Thoughts For The Day!

The pundits are opining about Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan faster than the generals want and slower than many of the rest of us want. I agree with Tom Friedman who says there are four choices in Afghanistan: Lose small, lose big, lose fast, lose slow. To think we’ll be able to make any fundamental difference in that place, after countless generations of strife and unrest, is delusional.

Greece’s economy is in the toilet. European banks are bailing them out. The Greek people don’t like the austerity measures that are required and are rioting in the streets in protest. In Greece, the per capita debt amount is $44,000. Per capita debt in the U.S. is $45,000. Draw your own conclusions.

The FBI nabbed Whitey Bulger. They’ve only been searching for him all over the world for 16 years. For 15 of those years he’s been living the modest life of an aging retiree three blocks from the beach in Santa Monica. Way to go FBI. Who else are you looking for?

Ron Paul and Barney Frank (an odd couple?) have introduced a bill to take the Feds out of the pot business. Leave it to the states to legalize and tax marijuana, they say. Sounds like a good idea. An alternative would be to have the Feds legalize it and levy a tax to help close the budget deficit. But Republicans, even pot-smoking ones, are against imposing new taxes, so I guess that idea is a non-starter.

Way to go, Timmy. 12 strikeouts, no runs and 3 hits in 7 innings yesterday. The bearded closer almost blew it, but what else is new?

They kicked the can on Bonds down the road again. The prosecutors can’t bring themselves to say, “Hey, we blew it and wasted a lot of the public’s money in the process. We won’t exacerbate the idiocy by trying him again.” What else did you expect?

Unless its knocked off the ballot, in November we San Franciscans will vote on whether to ban circumcision for males under 18. A coalition of Muslim and Jews are opposed. Well, nothing else has worked, so maybe this is a pathway for moving forward the dormant peace process in Israel.

It is two years since we visited what was then a peaceful Syria. Now people are being killed in their towns and villages. A year after we were in Iran people were being killed on the streets of Tehran. It is eight months since we were in Greece. Now the people are rioting. Maybe we should cancel our upcoming trip to India.

Have a nice day!