Top 10 Things Which Have Recently Blown My Mind

1. A Colin Powell aid says the Bush administration used torture to procure evidence for a link between Iraq and Al Quaeda. Let me run that by you again. An aid to Colin Powell said the Bush administration used torture to justify a link between Iraq and Al Quaeda. Not to find terrorists, foil terrorist plots, or "save lives." To confirm claims the administration used to justify the Iraq war to the American people. If you are skeptical regarding whether waterboarding is torture, you should know the U.S. convicted Japanese WWII POW's of torture for waterboarding our soldiers.

2. General Patreus has stated that the United States violated the Geneva Conventions. Patreus: "I don't think we should be afraid of our values we're fighting for, what we stand for... When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those." I couldn't agree more.

(For more on this, here's a great post by a friend of mine.)

3. A U.S. missile cruiser mistakenly shot down a Iranian civilian passenger airplane in 1988, killing all 290 passengers on board, including 66 children. The U.S. cruiser was in Iranian waters and the plane was in Iranian airspace. In 1996 the U.S. paid Iran $61.8M in a settlement brought before the International Court of Justice regarding the matter. The U.S. has never admitted responsibility or apologized to the Iran government. In fact, Vice President George H. W. Bush stated regarding the incident, "I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever, I don't care what the facts are." The cruiser's crew was awarded Combat Action Ribbons upon returning to the U.S.

4. In 2004 a welder in Granby Colorado, frustrated by the outcome of a zoning dispute which destroyed his business, built a homemade tank in his garage and went on a rampage, destroying buildings belonging to members of the city council.

5. China - the country we are all supposed to be so incredibly afraid of because they own so much our debt and could wage financial warfare on us one day - owns a measly 6.5% of the U.S. national debt. 73% is owned by ourselves. Hat-tip to Drew on this one.

6. Number six, well, you see, number six was going to be that my former governor Mark Sanford is suing the SC General Assembly after they overrode his budget vetoes, requiring the state to take $350M in federal bailout money - after Sanford, in my opinion, spent the last 6 years bankrupting the state. But then this happened.

7. 700 NYC teachers are being paid to do literally nothing. Because union rules and tenure make it incredibly hard to fire a teacher in NYC, teachers accused of wrongdoing from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being placed in rooms and paid their full salary to sit and do nothing while they await their hearings - which can take over a year. This costs NY taxpayers an estimated $65M a year. It's happening in other cities as well, such as Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

8. Illegal drugs account for 8% of world trade.

9. As of 2000, suicide outnumbered homicide in the U.S. 5 to 3.

10. In 2007, medical bills were the leading cause of bankruptcy. Since 2000, average wages in the U.S. have increased by 3%, but health insurance premiums have increased by 58%.

Honorable mention: 24% of the homeless population is employed.