"What the caterpillar calls the end of life, wise men call a butterfly."

how lucky we are in the U.S. While we're busy squabbling about which Skull and Bones rich white kid gets to sit in the White House, the rest of the world is knee deep in sh*t.

Two stories from this morning's news.

Nicholas Kristof writes from Pakistan about a women sentenced to be raped.

"June 2002, the police say, members of a high-status tribe sexually
abused one of Ms. Mukhtaran's brothers and then covered up their crime
by falsely accusing him of having an affair with a high-status woman.
The village's tribal council determined that the suitable punishment
for the supposed affair was for high-status men to rape one of the
boy's sisters, so the council sentenced Ms. Mukhtaran to be gang-raped."

And from Nairobi, giving birth in poor countries proves fatal for more than half a million women every year, or one every minute, the World Health Organisation said, warning preventable deaths have reached epidemic levels.

Maybe I'll hold off buying that Hummer until after the election...