Giant hairy spiders as big as this chair I'm sitting on

I ran three and a half miles yesterday. Today was supposed to be a rest day- no working out. I forgot to reset the alarm clock last night and so it dutifully performed its job this morning at 5AM. I figured what the heck and went ahead and got up. I walked down to the MWR and decided to run. Four miles and fifty Swiss ball crunches later I figured I better get back and shower. Four miles! Wow, I was feeling pretty good. I'm sure I'll be a little sore, but I am loving the way I'm feeling.


I really wonder about how far we expect to be able to take this country though-
We were reading an Arabic news site a couple of days ago that was talking about what was happening in Fallujah. The reporter, a Syrian, was interviewing a cleric. The cleric was talking about how the Americans where lying about taking the city and that that we were taking heavy casualties. In order to hide the fact that we were loosing so many thousands of troops (remember we only attacked with about 10,000), the US was wrapping the bodies of US servicemen in bags and then flying them over a lake and dropping the bodies in. He was quite sure of this and talked about it for a little more before discussing how Allah was on their side and that he had provided miracles to prove this. The reporter inquired of the miracles and the cleric proceeded to tell him about how giant hairy spiders "as big as this chair I'm sitting on" came from the sky. These spiders weren't poisonous, but their hair was and when the invaders (US troops) touched them their skin turned black and the soldier died.

Fascinating I know. I studied biology, zoology, entomology, ecology, etc when I was getting my degree in Wildlife Biology and I don't recall having ever heard about "giant hairy spiders as big as a chair". If I recall, the largest spiders in the world are the bird eating spiders in the tropics. Camel spiders aren't true spiders, they're not as bug as a small chair much less a big chair, they aren't hairy and they aren't even poisonous. Hmmm, seems like a freaking miracle that nobody reported seeing them.

And these same clerics want to run the country............. I now see why most of these people haven't advanced much past the middle ages. I saw a bumper sticker once that said:

When religion ruled the earth they called it the dark ages

It seems to fit here. What's really scary is how many people obviously believe this crap. Many of the captured fighters talk with awe about how the US is using "magic shields" to protect its vehicles and troops and that's why their bullets aren't killing us. This of course neglects the fact that most of them have no idea what cover and concealment are and when they attack, they step out in the open and do a magazine dump- they spray thirty rounds of 7.62x39 ammo downrange towards whatever their target happens to be. This is usually followed by them standing there and trying to put in a fresh magazine. This is also the point at which many of them successfully pass into another plane of existence as they get shot by trained soldiers.

As soon as the firing starts, the US forces hit the deck. The "holy fighters" spray everything in the general area- men, women, children, animals, cars, houses, etc. Look at the pictures of the war torn areas and you will see bullet holes in all manner of objects. Now, remember our Arabic lesson from several posts ago? Isha Allah (sp?). It's Allah's will. Well it's Allah's will if the American gets hit, it's Allah's will if the American doesn't't get hit; it's also Allah's will if an innocent person dies (of course if you watch the video footage these innocents often tend to stand around watching), it's Allah's will if some store front get shot up.

Now they accept that when someone dies it is Allah's will, but somehow it's also the Americans. If we weren't here, their loved one wouldn't have died. So now we have a logic problem- everything that happens is Allah's will, yet it's also the Americans fault for being here (never mind the whackjob who just sprayed lead all over the place). So if everything is Allah's will and yet people getting killed is Allah's will and the fault of the US then wouldn't that make us Allah? Do you see the logic here? If you do, please e-mail me and explain it 'cause I must be a little slow.

I'm really beginning to think this may be a lost cause...............