Hank LNU

Life in Politics

2006-10-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

“I’ve acquired a lot of new friends this year,” Mr. Frank said. “And I haven’t gotten any nicer.”

What a great political quote. He's talking about how people expect the Democrats to gain control of the House, and how he stands to gain significant political power.

And for those of you who are wondering...no, I haven't quit. I just haven't really had anything to say, or even if I did, the time to say it here.

They Took My Deodorant

2006-10-03T12:53:00.000-07:00

First, let me establish my bona fides. I'm the guy who always thanks the airport security people after they search me. And I fully appreciate how important and thankless their job is.

So please realize my ire is directed not at them, but at their bosses in DC.

I just wenr through airport security, and they took my deodorant and my toothpaste. As if Right Guard and Crest were two synonyms for Al Queda and Hezb'allah. And me with a kipah.

I have two problems with this. The first is that evidently, under 3 oz. of liquid or gel is fine. As if 3 oz. of C-4 plastic explosive won't blow a big hole in an airplane. So my 2.75 oz. Edge Gel is good to go, but my 6 oz. bottle of toothpaste goes in the trash. How about they just have me eat some? No one would eat liquid explosives. But no...in the trash it goes.

But the main problem I have is that we're fighting the last war. We're protecting ourselves against an attack that already was tried...and *failed*. They're going to try something else next time. Something we haven't thought of, and something we're not going to think of, because we're spending our time afraid of flouride.

Apropos of nothing whatsoever, anyone know where I can pick up some toothpaste and deodorant in Houston?

Awesome

2006-09-22T11:16:00.000-07:00


Some of these are really inventive.

In Other News...

2006-09-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

...Water is wet.

We Barely Knew Ye

2006-08-25T05:14:00.000-07:00

Pluto's not a planet anymore. I don't know how to feel about this. Although, half my science education has been disproved since I last took a science course, so I guess I'm fine.

Just In Case You Forgot

2006-08-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

Islam: Religion of Burning Children

I still think about this news article, linked below.

This is the nature of our enemy. This is what they do.

Just in case you were wondering what I mean when I say that the enemy is Islamic Fundamentalism, and that it's evil. Maybe you thought I was engaging in a little hyperbole when I said "evil."

Read the article, and tell me I'm wrong.

Free-Falling Prestige

2006-08-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

A Question for Our Times

I read quite a few opinion columns, both from the right and the left, and if there's one common theme among them, it is this: American prestige in the Arab world is falling, and in fact our actions contribute to the growing fundamentalist trend in Islam.

To which I reply, "who gives a shit?"

Why does anyone care what our standing is among the enemy? Did anyone ever care whether Musollini liked us? Or Hitler? Or Tojo? Are you kidding? Our enemy doesn't like us? Good. If our enemy did like something we did I think that'd be immediate cause to reconsider the course of action.

Let's be clear: the two emotions I want in my enemies are hate and fear. I want them to hate everything about us. Because they hate really good things, like freedom, pluralism, equality, democracy. And they like things I hate, like intolerance, totalitarianism, religious oppression, indiscriminate murder. I want them to hate me.

Does this mean eternal war with Islamic Fundamentalism?

Are you daft? Of course it does. Making war on evil isn't wrong. It's a moral imperative.

And what's my exit strategy?

Let me quote Winston Churchill for that answer:

You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

Grammar Five-Oh

2006-08-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

Try And

Yes, I'm back on the whole grammar thing.

The phrase, "try and..." as in, "I'm going to try and help those people," is always incorrect. The correct phrasing is "try to." "Try and" is a speaker's convention that crept into the written form. Alas.

The only time "try and" is correct is when it is followed by another verb in opposition to trying, as with "failed." "I'll try, but—be prepared—I'll most likely try and fail."

Have a nice day.

Professional Nerd

2006-08-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

Is MooCow in New Zealand yet? Because this is so his new career path. Some guy is paying some kid $45 per hour to help him learn to play Halo 2 better. No, I'm not kidding. This from the Wall Street Journal.

Let's not even discuss why this is news. The WSJ front page is always a little quirky.

An Apology Apology

2006-08-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

I'm Sorry

I've heard too many non-apology apologies in my time: "I'm sorry the situation arose," "I'm sorry if your feelings were hurt," "I'm sorry for this misunderstanding." All these include the word "sorry," but don't actually say that the person recognizes that they did something wrong. Which is the essense of an apology. To recognize that you've done something wrong, and regret your acts. "I'm sorry I yelled at you." "I'm sorry I insulted you." Those are apologies.

So while I'm a little pissed at Mel Gibson for his anti-semitic, drunken tirade, and his newly-outed anti-semitic beliefs—in vino veritas—I must admit that the man knows how to apologize:

August 2, 2006 -- There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of Anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.

I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.

The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.

I’m not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed.

This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. It’s about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.

Have you Noticed?

2006-07-31T23:48:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed that when we're nice to one person, sometimes that means we're not nice to many?

The best example of this is holding the door to a train. Sure, the person who was late is psyched. But what about the person on the train who's running late to work, but got to the train on time? And what about the train engineer, whose carefully planned schedule is now thrown off?

Or starting meetings on time. Why respect the time of people who are late over that of the people who made it on time?

We always perceive society like Spock, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." But we all secretly want to be Kirk, "the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many."

Who have you been mean to while being nice?

In the Earth Relm

2006-07-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

I tried to take a picture, but the man holding the sign saying...he just held it back up.

"Jesus is in the Earth Relm, Spiritually Multiplied with Hosts, for manhunt human traffikers."

I love this city.

Stupid Story Has Legs

2006-07-27T05:46:00.000-07:00

Monique (I absolutely refuse to use her spelling: Mo'Nique) is still "boycotting" United Airlines. And turning a simple customer-service issue into a racial issue: "I felt like I was being treated like an animal. This happens to black people all the time, and they don't have a voice. I have a voice."

So do the six billion other non-mute Earth dwellers, Mo'. But let's not dwell on that, 'kay?

This has to be the most stupid story of the week.

A One-Person Boycott

2006-07-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ignore the fact that this is stupid for a moment. She wasn't called a name, or assaulted, or insulted. Her assistant, sitting in coach, tried to store something in 1st class, and was challenged. She was "humiliated" because a supervisor called the cops to deal with a "disgruntled and belligerant passenger."

Ignore for a moment the fact that bad customer service doesn't necessarily equal racist customer service.

Can I just say that one person doesn't a boycott make? When it's just you, it's a purchasing choice, not a boycott.

Professional Nerd

2006-07-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

Let's not even discuss why this is news. The WSJ front page is always a little quirky.

2006-07-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

Day Trip

2006-07-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was in the UK. For the day. Ouch. It was a scheduling SNAFU; I was supposed to be at meetings here, but overbooked myself, and no one canceled.

Of course, after 11, 13, 17, and 18 hour flights over the last 3 weeks, the 7-hour flight to Heathrow was like nothin'.

Now I'm back. I hope for more than a couple of days.

Vacationing in Hell

2006-07-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

I feel true sorrow for the Canadian family who lost 7 of its members in an air raid over the weekend.

I feel constrained to ask, however, why they were "vacationing" in Lebanon. It's not like the war was being fought in secret. Israel has to be the only army in the world that gives advance notice where it's going to bomb. And there are still civilian casualties. Frankly, it makes me wonder about the civilians.

I have a simple rule: when the US State Department says "leave, we can't protect you," I...leave.

Hello From Down Under

2006-07-02T05:39:00.000-07:00

Two Pints And A Flight

So I left Singapore, which was hot and humid, and I'm now in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Where, thank G-d, it's decently cold. I was melting in Singapore.

I got in about 3 hours ago, checked into a hotel, and went directly to a bar. I had to walk around to find one that had actual people in it, but I did, and, two pints later, I'm back in the hotel and feeling no pain.

I'm hoping that the beer will put me to bed, because I really have no fargin' idea what time it is. I slept a little on the plane, and right now, who the hell knows. For my family, who I just spoke to, and really miss, it's about 8:30 a.m. Here, supposedly, it's about 10:30 p.m. I don't know whether I should be tired because it's time to go to bed, or it's time to wake up, or what.

All I know is that Desperate Housewives is on, so it's probably nighttime.

Sing

2006-06-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

Early morning in Singapore.

Beautiful.

What the hell time is it again? Night? Day? My body can't quite tell, having just flown literally half-way around the world.

Hopping Mad

2006-06-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

So Pissed I Can Barely See Straight

If I had a subscription to the New York Times, or the LA Times, I would cancel it today. I would not want to give money to, or be associated in any way with, any person or entity that commits treason.

And there's no other word to describe publishing a story about a top secret, totally legal, tremendously effective program to help catch hidden terrorists. The operation was brilliant and simple. Here's how it went.

You've heard of someone "wiring" money, right? Have you ever thought about what exactly it means to "wire" money. It's not like they put the money on a wire. And it's not like they just place a phone call. To ensure that the wire is legitimate, and that it's from a real bank, a standard communication had to evolve, with protections in place to ensure legitimacy. Hence a company---in Belgium of all places---that provides the actual format for the messages sending money worldwide. Everyone, but everyone, in the banking world uses these messages, called SWIFT messages.

So the government, since 9/11, has been subpoenaing these SWIFT messages to determine whether patterns exist, and to trace the money flow from known or suspected Al Queda operatives. The government has been "following the money."

So simple and brilliant, I'm frankly surprised that the low-level agent who thought it up was allowed to do it.

Of course, now that the New York Times and the LA Times printed details of the program, I'm not so sure it's going to be quite as effective. I thought that the Times' deliberate obfuscation of the limited scope of the call monitoring program was treasonous, but this...this is dastardly.

Don't they believe that some government operations should be done in secret? Don't they understand that there are consequences to their actions? Don't they friggin' know who the enemy is? Why do I get the feeling there's a bunch of editors at the Times who would like nothing better than to print the faces, names, and home addresses of all of our Special Operations guys? Or at least run details of their planned operations?

There's a word for that.

Treason.

Piling On

2006-06-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

Is this just a New York City Subway thing? Piling up the trash on top of the can?

Because I find it funny. In a "we're stupid" kind of way. What's that game where you pile on things, and take them away one by one, until it falls over? That's what this reminds me of.

Welcome to New York.

Coming Up To...China

2006-06-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

This Sunday I'm leaving for Singapore, Australia, and China. For three weeks.

No, don't say, "ooh, how cool!" It's not cool at all. It's horribly uncool. If three weeks away from my family weren't enough to change your mind, how about my schedule? Give training all day, with groups coming in and out, and me giving the same class over and over. Then I have to find kosher food. Then I do it again the next day.

Then I fly to the next city. And, oh yeah, flight time from Singapore to Sydney is about 7 1/2 hours. And from Sydney to Beijing is 13. Then I start all over again in the next city.

No, this is not a vacation.

Did I mention that it's going to be like that for three weeks?

Beach Day

2006-06-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

It's severe clear today (not a cloud in the sky).

And oh yes, we spent it at the beach.

Who wouldn't?

Daniel Powter...

2006-06-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

...is totally, completely, and deservedly...overrated.

(Did you notice the serial comma?)