GJ said about 1 hour later

The Dems have not offered much in the way of a solution.

I will add, though, that you cannot come up with a solution unless you have a goal. I don't think President Bush has much of a goal, either--other than to guarantee that the next administration gets to deal with this too.

The way I see it, we need to determine what we want:

* install a democracy in Iraq. haha. sorry, but only dictatorships can be installed into unwilling countries.

* occupy the country until it comes around to your point of view (think Japan). This will take several generations, at least...and even then, there is no guarantee.

* cut our losses and leave Iraq to develop on its own. I think this would lead to a short civil war, and a strong Iraq-Iran alliance that will boot al-Queda out the door. Wait, that doesn't sound too bad...until you realize the president of Iran is a loon with nuclear ambitions.

* invade Iran. You know, "when in Rome..." and "kill two birds with one stone" and all that. We then combine the two countries and force them to sell us oil at cut rate prices. China decides that's not cool (being in dire need of energy resources themselves) and launches a liberation expedition to the middle east.

Anyone else have other goals? What do we want to do with Iraq?

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Geoff said about 3 hours later

Well it appears the people of Iraq don't want Democracy, or at least don't want to fight for it. I was very happy with a Dictatorship myself, it really didn't affect me (I guess thats pretty selfish, but hey, we're America!). We just need a dictator who is able to control these freaks and willing to sell us oil for a reasonable price.

I don't think invading Iran is feasible at this point...we're pretty stretched as it is and nobody would help us.

Japan was different in the fact that it was pretty isolated. The Middle East is anything but isolated...it would be tough to occupy, as we are seeing now.

Dictatorship wins IMO...and also makes the war in Iraq completely useless as we already had a pretty good dictator before (in Dictatorship terms).

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Kristen said about 10 hours later

It strikes me as odd that people have the impression that the trouble now in Iraq is our doing and we have to set up a government. This is the situation as I see it:

A group of people successfully coordinated and executed a terrorist plot to severely interupt our economy and political system. They also wanted to humiliate us, deflate our ego, and prove we are not invisible. Mission completed. We responded by launching a general "War on Terror", and fumbled through attempts to justify it with claims of weapons of mass destruction.

Here's what our goal should have been from the start: identify, disband, and disempower the group that organized the attacks of September 11th. The War on Terror is too general. It should have been a search and destroy, "Off with their Heads" campaign. We have accomplished this somewhat, but destroyed half of Iraq in the process.

It sounds terrible to leave them in this lurch, but we're funneling billions of dollars and thousands of American lives into rebuilding Iraq, when we need to focus on the real goal: Protecting America from further attacks. It may make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside to rebuild roads and schools and make sure women can get an education, but I'm sorry folks--we can't afford it, and I'm not willing to risk more lives trying to create a nice democracy there.

Eliminate known terrorists sects and do what we can to monitor and foil potential attacks.

I wonder what would happen if we funneled billions of dollars into R&D of alternative energy sources? I think it will prove cheaper (and better for the environment to boot) than paying for the upkeep of a country that wants to blow us up and has us by the balls because they control the price of oil.

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Geoff said 1 day later

I agree with your comments completely Kristen, save for the first line about the trouble in Iraq is not our doing...there are many factors, and no we are not the sole factor, but we definitely didn't help. We have just brought more of Iraq's troubles onto our plate.

We should have only two interests in Iraq, oil and containing terrorists. The first is much easier than the second. Unless we sacrifice a lot of our freedoms, the world will never be safe from Terrorists. It is the price you pay for freedom folks.

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Steve said 1 day later

Does no one remember Saddam's government killing off thousands of Kurdish people? It's not just one person, it was the government that needed to be removed. Same thing needs to be done in the Congo.

I wish they found an easier way to do it. I'd much rather have seen the CIA go in an assasinate Saddam and a few other high ranking officials in the Iraqi government, perhaps that would have shaken them up enough to stop the widespread violence. It would have been a bit better than where we are now. Perhaps the CIA wasn't skilled enough to pull this off, if that's the case, we ought to increase funding to them so they can develop the skills and technology to do such things. Kill of the warlords, and you will slow the mass violence. That's my theory anyway.

I don't think the Iraqis in general are totally opposed to a democratic process. They just want a democratic process that includes only people that share the same core beleifs as them. Perhaps the right thing to do is to split the country up for each of the groups. Let them establish their own democratic goverments, so they can realize how seeing others opinions on less important issues can help them make good decisions. It will be very difficult to get a democratic goverment going where the parties involved have core beliefs that differ from each other. That kind of cooperation takes years/decades to develop.

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GJ said 1 day later

Kristen-

It sounds like you think we attacked Iraq because of the war on terror. It wasn't. This was a dumb, needless war that only inflamed the terrorists.

What we did in Afghanistan I agreed with (well, the parts we didn't screw up). We've done nothing right in Iraq.

Geoff-

How does Japan being "isolated" have anything to do with not being like Iraq? The real difference? We're fighting a religous extremist group that spans borders this time. THAT is the difference.

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Geoff said 2 days later

GJ-
For Japan, we didn't have Iran, Syria, Pakistan, etc... sneaking weapons and militias into it to bother us. At least I am not aware of any countries really interfering with Japan like Iraq.

I think that is a huge difference.

You can only get to Japan by two ways, air or boat, and those are far easier to control than Iraq which you can just walk right into.

No doubt the religious conflicts are a HUGE factor as well, but I think a lot of the has to do with location. The Middle East is at the heart of Europe, Africa, and Asia, and is one of the earliest birth places of civilization. Japan...no comparison.

If Iraq was an island off the coast of Asia, it would be much easier to control outside forces from interfering than it is currently.

Steve-
I agree that Saddam was a ruthless dictator and had no respect for life and I'm glad to see him dead, the question I ask is if Iraq is better off now than before....or better yet, will Iraq be better off.

In the short term, it probably isn't better off. I hope in the long term it is. Democracy doesn't come without blood, however I don't think we should be spilling out any more of our blood for these people. This is their fight now.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I engage all of you to get your thoughts on the situtation.

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GJ said 2 days later

Sorry, I don't buy the isolation thing with Japan having to do with simple geography. Remember, too, that Japan was thoroughly hated by its neighbors at the time--even if they had been right next door, you'd not have seen much in the way of arms smuggling to prop up the Japanese resistance.

In Iraq, you have lots and lots of Shiites who have been abused for years by a dictator from the Sunnis. Iran is also full of Shiites, as is Syria. Even if you stuck Iraq out in the ocean, it'd still be hard as hell to keep help from arriving.

Steve-

I know full well what Saddam did. If we are going to play global policeman and go after all the dictators we and the Soviets propped up over the years in our war by proxy from the 50s to the 80s, we're going to be declaring war on the entire Asian and African continents.

We didn't attack Iraq because of his atrocities towards the Kurds. I'll buy any of the other following theories first:

1. we wanted cheap oil. oops, that didn't work.

2. we wanted a base of operations in the middle east. ummm, maybe.

3. GWB (or more likely, the neocons) wanted to finish Daddy's little war. quite possible.

4. the neocons like playing with their war toys, and were rather bored of little conflicts like Bosnia. quite likely.

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Steve said 2 days later

I'm not sure about the cheap oil issue, Bush and company I think have more than enough invested in domestic oil that the price going up would only make them richer. Could Bush have been going after more oil for the good of the country? Maybe.

I don't think we went to play with our new weapons.

I know we didn't go because of what Saddam did to the Kurds, otherwise we would have invaded a long time ago.

I wouldn't be surprised if we really did think Iraq was again developing weapons of mass destruction and would have no problem providing them to terrorists that wanted to attack the US and Britain. The US obviously have worked on some crummy information. But again, the better way to have handled this would have been to tacticly take out some specific key leaders. Declaring war on a country as a whole was stupid, no matter the reason.

Increase the quantity and quality of the CIA, and go after the really bad guys. That will likely deter the kinda sorta bad guys from going too far. Of course, how do you decide who are the really bad guys, and what happens if the people making those decisions choose to go after people for their own reasons, maybe not in the best interest of the world.

It's a double edged sword. You want to keep the atrocities from happening before they do, but how do you know how bad someone is if they haven't already done something really really bad?

Well, enough of this stuff. I have real worries, like how to deal with Consumer's reports really, really negative review of the new Sebring. Totally undeserved, but we need to deal with it nonetheless, I fear my job depends on it.

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GJ said 2 days later

Let's invade Consumer Reports! Hell, they're going to give my next car (either the G8 or the GTO) a bad review, so why not take 'em out now?

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Steve said 3 days later

Sign me up. My buddy Ken will join us too!! Some of these writers have to keep in mind what their comments can do to peoples opinions. If you like sporty handling cars, and want to rate them higher than comfortable cars, fine, but just make it clear to people that you don't like the fact we choose a better riding car over a sporty handling car, instead of only slamming the fact that it's not a sports car, but not mentioning how comfortable it is. It's amazing, we tuned the car to match the 2002-2006 Camry, the best selling car in the US, and the most highly respected by the magazines. I think, from a steering/ride/handling perspective, we exceeded the performance of that Camry. So, if we're better than that car, how can they say we are SOOOOOO bad? They better hope I don't drive near Connecticut anytime soon.....

Oh, by the way, little known fact about the automotive section of Consumer's Reports - it was started by an engineer who was turned down for a job by Chrysler engineering back in the day.

Geoff said 5 days later

Theres now a 5th episode with Lucifer joining the fray! Baaaaaahhhhhhh

Kristen said 2 minutes later

And I still haven't figured out this blog thing, feel free to correct my url GJ. Pardon the misquote, she said, "I'm in to win". I got a little too excited.

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GJ said about 24 hours later

Kristen--did my edit do what you were looking for?

Anyhow, I think Senator Clinton has a good chance to win. I don't think the Monica incident would have impacted her campaign one iota--it doesn't affect her qualifications, it affected her husbands.

Don't underestimate her opposition, though. Obama is a very capable politician, and is very camera and press-friendly. Who is more likely to pick up the significant black Dem vote?

Also consider that John Edwards is just as savvy as Sen. Clinton--but his trial lawyer background will probably keep him from the nomination.

Finally, you have the "Can I try again please" duo of Kerry and Gore. Either one would be a huge challenger to Clinton.

But the GOP will throw the election and give it to Giuliani anyhow, right Steve? LOL.

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Steve said 1 day later

Connie Rice will probably get my vote, if she runs. From what I've seen, I like her. But we'll see what skeletons come out of the closet during the campaign if she decided to run.

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GJ said 1 day later

Condi? Skeletons? Naaaa....

Oh, wait...I forgot about the last six years. :)

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Geoff said 1 day later

I'm voting for Ross Perot...pie charts all the way!

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GJ said 4 days later

Kerry's out. That leaves Edwards, Clinton, Obama, and maybe Gore as the reasonably likely Dems for the ticket.

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Kristen said 10 days later

I think that will be the real race--whoever wins the democratic election will win the presidency. So far from the numbers it looks like clinton is numero uno!

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Geoff said 10 days later

I'm not sure if it will be that easy. I believe Hilary will win the Democratic primary...and I think she has the best opportunity a woman has to win the presidential election. The question is, is America ready for a woman President.

I believe it will be a race between Clinton and McCain...and I think it will be very close. If Rudy nails the Republican spot...Clinton will win hands down me thinks.

There have already been some huge milestones for women in the political realm this year, so Hilary has great shot to be the first. I know I may be voting for her, I'm just curious how America will react to the thought of a woman President.

Obviously, she's probably got every woman voter...and probably no Republican males...should be a great political race!

Geoff said 1 day later

Very Cool. One discrepency I noticed was with the Executor Class Super Star Destroyer...it is 19,000 meters long, not 17,484 meters.

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GJ said 2 days later

You just out-geeked me, dude.

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Geoff said 2 days later

Victory at last!

Actually, I've always had an affinity towards the super star destroyer. Not sure why...perhaps because it is the largest spacecraft ever (excluding the death star..but that isn't really a spacecraft per se).

I would love to fly one, or blow one up....I'll take the later.

GJ said 18 days later

Muwhaha...Sylvia is threatening to sue the website admin now. Too bad her lawyer has practically no understanding of the law.

Marc said 1 day later

What happened to it?

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GJ said 2 days later

System files got corrupted. Don't know how, or how extensive it is. Could be no different than a corrupt boot.ini on XP...which drives me nuts, as it's probably easy to fix, if you have the right tools. A start up disc / rebuild disc should be supplied with these units.

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GJ said 2 days later

What really sux--Trevor's b-day party next weekend was to be a Wiifest, only there won't be a Wii to play with. Can't rent them anywhere that I've seen, either.

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Marc said 3 days later

Target has a 30 day return policy right? :)

Steve said about 2 hours later

Oh my lord. Those people are nuts. I'd try it though, I'm just that stupid. I'd assume that they tuned the spins and rotations to where they won't make people get sick, at least most people. What's really kinda spooky is how much the thing slows down when it is in some of those inverted loops. Scary stuff, indeed.

Marc said about 1 hour later

No wonder people have such a tough time with physics in high school...apparently mass, friction (or lack there of :) ), and velocity are a tough subject.

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GJ said about 1 hour later

Hell, reality is hard for most people.

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Steve said about 4 hours later

Didn't we just have a discussion on how the safest place to be in an accident is buckled into your car? Maybe I discussed that elsewhere. Well, here's the truth. In almost all cases, the safest place for you if you are about to have, or just had, an accident, is to remain buckled in your car. Don't jump out of it just before impact. That one lady was lucky she wasn't crushed between two cars. Had she slipped while trying to get out of the way, she very easily could have been killed.

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Kristen said about 6 hours later

In that case it was a no brainer! The cars look like they were barely going 10 mph. Why the heck would you get out of the car? Better to be in there to try to prevent further damage.

On the other hand, I did just that when I hit black ice on 390 south of Rochester 3 years ago. The guy in front of me brakes, so I tapped my brakes to take off cruise (it was not snowing). I immediately lost control of the car and spun around at 70 mph--eventually slamming into (and getting stuck in) a snow bank on the shoulder. I was out of the way of on coming traffic. However, with trucks weighing God knows how many tons barreling towards me at the same speed, also not anticipating black ice, why the heck would I remain in the car to get demolished? There were 3 other cars off the road, one of them flipped upside down. I ran like hell up a hill and waited for the tow truck. And I'd do the same thing if it happened again. Though I probably wouldn't get so lucky next time to spin off the road without hitting anyone else.

It was right after that accident that I decided to fly south. (where, BTW, we have had zilcho snow and it's supposed to be 70 tomorrow)

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Steve said about 6 hours later

As long as you can see there is no traffic approaching, sure get out of your car and way out of harms way ASAP. But don't crash, then immediately unbuckle and jump out of your car. One of the guys I rally with did that. He and his wife got into an accident, and their first reflex was to unbuckle and get out of the car. They should have waited a second, checked to see if anyone else was coming, then unbuckled. A second after each one unbuckled their seat belts, another car smashed into them at about 50 mph. They survived, but I know he was in the hospital for about 4 weeks. The wife faired better, but still had to go to the hositable. Their serious injuries would have been prevented if they had been buckled in at the time of impact.

BTW Kristen, a lot of people around here know how you felt that night on 390. When I was driving in to work yesterday, the roads were frozen solid. It had not really rained or anything, the black ice was due to FROST!!! I drove about 60 miles at 80 mph without having an issue. Once I got off the highway, onto a 55 mph boulevard, that road was a sheet of ice. People were off the road every 50 feet. It was a bit tense as I was driving a prototype car at the time. I'd hate to be the guy that wrecks a prototype. Well, unless I'm actually testing the car, then I have an excuse....

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GJ said about 8 hours later

People treat black ice like it's some sort of mysterious substance. It's not.

It's easy to detect, only generally only form under the absolute right conditions. Very common in light traffic conditions like side roads--almost unheard of on interstates unless freezing rain is occurring--at which point, all bets are off. :) Basically, pay attention to the road surface as you get into the car. See any glazing? Assume black ice while driving.

Even if you don't see any local icing, when the temps are between 28 and 36, and it is raining / wet and you are on a road that has seen little traffic in the past hour, you must assume that ice is present and drive accordingly.

One secret of the south--black ice occurs far more frequently there than in the north, thanks to poor road drainage and temps in the winter that often do hover in the danger zone. That winter I spent in Charlotte was a nightmare--we had black ice show up again and again in January 1998.

Only other time I hit it was Cobleskill, November 1997 as we were moving to Charlotte. That was a freezing rain incident, which started while we were on I-88. Dummy me was doing 70mph, and suddenly the road is blocked by troopers and we have to exit NOW. I hit my brakes and immediately think of that Harry Chapin bananas song--car is heavily loaded, and the brakes are doing NOTHING.

Somehow, I got the car slowed down and off the exit without smacking the car in front of me. That was the start of my grey hairs. :)

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Steve said 4 days later

It can be a mysterious substance. This occasion it had not rained or snowed, it was formed by frost!! But is was all over the radios, and anyone who did anything more than lightly accellerated should have felt it, in case the 50 cars that had spun off the road hadn't already clued them into it. It may not have been on the highway I was on, but it closed down every interstate that I could have used to get to Auburn Hills, thus I was on M59, a 4 lane divided "boulevard" if you will, with a 55 mph speed limit.

The roads also looked dry, even the ones that were icy. I couldn't tell by sight.

What compounded it more for me was I was driving in from about 1.5 hours away. It was perfectly dry, no ice when I left home.

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GJ said 5 days later

Does frost form on the pavement out there? I've never noticed it forming out here. Wonder if it has to do with the paving materials.

Steve said about 8 hours later

Thanks GJ!

And don't forget Tim Kerr, one of hockeys's best forwards (well, in my mind anyway). Yup, he was a Flyer....