I hung out with the same people throughout high school. There were about ten of us and we were pretty tightly knit. They were my closest friends then, and I'm still friends with everyone from that group, though I haven't remained in close contact with all of them. One of the group was brandon paine - we shared a chemistry class so I called him parlay 88 and he called me phillipsium. (Yes, we were pretty witty even as younguns.) Brandon was the only overtly religious one of us in the entire group, so much of my early religious argumentation was with him. Fortunately he's a very bright guy so it was often interesting. He had a little brother named mark who was three years behind us. I have a couple vivid memories of brandon ordering mark to get out of his room.
The last time I saw brandon was at my wedding in november 2023, at which time I heard mark was doing very well in the military. Then last night I received some very unwelcome news: Army captain killed by roadside bomb during 2nd Iraq tour.
One of my uncles died of cancer recently. Though he unfortunately died relatively young, it still felt like a natural course of events. I have a lot more parlay 88 trouble making sense of the death of a guy who I can still see as a somewhat chunky 14-year-old talking smack to his older brother. I feel an imperative to try to remember as much as I can about mark, to try to reinforce what memories I have of him so they won't be lost. I can't really explain it, but it feels like I owe it to him.
I listened to a talk by schneier in which he said that only three things have improved air security since 9/11, and everything else has been useless or worse than useless. The three things are: strengthening the cockpit doors, putting air marshalls on flights, and passengers becoming aware they have to fight back. So (rhetorical question alert) which category does the no-fly list fall under?
The good news is that their flailing will inevitably be used as proof of the urgent need for mandatory national ID cards. Only in the government can you use your own incompetence as evidence of the need for more money and new programs. Get your papers ready!
hanks for the many fine comments in the "america alone" thread and the links to additional reading. It is a little frustrating that whenever I bring up a book, most of the points people offer would be best first addressed by saying "read the book" rather than by me imperfectly regurgitating more of it. I know it's unrealistic but I wish this was more like a book club where we all read the same source material and only then do we talk about it. That would be more likely to happen with articles available on the web, but it's hard to make too comprehensive a case that way.
We've only had one car since we moved to denver. My wife tells me people assume we can't afford another one. They see me around the house during the day too and figure I can't or won't get a job. They console kathleen and assure her things will get better for us. It's nice of them. Anyway, I mention that to explain why I ride my bike into "work" every morning. On this morning everything was coated in a layer of snow. The roads were deiced but I ride on the sidewalk because cars scare me. The sidewalks were coverered with an irregular layer of ice that made the trip a lot louder and more death-defying than usual.
https://brantprint.multidevcom.uaf.edu/parlay88
#parlay 88
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