J'E

smoothie

2012-01-30T07:24:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not know, I have been making supplemental smoothies for myself. This smoothie has bananas, coconut water for hydration, kefir, beet root powder for iron, chia seeds for tons of minerals and energy, bee pollen for antioxidants and energy, and maca powder for minerals and hormone regulation. Mmmm. I subtracted the spirulina powder from my smoothie recipes because it just has an awful taste. I take it in capsule form now.

article

2012-01-30T07:08:00.000-08:00

Here is a good, tho long article on American interventionism and fear-mongering.

Mount

2012-01-30T06:42:00.001-08:00

Jake is doing his Urban Warfare training this week. I wasn't expecting him to be home till Sunday but he will be home Saturday morning! Yay!
They have some very exciting technology that they will be working with. Each weapon has a laser specifically calibrated to the weapon's systems so it knows the rate of fire, the impact of the bullets on the target at any distance, etc. The receptors that each Marine wears documents where they get hit, by whom they are shot, when they can begin firing after being wounded, the effects of CS gas, grenades, bombs, etc.

The most expensive game of laser tag yet invented. Thank you tax payers! But it will be very realistic training and if he has to go fight in some illegal war against another nation that does not present any real danger to yours and my safety, I'd like him to be well trained.

I'm hoping for good weather this week so the boys and I can go to the park & the forest.

Next Monday I'm going to a dinner at a general's home with some other wives. Originally I was the only wife from 6th platoon (jake's platoon) and I was so happy. It's not something that many wives wanted to go to. 1, it's time away from our husbands. 2, it's a dinner with a general's wife and open socializing with unknown women.
I wanted to go because it would make Jake look good to be the only one who's wife accepted the invitation of a General in the platoon. However, all the wives from 6th platoon are attending now. There was a talk given to the husbands where it was stated that although the Family Readiness Officer could not order the wives to attend the dinner there WOULD BE 80-85% attendance. Haha. Now I'm not special. Makes me so angry.

I taught Nancy how to make bread the other day. I also discovered that I had been leaving out the second rise accidentally. So now my bread fills 2 loaf pans instead of 1! Amazing!

We are anxiously awaiting orders. Hopefully by next week we'll know where our next duty station will be!! Breath. Just breath.

the boys are learning how to play together. They love to play together, they just don't do it very nicely. Sometimes I'll send G up to his room just to get some quiet and settle him down, and Cal will run up with him. Hello! G just hit you why would you follow him upstairs? Haha. They'll figure it out.

Calvin knows what 1 is. I tell him to take just one bite and he holds up one finger. Yup, 1. And then he shoves a quarter of a sandwich in his mouth. One bite! ga.
Cal loves coconut water.

G & C have been watching a lot of Angelina Ballerina lately. They love to dance along. Guy learned what balance is and likes to hold one leg straight behind him. Cal likes to spin and try to copy G. So cute.

G is doing awesome with his Catechism. I only spent about a week on it with him so I need to start up again. I usually ask him questions from the Catechism or about his vowel sounds while he plays at the train table.

I think that's it!

American Indian endorses Ron Paul

2012-01-30T05:11:00.000-08:00

Activist Russell Mean endorses the Constitution for his own freedom and Ron Paul

Orders

2012-01-26T07:49:00.000-08:00

Jake's orders have been cut!!!! He checked MOL today before leaving and said something like 'wherever I get based it's something like J93294j.....' I was half-asleep, but it was some code for the base and it had a J and some numbers. Now we just have to wait for that info to be disclosed to us!
Jake's school is 16 weeks long, not 6 months. I just assumed it was 6 months since it's a twice-yearly school. I was wrong. So the boys and I will not be going up with him. We will go to the duty station. We will most likely stay in Va until that time. There is a guy in Mike Co who has been here since graduation (about 5 months ago) waiting for the next round of schooling to start and he's headed up there now. I think it would be nicer to go straight to our duty station. There are two other Lt.s that got Aviation Supply as their MOS and they will both likely want West Coast as well. As long as Jake graduates with better grades than them he gets his choice of duty station before them. Those chances are good because both of them are females :) And Jake is ranked up in the top of the top third of the company (122 students?).

Some of the duty station options are Key West (wooo!!!!) Las Vegas (woooo!!!) Cali (wooo!!!!) Yuma (wo!) and Alaska (boo!)

Jake has told me about several political conversations he's been a part of at work. Mostly it's from a Captain who got a full ride through college (rich parents) and the military paid for his law school. He really likes Ron Paul. Haha.a So Jake here's me talk about politics at home, then goes to work and hears about politics there too. He's surrounded by raging politicos! Hahaha. I think that's so cool. Jake's SPC also is a big fan of Ron Paul, and this guy is not a fan of anything! I actually don't know that he isn't a fan of anything. I haven't met him, but he just seems so odd. And he has a very dry sense of humor. Any way. The troops are talking and they support Ron Paul. Why don't you? Ron Paul, with all his crazy, insane, irresponsible foreign policy ideas gets more campaign contributions from military members than all the candidates (including Obama) combined! What does that say? It says that no one is understanding the seriousness of the matters other than Ron Paul. He takes his oath to defend the constitution seriously, and so do the men & women in the military (although if they're out fighting they obviously don't take it seriously enough, but that is between them and God).

This is a long video. It is thorough. The second half gets good, talking about the spending, the wars, the housing crisis, etc. Which Ron Paul predicted. He predicted it way back when. Everyone thought he was crazy. Like Noah. Although Ron Paul didn't get his message from God, he got it from understanding economic policy, foreign policy, and the constitution.

don't watch the end after the video is over, the guy just wastes your time :)

MOS!

2012-01-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

Jake got his MOS today!!!!!!
He is going to be an Aviation Supply Officer. Job Description: Aviation supply officers are unrestricted officers who may command, or assist in commanding a Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron. Aviation supply officers may also achieve designation as an Acquisition Professional. Aviation supply officers are responsible for planning, directing, and controlling the performance and execution of aviation supply functions within Marine Aircraft Wings, Marine Aviation Logistics squadrons, Marine Corps Air Stations, Cvs and LHAs, and various TYCOM and SYSCOM staffs. This requires in-depth familiarity and working knowledge sufficient to supervise and control Navy-developed and sponsored aviation logistics information management systems; repairable material management programs; financial management programs; budgeting and accounting functions; aviation inventory management functions; and warehousing operat:ions. Aviation supply officer must ensure that aviation supply operations sustain the unit's combat readiness and enhance its ability to perform its mission. They must be able to establish division and department goals and to develop and execute plans to achieve those goals. They must monitor supply management indicators to assist in tracking performance over time and ensure progress towards accomplishment of established goals. Aviation supply officers must initiate and maintain liaison with external agencies to provide or obtain support and to report supply management indicators. They must also initiate and maintain liaison with maintenance personnel in the operational squadrons and the Intermediate Maintenance Department so that they have a clear appreciation of the needs of their customers.

The school is in Rhode Island and it is six months. The next school starts in July I think so we will be waiting to find out what will be done with us until that time when Jake goes to RI. There are at least two options. One, that we would be sent to our duty station for Jake to do hands on training until the next school starts, or two, we could stay in Va until the next school starts. We won't know until the end of Feb/first week of march where his duty station is or what his orders are.

Request for arguments in support of other candidates

2012-01-21T07:59:00.001-08:00

If you are NOT voting for Ron Paul (and yes, you should know by now) who are you voting for? Who do you think deserves to become the next Commander in Chief to my husband? Who do you think holds truest to the Constitution (or even knows what the Constitution says and is meant for)? Who do you feel comfortable in their steadfastness in issues against Debt Ceiling increases, pro-life issues (this includes war), defense of civil liberties?

Please respond. I will pick your arguments apart. There is no other candidate apart from Ron Paul that Christians should rally behind.

Want a president who understands business? Mitt Romney ran businesses. Ron Paul ran his own private practice.

Want someone loyal to their wife and family? Mitt Romney has been married for 35 years or whatever number he settled on, I can't remember because he flip-flopped even on that issue. Rick Santorum has been married to the same woman I think. They have 7 children. I know this because his wife mentioned them in her endorsement speech about 6 times at one of the Caucus events in Iowa. Ron Paul has been married to his first and only wife for a long time.

Want someone with military experience? Ron Paul. Mitt Romney couldn't serve because he was a Missionary for his cult.

Want someone who is fiscally conservative? Ron Paul

Want someone who is pro-life? Mitt Romney is only semi-pro-life. Rick Santorum has voted to fund Planned Parenthood. Ron Paul is pro-life.

Want someone who is pro-Constitution? Mitt Romney will consult his lawyers and the american public before going to war, and doesn't know if the states have the right to ban contraceptives. Ron Paul is a STRICT Constitutionalist.

Voddie Baucham

2012-01-21T07:56:00.001-08:00

Here is Voddi Baucham's endorsement of Ron Paul:

"Voddie, because I have a great respect for you and your opinion I would really like to know why you are voting for Ron Paul ? I have not liked some of the things I have heard him say and I am wondering if I missed something?" -Pamela Wolfe (via Facebook Fan Page)

Since posting a passing comment on my Facebook fan page about Ron Paul, I have been inundated with questions and concerns about my support of the Texas Congressman in the current Republican Primary race. In one of my many political posts (frequently, I post videos, news articles, etc., in an effort to show the importance and influence of worldview), I simply stated that I voted for Dr. Paul in the last election, and planned to vote for him again.

The result was hundreds of comments; more than any other post I’ve ever submitted. Most of the comments were positive. However, several were extremely negative. Some vowed never to follow, or support my ministry any further, while others simply communicated their dismay. Still others, like today's questioner, just asked honest questions. As a result, I’ve decided to explain my position, and this seemed like the best place to do it.

Let me say ahead of time that I do not believe that politics will save America. Nor do I believe there are any perfect candidates. There never have been, and there never will be. Moreover, it is not my goal to answer every objection to the Paul candidacy as I know that there are those who, for various reasons, will not be persuaded, and more importantly, that’s not my job. My goal here is to offer insight in to my own reasoning as I wade through another political season and make a personal choice.
I. Ron Paul is a Christian Conservative

While I am not looking for a “Pastor-in-Chief,” it is important to me that the man for whom I cast my vote be a Christian, if at all possible. And though I recognize that there is not always a clear Christian choice (i.e., the 2008 election), I agree with Chief Justice John Jay who wrote, “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."[1] For indeed, “Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe.”[2] John Witherspoon concurs: “Those, therefore, who pay no regard to religion and sobriety in the persons whom they send to [public office] are guilty of the greatest absurdity and will soon pay dear for their folly.”[3] I think we are seeing this on display right now.[4]

My desire is not to see a president who will usurp the authority, responsibilities, or privileges of the Church. However, I do not wish to see those things hindered either. I also want to know that the foundational ideology motivating a man’s decisions is biblical. I know it will not always mirror my own, but I trust God’s word, and appreciate those who look to it for aid in making decisions. To that end, I support Dr. Paul because he is not just a conservative, but a Christian Conservative.

Dr. Paul does not beat his Christian faith like a drum in his public/political life. Unfortunately, that is off-putting for the “Christian Right”. However, in a world full of ‘posturing’ in an effort to win over evangelicals, I find Paul’s public demeanor refreshing. And it is not as though he is a ‘closet Christian,’ either. “I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and I endeavor every day to follow Him in all I do and in every position I advocate,” wrote Paul on his Web site.[5] I have also had the privilege of talking with both him, and one of his five children about his faith and how it influences his policy positions.

Nevertheless, the more important aspect is the fact that this Southern Baptist (raised Lutheran) is a regular church attender. What would motivate a man to attend church, but not beat a drum about it in an effort to win over evangelicals in an age when political figures play at Christianity (while living totally contradictory lives, and holding heterodox beliefs) in order to assuage the fears of the Christian Right? Having met and talked to Dr. Paul, I would say it is authenticity, and humility more than anything else. He wants “to avoid any appearance of exploiting [his faith] for political gain.”[6]
II. Ron Paul is a Constitutional Conservative

Not only is Ron Paul a Christian Conservative; he is also a Constitutional Conservative. He holds himself accountable to the Constitution of the United States, even when it means he has to vote against legislation that may be otherwise beneficial. This has cost him on numerous occasions as people use the “Ron Paul voted against so-and-so” tactic to paint a caricature of him and play “gotcha” politics.
This is actually an important quality in a President. I don’t want a man in the White House making decisions based on what “feels” right. I’m not looking for a conscientious King; I want a Chief Executive. I want a man whose decisions are predictable because of a long track record of constitutional conservatism. I may not always agree with a man like that, but I will always know why he did what he did, and I can live with that. Especially in several crucial areas facing our Republic, like money, war, States’ Rights, and foreign policy, for example.
Constitutional Money

I support Ron Paul because he has a constitutional view of money. He is the only candidate consistently to confront the Federal Reserve Bank (which is not federal, has no reserves, and is not a bank), and address the issue of fiat currency (a.k.a. unjust weights and measures; Lev 19:36; Prov 16:11), which debases the dollar, manipulates business cycles, creates inflation, and always benefits the rich at the expense of the poor and disenfranchised. And he talks about the issue in just those terms.

Congressman Paul is also the only candidate who has a budget that will cut a TRILLION DOLLARS in spending in year one.[7] He is the only candidate who has committed to defund and eliminate expensive, unconstitutional agencies. This is crucial for a country headed for an economic cliff. Our debt is larger than our GDP and we simply must address it NOW (Luke 14:28)! This is arguably the most important issue we face, and while others want to tinker with the status quo, Dr. Paul wants to do the hard thing; the right thing; the biblical thing; the constitutional thing.
Constitutional War

I support Ron Paul because he is a military veteran (yup... he refuses to beat that drum too, which is why you may not have known that little tidbit). And though I do not believe it is necessary for a man to have served in the military for him to serve as President, the fact that Congressman Paul knows and hates war lends credibility to his desire and commitment to ending the wars and bringing our troops home. Moreover, he has a constitutional understanding of war (only Congress can send us to war), and a Christian commitment to historic Just War Theory (rooted in the Sixth Commandment... HIS WORDS).[8] He, unlike other candidates, can be counted on not to commit to acts of war without congressional authority (i.e., unilaterally deciding to bomb a sovereign nation if they advance their weapons technology in a region several thousand miles away from the U.S., under the watchful eye of a nation with over 300 nukes who can stop them in a heartbeat... but I digress).

There is a reason Dr. Paul has received more support from members of the military than all other candidates (Republican and Democrat) COMBINED! The top three employers of Ron Paul’s donors are the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, respectively. Dr. Paul will not use our military to hunt down and overthrow heads of state without Congressional authority (i.e., Libya), kill American citizens without warrant,[9] detain citizens indefinitely without benefit of a trial,[10] or chase warlords in central Africa.[11] When it comes to war, Dr. Paul understands that, “Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears.” (Proverbs 26:17)
Constitutional States’ Rights

I support Ron Paul because he not only understands, but believes in the Tenth Amendment. I know many Christians have been scared off by the “Ron Paul wants to legalize drugs, gay marriage, and abortion” rhetoric. However, looking beyond the rhetoric reveals Paul’s true constitutional conservatism (and biblical understanding of jurisdiction). He has personal convictions, but those will not be allowed to steer him away from his constitutional oath. The presidency, and the Federal Government have limits.

The President is not “Pastor in Chief.” It is not the President’s job (or the job of the Federal Government) to set such policies. The “War on Drugs,” for example, has been a monumental, unconstitutional, fiscal failure (to the tune of more than $3 BILLION)![12] The Federal Government must be held within the confines of its enumerated powers. This is important for Christians because we will not always have people in the White House with whom we agree (in fact, politicians will always let us down). What happens when we send a man to the White House with the express purpose of “changing the moral standards” of America in our favor, then, down the line we have a president who uses the same un-cheked powers to promote moral standards with which we disagree? How’s that workin’ for ya’?

But what about the moral issues to which we, as Christians, must speak? First, we must speak to them at the local level. I have no right to look to Washington, D.C. for remedies when I am not preaching on Mars Hill at every opportunity. The Roe v. Wade, for example, started in Texas; not D.C.. Furthermore, there is not a single institution more prolific in the spread of moral decay than the government education system, and Ron Paul is the only man who plans to get the federal government out of that business by ending the (unconstitutional) Department of Education IMMEDIATELY (Luke 6:40).

Beyond that, if there are issues we wish to address on a federal level, we have a federal remedy, and it is not the election of a President; it is the amendment process. This is less favorable to those who do not wish to do the hard work of changing hearts and minds in the marketplace of ideas. However, the alternative is a quasi-monarchy (or oligarchy) that changes with the wind, and a view of the presidency that is both unbiblical and unconstitutional.
Constitutional Foreign Policy

I support Ron Paul because he has a constitutional view of foreign policy. Ironically, our foreign policy has been so unconstitutional for so long that many people recoil at the idea of getting it back in line. Moreover, the semantic game Paul’s opponents play (using “isolationism” as opposed to “non-intervention” to define his position) doesn’t help. For most Christians, this is where they believe I’ve left the reservation. They may not say, “We have to be the world’s police force,” but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Do you know his position on Israel?” “Surely you can’t support a man who doesn’t support Israel!”

Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Ron Paul does support Israel. It is our current foreign policy that does not support Israel! However, there is a deeper issue here. There is a sort of misplaced Dispensationalism that governs people’s sentimental attitude toward Israel. Let me state clearly that I do not believe the Bible demands that the U.S. support Israel. I do, however, believe that it is wise to do so for geopolitical reasons. To do so for theological reasons, I believe, is actually misguided, and quite dangerous. Nevertheless, Israel is our only true ally in the Middle East, and that is important.

But there’s a more important question: “What does it mean to “support” Israel?” Does it mean that Israel remains God’s “Chosen People,” and we must stand with them in anticipation of the coming Armageddon? Is the President to act as “Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces” and “Supreme Defender of Israel”? Or are we simply to make sure the foreign aid dollars don’t stop flowing? Here are a few things I took into to consideration in evaluating Congressman Paul’s foreign policy.

Israel is the most powerful nation in the Middle East... BY A LONG SHOT! In fact, Israel could potentially defeat all the other military powers in the Middle East simultaneously if they had to.
We not only give money to Israel; we give money to their enemies as well. That is not supporting Israel! That is using money to buy influence in a region thousands of miles away from us in the name of oil, when we happen to have the largest repository of oil on planet earth right here in the US, but refuse to go and get it (in the name of Earth-worshipping environmentalism)!
Israel is a sovereign nation, and we have no right to treat her like a child. Our foreign aid has been a tool used to influence Israel’s domestic policy for far too long. If we are their friends, we should allow them to exercise their sovereignty without our interference, and certainly without our condemnation. Who do we think we are? No, I disagree with my Christian brothers and sisters who think a country who supports Israel’s enemies, interferes with Israel’s domestic policy, condemn’s Israel in efforts to keep ties with oil-rich countries in the region, and helps to destabilize and radicalize one of Israel’s historic foes lurking on her southern boarder is engaging in a foreign policy that supports Israel.

III. Ron Paul is a Consistent Conservative

Finally, I support Dr. Paul because he has been a consistent conservative. He has been married to the same woman for more than fifty years; delivered over 4,000 babies as an OB; never performed a single abortion; has never voted for an unbalanced budget, a tax increase, or a bailout; forecasted the economic debacle long before it happened;[13] and gave back $140,000 last year through his office to pay down the national debt (100,000 in 2010). This man is so principled that he refuses to claim his congressional pension!

Ron Paul is the real deal. He is not perfect. He needs a savior just like you and I do (as noted by his trust in Christ as his redeemer). But when it’s all said and done, he is a man with whom I agree in principle. I know where he’s coming from, and it’s not based on his “personal story,” or his sense of what’s going to get him elected. It’s the same thing he’s been running on (and governing from) for over three decades; the Constitution of the United States (viewed through the lens of a basic biblical world and life view). And I’m glad to support a man like that.

PIPA/SOPA why they matter

2012-01-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

Did you know that the MPAA (entertainment business) sued to ban VCRs when they first were invented? Same with when the first MP3 came out. Here's a link to the VCR bit (it's short so don't fret word haters!)

Here is a good, simple video explaining PIPA and why it is bad:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

it's midnight so this will be the last

2012-01-18T20:45:00.001-08:00

For those of you (MOM) who don't like reading, here is another clip. He's so amazing.

Video

2012-01-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

from the 2008 debate; Ron Paul's electability. He mentions Musharraf *Libya for those of you who don't follow world events that we fund/ help cause*

The Prophet, the Man. Ron Paul

2012-01-18T20:14:00.000-08:00

Guns & soup

2012-01-18T19:59:00.001-08:00

Spending consecutive days without jake home gets me thinking about the possibility of crimes being committed against me and how I would prevent any such crimes as I may dream up from happening. I don't do so well in my hypothetical situations of danger.
I painstakingly typed out a very detailed account of all the weapons I have but decided that is not wise to make public. So now this post will be much more brief than I originally planned.
On to the soup portion of this post:
I bought a box of progresso soups at Costco. I wanted to have them on hand for jake to take to work on days that we don't have left overs. I ate a whole can for dinner and it left me hungry. With only 6 cans left I see them providing jake with 2 lunches.

I'm so tired. When jake is home our evening ends around 8. It is 11pm. I need him to come home and be a tired old man so I can go to bed.

2012-01-18T12:09:00.001-08:00

Protesting SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-18T09:57:00.000-08:00

A day without internet to protest the censorship bill Stop Online Piracy Act - SOPA and it's twin PIPA

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/sopa-blackout-websites-dark-protest-gallery-1.1007946

Insanity review Day 30

2012-01-12T10:29:00.001-08:00

Half-way through.
I love Insanity. I was really intimidated at first... before starting. Upon completion of the preliminary Fit Test, I knew it was possible. My test scores were up there with the two other folks in the video.
I discovered about 15 days into the program that it is NOT a weight loss program. I gained 5lbs. I have not lost any inches either, however, I am fit. I went from 0 miles to being able to run 3 miles with hills at a 10 minute mile pace without any workup besides Insanity. To put that in perspective, I was running 10 minute miles on flat ground back in Davis when I was running every day stopped running for 3 months and picked back up at the same pace or better (I haven't run on flat ground yet so I don't know what my pace is without hills).

The workouts are VERY doable. When I get winded I pause it and take a breather, then get right back in hitting it hard. The workouts are primarily interval training so you train HARD at max output for a set time, take a break to get your heart rate down, then start back up hard. The exercises rotate every day as well so I don't have to do the same exercise back to back. With the 30 Day Shred it's the same exercises, same music, same people for about 10 days in a row, then the next exercise 10 days in a row, then the next exercise 10 days in a row.

I mentioned the Fit Test at the beginning. The Fit Test is the way that progress is tracked. It's the same Fit Test each time. This is going to be my third Fit Test and I will compare my results with the previous two times. This works really well for me because it brings out my competitive side. Last Fit Test I couldn't complete it because I pushed myself so hard to beat my previous scores. Working out with those extra 5 lbs is tough! The test was WAY easier the first time. Wish I had known that, I wouldn't have done so well at the start! lol

I wish he did more core repeats in the first month's core workouts. The workout is good, I just wish he did a repeat of the oblique exercises.

This month I'm into the MAX interval exercises. Totally psyching me out.

I Am Sorry for the Role I Played in Fallujah | Common Dreams

2012-01-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

I Am Sorry for the Role I Played in Fallujah | Common Dreams

Ron Paul

2012-01-06T06:27:00.000-08:00

Here's one more reason why the world would be better off with Ron Paul as the candidate against Obama.

Obama ran as an anti-war candidate. He ran with promises of transparency. He has disappointed and frustrated many democrats. Kucinich (one of the other dem. candidates from '08) has sided with Ron Paul on many issues. During the Iowa caucuses Ron Paul took the most amount of democrat & independent votes by a large margin.

Ask yourself, of the democrats who are anti-war (which are many... ever read anything on them trying to balance the budget? They want to slash war spending)Would they rather live under a Mitt Romney/Santorum or Obama? They would stick with Obama. If they had the choice between Obama & Paul it looks like they are choosing Ron Paul.

There is little to fear with Ron Paul if you listen to his ACTUAL positions. On Medicare/caid he isn't shutting it down. Same with social security; he won't shut it down- he wants to make it OPTIONAL for those who haven't started paying into it yet to opt out.
Republicans who find him extreme on his foreign policy are mistaken as well. They have come accustom to the rhetoric from the media- war is inevitable, everyone in the middle east is our enemy, we are only safe if we attack first, sanctions are not acts of war, anyone who attacks our troops is a terrorist, we need bases in every country, the world deserves our money even if it means we don't have enough for our own citizens, etc. Remember, Bush first ran as a non-interventionalist. Bush ran against Gore as someone who spoke for limited government and for not policing the world... then we know what happened. But. HE RAN and WAS ELECTED on that message. Now it's crazy talk and irresponsible.

Ron Paul is criticized when he says that we are producing more terrorists with our wars & intervening. He is correct. I have watched segments and read interview with Afghan citizens who said that they once welcomed US troops into their country but now the government is more corrupt. On top of that many have lost everything due to our involvement there and they are turning to the taliban for help. Pushing more troops into Afghanistan won't help. Our government supports 'friendly' dictators. We sell arms to Libya who in turn use them against their citizens. Think Libyans will be friendly towards Americans? Nope. We use jails in other countries to extraordinarily render (abduct) 'suspects' and in many cases allow that country's experts on extracting information (torture) to do our dirty work for us.
Few countries can boast of a free press, but many of their citizens are better informed on what the US does and is capable of than Americans are.

On Iraq, it was a mistake. We gained nothing and lost too much. Weeks after pulling out the government is rounding up suunis, there is retaliation against the shi'as, one of the top government officials has run away because it was found out that he ran a death squad.
The two deciding factors that caused Obama to pull troops out of Iraq: Back at the beginning of the war there Bush compromised with Congress and stated that the final pull-out date was Dec 31 2011. Combine that with the president of Iraq denying US troops immunity if/when they commit crimes. Obama had no wiggle room... besides keeping 17,000 'trainers/staff' in the largest embassy yet... $700,000,000 worth of embassy.
So, anyway.
If anyone has further questions or would like some good reading material my favorite columnists are Glenn Greenwald (he writes for Salon and has a blog. He was a Constitutional and civil rights litigator) and Doug Bandow. Glenn is REALLY good about linking to many other sources so you can do more research and see that he isn't just pulling his opinions our of nothing and regularly goes back and updates his articles as new information becomes available. He also highly encourages interaction with him via email or comment. Doug's articles are a little lengthy but very rich in information and history. Doug writes for Antiwar.com and the Cato institute.

earlier photo phlood

2012-01-04T11:45:00.000-08:00

Lincoln City for the 4th with the Petitmermets 7/2-7/5

watching fireworks (it was cold)

Jake thought Rose was me... Blonde, blue shirt... And Guy is in the background hanging out with Gery and sitting on his lap watching a show.

The train city that was made, and it's makers

Jake cutting a slab for a trunk table at his parent's. 7/6

Stayed at a friend's cabin by Welches. Went on some hikes. On the last day there Ian and Heather went on a hike with us along the Salmon River. 7/9

Jake Guy & Ian

Ian, Heather & Connor

Guy catching a ride with Ian

Jake carrying Guy in the carrier and holding Cal's hand

Cal

With Matt & Tiff at a sushi place. Mmmmmm. 7/11

In front of the Kennedy School

Jake & Matt in Detention (the smoking room)

Tiff & me

Playing shuffle board. I won each set of games!

A kiss in the Boiler Room

Steph and me working on strawberries 7/12

Uncle Benjamin 7/12

G copying 7/12

With Grandma & Grandpa Lindley 7/13

After our drive home

Jake & Dan digging a drainage ditch. 7/14

Brian, Rachel, Jake, me.7/15

G 7/16

G&C

Guy's going away birthday party. Brrrr.

Steph, Michael, Jake & me 7/19

Salamander type thing in our recycle box. 9/4

Guy jumping in puddles. 9/6

Calvin copying

Cal!9/7

Calvin being silly in his highchair.

Guy's birthday 9/11

9/18

Found a school desk on Craigslist. The owner had painted the table with chalkboard paint. That day Guy learned how to write DAD & MOM, GUY 9/19

Guy wrote his name in lowercase letters and learned CALVIN. 9/20

Bros. 9/22

Calvin and Guy playing around. 9/23

G&C at Sonic 9/23

Guy got up from his nap, turned on a Kipper show, laid on the floor. He finally accepted a pillow. 10/1

Photo phlood.

2012-01-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

My first hike with the boys in Prince William Forest. 9/28/11

First hike as a family in Prince William Forest 10/9

The boy's first time having friends over! Quirin & Hagan who a month later moved to North Carolina. Military friendships are so short. 10/12

I love weed-eating. I love my weed whacker. 10/17

Confused Liger 10/19

Confused Drager 10/19

Not wanting to be a Dragon or Drager any more.

My friend Nancy made this Thomas cake for Guy 10/21

Failed bike ride in Prince William Forest. Guy's first time riding his bike on flat ground (he taught himself on our hill) 10/23

Painted our pumpkins! 10/31

Calvin dunking 10/31

Jake gave me some cool shirts for my birthday 11/5

Calvin sick. 11/6

Bike ride/hike at Smith Lake Park 11/9

Calvin looks like this often. He is so clumsy, but he loves to be with Guy. :)

Guy came up and showed me his writing. He smiled and laughed and said, "it's a rainbone!" He calls rainbows 'rainbones'. But then when I got excited with him and told him I wanted to take a picture he got very serious. 11/13

The first half-cord of wood I stacked. 11/14

G&C 11/24

Picnic at Prince William Forest 11/24

Calvin is just barely too small (and clumsy) for the tricycle so he pushes this around.

Did I mention he is prone to falling down?

Guy is a freaking pro at riding his bike.

Calvin is a pro at having other people do the hard work for him.

Jumping into a pile of leaves

Being a cat 12/5

Ditto.

Trying to throw the ball back over the fence after Guy just retrieved it.

Aw, love the kitty!

After a long week fulfilling the roll of Man of the House, I deserved some of the perks that go along with that. 12/12

Calvin thought he deserved some relaxation with the pipe as well. Don't worry, it was completely empty, and I promptly took it away and dried it after snapping some cute photos. 12/15

Anything can be turned into a gun. Take the foot of an ornament that had the misfortune of being brought up stairs before we even had a tree for instance... 12/15

Gun!

Guy was busy drawing this day. He drew 4 trains, this fire engine....12/16

And this train that looks like a caterpillar.

Our tree!! Cut it down all by myself!

Came home and made some vanilla pretzels with Guy in memory of the Cools' at Christmas time.

Like father, like son. Bonding. 12/18

Decided to wait two days until Jake could be home to decorate the tree. Decorated! 12/18

Run in Prince William Forest! Jake's in shorts, I'm in hat, sweatshirt, longsleeves, base layer tights, sweats. Ha. 12/20

Calvin!

Guy helping me roll out the gingerbread dough 12/21

Had one of the Marines from Jake's squad over with her twin 4 year olds to decorate cookies and have dinner. This is how Guy decorates his cookies

Christmas Eve run. Prince William Forest. It's not that I'm slow, it's that I have to stay behind to pick up the 'crumbs' my Hansel (Calvin) drops. 12/24

Turned out to be a pretty difficult run for Jake with the stroller. The boys were freaking out because we were on a cliff that dropped into a creek and Jake was throwing the stroller around trying to force it up this embankment. I did suggest taking the boys out of the stroller, but he managed. Hahaha. Jake scraped his leg up when the stroller fell on top of him. :)

Guy finishing up his USA puzzle from Oma & Opa. 12/25

Calvin watching the Polar Express chug around him.

Guy pointing the way on our New Years Eve hike. Prince William Forest. 12/31

Jake read the map backwards and thought we were on a waterfall hike. I'm glad to find out that Jake can't read maps (& I was right) and that Virginia does not consider this to be a waterfall.

Another of what we thought was supposed to be a waterfall. Again, thankful that Jake was wrong and Virginia isn't as pathetic as I thought it was because they didn't mark this as a waterfall on the map.

My 'being right' face. HA!

?????????

2012-01-02T13:09:00.000-08:00

Where do I even begin? This isn't a 2011 recap. This is a catch-up. Maybe not even that. I don't know where I left off.

We went out to King George to cut down a white pine tree for Christmas. I cut it down all by myself! First tree cutting ever!!!!! It was difficult. I had just done an Insanity workout and all of my muscles were dead. But I triumphed.
The next week Jake was in the field doing FEX2. The weather was dry and relatively warm. I drove back out past King George to pick up firewood. It was locust wood this time. I loaded it, unloaded it and stacked it. The guy selling it chopped the pieces smaller than the last people we bought from so we went through it REALLY fast. Like a week fast. That wood burns nice and hot though. It was really nice. While it lasted. Ha.
I went on a run with Nancy in the forest pushing the boys in the stroller. Guy got out to run with us for part of it. The area we ran in has bats at dusk! They were small reddish bats and they were like kamikaze pilots dive bombing us as we ran back to the trucks! Crazy.

After the FEX Jake got around 2 weeks off. It was so nice. He helped keep the house clean, he helped with the boys, he did dishes, he swept. It was like he was a whole new Jake. I was flabbergasted.

Jake got me a KitchenAid stand mixer for Christmas. I can make buttercream frosting & royal frosting. I can also make MARSHMALLOWS! This has opened so many windows for me to make messes in the kitchen.
Jake made cinnamon rolls. I made bread. We got to go on two dates. We went to see Mission Impossible 4 and had bad sushi. Eating bad sushi makes it not so fun to work out hard. Ick.
We finished getting our repair work quotes for our move insurance claim. Hopefully we will get paid for all that soon.
Guy and Calvin now have a plethora of train stuff to play with. They got a train table for Christmas & an electric train set & a Thomas pillow/blanket set & several individual Thomas & Friends trains. I thought with the sheer availability of trains they would be able to share. Nope. They have gotten better, but it was INSANE for a while there. Too much of a good thing makes one greedy.
Jake and I were given an ice cream maker and a couple of games. We got to play each of the new games several times *and I lost all but one game*
Guy set up his blankets on his floor one night and told me it was so he and Calvin could sleep together and hold hands. Aw. I told him he would have to wait until Calvin got older. Guy still comes up with Calvin to sing to him and kiss him good night for naps and bed time. :) So cute!
As Guy was falling asleep one night he started asking a bunch of questions about heaven, Jesus, babies, sin, etc. By the time he finished asking questions I was ready for bed. Speaking of bed, I have been very ready for bed every night since I started Insanity. Those workouts are no joke! I discovered that it is not a weight loss program tho. My legs hardly fit into some of my jeans anymore. I am going to have to start running more to slim down as I tone up. I've been at this for nearly a month now! Very good feeling.

Jake had Akhil over (one of the other two Marines from the Berkely ROTC that commissioned with Jake who is just starting up at TBS) to go over the schedule and tell him what to expect, how to prepare, etc. I kept hearing "Final" and it was exciting. "Final PFT" "Final exam" "FEX 3" "9-day war" "Final day land nav". He has these next two weeks in, then a week in the field. Then we are on to February! Jake and I have yet to go over his final MOS (job) choices. As of now he has Combat Engineer at spot #3. This makes me unhappy. The engineer part sounds great. It would be really nice for him to have that training for when he gets out and tries to get into the Forest Service, but the Combat part? Not so much. Especially not when we are gearing our troops up for war with China, Iran, and where ever in Africa. Yup, you heard me. China. A general came to talk with them and said that they will be changing their training from desert (afghanistan) to tropical and cold (China & East Asia). Don't get me started.

Speaking of not getting me started, NDAA was signed by Obama (the man who told America that he would NOT sign it) as we rang in the New Year. Yes, the man who said we should protect whistle blowers and then turned into the president who's administration has prosecuted the most whistle blowers, the man who said we need to end our war in Afghanistan and turned into the man who escalated the war there and other places *yemen any one? and all the other places there "weren't" troops on the ground* The man who touted transparency in government but won't share the evidence he collected (or didn't) on the American citizen he ordered assassinated, won't share information pertaining to the UAV/drone attacks to Congress... need I go on? So now Americans can be collected from their homes, work, on the road, at church, at the mall, etc by the military and detained indefinitely without charge, without trial.
Happy New Year Amerika.

Next post will have photos.

Cold

2011-12-10T20:50:00.001-08:00

Br.
Brr.
Brrrrrrrrrr.

There are some billboards that I've seen that picture a little boy wearing a coat in bed. It reads, "no child should have to bundle up to go to bed." it's for a heating assistance program. I agree! Pay for my heat! I'd love to go to sleep without a blanket, comforter, sleeping bag, sweats & sweatshirt. I wish the boys didn't have to wear two sets of pjs to bed sleeping under piles of blankets and a sleeping bag.
I have the thermostat set at 57 and it kicked on at 11 tonight. I tirned it down to 50. Can't afford the heating bill! Lol. We're almost out of wood. Hopefully we get our energy bill before we run out so I can see if it is worth it to buy more wood. I really hope it is. Mostly cause I don't know where else I could cut down on usage! Haha. Who knows.

Jake volunteered to cover another guys duty tonight. I brought him dinner. On my way off base I got pulled over. The speed limit is 15 and I knew I wasnt speeding. Ends up I had a tail light out. Oh well what will they think of next?
Next week jake is in the field. He is going to be miserably cold. Poor jake. At least there is no rain in the forecast!

I started insanity this week. I'm sore. But I feel wonderful. I nearly die with each workout but it is going to be worth it. I can't SEE results yet but I feel them. My muscles are like rocks! As much like rocks as mine can be for having only been doing this for 5 days. Tomorrow is the rest day. I don't want to rest though cause it's going to be so hard to start up again!
Guy has really started to help take care of Calvin. He come up with me to put cal down for his nap and sings a song to him. Usually the kipper theme song and then a song about kipper and tiger being beat friends. Then he says "good night Calvin. Have a good sleep! I love you." aw. Cal has really taken to guy as well he'll just run up and hug him. It is so sweet. Now, if he would only learn to say some words! Ma. Ma. MAAAAA! Hardly counts IMO.
That's it and that's that.

New phone: better reception.

2011-12-06T20:55:00.001-08:00

Well, semi-better. After titling this post I noticed that I had no reception at all of any sort. Hm. But now I'm back to two bars which is a lot for the area. :)

Guy and I made a bunch of paper snowflakes to hang in the windows. He did about 4. I've done around 10. They are a bit addictive and very messy.

It's a busy week for jake. He's still squad leader. One of the guys in his squad is asking for someone to take his duty on Saturday (hang out at the barracks to answer the phone in case of emergency) so that he can go to the last birthing class with his wife. None of the single guys who have to be at the barracks anyway have volunteered so jake saiid that if no one else will do it he would. Jakes next duty day is supposed to be the 6th of jan. Jake had his night land nav test tonight. He got 100%! Woohoo!

I did an insane workout today so my body wants to die. Instead I'll just put it to bed and kill it during tomorrow's workout. :) I read a good workout quote the other day: "sweat is fat crying" lol. My fat has a lot to cry about!

Cables Reveal 2006 Summary Execution of Civilian Family in Iraq -- News from Antiwar.com

2011-11-30T06:10:00.000-08:00

Cables Reveal 2006 Summary Execution of Civilian Family in Iraq -- News from Antiwar.com

In case you didn't catch the actual cable here it is. Covered up (aka condoned) by the military. There is a more recent incident in 2010 equally grotesque and evil. These are only the secrets that have been stolen from the government. There are most likely thousands more that we will never know about.

If you haven't watched the Collateral Murder video I strongly encourage you to do so. If you don't want to read, watch. The part where they shoot the children and refuse to give them medical aid at the nearby hospital is one highlight. or the part where they hunt down the photographer and kill him as he's crawling to safety. That's a hoot.
Please educate yourselves:

OCD

2011-11-29T14:16:00.000-08:00

I think I'm becoming more and more OCD. I cannot handle inaccuracy. It drives me batty. I was chatting with an acquaintance and I told him we're hoping for a real pro-peace president this next election. He responded with, "There is no peace without war..." Really.
One, as a wife of a Marine, that is a slap in the face. This guy is willing to sacrifice my husband for so called peace-through-war. Two, that's just lunacy. War rarely brings peace. Especially these wars. We're only making more enemies. The Senate is voting (or did vote) on an bill to extend the war on terror to AMERICA, against AMERICANS. If this bill passed it would open up a way for the president to detain Americans in America without due process, without anything more than a possibility of them being a 'threat' defined loosely. That 'threat' will be sent off to Guantanamo to be held indefinitely. That 'threat' can be tried in a secret military tribunal in Guantanamo without any civil trial. This is how we will achieve peace.

No thank you.

TBS and whatever else I think of to type about...

2011-11-28T06:34:00.000-08:00

Jake is doing really well in TBS. He is working very hard, but I think his personality is a huge bonus. He is quick to jump in and help out when a fellow Marine needs a hand or a break. It is noticed and always appreciated. His SPC nearly despises him, but so far is pretty fair. During his evaluation of Jake his negative comments were that he is awkward socially and tries too hard to be do the 'right' thing even if there isn't a defined right or wrong way to do things. The socially awkward assessment was for acting more reserved around the SPC and because Jake was home schooled. That part isn't really fair, but it is an obstacle that Jake will have to work around. His SPC believes that people think too highly of themselves because of a soft upbringing that focuses on only the positive at the expense of reality. (If you tell your child they are a wonderful artist even though they stink at art. Instead you should give people an honest assessment of their skills.) So he asked Jake where he would rank himself within the platoon. Jake said at the top of the second third. The SPC said he and his fellow Marines had him consistently ranked in the top third. YAY! Jake has a 90 or so in the class.
These next two weeks should be fairly relaxed. Only two days in the field (as of now). Jake is a squad leader again. I think it is a one week billet (office or position).

Guy drew his hot chocolate cup this morning. He drew a 3D object and added depth to it. I was amazed. He is a phenomenal child. Calvin is trying harder to talk. Come on buddy! I need you to figure this thing out!!!! He asks to sit on his toilet every time I change his diaper. It's something at least. I made gingerbread cookies and took them over to our new neighbors. The husband is Chris. He is a sergeant and he will be working at TBS. Probably attached to Alpha company, but I didn't ask. His wife is Ashley and they have a 3 yo Aiden (boy) and a 1 yo daughter. Aiden is kind of shy and was pretty bamboozled by Guy and Calvin who commandeered his dump truck and expected that if he wanted to play with them that he would just come play.
I have to take the car in for an oil change/tune up. And the check engine light is on and we want to get the key system fixed. GA! $$$$$. One thing at a time tho, so I can use multiple coupons. :) Oil change first.

Off to do my morning workout.

barren land

2011-11-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

I am realizing that my soul does cry out. It is something that happens apart from my control. I cannot stop it. There is something other than me spurning me with a strong forceful push. It reaches out through my being and my conscience. It breaks free with hot tears, out of the self-absorbed emptiness I cage it in grasping for the only Greatness to be absorbed in. The Greatness inside me awakens to powerful lyrics: That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,And hath shed His own blood for my soul. Or, How He watches o’er His loved ones, Died to call them all His own... and, Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God; he, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.

The whole third verse I can rarely sing for my throat closes up.
O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

This is how I know I have strayed. This is how I know I am loved. This is how I know I am bought. This is how I know I am saved. It really is the strangest thing to have a non-me calling out from myself to me reminding me who I am and what my purpose is.

firewood!

2011-11-13T19:03:00.000-08:00

I found a lady here in town that was selling her firewood for $75/cord this weekend. Jake and I loaded almost half a cord into his truck and I unloaded and stacked all of it. Chucking wood is tough. My arms may just fall off tomorrow.
Jake spent the day (other than the wood loading) writing his order for this week's FEX II.
I put the boys to bed, cut Jake's hair, he took some NyQuil and went to sleep (with the aid of some Last of the Mohican's playing in the background).
The handyman is coming by again tomorrow. This time to put new plywood under the sinks and cut down the monster bushes in front of the house.

I have found a new hobby. I am trying my darndest to get Rod fired. He does not deserve his job; he makes money by swindling the owners and the tenants, and he disrespects me at every turn.

This week I plan on getting Jake's birthday presents (he was disappointed that I hadn't got them already so he could have his cold weather gear that I'm giving him... uhhhh). I also hope to finish up with this moving stuff that I am STILL dealing with. I just want some money! And take the boys to the park to ride bikes!

GOOD NIGHT!

reading and writing

2011-11-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

As surprised as I am that I got no response whatsoever (save from Oma) on my past few posts I guess I'm not all that surprised. Confirms my fears all the more.

So Jake and I celebrated our anniversary the weekend before on the 28th by ordering out some Chinese food and opening a couple of bottles of bubbly. So good.
The following week Jake was out in the field practicing making orders, leading attacks and shooting things with guns. He 'slept' outside in the 30˚ temps and humped long distances with a pack weighing at least 60lbs and usually carried a rifle along with that around his neck. He told me his traps were killing him.
The day after he got home it was my birthday and we went out to Cracker barrel for breakfast. Then he was off to Richmond for the ball. He came home the next day (aka, after midnight).
This week he gets to come home every night I believe and next week he is out in the field again for 4 nights. Then he gets 2 weeks in. He gets no time off for Veterans Day. :-/

Guy passed his first penmanship test for the letter A; upper case and lower case. He has almost mastered B, just working on angling the main post. We started with phonics today and he learned the short-vowel sound for A. He wants to go through all of the vowels today but I'm pacing him. He got excited when he finished my thought process for me when I was telling him that letters make sounds when we see them and then say them, and when you put the sounds together they make word sounds. He looked at me and asked, "Like in books?" Yes. Like in books.

Calvin is up from his nap so we are off to Costco. I have to buy 3 gallons of milk at a time now! golly.

But it's all just a little bit of history repeating

2011-10-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

Before even reading the article I came to this conclusion based soley on the title: US Troops Won’t Be Fighting, Uganda President Claims

What comes to your mind when you read this? If you are responsible and have any understanding images of the 50's 60's 70's should appear in your mind, maybe M*A*S*H reruns, JFK, Lyndon Johnson, some vague remembrance of the Tet Offensive- whatever that was. We're talking Vietnam, people.

Not many know or remember that we had troops over there as advisers as early as 1950. NINETEEN FIFTY. We were over there, but we weren't fighting. Just like Uganda's president is claiming. We will be training. We will be advising. Forget M*A*S*H, think MAAG. Military Assistance and Advisory Group. The government wanted to hide the fact that we were going to war not only in Korea but now Vietnam as well. Laying the ground work to fight the Kremlin in Vietnam. WTF! Now to hide the fact that we are going to be at war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Uganda (who knows where else we're fighting... Iran, etc. We have troops there, we have troops every where. We will fight you on a train we will kill you in the rain, we will do it with a UAV, we will do it secretly! We're at war both here and there, we're at war most everywhere. ) Man, I'm good. I should write a children's book!

Here's the article. Hope it makes you a little more cynical.

US Troops Won’t Be Fighting, Uganda President Claims
US 'Advisers' Not Meant to Be Directly Involved in Combat
by Jason Ditz, October 16, 2011
| Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum

In a press conference today, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni sought to downplay the deployment of US combat forces inside the country, insisting that the troops aren’t meant to engage in combat and shouldn’t even be called “troops” in the media.

“We shall never have troops coming to fight for us,” Museveni insisted. Indeed the US has insisted the troops are “advisers” and will only fight in “self defense.” Cabinet ministers said the deployment was vital to the ongoing war against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

But the US troops, some of which are already on the ground, are special operations forces, which have rarely shied away from direct combat missions. It seems unlikely that America would deploy its most battle-hardened combat forces into a zone and tell them not to fight.

And indeed, historically the use of special operations “advisers” as the first stage of an escalating military commitment is well documented. Even major wars like Vietnam originally started with a small number of such advisers deployed in what was meant to be a “non-combat” role.

Community Policing, Afghan-Style...is anyone listening? Does anyone care?

2011-10-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

Lal Mohammed says his 9-year-old son was stabbed and shot and left to die in a raid on his home. Another Afghan villager reported that a 17-year-old boy had been detained, beaten, and had nails driven into his feet. His injuries were so bad that his family packed up and left the country to get medical treatment.

A 13-year-old boy was walking home after evening prayers when he was allegedly gang-raped by a local commander and his henchmen.

Stunningly, the accused perpetrators in these crimes were not Taliban but local Afghans the U.S. military helped to recruit and arm as part of a local “community policing” effort to protect Afghans from the Taliban scourge.

In fact, the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program is the latest in a long line of controversial attempts to turn local strongmen and their militias into the “sons of Afghanistan” à la Iraq. It was the brainchild of the omnipotent Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, who has since left his post for greener pastures at the CIA, leaving this potentially explosive taxpayer-funded mess behind.

Mohammed said of his son’s killing: “I have not been given any compensation or anything else by Americans or the Afghan government. No one has told me sorry or expressed their condolence about my only 9-year-old son, and for these reasons I hate them. I want to fight against them till the end of my life.”

This is not exactly the effect Petraeus was going for when he announced the ALP program in August 2010 and told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2011 it was a “community watch with AK-47s,” so “important that I have put a conventional U.S. infantry battalion under the operational control of our Special Operations Command in Afghanistan to increase our ability to support the program’s expansion.”

However, since reports about abuses being carried out by these neighborhood watchmen were already bubbling up last winter in places like The Washington Post, Stars and Stripes, and The Associated Press, the always cagey Petraeus made sure he called it “President Karzai’s Afghan Local Police initiative,” which is really disingenuous when two clicks of the mouse will show you that Karzai was averse to establishing these local constabularies and only agreed to the ALP after pressure and assurances that the authority of the program would reside within the Ministry of Interior (MOI) and be administered locally.

Stars and Stripes, hardly an unfriendly forum for the feted four-star, also recalled it differently:

Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the surge strategy in Iraq, has pushed the initiative hard since taking command in Afghanistan in July, despite hesitancy among Afghan officials who worry the groups will prove impossible to control.

“He believes it’s a potential game-changer,” said U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey Kulmayer, a staff officer at ISAF headquarters in Kabul who oversaw the Sons of Iraq program during 2008 and has a similar role in Afghanistan. “So do I.”

According to a new 120-page report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the ALP is no “game-changer” in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Iraq, and it is likely mucking up an already muddy rural landscape filled with thugs, militias, and bandits of myriad tribal, ethnic, and sectarian associations. In several areas thoroughly described by HRW, it is making the overall violence and insecurity worse.

In addition to the ALP, HRW warns of the proliferation of local armed militias, or arbakis, run by tribal warlords and local power brokers who enjoy special relationships with U.S. Special Forces and U.S.-funded security contractors in restive northeastern provinces such as Kunduz. Many of these groups are former mujahideen who have been rejoined and activated by the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s intelligence agency. They are feared by the people as much as the Taliban — probably in some cases more — because they are well-armed, politically connected, and untouchable.

In its report, “Just Don’t Call it a Militia: Impunity, Militias and the ‘Afghan Local Police,’” HRW found “serious abuses, such as murder, rape, arbitrary detention, abductions, forcible land grabs, and illegal raids by irregular armed groups in northern Kunduz province and the Afghan Local Police (ALP) force in Baghlan, Herat, and Uruzgan provinces.”

It’s no surprise that region of the country has seen a serious uptick in violence over the last two years.

“The Afghan government has failed to hold these forces to account,” said HRW, “fostering future abuses and generating support for the Taliban and other opposition forces.”

Petraeus’ Other Legacy: The ALP

Certainly, HRW wasn’t the first organization to bring these troubles to light. Oxfam International, the UK-based charity and human rights organization, put out a report in May that found communities in these northern provinces were endangered by their own local security forces.

“The people recruited into the local police are essentially seen by communities as criminal thugs who have in the past been involved in criminal activity, many of whom have appalling histories of human rights abuses,” said Rebecca Barber, who authored the Oxfam report, “No Time to Lose: Promoting the Accountability of the Afghan National Security Forces” [.pdf].

“In some cases, the situation is so bad that we are hearing reports that community members are actually threatening to arm themselves against the Afghan local police.”

The HRW report goes deeper, showing us how Petraeus came into command in July 2010 and assured Congress and Karzai that his “Sons of Afghanistan” would succeed where every other reintegration and local militia program had failed. The report then details just how wrong he was, exposing the bitter truth about “population centric warfare” — that it’s really all about tactical expediency and not the long-term security of ordinary Afghans.

On an even darker level, the report indicates that U.S. Special Forces were working closely with former warlords and gangs and in documented cases took the advice of corrupt power brokers and their connections among former insurgents over villagers who on paper were supposed to be guiding the local ALP program themselves. As a result, critics say, the vetting and oversight became an empty formality, and accountability quickly disappeared.

To make it worse, the rules of engagement for the ALP are said to be too vague and prone to vast misinterpretation regarding the officers’ detention and investigatory powers.

The following is an example of how the ALP rolled out in Shindand district in Herat. As the original ALP directive states, recruits must be nominated within the local shura and vetted by the MOI and NDS. According to interviews with HRW, it didn’t quite happen that way:

The Ministry of Interior directive creating the ALP states that recruits are to be vetted by the local shura, with the list then approved by the ministry. In practice it appears that some LDI (local defense initiative) members were enlisted into the ALP by US special operations forces without following the official vetting process. Lal Mohammed Omarzai, the district governor of Shindand, who has been publicly critical about the way ALP was set up in Shindand, told Human Rights Watch that current ALP members were “not properly vetted according to the MOI directive … as a result, it is difficult to hold anyone accountable when they commit crimes.”

According to officials in the Pul-e-Khumri district of Baghlan province, U.S. Special Forces helped to enlist former Hezb-i-Islami fighters, despite the resistance of local officials. Hezb-i-Islami was founded and led by notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is currently wanted by the U.S. for his alleged participation in al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorist attacks against U.S. forces in the country.

According to local officials, the initial recruits to the ALP in the greater Pul-e-Khumri area included former former Hezb-i-Islami (Gulbuddin) members, including a commander called Nur-ul Haq and a group of men who joined the government in March 2010 and began working with U.S. troops in August 2010.

Three members of the Baghlan provincial council, including Mohammed Rasoul Mohsini, told HRW that they were pressured to take on the men that the U.S. suggested on “a list” brought to the commission. Nur-ul Haq’s men were reportedly already working with U.S. special operations forces before the list was created, according to the report.

Mohsini told HRW, “The establishment of ALP did not happen in accordance with the MOI directive. Instead the Special Forces went to the thieves and brought in arbakis.”

They [U.S. special operations forces] did not listen … and recruited 150 people. I spoke with Captain Andy from Special Forces. I told him that you are here to support Afghan people, not give them guns, they are criminals…. Captain Andy responded that they are not criminals. I was surprised that Special Forces are backing these people…. I made an argument that if you don’t listen to us then there is no need for the provincial council, police, the governor … you are doing our job. I left the meeting. I am a representative of the people and they should listen to me.

Since the inception of the ALP in Baghlan, Haq’s men have been accused of “sexual abuse, a night raid that resulted in the death of a boy, an extrajudicial killing, and an enforced disappearance, and have used their status as ALP to force resolutions to land disputes.”

Like something out of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, 13-year-old Zia J (a pseudonym) was returning from prayers on April 12, 2011, when he was allegedly yanked off the street by Abdur Rehman, ALP sub-commander, and his bodyguards. His family says the boy was gang-raped at Rehman’s house and managed to escape the next day. His family has attempted to have Abdur arrested for this heinous crime, but “local challenges” have gotten in the way.

Gen. Gulab, the head of the ALP, told HRW, “I don’t know the details of the case and how many people were involved since no investigation has been done. Both the provincial chief of police and I have requested U.S. Special Forces to summon Abdur Rehman for investigation, but they have not sent him yet.”

In February, Ghulam Jan, a political rival of a former Hezb-i-Islami commander, was shot dead in his home after several threats to him by Haq to leave his position as director of the National Solidarity Program, his relatives told HRW. Another man, Gharib Shah, 25, disappeared after a detention at Rehman’s house, which is at a checkpoint, and never heard from again. An Omer Khel villager, Jummah Jul, reported that his land was stolen and his house was looted by Rehman and his men, a case that the report says is still being investigated by the Baghlan Criminal Investigation Division.

House raids and general intimidation have become quite common in the last year, but the most stunning of accusations came from Lal Mohammed, whose son was allegedly killed by Haq’s men during a raid on his house. Mohammed himself was suspected of being Taliban, he told HRW interviewers, and held in a cell for three months until released without charge.

“Human Rights Watch is unaware of an Afghan government or U.S. military investigation into this raid and the circumstances that resulted in the death of a 9-year-old boy,” claims the report.

When The Washington Post attempted to interview Haq about the incident and “dozens” of other complaints, reporters were rebuffed — by U.S. Special Forces. “The local U.S. Special Forces captain who runs the local police program in the area declined to comment and would not permit Haq to leave the base for an in-person interview,” the Post said. This is interesting, because the Afghan National Police (ANP), not the U.S. military, is supposed to be “running” the ALP. Contacted by phone, Haq told reporters, “Those who told all these things to you, they have spoken from the tongue of the Taliban…. All these people in the government are supporting the Taliban. The head of the provincial council himself is a Talib.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for U.S. Forces described the accusations against Haq as “interpersonal stuff” that U.S. troops are “interested in but not involved in.”

HRW describes a similar dangerous situation in Shindand in Herat province, already a hotbed of rival armed groups, Mafia-style organizations, and Taliban. Having a new, separate police force backed by the U.S. military on top of it all was like putting a match to fuel.

Unsurprisingly, there are already signs that the creation of the ALP has caused friction between the tribal and political factions in Shindand, an area already rife with political complexities. As Mohammed Qasim Stanekzai, head of the High Peace Council and adviser to the president, told Human Rights Watch, “In Shindand there have for many years been tribal issues, warlord issues, [and] special forces issues.”

What follows are numerous reports of retaliatory raids, abuse, theft, and cruelty, including the June 2011 story in which two teens allegedly suspected of planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were detained by ALP and beaten. One of them, his name withheld, had nails driven into his feet before he was released without charge.

Again, the vetting process was questioned, and Afghans complained that former fighters were being chosen for the ALP for their affiliation with the Americans, an accusation that when asked, an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman flatly denied.

There have been similar complaints — tracked by HRW, Oxfam, and news reports — from Afghans in Takhar province and in eastern Paktika province. In some cases, American soldiers and officials, not so thoroughly convinced these guys were going to turn into Curtis Sliwa’s Guardian Angels anytime soon, have spoken out about their own uneasiness with the program.

“It’s [comparable] to heading to Compton [in Los Angeles] and hiring a gang to help you out,” Spc. Chad Cunningham, a squad leader with Company B, 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry, told Stars and Stripes in September 2010.

“They’re definitely motivated,” said the specialist, who, as working with ALP there. “Whether it’s for the good of their country or for personal reasons, I don’t know.”

Five months later, answers to his question emerge.

“In Baghlan, all the developments have been bad,” a “U.S. official in Kabul familiar with the program” told The Washington Post. “They’re supposed to be neighborhood watch with AK-47s. But these guys are setting up checkpoints, they’re doing classic militiaman shakedown things.”

A year ago, Gen. Petraeus, with his 60-watt smile and groaning chestful of medals, was able to convince Congress that he could transplant his “Sons of Iraq” formula to northeastern Afghanistan. In order to do that, Washington kicked in enough money to hire 30,000 ALPs across the country. Currently there are some 7,000 in 43 districts. But now Petraeus is gone to head the CIA, where “protecting the population” means dropping bombs on it, and Afghanistan is more dangerous than ever.

Meanwhile, an ISAF spokeswoman told The Guardian on Sept. 12 that the HRW report “potentially provides a way ahead in refining and improving areas” in the ALP and that ISAF would work with Afghan partners to investigate the troubling allegations.

In a few years it won’t be the West’s problem anymore. Or so we think.

anger

2011-10-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

I cannot begin to express my anger. I have gone from upset, discouraged, mind-blown to just plain angry. I am fuming mad at this administration, the prior administration, the prior administration to that all the way back to Lincoln. I am fuming mad at the laxidasical attitude towards the war in Afghanistan most Americans have. The waste. The utter waste of life that has come from it. Men and women and children are gone forever. Families are broken. Minds are broken. Bodies are broken.

The constitution is being ignored to an extent that is scary. Our president had an American citizen assassinated. The target was not brought to court, no charges were brought against him, no due process. In secret our president chose to murder and will not divulge why. HOW DOES THIS GET ALLOWED IN OUR SOCIETY? How many more will have to be assassinated as 'threats' without any proof before America has had enough? Is the blood lust so deep with us? Is no one immune? And people are out there whining about gay marriage. At least that is based on some twisted feeling of love! Who experiences death or torture when men marry men? Wake up people.

Our economy cannot withstand the war continuing. The rallies at Wall Street are only the beginning. Will it take a total collapse of our dollar to wake people up? Will it take riots?

The constitution exists to protect us. It is for our good, like God's laws are there for our good. The founding fathers, as imperfect as they were understood tyranny. They understood the damage unchecked power can wreak. Czars, private tribunals, drones, assassinations, abductions, torture. America is coming to an end. How can anyone be so daft as to think keeping 'One Nation Under God' in the pledge is important when we as a whole condone the atrocities being committed by our country? As long as special interest groups are getting theirs everything is hunky dory. Fight over having condoms available in schools. Fight about gay marriage. Fight about healthcare. Ignore the evil we are putting our military through and praise the evil they commit on their own initiative. Shake your fist and call for the head of the men and women who dare show us what our government is doing! Praise the Navy Seals for assassinating Bin Laden on the spot while he's unarmed. Ignore the facts about Guantanamo. Children being held in Guantanamo? Never. America doesn't do that. Wrong. We do, there are. Execute babies? Yah, our service men do that. They handcuff families and execute them. Mothers, children, babies, young, old, pregnant... no one escapes the reach of America! We're liberating Afghanistan one dead child, mother, grandparent at a time. You don't think this will come back at us? You don't think blow-back exists? Ignorance. Blind, ugly ignorance. Know what word is in 'ignorance?' Ignore.

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/10/06/nothing-gained-in-ten-years-of-afghan-war/

Gays! Let them marry.

2011-10-05T07:16:00.000-07:00

My brother in law linked to this article, or mini article, or news brief; whatever. http://www.frcaction.org/washingtonupdate/defining-an-obama-nation

I used to support the FRC Action group. I saw them as a Cristian organization that was out to influence the political world for good and keep their followers informed and educated of the threats to their freedoms to live as the wished and raise their family without fear of government interference.

After months of emails from them I changed my mind. I now view them as scared. I view them as hype mongers. I view them as inciting hate and anger towards homosexuals. I view them as homophobes. The majority of emails coming from FRC alerted me to the thread of 'THE GAYS' and the liberals love of homosexuality and wanting everyone to be gay (pro homosexual content in schools brainwashing children to be gay).

I grew to dislike the one-sided arguments in their articls/alerts. Like the ones made in the alert linked to above titled 'Defining an Obama Nation'. In this rant the writer points out Obama's mistelling of a soldier being booed at a GOP debate. The writer states that the soldier was not himself being booed but the policy to allow gays in the military "to advance their radical social policy agenda".

Let me ask you: What is so wrong about homosexuality? What is wrong with gay marriage? What is so wrong with sinners sinning with each other? Does it harm you when two men marry? Is it an attack on your person when two women kiss? How is it ok for one people/belief group to judge and treat as inferior another people/belief group just because there are more on one side than the other. Just because you are in the majority doesn't make you right. It doesn't give you permission to bully the minority group. People can marry only whom the majority says it is ok to marry? Would you like it if the tables were turned? You had to marry gay or have a civil hetero union?

Another question: Who's bright idea was it to allow government any authority over or any part of marriage at all? What good could come of that deal with the devil? God recognizes me as married to Jake and that is all I care about, why should we seek mans approval on top of that? Sounds a little like something I read about in Samuel. God wasn't enough, they wanted man's approval, man's involvement...government.

Do you think that if gay marriage would have been allowed all along that there would be such division and angst? No. Marriage developed into a battle the day it became a government sanctioned act. We can change this. We can end the battle. It takes two to tango, two to fight. If we stop fighting the battle is over. Do the right thing and apologize for playing politics with people's lives and search for happiness.

Let the gays marry. God isn't scandalized. Instead of judging them go love them. Win them to Christ in their gay marriage, in whatever heinous sin that they may believe and have true life.

ah, me

2011-09-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

I cried twice today. Once because I was ashamed at my sinfulness and again because I came face to face with grace and forgiveness from God and from my son. Sigh.

Jake is finishing his second week away. He came home twice last week for an hour each time I think and once this week to eat and sleep from 9 to 2am. Hopefully he won't be on duty on Friday and can come home as soon as they are secured.

I bought a year pass to the Prince William Forest so we can go hiking and biking. We did a little bike ride there today. Interesting. I pushed Calvin on his push car (not how it's supposed to go Calvin!) Guy and Cal both loved all the mud tho. Lots of mud!

My goose is cooked. I have to go to bed or I'll pass out. :)

our house, in the middle of our street...

2011-09-05T16:05:00.001-07:00

So, our house is a townhouse. It is at the end of a row of around 7 townhouses. There are about 7 sets of townhouses on our street. Across the road from us lives a family of 5. Two boys who's ages surround G perfectly. One is 3 the other is 5. G is almost 4! Melissa has a 2 month old daughter. Her husband is a prior enlisted Marine also attending TBS, but he is graduating in October. Jake is just starting up and Keith is just finishing up. Go figure. I've spend a couple of afternoon/evenings over on her side of the street while our boys play together.

Guy has also 'befriended' some other boys in the neighborhood. They are big boys. I'd say the youngest is 7 or 8. I gave letting him go out by himself to play with them a shot and I don't think I'll do that again. He came in and told me a story about his time with them. I wasn't really listening until the words "hit" and "punch me" came out of his mouth then I tried to piece together the story from my subconscious, which I'm SURE was paying attention while my darling boy was telling me a riveting story...... listening skills emily, listening skills. So it was something like he was playing with them, sticks were involved, they were pretending to hit or fight, G must have accidentally hit one of them because he can get crazy and wound up, they took it personally and said that if he hits them again they will punch him. So I will be out there monitoring things from now on.

I made hi-hat cupcakes a week ago. Devils food cake with a meringue topping dipped in chocolate (that gets hard and crunchy) I brought a plate over to our neighbors (mentioned above). Then I made guava cake yesterday and brought a plate over tonight for them. I feel kind of lame taking dessert over all the time. But it is what it is. I got a friend request on facebook and didn't recognize the last name. It was my neighbor! This whole making friends thing and having some one my age with kids around is just WEIRD! It's been FOUR years since I've had a peer. And she's leaving in October.
I saw my first brown recluse. I was weed eating and it was in one of our wiffle balls. So SCARY! They are BIG! And it was ANGRY at me for disturbing it. I could see it in it's eyes. He jumped right off the fence back into the grass to come searching for me I just know it.

So that's about it.

Too long for a facebook Status

2011-08-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

Inspired by my complete incapability to sleep in the truck I checked facebook for the 50th time today and read a post by my friends cousin who started an orphanage in china. They take in abandoned babies and dying babies from other orphanages and give the children love and medical care until they are adopted or breathe their last breath here on earth.
Tonights post was an update on baby Michael who has trouble breathing and is in the hospital for corrective surgery. The hospital has charged them over $2000 so far without doing any medical work on him. Lindsay and bill are frusterated and experiencing the pain of parents trying to save this boy.
Anyway my reaction was that it is so sad that human life is so meaningless there that trying to ease the suffering of someone without certainty of them going on to lead a useful life is punished. I also said that hearing about this heartless treatment towards a child made me long for Jesus' return.
After posting my comments I looked up at the moon-lit sky and pondered: what if Michael does die as a child? Who is to say that all children go to heaven? I am of the opinion that your age makes you more or less affected by the fall. We are all born into sin. (this is t a post dedicated to this topic, I'm just clarifing for no real reason other than it's late and I'm tired) um, so Any way.
I wish I could see everything I'm writing. I need a bigger screen!!
So I started to talk to God about it. It started with me asking him to take into account that I was bringing this to his attention and that I was concerned about Michaels eternal fate. I am not sure how interceding works but I know that God listens so I talked. If By praying I can have any affect on the final judgement of someones soul I will do it. Anyways so I went on a while and one way or another I ended by being struck by how incredible God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are. Ah, it started with me confessing that God is always good. He is merciful. He is righteous. Which lead me to confessing that he is just. His anger and wrath against all sin is pure and acceptable even necessary. This lead me to looking at the moon in awe of how much I admire the logic of God. Everything about him and his plans make perfect sense. There is no fallacy in who he is or in what he does or in what he commands. I love that about God. I love how calculated he is. Precise. Then I went back over his love and mercy and forbearance and grace and all the blessings he pours out on the whole world continuously. I love God for his beauty, his generosity and all the icing on the cake so to speak. This lead me to realize that I love him for how both aspects of himself - calculating/logical fit seamlessly with his beauty and 'soft' side. Soft is certainly the wrong word by I can't think of a better one thatfits the feeling I'm going for. Maybe loving. but I see all of the aspects of God to be loving. I would not see God as a loving God if he were not just. I would hate him if any part of who he is were missing. Which lead me to tears because I can love him. Thinking about the character of God brings me to love him more and that is amazing and only possible because I am saved.

Rambling mind

2011-06-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Things are moving at nearly breakneck speeds. And nothing is going anywhere at the same time. This tension is just as much as I can handle.

For the past week I have been researching rentals. Last night I stayed up till 1 am organizing all the data into exel that I had scrounged up and listed each rental with the 4 main qualifiers: price, rooms/bathrooms, garage, sqft, commute time.
I also took each rental and listed in in Word along with a link to the property listing, Real estate agent name & number and questions I plan to ask. Sadly it is Saturday today and I fear I will have very little luck reaching anyone.

My top choices are
Glendale $1,800 3/2 yes 2119 4
Primrose $1,500 3/2 ? 10250 lot 7
Healy $1,650 3/3 no 2059 8
Inman Olk $1,800 4/2 yes 1920 8
W. Park $1,675 3/2 yes 1586 9
Allegheny $1,775 3/2 yes 2160 9
Settlers $1,795 4/2 yes 2145 9
Park Brook $1,650 3/2 yes 1572 10
Boathouse $1,800 3/3 yes 2239 10
Oakridge $1,250 3/2 ? 11
Sunny Hill $1,550 3/2 ? 3241 lot 11
Twin Brook $1,600 3/2 yes 1912 11
Rolling Hill $1,600 3/2 no 1870 11
Blueberry $1,610 4/3 no 2548 11
Stingray $1,700 4/3 no 2040 11
Galaway $1,500 3/2 no 2054 12
Executive $1,750 4/2 yes 2030 13
Hatchers Run $1,450 3/2 yes 2192 14
Arla $1,700 3/3 yes 2520 15

and there are about 7 more that are so-so options. At least I have everything listed out and easy to see. I'm so tired, but it was so worth it.

Next, an apology. If you know me you know that I have opinions. Many times these opinions are come to just by way of thinking, and my brain is fallible. I was once in favor of torture to extract information from those we have captured from around the world. I was proud of my stance. I was also at one time a fan of George Bush, the war on terror, and if my mother is to be trusted- corn. We all make mistakes.
I wish to publicly recant. I do not support the use of torture or advanced interrogation or whatever kindly words one would wish to wrap around barbarous treatment of human beings- emotional, physical, psychological, etc. I now am of the opinion that nothing is worth the mistreatment of a creature formed by God in his own image, a creature that God puts so much value in that he came down in our form to rescue. If I claim to be a Christian, if I claim to be 100% pro-life, how can I condone, cheer for or tolerate torture? I cannot. I no longer do. You may gather from my statement: I was also once a fan of George Bush, the war on terror and corn, that I am no longer a fan of them. I hate corn.

Thank you all for putting up with me while I sift through ideas, feelings, beliefs. I seem to have to try things on for a while to find how it suits me.

Cal woke with a fever of 102˚ a couple nights ago. The fever held though the day and I suspected a UTI so I took him to the ER. Horrid idea. I knew it was as soon as I left the house, but I followed through. I waited in the room for 3 hours before a Dr. came to us. He only came because I told them I was leaving. He diagnosed Cal as having a virus. Guy caught this virus and was feverous for 2 days. It was great. They both slept for long periods. I'll take fevers for my boys any day! Not really, don't worry.

Jake is off at Forestry Camp again. This time just for the weekend. It's alumni week. You should have just seen how giddy he was getting ready to go yesterday. He really knows how to get my goad. And he wanted to know if I wanted to come. Me? Yes. The boys? What are you on?! He knew I'd say no, that's why he asked. It was safe.

I'm off to attempt a run before it gets too hot and to stop Guy from spitting all over the living room. Seriously, the things he does sometimes.

Photos 4/4-6/2

2011-06-02T21:18:00.000-07:00

4/4

4/5 Park

4/13 G&C playing in sink. Big wet mess.

4/16 Beer Fest

4/16 Picnic Day

4/16- G EM C

4/17

4/17- Walk

4/9 Failed camping trip & tiny hike. Clear Lake, Ca

4/20

4/21

4/23 Pool

4/24 Easter & hike
As I get Guy dressed Calving is busy eating my breakfast and smearing it all over his face.

4/26
During Guy's 'nap' he decided to paint Jake's gun case with my make up.

4/27
Jake bought me an orchid

4/30 Guy and I getting ready to prime the file cabinet. He ended up watching me from inside the house, but still wanted to have the safety goggles and mask on. I can't blame him, it looks awesome.

5/2 Guy playing Playstation video games

5/3 Park

5/6 Pool
This picture of Guy cracks me up. So dorky, and so cute.

5/8 Mother's day
Calvin being entertained while...

Daddy cooks the brefess. (Breakfast written as spoken lazily)

Do I seriously look like this in the morning? Yah. Ug. Happy mother's day.

5/9
Letting me sleep in

5/10 Grandma & Grandpa Lombard come by on their way up from Arizona to Idaho for a two day visit. Guy and Calvin climbed up next to Grandpa while he was reading the Bible. When they sat next to him he started reading out loud to them and they sat and listened until he was finished.

5/10 Baby sitter dinner

5/12
Cal

WATERMELON

Guy really tried to get Cal to do a picture with him. Cal was uncooperative.

5/17

5/18

5/19 Being Calvin, Being happy

5/23

5/26 At the park

5/27

5/31 My knives! and Calvin being silly

6/2 Just the boys eating

Text updat du

2011-05-21T11:25:00.001-07:00

I'd say around the 1st of May Guy started initiating the 'I love you' back and forth. Only, he's so accustomed to being the replier that when he put himself as the initiator the back and forth sounds like this, Guy: "I love you too Mom." Me or Jake: "I love you Guy."
Slightly backwards, but he gets the point across.

One of the Thomas videos he has been watching is about Thomas making good decisions. I've been using it as a teaching tool to remind him to make the right choice, ie, do what he knows is right. He's turned that around on me. When I'm getting upset at him or Calvin he comes back at me (usually very humbly) :Mom, you need to make good decisions. Don't me angry at me (or Calvin).
Yup. I usually thank him for saying it nicely and tell him that he is correct. Sometimes tho, in all honesty I just tell him to shut his mouth or stop talking to me and obey. Sometimes also he uses it as a "but mom" sort of argument. Example: (In normal not angry or yelling voice) "Guy, stop jumping on the couch, it's for bottoms only" "Mom, make good decisions, don't me angry at me and tell me no jumping on couch"

He tried swimming on his own with no floaty yesterday. I didn't realize it until I looked around the hot tub and saw him underwater kicking but not moving forward. He was a little freaked out after I brought him back to the surface. He made it across the hot tub, but not quite up onto the ledge. He could have if he had known he was RIGHT there, like seriously and inch from it. He has goggles but doesn't understand what they are for. He uses them as sunglasses and tells me they don't work- as sunglasses. Ha.

Text update

2011-05-20T13:20:00.001-07:00

For now it's just text. I'll do pictures at a later time. Pictures are so much easier to do so I tend to leave out the written updates.

What has been going on around here? Lots, but very little of it do I remember.

April 9th we tried our hand at camping. We drove up to Clear Lake. The camp ground was... closed. Due to flooding. They couldn't put that little tid-bit on the website???? We checked a nearby campground but it was gross and expensive. We went back to the Forest Service camp ground and got a map of other camp grounds in the 'area'. We ate lunch and set off to do a little hike before heading off into the great unknown to find a place to camp. Guy is a great hiker.
The map we got for the other campgrounds was inaccurate to say the least. The place we wanted to get to was BLM land by a reservoir. The map showed the road we needed to turn on but that was pretty much it. We turned on the road and followed it until it ended at a "Private Property. No Trespassing. Trespassers will be shot" sign. We turned around. I looked at the map of the area I had on my phone and it showed that we needed to turn on a road farther down so we tried that. We drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. ON AND ON AND ON AND ON. There was no reservoir in sight. We saw a few dirt bikers and some ATVers but other than that it was just hills and hills and hills and bushes and dirt and valleys and ditches and hills as far as the eye could see. We turned around.
When we got home we looked up some maps and discovered the first road we turned on was correct but we were supposed to turn on another road after that and, well, hind-sight is 20/20 right? To give Jake credit he did wonder if we should have turned on the road we should have turned on after we turned on the road we did turn on correctly. But he wondered if we should have turned on every road that shot off of the road we did turn on correctly. Guy was very dissapointed that we didn't set up the tent and camp so Jake set our tent up for him on the patio, pumped up the air mattress, set up the sleeping bags and he and Guy slept in it that night. Aw.

April 16th was Picnic Day at the University so we went to that. It's like a fair with booths and over-priced junk food, but there are also student displays and Jake points out which buildings his classes are in. We went and looked at a painting Jake and his class mates did in one of his first classes Freshman year. That evening Jake took off with his friend Mike to the San Fransisco Beer Festival. It's pretty cool. They have 60+ breweries come out and your ticket in is your passport to beer-tasting heaven. For $60 everyone gets a mini mug and free reign of a huge old hanger filled with people and beer. Each brewery had at least 3 brews for sampling. Crazy. CRAZY. Jake had a blast. I wish I liked beer cause it would have been fun to do together.

On April 21st Guy upgraded to a two-wheel bike with training wheels. Scored it off Craigslist for $10. When Guy introduces himself to people at the park it goes like this, "Hi, I'm Guy. I have a bigger bike now!" $10 bought a lot of happiness.

Calvin loves the hot tub. There's no date that goes with this information. It's merely a fact. He's also a stinker, a booger, a whiney face and a goof. He loves to dance. So does Guy. They love to dance. They love each other. Calvin loves to climb. Calvin loves our kitchen stool. In fact, the stool will keep him occupied for a long long time. He prefers to eat his food at the counter standing on the stool.

April 24th we went on our Easter hike. I'd say it was our lamest hike ever. Haha. It was still fun- because we were together- but it wasn't a nice hike, or an exciting hike, or a long hike. It was a lame hike.
We usually make a day of our hike by heading out to the redwoods but this year we went to church and then drove out past Auburn to where? Who knows. I had a headache so we stopped at a Starbucks on the way out. I hope I learnt my lesson and never chug a frappaccino again in my life. I had a headache and a stomach ache and a very full bladder. I don't remember the name of the trail. It is around the American River. We found the trail head fine and started up. And up. And up. Finally I had had enough. I had a headache still so we turned around and back at the trail head we tried to walk to the river. Decided that we should trek back up, up, up, to our car and drive to the river. We like to say that our Prius is the Subaru of Prii? Priuses? because we take it where we shouldn't and hope we make it. This time it was down a muddy, rutted, steep down-grade road with a cliff drop-off on one side and a fallen tree that we some how drove over. The river was nowhere to be found after 1-2 miles of driving so we turned back around and tested our luck going back up to the main road. Our Prius is amazing. Or are we foolhardy? Or both?

April 25th Jake bought me an Orchid. He is taking a flower power class. In this class they discuss the significance of flowers, the commerce of flowers, the breeding of flowers... Flowers. He's brought flowers home from the class on several occasions. It's nice! I like it when he brings me flowers he didn't have to spend money on.

April 30th I bought a file cabinet off Craigslist. I have this grand idea that I can make a sewing/craft table for myself. The file cabinet is one of the supports. I need a set of drawers to support the other end of the table. I also need a table top. Any who. I primed it then I painted it with chalkboard paint. It's awesome. I want the supports and inner parts of the table to be surfaces that the boys can draw on, color on, hide under, etc while I sew & craft. I am going to install a small light on the under side of the table top so they can play in a nicely lit space, make it into a fort, whatever. It will be a very useful creation. If I can find a set of drawers and a table top. Ikea has a table top for $50, but I'm going to see if buying some wood and formica will be cheaper. Probably not. But I do want it nice and deep. 29" isn't quite deep enough. I want this sucker DEEP. 36" deep. Probably not practical.

May 9th the Lombards (Jake's grandparents) stopped by for a visit on their way back up to Idaho for 2 days. It was so nice of them. We had a good time together talking. Grandpa Lombard was out on the couch reading his Bible so Guy and Calvin climbed up and sat with him. He started reading out loud to them and they just sat and listened. It was so precious.

On the 10th we both had plans for the evening. They were off to see the youth pastor of Dave & Teri back in the day who happens to live less than 2 miles from us. We were off to treat our baby sitters to a dinner out to thank them for baby sitting for us these past four years. It was fun.

This weekend Jake is backpacking with Mike and some others down at Point Reyes. Next Thursday he and Guy are driving up to Idaho to help the Lombards remodel their home, then driving down to Utah to play some basketball with his uncle and brothers. They have a family basketball league. Each of them are a complete team. They have a team roster, they conduct trades, they do their own announcing. It's a little confusing until you watch them play, and then it's REALLY confusing until you watch them play several times. It's a really cool idea. Especially for the Cools' because they all really like basketball. And they all really like themselves. Or each other. Both. Just kidding. Just kidding. They like each other.
Guy is SO excited to go with Jake. I'm so happy that he gets to. It's so special for him.

Today at Ross Guy was saying hi to everyone. "Hi! I'm Guy. I'm a boy." Hahaha. Some people ignored him so he would turn to me, "Mom, I say hi, but they can't hear me!" So I explain to him that not everyone is as friendly as he is and that some people just don't expect a 3yo to strike up a conversation with them.

It was rainy here for about 4 days. So glad that's over. My tan has faded and my hair is turning brown!

So apparently there are major budget cuts being made. It's really funny. Example: Jake was promoted in January. In order to do his promotion ceremony the unit needed a paper signed by the Commandant stating that Jake was promoted. This paper is produced at Alameda (a Reserve company (or whatever it is)). They don't have any of those papers with signatures by either the current or past Commandant. They have to wait for funding to kick in so they can buy printing ink. They ran out of money and can't print until they get their funding. This was a while back. I'm sure they have found a way to print.
There is just so much waste in government. If there is any money left over it gets spent on junk just so it gets spent so they can continue to get the same amount of money or MORE (since they 'ran out') for the next FY. Hello!

Any who. Rumor has it that Jake's report date to Virginia is August 16th. There is no official paperwork stating this, but we hope it's true. The Midshipman (ROTCers) that are commissioning this year are being put on Inactive Reserve status. IE, they aren't getting paid until they report to Virginia (some time around MARCH). Budget shortage! Because Jake is already being paid they want him to get to it as soon as possible. I wouldn't mind just hanging out here till March tho.
Emily math: Obama(Pakistan+ Lybia)= more death/keep Jake out of it

CANCUN!!!!

2011-03-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

3/20-27

Upon arrival: Tom, Jake, Matt, Tiff, Josh

Did a bar tour. The hotel has 7 bars, 5 were open when we got in so to kill time until our rooms were ready we bar hopped. I think we ended up drinking 12 drinks by the time our rooms were ready. :)

Tiff and me (and Josh)

Blue Oceans

Blue Oceans are the same color as the ocean... coincidence?

The guys

Main dining hall

At Sweet (night club)

Dos Equis promo glasses!

On the beach. Day 2

Reflection

BABY LION!

We started out on the second floor. We had some problems with people walking on the roof over to our patios and it was loud (partiers) and we didn't have a view of the ocean so we had our rooms moved. They moved us to the 15th floor. We're on Matt and Tiffs porch.

Waiting to go to Daddy-O's (night club)

Night 3- SULLY!

In the lounge

Double Pina Coladas...that's how we rolled all week. Always at least one pina colada in hand.

It was tequilla night...

Ate at Hard Rock, Cancun

Bought cigars at the hotel from a very friendly vender. His catch phrase was "Hello my frrrrrrriends!" He was hilarious.

We very merry 6.

Cigars for the ladies!

TIME/SPACE CONTINUUM! Partied in that night at the hotel club. La Punta.

Very very hot club.

View from our room. BEAUTIFUL

View from our porch

Posing at the fountain.

Tiff and me at the fountain. Some how it was purple dress night, we were so hot.

Green eye

Jake caught a bad Mexican bug but went with me to the gym anyway. Can you tell he spent most of his time NOT in the sun while I spent as much of my day as possible IN the sun???

View from the 15th floor to the bottom floor. Yah, the 15th was the top floor. Very Escher-esq

View from the elevator. Behind the hotel was the bay.

Sailboat and jet skis.

Last night :(

Matt & Tiff! <3

Black dress night!!! (Those Blanc Martinis were SO strong, I couldn't finish mine. Tiff did. It was awesome.)

Chandelier outside the lounge.

At the Grease Lightning show put on by the hotel staff.

At La Punta again. You'd think I would have learned to grab a hair band.

The first leg of our flight home. 2 hours from Cancun to El Salvador. Then a 6 hour layover, then a 6 hour flight to San Fransisco, then a 2 hour drive home. We got home around 2:30am.

Measurments

2011-03-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

Guy is 39.25" and Cal is 31.5"
Guy is 35 lbs and Cal is 22 lbs.

They are about the same I think. At 1 year Guy was 30" and 25 lbs. Guy was fatter. By a lot. At 11 months Cal was only 19lb and 28.5". Cal is smaller. Not quite the same after all.

Picture catchup...BIG TIME from 2/4-present

2011-03-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

2/4- Started out as civil play...

add trains and it turns into SIBLING WAR!

Whining because Calvin was holding a train.

Time out for attitude adjustment with mom.

All better!

Um, maybe. I think he was saying sorry.

How Calvin gets even. "Are you sure you don't see it in there? I know there's got to be 5 Thomas' in there. Keep looking! A little more, reach a little more...a littttttle..."

Hike along Putah Creek

Jake showing G how to make a whistle

Racing

G was really hoping for some grass to play in...when there was finally grass to run in (on the right side of the picture) he chose to walk in the grass on the LEFT side of the picture. Hmmm...mud for the beach

Family picture on the pasture (lots of cow pies)

Guy pointing out the fox

Guy finished his puzzle all on his own

2/6- Guy and his A's and people with BIG eyes

2/8 Calvin!

2/13 Enjoying the sun. Calvin trying to sneak the laptop away.

He's screaming happily, not crying

2/14 Calvin turns ONE!

2/14 Classy Valentine's date to Burger King

2/15 G's crazy hair before I cut it a second time.

2/16 G got a Leapster for Christmas from his grandparents on Jake's side

2/17 G doing his numbers

2/17 Eating corn?

2/19 Climbing dad

2/20 Trip to the park

The natural consequence of disobedience

Trip to In-n-Out after the park with a very dramatic Calvin

2/22 Jake's fake promotion. In fact, you never saw these pictures- they don't exist.

2/28 G racing on the playstation

3/3 Jake traced Guy and Guy added the, uh, body parts.

Calvin loves helium balloons

3/5 G & C eating and watching Thomas

Date night and a fashion show. The Fashion Design school puts on a charity fashion show each year. Jake bought tickets for us to go this year!

s-s-s-s-stuttering

2011-03-09T10:33:00.000-08:00

G started stuttering a while ago and I thought just ignoring it would be best so I wouldn't make him self-conscious and therefore make it worse...it's gotten worse. He can't say Calvin now without stuttering ta-ta-ta-towbin. I've started stopping him nicely and asking him to think first and speak slowly. Hopefully it works.

I am filling out the final paper work to finalize the purchase of our new truck! We will pick it up when we bring the boys up to Oregon in a week. Strike that- 6 days.

Calvin walks a lot now, he toddles a bunch...completely embracing toddler-hood.

I finished the 30 Day Shred workout...it shredded a whopping 3 pounds. I'm going back through it and adding extra exercises and running 2 miles. I still have 5 pounds to lose. And I'd like to have them off by the 20th.

The more I learn about our government's modus operandi the more troubled I become. If you haven't heard they are keeping Bradly Manning nude 24 hours a day, in solitary 23 hours a day and he hasn't been charged with anything. The claims that he endangered persons with the leaks he has been charged with leaking to WikiLeaks have been proved incorrect and over-blown. Obama has authorized the military to break from the bill of rights and detain suspects indefinitely. How is this American? How is this good? How is this HUMAN? It's human because it's evil. Obama has authorized EVIL. He has authorized disgrace. He has authorized terror on his own fellow citizen. Obama is a disgrace to my country. The leadership in the pentagon is a disgrace to my country for enjoying and perpetuating this horror. The prison is a disgrace to my country for inflicting this torture. The American people who think this is right are a disgrace to my country for not rising up and saying that enough is enough and forcing this to end.

How I came to this juncture.

2011-02-09T14:40:00.000-08:00

There were several things that happened to cause me to decide "hm, maybe I need to work on my home-making skills."

First, Jake scheduled a dinner at our house for some fellow EPAP major students that he's had several classes with. They've started a dinner rotation for every Thursday to have dinner at someone's house. I cleaned the house. It was clean. Beautiful. Jake came home and said, "I'm starting to see a trend. I'm not good enough for you." Shame on me. Yup, we're out of the honeymoon stage...but did I ever really keep house? no. It's always taken an outside force or threat to get me to clean.

Second, I get depressed. There's just something about clutter and persistent mess that makes me feel low-down and no good. It takes the spunk out of life. I'm not fulfilling my purpose when I laze around and shun my homely duties.

Third, it was either I change my character or we get a maid. Well, I'm doing this post so you know we got a maid. Obviously, that's why I'm not tidying up. Nope, I already tidied up so I get to do this post. I told Jake that I needed to change my character and he said, "Well, you know what Plato says about that." "Yup, that it's impossible so I should give up." "Nope, {flips through one of his text books} he says, '.'" Well, he quoted something like changing character is done by changing your habits. I can't find the quote. It may have been by Socrates. Who cares. The point being that if I wish to change my character I need to change my habits.

I ordered 2 books that had been recommended by a girl I knew back in Oregon on her blog, right at the same time I was realizing I needed to tackle my hatred of all things dutiful. "Organized Simplicity" by Tsh Oxenreider and "The Home Experience" by Devi Titus

So far I've made a super duper effort to focus on what my priorities are: tidiness, time with G &C, dinner made, and sanity at the end of the day for me to enjoy Jake. I have made a To Do list and circled in red the 3 most important things, in orange the 2-3 next most important, in yellow the 'would be nice to get dones' and in green the 'if I'm luckys'. I have tried to get the tidying done during Cal's first nap so that we can go to the park after he wakes up. Today was the first real day of list prioritizing and today it worked. 100%!!! A++! I figure as long as I can get the dishes tackled and the living room managed I'll be happy with the house work. If I can spend 30 minutes with Guy on his 'school work' and an hour playing with him I'll count that as a success. I'd really like to organize my life so that I can take care of the 'must dos' and still have some time to do 'gee it would be nice to'. I'd love to get sewing back into the mix without playing hooky on the housework/family. Step by step. I can do it, it'll just take brain work and time. And work work. Not looking forward to that, but I want the rewards so guess what...

Off to put away the few things I left out at lunch in the kitchen & make corn bread for dinner...bbq chicken! mmmm.

productive

2011-02-07T20:12:00.001-08:00

Today was a productive day. It's sad that it's a notable day when it's been productive. Not particularly productive, just productive. I don't think it's a coincidence that today was also a happy day. Calvin was still a little whiner, but Guy had a pretty good attitude and I did too. It was also sunny and so warm that I could have worn shorts but I settled for short sleeves and sandals...and pants.

We took a walk to the grocery to get milk. We ran out this morning and I really wanted some. When we got home I looked over the cake recipe I planned on trying out and started in on it. My first all metric recipe. I love cooking in metric! I got a mini scale and a digital scale recently (awesome finds at Ross) so it was super simple. No conversions necessary. After making the crust (ok, it's a tart, not a cake) I went to start the filling and I wish I knew what was in my fridge for reals. I knew I needed heavy cream, and thought I knew that I had 2 pints. I had a quarter of a pint and a pint of half and half. So mad. So I used the half and half. But then there was trouble. I wish I knew what was in my cupboards for reals. I thought that I knew I had dark chocolate. I had mint chocolate, white chocolate, milk chocolate, semi-sweet...no dark. Oh, and walnuts. But no dark chocolate. So we went back to the store and got heavy cream (recipe had more parts to it that needed more cream) and dark chocolate. I decided to grab a few extra bars for brownies. Good thing I did cause when I got home I reread the recipe and needed all the extra bars I could get. LOTS'A chocolate! All's well that ends well. We'll see how it ends. It looks amazing.

I made stir fry for dinner with Soba noodles. I love Soba and Udon noodles. I will make stir fry with nothing else. I added some kimchi to mine. The extra hotness was unnecessary. The korean marinade & spicy ginger sauce was hot hot! So good.

Guy's been doing some exercises in his numbers and letters books. He really enjoys it. He's also learning geography. He knows where California is, where about we live in California, where Oregon is and where his grandparents live approximately (pointing/circling on a map) and where Idaho and Boise are. Today he learned Virginia. He likes drawing our travel routs between Cali & Ore.

Calvin won't eat food unless it's finger food now. A little frustrating. I've taken to buying canned veggies & fruits to dump on his tray. Seriously, that's all he'll eat. He doesn't even like his rice puffs as much anymore. It's gotta be real food. He's attempting to walk more. He'll do two or three huge running strides before falling down, kinda an all or nothing thing.

Jake's getting promoted to Staff Sergeant tomorrow. We're going to go down to Berkeley to see that. We're getting leave in order to go to Cancun in a few weeks.

I'm doing the 30 Day Shred workout video. I just finished day 10. I've gotten a little stronger, I can see better definition in my arms. Besides that my measurements haven't really changed. I'm thinking I'll have to add some running a few times a week to supplement. I just don't think 20 minutes a day of working out will cut the fat quick enough for Cancun. Yah, I'm in a little bit of a rush. Darn procrastination.

I just got 2 books on organization & simplifying the home. I've never been any good at keeping the house clean or consistently doing anything besides sit at the computer. I do that VERY consistently which is why the house isn't cleaned consistently. Cause and effect. It also gets me depressed when the house is a wreck, so I decided something had to change and since I don't see us hiring a maid any time soon the change fell to me. How disappointing.

The roofers have started on our building. Oh, my. What racket. Somehow the boys both took their nap(s). Getting in and out of the apartment is tricky and dangerous. There was roofing debris everywhere outside our door. Guy was on his bike so he was fine, but I was in sandals so I was looking and double looking where I stepped. No tetanus shots for me please. The roofers are pretty sketchy too. I feel really uncomfortable around them. They just look at us weird. Yes, we are super good looking and Aryan (minus Calvin) but sheesh, look away please.

So we're off to the hot tub for a little soak before bed. Love to all, E

pictures 12/2-1/27

2011-01-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

C feeding himself 1-27-11

G at the park 1-23-11

Date night at Mermaids! 1-23-11

G feeding C on the drive back from Vegas 1-17-11

G at Josh & Michelle's with Anastasia 1-15-11

Built G a dog house out of cardboard boxes. It was awesome. 12-2-10

You need to read this. All links are well worth reading as well

2011-01-21T19:07:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, Jan 19, 2011 04:20 ET
Obama officials caught deceiving about WikiLeaks
By Glenn Greenwald

*

Obama officials caught deceiving about WikiLeaks
AP
Thorny issues: Obama and Bush in November 2008.

(updated below)

Whenever the U.S. Government wants to demonize a person or group in order to justify attacks on them, it follows the same playbook: it manufactures falsehoods about them, baselessly warns that they pose Grave Dangers and are severely harming our National Security, peppers all that with personality smears to render the targeted individuals repellent on a personal level, and feeds it all to the establishment American media, which then dutifully amplifies and mindlessly disseminates it all. That, of course, was the precise scheme that so easily led the U.S. into attacking Iraq; it's what continues to ensure support for the whole litany of War on Terror abuses and the bonanza of power and profit which accompanies them; and it's long been obvious that this is the primary means for generating contempt for WikiLeaks to enable its prosecution and ultimate destruction (an outcome the Pentagon has been plotting since at least 2008).

When WikiLeaks in mid-2010 published documents detailing the brutality and corruption at the heart of the war in Afghanistan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, held a Press Conference and said of WikiLeaks (and then re-affirmed it on his Twitter account) that they "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." This denunciation predictably caused the phrase "blood on their hands" to be attached to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, in thousands of media accounts around the world. But two weeks later, the Pentagon's spokesman, when pressed, was forced to admit that there was no evidence whatsoever for that accusation: "we have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents," he admitted. Several months later, after more flamboyant government condemnations of WikiLeaks' release of thousands of Iraq War documents, McClatchy's Nancy Youssef -- in an article headlined: "Officials may be overstating the danger from WikiLeaks" -- reported that "U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date" that the disclosures resulted in the deaths of anyone, and she detailed the great care WikiLeaks took in that Iraq War release to protect innocent people.

The disclosure of American diplomatic cables triggered still more melodramatic claims from government officials (ones faithfully recited by its servants and followers across the spectrum in Washington), accusing WikiLeaks of everything from "attacking" the U.S. (Hillary Clinton) and "plac[ing] at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals" and "ongoing military operations" (Harold Koh) to being comparable to Terrorists (Joe Biden). But even Robert Gates was unwilling to lend his name to such absurdities, and when asked, mocked these accusations as "significantly overwrought" and said the WikiLeaks disclosures would be "embarrassing" and "awkward" but would have only "modest consequences."

Since then, it has become clear how scrupulously careful WikiLeaks has been in releasing these cables in order to avoid unnecessary harm to innocent people, as the Associated Press reported how closely WikiLeaks was collaborating with its newspaper partners in deciding which cables to release and what redactions were necessary. Indeed, one of the very few documents which anyone has been able to claim has produced any harm -- one revealing that the leader of Zimbabwe's opposition privately urged U.S. officials to continue imposing sanctions on his country -- was actually released by The Guardian, not by WikiLeaks.

To say that the Obama administration's campaign against WikiLeaks has been based on wildly exaggerated and even false claims is to understate the case. But now, there is evidence that Obama officials have been knowingly lying in public about these matters. The long-time Newsweek reporter Mark Hosenball -- now at Reuters -- reports that what Obama officials are saying in private about WikiLeaks directly contradicts their public claims:

Internal U.S. government reviews have determined that a mass leak of diplomatic cables caused only limited damage to U.S. interests abroad, despite the Obama administration's public statements to the contrary.

A congressional official briefed on the reviews said the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. . . .

"We were told (the impact of WikiLeaks revelations) was embarrassing but not damaging," said the official, who attended a briefing given in late 2010 by State Department officials. . .

But current and former intelligence officials note that while WikiLeaks has released a handful of inconsequential CIA analytical reports, the website has made public few if any real intelligence secrets, including reports from undercover agents or ultra-sensitive technical intelligence reports, such as spy satellite pictures or communications intercepts. . . .

National security officials familiar with the damage assessments being conducted by defense and intelligence agencies told Reuters the reviews so far have shown "pockets" of short-term damage, some of it potentially harmful. Long-term damage to U.S. intelligence and defense operations, however, is unlikely to be serious, they said. . . .

Shortly before WikiLeaks began its gradual release of State Department cables last year, department officials sent emails to contacts on Capitol Hill predicting dire consequences, said one of the two congressional aides briefed on the internal government reviews.

However, shortly after stories about the cables first began to appear in the media, State Department officials were already privately playing down the damage, the two congressional officials said.

In response to Hosenball's story, Obama officials naturally tried to salvage the integrity of their statements, insisting that "there has been substantial damage" and that there were unspecified "specific cases where damage caused by WikiLeaks' revelations have been assessed as serious to grave." But the only specific cases anyone could identify were ones where the U.S. was caught by these documents lying to its own citizens or, at best, concealing vital truths -- such as the far greater military role the U.S. is playing in Yemen and Pakistan than Obama officials have publicly acknowledged.

And this, of course, has been the point all along: the WikiLeaks disclosures are significant precisely because they expose government deceit, wrongdoing and brutality, but the damage to innocent people has been deliberately and wildly exaggerated -- fabricated -- by the very people whose misconduct has been revealed. There is harm from the WikiLeaks documents, but it's to wrongdoers in power, which is why they are so desperate to malign and then destroy the group.

Just as was true in 2003 -- when the joint, falsehood-based government/media demonization campaign led 69% of Americans to believe that Saddam Hussein participated in the planning of the 9/11 attacks (the Bush era's most revealing fact about American politics) -- this orgy of anti-WikiLeaks propaganda has succeeded, with polls reliably showing the American public largely against the group and even favoring its prosecution (citizens in countries not subjected to this propaganda barrage view the group far more favorably). As has been demonstrated over and over, when the U.S. Government and its media collaborate to propagandize, its efficacy is not in doubt. And as Marcy Wheeler notes, these lies were told not only to distort public opinion and justify prosecuting WikiLeaks for doing nothing more than engaging in journalism, but also to coerce private corporations (MasterCard, Amazon, Visa, Paypal) to cut all services to the group.

The case against WikiLeaks is absolutely this decade's version of the Saddam/WMD campaign. It's complete with frivolous invocations of Terrorism, grave public warnings about National Security negated by concealed information, endlessly repeated falsehoods, a competition among political and media elites to advocate the harshest measures possible, a cowardly Congress that (with a few noble exceptions) acquiesces to it all on a bipartisan basis and is eager to enable it, and a media that not only fails to subject these fictions to critical scrutiny, but does the opposite: it takes the lead in propagating them. One might express bewilderment that most American journalists never learn their lesson about placing their blind faith in government claims, but that assumes -- falsely -- that their objective is to report truthfully.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum, Dan Drezner and Daniel Larison all cite this report as evidence that the WikiLeaks disclosures have been insignificant. They seem to equate a finding of "no harm to national security" with "nothing of significance," but not only are those two concepts not the same, they're hardly related. Many revelations are very significant even though they do not harm national security.

When The New York Times revealed that the Bush administration was eavesdropping on Americans' communications without the warrants required by law, that revelation was extremely important even though it entailed no national security harm. The same is true of The Washington Post's exposure of the CIA "black site" program, or David Barstow's exposé on the Pentagon's propaganda program, and countless other investigative reports. The WikiLeaks disclosures -- like most good investigative journalism -- harm those in power who do bad things (by exposing their previously secret conduct), but do not harm the national security of the United States. I'd be interested in hearing anyone who wants to argue that the WikiLeaks disclosures contain "nothing new" dismiss the actual revelations (here and here).

As for the comparison of this deceit to Saddam/WMD: obviously, the magnitude of the consequences are not similar, but the misleading tactics themselves -- for the reasons I enumerated -- are. Moreover, prosecution of WikiLeaks would hardly be inconsequential; it would likely be the first time in history that a non-government employee is convicted of "espionage" for publishing government secrets and, as such, would constitute one of the greatest threats to press freedom in the United States in a long time.

1/4-1/12 photos

2011-01-15T20:01:00.000-08:00

12/14-12/31 photos

2011-01-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

gaaahhhh!!

2011-01-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

Where do I even start? I guess I could start by saying that there are several things I should be doing rather than updating this blog. I have a blanket to finish. It's sitting under the needle at my sewing machine with 3.5 sides done. The kitchen needs touching up. The living room needs touching up. The dining room- well, I'm sewing so it's atrocious. The desk needs to be cleared, our room needs cleaning.

With Jake and I both exercising daily laundry has become unmanageable. Jake finished folding 5 loads and now I'm doing another 3 at least! Life.

So, our trip to Oregon was one of our best. It was really relaxed. We did hardly anything. Jake went snowboarding once. We didn't go sledding. We went to our friend's house twice. We went on two dates. Besides that we were with family.

I experienced my first mani/pedi with my Cools sisters. An experience I will repeat at some point in the future.

The boys and I got sick with a lingering cold. I think we had it for a week in Oregon and a week down here. Jake is just now catching a milder version of it. I still have a slightly runny nose and a tiny bitty cough. Not even a cough, more of a sharp forced exhale.

Now that we're back home I am getting geared up for graduation & commissioning. I have been searching for apartments/rentals in Stafford, Va. If I don't find a home to rent I have an apartment complex that will work great for us. LINK TO ARBOR GROVE
These have the best layout. I'm going between the Oak & Pine floor plans

I really like the extra bedroom, washer dryer & storage in the basement. Other apartments seem to think that putting the washer/dryer in the kitchen is a good idea. Um, no.
Like this:

I like it other than that. So it's a back up. LINK TO SKY TERRACE

Our boy's toy chests are stuffed to the brim. It's time to purge.

For MLK day we're driving (more driving) to Las Vegas to see Josh and Michelle. It's great that we live 10 hours from everything we'd want to do and everyone close enough to visit. (semi-sarcastic voice)

Something weird happened to iPhoto so until I figure out where our large picture files went off to I won't be posting pictures. Gr.

I bought our tickets to Cancun for Spring Break a couple days ago! Looks like it will be a group of 6 of us going this year. We may be doing a zip line tour of the jungle and a tour of some ruins that are part of the 7 wonders of the world. Oh, and lots of sunning on the white sand beaches with drink staff at our beckon call. That's the life.

Life and Reese's Rainbow

2010-12-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

My wonderful friend Rachel Davis (formerly Chapman) and her husband have been on the long road towards adoption and have had their hearts drawn towards Downs children. She discovered Reese's Rainbow, an international Down Syndrome orphan ministry. For her birthday she asked for friends and family to consider sponsoring a child, or donating to this ministry in lieu of presents. I spent well over an hour reading the children's bios and spilling some tears over the horrible future they have to face if not adopted.

Today Rachel shared a link to a blog of a family who is in a race against time to adopt a little seven year old who just got transferred from the orphanage to the institution and needs to be literally rescued. They want to adopt her, bring her home and love her for the rest of her their lives. They need $30,000 to do this. If you are interested here is the link to their blog, and at the bottom there is a button that you can click that will take you to PayPal where you can enter a donation amount. LINK

Reese's Rainbow

Thanks!

11/17-27

2010-11-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

11/17- Caught'cha!

Hanging out at the desk

Chewing on drawer pulls

11/20- lazing with dad

11/22- pine cone turkeys
mom, guy, cal, dad

Hand turkeys
G wrote his name with the help of dots and drew hearts

11/24 Turkeys plumped up for the Thanksgiving slaughter

Yup, that's me

11/27- Mixing the gingerbread frosting

Decorating LOTS of cookies

11/25- Thanksgiving! My two dorks

Words cannot describe my feelings for this kid.

Obviously doesn't want to eat any more.

Ate beets

Copying G

Made an abundance of rolls. And champagne. Mmmm.

Our Thanksgiving tree!

Calvin can't write so he used pictures to express his thanks

G: Thankful for Christmas music (lots of it, 2 of them, more Christmas music, etc)

Thankful for the letter A. I really don't understand.

Just so you can see that the tree branch had real leaves and berries too. Can you tell I'm proud of myself?

And he couldn't be my son if he wasn't thankful for bed.

11/27- Walking to the corner Boy Scout lot for a tree.

Spent considerably far too much for a tiny tree, but memories are priceless.

Pictures from the game

2010-11-18T22:48:00.001-08:00

Jake grabbed the camera, but I forgot to tell him that I took the battery out. These are taken via phone. ick.

Cal/Ore game

2010-11-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

Wow, a lot of things have happened since last I updated. Currently Guy is chugging milk, or "ray milk" (regular milk) as he calls it- as apposed to chocolate milk. Calvin is screaming at me from his crib as usual. It's usual in that he screams whenever I lay him down. Hopefully he grows out of it?

On the 13th we went to the Ducks/Cal Bears football game in Berkeley. I was really apprehensive about having the boys with us. We left here at 2 and didn't get back until 11. That's later than they're used to being up. Calvin did fine. He did his usual grunting and screaming thing but he smiled at everyone so they understood it as just him talking- which he was. Guy was super squirmy but there was just nowhere but nowhere to squirm to so he surrendered to being stuck on our lap. There was seriously no room. There was an elderly couple who came in after the game started who caused a ruckus with me. Our seats were 6&7 their seats were 4&5. I was sitting on 4&5- don't even think of making a clever comment. The husband told me to get out of his seat, to scoot over, to check my ticket and accused me of squatting. I his wife kept telling me that they were season ticket holders and always sat in these seats so I'd better figure out why I was in them. After realizing that I wouldn't be bullied the husband went to get assistance. The wife kept on huffing. The assistance came and tried to get people to pay attention to her very important question- Is everyone in their right seats? The end. Everyone was standing, sitting, standing, cheering, chanting...aka NOT listening or caring about seats that they were in and had been in for at least 40 minutes. These old folks were rocking the boat, but the boat was a battleship and the rocking went unnoticed. So eventually Jake got the people next to him to move over a tiny bit. It was squashed. The couple kept going on to each other that they had season tickets, but now they admitted that it wasn't my fault...I had told them so. I told them that I would move if I could but I wasn't going to leave and I wasn't going to sit on anyone's lap.

Oregon won BARELY. The Bears kept having 'injuries' right before the snap to slow down the tempo. Oregon is known for skipping the huddle and running the defense out because they transition so fast from play to play. It was really obvious that the Bears' defense just couldn't cope and so they fiend injury so they wouldn't use up all their time outs. Oregon missed an easy field goal and made other really sloppy mistakes, but the closeness of the game made it enjoyable. 13-15 is pretty close. If their kicker hadn't gotten a penalty and then missed his kick we would have been in trouble.

Guy thew up majorly on the s l o w drive out of berkeley. No fun. He BLEW chunks. He is a spewer. Projectile. So the drive home was quiet and stinky.

The painted pumpkin By MGC

2010-11-13T10:48:00.001-08:00

G painting:

felt veggies

2010-11-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

This would be fun for G & C: FELT VEGGIES

FELT FOOD

FELT FOOD

oh

2010-11-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

February 14th can't come soon enough. Can't wait till Calvin's 1. This whole baby thing is just too much. He's teething- still. This boy just doesn't know when to stop.

He started standing by himself yesterday, that's cool.
He likes almond and coconut milk. He can open the jars that we keep cereal in so the dining room is continually covered in Cheerios. He's a very angry baby. He is always grunting and aaaaaaaa ing. Unless he gets his way right away. The look he gives us when we correct him or tell him no is a look that could kill. He's got 'born in sin' down to a T. :) He really likes music and dancing. I taught him to stick out his tongue last week. It was awesome. He was eating and doing his normal grunting and complaining so I stuck my tongue out at him. He looked at me, put his hand to his mouth, felt around with his tongue and slowly stuck it out and smiled a ginormous smile. It was fantastic.

He woke up 3 times last night, but I only went to him at 4, then he slept till 830. We'll see how his naps go. Hopefully they'll be good.

Guy's been super helpful. He gets this and that for me when I ask. And he's learning to say 'please' first. He's been on a "I need this" or "I want that" kick for a few months. Slowly but surely we'll get him civilized again. ;)
He is to the point where he can understand more and more concepts quickly and finds situations in everyday life to apply the concepts too. It's pretty cool.

2010-11-10T09:27:00.001-08:00

For you Jake

The Georgia Satellites - Battleship chains

Rockets Revenge 2 | Myspace Music Videos

And then the pictures from the laptop:

2010-11-05T19:52:00.000-07:00

10/23 Yosemite trip

One of the Fingerlake sisters- Judice from SNL VIDEO LINK

10/24 human bridge & guy spacing out watching the boob tube-

10/25 park-

10/25