If you are going to be a criminal, you might as well have a sense of humor about it (like these guys).

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is the purpose in publishing THIS? I don't mean why did CNN publish it, but why on earth did the U.S. Government feel that was necessary information for the American public to have? (and I don't really believe that it was all just a leak. If the government doesn't want the public to know something, I believe they have very effective ways of keeping it from us). The information frightens me slightly, and I tend to think of myself as somewhat rational. I'm going to be flying from the east coast and my sister is flying to Italy (two of the target areas), all during that "warning" time period. Honestly, there isn't any way we can prevent these alleged terrorist attacks. There is nothing we can do to be safer (short of not flying), and if I don't have anything I can do to protect myself, I would rather not know (that doesn't apply to every situation). So I have tried to think of a few reasons the government might have wanted to give this information to the public:

1) If Bush scares the bejezzes out of people he might win the next election.... or maybe not. Depends on if he is the person who protects us from the terrorists that are trying to attack.
2) The government is trying to destroy the airline industry. "The airline industry is just too powerful (ha ha ha), they need to be taken down a notch. Let's make sure that no one wants to fly on Labor Day weekend, that will help the economy." (I should have waited to buy my plane tickets...)
3) Just in case there is a terrorist attack, the passengers will take over the plane preventing it from crashing into something large and important (although I think that would happen even without the gov't releasing this info).
4) If the American public is scared, the Homeland Security Office can get away with more "anti-terrorist" behavior, that includes destroying civil liberties (but that is an entirely separate rant).
5) The government was worried that the airline industry might not take the warning seriously and decided to put a little extra pressure on them.

I understand the need for the government to increase security and for airlines to be informed and check security. But none of the preparations involved include (nor should they) the American public. Perhaps my opinion of the American public (not as individuals, but as a group mindset) is low, but I think the american public is prone toward hysteria and irrationalism. For example, how much is profiling of people who are or look Arab going to increase? And not just in the airports. There are many other examples, all of which I believe outweigh any advantage (which I still can't find) to telling the public.

I just finished reading "Blood Diamonds" by Greg Campbell. It is an incredible book and I would highly recommend it.

Toward the end of the book it discusses the role diamonds played in funding Al Queda before 9/11. Al Queda had diamonds smuggled (without much difficulty) out of Sierra Leone into Liberia, where they could trade the diamonds for cash, guns and ammunition. Diamonds are easy for people who are hiding to use as currency because they are small, travel well, and are difficult to trace to the original source. Liberia was a major trading place for many illegal activities that definitely impacted America (i.e. 9/11) and the rest of the world (the terrorist organization Hezbollah had a large presence in Monrovia). So I don't understand why America is refusing to go into Liberia, when it is obviously in our interest to bring order back to an area that is completely chaotic (and chaos definitely helps people and organizations that are up to no good). This article, by Nicholas Kristof, makes some really good points such as:

"I argued against invading Iraq, but Liberia presents a much more compelling case for intervention. The difference is not that Saddam slaughtered at most 1 percent of his population over the last 14 years, while Liberian warfare has killed more than 6 percent of its population so far. Nor is it that rescuing Liberia would bolster our international stature rather than devastate it. No, the crucial differences lie elsewhere. First, Liberia has an urgency to it that Iraq did not: people are being hacked apart daily in Liberia, and if we do nothing, the conflict may spread across West Africa. Second, success can be more easily accomplished in Liberia, using just 1 or 2 percent of the number of troops we have in Iraq, mostly because Liberians desperately want us to intervene."

"Other nations have stepped up to the plate after the collapse of countries where they have a special responsibility: Britain in Sierra Leone, France in Ivory Coast, Australia in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Now it's our turn."

Another plus point for Dean here. Once again: what is wrong with President Bush?

To see why Capitalism caused SARS (among other things) go here.

To see the exciting things Aaron is going to be dealing with in one week go here.

Go here to find out why its a good thing Eric didn't wait to buy his car.

I am a very happy Carissa today. I finally found out when my last day of work is- August 22. I immediately bought a plane ticket to go home to Reno on August 23 (yeah, I am actually anxious to go back to Reno). My sister leaves for Italy on August 29, so I was afraid I wasn't going to get to see her. It won't be a lot of time, but I will get to spend a few days with her. I remember when we were little and we would fight so much. She drove me up the wall. Then we became better friends in high school (when she got to high school) and since I left for college we have become even closer. Perhaps it is because I don't see her often, so we never get sick of eachother. I had a great time in NYC with her, but I was very worried that I wouldn't get to see her for over a year and a half (I leave for Japan before she comes back from Italy). But now I get to see the wonderful Miss Chelsea! YEAH!

Another exciting thing that is happening because I'm going home early I will get to see my host sister, Saori, from Japan. She is coming to the US to visit my parents from 7/29- 8/28. I didn't think I was going to get to see her either (although that wouldn't have been as bad as not seeing Chelsea because I will see Saori in October when I go back to Japan). So basically the end of this month is going to be absolutely wonderful!

I also love Erin! I want everyone to know how wonderful she is!

55% of Japanese voters don't support sending their troops to Iraq, while only 33% think it is a good idea. Good to see all that international support pouring in for the U.S. now. Go here for the Japanese view.

Cnn.com was doing a quickvote poll, "Is President Bush doing a good job?" 53% said no. That is the unofficial poll.
In a more official poll, 46% of people said that they would not vote for Bush in the 2004 election. However 66% of the people polled said, "Bush is very or somewhat likely to win the election regardless of how they cast their vote." Those numbers are very far apart. It seems to me that a lot of people have lost faith in our political system. The American public has lost faith in its ability to change the system. I think a lot of that relates back to the situation in Florida. So many voters were ignored in that election, people made the effort to go cast a vote, and then their vote was completely ignored. Why would those people think that they have any voice in our government at all, when the Supreme Court has already told them they don't. But even further, I don't think it just causes disillusionment among the individuals whose votes were thrown out, but among many many more people throughout the country. America has a low voter turn-out rate already, causing more people to stop being involved isn't going to help anything. Another interesting article on cnn.com discussed the number of Americans who are moving to Canada because they don't like our political system. It goes back to the disillusionment, if they thought they had a chance to change what they don't like they would probably stay. But they don't believe they have any power, so they are going to join Canada's political system instead.

Another thing that bothers me, is the fact that Americans aren't more angry about the lies coming from our government. We are dragged into a war with little international support on grounds that prove to be false. Yet Americans don't care. I remember the fuss the media made everytime Bill Clinton so much as walked outside the White House. I can't help feeling that the American public is so tired of scandals that they are willing to overlook a lot (almost anything) to avoid more Grand Jury's and Investigations (and especially Kenneth Starr). I think that is incredibly detrimental though. People should be more outraged about out soldiers being killed in a foreign country when the only reason they are there is based on lies as opposed to our President lieing about the definition of "is" or smoking pot. The things Bill Clinton did might not have been good, but they really affected his personal life and not how he ran the country. The things that Bush has done/does, aren't restricted to his personal relm. He is completely changing America's foreign policy. I suppose if I really thought all Americans (or at least a vast majority) would support that change without being lied to it would be acceptable. But I feel that American's are being hoodwinked into something through lies and sensationalism and their own complacency. America has become Land of the Complacent.

About Fukui City and Fukui Prefecture:

City Population: 251,000
Prefecture Population: 828,000 (ranks 44th out of 47 prefectures in population size)
Map: Go here

Famous Symbol: Narcissus
Famous Tree: Pine
Famous Bird: Thrush
Famous food: Buckwheat Soba noodles
Famous Drink: Local SAKE!
Delicacy: Echizen Sea Urchin (made from the ovaries of the sea urchin)

Travel time to Nagoya: 2 hours
Travel time to Tokyo: 3.5 hours

Festival I'm looking forward to: Firefly Festival in June
Random thing Fukui is famous for: Bamboo
Education: Fukui-ken high school graduates have the 3rd highest rate in Japan of going on to higher education

I grew up hating the concept of war and distrustful of our government when it comes to war. I think it is because my parents were young during Vietnam, their generation suffered so much in the Vietnam war that many of those ideas were ingrained into my mind from a young age. I'm not distrustful of all military, I just don't like the idea of the US getting involved in situations around the world where we don't belong. When this war started I was very unhappy. It just sounded so much like Vietnam to me, I was sure that bad things were going to happen. Everyone told me that it was going to be a fast war and I was worried over nothing. It was a fast war, but we haven't left yet, and that continues to worry me. I was reading in TIME magazine last night about the soldiers who have been killed since the war "officially" ended and I realized that many of them aren't just my age, but are younger than me. It's my generation that is fighting, and that scared me. Well frankly the whole thing scares me.

The Washington Post today reported that the government has finally admitted we are fighting a guerilla war (go here for the story). I don't know why we ever think that we can win a guerilla war. That is how we won the Revolutionary war; we as a nation have always been proud of how we beat the British by refusing to conform to the traditional forms of warfare. We knew the land better than they did, we were fighting on our soil for a cause that our soldiers were fully committed to. The British were fighting not to protect their homes, families or way or life, but because their government told them to. We beat the British using guerilla warfare, so why do we now think that we will ever be able to stop the Iraqis who are using that same style? I'm not going to say that I have an answer to what we should do now that we are in there, but I think it is ridiculous of our government to have forgotten so much of history.

So E said something a few weeks ago at one of our many parties (they just seem to materialize in our living room), that she doesn't understand the whole blog phenomenon. I didn't agree with her at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder why I blog. Originally I started so that I could communicate with my friends and family while I was in Japan (I had protested blogging prior to that). That way I wouldn't write the same story 20 times in every letter, and they didn't have to read my stories if they didn't want to. But if that was the only reason I would not have continued to blog after returning to the US. I could say that it is just my own personal journal, but I have plenty of those at home that are not exposed to the whole world. I admit I experience a little thrill when I see that random people have read something on my blog, or that my blog appears when someone types "spy museum" in msn.com's search engine. But why do I feel a need to share my life and its details with the rest of the world. I am certainly not the only person obsessed with this trend, but generally I like to set myself apart from the people who will do anything for attention including marrying total strangers on TV or embarrassing themselves on FearFactor and American Idol. I would like to think that I am different from those people. But really what else is a blog, but a slightly more subtle form of attracting attention from random strangers. A very self-centered webpage which I make under the assumption that the world actually care about my life.

That's depressing, so I will stop with that train of thought. But all this wondering has made me feel less inclined to write on my blog, because I wonder if anyone reading it really cares.

10-year-old children everywhere are celebrating that their favorite slumber party prank is now protected by the courts.

Just another reason to love Howard Dean. Although I'm sure Kate is disappointed that there isn't a "College Drop-outs for Dean" button. I thought another great button (that no longer applies to me since I am now gainfully employed) would be "Unemployed Graduates for Dean" I have a feeling that applies to a lot of people though and would be a hot seller, if you weren't trying to sell it to people without jobs.

I am....

Happy because it is Thursday.
Excited about my company picnic today (complete with Mint Juleps).
Pleased that Matt cleaned the bathroom.
Irritated that it hasn't stopped raining.
Perplexed as to why bravenet changed my counter.
Confused about how Lindsay could have checked my blog on12/31/69 when she wasn't alive yet. (I have a feeling it is probably bravenet messing up and not Lindsay traveling around in the past).
Anxious to go to Japan.

Because Aaron just can't get enough: BATTLE ROYALE II

Now combining two wonderful things. Denise and Lindsay should like this.

One more reason I'm looking forward to going to Japan!

Thanks to Mrs. M (who doesn't like being mentioned in blogs) for telling me about this site.

"I love my country. I love its passionate and endlessly inventive culture, its remarkably diverse landscape, its agonizing and wonderful history. I particularly cherish its civic ideals -- social equality, individual liberty, a populist democracy -- and the unending struggle to put their laudable, if often contradictory, claims into practice. I realize that patriotism, like any powerful ideology, is a "construction" with multiple uses, some of which I abhor. But I persist in drawing stimulation and pride from my American identity."-- Michael Kazin

Why I don't like Justice Scalia.

Let's play a little game: Find the back of my head!

Meet-up #1
Meet-up #2

(We'll have to wait another month to add the next level to the game, sorry).

So I still think Howard Dean is absolutely wonderful. We went to a meet-up for Dean yesterday at Toldeo Lounge in Adam's Morgan (we might be on C-Span tonight because there were camera crews there). Holding political meetings at bars is a great way to 1) guarantee people show up (who doesn't love happy hour?) and 2) make sure people have a good time while being political. My mother use to tell me that I should be a democrat because they have better parties, and so far I would have to agree.

So at the Dean Meet-up yesterday, they handed out paper and pens and addresses and we all wrote letters to people in Iowa telling them to vote for Dean. I wrote to a man named Ronald in Indianaola, Iowa. I just copied the form letter they gave us, but we figure it didn't take any extra effort for the campaign people to have us write the letters and they are less likely to get thrown away than random form letters. I told Mr. Ronald that he can write back to ask me questions about Dean and even gave him my e-mail address.

I truly believe that Dean is already making a huge difference because he is completely changing the way campaigns are run. The whole meet-up thing is proof of that. But he has also inspired grassroots campaigns. I wrote a paper for my Japanese class and gave a presentation on how similar all of the Democratic Candidates are. Dean is really the first candidate in a long time that, without being crazy like so many candidates, has said something different, has caused a stir. I realize that a lot of political anaylsts think that he has peaked too soon and will burn out before the primary, but I disagree. I really think that because he has inspired people to get up and do something (like write letters to people in Iowa, or donate $25 online) they are going to stay involved. I get numerous e-mails from the Dean campaign every day. There is no possible way I could forget about him. He has also managed to inspire a lot of students though. I find it amusing that so many of my friends (with different views on many issues) still like Dean. Gina is a die-hard Dean fan (ask her about when she got to meet him in Vermont). I guess Dean just inspires something patriotic in me. It vaguely reminds me of how I feel when I watch the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I love that movie, but I feel a lot of politicians today perhaps don't remember what our country is supposed to be about (Mr. Ashcroft for one). They aren't as idealistic as their predecessors. Dean seems to bring a lot of that idealism back into politics, which is perhaps why is he doing so well.

Out of boredom I tried googling my name to see what happens. I found a bunch of other people (and things) named Carissa. They are all a little strange. There is the vegetarian witch (she called herself that first) in Canada who likes to knit and look at Vin Diesel and has an anxiety problem. Then there is the child in Hawaii who sees angels and has dozens of pictures of the angels (I think her grandmother needs a better camera) and a field hockey player at the University of Maryland. I wish I had known but there is a bed and breakfast in Capetown named the Carissa Lodge, I'm sure Erin would have prefered that to the Bohemian Paradise we stayed in. I also share my name with a ship and a fruit/flower from South Africa. And we can't forget the band called "Carissa's Weird." After all the other carissa's I have found, I don't know if that band name is totally off.

So I finally fixed the counter on my blog, and I now understand why everyone was always so amused by it. I am getting hits from people who type things like "sexual harrassment japan" into google. Those hits were actually from Japan too.