I have so much to offer. So much to share, so much to teach. Yet nobody seems willing to accept what I have to offer.

President Bush and his supporters say that the war in Iraq is the spearhead in the "War Against Terrorism". They say that the money and effort spent in Iraq are a wise investment because they make us safer; they protect our citizens and keep our nation secure.

CostOfWar.com estimates that--as of September 30, 2006--the US will have spent $318.5 billion in the Iraq war.

The Cost of Iraq War calculator is set to reach $318.5 billion September 30, 2006, the end of fiscal year 2006. The Cost of Iraq War calculator is occasionally reset based on new information and new allocations of funding. The numbers include military and non-military spending, such as reconstruction. Spending only includes incremental costs, additional funds that are expended due to the war. For example, soldiers' regular pay is not included, but combat pay is included. Potential future costs, such as future medical care for soldiers and veterans wounded in the war, are not included. It is also not clear whether the current funding will cover all military wear and tear. It also does not account for the Iraq War being deficit-financed and that taxpayers will need to make additional interest payments on the national debt due to those deficits.
--costofwar.com

As we enter the full-court press of the election season, one of the (if not the) central issues is going to be the war in Iraq, the so-called "War on Terrorism", and the public perception of our relative safety and security.

The question I raise is this: Does the money spent to (purportedly) increase our safety and security constitute a "wise investment"?

Playing the role of Devil's Advocate, I'd like to present for consideration an alternate use of the afore-mentioned $318.5 billion[0]...

For the past 5 years we could have paid for:

• 153,263 Patrol officers (salary [1] plus equipment costs [5])
• 193,103 Paramedics [2]
• 151,667 FBI Agents [3]
• 148,875 Police Detectives [4] and
• 131,171 US Air Marshalls [4]

Plus give:

• 5,449,102 children (0-18 years old) health insurance [1][6] and
• 552,184 college students a full 4-year college (tuition) scholarship [1][6]

...and still have a billion or so left over to buy cookies and milk for every person in the country.

And just to clarify, those numbers represent a full 5 years of payments to each person represented (excluding the college students, who only get paid for 4).

So, the question you have to ask yourself is this: Which would make you feel safer: 200,000 military personnel fighting (and getting killed by) guerillas and suicide bombers half-way across the world? Or over 775,000 police and other emergency personnel working right here in the USA, and another 6 million young people getting health care and education?

[0]Salaries are based on mean salary (highest + lowest, divided by 2) and include an extra 25% (15% for the employer's side of the payroll taxes, and 10% for benefits)

[1] costofwar.com
[2] salary.com
[3] University of Texas
[4] federaljobs.net
[5] City of Bismark, North Dakota
[6] US Census Bureau

When discussing love, the question always arises: What is it?

The definition, by its very nature, is subjective. But, for one very important reason, I feel that mine may be closer to the truth than most. That reason? I expect to never be on the receiving end.

Love is pain. It is struggle. It is sacrifice.

Love is giving everything you have yet expecting nothing in return. Love is giving everything you have knowing you will receive nothing in return. It's opening yourself to someone, stripping yourself bare of all your armor, removing all the walls, and knowing that you'll be wounded deeper than you have ever been before. Love is accepting that pain becuase you know it will help the attacker to grow.

Love is investing ten thousand to see a return of one.

Love is crying yourself to sleep at night rather than deny her a brief smile.

Love is waiting years for something you have known from the start will never happen.

Love understands every rejection, accepts every denial, allows every wound.

And if one is truly blessed, the one you love will turn around and do the same for you.

But ultimately, that doesn't matter. It's not about what you receive, it's about what you give.

It's a question that has been with us as long as there has been "us": What does it mean to be "human"?

"Homo sapiens" is defined by its proximity to a set sequence of amino acids. "Human", however, is something else entirely. We are more than just our "code". We have something more, something that sets us apart. Whether we call it "self awareness" or "consciousness" or "a soul", we all know that there is something that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Sometimes, however, I have to ask: How far above?

• People are killing gentle animals because one of those animals panicked and killed a celebrity.
• A million people took to the streets in violent riots because of how one man put put ink to paper.
• A million more call for the death of a religious leader because he suggested that their prophet was violent.
• One man has decided that "others" are "less human" than him, and encourages his followers to abuse them in ways most people wouldn't treat a dog.... 300 million people let him; 150 million encourage him.

There are those who would suggest that "being human" has something to do with love.

I look at the world and I think: If that is the definition, then there are very few humans on this planet.

I would turn the definition 180°. No other animal that I know of understands the concept of hate. They fight for food. They fight for territory. They fight to protect what is theirs. They fight to take what they need. But they never fight for the pleasure of it.

We do.

Several incidents--a few in my own life, several others in the lives of my friends--have brought up a similar question: What is love?

The question encompasses both the "romantic/sexual" aspect and the "friend" aspect (and sometimes both at once). It refers both to "loving" and "being in love with" a person.

Twice in my life I have "been in love"; once was the Truth, the other was a lie. The first still sits deep within my heart. I have no illusions that she will ever return to me--and if she did, we would have to start over from the beginning. But I still love her. I still want the best for her. I still worry about her and miss her. The second? I was presented with a mask designed to appeal to me--a lie. I fell in love with the mask, thinking it was the woman. Yes, I was decieved, but I didn't attempt to look beyond what I wanted to see, so the fault is as much mine as hers.

There are a number of women whom I love. Women who are important to me. Some I see as equals; some I wish to hold and protect; some I wish to guide along their Path; one I will defer to in almost any situation; a very select few hold within them the potential to pull me across the line. One has me wondering if I've already crossed it.

I know that several of these women care about me. A very few love me as a friend. One, perhaps, wonders where the line is.

And yet.... every one of them who has a man is in love with him. Those without a man, wonder if they will ever find one.

With the one possible exception (who has given herself fully to her man), none of those who love me are "in love with" me.

Many things have caused me to wonder.... what is the difference? Taking away the sexual aspects of a relationship, what is the difference between "loving" and "being in love with"? There is a difference. We all understand the difference in our hearts. But... can we explain it? Can we describe--in clear, precise words--the difference between the two?

It is, obviously, possible to love someone without being in love with them. Is it possible to be in love with someone without loving them? In high school, I knew a couple, each of whom said they loved the other. But understanding the foundations of their problems, I asked them "Do you like each other?" They couldn't answer the question.

From my own experience, I believe it is possible to love someone but not like them. There are women for whom I care deeply and wish only the best--but whom I hope to never lay eyes on again. But I sometimes wonder... can you be in love with someone and not love them?

How is it that something so pervasive, so primal, so important, can be so misunderstood? Nobody can define "love" to the satisfaction of everyone. Shakespeare composed sonnets about it. Emos and goths write torturous volumes about the lack of it. It is, perhaps, the single most important and universal emotion known to man... And yet we can't say exactly what it is.

I think that single fact--more than any other--explains what it means to be human.

As I was doing my thinking in the shower this morning (why do we think so well in the shower?), I come to a realization about those who support the use of torture on "enemy combatants".

They're envious.

Take a look at the logic behind their stance. They say that we have to resort to the same tactics as the terrorists, because our way doesn't work as well. Treating people humanely doesn't work as well as torturing them. Using the established legal system doesn't work as well as holding people without formal charges, trials, or lawyers. Abiding by the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions doesn't work as well as a having a supreme leader who is unaccountable to the law or the people.

What they're saying is..... The terrorists are better than we are.
What they're saying is.... They want to be just like the terrorists.

They're envious.

I mean... you don't fight and argue to adopt inferior tactics... do you? You don't get up on a soap box and say "We absolutely MUST do things WORSE!" ... do you? You don't repeat over and over, with force and vehemence, for the power and authority to do things you think will fail.... do you?

These people are pushing for a strong president, with broad and unrestricted powers, unanswerable to Congress or the courts; a President like Sadam Hussein used to be.

These people are pushing for the right to arrest and detain people without charges. To hold them indeffinitely, to give the President and his right-hand man the sole discretion over who is considered an "enemy of the people". Just like Sadam Hussein did.

These people are pushing to hold military trials where the defendant isn't allowed to see the evidence against him, can have hearsay and "coerced" testimony used against him, and may be banished from the court room during his own trial. Kinda like the trials Sadam Hussein used to hold.

They want a government firmly founded in religion with the power to enforce morality. Kinda like the Taliban used to be.

They want secret "interogation facilities", like the ones Pinochet had.

They want the right to invade and conquer nations that "pose a potential threat", rather like the Soviet Union used to do.

It seems that they want all the things "Bad Guys" had.
And they don't want us to have the things America created.

What does that tell you?

Sometimes I wonder: why do I bother?

Because you're worth it.

This past Monday marked the 5th anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center and associated events--something that, at the time of its happening, was offen compared to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. While the two events--and their subsequent reactions and repercussions--are quite different on many levels, they are also quite the same on many others.

A lot of people in the "right wing" of the political spectrum are saying that the "left wing" is being impatient, that solutions take time, that wars aren't won overnight, and that anyone suggesting differently is "soft" or even "on the side of the enemy".

5 years... that would be December 7th, 1946.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about 1946.

You'll note that the war is over. Against an opposing force in the millions; against an opposing force that was well-organized, firmly entrenched, and expertly-equipped, America was out of the war in less than 4 years. [1]

After 60 years of advances in technology, intelligence, tactics, deployment, and communication, the US can't hold it's own against a bunch of farmers and shop-owners who are still operating as if it were 1941. I know it isn't because the soldiers are weak or stupid or unskilled. They aren't. They're some of the best in the world. So what's the problem? If it's not the fault of the grunts, then where do we point the blame?

Maybe a little farther up the chain?

In war things get muddy. Morals get skewed. "Black and White" becomes "many shades of grey". People today are saying that they feel no remorse about (or even actively encourage) the use of torture on the enemy.

In WWII we sunk so low as to establish internment camps. This is something that we, as a nation, shall ever carry as our shame. Using the standard of those mentioned above, however, we supposedly should have felt justified in sending German Americans into gas chambers, and torturing Japanese soldiers to the point of death.

I know that times are different. I know that this is a completely different kind of war [2]. But that doesn't change the fact that the United States of America--from 1941 to 2001--never promoted nor supported the use of torture as a valid tool of military engagement. Did it happen? Of course it did. But our nation knew it was wrong, our government hid it in shame, and those who were found out were rightfully punished. Never has a President come forth and said "We will stoop to the level of our enemies. We will willfully and deliberately engage in evil acts. We will proclaim it to be a policy supported and enforced by the Office of the President. And we will define it as an act of patriotism."

At no time did we say "We will take the evil and abhorent acts of our enemies and willfully make them our own."

To those who say that a President of the Democratic Party would "soft" and "incapable of leading this nation in a time of war": I would like to remind you of Lyndon B Johnson, Harry S Truman, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

To those who say only a President of the Republican Party can lead us to victory: I would like to remind you of Dwight D Eisenhower and Richard M Nixon.

If you want to debate policy, intent, effect, and repurcussion, I'm ready to step into the ring.
If you want to blindly spout party rhetoric... the proletariat are meeting three doors down on the left.

[1]Yes, I know that Europe had been in the war for several more years, but to be quite frank, Europe was, at the time of US entry into the war, almost completely conquered by the Axis forces.

[2] By "war", I mean the military engagement with and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, not the nebulous "War on Terror", which is little more than an excuse for power-mongering and totalitarianism within our own country.

As I go through my daily list of RSS feeds and follow all the various threads to where they lead me, I've noticed just how often the actions of over-zealous "authority figures" and "peace officers" get posted to blogs, and just how fast word of these abuses spreads. And I have to wonder.... When some rent-a-cop in the airport tells a young guy that his "T-shirt is dangerous", or when a US Marshall tells a guy what bumper stickers he's allowed to have on his truck... Do they not realize that it's going to end up in someone's blog? Do they not realize that the guy with the blog has the power of "First Release" of the story? And that the story that makes it to the public first, is the one that most people believe? Do they not realize that the description of their actions is going to spread around the world in a matter of hours... and that the days of "quietly intimidating people" are gone?

I think they don't realize this.

So... I'm going to start a campaign to educate them.

This is a .zip file with a single document in it (well... one document in 2 different formats: MS Word and Open Office). The document is simple. It's a business card template with 8 different versions of the picture up above.

Download the file.
Change the 2nd line to whatever you feel is most appropriate. Print them out and carry them around with you. When the need arises, use them. But use them wisely! This isn't a weapon, it's form of education. Use it to tell someone "You may want to consider your actions before you proceed, because I'm going to tell the world what happens here." Then give them a chance to consider what they feel to be the best course of action.

Then blog it and let the world decide.

Tell your friends about the cards. Make up new versions. Post copies of your favorites. And every time you need to use one.....

... Blog it!

I am just shy of my 38th year (as most people count such things), and my body betrays me. I woke this morning, stiff and sore. I worked through the morning without too much problem, but by the evening, I was limping again. Sharp pains ran like an ice-pick through my right elbow. My knees and ankles felt like rusted hinges. My back ached and twinged. The noises my joints make sound like something an over-zealous foley artist came up with for a 50s sit-com.

I used to work 10-20 hour days doing hard physical labor, 5-7 days a week. Last weekend, a few hours of carpentry left me all but unable to walk. And for those who may think I'm just being a wimp: I put a pitchfork through my foot and didn't know it. I ran my hand through a table saw and had to look to confirm that I'd actually shredded flesh and shattered bone. I used to do a visual survey of my body after work each day to see if I was injured or bleeding because it was quite common for me to slice open my arms and not realize it until I saw the blood running down my arm and dripping onto the worktable.

If this is what I feel like now, what will it be like when I'm 95?

And the worst part of it? The doctors all say that everything is "normal".