PJ O'Rouke remains one of the funniest and most trenchant satirists working. Evidence the article he wrote for The Atlantic on several protest marches in Washingington, D.C. held in support of various causes last April: "The Colombia Mobilization Festival of Hope and Resistance gathered at the Washington Monument. U.S. drug-eradication policy was opposed. Millions of Americans have opposed that policy more effectively with mirrors, razor blades, and little glass pipes. The Colombia Mobilization also wanted the U.S. Army School of the Americas eliminated, although it has been and is now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. This can no longer be called a training ground for Latin American dictators, because Castro is the only dictator left. And to judge by the number of Che T-shirts in the crowd, the Colombia Mobilization is on Cuba's side."

"Yeah, it's a tricky one," the feminist said. "There might be some nonviolent approach such as micro-lending." Go read the whole thing. It's hi-freakin-larious.

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He needs me pimpin' his schtuff about like the boys in ZZ need more facial hair, but still, I cannot in good conscience not steer any of y'all that don't know Lilek's web site there. No one I've read on the Web writes as consistently well, no matter what the topic.

His stuff about his baby daughter, the Gnat, reminds me so much of MK's growing up with me I find myself with tears of remembrance. His photopoetic look at his dog, Jasper, simply makes me want to punch my monitor in envy.

Yet, he can warblog as well as anyone. Here, he states the humanitarian reasons for taking Saddam down: "In WW 2 everyone knew that taking out Hitler meant uprooting the culture of Nazism - a thing whose roots were tangled in German identity. But there is no such thing as Saddamism. His statues will topple and his secret police will be strung up and spat upon, and for all the chaos that will follow you will have millions of people who will be freed of the old fear; millions of men no longer fed to the guns; millions of women who will not see their sons shoved to the front. We’ll see the tours of the weapons factories, the torture cells, hear the stories of the dissidents, understand in all its stultifying detail the extent to which this cult penetrated every aspect of civil, intellectual, scientific and spiritual life. And at some point when we realize how bad it was for them, and how few suffered to lift the yoke, and how they have their future in their own hands for the first time in decades, it will be incumbent upon the critics of the war to prove why it would have been better to keep Saddam in power. And why they thought the gossamer strands of diplomatic disapproval would ever bind his arms."

There's so much more here than I've mentioned. Go check it out, but not before you have a day or two to waste.

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Bush43 and Rumsfeld have both at various times stated that there would be things going on that would not be apparent to the public or the media. Seems that while their public pronouncements have been vague, (43 says that's that he hasn't decided on military action, etc.) the military operation against Iraq is already underway.

Don't ask me how I know. Well, go 'head and ask, but I ain't sayin' nuttin'. Well, not nothing. I will say that Marines, current and former, have an extensive informal information network, and bartenders around Ft. Bragg hear lotsa stuff from lonely Army wives. :-) And all the official .mil sites have gotten real hush-mouthed over where the carriers are.

I'm guessing mid-November now.

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