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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Running down a dream 

Our journey down the highway of life is fueled by dreams, desires and ambitions. For the wise and the motivated, a dream can guide them in the right direction, and allow many of them to achieve happiness and self-actualization.

I used to be a person who had dreams. Obviously, the dreams of childhood were the fantastic visions that only exist during youth. As I progressed through life I came up with realistic goals that I thought would lead to fulfillment in life. But now I've reached those goals and found them to be empty.

In part, a dream is just a memory if there is no ambition or motivation to make them real. Too often I was lazy and took the easy way out, and short-circuited the future I really wanted in favor of one that looked almost as good, but proved to be an illusion.

At the same time, I set the wrong goals because I don't know myself. I didn't know myself back then and I still don't know who I am, what I am supposed to be, or how I am going to get there. If I don't understand myself, how can I understand the keys to personal happiness? The answer is that I can't.

Right now I have made the decision to change course, although I really don't have any plans for what course I will take. The vagaries of life will have their way with my life for the time being. The only giuding principles will be to do good for others, avoid evil, take care of myself, and use wisely the gifts the Lord has given me. I will try to find out who I am and how to find happiness.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I am living aimlessly without a dream. No goals, no aspirations. But the dreams of yesterday are the nightmares of today. So I guess that a life without dreams is a welcome change.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Keep your man-laws off me! 

At first, "Man Laws" was an amusing advertising campaign started by the Miller Brewing Company. Now it's starting to irritate me. Take for instance, the man-law against putting fruit in beer. Utter bullshit. Hefewizen is served with a lemon. Blue Moon is served with orange. Corona is only tolerable if served with lime.

My rebuttal to the Miller-imposed "man law" against fruit in beer illustrates a point: the man-laws are only meant to maintain Miller's hegemony over the brewing world. But who gives Miller the authority to legislate man-law? I certainly didn't. Miller's beers are utter swill, fit only for marinating meats.

Here's my man-law: life is too short for cheap beer. Anything that can be bought in a can (the Miller, Anheuser-Busch, and Coors families of beers in particular) isn't worth drinking. It can be used as a marinade for meat, but that's it. The only good beers to emerge from the Coors Brewing Company are Killian's and Blue Moon. If you want to find "The King of Beers," you should compete Sam Adams, Fat Tire and Warsteiner and determine which you prefer. Drinking Miller beers doesn't make you a man; if anything, it makes you less of a man for drinking such watery, flavorless piss-water.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

"Oui, Oui!" for Wii 

When video games first came into widespread acceptance among young people, many parents grew concerned that their children would turn into a generation of sedentary, obese couch potatoes. In a sizable percentage of video-game players, this became true. Yet the "revolution" has arrived, thanks to the Nintendo Wii.

Over Thanksgiving, the host of the party I attended gave me a chance to play his Wii. I tried the Boxing and Baseball mini-games that came with the system. The entire experience blew me away. While the graphics on the Wii games I've seen thus far aren't a major improvement over the previous generation of game systems, the control scheme represents a great revolution. Using the wireless "nunchuck" controller to simulate a baseball bat or a gun or boxing gloves adds an entirely new element to the gaming experience. I must embarassingly admit that I actually felt exhausted after playing the games.

In the early 90's, video gamers were told that "Virtual Reality" would supplant video gaming as we know it. Virtual Reality was a lofty concept that was talked about, in hopes that the technology would soon catch up. Game systems like PS3 have demonstrated that the graphics techology exists. Wii demonstrates that the control system exists. Now we just need to see low-cost, miniaturized displays that can be worn in a helmet for the person experiencing the "virtual reality." Untimately, video games should allow players to live out their fantasies of being Barry Bonds or James Bond through a completely immersive experience, creating an alternate reality that the player largely controls.

Nintendo was totally accurate in code-naming their Wii as "Revolution." And I can understand why South Park's Eric Cartman froze himself so he wouldn't have to wait three weeks for Wii.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

If I Did It (Which I Didn't...) 

I, for one, am actually disappointed that O.J. Simpson's book If I Did It will not be published. In my eyes, the book would be a historical curiousity, in the same way that Hitler's Mein Kampf still is. I agreed with Judith Regan when she reveled that she considered the book to be O.J.'s confession.

Despite his claims of innocence, O.J. Simpson's activities since the infamous trials ended have shown, if nothing else, that O.J. is as clueless as he is tactless. In the minds of most people, the book only confirmed their feelings about his guilt. For people who have read the advanced text, O.J.'s book supposedly provides an account of the murders that is chillingly realistic, seemingly indicting the author as the murderer.

I was satisfied by Judith Regan's assertion that the proceeds from the book would go to O.J.'s children, not to the author. Then again, it would probably be wiser to use the proceeds in paying the outstanding judgement that O.J. still owes to the Brown & Goldman families.

The only question in my mind is whether O.J. wrote it himself, or if he relied on a ghost writer. I can just imagine the ghost writer's interview with "The Juice."

Ghost Writer: So, O.J., if you actually did it, which you didn't, how would you have done it?

O.J.: I wouldn't have done it, because I didn't do it.

GW: Yes, we all know that, but how would "Charlie," the real killer, have done it?

OJ: Well, first, Charlie would have seen Nicole having dinner with this guy, and Charlie would have said, "Hey bitch, you're supposed to be reconciling your marriage with me!" And then Charlie would have drove up to the bitch's house, and broke in all quiet-like, and he would have cut the bitch's throat. And her head would have jerked back and broke Charlie's nose. And then her boy toy would have run in the room, and O.J., I mean, Charlie, would have had to cut his bitch-ass down too. Finally, Charlie would have to call his buddy A.C. to drive him home and ask his buddy Kato to clean him up, and then Charlie would get a ride to the airport the next morning...

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Not the answer they wanted 

With President Bush's recent visit to Vietnam, the media has been abuzz with comparisons between the wars for Vietnam and Iraq. When questioned on how the lessons of Vietnam apply to Iraq, President Bush's reply has been "don't quit." His simple answer actually got a degree of credibility due to his top general in the middle east, John Abizaid.

The US Senate asked General Abizaid for his assessment of Iraq during a hearing of the Armed Services Committee this week. The general's response was that neither a troop increase nor a schedule-based withdrawal will help the situation in Iraq. He believes that more American advisors should embed themselves with Iraqi units as military transition teams, but aside from that, he has not endorsed any significant departures from our current strategy. While this was not the answer that neither doves nor hawks in Congress were looking for, it reflects the nature of counterinsurgency warfare, in which victory belongs to the side that can "stay the course" for the longest and outlast the enemy.

When the US withdrew from Vietnam, the Paris Peace Accords were supposed to bring about peace between the two Vietnams. The Nixonian policy of Vietnamization was supposed to create a South Vietnam that could defend itself with reduced US support. Still, in order for the South to survive, the US was supposed to provide financial assistance and airpower to deter and defend against any renewed offensives by the Communists. Instead, the US demonstrated its perfidy by cutting off financial aid in spring 1974, and by holding its airpower back during the North Vietnamese offensive of 1975 which ended the South Vietnamese government.

The US will need to apply the hard lessons of Vietnam towards Iraq. If the US truly believes that the Iraqi government is worth defending, it will need to put the Iraqi Army in the front of the fight. Even after the US withdraws, it will need to provide financial assistance and airpower to maintain the Iraqi Army's long-term viability. While Democrats believe that President Bush had no strategy for dealing with the insurgency, it's clear that the US has been slowly but surely been following the doctrine of "Iraqization," placing a greater emphasis on the role of the Iraqi Army. I believe that this shift began in Spring 2004, after the US realized that the capture of Saddam Hussein and the top-tier of Baath Party leadership would not defeat the insurgency. It has been slow in coming, but building a competent army of over 300,000 soldiers is neither quick, easy, or cheap.

Leaving Iraq will not be easy. Stabilizing Iraq will not be easy. The only thing that's clear is that, if Iraq is to survive as a nation, Iraqis will have to fight to defend the freedoms we have won for them with our blood and treasure. The Iraqi Army will have to take the lead, and the US will not be able to sustain its current deployment levels or casualty rates for much longer. At the same time, the American taxpayers will have to realize that bolstering the Iraqi Army will be a long and expensive prospect that will require American funding, logistics, and airpower for a decade or more. The nation agrees that Iraqis should take over for us in defending their nation, but there is no concensus on how that should happen. The military commanders owe the Congress and the taxpayers an explanation on how thay plan to transition the fight from Americans to Iraqis that we trust. Congress needs to arrive at a concensus that a stable Iraq is in our national interest, and that a long-term package of funding and airpower is necessary to achieve our national goals.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Dictator of a different stripe 

When I heard the talk of a public hanging for Saddam Hussein, I thought to myself, "Too bad we can't hang Iraq's current leader, Nouri al Maliki, in the middle of Baghdad." Yet Maliki is marching down the same path as Saddam Hussein. Soon he will be come a Shiite version of Saddam Hussein.

The Baath Party came to power by forging alliances with key Sunni tribes, and using force to repress all Iraqis who didn't "get with the program." Nouri al Maliki is doing a Shiite version of the same, by securing the blessings of Moqtada al Sadr and bringing Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army within his sphere of influence. Sectarian scores are being settled, especially with the government's arrent warrant for the head of the Sunni "Association of Muslim Scholars" (which has been more interested in terrorism than scholarship, in my view.) Maliki claims that if the US turned his Iraqi Army loose, the insurgency could be quelled within a few months. Reading between the lines, Maliki is proposing the institution of martial law and the slaughter of Sunnis who pose potential threats to his rule.

What is the US to do in this situation? For starters, we're looking at our decision to install democracy before stability with regret. We should also regret giving our blessing to a leader who ran Shiite guerrillas out of Syria during the 1980's. If a dictatorship is the natural order of Iraqi society, and if Iraqis cannot learn to share power between the sects, then maybe we will have to quietly acquiesce to our new "Shiite Saddam." Then again, if the Iraqi Army can be turned against Nouri al Maliki, we may be able to ferment a military coup that will still institute martial law, but under conditions more favorable to America (i.e., a government that is not allied with Iran.)

The current course suggests that when the US leaves Iraq, that forsaken country will be just as bad off as when we arrived. In some ways it will be worse, because at least Saddam could be trusted to counter the Iranian radicalism that the Maliki government will likely embrace. The biggest intelligence failure of all was not Weapons of Mass Destruction; it was our inability to see that Iraqi society is hostile towards secularism, the rule of law, and sectarian tolerance. Knowing these things, we'd have been able to avoid a neo-con fantasy that is now a nation-building nightmare.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Democrats caught in the Webb 

In the state of Virginia, it might appear that the Democrats have made a deal with the devil. They defeated incumbent Republican senator George Allen and ended any realistic chance he had of running for president in 2008. To do so, they had to draft Jim Webb, a former Republican who was Ronald Reagan's Navy secretary. Now that the Dems won the Senate seat (and control over the Senate as a consequence of that,) they face a bigger challenge: how do they control Senator Jim Webb?

The answer, I suspect, is that they will not control Jim Webb, that Senator Jim Webb will do as he pleases, and the Democrats may endorse a different candidate to run against him in 2012. Jim Webb is not a liberal (at least not in the modern, big-government sense of "liberal,") and I think that his values are anathema to the liberal wing of the Democratic party. Glenn Reynolds and Rand Simberg made a big deal about this instance of Jim Webb praising the Marines and acting in a conciliatory way towards George Allen. I think that Jim Webb is doing the right thing, but "the right thing" is not going to please liberal Democrats who want to declare scorched-earth warfare now that they control the legislature again.

Jim Webb and the Democratic party go together like peanut butter and broccoli. In this marriage of convenience, it looks like Jim Webb has the most to gain, and liberal Democrats, in the long run, have everything to lose.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Armistice Day 

Eighty-eight years ago, the Allied Powers and Germany signed an armistice that went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was supposed to end "the war to end all wars." While the leaders of the world had committed themselves to the cause of peace in the decade that would follow, the world would soon forget those harsh lessons. By 1931, the beginnings of World War II, an even wider and more horrific conflict, were already at work in the Japanese conquest of Manchuria.

In 1918, Woodrow Wilson thought he had delivered on his promise to "make the world safe for democracy." And yet, today America is still fighting to make the world safe for democracy. The horrors of the trenches in the French countryside are a distant memory. Will we ever live to see a day when we have gone from "the war to end all wars" to the end of wars?

Until the day when we can call warfare a relic of our painful past, we can only honor those who have answered their nation's call; for those who have fallen, and those who still live with the scars. And pray we will, that The Lord's peace will come upon us, and we may live in the freedom He has intended for us.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Rest in Peace 

My grandfather passed away this afternoon. I console myself in knowing that he will suffer no more. He was a very strong and very loving man who loved his wife of nearly 56 years and raised four children and ten grandchildren. He battled back from the brink of death on numerous occasions because his family was so precious to him. Before he left us, we had to tell him, "It's okay. Go with God now." Even though he is in a better place, there will always be a hole in my heart that can only be plugged with memories of a grandfather's love.

Duck Hunt 

Republicans don't have much to cheer about in the election's aftermath, but one notable success story is the defeat of Democrat Tammy Duckworth by Republican Peter Roskam in Illinois's 6th district. Tammy Duckworth had become a celebrity in Democratic circles, which makes it all the more ironic thjat she will not be part of the new Democrat-controlled House. Last week, the Reuters-Zogby poll predicted a 14-point Duckworth victory (proving yet again why I find Reuters-Zogby to be the least reliable poll out there.)

For Democrats, Tammy Duckworth offered seemingly-unflappable credentials for criticising President Bush's Iraq policies. She flew helicopters in Iraq and lost her legs due to enemy action. Nevertheless, it was Peter Roskam who got a last-minute boost through the endorsement of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Duckworth had an uphill battle from the beginning, as she was an outsider running against Roskam in his own district (although, ironically, Roskam originally sought the 13th district seat during the 1998 primaries.) Duckworth's campaign fought an aggressive battle but ran out of cash, relying on the support of the National Democratic Campaign Committee. The advertisements on both sides stooped to the level of fear-mongering: According to the ads, Duckworth was going to raise taxes and cut social security (a topic where Democrats usually use fear to their advantage.) Likewise, Roskam was going to take away abortion rights, ban books from schools, prevent principals from expelling students who take guns to class, and put dangerous assault weapons back on the street (conveniently ignoring the fact that the assault weapons ban expired two years ago and has not led to an appreciable increase in violence.)

I shouldn't take too much joy from Tammy Duckworth's defeat; while I preferred Roskam, I think Duckworth would have been a moderate and palatable legislator. Rather, I viewed Duckworth's defeat as a repudiation of a recent Democratic tactic which uses disillusioned veterans to give the Dems undeserved credibility on national security issues, especially in conservative districts. In that sense, I am fulfilled, and I hope the Democrats realize that using Iraq veterans is no substitute for actually having a coherent Iraq strategy.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

The Long Goodbye 

My attention over the past few weeks has been turned towards my grandfather. Sadly, and painfully, he is dying from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder. He has essentially lost his ability to swallow and his ability to keep liquid out of his trachea. I assume that he will slowly starve and dehydrate over the next several days, perhaps weeks. It's a horrible situation that causes me great pain just thinking about it. I can only imagine my grandfather's pain, as well as that felt by my grandmother (his wife of nearly 56 years.) My grandfather was a great and loving man who doesn't deserve this torture.

Every night I just ask God to keep my grandfather strong in the face of imminent death, and to grant his strength to my grandmother and their children. Please keep them in your prayers during this period of darkness and despair, so that a ray of hope can pierce the night.

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