Matt Brundage

I’ve often wondered why liberals and some pacifists claim that they support the troops but not the war. Is it so that the rest of us won’t view them as unamerican or unpatriotic? Unfortunately, yes. Why would Democrats, liberals, and others claim to support the troops if said troops volunteer to carry out the decisions of an “imperialist war machine” fighting an “unjust war” that the liberals do not support? It’s like claiming that one supports the murderer, but not the death. …that one supports drunken driving but not the fatal car accidents. …that one supports the Bush Administration but not their policies. Illogic!

…[B]eing against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken – and they’re wussy by definition. It’s as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn’t to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

If you are of the opinion that the Iraq War is morally wrong, why, in the words of Joel Stein, would you go and “throw a parade” for the purveyors of death and violence? While most of Stein’s opinions are 180° from mine, you have to give the guy credit for not lying about his patriotism (or lack thereof).

I found an interesting article by David Friedman, son of acclaimed economist Milton Friedman. He takes a strident position on the current evolution/intelligent design debate:

A school that teaches that evolution is false is taking sides in a religious dispute — but so does a school that teaches that evolution is true.

The problem is broader than evolution. In the process of educating children, one must take positions on what is true or false. Over a wide range of issues, such a claim is either the affirmation of a religious position or the denial of a religious position. Any decent scientific account of geology, paleontology, what we know about the distant past, is also a denial of the beliefs of (among others) fundamentalist Christians. To compel children to go to schools, paid for by taxes, in which they are taught that their religious beliefs are false, is not neutrality.

Freidman is an atheist, and as such, probably sides with evolution. His views are nonetheless refreshing.

Bailey’s Irish Cream is probably one of the more versatile adult beverages. There’s straight up Irish Coffee (coffee, Irish Cream, whipped cream), Irish Ice Cream, Irish Cream with plain milk, Irish Cream with warm milk, Irish Frappe (1 bottle Starbucks’ Mocha Frappuchino, 4 ounces Irish Cream, 2 tablespoons Hershey’s dark chocolate syrup). Heck, I’ve even added it to cream of crab soup, and it wasn’t bad.

I spent about an hour or so just now upgrading and tweaking WordPress 2.0 and so far I have a very good impression of it. It definitely has an AJAX flavor to it now — admin pages are more customizable and features just flow nicer.

One of the more noticeable differences I can see is the restoration of the Dashboard. In version 1.5.2, I could only see the right side of the Dashboard — the left column was mysteriously missing. Yet in another install of 1.5.2 that I had done, the left column worked just fine. However, the Developer blog entries are missing from the Dashboard now! Such a pity.

I wonder if sometimes my standards are set to high. Do I expect too much from people? Was it wrong for me to veto a rental of The 40-Year-Old-Virgin because the movie was rated Morally Offensive by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops? Granted, I probably would have vetoed it even if it hadn’t achieved such status.

My grandparents came over for lunch today. After I put on an old Herb Alpert record, they spontaneously got up and started dancing.