Foragainst. SUVs. 87 billion. Etc. Etc. Etc.

UPDATE: My rosy pink &*%...

There's no business like Mullah business.

On Iraq and South Africa. But that's just a warm-up to THIS.

UPDATE: And THIS has reminded me how hopelessly negligent I have been not to post "The Three Conjectures" to the Classics links. Done.

On answering Churchill's question.

UPDATE: You really need to read it. Here's an essential taste:

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill came over and addressed Congress. He asked, rhetorically, "Who do they think we are?" It was an important question, because we must understand what our enemies think about us. Churchill's implicit answer was "They think we're suckers, and they think we won't be able to beat them."

The fascists believed that we had become soft and effeminate, that we were so hooked on materialism and self-indulgence that they, the representatives of a younger, more virile, and more spiritually robust race (or nation), would easily dominate us and impose their will on us.

The terror masters have the same contemptuous vision of us. And if you look at the way they deal with our governments, you will see a mixture of contempt and bemusement, as they repeatedly get us to go for the same tricks and deceptions.

In the past few days there has been a great to-do about a possible Iranian role in Iraq, mediating between us and Moqtada al Sadr. In the end, it came to nothing. Iran's deputy foreign minister was either unwilling or unable to deliver Moqtada, blamed us for the "failure," and went back to Tehran. But the point of the exercise was not to solve a problem for us — on the contrary, the Iranians intend to create ever greater problems on the ground — but to deliver a message to the restive Iranian people: "The Americans are so weak and impotent that they have to turn to us for help. So just forget about any American help to get rid of us."

If we can't manage Iraq without the mullahs, we certainly can't be strong enough to help the Iranian people get rid of the mullahcracy and achieve freedom.

It would have been embarrassing enough if this were the first time the Iranians had played such a game. But this was a humiliating replay of the "We've got al Qaeda guys for you" joke that they played on us at least twice in the last year. Remember when Deputy Secretary of State Armitage announced that his Iranian buddies were going to deliver al Qaeda terrorists in a matter of weeks? That never happened either, and again, the main point of the game was to demonstrate that the Bush administration was perfectly willing to negotiate with the mullahs. And therefore the United States wasn't going to remove them.

There is an additional stratagem involved in these little games: The mullahs figure that, if they can keep us engaged in the games, we won't crack down on their nuclear program. And the more time they can gain, the greater their chances of building an effective supply of atomic bombs. It's working.

As I have long argued, they may be crazy, but they are anything but stupid.

Well, there may have been some food involved. It seems less and less certain though...

The latest from the congress of dictators...

UPDATE: In case you missed it, Jordainian Buddhists have come unhinged!