If you're going to die anyway, would you mind just BUYING SOMETHING first?

From the BBC

From Fox News:
Teacher's Aide Contesting One-Year Suspension for Wearing Cross to School

Now that's just stupid---and how like the public schools. "Everything not forbidden is compulsory."

Oh, woe, woe...I really hope Mohammad Said al-Sahaf didn't kill himself. I miss him. I hope, in the words of the Mystic Dolphin, that he'll open a chain of "Baghdad Bob's Kebabs" in the US, and live happily ever after. "Your stomach will be their tomb!" I can almost hear him say...

If I didn't piss off enough people with the anti-democracy rant, let's Privatize our schools next!

This from our own government: USPS regulations forbid the sending of non-Islamic items to our own troops in Iraq: includes bibles, pork, naughty pictures. This really pisses me off. Thanks to lgf where I read it...

Now hear this! Just another democratically elected government, eh? Wasn't Somalia a democracy? How about Germany prior to WWII? What can we make of Nigeria Right Now?



Under cover of war, Mugabe unleashes a new reign of terror
By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa Correspondent
19 April 2003

Hidden from a world whose gaze has been fixed on Iraq, a full-scale reign of terror has been unleashed on opponents of the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Zimbabweans were arrested and tortured as Mr Mugabe, apparently taking advantage of the lull in international scrutiny, stepped up his campaign of repression during the three weeks of the United States' war on Saddam Hussein.

This editorial in the Opinion Journal is a winner as far as it goes---the question being how well democracy will "take" in Iraq, since no Islamic country in the region is considered "free" by Freedom House. (I have no idea who they are, or what criteria they use either)


To me it misses the point, which is, why really do we pretend that we like democracy? We don't HAVE one, just ask Al! At best a minority of us elect a still smaller, tiny minority, who then accept millions of dollars in campaign contributions and vote the way they want. Then they come back in a few years and tell us what a fine job they've done. Who will be allowed to vote in Iraq's shiny new democracy? Women too? Who decides, us?