Monthly Archives: August 2008

Quote: “illusion of progress”

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I stumbled upon this qute tonight and it really struck me as indicitive of the way my life has felt this year. I can’t even explain exactly how I stumbled upon it. So I’ll simply offer it up and see how it strikes you.

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.

The quote is by Charlton Ogburn from in the January 1957 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

Clone Wars was good

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I saw Clone Wars on Saturday night. The short review is that I liked it and had a good time.

It’s fun and lively. The movie assumes you are a Star Wars fan and knows what is going on. Plenty of Clone on Droid action and battle scenes. Of course it’s all animated and still enjoyable but a bit too cartoon like at times. On a few occassions the combat is close quarters and becomes unbelievable, even for Star Wars.

I won’t get into critiqueing the plot. There is plenty of spoilers on the ‘net if that is what you are looking for. But I thought I’d post to say that I enjoyed it. If you are a Star Wars fan then you might as well.

South Ossetia War thoughts

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Unless you have been under a rock this week, you are probably aware that the countries of Russia and Georgia went to war over a plot of land in The Republic of Georgia called South Ossetia. You can read up on the details at Wikipedia or Mahalo is you want the quick edition. There is certainly plenty of news if you want more.

But there are a couple of comparisons of scale that have struck me that I thought I would share.

The Republic of Georgia is smaller than the State of Georgia. In fact it’s smaller than 40 of our 50 states.

The Republic of South Ossetia is smaller than the State of Rhode Island. For a more granual comparison for my fellow citizens of Maine, South Ossetia would fit inside Hancock County. Or for those in southern Maine who aren’t sure how big Hancock County is, it’s about the same as Cumberland, Androscoggin, and Sagadahoc counties combined.

In other words, it’s small! The United States of America is a big country and often we forget that fact when we hear the news from overseas. That historically much blood has been shed on very small patches of land should also not be forgotten.

I don’t mean to make little of a war. Only to put some perspective on the area being discussed. Something I have not seen the mainstream media do. I also have some other thoughts but am still mulling them over so I will save them for another day.

Test by email

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Sorting out how to get email to WordPress to not post a new email as
pending but actually publish. This is test 3. Cron is working fine.
Wordpress is getting the email fine. But it is not publishing.