Friday, February 02, 2007

Much Ado About Nothing

I am lucky enough to have a job where I only work three days a week. Today is an off day and I am grateful not to be out in the cold. I live in the Northeast and they are predicting record low temps this weekend - highs around 10 degrees, if we're lucky - accompanied by lake effect snows, high winds and generally yucky conditions. Again, I am grateful that I have a couple days off and don't have to be out in the cold.

It is on days like this that I can be lazy and unproductive, and just reflect on things in the universe. I try not to do this too often because the universe right now is a pretty scary place, especially considering that the Dubya is trying to take over the planet. Sadly, I still long for the days of Bill Clinton. Bill might have had a problem with controlling his libedo but at least I never had to worry about him setting off a full scale nuclear war.

And at least Bill knew how to pronounce the word nuclear.

Hillary is running for President and that should give me some comfort. But frankly, it doesn't. She has been a reasonably capable Senator for my state although she is very adept at playing the politician. Hill has made a number of campaign promises which have all quietly fallen by the wayside and probably won't make headlines.

Although I try not to think about it too much, the war in Iraq with its ever increasing sectarian violence is never far from my thoughts. The administration still refuses to call it what it is: a civil war. Stephen Hadley, in his best White House doublespeak has announced that it was more complex than a civil war. What is that phase I'm looking for... a rose by any other name? Still, we are supposed to take some comfort in the fact that this president never makes mistakes. He is just given bad advice.

Finally, I found out this week that the soldier I wrote about in an earlier post had been one of the four hostages taken in the raid on the police headquarters in Karbala - the one where the militiamen had American uniforms, spoke English and drove Humvees. His funeral was on Wednesday and over 2,000 people attended the service. The American soldiers taken were bound and executed, and for what purpose?

At times I wish I could look twenty years into the future and see where this is all going to end up. Will it be worse than Vietnam? How many more soldiers will sacrifice and die? Can the next president mop up this mess of our own making? Will we even have a Republic in 20 years?

Of one thing I am certain. It is a cold world indeed, and it is getting scarier every day.

2 Comments:

At 2/02/2007 05:46:00 PM, Blogger 5th Estate said...

It is indeed cold outside.

I gave Hillary $1,000 for 2006--not really necessary but there you go--the mid terms were really important( and I canvassed on behalf of McLaskey, who won though no thanks to me.)
One of Hillary's crew thus called me up yesterday looking for more money. I said she doesn't need my money anymore-everyone knows who she is and her record so what's the money for?.

Yes it is indeed cold out there, maybe this will warm you up:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Baby+it%27s+cold+outside&hl=en

 
At 2/03/2007 09:32:00 AM, Blogger eyedoc333 said...

*pulls up blanket*

 

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