From October 31, 2009

Wider: I dip into the libertarian LewRockwell.com blog every once in a while, although there's a slew of stuff there I can't stomach. An example? This, by Pat Buchanan (yes,that Pat Buchanan), writing about the folly of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
"While these two wars have cost 5,200 dead, a trillion dollars and a divided America facing an endless war, what have we won?"
That little sentence, those handful of words illustrate the immensity of American hubris. So the dead total 5,200. That's five thousand, plus two hundred. It's a bit more than half of 10,000. I think it's actually about the same as the total population of the small town where I grew up. That's a lot of people. Such a shame. How dreadful. Of course, that's the total, which isn't TOO bad, of human beings killed over there, right?
Wait, there are more? Men, women, and children? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Don't be silly, no such thing, that's just crazy, you're wrong, you got rocks in your head.
Well, if you're gonna count the animals who live there--!