good news and bad news

the nice thing about having good news and bad news is that it's a lot better than having all bad news.

it's not often I find good news waiting for me when I check the headlines, but things are goin' alright tonight. first, zapatero won reelection in spain, which I was really pessimistic about - the conservatives and the catholics were throwing around the family values and fear mongering pretty heavily - it's very gratifying to see the spaniards not being swayed by it. then, with just a brief interruption, that I'll get to in a minute , I read this little gem - Girl in Clinton ad supports Obama here's an excerpt:

Sun Mar 9, 6:30 PM ET

BONNEY LAKE, Wash. - Casey Knowles didn't much like a recent campaign commercial for Hillary Clinton — even though she's in it as a sleeping 8-year-old.

After all, she about to turn 18 now and is a big supporter of Barack Obama.

"What I don't like about the ad is its fear-mongering," Knowles told ABC's "Good Morning America Weekend Edition" on Sunday. "I think it's a cheap hit to take. I really prefer Obama's message of looking forward to a bright future."

Way to go Casey Knowles! You win the first ever anti-fear monger award! Click here to read the rest.

the little interruption I mentioned was the article I read in between the other two, and while it was not good news, it was hardly surprising as I tend to keep track of these things. anyway the story I'm referring to is this one - Studies: Iraq costs US $12B per month - I did the math on that figure as soon as I read it and realized that that's $40 a month for every single american, man, woman, child - each of us. if you're married and have three kids, this war of ours in iraq just cost your family $200 last month, and it'll cost you another $200 next month, how do you like those family values? - think about that when april 15th rolls around and you're paying your taxes. how do you feel about where your tax dollars are going now? bytheway, in one of my earlier posts I mentioned that although estimates on how many iraqis we've killed in the past five years vary, it's a pretty fair estimate that we spend about a million dollars per iraqi head and there have been a lot of heads - think about that on april 15th too.

and let me mention one more time - the iraq war was not begun because of a terrorist threat and there are many dangers more serious facing us than terrorism. our continued attempts to stop violence with violence are only going to escalate the problem and cost our economy dearly.