How ungrateful and other worries

Those Iraqis are so ungrateful for our efforts on their behalf they have now said an emphatic "no" to permanent bases in their country. Apparently not wanting to waste their time with underlings, they went directly to the "head man," Dick Cheney. As I understand it they said NO to permanent bases and indicated that the entire Iraqi population was in agreement on this. Permanent bases, they said, would be an infringement on their sovereignty. Of course they have sovereignty only if Bush/Cheney pretend they do. How far will the pretense go? Will the U.S. give in to this outrageous demand? After all, we did rid them of the terrible Sadam Hussein and it has only cost them around a million dead, two million displaced, and untold misery for the rest. How can they be so unreasonable? What about all the money and effort we've put in to constructing all those bases? What about our showplace embassy, with its capacity to hold about 10,000? Is that to be considered just a normal embassy staff, sitting there as it does on some 24 acres with 21 buildings? Of course all the while we've been building these bases we've kept saying we have no intention of having permanent bases. Why do they feel they have to tell us they don't want permanent bases when we've told them all along we don't either? Don't they believe us? Ingrates, that's what they are. What are we to do with these bases? Turn them over to Iraqi boy scouts? How about our 600 million dollar embassy? It ought to make a really swell headquarters for the Iranians who will no doubt benefit the most from our delusional mistakes in the Middle East. Before this is over I bet we'll really show them a thing or two about sovereignty. Let's see how successful they'll be in getting Blackwater out of their country before we make any final judgement about sovereignty. We seem to be insisting that we want to maintain a close and mutually beneficial relationship with Iraq (whatever that means). But what if they don't want such a relationship? I guess in the end we'll just have to impose cooperation on them whether they like it or not. After all, we are the world's only superpower. And we are lovable, brave, always well-intentioned, and go around the world just spreading good cheer everywhere. Just look at how we are loved everywhere.

The arms industry is now giving most of its money to Hillary. That is not a good sign.

I've been worrying a lot lately about bugs. You know, those little assorted seemingly inconsequential things that have to be swatted, sprayed, or otherwise disposed of when they bother us in some way. But lately the concern about bees has made me think more about this. One hypothesis now is that the bees may be dying of malnourishment as a result of our agricultural practices that focus so exclusively on just a few crops. No one knows for sure if this is so, but it is food for thought. My concern with bugs goes far beyond just the problem of bees although I confess to knowing next to nothing about any of this. However, what bothers me is the ecology of insects. If it is true that there must be maintained some kind of ecological balance in the world, and if it is also true that every creature has a place in this balanced system, what happens when you kill billions, if not trillions of bugs every year? I don't comprehend well numbers like billions or trillions, but I know that automobiles must destroy probably at least a billion bugs a year and perhaps more. I know that our car alone must have killed at least a thousand monarch butterflies one year (stupid bugs haven't yet learned to migrate above the traffic). Is this having any effect on our ecosystem? Does anyone care? I know there are people who worry about the thousands upon thousands of deer that are killed by cars every year, and of course there have to be thousands of mice, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, snakes, and other assorted animals killed each year as well. But I'm talking about billions of insects killed. That's a lot. Does it make any difference? Am I worrying needlessly? I mean, after all, they're just bugs. Maybe there is just nothing to this ecology business. By the way, I believe that global warming is at least in part caused by human activities. I am a worrywart.

LKBIQ:
"What's that you say? You want to talk to a real human being in 'customer service'? HA HA HA! Press '4' and kiss the rest of your day good-bye."
Michael Moore