Defiantone.com

Well, I’m halfway home and I’m trying to type this out on a keyboard that was made for germans… das ist nicht so gut.

I’m in Leipzig at the moment and I’ve only got a 8 hour flight ahead of me before I get to my connecting flights in the states. All in all, I’ve had over 36 hours of delays while I have tried to make my way home. The delays ate up my free time in Baltimore but its no big deal - I’m going to get home soon.

Well, after 130 some odd days my time in dodge is finally over and I am getting the heck out of here. I’ve got more time to kill before my plane gets here but I don’t have to sleep another night (or day in my case) in Iraq.

The most baffling thing about my trip is that for some reason I haven’t made the Iraqis free. I put together explosives and they get dropped on people and for some reason we haven’t cleaned up this whole debacle yet. I figured I, of all people, could come over here and stop the shenanigans in Iraq.

Alas, I have failed in my quest to make them free - I don’t think this one is going to be fixed overnight (or within the next 3-5 years).

Oh well -

Scott Adams, scribe of the popular Dilbert comic, may be on to something with his “economics party”. I’ve been intrigued by economics for the past year or two and I often wonder why our government decides to ignore economists. These guys study markets and how they interact - they can typically tell us if a spending decision will provide the expected results or if it will flop. Politicians rarely pay attention to these “intellectuals” because well, what the hell do they know?

Heck, I’m all in for this one - are you?

It is quite hard to find humor in my life here but there are a few things that make me laugh - daily - in Iraq. I took a few photos today of some things that make you laugh or just say huh? So, without any further delay, here they are.

This is a random bumper sticker stuck on a random room - and it makes me laugh every day. Its a shame this isn’t a real trailer park because we’d have overweight slobs sitting in kiddie pools drinking PBR all day long.

This sign has always seemed a little odd - as if we didn’t pay quite enough to the contractor to get it right. I thought about it for a while and the angle of the walker makes it look like they are trying to sneak across the road. Caution - people sneaking across the road! BEWARE!

For reference - here is a normal crosswalk sign

I looked a little closer at the image and noticed why he was sneaking

Damn, that guy is some brand of mutant! Look! He’s got lobster claws for hands! It’s no wonder he’s trying to sneak across the road - I now know why we should exercise caution - you don’t want to piss of a guy with lobster claw hands!

Look! It’s an oxymoron. You’ll see a sign that says “high noise area - hearing protection required” within two feet of “Silent Power.” uhhh…. yeah…. This is one of the MANY diesel generators spread across the base. I’m sure that most of the middle east gets their power in the same fashion and I’ve got to wonder what happens to them when they run out of oil - solar power?

Here is a shot of the sun setting - finally! It can also be used as a metaphor for my trip finally coming to an end. I’ve got less than 2 days left here and then I start the long trip home - I can’t wait to get back.

Due to my ever present boredom and need to share anything I find interesting to anyone who will listen I added my Google Reader RSS feed to my page. Check it out on the bottom right - you’ll find a listing of the latest and greatest stories that I felt were worth sharing but didn’t feel were worth blogging about. I have no idea why someone would come to me for information but if you’re here you might as well see what I’ve found interesting the past day or two.

I extremely cynical and sarcastic and springing from these two vital parts of my psyche comes my sense of humor. I was browsing through my daily group of websites when I came upon a story that led to and idea - one that I knew would lead to a subpoena - if not leading to an arrest.

Comcast, a company many of us love to hate for their outrageous prices, deplorable customer service, and bandwidth shaping, has been placing green networking boxes in the yards of residents in areas where they are upgrading their systems. Traditionally, the equipment in the boxes would be buried but the devices create heat and must have access to some form of circulation. This is all fine and dandy. What they haven’t been doing is asking the homeowners for permission to do so. Now, I am unsure if they are placing these boxes on the private part of the property or if they are doing it in places where they and the city have “right of way.”

If they did it on the personal part of my property I don’t think I would complain to them or the city - I would simply have a little fun.

I would grab the keys to my car and scoot off to the closest Home Depot. While there I would purchase a couple of 2×4’s, two sheets of 1/4in plywood, and a few backs of Quickcrete. Have you figured out where I am going with this nefarious plan?

I would simply make “concrete shoes” for their box. I’m sure that when the equipment failed for the first time it would lead to consternation and lawsuits. I really didn’t damage their equipment - I simply beautified it! Its a shame that only the most hilarious of my ideas would land me a subpoena.

Friedman and Zakaria are two of my favorite journalists/authors and they have written a pair of editorials that are definitely worth sharing.

Both editorials focus on the challenges we face as a nation and what we may see in the future. If you don’t read anything else today you should read these - and if you feel so inclined, let me know what you think.

The Rise of the Rest - Fareed Zakaria via Newsweek

Who Will Tell the People - Thomas Friedman via NY Times

I read an interesting post at Freakonomics where they discussed who was paying a higher percentage of total income in taxes - the super rich or those who aren’t as fortunate. It appears, through a straw poll of sorts, that the top 10% of wage earners who are said to earn 50% of the total income pay less than their receptionists. Warren Buffett has actually posted a challenge with a prize of 1 million bucks (chump change for him I’m sure) to all of the people on the Forbes top 400 list to find someone whose receptionist pays a lower percentage of income in taxes - so far - there have been no challengers.

Read on!

My roommate (one of the three) told me that he was bored as hell here and couldn’t wait to leave. I told him that I really didn’t have a problem because I’m an expert at goofing off. I hope that my expertise will take me through the next week because I have little to do save for goof off and travel from one point to the next. I do have a few books I saved back in case I decide to read as well as a laptop filled with hours of music. Internet cafes are always close and there are places to play video games and watch movies. I can still go to the gym and I can eat 4 times a day if I really wanted to (I don’t). I can play card games and billiards at the rec center if I wished to do so. I could just walk around base and sweat - or I could just sweat - its warm out here. I’ve redefined warm by the way - if its less than 100 its warm. If its over 100 its hot. If its over 110 a gateway to hell has opened and is blasting us with the overwhelming heat of hell. If its 120+ well, its probably the end of the world as I know it… but, I’ll be fine.

Wish me luck - its goof off time

Action - reaction - inaction - overreaction

We are offered with three basic choices in response to any given event. Many of use will react appropriately to any situation and move on with our lives. A common occurrence we can all relate to is driving down the interstate and fighting traffic when someone cuts us off intentionally or unintentionally. Most of us will react by thinking or saying something negative about the habits of that driver. The insanely calm among us will fail to react and will treat it as unavoidable part of the drive. Some will overreact - they will tailgate the driver or worse yet, chase them and threaten or use physical violence against the driver that offended them.

What gives me concern that we, as a nation and as a race, have begun to overreact more often than not. In the past month there have been a series of shootings that have left high school students dead in South Chicago. Most of these incidents were gang related and were caused by pride. If this person belongs to one gang and I belong to another they are my sworn enemy because I am proud of my gang. Members of the gangs are willing to kill to show their pride regardless of the initial action. If they were to egg cars randomly and yours was hit the proper response would be to wash it off and possibly call in a complaint to the police. The choice for inaction lead to washing off the vehicle and continuing on with their lives. Instead of the first two choices we saw overreaction that brought as violence against those who initially engaged in the vandalism.

In Iraq overreaction is seen on a daily basis. Sectarian violence exists because of the pride one sect of Islam feels for their beliefs. Instead of keeping their beliefs and sharing with those who are willing they instead kill fellow Iraqis.
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