I’m not dead. I’m just employed. I haven’t written in a couple of weeks because I’ve started a new job. To make things interesting, my two year old has been waking me up several times a night, and my horses have been sick.

Horses can be like kids. Sick enough to need medication twice a day, well enough to make me have to run them down twice a day to give them the medication. Such a pain. Can’t sleep at home, can’t quit yawning at work. Great first impression for the job I’m sure.

Like most jobs, there is a learning period where you find out how everything works. This one has been a little strange. I feel like I’m working incredibly slowly, learning the job as I go, but everyone seems to think I’m incredibly productive. Makes me wonder exactly how incompetent my predecessor was, my guess at the moment is extremely. It’s making me look good anyway.

My wandering has taken me to Virginia as of late, quite a beautiful state once you get out of the DC suburbs. I’m particularly taken by the south western corner of the state. I’ve always been fond of rugged mountains, and these aren’t half bad. Different than the Rockies and the Cascades, but very pretty in their own unique way. A very pleasant change from my last stop of Maryland (The Pave-it State) The horses seem to be liking the extra room this last move gave them. I doubt this is the end of my wandering, but it is a pleasant place to rest.

“90% of the coalition casualties” – Edwards / Iraqi security forces “have taken almost 50 percent” of the casualties. – Cheney

They were both wrong. The actual percentage is between 48% (Jed Babbin – National Review) and 55% (factcheck.org)

While factcheck.org said that Edwards was closer, I don’t understand why they think so, they go on to give the 55% statistic later in the same paragraph. Cheney’s 50% seems much closer to their estimate of 55% than Edwards 90%.

The argument is bad regardless. These are not just statistics, but lives they’re talking about. While Cheney may have been incorrect in his numbers, he at least gave these men the credit they deserved. They are coalition fighters, they are fighting for their country. Edwards fails to give credit to this estimated 700+ Iraqis who have given their lives for their country. He seems to be lumping them into the category with innocent victims or enemy combatants. They may be innocent, but they weren’t victims nor enemy combatants, they were fighting for their country.

It is a great disservice not to give them the credit they earned. They didn’t just die, they “sacrificed all” for their country.

factcheck.org

After 10 plus months of self inflicted unemployment, I’ll be starting a new job on Monday. Reasonable pay, good benefits, great work environment, and walking distance from my wife’s office. Kind of hard to argue with. I didn’t realize until I got the job offer how much stress the lack of work had been causing. The proverbial weight was lifted from my shoulders.

Now of course I can’t wait for my first vacation.

The Global Test is just another symptom of disease in our society. I like diversity, I like to learn about other cultures, but I do not need to agree with them all. As a free thinking man, I have the right to disagree with whoever and whatever I like.

In our “can’t we all just get along” society, there seems to be the idea that it is bad to disagree. That to disagree is to hate. I can think someone is wrong without hating them. I can think an idea is wrong without hate. I have a right to be myself, to choose thoughts, ideas, and beliefs and call them mine. Nobody has the right to choose them for me, and I don’t have the right to choose them for others, but I don’t have to agree.

In our society it seems that it is only acceptable to be accepting. We must accept all viewpoints and philosophies. We must accept all religions. We must accept all cultures. Nobody seems to see the inherent flaw in this logic. How can I accept a viewpoint which is directly contradictory of mine. How can I accept the validity of a religion which says that mine is heretical. The only philosophies that can accept all others are a mishmash of multiculturalism. The irony is that the very people who push these multicultural philosophies, the people who say we should accept all, fail to be so accepting of my own narrow philosophy. They do not accept my right to disagree with them.

The Global Test is just another symptom of this. We must allow the “Global Community” to control how we act, but will this Global Community allow us to control them? I don’t think so. We must accept all, but they don’t have to accept us. We must conform, but they don’t have that need. They are all accepting, accept of course if you disagree with them.

It seems both candidates had trouble with the truth during the first Presidential debate. Both exaggerated the truth, both misquoted the other, both were less than honest about the others motives. Is telling the truth so difficult? How can these candidates look at themselves in the mirror in the morning?

Why can’t a candidate run a campaign on the real issues, it isn’t as if there is a shortage of things to talk about. They seem incapable of speaking about anything without talking negatively about their opponent. Why can’t they just say what they really feel on an issue. If everyone lies about every issue, how can the honest voter pick a candidate. Guess an what the candidates really feel, but aren’t saying?

Check out the facts at factcheck.org.