rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

there’s a really interestng article about the Kansas GOP’s civil war in the Washington Post. apparently, moderate Republicans and their far-right, righteous cousins in the conservative wing of the party are having a nice, calm debate. the topic: should we push farther to the right, even after voters clearly repudiated the party in the polls? apparently, they think they should. fuck Jefferson County. Phil Kline for president, man.

I went down to Mexicali last night with the roommate after work. he asked me about halfway through my shift if I wanted to go, and I was down. when I got home, he was already a couple beers into the evening, which is a lot for him. he’s a lightweight. and he doesn’t seem to recognize that.
either way, last night ended up pretty lame, as I had to stay sober for his sake. he’s a creepy, irritating drunk (for example, he’s said “slit your throat” on a few separate evenings now). and it’s getting fucking old.

so I guess today is Day 01 After Hussein. heh.
anybody see the video yet? the full one? the grainy, cell-phone camera one?
well, get the popcorn and lube. welcome to the internet generation.
it’s basically a snuff film, and I think it raises a lot of questions. here’s a couple.
why did all of his handlers look like fucking mafioso? everyone’s wearing leather jackets.
why did it look like it was done in someone’s basement? this was a state execution, so why were there a bunch of onlookers yelling at each other? where was the formality?
I’m asking, becasue if you take out the hanging and have everyone speak in spanish, this might as well have been a fucking cockfight.
also, if this was some Iraqi government affair, why did some asshole pledge allegiance to Muqtada al-Sadr, the portly cleric who heads a massive, heavily armed militia?
I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m being picky, or critical. but this entire thing looked bush league, and it makes the US, by default, look like a bunch of assholes.
the death penalty gets me moving.
I’ll say again. beyond the victim’s relief, there’s no argument for capital punishment. you could say it’s too expensive to imprison someone for a lifetime, but that’s debatable. and neither argument is acceptable, anyway. I gotta be honest, fuck the victims. of course they want him dead. but they probably wanted to rip his balls off and set rabid wolverines on him, too. but the Iraqi courts didn’t allow that to happen. I mean, come on. that would be inhumane!
I’m not saying let him go. I’m saying they should have locked his ass in prison and moved on. it’s a copout to say he was the worst of the worst, because that’s not true. it’s not like he was the only asshole in the last 50 years. I mean, check out my boy. this guy met with Rice a few months ago, for fuck’s sake.
and, this point has been beaten into the ground by college-age pseudo-intellectual hippies about a million times now, but all of those weapons he used on the Kurds? all of those brutal crackdowns? done, with American blessings, as long as he kept the bloodthirsty Persian occupied. so please. enough with all of the selfrighteous “he had it coming” talk. he was a prick, and he had it coming. but so do a lot of other people, and a lot of them will never get it.