Returned from Exile

I've begun to awaken from my Arabic-induced coma. As I may or may not have mentioned, I'm in California to learn Arabic and those first 8 weeks or so are killer. Doing fine now however, more like 13 weeks in; did well enough on my last test that they actually send me home a little early. Or at least, they did today. So I've got more leisure time now to do things like rant and bitch to an imaginary audience on the Internet.

A few days ago, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death was broadcast, confirmed, and reconfirmed, and the expected villains (Hamas, other Islamist assholes) shed their tears and promised their vengeance, while others (like most of Iraq, the US, Jordan, and civilized people in general) gave a little cheer and whistled away the day in a happy mood.

Immediately following the Blue Dude's highly satisfying expiration, the Iraqi government finally pieced together its final components and began to act like a governing body. A number of places on the Internet have hosted speculation that the immaculate timing of Zarqawi's death with the final establishment of a permanent Iraqi government was no coincidence; I agree with this assessment. Without just making stuff up, the idea that he was traded by the Sunni political faction to the Shi'a in exchange for the Defense Ministry is not that far-fetched, though simplistic. But hey, that's how conspiracy theories work best.

Speaking of conspiracies, the moonbat battalion has been churning over how Zarqawi was really an American plant, or a bogey man who never really existed in the first place. They must have truly astounding mental abilities to reconcile those ideas with the government of Jordan banning the introduction of his corpse into their country because he would 'stain their soil,' or his family saying how his death removed a 'stain on their honor,' or the pictures, eyewitness testimony, autopsy, et cetera. Hearing him repeatedly referred to as a stain makes me smile. Another imaginative Internet comment called him a 'Human Nightmare.' Hehe.

This post has a complete lack of links because it's not really current; these things have been in the news and overly commented on already. This is more like a measuring point for my own continued blogging, like a starting line.