Tis the Season to Travel

This is the time of year when I do a lot of traveling. During this week I was in San Diego. It sounds nice but the weather was not great - rain and cold like Ireland. The people of San Diego welcome any rain they can get so they did not complain. Since I was use to the cold, I was going around in a polo shirt while the locals were wearing winter coats and gloves.

Being a frequent traveller I do have "status" with both my major airline and hotel. With the airline in particular, this is a huge help. When going standby for a pretty full flight like I did today, I was able to get a seat. The determination is based on your past year's mileage not how long you have been on the list. So someone could be put on the waiting list for 4 hours, but if a group of people come on the list 15 minutes before the planes leaves with a higher amount of frequent flyer mileage, the frequent flyers get it. It does not seem fair but those are the rules of the game.

In other news, the Middle-East seems like it is heading in to further turbulence. The US government's "surge" in Iraq does not seem like a winning strategy. In Iraq, the US does not have the cards to win and it is doubtful now that anything less than civil war will be the future. The US needs a strategy that is strictly aligned with its own strategic needs and that is politically viable. Even if the current strategy is designed to protect US interests, the Bush administration is rapidly running out of political capital needed to provide even a medium term sustainment of their strategy.

In Gaza, the Palestinians are on the verge of civil war. There is no going back in spite of the continuing peace talks between Hamas and Fatah. This will not end until only one political party is left standing. It is a tragedy that the Palestinian people must suffer through a civil war after all the violence in the past. I hope that the war is short and it is the last round of violence the Palestinians will have to endure.