So, if you're still in Gainesville, you're well aware of the 16,000 Acre brush fire in northeast Alachua/Bradford County.  There is smoke everywhere.  Pieces of ash are falling from the sky.  One of our friends had charred leaves falling on her yard.

Then, I read a headline on yahoo saying that the Pentagon is calling 35,000 more troops to Iraq.  This is just f'ing great, isn't it?  The emperor's war burns on.  Which made me think.  Imagine if the fires were from bombs; not just another country's bombs dropping on you, but your own country's wack job fanatic's bombs too.  Imagine if it smelled like this every day.

I heard on NPR yesterday about how so few poor Americans get dental care.  So what, you think, their teeth are dirty.  Evidently it can be worse than that. The piece highlighted one case where a 12 year old boy died b/c his tooth decay spread to his brain. 

This happened in America. 

It happened because the government doesn't fund Medicaid enough to provide basic dental care to its own poor children. 

Yet, billions upon billions upon billions of dollars are being wasted turning some other country into a charred landscape, just like mother nature is doing to us right now. And she's not even charging anything.