Saturday

Spent most of the day competing for space near the heater with my cat (he's winning) and reading various postings. Ben Tripp has a good article on Counterpunch:

"Terrorism is running rampant the world over. Meanwhile, in America (you remember that place) we've given up huge chunks of our liberties, our economy is looking lively as a corpse with farded cheeks, the visible holes plugged with mortician's wax; we've got a deficit so big that like a black hole or Donald Rumsfeld's ass it will suck all matter into itself."

Check the rest of it here.

Via Mary via Atrios The Right Christians note : "[Bush aides] point out that Bush is writing [condolence] letters to each of the soldiers families instead of going to the services...[but] They are form letters. With the exception of the salutation and a reference to the fallen soldier in the text, the letters the families shared...are all the same...Bush does sign them all personally. But it would be more accurate to say he is sending all the families letters, a practice that goes back many presidents."

Feel free to look at the article itself--you can judge whether my ellipses are acceptable, unlike those Charles Krauthammer used in his column on Howard Dean.

Someone commenting at BigLeftOutside linked to an excellent article by The Black Commentator on the state of the media, the Democrats running for President, and Civilization in general. Called Two Civilized Men Among the Barbarians, it was written in October, but worth looking at--I read it twice:

"Measured by the most minimal standards of the modern, industrial world, only two of ten Democratic candidates for President passed civilized muster at the September 25 debate in New York City: Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Rev. Al Sharpton. The rest of the field, to varying degrees, fail to even comprehend modern assumptions of what it is to be human, living among other humans."

And continuing on the perspective theme, here's something from last month from Bad Attitudes and a link to Back to Iraq regarding Team Bush's sudden concern for human rights in Iraq:

"Of all Bush's justifications for invading Iraq, the most cynical and repellent is his entirely ahistorical one that he did it in the service of human rights."

And, from Christopher Allbritton:

"there is no evidence so far that Saddam was filling graves with hundreds of thousands when he was Public Enemy No. 1. Instead, the evidence points to him filling them when he was an ally of America. Until other or more recent evidence shows up, supporters of the war should realize that by pointing to these graves as justification for invading Iraq and causing the actual deaths of tens of thousands, many of them civilians, they're pointing out that the United States, too, has the blood of Saddam's victims on its hands. Anyone want to bet the Iraqis don't know this?

And, because it's Saturday and I'm lazy, this became my excuse for not taking care of any one of many chores on my list--Timshel posted a link to a text based computer game based on a Hamlet theme. If wasting time paid an hourly wage, I'd be a millionaire.

Oh--speaking of wasting time, watched the Chimp in Chief's Home Depot talk on C-Span. Bush said he thought about buying a chain saw while there, a fitting prop for the massacre he's perpetrated upon--hell, just about everything he gets his grubby little fingers on.