Sunday Night

Have tomorrow off for Martin Luther King Day. Excellent. B. has his usual Monday off.

Rented some movies tonite. While de gustibus non est disputandum, we thought "The Illusionist" was very good. "Snakes on a Plane" was horrible -- we couldn't even bear to watch the whole thing. Really stupid. "Flightplan" (with Jody Foster) was pretty bad. (We liked "Panic Room.") We'll have to watch "The Illusionist" again tomorrow since I was in the middle of making Gaston Beef Stew (for tomorrow) when B. put it on. One of his customers tonight had recommended the movie.

Was at the gym tonight. Also good. There's hardly anyone there on Sundays.

Regarding the "surge," this doesn't sound good (didn't read the whole thing). Of course the surge wouldn't be deemed necessary if we hadn't invaded Iraq in the first place and created such a volatile situation there. Better to have let Saddam Hussein remain in power than to open up this Pandora's Box. Bush, Cheney, Lieberman et al. still insist on linking 9/11 to Iraq as justification for this misadventure. Well, as I've emphasized before, Bush has killed more Americans in Iraq than died on U.S. soil on 9/11, and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

While I didn't watch "60 Minutes" (with Scott Pelley interviewing George Bush), here's this via Americablog, Bush lying about lying:

"You know better than I do that many Americans feel that your administration has not been straight with the country, has not been honest. To those people you say what?" Pelley asks.

"On what issue?" the president replies. "Like the weapons of mass destruction?"

"No weapons of mass destruction," Pelley says.

"Yeah," Bush says.

"No credible connection between 9/11 and Iraq," Pelley says.

“Yeah,” the president replies.

“The Office of Management and Budget said this war would cost somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion and now we're over 400,” Pelley says.

“I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha,” Bush replies.

“The perception, Sir, more than any one of those points, is that the administration has not been straight with…,” Pelley says.

“Well, I strongly disagree with that, of course,” Bush says. “So I strongly reject that this administration hasn’t been straight with the American people. The minute we found out they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to say so.”

Anyway, Saddam Hussein may now be dead, but Osama bin Laden -- Enemy No. 1 -- is still on the loose and recruiting ever more "killers" (as Bush likes to say) to his cause. Great job, George. You're really smart.

I was raised on James Bond movies and "Mission: Impossible" (the TV show). How much smarter it seems, and more practical even, to go after the bad guys (the real ones, that is) from behind the scenes, one-on-one, without resorting to war, much less never-ending war. I've always thought that if the Bushies hadn't been so preoccupied with Iraq from the moment they got into power (and before), the 9/11 attacks could have been averted. But enough looking back -- on with the surge!