How screwy is this world?

Take a minute. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Open your eyes and scream at the top your lungs: Stop the insanity!

Item 1: The United States is going to build a new embassy in London. There has been no statement on what was wrong with the old embassy, just that we're building a new one.

The location for the embassy will be outside of Central London, and will have humongous trees, and ponds and natural barricades to keep terrorists out. Being it's England, there'll probably be peacocks roaming the grounds, along with black and white swans, and probably a small herd of those smallish animals the English like to call forest deer.

The official reason for why this country is building a new embassy is typical: "Just because." That's not the official reason given, but the accurate one.

The new building will cost $1 billion.

Good gosh, Maudie!

This country is drowning in red ink and we're spending $1,000,000,000 on a building in London? What is wrong with our leaders? What is wrong with us for electing the same yahoos over and over again?

Item 2: As a personal policy, every American can change this country overnight by going to the polls in November and refusing to vote for a single incumbent. Make a stand. If we don't do it now, we have no right to gripe and moan in the future.

Item 3: The military's don't ask, don't tell policy on gay soldiers is asinine, discriminatory and violates federal law. Personal opinions on the issue are the issue; the law is.

Army Chief of Staff George Casey believes that repealing the current shhhhhh policy could do harm to the military. He's paid to say that and he does a good job at parroting the military position for the past 200 years.

But Casey is missing a point: Gays have always served in the military; some have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. For decades, blacks were not allowed to serve in white units; women were not allowed to serve at all, and still today are "prohibited" from front line duty. Those rules did not keep these brave soldiers for dying for their country.

Discrimination in some form has always been a trademark of the military and it's current internal stance on gay soldiers is just wrong-headed.