Iron Mountain

Anna and I hiked up Iron Mnt yesterday. My legs are sore today. It was well worth the trip though. Was good exercise and the view was quite spectacular. The mtn was burned over in the fall, so it had a very alien look to it. On the way home we stopped at a fruit stand and bought 10 avocados for 2 bucks. Score! Had guacamole and beer for dinner. Mmm.

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, promised President Bush the Saudis would cut oil prices before November to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.

Transcript from Bob Woodward’s appearance on 60 Minutes.

Constitution? Shmonstitution. The White House used $700 million that Congress authorized for use in the war in Afghanistan and instead spent it to prepare for war in Iraq.

War plans

Looks like Bush has another book to disbute – President Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team

Bush the Out-of-Towner.

This is pretty sad. Could you put him on the board? Pay him a salary and he’ll be a good board member and be a loyal vote for the management and so forth.

Uh, don’t buy any Iraqi scrap.

Trust, Don’t Verify

Director George Tenet and others at the CIA were briefed in August 2001 about the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui in a paper titled “Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly.” But Tenet barely had any contact with President Bush during the month of August because the commander-in-chief was … on vacation. Here is the text.

Trust, Don’t Verify – Bush’s incredible definition of credibility.

Even the IMF is waking up to the fact that the US is in trouble with it’s debt. The US $ is going to be much weaker.

Tax cuts unpopular. Finally people are starting to wise up.

I found this story quite interesting: First Lady Shows Off Plant Restoration Efforts at Texas Home. Seems so funny that the first lady of the worst environmental president enjoys restoring native grasses and plants.

Smog

Ahhh.. things are finally starting to settle down. Had to head up north to Loma Linda on Tuesday to meet with some future clients. A very long day.

Loma Linda would be a beautiful place, if it wasn’t for all the LA smog that drifts over. You could see mountains clearly on one side, and a faint brown outline looking towards LA. The schools are 7th Day Adventists and believe in a healthy lifestyle… It seemed a bit odd to be eating a healthy avocado sandwich (they are vegetarians, no caffeine, etc) while my eyes were burning.

Jimmy introduced me to olive butter today. It is pretty good stuff. I recommend trying it on a jalapeno bagel.