A piece of the rock

Another asteroid story.  Apparently there is a project going on that intends to locate all space objects that could pose a danger to Earth.

So by 2008 science will know (allegedly) every piece of space rock that poses a threat to Earth.

I feel sooooo much safer now.

I have some questions though.  If they find an asteroid bearing down on us, we'll need 30 years to take the proper action.  How do they know that, dinosaur textbooks?  And it would possibly make things worse if we nuked one on its way?  How can turning a big freaking piece of rock into pieces of gravel make things worse?  What, like it's going to mistakenly unleash the three villians from "Superman 2" from their trapezoid prison?

I suppose I am obsessing about this a little.  You can spend your enitre life worrying about things that will never happen.  But I do have to admit that I can't quite understand why more people aren't nuts about this.

 

10 years of guilt

It's terribly sad, even ten years later, to think that no one did anything to stop the Rwandan genocide.  This is a situation that I find almost impossible to fathom, that the world could know what was going on there and just ignore it, just let so many innocent people die.

I'm a big fan of the Clinton years, but I think one of its biggest mistakes was not sending in troops to try to stop this.  I believe that it is the responsibility of this country to get involved when we know that such a great number of people are being systemically eliminated, as we did when the Serbs killed so many ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.  I believe, as many do, that if the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" crisis had not occurred in Somalia that the US would have gotten involved in Rwanda.  Clinton took a lot of heat when marines died in Mogadishu and did not want to send them to an area of risk again.

And as I said, that was one of his biggest mistakes.  Many other countries are responsible for doing nothing as well, but it's a shame that the US did not initiate an action to save so many innocent lives.

People may think I contradict myself, or worse, play partisanship, when I say that taking action in Rwanda would have been justified, as Kosovo was, but that I believe we made a huge mistake in Iraq.  To that I say this, look at how quickly the killing stopped in Kosovo, and imagine how effective our forces would have been in Rwanda.  Then ask if the situation in Iraq is better now than it was when we invaded.  I say absolutely not, there is more death in Iraq than there was before, despite what is reported about the killing practices of the regime in Iraq.  Hundreds of thousands of people were in immediate danger in both Kosovo and Rwanda.  There was no such situation in Iraq.  The US has a duty to involve itself when it will prevent the senseless slaughter of masses.  I have never felt that Iraq presented that scenario.

The process of which we select where to get involved is indeed intriguing.  I wish it were based solely on humanity.

Let the games begin

I was very happy to watch yesterday's Cubs-Reds opener, and not just because the Cubs won 7-4.  Obviously I am going to be happier when the Cubs win (and let me just interject here that no serious, true Cubs fan ever, EVER, refers to them as the "Cubbies"-when I am Leader of the Free World I shall levy fines for people that do) but the mere fact that baseball is back reminds me that the weather will indeed be warm soon and that summer is coming. 

There's been hype about the Cubs at some time in my life, but nothing quite like what is going on this year.  This is the first time I can recall that everyone expects them to win.  I am optimistic every year to a fault, but I also can recognize when a team has no chance in hell of contending.  I expect them to win this year as well, but it's silly to predict a World Series title.  Far too many things can go wrong in a short time to guarantee that, and I would have said that long before last year's playoffs anyway.

So the game ends yesterday in the middle of the afternoon, and I decide to go out and run some errands.  There's a big mulberry tree that hangs over the driveway at the house and when it bears fruit in the middle of summer it's a real mess.  Birds sit in the tree all day, eat the berries, and leave reminders of it all over the cars.

As I am walking to the car yesterday I hear the unmistakable song of a cardinal, and I can see him sitting in the mulberry tree, chirping away.  Whenever I see a cardinal I think of St. Louis, the Cubs most heated rival.  I can't help it.  I like St. Louis, it's one of my favorite cities in America, and I can't say that I hate the Cardinals, but I want the Cubs to beat them every game, and beat them badly.  The sight of this bird coupled with an opening day victory gets my adrenaline going, and I am stoked.  Baseball is here, and it's going to be a great summer in Chicago.

Then the bird starts dropping bombs on my car, right in front of me, three large thuds of junk hitting metal, followed by what only can be described as echoing splats.  There's no fruit in the tree yet, so this bird, this cardinal, saved his business for when he was perched above my car.  And judging from his volume, he must have felt quite relieved. 

A shot across my proverbial baseball bow, I dare say.  To which I reply, bring it on.  I picture a cub wandering into someone's backyard in suburban St. Louie as Joe Cardinal Fan goes out to his car yesterday, and I like my chances in which one of us walks away from these encounters with his skivvies still clean.  And a messier car.

Progress

The folks at AOL have made it possible for me to now ramble on for 25,000 characters per entry rather than 2500.  That means no more editing.  I can't tell you how many times I have had to go back and selective purge words from an entry to make it fit the limit.  Self-editing is a nice tool to have, but there are times when you have to just go on for a little while longer.  And I always hated to have to split entries into parts. 

These are thoughts that one could do without, I suppose.  I look forward to going on and on and on...

 

Finished (finally)

I can declare that I am done with my move.  Technically, I was done moving Wednesday, but since then I have been organizing my new living space (see my true definition of moving from last week).

At the age of (almost) 37, I have done what I vowed never to do: I have moved back home.  Sort of.  When I left the house I grew up in "for good" in August of 1994 (yeah, I know, I was 27 and a little slow, OK?) I assumed that I would never live here again.  When I left my retail career in 2002 and more than one person suggested that I might come back here, I laughed and said that I'd just as soon live in a box under Wacker Drive than move back home.  That was single-loser-Jim, not Jim-on-a-wedding-deadline-he-absolutely-has-to-leave-sometime talking.

My furniture isn't here; it's getting a thirteen month head start living at my fiance's house, as is my cat.  Kristen is very happy with both.  So I will reside at my mother's home until the end of April 2005.  Mock me as you will, I can take it, but know that this was my idea.  Mom was nice enough to think that it was a good idea, though she did remind me of my "Wacker Drive" claim several times. 

Things are different than they were in 1994, for sure.  There were five other people living her when I left, there is just one now.  My father has passed away and my siblings have married.  Just about every room has been redecorated, the wood siding has been replaced by aluminum, and there is finally central air.  This is not the same place that I grew up in.

But it does still feel like home, at least for thirteen months.

Thanks, Mom.

um, yeah, about what I said before...

I used to like Colin Powell, but now I feel he's just another lackey in the worst presidential administration during my lifetime.

If Powell wants to impress me, he can do two things: he can produce and eat the script he used when he addressed the UN shortly before the war telling the world that Iraq had weapons undoubtedly, and he can resign.

We are approaching 600 Americans killed in a war that we were told was for the sole purpose of keeping this country safe from weapons of mass destruction.  The next weapon found will be the first.  Why isn't anyone being held accountable for this?  To quote Bob Dole: "Where's the outrage?"  It is not good enough for the occasional cabinet member to look back and say "this apparently was not the case"; there has to be consequences.  People need to lose their jobs, and maybe a person or two needs to go to jail.

Perjury, remember?  It was a big deal on Capitol Hill not that long ago.

Let's make it tough as possible...

..for the Cubs to win the World Series.

Seriously, I get my mail Wednesday, and I notice that this week Sports Illustrated is doing what it does about once a month, conceal the cover with some lame attempt to get me to buy some golf clubs or a book series.  I remove it to look at the cover, and what do I see?

"Hell freezes over.  The Cubs will win the World Series."

Wunderbar!  I know I have spent some time relating my thoughts on curses when it comes to the Cubs and how I don't believe them, but then there is really no scientific proof that a goat can cause sixty years of futility.  The cover of SI is a different matter.  There are countless examples of people and teams whose high hopes have imploded once they appeared on the cover.  Anyone remember who SI picked to win the college football championship and was thus plastered on the cover of the season preview issue this year?  Try Oregon.  A few years ago it was Arizona.  Both were out of contention before I had a chance to finish reading the issue.

Last year there was a cover story devoted to the cover curse.  No one would agree to be pictured on it, so there was just a black cat.  This is more than a curse, it's a command, an amendment to the constitution of Murphy's Law.

I'm hyperventilating.  Couldn't they have put the Yankees on the cover instead?  Put it to good use.  Or even better use-put George W Bush on the cover.

Cubs' pitcher Kerry Wood is pictured on this cover.  I am expecting to put the news on some day soon and hear that he was mauled by a giant scorpion in Arizona.

Hey, SI, put ME on the cover.  Please.  In the back of an armored truck with the headline "Man bets entire contents of US Mint on any team to win World Series other than the Cubs."

Believe me, that would be money well spent.