What?

Watch 'n Wait: I know of people in Arizona who go out in the desert and shoot machine guns for "therapy." In The High Valley by Kenneth E. Read he describes a New Guinea leader who goes out alone and shoots a single arrow into nowhere, presumably for the same reason. Please let me know what your friend thinks the "purpose" is. If he knows he should share it with the rest of us.

I read one article today in which Bush says that when it comes to exiting Iraq he is going to listen to his generals and no one else. Then there was another article which claims that he refuses to listen to anyone, including his generals, if they say something he doesn't want to hear. Apparently the generals are afraid to say anything he doesn't want to hear as it might well be detrimental to their careers. As becoming a general is a very political thing as well as military this is understandable. This is what makes Murtha's comments so powerful - he has the ear of the generals and is obviously transmitting their beliefs and not simply his own. What they fear to say he can say for them, obviously very threatending to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice,/et al. If I had to choose between Bush's claim that he listens to his generals and the claim that he refuses to listen to anyone who tells him anything he doesn't want to hear, I would certainly opt for the latter.

I would never compare Bush to Hitler. After all, Hitler was very successful, at least until the bitter end. Bush has consistently, predictably, invariably, overwhelmingly, single-mindedly, incompetently, almost compulsively been not successful. What they do seem to share in common, when the end is near, is the absolute refusal to accept any advice from people with an actual grasp of reality, people who could actually help them, those who want to help but are dismissed out of hand because they have to say what the Fuehrer/King/President doesn't want to hear. It is said that those around the President are terrified because no one can get through to him. He apparently is on a religious mission, knows that he has the absolute truth as well as the blessing of God, and is not going to give up no matter what. If this is true it is terrifying even beyond belief. And if he doesn't come around and drastically change course soon we will know that it is, unhappily, the truth. Also, if this is true, George W. Bush is not fit to be President of the United States.

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for all of us unless something happens soon.