The Wisdom of D'Souza

Just take a moment to digest this:

Right after 9/11 there was, as you know, a moment of national unity in which the whole American tribe came together, and the basic idea was, we don't care who did this, or why: We basically want to pulverize the people who did this. And that was a very understandable response...

And, wha?

So in that sense, when they say that Islam is under attack and that, not American values, but these American values that are being globally pushed by the left, the values of, I mean, you have left-wing organizations filing lawsuits all over South America to liberalize abortion laws. These are democratically passed laws in Catholic countries, but under the bogus rubric of international law, there's an effort here to overturn these democratically passed laws in the name of some notion of abortion as an international right. Again, you have Planned Parenthood distributing contraceptives to Muslim girls.

My point is how can you justify this sort of thing? Isn't it true that when the radical Muslims say, "This is an effort to corrupt our morality," they have a point?

Cheney: One Toke Over the Line

Mondale calls it:

Vice President Dick Cheney has bullied federal agencies and given absurd advice about the nation's risk and Iraq, Walter Mondale said Friday, adding that never would have been tolerated when Mondale was vice president.

``I think that Cheney has stepped way over the line,'' Mondale said at the opening of a three-day conference about former President Jimmy Carter at the University of Georgia.

Mondale, who served under Carter, said Cheney and his assistants pressured federal agencies as they prepared information for President Bush.

``I think Cheney's been at the center of cooking up farcical estimates of national risks, weapons of mass destruction and the 9/11 connection to Iraq,'' he said.

That does not serve the president, because he needs facts, Mondale said.

``If I had done as vice president what this vice president has done, Carter would have thrown me out of there,'' Mondale said. ``I don't think he could have tolerated a vice president over there pressuring and pushing other agencies, ordering up different reports than they wanted to send us. I don't think he would have stood for it.''

So Many Kinds of Crazy and Stupid

What can one say?

A charter school alerted authorities to a 29-year-old sex offender who tried to enroll there, pretending he was just 12, in what sheriff's officials said Friday may have been an attempt to lure children into sexual abuse.

The Yavapai County sheriff's office also said Neil Havens Rodreick II conned two men he was living with and having sex with into believing he was a young boy.

One of them, 61-year-old Lonnie Stiffler, called himself Rodreick's grandfather when he tried to enroll him at Mingus Springs Charter School as "Casey Price."

"This is the weirdest case I've seen in 18 years," sheriff's spokeswoman Susan Quayle said. "If it wasn't so sad it would be funny."

A total of four men were in custody in the case Friday on various charges, including fraud, forgery, identity theft and failure to register as a sex offender.

Officials at the charter school in Chino Valley, about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix, told deputies that papers the "grandfather" presented appeared to be fake and that the "boy" looked much older than 12.

Stiffler and Robert James Snow, 43, "were very upset when the detectives told them they had been having a sexual relationship with a 29-year-old man and not a pre-teen boy," Quayle said.

Fair and Balanced

They're not even being subtle anymore:

Fox News Channel's morning program Fox & Friends pointed to a report on Friday that Sen. Barack Obama had attended a Muslim 'madrasa' while living in Indonesia as a 6-year-old child.

Host Steve Doocy went on to highlight Obama's middle name, Hussein, and questioned whether Obama was indoctrinated in extremist Muslim doctrine.

Tistablogging

Zora had her day, and Gramsci had his, so it is only fair.




















What? This is perfectly dignified behavior, thank you very much.














Just because I can hear you does not mean I am listening.















Look, I don't recall asking for a little brother.















Damn paparazzi.

An "International Embarrassment"

Everything's bigger in Texas:

In a case that has renewed questions about the quality of Texas justice, a man who spent 10 years behind bars for the rape of a boy has become the 12th person in Dallas County to be cleared by DNA evidence.

That is more DNA exonerations than in all of California, and more than in Florida, too. In fact, Dallas County alone has more such cases than all but three states — a situation one Texas lawmaker calls an "international embarrassment."

James Waller, 50, was exonerated by a judge earlier this week and received an apology from the district attorney's office after a new type of DNA testing on hair and semen showed he was not the rapist who attacked a 12-year-old a boy living in Waller's apartment building in 1983.

"Poisonous"

Yeah, right. Pelosi's also "shrill" and "uppity":

In a critique the White House labeled as "poisonous," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) charged Friday that President Bush is wading too deeply into Iraq and said it should not be "an obligation of the American people in perpetuity."

Pelosi said Bush "has dug a hole so deep he can't even see the light on this. It's a tragedy. It's a stark blunder."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino retorted that Pelosi's comments were "poisonous," referring to the portion of Pelosi's statement that asserted Bush is rushing new troops there and betting that Congress won't cut off funds once they're in battle.

"It's certainly not in keeping with the bipartisan spirit and civility that the Democrats pledged and that we looked forward to," Perino said. "Speaker Pelosi was arguing in essence that the president is putting young men and women in harm's way for tactical political reasons. She's questioning his motivations rather than questioning his policies."

Olbermann Has "Momentum"; O'Reilly Is "Sad and Pathetic"

Heh:

Bill O'Reilly's criticism of NBC News as a liberal-leaning network is "really kind of sad and pathetic," the network's news president said.

Steve Capus attributed the Fox News Channel host's criticism of the network to O'Reilly's ongoing feud with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

O'Reilly has said NBC News, as an organization, has gone sharply to the left.

He cited the network's decision last fall to begin referring to the sectarian violence in Iraq as a civil war, a phrase the Bush administration has resisted.

He made his displeasure clear in a recent interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell, then later talked to a body language consultant who said Mitchell looked uncomfortable.

"I think it's really kind of sad and pathetic, some of the things that he's been lobbing at us these days," Capus told reporters Wednesday. "I don't quite understand it. I assume it's because Keith Olbermann has had such tremendous growth and there's real momentum behind Keith's broadcast."

Here Comes the Heat

More fantastic news that will generate no action on the part of Bush and his big-oil cronies:

Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought.
...
At its most far reaching, the finding could indicate that global temperatures are making forests, soils and oceans less able to absorb carbon dioxide - a shift that would make it harder to tackle global warming. Such a shift would worsen even the gloomy predictions of the Stern Review which warned that we had little over a decade to tackle rising emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

UPDATE: But only idiots are worried about it:

Climate change stands alongside the use of nuclear weapons as one of the greatest threats posed to the future of the world, the Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking has said.

Professor Hawking said that we stand on the precipice of a second nuclear age and a period of exceptional climate change, both of which could destroy the planet as we know it.

Blood from a Stone

Good luck with that:

An antiques dealer sued four homeless people, seeking to keep them away from his store on a posh shopping street because, he says, they alienate customers and block window displays.

Store owner Karl Kemp also seeks $1 million from the four, named in the lawsuit as John Doe, Bob Doe, John Smith and Jane Doe.
...

Advocates for the homeless called the lawsuit hardhearted.

"Until we see to it that every single homeless individual has a place to stay, this is our reality," said Shelly Nortz, a deputy executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless.

"The complaint that they somehow occasionally occupy a space that is also home to Gucci and Chanel doesn't mean that they're breaking any law," she said.

Leahy: "We Knew Damn Well"

Well said:

After sitting through withering criticism in a Senate hearing, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has promised more information on the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian who ended up in a cell in Syria after U.S. officials grabbed him on a stopover in New York.

Gonzales was grilled relentlessly on Thursday by Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy. Leahy said that when Arar — a citizen of both Canada and Syria travelling on a Canadian passport — was detained in 2002, American authorities knew he would be tortured if they deported him to Syria.

"We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured," said Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont. "He'd be held and he'd be investigated.

"We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country — a country that has always been a beacon of human rights — to send somebody to another country to be tortured.

"You know and I know that has happened a number of times in the past five years by this country. It is a black mark on us."

The Mr. Hankey Defense

Um, she shouldn't go to jail for this, but, really.

Use your words, Ms. Ensz:

What Weld County prosecutors see as the misuse of a rancid pile of dog feces, Kathleen Ensz's defense attorneys see as an expression of the First Amendment.

Ensz is accused of going into her backyard in May, obtaining a piece of excrement, placing it in an unwanted political mailer and slipping in under the door of U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's office.

Ensz's attorneys argue that her conduct was a form of political protest that deserves protection and is as sacrosanct as Thomas Jefferson's railing against the king of England.

They also cited Mr. Hankey, a television character on the adult cartoon show "South Park," as evidence of how commonplace feces is for expressing disdain.

The Dictatorship of the Proleta--Well, of Chavez

He's got the power:

Venezuela's National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting President Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree for 18 months.

Mr Chavez said he wants to approve "revolutionary laws" to enact sweeping political, economic and social changes.

He has said he wants to nationalise key sectors of the economy and scrap limits on the terms a president can serve.

Mr Chavez began his third term in office last week after a landslide election victory in December.

The bill allowing him to enact laws by decree is expected to win final approval easily in the assembly next week on its second reading.

Surge!

The Onion tells the heartening tale of our youth finally pitching in, in our hour of need:

Citing a desire to finally make a difference in Iraq, in the past two weeks, more than 800,000 young people from upper-middle- and upper-class families have put aside their education, careers, and physical well-being to enlist in the military, new data from the Department Of Defense shows.

"I don't know if it was the safety and comfort of the holidays or what, but I realized that my affluence and ease of living comes at a cost," said Private Jonathan Grace, 18, who was to commence studies at Dartmouth College next fall, but will instead attend 12 weeks of basic training before being deployed to Fallujah with the 1st Army Battalion. "I just looked at my parents in their cashmere sweaters and thought, 'Who am I to go to an elite liberal arts college and spend all my time reading while, in the real world, thousands of kids my age are sacrificing their lives for our country?' It's not right."

Added Grace: "Whether I agree with the war or not, our president needs us, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let our least advantaged citizens bear the brunt of this awesome burden."

Habeas Corpus for Some, Tiny American Flags for Others!

Holy shit:

Are you shitting me?

Je repete: “[GONZALES:] The Constitution does not say that every citizen has the right to habeas corpus.”

Quote transcribed, live from the hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which you should be listening to, if you aren’t (when it resumes at 2:00PM)

Gee, who decides when they don’t?

No Freedom Fries for Iran

Jones takes another bold stance:

The North Carolina Republican who coined the term "freedom fries" will lead a press conference today on a bill to put the brakes on any US military strike against Iran, RAW STORY has learned.

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) has proposed legislation requiring the president to consult and receive authorization from Congress before initiating a military attack on Iran. The measure will be presented at an 11:30 am press conference tomorrow with co-sponsors Ron Paul (R-TX), Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Richard Neal (D-MA), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) and Marty Meehan (D-MA).

Jones became prominent in 2003 when he pushed Congress to require that cafeterias in the House of Representative office buildings change the name of french fries to "freedom fries." In the time since this act, Jones has become a critic of the Iraq War. This change of heart appears to inform Jones' current policy.

"One of the many lessons from our involvement in Iraq is that Congress needs to ask the right questions prior to exercising its Constitutional authority to approve the use of military force," Jones said in a Jan. 12 statement sent to RAW STORY.

"The Spirit of Co-operation"

Of course, what we really mean is that the United States alone has the right to militarize space:

The United States, Australia and Canada have criticised China over a weapons test it is said to have carried out in space last week.

The Americans say the Chinese sent up a ballistic missile to destroy an ageing weather satellite.

They say the test went against the spirit of co-operation both countries aspire to in the area of civil space.

Hagel Is Better Than Hillary

Sad, but true. Her nonsensical, infuriating proposal simply to "cap" troop levels in Iraq proves it:

Chuck Hagel for President! If it ever narrows down to a choice between him and some Democratic hack who hasn't the guts to fundamentally challenge the President on Iraq, then the conservative Republican from Nebraska will have my vote. Yes, the war is that important, and the fact that Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, the leading Democratic candidate, still can't or won't take a clear stand on the occupation is insulting to the vast majority of voters who have.

Sen. Hagel is a decorated Vietnam War vet who learned the crucial lessons of that Democrat-launched debacle of post-colonial imperialism. Even more important, he has the courage to challenge a President from his own party who so clearly didn't.

"The speech given last night [Jan. 10] by this President represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam," Hagel said. "We are projecting ourselves further and deeper into a situation that we cannot win militarily.

"To ask our young men and women to sacrifice their lives to be put in the middle of a civil war is wrong. It's, first of all, in my opinion, morally wrong. It's tactically, strategically, militarily wrong," he added.

Bush Folds on Wiretapping

Once again, thank you Dems for taking back the Congress. There's no way Bush would have done this otherwise:

Does it matter that Democrats took charge of the Senate this month?

George Bush seems to think so.

In a letter sent today to Senate Judiciary Committee leaders, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales writes that, "the president has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires.

"Any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," explains the attorney general's letter.

Chickenhawks Agree: The Generals Are to Blame

Yes, Kristol is still an obnoxious wanker:

Escalation supporters already appear to be creating a scapegoat in case President Bush’s new Iraq policy fails. Prominent neoconservatives have set their aims on top U.S. military commanders and their allies in the Pentagon (apparently including Defense Secretary Robert Gates), who they claim are sabotaging President Bush’s escalation plan by “slow-walking” the deployment of U.S. forces to Iraq.

On Sunday, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol called Gates’ congressional testimony last week “pretty pathetic.” Gates told Congress that we “may be able to begin drawing down some of our troops later this year.” According to Kristol, “That’s the absolute wrong message to send. The message we should send over there is we’re coming in, we’re coming in big, we’re staying, we’re winning this war.” Kristol suggested that Gates was “letting the Joint Chiefs slow-walk the brigades in.”

Sorry About That Whole Anti-Justice Thing

Yeah, nice apology for working to deny representation to the people who've been unlawfully detained for years and years. Thanks for that:

A Pentagon official who criticized large U.S. law firms for representing terrorism suspects at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has apologized for his comments, saying that his discussion on a local radio program does not reflect his "core beliefs."

Charles D. "Cully" Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said yesterday that he regrets what he told Federal News Radio on Thursday, when he suggested that chief executives of U.S. companies should question being represented by lawyers who do pro bono work for terrorism suspects. The Washington Post editorial page reported Stimson's comments Friday.

The Mentality of an Abuser

Well, hell, Cheney got an apology from the guy he shot in the face. Why shouldn't Bush expect the Iraqis to thank us for slaughtering them, destroying their society, and making them drink sewage?

ON "60 MINUTES," President Bush was asked, "Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?"

Bush eventually answered, "Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant."

If Bush stopped there, all he would have been was arrogant. But he kept going: "I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude."

That is inhuman. We destroyed a nation under the false pretense of weapons of mass destruction. Between our invasion and the ensuing civil war, at least 53,000 Iraqi civilians and over 3,000 American soldiers have been killed. Nearly 23,000 US soldiers have been wounded. Tyrants are being hanged, and tyranny is still in the streets.

And the Iraqi people owe us a debt of gratitude?

The Dems Keep Pulling Through for Us

Another impressive step. Thank you, Dems!

The Democratic-controlled House voted overwhelmingly to cut interest rates on need-based student loans Wednesday, steadily whittling its list of early legislative priorities.

Homophobia in Arizona

Great idea, there, Bishop Olmsted. What the Catholic Church needs to do is to run the good, non-rapist priests off:

A Roman Catholic priest who frequently clashed with Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted over the role of gays in the church has left the priesthood.

The Rev. Chris Carpenter, a leader in the Phoenix Diocese's ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics, had been on a yearlong leave of absence.

His disagreements with Olmsted date back to 2004 when he and eight other priests signed a letter called the Phoenix Declaration, which affirmed the right of LGBT people to fully participate in the Catholic Church.

Olmsted ordered the priests to remove their signatures. Carpenter becomes the seventh signatory to the document to leave the priesthood.

"The enforcement of church doctrine and liturgical practice are taking a step backward to the pre-Vatican II era," Carpenter said in a statement.

...

In 2005 he instructed pastors in the state not to invite to their parishes any public figure who disagrees with basic church teachings on abortion, gay marriage or other issues.

Last year Olmsted was one of the leaders in a bid to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partner benefits. The measure failed at the polls in November.

Bigotry Dies in Committee

I've blogged about this appalling development in the past. It's good to see that nothing shall come of it:

Legislation that would require students in publicly funded schools to obtain their parent's written permission to participate in school clubs died in committee on Wednesday.

Although it did not specifically mention gay-straight alliances LGBT opponents of the bill said its intent was to make it impossible for the gay support clubs to organize.

The measure passed a House of Delegates Education subcommittee on Monday on an 8-5 vote. (story) But Wednesday a tie vote in the full Committee meant it would not advance to the House floor.

The bill was sponsored by Del. Matthew Lohr (R-Harrisonburg) as were two previous attempts.

Unfortunately, however:

The threat to GSAs in Virginia is not over yet. A second delegate has submitted a bill similar to Lohr's. It has yet to be considered.

Our Allies

Pakistan comes through for us again:

Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is alive and well and living in Pakistan under the protection of the Pakistan intelligence agency, according to the captured spokesman for the Taliban, Mohammad Hanif.

Hanif was captured in Afghanistan yesterday, and today the Afghan government released video footage of him in which he claims to know the location of Omar.

"He is living in Quetta," says Hanif, "and the ISI [Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency] is protecting him."

Winter Comes to Austin

The front of my house, on a lovely winter's morn.






























And it was very pleasant to walk down the middle of deserted streets knowing that the beer I was carrying did not have a chance of getting warm on me.

And every slightest breeze, even those I was too much of a clod to feel on my skin, set the iced branches to creaking, as if the freezing gave the trees, or the wind, access to voices they are customarily denied...

Approaching my house, I saw footprints going the other way and knew they were mine. How rare is that, these days?

Fascism Will Eat Itself

Enjoyable developments in regard to a story I blogged on a few days back:

A new far-right group in the European Parliament is in disarray after one of its MEPs disowned a colleague for attacking the "Jewish establishment" and for accusing Roma parents of selling their daughters into prostitution.

The rift emerged at yesterday's press conference to launch an ultra-nationalist group called Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty. It is led by Bruno Gollnisch, of France's National Front, who is awaiting a court verdict on charges of Holocaust denial.

Another Brilliant Republican Moment

A moment of honesty from Hargrove:

A state legislator said black people "should get over" slavery and questioned whether Jews should apologize "for killing Christ," drawing denunciations Tuesday from stunned colleagues.

Del. Frank D. Hargrove, 79, made his remarks in opposition to a measure that would apologize on the state's behalf to the descendants of slaves.

In an interview published Tuesday in The Daily Progress of Charlottesville, Hargrove said slavery ended nearly 140 years ago with the Civil War and added that "our black citizens should get over it."

Tuesday Loris Blogging

Save the loris! He speaks for the trees!

It isn't often that the northern hairy-nosed wombat, the finger-sized slender loris, and the mountain pygmy possum share the spotlight. But these odd creatures are the focus of a conservation program launched Tuesday to safeguard some of the world's rarest mammals.

The Zoological Society of London's program highlights 100 species selected because of the peculiarity of their genetic backgrounds and the degree of danger they face. The species' lack of close relatives make their preservation particularly urgent, society scientist Jonathan Baillie said. He described them as natural masterpieces.

"Would we just sit there and watch the Mona Lisa disappear?" he said. "These are things that are just irreplaceable."

Many of the species are the only representative of groups that have otherwise died out. West Africa's pygmy hippopotamus, known for its thick, oily "blood-sweat," is the only member of its genus.

Others, like the Yangtze River dolphin, are thought to represent an entire genetic family. The dolphin, may already be gone, like some others on the list.

Courting the Gay-Hate Crowd

McCain is still an opportunist:

Sen. John McCain said Tuesday he hopes to patch things up with conservative Christian leader James Dobson, who recently said he wouldn't support the Republican's presidential bid under any circumstances.

In a radio interview with KCBI, a Dallas Christian station, Dobson argued that McCain didn't support traditional marriage values and said he has prayed "we won't get stuck with him." Dobson is founder of Focus on the Family.

"I'm obviously disappointed and I'd like to continue and have a dialogue with Dr. Dobson and other members of the community," McCain said Tuesday during a stop in Columbia.

McCain has said gay marriage should not be legal but has angered some conservatives with his opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions. The Arizona senator said the issue should be left to the states.

"I'm happy to say that I've established a dialogue with a number of other leaders," including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, "Purpose Driven Life" author Rick Warren and Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Revoke His License

Grossly unprofessional behavior such as this must stop. Denying Plan B is bad enough, but laughing!?

A woman has complained to the governor and an abortion-rights group about Wal-Mart workers who wouldn't give her morning-after contraceptive pills that don't require a prescription.

Tashina Byrd, 23, of Springfield, said the pharmacist "shook his head and laughed" when a pharmacy attendant asked this month about giving the woman and her boyfriend Plan B. The hormone pills can help prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

The attendant told Byrd and her boyfriend, Brian O'Neill, 37, of Columbus, that the store stocked Plan B but nobody would give it to them, the couple told The Columbus Dispatch.

Byrd wrote Gov. Ted Strickland and contacted NARAL Pro-Choice America and Wal-Mart Watch, an activist group.

"I could go to church if I wanted to be told how to live my life," said Byrd, who ended up getting the pills from a CVS pharmacist in Springfield.

3,026

Thanks, Bush:

A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in northwestern Iraq, the military said Tuesday. The blast struck the Task Force Lightning Soldiers assigned to the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division Monday while they were conducting operations in the northwestern Ninevah province, according to a statement. Ninevah is home to the city of Mosul, which has seen a recent increase in violence.

The identities of the slain soldiers were being withheld pending notification of their relatives. The deaths raised to at least 3,026 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Growth for Growth's Sake Is the Ideology of the Cancer Cell

Case in point: Starbucks:

Starbucks is to open new coffee shops in London at the rate of one a fortnight for the next decade.

The firm has outlined a relentless expansion plan, and says it can foresee no limit to the number of branches in and around the capital.

Phil Broad, the firm's managing director for Britain and Ireland, said: “We don't think we’ve reached saturation point and we certainly don’t see London as finished yet.”

Defending the Sanctity of Marriage

I'm sure conservatives, the ones who hate the evil gay-marriage types, will be just thrilled at this development:

In a ruling sure to make philandering spouses squirm, Michigan's second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

"We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today," Judge William Murphy wrote in November for a unanimous Court of Appeals panel, "but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion."

"Technically," he added, "any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I," the most serious sexual assault charge in Michigan's criminal code.

Baghdad Flourishing

Or, at least, Baghdad's pestilent micro-organisms are flourishing:

Residents of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, are at risk of contracting a range of waterborne diseases as the city’s sewage system has collapsed after four days of heavy rain, the country’s health ministry said on Monday.

For nearly a week now, 45-year-old teacher Jassim Abdullah has been forced to buy bottled water for his family’s daily use at an expense that his meagre income barely covers.

"We can't use tap water for drinking or cooking. It’s all sewage. That is why I have put aside 100,000 Iraqi dinars [about US $75] to buy water for cooking and washing," said Abdullah, a father of five girls, from Baghdad's poor neighbourhood of Hurriyah.

Dr Abdul-Rahman Adil Ali of the Baghdad Health Directorate warned of the dire consequences of a non-operational sewage system.

"As the sewage system has collapsed, all residents are threatened with gastroenteritis, typhoid fever, cholera, diarrhoea and hepatitis. In some of Baghdad's poor neighbourhoods, people drink water which is mixed with sewage," Ali said.

Soldiers Speak Up for Peace

Good to see, not that chickenhawks Bush and Cheney will listen:

Vocal opposition to President’s Bush’s strategy of sending more than 20,000 additional troops to help secure Iraq has grown to include some of the troops themselves.

A group of more than 50 active-duty military officers will deliver a petition to Congress on Tuesday signed by about 1,000 troops calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. “Any troop increase over here will just produce more sitting ducks, more targets,” said Sergeant Ronn Cantu, who is serving in Iraq.

Under the 1988 Military Whistleblower Protection Act, active duty military, National Guard, and Reservists may communicate with any member of Congress without fear of reprisal, even if copies of the communication are sent to others.

Madison Comes Out Against Homophobic Bigotry

Very interesting idea:

Madison, Wisconsin could become the first city in the nation to require a statement supporting same-sex marriage in the oaths of office of city officials.

The state passed a constitutional amendment in November banning same-sex marriage and civil unions. But the electorate in Madison voted 2-to-1 against the measure.

Tuesday city council will consider adding a line to the oaths of office taken by elected and appointed officials in Madison that states disagreement with the amendment - even though the same oath says they will uphold both the Wisconsin and the US constitutions.

Using the line disapproving of the amendment would be a matter of choice

It says that the amendment "besmirches our constitution" and says the person swearing would fight to overturn it and work to minimize its impact.

"We're still going to swear to uphold the constitution," said Brenda Konkel, one of six council members sponsoring the proposal.

"All it's saying is that we're going to work to change it, and any discrimination that happens as a result of it isn't acceptable in Madison."

In Love with the Lies

Americans do love their willfull ignorance, it is true:

According to New York Times/CBS News poll results released today, 93 percent of Americans liked it better when President Bush would lie to cover-up the dire circumstances in Iraq. Following a week when a candid President Bush accepted blame for the many mistakes made in Iraq and admitted on television program 60 Minutes that attacking Iraq has made things even more unstable in the region, the American public has reacted with a mixture of shock and bewilderment to what was once unthinkable: a forthright President Bush.

According to statistics, Bush’s approval ratings were at 37% at the start of last week, but then plummeted to a record low 22% once the truth telling scandal broke -- or what’s now being called in media circles as honesty-gate.

Political Strategist Michael Cannon, an analyst for DC think tank the Cato Institute, says Bush taking the moral high ground has really backfired. “The old adage goes, honesty is the best policy. But for President Bush that’s not the case. Ultimately, there’s just something very insincere about a sincere President Bush."

Softening Up America

Bush is getting ready to move against Iran. Every time I think he's gone as batshit crazy as he can, he one-ups me:

Increased US military activity in the Gulf is aimed at Iran's "very negative" behaviour, the Bush administration said today.

The defence secretary, Robert Gates, told reporters that the decision to deploy a Patriot missile battalion and a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf in conjunction with a "surge" of troops in Iraq was designed to show Iran that the US was not "overcommitted" in Iraq.

Speaking in Brussels after meeting Nato officials, Mr Gates said: "We are simply reaffirming that statement of the importance of the Gulf region to the United States and our determination to be an ongoing strong presence in that area for a long time into the future."

His remarks followed tough comments on Iran at the weekend from other senior US officials. The vice-president, Dick Cheney, accused Iran of "fishing in troubled waters inside Iraq", while the national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the US was "going to need to deal with what Iran is doing inside Iraq".

Such remarks, following the prospect of "hot pursuit" raids into Iran as raised by George Bush in his televised address last week, have fuelled speculation that the US is softening up the American public for possible action against Tehran.

The increasingly confrontational pose struck by the US is a repudiation of one of the key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which called for the start of a dialogue with Iran and Syria in an effort to extricate the US from Iraq.

The Number 7 Better Watch Its Back

The Saudis are onto the perfidies of Western writing:

The letter "X" soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross.

The new development came with the issuing of another mind-bending fatwa, or religious edict, by the infamous Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the group of senior Islamic clergy that reigns supreme on all legal, civil, and governance matters in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The commission's damning of the letter "X" came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether it should grant trademark protection to a Saudi businessman for a new service carrying the English name "Explorer."

"No! Nein! Nyet!" was the commission's categorical answer.

Why?

Well, never mind that none of the so-called scholars manning the upper ranks of the religious outfit can speak or read a word of English. But their experts who examined the English word "explorer" were struck by how suspicious that "X" appeared. In a kingdom where Friday preachers routinely refer to Christians as pigs and infidel crusaders, even a twisted cross ranks as an abomination.

So after waiting a year, the Saudi businessman, Amru Mohammad Faisal, got his answer: No.

Hilary Shows How She's Going to Play It

Hardly surprising:

Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) staff "last night ripped into 2008 White House contender John Edwards -- her first direct assault on any of her potential Democratic presidential rivals," the New York Post reports.

"Clinton's surprising broadside came just hours after Edwards, in Harlem, delivered a sharp condemnation -- clearly aimed at Clinton, although he didn't mention her by name -- against those who fail to 'speak out' against the war in Iraq... Clinton's full-blown response to Edwards signals that her team considers him a top-tier threat."

Said Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson: "In 2004, John Edwards used to constantly brag about running a positive campaign. Today, he has unfortunately chosen to open his campaign with political attacks on Democrats who are fighting the Bush administration's Iraq policy."

Postwar Deconstruction

Interesting new study shows that attempts to rebuild after war actually do harm:

Billions of pounds of aid spent in postwar reconstruction across the globe creates political instability and violence, according to a controversial new study.

The research, carried out in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans for Tiri, a new non-governmental organisation dedicated to encouraging transparency and democracy in developing countries, will fuel the debate over whether established ways of delivering aid are failing.

The controversy follows the disastrous outcomes of a series of major reconstruction programmes: in Iraq and Afghanistan, where ineffective rebuilding plans have been beset by problems with corruption; in Sri Lanka following the tsunami, where the distribution of aid has contributed to the restarting of the civil war; and in the reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where over $1bn in aid has already been wasted.

The Tiri survey set out to examine the impact of post-conflict reconstruction in eight states and regions which between them have received $65bn in aid: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Lebanon, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Lebanon. It concludes that:

· up to 50 per cent of aid budgets are lost to corruption, fuelling dangerous public resentment;

· the international community undermines the emergence of accountable democratic institutions by imposing its own 'champions for change' and tolerating patronage;

· too much aid is designed to meet the political priorities of the donor countries and institutions and not the needs of the beneficiaries.

'We have thousands of white Toyota Land Cruisers [the vehicle indelibly associated with the image of the aid worker] cruising around the world,' said Martin Tisne, one of Tiri's programme directors. 'The question is, what have we got to show for it?'

'Many of the problems are driven by the way the aid industry works,' adds Tisne. 'Clearly in humanitarian disasters, if you need food somewhere in a week, it needs to be there in a week. But in the issue of reconstruction and development aid - which is where the vast amount of money goes - it also speeds forward at a pace that often is out of touch with the reality on the ground.

'You have this rapid round of donor conferences and targets and timetables, and it is only when you look round, sometimes years later, that you realise that what you have done has contributed to renewed tension and violence in post-war situations.'

At the presentation of the report in London, members of Tiri's board, who include former International Development Secretary Clare Short, were equally blunt in their assessment.

'We have got to recognise,' said Short, 'that the way we do business may be contributing to new conflict.'

Wildly Inept and Corrupt

No surprise there:

The American company appointed to advise the US government on the economic reconstruction of Iraq has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican Party coffers and has admitted that its own finances are in chaos because of accounting errors and bad management.

BearingPoint is fighting to restore its reputation in the US after falling more than a year behind in reporting its own financial results, prompting legal actions from its creditors and shareholders.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, BearingPoint employees gave $117,000 (£60,000) to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns, more than any other Iraq contractor. Other recipients include three prominent Congressmen on the House of Representatives' defence sub-committee, which oversees defence department contracts.

Bloody Waste

How many lives will be lost to Bush's idiotic "surge"?

The narrow ambush alleys of Kadhamiyah, the tenements providing sniper cover at Diyala Bridge, the dusty, sprawling killing grounds of Sadr City. These are the strongholds of the Shia militias that the Americans will have to take in the battle for Baghdad.

The US forces in the "surge" into the Iraqi capital face a war on two fronts. The murder miles of Haifa Street and Adhamiyah are the homes to the Sunni insurgency, which continues its bloody course four years after the official end of the war, and there is no sign of this stopping as the US forces take on the Shias.

Free to Do the Right Thing

Republicans are breaking ranks:

House Republican leaders, who confidently predicted they would drive a wedge through the new Democratic majority, have found their own party splintering, with Republican lawmakers siding with Democrats in droves on the House's opening legislative blitz.

Freed from the pressures of being the majority and from the heavy hand of former leaders including retired representative Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), many back-bench Republicans are showing themselves to be more moderate than their conservative leadership and increasingly mindful of shifting voter sentiment. The closest vote last week -- Friday's push to require the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare -- pulled 24 Republicans. The Democrats' homeland security bill attracted 68 Republicans, the minimum wage increase 82.

"You're freer to vote your conscience," said Rep. Jo Anne Emerson (R-Mo.), who received an 88 percent voting record from the American Conservative Union in 2005 but has so far sided with Democrats on new budget rules, Medicare prescription-drug negotiations, raising the minimum wage and funding stem cell research. "Or, really, I feel free to represent my constituents exactly as they want me to be."

"Times have changed. I don't want to be someone who they say is too stubborn to change too," said Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), whose 92 percent conservative rating did not stop him from voting with Democrats on the homeland security and minimum-wage bills.