Armor Geddon has an absolutely great story about a tank battle in Iraq. 

K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM.
“Oh SHIT! Look at that! No WAY that just happened.” I was in shock.
Explosions went up 5 to 10 stories. Huge grey clouds shot upwards. It looked like volcanoes were erupting. But that wasn't what shocked me. On top of the explosions, bodies were thrown straight up into the sky. It wasn’t like the movies at all, where the explosion goes off and the guy is airborne, flailing his arms and legs. It looked like a child threw some action figures straight up in the sky. They didn’t flail at all. They just went straight up end over end and bloomed outwards like the petals of a flower blooming in fast-forward on the Discovery Channel. It was unreal. Each explosion sent up 3, 4, or 5 terrorists up into the sky.

His post is much, much longer than that.  He goes into great detail about how careful they are to make sure they aren't hitting mosques--and into great detail about how careful they were to make sure they killed all the bad dudes.

I enjoy reading Wonkette on occasion.  She is usually snarky, gossipy, and usually pretty funny.

Then via Jim Treacher, I read her interview with Newsweek.  She was asked about bloggers and Rathergate.  She thinks bloggers did a disservce by showing that Dan Rather couldn't find dirt so his producer made it up.  Her words:

I think they did a disservice to the debate because they made the discourse about the documents and not about the president of the United States.  There was another half to that story about verifiable events of what Bush may have been up to.

Uh, excuse me?  Dan Rather could have done his damn homework and produced a real news story about Bush's activities.  With real facts, real documents, real interviews.  Instead, he reported libelous crapola because he couldn't get a real story.  Like his dumbass attempts on tv the other night to blame the disaster in Asia on global warming (and by inference the US's refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty)--he's one stupid damn ex-Texan who needs to stay the hell up in New York because the rest of us Texans think he is an embarrassment to Texanity.

Because the bloggers had the balls to bring this all up, they did a disservice to the debate?  First of all, what fucking debate?  It was a news story, and a fake news story at that. So if I libel someone, I should get away with it if it furthers the social agenda of wannabe journalists?

As for doing a disservice because everyone started looking at Rather instead of at Bush--exactly why should anyone be looking at Bush because of what Rather said? If Wonkette believes that the "discourse" should have been about Bush, she should have blamed Rather for screwing up the debate. Dan Rather did a disservice to inquiries about Bush's past--not the bloggers.  He is the one that shifted the focus by lying and getting caught at it.

Nobody likes to be played the fool, but that is what Rather and CBS tried to do to everyone in the US.  Of course people are going to get ticked off when hucksters try to trick them, and heck, all they would have had to do to convince most people is get good fakes instead of bad fakes.  That they tried to pass off something their own experts wouldn't certify and was easily reproduced as a computer document was just plain insulting to the intelligence of the average American.

Wonkette says she wants to get a job in real journalism; and this statement may be her suck-up to the MSM to try and get one. That's okay, there are millions of bloggers, and millions will be fact checking your ass too if you become one of the MSM--don't forget that. My advice--go back to being a gossip columnist.  You were halfway good at that.

(Note: This is an edited version.  The previous version missed one of my points because I was trying to hold Wayne--who was missing Jessica again because she went to work--and reading my notes at the same time.  Sorry.)

Of course, it was only supposed to be a 23 hour observation, but since when did a doctor ever let anyone out when they said they were going to?

UPDATE 12/30/04: I knew it was too good to be true.  The last blood thinner shot I was given in my belly went "bad".  Instead of leaving a bruise about the size of a quarter, by early this morning, it was more than twice the size of my whole hand, practically black, and very hard and painful.  I also noticed that it was oozing some blood from the shot site and from an older insulin shot site.  A couple of hours later, I was very dizzy, and my husband had to bring me "to"--at which point I realized I had bled all over my lower belly and over my thighs.

I called the doctor, and he had me go in to the ER.  That took eight hours--for an ace bandage and some gauze wrapped around my lower belly to compress the shot sites.  While waiting in the ER waiting room for two and a half hours, I bled all the way through my underclothes and through my heavy jeans--and had blood dripping down into my shoes.  Yet all I needed was an ace bandage and some big squares of gauze.  Why didn't the nurse tell me this last night when I first showed her that it was so much bigger than the other shot sites? 

Then the triage nurse screwed up, and put the wrong colored clip on my folder--so while bleeding, I sat in the waiting room for two and a half hours.  (She put the minor injury clip on it.)  When my husband asked what was taking so long, no one would answer him--even though he told them I was bleeding through my clothes.

The second triage nurse freaked when she saw the hematoma; about six inches from top to bottom and eleven inches wide, with two bloodly areas stuck to my clothes.  She, at least, got me some attention quickly.  (She came on shift at 3, and I was in the back five minutes later.)

In the next day or so, I will be getting a call from Gallup about the hospital, just like I always do.  Boy, will they ever get an earful this time.

Monster buck "Goliath" has died at the age of seven.  He was stolen, then recently returned to his home.  Most whitetails live from ten and fifteen years.  His owner, Diane Miller, believes the stress of being stolen and the shifting from one place to another played a role in the death of the buck.