The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool.
--Richard Feynman

Nonsense...I'm far to cool and intelligent to fool myself.

I had quite a signing today; it was on Micheltorena Street in one of those old mansions from the 20's with this beautiful view of all of Los Angeles on a 4 acre lot. From what I could make out, it was an historical house which was in serious danger of being torn down to build new houses. The lady who had managed to buy it had secured a loan on it so she could fix it up. What she had done with it already was quite spectacular; beautiful wooden floors, tapestries, chinese vases and antique furniture as far as the eye could see. They were actually getting ready for some party in the ballroom(yes, this place actually had a ballroom) and had a band in there rehearsing. She showed me the set up after the paperwork and I have to say that I was seriously impressed. The ballroom had a 30 foot high ceiling that consisted of beautiful wooden inlays, an option not usually included in modern houses. The olympic size pool led to the spot with the amazing view of downtown and she had a deck area with nice chairs set up to take advantage of it. Damn...I can't imagine actually living there, but it sure was fun to visit.

I caught a bit of the President's State of the Union speech last night; he seemed very confident and relaxed. I suppose the election in Iraq has done that for him. He's starting to look like he's on the right side of history and seems to be intent on mainting the course. I, for one, am supportive of that. If we were going to go into Iraq to crush Saddam, we better stick around and make sure it doesn't completely crash down into disaster. I'm not all that caught up on what the rest of the world thinks of us, but I have a conscience and a moral compass. To waltz into someone else's country and completely annihilate their governmental structure and say, "Well, have fun." We didn't do that after we crushed Japan and we didn't do it after we brought Germany to it's knees. It's not fair play; it's our duty to get them back on their feet because we're the only ones in the world that will do it. Of course, the other reason is completely pragmatic; in this world with digital money and super quick travel, we don't live in fortress America anymore. It's not very hard for pricks angry at the Great Satan to show up here and cause havok; we have to make sure that we put an end to that mindset. I mean, let's face it, France and Germany basically hate us, but you don't see them trying to blow up our Pentagon. I wouldn't mind all of Arabia being turned into another France, if that's the best we can get.