Now coming to the side of a milk carton near you!

I've been AWOL on a few issues lately. Granted last week was pretty busy for me, between taking two trips to NYC and a few trips to visit loved ones in the hospital, which lead to a couple of days where I spent 22+ hours awake. I'm afraid I'm going to have to use that as an excuse, even though I really should have tried to focus on other things for the blog.

I could have at least linked to feministe's post about how, yes, female political bloggers really do exist, though it created such a storm of responses from other bloggers that the topic didn't need my help. Of course, the majority of those responses came from other female political bloggers, and not male political bloggers like myself. So to all the men in the reading audience: Yes, female political bloggers do exist, and since many male political bloggers haven't been able to shut the fuck up about Swift Boat Vets lately, the female political blogs have been a breath of fresh air. I read them and scream, "Finally! Real issues!" So go here. And here. And here. And here. Here, too. And don't forget over here. And here. Over here. And here.

I also haven't paid attenion to Sudan in a few days. Whoops. Bad bad bad.. Of course, it doesn't help that the story seems to have fallen completely out of view when it was once almost on the front pages. So that's exactly the reason why I need to blog about it.

And then there's Iraq... 979 deaths, over 7000 injuries, and that's just among our soldiers. Iraqi citizen deaths are in the thousands. The US and Iraq's new government aren't allowed in cities like Fallujah, which allows the locals run them as mini-brutal dictatorships, complete with brutal laws and punishments such as beheadings. This brings into question just how many flags are flying over Iraq right now, a question that we still have to ask about Afghanistan. And in the areas which we are supposed to control, Iraqi police stations are still getting bombed, and our soldiers are still dying. The situation isn't nearly as rosy as the picture the Bush Administration paints, but will our "liberal" press dare to correct der leader? Noooo... Iraq needs to become an issue again. People are dying.

I might have had some sympathy for Chechen separatists if they didn't murder hundreds of children last week. But it is important to point out, as I learned from a conversation with a friend who's more concerned about Russian issues than I, that the main reason Russia just doesn't allow Chechnya to become a separate nation is because the of oil interests they have in the region, namely an oil pipeline that runs through it. Dying for oil, not just limited to Iraq anymore!

So there's a lot of things I need to pay more attention to. And I'll start by... Going to sleep. I only got 4 hours rest last night and I'm fucking tired. And then classes start this week, so I can only promise to do my best with keeping up.

[Actually posted at 23:11 on 9/5. Needed something for Monday while slept through the morning.]