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Day’s Verse:

A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps. The lot is cast in the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

Prov. 16:9, 33

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Yes, the title sums up everything. Read no further than here if you wanted an update on my life. Oh, but we played six or more rounds of croquet last night with groups composed of: me, Ian, Colleen, her little bf Peter, Mom, Dad, and Nana. Grandpa could hardly join because he can’t see. Conclusion: I suck a croquet.

Not to say “I told you so” or open this can o’ worms again, but this article in the Seattle Times on the Iraq war tells us what we’ve believed for months. Reading that the much-vaunted panel finally produced the document stating that “‘no credible evidence’ has emerged that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks”…well, what did we expect? Bush maintains that’s not true, according to CNN, but how well do we trust Bush now? The reasons for attacking Iraq didn’t really lie in that direction anyway, although we were (mis)lead to believe that we were “fighting terror” by attacking this evil dictator. No, there’s no denying he was a bad man – it didn’t take the millions of dead Iraqis to prove that. However, we can’t pat ourselves on the back for our action in Iraq like we still do regarding the US’s involvement in World War II against the Nazis for this crucial reason: we weren’t stopping anything. Saddam Hussein wasn’t slaughtering people while we charged in on our white Humvees to save the day. He wasn’t sheltering or aiding al-Qaida members. He hadn’t made any nukes/WMDs (that we could find). So what did we go into Iraq for, anyway? Iraq needed changing; the world may be better off without Saddam Hussein in charge of a country, but was it the US’s job to make those changes we saw fit with little global support? The whole maneuver has earned us glares and catcalls from much of the world—and hasn’t even revitalized our economy. Geez.

I saw in the paper today that Mitsubishi, maker of somewhat crappy cars, has admitted to making crappy cars for the last ten years. They also admitted to covering up the necessity for recalls on many of their Japanese vehicles; one of the defects they should have recalled apparently caused the brakes to fail on a truck. Another vehicle’s wheel spun off and killed a pedestrian. Is this a death-knell for them? Does anybody care if it is?

On another note, it’s depressing how money goes out so fast. Thankfully, money isn’t everything—in fact, though we have to live with it and deal with it and rely on it daily, let’s asses its value honestly.

1. Does money make you happy? Maybe in the short run, but the problem is you always have to keep spending more of it once the happiness from a purchase wears off.

2. Is money a good friend? Hardly (unless you’re Mrs. McTeague, in which case you sleep with $5,000 in gold coins in your bed with you at night); and it won’t buy you good friends, either, because once you’re out of money those bought friends vanish.

3. Will money bring you salvation? Au contraire, “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Citation)

– KF –