Cut, Paste, Vomit

I'd post this on Facebook, with appropriate commentary, but then the person who wrote it might see it since somehow I'm a Facebook friend of them and I have enough problems pissing people off as is.  I'd share it on Formspring, but it's too long for me to ask it as a question.  So here, now, is a Formspring question/answer from someone I friended on Facebook:

Q: so your saying that your against abortion but your okay with kids being left for orphanages? What if those kids never get adopted and have to live a life of no love, no stability, no parents. Are you still okay with this choice?

A: as far as i know, most orphanages provide children with loving environments. and i personally would love to adopt a child one day, possibly, because i know how great it is when my aunt and uncle adopted my two cousins. everyone finds a "family" to love them.

* * *

This is, by the way, not me being political, as I am (unfashionably) pro-life.  This is just me pointing out stupidity.  I felt compelled to share.

What I'm Doing Here

Once upon a time, I thought I'd make a blog called "Monastery Politics."  But then I changed it to the far more pretentious "From the Cloister" and now that I have a follower I don't really feel like changing the name again.

I have another blog I post to on occasion, The Monastery, which started as an AP Language blog in high school a year and a half ago.  Here, on this blog, are the posts too dry or too dark or too dirty to post on my other.  I'd rather leave The Monastery it's innocence and corrupt this one instead.

That being said, this blog will be dead serious, unless it's sarcastic, in which case it will Juvenalian.  I don't believe it will be very profound or insightful, since I'm not a very profound or insightful person.  This is a way for me to organize my thinking and train my brain to write for a broader audience.  Perhaps someone will enjoy something I spit out on occasion.

Won't the terrorists just wash their hands?

Find me a bomb expert and please tell me I'm wrong:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/us/18tsa.html

You know, David Letterman once joked the City was deploying bomb sniffing rats...maybe we should look into that...

Iranian Nuclear Revelations

While I'm not always trusting of the United States government's intelligence capacity, the fact that the I.A.E.A. now suspects Iran to be in the process of developing nuclear weapons is old news to the West.  I disagree with assertion by The New York Times that the report issued by the international agency "seems certain to accelerate Iran’s confrontation with much of the rest of the world."  Let me remind you that the I.A.E.A. is an arm of the United Nations, and that the United Nations has, as far as I can tell, become a jobs program for diplomats thanks to the impasse between the United States, China, and Russia on anything that matters (I'm a political realist, in case you haven't noticed).  This U.N. agency, then, says nothing of Iran the West hasn't already accused it of doing, and whatever words the agency chooses will no doubt be less forceful than the words already spoken by two Presidents and their administrations in these United States.  If the Iranians haven't been swayed by words and sanctions, a piece of paper from the I.A.E.A. won't change much, as far as I see it.

The article from The Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/world/middleeast/19iran.html

A Succinct Statement

From the July 3 NewsHour:

JUDY WOODRUFF: I'm going to turn, very different subject, Iraq. We saw, Mark, I guess you could say a milestone this week, American troops continuing to pull back. Now they're saying they will only do joint missions with the Iraqis. They're lowering their presence, especially in the cities. How important is this moment, in America's presence?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think it's one of relief. It's not one of exultation, certainly, Judy, I mean, that we're withdrawing American troops from the major cities. It's not a -- I mean, it's still a long, unresolved war, and we don't know what the results are going to be.

And all we do know is that, you know, six-and-a-half years ago, the United States went to war against a nation that had never threatened us on the fraudulent charge that that nation had weapons of mass destruction and was going to represent a threat to the United States. It was neither a just nor a justified war.

And the country violated one of its great principles in that war, and that is that war demands equality of sacrifice. And this war, all the sacrifice has been borne by less than 1 percent of Americans, those who wear the uniform and their loved ones.

And the rest of us pay no price, bear no burden. It's been a terrible war. The one burden we've been asked to take a tax cut so that we didn't have to pay for the war.

And it just -- it really has been a sad, sad chapter. Great efforts of valor and courage and bravery on the part of the military, but it's been a tremendous cost individually and institutionally to the United States military, so...

Video, Transcript