Regarding the subject of this post, I would answer no. I, perhaps with a measure of vanity, would say that it is patriotism. More on that subject at the end of the post.
Saturday evening,
Lately, I’ve been watching the show, with zefrank. Its provided a daily dose of the surreal, up until the last few entries. Those… the most recent have moved me. Really hit me hard. I don’t think they would have if I had not been watching, perhaps even being one of the Sports Racers, for the last month and a half or two months. If this is the result of combining television and the world wide web (don’t you dare call it the internet), I have more hope than ever.
Good Things are happening with Penguicon 5.0. Stay tuned for more info, because I’ll be blathering my head off about it as soon as things are confirmed.
Since the summer after my 11th grade year, I’ve been working with computers professionally. Every single one of these jobs has revolved around getting the computer to do what the user wants it to do, whether the error was the user’s (PEBKAC), or the computer’s. My defining professional role has been to fix technology that is not functioning properly. The irony that a “curse” has developed around me getting rides in cars (about a week after the first time you give me a ride, the car ends up in the shop for something serious that was developing anyway, but suddenly kersploded) and that I very rarely own a computer for longer than a year and a half is not lost on me. In fact, the irony has been in the forefront of my mind for a little while.
Ironies seem to find the first few rows of my brainmeats to be comfortable, as they are there more often than not.
Technology is. When we say that a computer is being ornery, or contrary, or whatever, it’s because technology has a way. It has a pattern. Perhaps even a Tao (for those not in the know, that means way with a capital W). Pieces of technology are similar to people in this way, but their Way is not ours. Their Way is governed by whatever laws govern shoving a shit-ton of electrons through tiny silicon tubes and between silicon and plastic wafers, or when you use the pressure of thousands of contained fires to get from Lansing, MI to Davis, CA. Science is pretty darn good at predicting and channeling this Way, this behavioral pattern, this pattern of essence. But, like all human endeavors, it’s not perfect. It breaks.
And that is our Way.
Fifteen months ago, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal praising the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy, you asked the rhetorical question, “does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq?”
“Yes,” we did, you answered.
Since the day you wrote those words, over 1,000 more American troops have lost their lives in Iraq and that country is more dangerous than ever.
Senator, you had it exactly wrong then, and this week, in another Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “The Choice on Iraq,” you have managed to get it exactly wrong yet again.
“As the battle for Baghdad just gets underway,” you write in this week’s piece, congressional opponents of the escalation “have already made up their minds about America’s cause in Iraq.”
On the contrary, Senator, it was you and President Bush who had already made up your minds before the war started, using cherry-picked intelligence to sell the war to the American people. And if the battle for Baghdad is “just getting underway,” how do we explain the escalating violence over the last four years?
You claim that “a precipitous pullout would leave a gaping security vacuum in its wake.”
Actually, Senator, it was the precipitous invasion that you supported, along with its disastrous aftermath, which left the security vacuum that exists today – a vacuum which the terrorists, insurgents, and militias have all rushed to fill.
You plead for elected officials to “come together around a constructive legislative agenda for our security.”
Senator, we have already done this. The result was the bipartisan (remember that word?) Baker-Hamilton report which called for a redeployment of our troops over twelve months, plus aggressive diplomacy, as our best hope to bring stability to the region. The report’s conclusions were widely accepted by a strong majority of Democrats and Republicans, and then promptly disregarded by you, the President, and all those who had “already made up their minds,” the facts be damned.
You worry that Washington is removed “from what is actually happening in Iraq.”
Senator, Generals Abizaid and Casey were on the ground in Iraq and opposed the escalation. They recommended a phased redeployment of our combat troops. But rather than listen to them and redeploy the troops, President Bush redeployed his generals, and escalated the war.
On November 8th of last year, while voters across the country were giving Democrats a mandate to change course on Iraq, you were able to muddy the real “Choice on Iraq” for the voters of Connecticut. They thought they were choosing between two candidates who anticipated “significant” troop reductions by the end of the year, who both wanted “to bring our troops home.”
Senator, one of us still believes in those words we spoke during the campaign.
The American people and our military experts have already made their “Choice on Iraq” quite clear. It is now up to all of our elected representatives to follow their lead.
Sincerely,
Ned Lamont
I agree with this. If you can discuss your opinion rationally, and back it up with citations, I am open to discussion.
So, I went and got my head shaved today. It was a whim that seemed like it needed to be put to action. I think, once the initial shock wears off, most people are more surprised by me actually changing something without a whole lot of reason attached than they are with the act itself.
