<HTML>In a message dated 1/31/2003 12:04:09 PM Pacific Standard Time, dhenwood@panix.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"> [from today's Page Six - someone tell Hitchens!]   [President Bush] is from West Texas. When you see a rattlesnake on a trail, you pull out that gun, and you go boom, bam. You do not assemble a coalition to discuss the rattlesnake" - Sam Donaldson on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" explaining the president's willingness to go it alone in Iraq. </BLOCKQUOTE> I know this quote is supposed to stand alone, but gosh dang I wish I had the slightest confidence that Shrub has ANY experience whatsoever with rattlesnakes. You may affect a nice hick drawl while readingt he rest of this if you l - ai - ke. --If you actually SEE a rattlesnake, you have to have been ignoring a whole lot of rattling! Rattlesnakes generally blend into the background so they are likely to see you and rattle, probably more than once, long before you see them. --Saddam Hussein IS NO RATTLESNAKE. For one thing, he ain't exactly HIDING out on the trail. --Once you see a rattlesnake, it is nearly always possible to back away without getting bitten. In fact sticking around to blast away with the six-shooter can really be a dumb-ass idea. If you miss you just wind up with an even more pissed off rattlesnake that's even more likely to strike. --One analogous argument is "we shouldn't ... because the results could be a whole lot more destabilizing...." --Rattlesnakes only deliver venom about one out of every 4 bites and even if they bite, their venom is much less poisonous than the other poisonous snakes in the US. --Okay, okay, can you say "emptiy warheads." --You'd think Shrub could at least cite some gruesome self-help tricks about how to suck out the venom --I am not sure whether rattlesnakes are officially endangered, but they are certainly "threatened." If anyone is fool enough to be blasting away at a rattlesnake with a six-shooter, they darn well better be prepared for some explicatin afterwords. --Uh-oh. If Shrub holds the Endangered Species Act in the same high regard as he holds certain international treaties.... --If one doesn't manage to blast all the rattlesnakes away with a sixshooter, I believe rattlesnakes' value in the ecosystem is that they eat rodents. Probably someone should tell Sam Donaldson to be careful where he leaves his hairpiece though. DoreneC </HTML>