Thanksgiving By The Numbers

Did my usual pre-feasting AM run and got caught as usual counting. I ran through two city parks and found 27 homeless, one of which I had to nearly jump over on a particular trail as he was busy rolling up his sleeping bag. Two of these folks were high up in a tree, not unlike Snoopy in vulture mode. I didn't see any forty ouncers being hoisted unlike last year, but I did have four of these homeless folk wish me happy Thanksgiving, and I reciprocated.

I got to wondering, if we were not perpetrating some useless war in Iraq how many homes we could have erected and put some of these folk in instead. Sure, we'd have to provide drug treatment for some, counseling for others, but I don't think it would amount to the total cash the W, Rove and Co has put our stars and stripes into hock for over their illegitimate Iraq conflagration.

At breakfast I was reading the local rag to discover that there were nearly 1500 civilian deaths in Iraq this month. That was something like 120 killings per day. Moreover, nearly 2 million people have fled Iraq for places like Syria. Then I got to some more thinking that perhaps the "stay the course" strategy wouldn't be so bad. Sooner than later, there would be nothing but terrorists and military living in Iraq. We could then pull out our troops and nuke the place solving the problem once and for all. Now that's a pretty sober and somber thought on this Thanksgiving.

I do apologize, but I am sure you can find a few thousand blogs posting what they are thankful for and if that's what you are game for, I'd encourage you click some where else.

In the words of one famous Ebenezer Scrooge..."Bah, Humbug."