Election failures.

I guess Bush v. Gore wasn't the first or the last contested election. And the result was incredibly stupid because the Court essentially stopped the count that would have solved the issue then said, the counts didn't meet the deadline. The whole thing was a farce.

Just thinking about elections right now and what they accomplish. There was an election in Iran earlier this year, and it seems few people believe the results. There is a recount going on in Afghanistan where fraud is rampant. Why bother with the recount? No matter who wins everyone is going to say it was fraudulent and demand a recount or another election. And the guy who is declared winner will have no authority to accomplish any changes.

Maybe it's always been this way, but it feels like one of the great pillars of democracy is being torn down.

Stay or Go?

There's a bit of heartburn going on about Afghanistan these days. We've been there for 8 years. Shouldn't there have been some progress by now? Well, a large part of the problem was that this particular war got back-burnered while some crazy person launched a second war with some other person because our crazy person wanted revenge on behalf of his daddy. Hard to make sense of that, but it's true. So we wasted people, money energy and everything else to invade a country and hoped that this war would somehow take care of itself. Afghanistan has been invaded many times, but it's never really been conquered. It's got geography working in its favtor that way. So having exhausted ourselves in one war, it's understandable that there is a lot of reluctance to recommitting ourselves to that first war, the one we probably should have been working harder on. There's little end in sight, but there's more wasting of people, money and everything else going on.

Unlike Iraq, I think the US does need to be in this country and in force. It's not time to talk exit strategy yet. But it's definitely time to start talking strategy. There election was a joke. They need to a functional government to stablize the country and the whole region. The ballots were carried by donkies. There are no quick answers here.

Clumsy Kid

Little J is now running amok in her second pre-school. Today 4 little girls were playing with the class pets, 4 hermit crabs. The crabs were sitting in a plastic tray and a small boal of water on the floor. While running by, little J stepped on the edge of the plastic tray sending water and hermit crabs flying all over the place. And she kept right on going.

That's what a President Should Sound Like

Intelligent, clear, inspirational. This guy has a gift for making a great, easy to understand speech. Can you remember what it was like a few years ago? We'd get mispronounced words, bad diction and we would all sit there wondering why this guy hadn't come close to answering any of the questions asked of him and whether or not what he was saying was a bold faced lied. Time and time again, it was a lie.

As to the substance of the speech last night. It wasn't quite the 10,000 foot over view, but the 5,000 foot version. There were some concrete things that have been worked out that he's trumpeting, but there are still areas that could use some work. I guess that's to be expected.

And that chump who accused the president of lying. Pretty insulting, not to the level of throwing a shoe, but pretty bad. Especially since he was living in the Republican bubble and didn't have his facts straight.

Quick update.

There are a couple ways to look at why I'm not blogging much these days. Mostly because I've been trying to work on some other writing.

Little J should be trying this school thing all over again next week. Hopefully it goes off with less drama this time.