I find that some times I just have to walk away from politics for a while before my head explodes.

This is one of those times.

The attacks on Palin, the government giving our money away to  anyone that wants it except us, (by the tractor trailer load) to the BS oil drilling law they came up with last night. The fact that Nancy wants to investigate Wall St. when it should be their ass that gets investigated, prosecuted, and jailed. To Mc Cain talking how it needs more regulation or 9/11 hearings, or its time to stop greed!!!

 Carter and Clinton that started this whole mess of not allowing load companies not to red line or deny people loans because they were high risk. 

I have been yelling at the TV for about 3 or 4 days. My wife had a suggestion, she told me: either go to the boat and do some work, go fishing, or go shoot some skeet.. I think I will. Talk to you guys later..

Ronald Reagan, 1962: I did not leave the Democratic party, the party left me.

Insert: your name, 2008, and the Republican party.

I agree with you to some degree, Killgrave, but let me throw this at you. I think the surge has proven a lot more than just how to get out of Iraq. Let me explain.

• You'll hear Democrats and anti-surge opponents snidely argue that the reason we're winning now is because we're paying off the Sunnis. Then they scoff at that. Why? Is it "less honorable" than killing them with a high tech weapon?
• So what does the surge prove? They can be bought.
• And if they have a price, they're rational. They understand the concept of risk and reward. They're not so religiously narrow that they'd rather fight than work together. They'll work together if they think there's some hope of a reward, and that the reward will be shared fairly.

The surge, in my opinion, proved that if you can show them how to profit, they will work together. Until now, with all the dictators and mullahs and old fashioned gang mentality, no one had any hope of a future. That's why they indulged in all the fighting, because there was no hope of anything else. Now, with the surge, the American military has shown them what cooperation could mean. Until now, the fighting never stopped long enough to show them how peaceful cooperation could be better than petty violence. If we bribed them to do it, so what? All we need to do is give them the breathing space. Then, the natural human self-interest will take over.

And, like the surge in Iraq, the central government will be the last domino to fall, not the first. Anbar province bought the strategy behind the surge long before it had any effect in Baghdad. That'll be the blueprint for change everywhere else.

When Greenspan was still in office he made it his official policy not to prevent bubbles but to prepare the market for the eventual collapse of the bubble.  In his estimation bubbles increased the market and proper preparation would allow growth with an eventual smaller setback.  The problem is when politicians inflate bubbles for social or political desires.  This makes it difficult to reduce the effects, hold accountable wrongdoers and allow the market to make corrections.

While standing in line at the grocery store yesterday a lady behind me pointed to a magazine at the checkout counter with Sarah Palin’s picture on the cover and asked me “what I thought about her”. You’re always a little hesitant to answer in those situations but I told her I was a fan and will be voting for McCain and Palin. She very quickly and loudly answered, “me too”. She looked to be around 40 and went on to say that she had planned to sit this election out but when Sarah was added to the ticket she changed her mind. Interesting conversation.

McCain was only hounding Bush for more troops because that's what the military leaders in Iraq were saying.  It's great that they identified the need for new troops, but absent a strategy as to what you're going to do with them there isn't much sense in sending them, which was why Bush (under advisement from Rumsfeld) didn't send them.  It wasn't until Condi rice and her team came up with the strategy that became The Surge that Bush had a way to actually make use of more troops... and McCain had nothing to do with any of that.

I just look at the big picture: al-Qaeda has
reconstituted itself elsewhere;

Yeah, it has marginalized itself to lesser communicating communities where it has greater problems becoming of influence.  See the latest polls of the Middle East where over the past year AQ has swan dived to its lowest approval ratings ever.  THis can be directly attibutable to its asskicking in Iraq (WHich it called "The Central Front) and its inability to seize Afghanistan from the west.

If AQ were to hold up on French Frigate Shoals or Easter Island, would that be dangerous in Mikas eyes?

and our military has been worn thin.

I would debate this.  We are facing challenges, mostly inflicted by the huge cuts the DOD took in the CLinton years, but we are recovering and expanding.

Who again exactly is this woman Mika's father?

Probably a diplo since he obvously never taught her to think Strategically/Operationally/Tactically.