70,280

Just can't stop playing Free Rice.

I was watching Book Notes this morning and an historical author, Mark Perry, was discussing World War II and the working relationship between Eisenhower and Marshall. Somewhere in the course of questioning from the audience came this shocking gem: The Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff is not in the chain of command! Huh? Think about it, not in the chain of command. It goes as follows: President, Secretary of Defense and then the seven commanders who form the Joint Chiefs, but the Chairman is out of the loop. Interestingly strange I say. Put another way: There are eight male Generals or Admirals who comprise the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chairman; (Question): If there are 14 gonads amongst them where is the missing pair?

Perry at one point expresses to the audience that he is a Republican in a party that no longer shares his values and goes on to explain he is an isolationist, small government advocate, etc...and then the following brought a big grin with an equal sigh from me. Perry is explaining how the present policy against global terrorism is skewed (at this point he apologizes for sounding like "liberal psychobabble") and then guess what? Uh huh, he uses the liberal position to explain a better policy to confront global terrorism, i.e., this is a battle of an idea and not a militarily forced solution. At that point I arose from my chair and repositioned myself in front of the computer screen and racked up more grains of rice for the Third World. Since I have to go to work, I couldn't very well slug down any beer. Third Worlders you lucked out this morning. COOPERATIVE INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM POLICE TASK FORCE WHERE ARE YOU?
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I just looked at the pattern of rice grain contribution for the month of January:

January 1, 2008 114,143,280
January 2, 2008 143,815,320
January 3, 2008 161,073,080
January 4, 2008 163,428,220
January 5, 2008 112,720,840
January 6, 2008 109,177,920
January 7, 2008 159,954,980
January 8, 2008 168,648,120
January 9, 2008 173,358,320
January 10,2008 190,065,540
January 11,2008 195,108,860

I can only conclude that there others around the world who also have to go to work.