History rules. But this will do for now.

well... shit

2011-03-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

i have to say it: being unemployed is highly overrated. and expensive. there's absolutely no job market--or at least no jobs that i'm really qualified for--in the wenatchee area, and i can't really afford to move to somewhere that does have jobs. i had an interview in spokane last friday that i thought went well, but since i haven't heard from them by phone or email i'm guessing that i'll get a letter in the mail sometime in the next day or two saying "sorry, we went with someone else." i haven't given up hope yet, but i have admit that i'm not overly optimistic about life, the universe, and everything at the moment.

so what's worse?

2010-10-29T22:20:00.001-07:00

the fact that i'm using wild turkey 101 as a cough suppressant... or the fact that it's working?

winner!

2010-09-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

alright, felicia day uses goodreads! and she's got pretty good taste, over all. the sad part, though? even if i update mine and manage to get in all the books i've read, i think she's still managed to read more of me, on top of acting and attending various conventions. makes me feel kinda lazy....

perception

2010-07-19T20:23:00.001-07:00

oddly enough, it all started with broccoli. i hate broccoli, and started to wonder how anybody could enjoy the taste of that vile green stuff (or mushrooms, or asparagus, or any of a host of other disgusting things). or, another example: we all know that different people will remember the exact same event in different ways. why?

are events (or tastes) absolute? does broccoli have a fixed taste, one that some people enjoy and others don't? or is it more complex than that? maybe broccoli has a whole host of different tastes, and a person's physical makeup (in this case, their taste buds and sense of smell) causes them to pick up different parts of the flavor mosaic. same with memories... are we actually seeing things differently (thanks to the physical makeup of individual eyes and their connections to the brain)? or do we just attach different levels of importance to the various parts of our memories thanks to a variety of factors (upbringing, alertness, training, etc.)?

this was much more impressive when i originally thought it out about 1:00 this morning, but hopefully it's enough to give you a general idea of what i was thinking.

happy birthday, America!

2010-07-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

234 today, and you don't look a day past 200. i think you may be getting into yet another midlife crisis, but overall you've aged remarkably well.

happy memorial day

2010-05-31T08:52:00.000-07:00

thank you, to all the brave americans who have given their lives while defending freedom around the world.

an open letter to the person who broke into my car and stole my zune

2010-05-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

warning! foul language content.

dear fucktard,

thank you very much for smashing in my window and stealing my zune. i knew i didn't hate seattle quite as much as i should, but with your help, i've gotten closer.

even if we ignore the part where you chose "criminal" as a career path, you're obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed. i realize that my stereo is completely built into the dashboard, and that my cds were mostly burned copies (since i've always been paranoid about the originals getting stolen), you completely missed/ignored my friend's purse, which had several credit cards and over $100 in cash in it.

that $100 is an interesting number, since that's exactly what my insurance deductible was to replace the window, and the amount you'll be lucky to get for the zune. when i bought that over two years ago, it cost me about $240. looking online for a replacement, i found a brand new model of the same version, along with the car kit (which normally goes for $80 on its own) for $200.

and speaking of car kits... you know that other set of wires you stole? that was the car charger for my cell phone, you fucking moron. maybe my facebook wish will come true, and you'll shock yourself when you try to plug it in. i hope it does a very thorough job of it, and i hope you've got good health insurance to cover your hospital bill.

sincerely,
daniel bareither

why don't they get it?

2010-05-16T16:17:00.001-07:00

or maybe they do, and just don't care. via say anything, which i hadn't visited in awhile, i learned that congress is looking at capping ATM fees. which sounds nice... but as far as i'm concerned, that's none of congress' business. i worked in the banking industry for about four and a half years, and while ATM fees are annoying, they're not generally big money makers. the bank i worked for charged $2.00 for non-customers (it was free if you were using one of our debit cards), which in my experience is right about mid-range as far as fees go, and we actually ended up pulling one of our ATMs out of a local community because the cost of keeping it stocked and maintained wasn't worth it. as far as i'm concerned, a bank can charge whatever the hell they want for a fee; if people don't like it, they can go elsewhere. it's not as if there's a shortage of banks out there. even the little podunk town i live in (population ~1100) has two banks to choose from, and if you're willing to drive half an hour into a larger city (which most people have to do for groceries, medical appointments, and entertainment anyways, as well as work for quite a few) you've got more than a dozen different banks and credit unions to choose from.

note to congress: businesses exist to make money. if you take that ability away from them, why should they bother to continue their existence?

almost

2010-04-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

this sums up my life almost exactly, except for the jerk part. other than the fact that they're not me, she's had fairly good taste in her relationships.

or, maybe not

2010-04-18T23:13:00.001-07:00

"so everyone can get their fair share of funding." yeah, sure. fuck you, census bureau. it's not your money to play around with, it's ours.

normal?

2010-04-07T22:09:00.001-07:00

i would really love to learn to fight with a pair of short swords. is that weird?

goal

2010-03-22T23:12:00.000-07:00

next week, i will build a portable desk, so i can get out of the house and write without any distractions. probably won't be too fancy, but as long as i can fold it up to stick it in the back of my car, and have enough space to have a few sheets of paper (or a stack of paper and my laptop), i think that should be good.

unemployment, week 3

2010-03-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

so far, i've been fairly unproductive. finally finished off the pieces for my RISK board, got another paragraph on my story written (but i really need to go back to outlining), and studied absolutely no greek. about the only thing i've actually been consistent with is starting to get some exercise again, walking a couple miles 4-5 times a week. things should be nice enough to break out the bike pretty soon, and then i'll be able to expand my range a bit.

i'll be traveling a bit this weekend and again next week/end, and hopefully those will be enough to get me re-energized.

Internet is down.

2010-03-02T16:48:00.001-08:00

Internet is down.

what's the point?

2010-02-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

starting march 1, european users of microsoft windows will be given the choice of having something other than Internet Explorer as their default browser. in my opinion, the european competition commission wasted both their own time (and money) and microsoft's by arguing for this. on the last four computers i've owned, one of the first things i've done after the initial setup is to hop online (using IE) and download a different browser; right now i've got both firefox and chrome, and just keep IE around for the rare occasion when i have to manually update some microsoft product.

everybody who knows what they're doing and doesn't like IE will be doing something similar... at best, this will save them a minute or two. and the people who don't know what they're doing still won't have a clue, but now they'll have more choices to confuse them. so really... what was the point of this? way to go europe!

Something Useful

2010-02-17T19:55:00.000-08:00

As some of you may already know, I'm about to become a statistic. To the best of my knowledge, my job with North Cascades National Bank will be coming to an end at the same time that this month does. Back in October they closed my office down in Orondo, but asked me to stay on for awhile to help out with a retention project. While I was working on that I accepted a slightly less temporary position (through the end of February), providing coverage through the holiday season... I haven't heard anything else since then. In some ways, I'm a bit disappointed: I really like the group of people I work with, and will be sad to see them less often. On the other hand, I'm definitely ready to move on to something different. Regardless of what you may have seen in the media, banking was already a fairly heavily regulated industry, and with all the new rules Congress keeps pumping out it's getting more and more stressful to try and help people, worrying that you may inadvertently break some law or other.

I'm not looking forward to being unemployment, but I do plan on taking a bit of time off before going into job hunting mode. I've got a bit of money saved up, and along with my final paycheck and (hopefully) some severance pay, I'll be able to get by for awhile.

Obviously I'll have a bit more free time on my hands, although based on conversations with former coworkers, it sounds like unemployment is much busier than I would have expected. I think a certain amount of vegging is justified, but I really don't want to get into a habit of that. I do hope to get back into my writing (which I haven't done seriously in several years, so it could take awhile to get back up to speed), but when I'm doing something I like, I can only keep at it for so long at a stretch before it's time to take a break. So, with that in mind, I'm soliciting suggestions for something (or multiple things) useful to do with my time while unemployed. I prefer things that can be done with a minimum of monetary commitment, but have no problem donating my time to a worthy cause. Any input would be much appreciated.

the other america?

2009-12-21T10:44:00.001-08:00

apparently, the fact that the senate voted to socialize healthcare is a "big victory for the american people," according to president obama. i wonder if he means that other america that john edwards brought up during the 2004 election, or maybe states 52-58, which he didn't get to visit during the campaign. most of the american people that i've talked to think that this is the worst idea since the shit sandwich.

really?

2009-12-15T18:13:00.000-08:00

flipping through the bbc website over the last couple of days, i've run across a couple of fairly interesting articles.

in the first, i discovered that the EU wants to regulate the maximum volume of mp3 players... apparently too many people are losing their hearing from listening to them too loud. whatever happened to personal choice? if somebody wants to be an idiot and blow their eardrums out, then we should let them have at it, and deal with the consequences themselves. my opinion? if this does pass, all it's going to do is create a market for mp3 player amplifiers.

article two: the lack of common sense is not restricted to one side of the atlantic. the US House of Representatives just passed the CALM Act, which would regulate the maximum volume of tv commercials; the Senate is working on a similar bill. really? yeah, those are a bit annoying. but last time i checked, your remote control (even this little guy) comes with volume controls a mute button. or maybe you could even change the channel. or use the commercial time to grab a snack or take a bathroom break.

on the bright side, i suppose if politicians are busy with crap like this, they've got less time to do something really stupid, like sacrificing the economy on the alter of gaia.

quote of the day?

2009-11-20T18:05:00.000-08:00

"...male bodies continually optimize the gonadal climate for spermatogenesis and sperm storage."

from a completely harmless but rather odd article found here.

well... huh.

2009-11-18T22:12:00.000-08:00

i've been reading and thoroughly enjoying the dresden files, by jim butcher... just finished up the 'last' (in the sense that the next one won't be published for several months) of them today. i knew it had been a series on sci-fi, and decided to check hulu for it this evening. lo and behold, it was there.

so i watched the first episode.

what. the. f**k.

the tv series is "based on the novels" in the same way that a bowl of sugar is part of a complete breakfast. as long as you remember to eat it with a few pieces of toast, a glass of milk, a glass of juice, and a bowl of actual cereal, that is.

i can understand the writers making up cases that were different from those in the books, and to some extent inventing characters to go along with those. but some of the rest... not so much. i stopped counting errors after i ran out of fingers, but i'm quite certain i would have run out of toes and possibly hairs as well. if i were feeling slightly more obsessive-compulsive, i would (and still might at some point) re-watch it, just to get an accurate count. off the top of my head:

1) bob should be a slightly perverted air spirit, not a ghost

2) harry shouldn't be using electricity

3) harry should be driving the blue beetle, not a jeep

4) murphy should be blonde, and shorter

5) they screwed up the name of harry's old teacher, and made him a relative

6) the "skinwalker" from the first episode is entirely different from the one that just made its appearance in book eleven.

7) no mister?

8) harry should be living in a basement, not a regular house

9) bob should be in harry's lab in the sub-basement, not on a shelf in the living room

10) murphy shouldn't have a kid

and there are all my fingers.

as for the tags: this is a very bad thing, based on a very good (and slightly nerdy) thing, and i recommend never putting yourself through it.

hey kid! i'm a computer!

2009-11-16T20:51:00.000-08:00

stop all the downloading!

on a slightly more serious note, the time has come for me to build a new computer. the graphics card on my old system finally gave out on me after about three and a half years, and things have advanced enough since then that i decided to start from scratch and build a completely new compy. right now i'm running everything off of my laptop; it's more than enough for every day tasks, but not quite up to snuff as far as gaming is concerned.

so far i've got a good chunk of the pieces (see below), but i'm still not entirely sure which mobo and processor i want to use. any input from those familiar with computer bits and pieces would be much appreciated.

Case: Antec Nine Hundred
Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-850TX
RAM: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 SDRAM 1333
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 275 Superclocked Edition

as far as the big stuff goes, here's what i'm thinking so far:

Processor: Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield
Motherboard: EVGA X58 SLI LE

i'm also considering picking up an SSD to use for the OS, but i'm not really sure the bang is worth my buck. i got one opinion on how big of a drive i should have for that (100gb), which seemed a bit big to me, as well as a bit pricey... the 80gb drives i saw were all $230+.

questions? comments? discuss amongst yourselves.

i'll take what's behind door #2

2009-11-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

door #1: obamacare, which would cost roughly $1 Trillion over the next 10 years

door #2: the republican plan (yes, they actually came up with one), which would cost roughly $61 Billion over the next 10 years, cut the federal budget deficit by $68 Billion over that same time period, and reduce insurance premiums as well.

decisions, decisions....

see here for more info.

h/t AoS/HA

what is wrong with these people?

2009-10-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

headline: Rich Germans demand higher taxes. they seem to think that donating their money is not enough, the government has to take it from them and use it for programs to help with the financial recession. my reaction? they obviously have no idea what they're doing. any businessman worth his salt would be able to do more with his own money, with less overhead and more control over how it's spent, than the government could. and at least 99 times out of 100, any charity you pick (or form, even... these are rich folk we're talking about after all) would spend your money more efficiently than government. government is where money goes to die.

fight the good fight

2009-10-05T21:38:00.001-07:00

and support a great cause. no pun intended.

/facepalm

2009-09-22T18:11:00.001-07:00

as i may have mentioned before, my job is shortly coming to an end; october 16th is my last day with ncnb. on occasion, one of the many vp's will send out a motivational quote to the staff. this was today's: "Starting right now, work on adopting the mindset that you're a huge stakeholder in the success of your organization. Fact is, you really are one. --Steve Ventura" except for those people whose office we're shutting down, that is. you guys don't have so much of a stake in anything here any more.

lost in translation?

2009-09-21T20:42:00.001-07:00

apparently "hey hey hey" is open to interpretation. personally, i'd take it as somebody excited enough to see you that just one "hey" won't suffice. but when the lord of the land says it, it means "go to war today." possibly with some exclamation points. who'd've thunk it?

Attempting mobile update, intorweb is

2009-09-18T18:24:00.001-07:00

Attempting mobile update, intorweb is down.

Never forget.

2009-09-11T20:14:00.001-07:00

Never give up. Never surrender.

What next?

2009-08-31T21:55:00.001-07:00

So, for those of you that don't know, my job will be ending in just over a month. We haven't been given an official last day yet, but the bank I work for is shutting down the branch I work at on October 9th.

My long term goal is to study Byzantine History at the University of Chicago, get my PhD, and teach at the college level, preferably somewhere small like Whitworth. The guy who's focus is Byzantine history looks like he's right up my alley, but let's face it: he's not getting any younger, which means I need to move fairly quickly so I can get there before he retires. And lucky me: for a favorite field of study, I picked one with the most required languages (scroll to page 7), although the language tests don't sound quite as scary as I would have thought. I'm not sure exactly what the "departmental certification" means, but I'm assuming I'll need a pretty good grasp off all the languages--Byzantine Greek, Latin, German and French--by the time I get there. I'm hoping I'll be ready to apply next year to start my studies the following fall, so sometime between now and then I need to work on picking all of those languages up.

Short term goal(s):

Find a new job, preferably one that allows me some time for language studies

???

Profit!

Secondary, medium term goal(s):

Get my TEFL certification so I can teach English in Germany, France and maybe Greece, picking up those languages while I'm there, and study Latin on the side

???

Profit!

Tertiary, unrealistic goal(s):

Win the lottery, so I don't have to worry about working (freeing up much more time for study), can afford whatever language school I feel like, and don't have quite as much time pressure while working on my doctoral dissertation

???

Profit!

I'm sure that got old after the first time, but I don't have a whole lot of opportunities to use it, so lay off me.

but the real question is...

2009-08-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

... "is there an app that will let me block all those annoying iphone/app commercials?"

can you hear me now?

2009-08-11T21:59:00.001-07:00

because pat got all hypocritical on me, and because i don"t feel like logging into my other gmail-google account, i shall attempt to post via email. not sure how well that will work out, since it does not seem to like apostrophes or forward slashes. the end.

--
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted. --Missionaria Protectiva

prayer requests

2009-06-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

for the retallic family, who i've known for most of my life.

catching up

2009-06-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

pat apparently gets hypocritical as well as jolly when he's drunk, because he decided to complain that i don't update my blog often enough. which is probably true... but considering the fact that it's been over 3 years since he updated his blog, i'd say i'm doing pretty alright.

student loans: as of next week, my loans (from the government, at least) will be paid off. which really means i just get to add a bit more to what i'm paying my parents back every month, but at least they're not charging interest.

europeans = ftl. but only partly, since they did show a bit of common sense in their most recent elections. mostly i have to complain about the way the write down dates. as a reward to myself for paying off the aforementioned loans, i was going to take a trip to belgium and the netherlands to see a couple of bands that don't have any concerts scheduled here in the good old US of A. but thanks to their sideways dating, a show that i originally thought was november 7 (11.07.09) turned out to be july 11, which means the concerts are 4 months apart, not 4 days like i originally thought. so europe will probably get put on hold until next year.

and for now, that's all. we've got some of an unfortunately small number of our "normal" relatives visiting, so i think i should be present for awhile.

quote of the day

2009-04-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

yeah, i've been a bit lazy about this lately. like, a month or so. but this quote definitely made me think, "i really need to post this."

“If I had my way, I’d destroy all the mosques and spread the whores around a little more,” the [Iraqi] detective said. “At least they’re not sectarian.”

via AoSHQ

fuzzy math

2009-03-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

if you haven't already seen the watchmen, don't bother. several individual parts were far more impressive than the whole, which was disjointed and hard to follow. also, as much as i don't mind females in states of undress, there was a lot of unnecessary nudity. i mean really, can you imagine being the guy who had to animate dr. manhattan's man parts?

best entertainment i've had all week

2009-02-24T17:56:00.000-08:00

true, it's only tuesday, but still... good times.

h/t say anything

Quote of the Term

2009-02-12T18:56:00.000-08:00

i have always been a fan of the following quote; and as our government prepares to blow roughly 57 zillion of our tax dollars, it once again proves the wisdom of our founding fathers:

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. -- I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

written by Benjamin Franklin, and appearing in the November 29, 1766 issue of The London Chronicle.

quote of the day

2009-02-09T17:25:00.000-08:00

"In my many years I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress." --John Adams

question of the day

2009-01-29T17:48:00.001-08:00

if you can repeat something, does that mean you can just "peat" it?

brilliant!

2009-01-29T17:44:00.000-08:00

only in europe. hopefully. depending on who you talk to, between 1 million and 2.5 million french workers decided to protest the threat to their jobs caused by current economic conditions. the form their protest took? not going to work. if you're not even going to bother showing up for your job, why should sarkozy worry about it?

no, you wouldn't

2009-01-08T21:25:00.000-08:00

"if you were God for a day, what would you do differently?" if you mean having God's powers, i'd probably do quite a few things differently, and the world would be a worse place for it. as well-intentioned as i generally am, i am far from perfect. but if you mean actually being God? i wouldn't do a single thing differently. God does what He does because of who He is. God is holy. God is love. God is faithful. God is merciful. the list goes on and on. i may try to be those things, but He actually is them.

which leads up to a conversation i had with my boss the other day. one of my co-workers has been treated rather poorly by her spouse. so my boss decides i need to listen to beyonce's "if i were a boy," to see if i agreed that it fit my co-worker's situation. so i listened. my first response; "this sounds like self-pity." she was essentially singing about how she would treat herself (or girlfriend/wife/whatever) better if she were a boy. which isn't really true; if we're following her stereotype, then if she were a boy, she'd act exactly like the person she's complaining about. also, i would find her much less attractive.

just for you, pat

2009-01-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

the same pat who, although he hasn't touched his blog in almost 3 years, thinks i need to update mine. but since the laziness that kept me from posting in 2 weeks is still here, this will pretty much just be a bunch of bullet points.

the snow is spokane is as bad as they say. most of division was missing a lane of traffic in each direction and getting in and out of parking lots and going through intersections on side roads were offroad expeditions.
quote of the day: "Some people can put juju inside the helmets and when they are worn the victim can either lose consciousness or be struck dumb," passenger Kolawole Aremu told the Daily Trust newspaper. forget yellow cake... saddam should have been looking for juju in nigeria.
memo to israel: do it right this time. don't stop until this job is done. maybe after all of this, the palestinian people will realize that groups like hamas are not saviors, but rather the source of their woes. get rid of the terrorists, and israel will have no reason to bomb you.
i'm going to keep playing (and paying), but i'm starting to get WoW'ed out. any suggestions on a good RPG? i've heard good things about the witcher, but not sure if i want to go out and buy it yet.
there is no luck in gingerbreadmanville.
watching through babylon 5 again... great show. much like another one of my favorites (sg-1) though, i have to wonder how it ever made it through it's first season.
estamos en los estados unidos. se habla ingles aqui.

thatisall.

absorbed!

2008-12-22T22:29:00.000-08:00

that title might make sense to some people.

anyways, today the bbc brings us the story of the youngest ever member of cuba's national assembly, 18-year old liaena hernandez. key quote: "Having young Cubans in parliament shows that the revolution continues. It isn't just something from our history." the continuing revolution began on january 1, 1958, when fidel castro seized power. for reference, here are some other revolutions that come to mind:

american revolution: ~8 years, depending on how you count
result: the best country ever
french revolution: ~10 years, again depending on how you count
result: two of the greatest military leaders ever duking it out, and lots of dead people.

both marked major turning points in world history, and took less than 20 years between them to complete. 50 years later, the cubans are still right where they were--fleeing to america on whatever floats--only without soviet assistance and no more botched invasions of their island. cuba, i submit that your revolution is ineffectual, and it's time to give it up.

bass ackwards

2008-12-08T17:49:00.000-08:00

i'm really not sure how amazon's shipping system works. i preordered Wrath of the Lich King a good two months before it came out, with regular shipping, and it got to me 4 days after the game released... which also happened to be one day after i went out and bought another copy because i got tired of waiting. last thursday, i ordered some beef jerky--a type i really like, but haven't been able to find locally lately. i chose the free "super-saver" shipping, which in theory is slower. the package shipped the next day, and was waiting for me when i got home from work. and it was shipped through the US post office, which is generally not known for it's speed. heck, it takes me three days to mail something from here to spokane, and i can drive there in less than three hours.

happy belated birthday

2008-12-04T21:44:00.000-08:00

to the prince of darkness:

held up by the sheriff

2008-12-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

we were well on the way to breaking the record (12 minutes) for fastest council meeting. and then the sheriff showed up. but harvey is a cool guy, so we didn't mind too much. and it still took less than 20 minutes, so i'm a happy camper.

various and sundry things

2008-11-20T17:42:00.000-08:00

wow, i've been slacking lately. but it's been slow at work as well, so i've had a bit of time to peruse the BBC website for news... here are a few things i thought were interesting.

1) obama has already managed to piss off al-qaeda, so he can't be all bad. it was definitely in poor taste for al-zawahiri to refer to obama as a "house-slave" though. regardless of what may have brought the insult on, basing it on his skin color--which he has no control over--is pretty lame.

2) gays in california are still pissed about proposition 8; apparently "majority rule should not set the law." which, who really wants that messy democracy stuff anyways? they may actually have a pretty good case; if the courts deem this a revision to the state constitution instead of an amendment, it would have required a 2/3 vote in the legislature before being passed on to the voters. which brings us back to the majority thing; the gay rights folks got a majority of judges to agree to hear an argument that the proponents should have got a supermajority to vote in favor of prop 8 before the regular majority got to vote in favor of it. so apparently majorities are okay, as long as they agree with the gay rights people. personally, i'm going to side with sir elton john on this one. i don't remember the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of "marriages are for straight people, civil unions are for gay people... if you're getting the same basic rights, why should you care what it's called?" one is a relationship between two people of opposite sexes, and one is a relationship between two people of the same sex; they are, in fact, two different things.

3) philosophical questions for the day: number 1 is the only one i actually came up with an answer for, so i'm going to go ahead and post the whole thing and then give my answer and reasoning.

1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?

Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?
Consider another case: you and six others are kidnapped, and the kidnapper somehow persuades you that if you shoot dead one of the other hostages, he will set the remaining five free, whereas if you do not, he will shoot all six. (Either way, he'll release you.)
If in this case you should kill one to save five, why not in the previous, organs case? If in this case too you have qualms, consider yet another: you're in the cab of a runaway tram and see five people tied to the track ahead. You have the option of sending the tram on to the track forking off to the left, on which only one person is tied. Surely you should send the tram left, killing one to save five.
But then why not kill Bill?

no, we don't kill bill. in both situations given, at least one person is going to die regardless of what happens. in the original question, if we don't "harvest" bill, he continues living his happy, healthy life. besides which, we really don't know if his organs will actually save the people they're intended for. they could be rejected by the host, or the doctor could screw up the operation, and there are probably several other things that could go wrong as well. also, back to the first example they give... if the hostage taker gives me a gun to shoot one of the other hostages dead, the first thing i'm going to do is shoot the guy that took us hostage, and we're all free. the end.

random question

2008-11-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

believe it or not, i made it through my entire school "career"--high school, community college, and real college--without taking a single chemistry class. so i've got a chemistry-type question that randomly popped into my head the other day.

what happens if you drop an oxygen absorber into a glass of water? assuming there's actually enough to absorb all of the oxygen in the water, are you left with liquid hydrogen or hydrogen gas, or does something else entirely happen?

bummer dude

2008-11-04T21:12:00.001-08:00

congratulations, mr. obama. i really hope that i was horribly wrong about you.

question of the day...

2008-10-31T19:01:00.000-07:00

amd or intel? i want a quad-core cpu, and hope to be rocking dual graphics cards in sli/crossfire as well. any recommendations are welcome.

more on the bailout

2008-10-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

which i was actually planning to write a few weeks back, but got lazy. go figure. in my defense, my original link broke, and i had to track down a new one... all the .pdf versions are coming up no good.

my favorite section, which i hope i'm reading/interpreting wrong, is 112, which states (emphasis mine):

The Secretary shall coordinate, as appropriate, with foreign financial authorities and central banks to work toward the establishment of similar programs by such authorities and central banks. To the extent that such foreign financial authorities or banks hold troubled assets as a result of extending financing to financial institutions that have failed or defaulted on such financing, such troubled assets qualify for purchase under section 101.

that same section 101 that tells us the treasury secretary can purchase troubled assets "from any financial institution, on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary, and in accordance with this Act and the policies and procedures developed and published by the Secretary."

so on top of wasting money to cover the stupid financial institutions in our own country, we're going to be covering for the mistakes made by other countries as well? i think we should focus on our own problems first and foremost.

speaking of focusing... president bush's original proposal was 3 pages long. the finished bill was 451 pages, and roughly 330 of those (i think it was actually a few more, but don't remember the exact page number) had absolutely nothing to do with the economic crisis. 75% of this bill was just addons to get enough of the senators to abandon any common sense they might have had and vote yes. to make it "good" enough for people to go along with, they had to turn it into a very bad bill indeed.

so, there are my two cents. i may have a bit more later... at work i get a copy of the banc investment daily; most of it is way over my head (or "above my pay grade"), but they've had some good things to say about the bailout.

entrepreneuer of the week

2008-10-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

and the award goes to.... sarah's smash shack. good to see that at least someone should be doing well in these troubled times.

h/t wp

with a grain of salt

2008-10-07T20:00:00.001-07:00

that's the best way to view any poll results.

next step, retention

2008-10-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

i learned something again today: when in doubt, just keep your mouth shut. i've lost track of how many times that would have been a good idea, but i'm hoping that one of these times--preferably this one--the lesson will stick.

the good, the bad, and the ugly

2008-10-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

the good
senator cantwell (D)
rep. hastings (R)
rep. inslee (D)
rep. mcdermott (D)
rep. mcmorris (R)
rep. reichert (R)

the bad
senator murray (D)
rep. baird (D)
rep. larsen (D)
rep. smith (D)
rep. dicks (D)

the ugly
h.r. 1424, on which i'll have more to say later

boo

2008-10-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

looks like the senate overwhelmingly passed a new version of the bailout package. they also managed to tack even more spending onto it--apparently to make it palatable to the majority of senators--in the form of what appears to be a rather odd set of earmarks, including funds for (or tax cuts for... it's hard to tell) virgin island and peurto rican rum, race tracks, and wool research. wtf do those have to do with credit problems, mate?

it sounds like the house will be voting on this (and probably tacking more crap onto it) on friday... hopefully they've got the good sense to shoot it down again.

ouch

2008-09-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

so, i made it to my first cougar football game this weekend. and man, did i ever pick a bad weekend for it. oregon walked all over them, and the clock finally put an end to our misery with the score 63-14. i'm hoping to make it down for a basketball game as well... hopefully they stay pretty good

son of the year

2008-09-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

the award goes jim richardson, who managed to track down and buy the m1 garand that his father had used in korea, and presented it to him for his 79th birthday.

h/t wp

bats!

2008-09-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

found this little bugger hanging off the side of the bank today, and got right up in his grill for some pictures. hopefully he'll (or she... hard to tell with bats) still be there tomorrow, and i'll get some more.

you know what's really awesome?

2008-09-16T22:34:00.001-07:00

spending a good chunk of your day cleaning up messes that you didn't create, so that you can keep the auditors happy, so they can keep upper management happy. on the downside, once you get all that fixed, nobody notices that half of your workforce is not so much helping things as actively making them more difficult, even if unintentionally.

random thought

2008-08-29T23:42:00.000-07:00

obama '08: hope. change. hopechange. and with that, a side of vice presidential candidate who's been in the senate for over half his life... since nixon was president, mccain was still a "guest" at the hanoi hilton, and obama was 12 years old.

obama '08: hope? maybe. change? not so much.

there's gotta be a better word for that

2008-08-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

it's probably unnecessary, but i get pissed when people (usually PETA, but a few others as well) talk about the humane (or inhumane) treatment of animals. they seem to be missing the key part of that word: human. the royal humane society, for example, was originally founded to rescue/resuscitate drowning people, and they still give awards for doing so; i saw no mention of the treatment of animals on their site.

animals shouldn't be treated humanely, because they're not human. that's not to say they shouldn't be treated well; just that we need to come up with a better term for doing so. "animalane" just doesn't sound right, so i'm open to suggestion.

dale soden is the man

2008-08-19T17:56:00.001-07:00

i enjoyed most of his classes (even dale couldn't do anything with "ideas about history"), and just got to play pool with him a few months ago.

man, i am freaking lazy

2008-08-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

that's the only excuse i can come up with for such light posting. in my defense... no, i really have no defense. i've pretty much been reading, playing W o W and another game i just discovered, and hanging out with the only friend i've got in the area before she heads back to pullman. and work, of course, but i think that's part of what leads to the laziness. unless it's a friday and i stay up fairly late, i spend more of my waking hours at or traveling to/from work than i do at home.

i am hoping to pick up writing again at some point. not just the blog, but actual writing as well. i recently finished reading a book that was written by a girl i went to school with. while not the best writing i've ever seen (though mine is far from perfect), it was a good story, and i'm looking forward to the sequel. she went through authorhouse to publish it, which is something i'll definitely look into. i've started and dropped more stories than i can count... usually i just don't have the motivation to keep going on them, or once i actually started writing they didn't come out quite like i expected. i do have a pretty decent outline for one that i liked floating around somewhere, which i'm going to try digging up again one of these days.

other than that, not a whole heck of a lot going on. i'm hoping to build a new computer sometime this fall or winter. my current machine (just hit 3 years with it) does everything i need it to and then some, but it doesn't do everything i want it to anymore. but then, this is something i was thinking about last summer as well, and nothing came of that, so maybe i'll just hold onto my money a bit longer. i'm setting some aside every month so that hopefully in the next year or two i'll be able to make a lump payment and no longer owe the government anything on my student loans. which really just means i get to start paying my parents more for the ones they took out, but it will still feel good.

on which note, i need to go to sleep, so i can wake up and go to work, so i can come home and not do anything productive tomorrow, but possibly avoid writing run-on sentences, even though this one was semi-intentional, just to piss off all those english majors out there.

bride to be?

2008-08-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

iliza shlesinger, will you marry me? it would be great!
*you're incredibly attractive, i'm not bad looking; we'll call that one a wash
*you're a standup comic, i'm a sitcomedian; we'd complete each other! except not in those words, because that sounds cheesy
*we're both winners: you won last comic standing, i won an election

that's all i've got for now, unfortunately, but it's a start

candidate nicknames

2008-07-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

i'm sure there are some out there that are more clever, but to me, the election this november looks to be a contest between BO and Old Spice.

i wish i were good enough to come up with this

2008-07-25T18:16:00.001-07:00

the story of the obamessiah.

good news!

2008-07-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

from the cuba front: the government is planning to allow more private ownership of land. it seems like it's mostly a practical measure, designed to cut down on the amount of food that cuba needs to import. but whatever the reason, it's a huge step forward for freedom on the island, especially if coupled with this:

"He [Raul Castro] has also announced that workers can earn productivity bonuses, doing away with the egalitarian concept that everyone must earn the same...."

so wait... if i work more, i can get paid more? sign me up! if these reforms go through, it will definitely be time to start easing our trade and travel restrictions on cuba.

context is overrated

2008-07-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

we actually ran into this one while designing the whitworth college republicans t-shirts, but didn't end up using it:

"A wise man's heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him toward the left" (Ecclesiastes 10:2, NASB)

i had been looking for that one for awhile, but couldn't remember exactly where it was. and then the other night, i randomly opened my bible up right to it. that's gotta be a sign of some sort...

hero of the day

2008-07-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

in an unusual form.

good question

2008-07-07T18:03:00.001-07:00

yeah, i'm with rachel on this one... how exactly does this change anything? shouldn't this be considered more evidence in favor of what christians believe, rather than "rewriting the bible"?

yarrrgh...

2008-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

so, last night i stayed up waiting for my little brothers to get back from young life camp at malibu. they were supposed to be home around midnight, at which point i was supposed to pick them up at one of the local churches. at 03:15, somebody else dropped them off right at our house. which means i could have been in bed for three hours at that point. good times.

i'm alive!

2008-07-04T00:24:00.000-07:00

believe it or not, i survived my trip. at some point i hope to have up a more thorough account of it, along with pictures; but for now, here are the highlights:

sunday
arlington national cemetery
the white house (just the outside)
washington nationals baseball game (vs texas, lost 5-3)
smithsonian national museum of natural history

monday
supreme court (handed down three decisions [1, 2, 3])
library of congress
tour of the capitol building (including about 5 minutes of a house session)
navy memorial
washington monument

tuesday
jefferson memorial
wwII memorial
vietnam memorial
lincoln memorial
fdr memorial
korean war memorial
us department of the treasury - bureau of printing & engraving (the buck starts here!)
national archives (constitution, bill of rights, declaration of independence, among other things)

wednesday
gettysburg
harpers ferry

thursday
national zoo
smithsonian national air and space museum
marine corps memorial

friday
15 hours of travel
my birthday!

saturday
ft. drum centennial air show

sunday
walking tour of sackets harbor battlefield

monday
i'm home!
sleep

pat! update your friggin blog!

2008-06-18T22:02:00.001-07:00

actually, i've been a bit lazy about that as well, so pat's not the only one. and i haven't really had an excuse... not yet, at least. in a few days though, i will, at least for awhile. friday after work i'm headed over to seattle, and saturday morning i fly to washington, dc. i'll be there until bright and early on the 27th, when i'll hop a train up to new york city, spend a few hours there, and then hop another train up to the syracuse area until the wee hours of the 30th, at which point it's onto another flight and back home. actually, come to think of it, i could probably extend the excuse for another week or so... it'll take me a few days to recover from the trip and readjust to my usual timezone, and then i'll have a friend from portland coming up for 4th of july weekend. monday after that i get to go back to work with my boss out on vacation, and hope things haven't gotten too crazy while i was gone, and then town council that night, where people will swear at us for either spraying or not spraying for mosquitoes. good times.

on which note, time for sleep.

wow

2008-06-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

just... wow.

Happy Memorial Day...

2008-05-26T09:57:00.001-07:00

...and a sincere thank you to all the men and women who have fought and died in the name of freedom.

haloscan problems?

2008-05-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

or maybe i just broke something. i can see comments in the "recent comments" bar, but not in the comments section of the actual post they go along with. any thoughts on why that might be?

poetry, or something like it

2008-05-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

both of these just sort of popped into my head at work today. at some point, i may try and complete the color wheel. or maybe not, since i'm not a huge fan of poetry, and it's not something i'm overly good at.

If I Were Blue
What would I do,
If I were blue,
From lack of breathing air?

Wherever I wandered,
My humor would be squandered,
The people would just point and stare.

I can't say I'd blame them,
And I'd wish I were like them,
Living my life without a care.

But I am not blue,
So who cares what I'd do?
I'm off to go breathe some air.

If I Were Yellow
If I were yellow,
I'd be quite mellow,
But not the beverage of that name.

A treasure of gold,
If you could get a hold
Of me you'd win fortune and fame.

By now you are thinking,
"This writing is stinking,
This poem is really quite lame."

So I must digress,
And go join the protest
For the "outing" of Valerie Plame.

thoughts on california's gay marraige ban...

2008-05-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

...that was struck down today by the california state supreme court.

1) gays already have the same marriage rights we do: the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. they're not pushing for equal rights, they're pushing for special rights.

2) is it just me, or does it seem like the process got less and less democratic as it went along?
a) 2000, california voters (or at least all those that bothered to vote) passed a resolution banning gay marriage
b) following this, the legislature--elected representatives, but still a smaller number of people than those who voted on the resolution--attempts to legalize gay marriage, but governor schwarzenegger vetoed their bills. proving his RINO status however, he said that it should be passed on to the courts.
c) in a 4-3 vote, the state supreme court overturned the law banning gay marriage. unlike the US supreme court, these judges were at least elected, but still... 7 people getting to make the decision on something as important as this?

whoops

2008-05-10T09:01:00.001-07:00

the trend continues

2008-05-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

with more conservative governments being elected to power, this time in the UK. the tories picked up quite a few council seats (+256), as well as winning the mayoral race in London and taking control of the city assembly. i still have very little idea of how the election system over there works though, so i have no idea what this means for the long run.

yarrrgh...

2008-05-02T23:46:00.000-07:00

damn... how come i didn't find out about this till 20 minutes ago?

who knew?

2008-04-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

one more thing we can blame on global warming: AIDS. who knew?

h/t say anything

hooray for nerds!

2008-04-29T16:54:00.000-07:00

rachel lucas = my hero.

whoops

2008-04-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

when you're trying to make an analogy, make sure you proofread it before going public with it.

dang

2008-04-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure what made me think of it, but i just realized that i missed the annual Eat an Animal for PETA day. by about a month. right now it's an annual event (march 15), but I really think it's important enough to become at least quarterly.

awesome

2008-04-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

500 bonus points to scott, our bank president, for the following conversation at the end of our open house tonight:

me: hey, if there's any fat tire left, i'll buy it.
scott: just take it.
me: what?
scott: you don't need to buy it. just take it.
me: hey, thanks much!

i definitely walked out of the bank with a full case of fat tire tonight. good times.

poetry

2008-04-12T09:02:00.001-07:00

Hillary Under Fire

Ode on Hillary in Bosnia

by Orson Scott Card

"We landed under sniper fire!
We ran for cover, terrified!
The bullets flew around my head!
I thought for sure that I was dead!"

She told the tale in hopes it meant
We'd vote for her for president.
Instead we looked for evidence
Of Hillary's experience,
And found that not a bullet flew.
Her thrilling story wasn't true.

Because we know she never lies,
I ask, how did this tale arise?
Was it a dream, and when she woke
She thought that it was real?
Or was the story just a joke,
And no big deal?

Did drinking too much mocha make her
Fantasize this tale?
Or was it from a line of coke,
A furtive toke of the kind of smoke
That Bill did not inhale?

Oh hush, right-wing conspirators!
Your reasons suck! Now here is hers:
She just misspoke.
She meant to say
She landed on a sunny day
And a little girl read a poem aloud
And Hillary waved to the friendly crowd.

But campaign days are oh so long,
And being a woman, she isn't strong,
So the story simply came out wrong.

How could you think that Hillary lied,
When it was such a small mistake,
The kind that anyone could make?
No joke, no toke of smoke, no coke,
No dream from which she never woke --
She just misspoke.

You've heard that what goes up comes down
And where there's smoke there's fire.
Well, when you visit Hillary Town
The word "misspoke" means "liar."

yay money!

2008-04-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

awesome! apparently i'm about to recieve a donation from mrs jenifer bruce. assuming she actually exists though, either she's none to bright or she thinks i'm not. a few key excerpts from the email:

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2. 5 Million (Two Million Five Hundred U.S. Dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account. [whoops... that should read "Two Million Five Hundred Thousand." strike one.]
Recently, my Doctor told me that i have serious sickness which is cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. [as opposed to what? a serious sickness which is cancer solution? also, last i checked a stroke wasn't a sickness. strikes two and three.]
I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband’s relatives is around me always I don't want them to know about this development. [i'm not even sure what she's trying to say here. that's gotta be worth at least 14 more strikes.]
Contact me on the above e-mail address for more information’s, any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church or individual for this same purpose. [note to jenifer: adding 's to the end of something doesn't automatically make it plural. this is even more fun than john kerry's "our troops need more ammo's" back in the 2004 debates. i think we're up to strike eighteen now.]

also, she claims to be a kuwaiti writing from the ivory coast... apparently she was married to the some guy who worked at the kuwaiti embassy there. problems with that statement: 1) i am unable to find any credible reference to a kuwaiti embassy in the ivory coast; 2) jenifer isn't exactly a kuwaiti name... the closest i was able to come up with from a list of arabic girls' names were janvier and jenna; and 3) a google search for "kuwaiti embassy ivory coast" brings up several different versions of the same attempted scam.

so, time for a little contest. the person who guesses closest to the chance (expressed as a percentage) there is of me responding to the email wins a prize.

an interesting comparison

2008-03-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

over at say anything, pilgrim compares organized crime with militant islam. it's actually a very interesting way of looking at them. key paragraph:

And that’s my point: If an organized crime syndicate did the same thing the entire might of U.S. and European law enforcement would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Will the threats against the Live Leak staff get the same treatment? Probably not. Islam gets a pass. I don’t get it.

read the whole thing.

laziness, or a shout out?

2008-03-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

i've probably mentioned it before, but i'm a huge fan of the stargate: sg-1 series. i just finished season 8, and seasons 9 and 10 are sitting on the shelf begging to be opened. recently, i saw a name that i recognized from the show: kelowna, a country on another planet that one of the main characters was from. and i thought "wait a minute, why is the wenatchee rotary club doing something with people from a fictional location?" but it turns out kelowna is also a city in british columbia, a four hour drive from where the show was filmed in vancouver. which really makes me wonder how many other locations on the show are named after places on earth. so the question is: were they just lazy when they were coming up with names, or did they think highly enough of the area to decide to put it out there for everyone to see?

for old times sake

2008-03-23T20:24:00.001-07:00

i found my journal from my trip to england and scotland back in 2004 the other day, and resumed the task of completing it. you read that right: almost four years later, and it's still not done. i actually remember quite a bit of what happened though, and when rereading it was even able to remember some things that I had left out when i was originally writing it. i'm hoping to finish up sometime in the near future, at which point i plan to type it up and put it online.

random side note: i just found a small feather between two of the empty pages towards the end. i have no idea what it's doing there, but i'll go ahead and leave it there for now.

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

He is rizzle fo shizzle.

happy birthday!

2008-03-12T17:39:00.000-07:00

to my younger brother bud. he turned 21 today, and told me he'd redeem the day from some of the other interesting folk who were born on march 12. in no particular order:

mitt romney
darryl strawberry
ron jeremy
some others i forget

it was also the day the jews were expelled from syria (1496); cesare borgia was killed (1507); the US post office was established (1789); the girl scouts were founded (1912); FDR gave the first of his 'fireside chats' (1933); the truman doctrine came into being (1947); hawaii became a state (1959); wonder woman made its television debut (1974); hungary, poland and the czech republic joined NATO (1999); and the color coded terror warning system was established (2002). i think bud has quite a bit of redeeming to do.

event dates courtesy of on-this-day.com

hey, they got one right!

2008-03-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

or mostly right, at least. my favorite microbreweries are actually located in washington and oregon. so maybe i'm not as white as i thought?

... yeah, i am. oh well. and though i have no plans to open my own microbrewery, i have made my own beer before, and we do have organic golden hops growing in our back yard.

oooh...

2008-02-27T21:46:00.001-08:00

yeah, i want one of these too.

various bits and pieces

2008-02-26T17:37:00.000-08:00

here are a few things i've been meaning to post on for awhile, but kept getting distracted. if i don't give anyone credit for them, either i found it myself or it came from one of the other blogs i frequent, most likely wizbang or say anything.

1) hooray! for socialized medicine. if you like being shipped to india for your health care, that is. (wizbang)

2) liberals are insane. we all knew that already, but now we've got a psychiatrist to back us up. although much like the "global warming" debate, you could probably find people with all sorts of facts on both sides of the issue. (wizbang?)

3) governor spitzer of new york wants to tax illegal drugs. either he's incredibly stupid, or he thinks all of the dealers in his city are. who the hell is going to claim that they've got crack, and then pay a tax on it? surprisingly, 21 other states have tried this or something similar. maybe they're taking their cue from britain, where polygamy is illegal, but you can still get extra welfare benefits for your multiple wives.

4) my vote might be making it's comeback. if obama & mccain end up as the nominees, i may vote for mccain just to be voting against obama, who wants to send more money off to the UN to fight global poverty. i've got no problem fighting poverty, but don't do it through the UN. they're much more likely to deface historic sites, rape the locals, or take bribes from dictators. and on the off chance they get something right, why should they get credit for something when we're the ones putting up the funds for it? if you want something done right, do it yourself.

5) i'm not sure what to think of this site. i've gotten through the first 10 postings, and for the most part it's fairly entertaining. but at the same time, if they had called it "things black people like," it probably would have been shut down for being racist.

6) on a more positive note, i want one of these.

thought of the day

2008-02-21T20:45:00.000-08:00

from dostoevsky's crime and punishment (wordsworth classics edition, pg. 204):

"I do not believe in another life," replied Raskolnikoff.
Svidrigaïloff remained pensive. "supposing we found there nothing but spiders or such-like things?" asked he, all of a sudden.
"The man is mad," though Raskolikoff.
"Men always represent eternity as an incomprehensible idea, as a something immense--immense! But why should this necessarily be the case? Imagine, on the contrary, a small room - a bathroom, if you will - blackened by smoke, with spiders in every corner. Supposing that to be eternity! I often conceive it to be so."

i've had several different ideas of what heaven would be like over the years, but none of them come close to a darkened bathroom full of spiders. i'm with raskolnikoff... that guy was completely insane.

whoops, our bad

2008-02-12T20:08:00.000-08:00

remember that whole "global warming is going to melt the icecaps and kill us all" shpeil? turns out that it may actually save lives. who knew?

brilliant!

2008-02-11T19:14:00.001-08:00

i never knew how incredibly intelligent our speaker of the house is. she's figured out a way for our troops to be successful, even though their mission has apparently failed:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq “is a failure,” adding that President Bush’s troop surge has “not produced the desired effect.”

“The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “They have not done that.”
The speaker hastened to add: “The troops have succeeded, God bless them.”

so Nan, fill me in... what exactly are our troops succeeding at over there if not the surge? i realize we've got the best military in the world, but still, it seems a bit beyond their capabilities to succeed and fail at the same time. it's like that question some athiests will ask to "disprove" God: "Can God create a rock so big that he can't move it?", or something along those lines.

h/t say anything