Thursday, April 13, 2006

Trouble with Bush

It's funny, people dislike Bush Jr. so much that in an informal poll online, these are the running results when he's compared to Jimmy Carter.


Who will history judge more favorably?
Carter
77%

Bush
23%

Total Votes: 32,283



What the hell? LOL

In other news, this is a recent story about yet another retired general speaking out against the administrations (particular Rumsfield) approach to the Iraqi War. Read article

Monday, April 10, 2006

A player's trouble

So, I was at this party one time at a friend’s house in Monterey many years ago. There was a few guys that lived in the same place, and they always had some friends over. It was a den of players. At this party, a female friend of theirs had brought over some fresh meat, a cute 18-year old blonde girl. I had started talking to her and even got her number, but couldn’t hang out too long. Anyways, the king player had his eyes set on her, and hung out with her for awhile too.

The next day, I get a call from him. He went into this short story how he liked her and that she said she liked him too and he was hoping he could get her number from me. I was thinking that’s a pretty slimy move, but hey, it didn’t really matter to me. So I gave him the number, or at least I thought I did. It turns out that I misread the number when I gave it to him. By some massively strange coincidence, I gave him the new number to his ex-girlfriend’s new place. When he called, he got cussed out by his ex over the phone.

I get a call back from him like 20 minutes later. He was kinda pissed, but he was a trooper. He still wanted the blonde’s number from me, even though he thought I intentionally gave him his ex’s number to fuck with him. His friends thought I was a genius for that maneuver, even though it was completely accidental. I never met his ex, nor did I know her number. However, I think the accident ended up working in his favor anyway cuz he was able to use the incident to suck his ex back into his game for a little while longer.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Just some thoughts on U.S. war capability

For a long time the U.S. had a policy of keeping a standing military ready to fight one full war and one half war at the same time. This means that the U.S. can engage in one all out war in one region, while still being able to do peacekeeping missions and smaller scale operations in other regions at the same time. There was a time when people viewed the need for this with skepticism. Following the Persian Gulf War, some believed the world was becoming more united and less tolerant of rogue states.
After 9/11, many began to realize that the proper approach was neither a single war policy or a war and a half policy. So the U.S. adopted a two war policy. This allowed the U.S. to fight the Iraqi War and the Afghani War at the same time. Of course, here comes my criticism.
I've got the sense that the U.S. is barely able to fight one all out war right now. It seems to me that the politicians and bureaucrats have significantly underestimated the resources required to fight a war. It's my opinion that the current chaotic situation in Iraq could've been avoided had we sent in the appropriate number of forces from the beginning. In additional, the Afghani War never got significant U.S. forces at all. In reality, it was a half of a war. So, the U.S. really is fighting and rebuilding nations from one and a half wars. Yet, our ability to do this was based on trying to implement a two war policy. It seems to me that maybe our leaders don't really have a sane grasp of reality when it comes to what's really involved when fighting a war. We haven't learned from many of the biggest mistakes in the Vietnam War. Mistakes like never making a formal declaration of war, underestimating the enemy's ability to stay entrenched, or working too closely with the existing powers within the occupied nation. We succeeded with reforming Japan and Germany, but these were two nations weary of wars they started. Right now, we are occupying one nation that is weary of the war we started, and another nation that's not had a strong central government in modern times.
These wars need to be finished. In my mind, the Afghani War will not be done until Bin Laden & crew is captured. This should be our main focus. We should've been fighting the Afghani War as a full war. We need to get Iraq on its feet so we can finish our job in Afghanistan.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Trouble with time again, or not

So far, this evening is going pretty much as planned...well, not really planned, but as I intended for each task that I thought of doing. So, I had to leave work a bit early to drop off some components for rework. I left that machine shop around 4 and headed home. As I headed home, I figured out that I could possibly have enough time to do all of my laundry at the nearby Laundromat. I get home, gather the laundry and head over. I got all the loads started in the washing machines and headed next door to discover a sandwich restaurant at around 4:45. I finished my sandwich, walked back over to the Laundromat and started moving clothes to the dryers. As the last load was transferred, I looked up to see the time was about 5pm. I thought about the nice shirts and sweaters that I need dry cleaned. I headed back home and gathered my dry cleaning load and drove to the near by cleaners. After dropping off my dry cleaning, I'm thinking about how hella low on gas I am. Ok, I head down the street to the gas station and pump a nearly full tank, 15.25 gallons. Ya'no, I went 365 miles on that 15.25 gallons. That's pretty good. Anyways, after that I head back to the Laundromat. As I walk up to my dryers, the first load finishes. Talk about prefect timing. While I'm folding my clothes, the second load finishes. Just as I'm done folding both of those loads, the third and final load finishes. I get all that done, and everything back to my home at just about 6:55. That's 5 minutes before my grocery delivery time window starts. And here I am blogging about the whole journey.