This makes me laugh. 

A note from a friend

Jon Wedel is a member of the Air Force Honor Guard and was part of Pres. Ronald Reagan's funeral. I interviewed Jon for a story during the funeral because he is a Battle Creek guy. This was an e-mail from him about a program he is involved in. Please take a minute to watch this slideshow.

2005 National Military Survivor Seminar

This link is to the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, a program started by Bonnie Carroll after she lost her husband, a U.S. Air Force General, when his plane went down in Alaska.
She started the program to help spouses and children who have lost loved ones in military service, and each year over Memorial Day weekend, children and their families visit Washington, D.C. fir what is know as a "good grief camp".
The camp's staff members are all trained in how to help these children grieve. A majority of the camp's mentors come from the Ceremonial Guardsmanship -- USAF Honor Guard, U.S. Army's "Old Guard," U.S. Navy's Ceremonial Guard, U.S. Marine Corps Honor Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard Honor Guard.
These troops volunteer almost 50 hours over the holiday weekend to give back to the same families of the heroes we bury every day in Arlington. These troops provide an open ear and a shoulder to lean on.
The slideshow is from the 2005 camp. This was my third year, and it hits you harder every time. The slide show takes a minute to load, but it's extremely worth it.
Jon J. Wedel, MSgt, USAF
Superintendent, Formal Training
USAF Honor Guard

For more information...

FactCheck.Org, a creation of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, often has interesting independent analyses of national politics in the news.
Some of the more recent posts include:
Liberal Ad Against Alito: True As Far As It Goes and Iraq: What Did Congress Know, and When?
Now, as any good reporter will tell you, double-check any piece of information, and FactCheck doesn't consider itself to be the end-all of reporting. There often are links to other sites and documents, giving more information on a topic.
I read the Iraq piece, and I am further convinced Pres. Bush snowed Congress and the country.
The president is privy to a daily intelligence report with more information than was ever disseminated in Congress, yet he insists lawmakers new what he knew.
Given Bush's penchant for appointing buddies to high-ranking administrative positions, why should we believe there wasn't an "understanding" of the president's motives by the people reporting to him?
If Pres. Bush wants to convince Americans that he went to Iraq with the best of intentions and not a capitalist agenda, then he'd better convince us he's finally listening to what we have to say about how OUR government works.

Domestic threats?

According to an report from the Society of Professional Journalists, there is a bill moving quickly in the Senate that would create the first-ever agency categorically exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
As the article points out, the idea is to protect the new Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) from public health and safety threats, but "it guts the public safety benefit that flows from citizen participation in government. The key to public health is the public, which cannot avoid transmission of epidemic or pandemic disease unless it has knowledge of the disease, and understanding of how to treat it."
It's quite obvious our government, charged with protecting us from external threats, has become so obese, it is a threat to the very freedoms and liberties it's supposed to safeguard.
Pardon me for being a skeptic, but what's so top-secret about a bird flu pandemic? Is there some national security risk in stem cell research?
Politicians can really piss me off.

I hate Muzak

But I love NPR.
I heard Paul English, the creator of the IVR cheat sheet, this morning on NPR.
How can you pass up the opportunity to circumvent almost any automated answering system?
Just a useful tip I thought I'd pass along.

Whack jobs or free thinkers?

9-11 seems so far behind us now, but it's omnipresent in that it has dramatically changed our everyday lives.
I'm not usually a big supporter of conspiracy theories, and even this one makes me wince a little. But it raises some good points, and makes a decent argument.
Perhaps the people labeled militants and nonpatriotic nuts by mainstream society deserve to be listened to. While we would like to consider ourselves intelligent and open-minded, maybe there is something to the argument that most Americans have become desensitized to the government and it's power. Perhaps we are just sheep, blindly accepting what we're told by elected officials.
Wow. I'm a little depressed right now.

Props

Many thanks to my brother, Tony, for letting me continually link to pictures on his Web site, metaphysicalrockstar.com.

Double the fun!

Today we celebrate two birthdays.
John Dennis Schirripa, 55, and Angela Marie Schirripa, 40.
My dad and step-mom not only share the same wedding anniversary, but the same birthday. (That was funny!)
Anyway, love and blessings to you both on your day.

Politics, politics. Oh, and computers.

There is enough crap on Capitol Hill without Rove, Libby and McClellan adding to the steaming pile.
Next year is a congressional election year, so with Karl and Scooter helping Pres. Bush's approval ratings reach the lowest ever, there will be some interesting maneuvering in the District.
Expect to see many Republicans distancing themselves from Bush's antics and specific ideas while trying to stay close to the party's ideology and platforms. The economy, education and national security still are big GOP issues, but much of the Right is starting to question what the President is doing.
In library news, what happened to the card catalogue? This may be easier, but then who will talk to Mr. Parr?
I wish I understood PC technology better, because after reading this, my only response is, "Huh?"