We pretty much took out anyone who was in there being stupid

An American MP, quoted in the Daily Telegraph about the bombing of a village near Fallujah: “We were supposed to wait until today, but we got pissed off and decided to draw a line. We pretty much took out anyone who was in there being stupid.”

Increasingly, I’ve been hearing US military types using one of those phrases that US military types don’t realize sound creepy to the rest of us: “breaking the will” of the enemy. Of course democracy, which those same military types are supposed to be bringing to Iraq by means of curfews, sieges and free-fire zones, is defined (by Rousseau) as the expression of the general will (volonte generale). At the same time, we’re trying to reintroduce into positions of power people whose political will was already broken, those who were “members in name only” of the Baathist party. See, they were just going along with all the persecution and executions and, ya know, evil, during the Saddam years not because they supported all that stuff, but so that they could advance their careers, and those are just the sort of people we need to make freedom and democracy flourish. I don’t have the energy to work the phrase “banality of evil” into this paragraph, so let’s all just assume that I did.

Did you know that the Australians invented streaking? Exactly 30 years ago. We got funny pictures.

Evidently the newest trend in the world’s largest democracy is candidates who just happen to have criminal charges pending against them, 20% in Bihar according to “activists,” and yes, the Guardian should have checked that out before running the story.

Don’t you hate it when decent institutions like game shows are perverted from their higher calling--greed?

Reuters: “A Kuwaiti court has set a precedent by approving the request of a man who had a sex-change to have his gender officially registered as female, on the grounds that he had suffered physically and psychologically since childhood because of his hormonal imbalance.” Does that mean s/he’ll no longer be allowed to vote?