Stanford's Effects?

I still get urges to go fountain hopping.





Something tells me it wouldn't be accepted at the Watergate... but it should be.

Random Fact

The top things that bring people to my site?

1. Salinas Air Show

2. Adoptaplatoon

3. My review of Bing West's "The Village" (which makes me think that I should write a better review... haha)

4. Child Leash

Indiana Weekend

Ok, that was one of the quickest trips I've ever made -- 5 states and three time zones in one weekend! (California to Chicago to Louisville to Indiana to Philadelphia and back again).

I've made an executive decision that I should be from the South. I LOVED Louisville and Indiana. After church on Sunday, there was a potluck luncheon and it was like a 1950's movie. Someone even brought that crushed pretzel strawberry cool whip stuff. Awesome.

Chris's new adopted sister is pretty much the cutest baby ever - and she's so happy all the time! It was ridiculous. His mom said everyone thinks she looks Hispanic (she's Chinese) and that maybe when I have kids they'll sort of look like her. She was trying to talk me out of trying to steal Mandy when we left.

Can you really blame me for wanting to steal her? ;)

On Saturday we mostly just hung around the house with his family - we were pretty tired since we hadn't slept all night. We went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast, watched a Mythbusters marathon, and ate pizza for dinner.

On Sunday, we went to church for Mandy's dedication, then we went to Magic Mountain Kentucky Kingdom. It's been a very long time since I've been to an amusement park, but they had some amazing roller coasters. When we got back, we went in the hot tub and drank pina colada wine coolers. Amazing.

On Monday, we basically woke up, ate leftover Cracker Barrel french toast, took showers, ate hot dogs and potato salad and went to the airport. This is the picture we took on the airplane on the way from Philadelphia to SFO.




We were pretty sure we were dying because as we were running from one terminal to our connecting flight (we landed 10 minutes before our connection boarded), we stopped at Sbarro's and grabbed some dinner - not bad, but sooooo greasy. I'm pretty sure I gained ten pounds after I ate that. And my heart is probably like 98% clogged now.

Anyways, it was a very good weekend. Chris's parents are really nice, and I bonded with his brother over our mutual dislike of Star Trek. :) I'm back in California for the time being, but I'll be back on the East Coast next weekend. Oi. At least I'm staying there for awhile...

Indiana for the Weekend!

I'm leaving for the airport in about half an hour with Chris.

Meeting his parents tomorrow morning... eek.

Who wants to meet her boyfriend's parents for the first time after flying overnight? I always feel so grungy after I fly...

Go Look at This

For those of you wondering, my job description is "Content Specialist" for the Homeland Security Digital Library. I mine for homeland security related materials (read: play on the internet all day) and add them to the library when they're relevant. Now I also control a featured topic list:

HSDL Issues New Featured Topic List: 'Military Role in Homeland Security'

Yes, I blogged the list (more shameless self promotion) but I also created and maintain the list, which you may or may not be able to see depending on where your network is. [Military base or various government institutions - yes. Private computer - you have to register for access and wait for approval. The blog is publicly available though.]

Lieberman and Google

Joe Lieberman has requested that Google remove terrorist produced videos from Youtube. This includes, but is not limited to: killings of American soldiers and civilian workers, assassinations, training videos, and anti-American speeches. All of these videos are apparently branded by the terrorist groups and thus pretty easily identifiable (and as a sidenote, how arrogant is that terrorists use American media to disseminate their anti-American messages and blatantly state that they belong to terrorist groups? And you know why they can? Because no one is going to stop them.).

Google's response is that violent videos will be removed as will hate speech, but they will not outright ban groups from posting, because it violates their policy of freedom of expression and the right for people to say unpopular things. The CATO Institute endorsed this view and accuses Lieberman of censorship. Ah, First Amendment rights. Some might consider this a reasonable argument. Do I?

No. Considering that terrorism is on principle a psychological weapon used to gain an advantage over a conventionally superior opponent, one of the best ways to counter it would be to prevent the opposing propaganda from being spread. When a company not only allows a terrorist groups ready access to such a wide spread and easily accessible network of viewers, but defends the right of the terrorists to disseminate their propaganda, they have crossed a line. Google's policy of promoting free speech for everyone -- even those who have been declared by the State department as Foreign Terrorist Organizations -- has been rightfully challenged. By providing access to American audiences, Google is assisting the terrorist groups. Last time I checked, that was illegal. Lieberman is right to ask them to remove the videos: Google should go beyond removing just the violent and blatantly hateful videos and remove all videos identified with known terrorist groups.

CATO argued that the best way to counter bad speech is with better speech. There is no doubt that the US could do a lot better in the hearts and minds category, and there's no reason for us not work on countering terrorist propaganda with our own propaganda, but there's also no reason we should help the terrorists spread their message.

We have our hands tied fairly frequently in this war. Are we actually going to sit back and win the war for the terrorists now?

Language Day at DLI

This past Friday was Language Day at DLI, which is when they open up the Presidio to the public and have cultural activities, all kinds of food, and classroom tours. It was very fun, except it was super hot (and not just hot for Monterey, but hot hot - in the 90s!). Chris didn't have class so he was just wandering around, but I had a meeting at work, so Casey and I went to meet him up there around 10:30.

We listened to the Russian choir sing and then wandered around to see the different foods, while I bugged Chris every two minutes about what different ribbons and pins meant on uniforms and practiced identifying rank. [I have this chart above my desk at work and am slowly but surely learning to read rank]. I watched people at the Marines recruiting booth do pull ups and considered trying, but decided not to. Probably I would have lasted about twenty seconds, and wouldn't that be embarrassing in front of the crowd of Marines standing around watching? I tried to convince Casey to throw the football at the Army booth [Casey is me, but in boy form - he even considered joining the Washington State ARNG], but he claimed he doesn't know how. I did get a nice lanyard though - which I display my Navy Contractor badge on;)

Then we went to the classroom demonstration for Russian, where we learned the alphabet, some basic words, and numbers. All very basic for Casey and me, but fun nonetheless. We got to make words with little Russian cubes. Who knew class at DLI was so fun? I think that they made it a little more fun because we were visiting, because Chris's class doesn't sound as fun. [He's always learning words with Rapid Rote... I'm probably learning Arabic just by sitting in his house while he studies]. They gave us little certificates at the end that said we had completed the Russian class, and it has the DLI insignia on the top. I'm going to put it on my desk at work, next to the rank chart. After that class, we went to get lunch - gyros for $4 or something like that. They were pretty good. We wanted ice cream, but they were sold out because it was so hot, so Casey went back to work and Chris and I went for margaritas at the wharf. All in all, a very good day, despite my sunburn.*


*Chris claims my sunburn was not a sunburn, just a patch of skin that was red for a few hours, then tanned. [Thank you Mexican genes!] Chris, on the other hand, a white boy from Missouri, BURNED. He's still red.