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So I meet you in a bowling alley. I throw a 37. And, I say, humans are smart. All they need is education. And you say, I am smarter than you because I am. And I say, education would make me smarter than you, and you say, I will prevent that because I am in power ...

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Ahmed Ibraim remembers the dark years.

He remembers his friends and neighbors while they were rounded up by Saddam Hussein’s regime. He remembers the air raid sirens blaring at 3 am, and the frantic rush for cover, and, especially, the awful roar of the occasional nearby explosions. He remembers hating America for it all.

A Sunni, Mr. Ahmed today lives in a neighborhood that was, in many ways, spared from Saddam’s dark curtain, and, somehow, most of the bombs Saddam’s regime provoked.

Today, his once dusty neighborhood is replete with schools, busy grocery stores and even an occasional Starbucks. His three children have all passed entrance exams for universities run by a group known as the Hijric Collective, a Muslim group that has taken over management of the educational system. Some Iraqis say the group is tainted by American imperialism and Zionism. Some Americans feel it is too dominated by remants of the Wahhabi sect. At any rate,the Hijric is so well financed, and most importantly, housed by Imams, paid off or not, that most of the complaints are mere utterances within the confines of local coffee houses.

Quite awhile ago, I began a "blog" called The Gore Years. The premise was simple. It was an alternative history that described how this world might have turned out if Gore had won the election. It wasn't a Gore-worship-site, it was more of a what if Bush-had-not-won-site. I started it after being really angry about how, at work, the exit polls all showed Kerry winning, and when I got home, the real polls seemed to show Dubya's war strategy winning another round with American voters. I've never been one for conspiracy theories, but this did raise my hairs a bit, and all I could do was start this site ...

For those of you who don't think bin Laden will try to influence the U.S. elections, consider his recent pronouncements that Iraq is the perfect base for setting up an Al Queda regime.

Sometimes, we really do have to think like John McCain. The world these days is Stratego or Risk on steroids, and it doesn't hurt to sometimes think like a military man. Which is why Jim Webb of Virginia, rather than being a good  Obama running mate, would make a good secretary of defense (almost the bizarro-world of Rumsfeld).  

So, from a military and strategic standpoint, it's a brilliant move by Osama to say that Iraq is the perfect base for Al Queda.