BAGHDAD, Oct. 25 — Iraqi election officials announced Tuesday that voters approved a new constitution in a nationwide referendum 10 days ago, based on a final tally of votes that had been delayed for more than a week while officials recounted ballots and checked for possible irregularities.

Did you know this? To continue:

According to the vote tallies released by officials here, more than 78 percent of the voters nationwide approved the constitution. Opponents — mostly minority Sunni Arabs — were unable to defeat it by getting at least two-thirds of the voters in three provinces to vote against it, according to final preliminary results released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. The results confirmed widely reported preliminary estimates shortly after the balloting.

A majority of voters in three of Iraq’s 18 provinces voted against the constitution, but one of them failed to reach the two-thirds threshold — a veto provision designed to protect Iraq’s minority communities. In Anbar province, 96 percent of those casting ballots voted against the referendum, and 81 percent rejected it in Salahaddin. But in the key swing province of Nineveh, 56 percent voted against the constitution — about 10 percentage points short of what was necessary to kill the charter.

About 63 percent of Iraq’s 15.5 million registered voters cast ballots, the commission reported.

Hello: the Iraqis just today affirmed that their constitution was approved. Here’s an amazing thought: what if America helped provide an entirely new constitution to another country, and nobody heard about it or read about it?

That’s precisely what’s occurring now. Have you heard or seen this trumpeted on CNN, MSNBC, the primary three letter outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC), the front page of your local newspaper in block letters — and not buried on page A-4?

For example, lead news story on yahoo.com at 1325 PST: “US military deaths reach 2000 in Iraq.” Same time, Drudge Report, top item: “2000.” Top news story in my Sacramento paper, The Bee (at sacbee.com): “US military deaths reach 2,000 in Iraq.” Even on WorldNetDaily.com, the constitution is 4th item down.

Quick reality check for me: isn’t this why we’re in Iraq? Don’t I hear the constant bombardment by left leaning individuals: “Where’s the progress? What are we doing? Why are we there?” I could have sworn it was to help a country set its own course, determine its own direction.

So, I ask: isn’t that a world-shaking, landmark event?

If you’re the MSM, apparently not.

There have been two steadfast supporters and commenters, to date, on my site: they would be the Big White Hat and Mahndisa Rigmaiden — for whatever bizarre, obfuscated and disconnected reasons they have to offer.

I suspect that perhaps they were primarily bored.

I have already extolled the virtues of the fabulous Big White Hat. It is at this point that I feel compelled to promote Mahndisa’s Thoughts.

Mahndisa delves into issues I couldn’t even begin to attack with the greater bulk of my cerebral cortex without a roadmap, a one-pound chunk of C4 and ten years of education — and some Stoly vodka.

One day I shall consult her on the placement of the Black American Family and its place in US history because she has a fabulous analysis on some earlier postings.

I preface this by being honest and saying: I have no children. This fact in and of itself has been a major, a huge issue between myself and the women in my life.

I would not want to bring a child up into our current American environment; all the women I’ve encountered have said “you would be a great father.” I have never seen it that way.

I’ve never seen myself as anyone’s father.

To cut through the crap, I freely admit: I’ve never wanted that massive responsibility.

I said to my first wife: “you’re born alone and you die alone.” She remembered that; it was the disembarkation point in our relationship.

She now has a satisfying relationship with a full family. I have moved for myself when push came to shove, for any number of reasons. I have only recently remarried in my 50s; it is only now that I have come to appreciate the meaning of a true union.

So the protection of children does not come naturally to me as, say, it would to a more normal male member of the human race. Despite that, the following makes me sick:

Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security recently revealed that arrests for child sex crimes during the first two years of Operation Predator have exceeded 6,000 and 85 percent of them are criminal immigrants.

How incredible is this? Are these persons who dwell within the continental United States, or are these predators who surf the internet from various external countries?

The majority of the arrests under Operation Predator – roughly 85% – have involved foreign nationals in this country whose child sex crimes make them removable from the United States. By matching immigration databases with state Megan’s law directories, ICE agents have arrested more than 1,800 registered sex offenders.

So I ask to you who read me now and think that allowing your children online is relatively harmless: how do you KNOW what your child is seeing and/or downloading or uploading?

The TRUTHFUL answer would be: you don’t know. You can’t possibly be with them minute to minute.

But, hey, if you set limits or parameters or took them off the internet entirely that would be an exercising of judgmentalism and that, in and of itself, would be wrong.

Wouldn’t it?

Because you could no longer be your kid’s best friend.

Because that’s what YOU wanted in childhood, wasn’t it?

Doesn’t that bespeak volumes?

Are you like me? Do you, every once in a while, pause, take a breath and ask yourself silently (or out loud if particularly frustrated): what in the hell is happening to the world?

I’m in one of those moods at this specific moment. I wonder where we’re going as a nation, as a people, as a planet. So little seems to be familiar to me now. Change is rampant, ongoing, incontrovertible. That’s a given. But so little seems to make sense now. I try to deal with it, mentally, as best I can. But every once in a while, like now, I feel like screaming: that’s it! Enough! My head is full! That’s all I can take!

Consider the following from today’s internet headlines:

A visiting professor at North Carolina State University says the solution to the problems faced by many blacks is the extermination of “white people off the face of the planet.”

Kamau Kambon, who taught Africana Studies at the Raleigh school last spring, told a panel at Howard University Law School Oct. 14 this action must be taken “because white people want to kill us,” the Carolina Journal reported.

Kambon, a Raleigh activist and bookstore owner, was addressing a panel on “Hurricane Katrina Media Coverage,” broadcast on C-SPAN.

Of course we all know you can’t be black and a racist at the same time. Or:

A Palestinian from the village of Dir-Nizam west of Ramallah was killed by IDF gunfire late Saturday.

IDF sources said that soldiers spotted two Palestinians as they placed a suspicious looking bag near the settlement of Neveh Tzuf (Halamish) and fired at them.

The second man was detained and in his interrogation he revealed that the bag contained a dummy bomb, but an inspection of it uncovered rocks.

Earlier, soldiers from the Haruv battalion staging a routine arrest of wanted Palestinian fugitives nabbed 10 kilograms of explosives in a West Bank village and then made a dramatic discovery.

“The wife of the one of the fugitives held her baby with two hands and held a bag with a hand grenade underneath its shirt to hide it from the soldiers,” said Lt.-Col. Arik Chen, commander of the battalion.

Okay, fine; the old “live baby hides the hand grenades” trick. Or:

New York City’s top disaster planner and fire department chief isn’t planning for another 9-11. He’s preparing for something far worse – nukes.

Chief Joseph Pfiefer, speaking to a panel of security experts this week, said a terror attack employing crude nuclear weapons or dirty bombs is a scenario the Fire Department of New York is currently training to address.

“It’s the training we do that’ll make the difference between who gets saved and who doesn’t get saved,” Pfeifer said.

Right. I look forward to nuclear devastation. Or this:

Edinburgh University in Scotland will begin banning Holy Bibles from its student halls of residence due to concern they are the source of discrimination against students of other faiths. The ban was a response to student association protests as well as an agenda to equally support all faiths, a university spokesman told the Times of London.

Or how about:

China will close its borders if it finds a single case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu there, a Hong Kong newspaper reported on Saturday, while a defiant Taiwan said it would copy a patented antiviral drug.

Is it wrong that I desire “simple” in my life? Or am I just so damned far out of touch that I should be lined up against a wall and shot? At this precise moment in time, I feel so very, very out of control. Helpless. Mired. You ever feel that way? Surrounded? Overwhelmed? Tell me.

Coonie and cat.

Okay, so after the sun went down I filled a small metal bowl with cat food, because I wanted to see my Coonie buddies and the local cat people.

They didn’t disappoint.

The fattest local coonie made his initial appearance and, though the side door was opened to take this photo, he kept on eating and stuffing the food down his gullet with little hands. I must admit, it’s fascinating to watch raccoons eat with their hands like humans.

I have my own little kitten now; she’ll be an indoor kitty for the most part, because I’ve lost a few treasured cats to the regional predators in these mountains. I’m sure some of them were nothing more than appetizers to local coyotes; perhaps even bears, bobcats and cougars.

Goodbye to Ziggy, Max and perhaps even to Burbank. You were wonderful little animals and, moreso to Ziggy, helped to keep me sane during a succession of trying years.