John Poindexter, the spook's spook, who has made a career of demolishing rational foreign policy, is loose in the Internet. He has created the ultimate terrorist dream, a blind pool of money that could point to when and where terrorism was likeliest to occur. In order for that to work the terrorists would have to wager in the pool, wouldn't they? While wackier schemes have come from this man before it is evident that there is little oversight over his elemental force in this administration. Of course congress has saved the nation from this scheme but this whiz kid will just keep on whizzing on our freedom. He created another dream just a few weeks ago, the ultimate database of information about all citizens to be used to predict terrorist behavior by citizens. Since terrorism by actual citizens is not the focus of the war on terror thus far it seemed excessive and congress moved to weaken its hold on our future. That is, I am sure, viewed as a mere temporary setback by the peripatetic Mr. Poindexter. I doubt not that his next scheme will top these two if the calls for his removal fall on the usual deaf ears in this administration.

In the month during my recent vacation I watched little news and read few newspapers but little has changed if my current days inventory of the state of the world is accurate. We are still trying to create order in Iraq and Israel, which I applaud while remaining amazed that we could have picked the two unlikeliest places for that effort on earth. I find it unlikely that a country that cannot establish democracy in its greatest state, California, can establish it in Palestine and Iraq but who knows what the future will bring. I wonder at the effort of the Bush Administration to quell the riot of questions at how they got us to buy into the war in Iraq. They need to recognize that their days of lying without being confronted with the lies are over.

The wimpy press is now starting to perform its function however lame and halt its efforts may be thus far. Lies have never mattered when national security is at stake. It is definitely at stake in the current mess in the Middle East regardless of what those of us who thought a unilateral approach to deposing Saddam was stupid believe. Lies have hurt the image of invulnerability that is so important to reelection prospects more than they will hurt our efforts in Iraq. The real lie has been that we could go it alone in Iraq with our military as understaffed for peacemaking as it is. We won the war with ease but the peace is proving to be the problem, as many of us believed it would be before the war. Yes we will get Saddam as we got his sons but that will not end opposition to our occupation.

On the front of the economy jobs are proving to be the real problem with this recovery, there aren't any being created by big business. Small business is receiving little funding and the future of many of us is looking grim in an economy where jobs are being exported faster than new ones can be created. Financial genius is proving to be scarce and Greenspan a mere tool of the Republican anti-tax folly. Our bond market is in disarray and our long-term rates are rising faster than ever before in history in the face of lies about how much a $550 billion deficit will impact the money markets. Supply and demand are ever more important in money markets than in those for other commodities. Of course the Fed could just print more money but then inflation would be just around the corner. We have $44 trillion dollars in under-funded governmental pension obligations before the baby boom is over. That is the state of our economy today. It cost us thirty million to kill the Hussein boys, and that was just for the informant who told us where they were. We are spending money far faster than we are collecting it and the fiscal future is bleaker than ever before in my lifetime. I may just go back to Mexico and hide out until the present clears up a little. On the other hand life here is still sweet and better than anywhere else I have ever been. Money isn't everything and we will still be the richest nation on earth even if we are fifty trillion dollars in debt by the time I get to retire at ninety. God bless and keep you safe in this wild and wacky world.