1. Get that abortion you’ve always wanted.

2. Drink a nice clean glass of water.

3. Cash your social security check.

4. See a doctor of your own choosing.

5. Spend quality time with your draft-age child/grandchild.

6. Visit Syria, or any foreign country for that matter.

7. Get that gas mask you’ve been putting off buying.

8. Hoard gasoline.

9. Borrow books from library before they’re banned - constitutional law books, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, Tropic
of Cancer, National Geographic.

10. If you have an idea for an art piece involving a crucifix - do it now.

11. Come out - then go back in - FAST!

12. Jam in all the Alzheimer’s stem cell research you can.

13. Stay out late before the curfews start.

14. Suck up to your neighbors now, BEFORE they turn you in to Homeland Security.

15. Go see Bruce Springsteen before he has his “accident.”

16. Go see Mount Rushmore before the Reagan addition.

17. Use the phrase, “You can’t do that - this is America!”

18. Have that last drink with your Muslim friends.

19. If you’re white, marry a black person; if you’re black, marry a white person; if you’re gay, get married in Massachusetts; if you’re transgendered, move to Canada.

20. Take a walk in Yosemite, without being hit by a snowmobile or a base-jumper.

21. Enroll your kid in an accelerated art or music class.

22. Start your school day without a prayer.

23. Pass on the secrets of evolution to future generations.

24. Learn French (it’ll help you learn German later on).

25. Take a factory tour anywhere in the US.

26. Take photographs of animals on the endangered species list.

27. Take photographs of Democrats.

28. Visit Florida before the polar ice caps melt.

29. Visit Nevada before it becomes radioactive.

30. Visit Alaska before “The Big Spill.”

31. Visit Massachusetts while it is still a State.

32. Download a copy of the Constitution on an encrypted CD-ROM and hide it.

33. Play with a dreidel.

34. Masturbate, before Chief Justice Scalia makes it illegal.

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Police chief in Samarra resigns

The police chief of the previously pacified city says he’s resigning after attacks on his home and car and an attempt to kidnap his son at school.

I guess it never really was “pacified”, eh?

US using napalm in Falluja

Too many injuries, not enough doctors

The military medical system has been overwhelmed by the scope and severity of injuries among troops, a health expert writes.

 US administration says it does not minimize Iraq insurgency

The Bush administration said Tuesday it is not trying to minimize the seriousness of the Iraqi insurgency. The comments follow news accounts of a Central Intelligence Agency report warning that the security situation in Iraq is deteriorating.

So, let’s blame Syria

Concerned about possible Syrian support for the insurgency in Iraq, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage says the United States will be consulting with other Middle East leaders about whether to put more pressure on Syria.

Of course, the insurgency is homegrown, as should be obvious. If you demolish cities, bomb hospitals and mosques, and kill civilians, it’s a given the populace will rise up to fight you.

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From OfByandFor.org

Roger Cohen (NYT): The War on Terror: An Obsession the World Doesn’t Share

The United States has a strategic problem:its war on terror, unlike its long fight against Communism, is not universally seen as the pivotal global struggle of the age.

Rather, it is often portrayed abroad as a distraction from more critical issues - as an American attempt to impose a bellicose culture, driven by the cultivation of fear, on a world still taken with the notion that the cold war’s end and technology’s advance have opened unprecedented possibilities for dialogue and peace.

Often we Americans presume that because something matters a great deal to us, it automatically matters to everyone on the planet. Cohen’s article says the data don’t support this.

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