Your Good Big Brother Is Still With You

At the interstice between Xmas and New Years Day, it is good to remember that Olaf is watching over all things, even if he has been, um, delinquent in his postings lately. Perhaps 2008 will open new vistas or give him a clonk on the head so fucking serious that he will rave like the madman he truly wants to be. God knows there are many who would love to do some clonking on Olaf. For those of you in this corner of the Southwest, line up and I'll open my noggin to ya. No pointed objects, please.

With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, suddenly Iraq recedes into the misadventure it has always been (never a threat) and Afghanistan, which squirted away thanks to the Iraqi distraction is now, along with the border region in Pakistan, hosting ever more Taliban. Pakistan immediately takes front and center, and here are the sobering facts. Pakistan is the sixth largest country in the world (bigger than Russia, as Joe Biden pointed out today) and they have nukes now, not in some uncertain and distant future like Iran. Their dispute with India over Kashmir and the bloody past mixed in with a potential political collapse if Musharraf goes the way of Ms. Bhutto's father or his murderers, Zia al Haq, could be the start of the first thermonuclear exchange. Heaven help us if that erupts.

Bombing the shit out of Iran doesn't seem so important or smart against backdrop, does it? But I'll just wager that Bush and Cheney are using this assassination in Pakistan as a veil under which to advance all their plans to do just that. Why?

I wish I knew, but they are nothing if not determined, even if it is by now driven only by madness.

Actually, however, I'm actually in a pretty good mood, despite the grim visage above. In my spare time I've been laying down tracks on what I think may be a pretty good tune, a rather upbeat thing with a nice swing to it. Don't have a title yet.

Happy New Year, y'all.