The Willard Hotel was festooned with flags. There were flags everywhere. A middle-aged guy. behind me with a South African accent starting saying how seeing the flags made him uneasy. Then he started bitching about Bush and America.

This war in Iraq is such a waste he said. Think of how that money could have been spent on AIDS in Africa.

It's always amazing to hear how casually foreigners appropriate our bucks for their problems. If a Nigerian prostitute catches AIDS from a Nigerian truck driver in Lagos, why does the bill for treatment go to Joe Taxpayer in Indianapolis? Why don't the Africans wise up and pay a few pennies to protect themselves from getting a lethal disease instead of carelessly contracting it then demanding the Americans pay millions to make it right?