Maybe the war in Iraq isn't that important

Maybe nothing is, really, after watching this.

I'm exhausted

reading Juan Cole's line-by-line rebuttal of Bush's rant yesterday about Iraq and terror and stuff. But I'm much edified, too.

Elect a madman, you get madness

These numbers--of the escalating cost of the war in Iraq, of the cost to clean up after two hurricanes, of US borrowing and fiscal imbalances--absolutely insane.

Can't anybody--the Republicans, say--do anything about this?

I love when that happens

When the international community, especially my Scandinavian ancestors, slap the US in the face, especially Bush and Bolton.

This is a democracy?

The Iraqi Parliament has made terrorism a capital offense, and has made similarly punishable the act of assisting or concealing a terrorist. Harsh, but not too bad a reaction to the nation's present state, I suppose.

But how's this for the definition of terrorism?: any criminal act against people, institutions or property that "aims to hurt security, stability and national unity and introduce terror, fear or horror among the people and cause chaos" or any "activity threatening to spark sectarian differences or civil war." Furthermore, a terrorist is defined as including anyone who provokes or enables a terrorist to do such things.

So flag-burners, strikers, demonstrators--are they now subject to the death penalty in our new democracy? What about the person who holds the flag pole, hoists a supportive sign in an anti-government demonstration or shouts encouragement to the demonstrators?

Ambivalence

That's my reaction to this report that the UN has taken exception to the Shiites latest move in the Iraq parliament of changing the requirement for defeat of the constitution from 2/3 of those who vote to 2/3 of eligible voters in three provinces, the latter standard making it virtually impossible for the Sunnis to vote it down on October 15. While I certainly agree with the UN position--what an outrage!--I'm coming to the conclusion that approval of the constitution, under either standard, will simply spark a greater civil war.

Link TV

My landlord (landlady, actually) has blessed my rental unit with Direct TV, which is an astoundingly confusing service, but it does provide me with a powerful benefit: access to LinkTV. This is a viewer-supported channel available on Dish TV and Direct TV and I gotta say, it's bitchin'. Right now I'm watching "Bush's Brain" and next up is a documentary on Paul Wellstone. You get the drift.

Gotta go now, wanna watch.

Read it and weep

Riverbend has posted today on her efforts (her latest efforts, because her earlier posts were heroic) to understand the upcoming vote on the constitution--what the document said and meant in real terms. But now, she has revealed, in a desperately sad post, the reality of the political process in Iraq.

Back in the USSA

In Iraq, as in the US, the people in power create the rules, resulting in Bush's election in 2000 and (probably) in 2004. In Iraq, it's the Shiites who rule and they've just changed them to ensure that the Sunnis can't defeat the referendum on the constitution by interpreting the interim constitution to require that it be defeated by 2/3 of the voters in 3 provinces, that is 2/3 of the registered voters, not 2/3 of those who vote. Imagine the difference: In the U.S., for example, it would be impossible for 2/3 of the registered voters to agree on anything because of the low percentage of those who register who actually vote.

The Iraqi constitution, if it should be adopted, will be entirely bogus, just as the Bushies, through their operative, Tribune Bremer (author of the interim constitution) envisioned.

You can't make this stuff up

Isn't this KBR, a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's Halliburton, the same company that just got another huge no-bid contract to repair Katrina's damage to Navy facilities in New Orleans? Where the hell is Congress in all of this?

Neo-Cons vs. Neo-Salafis

Bush, another fine mess you've got us into. Now, a radical Muslim sect that sounds like Islam's version of the Christian Right in the U.S. has taken to bombing Shiites, focusing on Iraqi civilians, seeking civil war for its own sake. Our invasion has apparently swelled their numbers, giving them a cause and breeding discontent among the arab Sunni population.

The Congress should be so diligent

as the Iraq Parliament, which has refused to vote on an annual budget until it learns the details of the squandering of money and corruption of the previously-spent funds.

Ya know, you've gotta feel for those folks, trying to do the right thing under the gun of our occupying forces. Makes you weep for liberty, doesn't it? Makes you ask, Why the hell don't we get out, just leave them alone and maybe they'll survive as a viable nation. Maybe we will too.

Well, duh

The Bushite State Department has decided to delay imposing sanctions on Saudi Arabia for its ongoing violations of an international agreement calling for improving religious freedoms within its borders.

Fair and balanced

Here's a short piece by a noted journalist and author prescribing a way to get rid of the right-wing craziness that the US is presently immersed in. Nothing spectacular, just the plain old remedy, vote the bastards out.

Ya gotta love him, redux

Hugo Chavez must be driving Bush/Cheney nuts.
Of course, if you're of the school that believes, as I do, that Saddam Hussein's decision in 2000 to abandon the petrodollar as payment for Iraq's oil in favor of the euro was the trigger that set off the US invasion, Hugo's more than gutsy and intelligent, he's on very dangerous ground. Could our next military foray be into Venezuela? Keep your eyes open, looking for pretexts. The preceding link, BTW, is a smart, readable presentation of the dollar/euro/political battle, with historical explanation. A quick way to catch up on who and what are really ruling the world.

How does this guy still have a job?

Rummie, You're doing a heck of a job.

Wow!!!

If you've lost faith in the American judiciary (as, until this morning, I had), check out this item: A federal judge, after much reflection and over the Pentagon's objection that to do so would jeopardize US troops in the field by inflaming the enemy, has ordered the additional Abu Ghraib photos released to the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act. Recall Bush's repeated cliches that the "US won't give in to terr'r" and "They hate us for our freedoms"? Well, US district judge Alvin Hellerstein turned those bullshit slogans on their heads:

Our nation does not surrender to blackmail, and fear of blackmail is not a
legally sufficient argument to prevent us from performing a statutory command.
Indeed, the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq
and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are
armed.

Fascism watch continued

What clearer evidence could there be?

To the teeming millions of readers of this blog

Sorry, I'm offline for five days. Family wedding in Arizona.

This is news to me

The wire service, UPI, once a strong competitor to AP but for years its lesser cousin, has for five years been owned by the Rev. Moon, whose politics are to the right of Himmler.