i was listening to npr, and there was this report from lubbock, texas; what some people thought of the president's plan to go to war with iraq. [sorry, i couldn't say attack iraq just then, didn't feel like rhyming.] anyway, maybe i should have been pleased that out of the five sound clips they used, two people were against his plan. given they are in texas and all, i found it surprising there were two people with such opinions, obviously not locals. but i'm not happy about it. because every comment, all five, whether for or against sending our best gunpowder to the middle east, was so far off that it hurt to listen to it. forgetting that i could listen to the program again on the website, i spent the last few minutes of my return trip trying to keep the comments straight in my head. it was a challenge, i can assure you, as i was already grinding out reasons why they were so dumb. and now the gross overripe fruits of my labor, in order. [but of course.] --the quotation marks will be to keep their comments separate from mine, but are not exact, only very close.

one - the first man, working at the courthouse, agreed. no surprise. his reason, however, made less sense. he said, "it would be like a man in our county was making weapons in his basement, and the police just asked him to stop. so, we should not ask saddam to stop, instead we should.." in essence, stop him with a side effect of killing lots of people. it isn't like that at all. the u.s. government, a sovereign one, has decided that certain things are allowable only to themselves. a bomb being one of those things, and therefore law dictates that we can arrest him. iraq, however, is itself a sovereign state, and can set its own guidelines regarding who can have what. and the army/ruler probably has the right to have such things. international law really is of little meaning. it's great politics when it is on your side, but as long as you are big enough, or as long as no one really cares, you can do whatever you want. iraq isn't one of these places, we are, we say what we want, and we do what we want. in essence, he invalidates international law when that is the very thing he stands on as a reason to go in. they might be doing something they agreed internationally to not do.

two - the second girl was a college student. she disagreed sort of, but.. anyway, "bush hasn't convinced me yet. i'm an american, i'm a patriot, i'm pro-america, so you are doing something wrong if you haven't convinced me." argh. while i'm glad she isn't [ yet ] convinced, it seems only a matter of time. all he has to do is spit out the right combination, and like mastermind [it's an old puzzle game, current remakes seem crap..] she'll resign to his bidding. one shouldn't have to be convinced by a politician, because lemon laws do not apply to them, they sell shite. and "not being convinced" is a whole lot different than having a mind of one's own.

three - the third girl was a student at the same college, and actually disagreed, though she may have been more dumb than the first guy. "no, we shouldn't bother attacking iraq, because they can't hurt us. not with a nuke, or a missile. they can't hurt us if we aren't over there* so we shouldn't be over there." * = over there is vague. we are in israel, iraq can attack there. our allies are within striking distance. and more importantly, pulling out because we may get hurt is the worst excuse. armies get hurt, that's just how it goes. most important though, is the idea that we should stay away from things that aren't our business. we never would have entered world war i or ii, korea, vietnam, panama, iraq, bosnia or serbia. some of those are debatable as to whether or not we should have gotten involved, but if we hadn't in others, we would have stood and watched genocide, spread control by communism and or nazism, and the control of free countries by others. and those who don't think expansionism is a big deal, better be ready for the united states to be their government. sure we influence a lot of culture worldwide, but i doubt people want our president as well.

aside, these last two must be in advanced logic class, or were. i'm not sure if they were students or not, though i think so.

four - the fourth guy. he agreed. "if the reasoning is based on oil, i still think we should attack. it is a valuable resource. flying f-16s takes oil." if you are dumbfounded, please join my club. we can invade countries for commodities. why do we have a huge import/export deficit then? if we can take what we want, when we want, from whomever we want, why are we being such suckers and paying for it? and what's more, we can invade them to get stuff from them that we need to invade. perhaps we could pay attention to current fuel saving technology that EXISTS at this very moment, not just theory. it would cost up to $3000 extra per car, but you get that back from gas savings before your lease is up. i hate the two party system. i hate idiots.

last - this fifth guy is just diluted by politics and the media. probably a poli-sci major, or hoping for a career as a card-carrying white guy, er, republican arse slash democrat. "yes we should attack them, because we can't say for sure they won't be a problem. we didn't think afghanistan was a problem until september eleventh either." way to weave a stupid media holiday cum tragedy, with a half-sure quasi-reason to perhaps do something. if we were only worried about ourselves, afghanistan was not the problem. terrorists within the nation perhaps. defining a country by them alone means we must attack germany, as a few lived there. ourselves, as tim mcveigh lived here. and we might as well get germany [again] and japan, i mean who knows what they are up to really, and when they will try again. crazy axis powers.

i shouldn't let this alter my view of npr, but it is hard. i realize these are peoples' opinions, and not npr's. but the fact that they chose these five means one of a very few things. either this was all they recorded or unfortunately the best of what they got. in which case i pity their interviewer. they used these because they thought they were good. then, i question their ability to discern good and not. or possibly they showed these guys are an appropriate cross-section of dumb-america. and regardless of whether or not they meant to, i applaud that. if nothing else, i get to add my dumbness to it all.

i had an idea about the sniper guy in d.c., but he's caught so i will just say, who - when terrorizing a metropolitan area with invisible death and tarot cards [which may have been more spooky were there not a money request following] - doesn't watch the news? and if you are, or aren't aware they are looking for you, why would you sleep in a public rest area? people drive by all the f-time. go somewhere slightly more secluded. ya know? [i didn't want him to not get caught, quite the opposite, i'm just saying.]

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"i guess i�ll die another day [another day]
i guess i�ll die another day [another day]
i guess i�ll die another day [another day]
i guess i�ll die another day.. .. . .." -m.