So why are 200,000 American soldiers still serving long rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan?

If you look through the images on sites controlled by the Department of Defense, it’s obvious enough.

Playing pattycake!

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Pat it and prick it and mark it with B,

Put it in the oven for baby and me.

Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Roll it up, roll it up;

And throw it in a pan!

Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man.

There are so many different ways to count how many civilians Barack Obama has murdered in Afghanistan and Pakistan since he was inaugurated President of the United States (1, 2, 3) that it’s really pointless to debate the exact figure, and although I believe that 10,000 is a relatively conservative estimate, because I include some collateral damage which most reports ignore…

Instead of going to school, Marjan scavenges for hours with her 10-year-old aunt collecting trash. It is a heavy burden for such a small child but a necessary one. The trash she collects is what her family uses as fuel for cooking and, more importantly, to fend off Kabul’s bitter winter.

It is a matter of life and death for someone so young. Last winter, Marjan’s baby brother died from the cold.

“It was dark and cold, and the baby died,” she says softly, wiping her running nose. “I saw him dead and I was very sad, and I cried.”

…but I’m happy to supply a generic form where anyone can plug in his or her own numbers:

Barack Obama has only murdered (___) thousand civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan since January 20, 2009.

It’s also worth mentioning that the final count for Jared Loughner isn’t really definite either, and it’s perfectly possible that two or three more people he shot may succumb.

As if feeding my dog “magic” brownies and telling Jarrett I like Axelrod better than her weren’t enough, now my idiot sock-puppet Jacob Freeze wants to publish It Begged For Death: American Culture and Society in the Age of Obama!

Of course I immediately stamped that thing top-secret and disappeared it down the memory hole in Michelle’s White House garden, and of course my stoner dog dug it up again, and again, but I’m posting a review of it anyway just so you know what I have to put up with in the Oval Office, with my DFH dog always yipping for munchies and Axelrod demanding $500 for wedgie-proof underpants because Valerie Jarrett…

Oh, forget it!

So my idiot sock-puppet’s dismal tome would be totally worthless except for some cover art he stole from Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s photo-book about the ruins of Detroit, that garbage-metropolis which only remains in existence because we’re all too broke and lazy to knock it down, and the rest of America likewise, with our imbecile cartoon-movie culture, Jersey Shore on TV, and a “sociopathic con-man” in the White House, as if Snooki in that hamster ball on New Year’s Eve wasn’t classic TV!

As if feeding my dog “magic” brownies and telling Jarrett I like Axelrod better than her weren’t enough, now my idiot sock-puppet Jacob Freeze wants to publish It Begged For Death: American Culture and Society in the Age of Obama!

Of course I immediately stamped that thing top-secret and disappeared it down the memory hole in Michelle’s White House garden, and of course my stoner dog dug it up again, and again, but I’m posting a review of it anyway just so you know what I have to put up with in the Oval Office, with my DFH dog always yipping for munchies and Axelrod demanding $500 for wedgie-proof underpants because Valerie Jarrett…

Oh, forget it!

So my idiot sock-puppet’s dismal tome would be totally worthless except for some cover art he stole from Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s photo-book about the ruins of Detroit, that garbage-metropolis which only remains in existence because we’re all too broke and lazy to knock it down, and the rest of America likewise, with our imbecile cartoon-movie culture, Jersey Shore on TV, and a “sociopathic con-man” in the White House, as if Snooki in that hamster ball on New year’s Eve wasn’t classic TV!