Archive for November 5th, 2006
All I can say is - FINALLY! It’s nice to know that even conservatives are finally admitting that the President has gotten us into a giant mess.
From American Conservative Magazine - (it appears as though their website is down at the moment - if anyone is interested, I can forward you the complete text of the article)
GOP Must Go
Next week Americans will vote for candidates who have spent much of their campaigns addressing state and local issues. But no future historian will linger over the ideas put forth for improving schools or directing funds to highway projects.
The meaning of this election will be interpreted in one of two ways: the American people endorsed the Bush presidency or they did what they could to repudiate it. Such an interpretation will be simplistic, even unfairly so. Nevertheless, the fact that will matter is the raw number of Republicans and Democrats elected to the House and Senate.
It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We need not dwell on George W. Bush’s failed effort to jam a poorly disguised amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration’s endorsement of torture. Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.
As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. Bush’s decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level: if securing Israel was part of the administration’s calculation—as the record suggests it was for several of his top aides—the result is also clear: the strengthening of Iran’s hand in the Persian Gulf, with a reach up to Israel’s northern border, and the elimination of the most powerful Arab state that might stem Iranian regional hegemony.
Here’s an article from Vanity Fair . In this article, a Vanity Fair reporter goes back and re interviews a couple of “the war’s neoconservative boosters” to find out what they think about the situation now.
The levels of brutality that we’ve seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity,” Perle says now, adding that total defeat—an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic “failed state”—is not yet inevitable but is becoming more likely. “And then,” says Perle, “you’ll get all the mayhem that the world is capable of creating.”
Kenneth Adelman, a lifelong neocon activist and Pentagon insider who served on the Defense Policy Board until 2005, wrote a famous op-ed article in The Washington Post in February 2002, arguing: “I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.” Now he says, “I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.”
November 5th, 2006
Tower Records is going out of business. The announcement came out a couple of weeks ago, but it’s not reflected on their website for some reason. Everything is on sale at the stores and they should all be closed by the end of the year.
Fred and I popped into the one in town after going to the local mega mart. It looks like the CD’s and DVD’s are 30% off, I forget how much books were discounted, but magazines were 60% off! Woot! I got a copy of UTNE Reader for $2! I was hoping that they would have a copy of Craft magazine, but if they did have them, they were all gone already. Craft looks like an awesome magazine, but it’s $14.99 - that’s waaay too expensive in my book.
The closing of Tower Records is a bit sad actually. When I was growing up in Hawaii, it was basically the only place in town to get records. I remember walking the aisles as a teen looking over the latest 45’s and finding the perfect Cure album for my sister for Christmas. I bought my first CD there - and we didn’t even have a CD player at the time! Well, we got one the same day that I got the CD. 
I’d go there occasionally, but then more music stores opened up in Honolulu and I’d go to the used music places rather than Towers. I discovered discount mail ordered CD’s after I started college and those prices, with shipping, were still cheaper than going to the store. Then of course after the Millennium, I started getting into mp3’s after I converted my CD’s.
A lot of music companies like to blame mp3’s on the downfall of music sales, but my opinion is that music sales are falling simply because most of the stuff that is coming out is just pure and utter crap. I mean, there’s no excitement anymore like when Nirvana came out or when Madonna became a pop star. I mean, nowadays the popular “rock” musicians all sound like crap and they all sound pretty interchangeable. Like if someone switched the lead singers between band a and b, would anyone really be able to tell the difference? (This does not include Sammy Hagar vs David Lee Roth though!)
I do believe that most of the stores are going to be closed by mid December, but I think it mostly depends on how each stores supplies hold out.
November 5th, 2006
Last night I did Cardio Party 1 from Turbo Jam. Well, I guess officially it is just Cardio Party, but I say Cardio Party 1 because there is a Cardio Party 2, Cardio Party Remix and a Cardio Party 3.
When this set came out, a lot of people liked Cardio Party 2, which was a free add on for awhile, but didn’t like Cardio Party 1 too much. I don’t know why. I like CP1 much better than CP2. Granted I felt slightly bored within the first 10 minutes, but got more energy a few minutes later. The workout itself is about 40 minutes long and man, I was working it!
During the first section, I was like, “oh is this over yet?” and then I realized that we had to repeat the same sequence on the other side, but I got over it. I think I like this one better than CP2 because it is intense, but not as intense as CP2. I just liked the sequencing better in CP1. She also throws these things called “turbos” in - kind of towards the end of the workout. A turbo lasts about a minute and a half and she really ups the intensity during that time. It’s supposed to push you until you are working anaerobically and get your heart rate waaaay up. I think what is good about the turbo in this one is that she doesn’t have you do those football drills. I hate those.
Since it was only about 40 minutes long, I thought I was going to be able to do a short add on cardio, but nope. I was too wasted after this video. Whoo whooo!
I think I am going to try a rotation that is high weight/low rep and cardio instead of mostly moderate to heavy weight and cardio. I think I can stick with that. I was going to do a straight Jari Love and cardio thing, but I figured I might get really tired of that in a short time. I was thinking about doing a Slim in 6 DVD tonight, but I haven’t decided yet - mostly because I think I kind of threw out one of my elbows with all of the punches last night. Um, Doh!
November 5th, 2006
