I received an email from a stranger that have actually read my postings around the Internet questioning my sanity (”do you have dual personality disorder?”) after he found out that I wrote in nomadlife (and founded it with Digs) and also posting/commenting at Redneck Texan.

Yes, those two sites are about 180 degrees to each other. One is very international. extremely multi cultural, young, mostly liberal. You cannot say those attributes apply to the other site.

And boy, I am pretty liberal (and got a pretty good track record on that).

I encountered RT at the command post early last year and his views blew everybody away because it was probably the most extreme right out of the bunch of right wingers attending that site. Yet I think I was the first one that encouraged him to keep posting after he hesistated and warned about his views.

We very rarely agree on anything but the dialogs (or mostly can be characterized as  smackdown) continues throughout the year even after command post starts crapping on its own bed and he started his own Redneck Haven at his current site (which now are a haven for a bunch of ragtags misfits and rebels and red-stater). It's quite an unusual dialogs to say the least.

I think the dialogs keep continues because we maintain a healthy level of respect on each other. And I do consider him a friend.

Another important factor I can think of  would be both of our absolute commitment to the concept of “freedom” and “liberty” and realizing the dirty and nasty works sometime required to defend those two concepts. And yes, Islamic fundamentalism is a real threat.

And I give that the dialogs have managed to modify some of my views, allowing me to examine certain blindsides highlighted by opposing opinions.

There you go. That's a little explanation on what's going on and off course I won't apologize for it because there's nothing to apologize for (i'm quite proud of the fact actually).

Anyway the smackdowns will continue because the real world is messy.

Life is hectic as usual, especially in January where we plotted our war map for the next 12 maps. I've already accepted being busy is just part my nature although I miss the opportunity of being able to go out and smell the frozen rosses.

I went to see “Hotel Rwanda” last night. It was a very powerful and moving movie about the genocide there and a scatching indictment on the failure of the West (yes, including that liberal “enlightened” Clinton presidency) to intervene. (The UN fucked up big time. Big time.)

I wonder if Henry can get a bootlegged copy of the movie on the street on Monrovia. I wonder how he'd think about the movie. Did it look familiar when rain of bullets ricochet off the street of his home and mercy hurriedly fled the country two years ago? Did he have to frantically search for his family and make sure they were safe? How does it feel to be trapped in two warring crazed children armies high on the estacy of killing and destruction?

”As pretty much all the sensible articles on Social Security have made clear, to the extent that we have a problem, it is not a Social Security problem, but an accumulated national debt problem.

The United States has a bit over $7 trillion in accumulated national debt....

After 1980 we started borrowing money big-time to finance our deficits -- in large part because of tax cuts on high-income earners. However you want to slice it, we started spending substantially more than we were taking in in tax revenue.

But about $3 trillion of those dollars we needed to fund the 1980s and 1990s deficits we managed to borrow closer to home. We borrowed it from the Social Security (and a few other government) trust fund(s). “ (TalkingPointsMemo)

Remember that Social Security is still running at surplus right now.

For the past two months I have been in some sort of blogger block. It's time to take a break from blogging. I will be back after Christmas.

”If only we could call the Iraqi election, "A Seminar on the European Defense Initiative: Why NATO Is passé and E.D.I. Is the Future"; then we could get thousands of Europeans to take part. If only we could call the Iraqi elections, "A Seminar on George Bush and Genghis Khan: Why Bush Is Worse"; then the Arab League would send so many people, we'd be turning them away. We'd be talking pay-per-view on Al Jazeera.”  (Friedman)