Dear Mr. President and Congresspeople,
Over the past few months, I have watched you bicker about the national debt. To deal with the crisis, a bipartisan panel was selected to devise a plan. Most of you decided it was a bad idea, and you punted on the issue. Thankfully, some people in Congress have made a stink about the debt, and once again, talks are ongoing. The biggest shame is that if any of you operated a business like this, you’d either be fired or in jail.

Doesn’t our country deserve better than this?

Who came up with the idea that enormous loans are necessary for operating the federal government? I know this is neither a red nor a blue issue: both political parties are culpable. It’s time that you make some hard decisions and balance the federal budget. The premise is simple: revenue must meet or exceed expenditures.

This graph illustrates the absurdity of our system. Remember, revenue must exceed expenditures. To fix this, you must either increase taxes or reduce spending. Considering that governmental spending is at an all-time (peace-time) high, I think spending may be the issue.

Here’s what you could do:

Pass a balanced budget amendment that takes effect in 2015. This will give the government four years years to get things in order.

Eliminate corporate and agricultural subsidies. Allow the market to determine which products are best.

Reduce the regulatory burden on companies–particularly in the health care and energy industries. The last thing we need is for rules to prevent innovation.

Simplify the tax system. This will allow people to better estimate their tax burden and will reduce the chance for people to avoid paying taxes.

Deal with Social Security and Medicare. The costs for these programs are going to rise unless Congress addresses the structural issues of funding and expenses. People live longer, and medical expenses are high. Either the eligibility age must rise or coverage must decrease.

Pay off the national debt. We should dedicate 1% GDP to reducing our debt.

From a non-budgetary perspective:

Reduce our country’s dependence on imported energy. Allow companies to extract oil, gas, and coal from our country that is environmentally friendly and economically feasible. This puts men and women back to work and adds to our GDP.

Reform the immigration system. Intelligent people from other countries study in our universities and work in our technology firms. Provide a way for these folks to become permanent residents or citizens.

Elected officials: it’s time to fix the problem. Please, take care of this issue for us and for future generations.

Yours Truly,

Andrew

Have you ever been stuck in traffic, hopelessly mired in a sea of cars? Time drags on and you dream of getting onto the open road again.
In an instance, an opening appears, and you gun it, pursuing that hole in traffic. As you drive on, it’s like the Red Sea has parted before you and you’re flying down the road. Well, you and all of the other cars who have shared this good fortune. In the back of your mind, you think, “It’s about time. I’m so glad the traffic has ended.”
In your fervor for the open road, you have inadvertently been a bit too aggressive and you’re speed is now approaching 90 mph. It’s all okay, that is, until you cross another hill and see the same sea of red lights in front of you. You have sped up to return to the fog of cars. You’re in traffic again.
It seems to be human tendency to exploit the opportunities in front of you. We go fast as a response to going slow. We eat too much after not eating for a while. We gorge ourselves on things at Christmas time. We endure periods of tight finances while working to have more money. Then we blow it all as soon as we can.
So it seems to be with the economy. When things start to turn up, corporations increase spending exponentially. And like so many of us in traffic, we find that companies and individuals spend so much that they push themselves back to the brink of poverty.
Consider the sub-prime mortgage industry. Corporations wanted to make money on marginal loans with high interest rates, while our neighbors all wanted to keep up with the Joneses. Consumers continued to buy and failed to save, acting in steroid-like rage, commercially speaking. And now we’ve run ourselves back up against the wall of reality, finding that excessive spending over the past 5 years does indeed have real consequences in life.
In the end, when you start to catch back up to the traffic on your way home, consider, “Am I catching up with the traffic in other areas of my life? Am I spending at a non-maintainable rate? Am I exploiting people? Am I looking to make marginal deals for the sake of short-term prosperity?”
I think we won’t like the answers to those questions.

This afternoon, some friends and I were trying to decide what we should do for dinner tonight. Restaurant after restaurant was mentioned, yet no consensus was reached. We were using IM to communicate, which is not the most efficient method of quick decision making. At any rate, offers and counter-offers were made before we finally decided on Chili’s. Yea, I said Chili’s–the same restaurant that friends everywhere visit when they can’t decide on something else.
The entire discussion made me consider politics. If three friends can hardly decide on a meal for one evening, then consider the difficulty of getting 435 men and women to agree upon a single piece of legislation that could very well change the lives of millions of people.
At the end of the day, our compromise on Chili’s doesn’t hurt anyone (unless you consider the amount of grease and calories we will consume over the course of our meal), but it is indicative of the entire human condition regarding hard choices. When legislation and decisions are made on the basis of not offending anyone, the laws are rarely effective. The fear that leads to the compromise creates worthless laws that tend to snowball into more worthless laws.
Instead of complaining, we should pick politicians that will actually have the gusto to make hard decisions, regardless of the circumstances.

As you know (or will soon know), every conference is given a 30-second commercial during football games with a team from that conference. And if both teams are from the same conference, the conference gets two commercials…you get the idea, I’m sure. At any rate, as I watched the A&M – Missouri football game on Saturday, I was bombarded with the same Big XII comercial twice…and here it is:
“The Big Twelve is committed to education. That is why we’re creating a special program to help Middle Schoolers and their parents prepare for college…..” (bla bla bla)
This sounds great, right? But I’m confused… I thought the purpose of middle school (and school in general) was to get an education and prepare for the future. So if that’s the purpose of school, why do we need all of these additional programs? It seems like a sad indicator of the overall failure of our educational system.

This a bit ironic:

The Christian Fundamentalist movement is one that believes that we’re right, you’re wrong, no matter what. And I saw a lot of that at Fox [News Channel]…we’re right, you’re wrong, no matter what.

Joseph Cafasso, Former Fox News Military & Counterterrorism Editor
Isn’t he saying that he’s right and they’re wrong because they believe that they are right and everyone who disagrees with them is wrong? It doesn’t seem like a defensible point…

I thought we won the war in Afghanistan…
Then why is a man on trial for conversion to Christianity? (article from CNN)

Death could await Christian convert

U.S. lawmaker: Christian-conversion prosecution ‘outrageous’

Tuesday, March 21, 2006; Posted: 10:31 p.m. EST (03:31 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) — In the days of the Taliban, those promoting Christianity in Afghanistan could be arrested and those converting from Islam could be tortured and publicly executed.
That was supposed to change after U.S.-led forces ousted the oppressive, fundamentalist regime, but the case of 41-year-old Abdul Rahman has many Western nations wondering if Afghanistan is regressing.
Rahman, a father of two, was arrested last week and is now awaiting trial for rejecting Islam. He told local police, whom he approached on an unrelated matter, that he had converted to Christianity. Reports say he was carrying a Bible at the time.
“They want to sentence me to death, and I accept it,” Rahman told reporters last week, “but I am not a deserter and not an infidel.”
The Afghan constitution, which is based on Sharia, or Islamic law, says that apostates can receive the death penalty. (Watch how Rahman’s case could cast doubts on Afghanistan’s commitment to democracy — 1:17)
Afghanistan’s population is 80 percent Sunni Muslim and 19 percent Shiite Muslim, according to the CIA. The other 1 percent of the population is classified as “other.”
U.S.: Freedom to worship part of democracy
Rahman’s case raises thorny issues between Afghanistan and its Western allies, and U.S. officials this week made certain that Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who is in Washington for talks on the U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership, understood their qualms.
“We have underscored also to Foreign Minister Abdullah that we believe that tolerance and freedom of worship are important elements of any democracy,” U.S. State Department spokesman Scott McCormack told reporters Tuesday. “We urge the Afghan government to conduct any legal proceedings in a transparent and fair manner.”
Abdullah was supposed to talk to reporters Tuesday about talks for the strategic partnership. Instead, Abdullah was bombarded with questions about the Rahman case.
“I know that it is a very sensitive issue and we know the concerns of the American people,” Abdullah said, adding that the Afghan Embassy in Washington had received “hundreds of messages” on the issue.
He further said that the Afghan government had nothing to do with the case.
“But I hope that through our constitutional process, there will be a satisfactory result,” he said.
Rahman’s case illustrates a split over the interpretation of the Afghan constitution, which calls for religious freedom while stating that Muslims who reject Islam can be executed.
Nicholas Burns, undersecretary for political affairs, said he understands the complexities of the case and promised the United States would respect Afghan sovereignty. However, he said, Afghans should be free to choose their own religion, and he believes the nation’s constitution supports that.
“We hope the Afghan constitution is going to be upheld,” Burns said. “If he has the right of freedom of religion, that ought to be respected.”
Rahman’s case could force Afghan President Hamid Karzai into the undesirable position of mediating the matter. Karzai has to placate an ever-restless populace in turbulent post-war Afghanistan, but at the same time, he needs Western assistance to stave off the remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Allies indignant
The U.S. has 23,000 troops in the country; Germany has 2,700. Canada has 2,300 stationed there, and Italy has 1,775, according to Reuters.
All four nations have expressed displeasure over the situation, some even saying that it is intolerable that soldiers of all faiths die to protect a country threatening to kill its own for converting to Christianity.
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga wrote a letter to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, urging him to withdraw Italian troops from Afghanistan unless Kabul guarantees Rahman’s safety, Reuters reported.
“It is not acceptable that our soldiers should put themselves at risk or even sacrifice their lives for a fundamentalist, illiberal regime,” Cossiga wrote.
Rep. Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, wrote a letter to Karzai asking him to intervene and uphold “core democratic principles and fundamental human rights.”
“In a country where soldiers from all faiths, including Christianity, are dying in defense of your government, I find it outrageous that Mr. Rahman is being prosecuted and facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity,” Lantos wrote.
One German official promised to intervene if necessary. Another, Development Minister Heide Wieczorek-Zeul, said, “We will do everything possible to save the life of Abdul Rahman,” according to Reuters.
Canada echoed that sentiment, saying human rights in Afghanistan was a top priority and that “Canada will continue to encourage the Afghan government to adhere to its human rights obligations,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Pamela Greenwell told Reuters.
CNN’s Elise Labott contributed to this report.

I’ve been reading a lot lately over the problem with Iran. Of course, my first thoughts are that Iran’s president is a cook (anyone that says the Holocaust didn’t exist is a fool). And too mention that Europe should take the Jews back and make Israel out of a part of Germany is equally dumb.
So it concerns me a bit that they will soon have nuclear weapons. You don’t give a mentally unstable person a gun. It just doesn’t make any sense.
But of course, we talk a lot about the “rights” of countries. What exactly is a coutnry’s right? I’m not sure there are rights in the “national” sense. Every nation has the “right” to do whatever it wants on its land. I mean, seriously, it owns the land. Who says they can’t use their land for something they want to do.
The concept of rights on a international level mean almost nothing. Iran has the “right” to enrich Uranium. All they have to do is pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and they can “legally” enrich Uranium and make weapons. That’s what the “international laws” say.
But we don’t want them to have weapons. It makes us (the United States) nervous. And as a result, we have the “right” to do something about it. We feel threatened and so we have reason to add embargoes and trade restrictions. Of course, these are small items of international diplomacy. If we really are concerned, we can bomb the heck out of them. That’s our right–we feel like they’re going to endanger us or hold us hostage…so why not preemptively act?
People clamor about the benefits of peace, and I have to agree that peace is better than war. But that assumes that peace is the natural condition of the world–that the “peace” we currently have will continually exist. That concept is foolhardy, at best, because it fails to account the ever changing dynamics in the world. So pacifism seems a poor choice.
Some people may say on a personal level, you cannot preemptively attack someone else. I agree–that’s bad and is not condusive for society. Our society has laws which protect you and a definite mechanism in place to deal with people who threaten you. No such mechanism exists on the international level–the only mechanism close to that is brute force. The “I’m gonna pound you if you touch me” response. It’s been fairly effective.
So what’s the point to all of this? I’m not sure… I suppose I despise all this talk of the “international community” not accepting Iranian nuclear weapons, yet they do nothing. They talk and talk about very interesting international platitudes but fail to act. And to a certain extent, I agree with Iran that they have the “right” to nuclear weapons. I just think that we have the right and the obligation to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“Most people in America don’t believe that God is a dirty word. But the sad fact is that some Americans are left to wonder whether the Supreme Court might have greater regard for it if it was.” Senator John Cornyn

For quite some time, I have opposed of urban sprawl and believed that public transportation would be an ideal solution for many large cities. I believed this because of the reduced emissions and cost. I still think this is possible, but my experiences have shifted my positions a bit.
The subway system in Paris is crowded (very very crowded at times), dirty, uncomfortable, and difficult to access. Sometimes you stand there and feel like a giant sardine. I heard stories of men groping women (supposedly, the elbow is the most effective weapon to combat this occurance). I also saw people using the walls as a latrine. In the winter, the lines are cold. In the summer they are hot. And did I mention that they’re crowded?
But, the subway effectively takes you all across Paris. But it takes much time.
Some people say that the subway is better because you can do other things on the trains. But on all the trains I traveled on, I only saw a handful of people reading a paper or a book. And during rush hour, there would be no way for you to pull out a paper and read. It was just too crowded.
And all this to say: Americans,be thankful for your cars. They are more comfortable, less crowded and more convenient than any public transportation system will ever be.
The subway isn’t all bad, mind you. It just makes me thankful for the convenience and comfort we have in our cars.