I don't understand the mission in Afghanistan. Rooting out evil is all I can gather, but it's far from clear that Afghanistan is where the roots of evil are buried. US interest in the middle east  is irrational, and the $35 billion per year expense of Obama's Afghanistan escalation is unjustifiable. Let Obama call on America's wealthy, the only ones that really benefit from these gambits, to pay for it with a tax increase on their prodigious incomes.

He provides no documentation for this assertion - and I would welcome some. All he could answer to someone asking him to document what he said was that we have never been "this close" to healthcare reform. I wonder if he has studied the bills floating around. The last I heard about climate change is that the big polluters, including us, agreed not to do anything about it for awhile. Infrastructure? Has he taken public transportation lately?And "creating jobs"? Where are they?

And the big one: To those among us revolted by the prospect of sending more people to fight in Afghanistan he regurgitates the standard response of the more bellicose Obama apologists: It was no secret that Obama was gung-ho for this war. This comeback is so ridiculous it is laughable. Many of us never bought into the Obama as "rock star" image. Many of us were left incredulous at the descriptions of Obama's speeches as being great oratory. Many of us were in a state of disbelief as Obama's supporters portrayed him as a peace candidate.  His choice of Biden was appalling. His paling around with the likes of McClurkin and Warren was creepy. So, many of us didn't vote for the guy. Others among us, took a deep breath, a couple of drinks, and did vote for him hoping for the best.

And on the other side, you had McCain and Palin - a combination that did not present much of an alternative.

Still, I have stood back and watched as you have taken every opportunity to attack a President for behaving in the ways he told us he would behave as our candidate.

Something tells me the people that are saying this now are the same people that have said "LEAVE THE PRESIDENT ALONE!!!" when it comes to him not keeping his gay rights promises, or civil liberties promises, etc.

I can think of dozens of scenarios that this gizmo improves, not the least of which is having something nastier to toss in the face of some harassing j@ckwad than my drink.

"In the face of a multimillion-dollar budget deficit, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ramon Cortines ordered an immediate hiring freeze Monday," reports the Los Angeles Daily News:

The only exceptions to the hiring freeze will be for classroom teachers, principals, assistant principals, cafeteria managers, school police officers, bus drivers teachers' assistants, education aides, special education assistants and plant managers.

 1) staying there continuing to kill innocent lives and increasingly angering the population until you become the major recruiting tool of the ones you are fighting (US is just about there). This continues until the population rises up and throws you out.

 2) leaving because there is no humanly way possible to do anything productive, to "win", or "finish the job" as a foreign invader and occupier in an ancient tribal nation. It was never possible to "win" or "finish the job" and never will be. Knowing this is maturity the most Americans don't have.

Afghans have been fighting for thousands of years. Anyone who thinks for one second that they can't wait out the attention deficit Americans for years, or even decades, happy to pick off US soldiers and bleed the nation's wealth on a complete waste of money with no beneficial outcome to anyone is deluding themselves.

Since obama was always going to pick escalation (for the same reasons bush always invaded and escalated - because his penis is too small, and because obama can't stand up to cheney - funny how cheney is still running the country), we'll see you back here in 4/5 years when the US is leaving in disgrace having achieved nothing, murdered thousands of innocents, and squandered billions to achieve nothing of value - just like Iraq and Vietnam.

I too, like you, felt for years that we so screwed up our priorities--by going into Iraq, we only strengthed Iran, and by not emphasizing AfPak, we strengthened A.Q. and the Taliban and dangerous elements in Pakistan.

Yet, I am very pessimistic about Afghanistan now, and am just really uneasy with this commitment.  I really await Obama's definitions of job, success, victory, exit, and mission.

At least he is smarter, more realistic and less bombastic than his predecessor, so I have hope he can explain this all successfully next week.

Federal Reserve officials predict unemployment will hover around 7 percent well into 2012 -- lower than the nation's current rate of more than 10 percent, but still higher than is normal for a healthy economy.

Minutes from a previous Fed meeting also released on Tuesday further reveal its officials remain concerned the country could be entering a jobless recovery phase, a period in which the economy in general grows faster than the labor market.

While the board did slightly adjust its unemployment predictions for 2010 and 2011 downward -- good news for the economy and its workers -- the country's job situation "remained an important concern to meeting participants," according to those meeting minutes.

I was a appalled myself until I read this bit from the article...

The dead beasts will be sold to companies who will profit from the sale of the meat, bones and hide. Organisers will funnel the proceeds into development of the area, including the temple upkeep.

As long as the meat, hides, and bones ain't going to waste...that would be a terrible sin.