OK, now Bush wants to trim the size of the Army Reserve?!

Let's see. Rummie thinks the Army is too big. Commanders in Iraq are now coming out that they don't have enough men. They also want to shrink the size of the National Guard, though that wouldn't be an actual manpower reduction, it would reduce the current maximum strength to the current actual strength. The National Guard is theoretically at the command of the state's governor, though I don't know who pays for them.

So. There isn't enough manpower in Iraq. The Army can't meet recruiting goals, all of the other branches of the armed forces are meeting their goals. The Army is doing stop-loss to keep personnel and units, including Guard and Reserves, longer in Iraq than their originally planned deployment. And Rummie and Bush think they can do the job with less people?!

THEY HAVEN'T DONE THE FRICKIN' JOB IN THE FIRST PLACE! Show me Bin Laden in chains in court.

They need a larger army. They need an army that can fight an irregular war. THEY NEED TO TAKE CARE OF THE VETERANS AND INJURED SOLDIERS THAT ARE COMING BACK HOME. I don't know why, but it just occurred to me that the current administration views army soldiers as being interchangeable, replaceable, and with no value, that's why they keep cutting veteran's benefits, but that's OK because Halliburton stock is up to around $80 a share from being down around $20 three years ago. I don't know why I didn't recognize that before. Then again, few people in the current administration actually served in the military.

I don't doubt that the American Army can be smaller and more effective, BUT YOU DON'T SHRINK YOUR MILITARY DURING A WAR! Geez.

Oh, I forgot one point that I needed to make. If Congress votes this down, then can Bush take a bit of a moral high ground saying that he's trying to save the country money to reduce the deficit? The GOP controls Congress, Congress does not seem to be in favor of such a move, so is Bush breaking with Congress?


It's just a mess, that's probably the only certainty in this whole thing. I honestly don't think we are capable of improving things in Iraq, the country has gone to hell and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. If we pull out, we "didn't stay the course" and it's our fault the country has gone to hell. If we stay, it continues to get worse, and it's our fault the country has gone to hell. Even capturing Bin Laden at this point will make no difference in terrorist activity in Iraq and the region (IMO). It can be argued that with Bin Laden out of circulation that the world will be a better place, but I think the actual amount of improvement will not be as significant as people think, he is not responsible for all the terrorist activity in the world, and it will not instantly be Days of Wine and Roses when he is out of circulation.


I should go to bed. :-)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060128/ap_on_go_pr_wh/defense_budget

Full story under cut.

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Done!

Well, mostly. Just finished pretty much everything left for my Dept of Education work. I've got one thing left to fix, unfortunately, the fix that I was given doesn't work, so we're going to see if I can fix the fix. Since the project is pretty much out of money, I don't know if that will happen. So Tuesday I'll be heading down to Alamogordo to look for a job at either one of the cell phone stores or Staples. WHEE!

I created a psuedo-resume that explains "these are my skills as applies to a job in retail sales" because my computer-based resume is three pages long in small print and have absolutely no bearing to a non-tech job. Of course I offer them one if they so desire.

I had an interview last Wednesday at the university. It went pretty well, it was kind of weird because it felt like he was offering the job right there and then. He has one more person to interview, but he also threw one curve in the interview: they want to change the hours. Originally it was Friday, Saturday, Sunday up 'till 8pm, they want to drop Friday and add Monday. Unfortunately my classes are Monday/Wednesday basically from 2:30 to 9pm. So there will have to be a bit of juggling to accomodate that. The bad thing is that the job, being a university, is rather limited. Less than $7/hr and 19 hours a week, so a sales job would probably pay more.

If you're a glutton for punishment, I'll post the psuedo-resume later.