Hurricane Frances

Hey, another hurricane is hitting Florida, this time from the east side. Looks like it is going to do some major damage and a lot of people will be affected. My wife has some family down in the area, and I know a few people there as well. Hopefully, all will be ok down there, and nothing serious will happen. I keep thinking that this is mother natures way of getting back at Florida for the 2000 election. I'm kidding of course...

A major dust-up today at one of my favorite online hangouts, ENWorld. Seems the owner of the site got fedup with the way some people were treating him and the site, and he ranted/vented on the front page. Man was it a good rant too. I'm just hoping, like a lot of people are, that things calm down after some time has passed and things aren't affected too much.

I read in a book today at the store that there are several reports that state that the worlds oil reserves will be almost if not completely depleted by the year 2040. I also read that out of the entire worlds military funding (close to 800 billion), the US accounts for half of the number (almost 400 billion). That got me thinking. If we took part of the amount we spend on our military budget, even 1%, and spent it on research and development of alternative fuel sources, wouldn't that seem like a pretty good investment? If we could cut through our dependence on foreign oil, and became more self-sufficient, wouldn't that help our country in the long term?

I also read in the same book that the companies that develop weapons and other military type things for the government are allowed and encouraged to sell these products to other countries and groups, almost as soon as they produce them. In effect, as the book states, "the US is in an arms race with itself." The better the weapon we develop and sell to other countries, the better the weapon we need to develop to beat it. Doesn't that seem a little counter productive?