A Postmodern Desi

Yesterday, we heard word that the United States Soldier was captured in Afghanistan recently. Some military analyst on Fox News suggested earlier today that the Taliban could save the United States the headache by executing a soldier that he strongly believes deserted his unit. Hooray for America's News Channel!



Listen asswipe, it doesn't matter *why* an American soldier has fallen into enemy hands. It didn't matter that Jessica Lynch's unit got lost in Iraq and blundered into the enemy, right? You think this American soldier was trying to freaking defect to the cave-dwelling Taliban? REALLY? This 23-year old Private is saying stuff on an enemy video ... you don't think he might have been coerced into doing so? What do you think of John McCain's videos made by the North Vietnamese?

One of ours is one of ours. How dare he pass judgement and speculate on television about circumstances he knows nothing about. Talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Ralph Peters, what a fucking cockroach.

I loved seeing eeyore_grrl and the Indigo Girls this evening.

But I'm in pain. Which sucks. As I was telling her, my sense of justice is offended: "I shouldn't be in this much pain! It's not my fault I was in a car accident!"

Life isn't fair, and there's no guarantee of fairness. But there it is anyway.

At least this pain will get better over time (the next few days/weeks). Still, no fun.

Via joedecker and jeliza:

The words of God do not justify cruelty to women

America in the 1970s was a country that felt itself on the decline ... after the Vietnam War, the energy crises, and inflation, it was easy to see how Presidents could get tarred with all the ills of the day (that's what Presidents do, for better or worse, right?) Carter was a fundamentally decent human being who assumed that Americans had some common sense and could be rallied using rational discourse. Look at this speech of his on energy policy...

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3398

Now wonder where we would have been if the Nation had stayed the green course that Carter tried to put us on.

Jimmy Carter is a moral force in this world, and in many ways it is the equal of any work he did as President.

When internet memes collide...



Threadless has it

So my back went into spasm yesterday morning, and that threw a monkey-wrench into the whole stinking day (and is still affecting me).

I didn't work yesterday.

I wanted to go to the Fire Arts Festival, but the idea of sitting in a car that long, and then walking around, and then sitting back in a car for the ride home was too much to bear. Went with cath to see a movie ("Public Enemies") instead.

Very sore (but more mobile) than yesterday. Taking ibuprofen like candy.

Concert tonight with eeyore_grrl in Saratoga. Hopefully tonight's concert will be far less eventful than the *last* Indigo Girls concert we tried to go to...

So...slow progress on the back, but dangit I'm angry because this is all related to the car accident and it shouldn't have happened.

Oh yeah, the car is fixed again and I'll pick it up on Monday.

I was doing well post-accident, but my back went into spasm about twenty minutes ago and woke me up! I can't lay down comfortably, but I can sit at the silly computer.... grrrr

(meds are taken, and the chiropractor opens in a few hours)

Cisco cutting up to 700 jobs in San Jose
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12851881

(I'm ok so far)

Remember that silly flu thing a few months back? With some research, a pattern of behavior of the H1N1 virus is emerging...


H1N1 swine flu attacks the respiratory system in a more sustained way than the standard seasonal virus, research in animals shows.

Tests showed swine flu multiplies in greater numbers across the respiratory system, and causes more damage.

And instead of staying in the head like seasonal flu, it penetrates deeper into the respiratory tissues - making it more likely to cause pneumonia.

The University of Wisconsin study appears in the journal Nature.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8148709.stm

Most of the cases of the new flu have been minor, and there have been around 500 deaths. What will happen when the Northern Hemisphere flu season gets underway in earnest?

So Endeavour didn't go yesterday, but SpaceX were able to successfully put their payload in orbit...

Yes, Mike told me about this one :-)

Google's logo today is awesome.

Cisco posted a new video on the corporate website that highlights our work during the San Diego Fires in October 2007. Because it's always better when the customer is happy with you :-)

http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/gov/vds_SANfirst_responders.html

We got called out today to a medical where the patient had to be fully CSPINE'd and backboarded for transport. I helped the AMR and fire guys package the patient up.

Then just an hour ago, the paramedics are assessing *me*.

Life is weird.

My back had been sore for a few days, so I decided to take up tenacious_snail's suggestion of Massage Envy, since they're quite close to home (in the Pruneyard). Yay cheap introductory rates!

So I got my massage.

On the way home, nice and relaxed, I stop for the traffic light at Camden and Union.

Too bad for me, the guy behind me thought I really should have run the yellow.

So yeah, I got rear ended after the massage, which totally KILLS ANY RELAXED MOOD YOU'RE IN.

I felt pain as my neck snapped back - I have a small amount of whiplash.

Fire/AMR/PD shows up. The AMR guys give me a couple of icepacks and I'm on my way home after all the insurance stuff is exchanged.

So instead of having a glass of wine after my massage, I had to file a claim with the insurance company and I've got plenty of whine :-)

I'm ok
The car (not important) seems mostly ok too.

Life goes on.

From the British sketch comedy "That Mitchell and Webb Look." Be warned, obnoxious laugh track included.

The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to "loving and faithfully serving his country," at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms, and a far better one than those who, with an ostentatious pretense of superior patriotism, cry for war before it is needed, especially if then they let others do the fighting.

– Carl Schurz, "About Patriotism," Harper’s Weekly, April 16, 1898