A gut feeling

Remember the 4 mercenaries who were killed in Fallujah and strung up on the bridge, giving the US an excuse to besiege and bomb the city? Their families are suing the “security” company that employed them, Blackwater, and now Blackwater has counter-sued for $10 million, claiming that the lawsuits violated the dead men’s employment contracts. Kenneth Starr is involved in this in some way I’m not clear on.

In Basra, British military spokesmodel Major Chris Ormond-King told reporters that he had absolutely no evidence of Iranian arms, money, or anything else in the region but “As a gut feeling we know there is Iranian influence.” Hey, we’ve invaded countries on less than that!

Speaking of gut feelings, Hugo Chavez says that the Venezuelan telecom company CANTV has been spying on him on behalf of “the empire” (whether the United States or CANTV’s part-owner Verizon, he didn’t say). Sigh. Of course it might be true, it might very well be true, but I like for accusations like that to be accompanied by some scintilla of proof. Chavez plans to nationalize CANTV along with... well, we’ll have to see what else he’ll nationalize, because he’ll do it all by decree power, which he claims is a “completely democratic process,” and I know some of you will explain to me in comments how it really is a completely democratic process and I can’t wait for that. To me the fundamental restructuring of a nation’s economy should follow an open national debate involving representative institutions, but what do I know?