JoeyBahr.com

I’m writing this from the comfort of my brand new Apple 12″ iBook G4. It finally arrived at my place today early in the afternoon.

So far I haven’t had a problem adjusting to the new system. Granted I am taking a little bit of time to get used to a slightly different keyboard layout than what my old laptop had.

Over time the biggest change to adapt to, besides going from Windows XP to Mac OS X, will be getting used to the smaller screen. My old laptop, a Compaq had a 15″ screen. This one has a 12.1″ screen. With the different screen sizes also comes different resolutions. I would run 1600 x 1200 pixels on the Compaq. The max on the iBook, 1024 x 768. So it is going to be an adjustment.

One thing I won’t miss is going to be the pound of weight I drop with the iBook. The Compaq weighed 5.7 pounds, which is not a heavy weight. The iBook steps up to scale and registers a mass of 4.9 pounds. While I have yet to carry it around as much as I did my Presario, I know it will be a more enjoyable experience.

I totally love the feel of this keyboard. Many of the sites I read as I contemplated the purchase of my next laptop mentioned how the keyboard of the iBook flexed while typing. I have yet to notice anything like that. Part of the reason for that could be that before I fired up the laptop, I went and installed some extra RAM. To get to the RAM slot in the iBook, you must remove the keyboard. So it is possible that as I replaced the keyboard I got it to seat properly. We’ll see how it is doing a ways down the road.

I’ll write more about my new little baby soon. Who knows, I might even post a pic or two of it.

About 8:00 AM CST Wednesday morning, a banner appeared on the top of the MSNBC.com’s homepage stating that Iranian TV was reporting a possible air strike near Daylam, Iran. (Daylam is near the home of a Russian built, but not yet operational, 1,000 Megawatt nuclear reactor.) I’m sure the thought that raced across my mind was the same one going through the minds of many others in the world; someone had just hit the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Within minutes of this news hitting the wires, U.S. stock market futures tumbled (33 points for Dow Industrial futures) and oil futures climbed (at least a $1 initially). The Israeli Defence Ministry was quick to state that it had no part in what reports said was a massive explosion from a missile fired by an unidentified aircraft. The U.S. State Department was quick to assert no knowledge of any operations in the area. (Then again it is conceivable the State Department remains in the doghouse with the White House and the Pentagon, thus they would only know about such things via CNN, Reuters, and the BBC World Service.)

It took about 30 minutes for the situation to stabilize some and for Iranian officials to assert the fireball was created not by a missile but an empty fuel tank dropped from one of their aircraft. It now turns out the explosion was the result of a blast at a nearby dam.

During that half hour of pure, unadulterated speculation, people throughout the world had to gasp. Did the United States really just launch a strike on Iran? Is it possible the Israeli’s finally made good on their threat to do the same to Iran as they did to the Iraqi Osirik reactor in 1981?

About the time this news was breaking, the BBC was running a story about how Iran and Syria were joining in a “common front” against the threats from the U.S.A. Combine that with the recent reports of American spy drones regularly flying over Iran trying to sniff out a nuclear weapons program and the Iranian military’s willingness to shoot them down, you have a rich recipe for a geopolitical powder keg.

In many ways, we are fortunate the incident was merely an accident. Yet, it shows just how tense the world is right now in regards to Iran. The fault for this tension lies with all the actors involved: Iran, the United States, Israel, and the European Union.

The unmistakable fact from the accident is if it can cause a hiccup in the world like this, what would a real strike do?

I really don’t want to ponder the answer to that question. However, the world must contemplate such answers in the hopes of avoiding the inevitable disaster that would accompany a military operation against the Iranian nuclear program.

Nuclear proliferation will continue to be a major issue on the world stage for many years to come. How the world community handles the programs in nations like Iran and North Korea will influence many others to pursue the bomb or not.

To believe that the nuclear genie will remain contained to just a handful of countries almost 60 years after its release is incredibly naive. Many nations possess the scientists with the know how to make a chain reaction needed to release the immense power of a split atom. All they need are the nuclear materials and the tools to weaponize it. Terrifyingly, those materials and tools are far easier to obtain than they should be. One only has to look at the reports of how far along Libya was to getting the bomb to see this.

Let’s hope for the sake of the future of the world, that the tension created in the Bushehr province Wednesday will cause a new set of thinking on how to handle countries like Iran and their pursuit of atomic weapons.

Recently I have been contemplating blogging more. Granted this one post will be something like a 1,000,000% improvement over the flood I of recent entries, but I digress.

The reason why I ask this question to myself is to decide if it is really worth the time. To have a good blog requires freqent posting. Something that I obviously have been keeping up with. (Yes, that last sentence provided more than the USDA’s daily suggested serving of sarcasm. I’m sorry if that blows your sarcasm count into the stratosphere.)

Since banishing cable TV from my apartment, I should have the time to post more, yet one problem remains: what in the hell do I post about????

My fantasies see me being one of those widely, I’ll even settle for semi-widely, read political blogs like Talking Points Memo , New Donkey , Political Animal , The Bull Moose , or Wonkette . (Wonkette might not be the best example given the author’s penchant for drunken anal buggery. Then again, we all need goals to aspire to.)

In the political realm, I do have experience and insight from working in it for six years. I just don’t know if I have anything more to add to the discourse. Granted that has never stopped people in the past.

Part of my reservation probably stems from my lingering negative feel towards blogs. Yeah, I know how hypocritical of me to say this on a BLOG!!! I still cringe whenever I hear someone say that a blog is the cure to everything. I heard that talk many times over from Howard Dean supporters. All of his supporters’ blogs didn’t help him win the Democratic nomination. They did create a community of like minded individuals, which is a good thing, but it still didn’t get their boy into the White House. (The scream didn’t help all that much either. Sidebar: Why the scream didn’t help was, yes, the constant replay and talk of it by the media. It was also because moments before Dean let out that noise, Rep. Richard Gephardt gave a heartfelt concession speech not only acknowledging the loosing of an election but also the end of a long and proud political career. It is hard to not savage someone for acting like a fool on a night when a Congressional giant goes quietly into the night. :End Sidebar)

Another aspect that gives me consternation is comments on the blogs. Many times I hardly even look at them, because they remind me of an e-mail list I used to be on. This list was basically hijacked by an opinionated few, who wrote long winding treatise on all manner of things. Granted the comments tend to be shorter than those e-mails, but they also tend to be much more pointed.

I’m really starting to get sick and tired of all of the negativism on the net. Granted not everyone acts that way, but you tend to notice it more.

Sure I have comments on here, but that is more of a function of allowing me to know if people are actually reading this or not. So far two people have read this, Awna and Arthi. THANK YOU.

Given all I mentioned above, why would I want to keep doing this? Well that is a good question, one that I’m actually asking myself as I type these words. One reason would be to serve as an outlet for thoughts that I don’t want to keep to my personal journal. So, yeah, the occassional political post will be on here. Another might be just to put up some random stuff. Sure it sounds kinda like the first reason, but it’s different, honestly.

The other idea I have for a blog relates to another hobby I getting ready to take up, writing a novel. I have a couple ideas for novels that I plan to write at least the first drafts of this year. My hope, obviously, is to get them published. I’m thinking of creating a second blog and using that as the place to publish a third novel in hopes that it will get me noticed and hopefully attract a few legimate book deals. Well a boy can dream at least, right?

For the time being, I will continue to post every now and then. I’ll probably also make some updates to the site in the way looks and so on.

Hopefully one of these days I’ll think of something to say.

I was listening to the radio this evening, preparing a plate of left-overs for my microwave, when I heard that Pope John Paul II had been rushed to a hospitial. He had come down with the flu and complications have set in.

I have never been a huge fan of some of the policies of this Pope and the Church as a whole. Most of my disagreement falls along the lines of abortion and the Church’s steadfastness against contraceptives. (A more meatier discussion is a different post.)

Despite that, I still proudly proclaim that I am Catholic. Now I don’t wear my Catholicism on my sleeve like some people, or worse like many Evangelical Christians, just on my forehead on Ash Wednesday.

Tonight, I probably will say a rosary for the Pontif. I hope that he will pull through this. The pictures of him dealing with a pair of reluctant doves Sunday were fabulous. They showed a man full of life for once. Most of the times, you see a hunched over man laboring to deliver his message or say the Mass.

If the unfortunate happens and Karol Wojtyla passes on from this Earth, many would agree that the last pictures of him smiling with the delight that comes from watching two 8 year olds try to coax birds out into the cold air of winter would be far better than most of the ones the world has become accustomed to.