Wednesday News Bucket

12 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on June 13, 2007 at 7:26 am

   mire: WashPo

   A senior U.S. military commander said yesterday that Iraq’s army must expand its rolls by at least 20,000 more soldiers than Washington had anticipated, to help free U.S. troops from conducting daily patrols, checkpoints and other critical yet dangerous missions.

   Even then, Iraq will remain incapable of taking full responsibility for its security for many years — five years in the case of protecting its airspace — and will require a long-term military relationship with the United States, said Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who until recently led the U.S. military’s training effort in Iraq.

   It gets even better:

   Dempsey said Iraqi army rolls are inflated by soldiers who are severely wounded but are still paid because the government lacks retirement money for them. An Iraqi army commander might also corruptly over-report the number of troops he has, Dempsey said, “so that he gets a payroll share more than he deserves and thereby pocket it.” Sectarian agendas also afflict the hiring and firing process…

   …Of the 32,000 Iraqi police lost from the U.S.-and-foreign-trained force of 188,000 in the 18 months before January, more than 14,000 were killed or severely wounded, 5,000 deserted, and the rest are “unaccounted for,” he said.

   Asked whether the absent police could be fighting U.S. troops, Dempsey replied, “We just don’t know,” adding that he is trying to track how many of the U.S.-trained forces end up in U.S. custody “down the road.”

   Way to go, BushCo.

2. 

   on June 13, 2007 at 7:34 am

   I’m really interested in how this Ed Brown affair takes shape.  It illustrates so, so many ills in our world.  The blacklisted subjects of MSM, the levels of American discontentment and the extent to which people may or may not step up to the plate.

   This story will define our future, period.
   http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/06/ed-elaines-blog-so-when-will-full.html

3. 

   on June 13, 2007 at 7:38 am

   So sorry.  In the future I must remember to wait a bit before picking the TOP story for the day.

   http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5949

   • 

     on June 13, 2007 at 5:29 pm

     The use of depleted uranium is unconscionable, but this article goes on to say some pretty loony things:

     AIDS was one of the early “exotic” bio-weapons developed. It was developed and administered by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Congress funded the AIDS development project, used to depopulate Africa in combination with famine, two ways known to rapidly increase death rates.

     • 

       on June 13, 2007 at 6:45 pm

       I do stop at some of the theories on the net but it’s still far better coverage than MSM.

4. 

   ask on June 13, 2007 at 8:30 am

   Sorry, some IP-news:

   Secret UN report condemns US for Middle East failures

   The highest ranking UN official in Israel has warned that American pressure has “pummelled into submission” the UN’s role as an impartial Middle East negotiator in a damning confidential report.

   The 53-page “End of Mission Report” by Alvaro de Soto, the UN’s Middle East envoy, obtained by the Guardian, presents a devastating account of failed diplomacy and condemns the sweeping boycott of the Palestinian government. It is dated May 5 this year, just before Mr de Soto stepped down.

   …

   Mr de Soto condemns Israel for setting unachievable preconditions for talks and the Palestinians for their violence. Western-led peace negotiations have become largely irrelevant, he says.

   Mr de Soto is a Peruvian diplomat who worked for the UN for 25 years in El Salvador, Cyprus and Western Sahara. He says:

   · The international boycott of the Palestinians, introduced after Hamas won elections last year, was “at best extremely short-sighted” and had “devastating consequences” for the Palestinian people

   …

   Mr de Soto acknowledges in the report that he is its sole author. It was meant only for senior UN officials, and its wording is far more critical than the public pronouncements of UN diplomats. Last night, Mr de Soto, who is in New York, told the Guardian: “It is a confidential document and not intended for publication.”

   Full text: Alvaro de Soto’s end of mission report (pdf-5.8MB)

5. 

   ask on June 13, 2007 at 8:39 am

   Sudan’s breathtaking migration

   Scientists believe they have discovered the biggest migration of wild animals on Earth, with an aerial survey revealing vast herds of gazelle and antelope on the move in southern Sudan in a region which had been assumed to have been denuded of its wildlife by years of civil war.

   The Wildlife Conservation Society, together with the autonomous government of South Sudan, announced at a press conference in New York yesterday that a study of the area’s fauna had revealed an abundance of antelope, particularly of white-eared kob, in breathtaking numbers. Flying over an area of about 590,000 sq kilometres, scientists witnessed a column of animals in their seasonal migration through grasslands and swamps that was 50 miles (80 km) long and 30 miles across.

   …

   The review of the wilderness’s state of health was not universally positive. In the south-west of the region up to 90% of species had been lost.

   “We saw no buffalo where in 1981 there were estimated to have been 60,000 and only one group of elephants was sighted, where some 10,000 had been estimated to roam in the past,” said Paul Elkan, head of the WCS’s programme in southern Sudan.

6. 

   CabinGirl on June 13, 2007 at 11:33 am

   I knew you could.  These are for Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor: AP/Yahoo

   Two congressional committees are issuing subpoenas for testimony from former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor on their roles in the firings of eight federal prosecutors, according to two officials familiar with the investigation.

   Democrats probing whether the White House improperly dictated which prosecutors the Justice Department should fire also are subpoenaing the White House for all relevant documents, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the move had not yet been formally made public.

   • 

     dada on June 13, 2007 at 1:08 pm

     and BushCo™ can say: executive privilege:

     CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin reports, “The White House has made clear it will cite executive privilege for conversations that took place within the White House on the U.S. attorney matter, and if the people with those conversations happen to have subsequently left the White House, that doesn’t matter. They’re still going to cite executive privilege, and these people are not going to be allowed to testify anytime soon, it appears, if the White House remains as it has been. … Even if they want to testify.”

     via think progress

     now what dems?

     lTMF’sA
     

     

     
     clik images for info

7. 

   CabinGirl on June 13, 2007 at 2:24 pm

   By not airing hurricane alerts on a radio station that airs his show:  Sun-Sentinel

   Rush Limbaugh has long been a thorn in the side of liberals, but now, because of him, some Democratic politicians don’t even want to join with a local radio station to broadcast hurricane information.

   Radio station WIOD, AM 610, has been the official channel for emergency information from Broward County government for the past year. The County Commission, all Democrats, balked at renewing the deal Tuesday, unable to stomach the station also being home to Limbaugh’s talk show.

   Of course, they’re getting accused of politicizing emergency broadcasting…which is funny, because it was okay when Bush politicized emergency management by putting ole pal Brownie in charge of FEMA, and look how that turned out for New Orleans…

8. 

   CabinGirl on June 13, 2007 at 2:46 pm

   Here’s a disgusting story of healthcare (or lack thereof) in America: CNN

   A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.

   Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office….

   In the recordings of two 911 calls that day, first obtained by the Los Angeles Times under a California Public Records Act request, callers pleaded for help for Rodriguez but were referred to hospital staff instead.

   “I’m in the emergency room. My wife is dying and the nurses don’t want to help her out,” Rodriguez’s boyfriend, Jose Prado, is heard saying in Spanish through an interpreter on the tapes.

   “What’s wrong with her?” a female dispatcher asked.

   “She’s vomiting blood,” Prado said.

   “OK, and why aren’t they helping her?” the dispatcher asked.

   “They’re watching her there and they’re not doing anything. They’re just watching her,” Prado said.

   The dispatcher told Prado to contact a doctor and then said paramedics wouldn’t pick her up because she was already in a hospital. She later told him to contact county police officers at a security desk.

   A second 911 call was placed eight minutes later by a bystander who requested that an ambulance be sent to take Rodriguez to another hospital for care.

   “She’s definitely sick and there’s a guy that’s ignoring her,” the woman told a male dispatcher.

   During the call, the dispatcher argued with the woman over whether there really was an emergency.

   The article also notes that the woman would have survived had she received prompt medical attention, you know, the kind that the symptom of vomiting blood warrants.

   • 

     chocolate ink on June 13, 2007 at 4:37 pm

     There wasn’t anything ‘accidental’ about this woman’s death.  I read about this a week or so ago and it was and is truly horrifying.  Including the police who finally showed up and instead helping this woman, who was unconscious by then, lying on the floor, arrested her and tried to get her into wheelchair to take to cop car..they realized she wasn’t breathing when they tried to get her into cop car is how I read first report…and they also say they did nothing wrong-just following procedure..yah sure unconscious people are always arrested in ER rooms and taken to jail.

     But hey, poor Paris is supposedly doing better and even playing ping pong now.