I’ve lost five inches off my gut in the last five months.
Which I hope means that in six more months, say the end of July, I will cross the line into Healthy, at least in terms of the shape and heft of my body; the vicinity of 200 and a 35-inch circumference at the thickest part of the belly.
***
Would that my country were doing as well.
I’d like you to have a look at the first few seconds of this video. It’s our glorious Secretary of Defense, still limping from his prostate surgery, answering a question from a reporter.
For context, somebody attacked a US military base in Syria and killed three of our brave ones.
(Under what rational authority the Empire even has a military base in Syria, a country that doesn’t like it at all, I could not and can not tell you, but that’s not the kind of question reporters ask.)
Instead, Austin was quizzed on whether Iran was involved in the deadly attack on the illegal base. He answers:
‘Well we believe that the evil deed was perpetrated by proxy groups that are backed by Iran …
“but it really doesn’t matter” (whether that belief is based on reality or a fiction)
“because Iran sponsors these groups” (which may or may not have done it).
What the actual fuck do you fucking mean, ‘it doesn’t matter’, Tom Goofus?
Are you saying you can go around the world killing people based on your vague beliefs about who gives who money?
I think you are. I think every one of your predecessors running back to the end of the World War have believed that too. They’ve killed a teenage American citizen and everyone who happened to be in the same cafe as him, because they didn’t like his father the Mullah. Maybe they killed Malcolm, and Dr. King, Fred Hampton and the Kennedy brothers, and half a million faceless others, based on the same beliefs.
Anyway, sez Lloyd, Hit Don’t Matter; what matters is: the bombing starts now. In Iraq and in Syria, anywhere we think there might be bad guys sucking off the Iranian tit.
Two weeks of bombing, to get warmed up.
And a merry Groundhog Day to you too.