A quick one

The Oscars…
Kudos to Al Gore for winning the Oscar and doing it with some humor and grace. The bit with Leo DiCaprio was a riot and the global warning mini-lecture was spot on.

Helen Mirren is all class.

Martin Scorcese finally wins Best Director. It’s about damn time.

Today was a really rough day in Global War on Terror…
Dick Cheney survived an attempt on his life (FWIW, the Taliban says he was the target) but the bomb killed 23.

A car bomb killed 18 kids while they played soccer in Ramadi. This kind of thing just makes the heart ache.

The Sunni Vice President of Iraq warns that the US needs a “Plan B” if the surge fails. We are on, like, Plan R at this point dude. So unless you bring something worthwhile to the table or demand we leave, STFU please. You are just giving W an excuse to try something else stupid and get more soldiers killed.

In the meantime, Laura Bush waxes cognitively dissonant (hat tip to AmericaBlog).

Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, uh, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone.

Sure honey, whatever you say.

And finally, a couple of reasons to stay the hell out of Pakistan…
11 people were killed in a Pakistani kite festival(?!?!?!?!?!). Throats cut, stray bullets, electrocution, etc. at a kite festival – I swear to God, there is nothing safe in that part of the world.

Segue to this atrocity; a 16 year old girl is fighting to escape a forced marriage after she was lost in a poker game by her father when she was 2. You cannot make this stuff up people. This is just so wrong to our Western sensibilities, it smacks of the absurd. Except that it is real – all too real for this poor girl I am sure. To paraphrase Bill Maher, it is not that our cultures are so different, it is that our’s is so much better. And he is right. You can call this many things but if you don’t call it slavery, then you are full of shit.