Am I the only one who finds the entire Zacarias Moussaoui trial bordering on farce? Just last week, it looked like the government completely lost its case when it was revealed that someone was coaching witnesses. Now, after a stunning reversal, Moussaoui takes the stand and says, "It was me, I did it."

I just don't believe this guy at all. He comes across as stupidly insane, not diabolically insane. His story changes so much that I'd have a hard time thinking he was really involved in anything. I mean, as ugly as it sounds, we're supposed to believe that someone so clearly unstable was entrusted with hijacking a plane piloting it into the White House?

I know there is more to this case, but I don't know what this "mastermind by proxy" trial is actually supposed to prove. Much less I don't understand what executing him is going to accomplish. He's clearly an asshole, remorseless and fucking out of his mind, but wouldn't it be better to let him rot 23 hours a day in solitary for the rest of his life?

Or better still, why not actually catch Bin Laden? Or are we saving that for when Bush's poll numbers get way too low?

Now, just a few days after I write about the absurdity of some fundamentalist claims over how unfairly they're treated in the Western press, comes the story of the Afghan man who converted to Christianity 16 years ago, and has been on trial for his life because under Islamic law an apostate deserves death. ABC News tried to gloss over that issue by inserting an editorial comment that "under strict interpretation" does a death penalty edict occur.

Stop kidding yourselves, this isn't a question of semantics here, it's plain Islamic jurisprudence. Whether or not a country carries out is another issue, because the state may decry this as anachronistic barbarism, but it's not always the state that carries out such decrees.

Just when Muslims have been screaming and ranting over those idiotic cartoons and playing the victim, comes this heart-warming story of religious intolerance, which does more to make the case for bigots than anything else.

While it's not a Muslim phenonema by any means, it's deeply embarrassing that in the 21st century, we are still killing people for changing religions. And just a week earlier, I read a story about a village in Bangladesh killing people because they were suspected witches. Witches.

In any event, the case has been magically dismissed for "lack of evidence." Look, I'm not rooting for the guy to get his head chopped off, but I wasn't surprised how the legal technicalities were suddenly brought to the fore. But I'm even more surprised that someone in the Muslim world didn't say all of this was nothing more than a Zionist plot, or proof positive of what a racist, apartheid state Israel is.

Now, our new strategery document is out and it reaffirms the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, blathers about bad things happening in the world, and includes an easy-to-use reference list of the really bad guys in the world, including our newest old enemy, Iran.

So imagine my surprise when I see in the NY Times that the U.S. has agreed to talk with Iran about the violence in Iraq. It makes me ask one question: since when did the Iranians now become power brokers in that conflict?

Of course, I'm asking somewhat facetiously because it's been apparent to many observers of our Iraqi Expedition that Iran seems to have come out on top. Their influence has grown steadily since those historic elections have brought formerly disenfranchised Shiites into positions of power. And while Muqtada as-Sadr wouldn't consider himself as Iran's puppet, there's plenty of room for Iranian agents of whatever stripe to get a foothold on that crumbling country.

So Iran is our next target. I don't know if we (or Israel) will bomb that country this year or next, but for now, I find it deeply ironic that the U.S. government needs to talk to a third-patry about a country it claims is turning the corner, building democracy and the like. Hasn't knocking out evil dictator Saddam Hussein already thrilled the mullahs in Teheran? You'd think they'd be grateful enough for that.

I am hoping that one day, the massive irony of Saddam Hussein will be pondered in light of our Iraqi Expedition and the bloody fallout that's occured because of it.

What I'm referring to is that this man —by all accounts a bad person— got two things right: his concern for a potential Shia insurgency overriding concerns of an American invasion, and the fact that he did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Right-wing idealogues are incapable of nuance, so I don't expect of these guys to ponder much. But I expect that maybe left-wing enablers of the Republican war machine (like that tortuous little bitch, Thomas Friedman of the NY Times) might have the nerve to question why it was so important for us to force the evil Hussein into admitting he was (essentially) defenseless against his arch-enemies, the Iranians. It was with them, dear reader, that Iraq fought a bloody and mindless 8-year war. What would have happened if Hussein had said, "Okay, I really don't have any weapons, and now the mullahs in Teheran know it." Would we have been content to let the Iranians move in and stir up trouble?

Of course, we did the Iranians dirty work for them by deposing Hussein, who correctly foresaw that the Shia would be an issue. Now we have civil war (spare me this "brink of" horeshit that the West keeps trotting out) and the growing influence of those fun-loving mullahs. The Iranian president is threatening to develop a nuclear program, the West be damned. Iraq is neither the model of democracy or stability. And no one says anymore that we are safer because of it, since there no weapons of mass destruction.

So there it is, in all of its irony: the bogeyman of the United States had two crucial things 100% correct. But I doubt that left-wing bitches will think too hard about that. They'll just trot out the crimes of Hussein to gloss over the mess that we have made, as well as the body count caused by this expedition. All the left-wing enablers are interested in is showing how we ultimately did the right thing.

At the expense of human lives? Pardon me if I don't break my arm patting myself on the back.

It's a funny thing when fundamentalists want to decry how they're unfairly being characterized as fundamentalists and then make death threats to show much they're not really fundamentalists.

Such is the conumdrum encountered by many Muslims who have expressed their deep discomfiture at the more radical elements in Islamic societies, like Dr. Wafa Sultan. She dared to express to feelings about how Islamic fundamentalism is harming Muslim societies only to now be the target of death threats and the like.

In some ways it's like a known arsonist becoming so indignant at being accused of starting fires that he threatens to burn down your house for saying it.

I won't get into the long decline and general malaise that affects Muslim societies: I know for myself, that I am tired of peoples' opinions being met with clerical outrage and a cadre of mindless idiots coming out of the woodwork offering to hasten one's journey to the afterlife. People like this often claim they don't care what the West thinks of them, but then complain loudly that they're being discriminated against in Western societies because everyone associates Islam with intolerance and fanaticism.

Hello 2, meet number 2 and now have 4.

By the same token, I'm tired of people in the West pouncing on Dr. Sultana's words as proof that there are good Muslims in the world and if only we had a Muslim Reformation, then things would be great. There's a large measure of parochialism in that attitude that's only slightly less tolerable than the predictable bitching and moaning from clerics.

Likewise, while I am against all oppression, her concluding words from the Al-Jazeerah interview sum up quite a bit:

"Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."

Whither all the loudmouths who liked to lecture everyone about how much we're a nation of laws when Clinton got in trouble with Monica Lewinsky?

Whither the crass right-wing faux friends of democracy who wanted to uphold the dear Constitution of the United States about lying under oath, and screamed for impeachment when Clinton did his best to weasle out of answering questions about his private life?

Whither the militias who gained such public attention in the 1990s with their unending stream of bullshit about how the federal government was on its way to taking their precious guns and declare martial law? These sad fucks rallied around racist assholes like Timothy McVeigh and the inbred turds at Ruby Ridge to decry the evil nature of the government. Yet with the open abuses of the Bush Administration, you don't hear much about them anymore.

I am more and more convinced that people are addicted to their stupidity and want to be fucked. Fucked endlessly, fucked hard, and told that it's for their own good. The Bush Administration was on watch when the greatest intelligence failure in American history occured with four hijacked airplanes. Then it proceeded to lie through its fangs about needing to launch a war against a country that had not attacked us. And now, four years later, we are no where near the cakewalk these lying fucks promised everyone. Iraq is not free, unless you consider freedom the right to blow up everyone and everything in sight and dance on the precipice of civil war.

And unless you consider yourself freer about being spied on, the failure to save an American city, billions of dollars in new debt and the insidious fuckers who make up the lobbyist "profession," well, then, this truly must be heaven on earth.

We are not a nation of laws. We are a nation of dupes and we love it.