Good Morning.

Today is our 4,601st day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing war, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 2,317
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,119

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:
$ 1, 533, 555, 075, 000 .00

We'll talk economics of war a bit today. If you spend some time at the National Priorities Link referenced above, you'll sadly shake your head at all the things we could have had. While we're well into "wind-down" phase now, think about where we were in 2008, 2009, 2010, etc. As you may know, I've spent more than a year plowing through Winston Churchill's six-volume WWII book. The end is near; Germany has surrendered and I'm reading about the behind-the-scenes machinations for the Potsdam conference, but I digress.
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30 comments (Latest Comment: 05/13/2014 20:59:28 by Raine)

And aaaaargh. I was having internets issues. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. Maybe on for now? *sigh*
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2 comments (Latest Comment: 05/12/2014 03:13:11 by Will in Chicago)

I heard a story the other day that i thought was interesting. Sales of tabletop games have been on the rise, some of that because of the advancement of technology.
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31 comments (Latest Comment: 05/10/2014 01:34:28 by Raine)

We consider ourselves to be a moral nation. We try to protect our children from ideas and images and actions that we feel would be harmful to them. We have laws and institutions (like DFACS) to protect them from their own family members, if necessary.

If a mother is a drug addict with nefarious characters coming and going, or a prostitute that brings johns home, or a criminal or abusive father, or perhaps a lone parent bouncing in and out of mental institutions - the children are often taken from the parents and placed in foster homes, sometimes by force. Are the foster homes better? Sometimes they are - but often a child has a special connection with a birth parent that cannot be broken by destructive behavior.

It is a controversial practice, taking a child from its parents. Who are we to decide what is best for the child? Who are we to decide what is a good home and what is a bad home? What if the parents are nudists, and walk around naked in front of their children? Some might say that is unhealthy for the child. What if the parents are Satan worshipers? Christians might say the child is in mortal (and spiritual) danger. Who decides what is moral? Whose measuring stick do we use?
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30 comments (Latest Comment: 05/07/2014 20:11:24 by Raine)

You may have heard that my congressional representative, Jim Moran is stepping down after serving Virginia's 8th congressional district after 23 years in office. Virginia's 8th district has been a solidly Democratic district in a sometimes red state. This commonwealth is a swing state. This year the tide changed vastly, as Virginia Elected a Democratic Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.
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46 comments (Latest Comment: 05/05/2014 22:10:35 by Mondobubba)