Surprise Visit

- headline from FOX NEWS

When are they not making surprise visits? Iraq is such a success story yet they never make announced visits, only these surprise quick trips.

Wrong Republic of China

From "The Daily Show"

OLBERMANN: Oh, the jokes just flow like a springtime flood along the Potomac. President who? President Hu‘s on first? You mean Doctor Hu? Nobody‘s laughing in Washington tonight, or in Beijing, though, in our number four story on the COUNTDOWN, this country managed to look like the least security-conscious place in the world, and a nation where protesters are dragged away by ominous-looking guards, and the place where an antimedia White House will still give anybody a media pass, and all at the same time, mind you.

The morning started well enough. President Bush‘s introduction of President Hu Jintao of China went off without a hitch.

Then, cue the hitch.

[shows female protester shouting at President Hu]

That‘s what we saw here. But apparently the minute the heckling began, telling President Bush not to support killing in China, all three channels in China that were
carrying the ceremony live went to black.

...

The president also made an apology to President Hu for the incident, saying, quote, “It was unfortunate. Sorry this happened.”

...

But just for good measure, the official announcer at the ceremony introduced the anthem of the Republic of China. The Republic of China would be the official name of Taiwan. The neighborhood President Hu is from is called the People‘s Republic of China. But, of course, that‘s a recent name change, 1949.

>> Full Transcript of Newscast [MSNBC] (4-20-06)

Oops.

I wonder if the "Republic of China" thing was intentional though as a way of winking at Taiwan or something to that effect.

The U.S.S. Zumwalt

The Navy has announced that the first DD(X) destroyer will be designated DDG 1000. As the lead ship in the class, it will also be named in honor of former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt, Jr.
>> Defense Department Press Release [Full Release]

I'm guessing the DD(X) is a take on the DDG designation that the current Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have before their hull numbers, which the DD(X) destroyers will have to. Except they start off at DDG 1000 as stated above while the Arleigh Burke's will stop at DDG 112. Just a bit of a jump.

Image from Globalsecurity.org

>> Globalsecurity's section on the DD(X)

Snippets

In a scathing critique, a Saudi writer charged Arab media largely avoids serious critique of Arab society and instead takes the easy way out by simply cursing the United States.

"Arab writers and columnists have a tendency to affirm populist notions, whether they're good, bad, factual or false," wrote Abdul Rahman Al-Habib of the Saudi daily Al-Watan in the English-language Arab News, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The Arab media writes "what people want to hear," he said, and invariably end up with a common scapegoat.
>> Full Article [WND]

A majority of people said the middle class, the self-employed and small businesses pay too much in taxes, the poll found. And they think those with high incomes and big businesses don't pay enough.
>> Full Article [Washington Times]

Back in the office after another meeting at the TOC (tactical operations center), which is our brigade headquarters. Everything on our battlefield is tracked there. We just moved into this TOC last week; the old TOC was too small for the number of soldiers working there. The new facility is huge, and looks exactly like the picture of military headquarters in the movies.

Inside the TOC we have numerous plasma-screen TVs and some large projections screens, the kind Dr. Evil would use to demand large sums of money. During the nearly four months it took us to build the new TOC, it earned the nickname Death Star. However, those of us with a sense of humor called it Spaceball One.
>> Full Entry, "Captain Dan" [FOX NEWS]

Editorial Cartoons

Here yet again are a number of editorial cartoons. It's I guess become a tradition for me.

Overload in Progress

I didn't take my own advice regarding browsing Wikipedia with moderation. Heh. It becomes almost unavoidable when you get interested in the subject matter. I was just going to do some little refresher reading on Philosophy. Did too much, too fast.

I never even got two sentences into the Philosophy entry before drifting to a related topic. Went from Philosophy to Aesthetics (study of beauty), to Sublime (uncomparable greatness; awareness), Transcendence, Metaphysics (very interesting questions), Philosophy of Religion, Natural Philosophy, Psychology of Religion (very interesting subject), and also Attribution Theory. Definitely some stuff to read again later on, in moderation and hopefully more clarity.

But I definitely tried to do too much in too short of a time span there, caused a bit of an "overload" I suppose trying to digest a lot of that in three hours.

Casualties, March 2006

I revived something I started for a few months after the Iraq War began, keeping up with the names of those who'd died and how they perished. But I add a visual aide in the form of the corresponding rank insignia to make it a little more than just a list that could sometimes seem meaningless.

So, here is the list for March 2006 (U.S. armed forces only):

the format is as follows
[Insignia --- rank and last name (age), Unit -- cause of death]

--- Private Powers (21), 101st Airborne Division -- IED
--- Staff Sergeant Schornak (28), 4th Division -- small arms fire
--- Specialist Pearce (21), 172nd Stryker Brigade -- IED
--- Specialist Farr (21), 10th Mountain Division -- IED
--- Specialist Humble (21), 10th Mountain Division -- IED
--- Sergeant Muscat (21), 4th Division -- non-combat injury
--- Master Sergeant Elizarras (37), 7th Special Forces Group -- IED
--- Private First Class Schuster (21), 101st Cavalry Regiment (National Guard) -- gunshot wound
--- Private First Class Priest (20), 4th Division -- non-combat injury
--- Sergeant Youmans (26), 125th Infantry Regiment (National Guard) -- IED
--- Lance Corporal Thornton (22), 2nd Division -- mortar attack
--- Specialist Merchant (32), 172nd Infantry Regiment (National Guard) -- IED and RPG
--- Lance Corporal Snyder (20), 1st Marine Logistics Group -- vehicle accident
--- Staff Sergeant Jessen (28), 22nd Chemical Battalion -- IED
--- Staff Sergeant Lewis (26), 10th Mountain Division -- small arms fire
--- Corporal Zanutto (26), 1st Division -- IED
--- Gunnery Sergeant Martone (31), 3rd Marine Logistics Group -- IED
--- Gunnery Sergeant Fry (28), 2nd Marine Logistics Group -- IED
--- Private First Class Salas (22), 37th Armored Regiment -- IED
--- Lance Corporal Long (22), 2nd Division HQ Battalion -- IED
--- Lance Corporal Figueroa (20), 1st Division -- combat operations
--- Lance Corporal Anderson (21), 3rd Division -- vehicle accident
--- Staff Sergeant Ray (29), 391st Engineer Battalion (Reserve) -- IED
--- Sergeant Akins (29), 391st Engineer Battalion (Reserve) -- IED
--- Sergeant Hiett (25), 391st Engineer Battalion (Reserve) -- IED
--- Specialist Hill (24), 391st Engineer Battalion (Reserve) -- IED
--- Staff Sergeant Lewis (32), 49th Military Police Brigade -- IED
--- Staff Sergeant Silva (27), 101st Airborne Division -- IED + small arms fire
--- Sergeant Dan (22), 101st Airborne Division -- IED + small arms fire
--- Private First Class Zawaydeh (19), 101st Airborne Division -- mortar attack
--- Sergeant Pinson (21), 101st Airborne Division -- mortar round
--- Specialist Gonzalez (22), 101st Airborne Division -- mortar round
--- Corporal Yates (22), 101st Airborne Division -- small arms fire
--- Staff Sergeant Barraza (24), 75th Ranger Regiment -- small arms fire
--- Sergeant Brehm (23), 75th Ranger Regiment -- small arms fire
--- Private First Class Duerksen (19), 4th Infantry Division -- non-combat injury
--- Specialist McKinzie (25), 1st Armored Division -- small arms fire
--- Staff Sergeant Beery (30), 123rd Armor Regiment (National Guard) -- IED +small arms fire
--- Sergeant First Class McCauley (44), 28th Infantry Division (National Guard) -- small arms fire
--- Staff Sergeant Robinson (36), 20th Special Forces Group (National Guard) -- small arms fire
--- Specialist Carlson (25), 28th Infantry Division (National Guard) -- non-combat cause
--- Sergeant Rowe (23), 46th Engineer Battalion -- IED
--- Sergeant First Class Stone (28), 15th Civil Support Team (Afghanistan) -- mortar + small arms
--- Technical Sergeant Moss (37), 366th Civil Engineer Squadron -- IED
--- Private First Class Tharp (21), 4th Infantry Division -- small arms fire

*All data is from press releases from the Department of Defense website.