So it was with great joy that upon landing in Altanta Hartfield airport, we learned that the START treaty and the 9/11 responders bills had both been passed into law.

Aside from the DREAM act - which is still not dead, an awful lot seems to have been accomplished in this lame duck session of Congress. Perhaps the Senate should be forced to only work 3 weeks out of the year? Anyway...
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39 comments (Latest Comment: 12/24/2010 17:06:27 by livingonli)

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,834th day in Iraq and our 3,362nd day in Afghanistan.

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

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4429
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) 4290
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3570
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 201
Since Operation New Dawn: 11

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,438
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 831
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,487
Journalists - Iraq : 348
Academics Killed - Iraq: 448

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$1, 124, 479, 100, 000 .00

So "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is history. While we here in the real world applaud the Senate for finally doing the right thing, as I noted in yesterday's blog, it could still be a purely symbolic move unless the Uniform Code of Military Justice is reformed as well.

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47 comments (Latest Comment: 12/21/2010 22:37:25 by livingonli)

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the Art-Deco Revival Garden-syle House,
Not a creature was stirring, most certainly not a mouse.
The Martha Stewart inspired stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
Designed by our friend, TJ, who had quite a flair.
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6 comments (Latest Comment: 12/20/2010 15:01:18 by Scoopster)

Good Morning!

Despite the cheery intentions of this morning's blog, there is an air of unease around the TriSec household today....my father-in-law went back in the hospital overnight. He fell about 2 weeks ago and was admitted briefly, but since then his Alzheimer's seems to have taken a downward turn. However, I heard him chattering in the background last night when I spoke to Mrs. TriSec, so who knows what the next diagnosis will be.

In any case...let's think about the holiday, shall we?

Last night, I spent the time after our pack meeting making a batch of pizzeles. It's a laborious process, making two cookies at a time on an electric iron that looks a little like a sandwich press. As I often do at this time of year, I gave a little thought to the things we always do every year.

For me, it's the baking. As a kid, we always had a mountain of cookies and other pastries...my grandmother was quite the avatar at this sort of thing. Naturally, my mother learned the skills, and then in turn, I did too. Looking over grandma's old recipe cards, they are distinctly old-school. Things like "add flour" and "a spoonful of baking powder for every egg" and "bake until brown" dominate the instructions.

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3 comments (Latest Comment: 12/19/2010 17:14:47 by BobR)

There are people in this country who spend a fair amount of time keeping themselves informed. They take this obligation seriously enough to seek out the truth, and listen to varying opinions analyzing the truth so that they can consider contexts they might have missed. Most of you dear readers would fit into that category.

Most people, however, are not quite as interested. They watch 30-60 minutes of news and take whatever is spoon fed to them as the truth, and go about their day believing whatever the TV machine tells them. They might be watching CNN or MSNBC, but more than likely they are watching FOX News. The sad reality is that they are not under-informed, they are actually misinformed.
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48 comments (Latest Comment: 12/16/2010 21:09:59 by BobR)