Imagine my surprise when reading the local rag, the Holland Sentinel, that Pete Hoekstra, has written an op-ed on intelligence leaks.

Hmmm, this from the man who still hasn't apologized for giving us Faux talking points in the run up to the war and thinks he's actually getting real information from the ministry of truth now.  Pete has the gall to tell us that we are at danger from career CIA officials hoping someone hears the truth.

As a member of NSTA and someone who watched the bruhaha over the non-disbursement of "An Inconvenient Truth" without commenting, I would like to share some information from NSTA.

Today they sent out a global e-mail to their membership with a response to specifically discuss what their actual position on the distribution of the DVD and their attitude on specific product distribution.

At work today, doing a really mundane spreadsheet for a customer to comply with NAFTA certification for a bunch of parts, I ran across some very interesting documents from the government while trying to figure out whether our products fell into the list of items under the Commerce Control List.

Now the nice thing about bureaucracy is that everything is standardized and documented.  So I was a little interested to find out that Specially designed implements of torture are listed under Export Administration Regulations.

Today was the Saturday parade for the Tulip Time in Holland.  The weather was awful, cold and rainy, but Pete Hoekstra always walks in the parade and the Ottawa County Republicans have a float.  The Otttawa County Democrats have a float too, but I support them.

So I made a sign just for Hoekstra.

This morning as I was sitting at my desk, doing my regular morning chores, I heard the commentator talking to a guest on the radio. I wish that my attention had been aroused earlier, but the beginning of the conversation was innocuous until they started talking about the lobbyist bill passed in congress yesterday. I realized that Pete Hoekstra was on the radio.

The demonization of Senators who voted NO on Roberts has begun. In Sunday's Holland Sentinel (and I am sure many other Michigan papers), there is a large advertisement from Focus on the Family Action that calls Debbie Stabenow someone who only pays lip service to their causes.

Governor Jennifer Granholm in MI just finished a press conference where she described the emergency operations center that they have running.  There are  point people from each of the agencies coordinating the response from MI.  Each agency has been tasked with specific actions that are needed in the emergency and finding resources to take care of those needs.

The newest crisis at Hope College since Miguel De La Torre resigned after writing articles in the Holland Sentinel regarding the liberal side of Christianity, is the book by David Myers called "What God Has Joined Together".

David Myers is an esteemed author of Psychology textbooks and has written prolifically using social research as the basis of his assumptions.

Now he has written a book that supports a conservative ideal for recognizing gay marriage as being supportive of all marriages.

I am in my mid-thirties and had the opportunity at my last job to get a fairly good 401K started.  I am currently unemployed and back in graduate school to get my teaching certification.  I am going into debt every day, but won't touch my retirement account to avoid paying early taxes and to take advantage of compound interest.  Because I am a geek at heart, I have been tracking my 401K on a spreadsheet for the last five years.  These last couple of years have been better since the internet stock bust, however the fall of the dollar and the Walmartization of the economy has started to worry me.  

Because of this, I went to look at my portfolio today and took a good look at the stocks that were held by each of the funds that I currently hold.  I am young and can take risks, and because of my value system, I ditched the fund that held mostly large American companies like Wal-Mart, and put the money from those funds into international, European and Asian markets.  I think both the Yen and the Euro are set to be much more stable than the Dollar in the upcoming few years.  

The voices of dissent are getting louder, even from Bible thumping, ultra-conservative West Michigan.

Here is an excerpt from a letter to the editor of our local paper.

"I say to the young people of this country, who are beginning to wake up to what is happening to them, "It's your country, take it back. It's your faith, take it back. It's your future take it back. Don't back down when you know your cause is right. Don't back down when you have been told to shut your mouth, you don't know what you're talking about. Remember, arrogance is the opposite of faith; greed is the opposite of charity; to believe that you have never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded person."
By JAMES P. JOYCE

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/011605/opi_011605050.shtml

There are some of us that are vegetarians and some of us that are omnivores, and then there are the large number of Americans who are fast food junkies.

Those of us, who actually follow the news, go to candidate forums, listen to the conventions, and challenge the candidates and media, are mentally and patriotically consuming the right stuff to be healthy.  We care to consume our news from a wide variety of sources.  We stay away from junk sources (faux) whenever possible.  We exercise our brains by trying to determine whether our position is correct, and we change our minds as new information comes along.