Crumpet does Hot Pot

Crumpet, Big A, Gracie & Da Mao does Hot Pot at the Szechuan Bistro (212 N 85th St, Seattle, WA 98103. 206-781-1818)

One of three hot pot places we've found and the first one we tried. Very authentic Szechuan style hot pot with excellent broth. Decent meat selection (lamb, beef, pork & tripe) but veggies could have been better and no seafood choices. NOTE - the food here is very spicy!

Brief observtions of current events:

- World Baseball Classic. Just fantastic to watch. US millionaires losing to Canadian journeyman is probably a fluke, but a good wake up we're only as good as how hard we play

- Guantanomo Bay Prisons. What's going on here? By setting up an off-shore concentration camp where we hold prisoners without representation, charges or evidence is a serious issue. Attorney General Gonzalez defended US' decision to offer the prisioners legal counsel by pointing out German POWs during WW II didn't get legal counsel. Yes, however those Germany soldiers were also protected by the Geneva Convention which US has clearly said we do not follow. By all accounts most of the people held prioner at Guantanomo are nothing more than dirt farmers and in fact most of them have been proven by the Defense Department as having no connections to Al Qaeda or the Taliban what so ever. So why are they not released? I think the fear on our side is ''what if'' one of these guys released turned out to be a suicide bomber in the future? Who will take that responsibility? It's an argument straight from the sci-fi pages of Philip K Dick (whose short story was adopted into the movie Minorty Report where pyschics prevent ''future crimes''.

At least that's an debateable idea. Torture is just plain wrong and not effective. US officials has admitted to evidence (most caught on video) of US military torturing prisioners with urinating, covering them with menstrual blood, electrocution, leaving them overnight in freezers with only shorts on, beating until vomiting blood and holding crucifixes and telling them we christians are here to kill them muslims.

Just how do you think I will explain these actions to my daughter when she grows up?

- Dubai port deal. Fascinating. In a world where everything is scripted by Karl Rove here is something that unfurled at real time with unexpected consenquences. Whether US ports should be and can be handled by foreign nationals is, again, an interesting debate. However that rational debate never took place because passion and anti-terror fear torpedoed it. Bush blamed it on politics and exenophobia and for once he may be right. What I think Bush does not grasp is that he created that result by constantly reminding Americans over the last 4 1/2 years that we're at war with terrorist from the middle-east and our enemies are out here to destroy us. Is it any wonder why ordinary Americans are scared?