"You're A Whole Different Person When You're Scared"~~Warren Zevon, Hunter S. Thompson My friend Bernie says since Democrats won the Congress, George Bush reminds him of a cartoon where this destructive Texas jackrabbit was careening headlong down a path, his eyes riveted on a rabbit hole in the distance.  A tortoise, sunning himself at the side of the path, looked behind the rabbit where a baying pack of dogs, in hot pursuit, was gaining on him. The tortoise smiled.  The poor bunny was in a race for his life. As he shot by, the tortoise called out lazily, "Think you'll make it?"  The rabbit, looking neither to the right nor left, shot back desperately -- "I gotta make it..."

I have an idea of a way to get out of Iraq in about a year. I've outlined it here and really want to know what other people think. So - check it out!The basic idea is this. Get about 400,000 Iraqis to sign up for a new national security force. Sunni, Shia, Kurd, whatever.

Take all 400,000 out of the country to places like Quatar, Egypt, England, Germany, Japan, the United States, anywhere that a massive military training can be set up. Train the Iraqis for up to six months, making sure that they work together regardless of ethnicity or religion, just like we try to do in our own US military training.

Sometimes things just come together and several individual items that don't quite add up to a story unite into a really good one. This week, there is a really good story like that on Energy Policy that comes from three synegizing sources.

This last week, a discussion with someone who grew up in Iowa, this month's issue of Catalyst, the newsletter of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and a press release from Nancy Pelosi all synergized to remind me that Democrats have been pushing for a real, American, practical energy policy since the Carter administration and all the Republicans advocate for are oil, oil, oil.

On October 26th, in response to the release of record profits by the bloated oil company Exxon/Mobil, Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement: