Book Review: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayann Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia and raised as a Muslim, moving from one bad situation to another as a child and young adult in African and Saudi Arabia. Her experiences, from female circumcision to beatings by men, chronicle in great detail the lack of options and rights a female has in the Muslim world.

As she gets older, she begins to question a prophet (Mohammad) and set of rules (Quran) that require total slave submission to the master (Allah) and keep a society in an environment of war, starvation, and brutality.

The final straw is an arranged marriage (per Muslim tradition) by her father to a man she doesn't know nor cares for, who lives in Canada. On route to her new life as a wife, she seeks refuge in Germany, eventually making way to the Netherlands, where she works as a translator for Dutch officials interviewing other refugees from Africa.

She eventually gets Dutch citizenship, and assimilates into Dutch culture, noting that Europe and the West are much more organized, clean, fair, and democratic than Muslim countries, and not the decadent sex-obsessed clan of infidels that she was taught as a young child.

Her concern for Muslim women being abused and killed for actions they did not perform (for example, girls killed by fathers for getting raped and embarrassing the family) leads to her involvement in Dutch politics as an advocate for these women, but it comes at a price.

Because she is so vocally critical of the Muslim faith, she receives death threats and must be protected by the Dutch government (as a member of Parliament). She writes a movie with noted Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh that is critical of Muslim practices, and one day Van Gogh is stabbed on the street in broad daylight, and a death notice to Ali left stabbed in his chest.

Ali is moved across the country in secrecy and eventually to the US for several weeks, while questions of her past result in her Dutch citizenship being revoked. Eventually, her time in office ends, and thus her government protection ends, and even her neighbors sue her for all of the inconvenience the security has caused on their lives.

She now lives in the US, and continues her fight against injustice against Muslim women. She is now a self-proclaimed atheist, and she said she has learned to live with the death threats. One of the themes that I found interesting is Ali's stance that the West is better and should not tolerate Mulism inequalities, Muslim-only schools, etc., because it encourages the abuse.

"People accuse me of having interiorized a feeling of racial inferiority, so that I attack my own culture of out of self-hatred, because I want to be white. That is a tiresome argument. Tell me, is freedom then only for white people?" she wrote (p.348).

"Life is better in Europe than it is in the Muslim world because human relations are better, and one reason human relations are better is that in the West, life on earth is valued in the here and now, and individuals enjoy rights and freedoms that are recognized and protected by the state. To accept subordination and abuse because Allah willed it- that , for me, would be self-hatred."

Ali says that hundreds of millions of women across the world live in forced marriages, and 6000 small girls are excised every day. "My central, motivating concern is that women in Islam are oppressed. That oppression of women causes Muslim women and Muslim men, too, to lag behind the West. It creates a culture that generates more backwardness with every generation. It would be better for everyone- for Muslims, above all, if this situation would change," she wrote.

A first step would be to read Ali's book to better understand the Muslim belief system, from someone who lived it. The next step would be to consider the politically incorrect stance that to tolerance of abuse is no better than the abuser. While it is counter to everything we are told in the US (embrace differences, freedom of religion), if a belief is wrong and harmful, we typically don't allow it (child pornography, KKK, age discrimination, etc.). So why the acceptance of Muslims?

Maybe the future requires us to acknowledge that the Muslim faith, at least as it is practiced by hundreds of millions of people around the world, is not in the best interests of anyone. Of course, no one wants to live with death threats for saying so either.

Top 10 US Presidents Series: George Washington

George Washington: As the first President, he faced circumstances no US president ever would. People forget that when Washington reluctantly took office, no American had ever known an elected leader (having always been under a King), and Washington had no precedents to follow in how he behaved, made decisions, and ran the office.

He had to justify his position to Americans and prove to the skeptical world that the US concept of self-government could work. In addition, this was done at a time of and without compromising the reputation and character of the new repbulic, and for this amazing achievement, Washington stands at the top of the list.

my favorite note of Washington: In 1799, six months before his death, some fellow Federalists urged him to come out of retirement and run for a third term, which he refused, saying that present conditions of politics int eh US made his candidacy irrelevant. In other words, individual character and influence no longer mattered as party politics took over, and a party could "set up a broomstick" and get it elected. This is a fascinating story, becasue it shows that the greatest leader the US has ever seen was already annoyed twenty years in with the political party system's ability to elect a figurehead instead of the best person for the job. Imagine what he would be saying today?

No wonder my lawn is so green

A TruGreen truck pulls up in front of my house about 8:10am this morning. I am on a phone conference for work, so I happened to be in my office, which is at the front of the house, and see the whole thing.

Since I get these TruGreen advertisements in my lawn every once in a while, my first reaction was to roll my eyes, as my lawn is green and weed-free, so anyone can look at it and see I am doing fine with what I am doing and don't need to pay for a lawn service.

He opens up a door on the side of his truck facing the house, and there are three rolls of yellows hoses. He pulls out one hose, and starts walking up the driveway, where I have a row of three rose bushes. This seems odd to me, so I am paying close attention.

He looks at the ends of the bushes, but doesn't spray anything. He then walks to the other side of the driveway, beyond my view. I wait for him to return, but after a few minutes, he doesn't, so I walk out there.

As I walk out the door, the man is standing right there.

"What are you doing?" I ask in a normal tone."Spraying the bushes," he said."Why?"

He mentioned that it was part of my treatment plan, or something to that affect, to which I told him that I am not on any plan, and that I have never paid for anything.

"This costs money, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, I have never paid for this."
"You didn't sign up?"
"No."
"Well I've been doing this property for some time."

I LOVE this response. People use this approach all the time to defend a mistake, as if the frequency and time period the fuck-up has taken place has any relevance on the legitimacy of the mistake.

Being on the phone, I didn't want to argue at that point, but I wanted to make clear I am not a customer of this service, so I said: "Okay, that's fine, but I am not paying for it," and walked inside.

The man then got in the truck and left, although it wasn't clear to me if he was done anyway or he left early because of the conversation. He did stop a few houses down from mine and work on someone else's lawn, so I don't think this was a case of my house being targeted for something suspicious or that he was unethical... my guess is that our builder had this service, and after we bought the house a year ago, no one told TruGreen in the office, and as people are mostly incompetent, the office never informed the man on the street.

Two other interesting points:

1. The guy never actually sprayed anything, so if I were paying for the service, I wasn't getting anything for it. The bushes are healthy and fine anyway.

2. He said he has been on this property for a long time, which surprised me that I have never seen him before. However, I assume he only comes in the summer (and we bought the house at the end of last summer, so this was the first full summer we've been in it, and I typically don't work at home in the summer because my wife is home with the kid (she is a teacher), so if he came once a month, it is possible we've missed him, especially if he is just looking at healthy bushes for thirty seconds before moving on.

Bizarre. I don't like strangers walking around my property, let alone spraying chemicals I am not aware of.

People are lazy (big surprise)

I had the following interaction with a woman in a Wal-Mart parking lot:

I was about to drive into an open spot near the store entrance when a woman pushing an empty shopping cart walked into the spot as I started to turn in (seemingly oblivious to the possibility that a slowly moving truck a few feet away might be going into that parking spot, but that is another story). I braked, perplexed, but then noticed that directly on the other side of the space I was about to use was the shopping cart bin (the area where you park the carts). I assumed, since this parking space was the only open area within 30 yards either way, she was using this open space to better navigation to the shopping cart bin without any risk to other parked cars.

I assumed wrong. Instead of continuing to the other side where the entrance to the bin was, she instead stopped pushing and left the cart right in the middle of the empty parking space I was going to use, literally a few feet from the designated space for shopping carts. She walked away from the cart and towards my vehicle, which was about ten feet away. At first I was in disbelief and slow to respond, but a second later I did a quick tap on the horn.

"Can you move the cart please?" I called out. It was doubtful she heard me through the car, as my windows were rolled up, but she did look up from the sound of the horn though, and I pointed at the cart. She looked back at it and kept walking. I honked again, and spoke louder as she approached me.

"Can you move the cart, please? It is in my way." She kept walking towards her car (which was 2-3 stalls down from mine). As she walked by my window, she turned and said: "Don't talk to me like that."

I turned the engine off (the truck is still in the middle of the parking lot lane), got out, walked to the back of my vehicle and called out to her (she was about 15 feet away putting something in the trunk of her red car): "Tell me: How is it bad to ask you to please move the cart?"

Woman: "That is not what you said."
Me: "I asked you to please move the cart. You left it right where I was parking."
Woman: "It isn't even my cart. I was putting it there."

Hmm. Good answer. You don't deny that you put it in the wrong spot; your defense for being in the wrong is the person before you was lazy, so it is okay for you as well. Pass the buck to someone else... a kind of "f*ck you" pay it forward game. Nice.

I put the cart in the correct stall (it took all of three seconds), noticed she was watching me, so I called out: "Good attitude lazy ass!" and got back in my truck and pulled forward. A few seconds later, I saw her drive by me and out of the parking lot, knowing without doubt that she voted for George W. Bush twice.

Tough to live on $168K a year for Tony Snow

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow recently said that financial reasons may prevent him for serving the remainder of the Bush presidency.

"I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons." Snow said. "I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go."

According to the Washington Post, Snow makes $168,000 at the White House spokesman. The former Fox News anchor-turned press secretary took a month long leave of absence earlier this year after cancer was discovered on his liver.

This is an interesting comment. It is not clear if he is referring to how tough it is to live off of only $168K a year these days, or if Snow is referring to his medical costs, but either way, the complaints seem odd coming from a Bush Republican, given their stances on minimum wage (if $168K isn't enough, how can you fight against a wage increase to $5.75 an hour?), the economy, and health care.

If he is lying, like everyone else in the Bush administration on the reasons why they left, he picked a horrible lie to try and sell, and it shows how disconnected he is to the average American family, who lives on less than half of what Snow makes.

Dress Codes in Public Schools

It's school time across the country, which means it is time to bring out the annual argument about school uniforms in public schools. About one in four public elementary schools and one in eight public middle schools in the US have policies dictating dress codes in some manner.

The argument for school uniforms: they improve the academic performance of the students by eliminating distracting clothing and creating an orderly atmosphere.

The argument against? Uniforms violate a child's constitutional right of free expression and violates the guarantee of a free public education, as uniforms can cost a family hundreds of extra dollars to suit up every child.

While I can agree that the cost is an issue, and families under certain incomes should be provided with free or reduced cost uniforms, one could argue that the cost of a uniform is still less than the cost of buying an entire school wardrobe, as theoretically the cost of clothing would decrease with school uniforms.

However, putting cost aside, I cannot get on board with the violation of the first amendment right. To say that a child is defined by what he wears is, first of all, the wrong message to begin with. Any parent arguing that has its own priorities messed up. A child can easily be herself and differentiate from others with the same clothing (as if wearing clothing from the Gap, Nike shoes, and a Yankees cap is unique anyway).

Second, it is not the intent of schools to allow for children to express their inner self whenever they want, however they want. There may be outlets for that via specific classes or activities, but the main intent of school is to learn, first and foremost.

Third, where does it say in the first amendment that similar clothing is restrictive of free speech? It doesn't, which is why most lawsuits against school uniforms fail. Parents against uniforms say it is their job, and not the schools, to say what is appropriate to wear, but even if I were to agree with that point ideally, the fact is the parents are failing on this accord, so someone has to jump in and fix it.

Yellowstone National Park

The family went to Yellowstone National Park for seven days in August 2007. We stayed in the park every night, in Grant Village. Below are the top 5 and worst 5 things about Yellowstone, which I highly recommend that everyone see at least once in their lifetime.


Top 5

1. Geysers: highest concentration of geysers in the world.
















2. Grand Canyon of Yellowstone: includes multiple water falls, including a 300-foot one that dumps 37K gallons of water per second.

3. Wildlife: saw bison, black bear, coyote, elk, deer, pika, fish, osprey...

4. Nature

5. Hot Springs: the hotter the water, the less living organisms, so you can tell the temperature of the spring by the colors it displays (blue is hotter)

Bottom 5
1. traffic: the roads are all two-lanes throughout the park, but they have many pull-outs for slow traffic. Unfortunately, most drivers have huge egos and won't use them, even when they are 15 mph under the speed limit. Some say that it is a vacation and you should relax and enjoy looking at the back of a camper going 20 mph for 45 minutes on a road, but I say those people are full of shit and selfish. Yellowstone is beautiful, but not when sitting in a car on a road. If you want to enjoy the scenery, park the car and get out and look. Otherwise, drive the speed limit... if I wanted to spend my entire day in a car, I would have spent my vacation buying something at a Wal-Mart.


2. morons: I am not sure what it is about National Parks, but a lot of morons congregate here... people who can't read speed limit signs, don't know how to order food, forget how to walk on the right side on a four-foot wide wood path above boiling water.... if I wanted to spend my entire day in with morons, I would have spent my vacation buying something at a Wal-Mart.

3. food: the food is surprisingly pretty poor. Yellowstone has a vendor, Xantera, run all of the lodging and food restaurants in Yellowstone. While I expect to get hammered over the price as in any resort or protected area away from competition (and they say capitalism is bad), I didn't expect the quality to be significantly worse than dorm food.... If I wanted to spend my entire day eating bad food, I would have..... nah, it doesn't really fit here.

4. prices - gas, hotel, food, souvenirs: It is to be expected, but that doesn't mean I like it. Gas was 40 cents a gallon higher, and a poster for $16 was only $5 just 25 miles South at a visitor's center in the Grand Teton National Park. Explain that.

5. Mammoth Hot Springs: It looks neat in a picture, but in person, it is pretty bare, dry, and disappointing, compared to the rest of the attractions. It isn't that it should be skipped, but expectations need to be significantly lowered to avoid disappointment after the long drive North (unless you entered Yellowstone from the North Montana entrance, but who is doing that?).

First Amendment doesn't protect you from stupidity

Every few months someone gets fired for saying something completely moronic (usually on the radio), and defenders of that person always scream that the offender's first amendment rights are being violated.

As a reminder, the First Amendment says the following: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Without the First Amendment, religious minorities could be persecuted, the government might well establish a national religion, protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and citizens could not mobilize for social change.

Of course, Congress has tried to make some laws at times, such as legislation banning flag burning, but the Supreme Court struck it down, and the courts deal continuously with cases regarding pornography, libel, hate speech, etc.

While most people are for free speech as a concept, many don't not believe that everyone at every time has a right to say or write whatever they want. An interesting survey on people's thoughts on the first amendment from 2006 can be found here: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/sofa_reports/index.aspx

But that is not the main point I am getting at. While the First Amendment does give you the right in the United States to march with the KKK, protest the President in front of the White House, and write blogs on the Internet, it doesn't mean your employer cannot fire your ass the minute they decide your comments and thoughts are harmful to them. The moment you forget this, is the moment you could be crossing the line and giving your employer undesired attention. At that point, depending on the comment and your value to the company, you may find yourself unemployed.

When people complain about Don Imus being fired, they are incorrect in their complaints. His employers have every right to fire him, regardless of whether it is fair or not, good business sense or not. Imus has no First Amendment protection to employment.

The First Amendment means that the U.S. government doesn't have the right to throw him in jail, as they do in China and Cuba when someone speaks out, if they are lucky enough to not disappear.

Portland Trail Blazers low point

Things are looking up if you are a Blazers fan, which I have been my entire life, a result of growing up in the Portland, Oregon area. But a question was asked today, which is the worst moment in franchise history?

Since I was too young to really claim to any memories of the 1970s, and I could write an entire blog on why the decision to pick Bowie over Jordan was historically wrong but not a bad decision at the time, the real answer is very obvious to me: The 1990-91 Western Conference Finals, which the Blazers lost 4-2 to the hated LA Lakers.

In 1990, the Blazers lost to a better Pistons team. In 1992, although they had a chance, the 1992 Bulls were better.

But in 1991, the Blazers were the best team in the NBA. They won 11 straight to start the season, started 19-1, and won 16 games straight at one point, finishing with a franchise record 63 wins in a season that had several championship-quality teams (unlike now, when only three teams are really capable of winning).

It was game 1 of the 1991 Western Conference Finals, and all was going well. Playing with home court advantage in the best of seven series, Portland had a 10-point lead over the Lakers heading into the fourth quarter and appeared headed to victory over a team they hadn't come close to defeating in their last three playoff meetings.

Then Adelman went completely nuts with his substitution patterns, sitting basically every starter at the beginning of the fourth (got to get Mark Bryant his minutes; can't have Walter Davis unhappy), and the Lakers won the game, and the series (thanks to some choking by Terry Porter and Cliff Robinson in game 6 in the closing moments).

1990-91 was the year the Blazers were to win the title, and the pressure for Jordan to win his first the following year may have led to a different result.

Sure, the collapse of 2000 was tough to take, but the Lakers were the better team, and many people forget the Blazers were down 3-1 in that series and no one gave them a shot to even make it to game 6.

Sure, drafting Bowie over Jordan looks bad historically, but no one argued with the pick at the time (see ESPN's "The Top 5 reasons you can't blame The Portland Trail Blazers for drafting Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan"). Sure, it would have been different if Sabas came over, but Portland can't control politics, and it has no control over injuries (Bowie, Walton) or coin flips (Olajawon).

But when you lose the game you are supposed to win, that hurts.

Are the rich too rich?

A recent editorial in Fortune magazine (“How to Run a Budget Like An Idiot”, by Matt Miller, 6-25-07) summed up my beliefs on the current situation in the US in regards to income distribution. While I am far from a socialist or communist and am not a fan of income redistribution, I do think the system needs to be tweaked to make it more fair.

According to the article, new census data shows that the top 1% of US wage earners now take home a greater share of national income than at any time since the 1920s, and Republicans seem to be trying to match the inequity hit by Louis XVI, which led to a little thing called the French Revolution (which, unlike the American one, was a real revolution).

Will it change with new leadership? It doesn’t appear so. GOP presidential candidates not only want to keep the status quo, they have discussed more tax breaks. All of this while our deficit spirals out of control and spending continues with no relationship to income coming in (one of the biggest myths of politics is that Republicans are about small government and fiscal responsibility; maybe in Barry Goldwater’s time, but Ronald Reagan put an end to that, and Bush has taken it to new heights).

Ben Stein, in another interesting article in this same issue of Fortune, said if we managed our budget like the government, we would be broke and probably in jail. “They (conservatives) try and try to say we can do it (balance the budget) by cutting spending, and they never do.”

In the article, Miller points out that we’ve borrowed nearly $2 trillion in the past six years under Bush to cut taxes for the wealthiest in a time of war where spending has increased, meaning “we’ve slipped the bill for our war and our tax cuts to our kids.”

He also points out that while the top 5% of earners do pay about 58% in federal income taxes, Republicans who quote this number forget that income tax is only 47% of federal revenue today. So, when you throw other federal taxes into the mix, which tend to hit lower wage earners harder, you find that the top 5% make about 30% of the income and pay 40% of the overall federal taxes.

So, while the rich do pay more than their share and the US does have a progressive tax system, it clearly isn’t enough if we are headed towards an environment that historically leads to revolutions, and I don’t mean that figuratively.

It would be prudent for those in power in the US, regardless of political affiliation, to recognize this trend, acknowledge it is a bad one, and fix it, before it is fixed for them. And it would be good if Republicans would begin practicing what they preach. I may not like the fact that Democrats want a huge government and corresponding huge budget, but at least you get what you voted for.

How the Republicans continue to get votes from mid-to-lower income people in the Midwest and South is beyond me. I need to read the book that described this phenomenon that came out a few years ago… I think it was called “What is wrong with the people in Kansas?”

Gas prices in perspective

article on CNN.com about gas prices today: http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/07/news/economy/gas_prices/index.htm?postversion=2007050714

When inflation is factored in, Lundberg's record of $3.07 still trails the all-time high in March 1981. At the time, gasoline cost $1.35 a gallon - and in today's dollars, that's $3.13 a gallon, said Lundberg.

Also, Americans earn a lot more now than they did in the early 1980s, so by some measures what people spend now on gas is only half of what is used to be.

In 1980, the average American had to work 105 minutes to buy enough gas to drive the average car 100 miles, David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, said in a study last year. By 2006, the average American needed to work only 52 minutes, thanks in part to better fuel efficiency but mostly due to higher wages.

It's also worth noting that while $4 gasoline would be a record for American motorists, in Europe it's common. The average price for a gallon of gas in the Netherlands is over $7, and it's over $6 in many European countries.

Book Review of Bush at War by Bob Woodward

This book is the first of three by Woodward about the Bush administration. Bush at War starts with the attacks from 9-11, covers the war in Afghanistan, and ends with a brief excerpt about the decision to go into Iraq (which is covered entirely in Book 2 of the series), and includes several interviews with President Bush and his administration, plus detailed notes and quotes from internal meetings within the administration.

This book is a must read for all Americans, whether you like Bush or not, because if gives unique insight into how the Bush administration made its decisions, with direct conversations from all the major players, including the CIA, FBI, foreign leaders, etc. At times you wonder what dirt Woodward had on people to get this much access and information, but his level of detail and insight into the decision to go to war and how to fight it is fascinating.

Some highlights:

• It was clear that al Qaeda was not a top priority for the Bush administration when they took over the White House, even though this was identified by the CIA and director George Tenet as one of the top three threats facing the nation when Bush took the presidency.
• After 9-11, the philosophy of the administration changed. Ashcroft shifted the FBI and the justice department from prosecution to prevention, which was a radical shift in priorities. Bush told Tenet that he could spend whatever he wanted to in order to get info and resources in the middle east, a significant change from the Clinton administration. And the role of the US in the world was to preemptively prevent any future terrorist attacks on the US.
• Bush never engaged the American public on the war on terror, never asking them to sacrifice as Roosevelt and Lincoln did. Ironically, this could have been the reason why Americans ultimately turned against the war. Shortly after 9-11, Bush said that in a month Americans would be watching football and the World Series (p. 45, in paperback version), so why he never decided to sell the war to the American public is beyond me (he instead infamously asked Americans to keep shopping).
• The Iraq obsession of Rumsfield, Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfield’s deputy, was present from day one, immediately after 9-11. Not coincidentally, all of those three were key players in the first Gulf War. It was obvious that the obsession these guys had with removing Saddam from power eventually convinced the President it was the right decision to go to war with Iraq. A month after 9-11, Rumsfield was asking about going into Iraq to fight the war on terror in round one (49).
• Bush never had a problem with the US going at it alone, in Afghanistan or Iraq, although Colin Powell was never eager to go that avenue. Bush: “At some point, we may be the only ones left. That’s okay with me. We are America.” (81).
• Powell was always at odds with just about everyone in the Bush administration, specifically Cheney and Rumsfield, even though he held a very esteemed position as Secretary of State. He never had a great relationship with Bush. This relationship became a bigger gap as the Iraq issue dominated, and ultimately resulted in Powell leaving the administration.
  Rumsfield was always against using the US military for nation building. Ironically, it was the failure of the US military to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq that he received the most criticism for and ultimately led to his dismissal as Secretary of Defense. While the US military did an incredible job of invading and capturing both countries (in all, the US commitment to overthrow the Taliban had been about 110 CIA officers and 316 Special Forces personnel (314), plus massive airpower- no ground troops), clearly the Bush administration failed with the execution of what to do, once the coup took place.
  
  Bush also said he opposed using the US military for nation-building (237), but obviously Iraq and Afghanistan would collapse into civil war if the US pulls out, so a great history question will be: How did the Bush administration not see that, and what did they expect to happen that clearly did not, leaving the US in the lose-lose situation that will forever define his presidency?
• Bush’s leadership style bordered on the hurried (256). He wanted actions, solutions. Once on a course, he directed his energy at moving forward, scoffing at doubt and anything less than 100% commitment. This is no surprise to critics of Bush, who feel he picked people based on loyalty instead of competence, and as a result was slow to dismiss Rumsfield, Tenet, Gonzalez, Ashcroft, etc., when everyone else thought their time was passed. And, of course, Bush still refusing to admit the war in Iraq was a mistake.
• Two of the biggest criticism in the Afghanistan campaign has been the allegiance with the Northern Alliance tribes and the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo. A related note in these two topics is money; the CIA spent $70 million dollars bribing people in Afghanistan to get information, obtain prisoners, even make people move from point A to point B. Tenet was “extremely proud” of what the CIA had accomplished, and no doubt the CIA was breaking into new ground around the world obtaining information it otherwise had no access to. Eventually thousands of people and suspects were rounded up and put in Gitmo, but how reliable is the info and prisoners, when the people you pay to give them up are themselves possibly criminals and drug lords, and have something to gain by turning in a rival? While most would agree the Northern Alliance is better than al Qaeda, there may still be a price to be paid for the relationship the US has with the Northern Alliance, held together only by money and a hatred of al Qaeda.
• Bush’s vision is the reordering of the world through preemptive and, if necessary, unilateral action to reduce suffering and bring peace (341). “We’re never going to get people all in agreement about force and use of force,” Bush said. Bush found that protecting and sealing the US homeland was basically impossible, and the country is only marginally safer today, despite all of the increased security and regulations. As such, the policy of preemptively striking a country that harbors terrorists was believed to be the only way to prevent another 9-11 on US soil.
  
  

In the News - Feb 2007

1. Gore wins an Oscar for his documentary warning against global warming. The next day it comes out that he pays $30K a year for utilities in his 20-room mansion and pool house. But it is okay and not hypocritical, says a Gore spokesperson, because "every family has a different carbon footprint. And what Vice President Gore has asked is for families to calculate that footprint and take steps to reduce and offset it." http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=2906888&page=1

So it is okay to consume 20 times more carbon than the average family, if you have reduced it from 21 times more the year before? Click here to calculate your carbon footprint. Note that a major part of the formula is air travel, which Gore does frequently with a private plane. Oops!

One of the reasons given for the huge energy bill is both Al and his wife work from home. Yeah, that might make sense, if no one stopped to think. I work from home frequently, and my wife stayed at home for a year with our son (meaning the heat and the lights and the TV and computer was on all day), yet we still never came close to a monthly utility bill of $2500. I don't know what is worse- the excuse or the fact that they thought that it was valid enough to give as an excuse.

2. Hollywood raves over Gore and his green ways, driving to the Oscar ceremony in hybrid cars... then they go home to their 40,000 sq foot mansions and pools and hot tubs and private planes and consume more energy in one year than most of us do in ten years. It all makes perfect sense.

3. Girls are kicked out of a sorority because they are fat. Shocking. Things have changed so much from when I was in college, when all of the sorority girls were obese and the frat guys weren't interested in things like appearance and sexual attraction. Another example of America becoming too concerned about being thin. I am tired of seeing healthy people everywhere I look. I am tired of my health insurance going down because people are eating healthy and exercising. When will this all stop?

4. Stock market crashed 400 points to its biggest point drop since 9-11. However, this is immediately following eight straight months of gains and the largest peak ever a few weeks earlier. Analysts say the drop is expected and have been calling for a fallback. You have to love these guys justify their existence in a system that is completely arbitrary. Don't get me wrong: I own stock, most of my retirement funds are in stock, and I've made a lot of money off it, but admit it: There is little rhyme or reason to it anymore, especially now that anyone can get involved and it is as dominated by the huge mutual fund owners. It is a bit scary, if you think about it.

Why would the stock market be a great investment on one day (buy buy buy!) and then a horrible idea a week later (sell sell sell!), when everyone knows it is going back up past that sell-off point to record highs at some point anyway. All of the reasons given for the stock market to fall were valid a month earlier, yet then it didn't matter? It feels all very rigged to me.

5. Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears... why does this interest people? At least Spears has some talent and did something productive in her life... since when did Smith become a superstar at the level of Madonna or Princess Di? Shame on the media for talking about it, and shame on you for giving them the ratings to justify it.

Predictions for 2007

I have no idea. No one can predict the future, so think for yourself and ignore the experts... they don't know either (not even Pat Robertson).