I wanted to get an idea of what the Brits thought of this whole scandal with the US allowing their ports to be run by a company owned by the country United Arab Emirates. I found a British article with an interesting side to the story. As you know, the ports used to be run by a British company. The article said that he couldn’t believe that a company based in England for over 140 years could be sold away to another country. It was, he said, one of the last vestiges of the British Empire. The former CEO was nearly outraged at this. The biggest irony in the whole situation is that the new company is owned by the state of Dubai, a former English colony. So a symbol of English colonialism was bought by a former colony. I couldn’t help but smile a little at that. That particular article didn’t have much to say about port security and Arabs. Personally, I think most of the American outrage came over the fact that the proposal came out of nowhere. Even pres Bush *claims* not to have known about it until it came out in the news even though he said he would veto any negative responses. Kinda weird for someone who was supposedly in the dark. In the end, it’ll probably pass, but his credibility has been sorely damaged. I heard the other day his approval ratings were down to 34%.

I don’t agree with a lot of what the current administration is doing. While I don’t necessarily believe that G. W. Bush is evil like Mr. Burns and wishes to bring the US and England together under IncSoc, I do agree with some congressmen that he has set some perilous precedents if congress just leaves things alone. For example, as many jounalists and bloggers have pointed out, one of the key themes in 1984 is perpetual war. Because Oceana is always at war, people are willing to tolerate a loss of freedoms and a worse quality of life than they had prior to World War II. I agree that we have certain rights afforded to the Executive Branch during war-time. However, If Bush can do whatever he pleases because we are at war and we are always at war, then he can always shirk the constitution.

According to many sources, including BBC News, an audio tape purported to be from Bin Laden calls for a “long-lasting truce” between the US and the terrorists. He also claims that we have been safe in the US only because they have been focusing all of their attacks on Iraq. BBC didn’t mention this, but according to a Fox News broadcast, we should believe his truce because he is forbidden to lie since he is a Muslim. As compelling as that logic is, the US is not biting. Personally, I wouldn’t either.

“Indeed, it has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.” - Winston Churchhill

There has been a lot of talk recently concerning the CIA and their interrogation techniques with Terrorism suspects. Specifically, the talk has centered around “secret prisons” in Europe and the fact that the UN can’t go and investigate the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However, I suggest that the debate is centering around the wrong tennants. Most of the debate has centered around whether we have been torturing prisoners. I don’t want to minimize the evils of torture. We obviously don’t want to use torture because it undermines our message to dictatorships and it increases the chance that Americans will be tortured when they are captured.

To all those who have had to fight in wars justified and unjustified; To all who have left their families, uncertain if they would ever return; To all who may have lost everything from limbs to families:

Thank you for fighting and keeping us safe. Without you, we wouldn’t have the great country we have - one where we even have the freedom to protest against the wars it rages.

Bush asked Congress to earmark approximately $7 billion to help save us from a bird flu pandemic. I think this is good, but with the regular “plain jane” flu season around the corner, I think we’re going to have a huge problem. First of all. Congress takes forever to take action on Bush’s initiatives, if they take action at all. Remember all that money Bush promised the Katrina-ravaged gulf states? The vast majority of it still hasn’t been approved/sent out to the states that need them so badly. And this is something that has already happened, therefore allowing people to demand action. We usually have a problem getting a large number of people mad about something that may happen in the future, but people can protest really quickly over something that has already happened and is currently affecting them.

“Scooter” Libby, VP Cheney’s advisor, looks like a really shady guy. So it was no surprise to me when I heard on NPR news that he has been indicted and he has resigned. He wasn’t indicted with outing the CIA agent, but with perjury and obstruction of justice. Paltry crimes you say? These were the crimes that ended getting Bill Clinton impeached! Carl Rove didn’t get indicted, but isn’t scot free either! They’re still investigating him even though the Grand Jury has been retired. I’m currently listening to the Special Prosecutor on WYPR’s (our local NPR affiliate) streaming audio and I’ll update you if I learn anything else.

First a quick aside: That Civ4 post got pushed back a little as I couldn’t resist playing and then I had to get to bed since I have an early day today. Expect it later today if nothing irregular happens. To Tara’s comment yesterday - your comments made me check my tech tree poster - Mine is in English. It seems like you got a European version even though their debut is in November.

While browsing Andrew’s page this post of funny news stories. The one I thought was the best was the one about Chairman Mao doing weddings. I went ahead and checked out the yahoo news story he linked to and I thought it was quite an interesting story. Apparently, there is a guy who looks exactly like the late Chairman and he performs at weddings for 500 yuan. I guess that’s the key difference between the way a communist/despotic country is run when compared to a democracy. Apparently people there idolize this guy enough that they would love to have him speak at their wedding. Could you imagine someone dressing up as George Washinton and performing at your wedding?