Comments on: A Terrible Week

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 03:47:12 +0000

People who truly believe never notice the contradictions in what they believe. You are wasting your time trying to demonstrate the problems – they don’t know they have a problem.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 11:37:25 +0000

Amen to that Bryan.

And no… Things aren’t supposed to work that way. Unfortunately, it seems the norm. At the height of my complete disillusionment with religion, I thought one of the names of God was “Murphy”! (Given ” Nothing happens against his will!” They can’t have it both ways (though, given many fanatics are batshit crazy, I guess they think they can!) 😉

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 05:33:31 +0000

Thank you, Hipparchia. The world has lost an artist and craftsman. We don’t have enough creative people.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 02:48:50 +0000

That isn’t the way things are supposed to work.

no, it’s not supposed to work like that at all. I’m so sorry.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 02:51:39 +0000

We took over from Britain and France in that area of the world and inherited all of the resentment that had been directed towards them. The worst is that we don’t actually get all that much oil from the Middle East, so the area really isn’t of strategic importance to us.

The actions of the Dulles brothers in State and the CIA in the 1950s pretty much ensured that the post WWII goodwill account of the US was zeroed out.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 22:59:17 +0000

I can’t think of any intervention in the Middle East in my lifetime that hasn’t had blowback. Saint Ronnie the Raygun’s intervention in Lebanon, for example, created Hizballah as well as resulted in the death of 299 Marines because Raygun wouldn’t let them set up anti-tank traps and carry loaded weapons, and ended up destabilizing Lebanon to the point where Israel had to invade the place multiple times over the next 10 years to secure their northern border. Before my lifetime, the multiple coups in Iran to overturn leaders we didn’t like in the 1940’s and 1950’s have a direct correspondence to the current situation in Iran, where Iran is funding a variety of bad actors working against US interests. And so on and so forth. Frankly, we’re like a bull in a china shop when we go bumbling around in the Middle East, and if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re sitting on “our” oil (SIGH), I’d say we need to stay as far away as possible from that rathole….

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 05:13:52 +0000

Thanks, Kryten. I have more than enough to keep me busy.

I liked to believe that good intel reduced the number of unnecessary deaths. That’s why I think we should have stayed out of Syria – our presence is causing unnecessary deaths that increase the threat to the US. Every time we get involved in that area of the world, there is blowback.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 03:59:44 +0000

My condolences Bryan, and my sincere sympathies. 🙁

I’ve never been very good at handling the death of people I care about, and there have been many. Even during my time in the Military, it was never an easy task for me to take a life (well, there were some exceptions to that, but that was because of what they had done and what I knew they would continue to do if not stopped). I was never one to follow any order blindly. Perhaps curiously, the certainty of my own death at some point has never bothered me. It was something I accepted at an early age. It’s the only guarantee we get when we are born *shrug*.

One of that hardest to accept (and I’m not sure I have yet) was my Mother’s death just shy of my 40’th and her 60’th.

We just go on. I sometimes wonder why I have to admit. 🙂 I guess that (in my case), I’ve never been good at giving up, I’ve always been a fighter since the day I was born (I wasn’t expected to live more than an hour or so, then a day, a week… etc.) 🙂

It seems to me that It’s always the *wrong* people who leave us, and usually too soon. I have wondered why, and I have no answer other than “Just is!”

I hope you have plenty to distract you my friend. Like me, you are a tough old bugger, so I know you will get on with it. 🙂

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 03:44:05 +0000

The death of people my age and older is to be expected, but when people who are 50 or younger die, it is hard to accept. Most of the people on the planet have taken better care of their bodies than I have, so I accept all of the problems that are popping up.

At our age, Steve, a lifetime guarantee doesn’t mean a hell of a lot 😈

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 16:58:31 +0000

What pj said… packed full and running over, like that filesystem.

I was notified of a death, expected but not by me, of a high school friend, of my age or one year younger (I’m not sure), of cancer. There’s a memorial service tomorrow, to which I cannot go because of the usual physical obstacles… age and crippledom aren’t identical, but in my case, they surely are closely associated. The gal who passed away was a French horn player, so I held my own service at home, listening to the Mozart quintet.

Day before yesterday I awoke with a loose and aching tooth. Miraculously, it tightened and is still with me, and not aching. I’m sure it’s a temporary respite.

And that’s the problem, Bryan. As we age, we begin to realize all the respites are temporary. We watch as friends of our age pass away. We continue to take our meds not because we expect them to save us but because we don’t hurt quite so badly. We stop worrying about whether what we eat will make us fat (fortunately, my sweet tooth seems to have abated). Etc., etc.

Hang in there, my friend. Remember, your frame is guaranteed for a lifetime!

(Oh, and… that electric company? eff all electric companies!)