Wednesday, April 09, 2003

The Loot, The Loot, The Loot Is On Fire Today seems to be an awfully interesting one if you happen to live in Baghdad.  Various news agencies are reporting the mass looting going on of government buildings and presidential compounds.  CNN reports: And in other areas, Iraqis took advantage of vanished regime security to break into buildings -- particularly government buildings -- and come away with office supplies, refrigerators, chairs and whatever else they could handle. In Saddam City, a poor neighborhood on Baghdad's east side, dozens of people were seen hauling off furniture, fixtures and office supplies -- many using wheelbarrows and pickup trucks, with no security forces to stop them. Among the items carried away were new leather office chairs -- some still wrapped in plastic. I say let 'em.  Let 'em take whatever they want for a couple of days, which would help solve two concerns for our forces in the area:  Quick re-distribution of wealth:  Do you have any idea how long it would take to sell this crap on eBay and then hand it out to the locals?  No way -- let them fight for it.  Survival of the fittest, I always say.  Plus no red-tape to deal with.  Just grab that stereo and immediately double your family's wealth. Booby traps:  If there are any traps set in these government buildings or palaces, I'd much rather have some poor Iraqi slob take one for the team than one of our guys.  After having thousands of peasants crawling all over these buildings, any explosives will have been set-off or stolen as souvenirs.  Either way, we win. Eventually though, we'll have to drop the hammer.  Soon as they even think of getting their hands on their, er... I mean our oil, then enough fun 'n' games.  Have to draw the line somewhere. 8:56:18 PM     |

Some People Should Be Banned From The Internet You have to be a freakin' moron to put up a Tripod or Angelfire website.  I know I'm not the only one who cringes once you realize that the link you clicked on is taking you to a Tripod or Angelfire site with loads of pop-ups sure to follow.  Actually, the pop-ups I can almost handle.  It's the utter lack of taste that most of these people choose to slap onto the web that I find difficult to stomach.  The cheesy animated gifs, the nauseating music, the color schemes that send epileptics into convulsions.  You'd think that someone in their lives would take them aside (or perhaps behind a barn) and talk some sense into them (or shoot them). If you do know of someone who has committed a crime like the one's listed above, and you haven't already put them out of our misery, then you can send them to Web Pages That Suck with a reminder that the first step towards salvation is admitting you have a problem. Or you can send them to Something Awful where they post the Awful Link of the Day.  The one from yesterday, while not hosted by Tripod of Angelfire, was particularly scary.  Don Smith needs help. Now I considered posting a long list of links to sites that would further illustrate my points, but then I think in a way that would be encouraging them: "Look, Bettie!  We're getting all these hits tonight!  Must be that Andean flute music we added yesterday.  I knew people would love it!" Nah, Bettie was right.  She tried to talk you out of it, but now you're just an object of ridicule by someone like me, who probably doesn't know that half his hits are also coming from someone way cooler than me that is using me on their website as an example of... of... of genius. 7:20:54 PM     |

Icon War Relatively cool. Back with more in a bit.  Just getting warmed up. 6:46:58 PM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.