After the long plane trip and a wake up shower, Fred took me out for a meal and a short stroll around so I could get a sense of direction in the area. He had been in Greece for several months working on the 2004 Athens Olympic games, so he had the basic ropes down fairly well.

The ramifications, if the California Supreme Court had found in favor of the plaintiff, would have been the equivalent of shutting down free speech through the blogosphere, and would have placed bloggers front and center in libel suits.

The Israeli politicians are in town meeting with President Bush and making wild speeches to American Jews in an attempt to get the United States to go to war with Iran.  Something fascinating has developed and no one seems to have carried it, much less noticed it. 

By now everyone has heard the comments by Benjamin Netanyahu made, which are quite off the chart:

"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs," Netanyahu told delegates to the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly, repeating the line several times, like a chorus, during his address. "Believe him and stop him," the opposition leader said of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this."

This won’t be the last Israeli politician who will make comparisons.  Ehud Olmert has been making fast and loose comparisons and veiled threats as well.  Tzipi Livni’s job has been to get the world to come together and go after Iran.   …more

The first thought that danced around in my brain was Israel. They finally had what they wanted: Saddam no longer posing a threat to their sovereignty. The current war in Iraq can never solve that because it’s an ongoing issue, but Saddam sentenced to death is a mental boost, a reason to exhale a sigh of relief for many. I began to imagine how they might be celebrating in Israel with the news of the verdict.

This is especially true with the change in leadership in Washington. My wish? A sweeping roll back by Democrats on laws that have undermined the foundation of the rule of law provided by the U.S. Constitution. 

I wasn’t thinking about pets when this came to mind. Actually, I was thinking about Admiral John Poindexter, the convicted felon who was caught up in the Iran Contra scandal. He’s also been tied to the Total Information Awareness (TIA) project that has been “allegedly” closed down, as well as a futures market live betting game through the Pentagon called the Policy Analysis Market (PAM) (it bet on political, economic, and military instability in the Middle East).

The more I read these days, the more I keep hearing the same names being resurrected at an alarming frequency, and Poindexter and Kissinger are two men who should never be allowed anywhere near Washington, and their telephone numbers should be on a blocked call list. In some ways I feel bad for these men – they just can’t leave well enough alone, and they can’t move onto something that doesn’t involve destruction of property or personal rights. I don’t think anyone has told them the Cold War ended yet, and they can’t find their place in a peaceful society. They keep drumming up business for themselves by whispering in ears.

At once it hit me: “If we can spay or neuter pets, why not politicians?” …more