Hammer Mill Days

Man oh man. Put another log in the furnace, Anti-Lincoln. Drafty old barn of a place. Are you sure we weren't somehow transported overnight to one of those Kuiper Belt planetoids? I'm freezing my ass off in here. Oh, hi. Yes, we're in the midst of another cold snap here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Our local gas an electric company discontinued service here years ago, as you might suspect. The hammer forge has been pretty quiet since the 1940s. You might think, well ... burn the furniture, right? Well, we did that YEARS ago. I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and no, I'm not burning that. (We're always looking for kindling. After almost twenty winters of this, the mansized tuber is looking pretty nervous.) Okay, so we have to break the ice in the bathroom sink every morning - is that anything to complain about? We have a roof over our heads ... or most of a roof, anyway. More importantly, we have a floor beneath our feet. I say that because, if...

The Syrian meltdown is horrible to watch, and thanks to the fact that much of the killing is being done by official enemies of the United States, we are actually able to watch it. The Syrian regime is doing the only thing it knows how to do - killing and torturing those who oppose it. The Russians, too, have only one speed on their killing machines. Lebanese Hizbullah fighters are there to support the regime, just as the regime and the allied government of Iran was there to help them in their time of need - it's hard for me to blame them, frankly. But the true crime of Syria is that there are many players involved in this senseless war and their all pursuing their own agendas. The United States has had dogs in this fight for years, despite what you'll hear on bullshit broadcast outlets like Morning Joe . They have provided covert support to rebel groups in Syria since before the uprising, so there's little doubt that some of those fighters assumed - as Chalabi did with r...