The War on Terror: literally, a flying circus

To help us end the year on a "it's-better-to-laugh-than-to-cry" note, Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) has made a fine contribution. His "prizes" for 2005 were featured in the Guardian today.

To Dick Cheney (who swept the prizes this year), Jones awards the "Abu Ghraib Trophy for Human Rights":

We now come to the Abu Ghraib Trophy for Human Rights, and ... yes, it's another triumph for the VP! Dick Cheney has stood firm against a wicked cabal of Republican senators - John Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - who tried to sneak a clause into the 2005 military spending bill that would outlaw "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" to military prisoners. How can the US champion human rights unless it is allowed unrestrained access to any torture techniques it considers fit, to use against enemies that are both sub-human and have forfeited any rights to be treated as our fellow creatures?

Terry Jones' book War on the War on Terror was published this year in the US by NationBooks. In it he writes, "How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles, that it's very hard for abstract nouns to surrender."