i don't care if gwyneth paltrow and chris martin named their baby girl apple, which ranks right up there in maybe the top ten on the list of stupid celebrity kid names. because just take one look at this picture and tell me that it isn't the most adorable thing you've ever seen:

from atrios:

"I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss," General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of US central command, told the Senate foreign relations committee.
...
Larry Diamond, an analyst at the conservative Hoover Institution, said: "I think it's clear that the United States now faces a perilous situation in Iraq.

"We have failed to come anywhere near meeting the post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-war reconstruction.

"There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and you cannot withdraw - quagmire."
...
General Hoar was equally scathing about the calibre of the Bush administration.

"The policy people in both Washington and Baghdad," he said, "have demonstrated their inability to do a job on a day-to-day basis this past year."

one of the scariest things is that atrios couldn't find these quotes (which are from senate testimony yesterday) anywhere in american news media. he took it from the guardian.

i don't know really anything about politics, or war, or the middle east, or foreign policy. so i try to listen to the people around me who do know what they're talking about, especially in my family. and i come across my brother, who knows his military stuff, and he says, "we're fucked." and my father, who has specialized in north african, indian and middle eastern policy for most of his life, and he says, "we're fucked." and my mother, who grew up in saudi arabia and other middle eastern countries, and she says, "we're fucked." and my grandfather, who served much of his life in the foreign service and later on was an ambassador to kuwait and the uae under carter and reagan, and he says, "we've created a terrible geopolitical crisis and instability in the middle east," and i'm pretty sure that if he cursed, he'd say, "we're fucked."

i hate to be pessimisstic. but really.

can somebody buy me a drink?

...

oh. fantastic. now i see this. forget the drink--i don't need alcohol to vomit and sink into a hysterical depression anymore.

NO, GOD NO!!

...

well, it's not as bad as it seems, i suppose. the article says:

The most surprising move in new ABC Primetime Entertainment President Stephen McPherson's fall schedule, which was unveiled Monday at the New Amsterdam Theater in New York during the network's annual upfront presentation: no Alias. The butt-kickin' spy drama starring Jennifer Garner (news) will instead stay off the air until January, when its fourth season will unspool, sans reruns.

In Alias' Sunday night time slot this fall: Desperate Housewives, a soapy drama about a suburban wife (Twin Peaks' Sheryl Lee (news)) who kills herself, but continues to watch over the Knots Landing-ish shenanigans of her cul-de-sac neighbors.

yes, desperate housewives sounds like a winner!