an effort to silence Vietnam veterans who opposed him.

The media love this sort of story because of its man-bites-dog nature: Vietnam veteran says fellow vets are war criminals! Sept. 11 widows blame Bush for their husbands' deaths! Gold Star Mother says son died in vain! But isn't the shtick getting a little old by now?

In any case, because of this man-bites-dog quality the stories are ultimately meaningless. John Kerry did not actually speak for Vietnam veterans, most of whom thought their service was honorable. The "Jersey girls" do not actually speak for Sept. 11 widows, most of whom understand that Islamist terrorists, not the president, murdered their husbands. And Cindy Sheehan does not actually speak for Gold Star Mothers, most of whom remember their children as heroes, not dupes; and hardly any of whom agree with Sheehan that "this country is not worth dying for."

Sheehanoia is a sign of the desperation, not the strength, of the left in America. Publicity stunts are no substitute for an actual political program. Joan Walsh writes in Salon:
Even as Sheehan's public relations victories give people reason to be optimistic about the administration's unraveling in Iraq, liberals and war opponents have to be careful not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Rooting for "the administration's unraveling in Iraq"--that is, for America's defeat in the central antiterror battleground--is not what we'd call a political program.

Chief Brody Slap

Greg Gutfeld writes a humorous post on Huffington Post....
No one sent me the email about it being ALL-CINDY FRIDAY, and now I feel like a wallflower at an orgy. A BIG FAT HAIRY WALLFLOWER. It's like showing up at a costume party, and everyone but me came dressed as a blood-sucking ghoul!
But I will give it a shot:
GREG'S OBLIGATORY CINDY SHEEHAN POST !Sitting here with my can of beer online shopping for a new gardening hat, I can't help but think: what do the thoughtful Huffposters really want out of this media-inflated standoff with President Bush?It must be:
The CHIEF BRODY SLAP.
THE CHIEF BRODY SLAP is based on the infamous scene in Jaws when a distraught mom slaps Roy Scheider across the face. Her son was eaten by a shark, but she blames the sheriff. Because he didn't do enough. It's not the shark, it's the sheriff. It's like me blaming Arianna for Christine Lahti's post. But unjustified. And with a shark.
THE CHIEF BRODY SLAP (CBS) is a chief staple in an any liberal diet: a fiery mix of outrage, self-rightious indignation and condemnation delivered from a moral highground so lofty it gives you a nosebleed. The Brody Slap is predicated on the idea that you don't need a solution, only blame. Who needs a real alternative when you're already outraged? It's easy!
Where do lefty celebs learn to deliver the Brody slap with such blinding speed and conviction?YOGA SCHOOL? PILATES? THE PRIUS DRIVING MANUAL?
NO. The Chief Brody Slap comes naturally. To actors. It's really pantomime.It's all symbolism, no action. And, like a seaweed wrap, it makes you feel good all over. While the rest of us do the heavy lifting, all you have to do is emote, when the going gets rough.
SOME FAMOUS BRODY-SLAPS THROUGHOUT HISTORY: Nero shoots the messenger. Smokers sue big tobacco. Johnny Depp moves to France. And just about any incident involving Sean Penn.
For the Brody Slap to work, the Huffpo will want Cindy Sheehan to talk to the President about her son in the same way Michael Moore wanted to talk to Roger Smith about Michigan poverty....not because something constructive will come out of the encounter, but because it will feel good making somebody else look evil.
And then, of course, haul off and whack the commander in chief so hard that even Roy Scheider feels it (in the Hamptons).
THAT'S THE CHIEF BRODY SLAP.
So while the Huff-posters pretend to feel sympathy for the mother, who no doubt deserves it, it's an act. They are using her, and that makes them stink of tripe. And not the good kind you can use to make haggis.

exploit the dead soldier

What a sickening game. Cindy Sheehan is grieving by holding a vigil demanding answers from the president. Her son volunteered for the armed services and was killed in action in Iraq. PResident Bush met with her and offered condolences. A year later Cindy has decided to use the death of her son to grind her political axe, and the complicit media is only too willing to cover one woman as their personal hero.
What does she claim she wants? Answers to questions like, "why are we in Iraq?"

Anyone see a pattern here? President Bush outlines what we are doing, where we are doing it, and why we are doing it.
Detractors and protestors attack the motives or they replace the motives with their own conspiracies, or they cherry pick their favorite one and claim it is the only one. Or they fain complete ignorance, as Jake has, that no one has attempted to explain why we are in Iraq, as though we all collectively didn't notice the 200,000 soldiers in a foreign country and only recently realized they were there, inexplicably. And since we have NO IDEA why they are there, then we must bring them home immediately.....it is intellectually dishonest at least.

Why are we there?

Jake asked me in a comment--why are we in Iraq, and he says that no one is doing a good job explaining why we are there. Perhaps it is because he, and the people who agree with him, have their collective hands over their ears while saying, "na na na na na na."

The reasons are clear and have been for the past 3 plus years. 90 Senators agreed on the 22 reason why we should be there. 50 million Americans voted in a national election for the candidate in a referendum on why we are in Iraq.

Perhaps we should listen to what our enemies say? Western critics of America’s attempt to introduce democratic reconstruction in Iraq should ask why al Qaeda is so furious at the effort. The answer is clear: Radical Islam can no longer blame the United States for propping up dictators, but instead is terrified that there is a third choice — the people’s freedom — between creepy strongmen and even creepier pre-modern theocrats.

Dr. Zawahiri ("top lieutenant" that is still alive) says---
“What you have you seen, O Americans, in New York and Washington and the losses you are having in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of all the media blackout, are only the losses of the initial clashes.”
Remember that Dr. Zawahiri lists both Afghanistan (his former headquarters) and Iraq in the same breath as reasons for his attacks to come. We in our civil discord tend to distinguish the two theaters; al Qaeda in its unity does not.

Indeed, the latest two-hour training video is little more than cut-and-paste from the Michael Moore Left and hand-me-downs from Euro anti-globalist radicals. Thus America, al Qaeda assures us, “seeks to ravage the entire globe for the interest…of corporate companies,” and so kills the sons of Islam “in Palestine, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Indonesia, the Caucuses, and elsewhere.”

Apparently about three billion Europeans, Asians, Russians, and Indians have been picking on poor suicide bombers and terrorists, who, in fact, are incognito environmentalists bent on stopping corporate exploitation of Mother Earth.

Yet there is one and only one legitimate objection of the crackpot radical Islamists that rings true: We in the West don’t listen to them when they promise us our deaths.
We should. They are yelling as loud as they can to tell us something that we don’t really want to hear.

When will Democrats win?

When will Democrats return to power? Three of the most influential legislators in the Democrat party — Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi — reside in and came out of the San Francisco Bay area, which for all its undeniable beauty has created a culture still at odds with most of America. John and Teresa Kerry would have been the nation's first billionaire presidential couple. The head of the Democratic party is a New England condescending liberal, with a vicious tongue, who ran and lost on a platform far to the left of an unsuccessful liberal.
In contrast the only two men elected president from the Democratic party in 30 years were southerners, hammed up their rural and common-man roots — the son of a single mother in Arkansas and a peanut farmer in Plains, Georgia — and were narrowly elected largely due to national scandals like Watergate or third-party conservative populists like Ross Perot. The aristocratic media — CSB News, the New York Times, NPR — is often liberal and yet talks of its degrees and pedigree; the firebrand populist bloggers, cable news pros, and talk-radio pundits are mostly conservative and survive on proven merit rather than image.
When we see Democrats speaking and living like normal folks — expressing worry that the United States must return to basic education and values to ensure its shaky preeminence in a cutthroat world, talking of one multiracial society united by a rare exceptional culture of the West rather than a salad bowl of competing races and tribes, and apprising the world that we are principled abroad in our support of democratic nations and quite dangerous when attacked — they will be competitive again.
Since they will not do that, they will keep losing — no matter how much the economy worries, the war frightens, and the elite media scares the American people.

---excerpt of a Victor Davis Hanson column in National Review Online

and another thing

While I clearly beleive the war in Iraq a success and an important one at that--the war on terror is not about stabilizing Iraq or, even more difficult, turning it into a functional democracy. Those things are subordinate goals. It would be nice to have them, or at least to tilt things in that direction since they may take years and years to accomplish. But they are not the imperative. They are not the reason we went to Iraq. We went to Iraq, like we went to Afghanistan, to eradicate the network of jihadists and their state supporters. It does not mean that you have to kill every last jihadist, but the goal of the mission is to leave militant Islam unable to project power. Here is some of what the President said in the speech to Congress right after the 9/11 attacks:
Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. ... Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime

back to perception not equaling reality

I can't stand Bill O'Reilly, and he just said something as I was driving to the bank (it's better than listening to 80's music) about how, "there has to be a winner and a loser, whether it's a football game or a war, there is always a winner and a loser."

Exactly right, Bill.

He was talking about how we are losing in Iraq, because we are taking too long to train, or we are allowing too many insurgents, or we are not getting enough insurgents quickly enough....etc, the same clap trap-BS-pussy foot stuff that people who oppose the war use as theirjustification--they will say they don't oppose the war, and they support our tropss 100% but Bush is screwing it up because he isn't _______(fill in the blank).

I will address that junk later, but first, I have to say---THERE IS A WINNER AND A LOSER--THE GAME IS OVER--WE WON. And to use the football game analogy, after the game (which we won--- as the visiting team), we have the courtesy to stick around and help the fans of the home team clean up their stadium. The fact that the MSM refuses to call a spade a spade is beyond me. By any military standard the Iraq war has been the most successful mission ever to be planned, and executed in the history of human kind. We successfully overthrew a dictator, caught him alive even though he attempted to flee and elude, destroyed his army while not destroying the civil infrastructure, keeping civilian casualties to a minimum (we didn't level the entire country a la Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and now we hold him in prison, with less than 1% of the casualties that we faced in WWII and accomplished all of this in a matter of weeks.

When people complain that we are in Iraq too long I have to ask----how many troops are still in Germany? Korea? How long after WWII did we stay in Germany? (trick question--we are still there!)

There is a winner and a loser, and declaring the loser the victor does not make it so...just like declaring that the victor is vanquished does not make it so.

somebody call the ASPCA

Because I am this close to watering my neighbors' dogs with antifreeze.

I love dogs, I always have. I couldn't wait to adopt my current canine companion, my wife adopted him for my 21st birthday and he is not just my pup, he is a full fledge member of the family, he travels with us, sleeps on a bed next to mine, he doesn't get locked up outdoors, he basically lives like a king.

So when I am this frustrated with a dog situation, it is extreme. My neighbors have a completely feral bassett hound and a full blooded absolutely intimidating-"straight out the hood" pit bull--(with crystal blue eyes). These two mongrels sit outside all day, (with very little human contact and not much water or shade or any of the other essentials to continued existence). They begin their chorus of barking around 4:30 or 5:00 and continue uninterrupted until I leave for work. At some point animal control will have to be contacted, because it is one thing to interrupt my life. It is entirely another thing to make it impossible for my baby to sleep. (we are expecting our third child in Sept) The situation must improve in the coming weeks.

Its really about common courtesy. If you have a stupid, untrained, howling spawn of a long eared inbred wolf-derivative that uses it's considerable lung capacity to bark for hours on end---it is your responsibilty to SHUT IT UP!

OK, that's enough on that subject. (for the record, I won't feed the dogs antifreeze, but I will make my displeasure known to the neighbors)

cheap lesson

So my friend and co-worker Nate won the big tourney this weekend. http://jollymon.blogspot.com

It took a long time to play and like a trained goldfish, my attention span was not my strongest asset.

I did manage to finish in the money, and so for the purposes of discussion, I spent some quality time with some friends, entertained myself for a few hours, and walked out of it none the worse for the wear.

The cheap lesson for today: DO NOT, under any circumstances, when the board is showing a king high flush with 4 diamonds (meaning that anyone with a diamond in their hand has a king high flush) bet "all in" with a pair of Aces....get out of the way, let the other guys beat each other up with their flushes and survive to play a different hand.

Achim's razor applies in poker---sometimes the easiest explanation is the best.

If it appears that the only way someone would be going hard and check raising a pot is because they have the nuts, they probably do.

Congratulations, you are our 100th post!

I noticed that I was approaching the big 100, and I figured it should be commented on...

This forum has been a truly exciting adventure for me, and I have many more plans for the future.
Pictures, links, more frequent posts, more personal info....

Either way, a friend said to me, "you get out of it what you put into it." I think that is absolutely true. I have much more that I want to do and say.

Steven Vincent R.I.P.

Steven Vincent, "an art critic inspired to write about war after watching from the roof of his New York apartment as the World Trade Center towers fell," was found murdered in Basra, Iraq, yesterday, Reuters reports from New York.
According to an e-mail from Vincent's wife sent on Tuesday night, Vincent and his Iraqi translator, Nour Weidi, were "snatched in front of a bank on Tuesday, August 2nd at 6:30 P.M. local time. Two men drove up, grabbed them, threw them in a car and took off. Nour dropped her ID on the street, which is how the British were able to figure out who it was." Hours later, the American embassy in Baghdad would confirm Vincent dead, and his translator seriously wounded. Vincent's body was found on the side of a highway. He had been shot multiple times in the head.

I have read some of Vincent's work on one of my favorite sites: www.nationalreview.com

here is a pertinent quote...

Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq. That is why the terms the press uses to cover this conflict are so vital. For example, take the word "guerillas." As you noted, mainstream media sources like the New York Times often use the terms "insurgents" or "guerillas" to describe the Sunni Triangle gunmen, as if these murderous thugs represented a traditional national liberation movement. But when the Times reports on similar groups of masked reactionary killers operating in Latin American countries, they utilize the phrase "paramilitary death squads." Same murderers, different designations. Yet of the two, "insurgents" and especially "guerillas" has a claim on our sympathies that "paramilitaries" lacks. This is not semantics: imagine if the media routinely called the Sunni Triangle gunmen "right wing paramilitary death squads." Not only would the description be more accurate, but it would offer the American public a clear idea of the enemy in Iraq. And that, in turn, would bolster public attitudes toward the war.
Supporters of the conflict in Iraq bear much blame for allowing the terminology---and, by extension, the narrative--of events to slip from our grasp and into the hands of the anti-war camp. Words and ideas matter. Instead of saying that the Coalition "invaded" Iraq and "occupies" it today, we could more precisely claim that the allies liberated the country and are currently reconstructing it. More than cosmetic changes, these definitions reflect the nobility of our effort in Iraq, and steal rhetorical ammunition from the left.

The most despicable misuse of terminology, however, occurs when Leftists call the Saddamites and foreign jihadists "the resistance" What an example of moral inversion! For the fact is, paramilitary death squads are attacking the Iraqi people. And those who oppose the killers--the Iraqi police and National Guardsmen, members of the Allawi government, people like Nour--they are the "resistance." They are preventing Islamofascists from seizing Iraq, they are resisting evil men from turning the entire nation into a mass slaughterhouse like we saw in re-liberated Falluja. Anyone who cares about success in our struggle against Islamofascism, or upholds principles of moral clarity and lucid thought--should combat such Orwellian distortions of our language.

Rest in peace.

"be true to yourself"

I have always hated that phrase, it means nothing, it exalts individualism to a higher plateau than is necessary, and it implies that (in my mind) one pursues their own selfish desires over their responsibilities regardless of consequences. (as an aside, I was raised by a pack of wild puritanical wolves...a modern day Romulus, only instead of being nursed by my she-wolf surrogate mother I was thrown into a pack of baptist sunday schools and church choirs)

Having said that, I will follow with this---if "being true to yourself" means doing what someone asks of you even though it goes against what you believe is right or just or in your best interest, then I guess I can understand the phrase although I still believe that in some situations, you do what is asked of you, because that is the adult-responsible-bill paying-career building-CYA-thing to do, even when you disagree.

I know this post is cryptic but I have had a lot going on and I can't be too specific...regardless, it's done and buried.

cash cow's

My father, who is wise about cow's--both cash and other types...shared a little pearl with me this weekend about the relationship between owner and employee....

I am having a hard time paraphrasing, so let me come back to that.

smays wrote a great post about companies rejecting change, and fearing innovation because they are too busy harvesting cash cows, and I enjoyed the link...you might too---http://smays.typepad.com/default/2005/07/step_away_from_.html