Sunday, September 16, 2007

Return Of Normal

The annual Summer lull seems to be over and violence is returning to Iraq. Not that it really ever left. Coordinated attacks on Shiite villages by groups of Sunni backed al-Qaeda outside Baghdad and a booby trapped bicycle inside. I thought it was Afghanistan that was going to be bombed back to the Stone Age.

A different version of the same story shows up in the Washington Post but the slant is little differently focused. Security contractors are involved in another incident involving the deaths of civilians, but since they haven't had to face charges or investigations before, it will probably be replaced by bad news from somewhere else. Like the deepening political crisis and the inability to maintain a majority. The Return on Success. How can you get a return on something you never had? That's like fraud, isn't it?

Blogger Play is addicting and much more interesting than Flickr. You can sit and watch the images that people are posting to their blogs in what seems to be pretty close to real time. Utterly fascinating. Cats, kids, food, people protesting Bush, more cats and kids, anime, art, nature, kids, and world events. When you first visit the site, there is a disclaimer about how they've done their best to keep it rated PG. So one of the first images was a beautifully done charcoal drawing of a mature nude, sure to set someone off if they were watching and had that type of mindset. The ability to find more detail about the image is available by clicking on it and visiting the home blog. Best viewed in Firefox or Safari. There are some interesting blogs out there.

What do a particle physics, a mini-biography of James Cook, searching for wimps, mining tunnels beneath the sea, childhood memories, and the tallest cliff in England have in common? This wandering article from Peter Hinchey at OhMYNews.

Major flashback. Marching in the streets, protesting the war, war supporters accusing demonstrators of being Commies and defending their belief that American soldiers deserve to die a long way from home and fighting an enemy that hasn't attacked us. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Now, if only the music would get better.

I touched it and it was pretty cool. Fortunately they were out of stock or I would have spent money that could be put to good use. Like paying my bills or preventive maintenance on my car.

2 comments:

  1. What summer lull? The lull comes in winter. I am a journalist working in Washington, DC. I used to dread working on the Middle East desk, because it would be 10 hours of people doing cruel and stupid things to each other. I'd write about four stories an hour about the mayhem in Iraq. At the end of my shift, I'd be physically and mentally exhausted.

    Since the surge, my workload has diminished to a trickle. Last might I wrote TWO stories out of Iraq. There are many nights when I write one or even none. I'm getting paid a huge amount of money for watching TV all night.

    The surge is working. Of course, you wouldn't know that by listening to my corrupt colleagues. They don't write the good news. And I can rarely push a good news story past my editors. Take a look at http://thetruthfromiraq.blogspot.com/ and tell me if you've ever seen any of these stories on the alphabet networks.

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  2. A booby-trapped BICYCLE? Oh, man.

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