sticker shock

So after taking my car in to the insurance company. I was amazed to see that the cost of repainting a scuffed bumper is, taa daa $413.01. I just took the money. (hey my car is nine years old)

more warblog

So it seems that we are on the verge of the final wargasm, the taking of Baghdad. And since it''s pretty much a given that we will take it, the only question being how hard a fight it will be. What I''m wondering is what happens next? Why is the Bush administration telling the UN that they are not needed in the nation building? Maybe they feel that since we did all the work we should get the rewards? And what is up with this. As I previously posited, Saddam is not going to be captured, he is already gone. So what do we do if he is in say Syria? Just leave him there? He is not just going to go away.First it was get the evildoers, then get Osama, then the axis of evil, then get Taliban, then get Saddam. Can ayone say misson creep?

Still learning about this bloggin thing trying to do stuff like add a site meter, create comments, blogroll etc.. at least I already know HTML so that helps its just that reading raw HTML code is kind of a pain

warblog

Okay so here's my take on the war. Yes Saddam is a dictator who has done many, many bad things. Should the US be the ones to go in and remove him? I'm not entirely convinced there. But since we're there already that's a moot point. Pre-emptive strike to prevent future domestic terrorism, well I can begrudgingly accept this only because it's pretty much accepted that we will have more terrorist attacks. But that means when we're done with Iraq, we have to take on other "terrorist-supporting nations”. Iraq is small potatoes compared to the likes of Iran, Syria, even North Korea, which is an entirely different can of worms there. My prediction, we will take Baghdad, but Saddam is actually long gone, fled to Jordan. We will then set up a government in Iraq, talk about possibly lifting the sanctions, and "give back the oil" (of course with the help of US petroleum companies). Then while the dems say "okay you got regime change, now get out" the economy will still be sputtering, and there will be a terrorist attack somewhere in the US. It will probably not be a plane crash, maybe a car bomb or something, (the evildoers are not going to try the same trick twice), and the public will say "hey, we took care of Saddam why did this happen" and we will be on the cusp of the dreaded quagmire. Because in the minds of much of Americans Saddam=terrorism and thus no Saddam=no terrorism. Although this is totally non sequitur, the same people who think Saddam=9/11 think this. All in all it's looking pretty grim people. more later

April Fool's....not

So I'm eating lunch at my desk and a co-worker comes in and tells me taht she clipped my bumper parking her car this afternoon. My first reaction was "really?", thinking she is trying to put one over on me. but it turns out that yup she really did. i went over to the parking lot and sure enough she did clip it. Not a lot of damage, and my car is nine years old. So I tell her that it's okay. (actually there's more damage to her paint than mine) but she insists that I take it down to her insurance company and get a check for the damage to make her feel better about it. I feel its somehow wrong for me to take the cash when I won't be having the bumper repaired. But on the other hand she is going to file a claim anyway to get her bumper done and since it won't increase her rates wether I take the cash , or have it repainted, or do nothing, I guess I will take whatever the insurance company gives me