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Thursday Night Open Thread

By Jeralyn, Section Blog Related
Posted on Thu May 21, 2009 at 08:13:17 PM EST
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The Denver Nuggets have a big game tonight. I'll be out for a while, so here's an open thread for any discussions you might want to start.

The Kentucky jury that convicted Steven Green of the Mahmudiya rape and murders, hung today on the death penalty, which means Green will be sentenced to life without parole.

All topics welcome.

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    Thursday Night Open Thread | 24 comments (24 topical)

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    Gay Air Force officer ousted 2 years (5.00 / 4) (#2)
    by MyLeftMind on Thu May 21, 2009 at 08:33:30 PM EST
    before retirement.  That makes 207 victims of DADT since Obama was sworn in.

    Lt. Col. Fehrenbach is a war hero decorated for valor.  We've spent at least $25 Million training him.  

    It's time for straight America to make a stink about this stinking wasteful policy.

    Wait a minute (none / 0) (#4)
    by Steve M on Thu May 21, 2009 at 09:00:31 PM EST
    $25 million to train one guy?  Isn't that a little hard to believe?

    Parent
    Probably pretty accurate Steve (5.00 / 1) (#15)
    by Militarytracy on Fri May 22, 2009 at 06:17:09 AM EST
    It costs you between two to three million just to train these baby pilots here for their first  airframe at Fort Rucker.  He has 18 yrs in service.  If he wasn't in the air daily he was keeping his skills sharp on a simulator.....and that cost you an arm and a leg.  He has probably had to change airframes a couple of times in his career because we constantly change up, and that is a lot of heavy duty school. He has also been to many many other educational courses to make his rank.  I think my husband's last career course meant he had to depart from home for about six months......you have footed every single one of those bills too for us as well and that means you have to pay for all of his housing when he leaves home to go to school too.  My husband tried to make an estimated guess of what you guys have in all of his schooling about a year ago and he came away with about 18 million in 20 years.  He has changed airframes twice since flight school and when they completely redesigned the Longbow that was 4 months of schooling at Fort Rucker when we were stationed at Fort Carson and then 6 months that the units had to spend at Fort Hood "fielding".  I'm not sure what the Air Force does to train for actual combat but before 24/7 war the Army rotated everyone and their equipment (tanks, humvees, helicopters, blah blah blah) in and out of Fort Irwin, where they play actual war games.  You have wads of dough wrapped up in your highly trained soldiers.  It would blow your mind.  And it was only one reason why this household was so pissed about Blackwater and friends.  You paid all these millions to train the people that they hired due to that training.  We watched people not just leave but literally run to big gravy paychecks with no rules of engagement......it was disgusting....and running to work for Blackwater - bleh!  I hope it ended up being worth it to them because we ended up having to replace them, not so easy coming back either after soiling yourself at Blackwater if the military even still wants you.

    Parent
    I am stunned (5.00 / 1) (#17)
    by Steve M on Fri May 22, 2009 at 06:49:53 AM EST
    for 40 veteran officers like that, that's a billion dollars!  Amazing.

    And great point about Blackwater.  Your perspective is always so valuable on these issues.

    Parent

    Perhaps he meant $2.5 M, but the point (none / 0) (#7)
    by Inspector Gadget on Thu May 21, 2009 at 09:14:41 PM EST
    of the comment is the unfairness and ridiculous nature of DADT.

    Parent
    A true disgrace! (none / 0) (#5)
    by Radiowalla on Thu May 21, 2009 at 09:07:23 PM EST
    What in the hell is Obama waiting for?  So disappointed by this unconscionable delay.

    Parent
    Yes. Past time. This is so (none / 0) (#13)
    by oldpro on Fri May 22, 2009 at 12:23:15 AM EST
    maddening.  What the Hell is the holdup?

    Parent
    Whew! (5.00 / 4) (#14)
    by lentinel on Fri May 22, 2009 at 04:59:03 AM EST
    WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Thursday passed a $91.3 billion military spending bill, shorn of money President Barack Obama wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but allowing him to significantly ramp up the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

    I'm so relieved that that awful McCain wasn't elected.
    We might still be in Iraq.
    We might be significantly ramping up a war in Afghanistan.
    And we might be refusing to close down Guantanimo.

    Just waiting for an open thread (none / 0) (#1)
    by Spamlet on Thu May 21, 2009 at 08:30:57 PM EST
    to say F^CK F^CK F^CK Google f^cking Documents!

    What a cr@ppy application. I was working in a table, and the app went haywire on me, then autosaved the bad changes. When I went to reverse them, it obliterated the table altogether. Luckily that was not my only copy, and I was able to reconstruct what I needed--but not in Google f^cking Documents.

    Maybe I'm not ready for the cloud, but neither is Google f^cking Documents. Beware.

    Took them forever to get footnotes too (none / 0) (#3)
    by andgarden on Thu May 21, 2009 at 08:40:53 PM EST


    Parent
    If you just want a word processor (none / 0) (#9)
    by TeresaInSnow2 on Thu May 21, 2009 at 10:45:02 PM EST
    May I recommend OpenOffice?

    They don't do the collaborative thing though.

    Parent

    Thanks, Teresa (none / 0) (#10)
    by Spamlet on Thu May 21, 2009 at 11:27:52 PM EST
    I have MS Office. I was only trying to update the same perpetually changing document on two different computers without having to move it back and forth on a flash drive. Guess I can just keep e-mailing it to myself. But I will mention Open Office to a friend who only has Wordpad. Maybe Open Office will be just the thing for her.

    Parent
    Just like old times (none / 0) (#11)
    by CoralGables on Fri May 22, 2009 at 12:20:40 AM EST
    in San Diego as Tony Gwynn scores the winning run for the Latin Fathers.

    Romeo & Juliet...PBS (none / 0) (#12)
    by oldpro on Fri May 22, 2009 at 12:21:46 AM EST
    Live from Lincoln Center...Peter Martins' ballet.

    Lovely, lovely.  Such young dancers! Wonderful.

    My daughter is finally really scheduled (none / 0) (#16)
    by Militarytracy on Fri May 22, 2009 at 06:22:03 AM EST
    for surgery on Tuesday now for her nose.  We do this Magistrate thing today.  Life goes on.

    Please let us know how it goes... (5.00 / 2) (#20)
    by Anne on Fri May 22, 2009 at 09:10:51 AM EST
    I'm hoping it is as painless - emotionally - as possible, but it's hard not to return to those feelings of shock and anger each time you are confronted with the incident, even if it is part of getting it resolved.

    I'm just so sorry the blankety-blank insurance aspect of this has your daughter forced to suffer with the physical effects until Tuesday - that's just so wrong.

    Thinking good thoughts for all of you...

    Parent

    Thanks Anne (none / 0) (#23)
    by Militarytracy on Sat May 23, 2009 at 07:41:53 AM EST
    Yesterday and whole Magistrate deal was more of a bummer for me than trying to figure out what was going on with Tricare and what my daughter needed to do to take care of herself.  I know stuff happens, who gets through life without a a few scars on the inside or the outside?  I've never had to take part though in someone being arrested for this sort of assault.  People get upset and make threats, I think most of us have had to deal with that, but I really haven't ever had to deal with this level of physical violence and damage before and taking legal action.  But that portion is done for now.

    Parent
    Almost missed this, tracy - (5.00 / 1) (#24)
    by Anne on Sat May 23, 2009 at 09:56:37 PM EST
    My stomach sort of clenched for you when I read your comment.

    We all get angry and we rant and rave, but most of us stop short of taking our anger out in a violent way against someone else.  To have someone lash out at your daugher, unprovoked, makes it that much more shocking to the senses - there's a vulnerability that is exposed that I think most of us just don't like to think about.

    Two years ago, I had someone ram my car in a road rage incident - she had been tailgating me for some time, I had nowhere to go because of how traffic was stacking up.  When she finally pulled out into the lane next to me, she pulled up alongside, cut her wheels sharply, and the resulting fishtail slammed the back end of the bed of her pickup truck into the right front passenger side of my Volvo - at 65 mph on the highway.  To this day, I don't know how I managed to keep control - with my daughter's help, I managed to catch up to her and get her license plate and contact the State Police.  By the time I got to the barracks, the loony driver had called in to report that I had hit her - ! - but the cops took one look at my car and realized there was no way I could have done that.  They cited her with three offenses, she was convicted at the district level - mainly because she never showed up - then appealed and got off.  Not only did she lie her ass off, but I - and my daughter, who was in the car with me at the time (we were returning from picking out a mother of the bride dress for me for her wedding) - were convinced the driver was actually the daughter of the woman who showed up in court.  The commonwealth could not have had less interest in the case - I just ended up feeling like I had gotten screwed twice: once in the accident itself and then by the judicial system.

    I just thank my lucky stars that we came out of it with just damage to the car - and that's what I have to focus on.

    So, your daughter will be fine, once she gets the surgery, and you will be thanking your lucky stars forever that it was a fist and not a gun or a knife that was launched at her.  

    And I hope the legal system comes through better for her than it did for me.

    Parent

    This isn't looking like it's going to be a (none / 0) (#25)
    by Militarytracy on Sun May 24, 2009 at 07:39:58 AM EST
    cake walk either.  I'm not sure that after this is all said and done my daughter will feel like justice was served.  She is learning a lot though.  The girl keeps trying to contact her or have people talk to her.  Many of us have instructed her to not speak with this girl.  It is very hard on her right though right now.  She says that she fears being labeled a snitch.  It is hard for me to understand her fear because she was bodily harmed, needs surgery now, and this affects her daughter's life as well.  The throbbing pain has subsided but she still can't touch her nose, after Tuesday she'll be pretty wiped out on pain meds for a couple of days again.

    Parent
    Unbelievable...I guess your (5.00 / 1) (#26)
    by Anne on Sun May 24, 2009 at 10:44:09 AM EST
    daughter is supposed to feel bad for having her face within striking distance and triggering a violent response from this other girl, and then choosing a legal remedy.

    When my kids were little and would get into those annoying battles where slaps or shoves or some such thing would occur (the younger one was always pushing the older one's buttons, it seems), invariably, the one who started it would complain that after being shoved, her sister had shoved her back harder, and I should DO something!  What I would tell them is, when you choose to hit, shove, poke, slap or otherwise put your hands on someone else, you have no control over how that person is going to respond; there is no "rule" that says the retaliation has to be equivalent to the first strike, or that the response will even be physical at all, so...if they wanted to be sure that the punches, slaps, pokes, kicks would not be worse coming back to them than what they delivered, or they didn't want to be punished for doing it in the first place, they should probably not choose to lash out physically at all - or at least understand that there would be consequences that might not be to their liking.

    In your daughter's case, the physical attack is being met with legal consequences; the girl who hit your daughter is finding out that actions have consequences.  No one is having any fun with any of it, that's for sure.

    Hope all goes well on Tuesday, and that you can keep this other girl - or her "friends" - from continuing to harrass her.

    Parent

    Thursday Night Surprise (none / 0) (#18)
    by CoralGables on Fri May 22, 2009 at 08:34:57 AM EST
    The Feds kept giving extensions and nothing was working. Rather than wait for the typical Friday, BankUnited, the largest bank in Florida was taken over last night and immediately auctioned off. Since the long list of takeovers started last year, only IndyMac has cost taxpayers more. The collapse of BankUnited will cost the FDIC insurance fund an estimated $4.9 billion.
    Ouch (none / 0) (#19)
    by Militarytracy on Fri May 22, 2009 at 08:40:33 AM EST
    And some Geithner zombiefied bank probably bought them.

    Parent
    The CIA (none / 0) (#21)
    by Natal on Fri May 22, 2009 at 12:23:22 PM EST
    is evaluating enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding and will make recommendations to the administration (source: TPM). I thought we were beyond this? But I guess we're not.

    change, more of the same, sigh, etc... (none / 0) (#22)
    by Dadler on Fri May 22, 2009 at 12:35:34 PM EST
    Dictator/oil consultant being considered for senior administration position.

    Thursday Night Open Thread | 24 comments (24 topical)

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