This is the thread where we express gratitude that the world is not yet destroyed and we aren't experiencing more pain than we currently are

Don't find anything = Saddam's hiding something! Let's go to war!

Find something = Saddam's got weapons of mass destruction! Let's got to war!

I worry about Chirac, I feel he is waiting for the opportunity to name his price.

I still think this episode wz very odd, not least bcz everyone except channel 4 just ignored it!!

Uday Hussein's newspaper got banned a couple of months ago by his dad - he's seen as a bit of a maverick I think.

uday: "on an unrelated matter, we will wreak mass destruction on you if you do this that or the other"
bush ppl: "pursuant to this unrelated matter, it doesn't count as Having Weapons of Mass Destruction if uday hussein just ups and says it, cz he = a dick and a weed"

anyway, it's proof that the us is not in fact grasping at ANY old handy huge straw barrelling by

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=%20171762

"Well, I would reply by saying that if Pakistan has decided that it wants to get itself destroyed and erased from the world map, then it may take this step of madness. We will DESTROY YOU with a GIGANTIC LASERBEAM do you understand?! Mwuhahahahaha!!!"

I am a happy person despite many annoyances. The things that are hurting my life are really things that come from good things. I am thankful for my job, despite being a pit of typhodic despair, because it has brought me good people and, while I am underpaid if you look blankly at what I do and know nothing else besides job versus pay stats, I am getting paid much more than anyone else my age would even think of. I have started seeing a guy whose company I enjoy muchly and really I look ok too. I'm not too sickly anymore, I seem to have mostly recovered from the illness I had for a long time a while back. And I am cleaning up my act and going back to school and somehow I landed Columbia. I have an excellent life and I am grateful!

I used to think that my song was Lucky by Britney Spears, because everyone looked at my job and apartment and couldn't understand why I was unhappy because I had lucked out. Now I realize I really did luck out and my outlook has changed.

There, now no one else can be embarrassed about being personal!

this is conventionally known as the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) deterrent. Polls or anecdotal evidence of some sort that I've seen reported suggest that large swaths (majorities?) of the populations/governments of India and Pakistan are wholly uninfluenced by it. The same is clearly true of your average terrorist/Stalinist head of state.

Sorry to be off-topic and all that.

But, there could be a hella more pain. I had a recent breakup, but the guy is finally being decent and communicative, though it does hurt. I have some wonderful friends who kidnapped me last weekend so I could know I'm not alone. I've been crying almost as often from being touched by others' kindness as my own sadness lately. Well, kinda almost.

However the world, personal or international, might seem like it's falling apart, somehow life still has some meaning/worth.

Ah fuck, I'll just go find a kitten thread now...

ritualistic expressions of gratitude by people with good fortune are really starting to piss me off

they tend to collapse into something more like 'i'm so happy that my life is so good'

or 'i'm so happy to tell you all that my life is so good but i'm still really humble about it'

or they are nearly overt attempts to ward off the choking guilt that can come from thinking of your good fortune as essentially unearned—as if calling it a 'gift' and sounding notes of piety does anything at all about the cosmically unaccountable fact that people who are not you were 'given' something too, but what they were given was shit, and the gift couldn't be refused

what's wrong with warding off choking guilt

well i'm sure it's great for THEM

"I'm so happy that my life is so good"

What's so objectionable there

Bragging

Meh

i'm glad the anxiety in my chest is not quite choking me yet today

Waiting to have fillings right now