Well, well, well, so much time elapses between my entries and so much shit happens that you think I'd be scrambling to post stuff here. I've always had a tendency to take a vacation at the wrong time, but why bitch about that when I can bitch about real stuff?

So we have the death of super-villian al-Zarqawi, he of the "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" group that got a little too fascinated with chopping people's heads off. Thank God for that— not because of the violence, but the media needed something to promote and Bush could sure use a bounce in his sagging numbers.

We got to see the bluish and bloated face of al-Zarqawi and a lot of shoulder-slapping. Again, it's another pivotal turning point and certainly heralds the true death spiral of the insurgency in Iraq. Bloggers on the right got some wind in their sails, and they promptly attacked leftists for "being sorry" that al-Zarqawi was dead and for rooting for the insurgency. They (and the media, so hard to distinguish nowadays) excitedly pointed at the "treasure trove" of documents that was like capturing the Nazi's plans for Europe. It was just that exciting.

So let me say that I don't care about the death of al-Zarqawi. One less killer in the world, that's for sure, but I flatly disbelieve this guy was The Insurgency itself, manipulating and orchestrating just about every terrorist attack. Slobbering rightists, in an attempt to revive their flacid members about this war, did their part to continue the lying to the public on behalf of the Bush Administration by using the group's name "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" as the final, really-we-mean-it proof that the war in Iraq is about fighting global terrorism. Even the redoubtable Charlie Gibson (the new anchor of ABC News now that they shoved Elizabeth Vargas out of the way) made that connection when switching from a story in Iraq to Afghanistan with the phrase "and now to the other front in the war on terrorism." The implication is implicit: Iraq is about global terror. All the cocks in the White House must have been pointing due north.

Outside of intelligence agencies, no one had ever heard of al-Zarqawi, much less "Al-Qaeda in Iraq." In fact, there was no such group before this ridiculous war began, but why quibble with facts? After a failure to catch the evil Usama bin Laden or even the Anthrax Killer (remember him?), the mindless fucks in the press and their rightist blowhard buddies needed to find a villain, pump him up, take him out and show off the corpse like it was first prize at a turkey shoot. And naturally, the assholes on CNN's "Reliable Sources" will just talk about how negative the press has been, how hard Bush is working and geez, we just took down yet another Hitler, why isn't anyone celebrating?

I, too, hate having my war hardon dampened with bad news.