1,370 Americans have died in Iraq.

A chronological list of lives lost

An alphabetical list of lives lost

Digital Memorial for those killed in Iraq

I swear that it’s only a few wingnuts that do stuff like this. The rest of us are really okay with it.

At least I hope so.

These are rather cool.

Seriously. Go check out the site. Here’s the main gallery.
Michael and I just keep going, “Wow.” “Wow.” “Holy cow!”

Congratulations on your inaguartion.

Keep in mind, however, that the mandate was not for you, but against your opponent. If you had done any worse against one of the state’s biggest slum lords, I would have been ashamed for you.

So please, go out there and work hard, it is why we elected you after all. But remember that we’ll be watching you. Closely.

Good luck!
Michelle

P.S. I support raising taxes–we can’t live off the tobacco settlement forever. But you might want to consider getting rid of the 6% food tax, which hurts the poorest in the state far more than the richest.

Shocking.
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When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

— Martin Luther King
“Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence“

Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I Have a Dream”

The Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project

The Initiate Brother (1991) Gatherer of Clouds (1992) Sean Russell

I love to re-read books. There is something about recapturing the joy they gave me the first time, that allows me to pick up some books again and again. But sometimes, time passes, and other books are read, until all that remains is the memory of enjoyment–when I go back to read a book, an occasional passage is familiar, but for the most part it is as if I am reading the book for the first time.

And that is an even bigger joy.

Read More about The Initiate Brother & Gatherer of Clouds

President Bush said the public’s decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

“We had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 elections”

Guess this proves Bush is a utilitarian and not a follower of Kant’s Duty Ethic.

New WV weblog to add to the rolls!

Just got an e-mail from Dave who used to run The Braxtonian. When he and his partner in crime graduated from high school, the Braxtonian went down. Dave has, however, started a new weblog, The Ramblings of a College Freshman.

I believe that Dave is now at WVU, so it’s possible that he’ll have the misfortune some day to wander out to health sciences and run into my, but if he’s lucky, he’ll steer clear of HSC and remain safe. (To avoid Michael, however, he’ll have to stay away from Engineering and CS classes.)

Magician: Apprentice (1982), Magician: Master (1982)
Raymond E. Feist

I wanted something that I’d read before as my vacation wound down. For some reason, this book wasn’t as I remembered it. Not that it wasn’t good, only that it wasn’t what I wanted at the time.

Read More about Magician: Apprentice; Magician: Master

In response to this post:

I just asked one of the maintenance men who comes into the lab how elevators get into elevator shafts. He said “piece by piece. Which is how I took ’em out last year.”

So craftsment assemble the elevator in the shaft. And they disassemble them in the same way.

He also told me what they’re going to do with the old shaft, and also explained what is in the addition they built at the back of the building last year.

Which just goes to show that if I want to learn something, I should keep asking until I find someone that knows the answer.

Cable network E! Entertainment will telecast daily half-hour courtroom reenactments chronicling Michael Jackson’s trial on child molestation charges, network President Ted Harbert announced Tuesday, getting Winter Television Press Tour 2005 off to a roaring start here.

But you really should read the rest of the article…

His announcement was met with some laughter from The Reporters Who Cover Television, which seemed to take him aback a bit. The BSkyB suit in the audience didn’t seem any too happy either. Maybe they should have made the announcement immediately after unveiling an E! series called “Craft Corner Deathmatch” in which women who like to use glue guns and crochet things engage in deathmatch-like competition.

Harbert said he plans to hire “the best actors we can find” but that none of them will be name actors. He already has someone in mind to play Jackson; the actor, Harbert said, has the ability to look like Jackson “a lot.”

Oh, well if he looks like Jackson “a lot” then it’s got to be great!

Quizzy Goodness, where we learn, unsurprisingly, that I’m a Geek.
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