“I don’t think there’s any winning here. Victory for us is withdrawing. In this part of the world they have been fighting for 3,000 years, and we’re not going to fix it in three.”
— Sgt. James Ellis, U.S. soldier in Iraq
Month: August 2006
08/05/2006
There are several Republican candidates for the Colorado Fifth Congressional district– which is in the Colorado Springs area. All six of them support the Iraq war, insist that everyone should stand by Bush, and claim that the “war on terror” and homeland security are their top priorities.
When asked about their views of the Iraqi situation, their responses were… well…
I don’t know which one is worst.
Duncan Bremer:
Our best hope is that we actually convert them away from their religious fanatical basis. It would best be accomplished by missionaries of various faiths. I’d prefer that they get converted to evangelical Christianity, but my point is that there is a religious battleground and our government is disabled from fighting on that battleground.
Yeah, that’s the problem. Our religion is right and theirs is wrong, so converting them is the answer to everything. And religious zealots will naturally welcome clean-shaven young missionaries holding bibles in their hands. BZZZZT! Wrong answer, Duncan.
Lionel Rivera:
I think having a larger special operations force would do us a lot of good. I think the Army is moving in that direction and I certainly would champion that cause. I’m also a proponent of increasing the number of ground forces and that means beefing up the Army and Marines.
It’s natural that a retired captain in the Army would think the answer is more troops. I guess the 150,000+ soldiers currently stationed in Iraq are just not nearly enough. BZZZZT! Thanks for playing, Lionel.
Jeff Crank:
First of all, our deadline should be victory. It shouldn’t be anything less than that because the sacrifice that we’ve made in blood and treasure to this point will all go to the wayside if we don’t stay the course.
According to Jeff, no matter how awful the situation is or may become, we can never ever ever give up and go home because it would invalidate everything we’ve done to date. Instead, we should continue pouring “blood and treasure”– to use his words– into the biggest disaster of the new millennium. BZZZZT! Not even close, Jeff.
Oh, and I’m also sick to death of the phrase “stay the course” when discussing the war in Iraq. The course to date has been a non-stop train wreck of incompetence and destruction– why on earth would we want to continue it?
John Anderson:
Until we have stability and peace in the Middle East, we will not have peace around the world. So this, no doubt, is going to be a prolonged engagement.
Apparently not everyone lives on the same planet I do. Who knew that global peace hinged on the Middle East? I guess if you’re talking about petroleum the Middle East becomes an important part of world politics, but I hardly think the rest of the planet will magically become tranquil when the guys in Iraq put down their guns. BZZZT! Mission Control to John: time to return to Earth.
Doug Lamborn:
If democracy can take hold in Iraq and other trouble spots in the Mideast, that will be a benefit for the whole region and help win the war on terror.
Ahh, there’s the phrase we all love to hate: “the war on terror”. Apparently the answer is democracy. If terrorists could vote, they’d stop blowing up bus stations and restaurants. What’s with these people who think forcing our way of government– which we’ve developed gradually over a period of almost three centuries– will suddenly and magically make Iraq into a benevolent land of happiness? BZZZT! You’re no smarter than the Bush talking points you drone.
In short, it looks like the good residents of Colorado Springs have a tough choice ahead of them. They can vote for one of these clowns and continue trudging down the path of failure Bush has led us on, or they can look for someone with new ideas. I only hope they do the latter.
08/05/2006
This is a photo of a volcano in Iceland erupting as the aurora flickers overhead. Wow.
08/04/2006
Hah, next summer is shaping up to be the Summer of Sequels. The following movies are scheduled for release in mid-2007:
Shrek 3
Harry Potter 5
Ocean’s 13
Die Hard 4
Pirates of the Caribbean 3
Spider Man 3
The Bourne Ultimatum
The funny thing is, I liked all of the originals (and their respective sequels) so I’ll probably end up seeing these too…
08/02/2006
We were heading to Boulder for our weekly ultimate league game, and I caught a fantastic shot of the sun breaking through the clouds.
This is just before it started to absolutely pour rain, although it let up– in true Colorado style– within ten minutes and we played the game.
08/01/2006
Finally, the moment we’ve been waiting for: cheaper phone service! The telephone companies will stop charging the 3% “federal excise tax” that was originally instituted in 1898 to help fund the Spanish-American War. At the time, only wealthy people owned phones, so the government had the idea of taxing them to pay part of the war costs. The problem was that when the war ended, the Gov decided it was sort of nice to have that revenue stream (and the number of phones was steadily increasing, of course) so it continued…
for over a hundred years!
But now it’s been harder and harder to justify the tax, so Congress repealed it. Effective today, all of our long-distance phone bills will drop three percent. Yay!
08/01/2006
Aha, after all these years we can finally answer the question that has plagued generations of Americans:
Is it soda? Or pop? Or Coke?
A survey of over 120,000 people yields this color-coded map of the United States, showing that the northern half of the country are “pop” people, the Southeast is all about “Coke”, and the Southwest and Northeast (interesting opposites) are “soda” drinkers.
I happen to be a “soda” guy, and that’s bolstered by the big yellow spot centered on St. Louis. Note, also, that the region of southeast Wisconsin– where my parents were raised– is also a “soda” area. Apparently I was always destined for it.