I’m heading into the home stretch towards my trip to Europe. I can’t believe I’m leaving on Friday night! I haven’t considered packing yet, although I should probably give that some thought. Right now I’m kind of caught up on all of the things that need to get done before going–reality-type stuff like bill payments and banking.

I’m feeling mildly guilty about leaving customers while I’m away, but on the other hand, it’s summer, and people have to expect certain disruptions. The guilt is definitely manageable. I’ve set up webmail on the new server so I can check my messages from wherever. I’ll also bring my VOIP phone with me, so I can have a Hamilton phone number in Finland. That will be weird.

Lately I’ve been worried about the state of the world. It’s probably the first time ever that I’ve felt that things are not going to be okay, despite all of the horrible things that have been happening lately. This was brought on by the police shooting of that Brazilian guy in England. The only thing he was guilty of was running from the police, and for that he caught 7 bullets. It’s not his murder alone that bothers me, but the fact that this is the type of fear-laden society that is emerging. The hard and ignorant talk emerging from the mouths of our world “leaders” is frightening and depressing. Tony Blair, whom I had previously considered a reasonable man, says trying to understand the reasons for terrorism only justifies it, and he won’t do that. What is wrong with understanding? Or is he afraid to understand, because he doesn’t want to discover where the blame really lies? He dismissed the killing of thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians during the invasions of those countries, saying he was “deeply sorry for those deaths.” He continued to say terrorists aren’t sorry for the deaths they cause, so the Iraqi deaths are acceptable, while losses to terrorism are not. What? There’s some deeply disturbed logic at play there. Tony Blair might not think the invasion of Iraq has anything to do with terrorism attacks, but I’m willing to bet these numbers make extremists mad.

To add to things, Canadian Chief of Defence Staff, Rick Hillier basically paraphrased the speech given by Spottswoode in Team America: World Police, talking about the only reason terrorists hate the west is because they detest freedom and democracy. What?! At least the Spottswoode speech was meant to be a joke. Hillier was serious, and he’s in charge of our military. If anything’s going to cause a terrorist attack in Canada, it’s mentally stunted views like Hillier’s.

Anyway, I won’t dwell on it. I find myself getting angrier and angrier whenever I watch the news. Maybe ignorance is bliss.