Poor Mr. Cheney is such a delicate flower:

Harry Whittington said Friday he was sorry for what Dick Cheney and his family have “had to go through” after the vice president shot him in a weekend hunting accident.

In other news, Republicans are demanding that Roman Polanski apologize to Charles Manson for the trauma Manson must have suffered after ordering the killings of Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, and four others at Polanski’s home. “Manson has suffered for years over this. Polanski publicly displayed almost crippling grief over the deaths of his wife and friends, but he has never shown one bit of remorse for Charlie’s suffering,” a GOP spokesman said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I — I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”

“We all assume certain risks in whatever we do,” Whittington said. “Whatever activities we pursue and regardless of how experienced, careful and dedicated we are, accidents do and will happen.”

When we're not careful, they happen more often. And the really big accidents seem to cluster around Cheney, Bush and Company. They’re just unlucky, I guess.

Bumper stickers may be our culture’s greatest repository of wisdom. I just got back from a long walk, where I saw this:

Your Silence Won’t Save You

A thought worth remembering.

No more Danish pastries in Iran:

Iranians love Danish pastries, but when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they now have to ask for “Roses of the Prophet Mohammed.”

Bakeries across the capital were covering up their ads for Danish pastries Thursday after the confectioners’ union ordered the name change in retaliation for caricatures of the Muslim prophet published in a Danish newspaper.

Isn’t that silly? The Iranians are throwing any concept of common sense out the window, and letting the overheated emotions of the moment lead them to make fools of themselves. What’s with those people, anyway? Where do they get these ridiculous ideas?

They’re all governed by emotion over there, you know. Not like us Americans. We’re rational. Our actions are guided by facts and logic. You know, if Denmark did something to offend us, we’d deal with our differences like grown-ups, and go right on eating those delicious Danish pastries. If the Belgians offended us, we’d arrange a breakfast meeting and work things out quickly and sensibly, perhaps over some Belgian waffles. If the French offended us, uh…

You know, uh… maybe this is a positive sign. Yeah. The Iranians are following the American example. That’s right — democracy is taking root! Yeah!

Sigh…