(Earth) - Southern Cone countries take their cricket as seriously as the Brits. Then again, so do I. It is a superior game to baseball, being not only harder to play, but also far more interesting in a strangely lackadaisical way. It truly is a gentleman's and ladies' game, wherein players lounge about, wearing extraordinarily large-brimmed hats (or beanies), until someone actually connects with the single-seamed ball which has been thrown into the dirt, bouncing just before arriving at the batter's box. The pitcher isn't called a pitcher, and the catcher wears a glove that couldn't stop an earthworm from hurting the catcher's hand. You have to knock the bails free of the wicket, a murderous three-stick (stumps) Stonehenge-like thing with small wooden sticks (bails) perched precariously at the top, in order to put out one of the two batters (who are both at bat at the same time), or cause a leg-before-wicket, which is far too complicated to talk about here. And, you can play your game and have cocktails at the same time.

It is the national game of Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, Australia, New Zealand, Several others in the Southern Cone, and, of course, England. It IS serious business in these countries.

That's why, when terrorists shot six members of the Sri Lankan National Cricket Team, outrage and outrageous reactions were everywhere in participating countries. It happened in Pakistan where the visiting team was playing in an important series of "tests" or five-day games (yes, that's the number 5.) Most of the team's bodyguards were murdered and the wounds will effect the Sri Lankan team. A rubbed up finger cost England a test two years ago.

Now, it looks like other national athletes who had planned to go to Pakistan will no longer go, and the series is in danger.

All of this is important, because the terrorists are supposed to be Afghani. I warned, years ago, that we should have made the place a parking lot, but carried the president's water, anyway. If Afghanis will murder there, they will murder anywhere. Now, I will say it again...

"We cannot win in Afghanistan." They are IMPOSSIBLE to tame. They are land-pirates, thugs, people without conscience or care. The peace of Islam is, to them, the death of any outsider. The Russians threw more people and far more material than we have or will, and they could not win. The Persians couldn't win. The Brits couldn't win. The place deserves to be a glass lake. It truly is God-forsaken, and I would not waste one more American life on the disgusting place.

Afghanistan is why we invented superior delivery technology and daisycutters. We should use them. Now.

The world would, of course, recoil in horror, and then secretly thank the powers for the relief.

On another note..

You also heard it here, first, about the riots that could happen when Obama can't deliver. It looks as if this summer is going to be awful in the North.

Remember that the majority of Americans did not vote for Obama. They voted AGAINST George Bush, or at the very least, his mistakes. Most certainly did not vote for this wacky socialist stuff.

Look for white militants and true Obama believers to clash, as the heat of summer rolls through the job-hungry, depressed, and rusting Northern states.

Right now, it sucks to be them. The re-assertion of states' rights will help in the South, but we must be careful in our revolution to focus on the economy and not on race. Just sayin'.

- Dick Anderson