It's an interesting notion and as of today it might be correct. I doubt it is even close to being as correct as, "buying gasoline or using oil-powered electricity funds terrorists". You see, our society needs energy. There should be policies in place to divest ourselves of reliance on energy sources where our own money can be sent to those with terrorist interests.

What does the government crave more?: Asserting its power over its own people by designating what you can or cannot do by yourself? Or national security? Apparently the assertion of power over the citizens is more important. If opium was legal do you think we'd be seeing tons of money going to bad guys? Again, if opium was legal, the money would be flowing internally (and likely way over-taxed). One might say that if you want to rob citizens of the right to persue their vision of happiness (as long as they do not impose on others), you are funding terrorism; You are providing a direct income channel to terrorists because you want to assert your power over those who simply want to live their lives, whether in fun or in misery.

If the Federal Government would simply leave people alone and not tax the living daylights out of us, there would be a vastly diminished income stream for the bad guys. I'd love for someone to show me otherwise, keeping a straight face.

The fact is, we're our own worst enemy in terrorist funding and I'm not talking about the guy who likes to smoke a bowl once or twice a month. We're our own worst enemy because we continue to elect people who would [attempt to] suppress the human spirit. That attempt causes humans to do what they'll always do (circumvent the craziness) and it should come as no surprise. I wonder if the government will ever do anything about it? I wonder if they'll continue to let our soldiers, sailors, marines and others die on the basis that "the government knows better for us than we do".

Got paged at 4am this morning because we apparently introduced a bug to the blogware project during a code promotion yesterday. It was a subtle thing (obviously not caught in our QA) but has a nasty little impact in certain cases. Whatever, it is in the pipeline for a quick fix. The point here is, I got up at 4am to figure things out and since I was awake I figured I would start my day instead of going back to bed.

I often work late at night because it's quiet -- No phones ringing or babies crying. I tend to get a lot more accomplished during this quiet time. But now that I'm getting a taste of the same quiet atmosphere in the early morning I'm wondering if I ought not quit early every night and get up extra early to do my work. A big difference is, at night it's dark and lonely (although my dog does hang out with me) while in the morning, as soon as the sun peeks out, the birds start chirping (you gotta love Spring time in the Conejo Valley!). It seems more peaceful now and since my biggest customer is on EST I can actually interact with them when they start their day. I think I might try this morning thang for a little while. Now if only I could get my entire team to follow suit.:)