we have to do better than this.

if there are still taliban and qaeda fighters in afghanistan (and there are), the united states should be devoting tremendous resources to finding them, individually, and bringing them to justice. we're not, though; instead we kill civilians--lots of them--at weddings and at dinner and drawing water and playing marbles. old people and businesspeople and mothers and fathers and, this time, lots of kids. little boys who are my brother's age, in fact. "hundreds of civilians," reads the times article.

why? what are we doing instead that makes this necessary? the answer, of course, is that we are doing iraq. we are in iraq at the cost of fighting terrorism effectively and at the even more disturbing cost of many, many innocent lives.

there was no apology from the bush administration, apparently because the bush administration doesn't give a shit. it's long past time for a new president.

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in other and admittedly insubstantial news, stay far far away from the monstrosity that is "love actually." this movie features several of my very favorite actors doing absolutely nothing, as well as an appallingly offensive profusion of gender stereotypes and fat jokes, all bound together by...oh wait. absolutely nothing, since there's no plot and no script. also, since when is a size-eight woman chubby? somebody kill me. no wait, kill the producers of this film. right.