Toyah

Just read it.

Interesting thoughts on Iraq, here. I'm not sure I agree, or even that I completely follow his argument, but it's thought-provoking, anyway.

One of the nightmarish aspects of the war in Iraq is how many Muslims in Europe identify with the colonial-oppressor narrative of the war and then take out their self-induced rage on their host countries either by signing up for jihad in Iraq or by terrorizing passengers on subways and airplanes—and yet the violence in Iraq is mostly of the Muslim-versus-Muslim kind, and not even primarily Sunni-versus-Shiite either but just violence for its own sake.

our office (probably like every corporate office ever) has a charity drive. fifth third supported the united way. merrill's primary charity is also the united way. the united way isn't my favorite charity organization, but i would get to wear jeans. the awesome thing is, that unlike 5/3, merrill gives us the opportunity to choose other charity organizations. i chose march of dimes, because they helped my dad and his family when he had multiple surgeries for his foot and leg. i gave my share and am wearing jeans today. tonight we have special church services, so i have to change into dress clothes. tomorrow i am going to a restaurant that will probably require me to be dressed more formally than jeans....i never get to just wear jeans anymore...i miss the days when jeans was dressed up, and basketball shorts was the norm.

I am! It's pretty awesome. Happened this Saturday. No date has been set, SO DON'T ASK!!! Tigers dominate. Out.

That could easily be smuggled in and set off in a shopping mall somewhere? Apparently they don't and never did exist.

For now, suitcase-sized nuclear bombs remain in the realm of James Bond movies. Given the limitations of physics and engineering, no nation seems to have invested the time and money to make them. Both U.S. and the USSR built nuclear mines (as well as artillery shells), which were small but hardly portable—and all were dismantled by treaty by 2000. Alexander Lebed’s claims and those of defector Stanislev Lunev were not based on direct observation. The one U.S. official who saw a small nuclear device said it was the size of three footlockers—hardly a suitcase. For now, the desire to obliterate cities is portable—inside the heads of believers— while, thankfully, the nuclear devices to bring that about are not.

i don't know how the football team did, but everything else seemed to be perfect saturday. jennifer and i took a walk around campus. i stopped in at the alumni-choir and had a donut and sang some songs.

mount quad is impressive...not so good for frisbee, though.

anthony - the paint looks good, but the color surprised me.

i also went to a wedding for a friend from columbia. our friends all left the reception to hang out and play games and watch football. good times.

The Tigers have beaten the Yankees! The rest of the post-season teams send thank-you and congratulation cards.

Next up: Oakland A's. Go Tigers!

Interesting stuff about the federal budget deficit here. Remember, when you spend more than you bring in, that overage amount is a deficit. I don't consider myself an expert on economics, so I won't comment much on this, but the key news is that the federal deficit has been cut in half since 2003, and it has happened three years early. It appears that cutting taxes does result in higher revenue and strong economic growth.

So how come we don't do more of what works?

I'd like to state that I am simply happy to see the Tigers with a winning season. That they got into the playoffs is very good news.

But yeah, not facing the Yankees right away would've been nice. No point in crying over spilled milk, though. They hung in there with the Yanks for awhile, yesterday. When I turned it on the score was 5-3 Yankees, which is respectable. But it went downhill from there.

Do any Toyahites want to make a prediction about the fate of the Tigers?

I'm trying to gauge my level of unhappiness with the Republican Party. I don't think it's quite to "very unhappy", but it might well be "seriously unhappy." I'm not ready to jump ship, but that's mostly because I don't see any better ships around. The current 3rd parties are a joke, populated with zealous fanatics more interested in pet peeves than serious policies.

It's obviously very hard for a 3rd party to get traction, running necessarily unknown people against known incumbents in gerrymandered seats. But I wonder...there are a fair number of current members of Congress that aren't all that comfortable with their parties: Joe Lieberman, Ron Paul, Tom Coburn, and Tom Tancredo come to mind. I wonder if it would be possible for incumbents such as these to jointly jump ship, and run as a 3rd party? As current incumbents, they have name recognition and (some) voter loyalty. I doubt there's enough of them to be more than another caucus in Congress, but I do sense a changing party system.

I think the current two parties are about to break up. The Democrats are dying, and the Republicans are drifting. There's a lot of unhappiness with both parties in the ranks of the faithful. If the Democrats continue to flounder as they have for the past several elections, I think some Republicans might decide they don't need to stay with the Republicans as the anti-Democrat party. I can see the Democrats fading away, while the Republicans split in two, which would return American politics to the traditional two-party system. This could take another decade or two to happen, however.