You know I think it's funny. People follow liberal beliefs and then think they are unique and independent minded. They think that unlike the rest of the world they aren't sheep. Well here's a newsflash, if you follow any form of beliefs whether they be liberal or conservative you aren't unique, you aren't independent minded, and yes you are still one of the crowd. You think that just because you disagree with the conservatives you have reached some higher plane of understanding in the world? Well you haven't. You are just as brainwashed as anybody else. But instead of being brainwashed by George Bush or Rush Limbaugh you've been brainwashed by John Kerry or Michael Moore. You are still a sheep following the crowd.

You want to truly be independent minded? Well its one simple step. Step 1: Think for yourself. But David how can I think for myself if all the facts and opinions I get are from the opposing groups? Well Jimmy its pretty simple. Instead of listening only to what Rush Limbaugh says, or listening only to what Michael Moore says, you listen to both, and you also learn about the facts on your own. Now here's the hard part, once you've collected all this information, you think about it. That’s right you have to think for yourself. I know its something new, but just give it a try, you'll only bleed out of your ears the first few times. Once you've done all that thinking, you make up your own opinion, and more than likely sometimes your opinions will be mainly liberal and sometimes they will be mainly conservative. But that’s ok. Now these are your opinions, your ideas, your beliefs. No one told you what to believe, you did it all by yourself. Now go Jimmy! Go out into the world! You're a man now.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Crown Prince Felipe married former television presenter Letizia Ortiz on Saturday in a glittering ceremony symbolizing a new dawn for Spain more than two months after the deadly Madrid train bombings... (News: Reuters)

Just wanted to say congratulations to the couple, the royal family, and the nation of Spain. We've just gained a future queen.

100 Visitors! Thats right, since this website became mainly a blog about my opinions on April 3rd 2004 it has gradually climbed up in viewership. Now on 4:30:31 May 19th we've finally reached 100! My 100th viewer has frequented here before and he/she uses tgcinc.com internet service and according to an IP locator is from St. Cloud, Fl. They also have Windows 2000 with 800x600 resolution. If you are this person and you are reading this please leave a message! I'd love to hear from you, and thank you for coming to read my stuff.

Whats in the news? Hmm let me look...Iraq?...hmm no I've talked too much about that already....terrorism? Too depressing... AH!...GMail, Google's new free e-mail service with 1 GB of storage. Apparently it's creating quite a ruckus among super internet nerds. Google has only allowed 1,000 people to try out the new service as Beta testers (myself included...thank you..thank you...please no applause). Each Beta tester gets one invite they can give away to a friend. Well apparently friendships are now for sale online. Thats right! You can now get your very own GMail account on Ebay! People are selling their invitation code on the auction site...and people are actually buying them! One had 25 bids reaching $34.00! Myself I've given my invitation already to my blogger extraordinaire friend Branille. But before I go I'd like to give a little advice to those bidding for those email accounts. So those of you bidding this is just for you:

Hi, how's it going? Doing ok? .... How are the kids?... Really? Thats great. Well, you're probably wondering why I've brought you over to my office..... No, don't worry its nothing bad. Just wanted to have a little talk.... It has recently come to my attention that you've been doing some bidding on ebay. And well it disturbs me a little to learn what you are bidding on exactly....What?...oh god no...Jesus....I wasn't talking about that!... Oh my god!...but..but back to what I was talking about. Your other bids on ebay. You've been bidding for an email account. Yes, I understand its not just an ordinary account. Its got 1 GB of storage and all, and you'd be one of the first to use it. But you must understand, its a free account you are paying hard earned money for! FREE! Does this make sense to you? Paying up to 34 dollars for something thats free? Please, I beg of you, do whats right...wait for when its open to everyone. I'm sure you can wait the limited time the wait will be. Please...do it for the children.

Recently this blog has been a little downer with all those little (psh..yeah right...little) Iraq and terrorism writeups. I think its time we change it around a bit, mix it up just a tad. Lets get some reviews up in this piece. Can I hear an OOHHHYEAHH??!!....um....that was your cue to say oh yeah....oh forget...stupid readers....

First I have a quick review of The Punisher starring Thomas Jane and John Travolta:

The Punisher was.... Punishing. Watch it on TNT for free where it belongs. It was very disjointed, it didn't have any flow and the story really didn't make sense. It was like someone collected a bunch of (semi) cool scenes together and made it into a Punisher movie.

next...we have a review of School of Rock starring Jack Black:

School of Rock....rocks! Great movie, much better than I would have expected. Kids are great, Jack Black is great, Rock n' Roll is great. Felt a little Sister Act vibe there, but thats ok, its cool baby. Side note: movie was written by Mike White and starring Jack Black. Black and White what a perfect team!

So there you have it. Two reviews, one bad, one good, and me ugly.

Ah, the war in Iraq, its been over a year now since it started but it has already changed the dynamics of the world's political environment. One aspect that I haven't heard much discussion of is what happened to all those weapons the Iraqi army had. No I'm not talking about those elusive WMDs, but those general warfare weapons such as guns, rifles, rocket launchers, etc. You might be thinking that the U.S. military collected all those weapons. Well...they didn't. As you might recall the U.S. led a mad rush onto Baghdad during the military campaign. Strategically, taking down the capital is the fastest way to topple a regime. So in the short term this was a great plan, but it seems they never considered what would happen after the war. I think our military planners thought that once the Iraqi army had been toppled that the Iraqi citizens would come throwing flower petals at our feet welcoming our arrival to liberate them. Instead we were welcomed by gunfire in the later months. But where did they get all these weapons? Because we are not just talking about regular guns here, we are talking about military issue weapons.

Well I think the answer is clear, these are the same weapons that had been used by the Iraqi military. We left all these weapons just laying around and the insurgents put them to good use against us. We probably could have prevented this if our entrance into Iraq had been a plan in the long term, which it now seems it obviously wasn't. But it gets worse. Smuggling of these weapons to other countries is probably very likely and very easy. Since the Iraq ground war terrorists in Israel have begun using rocket launchers on their attacks on Israelis. Where did they get all this advanced weaponry all of a sudden? Could these be the same weapons from Iraq? It seems to me that the method of invasion of Iraq was a major blunder strategically. Instead of planning for long term success, our military planners planned for short term success. They planned for best case scenarios and unfortunately the worst case scenario was the reality. The Iraq war could possibly have helped the terrorist cause rather than hinder it. It is my opinion that this flawed military strategy has destabilized the region to an alarming point. What solution is there now? None that I can see, other than the terrible choice of leaving American troops in the region for the foreseen future.

How do we stop terrorism? More specifically how does the United States stop the terrorism against it by Islamic fundamentalists? I think I have the only solution. It should be no surprise to anyone that most of these terrorist groups receive funding from somewhere. Without funding they'd just be fighting with sticks. It also should come to no surprise that most of this money comes from people either living or from the Middle East and surrounding areas. Now what makes the Middle East rich? The answer is oil. Oil is the biggest and most expensive natural resource in this area. Most of the money that comes from the Middle East is a direct result of the sale of oil. As a result most of the money that funds terrorism comes from the sale of oil.

To lose the money from oil would no doubt destroy the economies of these countries, which of course is never a good thing. But good things would happen, for one thing funding for terrorism should significantly drop. Also, it should teach these nations not to put all their eggs in one basket, and eventually realize that instead of investing so much money on the land they should invest it in their people. The Middle East was once a great cultured land. When Europe was struggling through its dark age, the Middle East was in the middle of a Renaissance. Some of the world's greatest artists, writers, scientists, and other educated people lived in the Middle East of the time. Unfortunately that once great and thriving culture has been thrown into its own dark ages today. European colonailism and the dependence on oil money are the more likely suspects for the destruction of the Middle East.

This now brings us to what the U.S. can do to stop Islamic terrorism. The U.S. (and the rest of the Western World) must end its dependance on oil. Hybrid automobiles are one step in the right direction, but more must be done. We must remember that oil is used not only for fuel but also for the production of many products. Alternative options must be developed. Oil is the bloodline of terrorism, to win we must stop the bloodflow.
The benefits of this plan are many: the end of islamic terrorism, the eventual rebirth of Middle Eastern culture, the likely end of despotic governments in the middle east, the cleaning of the environment, etc etc.

Of course this course of action is difficult and out of the box thinking. Its also thinking in the long term instead of the short term. That's two strikes against it already. The U.S. government would rather support oil companies and continue on its current strategy of stopping terrorism (attacking anything that moves) than try something new (and expensive) that is guaranteed to work.

As a direct result of the abuses at Abu Gharaib prison Al Quaida has murdered another U.S. contractor in Iraq. You've probably all heard about the videotape that was released on the internet showing the horrendous act. I've seen the video and it is truly horrible. To read about a man being beheaded is one thing, to see it is quite another. Seeing it in a movie is nothing like seeing the real thing. They had trouble cutting the head off for God's sake. A man's head! It makes me sick to my stomach. What kind of animals would do this to another human being? Its amazing how much hatred there can be in these people that they would do such a thing. The world truly is a horrible place when people do such things without a qualm.

I'm sure you have all seen the degrading photographs of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison (News: USA Today) . There's been plenty of talk about it in recent days and here are my two cents on the subject. The American soldiers who were involved with these events should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. These soldiers disgust me and have done incredible harm to our nation in both reputation and security. This was no doubt a gift to all terrorists groups who hate America. They've always said we were a foul and disgusting culture and now we have given them photographic proof. We came to Iraq to supposedly liberate them from their evil tyrant ruler, and instead we show them that the more things change the more they stay the same.

Some people would say "So what? It's not like they wouldn't do the same to us." And that's probably true, but aren't we supposed to take the moral high ground? Are we not supposed to follow the rules of war that we have agreed to? We are seen as hypocrites and rightfully so. Like the President has said, these events will leave a stain on the reputation of the United States. The worst part is that these are just a few of the thousands, that's right THOUSANDS, of pictures just like them. And according to Secretary Rumsfeld the pictures to come are much worse. We have already apologized, and we should continue to apologize forever because this is against all of our values. Those responsible must be brought to justice, they must be made examples of, and the punishment should be severe (and some psychological counseling would be nice).

Speaking of psychology, it brings to mind a study that was conducted in the United States some time ago. The purpose of the study was to evaluate how people react in situations where they have control over others. To study this they created a fake prison society. In the study a group of people were taken and then divided into "Jailers" and "Prisoners". The experiment was supposed to have lasted 30 days, and in those 30 days the volunteers would be observed by the scientists without any interference. The experiment lasted 10 days. The scientists had to stop the experiment earlier than planned because the situation in the "prison" had degraded to the point where there was a real fear the "Jailers" might kill some of the "Prisoners". It seems clear from this experiment that once humans are told they are "better" than other human beings that they begin to treat others as animals. History has recorded that story well. Whether it be the atrocities of Nazi Germany or the abuses at Abu Ghraib the human race has not failed to abuse its power. As the old saying goes: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I just finished reading the Stephen King novel The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. This book is the first part of a seven part series in which the author ties in all his books (and it seems all stories ever written) into the Dark Tower. This idea is what drew me in to read this book, but the book barely touches on that at all. The book is actually a western in which our hero (the Gunslinger) is on the trail of the Man in Black (no, not Johnny Cash). Like any good Stephen King novel, fantasy aspects are thrown in the mix (so don't expect John Wayne or Clint Eastwood here). The novel was ok, but nothing spectacular. It was also slow to develop (which seems to be a King trademark) and a bit longwinded. They say on the back of this book that it's self contained but also part of a larger story arc, after reading the book I don’t buy it. This reads like the first chapter of a larger saga, and it ends that way, with an ending that leaves you unsatisfied. So I wouldn't recommend reading this book unless you plan on reading the seven book series (with each book after the first one being very very long). I won't be reading the next book in the series any time soon, but I will be giving Mr. King another chance. Today I started reading his acclaimed novel The Stand.