Dan Lipka Web Log

Yesterday, Iran's defense minister, Vice Adm. Ali Shamkhani, has warned that Iran may resort to pre-emptive strikes to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities. He said. "Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly. Any nation, if it feels threatened, can resort to that." There are so many things utterly disturbing about this. 1) Any country can now feel justified in attacking another as long as they have the same evidence that the US had, which is none. 2) Saddam Hussein said he didn’t have nuclear weapons and in fact didn’t, however, we invaded. Iran admits they are working on nuclear weapons, but we haven’t done anything. Weren’t they our allies a few months ago? Eurasia, Eastasia? Whatever. 3) Will Israel let Iran complete building a nuclear weapon? They have sent bombers in a few times to other countries over the last 20 years to destroy nuclear facilities

President Bush, sidestepping a promise, is allowing the ban on assault rifles and oversized clips to expire on Sept. 14. Bush had said, "It makes no sense for assault weapons to be around our society." This country’s gun policies are one of the most embarrassing and problematic laws that we have on the books. I will never understand it. People who say they want to defend their homes wouldn’t need a gun if they knew that criminals didn’t have guns either. Given a choice of both with guns or both without guns, why choose something that might accidentally kill your kid. Those who say that they want freedom and personal protection from our government, well guess what, an uzi ain’t going to help you against a tank. Those who say hunting is a sport, well than might it a fair sport. Shooting a dear with a high power rifle from 100 yards away is not a sport, and I say those people are cowards. You want a sport, take a hunting knife and try to take down a dear using your stea

Once upon a time, there was a newborn rant about websites that don't provide any phone numbers to call for customer service. It continued to go delve into the anger of being subjected to layer after layer of automatically phone prompts if and when you ever to get to call. It was a good rant with many fine points. However, as it was about to be born upon this blog, the Internet Explorer demon decided that it was not "authorized", and thus the infant rant was dissolved forever. Poor rant, poor poor rant. It lived its life like a candle in the shower.

It all starts with the coach. Larry Brown said the team wasn't ready and that he wasn't confident. This is not a way to lead a team. Brown sat on the sideline and pouted the whole game, he was pathetic. The players, didn't do much better, but they were designed like an all-star team and not a winning team. Get some rebounders (Ben Wallace, Brad Miller), some three point specialists (Michael Redd, Brent Berry), and some "knock you in your ass" players (Artest). Basically, the team would be vastly improved if it traded any player (except Duncan) for Fred Hoiberg. That's right, Fred is more valuable than Iverson, Lebron, or any of the others. Sure if Shaq, Kobe, McGrady, and Garnett were on the team, it wouldn't matter, but they are not, deal with it. And for god's sake, run the fast break every single play and wear the other team down.

Last night on the John Stewart show (which is one of the best shows on TV), John Stewart discussed the exact same issue that I did in my previous post. After showing John Kerry re-affirm that he still would have voted to give Bush and Cheney the authority to attack Iraq, John Stewart asked the picture of Kerry “Are you trying to lose? Is that it?"

John Kerry continues to do whatever he can to avoid having any of his own ideas or thoughts. He refusing to run a campaign on his own merits, instead he is running on Bush's mistakes. The most recent example is when John Kerry was asked if he has the chance to go back in time and vote again to authorize the President with the means to attack Iraq, would he still vote yes. And Kerry said that he would. Now I understand that if he said he vote have changed his vote than the Republicans would have said he is a flip-flopper and that if Kerry had his way Saddam would still be running Iraq. However, Kerry should have said "Hell no, If I knew how horribly and incompetent the administration was, I would never have let them take actions that have killed hundreds of American soldiers. Bush might say that I would be appeasing Saddam, but I would have saved American lives and billions of taxpayer's dollars. I was misled by the President, he lied to me and to this country, and it has d

Currently the world is spending significant time, money and energy to make sure that countries like Iran and South Korea do not make their own nuclear weapons. Although this is a great thing to focus on, why is that we can’t convince/bribe Russia to either destroy of relocate their nuclear weapons. It would much much easier to steal a bomb than to build one. Give Russia a choice; pay them to disable the weapons or offer to build them state of the art weapons depots where they can guard them more easily. Russia can’t afford to guard the weapons and I don’t see why they would be against this. And if the smaller former Soviet countries don’t agree to such an offer, than we should destroy their facilities by force. An unguarded nuclear missile depot in Kazakhstan is a much greater threat to my life that Saddam Hussein ever was. And the US should lead by example, we should say that we will reduce our nuclear capabilities so that we can only kill every person on earth three times. Th

Does anyone else think it is wrong that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Senators Kerry and Edwards are completely neglecting their official responsibilities so that they can campaign all around the country? Either they should quit their elected positions, or they should all get back to work trying to fix: the economy, the war, our schools, the national debt, and a thousand other things. These politicians have responsibilities to their office and I think that President Bush should spend every waking doing his job, or at least from 9-5, being President (maybe he should go to Iraq and see what it is like first hand, or go to an inner city school and see what they are like). I would be in favor of a law that would require to Presidents to work on President related things at least 10 hours a day and the same for Senators. These people are important, they took on a huge responsibility, and I think they should focus on that. Of course, they don't care about doing a good job tod

My girlfriend and I have two extra tickets to Much Ado About Nothing in the park tonight (Saturday August 7). Since we thought selling free tickets was a little unethical, we decided to have a contest to see who needs them the most. So, if you are interested please go to http://danlipka.blogspot.com/ and post a comment that best describes why you want/need the tickets. The stories can be made up, but you have to specifically say if it is fictional (true stories carry more weight than fiction, but creativity is also a good thing). If you have any questions post them on the blog or email them to me. Tickets can be picked up on the upper east side or by the theater. Contest ends at 6:00 unless something changes, (well maybe at 5:30). Good Luck. 6:14 - It's all over. We have selected and contacted the winners. I’m sorry to all those who weren’t chosen, as you all were deserving of the tickets. To those couples that couldn’t get to go, I say to spend the night together, have a roma

As many of you know, I've been going to graduate school full time at Columbia for the past year (while working full time). First of all, Columbia may have a good reputation, but the program I'm in (supposedly an Executive Masters) is horrible. Anyway, I have two semesters left and in my quest to be done with school, I have the option of finishing after next semester. This would require me to take 3 classes on Saturday, 2 night classes during the week, and 1 independent study. Needless to say, this would be a lot. So the question is...Should I just suck it up and get it over with, or should I take my time, get good grades (current GPA 3.8), and graduate on time?

When the knicks hired Isaiah Thomas to run the team, it was equivalent to the Democratic National Party putting Jeb Bush as their chairman. Thomas was the enemy over the last 20 years. Although a great talent, he was a dirty underhanded player who was not respected by anyone in the league, even his teammates. And now, as the Knick's GM (he was hired after Indiana fired him because he was so bad), he keeps making trades to get rid of their youth and take on more and more long-term, bad contracts. For the next seven year, he has basically guaranteed a Knicks team that will never get past the first round of playoffs. And just today, he took on another huge contract of another point guard (even though he already have a better point guard signed to a huge, long term deal). If the Knicks are Isaiah’s team, than they are not my team.

Is it too much to ask that firefighters don't put a skull and crossbones on the front grill of the fire trucks? (and you thought this was going to be about the Skull and Crossbones secret society. Now why would I write about a secret elite group whose member include both John Kerry and George Bush.)

Come on, he's not even bending the truth anymore, he just makes his own new truth. The following are quotes bush has made in the last week. "When it comes to improving our economy and creating new jobs, results matter." -The U.S. economy has lost 2,100,000 jobs under the Bush administration. -In 2004, the budget deficit has hit $465 billion, by far the largest deficit ever. "When it comes to health care reforms to give families more access and more choices, results matter." -Individuals spend, on average 25 percent more on health care than when Bush took office in 2001. -Since George Bush took office 3.7 million more Americans without health insurance. "When it comes to better securing our homeland and fighting the forces of terror, results matter." -Bin Laden and all the top Talaban leaders are still free. -According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Al Qaeda's ranks have swelled to 18,000 with members op

Well my experiment with not advertising me second contest was a complete failure; however, we do have a winner. And the winner is...wait, that can’t be right...a republican? Really? Yes, the winner is one of my only republican friends, Ross Blum. He image of a cat saying “I’m a big pussy that won’t shut up” is the winning logo. Although not too popular with me, it was the only entry that qualified for the contest. What does this prove? Are democrats all talk, while republicans are actually willing to do something (no matter how stupid it is). Which is better, bad action or no action, too much talk or no talk at all? I was disqualified because I couldn’t narrow my choices of logo down from the following...Calculator, Owl, Anna Kournikova, a visualization of the word stredegery, the earth, a confederate flag with a line through it, a diploma, Jesus riding the old donkey, or a cupcake with frosting depicting George Bush being shot in the back with arrows - falling off a cliff –