Just briefly to get out of character.

Today is April 8th.

Stephen Michael McGinnis, age 11, of Hamilton, Ohio died Saturday March 15, 2003 at 2:45 p.m. at Childrens Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio who gave the gift of life through organ donation. He was born on April 8, 1991 in Hamilton, Ohio the son of Kevin M. and Kelly M. (Cox) McGinnis, being educated in St. Peter School and currently a 5th grade student at Lincoln. Steve played basketball for St. Peter’s, baseball for the West Side Little League, loved throwing darts and was a huge fan of WWE wrestling. He is survived by his mother Kelly M. (Erick Mueller) McGinnis of Hamilton; his father Kevin M. McGinnis of West Chester; sister Samantha McGinnis; grandparents Janet Cox of Hamilton, Joseph (Solly) Cox of Las Vegas, Charlene (Jim) Hall of Hamilton, Ed (Terry) McGinnis of Fairfield; great-grandparents Charles and Mary Lou Rook of Hamilton and Ann Cox of Hamilton; Godparents Mark Moriarty and Lynn Payne; special friends Caleb Jenkins, Marty Shelton, Alex Mitchell; and many other aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and fellow classmates. Relatives and friends are invited to attend Mass of Christian Burial at St. Peter in Chains Church Thursday March 20, 2003 at 10:00 a.m. with Fr. Timothy Bunch officiating. Burial in St. Mary Cemetery. Visitation will be Wednesday from 5:00 until 8:00 p.m. at the Paul R. Young Funeral Home, 3950 Pleasant Avenue, Hamilton. In lieu of flowers remembrances may be sent to the Samantha E. McGinnis Educational Fund %119 Hermay Drive, Hamilton, Ohio 45013. The family wishes to thank the staff of Childrens Hospital especially Chaplain Paul Beckman, Child Life Specialist Kelly Gleason and Life Team Transplant Coordiator Christine Cardwell.
First Published in SWO Classifieds on Mar 18 2003

He was my cousin's little boy. I wish I had known him better but as we are reminded every now and then, life is short. He did like pickles. He'd have liked you to enjoy one too.

I'll start by say my feelings about the whole Iraq issue are complex. It will take more hours of thought to explain my views that I'm willing to spend now but if like me, you are interested in intelligent commentary on the situation over there check out Intel Dump.

Good stuff there.

But if your interested in intelligent commentary, why the hell are you at my blog?

What I'm suppose to update this thing?
Jeez.

I started writing a bit on The bit of Rice's testimony to the 9/11 commision but decided against it.
Okay really I accidently closed the broswer and lost it all (and it really was good).

The point I ending with was that the War on Terror was really a bunch of bull for many reasons and the whitehouse central theory that you can take the fight too the terrorist is wrong headed. Unfortuantely terrorism is like a swarm so you kind of do need to "keep swatting flies"
Ultimately the fight is the fundamentalist . And not just the Islamic fundamentalist. Those that see the modern world as the enemy to their religious belief are those I'm pretty scared of.
If it wasn't for 9/11 I wonder how many far-right Christian groups in this country would be giving props to the Taliban. It certain seems to me that Pat Robertson and Moqtada Sadr have a lot of common ground.

Of course I don't expect to see Bush attack those that feel that legal and government processes must recognise the way of life they see as prescribed by God and the state must be subservient to God. Those folks are too big of a voting block for him.