Friday random thoughts

• WinCo Foods will come to Tracy after being OK'd by the City Council. Wal-Mart's SuperCenter is likely to follow suit, especially because it doesn't require a zoning change like WinCo did. Only problem is, Tracy needs WinCo a lot more than it needs a SuperCenter.

• How long will it be before folks start calling the new City Hall "Tracy's Taj Mahal"? (And yes, the Taj Mahal is a masoleum).

• A lot of folks (especially in the TP Web comments) defend the war in Iraq by saying: "If we pull out of Iraq, the terrorists will follow us home." Following this line of logic, we must either fight there until we kill all the terrorists so they can't follow us, or we must never leave, because if we do they'll simply follow. If you know anything about terrorism, you know that no one will ever be able to completely stamp out terrorism. Ever. So, what I guess these folks are saying is that we need to stay in Iraq until the Second Coming. Talk about defeatist.

• Will the city give the Tracy Press the e-mails of Suzanne Tucker, as it clearly should under the State Constitution, or will the city insist on wasting time and taxpayers' money by fighting what will certainly be a losing court battle?

• Mountain House residents seem like they're itching to form their own city. But with only two businesses in the whole community and only the possibility of more within a year, is this tract-home hamlet really going to be ready for independence as soon as residents want it to be?

• Britain says "quiet diplomacy" — not invasions, not guns, not bombs — secured the release of 15 sailors and marines from an often-hostile Iran. Was President Bush taking notes?

• I think it's a moral imperative that we provide every U.S. citizen with health care. But when folks make their point by giving children who don't know any better signs and marching slogans (look at the second picture) it really doesn't help the credibility of the cause.

• Randomest thought of the week: "Consistency: It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup."

• Calvin & Hobbes quote of the week: "There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it to make it even worse."

••• Attention all alert readers! You're probably wittier than I am. Send me your quips and outlandish quotes at jmendelson@tracypress.com. •••