Dogs are arguably sentient beings. Dog "owners" have known this forever.

Ironically, this is probably legal (at least from our perspective) under the War Powers Act, but the continued use of US Special Forces all over the world, pretty much as we damn well please, is indicative of a foreign policy that has become completely militarized. Thank you, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

With a dedication (if they aren't insulted by it) to both Dana Garrett and Hank Foresman, for entirely different reasons. Aside from family commitments over the past week, the main thing that has kept me from posting or commenting on the government shut-down crisis is the simple fact that I wasn't sure there was anything original I could add to the discussion. I am so tired of talking points, and so tired of the gotcha  style of "discussing" this issue, and of people on both sides who either demonize or deify the most second-rate set of politicians on all sides that America has been cursed with since the Gilded Age or the Civil War. As the French soldier says in Monty Python and the Holy Grail , "I fart in your general direction." What I'm honestly beginning to think has happened is that far too many of us--with apologies to George Santayana--have redoubled our efforts when we have forgotten our aims. Here's my aim (and it is both more sim