Miss USA

I don't know what to think of the whole immigration issue. I don't have enough knowledge of the issue to venture an educated opinion (though that doesn't stop most people, I've noticed). But watching Miss USA get booed on YouTube, I have to say, I'm less and less inclined to take Mexico's side.

Now, I'm not going to get into a debate about, or discuss the immigration issue, except to point out that no one seems to be asking what the Constitution has to say about the issue. Come to think of it, I don't even know when the last time I heard the Constitution mentioned on cable news. Or any other news source for that matter, in regards to this or any other issue. Am I the only one who's even slightly concerned about this?

Whether we throw open the door to this country or shut down our borders tighter than a whale's vagina is irrelevant to me. But judging by the antics of the Mexico City crowd at last night's Miss Universe contest, we should be less inclined to export our illegal Mexicans, and more inclined to export some of Rachel Smith's grace and decorum to Mexico's teeming masses.

Bunch of worthless lowlifes.

Mediocrity

It just occurred to me that I'm going to die. No, probably not anytime in the near future, and I didn't just come to the conclusion that I'm not invincible.

I was considering my future as a biker. I just bought a GSX-R 750, which, for the uninitiated (as I was up until about a month ago), is a really, really fast motorcycle. It was pretty much a spur-of-the-moment decision to buy it, and one that I've yet to start regretting (aside from the cosmetic/mechanical issues that the dealer should have caught and fixed prior to selling, and for which I'm going to shoot an email over to the BBB. Other than that, I love the bike). But just a few moments ago, I was considering the idea of motorcycling.

You see, the longer you ride, statistically, the better your chances of being in some sort of accident. Most everyone I know who's ridden for any significant length of time has been in one. The same could be said for driving an automobile. However, your chances of survival are considerably higher in an automobile accident. And those odds are only going up, with car companies constantly competing to build the safest cars. Motorcycles, ultimately, haven't changed that much in a hundred years. It's still basically a bicycle with a motor. If anything, the massive increases in the power to weight ratios of the average sports bike have made them much more dangerous. Of course, there is the argument that just because you have the power, doesn't mean you have to use it. At least in an unsafe manner.

My epiphany came when I realized that the longer I ride a motorcycle, the greater my chances of dying on a motorcycle. I then started to imagine what the lives of those around me might look like if I did. It was an uncomfortably small stretch for me to imagine this statement said of me after my untimely demise:

"He had his whole life ahead of him."

Or something to that effect. Once that thought had entered my brain, I couldn't seem to shake the image of my life as that of the tragic hero--the good guy who had everything going for him, who lost it all in one fateful moment, leaving a trail of mourning behind him. Or the minor hero (think Goose) whose death inspires the protagonist to achieve his dreams. Of course, the self-doubt that I will ever live up to my potential, even if I live until age robs me of that potential, makes this scenario all the more plausible. At least in my own brain.

Maybe I'm being somewhat egotistical to think of myself as a hero--tragic or otherwise. Perhaps I'm not even a good guy (though I'm not prepared for a discussion on the differences between good or bad in the nature of Man). Though I think the fact that I imagine myself as a sidekick in the little drama that is my life belies something quite the opposite of egotism.

Either way, I'm just going to keep riding safe. I can't see giving up something I love for fear of death. That'd be worse than death.

War! What isn't it Good For?

I just got done reading an article in last week's Navy Times about exactly how a war with Iran would go down. It contained info from the top military brass answering the questions about the "contingency plans" that the military is putting together regarding a possible war with Iran. What does their military look like? What does our military look like? How many casualties could we expect? What would our attack look like? According to the article, "the Defense Department has [contingency] plans for an attack on Iran."

"Contingency."

Throughout this article, the reporter was very careful to point out (or rather, "officials" were very careful to point out to the reporter) that these plans are only the preliminary plans for a retaliatory attack on Iran. And then, in the last several paragraphs, we get these two gems, the first from the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates:

The President has made clear, the secretary of state has made clear, I've made clear...we are not planning for a war with Iran.

Huh? Not planning? Then what were those 2500 words about the plans for attacking Iran? They aren't planning for a war with Iran, they're merely planning a war with Iran. In other words, they aren't planning to go to war with Iran, they're merely planning what they'd do if they went to war with Iran.

The second quote that caught my attention was from national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley:

We face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran...The doctrine of pre-emption remains sound...we do not rule out the use of force before an attack occurs.

So even though we aren't planning to go to war with Iran, we are making plans for a war with Iran, and we haven't ruled out the possibility to go to war with Iran. Understand?

"The Defense Department has plans for an attack on Iran."

"We are not planning for a war with Iran."

"We do not rule out the use of force before and attack occurs."

I'm glad we cleared that up.