Musings:

Religion: It appears to me (through the informed discipline of 30 years of religious and philosophical study) all religious practices and philosophies have the same goal, albeit each has its own distinct path. Some are helpful to the individual and species; others seem not to be. There seems to be a missing element in most, and that is, the total knowledge of the ultimate truth of reality. Another element, not missing, is the unwavering, but false conviction, that each one has the only true belief. In fact, no-one knows the the ultimate reality of everything or the truth of everything - including me.

Iraq: I predict we, as a nation, will eventually soon leave Iraq to itself; having been unable to tame its peoples. If the the situation were reversed, and Iraq had sent its troops here, they would be equally unsuccessful in quelling our resistance to a foreign country upon US soil (even though well intentioned, as the US is in Iraq)