Today's Weather

Partly dazzling, with fluffy white clouds that occasionally turned brooding gray. Cooler than a healthy dogs nose. In the evening, the crescent moon a wink, or a grin. Later, frogs and showers, but not showers of frogs. Light snow is a possibility later tonight, requiring tea and biscuits.

In other news, here is Just Above Sunset, an online magazine featuring (among other things) many current photographs of Los Angeles and vicinity (they used that phrase on the news when I was a kid and, until I was about five years old, I wondered where Vicinity was and why we never visited that mysterious place.)

Also: Fafblog is supposed to be the world's only source for Fafblog, Alas that Fafblog is green, and gazing upon its page causes blindness. Thus, I am making a recent amusing Fafblog post appear here, to save everyone's sight. If Fafblog wishes to return to being the world's only source of Fafblog, I suggest that they go with plain black lettering on a plain white background. I will, of course, decently hide the stolen post behind a cut.

Fquently Asked Question

Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. For freedom! Recent intelligence informs us it is on the march.
Q. Hooray! Where's it marching to?
A. To set up a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and held in check by strict adherence to the laws of Islam.
Q. Huh! Freedom sounds strangely like theocracy.
A. No it doesn’t! It is representative godocracy, in which laws are written by the legislative branch, enforced by the executive branch, and interpreted by an all-powerful all-knowing deity which manifests its will through a panel of senior clerics.
Q. Whew! Is democracy on the march?
A. Democracy was on the march. Sadly, freedom and democracy were caught in a blizzard and freedom was forced to eat democracy to survive.
Q. It died as it lived: sautéed in garlic sauce with a side of scalloped potatoes.
A. Democracy is survived by sectarian violence and fanaticism. In lieu of flowers, please send a coherent exit strategy.

Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. Terror! By occupying Iraq we get Iraqis to fight us there so they won’t fight us at home.
Q. We’ve cleverly lured them to where they already were, only in terrorist form!
A. Now you’re catching on!
Q. What if we can’t kill all the terrorists in Iraq?
A. Then we’ll invade somewhere else and trick ‘em into attacking us there – only this time it’ll be someplace really far away where they’ll get stuck, like the ocean or the moon!
Q. I would totally watch Operation: Lunar Justice live on CNN!
A. Wolf Blitzer in a space helmet… it writes itself!
Q. There are more terrorists now than before the war. Is the occupation causing more terror?
A. Well, nobody can say for sure if that’s a man-made terror increase. It may just be a periodic shift in the natural terror cycle.
Q. Tell me more about this “not our fault” theory – I find it oddly compelling.
A. Like weather, terror is affected by seasonal fluctuations. The jet stream carries hijackers from continent to continent; El Niño causes suicide bombers to condense in the upper atmosphere. Is this affected by human activity or just part of a natural warming trend for terror? We just don’t know!
Q. Your ideas are boldly nonconformist, yet conveniently reaffirm my desire to do nothing. I like it!

Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. To remove Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Q. But he didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction.
A. Maybe. But in a sense, Saddam Hussein was a weapon of mass destruction.
Q. Well, that’s a pretty metaphorical –
A. And by that I mean his mustache was made of anthrax.
Q. Oh no!
A. His beret was stuffed full of yellowcake uranium! He detonated intercontinental ballistic missiles with the power of his brain! A half-kilo of Saddam Hussein could destroy ten city blocks when processed and rigged to a detonator the size of a baseball!
Q. I… I had no idea…
A. Now imagine if we’d let Saddam Hussein loose on the open market! Pakistani warehouses stockpiled with black market Saddam… North Korean Saddam reactors…
Q. Oh my god… Osama bin Laden would be putting together a suitcase Saddam bomb as we speak!
A: There but for the grace of war.

Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. To prevent the failure of the occupation of Iraq. If we pull out now the occupation will be a failure!
Q. Would it have been easier to have never occupied it in the first place?
A. Ah, but if we never occupied Iraq, then the occupation certainly would have been a failure, now wouldn’t it?
Q. [meditates for many years]
Q. Now I am enlightened.

Q. The reason we’re in Iraq seems to change every time I ask about it.
A. It’s always the same reason. It just mutates in response to different stimuli in different environments.
Q. Like the bird flu! Oh my god – is it the bird flu?
A. Are you scared of the bird flu?
Q. Yes! Thousands of diseased Chinese chickens could explode from my febrile lungs at any moment!
A. Then yes, the cause of the war is bird flu!
Q. Oh no! What can we do to stop it!
A. For today, we can occupy Iraq.
Q. But tomorrow it could mutate again – into another reason to occupy Iraq!
A. That’s just a chance we’ll have to take.