A 1950 Congressional resolution "calls on the president to issue a proclamation urging Americans to observe each Memorial Day as "a day of prayer for permanent peace" and setting a time for that prayer." So... 52 years later, and those damned prayers still aren't working. Maybe it's time to try something reasonable and new, like trying to achieve good relationships with out neighbors. I think that's one of the xian principles, isn't it? So there should be no problem exchanging one for the other. Good neighbors, by definition, don't war on you, they trade with you as equals. Or, lacking trade, they leave you alone, and you leave them alone. No, I'm not pushing isolationism, although I do think that's better'n what we have now, commercial imperialism. And I do think that we have a place in the world, a place that allows us to use our strength to right wrongs and protect the innocent, even if they reside in another country under another government. However, citizens in other countrys need protection from our corporations as well as from their own governments, who are often in cahoots with our corporations. A lot of people have died for our freedoms, and there was a time when I was willing to be one of them. Luckily, I survived that fool-hardy stage of my life. In recent history, my father and two uncles served in the military, and my brother Dan and I both served also. I'm not sure if either of my grandfathers served, and beyond that is a blank, although I would have to imagine that some of them were soldiers or sailors... after all, my ancestry goes back to the very beginning... just like everyone else's. I can imagine a distant almost-ancestor crawling out of the ooze, standing on dry land and beating his chest... attracting the attention of nearby predators. My *real* ancestory were certainly more cautious, I know this 'cause they lived long enough to reproduce. Speaking of weird stuff... I've had about ten e-mail inquiries in the last week or two aboutDying Diary. I normally get four or five inquiries a year, so I don't know why the sudden interest. I do think that I will dust it off and see if I want to do any more with it... I've already moved it to a subdomain of nilknarf.net, you can get there with http://dying.nilknarf.net if the previous link doesn't show live. O'yeah, three of those aforementioned inquiries were in the bunch of mail that I accidentally deleted, so if you're waiting for a reply from me, please write again. If you're waiting for me to do *anything* for you, in fact, write me, 'cause I've forgotten all about it! As far as I can remember, I don't owe anybody anything... ask any of my creditors, they'll tell you that that's what I think. Dammit, they all think differently, though. It's another beautiful day today, a lot like yesterday, only this is the last day of vacation, so we're a little sad about that, heh. We had a pretty Anyway, I think that was around 02:00 or so, and I remember the power coming back on after the sun was up... I didn't remember hearing any thunder, but Karen says she did, before the power went off. I've loaded WINME on both of my new machines, one on purpose, the other one I really want 2K on, but I can't seem to get it working... ME won't see the CD drive. I got it to network finally, and slushed the files over to it that way, but it keeps coming up with errors. I'm beginning to think that I've got a bad drive, it's an older 15 GB that I've had for a few years, maybe I should just use it as a data drive somewhere.... Hardware just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper, a 40 GB drive is about $60 at Best Buy. And cable modems are down to $90, that's what I pay for six months rent on one, I suppose that I should be smart and buy one. Memory? It's way cheap, too. This supply/demand thing is fascinating, heh? Well, I need to wash clothes and pay bills and clean up my desk and get some papers together for our investment guy... Karen is over at Matts with the grandkids, swimming... it's almost 90F here right now! Summertime is definitely coming on strong.
good thunderstorm go through last night, our power was off for about two hours. Woke me up, of course, 'cause the C-PAP quit helping me to breathe and the fan quit blowing on me... and all of the APCs were honking at me, trying to get me to turn the machines off before the batteries ran out. I almost got them all....