GITMO

The Guantanamo detention center is like a microcosm of the War on Terrorism. Many of the prisoners are most likely undeserving of punishment, much less dangerous terrorists. Information is not provided by the US. Human rights are being trampled. People are dying. All this stuff is counterproductive at best. And the bush administration pretends that it is an important front in the War on Terrorism. Hogwash.

Batteries should be more expensive

I just saw a deal on batteries. Regardless of if that is about a mistake that was corrected... Batteries should be more expensive. It is now illegal to throw batteries in the garbage in California. So people buy these for peanuts and clearly they are going to just throw them out. It is no use going through their garbage, because that would cost too much, and people would just throw them out in public trash bins. The battery industry needs to provide for disposal, and pay for it with higher prices. That is the only way to keep this toxic waste out of the general garbage.

Top Secret

Classification of information in the US has been a part of several big news stories recently - the Plame case, the wiretapping debacle, and the tracking of financial transactions. One thing I take away from this is that I think classification should not be allowed to be used to cover up illegal activities or for solely political purposes.

It should be part of the classification law that if the information is classified for the purpose of covering up a crime or the classification of it is simply for political purposes, that classification should be invalid. Furthermore, it should not be illegal for someone to leak classified information that reveals a crime or is classified solely for political purposes. The burden of proof should be on the classifiers.

It should be clear to everyone that too much information is classified. This should take care of that.

The Cheney Doctrine

I heard a radio show on NPR yesterday about "The Cheney Doctrine", which apparently is "if there is a 1% chance of intelligence on terror, then we must take action." I have 2 things to say about this:
1. It depends a lot on how good their intelligence is (and I have no real knowledge of how good their intelligence is, but news reports over the past few years suggest it is not so good), and how many reports of terror activity they get.
2. It depends a lot on what action they take. Bombing a house is different from sending in someone to check it out and perhaps try to arrest someone.

Depending on these two things, this approach could either make us safer, or make us a lot less safe.

Why "Terrorists" hate us

Because of our freedoms? Yeah, right. That's just plain stupid. They hate us because we supported them and then abandoned them when the going got tough. They hate us because we bomb their mothers, fathers, children, siblings, and friends. They hate us because we are powerful, and we abuse that power. Still doesn't justify what they do.

Ding Dong

My 2 year old daughter has a special way of starting a knock knock joke: Ding Dong!

Time Is Not Money

Sure, we pay for time, or we make money based on time, but we can also pay for other things. It does not mean they "are" money. Time is time. Money is money. They are both resources. Use them wisely.