Misery

I am officially miserable. It’s 5 weeks to the finals and every morning I wake up with one singular driving phrase, ‘Get down to it.’ I am getting down to it, I swear, I’ve not forced myself to spend hours on end on things I find so god-awfully boring, pointless and thus extremely painful, all my life. But ah, November will be over soon, and then it’s Christmas (Hurrah! I love Christmas. It’ll be different this year with my Grandmother dead, but I’ll still go visiting in Sarawak). I wanted to visit the Boy a few months back, about this time. Along with my Girlfriend, who’s going to be flying to Zurich in a fortnight. But due to prior procrastination, that would now seem impossible. Anyway, he’s apparently being sent to Kuwait sometime this week or next. I don’t suppose it’s really all that fascinating, but the Middle East has always been a travel fascination for me.

On the subject, I have just read an article, Baghdad Year Zero, by Naomi Klein about why Iraq is in a mess. I’m most certainly not a fan of hers in most cases, and No Logo riled me when I read it about a few months back (She chants profits over people far too much in my opinion). I used to think I was quite the neo-liberal when it came to economic policies, but the Political Compass tells me otherwise (I'm Libertarian Left). Ah apparently I think profits are no good if they are not for the people, eventually. (Read the article, it’s incredibly well written and very entertaining!)

Strangely, Today, the local alternative news source to The Straits Times (the one that prides itself on less propaganda- more democratic voice) did an article on Donald Rumsfeld saying that Al Qaeda had no ties with Saddam. It made for an amusing read with breakfast today, and I can honestly say that paper has made local news a lot more interesting. Bremer was actually quoted saying something like how there were never enough troops in Iraq from the start. Oh, so blame the consequences of your inconsiderate Friedman policies on not enough force to control desperate people who can’t feed themselves? Ironic, when you consider that he was Bush appointed and is now blaming the chaos on the administration’s horrendous planning.

Of course I could be making all those observations on terribly biased sources, but anyway, the media debate is another story altogether.

The problem (the way I see it) is that they went to war with a number of reasons that were inclusive of the well-being of the Iraqi people, but have now since long forgotten about their interests.

…In other remarks at his Monday appearance in New York, Mr. Rumsfeld said while he could not explain why the intelligence on Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction proved wrong, "the world is a lot better off with Saddam Hussein in jail"…

Oh boy. Ironic isn’t it. Are they REALLY a lot better off with Hussein in jail, considering the trade offs they had to make for it?

That really is enough political digression for now, especially when I think I’m still very ignorant on many counts. And that if I ran for president, I’d be called a flip-flopper in my opinions as well. On that count, yes, I have wanted to run for president, when I was 12 or something. It didn’t seem to be a very difficult task in Singapore, and you got to have your photo in every country-club around the state.

xoxox