July 1, 2008,
Tuesday
Conscription
Things are going just great in Iraq, we have won the war
there. Much building is going on, life is returning to normal. Al Queda In
Iraq has been defeated. We've beaten them back to their stronghold in the
Waziri stronghold in Pakistan. We still haven't gotten Bin Laden because
he continues to cower in his Pakistani sandbox. We need conscription to
get our country ready for the large war we are going to be fighting
probably with Iran when Israel bombs their Nuclear facilities and possibly
Pakistan when we violate their sovereignty when we go after the Taliban
and Al Queda. Our all volunteer army is broken and the only way to fix it
is more men. The reason John McCain was against the G.I. Bill in Congress
was because it gave too much to first term recruits when those could have
been reserved for those who signed on for a second term.
We need to insist to our European "partners" in Afghanistan that they need
to put some muscle to their "commitments" and put feet on the ground there
so that we can defeat the Taliban and their friends. After all, the
Taliban is much more of a threat to them. We have not had a single strike
on our continent while President Bush has been in office. There have been
several in Europe in that same time. Speaking of Bush; what would that
statistic look like if Kerry had taken office. It would have been a much
weaker government in terms of terrorism. Anyone who is honest with himself
knows that. Even worse, what if Gore had won just before 9/11? He would
still be trying to wake up from the nightmare of the impact of terrorism
on Global Warming. ("bin Laden, do you really want to set up Sharia law
over an Earth which has suffered the environmental impact of global
warming?")
Does Gary Coleman care about the environment? Jus' wondering...
June 26, 2008, Thursday
Iran
Now, it's really imperative that we solve the
Iran problem and FAST! Many think that Israel, which has already declared
its intention to attack Iran and has already war-gamed the scenario, will
attack before chancing Obama becoming president and just making things
more difficult. Remember Obama declared his own intention to sit down with
Ahmedinejad without preconditions to reward them for their progress on
becoming members of that dangerous fraternity of nations who now have
nuclear capabilities.
What is Israel to do? Ahmedinejad has announced that Israel must be wiped
from the map and is now racing toward getting the means to do so. There is
no lack of nuts who will be willing to carry such a weapon in a suitcase
right into Israel proper.
This whole scenario might begin WWIII with all of the alliances tying up
the various countries' economic and military interests. We must do
something now. Waiting will only worsen the problem.
Maybe this would be just the time to take out Iran's nuclear reactor with
a tactical nuclear device. It may very well be what Israel is preparing to
do. Their nuclear facilities are very well bunkered in, so conventional
bombing would have little or no effect it would seem.
This all reminds me of a poem by Ogden Nash:
How odd of God to choose the
Jews
Odder still are those
Who hate whom God chose.
June 17, 2008, Monday
Politics
As far as politics go, I am an addict. I lean toward the Republican side,
but am a very "compassionate conservative". I have a problem with the
concept of "trickle down economics" and have not really seen it work
though I've been voting since the end of the Nixon administration. I think
that the rich should be taxed a lot more than they are.
On the war, I am for keeping the surge going. We are now winning and since
9/11 there has not been a single attack on American soil. The liberal news
was all about blathering on and on during the early phase in which there
were a lot more casualties, but now that they are down to just a few a day
in Iraq, you don't hear a peep from the press. Our young men and women are
doing a wonderful job at winning this war and they are not getting the
recognition they so rightly deserve just because of the radical left
ideology of most of the press.
Everyone thought Iraq had WMD. EVERYONE. Now that it appears that they
didn't, the radical left likes to say that "Bush Lied". He certainly did
not lie. Declaring war on Iraq was the safest and the most intelligent
thing to do. Yes, it was unfortunate that we made the mistake, but all
were guilty of the mistake. Obama likes to congratulate himself that he
was against going into Iraq. He was a nut to have taken that position.
Given what we "knew" about Iraq's WMD program and Hussein's unwillingness
to back down, it was totally irresponsible to take the position Obama did.
His current position on taking the troops out if (God forbid) he becomes
president, is even more irresponsible. It has cost of lot of lives to get
where we are in Iraq. If we leave now, we risk a bloody civil war and the
likely prospect of Iran and Syria pretty much taking control of Iraq. That
is intolerable for our national interests, so we would be right back in
within a few years and have to fight the same battle all over again this
time with greater disadvantages than we had at the beginning of this war.
McCain is our only hope to continue toward final victory in this war and
toward containment of Iran which has made its intentions clear regarding
our ally in the Middle East, Israel.
June
17, 2008, Monday
My Graphics Phase
As I was becoming more and more ill, I tried to keep working. For awhile,
I worked at a sit-down job manufacturing rotary cutting tools. Even that
became difficult after awhile. Then I tried a new industry I discovered
through serendipity. I saw a web page for a Romanian Antivirus product and
noted the very broken English. Because I am good at both technical
communications and the English vernacular, I thought I would offer to
"Americanize" their documentation so that it did not appear to be of
"foreign origin" to American customers. This worked out quite well as they
were very pleased with my work. The company was later purchased by
Microsoft.
I then joined a Yahoo group of Russian shareware authors and advertised my
service to them. I got a whole bunch of work this way and had a lot of
happy customers from whom I received glowing testimonials. Sadly, my
health continued to decline and even sitting for long periods of time
became painful and exhausting.
At the same time I was also learning to use CorelDraw, a competitor to
Adobe Illustrator and began to create graphics for documentation and
technical writing. I also created a number of logos. I did business under
the dba "SPELLBOUNDesign".
Here are
a number of my graphics samples.
Now, I still use the computer for small projects for the time that I can
sit comfortably. I tried to take on some occasional work, but was unable
to meet deadlines due to days at a time being to ill to work at all. I
have done some where there was no deadline. I love the work as I get to
exercise my creative side.
May 13,
2008, Tuesday
An Experiment
Well, everyone else has a blog why can't I?
I'm not very good at finishing what I start sometimes, and I'd only be
able to contribute on good health days, but I have opinions which if
effused in the right arena would give me some relief. I can't guarantee
that this blog will even be here next time you visit because this is just
an experiment. We'll see how good I can be at this. If you have responses
you'd like to make, lemme know by email. I'm not using blog software for
now. If I stick with it, I'll learn some software (I would appreciate any
suggestions you might have) and allow for the posting of comments and all
of the other features of a regular blog. |