Diplomat's Resignation

The resignation letter of twenty-year U.S. diplomat John Brady Kiesling is striking.

"...until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer."

Note that oderint, dum metuant, used in the letter, means "Let them hate, so long as they fear." It was a favorite saying of the Roman Emperor Caligula.

Big Byrd

Senator Robert Byrd on the costs of an Iraq war:

Hiding information from the public to rally support behind a war, at the very time when the government should be striving for maximum trust will eventually undermine our nation's strength. This conflict will be paid for with the people's treasure and the people's blood. This is no time to affront that sacrifice with beltway spin and secrecy.

This Senator has an oratorical flare that serves as a worthy foil to the Bush/Rove ad-spin-istration. Thanks to Kris for the link.

Quittin' Time

Getting ready to head out to a volleyball match. We're up against the first place team tonight. With our new, improved four-person serve receive, I think we've got a good shot at beating them.

After playing some sand volleyball the other night, I went out for drinks with some other players to Tortilla Flats in the West Village. I love the quiet cobblestone streets of that neighborhood.

It happened to be Bingo night at Tortilla Flats (as it is every Monday and Tuesday, I discovered) and though we didn't win any games, it was fun. Especially entertaining was gutter-ball bingo, where the object is to match the bottom row of your card and the bingo calls are mere punctuations in an endless stream of expletives. O69 was a popular call with the crowd.

This afternoon, I spent time perusing "Get Your War On", having completed my most recent project at work. Amusing, but depressing.

New on this site is a bit of integration with Amazon's web services, to present album covers when I'm listening to music via iTunes at home or work. While I was hacking around, I added an RSS 2.0 feed. I didn't read any of the whole blog-land debate about RSS 0.91, 1.0 and 2.0, but 2.0 seems to be catching on.

Game time now.