gap in the action

I feel silly even posting this, as half my posts the last few weeks have been about me being too tired to blog. I'm beat. I sat around trying to think of good posts the past hour or so, but I don't think I could put the necessary words together to make my points at the moment. My project at work has hit a demanding stretch and after 9+ hours of staring at a computer screen or arguing with business partners each day...it's hard to produce intelligent blogentary.

In my absence, make sure to check out:

Ben Kepple's new site, as he appears to be having a rough week
Bobby's description of his new love affair, had me going for a minute
Ben Domenech's wonderful commencement advice on being successfulGlenn Reynold's column on blog personalities over at Tech Central Station
Josh's intelligent opinion on how to approach / deal with homosexuality
Lileks spot-on commentary on Bill O'Reilly and the internet
After the Crittenden interview, Kevin offers a review of AmandaBright@Home. I read it on Opinion Journal, but after reading his commentary I am tempted to make the book my vacation read as well.

It's now 10:20, and the sleepies have most definitely hit me. It's my first day running since before I acquired a cold last weekend, and I am wiped out! This will be limitng my posting this evening, but hopefully a little extra rest will do my mental capacity some good.

In the meantime, check out Kevin Holtsberry's blog. He's on fire today with a great piece analyizing Jonah Golderberg's NRO column on the true nature of conservativism. He also managed to land a fabulous interview of Danielle Crittenden, the author of Amanda Bright at Home. I loved the WSJ serial, and I hope to revisit the book's premise in a post later this week. Until then!

Everyone has been talking about VH1's list of the "Top 100 Songs of the Past 25 Years". I stopped by myself tonight to take a look, and I thought I would offer a few observations.

Overrated Songs
"Come to My Window" Meliss Etheridge (91)
"Hot in Here" Nelly (65)
"I Want It That Way" Backstreet Boys (61)
"OPP" Naughty by Nature (48)
"Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears (28)
"My Heart Will Go On" Celene Dion (24)
"8 Mile" Eminem (4)
"Billie Jean" Michael Jackson (2)

Underrated Songs
"I Will Survive" Gloria Gaynor (44)
"Faith" George Michael (51)
"Tempted" The Squeeze (66)
"I Wanna Be Sedated" The Ramones (75)
"Wonderwall" Oasis (95)

Songs I heard at Saturday night's bachelorette outing
"Sexual Healing", Marvin Gaye
"Walk this Way", RunDMC
"I Love Rock n' Roll", Joan Jett

Songs I wouldn't have thought of, but I do like
"Fast Car", Tracy Chapman
"Good Riddance / Time of your life", Green Day
"Once in a lifetime", Talking Heads
"Paradise by the Dashboard Lights", Meatloaf
"Rapper's Delight", Sugarhill Gang

80s Honor Roll Picks
"Tainted Love" Soft Cell
"Whip It" Devo
"In Your Eyes" Peter Gabriel
"Little Red Corvette" & "When Doves Cry" Prince

MIA - where are these songs?
"867-5309 Jenny" Tommy Tutone
"99 Luftballons" Nena
"Friends in Low Places" Garth Brooks
"Margaritaville" Jimmy Buffet
"It's the End of the World as We Know It" REM

EDITED: 6/17 for grammar/presentation

The new Blogger was looking pretty good until I tried to publish my last few pieces. First try...got a transfer error. It says publishing is still in progress, but I guess we shall see. I am somewhat hopeful this will fix my archiving issues though. Crossing my fingers!

WMD Irrelevancy?

I've been exploring a few new blogs lately. The pages I read on a regular basis are generally those of bloggers who have interests similar to mine (conservative politics, faith, irrational preoccupation with pop culture, et cetera) or who write in a "voice" similar to my own. However this week has made it incredibly clear to me that there are many good blogs lurking out there. I will never have time to read them all, but it doesn't hurt to feature a "new find" now and then.

My new find of the week? Brought to you via links from Ben Kepple and Dean Esmay, we have The Dissident Frogman. This bilingual English/French blog is a must-see. The header "Time to take sides: The Dissident Frogman, Art vs. Europression" almost says it all. Unfortunately I do not have the resources to post his banner "No WMD?", but please visit his site to see the Flash piece and his stellar related commentary.

It captures my feelings on WMD issue quite well. What are they? Quite frankly, I think it is hoopla being stirred up by the press in an attempt to delegitimize this war. While they may try to remain neutral, the vast majority of journalists seemed to be against the war. Now that the war is over, the operation was successful, these same people are looking for something, anything to help turn the tide of public opinion against these men, to give their previous assertions a shred of legitimacy.

Does it bother me that we haven't found WMD yet? A bit. Do I think that Bush, Blair, or anyone else in our government lied to us about their existence? No way. The war has been over for less than three months. We've found several different sets of missiles that Iraq told the UN never existed, as well as two mobile chemical labs "scrubbed clean". We have found mass graves of hundreds of children, thousands of Kurds. We have freed hundreds of children from the prisons they had been held in since their parents refused to join Sadaam's ruling party.

How can journalists assert that the war was "unjustified" knowing all this? No journalists are going to convince me on that account. WMDs were one reason for the invasion of Iraq, but they were far from the only one. Iraq was in non-compliance with the UN resolutions and was supplying the UN with blatantly false information...period.

The thing that really bothers me about the WMD? That we aren't in control of them yet. Iraq has been on our radar screen since the "Axis of Evil" speech. By last November, it seemed like war was inevitable. By late January, it seemed the conflict was imminent. When did it start? March 20th. The Iraqis knew this was coming for a good five to six months. Do you think they aren't going to try to hide them? My biggest concern at the moment is whether Iraq's WMD are in the hands of radicals from neighboring crazy regimes.

Good heavens

I just reread my last post. Eek! I sincerely apologize for the grammatical errors in my posts as of late. I really need to start writing these earlier in the evening, so the fog of sleep is not clouding my proofreading skills and forcing you to read such disjointed drivel.

That being said, I don't know how likely it is the typos will cease in the near future. The project I am on at work is hitting crunch time, so I am putting in overtime AND trying to get back to exercising regularly. I will do my best though.

random thoughts

I keep intending to write about topics, but various columnist who espouse their opinions for a living keep beating me to the punch. I stumbled across several great columns today.

For example over at the WSJ's online Opinion Journal, Pete DuPont makes a wonderful point about the state of the American educational system. By comparison testing our hearts out, we aren't really proving that our students are learning anything. In not insisting that our students pass a basic skills exam to graduate from high school, we are making it harder to determine that their secondary educations have failed them.

Over at Town Hall, Mona Charen discuss the "Where's the WMD?" controversy that the media keeps trying to whip into a frenzy. She intelligently points out that even if we can't find the chemical evidence that WMD have been built in Iraq, we have found evidence that Sadaam tortured and randomly executed his own people. In certain situations, the line between right and wrong is clear. I'm proud that we are standing on the right side of it. WMD? They will turn up eventually or they won't. I'm convinced that we have done good here, although more remains to be done as we strive to establish a democratic government that will not become an instrument of religious extremists.

Also at Town Hall, Phyllis Schlafly offers a very informative column on a subject near and dear to my heart: the outsourcing of IT jobs to India/China. I have touched on this before, but it has become increasingly bothersome to me the longer I have been in the workforce. Thousands of recent IT and engineering grads are still searching for jobs, because the technical work has been offered to workers on L-1 and H1B visas that will do the job for about one-fifth the standard US salary. I have seen it and think it's the wave of the future...unless we do something to stop it. These visa regulations are being abused, and I urge you to voice any disagreement with these laws to your Congressman.

In other news, Josh Claybourn turned 22 today. Hope it was a good one Josh!

weekend rundown

My husband and I spent the weekend back in my hometown, attending the wedding of a girl I grew up with and helping my parents prepare for my sister's graduation party. A good time was had (and too much food was eaten) by all. Therefore, just have a quick rundown of links tonight.

Congrats to Benjamin Kepple on the new look over at his site. I've been growing increasingly frustrated with Blogger the past few months, and I'm considering enlisting Dean's services at some point in the future. First, I just have to convince my penny-pinching self that the minute chunk of change is best spent on hosting. Stay tuned.

Speaking of Ben, he has a rather interesting exploration of Harvard's stance toward weblogs and the "rules" on allowable speech it is seeking to enforce. Not that I'm surprised that this goes on in the Ivy League, but seeing such tendencies towards censorship at America's "premier" academic institution frightens me a bit.

Mike Krempasky has up an interesting summary of the Dem candidates debate in Iowa. Funny and right on the money to boot. Love the stuff on Howard Dean.

Sammy Sosa has been a disappointment lately, but the Cubs performance against the Yankees was far from it. Hooray for interleague play. Karros came through after Hee Seop Choi's scary tumble on Saturday and pulled the Cubbies through. Tonight's game was nerve-wracking but fun to watch. Is it way too early to start daydreaming of post-season play? Now if someone could just start beating the Astros...

it's a friday!

Trying something different here. As I've been having trouble deciding what to post lately, I'm going to give you a little insight on my life and (at least temporarily) give the Friday Five a try. Today? Lovey dovey stuff.

1. How many times have you truly been in love? Really and truly in love? Once - i.e. my husband. Puppy love? Twice. In love with the idea of a relationship I potentially could have had with someone? Three or four times.

2. What was/is so great about the person you love(d) the most? Hard to put into words. My husband is intelligent, considerate, respectful, overall just a really interesting person. He has a great sense of humor, loves God innately, values tradition but seeks improvement, and is a huge softie underneath his gruff jock exterior. He has his faults sure, but I truly feel blessed that God sent us into one another's lives and that we will (hopefully) get to grow old with one another.

3. What qualities should a significant other have? Respect for you as a person and your dreams, patience, loyalty, the ability to make you laugh. A personal requirement is that he have basically the same set of values and Christian beliefs, because I couldn't start a family with someone who did not.

4. Have you ever broken someone's heart? Twice, I think.

5. If there was one thing you could teach people about love, what would it be? "You don't choose love, it chooses you." My first thought was that romantic love comes looking for you when you stop looking for it. I struggled with many of the guys I dated my first three terms of college -- in my retrospective opinion, because we really didn't have the same values. I was incredibly frustrated and decided that I needed to refocus on myself and my faith. A few weeks later, my husband and I fell in love after over a year of platonic friendship.

I'm no Yoda, but there are my thoughts on love. Hope it's not too sappy for the usual IG audience!

giving in?

I have mixed feelings about all the progress that is supposedly being made in Middle Eastern peace talks in Aqaba this week. I am not the world's foremost expert on history and issues between Israel and Palestine, so I will defer questions most arguments to someone who is more knowledgeable about these topics. I realize Sharon is not perfect either. However, I can unabashedly say that I detest the fact that various organizations have been using terrorist tactics in an attempt to further the Palestinian cause for decades. Not the way to peaceful resolution and independence folks...or it's at least not the way to gain the respect of the civilized world.

My gut instincts are telling me to be skeptical about this "peace process" and the potential for its success. On one hand, I think such peace talks are a necessary evil. I don't foresee Middle East tensions easing until a Palestinian state is created. Suicide bombings will keep getting worse -- more children, parents, and grandparents will keep dying in Israel's schools, workplaces, and busses until something changes.

On the other hand, something about this feels wrong to me. We are giving in to the child throwing a temper tantrum at the candy counter. We are giving the schoolyard bully what he has wanted all along. We are meeting hijackers' demands. We are basically saying, "Hey, go ahead. Keep behaving unacceptably. Eventually, we will get tired of putting up a fight. You will win. Your blackmail tactics will have worked. We will yield our ground and give you some of the land you have been demanding for years."

So pretend you are a terrorist organization. What would you do if these tactics had worked? Cease and desist? Accept the portions of the compromise that you were not pleased about? Start peacefully co-existing with your good buddies the Israelites? One would like to think that this would happen, but Hamas and other organizations have not shown themselves to be reasonable neighbors/negotiators in the past.

My guess is that these organizations will head right back to work, employing such reprehensible terror tactics in an effort to obliterate the Jewish state in general...since they have stated that as their ultimate goal all along. I hope I'm wrong though.

the standard

There's an interesting article up over at the Weekly Standard on the "Big Four" of blogging: Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, and The Volokh Conspiracy. Specifically, this article notes that if these four men were to coordinate their campaign coverage, they could possibly exert a substantial influence on the 2004 Presidential Race. I don't check any site multiple times a day, but I was intrigued by this article. It's nice to see the more mainstream press note that the blogosphere's influence on the web is growing.

In other Weekly Standard news, I love Larry Miller. He should think about giving up acting and writing full time. Actually given the last movie I saw him in (uncredited role in A Guy Thing), it appears I may be on to something here. Hmmmphf. He has a doozy of a column up on how Americans have incredibly short memories and seem to have forgotten all about the war and the curious period of detachment that the American public seems to have reached. Highly recommend reading it.

Put a cork in it?

There's quite a bit of disappointment in our household this evening, as Sammy Sosa was caught using a corked bat at Wrigley Field tonight. I'm interested in seeing how this is explained. The footage on WGN made it quite clear there was something darker and spongy, about the size of a champaigne cork, in the middle of the broken bat. Will the Cubs blame someone else and say that usage of the bat was a mistake? Will Sammy Sosa accept personal responsibility for the choice he made and/or apologize to his fans? Will he be able to spring back into the line-up after another 10-game break from play? Will his legacy be tarnished because of this? How willing will his fans be to forgive this error in judgment?

In the grand scheme of things, I realize that baseball is not tremendously important. Part of me finds it terribly ironic that many Cubs fans may feel more betrayed by Sammy's illicit rendezvous with a cork bat than our former president's illicit rendezvous with an intern half his age in the Oval Office. But I digress...

Updated: Word is that Sosa will admit to using the corked bat in his post-game conference and tell the press that this was a batting practice bat that just got mixed in with his regulars. Interesting approach but the most honest? Perhaps we will never know.
Updated 6/4: Ben Domenech has up a great bit on his theory that Sosa's corker was an honest mistake. He also raises some intersting points on what vultures sports commentators are at the first hint of scandal.