Ridiculous

I'm not paying the news a lot of mind these days. But I have noticed that it has taken the Democrats, who feel as though they won big in November, but a few months to make or threaten to make a total hash of it. The California budget argument now has people calling to repeal the supermajority rule. Where do people like this come from? If it only took a simple majority to pass a budget, the Democrats, who will always be in the majority here, thanks in no small measure to the Republicans' being in thrall to right-wing religious wackos, will pass high-tax high-spend budgets that will empower certain unions and chase business out of the state. Of course that might happen anyway but geez.

Heart of the Insurgency

Is it really Islamic faith and dedication that drives people to detonate themselves in the crowds, a sort of medieval twist on nationalist anti-imperialism?

No. It's all psychological manipulation. Just about the worst evil imaginable.

In a separate prison interview with The Associated Press, with interrogators nearby, the woman said she was part of a plot in which young women were raped and then sent to her for matronly advice. She said she would try to persuade the victims to become suicide bombers as their only escape from the shame and to reclaim their honor.-- (02-03) 12:55 PST BAGHDAD, (AP)

The cure is to allow that society to return to normalcy. The very sick and twisted people who enable and encourage this sort of thing have to die out without replacement. That will take time. During that time the society needs to be relatively healthy, i.e. engaged constructively with the modern world. This will require at least as long as the thirty years it took to get to this state. That of course is assuming a best-case scenario without significant interference by her Machiavellian neighbors.

McCain's alleged "hundred years of occupation" makes sense to me. And I would not be willing to bet that there won't still be American troops there when Obama leaves office.