If By "Mission" You Mean "Dreadful Quagmire With No End In Sight," Then Yes, It Truly Has Been Accomplished Tomorrow will mark the one year anniversary of George W. Bush appearing on the deck of an aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit to announce the end of the Iraq war. Statistics buffs will note that, in fact, May 1 2003 actually marked the end of the phase of the war where relatively few people got killed and ushered in the current phase, where quite a bit more people get killed.
Paul Wolfowitz, Mathlete Oh, like you never forgot something minor, like your aunt's birthday, or where you left your keys, or roughly how many Americans have needlessly died because of an insane foreign policy you helped create. Paul Wolfowitz, the number two man in the Pentagon, was asked this week by a Democratic congresswoman how many Americans have died in the Iraq war. "It's approximately 500, of which — I can get the exact numbers — approximately 350 are combat deaths," he responded. Ooh, sorry, Paul! Now you lose your chance at the lightning round! No, the correct answer is 727 deaths, exactly 521 of which came in combat (that's as of this afternoon). Hey, look, before you get all bent out of shape, Paul Wolfowitz is a busy man. He's got things to do, like plan the invasion of Iran. He can't get all bogged down in insignificant details how many people die as a result of his ideological wet dreams, so just back off, okay?
An Answer for the Sikh Geek Already! In his excellent post about our army's weird nude tortures, the Sikh Geek wondered what would happen when Arab stations pick up these disturbing images. Well, apparently we're going to find out: Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya both led their newscasts today with the footage. My guess: Muslims the world over see the footage, shrug, and switch over to "Everybody Loves Raymond." I'm George Bush and I approved the last sentence of this post.
I Went to Grad School With This Guy! Yes, during a dark and strange period of Consider Arms' life, he spent a semester of grad school at the University of Massachusetts. One of his fellow students was a fiery, intelligent left wing student from Puerto Rico named Rene Gonzalez, who has now made the national news by penning a column in the Daily Collegian calling Pat Tillman an idiot, or "pendejo." Rene has apparently gone "into hiding" as a result of the furor, which perhaps illustrates a valuable lesson for my old comrades in the grad department: The country is not Amherst.
Today's "Thank God It's Friday" Special
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Good news, troops! Now you can get patriotically-transmitted VD! This, in case you're keeping score, is the latest sign that Western civilization is in an irreversible decline.
-Consider Arms, Grad-School Dropout (Although Not Currently In Hiding)
