Two Things

I'm starting this off with two things on my mind. I could end up with ten, but I'll start with the two original thoughts.

First of all, recent headlines have told that President Bush's chief war advisor is talking "Draft." Now, isn't that a welcome thought? Now, to be fair, he's made it clear that this is just him talking, and that there have been no official talks within the White House about reinstituting a military draft, and that the President is not interested in discussing it, indicating that he doesn't think it an option that needs to be considered... at least for now. I think I've made it clear by now that I don't like the war in Iraq, and I wasn't in favor of the invasion to begin with, but one of the big selling points that war supporters have been using to pacify critics is the "fact" that it is an all volunteer force. Of course, even this is stretching the truth somewhat. While it is true that they have not drafted anyone into the military to meet the needs of the conflict, they have forcibly extended enlistments, that is, not allowed people to leave the armed forces when they were supposed to. They have also extended deployments, which, while not the same thing, can have a negative effect on our military forces. And besides this, they have sent Reserve and National Guard forces to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to keep troop levels up to the task at hand. Admittedly, this is what the Reserves are for, but not the National Guard. The job of the Guard is to defend the US against attack from abroad, and to lend a hand in the event of disasters and emergencies, not to go halfway around the world and leave the homeland precariously unguarded. So when John Kerry said during the last Presidential campaign that the US already has what he called a "backdoor draft," he wasn't far off the mark. For me personally, I don't like the idea of a draft except in the incidence of the most extreme of national emergencies, and I don't think this qualifies.

The second thing I've had on my mind is something else I read about yesterday, and that is another frivolous lawsuit against McDonalds. This time they are being sued because some guy claims that he ordered a quarter pounder without cheese, but it came with cheese, and he had such a strong allergic reaction that he almost died. He wants to be paid $10 million! I see several problems with this; First of all, how is he going to prove that he ordered the sandwich without cheese? Does he have a recording of this? Second, how could you not notice the cheese on one of these sandwiches, since it tends to melt around the patty and goo all over the wrapper? Third, can you imagine that anyone who is that allergic to cheese wouldn't check the sandwich before biting into it to make sure that there was none there? (Besides, remember if you will, it would have been all over the wrapper!) For me, there is also the fact of how much he is asking for. I might see this as something legitimate if he were only asking for McD's to pay his medical bills and lost wages (if any), but asking for $10 million... smacks of SCAM to me.

One more thing that comes to mind are the trapped miners in Utah. Things are not looking good for them being found alive at the moment, but lets all remember to take some time and Pray to Almighty God that we could see a happy ending out this.