Saturday, July 26, 2003

As of this writing (7:06am), I have 998 comments. I’m going to be the one to put me over the 1000 mark, because some folks commented last night and I can’t wait to respond to them.

Let me say, thank you to all who have commented here. As I stated in this post, I much prefer comments to linkage (although I like to be linked as well, of course).

I’ve appreciated the ribbing, the serious discussion, the debates. Please don’t stop speaking your mind here. I’m gratified to know that I’m writing and linking things that you’re somewhat interested in. Or you’re humoring me, but that’s OK, too.

Thanks!

Friday, July 25, 2003

It’s been a ho-hum day - sort of busy at work, but I’m not overflowing with stuff to ramble on about either.

I am waiting for Kirby to call me to let me know when he plans to arrive here tonight. The lateness of the hour of his arrival will dictate my dinner plans.

I have worship band practice tonight, I head over to the church straight from work since we meet at 6:30pm. I should be done with that at about 9-9:30pm.

Tomorrow is a little up in the air, although my parents and I want to go see Seabiscuit. That may involve some coaxing to get Kirb to go since he’s not too familiar with it, and he’s picky about “serious” movies. I sort of want to see Pirates of the Caribbean again and Kirb hasn’t seen it yet, so there may be a double feature in my future.

I also want to spend some time online supporting the folks who will be blogging away for the 2003 Blogathon to raise money for various charities. In particular, I will be supporting Mrs. Cootiehog and Kevin at Wizbang. The big blog-off starts at 9:00am, I plan to be there!

And I want to rent and watch Punch Drunk Love, which comes highly recommended to me by Jared, who also recommended Magnolia.

Sunday is the usual church-filled morning followed by lunch, this time a cookout at The Marshal’s home. The featured food item is pie - this was a dessert hangout time that evolved into the barbeque luncheon. (Yes, The Marshal and I are active members of the same church. No, it hasn’t been a problem...yet. And we have a deputy from DC Superior Court who has become a regular attender.)

So, for not having much to say, I managed to ramble on anyway.

I hope you all have a good Friday evening...be safe!

We’re all in a funk today. It’s beautiful outside, but you’d think it was the middle of winter and pouring down rain by our general malaise…

Chinese for lunch today - it took a 30 minute discussion to come to that decision.

I tried the two Starbucks shops on my way to work and both were overflowing with customers. Out of sheer desperation for a cup of coffee I stopped at the Caribou Coffee at Braddock Road. They have a White Chocolate Mocha - and I was assured by the cashier that theirs is better than The Evil Empire’s. That it was $0.21 cheaper was nice.

However, it’s too sweet.

I couldn’t believe I was saying that about coffee (or anything really, although I am one who doesn’t like Krispy Kreme donuts because their glaze is too sweet).

I prefer TEE’s bitter White Chocolate Mocha. Oh my…

Thursday, July 24, 2003

So I spent the evening cleaning up a bit, Kirby will be here this weekend and I didn’t want to skip the cleaning or do it while he’s here. Anyway, by the time I was ready to sit it was time for The Amazing Race - a very suspenseful episode that did not disappoint. Let me say that there are some dumb teams that made it this far. Wow.

Anyway, at about 8:45pm I noticed something out of the corner of my eye - the biggest bottle fly that I’ve seen in a long while. Gross. And he’s following me around. Right now, he’s perched on the ledge at the bottom of the screen of the TV in my bedroom. Ew.

UPDATE: For information about the Bottle fly, click here.

Bottle flies, Greenbottle flies, Bluebottle flies, and Blowflies are all common large flies, noted for their metallic blue or green coloration.

We have a group of high school students filing through security for A Day With the US Marshals Service. Somehow our district (and The Marshal) was chosen to give this briefing of sorts for the kids (from around the country) who are interested in law enforcement. The guy who’s coordinating from HQ is a bit stiff (Mr. Personality as we call him) - and has been driving The Marshal a little bit nuts over the past month leading up to this glorious day.

LW and I have been personally invited to crash the party up there (they’re in a jury assembly room) - so we’re going to do that after we eat lunch. We promised not to heckle him too badly.

LATER (3:50pm): I just spent the past couple of hours in the sessions with the kids - they’re pretty sharp. Pretty clearly they have studied government and law enforcement from the questions they asked.

The first session was with The Marshal. He explained a lot of what the USMS does in a district. Ours is a little unique because of our involvement in the terrorist and spy trials (Hanssen, Aldrich, Walker-Lindh, Moussaoui to name a few). He also explained our fugitive efforts, which is what’s mostly portrayed in movies like The Fugitive and US Marshals, although they are movies and only loosely based on reality.

Then we went up to Judge Brinkema’s courtroom (she’s presiding over the Moussaoui case, in case you didn’t recognize the name), where she explained the federal courts system a little bit. She only talked for about 10 minutes and then she opened it up for questions and they came at her for a solid hour. They were really good questions and she was great at explaining stuff at a level they (we) could understand without being overbearing about it. She was great - I think I’ll have to go visit her courtroom on sentencing day sometime soon.

My father emailed me this link. Hilarious…

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

I’m watching the rerun of the Centcom briefing from this morning on C-SPAN right now. I didn’t catch who and where one reporter was from but he asked a convoluted question about why our guys didn’t just wait out the Hussein Bros. & Co. at that villa like in a hostage situation. After all, they only had AK-47s against the much more powerful arms the US forces had, yadda yadda yadda…

C-SPAN just cut off the General’s answer to go to live coverage of the House. But I’ll be happy to answer it.

1.  Did you not listen to what the General just rattled off for you? He was pretty explicit in the events that lead to the shootout.

2.  While our military call those AK-47s “small arms,” they’re still pretty powerful weapons. Gun people with better knowledge can correct me, if I’m wrong. Plus the house they were in was heavily fortified.

3.  Our guys tried to talk to them first, using a bullhorn and knocking on the frigging door. In the first attempt at knocking and entering, four of our guys were injured when shot at. This bullhorn & knocking thing was tried two more times, with no success.

4.  The Hussein Bros. & Co. shot at our guys first. In the Rules of Engagement, that means our guys have the right to fire back.

5.  The whole thing took four hours, even after our guys unloaded a pretty substantial artillery into the house.

6.  After the three adults were killed, the kid was still shooting as our guys went into the house.

Those guys went down as the evil, war-mongering, ruthless, sons of ******* they were. Do I wish we could have taken them alive? Sure...it would be easier to convince the Iraqi people we had them if they were alive, I think. They could have led us to Daddy. Their trials would have given the Iraqi people the justice they deserve for the atrocities these men perpetrated on the people. I would have preferred to see them swinging from the neck in the square where that famous Saddam statue was taken down, after having been convicted by a war crimes tribunal. But the end result is the same, death - it just came sooner than we may have hoped for.

UPDATE: Sgt. Hook has some thoughts on this.

Again, the good gentlemen at Thinklings have a really thought-provoking post against the popular book, The Prayer of Jabez.

It raises questions I had never considered when I read it...and I’m starting to rethink my opinion and endorsement. If you’ve read the book, go take a look.

The good gentlemen of Thinklings have a post on your sermon about WAH. As of this writing, there are already 10 comments.

IMMEDIATE UPDATE: I just checked the comments - they’re hilarious, but not serious...yet. If you scroll down to the post about profanity and read those comments first the comments on your sermon will make a lot more sense. And make you chuckle.

I think I’m going to have to make this it’s own category - What Bryan McAnally Posted Today That Made Me Laugh Out Loud.

Here’s today’s Clarity Amidst Chaos link. Today’s topic - the haircut.

Rep. Charlie Rangel needs to muzzle himself.

“We have a law on the books that the United States should not be assassinating anybody,” Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-NY, told Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.”

[...]

When an incredulous Sean Hannity expressed dismay at Rangel’s comments, the Harlem Democrat shot back, “How can you get so much satisfaction that two bums have been killed? We got bums all over the world and some in the United States.”

Then Rangel mocked the U.S. military’s success in killing the two Hussein heirs, saying, “I personally don’t get any satisfaction that it takes 200,000 troops, 250,000 troops, to knock off two bums.”

In addition, it’s hardly an assassination when the “two bums, but bodyguard and son” are in a four hour battle, firing back with “small arms” (which turned out to be AK-47s, yeah, that’s small) from a fortified hide out.

Rangel should be ashamed of himself.

LATER: LT Smash has an interesting list of the “two bums’” accomplishments.

I’ve had several people apologize for posting lengthy or many comments. Let me say this, I welcome all comments, even (or especially) if you happen to disagree with me or feel the need to correct me. This happens a lot, actually. It’s to be expected when a strong opinion is expressed.

So bring it on…

My only caveat is that I do not welcome profanity or personal attacks to me or other commenters. Respect is the key - you can disagree, but don’t disrespect me or anyone else. Got it?

We had some thunderstorms come through last night. I was online and considering shutting everything down when there was a bright white flash of lightning, the immediate boom of thunder, and the all-consuming darkness of the power going out.

Whelp, that took care of that question…

When the power came on about 15 minutes later (just after I located and lit the candles to read by), I decided it wasn’t worth the effort to log back on. So I reset my clocks and read for a little bit before going to bed.

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

LT Smash has another great post, this one his analysis of the Blair speech. Yes, he’s a little late on this, but give him a break - he’s fighting a war.

Snippety snippet:

It occurs to me, upon reading these words, that the current British Prime Minister is indeed a rare specimen among modern politicians:

Tony Blair is a liberal.

Well of course he’s a liberal, you say. After all, he’s the leader of the Labor Party in Britain, and they are the party of the left, and as we all know, liberals are leftists, right?

This is where the meaning of words becomes important. “Liberal” does not mean “leftist.” Indeed, most leftists aren’t liberal at all. The word “liberal” comes from the same root as the word “liberty,” which is synonymous with “freedom.” In the Eighteenth Century, when it first came into popular usage, it described those brave souls who struggled against authority to achieve greater freedoms for their fellow men. Visionaries like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.

UPDATE (Wed AM): Sorry about the lack of the link. It’s been fixed…