If this has any chance of working this weekend..
Iraqi Calls for Broader Cease-Fire
The Iraqi government called on all armed groups to join a cease-fire declared this week by Moktada al-Sadr [...]
Tags: Iraq War, Ceasefire, Moktada al-Sadr
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But, apparently, not old enough to make up their own minds about what they read…
U.S. Military Censors ThinkProgress
ThinkProgress is now banned from the U.S. military network in Baghdad. Recently, an avid ThinkProgress reader — a U.S. soldier serving his second tour in Iraq — wrote to us and said that he can no longer access ThinkProgress.org. The error message he received: The ban began sometime shortly after Aug. 22, when Ret. Maj. Gen. [...]
Tags: ThinkProgress Banned, Baghdad
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Okay, kids. Put down that cell phone. Right now!
Study: Ten Minutes On Cell Phone Can Trigger Cancer
Just when you thought it was safe to talk on your cell phone. Now some scientists say there is a chance that talking on a mobile phone for as little as 10 minutes could trigger changes in the brain that are associated with cancer, according to a story published on [...]
Tags: Cell Phone and Cancer
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There are several folks who delight in keep track of "Bush-isms" – thoe times when the President just doesn’t seem to make much sense. Here’s one for the books…
Say What, Mr. President?!? Interpretation Needed
Have a look at this from the President and see if you can tell me what he’s trying to say: "Q So you need those Australian troops there. THE PRESIDENT: We need all our coalition partners. And I would hope that — and I understand, look, everybody has got their own internal politics. My only point is, [...]
Tags: Bush-isms
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Don’t look for an abundance of posts for a few days. We’re dogsitting for our son and his wife this weekend. That means a house full of pups and, most likely, not a lot of free time to plow through bloglines. By the way, bloglines has a pretty nifty new beta you can play with at beta.bloglines.com. I’m bouncing back and forth between it and the old version. The major issue I have with the new ajax version is a small technical thing – when I copy and paste a headline from bloglines into Qumana, the headline font supersizes. So, I either have to manually change that or stick with the old version of bloglines. If I solve one thing this weekend, that’s my target.
To start things off this Friday evening (which, by the way, is just a tad bit cooler around here than has been the norm for the past several weeks. This is a good thing.) I’m cherry-picking a couple of posts from the venerable AMERICAblog. I really respect and admire the folks who thoughtfully post on issues over there. It’s a great one to add to your bloglines and stay updated. And, I sense that what would have been considered a radical leftist position have become much more mainstream in the past couple of years…
CNN’s host Glenn Beck says New Orleans should not be rebuilt
Okay, Jonathan Kaplan and CNN, make up your mind about New Orleans [...]
As expected, Petraeus sees progress — just like Bush
No need to wait for the official report. Nope. Petraeus already has his talking points down: "The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in [...]
P.S. – At the request of a couple of regular readers, I’ve change the number of posts on the first page, so it should load faster. However, that means you’ll usually need to click the "older posts" link at the bottom of the page to get to more of the current posts. Don’t be afraid to do that! I’m putting ten posts on the first page now, instead of three days worth of posts. And there are frequently more than ten posts on any given day…thus, you’ll need to click the "more posts" link. Let me know if it’s too much of a hassle. Oh, yeah. As long as we’re chatting, don’t forget the "comments"…feel free to use ‘em.
Tags: AMERICAblog, New Orleans, Katrina, Glenn Beck, Patraeus
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Bookmark the following post and check back occasionally over the weekend. If you’re from the left, the original post will aggravate the heck out of you and leave you shaking your head. But, don’t give up. Plow through the comments to get a good feel of where both the left and right stand on the war. It’s quite amazing. Try to figure out how both sides can feel so strongly about their positions. Bookmark it because the comments will continue to grow all weekend long.
The Dratted War Just Isn’t Going According to Plan!
Democrat plan, that is. Remember back in January where the President was supposedly on the political ropes and would shortly be forced to begin withdrawing from Iraq? "Lame Duck" didn’t even begin to describe President Bush as that time -…Democrat plan, that is. Remember back in January where the President was supposedly on the political ropes and would shortly be forced to begin withdrawing from Iraq? "Lame Duck" didn’t even begin to describe President Bush as that time – [...]
Tags: Iraq War
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Sure, it’s going much, much, better over in Iraq. Everywhere you turn there are signs of progress, right? Sorry, but I’m just not seeing it.
The National Intelligence Estimate said Iraq is a bloody mess unlikely to improve anytime soon. The Government Accountability Office says Iraq is not making any political or military progress. And an independent examination of the Iraqi police shows a force that is so far gone, it might need to be scrapped altogether. An independent commission established by [...]
And, from Juan Cole, what may be one of the most important and concise posts of the evening..
Arguments over Night of the Living Dead in Iraq
…I personally find the controversy about Iraq in Washington to be bizarre. Are they really arguing about whether the situation is improving? I mean, you have the Night of the Living Dead over there. People lack potable water, cholera has broken out even in the good areas, a third of people are hungry, a doubling of the internally displaced to at least 1.1 million, and a million pilgrims dispersed just this week by militia infighting in a supposedly safe all-Shiite area. The government has all but collapsed, with even the formerly cooperative sections of the Sunni Arab political class withdrawing [...]
Tags: National Intelligence Estimate, Government Accountability Office, Iraqi Police
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It’s not simply the loss of life. That’s bad enough. The information below is enough to gag any reasonable person..
Imagine you are in charge of safety for those laboring in America’s mines. Now imagine you don’t really care whether one, ten, or a hundred of these men and women die. All you care about is saving money for the corporations which are your real master. Once you have that mindset down, you’re almost ready for a spot with the Bush administration. You just have to take one more step. You have to be willing to take the broken bodies of those who have died through your own negligence and hold them up as reasons to reward those who collaborated in their deaths. That’s exactly what [...]
Tags: Mining, Coal Mining, Stream Buffer Zone Rule
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Finally, from Florida comes a Congressman with guts…
Rep. Kendrick Meek on accountability and Iraq… Rep. Meek is asking for some help in making certain that your elected representatives know how you feel about Iraq. It’s time to stand up and say “enough.” “The American people are asking for our troops to come home. I think that should be the goal of the Congress – [...]
Tags: Kendrick Meek, Iraq Spending, Iraq War
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I know the list is already long; the list of problematic situations in Iraq. But, there’s yet another issue to add…cholera.
The occupation that just keeps on giving (2).
Cholera is on the rise in northern Iraq as sanitation and medical systems break down from the stresses of coping with thousands of internal refugees. So far, 5000 people have been afflicted with the disease. ""The disease is spreading very fast," Dr Juan Abdallah, a senior official in Kurdistan’s health ministry, told a UN agency. "It is the first outbreak of its kind here in [...]
Now, just watch – somebody is going to take that last phrase and say, "See, the war’s been underway for a long time and this is the FIRST outbreak, so that’s really a pretty good record". Or something equally silly. Oh, by the way, here’s another "issue":
U.S. Says Company Bribed Officers for Work in Iraq
An American-owned company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to U.S. officers in efforts to win more than $11 million in contracts [...].
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I wish I had the time (and talent) to pull together posts like the following. It’s based on a newspaper column, embellished with salient thoughts from the post’s author. It wraps up so many good points in a single post that I can’t help but be impressed. I believe you will be, too. via Mahablog..
Today’s Paul Krugman column is a must read. Shorter version: We are all New Orleans now. Today, much of the Gulf Coast remains in ruins. Less than half the federal money set aside for rebuilding, as opposed to emergency relief, has actually been spent, in part because the Bush administration refused to waive the requirement [...]
Tags: New Orleans, Katrina, Paul Krugman, Middle Class
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That’s the simple way of saying it. Read the following excellent post by Glenn Greenwald and remember, it’s talking about how widespread such spying was long ago. Long before the current administration opened the floodgates of warrantless wiretapping, etc…
Warrantless surveillance and the new Coretta Scott King disclosures
…There is a long and recent record demonstrating that surveillance powers, when exercised against Americans without oversight, will be abused. And that record just got longer and more disturbing, thanks to a superb investigative report from a local television news station in Houston, which obtained the previously secret FBI surveillance file on Coretta Scott King. Here is what happens when we allow our political leaders to [...]
Tags: Warrentless Wiretap, Coretta Scott King, Domestic Spying
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It is a tragedy of war…still, somebody should be held accountable.
Marine in Haditha Ordered to Execute Women, Children
Rob Woollard reports for Agence France-Presse, "A US Marine was ordered to execute a room full of Iraqi women and children during an alleged massacre in Haditha that left 24 people dead, a military court heard Thursday."
[...]
Tags: Iraq War, Haditha, Marines
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Mike Huckabee. From Arkansas. To the amazement of many back home, his campaign is picking up steam and he’s getting some great press. First the latest poll…
Huckabee Gets Big Bounce in IA, NH and SC
Then, as noted by the Arkansas Times blog, more very positive bits of big-time press coverage…
Tags: Huckabee
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Give me a break! One incredulous report after another. It’s become almost routine. Almost the norm. Then, you stumble across one that makes you take a deep breath and sigh…
Petraeus Proving To Be A Political Hack
I have been extremely careful in not labelling General David Petraeus as essentially becoming a political hack for the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy. I have argued that he will deliver a soldier’s report, one intent on shoring up support for a mission he believes in and feels he can accomplish. I have always argued he can not be, by definition, an honest evaluator of his own strategy and performance. That just seems common sense to me. But it is becoming increasingly clear, for even someone like me that really does not want to believe it, that General Petraeus and his operation have chosen to become political hacks doing [...]
UPDATE: AMERICAblog has more:
Spinning members of Congress in Baghdad: Lobster tortellini, cheat sheets and children’s cartoons
The Bush administration has been in full campaign mode over the Iraq war since it started. They’ve put enormous time and resources into messaging the war, not so much into a strategy to extricate the U.S. from the quagmire. Over the past week, there have been several article demonstrating the public relations push the Bush team made with members of Congress visiting Iraq this [...]
From the other side: Troops to "Surrender Democrats": Up Yours
The Washington Post headline caught the self-pity of a couple of antiwar congressmen: "Lawmakers Describe ‘Being Slimed in the Green Zone’ " — If they were "slimed," it was with their own words. As these congressmen visited Iraq […]
There was this one, little, incident that couldn’t quite be managed by PR..
Iraq: Close Call for Congressional Delegation
A close call in Iraq leaves me wondering ‘what if?’. What if this attack had succeeded? Congressional sources confirmed late Thursday that a military transport plane carrying three Republican senators and a Democratic representative was attacked by either missiles or rocket-propelled grenades after taking off from the Baghdad airport. Sens. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Rep. Robert E. “Bud” Cramer, D-Ala., were uninjured after their C-130 transport plane took evasive measures and dispatched flares to avoid the incoming fire. Shelby recounted the incident [...]
Tags: Patraeus, Green Zone, Moran, Tauscher
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Always keep in mind that the money has to come from somewhere. It doesn’t just magically appear, no matter how fast Washington wants to spend it.
It’s not $50 billion. It’s $200 billion.
George W. Bush is not asking for $50 billion in additional appropriations for Iraq. He’s upping his already pending ask for $147 billion by $50 billion more. Four years and already nearly a half trillion (with a "t") dollars in, the president now seeks an additional $200 billion? And we’re thinking of giving it to him? Seventy-plus percent of America wants us out. Less than a quarter of Americans support the president in anything he does. Democrats hold the majority in both houses of Congress. And this president is asking for [...]
Tags: Iraq War, War Funding
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Isn’t this the kind of thing that Republicans typically accuse Democrats of doing?
Today’s Housing Bubble Post – Bailout With Taxpayer Dollars
Have you been responsibly managing your debt? Have you been sacrificing so you don’t get in over your head? Saving instead of borrowing? Accepting lower returns on your money rather than getting greedy and taking on high risk for higher yields? Sucker. Bush announced "home loan relief" today. What does this mean? In short, a huge taxpayer transfer to the rich. Partly by moving [...]
Steve Soto writes that, yes, it is a Democratic-style idea, but he likes it –
For Once, Doing The Right Thing
Sure, he’s stealing Democratic proposals and packaging them as an administration initiative, but I applaud Bush for getting involved in the mortage meltdown and putting forward an agenda to help homeowners keep their homes. When you are president, you have the luxury of [...]
Tags: Mortgage Bailout, Housing Bubble
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That’s what pushed the American Cancer Society to this:
Cancer Society Devotes Entire Ad Budget To Inadequate Health Care
In a stark departure from past practice, the American Cancer Society plans to devote its entire $15 million advertising budget this year not to smoking cessation or colorectal screening but to the consequences of inadequate health coverage. The campaign was born of the group’s frustration that [...]
Tags: American Cancer Society, Advertising Budget, Health Care
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Tony Snow tipped his hand earlier this month, telling reporters he would be stepping down as White House Press Secretary. But, I think, the speed with which he made it official is a bit surprising.
The White House announced Press Secretary Tony Snow’s much speculated resignation today: President Bush announced Friday that press secretary Tony Snow, who has waged a battle with cancer while manning the White House lectern, will resign and be replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino, on Sept. 14. “It’s been joy to watch him spar with you,” [...]
Tags: Tony Snow Resigns
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Less than 24 hours. The celebrating is over. Done. Kapput.
Same-sex marriages halted in Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A minister married two men outside an Iowa home Friday morning, sealing the state’s first legal same-sex wedding. But it also could be one of the last. Judge Robert Hanson issues a stay less than 24 hours after he threw out Iowa’s ban on gay marriage [...]
Tags: Iowa, Same-Sex Marriage
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