(no subject)

[vicarz]

I limp faster than most people walk, sad but true. Doc says aint nuffin broke, just hobble and take it easy for 7-10 days, take them legal drugs.

Last night was just beautiful. It was another unexpected gift, a burst mid-week, warmth where we expected cold, the moon emerging in all it's...moonitude. I've written off several gorgeous days and evenings as the season's last, only to find another around the corner. There is a lesson to be learned there - appreciate each moment as it comes, not knowing with certainty when there will be another. I'm certain of many beautiful moments to come, but I'm not going to appreciate any one less based on another yet to come. I'm going to savor every moment I can.

Ironic political note:
So we invaded iraq based on WMD including chemical weapons. While you don't see it here, the BBC is reporting our own military admitting (at long last following many denials to the arab world) we used banned chemical weapons against insurgents:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stm (stolen from a couple peep on LJ like chadu)
I don't think this is the big deal people make it out to be, it might be a technicality (the US claims it uses phosphorus to illuminate and burns are incidental rather than the specific purpose) but the arrogance of the US to ignore a ban in which the entire world agrees to ban a substance as a chemical weapon, and we use it...and that's if we're telling the truth now. Of course, you won't hear about this on WTOP, FOX, CNN, or even a real network...

Comments

[pulsdeslebens.livejournal.com]

When has what the rest of world does ever stopped us from going our own way? The rest of the world signed the Kyoto treaty, and we told the world, "Fuck You."

[joanarkham.livejournal.com]

Does NPR count as a real network? Cause that's where I just heard it.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

No, that's just femnazi liberal trash.

Speaking of, I just found out one of the professors at GMU law, now teaching law & economics, coined the term femnazi. Not proud of the school am I.

[greekphilosophy.livejournal.com]

I know lots of women who call themselves feminazis proudly.

Even still, absent "reclaiming harmful language" it isn't something to be proud of.

I think you East Coasters need to get a grip on your Spring and Autumn. People up here just don't know what they are doing with those two seasons. Everyone starts wearing shorts when it hits 50 in April, and then pretends like it isn't 30 outside when the next coldfront blows through. And during October and November, they act like the sun will never shine again! I have NO proof that this is logical, since last year and (apparently) this year, it's remained enjoyably comfortable late into the year. Last year in early December, I was wearing only a sweater and jeans and was comfortable...maybe a little warm. I think people up here are recovering from a traumatic winter a couple years ago, and have this kind of "refugee shock" thing going on.

/rant

Isn't the weather beautiful?

Chemical weapons?

[kernelpanic.livejournal.com]

do a bit of poking around for the phrase "depleted uranium" sometime. Oh, oops, guess who uses it in many "conventional" weapons systems?

Re: Chemical weapons?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

DU's risks are heavy-metal toxicity, not radioactivity, hence the "depleted" part. It's somewhat worse than using lead, but it's not the hobgoblin some people seem to assume it is.

Re: Chemical weapons?

[chadu.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there a recent (last 18 months) dust-up over possible radioactive effects on soldiers from the low-grade radioactivity of depleted uranium? Or was it heavy-metal toxicity, and I or the article I read, got it wrong?

CU

Re: Chemical weapons?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

There are dust-ups over all sorts of things, but they rarely have actual scientific merit. The only realistic secondary hazard (i.e., other than the impact of the shell) posed by DU is to people living in the area of impact. The military seems to have underestimated the likelyhood of pulverized DU getting into the water supply or being breathed in, but radioactivity isn't the hazard.

Re: Chemical weapons?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

The real distinction is that, whatever secondary effects DU munitions may have, we aren't inflicting them intentionally. We aren't using the toxicity as a weapon.

This WP thing, however, is a pretty blatantly intentional "repurposing" as a weapon.

Thank GOD we're the good guys?

[vicar.livejournal.com]

You ever get the impression we're waging a war on the publicity front with terminology? Oh wait, that's nothing new...

Ever get the impression that it's just another western, and while everything does the same thing, the good guys are the ones in white hats?

Remember that episode of star trek with Abraham Lincoln...

Re: Chemical weapons?

[chadu.livejournal.com]

The real distinction is that, whatever secondary effects DU munitions may have, we aren't inflicting them intentionally. We aren't using the toxicity as a weapon.

Agreed. Unpon reflection, I think that the article I read was trying to make a case for DU secondary effects as being one possible cause of Gulf War Syndrome.

This WP thing, however, is a pretty blatantly intentional "repurposing" as a weapon

Yup.

CU

[pisicutsa.livejournal.com]

>I limp faster than most people walk, sad but true.

I was in a walking cast a few years ago and I was still passing most people on the street - it was pretty funny. I even walked across the Brooklyn bridge with some friends and their friends, and when I called for a rest and one of them complained at me with "What?! You have a broken leg or something?!" and I got to pull up my jeans' leg and watch their jaw drop and they started to stutter apologies. Pretty damn funny.

[shadow27.livejournal.com]

The US and the UK have finally admitted to using WP as a weapon, not just as illumination, in Fallujah.

While using WP as a weapon against civilian centers is against the Geneva Conventions, the US is not a signatory of that particular protocol,

[vincec.livejournal.com]

The real problem the use of WP is that we are using it in ways that we should not. WP is banned by treaty by most of the world, for anything other then illumination, but the US would not sign that one.

Paraphrased from the US military rep that yesterday held a conference:
We continue to use it to flush out people so we can then use heavy explosive to destroy the targets.

He did not say whether the building of the running people on fire were the targets.

[cweaselle.livejournal.com]

The moon was magnificant here too. I was amazed at how great the weathers been too. Not death hot, just warm. :)

[desiringmachine.livejournal.com]

what did you do to yourself that you have been limping?

i've fallen behind on this thing...

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I don't know! The day it started I hadn't done anything, though I trail-ran the weekend before.

[desiringmachine.livejournal.com]

suck! musta strained something without knowing it?