I found out about this morning's terror attacks in London at about 7 AM when I arrived at my first meeting of the day. "Have you heard the news yet?" I was asked when I walked up. And so I've been picking up bits of information all for the past seven hours as I've been running around in a busy day.

"The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London," an Al Qaida web site apparently has posted on it. "Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters."

Fortunately, that message is a lie. The British, unfortunately, have lived through much worse and came together today to help their fellow citizens get through this attack with their resolve unshaken, and [perhaps] even strengthened.

Far from "burning with fear", Britons are fighting back. One statement I just heard on the radio (I'm sorry that I didn't catch who the speaker was) came from a critic of the Iraq war and the Blair government, but he stood up for Britain. "We don't like our government either," he said. "But we have better ways of dealing with it."

Now, as we did on 9/11/01, the civilized world stands together on this point. We may not agree on many things, but what we do agree on is the power of the ballot over the bomb.

London will survive long after the war on terror is forgotten.

Who was he? Why was he here?

Retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral James Stockdale has died at age 81. Stockdale is best remembered as Ross Perot's 1992 running mate, but it's the reasons why Perot chose him that had already earned him an important place in U.S. history.

Stockdale was an early critic of LBJ's handling of the Viet Nam war, and the reasons for it. In statements foreshadowing our current war, Stockdale disputed the official version of events at the Gulf of Tonkin (an attack on a U.S. Navy ship was our excuse for going to war; the attack is now widely accepted to have been a lie). "I literally led the initial strike of a war I knew was under false pretenses," he later said.

Stockdale was taken prisoner and spent more than seven years at the notorious "Hanoi Hilton" POW camp, including four in solitary confinement. In a show of inner strength reminiscent of Papillon, he prevailed, and helped an underground resistance of American soldiers in the POW camp that probably saved many of their lives.

You know I'm not a militarist type of guy, but you don't have to be a right-winger to recognize the heroism and importance of Admiral Stockdale. RIP.

Read the full story at Reuters

In the lighter side of the news, Bono gets his trousers back.

Yesterday we went to Monterey for the big fireworks spectacular with my nephews. A bit of a crazy scene there at the beach, with a few too many drunken teenagers aiming bottle rockets at the back of my head, but the [official] fireworks were great and it's always nice to spend the day with the boys.

And so, today's links are to my nephew's web sites...

The Official Frostbyte Web Site tell the story of the band, Frostbyte. You haven't heard of them? You just aren't going to the right Connecticut middle school talent nights, are you? Well, Frostbyte's broken up now, but the members are still ranting at each other through the guestbook. Andy (guitar, vocals, songwriter) is my nephew who'll be 14 this summer.

Keith's Site also has some of his musical accomplishments featured in the pictures, but also has a bit of politics featured. The new phrase he's coined and is trying to get into general usage is "Don't Bush me." Did somebody lie to you, get in your face and do something really stupid? The new response is, "Don't Bush me!" Other uses: "I've been Bushed," or, "Watch out, he'll Bush you every time." Keith will be 10 this summer.

It's great when they're out in California for a visit.

In the news: Official secrecy reaches historic high in the U.S. (International Herald Tribune) - Our government is now keeping secrets from us (classifying documents) at a rate of 125 per minute. Meanwhile, the rate of de-classification of old secrets has "slowed to a relative crawl, from a high of 204 million pages in 1997 to just 28 million pages last year."

Sure, security issues in war time drive a large part of this, but that's just the start. In 2001 Dubya extended the power to classify documents to the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Agriculture. "At the Agriculture Department employees can visit the agency's Web site and easily print out a bright-yellow 'sensitive security information' cover sheet."

Just what do you think the USDA or the EPA want to keep from you? In what new and creative ways are they letting industry destroy our environment and poison our food supply with genetic modification? Now we may never know.

For your holiday weekend reading enjoyment, I've posted a new article in my column at Suite101.com:

Some Thoughts on July 4, 2005 - "On this July Fourth I will be celebrating the radical ideas that shaped our constitution and the founding of our nation, not the current actions of our government. What do I think the true patriot should be doing for the next year? Read and see."

Taiwan bowled over by toilet-theme restaurant

"It may take a strong stomach to eat curry or chocolate ice cream out of a toilet bowl, but a commode-themed restaurant in Taiwan does booming business serving up just that."

You just don't want to know about their urinal soda fountain.

July First - The start of a new Fiscal Year!

Okay, so that's not a very exciting way to begin after not posting for nearly two months, but that's about it.

Since you've last heard from me I've been budgeting hell. We lost a few people in the cutting necessary to make it to this FY (that's short for Fiscal Year), and I had to be in on a few of those.

I've also acquired a few more duties in that shuffle (but no additional pay - it was budget cutting, after all), moved my office to another site, discovered some minor bit of corruption at that site, and started to clean it up.

So, I was understandably busy and a bit depressed over the whole mess.

But, today is New Year's Day, as far as the accounting department is concerned, I survived it with my income intact, and it's time for a fresh start. Happy New Year to you, and have a wonderful summer.

I'll be back shortly with something interesting to say. Meanwhile, I've done some minor re-designing of the web site, so start clicking on the main menu to the left.