Chris Rock on the War and Gas Prices

We invade a country with oil but gas costs more? That don't make no f@#$ng sense..... If I invade Kentucky Fried Chicken, wings will be cheap at my house.

If Iraq was so dangerous how come it took only two weeks to take over the whole f^%$& country? Shit. Man, you couldn't take over Baltimore in two weeks.

Forever

I just finished The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, a NY Times reporter who has spent more time in Afghanistan and Iraq than anyone probably should. The book is brutally violent and brutally honest and attempts to convey the terrific complexities of ever shifting alliances. It doesn't sentimentalize the soldiers nor their leaders and speaks not at all of the feckless politicians who sent them there.

The story about Lance Corporal William Miller is heartbreaking. Just doing his job, helping two reporters do theirs. 22 years old, shot dead walking up stairs a million miles from Pearland, Texas. Just where we sent him, doing what we asked him to do.

It is amazing how little we really know and understand about what is going on there. John McCain ain't the only one. Shiite vs. Sunni is the least of it. Iraqis being paid by the American not to fight, killing each other for the age old reasons---power, money, religion, oil, revenge, and all of the above. Kidnapping children and torturing fellow Iraqis and blowing up American kids we send there to kill them.

Interesting to note that today's Times has an article by Dexter about how things have changed for the better at least in some parts of the country and by some measures.

Thankfully, there are still some reporters out there, outside the Green Zone, in the real Iraq who are willing to live among that misery to tell us what is happening, at a cost to themselves.

$17,000 an Hour

From Nicholas Kristof

"A study released a few weeks ago by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington found five major elements in the tax code that encourage overpaying executives. These cost taxpayers more than $20 billion a year. That’s enough money to deworm every child in the world, cut maternal mortality around the globe by two-thirds and also provide iodized salt to prevent tens of millions of children from suffering mild retardation or worse. Alternatively, it could pay for health care for most uninsured children in America."

Of course we could. We choose not to. BTW, the market is up above where it was Monday. Those of us worried about our 401k's are ok as long as we're not retiring tomorrow; the CEO's will be just fine, thanks. They may be a little less rich today. Boo hoo.

Choice

"Not knowing in my own heart if I was going to be ready to embrace a child with special needs...I couldn't talk about it." Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin made a thoughtful and brave choice in bringing a child with special needs into the world. Her daughter made the choice to raise a child at 17. Many other women make another choice, with the same amount of doubt and pain and thought.

All women are pro-choice when confronted with those circumstances. Gone is the age when women had no choice. No one wishes to have to make it. I know no one who has who didn't struggle and agonize and remember.

Headline(s) of the Day

Sarah Palin Hires Lawyer

Sarah Palin's daughter, 17, pregnant

Sarah Palin highly unqualified to be president, therefore unqualified to be vice president.

The choice of Sarah Palin is highly insulting to women who are qualified and those who would not vote for an unqualified woman just because she's a woman.

John McCain is quickly running out of rope.