  ..is sitting on my balcony, with a cup of strong coffee, a fresh chocolate croissant, the paper and the company of my fiancee.
Of course, that leads to me being hopped up on caffeine and sugar, infuriated by the Leftist nonsense in the Post and egged on by my GOP baby. Hence, the reason I'm here; to rant and to rave. First up, the Iranian government is blaming the US and the UK for an increase in opium production in Afghanistan and the continuing rise in the number of addicts in Iran (over 2 million).
The protest came complete with crowds shouting "Death to America. " First, isn't it odd that the Iranians don't see their own support for various anti-government warlords in the east as part of the problem? Shouldn't they be helping to stabilize Afghanistan, in order to allow for more effective counter-drug operations? Second, is there a temp agency in Iran that specializes in rabid, anti-Western crowds? Kind of a "Kelly Mobs" for the Middle East.
The urlLink horrible situation in the Sudan gets front page coverage. With millions on the brink of starvation - USAID estimates that 350,000 will starve or succumb to disease in the next 9 months - the response of the Sudanese government? Arm the local militias who are carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against tribal groupings in the region and claim, in the words of foreign minister Mustafa Ismail, that "[i]n Darfur, there is no hunger. There is no malnutrition. There is no epidemic disease. " Instead, there is "a humanitarian situation. " What is the solution? Well, the West and the UN is trying to get food and other aid to the afflicted region.
But, again, this is a case of a genocidal government, one that practices massed bombing of civilians, one that exploits tribal differences in a campaign of ethnic cleansing and one that allows slavery within its borders. By sending in a trickle - or even a torrent - of aid, we are doing the worst thing possible; providing the means by which the situation is perpetuated.
Either we should wash our hands of the whole area and allow the natural process of strife to play out, or we need to embark on a campaign to remove governments like the Sudanese one and replace them with something else. From the dire to the dumb. Ass clowns in Oklahoma like to participate in something dubbed "Extreme Fishing" by ESPN. Apparently, the "fisher" plunges his hand in water teeming with catfish and waits for one to bite.
His hand. Then he pulls it out of the water and, one assumes, clubs it, probably with his forehead, since his skull is obviously a solid mass. Um, guys, we have not been using our hands to catch fish for thousands of years. Let's try to evolve not devolve, okay? I mean, our reputation around the world is bad enough. Whose going to listen to us when they see that we don't even know how to use a fishing rod? In the "this almost gets him my vote" category, Ralph Nader called grotesquely overweight Mike Moore "a giant beach ball.
" Although Nader is mostly a Leftist dolt, in this case, I can only agree completely. Flavor of the week John Edwards, now being touted as Kerry's probable number two, was out drumming up support. Apparently, the Kerry people decided that McCaine's "no" really did mean "no. " I understand that the party of Kennedy and Clinton has trouble with this concept, but it is nice to see that they may be evolving. Of course, how long the current fixation with Edwards last is anyone's guess; probably until Kerry realizes that he looks like a piece of driftwood next to the more animated Edwards.
Well, on that note of partisan vitriol, I'll bring this morning's post to a close. 
