A funny from the latest New Republic

"The images [of looting] you are seeing on television, you are seeing over and over and over, and it’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase. And you see it twenty times. And you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?' "

—Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, April 11

"A handful of ancient objects stolen from Iraq’s national museum were returned today. AU.S. soldier at the museum said local residents handed over bags containing twenty vases and other antiquities. Thousands of objects disappeared [from Baghdad museums] last week."

—"The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," April 18