With all respect to Mr. Alighieri

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.

But after I had reached a mountain's foot,
At that point where the valley terminated,
Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
Vested already with that planet's rays
Which leadeth others right by every road.

Then was the fear a little quieted
That in my heart's lake had endured throughout
The night, which I had passed so piteously into Saginaw, MI.

Entry for December 27, 2006

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe - Carl Sagan

Entry for December 20, 2006

You are truly a nerd only when you know what the first action is in making an apple pie from scratch.

Are Evangelicals the worst of America?

A couple of weeks ago the Christian Coalition of American forced the retirement of their president-elect because he was spreading a different message then their current beliefs. "I wanted to expand the issues from only moral ones -- such as opposing abortion and redefining marriage -- to include compassion issues such as poverty, justice, and creation care” said outgoing president-elect Rev. Joel C. Hunter (1).

This of course did not make much news due to the fact that the story of outgoing National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group representing more than 45,000 churches with 30 million members, founder Ted Haggard has rightfully stolen the spotlight. For those of you who have lived in a cave over the last month, Haggard was caught buying methamphetamine from a gay prostitute (2) and was forced to resign.

All of this comes on the heals of a events such as the Jesus Camp movie wherein an Evangelical summer camp does an Americanized version of what al Quada and other radical religious organizations have been doing for a couple decades. The only difference is that one is teaching their children to use guns; the other is pushing theirs to get elected so that they can command those armed with guns (3). Now one of those has more power, influence, and potential for causing massive casualties – and I’m sure you can guess which one that is.

The other Evangelical story over the last month was the inappropriate actions of Florida Representative Mark Foley with underage male House interns. Representative Foley supported the interests of the Christian Coalition of America 84 percent of the time (4). And all of this is just in the last month or two!!!

Now I know that there will be some Evangelicals out there who do not believe that the actions of a few predominate leaders truly represent the mindset or beliefs of the collective – but to this I would argue. When you have a leadership that you support who acts as these have, you have empowered them in whatever actions they do. Therefore, you are directly responsibly for their actions and also at fault of the events that have unfolded in the name of your alliance.

So my question is this: Is the collective Evangelical organizations in America the representation of the worst we have, or is there another equally large organization that I’ve missed that is somehow worse?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/28/christian.coalition/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/03/haggard.allegations/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_EKHK1C2IE

http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=CNIP8121&type=category&category=Conservative

The War on Terror

On September 20, 2001 President George W. Bush, standing before Congress and a scared nation, announced, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated” (whitehouse.gov). The task from there on out has been to define terror, terrorism, and terrorist in relation to our changing world; how to combat it; prevent it from spreading; and destroy the seeds in which it grows.

In 1937 the League of Nations originally defined terrorism as, “All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public” (unodc.org). For over 70 years this version was to stay the basic definition for international terrorism until, on March 17, 2005, a United Nations panel redefined terrorism as any act: “intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act” (un.org). This broader definition was to take into accounts the recent attacks by several terrorist groups that had been gaining in ambition and success.

Richard Clarke, who served as an advisor from 1973 to 2003 and for presidents Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush and was chief counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council during the events of 9-11, described the events that lead up to the current War on Terror in his books Against All Enemies. His vantage point is absolutely unique as to the events, actions, and reactions to terrorism within the past 20 years. And although his view is extraordinary, and his actions courageous, his reactions and strategies exemplify the endemic view within our government in relation to dealing with terrorism threats coming from different parts of the world and here at home.

The complexity of why terrorism exists, why it is able to flourish, and why it is extremely difficult to combat, is one not built on individual retaliatory measures, but on a systematic attack of the causes that allow terrorism to take root in the first place. South Korean Nobel Prize Laurent Kim Dae-jung has said, “At the bottom of terrorism is poverty. That is the main cause. Then there are other religious, national and ideological differences". In a Dec.10, 2001 article in the Christian Science Monitor (Jai, 2001). Several of the Nobel Laureates quoted highlight the role of low education and poverty in terrorism: “What is it that seduces some young people to terrorism? It simplifies things. The fanatic has no questions, only answers. Education is the way to eliminate terrorism” (Elie Wiesel). “If the mind is more open, that will automatically bring less fear. Education can narrow the gap between appearances and reality. The reality is that we and 'they' are not different” (Dalai Lama). “At the bottom of terrorism is poverty. That is the main cause. Then there are other religious, national, and ideological differences” (Kim Dae Jung). And, “External circumstances such as poverty and a sense of grievance and injustice can fill people with resentment and despair to the point of desperation” (Desmond Tutu). Clearly, it is the root of the problem that must be addressed: Education and Poverty. The issue then, is how to affect these two issues.

Education and poverty are the historical hallmarks of societies that remain closed to outside investment, communications, and influence (Bremmer, 2005). Open societies are more economically sustainable and, once established, have a built in self perpetuating system lead to more openness to the outside world. Governments that are successful in remaining closed and self perpetuating do so because they have either found outlets for the general discontent in either state or religious diversions.

There is a direct relationship between instability and demand within an authoritarianism society. A people who fear economic insecurity will suspend calls for freedom and representative government in favor of support for (or at least submission to) a single clear voice promising food, jobs, and social guarantees – whether it comes in the form of a state handout or religious offering. The purpose, therefore, of economic reform and the creation of a broad middle class, is to reduce demand for authoritarianism and to build the necessary public confidence that increases demand for an opening of society. When societal outrage is not properly supplied with essentials, or if middle class is unobtainable with the system of government in place, outrage must either be directly dealt with of redirected.

In an authoritarian state, opposition political organizations are suppressed, their activities are outlawed, their leaders are jailed or killed, and their supporters are intimidated into silence. As a result, opposition within these states becomes radicalized; opposition activism becomes, by definition, anti-state activity. And, as Newton’s Third Law tells us, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Eventually the masses will rise up and suppress the system of government that suppressed them. The problem with this rebirth is that it rarely breeds anything different then new leaders of the same government for the simple fact that the new leaders who take over an authoritarian state, no matter how good-intentioned their original act was, immediately realize that they are now in control of the entire state completely unchecked by any opposing party and with current support of the masses.

Historically in Arab countries, the trend has been for closed societies and authoritarian systems since the British colonialization in the Arab world. This time also ushered in the period in which Arab countries have been dominated by a single political party or monolithic elite. And unlike the control of Communist Russia through economic pacification, the one party systems lead to a continuous rise of religious fundamentalism throughout the Arab world. This is because the natural flow of problems have been redirected not into compliancy for economic stimulus, but into religious centers. “Mosques offer institutional support for public protest and a vehicle for public frustration for those excluded from a share in the nation’s wealth” (Bremmer, 2005). Consolidation of anger/power builds the one party solidarity and, through the government controlled mosques, and directs it at targets away from the state as a means for diversion from other, deeper, economic and societal concerns from their citizens.

Consequently these types of states, be they Islamic, Christian, or Jewish, are home to substantial numbers of radicals. Most prevalent within the closes systems in the Middle East reside the Islamists who prefer the restoration of the Muslim Caliphate to the establishment of liberal parliamentary democracy to push power and control of the masses solely to the religious side of politics as a solution for the problem that they are helping perpetuate by not addressing the core root of the problem.

The current US strategy of dealing with this upswing in religious activism in the Islamic world is the universal democratization and the elimination of “outposts of tyranny”. Unfortunately, this targets the supply of autocratic rule without addressing the underlying demand for it. The formulation of a comprehensive strategy that addresses both sides of the problem, low education and poverty, which lead to these states, is vitally important.

Education, the second part of the equation, is equally at odds with a state controlled by religious means. As a state that directs it’s economically burdened and socially discontented populous towards religion, religion itself will become the educational arm of the government. This too is self propagating and leads toward more religious intervention into all levels of government and a sharper divide with the outside world who may not share their specific brand of beliefs. Therefore, it is the simultaneous elevating of both economic conditions and the separation of church and education, within closed systems, that must be done in harmony. To simply drive a strike at between the leadership and the people of a closed society completely ignores the subsequent generations that have already been educated, usually more virulently, to take up where the newly ousted leaders left off – and with the public support of an equally educated society.

Suppression through economic or religious means will always breed those who refused to be suppressed by any means. Every closed system throughout all of history has, sooner or later, fallen to internal forces wishing to overcome a system they believe in designed to keep them compliant or silent. Strategies that empower the individuals that comprise these groups within closed states to challenge the authoritarian status quo can create strong momentum for democratic change. A promise of basic necessaries or a redirection of anger is in no way a match for the hope of equality with those who clearly have done well at the expense of others.

A supply side foreign policy approach only works against a large, organized, state that is both diametrically apposed to your policies and financially weaker then your state. Supply side policy against a non-formed organization (think the War on Drugs) is destine to fail for the simple fact that in trying to alter market supply in a self-sustaining market. This will only drive up the cost and create more individuals/originations who will naturally see the increased risk offset by the an parallel increase in profit. And since the increase in policy only drives the price higher, the risk and profit also rise in line with the increase in spending on the initial policy. One does not need to study Adam Smith to know that where there is demand, there will always be supply. It is only when you attack both supply and demand can you have a realistic chance of making a true difference.

It is precisely on this supply-side principle that the United States risks losing the war on terror. There is demand for terrorism in parts of the Muslim world to further the closed societies, bolster a belief in an enemy that disagrees with the religious education, and maintain the belief that economic shortages are not due to the system, but instead do to outside forces acting to upset the balance of their homeland. With this rally call, there are growing numbers of angry young Muslims willing to surrender their lives in exchange for an outlet for their anger and a sense of pride and purpose for their state and family’s future wellbeing. These men have little stake in the success of their nations. They have little hope of lawfully altering their fates. If this or that Al Qaeda captain is captured or killed, a young Muslim looking for a war will find another officer to enlist him. When bin Laden is finally captured or killed, those who demand a champion to lead the terrorist jihad will create a new leader.

The progress of altering this trend is slow, and as General Wesley Clark has written, "Western labor unions, encouraged by their governments, aided the emergence of a democratic trade union movement, especially in Poland, Western broadcast media pumped in culture and political thought, raising popular expectations and undercutting Communist state propaganda. And Western business and financial institutions entered the scene, too, ensnaring command economies in Western market pricing practices” (Washington Monthly). In essence, the former Warsaw Pact countries did not choose democracy because they it was imposed on them by the outside world. Instead, the accepted Democracy because they wanted democracy internally because of nonmilitary outside forces and influences.

This influence from the outside world is well known in closed societies. The average North Korean knows little more about the world outside of their boarders then their government allows just as those in the closed Islamic countries allow only certain types of cultural influences to permeate into their own. This defense against unwanted outside influences is usually done through cooperation between the state and the religion as it is mutually beneficially needed for both to maintain power and the illusion that their followers are living the best life possible under the circumstances. Cultural protectionism that undermines cultural vitality as surely as economic protectionism limits economic growth and keeps the population in eternal check.

The challenge becomes in finding ways into these closed societies to help bolster the middle class and allow for economic and educational reforms knowing that resistance to reforms reinforces short-tem political stability as it softens the blows of social dislocation.

Realizing that countries are aligning to undermine their intentions, certain militant cells have decided to shore up recruitment both in their countries of origin and in those where they believe that individuals with the same backgrounds and upbringing as themselves now reside. The attacks have symbolized mainly Western, other religious interests, and in their own religious areas. “These strikes may contain a grim message for Muslims: Beware, anyone who cooperates with the West--the danger extends to you.” And advisor to Morocco's King Mohammed VI says that the terrorists' strategy is to create chaos aimed at undermining moderate Muslim governments by “attacking innocent victims as an indirect manner of striking Arab or Islamic governments that militants condemn as corrupt," (Time 2004) France's Jacquard calls the tactic a new "strategy of rupture." The purpose, he says, is to force Muslims "to finally, fatally decide whether they are for or against righteous jihad."

So I put the question to you out there, what is the key to undermining an authoritarian regime propped up by basic economic stability through natural resources while holding it’s populous in check through religious means?

Any ideas?

References:

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/terrorism_definitions.html

http://www.un.org/unifeed/script.asp?scriptId=73

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html

Clarke, R. (2004). Against All Enemies. New York, NY: Free Press.

Jai, J. (2001, December 10). “Getting at the Roots of Terrorism: The Largest Gathering of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates.” The Christian Science Monitor.

Bremmer, J, (2005). The J Curve. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster

Clark, W. (2004, March). “Broken Engagement.” Washington Monthly.

McGeary, J. (2003). When No One Is Truly Safe. Time, 162(22), 52-56.

Your Christmas Survival List

My wife and I went to the mall today and as we shopped for Christmas presents I wrote down a couple of things to remember. I hope that this short list can in some way help you through the season:

• Christmas is inherently the gaudiest time of the year. Don’t try to fight it, you will loose.

• You are going to end up buying at least one box of girl scout cookies, so buy one for the girl who had the guts to walk up to your door and not just from the ones who catch you walking into the grocery store.

• Whatever items you originally laugh at today as bad gift ideas will progressively look better the closer Christmas gets.

• There are only two options when buying jeans: comfortable, or the ones that make your butt look good.

• Of course the retail person who helped you at the mall was stoned. They have to be stoned to deal with a Christmas shopping you.

• Your husband wants nothing from Bath & Body Works. Nothing.

• Nothing says that you’ve hit middle age faster then a Christmas sweater you’ve made yourself.

• Whether you want to admit it or not, you too looked that ridiculous when you were a kid. So stop mentally berating those ridiculous looking kids at the mall. It’s called generational revenge and is inevitable.

• There is a higher probability that Paris Hilton will win a Nobel Prize then there is that you will not gain weight over the holiday.

• Christmas is suppose to give you a headache, stress you out, make you want to skip it next year, argue with your friends and family, and make you wish you could rip the stereo out of the car. Its part of the mystic, just go with it or it will consume you.

Do you have Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder? Better ask your Doctor

The story behind the “discovery” of PMDD illustrates how an unknown, unofficial and, for some, unreal condition can be pushed from the back pages of the psychiatrist’s manual into glossy magazines and onto TV screens.

Cut to the 1999 TV commercial:

An anonymous woman tries to disentangle a shopping cart from an interlocked row of them, outside a suburban store. She is frustrated and angry. She becomes even more exasperated when another shopper enters the frame, calmly unhooks a cart and glides smoothly on her way. Watching this TV advertisement unfold, it might look like the woman is experiencing little more than a normal bout of tension or stress. But the folks at the drug company Lilly know better. This woman may need a powerful antidepressant because she is suffering from a severe form of mental illness known as PMDD. “Think it’s PMS? It could be PMDD,” intones the voiceover. This remarkable disorder was discovered right as the patent for Prozac was about to run out. So Lilly decided to repaint Prozac in attractive lavender and pink and rename it Sarafem.

In a recent study by Dartmouth College analyzing some seventy drug company ads in ten popular magazines, they found that almost half tried to encourage consumers to consider medical causes for their common experiences, most often urging them to consult a physician. The ads targeted aspects of ordinary life including sneezing, hair loss and being overweight - things many people could clearly manage without seeing a doctor - and portrayed them as though they were part of a medical condition. The researchers speculated that advertising was increasingly medicalizing ordinary experience, and pushing the boundaries of medical influence far too wide.

This medicalization of everyday human experiences is allowed to happen because the drug companies are allowed free reign of both medical funding, medical advertising, and an overly welcoming drug approval process. So in accordance with both the drug companies and the compliant FDA, I would like to officially announce my new miracle drug called Repressitall for Living Includes Frequent Experiences or LIFE. Repressitall deals with LIFE in a way that allows an individual to exist without actually having to “experience life”. The new miracle drug will give people the power to travel through life in a state of complete ignorant bliss all for the low price of $300 a week with 15 small pills a day. I hope to have FDA approval by next week.

Entry for November 20, 2006

I’m in the process of reading Richard Dawkins new book The God Delusion, and he developed the classic Bertrand Russell Teapot (or the Celestial Teapot) a bit further:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first.

It’s odd that certain long held understandings have moved back and forth from mythology for so long without an open discussion as to both the viability and sustainability of most organized religions. I believe that it was Joseph Campbell that once said, “every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble”.

As our worlds religions fight back against scientific advances with a call for intellectually laziness and apathy towards questioning of the unknown, I wonder if we are to keep reliving the same dark ages and renaissances of our previous generations. With each major advancement in knowledge evolution the major religions are reorganized to suit the needs of keeping people in check – but at some point will that no longer be necessary? Do you believe that we will outgrow our need for religion as a intellectual thought becomes harder and harder to subvert – or will organized religions always evolve to keep pace?

It's beautiful Bubba - SHOOT IT!!!

This weekend is the start of the hunting season here in Michigan and the single white doe are out in force unaccompanied. It seems that all of the local bucks are out in the woods, armed with semi-automatic weapons, camouflage, electronic deer tracking systems, attempting to outsmart a creature that eats grass.

This is a hobby that I will never understand. There is no more of a challenge in hunting dumb creatures as there is in playing chess with a retarded person. Sure you’ll beat the less intelligent creature, but what do you actually get in return? Are you that sad of a person that you need to kill something with an IQ less then 30 to feel good about yourself? And don’t even try to use that “we hunt for the meat” crap – because the amount that hunters spend on supplies far outweighs what they could have just paid to buy the meat. Also, if you need to get away from your wife that badly, maybe you should spend that weekend thinking about why that’s so.

So this weekend, as I’m scoring with your wife, I hope you have fun with the guys in the woods, drunk off your ass, reconnecting with your primal instincts by slaughtering bambi. Or as you might say, grunt grunt growl grunt small penis grunt.

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die

As we slowly decide what to do with the increasing civil war in Iraq I’m reminded of John Kerry’s April 23, 1971 Senate Foreign Relations Committee speech where he asked the now famous question: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?” It was an open omission that we had lost the war in Vietnam and a called for an immediate solution. At the time that speech angered and garnered approval from both sides. Those who refused to admit that the war in Vietnam was lost were upset, and those who saw the situation as lost were glad that Kerry said what they did not have the voice to say.

Now, as the war in Iraq winds down to an unfortunate conclusion a similar situation is building. Both sides now clearly admit that the war did not go as planned, has gotten out of hand, and is unwinable – although no public official of any rank will come out and say such. So again we head back to history to look at the Vietnam War for hints as to what will come next. To do so all we have to do is to look back at my November 30 blog post from 2005. It is posted below, unaltered, for both posterity and point:

Vietnamization is the term for President Richard Nixon’s policy in the early 1970s to turn the job of defending South Vietnam back to the South Vietnamese government. The policy was part of a broader plan to reduce and eventually withdraw American troops from the Vietnam War. America did pull out of the war in 1973, but South Vietnam survived on its own only until 1975 at which time it collapsed and was taken over by North Vietnam.

Iraqization is the future term for President George W. Bush policy in 2006 to turn the job of rebuilding Iraq over to an unprepared Iraqi country. The policy will be part of a broader plan to reduce and eventually withdraw Americans troops from the War on Terror in Iraq. Iraq will quickly crumble due to its lack of sustainable economy, underdeveloped government and the War on Terror in Iraq will cause Iraq to become a heavy source for future terrorist cells and recruitment.

This was blatantly obviously a year ago to me – a political outsider who only had access to the mass market news sources and a decent education. The only thing that was not easy to predict was what they would call this new Iraqization. So here we all sit, waiting with bated breath, waiting for what we now know will be called “phased redeployment” and thinking of that parallels of Vietnam once again. Again we the people do not have a good solution and spend our days arguing over what can and should be done in our lost war. And again, I think that a version of John Kerry’s 1971 speech is not called for. Except this time, confused, angry, and looking to find a politically acceptable term, let us change his saying to fit the time. So now I ask you, how do you ask a man to be that last one to die for a phased redeployment?

Entry for November 11, 2006

This week NASA released some pictures and a short video of a super hurricane measuring 5,000 miles across on the South Pole of Saturn.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm

This prompted a couple of the news stations brilliant flaxen-haired media personalities to prophetically postulate on whether or not it was a black hole on the surface of Saturn.

So in response to their brilliant question, I would like to answer them here publicly:

No, sweetheart, it's not a hurricane and here are a couple reasons why:

There's light near where the Schwarzschild radius would be, the gravitational pull would collapse the planet, there are particles obviously traveling up and down, and it doesn't seem to have a density of matter that has become too great in the self-accelerating process to warp four-dimensional space time to a point singularity wherein the Enterprise could clearly travel through it.

I hope that explains it.

Bush Names 2 New Enemy Combatants

At 1pm EST on Wednesday November 8th, President Bush signed an executive order naming the both Jim Webb from Virginia and Jon Tester from Montana as enemy combatants and had them shipped out of the country. Both Democrats had thin margins after the voting yesterday was completed, yet both Democrats were close enough for Republicans to challenge the vote totals. The former potential representatives are rumored to now be somewhere in a secret prison in Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, Congress moved quickly to fill those holes with what majority leader Dennis Hastert called “reasonable representatives” by brining back both Tom DeLay and Mark Foley to fill the two new vacancies. In Bush’s statement he said, “What the hell did you think I had Congress throw out that habeas corpus thingy for anyway? I’m the king dammit, and I’ll stay my own course”.

What to Recall, What to Forget Nov. 7

The latest New York Times/CBS poll shows that only 29 percent of Americans approve of how President Bush is handling the war in Iraq.

That's terrible news for Republicans on the eve of mid-term elections. While some frantically try to distance themselves from the president, others are frantically trying to distract voters.

Please worry about illegal immigration, they say.

Worry about gay marriages.

Worry about income taxes.

Worry about the stand-up comedy career of John Kerry.

But please, please put the ongoing debacle in Iraq out of your mind when you walk into the voting booth.

Just try.

October was the bloodiest month for coalition forces in almost two years. According to the Pentagon, 105 U.S. soldiers were killed, most of them by improvised bombs.

Don't think about them November 7th.

Don't think about all the funerals at Arlington. Don't think about the months of rehab at Walter Reed, learning how to walk with prosthetic legs or eat with prosthetic arms.

Don't remind yourself of that day, so long ago, when Bush posed on the aircraft carrier and announced that major combat was over. Mission accomplished.

Don't remind yourself of how Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld belittled the insurgency in Iraq, and predicted we'd make short work of it.

Don't ask yourself what those arrogant fools were thinking when they dreamed up this war.

Please don't think about the phantom weapons of mass destruction, or about the obliging and unquestioning members of Congress -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- who bought the hype.

Don't think about what happened at Abu Ghraib prison, or how it helped turn so many Iraqis against us.

Don't ask yourself how Afghanistan, haven for the guys who planned the 9/11 attacks, got shoved to the back burner. Don't clutter your head with thoughts of Osama bin Laden, still very much alive and spewing hatred -- in hiding nowhere near Iraq.

And please don't think about where we are today, stuck in the middle of a religious civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites, with violent fanatics on both sides. Also, don't worry about Iran waiting on the sidelines, juicing up its nuclear program.

When Bush stands up at a campaign rally and says America is safer now than it was five years ago, don't think about the National Intelligence Estimate completed by 16 U.S. spy agencies. Their conclusion: The occupation of Iraq has galvanized Islamic radicals and actually increased the global threat of terrorism.

That, from the top intelligence officials in our own government. Their report was done last April, but kept under wraps until the details began leaking in September.

Here's something else not to think about on Election Day: A 2005 study by the National Intelligence Council saying that since the invasion, Iraq has become the main training camp for the next generation of terrorists and future leaders of al Qaeda.

Every day the war comes home in a crushing way to another American town, to heartsick wives or husbands and to children. The finest soldiers in the world are fighting their guts out in a place where they are increasingly viewed, and treated, as invaders.

The same politicians who got us into the war promise to get us out, but they can't say how or when. They're more comfortable ranting against lesbian weddings and illegal farm workers than talking about the 105 coffins that were shipped home last month from Iraq.

They'd prefer that the war wasn't a big campaign issue, and that voters didn't wonder about the doubts of our own top generals or the bleak assessments from our own intelligence networks. Or about the president himself, grinning like a Muppet while defending the competence of Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Try not to think about that on Tuesday.

Just try.

Politics: A Wealthy Gentlemen’s Game?

There are those that always speak of Adam Smith when talking government, elitists, and support for candidates who believe in the “invisible hand”. These quotes and arguments all seem to miss Smith’s (2003) caveat of “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices”. Extremely wealthy businessmen have but one reason to enter politics and it is usually to extend their wealth to friends, family, or business associates. I would like to think that I’m wrong and that their philanthropic nature is what’s compelled them to work for lower pay – but I live in the real world.

Here in Michigan we have a race going for governor where one of the candidates is the son of the billionaire Amway founder, one of the top 5 campaign donators and fundraisers for his national party over the last 7 years, and has spent over 40 million dollars of his own money on this election. Now I have nothing against billionaires, but there is always something fishy when someone who owns several billion dollar corporations, an NBA basketball team, and who has been personally drug before the FCC and sanctioned for running an almost illegal pyramid scheme, decides to get into politics. Anyone with that much money and power usually only gets into government for one reason – and it’s not good.

One really has no further to look then to the fall of Rome to know from where and to what ends government corruption springs forth when the state is captured by elites who use it for their own purposes. And just like in Rome, our state is subject to the same variables of a religion overstretching to weakening the bonds of government, excessive governmental bloat, attacks by barbarians, and a general culture of corruption. Edward Gibbon, in his monumental work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (2005), concludes that "The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long." The story itself is one of slow growth, bringing a high quality of life to a large percentage of the masses – which made them apathetic towards governance. This, in turn, allowed their politicians to do all sorts of horrible things. Couple this with a religion imposing itself through the state and you see the eventuality of most powerful governments throughout history.

Arthur Gordon once said "Some people confuse acceptance with apathy, but there's all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped; acceptance makes that distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens.” These acceptances of an increase in the inherent level of government creep, especially when times are abundant, are counterbalanced by the natural tendencies towards either revolution or constant flux that delays the inevitable outcome of weight that fell Rome.

All of it reminds me of our own beginning and a specific comment from my favorite demigod who, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, was accosted by an anxious lady named Mrs. Powel who asked of Benjamin Franklin, "What type of government have you delegates given us" to which he replied, "A republic, if you can keep it”.

Smith, A. (2003). The Wealth of Nations. New York, NY: Bantam Classics.

Gibbon, E. (2005). The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press.

Isaacson, W. (2003). Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Stay the Quagmire

In a case of extreme irony the Bush Administration has decided that they’ve either never said “Stay the Course”, or that the American public is just too dumb to understand the complexities of the brilliant, yet articulate jingle.

The irony comes into effect when you take this recent flip-flop along with the report that was released about the same time last week by the pentagon. The report explained how the insurgents have been slowing increasing their effect by simply doing exactly the same thing that they’ve done for the last couple of years.

So as our Commander-In-Chief has abandoned this “Stay the Course” idea because of its complete failure in Iraq, our enemy has ironically always “Stayed the Course” and used it successfully.

Sometimes irony is funny, but this time it’s just sad.

Test your vocal chops

This is supposedly the hardest English sentence to say repeatedly out loud:

The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick

I made it through three times at normal speed before I sprained my tongue and had to seek a specialist.

Entry for October 29, 2006

Life is what you are busy doing while the people you love live and die.

Entry for October 28, 2006

For the last couple of years I've watched The Daily Show, and more recently, The Colbert Report to keep myself sane. But recently I find myself feeling empty after what I use to call the only real news on TV. This, of course, was in response to the others news channels filtering out any important news, failing to ask decent questions of politicians, and chasing stories that any sane people shouldn’t care about.

Instead, what I need now is serious news. I long for real hard-hitting journalism from a company who isn’t interviewing Natalee Holloway’s pediatric orthodontist and isn’t anchored by a bubbly blonde woman who couldn’t locate herself on a mall map.

So as much as I still enjoy Jon and Stephen, I need something substantial. And as soon as I track down that source, I’ll let you know.

Entry for October 27, 2006

One of my heroes was, and always will be, Carl Sagan. This morning I reread a quote of his from years ago that struck me as a bit wittier then I believe it was originally intended - and I now feel I should share it:

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." - Carl Sagan

Entry for October 26, 2006

No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to teach any dog decent manners.