6 C 33 (Jour de l'Opinion) - 5:13 p.m.

Speculations, warranted and otherwise...

There's the progress, we have found a
Way to talk around the problem
Building towered foresight isn't
Anything at all...
-- R.E.M., "Fall on Me"

Today, celebrating the Day of Opinion (or, as Guinea Pig Bob called it, the Day of Blather), I'm going to express an opinion (or two) without really expressing it/them. I'm going to present the facts -- verifiable facts -- that led me to certain conclusions. The nature of those conclusions, I'll leave you to deduce for yourself. Think of it as an intelligence test. Or think of it as me being, per my usual procedure, too cute for the room. (And probably being, as I've been tasked with, about as subtle as a hammer to the forebrain.)

The first opinion I'll express will be about current events. It may get this site shut down by the FBI. It should avoid violating Godwin's law, if only narrowly. It will definitely provide spoiler space for the second opinion, which is about the future course of the Harry Potter series. That is, it will provide that space
a) if I can keep it going long enough and
b) in company with all this introductory blap.

Factual statements, any of which five minutes' searching on the Web will serve to verify:
* Osama bin Laden was funded by the CIA during the Afghani-Soviet War.
* Former President George Bush (father of the current illegal occupant of the White House) was head of the CIA before he was President or even Vice President.
* The CIA was remade into its current form after World War II. Col. Reinhard Gehlen, who had been Germany's chief of anti-Soviet intelligence during the war, was given funding to continue his job by the Paperclip isolationists.
* Before the war, Sen. Prescott Bush (George H.W. Bush's father) had been a banker providing U.S. representation to several German firms with ties to Germany's then-government.
Please note that at no time did I come out and state the inference I draw from putting these facts together. Please further note that at no time do my fingers leave my hands. Nonetheless, I know, or think I know, what's going on. I would very much like, however, to have events prove me wrong.

I also know, or think I know, the answer to the question Harry Potter posed to Dumbledore after stopping Voldemort from getting the Sorceror's Philosopher's Stone, the question of why the Dark Lord wanted to kill Harry in the first place. This, however, is a case where I'm looking forward to being proved right. All the clues were in place by the end of Chamber of Secrets, though it took me another book or two to put them together.
* Voldemort, we learn in Chamber, is the Heir of Salazar Slytherin.
* Voldemort and Harry are a living illustration of the alchemical unity of opposites -- Rowling has gone to great lengths to establish that fact. Voldemort himself (or rather, the memory of Tom Marvolo Riddle) remarks on it in his meeting with Harry: both of them half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles who hated their magic. Their wands are the only two with cores from the feathers of Fawkes the phoenix. Harry apparently has a piece of Voldemort's soul, transferred on the night Voldemort tried to kill him; Voldemort now has a piece of Harry's soul as well, transferred in the blood that resurrected. Yin and Yang, Hodge and Podge.
* The sword that the Sorting Hat gives Harry, the one he uses to slay the Serpent of Slytherin, belonged to Godric Gryffindor, and Dumbledore says, "Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat."
All these things are clearly stated in the books. The inference I draw from them is, again, my own. (Another inference: look at that bit above, about Voldemort having a piece of Harry's soul. Then dig out your copy of Stone and look at what Hagrid says in expressing his doubts about whether You-Know-Who is really dead. Are you beginning to understand the "real" reason Dumbledore smiled when he heard about the blood transfusion? And may I take this opportunity to wish a happy belated birthday to Hermione Granger?)

-30-

[Update 2 Vendemaire: My dad points out over my shoulder that Harry is not in fact a half-blood, unless you accept Voldy's contention that Muggle-borns aren't truly wizards. I've therefore struck out the mistake, but not deleted it. I'm pulling a Harlan Ellison and preserving my flub, as a reminder that I'm not perfect.]

�

last time, on The Slack Shack - our next inciting exstallment