$700 Billion???

Ok, so things are bad. I get that. In fact, I'm convinced that if something isn't done by Congress to address the economic crisis, things will get a lot worse. However, I'm also not certain that if Congress does do something it won't be just as bad or worse. Congress and the administration have both done a cringe inducingly poor job of justifying their various plans. Let's start with the fact that the Treasury Department was caught pretty much just making stuff up. From Forbes: "In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy. 'It's not based on any particular data point,' a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. 'We just wanted to choose a really large number.'" How reassuring. And if it's such an emergency, why does Congress feel there is time to play politics with it and take cheap shots at one another? Why try to load it up with pork? It's a freaking EMERGENCY, right? This just about sums up my feelings: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzYzNDdmMzY0NzI5ZjVjYjA3NTQyNTk3Y2JhNTg5Njc=

Top it off with Nancy Pelosi's staggering partisan speech from the floor of the House right before the vote (after telling some of her buddies that it was ok if they voted against the bill, as they were on the hot seat from their constituents), and the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in an ill advised rant on NPR during the vote, telling the whole world that he planned on lambasting any Republican who voted "yes" and using it as a campaign issue, and I'm not at all convinced that this is really necessary.

PS: Someone needs to inform the above mentioned chair what an imbecile he is for spilling the beans on his campaign strategy before the measure actually passed. So....good luck with that now. Really, there are smarter six year olds out there.

I am a huge slacker...

I've gotten sidetracked with stuff, so have not posted the promised follow ups to the last subject. It will happen, I swear...

Enigma Iran, and what to do about it. Part 1

I have a soft spot for foreign affairs, so I'll likely lean heavily on the subject. If you find it boring I apologize, but such is.

Because of the complexity of the title subject, I have broken it into parts. This first section is essentially a (very simplified and condensed) background, covering recent events. These events serve to highlight a deeper problem, which may be coming to a head. In subsequent sections, I hope to explain in more detail and historical and social perspective what it is exactly that we are looking at in dealing with Iran from a foreign policy standpoint.

Headlining the news the last couple of days was the unsettling test launch of nine intermediate/long range missles by Iran, including the Shahab-3 missile, with an effective range of some 1240 miles. This puts the entire Middle East, most of India, and southeastern Europe within striking distance. These muscle flexing theatrics elicited a quick "I told you so" from the United States, which has been pushing a European based missle defense system for some time now, much to the chagrin of the Russians, who think the gesture is aimed primarily at them. Methinks they may have a partial point. They aren't exactly on our short list of confidants, and the U.S. quickly disregarded the offer to base the radar station in Azerbaijan and cooperate on the project. It may be, as some have speculated, that Azerbaijan is actually too close to Iran to be effective, but anyway, I digress, and that is a subject for another day. Moving on...

Iran's test launch, while a bit unnerving, is not at all unexpected. Everyone is suspicious of their nuclear ambitions, including our less than unwavering friends in Europe. Iran claims it is a civilian-use only program, but really, they aren't fooling anyone. Besides, haven't we heard that claim somewhere before? Because of these suspicions Israel and the United States have been doing a bit of saber rattling in Iran's general direction. The Israelis recently completed an air exercise in the Mediterranean which US intelligence believes was likely a dry run for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Judging by past behavior, the Israelis are unlikely to be making empty gestures. The United States has a hefty naval presence in the Gulf, and have made no bones about taking action either, though the rhetoric has toned down of late. It is therefore not entirely unthinkable that Iran would go out of its way to show that it is anything but toothless.

Taking no action and allowing Iran to go nuclear is absolutely not an option, so the question begs- what exactly are we supposed to do to prevent that? Traditional deterence may or may not be effective. I personally don't believe that you can approach Iran using traditional strategies, and in subsequent posts I hope to explain why. As I write this, I honestly don't have any concrete answers, but who knows, maybe I'll have an epiphany. Or not.

And Away We Go...

Ok, so here's probably the one billionth blog that's been started on the internet. La di freakin' da, right? Actually, they can be a good thing. People like to yammer away on whatever it is that floats their boat, and more power to them. I have been trying to get mine up and going, having jumped on the band wagon, but Google, in their infinite wisdom, decided (literally the day after I signed up) that you needed one of THEIR accounts, which I didn't have. So I made one. It still didn't work. I tried over and over. And over. After efforts by my more technically astute better half (thank you, Charity), I am now up and running. And likely have one reader. Maybe.

Anyhoo- I do not want to hear myself type. That's boring. Rather, I want this to be a site for discussion. Sometimes serious...sometimes not so much. So tell all your friends. It's interactive. Yaaaaay! The title itself refers to a couple, handful, maybe a whole group- of people sitting around, quaffing pints, and discussing philosophy, politics, etc... Yes, I'm a dork, and I enjoy that. I'm not talking about the kind of profound that a group of stoners has stumbled upon- no, I am not quite THAT deep. But I do love a good debate, so game on!

Any topic is game. Don't be squeamish! I have a short list of subjects to start, but am open to suggestions. Let me know your thoughts!

Password issues

Hate google. Hate. Hate. Hate.