Please Go.

Yes, friends and fellow bloggers, I am adding my voice to that ever growing cacophony of voices, those sounds of anguish emanating from across the country (predictably, especially the coasts). I'm tossing my hat in the ring, I'm joining the movement, and I'm doing so reluctantly but proudly.

I'm calling for the immediate resignation of Donald Rumsfeld.

Let's not re-hash all the arguments that abound. If you're reading this blog odds are that you are fairly well aware of the current state of affairs pertaining to Mr. Rumsfeld. For me, it comes down to one basic point: his resignation would be an admission of mistakes and a demonstration of accountability. And really, that's what I want.

I want the administration to admit that it's made some serious errors of judgement, ones that can and should have been avoided.

I want Bush to get up there behind his podium, look me straight in the eye, and hold someone accountable. Bush often proclaims his support for an "ownership society", apparently that excludes ownership of mistakes.

This is not an easy call to make, despite what you may think. I'm not generally a Bush supporter, but neither up until now have I thought that a resignation of our Secretary of Defense would solve or change anything. In fact, I was of the opinion that his resignation would be more likely to have a deleterious effect on our nation's ability to conduct the war. You see, after Donald leaves, all the President's critics will pounce on the war in Iraq. It'll be like a feast day for every Democratic presidential hopeful out there. There will be no way to survive the onslaught, and we will have to start pulling troops out of Iraq, and backing off our commitments in the region.

And that would be a mistake.

So what has changed? Why now do I call for the resignation of Rumsfeld, that which before I had resisted? It's because I think that the balance has tipped, and the political calculus has changed. His resignation would no longer invite the swarm, largely because the swarm is already here -- in fact, his resignation might just win back some approval to the President if it's handled right. And really, on top of the political calculus, I think that he's doing more harm than good to our military - by his very presence, in addition to his policies.

Consider that no longer does Rumsfeld have the open support of the military, which erodes not only his influence with the public and the President, but also within his own organization. Consider that Rumsfeld, while he has executed on some very good and valid ideas such as reforming our antiquated military, has been given multiple chances to make good on the war in Iraq and has not delivered. Consider that Rumsfeld has come to embody, for better or for worse, every failure in Iraq. And I have to say, cuz I just can't leave it out, that Abu Ghraib was absolutely disgusting.

While I do think that people should be forgiven for their mistakes, I also expect them to pay for them. The man has a very tough job, and he's probably a decent guy. But that doesn't change anything. As the head of his organization, he needs to take responsibility for those actions. He's had a good run, and he tried his best. It didn't work. It's time to leave.

Death and Taxes

It is often said they are the two inevitable things in life. They also happen to be the two things we, as a society, tend to put off as long as possible and contemplate with a growing sense of dread that slowly builds like a knot in our collective stomachs. At least with taxes we know when it'll happen -- not sure if that's a good or bad thing. We also know that it happens annually, which is definitley a bad thing, or so my financial advisor tells me. And he should know, after all, that's what I pay him for.

Anyway, I put off my taxes until April 17. The last possible date. In fact, I had my taxes done well before that, but I wanted to earn every last penny of interest before sending the government some of my hard earned money. Do you want to hear why? No? Well then stop reading. Cuz I'm going to tell you anyway.

The fact is that I'm kind of pissed off that I feel like I don't have more say in how my government spends my tax money. I don't want a ridiculously large percentage of my taxes to go to the pentagon. I feel like they squander a lot of it and are extraordinarily inefficient, which means that next year I'll have to pay them more, cuz they're certainly not going to get more efficient with the incentives structured backward like they currently are.

I also don't want money spent on the Iraq war, I don't want money spent on poor healthcare initiatives, I don't want money spent on Bush's midnight flights back to Washington for the Terry Schiavo case, and I certainly don't want my money spent on fighting legal and PR battles to defend policies I strongly disagree with. It just seems absurd that the government is using my money to fund PR campaigns to tell my why they think I'm wrong.

Couldn't we have an opt-out system? Every citizen would get provided with a list of all major line items in the governments budget. By default money would go to all of them, but you could actively select a maximum of 2 departments that you don't think should get your money. And tax dollars are distributed accordingly. I realize that's a libertarian type argument, but it makes a certain kind of sense to me. Of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Any thoughts on this?

Tahoe report

Snow: fantastic
Weather: beautiful
Crowds: none! (not sure why)
Price of a lift ticket: expensive
Price of skiing with conditions like these: Priceless

Yes indeed. The drive up and back went smoothly, but it was supposed to storm this weekend which is what I think kept the crowds away. My brother and I went to Heavenly (just for convenience factor), and we went out to the casinos the night before in south lake tahoe. My brother came out ahead. I, unsurprisingly, lost everything.