The Noble Pundit

Well, Which Is It Already?

Love these two headlines from today:

Reuters: White House ignored CIA over Iraq uranium claim

AP: Bush: CIA Cleared Iraq Uranium Claim

It's almost comical. Only a few people know what really happened. Everything else is speculation and muckraking.

What is the new news that's coming out here? Nothing. Once again, we have found out that our intelligence was wrong and that we used bad information in making a decision. It's not the first time this has happened and I'm guessing it won't be the last.

The CIA is doing an excellent job with the limited resources and tools it can use. But too often it is unable to get firsthand intelligence on something and is forced to rely on secondhand information (like the British report on the uranium).

I hate to admit it, but John Kerry is partially right. There does need to be a full and honest accounting of recent intelligence failures. But with that, there also needs to be a proposed solution - how do we intend to fix it? A Congressional Inquiry is all well and fine, but once you know the problems you can't just shrug your shoulders and go "Oh. OK" and walk away. Something has to be done to correct the shortcomings.

Increased funding and more operational latitude will most likely be the necessary solutions to our current problems. Maybe it's time to start working with "unsavory" characters again - after all they're more likely to steal secrets for us than upstanding members of the community.

Maybe it's time to let the boys at the CIA be cowboys again.

I'm Back! Sort Of.....

Well, I'm sorta back. Still trying to recover from the leg problems. But I'm getting somewhat better now.

It's kinda funny really. I hate needles, scalpels and anything else that might hurt. I mean really, really hate them. I've passed out getting blood drawn - that's how much I hate them.

And work.... how I just absolutely detest it now. Monday, I had a choice between letting a doctor poke my leg full of holes as he made about 15 Novocain injections so that he could take a scalpel and cut open my leg OR I could go back to work. It's pretty sad when surgery with no insurance appears to be a better choice than trying just antibiotics (One of the other reasons I haven't been posting much is that I've been using my limited computer time to look for other employment).

So I've had my leg cut open, I have a 6"x7" infection (but it's nearly a perfect rectangular shape, very odd I must say), I have a $100 worth of Cipro that doesn't work, another $40 antibiotic that appears to have at least slowed the spread, and a wound on the top of my shinbone that hasn't stopped bleeding since it started last Saturday. On top of that, I have a job that I hate, where I don't get paid enough, have no benefits, run virtually everything and am being turned into someone with a high degree of animosity towards obnoxious, pretentious homosexuals (but I'm still OK with normal ones - so long as they don't try to convert me).

But other than that it's been a great week - thanks for asking!

I'll be trying to get back into blogging more over the next few days as I can finally sit for more than 10 minutes without my leg starting to burn.

Sorry!

Sorry about the lack of posts over the last few days. I've been fighting a pretty nasty infection in my leg over the last few days and the pain has been nearly unbearable at times.

I had a minor "procedure" (read: surgery) done on it today so hopefully the pain will be subsiding in the next day or so and I'll be able to get back to a somewhat normal life.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate not having health insurance? The lack of it caused me to let this go a wee bit too far, necessitating today's adventure.