It's one of those times of the year again

Yep, Exam Season. This means it is now legal to shoot Exams in the wild. Or does that defenition of season only applies to game season (e.g., rabbit season, duck season, Elmer Fudd season, etc.)? I wonder if we could possibly make an Examiner Season, break out our "elephant guns" and be vewy vewy quiet, we're hunting Examiners. Not all examiners, of course (we need to leave some alive so there'll be more to hunt in January), but I can name a few I'd like to tie to the hood of a pickup I don't plan to own. Can I borrow a pickup truck, anyone?

In other news, I was watching some talk show (don't aske which, I wasn't watching that hard) and someone refered to what American Soldiers are doing in Iraq as "Defending their Country". Against what, I'd like to ask? I'm not saying there isn't actual combat to be had there or that American soldiers don't get injured or killed out there, but what are they defending against? "Loose Change" (look it up, don't expect links to every last word, this isn't Wikipedia) made it quite clear that the matter of 9/11 is quite unclear at best. "Farenheit 911" raised some good questions I'm yet to see answered as well. What I am fairly certain of is that even if the American Armed Forces would fully retreat from the middle east no bombers or the like would cross half a world to deliver their payload onto the Land of the Free and even if they don't retreat, I fail to see how it would prevent events the likes of what is reported of 9/11. So how exactly is it that American soldiers being woulded and killed in Iraq is Defending their Country?

You might wonder why this troubles me. First, let's clarify something: the phrase "Defending my Country" wasn't spoken by some top brass military chief or otherwise some politician who'd quite comfortably sip his liquor and puff oh his fine cigar while the pawns fell half a world away; it had been spoken by a soldier even before she had become a soldier, which means this mediatically powerful position that American soldier serving in Iraq are defending their country is mantained by hte people, who have, the way I see it, little to gain in perpetuating this idea, yet quite a lot to lose. This is symptomatic of a highly powerful propaganda machine, steered by those who do stand to gain from conflict. Who those would be, I'm yet to be sure, but, rest assured, whenever people are dying for no appearent reason, some douchebag is pretty sure he/she's turning a profit.

Besides, when has there been a clear (don't answer this until you've seen at least "Loose Change") attack on American soil? I can't recall a single armed conflict opposing the United States to another country that actually took place in the United States. The closest I can think of is Vietnam, and last I checked (on GoogleEarth, too) it was still pretty far away from America. What concerns me is that if there is such a powerful Propaganda Engine in America, there might be no stopping the driver of this infernal device from turning the American people's efforts against some other nation. While I'm not really afraid that Mr. Bush and his ilk might turn their attention to my little slice of heaven (Oh, right, there is no sarcasm tag in HTML...), there are other nations I care about (you'd never guess, from some of my previous posts, but, really, they're there. Look hard enough).

Then you might think, "But, Sharky, ol' bean, doesn't it bother you that some other country might do the same? Some other country with even more man power? Say, China?" My answer to that is, "Not really". First and foremost, if China was to strike here, where would the Chinese immigrants go? On a serious note, here, have a link, courtesy of an American Army Brat, ergo, presumably someone who has at least a smidgeon of a clue of the matter at hand. And by that I mean "Listen up and listen up good, the lady knows what she's saying".

Pax vobiscum atque vale.

ArabianShark would like to make perfectly clear that despite the quip about Chinese immigrants, he holds no prejudice or otherwise ill will against them. Loveable chaps, every last one of those I've had the pleasure of meeting.