Monday, December 11, 2006

Assuagement for Haggard Savants

I'm still friends with undergrads who are in need of stress relief! Bored old people are welcome to participate as well :-)

Copter

SpearToss

Mini-Golf

Snow Trooper

Curveball

Tennis Challenge

Maze Game

Ski (no score)

Thursday, November 16, 2006

OJ hypothetically'll kill me for posting this

A quote from this article:

We live in a country where thousands of people boycott television networks if they allow a bare breast or question religion. Yet scores of those same people will be eating out of Fox's hand those two nights, when it allows a (alleged) murdering scumbag to promote a book describing how he would've killed the mother of his children. You know, if he really did it. Which he didn't. Just ask him.

to introduce this article:

O.J. isn't the problem anymore ... we are

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Perfidious Bipartisanship

Here's a letter I sent to the Hartford Courant (slightly modified for this post):

Lieberman's supporters laud him for being one of the few truly bipartisan politicians in our government. Just what does mean for Lieberman to be "bipartisan"? It means not denouncing Bush for deliberately deceiving the public into supporting the war. (Perhaps he feels it was justified?) It means devitalizing checks against excessive public surveillance (spying) through the Patriot Act. It means refusing to censure Bush over a wiretapping scheme he acknowledged to be illegal.(Apparently the President cannot be held accountable for his actions during the indefinitely long "war on terror".) And recently, his "bipartisanship" meant voting for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This act technically gives the President the right to suspend anybody's right to habeas corpus. (Yes, U.S. citizens are at risk of being imprisoned without due process).

Is this what we must put up with in order to "get things done for Connecticut"? I, for one, refuse to vote for anyone who ignores corruption, discourages dissent, and is willing to sacrifice my civil liberties in order to get tax dollars into Connecticut. Shame on anyone who is.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

From Boondoggle To Disaster

So why are we in Iraq?

To get those weapons of mass destruction!

Wait no, Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper

And apparently, this administration was well aware of that months before the invasion, and deliberately deceived the public into supporting the invasion.


To stop a dictator who threatened the world!

...with his non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs), and feeble army?

So we get rid of an enemy of Al-Queda, and ignore a guy who does have nukes?

(Well, we did up until he demanded our attention)

For Democracy!

Because nothing bad ever comes from Democracy?

The theory that Democracies don't war on each other is b.s. Case and point: Hamas ruled Palestine and Israel

To Stop Terrorism!

... by providing then with a "training ground for the next generation of 'professionalized' terrorists"? By galvanizing the Islamic extremists? By furthering Bin Laden's goal to bankrupt our country? (No, the oil is not paying for the war).


Whatever! We're already there, and things are improving!

Says who? Iraq's vice president has had a third sibling assassinated. There are attacks on our troops every 15 minutes. The deathrate has skyrocketed in Iraq since Bush declared "mission accomplished". Just ask the citizens. (By the way, Bush is lying when he says that the study has been discredited)


We have to stay! If we leave, the country will be torn by civil war!

That's what they said in 1917, the first time this happened. But what are we really trying to accomplish at this point? What is victory? The establishment of a government as weak and helpless as the Somalian government? According to British General Richard Dannatt, the very presence of Western armies is "making the security situation worse". The problems we face there are insurmountable. It's not a matter of will; we won't find a solution to this mess just because we want to find one. "Good intentions" don't create miracles.

This is what happens when an idealist ignores reality. What do we do now?

Pullout.

What other choice do we have? Our continued presence is only making things worse, and nobody has a logical plan to turn things around. We need to admit the invasion was a mistake and pull everything out of Iraq (including our permanent military bases) before Bin Laden's goal of bankruptcy is realized.

Perhaps then we can deal with the true achievement of the War On Terror.