See, this is what happens when you let the help eat at the table with the good folks.

:)

But seriously, folks... whatever happened to satire? One wonders if the lib echo chamber ever takes a step back and really WATCHES tripe like this and Jon Stewart's nonsense... really watches it and identifies it for the ham-fisted sophistry that it is.

This isn't satire... it's mockery. Sure, it gets a laugh, but it's a pretty cheap thrill when any fifth-grader can pull it off.

Still, criticism is also cheap, so I may as well throw my hat in the ring by pointing out the VERY latest product struggling to birth itself from Madame Pelosi's dessicated loins...

The i-Surrender.

A public spelling error. Mark your calendar, C... you won't see that often from me. :)

Ok, ok... we've hashed this out in private, but a public offense deserves a public apology. I was tired... the word I was hunting for was "entertainment," not "help." And yes, that's a playful jab at your (ideological) minority status around here, and yes, as you say, spelling counts. So I guess we're even.

And, for the record, I DO want your help.

AND I'll grant you that the video has its moments. It's funny. Unfortunately, it has WAY too much in common at an intellectual level with the actual substance of the Left side of the debate about Iraq. That makes the video a whole lot less funny, and it doesn't do much for the debate, either.

C, you made a number of assertions in your comment, and I'd be interested to see you defend those assertions, perhaps in their own posts. You pick your own topics, obviously, but here are the assertions I see above:

- That our military presence in Iraq constitutes an "occupation."

- That this presence daily costs money, lives, maimings, the destruction of families, and the creation of emnity, in increasing measure.

- That these costs render our presence there absurd, and borderline insane.

You make these assertions as if they were a matter of established fact... but they aren't. Not here.

So feel free to try and establish them... or at least concede that the question remains to be settled and treat the topic accordingly.

That would be desiccated, Jason. Spelling counts when you try to use the big words.

It's one thing to attack a public figure, however distastefully, and it's another to refer to me as 'help.'

If you want it, my help that is, play nice.

That said, I'll grant that this skit was mockery. It was really funny mockery and I laughed very hard, especially at the "throw more money at it" part.

Because our occupation of Iraq is absurd. And not just absurd, deadly insane. Every day we throw more money at it, and every day more people die, and every day more people come home horribly maimed, and more families are broken, more souls are crushed, more enemies are made. If that skit is right about anything, it's that the only thing we seem to be progressing towards is war in Iran.

Everything I do is about trying to understand people, to communicate, to help. I am against killing. I want it to stop.

But I shouldn't have offended you on your forum and so I apologize. I'm sorry, please forgive me.

Thanks Jason, I'm glad to be here to entertain you and your visitors.

'The Talent' is how to properly refer to those providing 'entertainment'.

Traditionally the 'producer' kisses the butt of 'the talent', or else there isn't any 'talent' left with which to 'entertain'. We are a fickle and demanding bunch.

My 'agent' will be in contact with you about my 'waivers.' I thought you were giving us formatted comments. This old-fashioned markup is cramping my style.

With regards to the 'open question' of whether or not Iraq is occupied and whether it's absurd for American forces to remain there, given the costs of occupation, I think the fundamental problem is that while we're both rational people, our opinions are based on separate sets of facts, learned from separate news sources. The task becomes what facts to agree upon.