In some circles much is being made of a recent announcement by the Iraqi government that agreements have been made on several issues dividing the Shia and Sunni camps. But hold on there. The National Concord Front is still so unhappy that they are continuing their boycott of the government. The Herald Sun reports on not only this fact but several other items that make how much progress this announcement really marks seem highly questionable.
Newsweek writes that the Mullahs of Iran aren’t even close to having a population willing to overthrow them. And of course the Bush Administration doesn’t realize this. In fact they have insisted on taking actions that hurt the cause of Iranians that would like to see their country be a republic in more than name. Virtually anyone who was paying attention to attitudes in that part of the world towards the U.S. could tell what kind of reaction our “aid” to democracy activists would produce. But I just have to seriously wonder if anyone in this administration asked anyone and if by chance they did ask did they pay any attention to the answer.
The New York Times reports on how the always reasonable and reliable leaders of Hamas are reaching out to Fatah to re-create a power-sharing government. While Fatah is very, very far from being an organization of saints or even potential members of MENSA apparently the old saw about “fool me once” has sunken in to their heads.
I know that there are those who call the United States and others hypocritical for cutting off aid to Palestinians that flowed through the Palestinian Authority when the Palestinians voted Hamas into power but I consider it reasonable for there to be consequences when you vote a group into power whose primary goal, written into their founding charter is to destroy an ally of ours. Hamas has no interest in ceasing its terrorist activities or conceding Israel’s right to exist, whatever the result of Palestinian elections might be. So for the Western nations who consider themselves friends of Israel to react negatively to them being voted into power was inevitable and should have been foreseen by other Palestinians.
The title of this blog obviously (or not) comes from the James Carville exhortation to the Clinton campaign in 1992. As surely as that message was important for that political campaign I think that remembering that it’s not the 1950s or any other decade/century in the past any longer at a deep level of understanding is important to discourse on every subject in the public sphere. People in their 50s or above who fail to understand why the truths they grew up with just don’t necessarily apply any longer irritate me no end.
As for me, I’m just a semi-elderly (for what I do) semi-geek who’s worked with PCs for 25 years while being an active science fiction fan as well. What do I mean by work with? Put them together. Keep them going. Program them. Network them. Explain them to other people. Troubleshoot them. Basically anything that has to do with a PC.
That having been said computer science was my third college major with the first two being chemistry and education with a speech and drama emphasis and english minor. What can I say? I also took classes that advisors frowned upon for not relating directly to my major(s). But they were interesting. A counselor once looked at my transcript and commented that most people are either good at the arts and social sciences or the hard sciences but my record looked pretty evenly balanced. Yep. When I retire I think I want to be a college student.
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