International justice has long been tempered by politics. After World War II, it was easy to convict leading Nazis of waging illegal war. It has proved more difficult to indict former U.S. president George W. Bush for the same crime.
In 2001, Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was properly brought before a special United Nations tribunal to face justice for his role in the Yugoslav mayhem. But those NATO leaders (including Canada’s Jean Chrétien), who without UN authorization made illegal war on Serbia, were not.
Is Walkom comparing Bush to Hitler and U.S. actions in Iraq to German actions during World War II? And is he comparing NATO action in the former Yugoslavia to Serbian actions in the 1990s? Is he kidding me? Even by Star standards, this is ridiculous and ignorant.
I recently unfriended a couple of lunatics from my Facebook friends list and it's amazing what a difference it makes. It's all quiet on the Facebook front now, which I find delightful. Frank Fleming has written a helpful list of tips for people such as the ones I unfriended -- these tips also apply to a couple of family members of mine. What is most fascinating is that the people I unfriended, as well as the family members I have in mind, are all driven to distraction by more or less the same topics -- Israel, 9-11, Republicans and so forth. Hmmm....
In fact, what with silly "activists" currently being part of a flotilla in an attempt to provoke Israel (not, as they would assert, in an attempt to help anyone in Gaza) it is particularly nice to know I won't have to hear from certain of these crazies about it.
Here is a choice bit of advice from Fleming:
Sane people know that the only people who have hours to spend writing pages of text in a comments section are crazy people. And that’s why no will read what they write except other crazy people with way too much time on their hands. So keep it short. Pick one point, and write no more than a couple of sentences. Keeping it short also helps you police your crazy. I’ve seen comments where I’ve read the first paragraph and thought maybe the person was just a little over-enthusiastic, and then I started the second paragraph and realized, “Oh, this is a super crazy person.” So keep it pithy, and avoid the crazy.
And I love this, being a grammar freak and all:
Proofread
Now, this is a problem even non-crazy people have, but crazy people seem to be the worst at it because they’re just so desperate to share their crazy with the world that they can’t pause for one second and read over what they wrote. I’m not asking for full editing — an error or two is expected to slip in on the internet — but insane people tend to have typing fingers that never come close to keeping up with their crazy brains bouncing around from topic to topic. Thus we get a single sentence with five glaring errors in it. It’s hard to imagine someone who writes like that has an interesting point. So after you write a comment, don’t listen to the crazy in your head shouting, “You need to share this now! Now! NOW!” Instead, take a deep breath and read it over before hitting the submit button.
Easily his greatest role -- playing the most loving, blundering husband dealing with a, er, troubled wife. I find this movie very hard to watch -- it is emotionally harrowing. But if you have some wine and Ativan nearby, do watch it. I'm hoping TCM will have a Peter Falk tribute day featuring A Woman Under the Influence.
