“Last throes”?

"You keep using that word. I do no' think it means, what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya


One of the many, many evils that the folksy, aw-shucks Animatronic Presidency of Ronald Reagan unleashed on the world was the idea that “anecdotes” mean anything. I found what may be the irreducably perfect distillation of that concept while I was making another midnight raid of the Wolcott Icebox --

(I’d like to say I was fresh out of adjectives and future perfect tenses and came around to see if Good Neighbor James could spare me a few, but that would be lying. And lying is wrong. I was, in truth, simply site-stalking. I was over there stuffing myself with verbal Poptarts and Vanilla Creme Brulée and juicy, juicy steaks, hanging around his bloghouse like the pig that I am, hoping he’d put some fresh-baked prose on the windowsill to cool.)

-- and found this via him...via...Kung Fu Monkey...via KFM’s friend Orac, which, if that isn’t some fancy, digital Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chancing, I don’t know what makes the sun to shine and the birds to sing.

The quote reads thus: “You rationalize it however you want, but that doesn't make it true. Or, as my friend Orac says 'The plural of anecdote is not data.'”

Fucking-A.

One hear’s tell that Reagan was always ready and eager to back up his innovative programs to fuck the poor to death and then fuck their corpses with some yellowing newspaper article. Something or other perhaps highlighting a Cadillac drivin’ welfare Queen that he’d snipped from the Sacramento Bee in 1962 (back before Texas overtook California as the leading exporter of criminally-inclined Fascist Republicans) and would produce it on-demand -- all damp with ass-sweat -- from his wallet like baby pictures whenever anyone suggested that maybe making war on the poor was something only a vicious, soulless prick would do.

Well, if it’s good enough for the Great Communicator, its certainly good enough for this humble sinner.

And here’s the article I think I’ll be clipping and hauling out like so many Protestant Theses whenever I need to hammer in some simple, home-truths about George Bush’s disastrous War in Iraq. That the least tragic thing it has done is riven the country into two camps -- those who are morally and philosophically in favor of the what-should-be-blindingly-obvious-propositon that taking the United States stupidly and precipitously into a war that has cost the lives of tens of thousands based on a freight-load of despicable lies is a Bad Idea...and those who for reasons I find almost unfathomable simply don’t care that for five years now their President and his men have dropped trou and taken a massive and fresh shit on their shining, moon-faces each and every day.

Bush’s Fundy Angels with Dirty Feces...who’s sickly-sweet, idolatrous love of Dear Leader is something I had only expected to see in my lifetime in newsreels of stolid Soviet peasants weeping over the body of Stalin. That such creatures as these are, in their millions, citizens of the Nation of Tom Paine and Ben Franklin is heartbreaking. An that these thralls tromp happily over the graves of Lincoln and Washington to vote for an inept, lying buffoon like Bush is sobering and saddening, but it’s only domestic.

However deep into the dunghill they choose to bury their pointy heads, and however loud they choose to crank up Rush to drown out the screams of their liberties and their children’s futures being Gitmo-ed at the hands of the liars they elected...the rest of the world, the Real World, the world outside the Fox/CNN/GOP/Rove-Novak bubble goes merrily along.

And that world – the world of causality and consequence -- hates these cocksuckers.

This from the NYT:

July 17, 2005
Bomber in Iraq Uses Tanker to Kill 58
By KIRK SEMPLE
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 16 - A suicide bomber in a fuel truck blew himself up beside a Shiite mosque on Saturday evening in a town south of Baghdad, killing at least 58 people and wounding 86, the police said.
...
Also Saturday, the American military command said that 11 American soldiers were under investigation on charges of assaulting Iraqi detainees shortly after their capture during what military officials said was an attack on a power plant in southern Baghdad.
Officials did not disclose the nature of the allegations but said none of the detainees required medical treatment for injuries.

In response to the allegations, the military took the extraordinary step of removing the soldiers' entire company, about 100 soldiers, from active duty while the investigation was under way, the military announced.
...
Also on Saturday, three British soldiers were killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb in Maysan Province, and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari led a high-level delegation to Iran for a three-day trip intended to mend relations.
...
After the January elections, Mr. Sadr gained control of the Maysan provincial council and broke off formal relations with the British command, Sheik Abdul Sattar al-Bahadli, a senior Sadr representative in Basra, said in a recent interview. "The British, who have the money, are not helping," he said.

The new Shiite-dominated government in Iraq has sought to mend ties with Iran and end tensions that peaked during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988. Prime Minister Jaafari's three-day visit is his first to Iran in his new official role.

During Saddam Hussein's rule, Iran was a haven for many Shiite opposition leaders, including Mr. Jaafari, and Iran was among the first to recognize the Iraqi government.
Iran promised last week to contribute $1 billion to Iraqi reconstruction efforts after Defense Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi of Iraq made a formal apology for the war crimes committed under Mr. Hussein and pledged not to allow Iraqi soil to be used for attacks against Iran.
...
The United States has accused Iran of meddling in affairs of Iraq, but the departing Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami, said last week that Iran did not want to export its Islamic revolution. In Iraq, he said, "Even though the majority of Iraqis are Shiite, we never allowed ourselves to impose our model on them."
...

I have to let the line, "The United States has accused Iran of meddling in affairs of Iraq," pass without comment. Because if I start laughing now, it won't be a nice laugh, I won't be able to stop until they take me away to the Happy Padded Place and whack me up with whatever Colin Powell used to use to make it though his work-week without projectile vomiting.

This is really Three! Three! Three! articles in one, but pause and consider that in one day – in one day – just about every single element that is causing this Faith-based clusterfuck to fly apart sounded off “Here, Sir!” on roll call.

...The insurgency are using tanker trucks now, and casually kill more people in an afternoon than died in London.

...There's more prisoner abuse, this time with a company of soldiers being taken off the line because of allegations of detainee abuse. A whole fucking COMPANY? I will defer to military experts to explain just how unbelievably bad the situation has to be to take 100 soldiers out of active service, but Jesus Christ Almighty? Were they hunting Iraqis for sport?

...Our allies the Brits get bloodied both literally and diplomatically.

...And to round out the day, the Administration’s Grand Iraqi Adventure – now shown so irrefutably to have been the calculated product of lies and fear-mongering that I have to wonder if there still a person left on the face of the Earth who would still defend the war on the grounds on which it was originally sold – is now succeeding in driving what’s left of Iraq straight into the loving arms of their traditional enemy; Iran.

All that’s missing from a making this a complete, record-breaking, one-day sweep is another heroic battlefield promotion for Ahmad Chalabi – this time, oh, I dunno, how does “Procurator of American Persia" sound? – and another jolly round of absolutely bald-faced lies from the Oval Office about how the insurgency in petering out and losing its nerve and running scared and down to just one guy, and that guy’s really a Saudi and doesn’t have any ammo left. And his dick just fell off. Oh, and the CIA knows exactly where he is.

If George Bush were saboteur -- the stone-cold, paid agent of a foreign power -- charged with destroying the military, demoralizing the public with polarization and lies, politically bankrolling the most extreme and hateful fringe groups to destroy our democracy from within, bankrupting our Treasury, ruining our international reputation and creating a militant, oil-rich China-friendly, Islamic Superstate that will burn with hatred for us like the heat of a thousand suns for the next ten generations...he could not have been more treasonously efficient in his work than he has been so far.

So I guess, “Mission Fucking Accomplished”, eh George?