Where are the hippies

I was talking with a friend about the sad state of Iraq and the striking similarities in rhetoric between Iraq and Vietnam. I said, innocently enough, that the only thing Iraq is lacking (aside from jungle of course) is real student protest. No sit-ins, strikes, shutting down city hall or even large protests. Where are the hippies?!? Are the youth that numbed by TV, MySpace and YouTube?

My friend said simply, 'I guess it is because there is no draft'.

Well duh! Of course that is it. There is no thought that a kid would be the next sent over. Most probably don't even know anyone really well who is over there or has been killed. There is no sacrifice being asked of them, so why would they risk their comfortable little lives to get out and protest.

Of course, who am I to criticize, all I do is talk about it.

Back?!?!?

Wow, ya take a week off and then it is a month and then it is six months? How the heck did that happen?

Anyway, just got back from the West. I have a bunch of Grand Canyon pictures and pueblos and other cool Arizona sights. I also have a couple of pictures from Vegas, but as I just want to forget Vegas (no, I did not lose any money there), I probably won't be posting those. I hope to post the pictures over the next couple days.

As far as political and other musings, I hope to have some time in the next couple days to put some thoughts down but we will see.

Anyway, hope you all haven't missed me too much!

Are they trying to tell us something?

This post by Atrios was very funny (in the depressing sense of the word). Does this mean anything?

While looking into something I decided to head to the web page of the House Armed Services Committee web page. It's a truly beautiful site.

Then I noticed the "Victory in Iraq Caucus" link led to... nowhere.

Then I decided to see what's been going on under the title "Success stories - building freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan."

After clicking on the link we're helpfully informed that we should "Check back often - because there is a lot of good news to tell about Iraq and Afghanistan."

The last functioning update is from May 18, 2005.

FSU Academics

I generally try to keep my personal sports biases off this blog, but this was too funny: FSU to phase out academics.

Apologies to my niece who is a freshman at FSU.

Power

One interesting thing about Power in this country is it shifts. The Republicans come to power then the Democrats then the Republicans again. The shifts can take a variable number of years, but you know they are always going to change eventually, even when it looks like one party is down for the count.

This is what makes we wonder about the rush to give the executive branch authoritarian power to spy without oversight, torture and detain without warrant. At some point, possibly not in the distant future, a Democrat will be sitting the White House again. Democrats may also hold one or both houses of congress.

Given this, along with the long professed ideology of small government, one might think the Republicans would be very cautious about investing those powers in someone who they feel will abuse it. Government is all about precident. It will not be easy for congress to reverse the authoritarian trend just because they don't like the current president. At least one congressman, Larry Craig understands this (warning, old news). Why don't the rest of them?

ABC's 9/11 Docudrama

I am getting to this a bit late in the game. ThinkProgress has had great coverage and is really leading the organization against this propaganda piece. I have to admit I am somewhat withholding judgement on this one. I will probably watch at least a little of it to see if it is really as bad as it is being billed.

ABC has certainly raised suspicions about its motives just from its actions. Why give obscure conservative bloggers pre-screenings and not President Clinton? I can't believe they actually told Clinton, Sandy Berger and Madeline Albright they couldn't have a copy. I always figured they could get their hands on just about anything they wanted to.

ABC is trying now to hide behind the 'Docudrama' lable but that is lame. I can understand consolidating several relatively unknown real people into one for stories sake or placing fictional characters into a real world event like World Trade Center did, but calling a mini-series a Docudrama does not allow you to make up events entirely. You cannot make the president do or say things he demonstratably did not do or say. It has always bothered me that historical pieces do not stick strictly to the known facts when addressing real people or events.

Back in the swing

Vacation always throws me off. Three weeks with no posts. Argh. Anyway, back to Friday Kid Blogging:

We generally avoid restaurant chains but for whatever reason Rainforest Cafe works well for us (except the cost of course).
















She wasn't even posing for this one. She really is this cute.

Random observation of the day

I have heard, over the past 3 years, many pundits and commentators of all ilks express amazement at the barbarity of the Muslims who kill each other for sectarian reasons. The argument goes 'I can understand them hating the Jews and maybe even the Christians but what kind of religion turns on its own kind' or some close approximation of that. This is generally used to show what a backwards religion Islam really is.

The only response I can think of to this is, 'Has anyone ever heard of Northern Ireland'?

Vacation

I am on vacation in Atlantic City (?!?!?) so posting may be spotty this week. Amazingly there is no wireless in the room, only in the activity center. Oh well. I've been getting spoiled.