Look in the mirror, much?

Does anyone else think this is funny?

"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can invade its neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed." -- Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, on the conflict between Russia and Georgia, August 2008.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

I think of myself as a fairly big Star Trek fan -- but mostly Star Trek: The Next Generation. I watched Deep Space 9, Voyager, and Enterprise for a while, but none of them caught my attention like TNG did, and I never stuck with them to their end. I've seen the movies and episodes of the original Star Trek, but again, it didn't hold my attention.

TNG ran for 7 years, and there are many great episodes that I can remember even after all this time. Off the top of my head, what I liked about TNG was how it showed humanity's potential if everyone could just work together, it explored issues like racism, the limits of love, torture, free-will, the rationale for the Prime Directive and lots, lots more.

In no particular order, here are some, but not all, of my favourite episodes:

1. Tapestry: Q sends Jean-Luc Picard back in time to his academy years, leading up to the time Picard was stabbed in the heart. Picard uses the opportunity to change something he'd regretted doing, only to discover that altering one thing in the past affected everything afterwards, altering the entire course of his life. Unraveling one thread unraveled the entire tapestry.
2. The Inner Light: Picard is hit by an alien probe, resulting in Picard living an entire lifetime believing he is someone else, living on an alien planet with a family, and that his previous life was the imaginings of a fevered dream. Turns out it was all in Picard's mind, and only 20 minutes had passed in reality. The probe was a dying civilization's way to not be forgotten.
3. The Measure of a Man: Data is put on trial to determine whether he can be ordered to go back to Starfleet for experimental testing, or if he possesses free will and/or sentience and hence can refuse. I thought the issues raised were interesting.
4. Q Who?: This episode introduced the Borg - one of the greatest sci-fi villains. Picard tells Q that the Federation is ready to face whatever is out there. Oops. Q sends the Enterprise to the far cosmos where they meet the Borg - a biological/machine hybrid-hive mind that "assimilate" everything they come in contact with. Anywhoo, Picard admits to Q that he was wrong, and Q sends them back home. But the Borg now know of the existence of the Federation....
5. The Best of Both Worlds I and II: A couple of the all-time top TNG episodes, the 3rd season finale and 4th season premiere, respectively. The Borg finally arrive in Federation space. These episodes introduce one of the most memorable TNG lines,

   "Resistance is futile" -- Locutus of Borg. :o)

6. Family: Following Best of Both Worlds II, this episode was pretty darned good, too. Picard deals with the trauma of being assimilated by the Borg.
7. The Drumhead: Another awesome episode. It's about an explosion, a spy, and the witch hunt that follows. At the end, Picard talks to Worf about the subtle, continual danger of people who spread fear and suspicion in the name of righteousness, and that we have to be continually vigilant against that threat. The path of limited freedom, I think Picard said. A particularly apt lesson in the current times.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

--Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, XVII (1623), by John Donne.

Top Bushisms for 2006

As posted on CNN:

1. "I'm the Decider." "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense." April 18, in response to a question from CNN's Ed Henry.
2. "I use The Google," in reference to the popular search engine. October 24th. Interview with Maria Bartiromo of CNBC.
3. "It was not always certain that the U.S. and America would have a close relationship." June 29.
4. "I've got an ek-a-lec-tic reading list." August 29 interview with NBC's Brian Williams.
5. "The only way we can win is to leave before the job is done." Nov. 24 (Greely, Colo.)
6. "Stay the course." On numerous occasions.
7. "When the final history is written on Iraq, it will look just like a comma." Sept. 24. Interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
8. "The Congress was right to renew the Terrorist Act." In reference to the Patriot Act. Sept. 7 (Washington)
9. "I want to be a war president; no president wants to be a war president." Oct. 26. (Des Moines)
10. "The fiscal year that ended on February the 30th." The government fiscal year ends Sept. 30; Oct. 11 (Washington)
--CNN Political Ticker

:o)

Customer loyalty

Sometimes I wonder if I'm stubborn. I guess like most things it's more gray than black and white. There's one McDonald's location I refuse to go to any longer because I wasn't happy with their service, once. I must have taken my car to at least 4-5 different Volkswagen service departments--the best of them lasting 3 visits--before something happened at each that crossed them off my satisfactory list. None of the incidents were major, I suppose, but at the minimum they all annoyed and disappointed me--there are only so many dealerships in my area, after all.

No matter how many spam mails I receive from Geico, State Farm, Progressive et cetera telling me how much money I can save, I'll only leave Erie Insurance if Erie themselves kick me out. I don't even want to know how much money I might save by switching. Why? Because Erie was the sole company that was willing to consider my Canadian driving record when I first relocated to the United States.

On the other hand, I've flipped back and forth between T-Mobile and Cingular as soon my contracts were up. The limited number of GSM carriers makes my flip-flopping the only way I can express my dissatisfaction. I've returned to a particular Burger King despite knowing they only give out minuscule amounts of fries. When I want something cheap my first thought is still Walmart even though I once vowed to myself, never again. That's probably more of a credit to their advertising department than anything else, though. Target is my choice for inexpensive goods whenever my mind gets a respite from Walmart's advertising.

These days I don't even bother complaining at bad service unless it's truly horrendous. It just wastes too much of my time and energy. And what does it actually accomplish? How much does the loss of a single consumer's business really affect a company? It just seems so futile, sometimes. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Big business is big business, and the little guy gets the short end of the stick.

"Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time." Ugh. I guess I agree with Churchill--but it sure as heck doesn't make me feel any better.