I’m completely stunned that people were surprised by the Christmas terrorism attempt.  First the date is symbolic, even for non-believers in America, this meets one of the first criterion for terrorism.  I am surprised we don’t see more of these small scale attacks as matters of symbolism.
The real question here though is not why did this happen, or who was Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab working with. The real question is why are we surprised by it?  For years now we have been engaging in open warfare in the Muslim world killing as many or more civilians as we do combatants and writing them off as collateral damage.  When you make war on a people who had you calling “oops my bad, so sorry,” won’t cut it.  We need to not only expect attacks of retribution, but accept attempts will be made and some of them will succeed.  Simply put war is a messy business and you shouldn’t participate unless you are willing to accept losses.  Being surprised by this sort of thing clearly says we are so arrogant that we honestly believe it is okay to stand around with our heads in the sand.
There is no way to get ourselves out of this war and thereby eliminate the war on us, and the longer try and solve it by intimidation the worse it will get.  Even after we leave Iraq and Afghanistan we will continue to be actively involved in the Muslim wars have no doubt as we have been involved in them for nearly seventy years. The people blowing themselves up are forever going to see us as active members in a war against them whether we are politically active as we are with Israel, economically active as we are with OPEC countries, or slinging bullets in the streets of a Muslim country.  The best we can hope for is to limit the damage they do to us when they make a successful strike against us.

I Smell Bullshit!

Normally I love Wikipedia.  There has never been such a complete collection of information and trivia in one place, ever.  Not the great libraries of old, nor the best collegiate libraries of the future will come close to holding the content of Wikipedia.  I know it is all user generated content and many people fact check and document each entry, but I have never seen something as incorrect as their definition of politics.  The define it as the process in which groups make decisions.  Bullshit! *cough cough*  Forget the “cough, cough” I refuse to say that under my breath.  I will take pride in calling any definition of politics that includes making decisions as bullshit.  I will say it loudly and proudly.

Politics never enters the realms of decisions.  When practiced to its greatest degree the most you can hope for is the opposing sides will reach some sort of consensus.  I shouldn’t say that is the most you hope for, too often when politicians reach  consensus everyone but the politicians and their puppet masters get fucked.  Most of the time when politicians meet, they run their mouths about change only so they can look like their doing something while maintaining the staus quo.

I will from time to time strive to give you an enlightened and common sense view of politics in plain old American.  Note that I do not say in plain English. English is the language of cultured academics, lawyers, politicians, frauds, shysters and proselytizers  who frown on me not just when when I call bullshit on them, but for using the word bullshit at all.  (You should hear them rant when I say, “Fuck!”)  Back to the point, most common folk in America speak American and so shall it be written here.