Oh Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
   -St. Augustine (354 - 430)

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.
   -Robert Orben

Love thy neighbour as yourself, but choose your neighbourhood.
   -Louise Beal

Technorati Tags: quotes

…through my blogging, I have “met” more than a few folks that either will be or are currently deployed in Iraq.

Yet, because I have “met” them only through the magic of the Internet, I cannot impose upon them any obligation to know their status (in other words, to know if they get killed…).

I can only guess, and mourn at a silence that may or (dear God, please) may not be due to a visit from the grim reaper.

Fuck…

…that only truly hardened ideologues are not stunned:

I haven’t written much about the Miers nomination, mainly because I am left in askance for words in the face of an appointment that has the appearance of almost in-your-face cronyism, but this is more than a wee bit troubling to me when I take the larger view:

“I didn’t learn answers to so many important questions,” said Schumer, who described Miers as much less informative than Chief Justice John Roberts was during similar meetings after Roberts’ nomination to the high court in July. “On many, she wouldn’t give answers, and on many others, she deferred, saying, ‘I need to sort of bone up on this a little more.’ “

Question: What exactly does it mean to be “the best qualified” for a position as Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court?

I need to “sort of bone up” on solving second order differential equations because I don’t use them often since graduate school, but I do NOT need to review the key issues in areas that I am best qualified to both opine and work.

Is someone who says they “need to sort of bone up on this a little more” really meeting any kind of “best qualified” criteria that is not solely that she will “vote right”?

Is this now the sole criterion for any governmental position, the “correct” ideology, are competence in the field or respect for the Constitution no longer important?

Is this really how we want our government to run?

—

Thanks to The Commissar of The Politburo Diktat for the link to the USA Today story.

…and why I haven’t given this blogging thing up yet.

On a day, a Monday, when I have been moving posts around in time to put the “better” ones near the top of the blog, when I have used other resources (such as cross-posting and linking from an increasingly popular weblog, The Moderate Voice, in an effort to increase my readership), I check my readership statistics, and I find that of the last 100 visits, 40% are repeat visitors who came directly to the main page with no referral.

It appears there are a few folks out there who believe what I write is worth reading, even if I don’t get that many comments.

Gratifying?

Yes, absolutely…

To those who return to read, I thank you.

I will continue to try to do my best. That is all any of us can do, try our best.

Patriotism is often used as a shelter for the thoughtless, arrogant, and greedy.
   -Otis Beck

Technorati Tags: quotes

I was a serious questioner at the time of the start of the Second Gulf War regarding the need to invade Iraq at that time, and I am still a critic of how both the justification for the war was presented and how the subsequent occupation has been handled.

Regardless of those views, I can with a clear conscience state the following - We did NOT need this (from FoxNews.com, hardly a bastion of liberal, anti-American reporting):

Possible Fraud in Iraqi Referendum

Monday, October 17, 2005
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Election workers will audit results showing unexpected ratios of “yes” to “no” votes from some parts of Iraq in the country’s landmark referendum on the draft constitution, officials said Monday.

Which part of “the elections need to be both free from intimidation and credible” was so difficult to understand?

Has the spin machine in Washington become so disconnected from reality that they forgot to emphasize to those running the election in Iraq that even the appearance of fraud was to be avoided at a cost at least equal to that of preventing any terrorist attacks upon the voters?

A discredited, or at the least quesitonable, vote is in many respects worse than no vote at all, and the strange necessity of a 2/3 rejection instead of a 2/3 approval does not help matters.

Geez, who is in charge here? Has the administration become so distracted with issues of possible indictments of senior members that it cannot keep its eye on the ball when it comes down to the most important things?