Yet more random thoughts
In no particular order:
1. Went to karate again last night after a long haitus (due to the new job...more on that below). I was shocked, pleasantly, at how much of my kata I remembered. As it was "red tip testing" night, Sensei was also pleasantly shocked, I have achieved my next belt. :)
Did come home with a good bruise, as sparring was part of the testing sequence. I successfully stopped an upper-ranked belt (way upper rank) who was preparing to launch a kick into me. I got my leg up faster than she could chamber her kick, and stopped her knee cap with my shin. Ow. I won't complain though. Sensei lets me "dance" with the higher ranked belts because of my unique and varied background in the martial arts. I blame Ogami-san mostly. :)
2. The new job: is the bomb! (Okay, it's an outdated term...but then, I'm outdated.) Working for a small business, composed of genuinely likable folks is incredibly better than being employee number 10,529 in a large company. Not that the large companies I've worked for were bad, they were fine. But not having to thread a labyrinthian maze for every little thing, and having a senior staff bereft of huge egos, makes working with (and for) these people a pure pleasure. On top of it, the owners are engineers in their own right, and while they *are* out to make money, they are geniunely excited about the techonologies and the help it brings to our warfighters. (I know, "warfighter" is an improperly constructed word...get used to it.....;) )
3. Political ramblings in no particular order:
A) Read an interesting lament on Guantanamo still being open, and being largely ignored in the recently completed election cycle. I have my own thoughts on Gitmo (which I've made clear in other posts), but I have a radical...if decidedly un-Christian...proposal. Empty the place. Seriously.
The folks carping that we should try them as "prisoners of war" ignore the fact that we could, under the laws of armed conflict, summarily shoot them under those laws for violations under those laws. The folks carping we should try them in a civilian court (No...jurisdiction in terms of the offenses is the first problem that come to mind, there are other issues as well) only want that so long as they are housed somewhere *else* upon conviction.
So, let's pack 'em up and dump them back in their respective country of origin. And here's why I say that:
(1) I completely agree we *should not* be in the business of running this kind of prison. It served a purpose initially, but as with all things, "mission creep" turned into something else. The solution to preventing this from happening again? Enforce the laws of armed conflict if a similar conflict occurs. You're either in the field as part of legally fielded, recognized organization (please note this *does* include guerilla outfits), in accordance with recognized international law, or you're an illegal combatant and we'll just shoot ya dead. All perfectly legal.
(2) Here's the "un-Christian" part: What appears, initially, to be an alarming number of former Gitmo inmates who have been released, have subsequently been killed as they took up arms against us again. The people complaining about this dynamic and using it as a justification to not release Gitmo prisoners aren't looking at it from the right angle. If we release the rest of them, and several of them take up arms against us in the field and get shot...issue resolved. If they don't take up arms against us...issue resolved.
I don't see the down-side.
B. Recent election: I must admit I voted for Obama, even though I don't care for his performance to date. This was largely due to the fact that the Republican Party spent most of the year-plus run-up to the election, scaring the bejesus out of most moderate voters who were inclined the same way I was.
If the GOP is going to remain viable in the future, they're going to have to drop the "everything is a crusade" and hard-line "litmus test" requirements for their candidates, or they'll continue to be marginalized. Hell, they didn't even put up the best guy they had in the pack: Jon Huntsman. Arguably better qualified than *anyone* in the rest of the pack, including Mitt Romney. But he didn't have "star recognition" and likely wouldn't have toed the party line on several issues.
C. "Fiscal Cliff": what I'd like to see if some fiscal sanity. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire, at least on the high-end, will *not* wreck us economically, nor unfairly "shear" people who are better off economically. From what I understand, the actual change in the marginal tax rate will pretty small. By the same token, Geithner's request to remove the debt ceiling completely is freaking brain-dead. The deficit matters boys and girls. We can't just keep printing money and loaning to ourselves. Neither should we keep borrowing on the world stage as those become "must fund" payments out of our budget, and reduce the amount of discretionary funds available for other things.
I'll stop there for now. That's enough blathering for this morning. Back to the grindstone...
Carry on.