so shrub spoke...

... and everything I wrote yesterday still applies -- you have to laugh or you'll end up bawling like a baby.

George W. Bush needs some new ideas, some new inspiration, perhaps a new job. In last night's televised press conference, a listless Commander-in-Thief gave us the same old-same old: that Iraq's a "direct threat" (which even many conservatives don't buy); that Saddam Hussein is delaying, "not disarming -- that's a fact" (let's see what Blix says); that Iraq's leader is thumbing his nose at the United Nations' authority; that the UN must support war; that the US doesn't need the UN's permission to attack anyway. Shrub says all of this twaddle makes his case, but last night, he did not appear convinced -- and he did not look particularly interested either.

But read this story of an encounter between a US military veteran and another man, chemist-activist Albert A. Hambidge Jr. Here is an excerpt from Hambidge's "The Wall," which chronicles a conversation between the author and the vet as they stand before the Vietnam Veterans' memorial in Washington, DC:

There weren't many people there; few visit during weather like this. As I walked by the panels, relishing the stillness, I came upon a man in fatigues. Though one of those floppy green hats covered his head, he seemed under dressed considering the cold. The area around him was devoid of wind and snow, as if the Wall created a sheltered harbor from the storm. He was staring at one panel, at a spot about chest high. Upon my approach, he said to no one in particular, "Goddamn bastards are doing it again." The sound of his voice startled me; I flinched, and stopped. He turned to look at me.

"We never learn, do we?" he asked. My quizzical look made him chuckle, and he continued as he turned back toward the Wall: "It never ceases to amaze me what we let ourselves be turned into cannon fodder for. We let ourselves get talked into all sorts of horror, and only after the body bags start piling up do we begin to wonder why."

We both knew he had my attention now. "Know how many names are here?" he asked. "Something like 50,000," I replied. "You make it sound like a goddamn statistic" he said, "There's Fifty Eight Thousand Two Hundred And Twenty Nine names on this Wall." He said the words slowly, enunciating each one. "Fifty Eight Thousand Two Hundred And Twenty Nine. Every one of them a son; a brother, or a father, a husband, a cousin, a lover, a neighbor, a friend. Fifty Eight Thousand Two Hundred And Twenty Nine boys brought home in boxes. For what? For fuckin' nothing. And now the bastards are gonna do it again."

A stronger case, n'est-ce pas? Read the piece in its entirety on the market-anarchy-themed site Strike the Root.

While you're at it, cyberpal and activist Lisa T. sent along a must-see op-ed that you, um, must see. Dig this bit about Bush:

He's clearly delusional.

The man who, through the country's apathy, ignorance, and blind trust, now wields the greatest power ever known to humankind, sees reality as a field of play where he is the biggest kid out there, or at least has the biggest stone to throw.

And part of the nightmare is that he is and he does.

Read the entire editorial by J. Rex Bounds & Lisa Walsh Thomas at resistance site America Held Hostile.

More ranting about the supposedly greatest nation in the world at All Facts and Opinions.