Pete's Ancient and rarely updated
D-land Journal

In war, if one does not fight, one surrenders or dies...

Journal Entry entered: 2001-09-12 - 10:51 p.m.

Interesting, I've read a lot of people saying they don't want a war and that they can't believe it will happen.

I don't think any sane person, even our leaders (whose sanity is arguable at best), want a war.

But, if we don't take swift, decisive action, we will basically be saying "That's okay, folks, kill as many of us as you want, we don't mind and we certainly don't have the balls to do something about it."

If, on the other hand we stand fast:

take the line that we are not going to accept this sort of crap;
make it known that those who perpetrated it are our enemies and we want them handed over to us... NOW;
make it clear that those who give aid or comfort or shelter to our enemies are declaring themselves, by these actions, to be our enemies and also therefore at war with us;
and inform the world and those that think this attack was a great idea that we will go to ANY means necessary (and through anyone who gets in the way) to secure the criminals who did this...

If we do these things and follow through on our threats, those that would attack the civilian population of our country will find they will think more than twice before pulling this sort of stunt again.

No one wants war... no one wants our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, and loved ones to die... but if we don't do something, the 20,000+ that were killed yesterday will only be the start. If the retaliation that we take now saves thousands more lives in the future, the loss of some lives now may be worth that cost.

I would note that I tend to consider myself a liberal and I was raised to value peace and love above all else (with parents who were hippies, how could I believe aught else?). However, even the most peaceloving person knows that there comes a time when words and understanding can fail, and then it is time to fight for one's life and security and the lives and security of others. The people on board the plane that went down in Pennsylvania understood this... that's why that plane never made it to its target.

We will mourn those lost due to yesterday's attacks and their aftermath. And we will mourn the loss of life, ON BOTH SIDES, that will occur as we make every effort to secure all of those responsible for this atrocity. But we cannot allow this attack to go without a firm, decisive, and unescapable response.

- Warren

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Warren's list of words that monkeys use to annoy him by misspelling, misusing, or mispronouncing them (the list will most assuredly grow)

Misspellings

COMING (typically mispelled "comming")
TONGUE (typically mispelled "tounge")

Confused spellings

HERE vs. HEAR (the former is a place word; the latter is what you do when a sound hits your ear)
IT'S vs. ITS (the former is a contracted form of IT IS; the latter is a possessive form of the impersonal pronoun IT)
LOSING vs. LOOSING (the former is what you are doing if you are not winning; the latter is what you are doing when you let the lions out of the lion pen at the zoo, you are "loosing them" or "setting them loose").
POUR vs. PORE vs. POOR (the first is what you do to get milk from the carton into the glass; the second is a small opening in a surface, such as those in your skin that sweat comes out of (... don't write poetry if you don't know your English, you just look sad). The third, a state of having little or no money, is rarely confused with the other two).
ROGUE vs. ROUGE (The former is a person who might also be described as a rascal, scoundrel or cad; the latter is make-up that one uses to add a bit of a blush to one's cheeks.)
THEY'RE vs. THEIR vs. THERE (the first is a contraction of THEY ARE; the next is a possessive form of THEY; the last denotes place or location)
TO vs. TOO vs. TWO (the first is a function word indicating movement, direction, proximity, intention, addition: "I'm going to the store" or "Add this to the pile" or "How close is the house to the road"; the second one sort of adds quantity, often of the excessive sort, to a concept: "Too many reptiles" or "I'm coming, too"; the last represents the number 2.)
WHERE vs. WEAR vs. -WARE vs. WERE- (the first references place or location; the second is either a verb, noun, or suffix relating to clothing or other adornments [example: wearing footwear] OR a noun or verb relating to the effect of exposure or useage or corrosion [wear and tear]; the third is a suffix that indicates that something is a class of some sort [hardware, software, flatware, wetware]; the fourth is a prefix used to attach the disease of Lycanthropy to a person or animal, i.e: werewolf, wererat, weretiger. Finally, although pronounced differently, "WERE" is also a past tense of are or to be.)
YOU'RE vs. YOUR vs. YORE (the former is a contraction of YOU ARE, the middle is a possessive form of YOU, and the latter is a reference to another, undefined era in the past: "Days of yore.)

Mispronunciations

ASK [ask'] ("axe" is something used for chopping wood or the action of chopping something with an axe).
CAN [kahn] (it should not be pronounced as [kehn]). Thanks, Ken.
CAVALRY [kah'-val-ree] ("Calvary" is a mountain that is prominant {pun intended} in the Bible, not a military unit that rides on horses... or these days on tanks and Hum-Vees).
DONDER [don'-der] ("Donner" was the name of a party of travellers that got stuck in the mountains and ate each other, not the name of one of Santa's eight little reindeer).
ESCAPE [es-kayp'] ("excape" simply sounds dumb).
ESPRESSO [es-pres'-oh] (it is NOT "eXpresso," pinheads. Thanks, Mischief.
HUNDRED [hun'-dred] (it's not "hun'-erd" nor "hun'-red"). Thanks, Rachel.
INSURANCE [in-sure'-ense] (it is NOT "in'-sure-ense"! In English, the second to last syllable is the one that gets the emphasis except when asking a question, when the LAST syllable is accented... never the third to last!!!)
JEWELRY [jew'-el-ree] (it's not "joo-lah-ree" or "joo-luh-ree", stoner!) Thanks, again Rachel.
LIBRARY [lie-brayr'-ee] (there's no such thing as a "lie-berry", people!)
NUCLEAR [new-klee'-er] ("nuke-yuh-ler" is incorrect, Homer! Same goes for you, Dubya!!!)
OFTEN [aw'-fen] (the pretentious will insist on saying "awf'-Ten" but that is an archaic form and no more appropriate than saying "thee" and "thou" in colloquial English)
RIPON [rih'-pin] (so very many people pronounce this "rih-pon' " or "ripe'-on" that it gets on the nerves of anyone who has ever lived or gone to school there! Thanks Rachel K.
VIOLA [vi-o'-la] (the musical instrument is pronounced "vee-ola" but the flower and the woman's name is pronounced with an "eye", not an "ee")Thanks, Viola.

Pete's Ancient and rarely updatedD-land Journal

Pete's Ancient and rarely updated
D-land Journal