Hey gang.. who said this?

In 1992, who said the following about the 1991 Gulf War?

"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.

"And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.

"And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

( So, what liberal appeasement jerk was this? )

Let's get small.. real small.

Amazing artist creates sculptures that fit inside the eye of a needle.

Some of his work requires that he wait for the pause between heart beats. As a former sniper, I can grok how that works. Really, really amzing detail, and it's scary to realize that this guy would consider painting a 25mm figure a big project.

Yes, I'm still alive.

Last week has been pretty busy at work. Most days I was there late, and due to my stupidity (long story) I don't have a bus pass, so I've been getting picked up by Kirsten. So I've been coming home dead tired and not really up for much of anything but eating and falling over into the Village of the Bears (aka our bed.)

But I have had some interesting days. Like Wednesday. On Wednesday I did a sort of split route.. half the West Bay driver and half mine. Did the usual pile of stuff for Genetech's campus expansion (if you apply for a job there, ask if you'll be working in buildings 41 or 42.. awesome views of the Bay) and then had a delivery at Monster Park Candlestick Park (the Faithful know the place's True Name.) I drove up to the security guard, who directed me down a tunnel... and I drove onto the field. They were repair the irrigations system, and I was one of four trucks being off-loaded. So I had some time to kill. I got out, and walked to the edge of the field. It was already striped and the end zones had been painted in anticipation of tomorrow's home opener. One of the foreman told me I could run around on the field since they "had all done it already."

Don't need to ask me twice. I lined up at the 25, playing tight end on the right side. At the snap, I went downfield on a slant pattern, then seeing Montana scrambling right, came back across at the goal line. He saw me, and drilled a pass between two Cowboy defenders right into my numbers. Touchdown, 49ers!

I have a rich fantasy life. I swear I could hear the crowd.

That was the highlight of my work week. The rest was just a lot of driving and some annoyances caused by a supplier who over-promised and then over-committed their delivery truck. So I got to go on two successive days and grab close to 6,000lbs of material each trip. They owe us so bad for saving their asses.

In other news, Kirsten and I took madelineusher to Grand Central Starport. She immediately fell in with the usual suspects, and when we left she was clutching a sheet of paper filled with LJ user names and email addresses. mdlbear also played Cicero in the 21st Century for her. All in all, a pleasant day with our High School Senior niece.

Yes, that makes us feel old. Amanda starting UCLA is even worse.

The Giants are killing me.

I've done some more work on the Concordat after letting it sit for a long time. I've fixed what was a major roadblock in my history. Y'see I need two major events to occur: The Warpox plague, a bioweapon that goes out of control and kills a good 15-20% of Earth's human population, and some sort of event that isolates Earth for a few generations, long enough to allow colonies to develop, fail, and get lost without the 900-lb gorilla of Terra intervening.

At first I was having the Warpox come before the first major expansion to the stars. Then it struck me that Warpox was the perfect excuse for Earth dropping out for a few dozen years. A plague that is depopulating entire nations would scare the shit out of the inhabitants of Luna and the Lagrange habitats, let alone the millions living in extra-solar colonies where closed environments were still the rule. So I've moved the development of the FTL drive to the 2050s and have Warpox coming in the first years of the 22nd Century. This really cleans up my history section and creates an era outside the main setting that would be interesting to play in. As I picture it, one of the Lagrange colonies will get infected and be destroyed to keep a thousand potentially infected refugee ships from scattering.

It is also looking like I'll have three full members of the Concordat in Sol system:

The United Nations of Terra

The UNT is a federation of the five most powerful blocks on Earth, The North American Union (US, Canada, and Mexico), the European Union, the Russian Federated States (Russia plus many of the former Soviet states who cooperate because small independents have no pull in the UN), the Greater Asian Cooperative (Japan, Korea, parts of China, Indonesia and many other former states now divided between the main players) and the Allied Free States of South America. These mega states comprise the Security Council, the planet's supreme executive. The Big Five have considerable internal autonomy. The rest of the world toes the line or UN Peacekeepers arrive by the division to "restore order"

The Commonwealth of Cislunar Settlements

Comprised of the Moon, the colonies at L-4 and L-5, and other habitats above LEO, the Commonwealth was formed during the Warpox Plague to prevent the infection from leaving Earth. Today they exist to insure that the billions of Earth do not dictate policy to the fragile habitats. Capital is at Gagarin, a lunar city in the Ocean of Storms. Each member station sends a representative to Gagarin. These representatives vote for a First Speaker who serves as chief executive.

The OutWorld League

Barely a government, the League claims to represent everyone in the asteroid belts on out to the scattered Kuiper Belt settlements. In practice, actual control is limited to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and major settlements in the asteroid belt. Officially a democracy, the normal functioning of government appears to be more of an anarchy devoted to disassembling itself as quickly as possible. Laws are passed, and widely ignored or counteracted within days. The lack of seriousness most Outworlders take in government is reflected in the titles of the chief executive council: the Grand High Administrators.

My current default "current date" for the book is looking to be somewhere around 2250-2300.

Tomorrow, I need to do laundry, and hopefully rebuild my outline and get some writing done.