The theme of an old Python conference (the only one I've had the pleasure of attending) was "Life is better without braces." I just lost about an hour of my life trying to clean up some Javascript code (which I rarely touch) to eliminate an image rollover problem that occurs on a site that we're replacing. Everything looked right. But time after time after time, the code wasn't running. Finally, I realized the problem: I had lost a closing brace on a function definition. I put the brace back, everything now works as it always should have.
Eight weeks. And still no sign of the damning weapons of mass destruction. Where was the threat that was so dangerous that we had to spend billions of dollars and the lives of U.S., U.K. soldiers and 5,500-7,200 Iraqi civilians (as of current estimates)?
As this shakes out and the country wakes up (hopefully) to the wool that was pulled over their eyes concerning the Iraq situation, what happens next time when there is a legitimate threat? I have two speculations on that:
The latest essay I read out of Lewis Lapham's Theater of War paints a pretty damning picture of the CIA. The essay was written before the September 11th attacks, and mentions the many things the agency has gotten wrong over the years (including the idea that the peasants would rise up and join us when we tried to invade Cuba - sound familiar?). When our enormous military machine gets fired up for whatever is next, how can we trust the reasoning and decision making behind it?
Some readers might say "So it's been eight weeks. Give them more time!" To which I remind those readers that which was said of the weapons inspectors prior to the attack.
And as another reminder of just how convinced the administration was (or appeared to be) about these vast stockpiles of evil weapons, the Whiskey Bar takes us on an entertaining (and sickening) trip from the past to the present.