There's Something Really Wrong Here....

So we used to think our national debt was *only* nine trillion dollars. Then an article on Tuesday revealed that we have a "hidden debt" of fifty-one trillion dollars, stuff like social securtiy and medicare that for various political reaons doesn't get counted in the regular national debt number.

OK, so $60 trillion in debt is ridiculous enough. But, hey, that number's been getting higher for years and we seem to be doing fine, so what does it matter, right?

I don't completely understand how money works on these large scales, but apparently, we're borrowing millions of dollars a day from China to pay for our stuff, hoping they won't ask for it back any time soon (anyone remember the post-war debts and one of the major causes of the Great Depression?).

Even if that doesn't appear to be an urgent danger, somehow our increasing debt makes the dollar worth less compared to other currencies. Again, I'm not an economics expert, but as our government keeps spending more money than it takes in, and we just keep ignoring the issue and watching the number get bigger, we're increasing our chances of economic disaster.

This is crazy! I'd never heard of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul until three weeks ago, but almost every day I read news articles that confirm that we need someone like him in office to reduce government power and cut federal spending to a reasonable amount, just to get us out of debt before something drastic happens. Another longshot, Mike Huckabee, claims to want to reduce spending and balance the federal budget, but while he was governor of Arkansas he increased spending there by 60%.

By voting against his own Congressional pay raises during nine terms in Congress and never taking a free trip on taxpayer money, Ron Paul has the integrity that no other candidate has yet claimed to match.

Sometimes it is not difficult for me to understand why so many people are passionately convinced that he is the only hope for America.

Terrorists Can't Burn DVDs, or Military Forts

Sounds like we got lucky on this one.

The big headline is that they foiled a terrorist plot by six Islamic militants to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey.

The details are still unfolding, but it appears that these guys weren't in any hurry. The feds have been investigating this for fifteen months, apparently. They also say that they don't know if it's linked to al-Qaeda, although the guys were watching bin Laden videos in their free time. I suppose the government is paranoid about linking anything without undeniable evidence these days...

It also appears that the first tip came from a store clerk when a customer asked to have a DVD made of a video that "showed men in military fatigues shooting assault weapons while calling for jihad, or holy war, and shouting in Arabic, 'God is great.' "

Wait... so we caught the guys because they didn't have DVD-writeable technology? And they were dumb enough to have it done at a store?

Thank God for snooping, curious clerks. But what does that say about our official intelligence? It was only after the clerk called police that the smart boys discovered that some of them were here illegally and had illegal firearms. What if they had actually been smart enough to avoid letting incriminatory footage into the hands of an outsider?

Well, New Jersey's safe for now. Mother Nature's looking more dangerous than Father Turban these days. A tornado wiped out 90% of a small Kansas town, only killing 10, while the rest of the state as well as parts of Missouri are flooding, thanks to all the recent rainfall.

And there's thunderstorms forecasted for tomorrow.

Let's Talk About...

Rice: US Will Join Iraq Talks Involving Iran And Syria... US-North Korea Talks Set for March... Iran hopes to resume nuclear talks ...

Talk, talk, talk. Everybody seems to think that talking is the way to prevent international crises involving nuclear weapons in the hands of bad guys. Or, at least, everybody hopes it will. Because if it doesn't, somebody's gonna have to start fighting, and the U.N. won't start it and the Americans are getting tired of fighting, period.

This is nothing new. In April 2006, my last post before my unexplained hiatus was about this same issue... I re-read it and everything I said was still true: Everybody wants Iran to stop; Iran doesn't want to stop; Nobody's willing to make Iran stop. It doesn't take a master of Aristotleian logic to figure out what's bound to happen in a few years.

The Economist thinks that "economic sanctions" (whatever that really means) will begin to take its toll on Iran's, er, economy. It also notes rising dissent and criticism for their leader's positions and statements, something unheard of a couple decades ago. There still seems to be optimism that we can convince Iran to stop researching nukes without military action.

Maybe so. Or maybe by the time they get nukes they'll be smart enough not to use them on anybody. But the only thing that's changed amidst the haze of diplomacy and rhetoric these last ten months is that Iran is 10 months closer to a nuke than it was before. And as long as Iran holds the trump card of the price of oil, that's the only thing that will continue to change.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic. Or maybe I'm just not in denial about diplomacy as a panacea. Sooner or a later things are bound to get messy...

Edmond the Hun

Everybody wants to be president... (616 days to go)

Well, we only have 616 days left until it's time to vote for another president, so I better update you on the latest. Tom Vilsack (Tom who?) has dropped out of the race, bringing the Democrats down to seven wanna-bes. The Republican number is steady at five.

Since this is my first post about the Presidential race, I'll lay out all of my notes thus far:

1) Hillary and Obama haven't been getting along in their recent campaigning. This might damper hopes of a Clinton-Obama ticket.

2) I don't think Hillary will get the Democratic nomination. She leads in some polls but a lot of people hate her. Enough Democrats are aware of this that they will be reluctant to give her the nomination because it might cause potential voters to swing Republican simply to avoid making Hillary the First Man.

3) A lot of people hate her. I already said this, but it deserves its own point for this reason: Some radical conservatives hate her so much that they would rather see her dead than become president. I suppose this scenario is more like a Tom Clancy novel than real life, but I cannot say that I would be surprised if someone attempted to assassinate her while she was campaigning, especially if she actually gets the Democratic nomination. I'm just being real about the level of hatred and disgust some people have for this woman.

4) So far Republican candidate Sam Brownback is my favorite based on his beliefs and positions. However, I would like to learn more about his experience, knowledge, and abilities before I would commit to supporting him. Because there lies the moral dilemma: do you vote for the one who believes all the right things about abortion and gay marriage (things which the President alone has little control over), or the one who would be the best at leading the country and interacting with other countries and all of that political stuff?

Well, that's all I got for now. We got plenty of time to decide...

Edmond the Hun