Jon notices some eerie familiarity in the current run-up to attacking Iraq Iran:

Oy.  When we got to this part of the story in Groundhog Day, Bill Murray started trying to drive himself off a cliff.

I’ve edited the key lines to quote with clarity.  But read Jon’s whole post.

In Iraq, the killings are coming so fast that the military now manages the murder rate by distinguishing people killed by drive-bys, torture, and execution from people killed by bombs, mortars, and rockets.

Sixty-five more today, whatever you call them.

Meanwhile,

The commanders on the ground want three times as many troops as they have.  But Team Chimpy simply has no plans (and probably no viable means, even if desired) to send them.

Instead, we get a 9-11 address that turns into a partisan campaign speech and rationalization for staying a course in Iraq which simply is not working.

I wish I had more to say or some insightful comment.  But those who opposed the war years ago made the same points then that need to be made now.  You’ve already heard them.

2672 U.S. soldiers dead, 19910 wounded.  Uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed.  No end in sight.  Not enough troops.  Never have been.

But we’re staying the course.

And dancing with the stars.

Being mentioned with the other writers in this Newsday piece.

None.

Literature, history, and culture; goofy book about screwing up on a game show… goofy book about screwing up on a game show; literature, history and culture… hmm…

One of these things is so not like the other.  Kinda neat, but very weird to see.  I keep expecting to hear one of the, um, actual writers listed shouting at me to get off their lawn.

It’s not online yet, but this week’s Entertainment Weekly has a nice write-up of both Prisoner of Trebekistan and Brainiac, Ken Jennings’sese’ss (man, I hate possessive plurals) book.  Nice picture of us both and everything.

One delightfully odd nitpick: the reviewer, whose writing I generally quite like and respect, strangely claims that I’ve earned "hundreds of thousands in non-televised contests."

Um. 

I have no idea what this writer is imagining — apparently some kind of back-alley trivia competition, perhaps in the style of underground cockfights, where a skeevy host with gold teeth and a scar is surrounded by sweaty bettors waving crumpled lumps of third-world currency, all pressing themselves against a chicken wire enclosure as two desperate and dead-end knowledge geeks face off with buzzers pressed against their heads, Deerhunter-style.

Granted, this is what Jeopardy! itself sometimes feels like when you’re playing.  But no.

My guess is the guy just didn’t read Chapter 18 ("Greed, a Quick Smush, and a Shameful Little Booby"), about other game show experiences I’ve had, very closely.  Probably just got a little confused.  Could happen to anyone.  Lord knows I probably make ten mistakes in every post.

Although if he actually does know about some back-alley trivia somewhere… what the heck, sign me up.

Hard to say how the numbers were affected by the media firestorm criticizing "The Path to 9-11," but it looks like a good football game may have done as much or more to turn people away from the blame-Clinton series, neutralizing the clear right-wing tilt of the thing, than all the furor about its content.

Not sure what the hell that says or means, but there it is.

So, continuing the endless meme, why does the NFL hate America?