A Safer IRAQ

Today's mega-bombing has really set me off so let's all count the ways IRAQ is safer today that in 2000.

1
The people who died today in IRAQ weren't killed by Saddam Hussein.

2
The roadside bombs that killed American Marines and soldiers today wasn't set by Saddam Hussein.

3
The American aide worker killed in IRAQ wasn't killed by Saddam Hussein.

4
A thousand acts of terrorism against the citizens of IRAQ weren't ordered by Saddam Hussein.

5
School children in IRAQ are much less likely to be kidnapped and held for ransom today than when Saddam Hussein ruled IRAQ.

6
In fact most all of those folks who have died since the "LIBERATION of IRAQ" weren't killed by Saddam Hussein.
7
The water works deliver much much better water more abundantly today than when run by Saddam Hussein. and his cronies.
8
The electric system in IRAQ has gotten past all those pesky outages so common during the reign of Saddam Hussein.
9
The petroleum industry in IRAQ runs much smoother and more productively today than under Saddam Hussein.

10
Osama bin Laden is much closer to being apprehended today than before President Bush invaded IRAQ.

11
OH yeah, there are so many fewer terrorists in both IRAQ and the WORLD at large today than before the invasion of IRAQ.

This is not a defense of Saddam Hussein just a declaration that, in one Vietnam Marine's opinion, the whole IRAQ invasion was poorly planned, and brilliantly executed. (No fair excerpting this to make it look like I said "the whole IRAQ invasion was... brilliantly executed"). I mean "we won the war too quickly" just doesn't cut it with me.

Eleven ways seems too few. I'm sure I forgotten or overlooked other ways in which IRAQ is better and safer today than before the GB2 invasion. Feel free to remind me.

Please pray for a Marine's safety.

Yes, Thank you

Ever heard of the Flaming Lips??

Neither had I until I happened to see them on my local Austin PBS station KLRU channel 18 (9 cable) Don't have cable.

A quite amazing band. Kinda like Polyphonic Spree meets Bette Middler on steroids and acid. Extremely high energy output. See 'em if you get a chance.

One of the songs they performed, sang sorta understates it, was War Pigs by a band many of you might not have heard of, Black Sabbath.

I know you've heard of Ozzy Osborn. Ozzy was Black Sabbath's front man. Now he's a reality TV icon.

War Pigs was written in the 60's during the height of the anti-Viet Nam war movement. A war we never should have been involved in as history and results have shown. As I listened to lyrics I had not listened to since my own Viet-Nam days I was struck by the similarity between the situation in which we find ourselves today. Embroiled in a total mess in a country we should have stayed the hell out of. Ask yourself this question. "Are the citizens of Iraq better off today than they were before President Bush decided to ""liberate"" them from the evils of Saddam's rule?"

I can't see any evidence that the average citizen of Iraq is safer or better fed and housed than he was three years ago. And where were those Weapons of Mass Destruction we were saving the world from? Oh, they weren't there but that doesn't matter, because we saved the Iraq people from Saddam.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't like, support or give a flying fart in a whirlwind about Saddam's fate. I think the SOB ought to be tortured for a couple of years then after his hands an feet are removed, released to enjoy the rest of his life on earth. I don't like him, but did anyone else notice that we gave Saddam a deadline for surrender and then took our first shot before the deadline had been reached. I don't know about you but that one fact disturbs me deeply because it shows the deep down character of the man who ordered the cruse missile be launched at a time that it would strike before the deadline. It is the act of someone with a very unusual sense of honor.

Ask yourself another question. "Who benefits the most from continued world turmoil, the military-industrial complex, hate filled terrorists, or me, the average American Citizen?" I can't see that I am really any safer, in spite of all the platitudes offered by the "gentlemen" in charge of our fair Republic.

Well, I didn't mean to go on a rant. What I wanted to do was to remind you of the lyrics of War Pigs. A song as pertinent today as it was during my youthful time as a warrior.

Stay safe y'all and remember to duck and cover.

Black Sabbath's War Pigs

Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.

Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.

Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgement, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
Oh lord, yeah!
                              --Black Sabbath, War Pigs

Daniel 8:3 - I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the river. It had two horns; and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last.

Daniel 8:6 - He came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the river, and he ran at him in his mighty wrath.

Daniel 8:7 - I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his two horns; and the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled upon him; and there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power.

Revelation 13:11 - Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand

I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me

Take me out to the black
Tell 'em I'm not coming back

Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

There's no place I can be
Since I've found Serenity
You can't take the sky from me
                                ~Joss Whedon

 

I listen to the opening credits of every episode of Firefly. I cannot say that about any other series TV opening credits. The lyrics haunt me. The tune is catchy. And it is a short opening credits unlike many other multi-minute epic openings, pick one almost any TV series. Firefly is an exception to the boring rule. I love that song. Other series sometimes change up their opening credits, sometimes seasonally, sometimes less frequently and sometimes never. When watching a series on DVD inevitably I begin fast forward or chapter skipping the opening credits. I like the option of a chapter stop right after the opening credits. Saves time and effort. Series you can't chapter forward through the opening credits without missing storyline include Stargate SG1 and Have Gun Will Travel. Series with a chapter stop after the opening credits include all the Star Trek's and Firefly. Firefly even has a chapter stop at the beginning of the opening credits. Sometimes I repeat the opening credits again and again. God, I wish spaceflight were a reality. When are we going to get off this flyspeck of a planet and take our place among God's many mansions. Isn't that exactly what the universe is?

Firefly, IMNSHO (InMyNotSoHumbleOpinion) is the best failed Science Fiction TV series ever to have been produced. Ah... Space..... The Final Frontier.. God's many mansions. I hope to go to the Universe when I die. If my spirit continues to exist after I die I hope to find myself riding a beam of light through the far flung reaches of the Universal Conscious sharing at the speed of light the Goodness of Creation. Maybe I'll find a sane planet. Well, a guy can dream, can't he?????

What does that have to do with Firefly the series?? Nothing. It just came to mind is all.

If you haven't seen Firefly, you can buy it on DVD. It's been out about six months or so. I found it last spring about the time it was released. I couldn't stop watching it. Then I watched it again. I'm watching it for the fourth time at this moment. The DVD set includes three, count them, THREE never before seen episodes. How is it that this series failed. It's witty, smart, funny, well acted, well directed, has good special effects and I am at a loss as to explain it failed. It deserved more than 14 episodes. If you like space operas, you'll love Firefly.

Rent it if you must, but be sure to get all four discs, though I suspect you'll want to buy your own copy.

Set in the far future after mankind has terraformed countless moons and planets, some as primitive as the old west some as cosmopolitan as twenty-fourth century New York. Malcolm Reynolds is an honorable man who has survived the final battle on the losing side has bought an old firefly class cargo ship and plys the backwaters of space with his crew of misfits, survivors and fugitives. Forced by fate and circumstance to living on the edge of known space, evading the authorities they simply try to survive in an hostile environment.

Check it out, you just might like it!

The DVD Report

Just a few general words about DVD's.

I started buying DVD's in 1999. By 200 I had perhaps 10. In May of 2000 I moved to the country outside Austin, Texas. I had perhaps 20 DVD's.

Shortly after moving I made the decision not to sign a term agreement with a satellite service Satellite and local services required to receive both national and local channels. The cost was over $100 per month.

Instead, I started buying DVD's. Within a month I had over 50 DVD's. I was in the country and had a lot of time on my hands and was fairly addicted to TV to while away the hours.

I Collected first run releases and started collecting several series.

For first release on DVD movies often the best time to get the best price is the first week of release, so every Tuesday I made a pilgrimage to Best Buy where I would buy the latest releases I was interested in. By the end of the year I had over 150 titles including the beginnings of the X-Files collection.

I soon discovered that buying all the first run movies I wanted could be very expensive. The X=Files alone were nearly a hundred dollars a season at first release and nearly a hundred-twenty after that. So I started buying older, less expensive movies. Nevertheless, I also found myself at times with forty or fifty movies in my overflowing baskets. I could drop four or five hundred dollars a trip to Best buy. Then I discovered WalMart and the $5.88 bin. Suddenly, (the name of an early Frank Sinatra movie BTW) I was able to buy ten or fifteen movies at a time ant still stay under a hundred bucks. But, I was never able to stay away completely from the first releases. By the time I hit over five hundred discs I had been married and divorced and now in mid 2004 I must have over 600 discs. I am happy to say that my buying binge has subsided somewhat, but still I find things too good not the add. While in Phoenix this June I discovered the "Everything 99 cents" store and there I discovered a couple of shelves with DVD's of old movies and TV series. Bought forty or fifty and sent a bunch to the boys in Iraq. Not the best quality but worth buying for the price. Hell, I paid $6.99 for several of the movies available there for 99 cents only a couple of months earlier.

So I mention all this simply to off some credentials for my further comments.

Things that Piss me off in DVD land--

I really have feeling ripped off. DVD's are less expensive to produce that VHS tapes and yet remain more expensive than video tapes. When I pay $19.99 for a DVD whose matching VHS tape costs $12.99 I feel ripped off. OK, It's new tech and the truth is I feel the same way about CD music discs.

What really pisses me off however are TV series that want exorbitant prices for products which have already reaped profits for their producers. Prime among the sinners in this category are the producers of the Star Trek properties, all of which are priced at a hundred dollars a season or more. And have you priced the original Star Trek series? $24.99 for each and every two episode disc. With over seventy episodes that adds up to a lot of moola. As a result, I own only one original series disc, that being the disc containing Star Seed, the first time we meet Kahn and that simply because I own the Wrath of Kahn and felt incomplete without it.

There are other series that are way too expensive and they include but are not limited to:

X-Files at over $100 per season

CSI at $70-$90 per season

Every single Star Trek series, all at near or over $100 per season. Maybe I mentiond that already but it is a big burr under my saddle.

Most of the successful Cop shows

Almost every Science Fiction Series available. Good Grief, Nearly a hundred bucks for Battlestar Galactica. Puh-leeze!

And the same goes for The Saint, Monty Python, Space 1999, the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits and way too many other old, syndicated series.

More later on Spacewasters and the best of the best in series DVD's available today.

So far the best move in King George II's campaign against Kerry is the deft way Viet Nam veterans were divided, making his anti-war activism a pivot point on which many votes swing rather that his obvious heroic war record. Of course the fact that Kerry continues to quibble and equivocate isn't helping Mr Kerry one little bit either. But it was the division of Viet Nam veterans that has me in awe. I honestly was unaware that any significant portion of the VNV population still believed that our little jungle crusade was anything but misguided and wrong. I guess it's just me. I must be out of touch.

To Senator John McCain: Please Sir, accept the nomination as Mr Kerry's Vice President. Save us from this blithering, blundering fool leading down the road to Armegeddon. Please Sir, this Viet Nam Marine Combat veteran implores you not to turn you back on this opportunity to serve your country and your world. Surely you see the disasterous consequences awaiting US if these stupid, stupid people are not replaced. Again Sir, I beg you, join with Senator Kerry to save the Republic. -- --

Now we know. The author of the misinformation about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction we our good old buddy Chalibi. Why would he provide false and misleading information. Because he wanted Sadam gone. The old end justifies the means argument. -- -- WRONG -- -- But since Shrub wanted to invade Iraq he didn't question the intel provided by this "friend" of democracy. Swallowed it whole. Hook, line and sinker. -- --

Well, now I'm officially pissed. This damn war isn't satisfied with it's proper news and military series prime time venues, No, it has to infiltrate a perfectly fine fantasy fluff show like VEGAS!!! Damn it NBC. This was a perfectly fine escapist TV show with lots of jiggle and action but in the Sweeps finale they have to have Danny called back to the Marine Corps for active duty on 24 hours notice and no doubt from the look on Big Ed's face he is headed into harm's way. Keep your damn war reality out of my fantasy escape television, please. -- Thank you!

"I've stopped reading newspapers." -- -- Ha, ha. Now he will be really well informed.

A fellow Viet Nam Veteran friend of mine writes: -- -- Being a dumbie sure is a handicap. I tend to think in the much simpler terms of a combat grunt. For instance I feel one of the major problems throughout American History is the inability of the American public to understand "war". The fact that we are now "at war" is a good example. How can we be at war without being directly attacked by Iraq? How can we be at war without the requisite Declaration of War from Congress? How can we be at war when only a small group of our citizens are suffering the effects [think here of the consequences in the entire Middle East of a STRINGENT policy of gasoline rationing in the U.S. because we are "at war"]. How can we be at war when we have no clear idea of who the enemy is? Remember the Japanese were basically blind and built planes out of fabric and paper? Remember the Vietnamese who wore rubber sandals cut from tires and were being forced to fight for Russian and Chinese masters? Another of my great loves is the "War on Drugs". Only war where collaborators with the enemy [i.e. purchasers of illicit drugs] are not hanged or shot as traitors but are given access to federally funded treatment programs to help them with their unfortunate situation. Another area I have problems with is the concept of "POWER". Mao Zedong was incorrect when he stated that power comes from the end of a gun. The true power is the idea the presence of the gun conjures up in the mind of the affected. Which has more power - an AK 47 loaded with 7.62 x 39 mm ammo or a sharpened entrenching tool? I [and probably a few others] know the correct answer but how about the rest of you? How about our "leaders"? Which is more powerful - sending 150000 troops to a country until we tire of the list of dead and withdraw or sending 50 people to build schools, hospitals, and live among the native people and learn from them and to keep sending the "helpers" regardless of casualties? Is a nuclear aircraft carrier more powerful than one man or woman who knows how to fix an irrigation pump? OK I'll get off my soapbox but only one more simple thought. It didn't start with Jimmy Carter. It started with George Washington. When he had to plead with his troops that defeating the British was more important than going home because of inclement [snowy and bitter cold] weather. Baby Huey [Paul {Last name witheld by me}]

Oh nutz, couldn't stop at #5 so included is #6- ============================================== Chess is a game of pure information, like poker with all the cards exposed; the better player will ALWAYS win; that is why a computer can be programmed to play it so well. But the only way a computer could be made to play top-level poker would be by introducing a randomizing factor into the program that would correspond both to the element of bluff and to the random way the cards fall. -- Read 'Em and Weep -- edited by John Stravinsky

God Emperor of Dune. Page 23, sentence 5. Stopping only six paces from the Royal Cart, Idaho did not attempt to conceal his angry determination.

You heard about the copter crash----------- And how the men all died----------- It wasn't friendly fire---------- Or RPGs from them----------- A faulty part---------- The simple cause ----------- They lied --------- They lied--------- They lied--------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two dollars fifty-------- Would be the cost-------- To put a good one in--------- But bottom line--------- And airborne time--------- resulted in a sin--------- --------------------------------------------------------- If good men die for profit's sake---------- And others just sit by---------- Will all our souls--------- Be clothed with holes-------- When each of us shoud die?-------- ---------------------------------------------------------- Will God be sad-------- To see his sons--------- Whose lives we could have saved?---------- And will he just-------- Forgive us all---------- Or will we bear the blame?------------------------------------------------------------ I know the guys-------- Who make the cash--------- Don't care about the crash--------- The blood they spilled?-------- Their wine is chilled!--------- In hell their teeth will gnash --------------------------------------------------------------- But if we don't regain control -------- Our systems may all fail---------- Much like the Chopper's rotor did-------- A shoe without a nail

Why do children die in war Why do mothers cry We listen to the awful news Why, why, why, why, why?????

Well, that's the most specious argument for a constitutional amendment I've heard yet. What? You ask.. The argument that without a constitutional amendment declaring that any marriage must be between a man and a woman thus preventing gay couples from marrying we will be faced with a wave of new types of marriage such as polygamous marriages and group marriages. If the want to defend marriages from group and polygamous marriages then draft a constitutional amendment to ban all forms of marriage but those between two, repeat TWO human beings. Otherwise don't we risk a wave of men and women marrying sheep and horses and pigs and such things bestial not to mention their vibrators and rubber dolls as well? No, gay marriage is not what we need to ban. Not two loving human beings bonding themselves one to the other. If defense of marriage is what is the goal why not make adultery a felony? Punishable by twenty years at hard labor. Adultery seems to be the real threat to marriage. I'm sure there are others but that seems to be the major cause of marital failure. As a matter of interest though, exactly what business of government is it to regulate marriage when until recently it was an institution of religion? Isn't that where that old idea of separation of church and state should come into play?? After all, isn't marriage an historically religious function???