American Omelette

Today a wonderful, gifted person passed. He was 47. Randy Pausch was a computer science expert teaching at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for many years.

More important, he was a man with an incredible message. He told the world to count their blessings, go after their dreams and be grateful. Grateful for their opportunities and gifts.

If you haven’t yet reached into his brain (w hich is kind of interesting in a post-human state) you haven’t sampled some of his wit and dignity.

To his family, a wonderful wife, Jai and their 3 kids… thank you for sharing him… we tip our hats to you.

Okay… everyone… raise your Joel Gott, Jose Cuervo, Belvedere, Red Stripe or finely rolled Sensimilla Hooch… and let’s agree that this guy was fucking great.

Rest in peace Randy… and thanks for your wisdom and grace.

Listening to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews today you’d think Bill Clinton was still the president. His take is that since Hillary’s concession speech on June 7th —something like 46 days— Bill and Barack have not been seen together. I say who cares? Sure, it’s an interesting piece of information, but face it, the Clintons are only human, and they’re probably still sore about losing. But Matthews’ placing such significance on this is overstated, because Bill Clinton is no longer the Democrat’s lead dog.

He is no longer relevant to who will be elected president in 2008.

However, Hillary Clinton will rise again . Although she will never again have the chance at the presidency she had in this election, she will dive into her New York Senate job and continue to do a good job for New Yorkers (sorry, although I have great respect for Hillary, her reliance on Bill is what ultimately sank her).

Bill Clinton’s Teflon coat tarnished a bit in 2008. He showed a cockiness that didn’t work very well this time around when he was out-boxed by the newcomer Barack Obama, and he miscalculated the mood of the American people; it’s a very different world from the 1990s; Bill may have been a good president for many Americans during his tenure, but his showing as a barker for Hillary proves once again that sometimes it’s good to hang up the jock strap when your time is up.

I wonder if Brett Favre hears that?

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But it may be time to leave since the window of opportunity has closed.

Why now? Because we missed our chance at really making a difference in Afghanistan and must now consolidate our position.

Here’s my thinking.

First, yes, it is honorable to be fighting the good fight against the shitheads that hit us on 9-11. We hit them pretty hard back in 2001 but should have continued until the Taliban and every other nut-case out there was safely back in their place of worship or six feet under them (sorry, but the insane-radical-evangelical-self-righteous-dying-to-go-to-heaven crowd has no place in running countries). We also should have used the planet’s goodwill to further our causes in the Muslim world by showing them that moderate thinking is better than crazy-paranoid-god-told-me-to-attack thinking. Instead, we decided to go the crazy-paranoid-god-told-me-to-attack route in Iraq and the rest, as they say, is history. So here we are… five years later justifying our existence in Iraq, while Afghanistan is going to hell and the Taliban are winning over the hearts and minds of their people with their silly god-fearing rhetoric. Again.

You see, without helping the poor people of Afghanistan with things like eating and staying warm, the Taliban will promise them salvation (and food) if they follow their extreme teaching; a common revolutionary tactic. And with the bad guys running back to Pakistan —their safe zone— each time they attack and kill American and NATO troops and civilians, we have little chance of beating them. Think what you will about the Russians , but their mighty army took a beating in their ten year war. They took 400,000+ casualties… with more than 14,000 dead. I am certain American forces are better equipped and trained, but fighting a guerrilla war where the attackers can retreat to a friendly country is a recipe for failure.

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