Why Dave Is Wrong, and Right, at the Same Time

This post is in response to the recent veto of the bill that passed Congress about a withdrawal. Specifically, I'm responding to Dave's post, "Thank You President Bush". I definitely agree that setting an exact withdrawal deadline is silly; however, the problem is that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have a feasible idea. It's more than true that we need to end the war; it's stupid to think otherwise. We can't afford it. Our deathtoll is ridiculous. We're doing very little over there, and making very little progress for the amount of time and investment we've had. Thus, Bush's plan is not working, and the situation is a complete nightmare. I think it's outrageous to say that Bush is protecting America in his actions, or that he has a good handle on the situation. I would argue that Bush hasn't had a handle on the situation since about the 3rd day of the war (and that may be a bit generous...)
However, the Democrats are not responding well. Whether it's because they are stupid, or because they are backed against the walls by the Republicans, who knows? The only real power Congress has is cutting funding from the war; however, that has been EXTREMELY villanized every time Congress has tried to use it, spun completely as "The Democrats aren't supporting our troops," when in fact much(many) of the proposed funding cuts have been aimed at things that most of us would agree are costing us a lot of money and not that necessary (making more effective explosives, for example). So Democrats will absolutely not cut funding, b/c it makes them horrible humans who don't want our soldiers to have effective armor, or who don't care whether our troops over there make it back safe. Point is, Democrats can't cut funding, UNLESS they do it in response to President Bush. For example, maybe they propose withdrawal deadlines, or give him conditions he has to meet (if you send more troops, they have to be out of there by "X" date, or you have to have met "X" conditions by such and such date), or else they will pull funding. Thus, if Bush doesn't make efforts to have any sort of withdrawal plan, then Congress pulls money, and it's b/c of Bush, not b/c they are heartless bastards. I'm not saying it's the perfect way to do things, but I think it's important to look at it from their point of view and realize that they are pretty backed into a corner.
Thus, the Democrats' strategy may be extremely flawed, and "arbitrary" withdrawal deadlines certainly have many negative sides. The question, though, becomes whether it's worse to have these deadlines (or at least some sort of method to force Bush into eventually ending this war), or to allow the war to continue indefinitely, sending America so deeply into debt that another depression becomes a certainty rather than a possibility. While I understand Dave's argument against the bill, I hope you can see why the bill has come about, and spread some of the responsibility for this huge mess back to the source of the problems in the first place.

Post

I thought I would put another post here, so that people could again comment on how I need to post... I'll try to think of something worth writing about soon, but I don't feel inspired at the moment, and I don't want to write a lame post... also, i could write about the Europe trip, but it would be so much work to specifically recall each stop... in other words, I failed to meet my own expectations...

From Romania

Ok, I did say I would write a post for each stop, and I'm holding to it... just I think I will wait until I get back to Leeds to do it, where I am no longer trying to either squeeze in a turn on a shared computer or pay for internet time. However, I am having an awesome time, and I'm still not halfway done... it's really amazing! Maybe I'll even write a post or two before I get home, but I doubt it. Two weeks in, haven't been robbed, and I'm bird-flu free... I'd count it a successful journey thus far!

Easter Break!

Ok, I'm on my Easter break, and I'm in Paris... funny that now would be the time I decide to post again when I've had plenty of time while sitting on my ass in my flat in Leeds instead of studying... but so it goes. Well, since I am on break, I don't want to spend tons of time writing this, but I'll just jot down our final itinerary for break. Unfortunately we couldn't fit Brussels or Krakow, but I'm more than happy with what we did manage. Hopefully later I'll be able to write a post for each stop on the trip... I'm probably not entirely likely to follow through on it, but it's a good goal to hope to update this thing at least a couple tiems. Like I said, we've started here in Paris, France. Next we go to Barcelona, then fly to Rome (maybe we'll hang out with the Pope, who knows?) We then take a train through Italy to Florence, and from there another train to Venice. We fly from Venice to Bucharest, Romania, where everything is so cheap it actually shocks me. Then we catch an overnight train to Budapest, Hungary (interestingly 2 cities, Buda and Pest, that meet at the river). Next we're take a trains to Vienna, Austria, and from there we go to Prague, in the Czech Republic. To be honest, I'm especially excited about the Eastern European part of our break, which should be beautiful and amazing, apart from being ridiculously cheap! Can't beat it! Anyways, from Prague we're taking a train to Berlin (the home of the Goths, Nazis, my ancestors, and apparently Liberace's stunt double! Ok, maybe not Liberace's stunt double... I think he was a gypsy...) We leave the Fatherland on a plane bound for the City of Sin... no, not Vegas; Amsterdam makes Vegas look like a church service! Ironically, we're staying in a Christian hostel in Amsterdam (it was the only one with any vacancy... hm...) Amsterdam is our last European stop, and we fly into Liverpool the morning of April 24th. That'll be nice, b/c we'll have plenty of time to check out the Beatles museum before we take the bus back to Leeds that night. Whew! That post really exhausted me, and Paris calls, so I think that'll be it for now! I'll hopefully post soon about Paris...

England, Enervation, and Easter

Well, I realized that I've been in Britain for some time now, and yet I've been horrible about posting... actually, Cheryl realized it, so I felt obliged to write something, and getting back into the alliteration in my title gave me some direction. England has really been great! I've loved almost every minute of it. The crazy things are just the small differences. I mean, it's not like being immersed in a completely strange culture, because things are really similar; however, the fact that things are so much the same really brings out the differences. Anyways, I can't think of any really good examples (my accent is hilarious to them when we talk about it... they really think it's ridiculous that i say the word water with kind of a "d" sound ... like "wad-er", because they really accent the "t"... it's just funny.) Anyways, as far as enervation goes, I've been ill for over 3 weeks now... basically that's been shit. A few days I just felt like death, but most of the time it's just been a feeling of general malaise. My throat has felt like I have strep for about 2 and a half of those weeks, so that's too much fun... however, that doesnt really matter, because I'm still having the time of my life. Michael, Brian and I have been planning out our Easter break... a whole month! I can't even believe it, it's going to be so amazing. We were going to go to Istanbul, but there were 2 bombings in 5 days a couple weeks ago, so we figured that terrorism, coupled with avian flu, provided enough reason not to go (we'll have plenty of other stuff to see, so it's not a huge sacrifice compared to the risks). So here's our plan as of yesterday... paris, barcelona, rome, florence, venice, bucharest (romania), budapest, vienna, prague, berlin, amsterdam, and brussels... we're also going to try to fit in krakow (even if we have to replace brussels). We've already got the travel booked up until rome, and then we're finishing the rest of it tomorrow. It's going to be pretty expensive (especially the actual travelling) but how often will I ever have an opportunity like this again? So basically I'm willing to go all out for perhaps the only time I'll ever have an experience like this. What's nice is how cheap flights are. The most expensive flight we're going to have is like the equivalent of $100 U.S., and that's from Leeds to Paris (b/c Leeds airport is pretty small). Can you even imagine getting an international flight in the U.S. for $100? I can't fly from Bozeman to Phoenix for that... well, as far as my travel around England has gone, I've missed out on 2 excursions, to Liverpool (went to my cousin's to change my money) and York (one of the deathly ill days) (home of the greatest band of all time, and you don't deserve to live if you can't figure out who that is...) However, I did make it to Newcastle, and the nearby Hadrian's Wall and Hexham village , with it's awesome abbey; I also went out to Mike's campus, which is in this old converted mansion called Bretton Hall. Both of those trips were awesome, and I've posted a lot of the pictures on my facebook, b/c it's way easier than doing it on here. This weekend, I'm planning on going to Stratford upon Avon, where Shakespeare is from, and hopefully see a Shakespeare play by the Royal Shakespeare Company; that would be SO INCREDIBLE! The weekend after, I'm going to London, so I'm pretty much excited about life in general right now. Well, that should do it for now, but I'll try to post more frequently (and therefore shorter posts) from now on... but I'm really not good at following through on stuff that involves any effort so we'll see.

And I'm Off To a Fan-friggin-tastic Start!

My weekend has been marvelous thus far, and it's only 10:00 on saturday morning! So i paid the equivalent of $60 for a train ticket to see my cousin in Cambridge today. The train left at 9:05, so i was up early and waiting for the 30 minute-interval bus from my dorms to the train station at 7:50, knowing that the bus takes maybe half an hour to get there... the bus pulled up at about 8:40. So i'm riding the bus praying that he'll step on it, and then realize that I have forgotten my ticket. It doesn't really matter , though; the bus didn't get to the train station until 9:10. I then found out the British railway system keeps no record of who purchases train tickets, so had I been there I would have been out of luck anyways, and the cheapest ticket i could get (an hour later) would have cost over a hundred dollars, one way, and i would have had to purchase a return ticket as well. So basically i could have taken my money and flushed it down the damn toilet; however, that probably would have been more fun to see and i would have been able to sleep. What an amazing weekend this is gonna be!!!

How Politicians Minds Work... And Don't Work

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/060124_political_decisions.html

This is just too great... I especially enjoyed the line about no increased activity in the part of the brain associated with reason; who would've guessed?