In this column I pose questions and raise issues. I don't always agree with the conclusion, implied or stated. The purpose is to put a slightly different spin on each item and to promote discussion.

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• It seems like every time somebody makes some remark critical of the Israeli government, they are accused of anti-Semitism, primarily by the Anti-Defamation League. This knee-jerk wolf-crying is getting old and beginning to lose its power to persuade.
• Supporting America and American troops is not synonymous with supporting the policies of President Bush.
• Proponents of International Free Trade, like George Bush (both of them), assure us the power of corporate capitalism is all that is necessary to unify the world in peaceful commerce. That would explain why the war on Iraq is necessary. It's really just an aggressive marketing campaign.
  
• Feminism led millions of women to burn their bridges behind them, for which the consequences have only just begun.
• Many on-the-job offenses relate to social faux pas. But people with Asperger's Disorder, which is classified as a disability, are prone to such social errors as a result of their condition. This suggests that, by law, their blunders are exempt from disciplinary action.
• The brave American soldiers in Iraq are not defending our freedom, for Iraq poses no direct threat to Americans, unless you count the Saudi Arabians who funded and staged the 9-11 attack.
• Saddam Hussein is a bad, bad man, and he should die. His regime is barbaric and unenlightened, and under Roman Law and even International Law from as recently as a few hundred years ago, there are doubtless lots of dandy reasons for making war on Iraq, Iran, North Korea and British Columbia. But we are not governed by the laws of Third Century Rome and 17th Century Europe, no matter how much President Bush and his Republican Guard may wish it were otherwise.
• For those people whose lives otherwise lack meaning, it is often important to them that somebody, somewhere, is afraid of them.
• A few years ago, when it came out that feminist icon Betty Friedan lied in her book, The Feminine Mystique, I had the opportunity to correspond via e-mail with her ex-husband, Carl, who assured me her lies were justified by the results. They don't get it, the consequences of her lies is the burgeoning backlash against women.
• You cannot negotiate with a terrorist, as the British Empire discovered when the American terrorists began fighting to throw out the British government's military and political presence in America.
• Artist Shaggy's new song, Strength of a Woman, must get him laid a lot.
• Perversion and hypocrisy require privacy. The ultimate consequence of the continuing erosion of our privacy is that acts once deemed shameful will elicit little if any notice at all.
• Honest people embrace every truth.
• When did "defending America" become synonymous with defending the interests of American multinational corporations?
• The Vietnam War was justified with the Domino Theory, a simple notion, easy to sell, that if Vietnam was taken over by communism, soon the rest of Asia and the world would follow. Kind of like the tale Bush tells about the threat Iraq poses to America.
• The Republican position with respect to war on Iraq & Co. seems to be that we should hold the torch of remembrance for those who died on 9/11 fast in our hearts, let its flame burn away our doubts, and ignite the fuel of our passion to attack those who hate us with determination and resolve regardless of whether they participated directly in the 9/11 attack on America. In other words, they are saying we should be led by our heart, not our head. Something for which conservatives have long criticized liberals.
• Asserting that the inherited rights of American Indians are unconstitutional is an attack on the right of every American to pass on an inheritance to their heirs.
• Everybody made fun of Homeland Security for recommending duct take to seal window and door cracks in case terrorists attack us with chemical or biological badness. Ironically, duct taping provides significant protection against such weapons but, because the government propaganda machine has done such a good job of exaggerating their effectiveness, which is a big selling point for the US to make war on Iraq, nobody believes them.
• Some folks are puffed with pride over the progress of the invasion of Iraq. The most powerful nation in history versus a barbaric backwater dictatorship? Kind of a lop-sided battle in which progress should be no cause for pride and victory a foregone conclusion.
• Regardless of whether Iraq was armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, as the clouds of dust settle over the remains of Saddam Hussein's regime, American forces will find all the proof necessary to justify President Bush's decision to wage this war.
• There's this whole silly notion that the American government is supposed to operate within reasonable proximity of our political ideals, as delineated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If (when?) those notions are dispelled with something more akin to a police state and retirement of the Bill of Rights, the business of empire can proceed more smoothly toward its eventual demise.
• By invading Iraq we are driving up the price of oil and driving down the American economy all so multinational corporations, who claim to have no patriotic obligation to Americans, can have assured access to oil when there are already several technologies available which, together, would reduce our reliance on foreign oil to virtually nothing.
• In modern America, the temptations to embrace Jehovahism are many.