Anyone read this book? War is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General (Paperback)
by Smedley D. Butler (Author)? I was just recommended it but haven't read it. I was wondering how those of us who are pro-war might feel about reading the book by a General about how War is corrupt? Just reading the Amazon customer reviews gives a powerful insight into what's wrong w/the war machine.

I went to this amazing 'stone gallery' in Berkeley where I got to hang w/an artist, Ehren Tool. Rapped with him for awhile on this. He has a series of powerful pieces to increase war awareness: ceramic cups with war imagery on them. He's giving them away for free & mailed some to Bush, & Cheney. I didn't realize he was a Gulf War Vet, just makes his stuff more powerful.

Glenn- I'm not sure you needed an excuse, but here it is anyway.

By the way, I got Xbox 360 for christmas and barely use it. Anyone got an RTS reccomendation?

Please everyone EDIT THIS POST and put in some of your info...!

After reading Sony's post, I realize I am not up to speed on wassup w/many of the folks here. Maybe you feel similarly? Don't type up your whole life story or anything, but maybe a 3-6 sentence highlight of where you're at, what's going on, what you do, single/married/kids/divorced (etc), and maybe info that we don't know about you?
This will likely be a big post, but it'd be cool to do annually & see what's new w/everyone...

Ari - I moved into a shared live/work loft in Oakland (near Lake Merritt), end of '06. I'm still working at a financial software co (the little ILX Systems was acquired by Thomson Financial in 1998) as a Territory Operations Manager (which is basically a Sales Engineer). Single again. Most of you probably don't know I'm trying to change careers, want to do anything w/video or media production work, and I've been working on multiple Public Access shows for a few years, including 'betterbadnews.com', Funky Fitness, and Bro Jud's Hour of Love Energy. Probably will do my own show soon. Also I'm looking to buy a pad somewhere, not an easy task, might do a TIC in Oakland or Berkeley.

Sony I’m married (Jennifer) with 3 kids, Juansteen Cecilia (4 ¾), Payton Malone (3 ¼) and Jones Marley Cortez (~2). 3 Dogs: Pico, Venus and Fluff Ball. 2 Cats: Blount and Ezekiel. 5 Fish: Anonymous. 1 Mini Mac. 4 Motorcycles. I see Iqbal quite a bit, Javan a little less and A.D. as often as he gets up here b/c I’m too damn lazy to go down there. I IM with Erik nearly every work day. A bank owns our house in Blair Hills, where Chris Washington used to live (used to have another in the Crest, but I just sold that to the City under threat of a lawsuit caused by a landslide of largely their responsibility.) I work as a KKKorporate TaKKKs attorney in Santa Monica off the promenade—my windows open and I get Ocean breezes, which means I can happily fart all day without peeling the paint on my walls. I’m getting older, but don’t really mind. I build affordable housing in Wisconsin and if I didn’t have to pay so much in taxes I would build more.

My years at Berkeley and in San Francisco made me a liberal in the European sense.

AD -- would edit the post, but he doesn't know if he wants to sign up for a google account... you know they retain everything. Forever. He wrote more in the comments (Ari posted this b/c I got ya back, bro!)

Excuse this long post of excerpts from an interview with NYT reporter John Burns -- I think this is a clear-eyed assessment of the situation in Iraq:

Adamiya is a Sunni stronghold on the East side of the river in Baghdad. That places it within two miles of the principal Shiite stronghold of Sadr City. My friend who lives in Adamiya said to me a few weeks ago, after a major suicide bombing in Sadr City which killed 225 people and injured three or four hundred, a multiple suicide bombing, that American troops moved in between Adamiya and Sadr City, that’s to say between the Shiite stronghold and the Sunni stronghold, anticipating that Shiite sectarian death squads might come out of Sadr City to avenge the killing of Shiites in this multiple suicide bombing, and attack Adamiya. So there were tanks and other American military units placed between and Adamiya.

My friend said to me, if the United Nations is correct in saying that 3,700 Iraqi civilians died in October, and that’s a morgue’s count. It may be an underestimate, we don’t know. But he said if it’s correct that 3,700 people died in October across, think about this. You take the American troops away in this situation, leaving Shiite death squads to move into Adamiya in force without any kind of protection, he said it won’t be 3,700 dead in a month, it’ll be 3,700 dead in the night in Adamiya. Now that may be an exaggeration, but it reflects the kind of fears that are quite widespread, amongst Sunnis in particular, but also to some extent amongst Shiites in Iraq, about the consequences of an American troop withdrawal.

...As for what has happened since, and the American mistakes, when I said if it fails, it won’t be because of American mistakes, what did I mean by that? Of course, if there hadn’t been some of the mistakes that were made along the way, the situation might be somewhat better. But my sense of it is that if it fails, that history may say it was mission impossible from the beginning, which is to say that when you remove the carapace of terror that Saddam had imposed on that society, what was revealed underneath it was an extremely fractured society which had never resolved the question of power, political and economic power, and how it was going to be divided between the principal communities, mainly Sunni and Shiites.

...If you leave, there’s all likelihood if the United States withdraws its forces in a precipitous manner, the likelihood is it seems to me that there will be a great deal more killing. If you stay, of course, the counterargument, which we can also recognize, based in Baghdad, if you stay, what if you cannot stabilize the situation, and American blood and treasure continues to have to be poured into this situation, then it comes down to in an end, a calculation which only the American people can make between, if you will, of the Iraqi interest and the American interest, the American interest in bringing the boys home, and saving for the casualties, or leaving the enormous strain that there is on the American taxpayer, now $400 billion dollars already spent, that’s an extremely difficult issue to resolve. It’s across at the very core of the political debate in the United States.

We can recognize just how difficult that problem is, that if we’re…if I’m asked, as somebody who lives in Baghdad, and has been for five years, about the consequences, all I would say is if you’re going to do that, if you are going to pull back, you have to recognize that there is a very, very high price that’s going to be paid by Iraqis.

Some outstanding, insightful commentary on global warning. Nice capsules of various positions.

This was somehow inevitable. Expect more torturing of our robot friends in the future.