A couple thoughts...

Retired Navy Cmdr. Zoe Dunning is surrounded by other repeal supporters in San Francisco as the decisive vote is announced. (Paul Chinn/san Francisco Chronicle Via Associated Press)

Don't Ask Don't Tell is Repealed. Congratulations!

Gay rights are a no brainer to me and I don't understand why it hurts anyone what gay people do. I fully support the right of gay partners to marry and adopt children. (Though, I think marriage has become confused between the secular and religious and should be reviewed, that's a different discussion.)

I remember when DADT started in the Clinton administration. It seemed like an intermediate step at the time because Clinton campaigned on the promise that gays would be allowed in the military. He couldn't get it through so they settled on this compromise solution.

The outright BAN on homosexuality in the military was gone, but gays were still in the military closet. Although it took years to get this DADT repeal, the years may have made it easier to repeal at this time because we have years of evidence that banning gays in the military was nonsensical - as many service people testified, their branch of the service honors integrity and honesty, and yet they were essentially ordered to be dishonest and have no integrity. Makes no sense. Glad DADT has been lifted.

John McCain is still against it. He's not a smart man. I'm glad he's not our president. He wanted a study to find out what the service people thought since they're the ones who would be affected. (As a former military man you'd think he'd ascribe to the idea that a soldier does what the military tells him - no matter what.) Once the study/questionnaire was complete and it was clear that most in the military thought it was okay he decided the questions were wrong. Whatever.

Voted most annoying word? Whatever

WikiLeaks - I'm coming down on the side of leaks - unless it involves details of troop movements or the position of defense assets or the names of spies or stuff like that. Diplomatic memo's? Come on - be more professional in your diplomatic communication and more above board in your positions and none of this would be a problem, would it? It's what we all have to learn growing up and getting into the work world. One job skill that doesn't get enough mention is being able to communicate the truth in a factual, non judgmental or emotional way.

I think it's conveniently coincidental that Julian Assange has rape charges filed against him in Sweden. It's all quite suspicious. And I believe my government is involved in a way I wouldn't approve of. I think my beloved president knows what they're doing and I'm sad he's been put in this position, but I wish he wouldn't act like it's somebody else's fault.

This is like a spy movie or spy story playing out in real life. Except in a story I'd know what all sides think say and do, and the story moves along more quickly.

Anyway - except for if people's lives are in danger, I think this is embarrassing for the United States, but WikiLeaks did nothing wrong.

I feel bad for the kid who leaked the stuff though. That's pretty rough. I'm glad PFC Bradley Manning did it, but he violated the terms of his employment and he'll have to suffer the consequences. That's the problem with being a whistleblower; you must have a lot of courage and be willing to suffer the consequences. I haven't done research on it, but I think he didn't have a noble reason for leaking the documents. I got the impression it was because he could, and he felt a bit neglected. That's the kind of thing the CIA might say about somebody in this kind of situation though - they try to make it the fault of some misguided loner. Sad.

I still don't get Facebook

It seems like a middleman.  Companies and people with their own websites create another 'website' and encourage people to go there and have discussions, while at the same time they continue their own websites where they also encourage discussions.
Seems like an extra layer.
I'm not a mobile user so maybe that makes a difference. 
Honestly, I like the idea of eavesdropping on people's lives via their status updates without giving anything back.  But, by the same token, that means it doesn't create any connection - it's just idle curiosity.
Twitter makes more sense to me, but I can't follow those conversations so I don't know what's going on there either.
I'd say mobile computing technology - rather than Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (I didn't see the movie this year) - should be the Time 'Person of the Year' or Julian Assange.  I thought I'd heard Time was going to make Julian Assange the 'Person of the Year' until the rape charges in Sweden happened. 

Selling America to the World

We seek to export the American way of life to the world - consumerism, independence, nonviolent change of power.
Yet, if the whole world lived like Americans, would the planet be able to provide the required resources?

If everyone lived like average Americans I wonder if our civilization would collapse? How would the earth provide all the resources necessary to sustain that kind of life?
As it is, the Earth is running out of many of the resources we use, and that's with most of the world not yet living to our standards of comfort.

Our global economic plan, though, is to use the craft of advertising and emotional manipulation to create an interest in our way of life in the rest of the world and then provide it to them.
We think that's good for us because it means we've opened up global markets and are making money.

It doesn't make sense to me. We may have made money initially, but eventually we can't sustain that life and we'll have to figure out a new way to live.

In America we've used nuclear power and fuel engines in our cars for years. But, when the Chinese and Indians buy into the dream and use those same technologies, we tell them to stop because we can't ALL live with those luxuries or the planet will suffer.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

We need to create a new American Dream. We can define a way of living that doesn't use up natural resources unnecessarily and yet makes sure everyone has enough.

My American Dream: Parks and wilderness areas, better food distribution, reasonable sized houses, conversation, valuing everyone's contribution to society, art, tolerance, creativity, patience, compassion, and love.

We could export those ideas around the world and live on Planet Earth for a very long time.

I finished another book!

Part two of the Walnut Grove Trifecta (part one is here, part three I haven't read yet).

I like her.  Alison's writing style is easy, casual, friendly, funny, and genuine.  I feel like I met a friend.
I respect her activism (Aids Project Los Angeles and National Association to Protect Children are two groups she supports), and enjoyed her stories about being Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie.  We also learn about the part of Alison's life that is not as innocent and lovely as "Little House" though she tells it very honestly - she seems to have a good perspective on what her life was and has become.  Again, I respect and like her - her book was good company!

It seems I have less to say when I enjoy something.  Everything about Alison and her story made sense and rang true.  I recommend the book.  

The book's website

What a waste...

The Republican Senate leaders today presented a letter to Harry Reid describing how the current Republicans in the Senate will handle themselves in the upcoming sessions prior to a new Senate configuration next year.

You can see the letter on the Republican Senate website here.

This is what I don't understand...

While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike.

How do you fund the government at the same time you're preventing tax hikes?

Where is the funding coming from? 
You're decreasing taxes on personal income, but expecting the taxes small businesses pay to increase because the owners of the small business are persons whose taxes were not increased so they were able to increase the size of their business?
Or is the funding coming because the people whose taxes were not increased spend the money in the marketplace and create more revenue for small businesses and corporations?
I don't get it.
Shouldn't politicians at least TRY to make sense?

I thought the government spent most of the last decade taxing nobody and buying everything and we don't have a booming economy that investors can count on.

They're so convinced they're right and won't give anyone an opportunity to try any other idea - even when the votes in the 2008 election made it clear we wanted to try something else - if it's not their idea.

What arrogance and childishness they're demonstrating. 

I would like the government to invest in small businesses. 
I'd like the government to invest in small manufacturing companies so we can start creating things again.
I don't think a service economy is a stable economy.
I also wish we would invest in science and technology that helps us come up with new ways to conserve our natural resources, or new ways to use the resources we have.
I'm all for the space program - let's get back into space.

If the government could invest in these things more jobs would be created and whole new industries born.  That's how to spark the economy.

I think that's what Obama's been trying to do and he's been thwarted at every turn by the pesky little mosquitos who aren't interested in governing but are only interested in staying in power by using the emotionally volatile and easily manipulated public to create trouble.

That's what I think today.