Defiantone.com

For the past year politicians, civilians, and members of the military have fought over the best course of action in Iraq. Many have said that to set a deadline to pull out would lead to disastrous consequences in that country and in the region. Others are staunch supporters of a deadline to hand over power to the citizens of that nation and remove our troops.

Leaving Iraq before they are stable enough to handle the task at hand would be disastrous. We might as well throw an infant into a tornado, their odds of surviving the backlash of our actions is small… minute… 10,000 to 1. I have no doubt in my mind that if we left the country before some form of stability was achieved that a civil war would break out. If you’ve watched the video in my previous post, and I hope you have, you’d understand that the problem here is the Islamic faith. There are millions in the world that believe that Mohammed is the one and only prophet. They believe that their only chance in salvation is through their faith in God and Islam. I respect their right to believe in whatever they may… but, they don’t mantain that mutual respect. Many believe that they must eliminate the infidels… (its odd, I have only seen the term infidels used when in relation to faith… hmmm).. other parts of the Quran state things that contrast this (sorry.. I’ve got no quotes, watch the video)

The other option is, as our President would say, “Stay the course.” We will continue to maintain a strong military presense in the country as long as there is a need for us. We will continue to train and help equip their defence forces until they can handle the fight on their own. We will not give up on them and we will accept that any American death is necessary to the continued security of the region. I’m not a fan of this plan, but, I think its our best option. In some ways, I wish we could set a deadline that we really don’t plan to stick with… who knows, maybe this would light a fire under their ass to get things straight. They might be sitting on their laurels knowing full well that they don’t have to put in 100% because we’ll always pick up the slack when they can’t do the job.

Its a terrible idea… but, its no better than the other two options we’ve been given so far

On slightly related news, McCain, the Senator from Arizona (not the company that makes chips… british chips, not american crisps (or chips… err… whatever….)) is gathering the support and advice of the people required to run for president. Good, this guy is somebody that I can and would trust. We are currently involved in a conflict… why a conflict? American civilians haven’t lost their lives (well aside from the stupid few that thought peace and love would make the insurgents NOT chop off their heads). An individual that has served with his life on the line is more likely to make the better choice when it comes to the welfare of US servicemembers. He has the ability to put himself in their shoes… lets face it, he has been there and he has been through worse than most of us could imagine. So… unless someone else blows him out of the water, I’m going for McCain in 2008.

Sure, I may not agree with the list of policies. Have you noticed that during political elections we make our choices based upon a list of 5-10 hot topics. You’ve seen it before

1. Terrorism
2. Abortion
3. Civil Rights
4. Welfare
5. Foreign Policy

These viewpoints give us a glimpse into how an individual may make policy but it won’t tell us about how they would react to a situation that is out of the normal. We had the opportunity to see a president under great stress after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, after the WTC attacks, or during the civil rights movement. These are situations that suddenly create a situation that needs an immediate resolution. Most of these things could have been prevented if we had listened to the right individuals… but, we didn’t. I have a feeling, sure its in my gut, that presented with a situation like this that McCain would make the right choice. GW has been hit or miss with his choices. I completely stand behind the choice to go to Afghanistan and wreck the place… the choice to wreck Iraq… well, I’m not a fan.

Ok then… thats all for now

It was only a matter of time before terrorists would bring out their chemistry books and try to find materials that when combine react violently. So, in response to the threat, which some have called imminent, no hand baggage is allowed on flights originating from the UK. In the short term, this is a perfectly acceptable precaution. In the long run, this could cause more problems than even I could think of.

So, why allow hand baggage at all?

1. Throwers cannot be trusted with anything that is valuable
2. Who really wants to drink the little bottles of water they have on the plane
3. Disney movies… the airlines are fans… and most of us aren’t
4. No visual stimuli on a plane leads to cranky passengers… who, if provoked, might become violent…
5. Some people are slightly overprotective of their personal items… a little too protective
6. Convenience
7. If they loose your baggage you would be without a backup… any backup

Its also slightly redundant to check and double check baggage… one check should rule them all, one check should bind them, one check should find them all and in the darkness bind them (wow, only a massive geek would think of that one… and no, I don’t own twenty sided dice). So, why in the world would you need to double check people that are entering airports? The first guy did a shitty job. If the job was done properly in the first place there would be absolutely no need for a second search.

I hope nothing bad comes out of this “scare” and I hope that they won’t use this as an excuse to limit our freedoms further. Its odd that I just bought V for Vendetta and many of the fictional things in the movie drew close parallels to real life).

If I was going anywhere I was ruun-ning!

I took my PT test today and like all other tests regardless of content I always tend to be nervous. I dislike the fact that situps are evaluated on the same day as the run because the movement makes you use your hip flexor muscles… muscles that you will need to run with. Of all the parts of my body, those are the ones that are the most sore. I didn’t do as well as I wished on the run portion of the test but I did better than last year so anything is an improvement. I can only hope that I can keep my scores where they were because I move to an easier bracket next year.

I almost vomited when I returned to work as I was

1. dehydrated
2. hot (its quite warm and the rent-a-wreck has poor air circulation)

Joy in Muddville

If you couldn’t tell by the tone of my quick note, I was a little annoyed with my whole car situation. That wasn’t all there was to it, there was much more to the story. I took a late lunch yesterday and called VW to be told that she wasn’t really sure what I could do. She thought I should talk to the importer and I told her it was a military contract and it wasn’t like a regular car importer. To humor the lady, I went down there and found out that they knew nothing (a fact I was already aware of). I went over to the repair place and they gave me the rest of the story. In addition to the water pump they thought the head gasket was blown and that I might have warped heads (very very bad news). The engine failed a high pressure test and there was oil in the coolant… also very bad. The timing belt would also need replace… again very bad. I told them to fix it and they said they would need parts. I didn’t want to go with this option because it was all coming out of pocket and it was supposed to be covered by warranty. I called VW back and got “THE” guy for overseas military. He said to take it to a dealership and fax all of the bills to him. I would be forced to pay out up front but if it was considered an “in-warranty” repair they would reimburse me. If they don’t cover it… I’m suing. I found out that my insurance company would pay me for the cost of a tow so I had it moved from the shop it was at to the dealership.

I asked the dealership and they have a loaner car that I can borrow (sweet!) but I can’t have it until next Thursday (bummer). I need to pick up ole girl so I called her… a few times, and asked if I could borrow her car to pick her up. She made fun of my poor manual transmission skills and relented. She wasn’t sure why I didn’t ask her in the first place. At the time, I didn’t have a real answer. Now that I’ve thought about it, I think it has something to do with the fact that when I’m stressed, I fail to think every possibility through. I’ll have to work on that one. I think VW might even pay for the rental I have now… what a piece of crap that thing is.

Oh yeah, I still feel like crap but its getting better.

There are times in my life when the hate and anger get refined into a beam that can destroy nations. Today is one of those days.

First off, I’ve been working with a blues traveller song called run-around. I’ve spent most of the morning walking from office to office trying to find out how to get an updated form. After talking to 5 people at 5 seperate offices they finally told me what I wanted to know. I’m not sure if it was the run around but it could have been sheer incompetence. By the time I finally left to schedule an appointment so that I could get the form I was extremely annoyed…. and then it all got worse

I got back to the office after driving the piece of crap rental car only to get a call from the mechanic (my car overheated this weekend). He said that it was going to cost $1500 to fix it. Not ONLY did the water pump go out but so did the head gasket. I’m so fucking thrilled with the whole situation. I put my fist into a brick wall about 8 times and I can’t even tell that I did it. I threw my phone across the room when I was off it. If anyone really pisses me off today I’m going to loose it.

I fucking hate mondays!

I’ve had a morning with no work… so I’ve had a little time to write and read the news.. enjoi!

Mexico and immigration

America is a nation that is comprised almost entirely of immigrants. It has been said that even native americans crossed the Bering strait at some point in time to live what is now known as the United States, Canada, and Mexico. No matter what your background is, you’re an imigrant; the battle that faces us to today is based upon what degree of immigrant you are. At one point in American history there was a mass exodus of mainly Irish immigrants onto the eastern part of the United States. At that time, there was alot of resentment and many laws were enacted to make it harder for people to immigrate and make it harder for those that had recently arrived. Why the animosity? They brought a different way of life with a different culture to the table. Sure, they did cause stress on the social system at the time (a problem we can still see today with mexican immigrants). So, whats the problem in this case? People are immigrating illegally.

Why in the world would they want to immigrate to our nation? I can hardly imagine a country that I grew up in and know as home to be so bad that I would face all peril to move out of it. We aren’t talking about a country that has a dictatorship or a communist government, we’re talking about a democratic nation. The people have the power to make a positive change in their country but aren’t being afforded the opportunity. It is my belief that every nation has the ability to become the greatest nation in the world, it took our country a civil war to get where we are and we still face problems. Its is an uphill battle that where the fighting never ceases, you can never quit.

Many politicians (and Americans) think that building a wall and sending troops to the border is the most effective way of solving the illegal immigration problem. All that we would be doing is to solve an effect of the larger problem at hand; this kind of action will never solve the problem of illegal immigration. We should be looking for the root of the problem : the living standards and social conditions in Mexico are so poor that a portion of the country sees only an exodus to America as the only viable solution.

Unforunately, I don’t know enough about our neighbor to the south to give any specifics but fixing ceiling tiles that are water damaged is a waste of time if you don’t fix the leak in the roof.

The G.W and Marriage

From MSNBC

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who says he believes marriage is the union of a man and a woman, said he nonetheless will vote against the amendment on a test vote Wednesday.

“The reason for this debate is to divide our society, to pit one against another,” Reid said in remarks prepared for delivery on the Senate floor. “This is another one of the presidents efforts to frighten, to distort, to distract and to confuse America. It is this administration’s way of avoiding the tough, real problems that American citizens are confronted with each and every day.”

If you want to read the whole thing check it out over at MSNBC

Why in the world should I be worried if Kyle and Steve or Mary and Jenny want to get hitched? Love is a crazy thing, it is not bound by gender, race, religion, or species (some people REALLY love their dogs… you’ve seen them, they’re often creepy old women with blue hair). This entire debate is a non-issue. We still have illiterate Americans, we still have Americans with no health care, we still have Americans that live in poverty, we still have Americans that haven’t recovered from Katrina, and we still have Americans dying daily fighting a war on terrorism; this is such a HUGE non-issue. Lets move onto the important stuff.

Over the weekend I was in Cambridge enjoying the rediculously nice weather; yes, I said the weather was nice… there is no sarcasm, it was an amazing day. So, after going punting for an hour or so we went over to get a some beverages. If you’re not from the Fens (the Fenlands) you probably have no idea what punting is. If you’ve seen the gondolas that travel venice imagine a much smaller version that is pushed up and down the river on a long pole that is used to push against the river bottom. It was a fairly cool trip and there was tons of info so if you’re not the type for that crap, well, you’ve probably already given up reading what I’ve written here today. So, as I was saying, we were in a McDonalds getting a beverage… why McDonalds? We couldn’t find a corner shop that sold soda and we knew where a McD’s was so we headed that way. Old girl was standing behind me in line and got up close and sniffed my shirt. She said that I didn’t smell like I normally do as I guess (according to what she says) I have a very distinctive smell. I said I guess I smell like punt. I didn’t put less emphasis on the “p” of the word so it kinda sounded like another word that rhymes with punt. Needless to say, I got some laughs and a few weird looks from others that heard it.

So, we stopped at the bookstore after getting some coffee. Yes, I’ve been drinking dirty bean water recently… its odd, as soon as you get me started drinking that stuff I’m amicable to drink it more often. Its like you’re opening the floodgates or something like that. I won’t go out on my own and get it but if you get some I will as well. So, we old girl wants to stop by a Borders and we do. We take a few steps in the door and she is off checking out the new releases, I tell her that if we don’t leave soon I’m going to be off to the races… and I was. I’m a huge fan of instant gratification and I hate to wait so I walked out of there with 5 books that I’ve wanted to read. I was like a kid in a freakin candy store… my parents never took me into one of those and it was probably a smart choice as I don’t need sugar and I sure as shit don’t need any caffeine I don’t like to be ignorant, I want to know as much as I can. I got a great quote along that line today… check this out

“ignorance is not a simple and passive lack of knowledge, but is an active stance; it is a refusal to accept knowledge, a reluctance to possess it; it is its rejection”

I agree with that statement, I don’t like it when others around me stagnate and stop looking for more in life and in the world. I guess thats why I get so mad when people tell me that they are reading. I ask what and they give dubiously tell me “Harry Potter” I immediately ridicule them for reading a book written for children. They are reading antiknowledge.

Oh yeah, found a cool russian saying Vsievo mira nie piereyebiosh! … You cannot fuck the whole world! But, if you’re me you’re sure as shit going to try.

I’ve felt like writing tomes over the past few days but I haven’t had any material for the onslaught. So, instead of waiting until something good comes to me I’ve decided to sit here adn write whatever comes to the top of my head. Again, this is all uncensored and its delivered exactly how I think it. You may not get all of the details or the logic of it all but this is the way that it is.

I think I love the girl that I’m dating but I know that I hardly know her. She defines the type of person that I always thought I would find in the first place. I know that she has a plan for her life and she is fully aware of who she is. She doesn’t need definition, she doesn’t need someone to take care of her, I think she is stronger than I am. I wonder if I am desperately searching for someone to love at times, its like I have all of this in me and I need to get it out but I haven’t been able to find a conduit for all of it. I know that I feel more strongly about her on a clear basis than I did with my ex. I think it was more emotion than logic with my ex and I think that was most of the downfall, there wasn’t a whole lot of substance behind the emotion and it led to its eventual demise. Then again, this whole thing could be me getting out there for a the first time and being afraid that I might loose it so now I’m going to hold onto it as tight as I can. I hate being alone but I love the feeling. Its such a righteous thing to be alone… its you and your thoughts and nobody can fuck with it if you shut them off. I know that I do better when I’m around people but I often think that I am designed to live alone, its the punishment for who I am. I feel that I am destined to sit alone and be a writer, not a Dean Koontz or a Steven King or churn out books faster than I rant and rave. I want to put my entire soul into the characters that I write about and make them real. I want them to be like Raskolnikov or Rourke… I want characters and stories that will endure the ages. I want people to be forced to put down whatever I write because they are unable to digest whats in front of them. The writing should be so epic that it can change the life of another… I wish I could make a memorable meaningful difference while I am here. If I don’t do this I’ll think that I will have wasted my time in some way. I should help to inspire and motivate others in ways that I cannot measure. Sure, it may sound like am full of myself at times but I’m sure as shit not full of anyone else. I am who I am and I don’t think that I’m ever going to turn away from that. I’m not going to sacrifice who I am for another person again… I can’t do it, I can’t give into them so I can give up who I am.

I’m listening to a band called Atreyu right now and I am amazed by the musical talent. This band writes all of their stuff and plays it and its damn good. I rarely buy CD’s because they are so full of filler that I feel like I am getting duped. This album only has 9 tracks but each one of them are stellar tracks. I’ve got to save my money and get back into playing music, I love it so much but I seem to shy away from it because I fear that I won’t be able to make anything of myself. I also know that if I get back into it I’ll leave almost everything else on the wayside as I pursue it. I can give everything I have to it and not worry that I can barely function at the end of the day. I guess music and writing allow me to most effectively express myself and throw everything out there in the open. Others do it in another way.

I don’t get along with the others, I don’t get along with them. I feel like I am not a part of the whole collective of this planet like I’m a stranger in a strange land. At every turn when I attempt to fit in I find out just how different I am from all of the others. I know that I look the same and sound much the same but I feel as if I don’t belong with them. They are different than me, we are different on a fundamental level and its almost as if we’ll never mix. Oil and water don’t go well together.

Got this in my email today… its worth posting. I’d link to the original… but I’d be forced to find it.

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005

by Robert Tracinski

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can’t blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city’s infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists–myself included–did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency–indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

“Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

“The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire….

“Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

” ‘These troops are…under my orders to restore order in the streets,’ she said. ‘They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.’ ”

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. “The projects,” as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night’s television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of “the projects.” Then the “crawl”–the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels–gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city’s public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city’s jails–so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations–that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit–but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals–and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep–on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters–not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American “individualism.” But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider “normal” behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don’t sit around and complain that the government hasn’t taken care of them. They don’t use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don’t, because they don’t own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

The welfare state–and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages–is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.

Source: TIA Daily — September 2, 2005

Nervousness

I rarely get nervous but when I do it has a few days to sit about and bother me. Its happening again as I prepare to wear desert camo for a few months. Where I’m going has zero affect on me but its what I’ll be doing that does. I’m working a slightly different job while I’m down there and I have a rather large role. The guy that was supposed to go first will be going later as his wife is due the day he was to leave. I just don’t want to let anyone down. I have a reputation of being mean; well, I have a reputation of being an asshole. This doesn’t bother me in the least but screwing things up with my job and failing in that aspect has been weighing on my mind heavily. Most people, 99.8%, of them don’t understand (because they don’t know) that me being mean is a test. If you can deal with it I relax and everything works out fine. If you can’t handle the pressure, I never let off of it.

The News

The media (not the news media because thats like saying the news news or the media media… look it up if you don’t believe me) has been on a rampage covering the hurricane and its aftermath. Slate has a brilliant article found here about how its fucking it up. Yes, they relentlessly bash Fox News… probably rightfully so, and its worth a read.

GW

Got this one from the Daily Show (thanks again Jon Stewart). They were talking about a plan (fake) to build a billion dollar dam in Arkansas so they stop the water there so they wouldn’t have to fight it down in the Gulf. It reminds me of how GW wants to fight terrorism there so we don’t have to fight it here.

Shatner

William Shatner sings, poorly, but I really like the song he did with Henry Rollins. Now he is going to sing at the Emmys (don’t get me started on how that show will be a complete waste of your time) with Donald Trump and others. This could make the show interesting… heck, cut out the awards part and just have them sing. Read about it here.

If you haven’t noticed I get a fair amount of my news from MSN(BC) based sites. I think they walk down the middle of the road so its my primary choice. Fox News stands on the far RIGHT, the NY Times goes way back to left field but MSNBC plays center (most of the time).

The Mayor of New Orleans ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city before the hurricane came upon it. Many people, up to 100,000 residents, decided to ignore this edict and remain behind. Now, these people are fighting for food and water… and the ability to loot their own city. The national guard and police are doing their best to fend off the looters and other criminals as the city decends into chaos. There have been reports of people shooting at police and military helicopters. Yes, 70% of that city lives in poverty and their only chance of having something… brought forth by that damn materialistic streak that some people have ingrained into their minds has brought looting.

These people are shooting at others that have volunteered to keep them safe. They are fighting eachother for what? For a pair of nikes and a jersey? This city, which I have always thought of as a rotting hellhole, is only getting worse. Dead bodies are littering the city as it fills with sewage. Whats next? How about a giant wall around the city, we can place cameras every where and create a reality show called “Escape from New Orleans.” We’ll watch these people kill eachother for whatever scraps they have left in the ultimate bid for survival.

This morning I heard that USAF special ops forces (C-130’s and MHU-153’s) were deploying from Hurlburt Field in Florida to help with the situation. I can only hope that they aren’t bringing gunships to deal with the situation. Does America have its own problems that we have decided to ignore and obscure with foreign problems? Yes. Now is the time where we’ve got to face some of the social problems that exist in our country. We’ve got to do something… Hopefully we can change the materialistic mindset we all have so that we can move forward as a nation and move forward as a society.

I hope they don’t find a leader like Al-Sadr and create a new Falujah. If they have to send in anything more than the national guard (like… the MARINES) we’ve got bigger problems on our hand than Iraq.