The world is stupid for wanting and needing people I care so much about to be in places where I am not.
It is also stupid for wanting and needing me to sometimes be away from people I care about.
Thankfully God is gracious enough to allow me to see many of these special people so often.
Goodbyes still suck though.
I love Martin and Emily.
The party tonight was the best I have been to in a long time. Soooo many good people.
Love it.
It better be good for all my friends and people. This week seems to have been filled with all kinds of things that are not brining happiness.
Downloaded this album by Saul Williams, and produced by NIN’s Trent Ranzor.
It is a very experimental mixture of Hip Hop, spoken word, and many other things. It has a fantastic cover of Sunday Bloody Sunday as well.
You can download it for free, from the artist site and see what you think. You can pay $US5 for a higher quality audio download if you like it.
Howard speaks up on AID Budget. Apparently it is impossible to make promises beyond 2010 for foreign aid, as you couldn’t be held accountable for it..hmmmm.
“But to promise something way out to 2015, which is eight years, is easy to do because you can’t really be held accountable for it.”
I wonder Mr Howard if you have heard of timetabled commitments.. It’s a relatively simple idea, if you are going to reach 0.7% GNI on AID by say 2015, you work out how much you’d need to increase it each year to meet it. Simple accountability.
“We have significantly increased our foreign aid, we’ve doubled it, and it’s working,” he said.
As for the doubling of foreign aid, you haven’t doubled the percentage we spend since you and your team got office. You have doubled the artificially low dollar amount after a decade of disengagement. Also very clever use of Iraq and the pacific solution in the numbers. However the money we do send is appreciated a lot by the people it actually manages to reach.
“The rich world can do more to help the starving people of struggling countries by getting rid of corruption in the governments of those countries and … also by removing trade barriers.”
You make an interesting point about governance, but I’d like to point out that a sizable part of our aid budget goes to top down governance programs already. As our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to suggest we can’t get rid of corruption in a country, even if we invade it. The key to stopping corruption is to empower locals at all levels to hold their governments accountable. Even Australia, and our close ally America struggle with corruption. Someone more cynical then myself may suggest that tax cuts as election promises are a way of buying votes.
Actually, I heard a great one. I was wandering through France, and I ended up in this vineyard. They asked me to sign the visitors’ book - it was a very posh wine: Petrus - they said, “Do you want to see the other people who have signed here?” I said, “Sure. Show me the first book.” Thomas Jefferson. That makes me laugh so much. Here’s this guy dreaming up an idea called America, drinking some fancy wine. My kind of guy.
Bono in a Rolling Stone interview
I am feeling peaceful this morning. It is a nice feeling.