We got up at 3 this morning because Beta had an early flight to Scotland. Her plane didn’t leave until 7, but get there 2 hours early you know, because although security was not intrusive, you have to do stuff like check in, and ask why it’s not possible for her to be pre-checked for the plane change in Frankfurt if the girl she’s traveling with *is* checked all the way through and how is a 13 year old with little time between planes to be expected on her first unchaperoned international flight to do all the checkin stuff and why weren’t we informed about this 2 months ago when we booked the tickets and then there was the time necessary to be told, “Gee, dunno, go ask Lufthansa, she’s flying with them the second leg of the flight” and go talk to the Lufthansa desk, frequent-flyer Alpha working this end of it, while seldom-flyer Mig orders breakfast for the girls and tries to keep really tired and wired Gamma from communing too closely with the gum stuck under the table and don’t spill anything and then the time it takes for the 2 girls traveling to go to the restroom and discuss with Alpha, no mom, you don’t have to come to the restroom with us, how’re we supposed to travel to Edinburgh if we can’t even find the WC without help?” and the time for me to say, “huh?”.

It was funny, all in all, but I’m worthless today so I’ll just leave you with a couple political links.

Victory in the war is not victory in the argument about the war.
Hippie crap saves the world.
Some thoughts on the fall of Baghdad.