A few random thoughts

A few random thoughts as I wait for the Green Flag to drop at the Daytona 500.

My Valentine's Day gift this year was a new cell phone. The one I settled on was the LG Shine. It's a slider phone, which is new for me. It's 3G, which is cool because I do check scores on the Internet often. The voice quality appears good and I'm just figuring out what else it does.

We also got our Harmony remote this week. I got it set up on Saturday. Keds is very excited. She feels like she can now used our TV without messing with multiple remotes.

Keds and I went out on a date last night. Dinner at PF Changs (always yummy) and then a movie. Last night was Charlie Wilson's War. It was definitely the sort of movie I'd enjoy. Based in history, it's the story of a real-life former US Congressman that made it his personal goal to fund the Afghan Mujahideen defeat the Soviet Red Army. He happened to be on the right House subcommittee to make it happen. A number of characters in the movie are historical, while I have no doubt that some of the scenes were dramatized to help keep the audience interested.

What struck me as we were watching the movie was that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In 1980, the real front of the Cold War went through Pakistan to Afghanistan. In 2001/2002, the front line of the War on Terror went through Pakistan to Afghanistan. Because the US did not focus on aiding the fledgling Afghan government in the 1990s, the country descended into anarchy and gave rise to the Taliban. It was only six years ago that we drove the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan, but we are doing the same thing. Yes, we have made some improvements keeping troops on the ground there, but since our focus is divided we aren't doing what we need to do to ensure the fledgling government can get it's legs underneath it.

You can say the same thing about Iraq. Our government was so naive thinking that we would go into Iraq and they'd welcome us as liberators. You need to make sure people's basic needs are taken care of before you can advance to a more participatory form of government.

So enough of the soapbox and back to the movie. It was clear that this was the bias of the movie. It was written by Aaron Sorkin. But as Phillip Seymore Hoffman's Gust Avrakotos said towards the end of the movie, "we'll see." I also like Charlie Wilson's quote that was put up on screen. I can't repeat it here, but it was apropro.

Have a great week. If something strikes me, I'll post again.