This isn't a civil war?

In Iraq, during July, an average of 110 civilians were killed in sectarian violence every day. At least 3,438 civilians died violently in July, an increase of 9% over June.

Iraq has a population of about 26.8 million. To put things in perspective, if the same level of violence was happening in the United States, the numbers for July would be an average of 1,228 killed daily, for a total of at least 38,368 in the past month.

and the Bush administration keeps insisting that there's no civil war.

Why it is good I'm not allowed to carry a gun, lesson #782

Today was good enough at work. Another trip to Modesto, then I got to take a new (to me) route to get up to eastern Contra Costa County. In fact, I hit five counties today: Santa Clara, Alameda, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Contra Costa. A lot of driving, but I only had five stops (four deliveries and one pick-up) so I pretty much got paid for driving through some beautiful country listening to good music.

Because we had a big Costco run to do today, I didn't ride in. The thinking was it would be a lot easier to deal with getting me into the store if I hadn't just ridden 2.6 miles after eight hours of work. This proved to be good thinking. Kiri picked me up, and we headed off to the Great Big Box. She dropped me at Barnes & Noble to see if I could find the 4th omnibus Miles Vorkosigan book (I did, but only in trade paperback.. does anyone know if Miles Errant was published in a normal paperback format?) After that, I joined her at Costco.

For once we weren't joking that we are the only people on Earth who need a "10 items or less" line. Many good things were found and carted, including V for Vendetta and Sneakers. After paying (paycheck? what paycheck?) we started out to the car.

Where we came upon the reason for the post's title. A tan SUV was backing out of its parking space, and completely ignoring the cart with a child in it that it was running into. The father was franticly trying to get the cart out of the way, people were shouting, and I being me, went after the car. I got to the door and freaking screamed for the lady to stop. She finally realized that something was wrong, and I lit into her. I told her to use her fucking mirrors and look over her shoulders. She said she had. I called bullshit, pointing out that she was hitting a Costco cart being pushed by a large man.. both of which were right in line of sight had she bloody well turned her head.

I hope I scared the shit out of her.

RPG meme!

Ganked from Number 1 Niece (aka madelineusher) who writes that she's been gaming "too long." snerk.

( You enter a 10'x10' room, an orc is guarding a meme... )

The Penguin in his lair..

I asked if kshandra knew how to use her cell phone's camera yet. This was her answer.