I now have wireless Internet access. I've been testing free hotspots around downtown San Francisco. Needless to say I am having fun. The Westin St. Francis has 625KPS T1 access in the lobby and function room areas. I'm in the lobby in a sitting area. No one has bothered me and I assume the key is discretion. The access portal is Starwood. Its stable, and fast. I downloaded a brief trailer for the film "Rear Window" from Trailers.com and it came in at 1.4MB per second. In 41 seconds the download was complete.
There's a excellent hopspot (Free) at Cup of Joe on the corner of Sutter and Leavenworth. Good coffee and perfect T3 internet. I was in Union Square and picked up Citi Net as well as a hotspot from Macy's across the street. I gave up because I kept getting popup ads from Macy's. They are smart folks over there!
I have 811-G and it works wonders. I'm using a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4020 CDT just a P2 300Mghtz and 160MB RAM. A marvelous laptop from 1999. It serves me well.
2
Fire Rumsfeld and let Rudy Giuliani run defense! He will rattle the Iraqi Insurgents! Hey, he cut crime in NYC 70% in five years. I think the thugs found him so obnoxious they left town! Ha!
Later!

Yesterday December 14th was my 54th birthday. I was delighted to receive calls from old friends and a sweet card from a pen pal of 16 years that I have yet to meet face to face. The day was fun and I felt that life was as it should be. My mentor, who is now all of ninety-five told me years ago that 54 is the youth of old age. Memory begins to fail, sight dims, hearing goes flat, sexual proweses fade and everything appears to be a vague repeat of twenty years ago. Friends and lovers begin to die off and treasured possession's break, get lost or loose their meaning.

Well! I can live with it. Life has its rhythms and our time on Earth is limited which is just as well. The young are free of the curse of "knowing too Much" the are excited and willing to take risks. The bitter quarrels both political and social fade as a new generation appears and does not share the passions of old.

Renewal means letting yesterdays wonderment disappear so that tomorrows wonderment has the stage to itself.

The Baby Boomers are all over 40 now, the old guys and gals and America, the world has a new Hip Hop face and a funkier and frankly better attitude about love, sex, and having fun!

The politics of the 2020s has already started, it is so much better! A true international culture is developing from world consumerism and international investment. The rationale for war is fading as humanity becomes integrated through media and entertainment.

GW Bush is 58 he is part of a generation of American South boys and girls stunned by the Civil Rights movement that shamed them and their parents. The pivotal event in GW Bush's life is the world telling "Dixie" 'you are wrong!'"

This new generation is indifferent to just about all the old racial, ethnic, and social stereotypes or differences. Today people are judged by their talents and the skill in using them. All these reality TV shows reinforce a sense of personal ability ability the want to use them well.

When I was born in 1950 America was in the height of the Post War Red Scare and paranoia was the call of the day. The country was prosperous, but fretful. Religion was at a high tide, Churches were full and faith was rock solid.

In his recent book Robert S. Elwood "1950: Crossroads of American Life" he shows that's much of the fear and uncertainty of today was white hot in 1950. Nothing is new, it all comes around again and again. The final consequence of the intense religiosity of the 1950s was rebellion against the rightness, lack of modern thought, and a lingering suspicion that religious leaders were cynical hucksters on the make.

Today as religion draws our attention will it again reveal itself not to be a constructive answer to our fears? Will we again turn away because religious figures will expose their inflexibility and lack of genuine insight?

As I get older I see a tragic miscalculation on the part of both sides in America's social debates. The conservatives are far to harsh, dogmatic and at times outright cruel. The liberals are too fuzzy, indecisive, and at times mean spirited in their rants at the conservatives.

Both sides need to think of the consequence of such beliefs. In 1950 church attendance was 91% at 1964 it was 43% by 1980 it was 31% in 1990 it was 52% and today despite the noise church attendance is just 54%

The United States is such a fabulous, absolutely dynamic civilization with a wonderful future. We are a sound people and we are smart in all the ways that count. We won't fail. But we must be careful and not humiliate the rest of humanity. By the time I'm 84, China and Brazil will be serious world powers. The European Union will be a center of economic muscle and cultural authority. The United States must accommodate the changes that are coming and be generous in doing so. If we act wisely, the 21st century will be a marvelous time to be alive.

I have had great fun, life has been sweet. I am blessed by superb friends and I have exciting times ahead as I publish my book and start to travel.

Youth was an adventure, old age will be a revelation and a time of exhilaration. I know I'll leave this world with a smile.

The War has become a travesty of meaningless destruction of any person who sides with the US or attempts to work for the interim government. The abysmal failure of the Bush Administration to grasp the horror in lost lives and the obvious depletion of the ranks of willing folks to support any government condeams Iraq to Civil War and eventual dictatorship.
How can it be that The President and his ministers at State and Defense are so detached to the human suffering and outright slaughter? Perhaps they are like children who walk away from anything that fails to support their fantasy of personel greatness?

The idea of a limited troop engagement and minimal number of troops is outrageous. Demanding that former service personnel come back, after years if not decades, to willingly upset their new lives is a disaster in the making. Future recruiting will be tough because everyone will suspect they would never really be free of Uncle Sam's demands.

The callus attitude at the pentagon over loss of civilians and the deep human anguish is going to come back and bite us again and again.

You can be certain that traumatized children will comve visit the US in a few years as suicide bombers and terrorists with real weapons of mass destruction.

My impression is that GW Bush sees the calendar and says "All I need to do is get to January 2006 and then I can blame the liberals for the mess in Iraq!"

The Bush legacy will be mass murder, cruel waste of property and lives, and the ruin of Iraq.
He sought to fight a war on the cheap and ended up wasting hundreds of billions of dollars: other peoples money!
Mr. Bush has no conception of the magnitude of waste, cruelty, and suffering he has created. And he never will!
He will leave office blissfully ignoring all of it. He will be rich and a darling of the smug rightwing that never remembers and never gives a damn!

Saving Iraq was a noble goal, but we ruined that dream and have left a nightmare behind.
God is watching, He has a way of protecting his own from fools and predators. There will be an accounting for GW Bush and the United States. Count on it!
David