On the Iraq Civil War

Well, we have it, don't we? We are up to our necks in a mess with no way out.

I don't want to be an "I told you so" type, but everything we were predicting before the war has come true. Everything Dick Cheney predicted 15 years ago when he was Secretary of Defense under Bush I has come true. Everything Thomas Friedman predicted has come true.

And yet the people who the so-called "liberal" media take seriously are those who were for the war before they were against it, who see no way out, and yet don't want to withdraw...yet. When the time to withdraw will come is as vague as the distance between Superman's hideout and Santa Claus's house.

Glenn Greenwald (glenngreenwald.blogspot.com) has a rant today about Friedman and the so-called "journalists" who still take him seriously. I highly recommend it.

And now for something completely different: I have a hearing loss which makes it hard for me to understand speech in the presence of other noise. Why is it invariably that when I ask someone to repeat something they repeat only the part of the statement I understood?

How many times has it happened?
Other Person: fieweijs weiijenf Wal-mart.
Me: What?
Other Person: Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart!

Drives me up the wall. Sometimes I have said (mostly to my second wife) "I heard the words, 'yesterday,' and 'Raleigh.'" It's accurate, but it comes across as critical, nasty, or whatever negative implication you want to put on it. I just wish people would think, and consider.

I can't remember the name of the famous Christian writer who said it, but he pointed out that people are much more considerate of people who have trouble seeing than they have with people who have trouble hearing.

I keep wishing.