Vacation

Howdy blog reader(s). I am leaving this morning for sunny southern California- San Diego to be precise- for the annual Comic Con International. For the next 5 days, I will be mingling with my fellow geeks and bathing in the world's largest pop culture convention. So this will most likely be my last blog post for a few days.

I certainly have a lot of political issues/questions to ponder as I travel... will the Middle East conflict continue to escalate? Will a solution be found? Will Fox stop reporting this gleefully as WWIII? And does President Bush actually intend to use his first ever veto to kill a bill expanding federal funding of embryonic stem cell research?

I expect no pleasing answers.

Finally, I just bought Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuits Of Its Enemies Since 9/11" for some light plane reading. I started it this morning. A fascinating and informative book that covers all aspects- big and small- of the Bush administration's execution of the war on terror and all that that encompasses.

Much of the press for the book revolves around the title, which refers to Cheney's doctrine for responding to potential threats: If there is even a one percent chance that a situation may develop into a threat, it should be treated as if it were a 100% chance. Tom Tomorrow recently shared his thoughts on that doctrine-

It takes a little while for the horror of that to sink in, but when you really think about it, it effectively means that this country has been governed by complete madmen for the past five years. Life is all about making reasonable decisions based on probable odds... If there was a one percent chance that the moon might crash into the earth someday, we would, as rational people, respond differently than if the odds were at one hundred percent, or even fifty percent. We would monitor the problem, consider options. We would not make it the single most pressing issue of the day.

You would have to be literally insane to suggest blowing up the moon immediately because there was a one percent chance that it might crash into the earth someday.

But as Suskind tells it, this is what the entire Iraq War has been about.

Digby has similar, and more detailed, thoughts on this subject.

The book also does, however, give you a look at the smaller, unknown players in the war on terror.

For some humor, check out Ron Susking being interviewed on the Colbert Report.

On that note, I am out. Have a good week all, and don't hug any Klingons you don't know.