For the record*, I'm with Bobert. I get it, I agree, and I think it sucks.**

Aloha,
Mark

*Record: Archaic music transfer device. Like a CD, only bigger, and black. Except for my Mickey Mouse Club 45's, which were yellow, and "Rusty in Orchestraville", which was green. (There, it's a music thread!)

**In case we're both being a little bit too subtle, we're referring to the fact that after 9/11, the government and the U.S. press were playing the song: "Kill Osama bin Laden and the world will be safe and clean and good again," and everybody was singing along. Osama bin Laden (the guy we trained and equipped and paid to fight the Russians in Afghanistan) being, of course, The Evil Villain. The one who replaced Khomeini Saddam Hussein Khaddafi Noriega Milosevic whoever. Then, all of a sudden, Osama dipped below the CNN radar, and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (the ones we sold them) became Public Enemy #1, and Saddam Hussein again became The Evil Villain. Kill Saddam Hussein, and Iraq will become our best friend and they'll build McDonald's and WalMarts and ARCO Texaco Shell stations everywhere, and the world will be safe and clean and good again. But since Germany and France and Russia (the "old Europe") are now saying that ramping up to invade Iraq on our own with half the firepower in the world sounds a little bit too much like old-fashioned imperialism and may not be the best plan, and since General Powell may not have been very convincing in the UN about the link between Iraq and The Terrorists...all of a sudden, here's Osama again, via audiotape (even though all the previous communiques from him were on video), telling the people of Iraq that he's their buddy and they should resist the American enemies and stand together with him and his friends as good Muslims. It all just sounds a little bit too fishy for the old Wes' Ginny slide rule. And for me. But what do I know, I'm just sitting here on the beach with my yookalaily and my mai tai.

P.S. Joe, I like you a lot. But as someone wise once said (I think it might have been Joe Offer), "If you don't like the thread, just ignore it." [insert stupid little smiley face thing here]