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Monday night was back to work night. I slept a little Monday morning. I spent most of Sunday night doing laundry to help Dawnell out. Laundry in our house is a never ending battle, in part because Shane will put his clean laundry in his hamper when he is lazy to put it away. It can really make it hard to keep up. We even bought one of those super large load front loading washers and dryers but even with that, it runs constantly. OPPD must love us.
This weekend we ended up at Walmart because J needed a new bike. He didn’t have the coordination to use hand breaks, so we found a bike with coaster breaks. We were lucky since it cost less than 40 bucks. I know he will outgrow it in a year so I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it. I also got him a new dome protector since he lost his old one.
The Pond Guy comes out Wednesday to work on our pond. I will be glad to get the fish out of our sun room. Although they are still in hibernation but I am sure they will start becoming more active soon. He said our pond will look very different when he is finished which is great with me. Maybe he can add another waterfall or something.
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4000 AND COUNTING
Thanks to Nico Pitney for the picture. You can find a larger size of the picture at that site.
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BUSH PLEDGES MORE TO DIE
Bush pledged Monday to ensure “an outcome that will merit the sacrifice” of those who have died in Iraq, offering both sympathy and resolve as the U.S. death toll in the five-year war hit 4,000.
“One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, ‘Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve because they laid the foundation for peace for generations to come,’ “ Bush said at the State Department after a two-hour briefing on U.S. diplomatic strategy around the world. “I vow so long as I am president to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain.”
The president received another two-hour briefing earlier Monday at the White House on Iraq, this one from Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, via secure video hookup from Baghdad. Petraeus and Crocker are due to testify on Capitol Hill on April 8-9.
The deaths of four U.S. soldiers in a roadside bombing late Sunday in southern Baghdad pushed to 4,000 the number of American service members killed as the war enters its sixth year.
Grim milestones usually go unremarked upon by Bush. But he chose on this occasion to note the losses, albeit briefly and without taking questions from reporters.
The White House said Bush is likely to embrace an expected recommendation from Petraeus for a halt in troop withdrawals beyond those already scheduled to be completed by July, with the expectation that reductions would resume before the president leaves office in January. Bush also is to receive a briefing on Wednesday at the Pentagon “on what actions his advisers recommend for cementing those gains and taking action that will lay the foundation for further additional troop drawdowns.”
With the war entering its sixth year, Bush has been making the argument that defeating extremists in Iraq makes it less likely that Americans will encounter enemies at home. Iraq has taken a heavy toll on his presidency, contributing to Bush’s low poll ratings.
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McCAIN = MORE OF THE SAME
To underscore his view of the stakes in Iraq, the certain Republican presidential nominee twice referenced a recent audio tape from Osama bin Laden in which the al-Qaida leader urged followers to join the al-Qaida fight in Iraq and called the country “the greatest opportunity and the biggest task.”
“For the first time, I have seen Osama bin Laden and General (David) Petraeus in agreement, and, that is, a central battleground in the battle against al-Qaida is in Iraq today. And that’s what bin Laden was saying and that’s what General Petraeus is saying and that’s what I’m saying, my friends,” McCain said.
“And my Democrat opponents who want to pull out of Iraq refuse to understand what’s being said and what’s happening – and that is the central battleground is Iraq in this struggle against radical Islamic extremism,” he added. McCain also said Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were naive and “dead wrong” to want to withdraw troops.
McCain told reporters: “I don’t think I would change the strategy now unless General Petraeus recommended it. I think he’s trusted by the American people, the president and by me. And General Petraeus again showed me facts on the ground where the surge is succeeding.”
Democrats took issue with his remarks and cast his candidacy as a repeat of President Bush’s tenure.
*** If Clinton or Obama had taken that trip at tax payers expense the Republicans would be up in arms. ***
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READY, AIM, FIRE!
A US container ship approaching the Suez Canal has opened fire on a small Egyptian motorboat, killing one man and wounding two others. The Global Patriot, carrying used US military equipment, was in the Gulf of Suez when it was approached by a motorboat selling local merchandise.
Its crew apparently fired after the boat failed to heed warnings to stop when asked, the US navy said.
It was after sunset on Monday when a motorboat carrying three local Egyptian traders approached the Global Patriot in the Gulf of Suez as it prepared to sail towards the Mediterranean, according to Egyptian officials.
The Global Patriot’s crew are reported to have ordered the motorboat to stop and when it did not, they opened fire, killing Mohammed Fouad and wounding two others, the officials added.
A US naval spokeswoman, Cdr Lydia Robertson, said that the Global Patriot had warned the small boats to turn away “via bridge-to-bridge radio and a series of warning steps”.
“One small boat continued to approach the motor vessel, which then reportedly fired warning shots.”
According to the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC), the Global Patriot is a US-flagged roll-on, roll-off container ship chartered from Global Container Lines. In the past, it has been used by the MSC to transport a US military Patriot Missile defence battery, ammunition, and MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles around the world.
The Navy also said that it was in contact with Egypt through the US embassy in Cairo.
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NEWS FROM OMAHA
The Institute of Medicine reports that at least 1.5 million hospital patients are injured annually by medication errors. NMC has a robot filling the majority of prescriptions for its patients to lower that rate.
A pharmaceutical robot called the Swisslog Pillpick System has virtually eliminated pharmacy errors for its patients, NMC said. The error rate went from 2.2 percent to 0.6-percent since the robot went to work last year.
There are 450 medications loaded in the robot. Most of them are in pill form. The robot fills 60 percent of the hospital’s patient medications. Each pill is in a packet labeled with the drug name and dose. NMC said the technology is so specialized that it’s one of only seven other robots like it in the country.
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THE PRICE YOU PAY
Shoppers are discovering an upside to the down economy. They are getting price breaks by reviving an age-old retail strategy: haggling.
A bargaining culture once confined largely to car showrooms and jewelry stores is taking root in major stores like Best Buy, Circuit City and Home Depot, as well as mom-and-pop operations.
Savvy consumers, empowered by the Internet and encouraged by a slowing economy, are finding that they can dicker on prices, not just on clearance items or big-ticket products like televisions but also on lower-cost goods like cameras, audio speakers, couches, rugs and even clothing.
The change is not particularly overt, and most store policies on bargaining are informal. Some major retailers, however, are quietly telling their salespeople that negotiating is acceptable.
“We want to work with the customer, and if that happens to mean negotiating a price, then we’re willing to look at that,” said Kathryn Gallagher, a spokeswoman for Home Depot.
In the last year, she said, the store has adopted an “entrepreneurial spirit” campaign to give salespeople and managers more latitude on prices in order to retain customers.
Haggling was once common before department stores began setting fixed prices in the 1850s.
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“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
G. W. Bush — Greece, New York, May 24, 2005
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301 Days Left
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Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring
Freedom casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central
Command: 4462
