Asia Minor

Gosh Dearies,
It was my FOUR YEAR Anniversary yesterday! That's right, Four Years ago Yesterday your Uncle George promised to keep me safe over here! And you'll never guess what Uncle George got me! OK, Ok, ok, it was the head of Taha Yassin Ramadan.
I know, not quite what I was hoping for. Actually, I was hoping for a complete troop withdrawal.
Or maybe a diamond. I say this only to point out that I did not get a diamond, or in fact anything I wanted at all. No, all I got was a stupid ole' head and a "Surge" (which let me tell you is VASTLY overrated. No I didn't tell him that, you know how proud little men are of their "prowess").
Nope, not a thing worthwhile. If he's going to drop off a human head, why couldn't it have been Kevin Federline's? He didn't have any problem getting Kayne West's head for me after he said all those mean things about Uncle George! Just because a Major American city was destroyed! That was a hard time for your poor Decider of an Uncle. People were saying that he was doing all this stuff for Iraq but nothing for America. Well GUESS WHAT! We now know that he's been doing the EXACT same things for Iraq that he has for America! They've lost a couple of major cities too, so I don't even want to hear about it!
Why do you even bring up the past? Didn't he say that he was going to rebuild Trent Lott's house?
Sorry Dears, I got carried away. You know how these anniversary's can lead you down some things that haven't gone so well in the past. Then there can be some yelling, and screaming, and beating, well, you get the rest.
Really Dear Ones, I'm over that. I swear. Now I can focus on your Uncle George for the things he does TODAY. Like, why does Uncle Karl have to sit there and tell Uncle George EVERYTHING to say. I mean, I've been around the block, and it won't be the first time that three people were in the old bed, if you know what I mean, but Uncle Karl? He's so…SO…well, PUFFY. Like a big marshmallow. Plus, and I don't want to get too personal, but Dearies he BLUBBERS. No! Not like that, I mean you're right, he is blubbery, but no, he cries, like all the time. We'll just be sitting there, George whispering to me whatever Karl says, then all of a sudden Karl's crying again! What's worse is that George doesn't always get the fact that he's NOT supposed to Cry, because your Uncle George is still in Parrot Mode, and then it's REALLY pathetic.
Then FINALLY George will catch on, and sometimes he even asks what's wrong (which he never does for me!) and then Karl will say something like "Oh, I just keep thinking of Scooter in that horrible place, being somebody's" then he uses a word I won't repeat, and goes into great length about a scenario that you kids DEFINITELY don't need to know about, involving cigarettes and someone named "Tiny" who's actually rather large. Anyway, it's all rather complicated. But then Karl asks George if he "loves him, but you know, not in that way" and so forth, and it always ends up with Bush promising to pardon him, so he won't have to go to jail, and so nobody will find out his real first name is Maurice and that he only goes by Karl to sound all tough, and pretty much the whole night is shot.
That's right, I could have been disciplining somebody, instead I'm listening to your Uncle George console some blubbery (ok, in both senses of the word!) evil overlord whine about how he's afraid of a little anal sex.
But does Uncle George Remember to tell ME how he loves me and will slap down a presidential pardon? No.
So it usually ends up the same way. I sit downstairs drinking martinis, listening to the sound of blubbering coming from my boudoir.
I swear it would have been cheaper and easier to buy me a diamond.

Ah my sweet Dear Ones,
It is good to be back.
I'm still catching up on what happened in the last 7 months or so, did I miss anything? Probably not.
Anyway, I'm writing today to help you understand a little more why Haliburton doesn't love us anymore.
You see Dearies, sometimes when grownups go through life, they, well, grow apart.
It's not YOUR faults, it's actually just something that Aunties and Multinational Corporations do sometimes. It doesn't mean that we love you any less! And don't think that it is your fault, either! Well, ok, it IS your fault for having those mean old congressmen ask about where their billions of dollars went, but you know what I mean, right?
You see, quite frankly dear, you're broke. Busted. In debt. Destitute. How can you expect Haliburton to hang around here when you've bankrupted your country? I mean, come on, really!
It's just that if we can't support them in the style to which they've grown accustomed in the past 6 years, then we can't expect them to stay! This way they'll be closer to where the money is!
Plus you remember Uncle Michael? You visited him at his little Neverland Ranch and you had all those wonderful sleepovers? Well, anyway, due to some small-minded people and recurrent allegations of pedophilia…no, never mind, that's probably too big a word for you right now! Let's just say that Americans don't love Uncle Michael too much, but they ADORE him in Dubai! Anyway, Haliburton wanted to be close, because they figure if he's ok in Dubai, then they can pretty much buy and sell roast human flesh openly without anybody raising an Eyebrow.
Why did Dubai take Haliburton and Uncle Michael from us? Well, I guess the best way to put it is that the little tramp has hated us ever since we got so upset about letting some dusky-skinned people run our ports. I mean we let those nice Chinese gentlemen do it, so Dubai probably figured that it would be no big deal, right?
Well, wrong. I mean Haliburton's Evil Overlord Former boss Dick, you remember Uncle Dick, right? Anyway, he tried really hard to get them to be able to run the ports, but hey, no dice. So then I guess that Dubai figured they would just go ahead and let his friends at Haliburton move in.
Maybe, after the next election, your Uncle Dick will move over there too! I've heard him snarl something about "extradition". And people in that part of the world just LOVE Uncle Dick. And he could hang out with Uncle Michael, and sing "Ivory and Ivory", and sip tea at Haliburton, and finally get to hunt humans without any nasty old consequences! (also without having to embarrass their targets by making them apologize for getting shot).
No wait! Was it no Extradition or no Extraordinary Rendition? I get confused. Extraordinary Rendition of Cheney and Haliburton from Dubai….hmmmm.
Oh well, never mind!
The important thing is that if you take your time, and clean up this damn place (it's a mess!), AND rebuild your economy, then maybe, just maybe, one day Haliburton will come back! And it will be just like the old days!
Ok?

Well Dear Ones, here is a special sunday post. I'm still trying to assimilate the fact that Michael Brown was on video actually doing his job. I'm already well familiar with George W. Bush being on video NOT doing his job.
I think I will write about that tomorrow, even though it is Monday and, of course, I'm closed on Sundays and Mondays.
But that isn't what this is about. This is about me playing around with the QUOTE style. The more I look at it the more I like the way it looks!
So to have an excuse to play with it, I thought I would throw up this quote. I came across it as I was cleaning some old files on my computer. Can you guess who wrote it? When it was written?
Since I'm still behind on sending Gary his prize from the "A Special Day for Jamie A" contest, I'm afraid that I'm not offering any prize except the Pride that I feel whenever one of my Dearies is very clever. Read the quote and then click on the "Continue Reading" link to see who said it!

"[We] have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. [We] have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows... Our unfortunate troops,... under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the willfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad."

Dear Sweet Dubai's (Emirati? United Arabs? What do people from Dubai call themselves?),
I'm sorry.
I'm not a big fan of globalization. I'm definitely not a big fan of giving controls of our ports to foreign governments or businesses. You could say, I'm usually against anything this administration thinks is a good idea. Not to be contrary, but because I have rarely seen a group of adults so regularly, spectacularly, or irrefutably wrong on so many different issues.
But I have to say, and I know you've heard this before but it's true this time: It's not you, it's me. Rather it's not that you are Arabic, or owned by your government (which is weird for the Bush crowd, they normally sell every government thing they can get their hands on. I guess they only care if it is the US Government that owns something), or any of the other foolishness that you have heard. At least not for the 66% of Americans living in the "Reality Based Community". Rather, it is because we kind of, well, didn't know that the Government wasn't running the ports.
My first reaction was "Why is a private company running our ports?"
Up in New York, for example, there is an organization named "The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey". They're actually rather large. I guess we assumed that they would be running our ports, at least in that neck of the woods, because, well, it is their middle name. You know, Ports? They run the airports, and the bus ports, and they were invented before either of those. I guess we all just assumed they would run, gosh, the SEAports!
It's probably just a holdover from our early days. You see, unlike your country, we kind of started at the edges and worked our way in (just ask the Native Americans, if you can still find one). So, from our earliest days, the Ports were a big deal, since, you know, we kind of needed them to stay alive. Later, of course, they were still a big deal. It kind of developed that since everyone needed them, and they were really important, that it was one of the most basic functions of Government to make sure they were safe. Every once in a while someone that would want to kill us would start by, hmmm, attacking a port.
My second reaction was "Why is a British Company running our ports?"
You see, we're not arguing with them anymore (really), but a lot of these people that used to burn, harass, conquer, steal, seal and generally muck up our ports were ummm, British. We got over those issues a long time ago, but I seem to recall a big argument over the subject, back in the late 1700's (1770 or 80 or something). Voices were raised, people got flustered, and there was even a death or two involved.
So, me, like a lot of Americans (America, Our ignorance is a badge of National Honor) didn't really bother to catch up on the story since the part where a country called France (that we don't talk to anymore) saved our bacon by rescuing one of our ports at a place called Yorktown from some chaps that called themselves "British". Imagine my surprise when I found out that not only was the government NOT running our ports, but they got bored and apparently handed them over to some British company several years back. Not that we don't trust them anymore, but it is the principle of the thing. Then I find out that the Brits aren't the only ones running our ports, there are also some Chinese and (I understand) Japanese companies running our ports. Now, we've always gotten along well with the Chinese (ok, I lied), but I seem to recall a different little altercation with the Japanese about control of, ummm, our ports. They wanted it and we said no. Again with the shouting, the arguing, and a few deaths. Considering the way we appear to be going, an international smorgasbord of people that use to try to kill us are going to be controlling all of our ports.
Everybody, that is, but you guys. 'Cause you're Arabs.
Just kidding! If we're giving them away, I don't think it would be fair to keep you out of the party. Do you?

My Dear Ones.
I have been planning for days on writing about how Democracy and Freedom are on the march in the Middle East.
Because of course the Iranian People got to vote for who they wanted, and they chose a reactionary warmonger (who says the Iranians aren't like us?).
Then of course the Palestinians decided to get in on the act. Don't be shocked, but they chose someone that we don't like.
So of course, we're going to stop talking to him.
King George has sacrificed between 32,000 (to hear him tell it) and 100,000 (to hear other people who tried to count it) lives for Democracy. But of course, Democracy means that the people get to chose. Oddly enough, the people in countries that we've been looking for excuses to invade chose people that said they would protect the citizens from….well, from us. (My apologies to our Canadian friends. I didn't really mean you when I was writing this. Oh wait, your own Democracy on the March means that now your new Tory friends in Ottowa will make sure you're not left out! Welcome Canada!).
I know Mr. Bush is surprised. I mean, come on, he's the leader of the used-to-be free world. Hamas are just people fighting what the vast majority of their countrymen view as foreign invaders (unfortunately for that part of the world, the foreign invaders happen to live there, too). The old government was rife with corruption, impotent in the face of adversity, authoritarian, autocratic, and widely accused of fraud. (This is Palestine I'm talking about. Still. Don't get confused with any large-industrialized democracies). Who would have thought that the people would have grabbed at the only viable alternative?
Certainly not the Bush Misadministration. As a matter of fact, the only thing that really disturbs them about this is that they were hoping that a people ruled ineffectually by an incompetent, deceitful, corrupt government would choose to "Stay the Course". Of Course.
That is really the reason that they are talking about maybe not talking to them. It sets a bad precedent.
Also, he doesn't understand how all of his endorsements failed. Didn't he give Mahmoud Abbas a nickname? I believe, but am not for certain, that it was "Stinky Falafel". Apparently Bill O'Reilly suggested it.
Didn't he vow to send them money? Just like he's supposed to be doing for education, healthcare, armor for the troops, health benefits for disabled troops (after all, he promised to think about not charging them for meals at the hospital, because he supports the troops), and rebuilding New Orleans? Why wouldn't they trust him?
Is it because his poll numbers show that the rest of the world hates him?
Well to answer my own questions.
Of course it isn't. Bush is unsure of where Spain is on a map, much less gives a crap that only 18% of Spaniards approve of him.
As a matter of fact, he doesn't give a crap that Palestinians elected Hammas.
Or that Iraq is burning. Or that New Orleans isn't really there. Or that Brokeback Mountain is up for an Oscar.
No, the fundamental problem is that he doesn't. Care. Period.

Dearies, please allow me to regale you with tales of a far off, dusty, arid land with blazing heat and surprisingly polite natives.
No, I'm not talking about Canada again! It is called Dawlat al Kuwayt, although here in the US we spell it Kuwait. You might have heard your parents talk about it before. A few years back there was an altercation with their Northern Neighbor, a country that was run by a man with (at the time) impeccably groomed facial hair. Unfortunately the name of the other country and the man escapes me at the moment, but that is not really what we are here to talk about.