Yesterday's Weather

I called home to check on my a/c repair status, Mom said it was 112. Earlier in Cloudcroft it had been raining and sleeting, I think it was too wet and warm to be formally hail. I'm sitting in the kitchen/breakfast nook with two windows, one looks out front with a dozen trees or so, the other to our covered parking with its loverly tin roof. Got kinda noisy yesterday.


On the way home from the observatory, I saw the standard assortment of elk on the side of the road. None of them congregating on the highway itself. And I saw a furball run across the highway. It looked kinda like a small dog, maybe a light-colored fat terrier or something, I thought maybe a pig, but they're not nocturnal and though they're quick, they're probably not that fast. So I called Russ when I got home, she thinks it was probably a bobcat.


I was sitting in the front of the house working on my laptop yesterday, listening to the breeze and the birds and I heard a rustling. I looked up and spotted a squirrel running across branches and jumping from tree to tree.

Pretty cool!

Karl and Valerie

Newsweek has a good summary of the betrayal of Valerie Plame's role as an undercover CIA operator. The story is here. Basically her real job was betrayed to the public as a retaliatory attempt to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who went to Niger in 2002 to investigate the "yellow cake" uranium that Iraq had allegedly tried to buy to make nukes with.

I hope the special prosecutor hangs Rove high and dry. The administration is in a difficult position in that Georgie made a public announcement and promised to fire whoever was responsible for leaking her identity.

I think it will take an indictment and conviction for Georgie to follow through on that.

Myself, I think they should have a high treason crime. If you sell military secrets to any foreign power, high treason. If the secrets you sell results in the death of a secret agent/undercover officer, high treason. If you betray the identity of an undercover officer, high treason. It should carry a life sentence without parole and without possibility of pardon. Go ahead and keep an appeal process in place so that if exculpatory evidence is later found, the case can be reexamined, that's only fair and in accord with our judicial system.

But it pisses me off when the Israelis asks for the Pollards to be given to them. Or when people like Aldrich Ames, whose leaks lead to the Soviets executing ten agents, are still alive. Or John Walker builds a complete spy ring. I go back and forth on the death penalty, but for something like this, I think a firing squad is a good punishment if what you did leads to the death of operatives.

(Granted, there are irregularities in Pollard's conviction, he still sold secrets to a foreign government. He agreed to a plea bargain of one count of passing information to an ally, but the evidence showed that he passed a ton of info. The US reneged and instead of a light sentence they put him in for life. I don't care if that gov't is friendly, neutral, or an enemy, it's still betrayal, and I don't care if it's wartime or peace.)


Not that I'm opinionated or anything. :-)

Can you say BORED?

Well, not really. Just finished a bunch of programming with some minor mind-benders, so thought I'd encourage a vegetative state. Russet's off to work, so it's just me, my laptop, Celeste, and the DVD player.

You're The Guns of August!

by Barbara Tuchman

Though you're interested in war, what you really want to know is what causes war. You're out to expose imperialism, militarism, and nationalism for what they really are. Nevertheless, you're always living in the past and have a hard time dealing with what's going on today. You're also far more focused on Europe than anywhere else in the world. A fitting motto for you might be "Guns do kill, but so can diplomats."


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

You're Ethiopia!

You were just getting back to a normal cycle of eating when a group of people came up to you and said that you were too different than they were, so you could no longer visit the beach.  You'll probably miss the beach, and you're still kind of hungry, but ironically you cook for lots of rich people in other places who think your food is excellent, but won't let you eat it yourself.  You are revered in the Caribbean, though, which counts for something.
Take
the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

You're Washington!

Though you were named after some ancient and revered relative, you've taken off on your own course and are making a new name for yourself. Water dominates your life, surrounding you on many sides and usually from above. Though you say you love rain, it's really that you've forgotten that there are other types of weather to hold an opinion on. You have an amazingly eclectic interest in walls, spokes, yaks, seats, and even the Olympics. It'll all come out in the wash.


Take the State Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

You're a Duck!

Incredibly versatile and capable of carrying yourself over almost any surface of the Earth, you are a born traveler. As you journey far and wide, you tend to try to follow the climate to keep things mild and temperate. While you were always told you were ugly at a young age, you've since managed to grow out of it. You now find orange to be a very favorable color for shoes. Lately you've come to be caught up in the petty peddling of unnecessary insurance.


Take the Animal Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.