Can You Really Call It The Reserves Right Now?

Have you seen this commercial?

It’s one of the Army Reserve recruting comercials.  It’s the one where the son and the dad are talking and the son keeps telling the dad that “it’s the Reserves” and the dad keeps repeating “but it’s the Army”.  The son keeps trying to reassure the father that it’s not really the Army because he can still go to college and it’s “just the Reserves;” the Reserves’ll do all of the training “around here until they need me”.  In the end, the father is convinced because it’s the Reserves and not the Army so everything is
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Tags: Army Reserves

Thursday Thirteen Things I Like About Myself (#3)

Last week’s Official Thursday Thirteen post issued a challenge for this week: To list 13 Things I Like About Myself. I’ve been putting some thought to the challenge because as the challenger said, I do spend a lot of time scrutinizing myself and I do forget that there are good things. However, I’m glad I had a whole week to think about this one because it was a struggle for me since I tend to be very self negative. I think this was a good exercise.

Thirteen Things about N. Mallory

1. I
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   Tags: Thursday Thirteen, blog meme, bloghopping

   15 comments See also in My Life, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, Thursday Thirteen, Memes

Quote of the Day: On Changing The World

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo…Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
–Apple Computers

Tags: Quote of the Day

Showing My Scottish Side

The tartan cloak I specially ordered from the kilt shop in Edinburg arrived finally. I’m very excited, even though it’s now turned a little too warm again for it since it’s lambswool. I have a nifty broach with the Anderson clan (my maternal ancestors) ensignia and a sword to pin it with too for later.

I’m thinking of taking up knitting now so I can make a little yellow or red hat and maybe some mittens to go with it. The owner of the yarn shop near my office said she’d teach me
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Tags: Edinburgh, Scotland, tartan, Anderson, knitting

The Perfect Halloween Costume

I think I’ve found the perfect costume for Pugly.

Tags: Pug, the puppy, Halloween costume

Work Your Brain — 09/06/06

• We Know The Who And The What, But What About The Why? — The (liberal)Girl Next Door asks what I’ve been asking all along: “Why out Valerie Plame?” The media seems content to have the mystery of who did the outing solved without wondering as to the why. Now that new evidence has come to light that Plame was working on the task force to determine whether or not Iraq had WMD, why was it so important to get her out of the way?
• But Bush has nothing on at all! — lambert @ CorrenteWire theorizes as to why there haven’t been any more terror attacks on American soil since 9/11 since we’re told every other day that an attack is right around the corner. If the terrorists are so competent and dangerous, why aren’t we living in a war-torn country where things are being blown up on a weekly basis? It can’t be that our security is safer; we’ve prove it isn’t.
  

  A fully credible explanation for the fact that the United States has suffered no terrorist attacks since 9/11 is that the threat posed by homegrown or imported terrorists — like that presented by Japanese Americans during World War II or by American Communists after it — has been massively exaggerated. Is it possible that the haystack is essentially free of needles?

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Tags: George W. Bush, terror attacks, 9/11, Terrorists, economy, irresponsible government, failed policy, Valerie Plame, WMD, Iraq, Conspiracy Theories, Matthew Fenton, National Naval Medical Center, Bathesda, Walter Reed, War, American soldiers, 101st Fighting Keyboarders

comments See also in Politics & Causes, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, The World, 9-11 & Terrorism, Iraq & Afghanistan, Conspiracy Theories, The Middle East

News Quickies — 09/06/06

• Due to last month’s terror alert, British Airways is claiming a £40m ($75.9m) loss.  Between August 10th and 17th, it cancelled 1,280 flights and incurred costs of hotels, catering and recovering baggage for stranded passengers. [“ BA says terror alert cost it £40m” (BBC News)]
• “A coalition of 300 Iraqi tribal leaders on Saturday demanded the release of Saddam Hussein so he could reclaim the presidency and also called for armed resistance against U.S.-led forces.” Yikes! [“A Demand for Hussein’s Release” (WashingtonPost.com)]
• On the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, CNN will replay their coverage of the day’s
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  Tags: British Airways, airport security, terror alert, Saddam Hussein, Iraq, 9/11, CNN, WTC

  2 comments See also in In the News, The World, 9-11 & Terrorism, Iraq & Afghanistan, The Middle East

Quote of the Day: On Thinking

“Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.”
– Bertrand Russell

Tags: Quote of the Day

Frodo Failed

I just saw the funniest thing on a sign down the street.  Wish I had my camera today.

“Frodo Failed.  Bush has the ring.”

Tags: Frodo, George W. Bush, Lord of the Rings

All I Want Is A Little Relief

Remember that episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye has a hole in his boot but the Purchasing officer won’t order him one because he’s got a bad tooth and the dentist won’t see him and all the dentist wants is a three day pass to Tokyo but Blake is upset that Hot Lips is writing a report about him which she’ll agree to stop if Hawkeye and Trapper will throw Frank a birthday party; Radar will get the cake for the party if they set him up with the girl of his dreams who won’t go out with him unless he
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Tags: chest x-ray, chest cough, lungs, rheumatologist, M*A*S*H, wellness

Quote of the Day: On The Criminal Class

“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.”
– Mark Twain

Tags: Quote of the Day, Mark Twain

Work Your Brain — 09/04/06

Women’s Rights

• Class warfare at Starbucks — lambert @ CorrenteWire writes about how class warfare starts over breast milk. Companies are far more likely to be accomodating to executive mothers who need breaks during the day to pump breast milk, but the women who work in the stores and “on the line” have to “barricade themselves in small restrooms intended for customers, counting the minutes left in their breaks.” There’s a lot of pressure to breast-feed in this day and age, but it’s easy to get discouraged and give up under less than ideal conditions.
• A Mystery From the Time When Abortion Was Illegal and Dangerous — olvlzl @ ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES remembers a horrible, deadly practice from the pre-Roe era — infanticide.
  

  The woman who owned the trunk was in her 60s in 1983. The papers say she was called a “pillar of the community” when she lived in the area. People who remembered her said that at the time the babies had been killed she often appeared to be pregnant but she never had children. The authorities found her but she wouldn’t say anything about the trunk. I don’ t know of any legal pressure put on her to talk. The fact that there were five corpses of infants wrapped in newspapers from different years certainly suggests serial infanticide, not a misdemeanor in anyone’s book.

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Tags: Starbucks, Women's Rights, breastfeeding, class warfare, abortion, baby snuffer, infancticide, Islamofascism, propaganda, War on Terror, WWII, Osama bin Laden, Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq, Domino Theory, Hitler, whistleblowers, Russell Tice, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Department of Justice, 101st Fighting Keyboarders, Fox News, David Warren, Debbie Schussel, Kathleen Parker, Mark Steyn, Glenn Greenwald, hypocrisy

Discombobulated Thoughts — 09/04/06

• I’m thinking of renaming Pugly to Piggy.
• I’ve gotten nothing done this weekend.
• It sucks that the only choices for delivery are pizza and not-so-good-too-expensive Chinese.
• I’m sick of pizza.
• I was in Claire’s or The Icing on Friday and there was this really tacky pink purse with Orlando Bloom plastered on it. Why would they do that?
• I’ve had this nasty chest cough for over a week now. Coughing up clear mucus at 2am. I spend most of the day coughing which my co-workers don’t like, but OTC cough suppressants don’t appear to work. I’ve tried Zicam Oral Mist and
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  Tags: wellness, the puppy, Orlando Bloom

  1 comments See also in My Life, Wellness, The Puppy

Al-Qaeda’s #2 Guy In Iraq Arrested…Again

In case you’ve missed it yesterday…

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi forces have arrested the second most senior operative in al-Qaida Iraq, and the group now suffers from a “serious leadership crisis,” the national security adviser said Sunday. [“No. 2 al-Qaida leader in Iraq” (Yahoo!News)]

If you were like me when you heard the news, you were probably trying to figure out how many #2 al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq there are that are because it seems like they’re making this announcement every month or so. It turns out someone has been keeping track and yesterday’s arrest makes 39.

Yesterday the Iraqi
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Tags: al-Qaeda, Iraq, propaganda

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin Killed

Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast.

Mr Irwin, 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray’s barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. [“‘Crocodile Hunter’ Irwin killed” (BBC News)]

He had a wife and two kids and seemed to have an endless amount of curiousity and energy. He will be remembered and missed.

Tags: Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin

Quote of the Day: On When People Lie

“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.”
– Otto von Bismark

Tags: Quote of the Day, lie

How Many Lives Are Lives Worth?

Last month, while Israel was making war against Hezbollah, I kept wondering whether the death toll of Israelis and Lebonese was worth the lives of the two Israelis who were kidnapped at the beginning of the war. After all, it was their lives that started it all.

Is there a point where the cost of innocent civilians and the lives of patriotic soldiers outweighs the original loss? What I mean is, do the lives of the few outweigh the lives of many? What makes the lives of those two soldiers worth more than those Israel was willing to
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Tags: Israel, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iraq, American soldiers, War on Terror, 9/11, George W. Bush

Best Headline Ever!

(Click on the graphic for a clearer view.)

Hat tip: lambert @ CorrentWire

Tags: aliens, Roswell

Quote of the Day: On Those Who Matter

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
– Dr. Seuss

Tags: Quote of the Day

Work Your Brain — 09/02/06

First Some Fun

• Thursday Thirteen #3 — Baggage @ Baggage That Goes With Mine wrote thirteen reasons why the internet is better than real life. This is my favorite.
  

  11. On the internet, you can pop into a forum or a blog and tell a person that their beliefs are dumb, they should be breastfeeding, they should never co-sleep, they should divorce their husband, they should shave their legs, and they should stop wearing mom jeans. In real life, people would punch you in the face.

In Memory Of Katrina

• But you can keep them for the birds and bees — Mac @ PeskyApostrophe wonders about all of that Katrina aid money the U.S. asked for and got from other countries last year. She comes to the same conclusion I did.
  

  I’m appalled at a variety of things when it comes to the Katrina rebuilding effort and FEMA’s role in it all, but this is a whole new level of incompetence. As part of my new job, I am now involved in grant-writing. In a good portion of grants, the grantee expects a report as to how the money was used. While I’m sure these gifts did not come with any reporting requirements, if one of our grantees found out their money had been either wasted or didn’t got to the program for which it was intended that would pretty much guarantee they’d never give money to us again. And you have to wonder if, should another emergency situation arise, these countries would think twice about giving aid money to the U.S. if we’re not going to use it and use it wisely.

• First the Flood, Now the Fight — Spencer S. Hsu @ WashingtonPost.com wrote a special report on the butting of heads between FEMA and state and city officials in the rebuilding of the Gulf States and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. FEMA swears it’s not trying to be difficult but the process seems to be designed to wear down those requesting help until they just give up and either take what little they’ve been given, which isn’t much if anything.
  

  Through hundreds of such disputes large and small, the most costly disaster in U.S. history is fast becoming its most contentious, with appeals and disputes worth nearly a billion dollars bogging down repairs of critical public systems and delaying the return of residents.

  Current and former officials at all levels blame FEMA workers’ inexperience with eligibility rules, weaknesses in U.S. disaster laws and inconsistent treatment by Congress for much of the wrangling. The huge scale of the storm and honest disagreement over whether federal or local taxpayers should pay the tab add to the conflict.

  “Disasters should be difficult to declare. . . . But once you get them, FEMA should not worry about cutting costs,” said Daniel A. Craig, who stepped down in October as head of FEMA’s recovery division and is now consulting for New Orleans. “Public entities are eligible for everything they have lost due to the disaster. It is not up to FEMA to cut corners or makes sure money is saved.”

  Gil H. Jamieson, FEMA’s deputy director for Gulf Coast recovery, agreed that “we’re in this to rebuild the city” and added: “We are not in it to delay for the sake of delay. Are there folks who sometimes hose it up? Absolutely. But I think we’re doing a good job of helping it recover.”

  The disputes come as the costliest part of the recovery begins: restoring water, power, roads, bridges, schools and other public facilities along the Gulf Coast. Agency veterans said the spending will have more impact on the physical rebuilding of the Gulf area than anything else FEMA does over the next decade, possibly eclipsing its role in aiding individual victims of the storm.

  The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans, for instance, sustained $446 million in storm losses, said Executive Director Marcia St. Martin. But FEMA has committed just $113 million so far.

  FEMA notes that New Orleans promised U.S. environmental regulators $640 million in repairs before Katrina, and that the antiquated system is too big for the Crescent City’s reduced population.

  “That’s what makes a city — if you don’t have water, sewer and drainage, you don’t have a city,” lamented Robert Jackson, spokesman for the sewer board. “The money so far only scratches the surface of the devastation.

  Hat Tip: Susie @ Suburban Guerrilla

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Tags: Thursday Thirteen, Internet, Hurricane Katrina, FEMA, aid money, Gil H. Jamieson, Daniel A. Craig, Gulf Coast recovery, New Orleans, Islamofascism, George W. Bush, Muslims, women in the media, Support the Troops, defense appropriation bill, Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, Iraq, Afghanistan, Congress, Pentagon, Lower 9th Ward, National Hurricane Canter, 9/11, Max Mayfield, Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah, terrorism, Ann Jones, Taliban, NATO, Christians, American Dream, Martin Niemoller, Germany, Nazis, Rocky Anderson, Utah, Salt Lake Tribune, patriotism, lie, Walter Jones, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Caddam Hussein, Donald Rumsfeld