Old, so old

Just celebrated a minor milestone birthday a few days ago. Woohoo! A good friend flew up to visit--that was pretty awesome. Also had a great week at work. But I'm most looking forward to vacation in a couple weeks--Christmas with the family, New Year's in San Francisco with good friends. Gettin' a little stir crazy in this town!

My country has the highest incarceration rate in the world: one out of every 32 of our citizens is behind bars. We're ahead of China, Russia, anyone in the Axis of Evil, and any other "rogue state." Yet we keep hearing about how low the crime rate is. Hmm, there's a lot I don't know, but those trends don't seem to add up.

I'm only 2 months late picking up on this, but I would love to see Nancy Pelosi's 100-hour plan become a reality after the new Congress opens. I can see parts of it getting stalled in the Senate, but if it makes it that far, I can't see Bush vetoing a minimum wage hike, a reduction in student loan interest rates, or the 9/11 commission recommendations, among other things.