Riverbend's alive

Just when I think that the violence in Iraq has robbed the world of a really good writer, and hopes for rebuilding a country she posts again.

(update---5:37 PM 1/2/2007 I linked the post, but I didn't read it, I'm reading it now and I stumble across this sentence: "Again, I can't help but ask myself why this was all done? "
and I think to myself: You and me both, baby, and many other people are wondering what the hell this planned chaos is actually supposed to gain anyone? And then there is the Saudi economy. Nice. My husband was spending a quarter of his income on gasoline to get to work so that some useless fucking (literally, here folks, those fuckers breed like rabbits) Saudi Prince could continue to be useless?

I just haven't felt like keeping up with the news, or posting. I don't know how to tie these stories together, but I can face the news now. Most of it came from ICH

Our Next Big Mess
By Ted Rall 12/28/06
The Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and--until now--Turkmenistan are all being ruled by the same former Communist Party bosses who ran them in Soviet times. Niyazov's death marks the beginning of the end for the post-Soviet authoritarian order and the beginning of a period of increasing instability, as foreign powers attempt to monopolize access to oil and natural gas resources and pipeline routes.

The oil companies and the Saudi Princes usually get their way, but I'll watch these two stories just to see if my cynicism is justified.

But, Hey wait a sec, I thought the next war would be Iran?
The neocon crazies, including Isralies are pushing the doofy American public.
And us stoopid Americans don't know about stuff like this.
Soooo, we have a history of pissing off people in the middle east

but we support our troops don't we?, no matter what?


But one last shot, cause that fucking mess in the middle east ain't all our fault:
Why can't Muslims take a joke?
By Spengler
I found this paragraph interesting:
Muslims rage at affronts to their faith because the modern world puts their faith at risk, precisely as modern Islamists contend. [3] That is not a Muslim problem as such, for all faith is challenged as traditional society gives ground to globalization. But Muslim countries, whose traditional life shows a literacy rate of only 60%, face a century of religious deracination. Christianity and Judaism barely have adapted to the modern world; the Islamists believe with good reason that Islam cannot co-exist with modernism and propose to shut it out altogether.