The Brief Reprieve of Weekend
Hey folks. Arbeit couldn't macht any more Freitag this week. After Wednesday's lengthy stint at work, and the tire incident, and everything else that I've accomplished this week (which has been a lot), I'm about ready to crash. Unfortunately, I don't have access to yesterday's links, so here are the two big stories from the last couple of days. I'll flesh them out with additional links in the next couple of days, because they're really the biggest stories I've seen lately.
Remember how I've relentlessly covered events in Mauritania for the last three years, almost to the day? Well, they've had another coup there, ousting the country's first democratically elected president. I haven't read yet whether or not the parliament or the constitution, also part of the democratic reforms enacted by the last military junta between 2005 and 2007, will be dissolved as well. I'll be covering this story in every bit of detail that I can in the near future. If you'd like to read ahead, there's Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook.
The other story is that the Jaish al Mahdi Militia, led by the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr, may be giving up their weapons for good and re-tooling themselves as an Iraqi political/civic organization. Despite initial criticism of the operations, Prime Minister al Maliki's confrontation with the Sadrists resulted in impressive gains against their control in both Basra and the Sadr City region of Baghdad. Because they have been so hostile to what is now considered to be a relatively legitimate and stable government, their options are somewhat limited. I'll cover this in more detail once I have the additional links.
On a lighter note, one of the ways that I've tried to shore up my efforts to learn Arabic is by learning scripture in Arabic. It's a slow process, as I'm not necessarily learning the grammar along with it, but reading text that I'm familiar with in English, and being able to compare the two, is very helpful. This week's project has been an attempt to learn/translate the Arabic version of the Lord's Prayer. It was very satisfying to recognize a few words in there that I've learned in the last few months, like "ghufran" (absolution/forgiveness), illa (on), and "lakin" (but). Very cool. I'm obviously nowhere close to where I need to be, but every little bit of progress helps.
It's Friday, which means that it's time for a really fun video. Here's the late Roy Orbison doing his classic, "Dream Baby". To be honest, I prefer the Hootie and the Blowfish version, but nobody's bothered to use it on a YouTube video yet.
I've mentioned a new archiving project a couple of times lately. I also mentioned that I've figured out a couple of HTML tricks that had evaded both my capability and my interest until recently. Because I've been doing some HTML work lately on an unrelated project, I've decided that now might be a good time to revamp the menus on my old archive CD and expand it. I've eluded to this over the last couple of weeks, and here are some of the categories I'm considering:
ancient historical literature (history and fiction)
American historical literature (mostly founding documents)
other historical/world literature (a few specific documents)
information security manuals (like NIST publications)
military field manuals (basic stuff, intelligence, OpFor, and counterinsurgency)
maybe some more that I haven't thought of yet
Also, having discussed the situation with the Crypto King, I have a couple of ideas to revamp the menu system. So, why am I saying this? Here's the deal: I'm going to start having some contests on the blog. The winner of these contests, probably relating to themes in the Fly Report or something (I haven't decided yet), will receive a copy of the CD. That's right, the Fly will actually send you something that he sank real effort into. Isn't that excellent? Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.
I'll be rearing and ready to go with a new post soon, either this weekend or first thing Monday; and I have some articles to write, too. I swear, I'm far too ambitious for my own good. See, this is why capitalism works, and communism doesn't: while communism relies on something non-existent (inherent human goodness), capitalism relies on something completely dependable (human ambition and greed). With a juxtaposition so easy to understand, I still have no clue why; probably because when you remove God from your philosophy, and make mankind the highest being in the universe, your only recourse to optimism is to believe that humans can be inherently good. Highly misguided and unfortunate.
Please note that I've added two links to the sidebar: Cracked.com in "Laugh Out Loud", and Wired.com's Danger Room in "Defense/Intel/Security". I think I'm going to shift the "Big Three News" section this weekend to reflect the fact that I actually look at eight or nine news sources whenever I check the news, but more on that if it actually happens.
Anyway, as you go out into the world today, stay safe, keep your powder dry, and remember the Alamo... Or something. All I know is that it's the kind of beer that Hank Hill and his buddies drink. Uh... Have a great weekend!
Remember how I've relentlessly covered events in Mauritania for the last three years, almost to the day? Well, they've had another coup there, ousting the country's first democratically elected president. I haven't read yet whether or not the parliament or the constitution, also part of the democratic reforms enacted by the last military junta between 2005 and 2007, will be dissolved as well. I'll be covering this story in every bit of detail that I can in the near future. If you'd like to read ahead, there's Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook.
The other story is that the Jaish al Mahdi Militia, led by the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr, may be giving up their weapons for good and re-tooling themselves as an Iraqi political/civic organization. Despite initial criticism of the operations, Prime Minister al Maliki's confrontation with the Sadrists resulted in impressive gains against their control in both Basra and the Sadr City region of Baghdad. Because they have been so hostile to what is now considered to be a relatively legitimate and stable government, their options are somewhat limited. I'll cover this in more detail once I have the additional links.
On a lighter note, one of the ways that I've tried to shore up my efforts to learn Arabic is by learning scripture in Arabic. It's a slow process, as I'm not necessarily learning the grammar along with it, but reading text that I'm familiar with in English, and being able to compare the two, is very helpful. This week's project has been an attempt to learn/translate the Arabic version of the Lord's Prayer. It was very satisfying to recognize a few words in there that I've learned in the last few months, like "ghufran" (absolution/forgiveness), illa (on), and "lakin" (but). Very cool. I'm obviously nowhere close to where I need to be, but every little bit of progress helps.
It's Friday, which means that it's time for a really fun video. Here's the late Roy Orbison doing his classic, "Dream Baby". To be honest, I prefer the Hootie and the Blowfish version, but nobody's bothered to use it on a YouTube video yet.
I've mentioned a new archiving project a couple of times lately. I also mentioned that I've figured out a couple of HTML tricks that had evaded both my capability and my interest until recently. Because I've been doing some HTML work lately on an unrelated project, I've decided that now might be a good time to revamp the menus on my old archive CD and expand it. I've eluded to this over the last couple of weeks, and here are some of the categories I'm considering:
Also, having discussed the situation with the Crypto King, I have a couple of ideas to revamp the menu system. So, why am I saying this? Here's the deal: I'm going to start having some contests on the blog. The winner of these contests, probably relating to themes in the Fly Report or something (I haven't decided yet), will receive a copy of the CD. That's right, the Fly will actually send you something that he sank real effort into. Isn't that excellent? Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.
I'll be rearing and ready to go with a new post soon, either this weekend or first thing Monday; and I have some articles to write, too. I swear, I'm far too ambitious for my own good. See, this is why capitalism works, and communism doesn't: while communism relies on something non-existent (inherent human goodness), capitalism relies on something completely dependable (human ambition and greed). With a juxtaposition so easy to understand, I still have no clue why; probably because when you remove God from your philosophy, and make mankind the highest being in the universe, your only recourse to optimism is to believe that humans can be inherently good. Highly misguided and unfortunate.
Please note that I've added two links to the sidebar: Cracked.com in "Laugh Out Loud", and Wired.com's Danger Room in "Defense/Intel/Security". I think I'm going to shift the "Big Three News" section this weekend to reflect the fact that I actually look at eight or nine news sources whenever I check the news, but more on that if it actually happens.
Anyway, as you go out into the world today, stay safe, keep your powder dry, and remember the Alamo... Or something. All I know is that it's the kind of beer that Hank Hill and his buddies drink. Uh... Have a great weekend!
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