First and foremost, and it's funny that this actually came up unrelatedly today in a conversation about my boss (who is a very well known democrat, and totally gets it) that I had with a coworker about my name. You, like a lot of people, spell my name with a K (Mark) even though you've seen 600+ posts from me over 5+ years, you still spelled it with a K. Sorry, big peeve of mine with long time comrades. But my top boss (I have 3) knows not only that my first name is spelled with a C, but she also always spells my last name correctly too, which is impressive to say the least. I always forgive anyone for missing that one (from an immigrant family). But come on...that first name is only 4 letters that you've seen here over and over.

These things make me wonder about people's powers of observation...and I'm a recovering cynic.

Ok, that out of the way.

I didn't really care for the speech and I haven't cared for the way this administration has handled things since I put my big X in their box. That doesn't mean that I believe that the dems had a better solution even now though (not even close). In fact, I'd be damned afraid to think where we'd be now if I'd (and millions of others) had gone the other way.

Frankly, I'm tired of politicians on both sides of the fence and I'm starting to want to fall back off of my noncynical wagon and think that power truly does absolutely corrupt. And it makes no distinction as to political affiliation or nationality. We're gonna get raped in some way by either side.

But, like my worthy skeleton crew of a conservative contingent here, I still believe that the only thing a bully can truly understand is blunt force and that's what Bush has tried to bring to the table of a fight that we didn't start (as much as people would like to think otherwise...conspiricies, history, whatever).

The dems like to say that this is all about OOOOOIIIILLLL. But (and I spent a fair amount of time in the oilfields all over TX and OK) it's not that. It's about POWER and nothing more. But apparently, to some people, all you gotta do to justify it to the world is use RELIGION (yeah, that's the ticket). And I for one am sooooo sick of that one. Have you figured out yet that I'm decidedly not religious?

I'm tired of sending more of our money than any other country on the planet to the poor and downtrodden of the world (including our own), and totally still getting kicked in the pants for not giving enough of it by everybody else because there is some underlying conspiracy going on. While I slave away not even being able to take my two weeks of vacation each year because there's still too much to do (I don't mind I like my company...but still) while all the naysayers of the world get their pensions and six weeks of vacation. And as as I watch a COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY ineffective UN peacekeeping force in places like Darfur ...and Chavez being a total dick and....well, you've already heard all of this, I'm totally in danger of falling off my wagon again, so I must end my rant here.

But let me ask you just one question. How do think things would have ended up historically and globally if this guy (linked below), succumbed to the enormous pressure that HE was under at the time by his so called compatriots?

http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=winstonchurchill