Nevertheless, I didn’t go out and party. I haven’t made any resolutions. This holiday season I’ve avoided mistletoe and been unable to procure eggnog. The fact that tomorrow I’ve got a 24-hour shift starting at 0900 has something to do with it, but I suppose I’m also just naturally Grinch-like.

2010 has always seemed an unimaginably futuristic time. Now that it’s begun, I suppose I’ll have to recalibrate my expectations. Hopefully the year is wonderful for all of you.

The citizens of the US have wanted for years to get out of Iraq. The citizens of Iraq want to know when we’ll leave. The war actually becomes illegal on the New Year. Yet despite all this, McCain plans to keep US troops there until they have “establish[ed] a stable, prosperous, and democratic state in Iraq that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists.” He doesn’t come right out and say “indefinitely,” or “forever,” but that’s more or less what it comes down to.

Staying in Iraq is ridiculously expensive. We are in a recession. Osama bin Laden’s stated strategy four years ago was to drive the US into bankruptcy. I can’t help but think that it has succeeded more than our efforts to catch him have.

We’ve been in this situation before. The lessons should have been learned: a nation, even our nation, can lose a war even if it wins every major engagement. Sometimes the only reasonable option is to concede defeat and go home.

I can’t help but get angry that Bush has kept us in this war; I am furious at the notion that we might invade Iran. The fact that McCain still enjoys 40% in the polls worries me, because I can’t imagine what mindset it would take to support him. This war is costing more than we can afford. We’re already suffering consequences from the overspending. It takes nothing but to keep up with the news to know this; it’s not that hard to put the causes and effects together. Regardless of any other issue, anyone who wants to see this country prosper should vote against McCain. Voting for him just takes money out of your own pocket.

I have pictures, and I have stories to tell. Unfortunately, right now I’m running near the edge of exhaustion; all of these things will have to wait until later. I’m going to try to stay up late enough to greet the new year at its moment of arrival, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll succeed.

My holidays have been extremely nice. I can only hope that life has been treating the rest of you as well this holiday season.

If you’re not concerned with the intricacies of English grammar, but are interested in what’s going on, as of the week before Christmas I am dating a very nice girl who lives very far away. Our schools aren’t that far apart, though, so I’m hoping that we can maintain a viable relationship for a nontrivial length of time. My vocabulary is really getting away from me tonight.

Happy New Year to all of you; I won’t be around my computer to wish it then.

As for me, I’m going to sleep in a few minutes. “Why?” you ask. It is because I have a flight at Logan tomorrow morning, and I’m getting up at 0600 to be there in time to catch it…

So, sometime tomorrow I will end up in Texas. To embark on a week of stuff.

Yeah. Happy new year, have fun… I’ll be offline for the week, and I expect to have a healthy backlog of spam when I come back… ~800 messages is my guess…

And whatever you do, don’t go to Texas to try to find me. Because you won’t.