It's the 23rd, it's too late for Bush to pull Osama out of some blackops prison somewhere and say "We got 'im! Toldja!"

It's 1984 all over again, only this time it ain't fiction.

I've seen enough body bags with Americans inside. Maybe someday so will everyone else.

Is 9am Monday too early for a sarcastic reply to a smug blog comment?

OK, maybe later.

Never too early. Besides, I'm in Paris and it's 6:25pm. Been up for an entire day, slaving over a hot computer.

I like the idea of a "Smug Blog".

Amy, fer Chrissake, if you're go to go to the trouble of flying to Paris and hanging out with Robert Fucking DeNiro, don't tell us you're wasting your time with work. It corrupts the whole fantasy. We imagine you in a beret, smoking cigarettes backwards at an outdoor cafe on a street that's twelve feet wide, sitting in a wooden chair with bad posture, doing that poochy french thing with your lips and talking to people from exotic lands about how "The text has no *meaning*..." as Brel and Piaf warble from the dishwasher's radio.

> I've seen enough body bags

Okay, let's define your terms. (I first saw "Define your terms" in a Feiffer cartoon in the 1960's, and then Julia Phillips used it in "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again" while picking fights with studio executives. It demonstrates a willingness to be a relentless asshole in pursuit of a trivial rhetorical point. Game on! Here we go!)

Do you think George Bush likes to kill people? Do you think he's mismeasured human life? Do you think he's so rich he doesn't think poor soldiers and dim Iraqis want to live, too? Has it occured to you that that the "1984" title was a clever marketing decision by a gifted author to give his readers some way to measure civilization's achievements across their own middle and and senior years? And that the horrors described didn't actually appear in the lives of free men, except in the fantasies of their weaker, technocratic members? Do you really think your own personal Rogerian perceptions are that special?

Honey, what *exactly* are you trying to say?

Gee... maybe I've misspoken myself. Hopefully we can achieve "peace with honor". We've done it before.

A history professor from days gone by once described the purpose of the US government, as defined by the constitution, in three simple statements. "Deliver my mail, protect my shores, and stay the hell out of my business". How are we doing?

Cid,

No, yes, yes, no, no, yes.

Honor ain't an issue. Is there anything less honorable than our previous Iraq policy? I think this was invasion was an honorable gamble, even if the planning never happened. Nobody, anywhere, *ever*, has offered a theory of what should have happened in Iraq, or what we could have done to make history go better. Bush's worst enemies, despite his blinding incompetence, haven't offered a critique beyond saying "He fucked up!" They can't even say why: Like Roger, they smirk a lot and let the rest of try to understand exactly what they have in mind. There's a *reason* people answer essay questions with grunts...

Helloyrk - this is just a testing, don't worry about it

http://znakinet.blogspot.com izwjxom