apple juice

I feel I should clarify my position on the whole Iraq war, President Bush thing. At least for myself, because it’s confusing just thinking about it.

I have no doubt that Saddam is a bad person, evil even. I am sure that he has researched, and used chemical weapons. I think there is evidence of this. I am sure he has tortured and killed his own people, and basically rules the country with an iron fist. I would not want to be living in Iraq under his regime.
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To be genuinely anti-American, as the Italian political scientist Robert Toscano points out, is to disapprove of the United States “for what it is, rather than what it does.”

I am definately not anti-American. But I sure disagree with how we conduct ourselves in the larger world. There is only one person I respect in Bush’s administration: Colin Powell. If that man were President, I suspect things would be different.

This is another interesting article. I was chatting with a co-worker about the deafening silence from the press in criticizing Bush. We need more criticism.

As I was driving the other day, I saw a billboard that said: America is Unity. I have to respectfully disagree. I think America is Diversity

It’s not, “You’re with us or you’re against us.” Whoever said that is an idiot.

Oh, hello President Bush.

The sky was clear and the roads were fast for our trip to welch village today. 85 miles round trip, and smiles were on our faces as we carved up the turns leading down to welch. (and then we carved up some turns at Welch!)

I washed him up afterwards, since I had to show him off a bit at work tomorrow, so here’s a pic when he’s all nice and clean:

If her ears get any bigger, she may start flying around if she runs fast enough!

Well, some of you may have been wondering what the big news was. We’re not having a baby. But we did get a new car. It’s the culmination of about 3 years of research, followed by a frantic week of the old explorer dying (more or less) and me searching the 7-state area for a TDI.

For those that aren’t familiar, the TDI is VW’s Diesel engine in North America. It’s 1.9L and makes 90hp at 3750RPM, but it makes 155ft-lbs of torque at 1900 RPM. So it’s a little beast down low.

The other awesome thing about it is the mileage. Fuel Mileage. (Can’t say gas mileage anymore, cause it runs on diesel) I reset the gauge when I picked up the car today (so I’m not sure if it was totally full or not), but on our trip home today, 169 miles, we got 39.2mpg.

I can’t say enough about the car, I’m very excited. There are tons of cool features. (like the daytime running lights that turn on when you release the parking brake). But also, lots of practical things, compared to the explorer. For example, Sonja and I can have a normal conversation at 75 miles per hour. The sunroof doesn’t whistle when you hit a crosswind, etc.

Anyways, like a geek, I have a spreadsheet to keep track of the mileage. Also like a geek I’m going to go get the owner’s manual and read through that.

I’d also like to say, I purchased the car from Eich Motor Co. in St. Cloud, and they were awesome. I worked with Kirk Winkler, and he did an excellent job of keeping me up to date, giving me a fair price, answering all my questions, etc.He even gave me his cell phone #, which he answered while he was home sick with the flu. Awesome.

Well, if anyone is looking for a 92 Explorer, 5 speed, give me an email. I’ll hook you up. Runs good, clean.

The U.S. Needs To Open Up To the World.

It’s been a slow week on the old website here… busy on the homefront… I’ll have a big update for the weekend…

By the way, there were two quotes in the last post, however, Safari and IE both seem to not want to use my quote tag, and in Chimera, the quote works, but the rest of the site is screwed up. (Looks pretty funky in IE as well)

I’ve got some work to do on it..