Monthly Archives: September 2006

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Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.
The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

So according to our own intelligence agencies, we are not “safer but not safe” as President Bush says. We’re actually much less safe that we were on September 11, 2001. That is, the country in general is less safe. Here in Indiana, we’re still in Indiana. You’re in more danger from Christian terrorists than Islamic ones. Meanwhile:
From the L.A. Times:

Army Warns Rumsfeld It’s Billions Short
The Army’s top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.
The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.

And we’re over eight trillion dollars in debt. The estimated population of the United States is 299,573,166 so each citizen’s share of this debt is $28,343.67. Pay up, kids, the Army needs to blow up more people.

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Weekend Update 2006-09-25

Friday night we went to Hogeye Naavy’s concert for “International Talk Like a Pirate day” at the German Liederkranz Club on Washington Street.
pirates!
See the concert photo album
Hogeye Naavy is a really fun band that plays sea shantys and traditional folk music of Ireland, Scotland, England, and North America. Their instruments include concertinas, bagpipes, Citterns, Pennywhistles, Irish Flutes, Irish Tenor Banjos — things you don’t hear much in a traditional concert setting any more. Their fans tend to be really interactive with the band; singing along, banging beer bottles and steins on the table in time to the music. It’s impossible not to have a great time.
The German Liederkranz Club is a German singing society with mixed choir founded in 1872. Originally a male singing society, it now has a men’s and a women’s choir with 20-25 members in each. The public is welcome to join the choirs, which maintain German culture through music, food and dancing at each program. It’s tucked back off the street next to the Fraternal Order of Police building on Washington Street.
On Saturday, Stephanie went to work on her house with her dad, and I worked on the flower beds in front of the house. Last weekend, Stephanie’s dad helped us rototill the beds because the dirt was too tightly packed to do by hand. I’m not sure they’ve been worked on anytime in the last ten years or so. This Saturday I bought another load of compost for the beds and started spreading it out, and working on putting in edgers to keep the dirt in. It was pouring rain while I was working, and at some point in the process, I gashed open my finger, but I didn’t realize it until I noticed the blood. So I stopped for the day and worked inside the house instead.
More compost
See the gardening photo album.
Oops.
I finished up spreading compost Sunday morning and washed the truck, then drove all over town looking for a swimsuit, because I’m starting water aerobics classes at the Y with my friend Chi. Of course I’m looking out of season, so there wasn’t much left, but I finally found something. So we’re ballroom dancing one night, and I’m taking aerobics the next. That should be good for me. Stephanie put the “For Rent” sign out in front of her old house. Yay!
south flower bed
And Sunday night we helped Stephanie’s friends move a couch, and they provided us with pizza and great conversation, so we had a pleasant evening. Busy weekend, but fun.

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The Hugo Chavez Book Club

When Hugo Chavez spoke to the United Nations on Wednesday, calling George W. Bush “the devil,” he help up a copy of MIT linguistics professor Noam Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance” and recommended it to the General Assembly and the American people.

“The people of the United States should read this… instead of watching Superman movies,” Chavez later told reporters. Chavez also said one of his great regrets was not meeting Chomsky before he died. Chomsky is alive and well at 77.

Chomsky’s book has since shot to the top of Amazon’s Bestsellers list from number 20,664.

Prompting the question, what other books does Hugo read?

Hugo Chavez Book Club

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links for 2006-09-22

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Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things

Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things: How to Turn a Penny into a Radio, Make a Flood Alarm with an Aspirin, Change
by Cy Tymony
ISBN: 0740738593
NON-FICTION – A small guide to how to MacGyvver yourself out of situations using objects you may have with you. I checked the book out from the library, so no time to tinker around making anything. Some of the descriptions are pretty loosy-goosy, so you’d want to build some of these gadgets at home and see them working before you tried to build one in a tight spot. I get the impression that the author compiled the book from a gathered list of ideas, rather than building them all at home in his own basement.
A parent would probably have fun guiding their kids through some of these amateur science experiments to show kids how to build their own radio or make a working compass. But they might want to skip the chapter on how to make your own weapons. Leave that to the adults.
I’m guessing the target market for this book is “teenage boy.” Hmmm. Probably why I read it. There are follow-up books, too: “Sneakier Uses for Everyday Things: How to Turn a Calculator into a Metal Detector, Carry a Survival Kit in a Shoestring, Make a Gas Mask with a Balloon…”.

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links for 2006-09-21

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