Those of you who have been reading since I was blogging on Tripod will recall (or be able to go back and read) my post in which I wondered why the terrorists, if their true aim was terror, were not attacking us randomly in all manner of locations. You can only do the big attacks so many times before security gets too tight around the important targets. For example, for a long time after the 11 September attacks in the US, the Statue of Liberty was closed. Washington DC is also now off limits for any pilots who have not obtained prior clearance. Anyway, these types of attacks barely terrorize me. They happen in certain high visibility areas that most Americans have no contact with. If it weren’t for visiting my wife’s family, for example, I’d never be in the New York City area. Therefore, I wondered why they didn’t just attack mass transit and other public areas which are impossible to protect.

That’s what the Chesire Cat told Alice in the Disney version of the story when she informs hims that she doesn’t want to visit the March Hare or the Mad Hatter because they’re both mad. I feel as though the entire US has fallen through the rabbit hole. Don’t get me wrong - I love my country; it’s got the best combination of freedoms and protections that exists in today’s world. But the things people have been saying recently have been scaring me a little. Long-time readers of my blog (who have been with me since the beginning) will know that ever since the 11 September attacks on the US, I have been a bit wary of how our political system has been becoming more and more like IngSoc. There are days that I feel that those speaking for the US are part of the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984.

Americans may remember George Bush’s comments this last election in which he said that America had to check to see if it was ok to import drugs from Canada. When he said that, my jaw dropped to the floor. Did he just say that we had to check and see if drugs from Canada were safe? We’re talking about Canada here, not some developing nation. I am pretty sure that the Canadians have equal or higher standards for their medicines; Europe usually does. Basically he didn’t want to upset the drug companies who had paid Republicans so much money to keep being able to charge Americans higher prices than our neighbors to the north and he didn’t want to upset Americans who might not vote for him if he flatly told them they wouldn’t be able to buy these cheaper drugs.

What does “Deep Throat” mean to you? Well, if you were born in the 80s and happen to have a “dirty mind” then the term is a reference to a type of oral sex. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d rather not be the one to take away your innocence so go google it. If you are a history buff or were born in the 60s (or earlier), “Deep Throat” was the name given to an informant to the Washington Post who helped to leak key information about Richard Nixon which ended up in his resignation. In my opinion, it was a very weird name to give to this person considering the fact that it was a reference to a cult pornography movie in which a woman who was unable to orgasm, called upon a doctor who found out that the problem was that her clitorus was located in her throat. I think you can guess where the porno went from there. (I’ve never seen it, but saw some clips on VH1 - I think it’s the grandfather of cheesy 70s music-style pornography - the kind which is always parodied)

I am coming to the end of the Lexus and The Olive Tree. In part three of his book, he had a very interesting analogy for the world’s economic systems. If they were a gas station….

Japan - the gas costs $5/gal, but there are five guys who service your car. They pump your gas, fill your tires, and clean your windshield. They are all guaranteed to have their jobs for life.

I’m still listening to The Lexus and the Olive Tree, which I mentioned back back on 12 March, since it’s a massive 21 hour book. Today I heard what I consider to be one of the most interesting theories involving wars. The author of the book noticed that no two countries containing a McDonald’s in their borders had ever fought. In other words, if Country A and Country B both have a McDonald’s they won’t fight each other. If Country C didn’t have a McDonald’s, then it may be attacked by either Country A or Country B, or it may attack either of these countries. His main exclusion to this theory is that a Civil war doesn’t count, so the problems in Yugoslavia don’t disprove the theory. The author then took his theory to McDonald’s who then independently verified that no two countries containing a McDonald’s had ever attacked each other.

Today is Good Friday, the day that Christians celebrate the betrayal and death of Jesus the Christ. Jesus was murdered in order to fullfill the prophecies dating back to the days of the Old Testament books of the Bible. According to the doctrine of Original Sin, when Adam and Eve committed the first act of disobedience against God, they caused all of their descendents to also be born into sin. In order to symbolize a washing away of this sin, God commanded the ancient humans (proto-Hebrews) to sacrifice a purely white lamb, sprinkling the blood symbolically onto the sinners, to take away their sins. The lamb, being without defect, was supposed to stand in for the humans who had the “defect” of sin.

I recently began listening to an unabridged version of The Lexus and The Olive Tree and I must say that after about ten minutes of listening to the book, I’m quite disconcerted over the increasing connectedness of countries and their ability to affect each other. Allow me to illustrate this by paraphrasing the book’s opening story.

In 1998 the Thai government had been keeping the currency, Boht, valued at one US dollar. Banks and investment first in Thailand therefore were borrowing money from US banks for their ventures since US banks were much more stable. In August of 1998 the Thai government, for whatever reason, decided to no longer tie the values of the two currencies and the Boht fell to 30 Boht for 1 US dollar. The Thai banks now had to come up with a lot more money to pay back their loans to the US banks. A short time later, 56 of Thailand’s 58 major banks closed down. Over 20 thousand white collar workers in Thailand lost their jobs. Foreign investors began removing their money from developing Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, South Korea, and others. This would have only caused an asian recession except for the ties to Russia.