Update: Just popped on over to RWN and apparently great minds think alike!

-- Alito in his fancy new robe. You gotta love it...

Why? you ask. Well, to put it bluntly, men, and even most women, don't trust an emotional woman to run the country. Which is pretty much what liberal women are. I'm no expert on the subject, but I can't think of a single liberal woman elected to lead a European country. Even Europeans don't trust liberal women with their highest office(s)! But I can think of a couple conservative European women who have received that high honor.

This is because conservative women conduct themselves in a way that people like to see their leaders conduct themselves. They are even, calm, rational and completely logical. They will rarely, if ever, base their points on purely emotional appeals. They are sensible. They don't nag you, they simply tell you and you KNOW you better behave.

Lucky for us Republicans, Hillary is capable of being as naggy, shrieky and nonsensical as any depressed 15-year old girl on the first day of her period. And who wants one of those running the country? This is probably also why both men and women tend to prefer a male boss to a female one.

Hopefully, having Hamas in charge will be such a jolt to the international community, Israel, and the US, that they'll stop giving the bloodthirsty savages in the disputed territories a free pass and start requiring them to act like civilized human beings in order to get aid, political support, and sympathy.

Furthermore, this is probably good news for Israel. They now have new options available to them militarily since the Palestinian government can now be held directly responsible for terrorist attacks, there will be less international support for the Palestinians, Hamas will be put under considerable pressure to moderate their stand against Israel, and maybe support for transferring the Palestinians to the surrounding countries will even pick up, even if that's still not all likely at this point.

Go read the whole answer if you're interested.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is something that has interested me for the past few years. Being a student at UCLA for four years left me with a lot of questions, such as, why is it so many liberals are so eager to hop on the Palestinian band wagon and completely ignore the Israeli side of the story.

If you study the origination of the conflict, the clear "bad guys" are the imperialists who controlled the territory and then promised it back to everyone. The "Palestinians" were not at fault at the beginning and neither were the Israelis at fault at the beginning. But if you take a look at the history since then, and you do have to look at it honestly, you can't be like Noam Chomsky who leaves out certain facts in his papers (like leaving out the fact that the Yom Kippur War started because of a surprise attack by Arabs during a religious holiday for the Jews), the Israelis have certainly been harsh in their responses, but, in general, they have been responses. It seems like the left would like Israel to simply roll over and take it.

[moonbat on]Attacked during a sacred religious holiday? How dare you defend yourselves and almost wipe out the Egyptian army in the process?! Evil Jews. And Republicans are Nazis.[moonbat off]

I think it was in Why Nations go to War by John G. Stoessinger...the author discussed the Israel-Palestine conflict and he said something like...well I'm not as eloquent as him but the gist of it was that neither side was to blame at the beginning but now both sides have done some unthinkable things that the other side refuses to forgive and so it goes on...

I'm not going to claim that Israel is innocent in all of this, because I do not believe they are. But, what I will say, is that one side in this conflict teaches its preschoolers that killing Jews is fabulous and as long as that continues on there can be no peace in the Middle East. One side celebrates the murder of innocent Israeli children, a celebration that does not occur in Israel when innocent Palestinians are used as shields by their terrorist leaders. Israel may not be perfect but anyone who can't see that it is the more reasonable and civilized party in this matter lives in candyland.

I need a mouse so I can play DotA on this thing.

The things I'll do to get my laptop on Friday instead of Monday. Sigh.

In the meantime I want to ramble on for a bit about relationships. Why are so many people so unhappy in so many relationships? I've been talking to a variety of people about their "relationship drama" lately and I've noticed certain trends. 1) A lot of nice guys are attracted to women who are manipulative, high-maintenance and enjoy messing with peoples (guys) heads. 2) A lot of nice girls are attracted to guys who can't commit and aren't sure what they want. And sometimes the guys they are attracted to are just plain jerks.

This seems to be why no one is happy in their relationships or quasi-relationships. All the right people are attracted to all the wrong people and so everyone just becomes more and more cynical and jaded...It's sad. I hate seeing people I care about so unhappy.

Ugh, time to go fight my way into downtown. If I don't blog in 24 hours - call the police.

For one, the IRA/Sinn Fein made a point of not targeting purely civilian targets. Sure there were a lot of questionable "soft" targets (such as a government census taker) but for the most part they attempted to strike government targets and leadership. Also, the IRA was known for warning about attacks before they occurred so that oftentimes when bombs did go off in public places, those places had been evacuated and few to no injuries occurred. This is, of course, not to say that the IRA/Sinn Fein didn't kill any innocent civilians in their terrorist attacks, they certainly did, but to point out that quite often their attacks were not meant to take as many lives as possible, but simply to prove that they could if they were not taken seriously. On the other hand, Hamas has shown over and over again that their goal is to kill as many Israelis as possible with every single attack. They are not trying to prove a point, they are trying to murder any Jew they can, no matter how old or young.

Another glaring difference is the fact that the IRA and Sinn Fein never denied the right of Britain to exist. They fought for their own freedom and not for the total destruction of England. Hamas has made clear that they do not believe Israel has the right to exist and that they will not recognize the Jewish state. That is why it was possible for Gerry Adams to become a statesman and why I do not think it will be possible for Hamas leaders to do the same.

If you take a look at the histories of both organization it quickly becomes clear that though they share shallow similarities, the are actually very different in terms of their stated goals and use of terror.

Just kidding. Kind of. Seriously though, time to hit the books.

Another former clerk here today says this: "I am a Democrat who always voted Democrat, except when I vote for a Green candidate . . . but Judge Alito was not interested in the ideology of his clerks. He didn't decide cases based on ideology."

President Bush also made note of the fact that, "Judge Alito has earned broad support from his fellow judges on the 3rd Circuit. Seven of them took the extraordinary step of testifying on his behalf before the Senate Judiciary Committee."

Of course, I'm sure the Democrats will still almost to a person vote against him (I think Senator Ben Nelson is still the only brave D saying he will vote for Alito?). Does it matter that Republicans voted for Ginsburg based on her qualifications rather than ideology? Of course not. Does this prove that Republicans and Democrats are not the same, and that in fact Republicans are the better party and more loyal to the Constitution as it was written (not as the Democrats would like for it to have been written)? Yes, it definitely does.

Democrats like Hillary and Harry can get all shrieky and spout off all the lies they want. Any clear-thinking American will trust the bipartisan group of judges and lawyers who have actually worked with Judge Alito, and have seen firsthand how the man decides each case before him, over partisan ideological hacks in the Senate Democratic leadership any day.

Again, not surprised. The drive to become a musician, trumping a mother's instincts to be with her child as it grows up. Only a liberal.

Edit: I wanted to go into a bit more detail regarding the situation that brought about this statement because the more I think about it the more ridiculous it is. Kit Porter (who is the straight sister of one of the lesbians) is complaining to the "manny" (male nanny) about how her son grew up to be a "fundamentalist" (he is against homosexuality and doesn't believe in gay adoptions *gasp*) because she abandoned him as a baby (he was raised by his father and "bible-thumping" grandparents) in order to pursue her music career. At least she is honest enough to say she doesn't have a leg to stand on since she didn't even raise him. But I mean, he turned out to be a sexy, black, conservative doctor so I'd say his grandparents did something right. Only in a liberal show would a woman complain that her son turned out to be a highly intelligent, traditional man and all she had to do with that was abandoning him as a child. Honestly. She should just be happy he didn't grow up to some crackhead drug dealer.

What I really wanted was the new Alienware Sentia m3400 because including all the upgrades (1GB RAM, Pentium M, built in webcam and 1yr warranty) it would have only come out to about $1100 after rebates. AND it only weighs (supposedly) 4.5lbs! Unfortunately, after reading up on the reviews, it appears as though Alienware has some notoriously bad customer service and often forces you to go for weeks at a time sans laptop if you actually want to use the warranty. One guy had his laptop for over two years so it wasn't even covered by warranty anymore, the latches on his notebook broke so he called Alienware to order replacements (which he figured would cost $10 and he'd pop them in himself), instead they told him he needed to send it in to them (pay for shipping himself, of course) and they would fix it for him in 10-12 days. He tried to go directly to the manufacturer and they told him since he'd bought it from Alienware they couldn't sell him any parts directly. Lots of horror stories like that, even one person's laptop catching FIRE and the company refused to give her a new one, instead insisting they would "fix" it and taking ages to do it. Plus they've got some ridiculous 15% restocking fee if they happen to send you a defective computer and you need to return it. All in all, it sounds like Alienware computers can be good but if you get a lemon (and there seem to be quite a lot of them considering how many horror stories there are and the fact that it's a relatively small company) then you're pretty much screwed. Not what I like to hear when I'm investing a good chunk of my hard earned money into something.

So Dell it is. In a couple weeks I may be blogging remotely from a Starbucks or Coffee Bean or somewhere equally exciting.

Time for church! We haven't gone in like three weeks, naught naughty.

Um...up until now I thought Bob was a relatively non-moonbat Democrat (after all he did denounce what Howard Dean said about us losing the Iraq war) but is he seriously forgetting that Lincoln was a Republican? He needs to sit down and watch the History Channel special that is running on Lincoln right now. Yeesh, talk about rewriting history, Bob.

P.S. I got a 96% on my first Accounting test! Yay going back to school!

There was outrage Wednesday when a Vermont judge handed out a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl many,many times over a four-year span starting when she was seven.

The judge said he no longer believes in punishment and is more concerned about rehabilitation.

Um...if this guy rapes another little girl can we throw this judge in jail for accessory or something? Because giving a child rapist 60 days in jail should be a crime.

This makes me think of an interview O'Reilly did with someone who was against Jessica's Law because we should respect judges and their judgement. Yeah, right. There is no good argument against mandatory sentencing and this case proves it.

In Ramadi, a U.S. spokesman said dozens were killed when a homicide bomber attacked a line of about 1,000 police recruits. Marine Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool initially put the death toll at about 30, but Mohammed al-Ani, a doctor at Ramadi General Hospital, later said 56 people were killed and 60 injured.

The attack took place at a police screening center in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. Pool said recruits later got back in line to continue the screening process.

Initial thoughts? My professor is cool, a former Air Force and private sector accountant, he was stationed in France for two and a half years so he thought it was pretty cool that I'm planning to do a Master's program which involves studying in France. Also, he thinks I'm "adorable" which I take as a good sign. Unlike a lot of my professors at UCLA, he seems to genuinely care whether or not we understand the material and he goes over all the steps in great detail and reviews them several times to make sure everyone gets it. The class isn't going to be as math-scary as I thought, yay. (But I'm still scared about the Business Finance which I'm mainly studying on my own ><).

This class is not only my first accounting class, it's also the first time I've ever (in my WHOLE entire life) been the only asian kid in my class. It's also definitely the most diverse class I've ever been in, which I think is pretty awesome.

This is like a whole new chapter in the book of Joyce. Maybe I should redesign.

But anyway, even though it's about lesbians, the show is really just about relationships and life and most of all, friendship. It's sort of a more dramatic lesbian version of Sex and the City.

Like Sex and the City most of the relationships are failed ones. It got me to thinking about my own relationships and how lucky I am to have found what I've found. As my mom the therapist always says, people have patterns and usually they don't break until we get help. Maybe she says that because she is a therapist in need of clients but I think there has to be some truth to it because what else would change us? If we go through each relationship making the same mistakes and never learning, why would we suddenly change without any outside intervention right?

There's this one character in particular who I feel for. I think I could have been her in another life. In fact, I could have been her in this life if not for Paul. She's the writer, lost in her own head, abandoned in a lot of ways when it comes to love...she ends up on the bathroom floor with a razor blade.

Before and after Eric and I broke up I felt like that a lot. So lost, so alone, confused, hurt, empty...mostly empty. In a lot of ways being with him was like being alone. Part of it was the physical distance that separated us, but part of it was emotional too. Sometimes I'm not sure if it was him I was in love with or just the idea of him. I loved being with someone who had such a sense of duty...patriotism. But I don't know if I really loved being with him. Because truthfully we were bad for each other. I wanted everything he couldn't give and he didn't want what I wanted to give.

But I can't really blame it on the guys I've been with. For the pain of the relationships, that is. I admit it, I am an especially needy gal and I went for guys who couldn't deal with it. In fact, I'm surprised they put up with me for as long as they did. I'm surprised Paul puts up with me now. If my friend had a girlfriend like me I'd tell them to dump her and quick. So maybe I should try to change huh? Maybe I should go back into therapy or something.

Or maybe I should just quit rambling already and go to bed.

Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that being "good" will always be a struggle. Even though I see people like my little sister and it seems so easy for her, I know she has her own demons to wrestle - but maybe she is just a better wrestler than I am. Or just more disciplined. Same difference probably.

I keep trying to find a life
On my own, apart from You
I am the king of excuses
I've got one for every selfish thing I do

What's going on inside of me?
I despise my own behavior
This only serves to confirm my suspicions
That I'm still a man in need of a Savior

I wanna be in the light
As You are in the light
I wanna shine like the stars in the heavens
O Lord be my light and be my salvation
Cause all I want is to be in the light
All I want is to be in the light

The disease of self runs through my blood
It's a cancer fatal to my soul
Every attempt on my behalf has failed
To bring this sickness under control

Honesty becomes me
There's nothing left to lose
The secrets that did run me
In Your presence are defused
Pride has no position
And riches have no worth
The fame that once did cover me
Has been sentenced to this earth
Has been sentenced to this earth

So here's to a better new year. Maybe one where, by the grace of God, I can conquer those demons in my life.