I’m here in Chicago for the Adobe Max Conference. Four fun-filled days of tech classes and presentations.

While I’m here I have the pleasure of staying at an historic hotel, the Palmer House Hilton. That’s the lobby in the above photo. The rooms, unfortunately, are much more modern.

The conference actually begins tomorrow, but there was a nice welcome reception this evening with food and a few brief presentations. I cut out a little early to walk around near my hotel. I strolled through Millennium Park and snapped a few photos, which I’ll post tomorrow. For now, I shall rest.

I was watching a little late-night TV last night when this appeared on my screen:

• $350 returns one Jew
• $700 returns two Jews
• $1400 returns four Jews

I was nonplussed. Was this some neo-Nazi infomercial? Can people pay $1400 to have the Jewish family down the street deported?

Not exactly. It’s a program created by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews that assists Soviet Jews who want to relocate to Israel.

The plight of Soviet Jews, who suffered greatly under Stalin, is a tragedy, so it is certainly noble to provide them with financial assistance. Yet I can’t help but wonder if there is a motive other than charity involved in this Fellowship. Namely, the Rapture. The return of the Jews to Israel, is a sign, or perhaps in the minds of some, a trigger, for the Second Coming.

The establishment–and continuation–of the State of Israel is essential to set the stage for the imminent return of Jesus. At the time of the Second Coming, these Christians believe, Jesus will descend from heaven, subdue all of Israel’s enemies and take believers to heaven in what is known as the Rapture–literally, they will ascend to the clouds to be in heaven. This series of events ushers in the end-times. According to conservative Christians’ reading of the Book of Revelation, this won’t happen unless Israel exists in the Holy Land.

So what happens once your sponsored Jewish family arrives in Isreal and triggers the End Times? According to Dominionist belief “all Jews who do not convert to Christianity supposedly will be incinerated as the believers are lifted into heaven.”

For the unincinerated who are left behind, I have excerpted the following financial advice from The Post Rapture Survival Guide.

The debit card will become the tool for all personal financial transactions. However, at some point after the rapture, probably right after the two witnesses are killed, everyone will be required to get a mark on their right hand or forehead in order to buy and sell. Do not, do not, do not under any circumstances participate by receiving this mark. All those who receive this mark known as “the mark of the beast” are doomed for eternity. By taking this mark you are swearing allegiance to the anti-christ.

I can see the marketing campaign now. Capital One: What’s stamped on your forehead?

Sharyl bought me the new Tegan and Sara album, The Con, several weeks ago. It’s been in my CD player ever since. I’m digging this record even more that their previous release, So Jealous. And I liked that one a lot.

It makes sense that I would enjoy it so much. Just do the math: 14 songs in 36 minutes. That’s just over two and a half minutes per song. With lots of keyboards, guitars and layered vocals, each song is like a little nugget of pop perfection, giving you just enough to make you want another.

Basically, this CD is like a 14 piece McNugget with honey as the dipping sauce.

Enjoy “Back in your Head.”

Way back in January when President Bush announced that the U.S. military was going to surge troops in Iraq, I was skeptical and wrote and overly long post about it. This week brings about the much anticipated surge progress report in the form of Congressional testimony from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

The idea of the surge, as President Bush explained, was to increase our military presence from roughly 130,000 troops to 160,000 in order to give Iraqi politicians breathing room to make progress on national reconciliation legislation. So, drum roll please, is the surge working?

Both officials said they believed that Iraq was on the path to potential success. Petraeus said that “the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met.” Crocker was similarly optimistic: “In my judgment, the cumulative trajectory of political, economic and diplomatic developments in Iraq is upwards, although the slope of that line is not steep.”

From what Petraeus says, it sounds like our troops are doing their job. But Crocker isn’t as convincing when discussing the political progress which is the point of the troop surge. On the political front, Petraeus was more straightforward in his letter to the troops.

Many of us had hoped this summer would be a time of tangible political progress at the national level as well. One of the justifications for the surge, after all, was that it would help create the space for Iraqi leaders to tackle the tough questions and agree on key pieces of “national reconciliation” legislation. It has not worked out as we had hoped.

Anyway, what this all boils down to is that 160,000 troops have lead to an arguable increase in security which, according to our Ambassador has lead to a slight up tick in political progress. It seems to me, then, that it would be logical to conclude that we could amplify this effect by adding more troops. Why only secure a few provinces and put up with slow political progress when we could secure the entire country with an additional 100,000 troops, theoretically making it easier for Iraqi leaders to get their shit together at a greater pace?

But that’s not going to happen. Tomorrow the President will announce that the surge was successful and therefore he will authorize the withdrawal of 30,000 troops from Iraq, putting our force level back where it was before the surge. Will we not be right back where we started?

Since (1) I’ve been bogged down with work lately, (2) burned out on silly political shenanigans, and (3) it’s been too hot to garden, I haven’t blogged in a long while. So first off, apologies are due to my regular reader.

But now I’m reasonably caught up at work. Larry Craig has been pushed off the front page by Britney Spears’ VMA performance. And the oppressive heat of another south Louisiana summer has given way to cool autumn evenings. (Just kidding; that won’t happen until December.)

We now return to regularly intermittent blogging.