Friday, October 18, 2002
Heather:
A little housekeeping is in order.
1. I didn't ask Dale to start his own blog to vent his politics. But I appreciate it. We had discussed it before, but this is supposed to be about things that are important enough to us to share with the rest of the world. His political viewpoints and opinions are important to him--that's what I came to grips with. I blog about nursing and that kind of thing; though he has a LOT of experience with it, it's all secondhand. He has expressed no qualms, though.
But hey, I'm not going to fight him on this. It is kind of nice to know that I'm important enough to him that he doesn't want to make me seem like a rumored sidekick.
Yeah, I got a good one.
2. About the beer. Of all the reader mail, I've gotten more about my low-carb beer comment than anything else. My thoughts were of those supposedly health-conscious individuals out for a night of carousing saying to themselves, "Ooh, if I drink the low-carb beer it will be healthier! Hooray! Maybe I'll even lose weight with it! Or cure wrinkles and warts too!"
However, those on a medically regulated low-carb diet who enjoy an occasional beer--THAT makes sense. You should be able to enjoy an adult beverage (in moderation) as is your wont. I've been told--though I personally disagree--that nothing tastes better with pizza in front of a football game, and you are entitled to indulge.
3. About 9/11 and all of the intelligence et cetera...
Let me start off by saying I don't believe for a second we deserved to have civilian airliners crashed into buildings. We don't deserve to have military ones involved in that kind of attack, either, so please don't read into that. We did not deserve such evil.
That being said, I think we (meaning our government) MIGHT have been able to see SOMETHING like it (though not nearly to that scale) coming. Doing the right thing (supporting Israel's right to exist) can and does often tick off the wrong people (Osama et al). The same way defending the new kid in school from the school bully can tick off said bully--what's right isn't always what's popular, and the defied often find a way to retaliate.
In defense of our government and its intelligence gathering, I have to wonder how much information those folks have to filter through every day/week/month. I'd bet money--not my children's lives, mind you--that, if you had gotten all of the right people in the right organizations together we'd have had all of the puzzle pieces of information about 9/11 in advance. The same way an infinite number of monkeys, given typewriters and enough time, will come up with every line of English prose in existence.
Which, coincidentally, is about how likely I think it would have been.
So I guess I'm letting those CIA, FBI, etc. folks off the hook.
WAS there a single group or subgroup whose sole job was to watch Osama and his winged monkeys and their cells and spawn and offshoots? How many cells, spawn, and offshoots were they watching? How many people were in that group and how easy was it for them to communicate? How much other extraneous information did they have in front of them, obscuring the mission?
I don't have the answers to those questions and frankly, I avoid the news when I'm pregnant. It's a tip I picked up from my sister. If the American public has the answers to those questions, I'll bet a (low-carb) beer that I'll hear about it.
Anyway. Thanks for reading.
A little housekeeping is in order.
1. I didn't ask Dale to start his own blog to vent his politics. But I appreciate it. We had discussed it before, but this is supposed to be about things that are important enough to us to share with the rest of the world. His political viewpoints and opinions are important to him--that's what I came to grips with. I blog about nursing and that kind of thing; though he has a LOT of experience with it, it's all secondhand. He has expressed no qualms, though.
But hey, I'm not going to fight him on this. It is kind of nice to know that I'm important enough to him that he doesn't want to make me seem like a rumored sidekick.
Yeah, I got a good one.
2. About the beer. Of all the reader mail, I've gotten more about my low-carb beer comment than anything else. My thoughts were of those supposedly health-conscious individuals out for a night of carousing saying to themselves, "Ooh, if I drink the low-carb beer it will be healthier! Hooray! Maybe I'll even lose weight with it! Or cure wrinkles and warts too!"
However, those on a medically regulated low-carb diet who enjoy an occasional beer--THAT makes sense. You should be able to enjoy an adult beverage (in moderation) as is your wont. I've been told--though I personally disagree--that nothing tastes better with pizza in front of a football game, and you are entitled to indulge.
3. About 9/11 and all of the intelligence et cetera...
Let me start off by saying I don't believe for a second we deserved to have civilian airliners crashed into buildings. We don't deserve to have military ones involved in that kind of attack, either, so please don't read into that. We did not deserve such evil.
That being said, I think we (meaning our government) MIGHT have been able to see SOMETHING like it (though not nearly to that scale) coming. Doing the right thing (supporting Israel's right to exist) can and does often tick off the wrong people (Osama et al). The same way defending the new kid in school from the school bully can tick off said bully--what's right isn't always what's popular, and the defied often find a way to retaliate.
In defense of our government and its intelligence gathering, I have to wonder how much information those folks have to filter through every day/week/month. I'd bet money--not my children's lives, mind you--that, if you had gotten all of the right people in the right organizations together we'd have had all of the puzzle pieces of information about 9/11 in advance. The same way an infinite number of monkeys, given typewriters and enough time, will come up with every line of English prose in existence.
Which, coincidentally, is about how likely I think it would have been.
So I guess I'm letting those CIA, FBI, etc. folks off the hook.
WAS there a single group or subgroup whose sole job was to watch Osama and his winged monkeys and their cells and spawn and offshoots? How many cells, spawn, and offshoots were they watching? How many people were in that group and how easy was it for them to communicate? How much other extraneous information did they have in front of them, obscuring the mission?
I don't have the answers to those questions and frankly, I avoid the news when I'm pregnant. It's a tip I picked up from my sister. If the American public has the answers to those questions, I'll bet a (low-carb) beer that I'll hear about it.
Anyway. Thanks for reading.
