This is me rambling about me, mostly. Current stuff: home, family, my head’s on fire… that kind of thing. This also includes everything imported from LiveJournal.
Why does the press keep calling the terrorists who are terrorizing Iraq “insurgents?” They’re getting their money through Al Quaeda and other foreign sources, they’re mostly foreign fighters to begin with, and they’re killing far, far more innocent civilians than government, coalition, or U.S. forces.
How is that “insurgency?” I could buy “guerrilla invasion” or even “proxy rebellion,” except that the tactics being employed are TERRORIST tactics. They’re trying to pressure a government and a military coalition politically by murdering the civilians that government has sworn (and has now been ELECTED) to protect.
It’s really quite simple. The West is doing battle with Al Quaeda terrorists on the ground in Iraq. Why isn’t it getting reported that way?
–Howard
(UPDATE: best answer I’ve heard so far, paraphrased — “because the US military called them insurgents for the first couple of years.” As naming conventions go, that’s hard to argue with.)
That’s right, I think I’m at my lowest weight in something like five years. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I tipped the scale at less than 180 lbs, but I KNOW it’s been more than three years. Naturally, I’m feeling quite pleased with this morning’s scale reading. My next goal is 175, which long ago was a weight I had trouble imagining myself ABOVE.
The AP release about the Mars Rovers has been quoted all over the Net. Hurray! They’re two years old, and have outlived their warranties by an amazing margin. You can find the complete text of the article here, or from any number of other sites — pick from this list of feeds at Google News.
The final paragraph in the article is annoying:
“Rock layers are the barcode of Mars history,” said John Grotzinger, a science team member from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Every time we encounter new layers, it’s another piece of the puzzle.”
Maybe it’s just me, but when I think of “pieces of a puzzle,” I don’t think of barcodes. Unless, of course, the barcode has been given the Enron treatment, and your checker at Wal-Mart is trying to tape it together so you can get scanned and find out how much you’re paying for the Barbie & Ken CD Player.
At any rate, hurray for Spirit and Opportunity. The bar has been raised for space programs worldwide. NASA may have screwed up big-time in the past, but with Spirit and Opportunity they’ve gotten it right.
I meant to write this yesterday, but I was too sick to.
I’ve pretty much lost two days of work to being sick. I’m only feeling a little bit better today, but I’m going to get some work done regardless.
The problem with being self-employed is that nobody picks up the slack for you when you’re sick. The nice thing about having a buffer of comics is that at least my readers don’t read me the riot act every time I forget to take my Vitamin C.