I had the thought the other day that the reason that fundamentalists seem to be so hung up on apocalyptic visions is that they see human history to be like a novel, with a definite beginning, gradual ramping up, and then a big fiery conclusion, and a nice big THE END. Especially when the plot is centered around them- their struggle is the main struggle of the world. They have an almost pathological fear of being bit characters, or irrelevant to the story. So have a need to keep trying to hijack history, and keep the spotlight on them as they wait for the big ending.

I like to see human history as a fairly interesting TV drama, where you missed the first few episodes, so you don't exactly know how it all started, but seems to be going pretty good, and you know that sometime soon it will probably start getting to be really bad before eventually being cancelled, but you don't know when that is, and anyway, each little bit is pretty good on its own merits, so is good enough.

Anyway, I kind of suspect that if Bush wants his war with Iran to happen, he is going to need another 9/11 to happen to generate the will to go to war in the American people. Some tinfoil hat types might say that Bush & co. could engineer it, but really he dosen't have to. There are plenty of Islamic fundementalists out there in the world how probably have more to gain from the US-Iran war then the texas oil gang, and the apocolyptic born-again types Bush represents. So all Bush has to do is go on TV an make noises about how he is just on the verge of doing it... and all it takes is one little push... and the message could not be clearer. Blow up something in the US, and then Bush can attack Iran 'in self-defense' and the gulf between the west and the near east widens even more. Everybody wins!

Except for that 98% of the people caught in the middle who really don't have a dog in that fight.