I just love your Rolling Stones Cover, CG. anyhow have to hit and run this morning. Gotta go to work here in a few. here is added fuel for the fire this morning. It does seem that the decider in chief is getting a little rough with his attitude today and yesterday over rummy… Gotta just love the little man for all it is worth in all his lies and those who will be taken down with him in the process…
SEN. RICK Santorum and HBO’s fictional mob boss Tony Soprano have a lot in common.
On Sunday night’s episode of “The Sopranos,” Tony (James Gandolfini) told his shrink Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) that when it comes to homosexuality, he agrees with “that Sen. Sanatorium, who says if we let this stuff go too far, pretty soon we’ll be f—ing dogs.” Santorum, several years back, made similar remarks, only he used more delicate language than Tony did.
We called Santorum’s office yesterday to ask if he was flattered about getting a shout-out on a popular show.
Apparently not.
“We’re not gonna dignify that comment by commenting on it,” said Santorum communications director Rob Traynham.
Look how easy it is to keep tabs on the kids with GPS cell phones: WashPo
Last week, Sprint Nextel Corp. introduced a new service called Family Locator that lets parents track their kids’ whereabouts, using the GPS capabilities in each child’s cellphone. For $9.99 a month, you can get a fix on your little ones’ locations as long as they are on your Sprint account and carry one of the 30 Sprint or Nextel phones that allow this monitoring.
As demonstrated by a Sprint publicist yesterday, the service was deceptively easy to use . . . considering that the whole idea would have been science-fiction fodder a decade ago.
I logged in to a page on Sprint’s Web site ( http://www.sprint.com/familylocator ) with a phone number and password provided for the occasion, and a moment later, a green icon on a map of Sprint’s Overland Park, Kan., corporate campus reported the location of another Sprint employee.
The accuracy, as indicated by a wide blue circle around that green dot, was not so great — only “within 644 yards,” according to the page’s suspiciously precise estimate — so I clicked a “Locate” button.
Within a minute, the system had pinned down my target’s location to within a 98-yard radius, close enough to call in the airstrike — I mean, identify what street she was on. (Sorry, got distracted for a second.)
Sounds like that could come in handy if I take a job with say, the NSA….
I thought police could already do this with your cellphone – I guess what’s new is that they’re marketing it to parents who have the same issues with privacy as their government.
I’ve already mentioned to the family that if the day ever comes for re-enacting the final scene of the Sound of Music somewhere on the northern border of Montana, all cellphones get left behind… Who would ever have thought six years ago ordinary (if quirky and liberal) Americans would be thinking such things (sigh).
About a dozen members of a local Veterans for Peace chapter handed out fliers before the board meeting urging district officials to let them provide students with “balanced information regarding the military.”…
…”The School Board has determined that military recruiters may enter schools to discuss military matters with the students,” said Veterans for Peace member Dwight Lawton. “We, therefore, should not be denied access to students to discuss military matters simply because the School Board or school administration may disagree with our views on the subject.”
The 50-member group has been trying to talk to students in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties for about a year, said Veterans for Peace member Linda Hubner. She said the group wants to give students information military recruiters keep to themselves.
“We want them to know the realities of joining the military, including the facts that their obligation to the military can be extended and that the jobs being promised to them may not materialize,” Hubner said.
Check out the sign with Prinicipal Skinner (a la The Simpsons) in the linked story…
Record Increase in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reported
WASHINGTON, DC, April 18, 2006 (ENS) – U.S. greenhouse gas emissions during 2004 increased by 1.7 percent from the previous year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which released the figures Monday. This was the largest annual amount ever produced by any country on record, said The Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, warning that urgent action is needed to curb emissions.
The increase, which occurred during a period of economic expansion, was due primarily to an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with fuel and electricity consumption, said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.
Large (T. rex-sized), meat-eating dinosaurs found in Argentina may have hunted in packs, according to palaeontologists. It is not clear whether the animals cooperated in hunting, as wolves or lions do, or simply mobbed their prey or just gathered around after one of them made a kill. Remains of seven of the creatures found together suggest social interaction.
Slooh.com, an astronomical event Web site, said Tuesday it will begin live monitoring of the approach of fragmenting Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann, beginning this week at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. The comet, which has broken up into 19 separate pieces, is heading for a rendezvous with Earth. Slooh.com broadcasts live celestial events via its Web site from its telescopes stationed at high altitude at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands.
Northern China choked by massive dust storm. Much of the dust was from the Gobi Desert, which has expanded as a result of deforestation and overgrazing. The 3-day sandstorm was aggravated by mounting pollution from vehicle emissions and factories.
OK, this is stretching the definition of “science-related” a bit, but I can’t resist: Al Gore is revving up the campaign machinery – to promote his upcoming book and movie on climate change. Is there more to it than that? He rehired his longtime political associate Roy Neel to aid in his effort to raise awareness about global warming, and recently left the door open a crack to another campaign, telling a Tennessee audience “I’m not planning to be a candidate again. I haven’t reached a stage in my life where I’m willing to say I will never consider something like this.” A payment of $40,000 to a Democratic polling firm has stirred political talk, but pollster Mark Penn said it was a settlement of a 2000 account. More current Gore-talk here.
Tapping into the zeitgeist: Dutch researchers have developed a new program that can trace and explain significant changes in mood patterns on the Internet. MoodViews is a collection of instruments that maps the mood of bloggers as they write their messages. MoodViews follows the moods of 2 million bloggers from around the world. Each day the programs pick up about 150,000 blog messages. Journalists, marketing specialists, psychologists, [governments?] and bankers have expressed an interest in the software, which has three components: Moodgrapher monitors the global mood of bloggers. These data are converted into overview graphs. Moodteller uses language technology to predict the mood on the Web. The latest component, Moodsignals, records unusual peaks in mood levels. After this it uses search engine technology to find an explanation for these mood swings.
You know, when I added that last story above I put in the comment “[governments?]” and thought to myself, “they’re probably already doing that with similar software.” Well, I must be the one tied into the zeitgeist, (not that this is probably very profound news, except that they’re admitting it) as the Washington Times reports:
The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin.
“A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we’re getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to … people putting information on there that doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.
And won’t that be handy in the run-up to “elections”…
Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.”
The physicists include five Nobel laureates, a recipient of the National Medal of Science and three past presidents of the American Physical Society, the nation’s preeminent professional society for physicists.
Refugees fleeing persecution or civil war are becoming the hidden victims of the West’s obsession with combating terrorism, the United Nations will warn in a report published today.
Only a fraction of the world’s 9.2 million refugees have the means to reach the industrialised world to seek asylum. Those who do are increasingly likely to be treated like criminals as rich countries put up the barriers to keep out terrorists and economic migrants.
“More and more, asylum-seekers are portrayed not as refugees fleeing persecution and entitled to sanctuary, but rather as illegal migrants, potential terrorists and criminals – or at a minimum, as ‘bogus’,” the report by the office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), warns.
The UNHCR singles out a Europe-wide initiative launched by Tony Blair in 2003 as an example of how the industrialised north is trying to make the developing world cope with more than its share of refugees. “Are affluent states about to outsource refugee protection to low-cost, no-frills countries? Some observers would affirm that this is already happening, with the deflection policies of the north leaving the south with a disproportionate share of the protection burden,” the report says.
As an example, it cites an attempt by Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands to introduce a new policy under which some classes of asylum-seekers would be removed to centres outside Europe while their cases are processed. The move, backed by Tony Blair, was defeated by Germany, France and Sweden.
Your cover from Rolling Stone inspired me to go to their website, hoping to see the story – only I got sidetracked with this little item from the White House Easter egg hunt, linking from Rolling Stone to ThinkProgress:
Today at the White House Easter Egg Roll, dozens of children “from the stricken Gulf Coast region serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a song praising the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency.” To the tune of “Hey Look Me Over,” the kids from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama sang:
“Our country’s stood beside us
People have sent us aid.
Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade. Congress, Bush and FEMA
People across our land
Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!”
You have to read the comments below the story, too!
I saw that elsewhere… one of the most bizarre stories I’ve seen in a long time. Pretty soon the Mormon Tabernacle Choir will be at government functions singing Dubya’s praises to the tune of the Hokey Pokey.
Almost as strange as Iranians holding up vials of enriched uranium while dancing and singing.
The Government Accountability Office is at it again, this time issuing a report detailing how terrorism information is STILL NOT being shared between the umpteen Government agencies.
Report Slams US Terror Information Sharing Among Agencies
Government investigators Monday panned the administration’s efforts to share vital counter-terrorism information among the large number of federal agencies involved in protecting the U.S. homeland, an endeavor senior intelligence officials say is a litmus test of the success of the nation’s new intelligence czar.
The officials said last week that much progress has been made in streamlining the management of initiatives to promote counter-terrorism information sharing, but the picture they painted was somewhat at odds with Monday’s report.
“More than 4 years after Sept. 11,” wrote investigators for the Government Accountability Office, “the nation still lacks the government-wide policies and processes … for guiding and integrating the myriad of ongoing efforts to improve the sharing of terrorism-related information critical to protecting our homeland.”
Although “a large amount of terrorism information is already stored electronically” in various government data systems, the report goes on, many officials with counter-terrorism responsibilities “are not connected to these systems,” and the information they contain “about terrorists, their plans, and their activities is fragmentary.”
Political Crisis Worsens as Sectarian War Threatens
The Financial Times reports further on the fighting in Adhamiyah on Monday and Tuesday, asking whether the incident suggests greater Sunni Arab backing for the guerrillas. But am [sic] am told, and the Baghdad press also reports, that the real significance here was that the Shiite death squads in the ministry of interior tried to operate in force and in daylight in a Sunni Arab neighborhood. Earlier, they had had to kidnap and killa [sic]at night.
Al-Zaman / AFP / Reuters report that that the parliamentary crisis got even worse on Tuesday. [snip]
The LA Times reports that the Kurdistan Confederacy is developing its own oil ministry, a further step toward autonomy from Baghdad.
There are two versions about what happened in Adhamiyah on Monday and Tuesday. The official US version is that insurgents staged a “bold” attack on Iraqi police. That’s the version that the MSM is pushing. The other (and probably true) version is that Shiite militia (read: government death squads) attacked a Sunni neighborhood in broad daylight. Can you say ‘open civil war’?
Dahr Jamail had more on the fighting yesterday, quoting his own sources in Baghdad. He syas the fighting is between Sunni insurggents & the two Shia militias, Bader & Mehdi, with US troops & helicopters standing by & later moving in.
in Adhamiya, every night now for several weeks roads have been closed with tires, trunks of date palm trees and other objects to prevent “kidnappers and Shia death squads” from entering the area, according to one source, whom I’m keeping anonymous for security reasons.
His description of the fierce fighting in his neighborhood is quite different from the reporting of it in mainstream outlets.
“Sunday night at 12:30 a.m. clashes started just like on the four previous nights, but it was very heavy and from different directions. It was different from the other nights in quantity and quality; it was truly like the hell which I haven’t seen even in the battles of the war between Iraq and Iran during the eighties,” wrote my source. He added that mortars and rocket-propelled grenades were used, and so much ammunition that the sky was “glowing red.” The situation went on until Monday morning. He said, “I usually have my cup of coffee in my small backyard to drink it in a good atmosphere, but the minute I opened the door someone from the interior ministry commandos shouted at me, telling me to get inside or he’d shoot me. Of course I stayed inside and the shooting continued in a very heavy way until 12:30 p.m., when the American forces came to start helping the militia’s attack on al-Adhamiya after they were watching the scene from their helicopters.”
He went on to state very clearly that “these were members of the Badr militia and Sadr’s Mehdi Army who were raiding the neighborhood.”
Another witness at the scene wrote, “Men in police uniforms attacked the neighbourhood. The Ministry of Interior claimed the uniformed men don’t belong to the puppet [Iraqi government] forces, but local residents are quite sure they are special-forces from the Ministry of Interior, probably Badr brigades. The neighbourhood was sealed off and the mobile phone network was disconnected until 10:45 p.m. Electricity was cut off from 10 a.m. on.” [snip]
An Iraqi in Adhamiya confirmed . . . “When the uniformed forces entered the neighbourhood, the National Guards that are usually patrolling the streets left. Young armed men from the neighbourhood fought side by side with mujahedin against the attacking forces to protect Al-Adhamiya. Several residents have been killed in the streets, but there are currently no figures available. US troops also entered the neighbourhood. At first, they only stood by and watched; later on they, too, fired at the locals, who tried to repel the attacks. Later in the day, rumours circulated that another fierce attack of Al-Adhamiya is planned on Wednesday, but … couldn’t confirm this information.”
Disturbingly, this obvious US-backed Shia militia invasion of a Sunni neighborhood may well be a prelude to what the US military is calling a “second liberation of Baghdad” which they will carry out with the Iraqi army when a new government is installed.
The Sunday Times reports that US commanders both in Iraq and at an army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, are planning a “carrot-and-stick” approach by offering suffering populations “protection” from sectarian violence in exchange for “rooting out insurgent groups or Al-Qaeda.”
Sound like mafia tactics to you?
The article states that “Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces would take the lead, supported by American air power, special operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops. Helicopters suitable for urban warfare, such as the manoeuvrable AH-6 “Little Birds” … are likely to complement the ground attack.”
This is disturbingly similar to what just occurred in al-Adhamiya.
The article also talks about Falluja & he asserts that the military is trying to downplay US casualties there, suggesting that when we read of a death in AL Anbar province, location otherwise unspecified, it’s likely to be from Falluja. The piece ends:
An email I received Monday from one of my sources in Fallujah sheds much light as to why this is the case, not only in Fallujah, but throughout Iraq.
“Resistance [in Fallujah] is very active and all the destruction to the city by American soldiers did not succeed to stop them. You know the city was totally destroyed in the November attack and is still surrounded and closed for anyone other than citizens of the city. What is going on now is that the Americans are trying to conceal their failure here by not letting anybody in. There were at least five explosions today and more than one clash between resistance fighters and US soldiers. So all the military procedures, together with the thousands of casualties, were in vain. In short, the American Army seems to be losing control in this country and God knows what they will do in revenge. I expect the worst to come.”
Iraqi police and the U.S. military said on Wednesday they had no evidence to back a government report that gunmen beheaded two teachers in front of their students at Baghdad primary schools.
Iraq’s Ministry of State for National Security said on Wednesday two groups of gunmen entered two primary schools in Baghdad and beheaded two teachers in front of their students.
“Two terrorist groups beheaded two teachers in front of their students in the Amna and Shaheed Hamdi primary schools in Shaab district in Baghdad,” a ministry statement said.
An official in the ministry’s press office also confirmed the report.
But the U.S. military cast doubt on it.
“There is no evidence that this happened. The Interior Ministry dispatched Iraqi police to the schools and talked to the guards,” said U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Johnson.
Police Major Kassim Ahmed told a Reuters reporter who went to the scene his unit was acting on a false tip: “This is not true. It is made up.”
Residents of the area in Baghdad’s Shaab district also said they were not aware of any such attacks.
Note: The original story had the headline “Teachers beheaded in Baghdad in front of students.”
Within a few minutes, Reuters changed the headline to the one I used for this post, and changed the text of the story to focus on the denial issued by crusade com and collaboraors.
WASHINGTON – Several months ago, when Rep. John Murtha, the Marine Corps veteran and longtime Democratic advocate for military preparedness, spoke out on the Iraq War, I received an interesting phone call from the Pentagon.
[snip]
The unsolicited caller from the Pentagon identified himself by name and rank, then said, “This is a private call. I am not speaking officially. But I read your column, and I think it is important for you to know that Jack Murtha knows us very well and speaks for many of us.”
“America meets the new superpower”The Independent, UK notes the visit of President Hu to Washington as the inevitable loss of America’s economic supremacy to China.
PARIS, April 18 (Reuters) – The United Nations will unveil on April 27 a set of six principles defining how institutional investors worldwide can invest in ways that protect the planet and meet social responsibilities.
The guidelines will be published in a document called “Principles for Responsible Investment” (PRI), French state-owned financial institution the Caisse des Depots et Consignations (CDC) said on Tuesday.
The guidelines aim to encourage investors to address environmental, social and governance concerns, such as harmful emissions, climate change and child labour.
The principles were defined by the United Nations in cooperation with around 20 institutional investors jointly managing $1.7 trillion of assets.
I just love your Rolling Stones Cover, CG. anyhow have to hit and run this morning. Gotta go to work here in a few. here is added fuel for the fire this morning. It does seem that the decider in chief is getting a little rough with his attitude today and yesterday over rummy… Gotta just love the little man for all it is worth in all his lies and those who will be taken down with him in the process…
the muckracker
Ya all have a good day now. See ya later..hugs….
The Sopranos Sunday night: Philadelphia Daily News
Hehe.
…that Sen. Sanatorium…
He belongs in a sanitarium, LOL!
Look how easy it is to keep tabs on the kids with GPS cell phones: WashPo
Sounds like that could come in handy if I take a job with say, the NSA….
I thought police could already do this with your cellphone – I guess what’s new is that they’re marketing it to parents who have the same issues with privacy as their government.
I’ve already mentioned to the family that if the day ever comes for re-enacting the final scene of the Sound of Music somewhere on the northern border of Montana, all cellphones get left behind… Who would ever have thought six years ago ordinary (if quirky and liberal) Americans would be thinking such things (sigh).
in Tampa: SP Times
Check out the sign with Prinicipal Skinner (a la The Simpsons) in the linked story…
Love the poster LOL!!! It simply expresses so much in so few words!
ENS Link
Are you losing sleep at night because you’re afraid that all life on Earth will suddenly be annihilated by a massive dose of gamma radiation from the cosmos? You need to be worrying about issues a little closer to home, LOL! Anyway, now you can rest easy – Astronomers have determined that a gamma ray burst event is nearly impossible in our corner of the cosmos.
Large (T. rex-sized), meat-eating dinosaurs found in Argentina may have hunted in packs, according to palaeontologists. It is not clear whether the animals cooperated in hunting, as wolves or lions do, or simply mobbed their prey or just gathered around after one of them made a kill. Remains of seven of the creatures found together suggest social interaction.
Researchers have identified a drug commonly used to treat hypertension that may also reverse nerve damage from spinal cord injuries, cancer and Parkinsons’s disease, by mopping up the free-radical-generating compound acrolein formed by damaged nerve cells.
Slooh.com, an astronomical event Web site, said Tuesday it will begin live monitoring of the approach of fragmenting Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann, beginning this week at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. The comet, which has broken up into 19 separate pieces, is heading for a rendezvous with Earth. Slooh.com broadcasts live celestial events via its Web site from its telescopes stationed at high altitude at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands.
Dental fillings containing mercury do not cause any measurable neurological problems in children who have had the fillings for at least seven years, according to two new studies.
Northern China choked by massive dust storm. Much of the dust was from the Gobi Desert, which has expanded as a result of deforestation and overgrazing. The 3-day sandstorm was aggravated by mounting pollution from vehicle emissions and factories.
OK, this is stretching the definition of “science-related” a bit, but I can’t resist: Al Gore is revving up the campaign machinery – to promote his upcoming book and movie on climate change. Is there more to it than that? He rehired his longtime political associate Roy Neel to aid in his effort to raise awareness about global warming, and recently left the door open a crack to another campaign, telling a Tennessee audience “I’m not planning to be a candidate again. I haven’t reached a stage in my life where I’m willing to say I will never consider something like this.” A payment of $40,000 to a Democratic polling firm has stirred political talk, but pollster Mark Penn said it was a settlement of a 2000 account. More current Gore-talk here.
Indonesia was preparing Monday for the possible evacuation of nearly 30,000 people living on the slopes of Java’s simmering volcano Mount Merapi, officials and reports said. Vulcanologists have declared alert stage two, one level below ordering an evacuation of the 29,000 residents and two below a full eruption. And a Peruvian volcano is also showing signs of life, prompting evacuations.
Tapping into the zeitgeist: Dutch researchers have developed a new program that can trace and explain significant changes in mood patterns on the Internet. MoodViews is a collection of instruments that maps the mood of bloggers as they write their messages. MoodViews follows the moods of 2 million bloggers from around the world. Each day the programs pick up about 150,000 blog messages. Journalists, marketing specialists, psychologists, [governments?] and bankers have expressed an interest in the software, which has three components: Moodgrapher monitors the global mood of bloggers. These data are converted into overview graphs. Moodteller uses language technology to predict the mood on the Web. The latest component, Moodsignals, records unusual peaks in mood levels. After this it uses search engine technology to find an explanation for these mood swings.
You know, when I added that last story above I put in the comment “[governments?]” and thought to myself, “they’re probably already doing that with similar software.” Well, I must be the one tied into the zeitgeist, (not that this is probably very profound news, except that they’re admitting it) as the Washington Times reports:
And won’t that be handy in the run-up to “elections”…
Prominent U.S. Physicists Send Warning Letter to President Bush
Millions of refugees are hidden victims of the West’s war on terror, warns UN
Your cover from Rolling Stone inspired me to go to their website, hoping to see the story – only I got sidetracked with this little item from the White House Easter egg hunt, linking from Rolling Stone to ThinkProgress:
You have to read the comments below the story, too!
My apologies if you vomited on your monitor 😛
My favorite comment: “This song sounds a lot better in Chinese.”
Unbelievable. Almost.
This story has “Food for the Dood” written all over it!
I saw that elsewhere… one of the most bizarre stories I’ve seen in a long time. Pretty soon the Mormon Tabernacle Choir will be at government functions singing Dubya’s praises to the tune of the Hokey Pokey.
Almost as strange as Iranians holding up vials of enriched uranium while dancing and singing.
link
The Government Accountability Office is at it again, this time issuing a report detailing how terrorism information is STILL NOT being shared between the umpteen Government agencies.
Government investigators Monday panned the administration’s efforts to share vital counter-terrorism information among the large number of federal agencies involved in protecting the U.S. homeland, an endeavor senior intelligence officials say is a litmus test of the success of the nation’s new intelligence czar.
The officials said last week that much progress has been made in streamlining the management of initiatives to promote counter-terrorism information sharing, but the picture they painted was somewhat at odds with Monday’s report.
“More than 4 years after Sept. 11,” wrote investigators for the Government Accountability Office, “the nation still lacks the government-wide policies and processes … for guiding and integrating the myriad of ongoing efforts to improve the sharing of terrorism-related information critical to protecting our homeland.”
Although “a large amount of terrorism information is already stored electronically” in various government data systems, the report goes on, many officials with counter-terrorism responsibilities “are not connected to these systems,” and the information they contain “about terrorists, their plans, and their activities is fragmentary.”
link
The Financial Times reports further on the fighting in Adhamiyah on Monday and Tuesday, asking whether the incident suggests greater Sunni Arab backing for the guerrillas. But am [sic] am told, and the Baghdad press also reports, that the real significance here was that the Shiite death squads in the ministry of interior tried to operate in force and in daylight in a Sunni Arab neighborhood. Earlier, they had had to kidnap and killa [sic]at night.
Al-Zaman / AFP / Reuters report that that the parliamentary crisis got even worse on Tuesday.
[snip]
The LA Times reports that the Kurdistan Confederacy is developing its own oil ministry, a further step toward autonomy from Baghdad.
There are two versions about what happened in Adhamiyah on Monday and Tuesday. The official US version is that insurgents staged a “bold” attack on Iraqi police. That’s the version that the MSM is pushing. The other (and probably true) version is that Shiite militia (read: government death squads) attacked a Sunni neighborhood in broad daylight. Can you say ‘open civil war’?
Dahr Jamail had more on the fighting yesterday, quoting his own sources in Baghdad. He syas the fighting is between Sunni insurggents & the two Shia militias, Bader & Mehdi, with US troops & helicopters standing by & later moving in.
The article also talks about Falluja & he asserts that the military is trying to downplay US casualties there, suggesting that when we read of a death in AL Anbar province, location otherwise unspecified, it’s likely to be from Falluja. The piece ends:
Note: The original story had the headline “Teachers beheaded in Baghdad in front of students.”
Within a few minutes, Reuters changed the headline to the one I used for this post, and changed the text of the story to focus on the denial issued by crusade com and collaboraors.
I saw this story in its original form this morning, Ductape…I would have totally missed that they changed the story if you hadn’t pointed it out.
Well, it’s take a little while to get the story ‘straight,’ yanno?
For the rest see COLUMNIST DAVID BRODER : Bush must take Rumsfeld’s critics seriously
“America meets the new superpower” The Independent, UK notes the visit of President Hu to Washington as the inevitable loss of America’s economic supremacy to China.
Military Judge ordered prosecutors to produce Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller as he’s ordered to testify for the defense on abusing detainees
Amid Bush’s insane threats to keep the nuclear option on the table, some Republicans are nervous, urging we should be holding talks with Iran. Add Scowcroft to the list.
UN to unveil principles for responsible investment