The meaning in the comet

Just a little burned out on the news at the moment. It seems the whole world is taking a turn for the deep end, made evident by the meltdown in Pakistan where it appears Musharraf has taken Shakespeare's words to heart.

Mustang, who blogs at Social Sense and sometimes comments over at Poli yy, summed up the situation thusly:

And here we have the perfect dilemma; a nation founded on democratic principles, paying an extraordinary sum of money to a military dictator, in order to keep radical Muslims from seizing power and creating an Islamofascist state, and then aiming a nuclear weapon stolen from western technology at a nation founded on democratic principles.

No wonder Bush didn't have much to say about it. To the decider's defense, there ain't a lot of cards left for him to play--the Dick Armitage card has already been used.

That's why the mysterious exploding comet is intriguing. In times past such a heavenly occurrence would have been huge news, with wizards working OT trying to explain to the Kings what the hell was going on. Today's wizards work for cable news or the State Department and are seemingly just about as inept as in days past.

But comets are indeed strange events, and sometimes strange things happen around them. Who can forget the murderous Hale Bopp? Hopefully our present visitor doesn't trigger anyone to act as gruesomely stupid as that one did.

In all seriousness, the world is a mess right now. Blame it on Bush or the Islamists or the Pope or Hitler (or Tim Russert), but when viewed in totality the convergences are staggering. With a world full of problems whomever wins in 2008 will have their work cut out, an almost impossible task even for Billhill. Yet today we saw millions of devalued bucks flowing to Ron Paul, whose entire platform seems to be to ignore the world and hope it goes away.

Admittedly, there is a certain appeal to that thinking right now, but it is just Monday.