I Ate Us

Major rehashing of the last two years’ work this past week; it’s been tough to find time to play legos with Froz Junior, much less keep up-to-date on daily events. Thanks, Apostropher, for carrying the full load.

But Damn, heading into a new workweek there have been some startling new developments. This Paul O’Neill turning on Bush, while offering nothing particularly surprising, has got to be grounds for the worst kind of Rove-Wrath imaginable. Expect smear the likes of which you’ve never seen. It’ll be interesting to see which Dem presidential hopeful will be able to capitalize on it most. I suspect Clark (and to a lesser extent, Dean) can work the “Saddam from day one” meme and the Congresscritters can play up O’Neill’s courage in standing up (however unsuccessfully) to Dubya’s reckless taxcuts and deficit spending. Gotta think the foreign policy piece will get more attention. Wars and family vendettas trump fiscal policy in the sensationalism department. This oughta get interesting.

And keep an eye on this from Iran. If you thought last Summer's protests rocked the boat, the clerics banning one fourth of the candidates (including one-fourth of sitting parliamentarians seeking Reelection) in February national elections will cause serious unrest in the streets. Khatami, embattled, but generally not for being too radical of a reformer, is presently calling for legal appeals to solve the matter. Couple this with Sistani’s increasing willingness to counter Prince Bremer and quite a pickle develops for Neocon dreamers: It’s hard to take on Evil Axisee number two, even with popular resistance, when the pathetic excuse for stability in Evil Axisee number one is completely dependent on said number two’s ‘Man in Baghdad’ playing along with us. With him in the driver’s seat. If the situation in Teheran gets really bad, either democratic forces in Iran get treated much like the Shi’a of southern Iraq in 1991, or Ralph Reed gets his wet apocalyptic dream.

And speaking of wars of prophecy... Whoo-Boy! Ariel Sharon is squirming. Among all the dispicable characters in that inspiring yet lamentable part of the world, I really, really don’t like the guy, so I’m tempted to be happy about it. But alas, the despots and fanatics that are the opposite sides of the pincers bearing down on him leave me to predict that current efforts towards peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict will be about as successful as their predecessors were. For once I’d really like to be wrong on this. Sigh.

It all makes me want to move to Mars, which, aside from a few technical hurdles that we’ll continue to watch, is THE place for positive news these days. Rover “Spirit” has determined (from its parking space) that there are ‘Carbonates, Carbonates, Everywhere’ but we’ll have to see whether these water-associated molecules are the result of dihydrogen monoxide in the atmosphere (they’d be “fluffy”) or in a long-evaporated lake (they’d be “course”). As I discovered about 5 years ago, it only costs about $13 per foot to drill a well looking for water, why not just try that?

Glad to be back. And if you liked Apostropher better without me, Phooey.