March 21, 2008 - Today is Good Friday. I didn't make it to mass, but I did abstain from meat, which means I made it all the way through Lent with only 1 Friday eating meat. Not too shabby. Ellie and I had a cheese pizza for dinner, and then she was ready to go to sleep after a long week. Mike came over for a turbo round of disc golf over at Taylor, and then he wanted to get something to eat, so we went down to the Red Lion on Indian Rocks Beach. I had a beer while he had his dinner. On the way home, we stopped at TJ's House of Sweets to get a slice of cake for Ellie. I'm going to turn my Presidential Issues discussion to Israel. I don't really understand our relationship to Israel. We have such an allegiance to protecting Israel, for unclear reasons. On the surface, it looks like we support Israel because of the result of what the Germans did to the Jewish people. But why would we be continuing to support and subsidize their country today, well beyond the level of support we give to other allies, especially to an ally that has their own financial means of supporting themselves? I believe that our support began during the Cold War as a way of protecting our interests against the Soviets. When Israel was first formed, the first two countries to recognize Israel were the US and the Soviet Union. The US realized that Israel's prime location in the middle east would be an excellent staging ground for military forces in the event of an attack on the Soviets. We had access from the East through the Pacific Ocean, the North through the Arctic Sea, but we had no Southern or Western access. Israel would be an excellent site for staging our troops and equipment. But as the Cold War has folded, why do we continue to support Israel? During the Cold War, in exchange for their cooperation, we provided Israel with tremendous amounts of military support. Israel basically knows all of our military secrets. They have access to every weapon we've produced, every plane, every tank, they know all about our capabilities. If we were to sever ties with Israel, they could take all of this information to other countries. As powerful as we are, Israel owns us because we've shared too many secrets with them. And today Israel is proving to be a wonderful staging ground for operations in the middle east as we tackle the 'axis of evil'. I think the US needs to re-evaluate our role in playing international dictator and focus on domestic issues and national security. We have two great allies in Canada and Mexico, plus two vast oceans. We don't need to take the fight to the enemy, we need to secure our borders and start spending our valuable resources on improving the quality of life of our lower and middle class.