Friday, December 22, 2006

Arabian Nights: The Tale of the Incomplete Sunday Times

Friend of mine goes to buy a Sunday Times from his local Arab-run newstand. He pays his $3.50 and realizes that the paper feels light. He flips through it to make sure all the sections are intact and discovers that numerous sections are missing. He informs the news vendor, who sends his colleague out to check all the papers. It turns out that all copies on sale are missing the same three or four sections. My friend and the news vendor exchange looks, and my friend asks for his money back. The vendor begrudgingly returns the money. My friend says, "You can't sell papers in that condition."

To which the vendor haughtily replies, "Not everyone wants it complete!"

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Get your tootsie-frootsie ice cream

From a front-page story headlined, "Democrats want to Exit Iraq By the 2008 Political Season," in Monday's New York Sun (which, by the way, is half of an excellent paper -- the second section comprises the best arts and sports writing of any New York daily):

WASHINGTON — Senior Democrats are coalescing behind the view that America should begin withdrawing from Iraq by early 2008, the heart of the next presidential campaign season.
Yesterday, the incoming Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, told reporters after an appearance on ABC's "This Week" that he would even support a surge in troops in Iraq, as President Bush is likely to call for in his new Iraq strategy.
But the increase in troops should only be part of a plan to begin withdrawing them, the senator said. "If it's for a surge, that is, for two or three months and it's part of a program to get us out of there as indicated by this time next year, then, sure, I'll go along with it," Mr. Reid said.

I get it. Our leaders intend to withdraw from Iraq by adding more troops. The logic of this ingenious plan, which seems to have been filched from an old Marx Brothers movie, is this: If we send in more troops, we can stabilize the country...until we start to withdraw troops again, at which time it will become unstable...at which time, we'll have to put back the troops.

In the interim, how many more people will die? Bush, Pelosi, et all: You're all mass murderers.