State of the Onion

My prediction of Fearless Leader's speech tonite, boiled down to it's basics:
"Give me more power. We will keep America afraid because that gives me and my party more power. We will keep the eternal war going because that gives me and my party more power. I need to spy on American citizens to keep you from being against me. I will ask congress to continue giving tax breaks to my rich friends. I will ask congress to spend more money on goverment contracts for my rich friends. When push comes to shove, we will cut benefits for the needy because they don't vote for us anyway, and then give me more power."
Hobbes

Bush seeks advice from who?

Check out this video: Ted Haggard appearing on Richard Dawkins' program "More Evil". What is scary is that this is one of Bush's advisors. We have only a veil separating church and state in this country.
Hobbes

Sword of God?

Jon Stewart and the Daily Show take a jab at the Christian Pat Robertson's bizarre attempts to invoke the wrath of his imaginary friend on his good buddy Ariel Sharon.

It appears that Sharon did not do a sufficient title search on some of the land he has been giving to the Palestinians. Apparently God has a deed restriction and has used the Smite clause to recompense. Actually, with all the billions and billions of stars in the known universe, several trillions of them probably with habitable planets, you'd think the Almighty would not care if Sharon were giving away some of his land on our little blue ball. It's hillarious and also scary that Robertson and his followers think that Sharon's current condition is due to a supernatural force. But hey, maybe the Palestinians were praying louder than the Jews and God listened to them instead?

Hobbes

Iraqi "Freedom Fighters"

Some have called the Iraqi insurgents "Freedom Fighters" while others say this is ridiculous, they are "Fighting for Control", rather than freedom like the American Revolutionaries did.

It's just rhetoric meaning the same thing. People fighting for the freedom to control of their own land.

Who one is fighting or how one is fighting does not change what one is fighting for.
What exactly are the "insurgents" fighting for and against?

From what I know they are fighting against what they see as an occupying force.

I am less clear what form of self-government they would like to see instead of the democracy now forming, and I suspect they would like to see a return to a Sunni controlled state.

Does that meaning they are NOT fighting for their own freedom? No it does not.

Regarding the Americans in the 1770-80's rebelling against the British rule,
this mainly benefitted the ruling American Aristocracy at the time, and certainly no one who was non-white or any indigenous peoples. They remained NON-free relative to the victors, and many of their decendants still have yet to fully savor this freedom 216 years later.

Meanwhile, the hoped-for democracy in Iraq may come to be a Shiite dominated and non-secular democracy, which may turn out to be a step backward for most Iraqis and leave them less free.