A Moment For Iraq...

I haven't touched on this subject much because the war, while still raging, has been in a bit of a stalemate while the political process has attempted to create a more stable Iraq.

Leave it to the politicians to screw things up!

The Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, decided to disregard the cease fire between the Sadr militia, also known as the Mahdi Army, in favor of a new offensive to weed out militants at the end of last week. Unfortunately, United States and British forces have been dragged into the fray. Those on the ground fear this is the start of an Iraqi Civil War.

At the very least, this should be cause for an American military withdrawal from Iraq, with due haste. The Iraqi government has now taken affirmative steps to govern itself, and pursued a policy objective wholly separate from the aims of any U.S. Military operation. The Iraqi government has disregarded our help, and it is time for them to deal with their decision, and our mistake. There may be a smart way out, contingent upon the election of a Democrat for President. We can only hope. Imagine what the budget for the war would do for our economy or our educational system.

This is proof that the powers that be don't care about the results. Why not let them lie in the beds they have made.

In a word...Quixotic...

Those who watch this blog with some regularity (who I appreciate to no end), probably noticed that it has been some time since an update. This is due to circumstances of life as well as circumstances of content. Realistically, the news these days seems absolutely unpredictable and irrational. In a word, quixotic.

I wanted to take some time to step back and let things percolate. I had a need to see what would happen with things like the FISA amendment debates (more in the future), with the situation in Iraq, or the fallout from the mortgage foreclosure debacle before I could continue to opine in these pages. In the interim, crazy things have been happening. The House, while not passing the Senate FISA bill, did pass its own abomination. The Iraqi government unilaterally broke the cease fire with the Mahdi Army. Bear Sterns is the most recent casualty of the American credit crunch (also consider yourself warned going into Presidential election season of the connection between John McCain and the guy who got us into this mess).

Strangely, this isn't the weird stuff. No, instead we have a new attorney general who is equally as incompetent as the old one, demonstrating a propensity to use party line fear-mongering in unrelated debates concerning things like intellectual property piracy. That high school kid subject to the RIAA's extortionist litigation tactics is probably not supporting terrorism, but Mukasey sounds like he wouldn't mind sending the kid to Guantanamo for spring break.

It gets worse. Some nut case seems to think that the new particle accelerator going on line at CERN will destroy the world. For the record, it is impossible to create a quantum singularity using an atom smasher. Just ask this guy, who, I am sure, would know a thing or two about the possibility of a world-ending catastrophe. As a side note, who is the idiot lawyer who took this case and why did they think subject matter jurisdiction exists, even in a Hawaii federal court? I hope the retainer is huge, with sufficient disclosures regarding the unlikelihood of succeeding.

On a completely unrelated note, Hillary Clinton is an ego-maniacal habitual liar hell bent on destroying American Democracy.

So, yes, the state of our union just under three months into the year is clearly evincing some problems in recognizing reality. Why aren't we more concerned with interesting breakthroughs in nanotechnology or bio-technology that could lead to finding new energy sources, or realizing the precipice on which we, as a world population, currently stand? We need to wake up and get focused on finding solutions to real problems!

Amazing Ignorance and Idiocy...

I think the title of this post is sufficient to describe Senator Steve King's recent comments about the prospect of an Obama presidency.

I understand if Senator King is making a comment regarding Senator Obama's stance on how to wage the war on terror, but to implicate Senator Obama's middle name in conjunction with his corresponding "rhetoric" stoops to the level of arrogant, ignorant, irresponsible fearmongering. Lets consider what has been going on in recent history. The President, a Republican and supposed conservative, has spent $2 Trillion to wage the so-called war on terror, which has done little to sully the world's opinion of our great country, burned political bridges, and managed to do nearly irreparable harm to two of the largest economies in the world. If this is how we are supposed to fight the so-called global war on terror, a reasonable mind might think it is time for a change.

The name Hussein, though, isn't a bad name. In fact, his name was meant as a tribute to a family member.

The reality of Senator King's comments boils down to little more than xenophobia driven largely by party line ideology. I had hoped that our elected officials would be far more decorous. Clearly I am mistaken.

Senator King, as an American, you should know full well that this kind of worthless rhetoric has no place in United States politics. You should be ashamed of yourself as an American, but especially as an elected official.