Some thoughts on the news.

My eighty six year old grandmother flew from Illinois back to Los Angeles yesterday under the latest security directives. On dropping my grandma off at the airport my Aunt had to explain to her that she could not carry her ever present thermos full of tea. Her handbag was searched and the eye drops that she carried were taken away by the TSA agents. She endured a bad flight on her first leg to Chicago and barely made her connecting flight, being the last person to enter the plane before it left the gate. She finally arrived in LA around eleven last night, just as four other late flights were arriving. With all those late planes arriving together it took nearly an hour before her she found her luggage at the baggage claim.

She was one of many to suffer bad travel experiences yesterday, but on some level still thankful because there were terrorist plots and things could have been much worse.

You've all heard the news by now. Over 30 terrorists were arrested in Britain plotting to use liquid explosives hidden in sports drinks and flashbulbs from instant cameras to assemble bombs on airplanes and take down several flights from England to the United States. Thankfully the British security forces were doing their job.

What really fascinates me about this news is that once again, the actual facts of what happened immediately get spun in this country for political gain. Republiskunks pat themselves on the back because they believe they have demonstrated how their war on terror is working. Demosquids say this shows how the war on terror is creating more terrorists and that we would be much safer if we actually had a war on terror and not a civil war in Iraq disguised as a War on Terror.

It's like the first thing out of anybody's mouth is recharacterizing of the facts to fit some notion of world view and ideological purity. Each side seems to be taking credit or pushing blame. It's a dirty dirty game.

But I'm starting to realize that the Republiskunks will always win at this game. Damn the inconvenient fact that there were no WMDs in Iraq. Damn the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. They can create their own reality and make everyone swallow the cool aid and believe it. Ideology outweighs truth.

Republiskunks are the true post modernists.