Sleepwalking In Texas While Driving In Afghanistan With Betty Jo Bouvier

We are looking out at the morning of the 3rd Friday of the last month of 2010. Only 14 days to go til the end of this current holiday season's excessive joy.

I had a rough night of nightmares last night. The nightmares had way too much action going on.

I think there may have been some sleepwalking involved.

Because one of my pillows was outside this morning, sitting on a table on the patio. I did not know this til I looked out the window to take the picture you see here and saw the pillow.

I do remember one of my nightmares.

Betty Jo Bouvier, the Wild Woman of Woolley, and I were on The Amazing Race. The task was to drive ourselves from Kandahar, Afghanistan to Kabul. We were provided with AK-47s in case we ran into any Taliban. It was a nervewracking drive to Kabul, with Betty Jo complaining all the way, blaming me for getting her stuck on this ridiculous race.

I woke up exhausted.

I have no idea what I am doing today, except for being absolutely certain there will be no driving in Afghanistan.

Florida Pastor To Burn Quarans On 9/11

"Hello....is there anybody in there?....Just nod if you can hear me....is there anyone home?" COMFORTABLY NUMB by Pink Floyd (Roger Waters and David Gilmour)

The Reverend Terry Jones,  pastor of the Dove World Outreach Church in Gainesville, Florida is going forward with his plans to burn Quarans to protest the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in spite of protests from the world's Muslims and other religious leaders, as well as American officials.

General David Petraeus, the American commander in Afghanistan, issued the following statement regarding the planned book burning.

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan......(burning Quarans) is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems -- not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

Jones appeared on American Morning on Tuesday, September 7, and was interviewed by co-anchor Kiran Chetry. Ms.Chetry, who in most interviews usually does not inject her opinion, appeared both appalled and somewhat aghast by the responses Jones gave her, among them his knowledge that the burnings- in protest of radical Islam- would offend moderate and friendly Muslims, and even dismissing General Petraeus warning with a "we'll pray on it". Ms. Chetry asked some tough questions- even telling Jones that one of his answers "just sounds silly": she gets some high marks from this blogger.

Kiran Chetry at one point told Jones that she wasn't questioning the intelligence of the Reverend.

But she is a professional journalist on a 24/7 news network. I am not, and am not subject to network imposed constraints.

Reverend Jones, in my opinion, is either a little bit crazy or a whole lot stupid. What he is contemplating doing has already resulted in counter protests in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, yesterday, as well as another in Jakarta, Indonesia. What he is planning to do is wrong, bigoted, and as un-American as anything I've ever heard....and un-Christian as well.

The United States has spent over one trillion dollars and lost more than 4,000 men and women fighting in Iraq, and more than 320 this year alone in Afghanistan. One of our aims is to build stable democracies in both nations and turn the fighting over to the government troops of both of those Muslim nations. Those troops we are training have a holy book that they follow.....the Quaran. And in one small area in Florida a foolish old fanatic and his equally stupid followers will be insulting the very people we are trying to supposedly democratize, as well as all other well meaning Muslims both home and abroad.

Foolish, stupid.....or crazy. There's nothing else to say, except that below there is an embedded video from CNN that must be seen to be believed.

Joe Biden CBS Interview- "Washington Is Dysfunctional"

Vice President Joe Biden is interviewed by CBS EARLY SHOW host Harry Smith in this in depth 21:17 video clip. The Vice President talks about his stimulus plan, the state of the economy and job loss and creation, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, his relationship with President Obama, and the former Vice President, Dick Cheney.

One of the most revealing aspects of this interview is Biden's assessment of Washington, in his words, being "broken" and "dysfunctional", and that this is the worst he's seen it in his time in public service.

This is n interview worth watching in its unedited form, unfiltered.

President Obama's Afghan Strategy; Worth The Risk, or Worth The Risk?

"We must deny al-Qaida a safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban's momentum. ... And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government."- President Barack Obama.

And thus President Obama committed an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan at an approximate cost of $30 billion for the next year alone. They will be joining the 71,000 already on the ground in that war torn country, where the United States has been involved in a ground war since October, 2001. The new first troops will arrive in Afghanistan by earlier 2010.

In his speech to the nation from the United States Military Academy at West Point, (NY) the President did give a timetable for the deployment of troops- Mr. Obama said the troops will start coming home in the summer of 2011. In the interim US forces will attempt to get Afghan forces to take control of their own security.

The President told viewers and his audience that he would get together with Congress to find a way to fund the additional expense, but offered no specific way to do so. So far, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the United States a trillion dollars, with 4,284 killed in action and 30,182 wounded in Iraq as of December 1st, and 849 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and neighboring Uzbekistan, according to the Pentagon.

My reaction to the President's speech was mixed. I want Osama bin Laden punished for his murder of 3,000 people on our own soil, and want to see al-Qaida, if not destroyed, at least put in check permanently. The incompetence of the Bush-Cheney administration allowed the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks to escape by getting America involved in an unnecessary war in in Iraq. Bin Laden was there for the taking in 2001, and the Bush administration decided to start preparing for a war in Iraq as early as November, 2001 (according to retired Col Lawrence Wilkerson, an aide to the Bush White House).

But tonight Barack Obama took ownership of the war and the escalation of its prosecution. He was left holding the bag left to him by the previous administration. Its all his now, to win or lose.

I think he realizes the American people are weary of war and shaken by the fragile state of the American economy- and that they will not stand for an open ended strategy, thus the time table. But how can any war be fought with a "game clock", as CBS's Bob Schieffer put it? Or how can we keep asking are troops to do more and keep sending them back into combat for two or three, or even more tours of duty? How can this war be paid for without adding on to the ballooning national deficit? If bin Laden is in Pakistan and not in Afghanistan, how does this help to bring him to justice? Why should America continue to support the weak and corrupt regime of President Karzai, who's brother is one of the largest traffickers of drugs in the Middle East? And the Afghan people are showing signs of wanting foreigners- meaning Americans and our allies- out of their country.

These questions will only multiply in the coming months regarding this escalation. Maybe in trying to find a solution to the conflict President Obama had cut off the head of the Hydra, only to see two heads grow back in its place.

Quick Hits For November 30; Stop Tailing Tiger, And Other Assorted Rants and Raves

Once again I'm (a) too lazy or (b) too brain locked to spend a lot of time writing something coherent and substantive, so I'm going to resort to my old fallback, QUICK HITS.

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!!!

(1). Tiger Woods- Too bad about the accident. And I really don't give a damn about the other stuff; was it a domestic dispute, why he won't talk to the cops, was he fooling around with a female diversion in New York.

I don't care. Talk about the "silly season", as a certain college football head coach put it.

(2). Charlie Weis and Notre Dame- Once again America's premiere Catholic University, which stresses moral integrity and doing the right thing, shows how its really done. Its win more and win bigger, or your out. Not that this is a surprise; Weis' tenure was dead after he lost to Navy earlier this month- the following losses to Pitt, UCONN, and Stanford just made the firing a little more expedient. I'm not shedding any tears for this one ( as you'll see in the next segment). I'm not a Charlie Weis fan or a Notre Dame fan....but notice how they treated a loyal alum who just wanted to succeed on his dream job. Quite frankly, anybody who leaves a high profile Division One college job for ND next stop should be the funny farm- you'd have to be a complete whack to make the move.


(3)More Notre Dame Kudos to ESPN's Kirk Herbtreit who finally told it like it is on last Saturday's COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMEDAY. Herbie asked, "Why do people still care about Notre Dame"....and added that the program has been irrelevant since 1993. I agree- Notre Dame has not been a true player on the national stage since today's incoming freshmen were in preschool. Notre Dame demands and gets special handling from the media and the public, and they get it- and they don't deserve it. I said it before in another post, and I'll repeat it here- Notre Dame football is like Old World aristocracy. The Irish and their fans live off of memories of The Glory Days, off of the accomplishments of previous generations. There has not been one Notre Dame team to warrant the attention they demand since the tenure of Lou Holtz, which ended in 1996. Notre Dame has their own television network (NBC) broadcasting their games and shilling for them. They have an abysmally unfair arrangement with the Big East in which they are in the conference for all sports except football, where they maintain their independence. Yet, Notre Dame is included with the Big East when eligibility for the Gator Bowl is concerned- they can take a spot guaranteed to the Big East under certain conditions. They won't join the Big East for football, and yet- I'm doing this from memory- they have lost the last three games they've played against Big East members; Last year against Syracuse, and this year versus Pitt and UCONN. Don't even get me started on the BCS which continues to give the weight of one of the six power conferences when determining BCS bowl eligibility. This is a total joke and a travesty. Its time to bring them into the 21st century, at long last. They don't deserve or warrant special handling, and haven't since the beginning of the Clinton administration. If they want a BCS bid, let them have to win one in a conference just like other member schools do, or like the Boise States and TCU's have to, as an at large with no more kid gloves. I'm not speaking out of jealousy, I'm talking about fairness here.

4. Afghanistan Tomorrow night President Obama will unveil his Afghan strategy. And this has me scared to death. How long does he think we can withstand an open ended war after eight plus years of American presence? We keep asking the same people to do the same job year after year...less than one percent of the American public is affected by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Stop loss" keeps troops on active duty after their term is up. We've never fought a war this long using troops in this manner. Maybe its time for America and and Americans to reconsider the cost of war, and the fairness to those who will be involved and of their families. If a war is to be fought, the American public must be willing to go forth and sacrifice even more- if you support a war be prepared to pay more taxes or even see a draft reinstated. If you can't go for that, and your representatives won't go for it, then maybe it would be expedient to find an alternative to armed conflict.

5. "Good Will to ALL Men....and Women" Yesterday in The Home News Tribune I saw an article that said Catholic churches in New Jersey were sent a letter by the state's bishops asking the faithful to pray for our members of the State Senate and General Assembly to oppose a bill to allow gay marriage in New Jersey. At mass yesterday, it was not read, but maybe it will be in the future. It is interesting...the Church will not marry a Catholic and a member of another faith unless certain things are agreed to. That being the case, they could just refuse to sanction same sex marriage because it is against Church rules. Since the Church doesn't believe a Catholic's marriage in a ceremony outside of the Church is valid anyway, then I ask this.....what's your beef? They don't believe a civil ceremony is valid under the eyes of God, so doesn't it logically render their opposition as a moot point? Sadly, the Catholic Church has gotten on the same side as those on the far, far right on this one.

Maybe I won't be so blown away by the crassness of this hypocrisy if the Church did admit that "higher ups" did know more than they admitted during the priest sexual abuse scandal. Frankly, I find it very hard to believe that so few knew so little about something so widespread that hurt so many.....where was the leadership and the accountability? Part of the Church's response was to deny the priesthood to anyone who was homosexual, and not acknowledging the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. The Church hierarchy got their convenient scapegoat.

And don't dare to try to tell them otherwise....because (God knows)...they know best.