Study Doesn’t Share Bush’s Optimism on Terror Fight

More crazy liberals who hate America, right micadelic?

I heard some excerpts of Bush talking about this and he reiterated his same old mantra “We have to be on the offensive.”

Why? In the hands of inept people that turns into a policy of unprovoked violence. Except for Iraq, we have very, very few terror attacks. Yes, let’s use intelligence and the military when necessary to stop attacks against us. But as Daniel Shore said recently, if Iraq is the center on the war on terror it is only because Bush made it so. It certainly wasn’t when this whole war in Iraq began.

Bush is blind to the fact that insurgency in Iraq and the global war on terror are not the same thing.

Just like I have said all along, we should not be in the business of nation building in Iraq. We aren’t qualified. Now its confusing our dim-witted President into thinking that is where the war is. It’s not. The war in Iraq is over. What’s left is a lot of resentment that America, while successful in getting rid of a dictator, destroyed the lives of millions of people and can’t figure out how to put it back together again.

The Star Tribune is reporting that same old tired irrational story that ‘Grand Theft Auto’ contributed to teen’s shooting spree. C’mon, folks, music, movies and games have virtually no impact compared to the influence of parents and other at-home role models.

Mark Dayton, who I generally like, is mad that the National Weather Service didn’t warn people about a storm they didn’t know about! I’m all for reviews to insure that we are doing the best we can, but we have to understand that weather is unpredictable and people on the ground have to react to circumstances as they develop and not wait around for the sirens to go off.

Apple Computer, who I love, are being stupid and trying to own the word ‘podcast’, a word they didn’t invent and have benefited from greatly. I absolutely hate liberal interpretations of intellectual property rights. Sorry, Apple, podcasting ain’t yours. Never complain when people do your advertising for you!

And finally, the TSA said we can bring liquids on planes again. What changed? Nothing. They just realized that paranoia and security are not the same thing. This was not security. I’m still waiting for someone with their head not up their ass to start addressing actual security instead of this pretend security. Someone like Bruce Schneier.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15599775.htm

Intelligence findings present political obstacle for Republicans

That damn truthiness strikes again…

Dear Den of the Biting Beaver–

I realize this is insane but here goes:

Images of consenting adults engaging in consensual sexual activity is not in any way, shape or form evil.

The porn industry, I would tend to agree, is evil.

Men would like to live in a world where the former somehow can exist while the latter doesn’t.

Impossible?

I am still shocked and amazed that the morons who run our “security” have decided I can’t bring a bottle of god damn water on the airplane. For those of you who don’t recall, water is a necessity of life. It is the thing you die without 2nd, the 1st being air. It is the most common and harmless substance known to man. It is also readily identified as it has very little taste and no color or oder.

Add to this the fact that they could easily tell us we can’t take water into the secured areas of airports but they could let us buy water in the secure area and bring it on the plane. They could also confiscate for testing any substance that they had reason to believe was not water.

On the way over to Barcelona I was thirsty and I asked the flight attendant for a bottle of water. She said “Sorry, if we gave everyone who asked for a bottle we’d run out.” Thus, they had less than 1 liter of water on the plane for each person. This is for an 8 hour flight. Do you know how much water I can drink in 8 hours? 2 or 3 liters easily.

So 10 guys in England, whose terror attack was interrupted, have successful made sure you and I are thirsty when we fly. This is not security, folks, it is asinine, reactive, lazy and ineffective. The water ban will eventually be repealed, probably right after the mid-term elections. And we’ll be right back where we started, no safer, no less safe, just a hair less thirsty.

It is still hard for me to imagine what retard decided that us taking water on airplanes was a security threat. I am also amazed that airlines don’t bring a shit load of water when they know that we can’t bring our own. I’ll stand in long security lines, I’ll let you search my bag and throw away my lighters. I’ll take off my shoes, I’ll show up early. Sniff my butt with dogs if you want, but for Christ’s sake, let me drink my own fucking water.

I know nothing about this blog but I clicked Da Rules link and I must say, it is the exact sort of thing I despise. Things like this:

I don’t OWE you fairness, this is MY place, MY rules and I have no problem debating something with someone but when you start to scream at me on MY blog I’m deleting it.

…and this:

You may have noticed I sound a bit arrogant and elitist. I am. It’s my blog. I’m allowed to be. There will be no comments allowed on this particular post except those that are in glowing admiration of us so no arguing with Da Rules.

…drive me crazy. Yes, I know, there are a lot of unpleasant, stupid people out there who say a lot of ignorant and annoying things. This is life on earth. You can’t always have it your way nor should you want to. We are all fully capable of ignoring people on our own. We can tell the smart ones from the dumb ones. We know flame bait when we see it. It’s not like a debate in person where someone can fillibuster and keep others from talking. We can all talk all we want. Oh wait, except on this blog, where we can only talk if follow Da Rules.

I’m sure this woman is very nice and smart and applies the rules relunctantly and fairly. At least I hope so. I still think this whole “it’s my blog so fuck you if you don’t like it” is lame and unnecessary and creates an uneven playing field in the debate. I, for one, avoid blogs like the plague that are reigned over by power-hungry retards.

Just so you know I am currently infatuated with the Black Eyed Pea’s song Where Is The Love.

If the music biz wasn’t so lame I’d put a link to it right here.

Our trip to Barcelona coincides with a festival La Mercé 06. It starts tomorrow but everywhere you look in this area the squares are full of stages. They have been setting up for days. It looks like it will be pretty wild, the city is already filling up.

We went to the beach today. I’d say about 20% of the women were topless. Very big deal for American men, you know. Actually not. I think its cool and it makes me wonder about the fat prudes in the US that are so upset by our natural bodies. Many of the older women I saw were topless, it was not just the young and beautiful by any means. At one end of the beach was clothing-optional. As usual, a lot of hairless gay men. One of the guys I’m with, who is a very nice and smart fellow, is a little obvious about it all. He likes looking at the titties. He snapped one picture before we were all ready to kill him.

Which brings me to my point: I despise being a tourist. It drives me nuts. I love traveling and I love feeling like I live where I am visiting. We have a sweet flat here so it is easy to feel at home. I absolutely hate things like valet parking, having maids in the room every day and being surrounded by a service industry that assumes you are a tourist. When I walk down the street I like it when people watching could not tell where I was from.

The same guy who was a little too obvious with the titties (I love you, Joe) looks very much like a tourist, too. He has flaming red hair, a golfing hat, camera around his neck. (Also the same guy who got pick-pocketed.) It’s no problem, we are having a blast, but when we are all together it is like having a big tourist sign over our heads. We did a couple shots of absinth for some god-forsaken reason and wandered around. At one point we were sitting in this sidewalk cafe and I was just amazed and annoyed at what a bunch of loud Americans we were. You couldn’t hear anyone else talking but everyone else could hear us. It drove me crazy. I like having a good time and I don’t mind when people get lit up and loud. But for some reason, in that moment, I could feel how little we blended in. This town, or at least this part of town, is full of travelers from all over the world. There is no shame in being a tourist in general and certainly not in his place now. Still…I don’t like being a tourist.

Still in Barcelona. Still having a great time. We are right in one of the nice areas (the Gothic district) so we are living like kings. It always strikes me as funny that depending on where you are and how you are treated, in a new city, it can have a drastic difference in your opinion. If someone asked me right now about Barcelona I would say it is fucking awesome. But we are a block or two from La Ramblas, which is, I’m told by locals, the most expensive area to eat in Barcelona. I.E. this is a trendy and tourist-y area.

I think the same of Minneapolis, I could give a visitor such different ideas of the city depending on where I took them. Take them to Uptown and Dinky Town and Northeast (among others) and you get one impression. Go to Lake Minnetonka, Edina or Bloomington, a completely different impression would be had.

I’m a bit of a woman watcher, as I have admitted, and this area of this town is just ridiculous. You can’t be a woman watcher in this town because the hot women go by so fast that you can’t keep up. They are not just young women, too, which is what I think is so surprising for a boy from the midwest. There are super hot women that are 50. There are tons of hot women that are 40. There are, also, of course, a lot of younger women as well.

I’m having a coffee at the Travel Bar, a place that has free wi-fi and caters to english speaking travelers. No one sitting here is speaking English, though. I’m outside but inside are a bunch of dorks with laptops. I’m the only dork outside with a laptop. I was going to put a little sign up that said “I’m blogging” just to see if it made anyone stop by.

I’ve never taken a laptop traveling before but I may from now on. I’m NOT working, except for an email here and there. But part of my life is online now. It is not a bad thing. Again, I’m NOT working. I’m blogging, googling and downloading pictures from my digital camera. I’m playing tunes from iTunes through our TV and emailing pictures to my kid. Sorry, I’m a geek, but this stuff is fucking life-changingly cool.

Some pictures on Flickr.

M.