Right, so General Petraeus is telling us that the surge in Iraq is working, which is interesting, since Rummy (who I thought was irrelevant even before he left office) has said Iraq is being “hampered” by failures in its government, but Afghanistan is a success.1
Meanwhile, according to a poll of Iraqis — you know, the people who actually live there — the surge is a failure.
These are mixed messages, and it’s understandable that one would wonder how to interpret them; conservatively, given the Bush administration’s track record on facts for the last seven years, I think the last thing we want to do is accept as valid anything they — or their mouthpieces — claim to be true.
Thus we have no reason to believe that Petraeus’s assessment of Iraq is in any way valid. He’s not offering any sort of documentary evidence to back up his claims; he’s only making claims and expecting them to be accepted because he says so. That’s not good enough with Bush; why would it be good enough with anyone else?
As for Rumsfeld: He thinks Afghanistan is a success. Whatever else he has to say on any subject after an assertion of that kind cannot be taken as valid. If Rummy tries to tell you the sky is blue, you’d better get out a colorimeter and double check it, on the wild chance it turned orange when no one was looking.
That leaves us with the people we’re supposed to be giving “God’s gift” of freedom to: The Iraqis themselves. And 70% of them believe the surge is a flop; and 60% believe that violence against US troops — which, remember, are viewed as invaders — is valid, acceptable and even desirable. Nearly 1 in 2 believe that the US should withdraw immediately.
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MSNBC passes along the “news” that Laura Bush will go under the knife Saturday. Tragically it’s not an assholectomy, so we’re still gonna be stuck with George; no, she’s going to have work done on some pinched nerves in her neck.
That might go a long way toward explaining the bizarre lack of ability her face seems to have; specifically, she always seems to smile all the time, but she never smiles with her eyes, and it’s really damn creepy.1 Used to be people made fun of Hillary Clinton for her pantsuit, and after a while she changed into other things. But apparently Laura Bush is tragically unable to change,2 afflicted with whatever malady drove poor old Jack Napier over the edge.
Check under the fold for photographic evidence of the truth of my assertions. Note how, from image to image, there’s a sort of emptiness around the eyes best described by Robert Shaw:
Lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eye. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white.
Oh wait, that’s from Jaws, isn’t it?
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There’s simply no way that we can extend the concept of tolerance to any practitioners of the following examples of egregious stupidity:
Officials at Nepal’s state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.
Yep, goat sacrifice. In order to “fix” a mechanical fault with an airplane. Fly Royal Nepal! Now guaranteed 99% exorcised! (Look after the fold for an ad they might run in the future.)
(H/T Pharyngula)
Next we have this lovely little bit of coverage from Fort Lauderdale, FL, whereat asshat mayor Jim Naugle is still failing to recognize his own irrelevance. Extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian shitbrains were siding with Naugle (and vice-versa) … dressed in masturbatory paramilitary uniforms. Apparently the “persecuted minority” Christians at Koinonia Worship Center in Pembroke Park, FL have decided they need to arm up and take the line “onward, Christian soldiers” a bit too damned seriously.
Gee, I wonder what would happen if similar behavior was observed at the local mosque.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be a roundup of religious retardation without yet another murder burning at the stake execution of witches:
Two South African women have been burned to death after a group of students accused them of bewitching their high school with evil spirits.
We’re putting up with this shit … why again, exactly?
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As a pre-adoptive candidate parent, I was encouraged to write a letter to my (still unknown) prospective child. The idea behind this is obvious: I must delineate, as best I can, why I want to be a father; while superficially the letter might be a kind of commercial promoting myself as a parent, the real purpose is to expose, to me, what my motivations are.
I’m not ashamed of my motivations. I want to be a dad. I recently moved from my old, cramped apartment to a larger, split-level townhome to make room for my son, whomever he might be; but there’s just so much you can do with rent, bedrooms and such before you have to really look inside and analyze what you’re up to and why.
There’s stuff in here that’s intensely personal; but I’m not much of a one to mask real feeling when it’s sincere — and the letter is probably mature in many ways, but bear in mind it will be read by a kid who has been terribly torn by life’s sodomy, a boy well-acquainted already with the fluid bleeding nature of pain; how do you condescend to such a child, how do you try to paint a picture of endlessly blue skies, endless green meadows, and fuzzy bunnies forever? That’s bullshit, and a boy aged five to ten or so, up for family-shattered adoption, is well aware of that.
Kids, even young, even in ideal families, can smell lies at a thousand yards. The worst thing you can do, the quickest way to lose their trust, is to utter the tired, false phrase everything will be okay. You don’t have to be a parent to know that’s true; you just have to know a few kids.
So here’s my draft to Yoshi.
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