I ignored the competing and contradictory headlines coming out of Reuters yesterday, but uninterested in doing anything constructive with my day, have decided to deconstruct the following. Okay, not really following, but linked-to article. Ugh, I want to go back to bed!

Good news: Al-Z is dead and the war in Iraq may have reached a turning point. Bad news: That turning point may just be a 360 degree turn. As the president said “Removing Zarqawi is a major blow to al Qaeda. It’s not going to end the war, it’s certainly not going to end the violence, but it’s going to help a lot.”

Buoyed by the death of a man blamed for a campaign of car bombs and beheadings, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said it was “a new beginning” for Iraq.

Maliki said Iraq “will soon reach a tipping point in our battle against the terrorists” as Iraqi troops take over responsibility from the 130,000 Americans deployed in Iraq.

“The insurgency will continue strongly because it was never dependent on Zarqawi for its inspiration or leadership,” said Joost Hiltermann at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank.

Speaking of meaningless, I need to clean my study. Might be easier to just use a gallon of gas and a match.

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Another week is drawing to a close, and the MHUDS are still here. Once again, thant you Rob at Heritage Financial Services for not doing our job (unless of course your job consists solely of pulling closing dates out of your arse and taking the afternoon off). The baby birds have moved out at last, however. I still feed them, of course. Every time I step outside, they swoop out of the walnut tree and dive-bomb me, screaming for more food. Sorry guys, but I don’t feed anyone lacking bowel control if they are sitting on my head. And as usual, although I’ll be on vacation in a few days, it still has not been approved, despite my having submitted the request a month ago. Thanks, Autonomy.

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Even sadder — I appear to be banned from posting comments on Fanatical Apathy. My last two comments were blocked. Sigh. I’ve no idea why, although I’m betting it’s because I’m too white.

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Oh how sad — how did I miss this? batwoman is a lesbian! When are the rest of the caped crusaders going to come out of the closet? Outside of ballet (and I’m not really that sure about inside ballet either), there really aren’t that many heterosexual men running around in tights and codpieces . . .

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1. Officially opened my pool. Just in time for a rainy weekend.

2. Rethought my position on the Iraq war. Still against it.

3. Watched one of the abandoned birds we’ve been raising die in my hand after being attacked by a cat. Not happy about it. Don’t think the bird was either.

4. Failed to finish my expense reports. From April.

5. Considered taking the family to Olive Garden for dinner and not paying my bill. After all “when you’re here, you’re family” and how many people charge family members for dinner?

6. Decided not to take the family to Olive Garden for dinner. Who really wants to spend the weekend in jail to make a point about incredibly stupid advertising slogans?

7. Laughed at the wife for coming down with the flu at the beginning of summer (hopefully no connection to the abandoned birds). Pled for sympathy when I came down with the flu. Not much available.

8. Mowed my lawn for two hours. I am now halfway done. When I get old, I’m getting a condo with a strip of astro turf on the patio. No mowing, no weeding, no feeding, no watering and no gophers. Of course, probably also not as much fun to play croquet and bocce ball on. Hopefully I’ll have moved on to shuffleboard and bingo by then.

9. Cursed Heritage Financial Services another hundred or so times for hiring such complete flakes. The in-laws, bless their little hearts, are still squatting in the basement, thanks to Rob (a.k.a. “lazy-ass lying bastard”) at Heritage Financial, who was supposed to have ordered the in-laws’ loan documents a week or two ago and keeps claiming they should be in within 24 hours. All week. They may have arrived Friday, but Rob had a “meeting” from noon to closing on Friday, and therefore was completely unavailable. My guess is the meeting took place on one of the many golf courses around here.

10. Considered calling in an anonymous tip claiming Rob was Al-Qaeda

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The good news is, after yesterday’s shooting of a pregnant Iraqi woman, and the shooting into the crowd of Afghanis, maybe the pressure will be off the marines for massacring their li’l group of Iraqis in Haditha. Isn’t it about time SOMEBODY started thinking about an exit strategy? Why can’t we just admit we fucked up and go home? We’ve obviously got no clue as to what we are doing in the Middle East and are going to eventually abandon both Iraq and Afghanistan to the chaos that we have created, so why not do it now, while only 90% of the region hates us? Or is our goal a perfect 100%?

I liked the first reports from Afghanistan, where it was just a traffic accident and our guys had to fire into the air to make a run for it. Now that it looks like they shot into the crowd, I can’t help but thinking that we have idiots in charge of this whole thing. Now they want ethics training? Shouldn’t our troops already know that shooting civilians generally doesn’t help with the whole winning of the hearts and minds thing? Or am I just out of touch with modern diplomacy?

So, why should anyone believe America at this point?- we repeatedly demonstrate a careless disregard for truth, dignity and human life. Our allies in this mess include totalitarian regimes no better than Saddam’s. Per Reuters, our president “has vowed to punish those responsible if the probe verifies allegations that Marines rampaged through houses in Haditha on November 19 and shot civilians, including women and children.” Uh huh. This from the man who vowed to fire anyone responsible for the Valerie Plame leak?

I wish I had an amusing spin on this, but it is hard to laugh while watching as your nation demonstrates a complete lack of principle.

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Some ideas should just be nipped in the bud . . .

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Memorial Day weekend is over, so we can all go back to ignoring the dead for another year. Unless, of course, you are the president, in which case you need to continue calling on all Americans to continue honoring the dead by providing more of them in our fight for freedom and democracy. I am still somewhat unsure how working with and promoting anti-freedom and anti-democratic regimes like Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are helping the cause of freedom, but surely the president is not so stupid as to not have a plan.

Speaking of plans, the c.h.u.d.s, er, m.h.u.d.s (Mormon Human Underground Dwellers) should be moving out of the basement in another day or so. Yay!- I get my pool table back! They’ve been good guests, for the most part, but I look forward to having my house back. And not having to listen to the constant verbal emasculation of my brother-in-law.

We celebrated (or commemorated) Memorial Day by playing Croquet, barbequeing various bits of flesh and veggies, mowing, cleaning and performing various acts of household maintenance (including removing all of the large rocks from the shed roof — apparently the kids like throwing rocks over the shed to see if they can hit on another on the other side. And these are supposed to be gifted children? I’d say they’re both just one rock away from the short bus). These are the days when I look back fondly on renting.

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The pool pump is finally in working order and I managed to clear the blockage out of the vacuum line. Now all I have to do is finish scooping out the foot-deep pile leaves that have settled into the deep end and the kids can go swimming. Right now I am wishing I hadn’t been so cheap on the pool cleaning supplies because a leaf cleaner would be really handy right now. Vacuuming entails stopping every few minutes to clear the pump of debris and cursing myself for being so tightfisted.

As Memorial Day approaches (one of many American holidays where we celebrate excessive drinking and the burning of expensive cuts of meat on various outdoor gas and/or charcoal grills, despite the fact that most of us have perfectly functional ovens and ranges indoors), I find myself concentrating more and more on the things I still have left to do. The pool is at a point chemically where I cannot (or should not) mess with it for another eight hours. I planted the Wisteria this morning. I still have several acres of mowing, the cleaning of the grills, the moving of the lava rocks and the murdering of the damned patio weeds to look forward to before Monday. Since we are expecting company, I should probably also shave and bathe sometime before then as well.

And who says politicians don’t have a sense of humour? Here’s Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas playing peekaboo during a conference in the West Bank:

(image shamelessly linked to from canada.com)

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And here’s a quick update to Tuesday’s elections/primaries/statewide flake-off: 25% of registered voters bothered to vote. That means my vote was four times as powerful as it would be in an ideal election. I’d be interested to know how many people here are eligible to vote, but haven’t bothered to vote; factoring in the lazy bastards who haven’t registered, and my vote’s probably ten times as powerful. Yay democracy. Lazy bastards. And on that note, I’m going to go feed my horrible little screaming birds. Happy whatever, world.

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