Surveys pointing to high civilian death toll in Iraq. Apparently we killed a lot more people than we had to in our rush to Baghdad. I suppose that's alright, though, since Saddam would have eventually killed just as many. After all, it's ok if we murder mass innocents to overturn a dictator who murders mass innocents. We're the good guys, right? Those mass graves we are finding, they make it all worth it. It doesn't matter that many of those people are in those mass graves because Bush Sr promised American support for an internal uprising a decade ago, then let Saddam butcher those people by ignoring his promise. Because Saddam killed them, not us (we just killed another few thousand), and we have finally come to the rescue (a decade too late). We're the good guys. Right.
Salam Pax has a bit more on the work of CIVIC, as he participated in one of the surveys. He even took some pictures, which you might be able to see if you are lucky and his blog actually loads.
And, strange, we still haven't found those Weapons of Mass Destruction. Did Bush lie to us? And, if so, why hasn't he been impeached for lying? After all, Clinton lied about his sex life and was impeached. Bush lied to start a war, I would think that's a far more serious crime. But no one but extreme liberals and peaceniks have brought up impeachment, and no one seems terribly serious about it at all. Why is that? Do we seriously consider a lie about someone's personal life to be a more severe crime than lying to justify an invasion of another country? Is our society that sick?
Oh wait! I know. It's because we're the good guys. Of course. That makes everything better.
Just to make this entry a little more fun, since I know I'm going to get slammed for having an opinion anyway, take a look at The Memory Hole Blog and see what that wacky Michael Moore is supposedly up to. Oh yeah, this will go over well with the Republicans. Somehow I doubt Moore has a case, but it'll be fun to watch him dance around and make a big deal of it.
The next item on The Memory Hole Blog is also interesting. It points out that Congress can release the information about 9/11 that Bush wants to keep secret, if enough congresscritters believe that information is in the public interest. The only reason I can think of to hide the findings is to mask the incompetence of the intelligence community, and I would think knowing that they are incompetent would be in the public interest. It would also shut up the conspiracy theorists, at least for a day or two until they found a new topic to harp on. Release those files, folks!
And The Onion is up to it's normal tricks with a fun article about a new law being passed while the nation is distracted by sports. Parental guidance advised for visiting these pages. After all, the Onion is a bit naughty.
A Federal District Court has struck down a law to prevent people from posting personal information about police on websites. If you haven't heard this one before, sit back. Bill Sheehan, a website designer, decided that the Kirkland police were harrassing him, so he set up a website with all kinds of personal information about the police, including their social security numbers and home phone numbers. The police naturally took issue, and sued him. Before the lawsuit could go through, the state passed a law to make it illegal to put up that kind of information. It went to court. The law has been deemed unconstitutional. And I've got mixed feelings about it. I sure would feel threatened if I were a police officer with all my personal information listed on Sheehan's site, but there are a lot of police officers who abuse their positions (just look at Tacoma right now). I think an appropriate website by Sheehan would have been a listing of police officers with ranks, and information on how to complain about them. Listing personal information, no matter how available it is, just seems childishly vindictive.
And, heck, since you all hate me now anyway, take a look at Cows With Guns, a flash animation done to the very odd song by Dana Lyons. The animator is Bjørn-Magne Stuestøl.
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