THERE WILL BE A RELAUNCH... Obviously, my mind has been a million miles away from this page for several months. For now, let's just say that my circumstances do not presently allow for regular, active blogging, and leave it at that. Mind Over What Matters will relaunch just as soon as I am able to write on a scale and frequency that will make it worth the effort again. In the meantime,

GON OUT BACKSON BISY BACKSON

MOOD:

CHRIS HEDGES? Chris Hedges! I knew that name rang a bell. Mind Over What Matters was on this guy's case back in October 2001, when this blog was very young, and Hedges was claiming that Israeli soldiers were being allowed to shoot Pali children -- "for sport!" Those were his exact words. I transcribed his deranged tirade myself from -- where else? -- NPR's archived streaming audio

MUST SEE TV: Perhaps I should have weighed in earlier, when this story was amply covered every elsewhere -- but I felt no compulsion to dignify Rachel Corrie's fatal publicity stunt with a mention on this page until I received the following announcement from the ABC News "Nightline" mailing list today: ...tonight, ABC correspondent Hillary Brown with a glimpse inside the International Solidarity

HONORARY VON HOFFMAN AWARD: Tom Tomorrow's weekly syndicated cartoon cynically predicts that India may shortly use America's succesful liberation of Iraq to justify its own pre-emptive strike against Pakistan: And yet, two days before his strip was posted on Salon, India appeared to be moving in exactly the opposite direction: On Friday, [Prime Minister Atal Bihari] Vajpayee ended a

UPDATE: Regrettably, I'll have to miss this one, too. My little peer group (of three) has a prior engagement on the same evening: Reserved tickets for Matrix Unloaded. Sorry, folks. Next time for sure.

WE LOVE THE AMERICAN MISINFORMATION MINISTER: Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, "Baghdad Ted" Rall insists that we've "lost the war." This Administration's policy of perpetual war has become a case study in entropy, the distinctly pessimistic notion that no matter how bad things get we can figure out a way to make them worse. Entropy triumphed in Afghanistan, as the world's worst

VIVA LA SIGNAGE! This page doesn't link to Jim Treacher often enough. Consider that sin of omission rectified. Here's a sign Jim is looking forward to seeing at a real protest rally any day now:

GIVE UNTIL IT HURTS! The "National Network to End the War Against Iraq" is still soliciting donations! You'd think they'd be delighted to declare victory and go home -- but no, these people still want your money. One might almost suspect that their real purpose is to perpetuate the organization rather than accomplishing any actual goals... Among this organization's many embarrassing, obsolete

THE BIZARRO CODE: (Irony alert!) "Us do opposite of Earthly things! Us hate beauty, us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World."

WHY DO THEY HATE US? (Irony alert!)

MORE GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS: Saddam's doctor called a meeting of all the Saddam look-alikes and announced: "Men, I've got some good news and I've got some bad news." "The good news is Saddam is still alive." "The bad news is he lost an arm..." (Hat tip to Harry Broertjes -- who really, really, really should start his own blog -- even if I have to jump-start it for him.)

RAND SIMBERG IS KEEPING SCORE: "I decided to tot up the tally. Since 1940, the media have predicted seven out of the last one quagmires."

NAT HENTOFF IS MAKING SENSE: The Village Voice's preeminent ideological lefty declares that the humanitarian mission to liberate Iraq is justification enough.