I Spoke Too Soon

In my last post, I said that Basrah doesn't have sand storms like Baghdad. That turned out to be only partially true. Last night, there was a huge storm. There was only a little rain, but the wind really tore at things. We heard that several power line were down around Basrah, and a pontoon bridge over the Shatt Al Arab was torn up. There was some local damage in the camp, too, but the biggest problem was the blowing sand. There wasn't the suspended dust that you see in the picture of the palace, but it wasn't pleasant to breathe and it got into everything. There was a pretty good lightning show too. When the rainy season starts, I think the only difference will be the amount a water coming down. People are saying that basrah turns into one huge mud bog.

In other news, if you know any Luddites who just aren't happy unless everyone is miserable, the Large Hadron Collider was started up yesterday. No black holes were produced, so the end of the world will be delayed yet again. It is supposed to discovery the Higgs Boson, which among other things, is suspected of being the reason that matter has mass. I read someone today who said that, if it is found, it might provide evidence that "ether" really does exist, at least in the sense that there is something that completely pervades the universe and touches everything in it. Isn't it funny how, the more science advances, the more closely it seems to approach where religion has been all along. Can someone recall who said that true science and true religion are never in disagreement. I have also heard and thought myself, that all truth, whether it comes from science or revelation, is a part of the Gospel. The only difference being that on some things we depend on for our eternal welfare and others only for our temporal welfare.

Breathing Sand

I never did get the original post fixed, so here are the pictures again, just to show the difference between good weather and a sand storm in Iraq. This storm wasn't even a bad one. The pictures were taken at the same location and at about the same time of day. I haven't seen sand like this since I have been in Basrah. The wind doesn't usually blow from a direction that would bring in sand like this.

Grace Under Fire

I survived my first real attack last night. I was the epitome of calm and reacted to the attack immediately according standing orders. I got down flat and into a bunker to avoid flying shrapnel and stayed put until the "All Clear" was sounded.

Don't read too much into it, especially you, Mom. The rockets finally landed close enough for me to hear them explode, but they weren't close enough to shake anything. The alarm was actually louder than the rockets were. I was already in bed and almost asleep when the attack came, so I was already as close to the ground as I could get and already in a bunker, since I sleep in a little one every night. I stayed right where I was. When then alarm was finally turned off and the command post stopped making announcements about not moving around and staying under cover, I finally went to sleep. I do wish the insurgents were a little more considerate, though. An hour earlier, and I would have had my computer out and I could have passed the time watching a movie instead of just laying there.

If you want excitement out of a war, you don't fight it on a staff. You join the Marines.

BTW, this is where I ride out indirect fire attacks, or sleep, as the situation calls for it.

A Brief Update

We have some new people in the office - a new Royal Army Captain and a Private from the Artillery. We will be getting another one this week and another the week after, probably from the Royal Navy. The weather has shifted again. It wasn't as hot, but it was very wet today. A south wind is blowing humid air up from the Gulf. It even looked like there had been rain last night. There should be some steady cooling over the next couple of months as winter approaches. It never really gets cold here, except at night, but if the highs get down to the low 100s it will be a huge improvement. My roommate seems to have disappeared. He returned from an extended stay in Baghdad for two nights, and then went off somewhere else again. There isn't much benefit to having the container all to myself, but at least I dont have to try not to wake someone up when I get up. I am a morning person, and he is not. For some reason, the Navy Unclassified network no longer blocks this blog, so I can post without any trouble now. Maybe it will mean more frequent posts too. Good luck to everyone going back to school. I will be trying to build a few of them here. BTW, Ramadan has started, and we have two Muslims working in our offices. It has been interesting. I try not be obvious about eating or drinking in front of them. It must be hard going without water, especially, as hot as it gets here.

The Quotable Lois McMaster Bujold

It was a slow day. I couldn't get a ride out of the Camp to inspect my projects. I haven't received paperwork that I need from my Iraqi contacts yet. So I ended up finding this.

• Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will.
  A Civil Campaign
  What others think of you may make your life easier or more challenging, but they can only judge what they see, and that imperfectly. What matters, in the end, is what you know of yourself, and what God knows.


• Any community's arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.
  Barrayar
  This sounds like a highly paraphrased description of Captain Moroni.


• If you want to catch something, running after it isn't always the best way.
  Borders of Infinity
  No comment here. It just sounded like good advice.


• The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.
  Brothers in Arms
  I thought this was a good warning to the partisans of this political season. To bad so few of them heed it.


• Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.
  Memory
  This is also a good warning in general, but particularly in politics, where it would be better rendered as "the one thing you shouldn't trade for the honors of men is your own honor."


• I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is…the higher achievement.
  Mirror Dance
  I have never understood how some people can look at the giants of history and only see their flaws and failings. As if George Washington was nothing more than a slave owner, or Columbus did nothing but kill a lot of Indians.

When You See Someone Striding Purposefully Toward You...

With the intent of doing you good, run away.
We are getting close to the end of the fiscal year. In government circles, that means it's the season to spend money before it disappears, because, in the perverse world of government finance, if you didn't spend every penny allotted to you then you obviously don't need as much next year. Government financial rules have mechanisms that specifically disincentivize good judgment and frugality. The rules also seem to push any sense of propriety or law out of peoples minds.
This weekend, a tornado of government good intentions descended on us with the mandate to find something, anything, to spend the last of their money on, and it absolutely had to be done right now. We worked right through lunch. I worked right through my half-day off. I got all of their projects ready, just in time, and all along, I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere. All of my time was going to be wasted, because the urge to do something good, blinded them to what was right, or at least
what was legal.
Today, when the do-gooders have gone, and sanity has been allowed to return, it turns out that every project I worked up will likely be denied, because they tried to do an end run around a rule intended to prevent very large sums from being spent without a high level review. There isn't anything wrong with any of the individual projects. Each one on its own merits is a good thing and could probably be justified and approved, one at a time, and spread out over the whole year. But all together, all at once, in a way that tries to dodge a pretty big rule, means that a lot of money wont get spent, and a bunch of government do-gooders are going to look like idiots.
It is also going to sour relationships that we have with the people that they made promises to that they were not allowed to make, and we are not allowed to keep. This will always happen as long as people who get to spend money are judged by how much they spend rather than by how well they spend it.

The Quotable GK Chesterton

I stumbled upon some quotes from GK Chesterton a few days ago. I really like him. Someday, I will have to read him a little more thoroughly. Anyway, I thought that these lines were especially good.


"Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten."
"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."

Stories don't have to be true to be good. The fact that Shakespeare is quoted in General Conference as often as he is is evidence enough that "Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom" (D&C 88:118) includes more than the canonized scripture.

Another really good quote of his is "Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously."