Weekend reading

Two fine little pieces. Quick and easy. No kleenex, I think, but you never know...
I'm not gonna do snips.
Those who don't take time to read will simply be denying themselves.

Deep Waters by Dr. Bob
New on the aggregator this morning.

Nunc Dimittis at Waiter Rant
HT The Anchoress

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This one by Michael Yon is longer. Second part of yet another excellent report from Iraq, up yesterday. (Looks like Glenn Reynolds likes him, too. I always feel goofy linking to something after he does. But Michael Yon's stuff is too good to miss.)

...Deep in the desert someone had spray-painted onto a concrete barrier "Watch-Out for Dumbass Camels." The biggest threat to drivers now isn't roadside bombs; but other drivers, and dromedaries that haven't developed traffic sense. Like the rutting moose of Maine, who will stop even a logging vehicle, these languid ships of the desert wander blithely across paved roads. Accustomed to strange visions that evaporate into mirages before their enormous soft eyes, they barely cast a lash-fringed glance as they galumph along the highway.

Sometime later we emerge in Kuwait, a peaceful country that had been swallowed in one gulp by its "civilized" neighbor. An Army medic who was part of the Coalition force that liberated a Kuwaiti hospital told me that when they first entered the nursery, there were dead and dying infants strewn about the floor. Tossed from their "cradles," their heads had been crushed under the boots of Iraqi soldiers, a parting shot as the Iraqi Army fled from real combatants.

Meanwhile, retreating soldiers acting on the orders of Saddam Hussein set a forest of oil wells ablaze, raising environmental alarms when the vast Kuwaiti oil fields pumped enough acrid smoke into the atmosphere to create eclipse-like conditions throughout the region. If he couldn't have Kuwait, he was hell-bent on making it so toxic no one else would want it, while stamping his boots in a tantrum of epic proportions.
The Kuwaitis, like the Kurds, are predominantly peaceful Muslims. Kuwait is clean and, apart from crazy drivers, affords a breathing space that gives us pause for restful thoughts in the company of kind people. Unfortunately, that's about the only comfort at hand. When we arrived at the Army base, the thermometers in the shade read 125 Fahrenheit, though it did not feel a bit over 115....

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On a lighter note, if you're game for a few minutes of podcasting, yesterday's Rocket Boom piece was terrific. Famous footage by a motorcycle-mounted camera in early morning Paris, except this one begins in Manhattan.

Go play.