Hello, world.

Hello, world.

Off-line for 24 hours. Gorgeous blue day, with a calm, sleepy atmosphere. All the stores were quiet. There was little traffic.

The world is taking a siesta.

Got a haircut. Okay, so WG told me in no uncertain terms that I needed one so badly, he was cutting me off until I took care of it.

Called my old job to see if they were hiring for the summer. Visited a friend. Drove around with WG and did some shopping. Took in a movie. Tinkered with a Percy/Snape story.

Now replying to reviews. I like writing in two fandoms. There's such a contrast between Stargate and Harry Potter.

And wildernessguru really liked the haircut.

Really, really liked it.

Jeeze. If I'd known he liked bobs this much, I'd have gotten one sooner.

Letter to Wall Street Journal

MoveOn is having a real impact.

Last week they delivered 600,000 pages from over a million members protesting the attempt to slash PBS and NPR funding. The Republicans backed off.

They supported Congressman John Conyers' confrontation with the White House about the Downing Street Memo.

Now they're pushing to keep Bush from changing the subject about the quagmire in Iraq to "terrorism" and the now over-used "Remember the Alamo! Er, September 11th, I mean."

The internet community is having an impact. The Republicans are starting to mention MoveOn by name.

My letter to the Wall Street Journal:


"It is past time for an exit strategy from Iraq. Lt. Col. Kwaitkowski (USAF retired) in Military Week called Iraq, "an ill-planned war, a deadly occupation and no exit strategy." An exit strategy is a definition of victory. Without it, we have no goal.

This is a brutal war. It is far worse than most realize. This war is being fought on the ground, one soldier at a time. This is why we have 12,000 wounded in 27 months of fighting, not huge battles with many dead. That is over 400 soldiers maimed per month, most during the occupation. Military recruitment is down 45% for good reason. Word has gone out: You don't come home in a body bag, you come home like an IKEA bookcase -- some assembly required.

We should have had a goal, a clear exit strategy, before we even began. It's time we set one."


Want to defeat people like Rick Santorum? Step up to the plate. The letters, the petitions, the ad campaigns... they're working.


ETA: Ooo. MoveOn's part of the very effective coalition including the AFL-CIO, the Campaign for America's Future, AFSCME and USAction that blocked changes to Social Security.

Stargate Rec

dustandroses shows us how it's done.

A Very Bad Idea, by dustandroses, Jack/Daniel NC-17, oh, beyond NC-17

Daniel starts asking Jack some very personal questions, and neither one of them can back away from a challenge. Did I mention I had a kink for rimming?

Hillbilly armor?

The things you learn living with a military analyst:

That "hillbilly armor" on the Humvees?

The U.S. has over 10,000 M-113 tracked armored personnel carriers stored in Kuwait. They are designed to roll anywhere (not just roads) in desert conditions, and solidly protect our troops.

There.

Right now.

They don't even have to be shipped to the region.

But instead of using them, we're ordering more expensive, easy-to-blow-up Humvees (which are just glorified jeeps) with a little more armor on them.

Trouble is, unlike the M-113, Humvees still have an undercarriage that focuses any mine-blast up into the vehicle. The new Humvee armor only provides better protection against bullets, not mines, and not the ever-present I.E.Ds (Improvised Explosive Devices).

They are using Humvees instead of these carriers because, politically, we wanted to present a softer "less intimidating image" to the people of Iraq.

They're also slower, but how fast do you have to go to outrun a mine?

Ask any soldier: would he rather roll around at 30 mph off-road on one of these, or be stuck driving on mined roads with the military's new jeep?