William K. Wolfrum

One of the great joys in my life was that at the beginning of the year, I stopped being an NFL fan. The Steelers had won their fifth Super Bowl, I was in another country most the time, and missing the intense coverage. So I walked away a winner, never looking back at the sport I once loved.

That, of course, gives me no solace for the pain such a miserable season it this year for Pittsburgh.

I mean, they loss to Oakland. Oakland, a team that would struggle to put up 14 points against me. They turned Michael Vick into Joe Montana. They got beaten like rented mules twice against Baltimore.

Ben Rothlisberger nearly wiped himself out before the season began, and then threw interceptions by the bucketload once things got underway. Outside of Willie Parker and Troy Palomalu, it was just a season of medicority, as the Steelers showed they weren’t up to repeat their championship.

And then, finally, as if to just pour salt on the wound, kicker Jeff Reed decided to humilate himself. The kicker, for God’s sake. Making himself look all the fool by sending girls pictures of him showing off some “Penis cleavage.” Deadspin, has more on the story, including the frightening picture”

Thank God this was the year I stopped being an NFL fan.

–WKW

Through a combination of dramatic writing and editing, sometimes, things just come together for Associated Press writers and a type of poetry is created.

Here’s an AP story on Iran possibly suffering massive economic losses due to a slowing of oil production:

… Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports.

The decline is estimated at 10 to 12 percent annually.

In less than five years exports could be halved, Stern predicted.

For two decades, the United States has deployed military forces in the region in a strategy to pre-empt emergence of a regional superpower.

Iraq was prevented from growing into a major power in the area in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

But a hostile Iran remains a target of U.S. threats.

The U.S. military exercises have not stopped Iran’s drive …

Is it me, or is that not haunting? Seriously, it’s touching. Awards need to be given.

–WKW

I suppose it’s easy to get the idea that you are in some grand, history-shaping battle between good and evil when your leaders spend such a great deal of their public time fervently shrieking that you are involved in a grand, history-shaping battle between good and evil.

Here’s the thing, however - you’re not.

You see, just like people who believe that they were great warriors or historic figures in past lives are deluded, so are the “Epic Battle of Civilizations” or “Epic Battle for Civilization” folks. It is a great mind game doled out and eagerly consumed by those that feel impotent, in order to give their lives some meaning and direction.

Basically, the “Epic Battle of Civilizations” has become a new religion.

If you’re reading this and shocked at the naivety of the author, try doing this: crack open a history book. Go to any year, from the dawn of mankind. Whether you think man began 40,000 or 6,000 years ago is of no concern. Now, quick - point to a year, month, day, or moment, where peace reigned supreme around the globe. You can’t.

Whether Christians, communists, fascists, Nazis, Muslims, etc., there has always been an evil in the world that - if somehow unchecked - will either slay or enslave us all, according to the masses. For Muslim nations now, the U.S. is that great evil. Because their masses are as deluded as ours and also have visions of immense self-importance. Like many in the West, they feel they are embroiled in a history-altering moment in time.

They’re not. Neither are you. The “Epic Battle of Civilizations” can be defined in one word: narcissism.

What the world’s population is involved in now is what the world’s population has always been involved in. Like always, we are riding the interests of our leaders, nothing more. And the leaders on both sides are simultaneously good and evil.

So just keep that in mind if you start believing you are in an “Epic Battle.” You’re not. In the history of civilization, you are not even a comma. Deal with it. The “epic battle” will proceed in the minds of many until this planet shakes us all off of it. Think about it - every last generation has had its own “epic battle” thrust on it by, or due to the world’s leaders. Shouldn’t that tell you something?

An “Epic Battle of Civilizations?” Please. Stop thinking so highly of yourself.

–WKW

Because sometimes, it’s hard to tell what people mean when they use specific words or phrases, here’s a quick primer on some popular terms floating around these days:

Sectarian violence = Civil War

Surge = Escalation

Immigration control = Muslims are scary

Sanctions against Iran = War on Iran is coming

Adding more troops = The draft will be here soon.

–WKW

Researching the possibility of a flu pandemic sweeping the globe, the Lancet Medical Journal predicted it was possible that as many as 62 million would die worldwide, most of that number in developing nations.

From the Washington Post:

An influenza pandemic of the type that ravaged the globe in 1918 and 1919 would kill about 62 million people today, with 96 percent of the deaths occurring in developing countries.

That is the conclusion of a study published yesterday in the Lancet medical journal, which uses mortality records kept by governments during the time of “Spanish flu” to predict the effect of a similarly virulent outbreak in the contemporary world.

The analysis, the first of its kind, found a nearly 40-fold difference in death rates between central India, the place with the highest recorded mortality, and Denmark, the country with the lowest. The reason for the huge variation is not known, but it may reflect differences in nutrition and crowding.

If a modern Spanish flu killed all its victims in one year, it would more than double global mortality. About 59 million people now die each year.

“It is a huge, huge number,” said Christopher J.L. Murray, a physician and biostatistician at the Harvard School of Public Health who headed the study. “This really took us by surprise.”

The Lancet had recently made news in 2006 by concluding in a study that more than 600,000 Iraqis had been killed due to the Iraq war. Conservative thinkers, quick to debunk anything from the Lancet, said this study was obviously politically motivated and similarly flawed as it counted people in “developing countries” as “people.”

Based on momentary, factless research, Conservative estimates place the potential death toll of a global flu pandemic at “like 80 or so.”

–WKW

One day after prominently featuring Joy Behar as a top story (she’s still up there, by the way) Fox News is freakin’ losing it over Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump acting like idiots in order to get ink from the likes of Fox News.

Dear God.

The Rosie O’Donnell, Donald Trump, Joy Fucking Behar triumvirate in less than 24 hours. I can only imagine Fox News journalists are looking back wistfully on the days that all they had to do was fellate Bush on an hourly basis.

Fox News journalists, you must know the road you have to take. Feel the sweet burn of the blade. Let the blood flow:

–WKW

Oligarchs don’t care. They don’t have to.

–WKW

Scoffing at those who consider him disconnected, President George W. Bush said today that Iraqis being taunted and fooled into fighting each other by the enemy will lead to more death and sacrifice for the U.S. in 2007.

He added that deep down he knew that Americans really wanted this conflict to continue, even if they weren’t aware of that themselves.

From the Associated Press:

“2006 was a difficult year for our troops and the Iraqi people. We began the year with optimism” but that faded as extremists fomented sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

The heavy cost of the war also came into focus as the Pentagon circulated a request for an additional $99.7 billion to pay for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. If embraced by Bush and approved by Congress, the proposal would boost this year’s budget for those wars to about $170 billion.

So far, four years of war in Iraq have cost about $350 billion.

Apart from any increase in Iraq, Bush said the military’s overall size should be increased to relieve the heavy strain on U.S. troops, reversing the previous position of his administration during Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon tenure. Bush also said a troop surge in Iraq would have to be for a specific mission.

“There’s got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished with the addition of more troops before, you know, I agree on that strategy,” the president said.

“I’m not going to make predictions about what 2007 will look like in Iraq except that it’s going to require difficult choices and additional sacrifices because the enemy is merciless and violent,” the president said.

Bush was unwavering about U.S. goals for Iraq.

“Victory in Iraq is achievable,” he said. “It hadn’t happened nearly as quickly as I hoped it would have. …

“But I also don’t believe most Americans want us just to get out now,” the president said. “A lot of Americans understand the consequences of defeat. Retreat would embolden radicals. It would hurt the credibility of the United States.”

To summarize:

1) More death

2) We’re going to aim for a “specific” mission now.

3) Victory is achievable, we just don’t know what “victory” means, or even “achievable” or, for that matter, “is”.

4) What Americans think and what Bush thinks they think are two completely separate things.

5) The word “Credibility” obviously doesn’t mean what Bush thinks it means.

The conclusion: Expect more of the same, until we attack Iran.

–WKW

The 13th President of the U.S., Millard Fillmore didn’t learn to read until he was 23, while the 43rd President, George W. Bush, didn’t learn reading comprehension until after he turned 60.

–WKW

Lets get this straight. Republican Rep. Virgil Goode is not a Nazi.

Goode is a patriotic nationalist that believes in dictatorial powers for the President, an aggressive and active military, limited civil rights for the public, and the purging of an individual race from the nation.

To call him a Nazi is just silly.

–WKW