2000 isn't going to go out with boring news stories.

Bin Laden has said in his video taped speech that the entire goal of September 11th was to destroy the American economy.  He said our economy is great but fragile.  How right he is about that.  Bin Laden has successfully made over 400,000 Americans loose their jobs since 9-11 and made Americans very unsure about spending their money in the most important quarter of the year for retailers.

Meanwhile President George W. Bush formally gave China it's long awaited PNTR or Permanent Normal Trading Relations status.  This is giving China what it shouldn't deserve.  China is a frequent violator of human rights, democracy (remember the Tieanneman Square massacre?), aggression again Taiwan, a country who has several nuclear weapons pointed right at the California Coast, making and distributing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and suspected of stealing nuclear weapon secrets from Los Alamos.

Funny, we go to war against countries for this same reason (remember Afghanistan for the terrorism/ WMD and Iraq for attacking other countries?) but when that country provides our country with the most consumer goods (like China) we look the other way.

A glimmer of hope, however, came today.  A child who was stolen from a bus depot on Christmas was found and the kidnapper arrested.  There is hope out there yet.