Iraq Debate

It's been a long time since I've done a political post, and I kind of like it that way. Even so, with debate coming soon over Iraq, and reports of the Iraqi political government sucking ass, I feel it is important to emphasize the importance of the mission over there. General Petraeus, US commander in Iraq, has an interview with the New York Post today which I think is a good read. To me, the crucial part:

Q: Now that the surge is fully in place, what's your sense of the positives and negatives thus far? If you could have more of any one item, what would it be? Troops? Time? Iraqi unity?

A: I can think of few commanders in history who wouldn't have wanted more troops, more time or more unity among their partners; however, if I could only have one at this point in Iraq, it would be more time. This is an exceedingly tough endeavor that faces countless challenges.

None of us, Iraqi or American, are anything but impatient and frustrated at where we are. But there are no shortcuts. Success in an endeavor like this is the result of steady, unremitting pressure over the long haul. It's a test of wills, demanding patience, determination and stamina from all involved.

Sadly, this is the one thing he is unlikely to get. Oh, and to keep things in perspective, make sure you're reading some Michael Yon at least sometimes. From a recent dispatch:

The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11-years-old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man's words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, "What did he say?" Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

Yes. An 11-year old. Shall we really give up and run from these bastards?

Transformers Kicks All Kinds of Ass

Yeah, I'll post more later, but I saw an advacned screening, and it kicked all sorts of coolness ass. Easily the best movie of the summer; easily.

I'll discuss further later this week, after more people have seen the movie - which I strongly reccomend.

The Big Reveal

I can't believe that it's been a year since I graduated (more than that, actually).

Damn.

If someone had told me how my life would work out between then and now I would've mocked them; although if somone had told me about how my life would work out post-high school I wouldn't have believed them either. Still, I'm amazed at how my life has worked out.

I expected to get a job as a geologist; instead I work as a geophysicist. I expected my stay at home with my parents to be temporary; it's been slightly longer than that. I would never have expected that Candace would break up with me; nor that I would try an online dating servie, let alone fall madly in love with someone from such a service! At this point, though, I shouldn't be surprised by such things. God has proven to me over and over that nothing works out like I expect it to. So be it; I have faith that things will work out in the end.

Nonetheless, this summer will prove to be one of changes for me. So let's start listing them: My parents are - finally - moving out to North Carolina. As for me, I am leaving my employment at GEOVision to take a job as a Staff Geologist at CHJ, Inc. As such, I will be moving out to Colton, CA which, for those who don't know, is basically between Riverside and Redlands on the I-215.

Whew. So there you have it folks; the big news I've been waiting to tell everyone. If you want my new address, let me know and I will send it to you; additionally, if you want a birthday/Christmas card from me, get me your contact info and I will ensure that you receive one.

Pirates 3 Sucked

Sorry Candace.

I wanted to like it; really. And it was better than the second one; unfortuantely it was better in the same way that Episode II was better than Episode I: The first was so bad that the following one had to be better; and it wasn't that much better. It seems that At World's End's major problem was that there were too many subplots that just kept... going... on... forever. So much so that when something finally happened you were too bored with the movie to pay attention!

The thought that I had during the movie was that it would be better served as a series, like Lost. Then it could take all the time it wanted in fleshing out its subplots with no 2-hour or so time limit. Not that something like that is going to to happen.

Meanwhile, Will Turner kicked major ass! He went from "whiny, self-righteous pansy" in the first one to "total freakin' badass" in the final one. He was practically the only thing worth watching in the film (like Ewen McGregor in Episode II, ironically). The scene between him and Davy Jones was my favorite by far.

Personally, I hope that there aren't more of the films, or at lesat if there are that they keep a better, faster pace. I don't know what genre this film was, but "action" definitely wasn't it.

True Story

So we hired a special consultant to help us out on a job this week, and he came out on Tuesday. I met him, and he seemed nice enough, but something about him bugged me. I couldn't tell quite what, maybe the long hipppy-esque hair, but I wasn't sure. As I got to working with him he seemed like a nice enough guy; willing to work hard and good at his job.

So the second night on the job we're talking about a variety of things and he mentions: "So I went to graduate school at Stanford."

DUN DUN DUN!!!!!

It all made sense then; I sensed his Stanfurdness, and it bugged me. Out of professional courtesy, I forced myself to not respond with a "Fuck Stanfurd" when he told me. But I could only barely hold it in.

*sigh*

I'm bored. And stressed. And can't sleep. And I'm working nights the rest of this week.

*sigh*

It's going to be a long week indeed.

Baseball News

Not something you'll hear from me much, but here's a favorite headline of mine:

"First Professional Baseball Game Kicks Off in Israel"

PETAH TIKVA, Israel — Puzzled broadcasters calling the first
professional baseball game in Israeli history struggled with rendering baseball
lingo into the holy tongue of Hebrew.
After a valiant effort at
translating some of the terms, they gave up — lacing their broadcast with
Hebrew-accented versions of ball, strike, out, majors, pitcher and base
hit.
Otherwise, the game looked and sounded like real baseball on a minor
league level, though it seemed as out of place in the Holy Land as polo in Manhattan.
There were no peanuts, no Cracker Jack, no
"Star-Spangled Banner." Three thousand fans cheered as the Modiin Miracles beat
the Petah Tikva Pioneers, 9-1.
Wire fences ringed the field, and bleachers
were set up along the foul lines. A fast food and snack stand did good business
on the sidelines, selling hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken and soft drinks — all
kosher, of course. The pitchers were a bit on the wild side, and some of the
fielding was sloppy.

First baseball game in 5,000 years. Cool beans.

George Lucas is a Scumbag

First, a Star Wars/movie question:

If someone has not seen any of the Star Wars movies, is it better to watch them in episodic order (i.e. Episode I - VI), or in order of theatrical release (the original trilogy first, then the prequels)? I'm sure that it is impossible to have "spoilers" for the later films, as most of the major plot points everyone knows, but which order do people think is better?

Second, George Lucas is an ass-hole. I watched Garden State this weekend (how I dated Candace for 4 years and never watched this is beyond me, but I digress), and dammit Natalie Portman is a good actress in it! It took me a while to realize this because for the first half of the movie all I could think of is thats scene is Episode III where she's bitching to Anakin about holding her. *shudder* Once I came to my realization, I was irritated at Lucas for being such a horrible director, and screwing up which should have been good movies. Damn you Lucas.

Now, following is a discussion on the current Star Wars novels, and will contain spoilers to things which have occurred post Return of the Jedi. Be warned.
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Yeah, the dots mean spoilers, read on only if you don't care.
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Ok. I recently finished the book Betrayl, which is Book 1 of the new "Legacy of the Force" series.

So, if you remember, Anakin became Darth Vader mainly out of a desire to save his wife, Padme. He had visions of her dying, and Palpatine/Sidious promised that the Dark Side had the power to save her; thus, in a Faustian manner, Skywalker sold his soul. This, to me, epitomized the old Jedi rule that Jedi's were not supposed to have attachments, as they often led to problems. So far, so good right?

So, following ROTJ, Luke Skywalker sets out to re-establish the Jedi order, training young Jedi and so forth. Now, I read one of the most recent books, taking place some 40 years after the fall of the Empire, so imagine my shock to learn that not only is Luke Skywalker a Jedi, and not only is his sister, Princess Leia a jedi, but both of their kids' are Jedi as well!!! And both of them are married; Luke to another freakin' Jedi!! To me, this makes no sense, and goes contrary to the way that I would think that the Jedi Order should be run. And this particular book proves my objections: Han Solo and the Galactic Alliance, whom the Jedi's work for/with, are on opposing sides of a political dispute. Leia (a Jedi, remember) goes out of her way to lie and decieve the GA in order to protect her husband. The fact that a wife wants to protect her husband is no shock to anyone in love, but, as Leia's own father proved, is potentially disastrous to a Jedi. What else will she to protect Han? Steal? Kill? To me, this seems to be the path to the Dark Side. The only one who stays true to the Jedi form, despite his attachments, was Luke, who did not interfere or try to pursuade another Jedi's decision to take Luke's son, Ben Skywalker, on a dangerous mission. Luke recognized that Ben's instructor was best suited to make the decision on weather he was ready to go, not the boy's father.

Sadly, this isn't the only problem I have with the mythos's changing opinions. The end of the book spends quite a bit of time painting moral equivalence between the Light and Dark sides of the Force, arguing that the "dark side" wasn't inherently evil, but rather, was used by evil people. The dark force user who was making these arguments was trying to seduce a young Jedi, Jacen Solo (yeah, Han and Leia's kid, raise your hand if you didn't see that one coming) into being the newest Sith Lord. Crouched in terms remarkably similar to Palpatine's to Anakin Skywalker, this woman talked about how the Dark Side could bring peace and justice, if only the evil Jedi Knights didn't supress it.

Now, another Jedi was with Jacen, and she wanted to arrest the dark force-user (as she was a confessed criminal), but Jacen stopped her - for the greater good. He saw a future of death and destruction if the dark person was arrested, so he killed another Jedi. This immediately calls to mind Anakin's killing of Samuel L. Jackson, err... Mace Windu, and annoys me because you would think that Luke and Leia Skywalker, of all people, would teach their kids the follies of believing the tempation of the power of the Dark Side. Alternatively, the Star Wars franchise wants to make the argument that the Dark Side isn't evil, in which case I'm just annoyed that they are doing so.

So now I'm trying to go back and read earlier books, to see why Luke made the choices he made in organizing the Jedi in this manner, and trying to read the newer books, to see if the moral equivalence continues. In both ways, I'm hoping that the new Star Wars books don't continue to irritate me.

Gah!

Work sometimes takes so much out of me, I get home and have zero motivation to do much other than sleep. But, alas, there is much to discuss, and, if my brother updated, I had better too.

A quartet of states have been added to my list of "Been there, even if only in passing." Maryland, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Now, I can here The Reva thinking: "Wait, Maryland is near me in DC, why didn't I get a phone call?" Relax, I was in MD for about two hours total, an hour layover waiting for a flight to NH, and one coming home.

So yeah, last weekend I did an overnight job in Connecticut, which is a long flight and drive for me. But I thought about some interesting things, mostly Star Wars related (I'll get to those in a different post, no need to nerd-out here). Brandy's birthday is coming up, and I'm excited about at least some of the gifts I've bought her. Of course, I am half-wondering if my excitement means it would be a great gift for me, not so much for her...

Sometime within the next two weeks (hopefully) I am going to have an important post up: important as in "My life is changing dramatically" type post. Stay focused. In the meantime keep counting down the days until July 4, when Greatness Arrives.

Stupidity at its Finest

eHarmony is being sued because they aren't a gay dating service. From a Rueters article:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The popular online dating service eHarmony was sued
on Thursday for refusing to offer its services to gays, lesbians and
bisexuals.
A lawsuit alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation was
filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of Linda Carlson, who was denied
access to eHarmony because she is gay.

*Sigh*

The stupidity of this lawsuit irritates me greatly, but not as much as the fact that they will probably win the lawsuit. I kinda hope that the person suing (a lesbian from San Francisco, no surprise there) is doing so because she wants to make the quick buck, not because she actually believes that all dating services must offer every kind of combination.