No Guilt by Association

Although it has been said in various ways by many different people I think it bears repeating: we must be careful and diligent to remind ourselves, others in our country, and the world that although we are in a conflict with "Islamo fascism," or Islamic radicals who want to destroy the West by force, we are not in a conflict with all Muslims. If our enemies can convince the rest of the world that we are against Islam in general then they will have won support, or at least greater disdain for us, from a large percentage of the world's population. Furthermore, the Muslims in the US need to know that they are not outcasts. We also need to remind those in our country who would seek to harm all Muslims, even other citizens, that we are not a people who desire or tolerate hatred or guilt by association and that, as a nation, we are remorseful for times that we have done so in the past. Muslims and those of Middle Eastern heritage may be under greater suspicion than WASPy types, but they are not guilty just because of their faith or family history. Is it fair that they are under greater suspicion? Maybe not. But I can't think of a better system because, without further investigation, you can't tell an "Islamo fascist" from a peaceful Muslim. If there were a group of white supremacists carrying out terrorist attacks and seeking to destroy our culture I hope that us blond haired blue eyed types would be under greater suspicion than those who are not white at all. But because Muslims are under greater suspicion it is easy to understand why they may feel targeted. And therefore we need to make an extra effort to make sure they know that they are not guilty by association and that we do accept them as countrymen or just as other peace-loving humans. If we allow this sizeable majority in our country to feel isolated and targeted simply by their coincidental association with terrorists then it only becomes more likely that they may one day sympathize with our enemies more than us. And, from a less practical standpoint, we should reach out to those who feel persecuted or outcast because it is harmful for them, as humans, to feel that way. We ought to show compassion and acceptance. Not just for the practical purpose of trying to keep them from becoming resentful, but for the pragmatic purpose of embracing everyone who will be embraced and showing love and compassion to the world. If we do not wholehartedly welcome diversity and allow each person to have their own ideology, as long as it doesn't involve killing us or terrorizing us, then we are worse than our enemies.

Sometimes its Obvious

Iran is continuing to develop its nuclear program. Why do the UN and Europe continue to act surprised? Why do they believe that they can really talk Iran out of it? The President of Iran has quite clearly and frequently stated that he believes his country to be at war with the Western world. Furthermore, he has stated that his goal is to destroy Israel and diminish Western power, especially that of the US, to inferior to that of the "Muslim world," which probably really means Iran. What is it going to take for the West to realize that you can't make a deal with someone whose stated goal is your domination? The UN and Europe have been trying to get Israel to find a diplomatic peace with several groups who have a desire to destroy Israel as one of their purposes for existence. I thought that this stupidity had something to do with their feelings about Israel, but now it appears that perhaps they are genuine. Now they too seek to deal diplomatically with an adversary that says it seeks their destruction. Diplomatic peace means compromise. You cannot compromise with a group that wants to destroy you. If they want something else and are willing to destroy you to get it then you can give them that something else to avoid destruction. But when the goal they set forth is your destruction there is nothing to barter with. I guess maybe Europe believes that there is something else that Iran really wants and that a desire to destroy the West is really born from that other desire. I guess that may be true, but I don't see why they would know what Iran wants more than the President of Iran does. He is saying he wants to destroy the West, and I believe him when he says it. The most I can say for Europe is that at least they aren't hypocrites (on this point, anyway). And while Europe keeps trying to appease Iran, Iran continues to string them along without even a pause in their program.

The Path of Least Resistance

Michael Yon and probably others have been saying it for awhile, and now it seems that most of our political leaders and generals are jumping on board, too: there is a civil war brewing or under way in Iraq. There are clearly three sides in the war, the Kurds, the Shi'ites, and the Sunnis. These three groups have been at odds since the British lumped them blindly into one country and called it Iraq. Each of these groups has their own culture and belief system and each wants to run their own country with nothing to do with the others. So my questions is, why not let them? Its clear that right now they don't want to exist in a country together, but most of them do want a free independent country (not a dictatorship or theocracy). Why would we see it as a loss to allow them to each have their own country? Right now we have to exert a large amount of military force to try to keep them from ripping each other to shreds -- and we're still not doing that great a job of it. These are three groups that want independence that were forced to be governed together first by colonialism and then by an oppressive dictatorship. Why does it not make sense that part of toppling that dictatorship is to set each of these groups free to govern themselves? It seems to me like we have three choices at this point:

1. Maintain a vast military presence in Iraq so that the civil war that will be fought will look more like individual acts of aggression by rouge forces. When they eventually learn to get along years, maybe decades from now, then we'll be able to leave.
2. Maintain current troop levels or decrease them in any amount and watch the country fall into full fledged civil war that either ends in separate countries being made or one or more of the factions being dominated by another.
3. Set up three separate countries today, maintain our military presence to enforce the borders for some period of time, and call it a victory for everyone.

Now, I know things aren't that simple, but I think that there is going to be conflict between these groups for a long time if they aren't allowed to be autonomous. It seems fully in line with the mission of setting up democracy in the Middle East to allow these groups of people to govern themselves as they wish. Ethnic diversity has "worked" in the U.S. historically because before any significant new ethnic group arrives there is already a stifling majority of nationals who consider themselves "Americans" (meaning citizens of the U.S.). In Iraq you have these three groups trying to coexist with none having a clear majority and all having a different vision. So, let them have three countries. If the unite into one again some day, so much the better. But if we try to keep them as one now, I believe that odds are that they will eventually split anyway. It won't be that much extra government building because each group already has their politicians and some political infrastructure, and at least two of the groups already have trained militaries: the Kurdish militias are probably the best native fighting force in Iraq, and the Shi'ites mostly own the Iraqi Army. In the end I think this is the path we are going to have to go down. Why not go there voluntarily, when we can legitimately claim that it is still victory, rather than waiting for the thousands of lost lives and costly years, in terms of dollars and politics, and what will only look like failure, for the same result? If we make a united Iraq our goal there is no way we can claim victory when it splits, and at this point it looks like an inevitability to me. So it makes sense to split Iraq in terms of lives lost, money spent, and political gain, both at home and internationally.

(Mis)Representation

It seems to me that the ideal purpose of a politician in a democracy is to represent the people in the piece of the country that they are elected from, whether that be an entire state or a single county or city. That means that whether you are Republican or Democrat, if your district is split 49-51%, your voting should reflect more middle of the road trends. If your district is 90% your party, then you should vote with your party almost all of the time.

But that is not what happens in the US today because we have, as a nation, consistently valued party over people. I'm not sure when it happened, maybe its always been that way. However, this leads to massive misrepresentation, in my opinion. Today if your district is split 49-51% then nearly half of the people in your district are misrepresented because most politicians vote party line on most issues.

Now, the argument for the way a party system like this works is that you vote for the party that most represents your views. Then the party that has the majority of the votes in a district will be the party that most accurately represents the people and therefore maximum representation is achieved. But there are only two parties today, and most people do not fall solidly within a given party on every vote. It is my opinion that most people would vote in a range across the middle of the political spectrum if they could vote on every issue. Instead we mostly get votes polarized on both ends of the spectrum and there is never a middle of the road victory.

The motivation behind electing a candidate and not a party is that a candidate from a given district will know the people of that district and be able to accurately represent them. If a politician is only going to vote party line then there is no reason to have him around at all. We need only to establish the bounds of what a party stands for and the vote for the party that will represent your district. Apparently this was not the intent when our system was created because we do, in fact, vote for candidates.

When a great deal of districts in recent elections have been split by less than 10% but most votes by politicians fall squarely along party lines, accurate representation is not happening. It is my opinion that this was not the intent of those creating the system when it was set up, and it is not the ideal situation. If it were a better system I would be willing to forgo the "founders" intent for one that we have found to be better. However, I do not believe that this misrepresentation is better. Rather I believe that it will be beneficial and right for us to encourage a move within our system so that politicians vote to represent their whole district, not just the small majority who elected them, if that is the case. I'm not sure what practical steps we can take, but I know that one thing that will help is getting more people informed and interested during the primaries, because if more people vote in the primary then a more representative candidate will emerge as a contender in the general election. I'd like to hear any practical ways we can move towards more accurate representation in our government today, or any reasons why we ought not to.

Doubts

What if this is the truth about the Israeli campaign in Lebanon? Can we really have any idea of knowing who is right and wrong right now? Will we ever know? I've found that on many high profile issues, especially regarding recent military activities, its hard to know what to believe or who to trust. The two sides usually contradict on major points, and both make claims about the other side that are impossible to substantiate but equally impossible to prove false. And both sides have something to gain by lying if what the other says is true. I am left with a lot of "facts" and assertions and no way of knowing who is telling the truth. I suspect that the truth is often somewhere in between the two perspectives.

An Israeli Perspective

I found this article at jewishworldreview.com that talks about the double edged sword that Hezbollah represents to Israel. The basic point goes like this: Hezbollah attacks Israeli civilians seeking to maximize non-military damage. At the same time they hide their military positions among heavily populated areas so when Israel attacks them they kill civilians. No matter what Israel does it loses, either in its civilian casualties or by inflicting them on Lebanon. The author claims that Israel goes so far as to drop leaflets ahead of their bombing missions to allow civilians time to leave, where Hezbollah intentionally targets civilians. Yet Israel is seen by most of the world as the war criminal. Is this piece propaganda or a repetition of propaganda? Maybe. But it may have some shred of truth in it and it is important to consider amongst some international calls for war crimes charges to be leveled at Israel.

Maybe

Maybe God feels the same way, more or less, about the person with the cheesey Christian bumper sticker; the person who has a 30 minute "quiet time" every day at 4:30 on the dot; the person who raises their hands and wears a goofy smile while singing in church; the person who refuses to listen to Radiohead and Death Cab For Cutie because they aren't Christian bands; the person who pretends to speak in tongues because they don't understand why they can't but they want to fit in; the person who always ties everything back to "God is in control"; the person who spews Evangelical sound bites but can't quote scripture; the person who believes that the US is the "new Israel"; the person who reads the King James version of the Bible; the person who believes that there are literal treasures and streets of gold in heaven; the person who believes that their dead relatives are in heaven with God and can hear their prayers; the person who uses church as a way to increase their social standing; as he does about me with my bitterness, high-minded theological ideas often based more on what makes sense to me than scripture or meditation, and my self-righteous emergent theology. And maybe that's what this is really all about.

Argentina to China

Standing out in the hall (not the cold) before class today one of my friends brought up the subject of drilling straight through the center of the Earth and coming out in China. Specifically, he was wondering where you would have to start to end up in China. Being the brilliant, almost-Masters-of-Science Computer scientists that we are, we realized that anywhere in the northern hemisphere would place you in the southern hemisphere on the other side, thus missing China. This did not stop us, being the brilliant almost-blah-blah-blah that we are, from theorizing that perhaps you could tunnel from Cuba and that there is a "Communist connection" between China and Cuba through the middle of the Earth through which citizens of these countries can travel. Not long after this thought, one of the Chinese students came by. We asked him where we would have to start drilling from to end up in China and, without even pausing to think, he replied "Oh, Argentina." We were a little perturbed by how fast he answered, so our interest was piqued. And look what we found. All this time, it was just sitting right below our noses. I figure the travel time is so fast because on the way to the center of the earth you are basically free falling, so you'll go at least terminal velocity, if you're unchecked.

Value Size

I've noticed that here in Waco "Value Size" has a different meaning than I'm used to. At the local grocery chain, HEB (local to Texas), I've consistently found that the "Value Size" packages are more expensive than buying the same or more of the same product in its regular sized variety. I, and it seems logical, always assumed that the "Value" in "Value Size" implied that there was some monetary benefit to buying things in larger quantities. Based on the fact that these items still exist, I can only conclude that most people do not compare prices when they buy such things and they assume that the addition of "Value" to the description of the item implies some savings to them, never considering that the added value might actually be flowing in the opposite direction on the free market food chain.

Monday Morning

Michael Yon has a great piece about militant Islam up that I highly recommend. He covers the scope and causes of this scourge and highlights its far-reaching effects around the world.

On a completely separate note, I wish there was an episode of Batman where something about the apocalypse is the theme and Robin, at some point, exclaims: "Holy eschaton, Batman!"

The Israel Situation: My Opinion

I am not opposed to Israel taking military action in response to attacks against it. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to me that they are using "disproportionate" force. It seems to me that they are responding to an act of aggression just like anyone else would. However, I have reservations about the approach Israel has taken in their response. Everyone who would know seems to say that the roots of these attacks are Syria and Iran, not Lebanon. And while the Lebanese government may not be doing enough to prevent action against Israel, it may not really be causing it. So, if I were Israel I would be clear that the war is not against Lebanon, but against the people wanting to harm Israel that may be in Lebanon. Instead Israel is saying the opposite. And I think that is why the Hezbollah aggressors can say, "'Let the Israelis do whatever they want - no military operation will result in the return of the soldiers.'" It is not their country being attacked by Israel. Theirs are not the homes being destroyed. It would be as if Argentinean terrorists attacked the US through Mexico and in response we bomb Mexico City. It may send the message "you need to keep terrorist out of your country or we consider you to be helping them." Which may be a useful and necessary message. But it is not directly striking at the terrorists because they don't care what happens to Mexico. There may be reasons for Israel to hit Lebanon the way it has. For example, they have bombed the airport and major road ways to prevent the Hezbollah militants from moving the kidnapped Israeli soldiers out of the country. This seems like a good strategy with, hopefully, direct results. However, saying that they are going to "set Lebanon back 20 years" may not be the best strategy. My opinion is that if Israel is intent on stopping the attacks they need to go to the root of the cause and attack Syria, which ultimately will lead to a confrontation with Iran. And a lot of considerations need to be made before doing so, considerations that I do not know enough about to comment on. Like the possibility of Iran and Syria having WMDs. Like Iran's true military strength. Like how real the possibility is that China and Russia might back Iran if they go to war with Israel. I hope that leaders in Israel are thinking about these things and making strategies with the US military and other allies to assure that the situation does not get out of hand. What I worry about is Israel deciding to "set Lebanon back 20 years" because it cannot afford to confront Syria and Iran directly and having Lebanon be the only casualty with the terrorist base remaining largely untouched.

For some other interesting opinions check out Hugh Hewitt's page. He has his opinion as well as links to several others. One particularly interesting (although not eloquent) read is Yoni's blog. Yoni is a veteran of the IDF who is now living in the US. I've heard him on Hugh's radio show several times and he offers an interesting insider view on all things Israeli.

***UPDATE***
This report records Israeli officials speaking in a way that seems much more reasonable to me. Rather than approaching the situation as if they are at war with the nation/government of Lebanon, they now say that they "'want to force the government of Lebanon to take responsibility and that means that they put someone instead of Hezbollah along the border, someone that represents the sovereign state.'"

Cracks Like Spider Webs

Israel claims that it has concrete evidence that the Lebanese militants that kidnapped two Israeli soldiers have plans to transport them to Iran. The US, according to this report, says that it holds Syria and Iran responsible for the kidnapping since they are the main supporters of Hezbollah. The Iranian government warned that if Israel attacked Syria it would be considered an attack on the "entire Islamic world." Meanwhile, the Lebanese government -- the newest democracy in the Middle East -- claims it had no knowledge that the attacks were going to occur, but Israel is holding them responsible anyway and taking out their valuable and necessary infrastructure. Supposedly Bush is promising the Lebanese government that he will press Israel to show restraint. However, the same headline has been running for a few days, and Israel doesn't seem to be showing much restraint. Here is my synopsis of the situation as seen through the media: some Hezbollah militants that are probably part of Syrian forces that were supposed to have left Lebanon years ago and are supported by Syria and Iran attacked Israel and kidnapped two soldiers. Israel responded with overwhelming force and claims they are going to "send Lebanon back 20 years." However, the "fragile" democratic government in Lebanon did not sanction or know about the attacks before hand. So, Israel is responding with harsh force in a way that will probably topple the government of its only neighboring democracy because some people supported by Iran and Syria attacked from that country. And if Israel actually attacks the nations behind the whole thing it will start a huge war that may spark larger conflicts around the globe.

That may not all be true, but that seems to be the picture that is painted by the news reports. I don't know enough about everything going on to speculate on how accurate those reports are. However, no matter how you look at it, the current situation is leaning towards further escalation, not towards a quick resolution. The short term impact here: higher gas prices. The long term impact: it depends on how far this "war" (as Israel believes it to be) reaches and how long it goes on.

Meanwhile, the world seems to have forgotten that Israel still has troops deployed in Palestine (at least they did last time any one reported on it). Maybe that is Israel's strategy -- to engage in a potentially much more harmful conflict, in international terms, so that the world stops watching what it is doing in Palestine. Israel was receiving a lot of flak internationally about its recent activity there, and now that pressure is gone. So now they are free to accomplish whatever their real goals in Palestine are without having to hear protests from the world every time they kill a civilian. I'm a typical center-right American in a lot of ways, so usually I support Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, I am also a Christian and a decent human being, so I wholeheartedly oppose the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Israel has not shown restraint towards Palestinian civilians at certain times in the past. They seemed to be this time, but maybe that was because of international pressure. Its possible that they are using the Lebanese conflict as a smoke screen to allow them to move decisively and destructively against the Palestinian population in general, and by the time we hear about it, it will be too late to try to stop it. I hope that is not the case, but it is another fear in the current situation.

***Update***
Under the pretense of Israel's sovereignty, the White House says that Bush will ask Israel to minimize "collateral damage" but he "is not going to make military decisions for Israel." This seems like a lame excuse because Bush has not seemed to have a problem trying to make military decisions for nations we oppose. I think that the truth is that Bush will not ask Israel to stop because he doesn't think they should, for whatever reason. Maybe they are good reasons, maybe not. I don't know enough about the situation to say either way. I guess this sounds better diplomatically -- if anyone believes it.

The Ice is Getting Thinner

Anyone who pays attention to the news already knows that Lebanon based Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, Israel called it an "act of war," and Israel is currently invading Lebanon, ostensibly to get its soldiers back. This, in my mind, is horrible news. Unless Israel leaves quickly, which they claim they won't, I cannot imagine that Syria will not get involved. On one hand this is not a huge added threat to Israel because the Syrian military is not much better than the Lebanese or Palestinian (meaning Israel's army will have no problem defeating them in any open confrontations). However, it means that more and more of the region is getting involved. In the short run it may actually help the war in Iraq because many radical terrorist types will probably go to fight Israel instead of fighting in Iraq. However, if Iraqis perceive the situation to be the US helping Israel fight other Arab and Muslim countries it could cause greater unrest among the groups in Iraq that are already resistant to the new government there. Furthermore, there is the small (I hope) possibility that Saddam really did give Syria most of his WMD's before the invasion, and they might use those against Israel. No matter how weak their military, that remains a very serious threat and an even greater catalyst for escalation.

I really hope that no matter what happens that Jordan doesn't get involved because in the past several years they have increased their ties with the West and the US in particular, and it would be a shame for all that progress to disappear. Also, it would further turn the conflict into an "all the Arab countries against Israel" type of conflict. And this may lead to what should be our worst fears.

And those fears, of course, are that Iran would get involved. If Iran gets involved the situation may turn into an all out war in the region. This would cause most of the rest of the world to get involved in some way. If things follow the pattern they have in recent years, China and Russia would support Iran while the US, UK, Poland, Canada and Australia support Israel and the rest of Europe talks a lot about the war but doesn't do much. This, hopefully, is an unlikely scenario.

So, by quickly reacting to the instigation of Hezbollah militants with an invasion, Israel has, over night, significantly thinned the ice on which the world is walking in the Middle East. The worst case would involve a significant conflict and change in world politics. The best case... I'm not sure what the best case is. I guess the best case would be Israel getting their soldiers back and leaving Lebanon quickly. No matter what happens, the current escalation is certainly a very bad thing with the possibility of far reaching and long lasting effects.

Plugging the Firefox Leak

You may have noticed that Firefox takes up a lot of RAM. On my laptop, it takes at least 50MB to have even one tab open, and it seems to grow up to 150-190MB when I start opening other tabs. Searching on the web I found this fix that seems to work. I allowed Firefox to have 32MB of memory and it doesn't seem to be exceeding that even when I have several tabs open. And so far it doesn't seem to have slowed down much if at all. If you've been experiencing poor system performance due to Firefox's greediness, try this. Just don't read the comment conversation at the bottom of the linked post -- its pretty painful.

****UPDATE****
Well, Firefox is taking up more than the allotted 32MB now, but its less than before (~60MB) and I do have 4 tabs open. So maybe that 32MB allottment is per tab or something. It makes sense that it grows as you add tabs because it has to hold almost as much information per tab as it would if you opened a new instance of the browser for each. So, I don't know exactly how it works but this fix still seems to be saving me some memory.

Hubcap Gang

There is a nefarious group afoot in Waco, Texas. At first I thought it was an innocent mistake when I noticed that my front passenger-side hubcap was missing. I thought that maybe the shop had some reason to have it off while replacing my timing belt and changing my oil, but it was the holiday weekend so I had to wait until Wednesday to ask them. But then I started to notice it. Car after car missing only one hubcap. All around Waco I've noticed them. All different makes and models, although it seemed more prevalent on the modest price range sedans, like mine. Suspicion grew and theories ran rampant, but there was still lingering doubt. When I got the call back from the shop, my worst fears were confirmed. The shop knew nothing of a missing hubcap -- I had lost it some time after they were done with my car. And there were all those other missing-one-hubcap cars around. There could be no denying it now, Waco is facing a serious crisis. Apparently some deranged group or individual finds pleasure in collecting single hubcaps from local cars. And I have fallen victim. And I can't help but wonder, when that group or person looks at my hubcap, do they remember me? Do they remember the intimate details of my car? Or am I just another chalk mark on the board, another successful conquest? I suppose these, like many other questions, will never be answered. But I can still hope that somewhere out there someone is loving my hubcap as much as I did, and that one day, in this life or the next, we will meet again.

A Few Quick Questions

Why doesn't Palestine seem to be afraid of Israel at all? Is it the same reason that North Korea doesn't seem to be afraid of the US at all (or the UN or Japan, etc)? Does it matter that the CIA closed its unit dedicated to searching for Bin Laden? Was it doing any good, or just wasting money? Do we still care much about catching him (relatively speaking)? Can Iran keep stalling forever while continuing with its nuclear program unchecked? Is anyone surprised that the Mexican presidential vote is probably going to a recount? Does any one really care about Lil' Kim getting out of jail? Did anyone really believe the stereotype that fat people are all 'jolly'? And what's with politicians always waving their hands in the air?

One Legged Birds Eat Dead Bugs

I've had two fairly bizarre experiences over the last few days that had nothing to do with me other than the fact that I observed them.

The first begins with miscommunication. My wife needs a job, so we are applying everywhere we can think of. I have a friend who is a manager at the local Barnes and Noble, so I asked him at church on Sunday if he might be able to help us out. He told me we should come by when he was working the next day between 7am and 3pm. I have a class at 9:40am, so in the interest of getting to class on time and looking eager, we decided to go around 7 (my wife can't drive a standard, so she can't drive my car -- yet). Luckily I set the alarm wrong and we didn't get up until after 7, because my friend forgot to mention that, even though he starts work at 7, the store doesn't open until 9. So we got there around 8:30 and waited. While we were waiting I saw a bird swoop down and peck some kind of a beetle. After it had mortally wounded the bug (legs flew off) it grabbed it in its beak and hopped away. While it was hopping I noticed it appeared to be only on one leg, and I wondered if a one-legged dance was some strange victory dance for this species. Then it turned so its back was to me and I realized that it was hopping on one leg because it, in fact, only had one leg. Or rather it had only one foot and a stump leg that ended around the knee. I saw a one-legged bird eating a beetle. That was weird.

The other incident happened while I was walking to work yesterday. As I passed the business school two 30 or 40 something year old men came out and walked right in front of me. The part of their conversation I overheard went something like this:
Man 1: ...and cut the martyr complex right out.
Man 2: Speaking of church problems, did you hear about the PC USA...
Man 1: oh, did they have their convention already?
Man 2: I think that its just about to start, they're getting ready for it. Anyway, I heard that they started, not mandating, but accepting alternative descriptions of the trinity...
Man 1: < groans >
Man 2: the Parent, the Child, and...
Man 1: oh no
Man 2: yeah! And the Womb!
Man 1: What?
Man 2: Yeah, the Womb for the Holy Ghost!
Man 1: < shakes head as they walk away >

I was waiting for Redhurt's Jesus to come talk to them, but he never showed up (before I walked away from them, anyway). Besides the bizarreness of calling the Holy Spirit the Womb, that exchange was really funny to me because they were so... annoyed and condescending about the whole thing. But given the recentness of Redhurt's post I felt like it was rather ironic.

John Kerry: Still in Denial

John Kerry proposed a plan to pull US troops out of Iraq. The Senate overwhelmingly rejected his plan -- 86-13. Kerry called it a "dramatic step forward." Now, either he sees his defeat as a step in the right direction, or he has reached a very low point. When getting 13 out of 100 votes is a dramatic step its time to rethink your game plan. That's not even half of the democrats in the Senate. What I see here is Kerry trying not to look like a complete loser after being so completely defeated and, as usual, failing. Perhaps he was also referencing a plan put forth by Senator Levin which was defeated only 60-39. I guess going from 13 to 39 is a pretty dramatic step, but its still not even everyone in his own party. In reference to these two votes, ostensibly, Ted Kennedy said "'Democrats have sent a clear message.'" The only clear message I see here is that the Democrats are in big trouble and unless their leadership comes up with something new they can expect to continue in that trouble for another election cycle.

Zarqawi Killed

I don't know why this isn't bigger in the news, but apparently a US airstrike killed Abu Musa'ab al-Zarqawi earlier this week. Here are some links:
link 1
link 2
This is huge news. Zarqawi was probably second only to Bin-Laden on the US most wanted terrorists list. He was in charge of al Qaida in Iraq and hopefully his death will mean a quicker victory against that group. There are probably only a dozen or so people in the world whose death would have the potential to change events so greatly as Zarqawi's.

Honeymoon

I'm on my honeymoon right now, so I probably won't be posting anything real for another week or two.