Iraq's new government: more progress

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen assassinated a senior Iraqi interior ministry official in Baghdad on Monday, a ministry source said.

The source said Mussab al-Awadi was killed along with two of his bodyguards as he left his house in the capital.

Awadi was in charge of dealing with tribal affairs.

In May, Izzedin Salim, head of the now defunct Governing Council, was killed in a suicide bomb attack on his convoy.

Earlier this month a suicide bomber attacked a convoy carrying Iraq's justice minister, killing five bodyguards.

  Reuters article

This land is your land

If you never got to connect to that great animation of Bush & Kerry, here's why....and it's new home.

As of Friday, the feature had already been viewed more than 10 million times, according to AtomFilms, which controls its distribution. Typically, a film is considered a hit with 1 million viewings a year, said Scott Roesch, AtomFilm's vice president of marketing.

The feature was created by brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, whose site, www.jibjab.com, was overwhelmed early last week as millions of people attempted to download ``This Land.'' By Monday evening San Francisco-based AtomFilms -- which runs many of Jibjab's works -- took over hosting the brothers' cartoon. But AtomFilms, too, found its Internet capabilities topping out.

...The feature can be viewed at www.atomfilms.com.

  San Jose Mercury News article

By now, parts of the "This Land" have been shown on Fox News, CNBC, CBS "Early Show," the "NBC Nightly News" and elsewhere. Last Friday, the brothers were talking with Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" about appearing tonight.

  NY Times article

9/11 Commission cuts vacations short

It's amazing what an election year can accomplish.

House and Senate committees were directed to give up some of their August vacations and start work immediately so that legislation can be drafted by the end of September.

A special fall session of Congress is also possible.

At the same time, President Bush is studying the recommendations this week at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, aides said, and is considering which ones can be implemented by executive order, without the need for congressional approval.

Political considerations may have fueled the sudden urgency in Congress. Bush and Republican congressional leaders "all worry that if they appear to be dragging their feet on the 9/11 Commission reforms, they could be put on the defensive on the terrorism issue in November, especially if there is another attack," says Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. "Just what gets enacted is another matter."

  USA Today article

And at this point, we don't expect much, so nothing will surprise us.

The commission on Thursday proposed a total reorganization of the nation's intelligence agencies and the creation of a new director to oversee the chiefs of the CIA, FBI and other divisions. If enacted, the reforms would require agency heads to cede power to the new director — an idea that has already received some resistance, including from acting CIA Director John McLaughlin.

And whose name(s) do you think might be tossing about as the head of that new powerful agency?

In accepting the commission's findings, Bush praised the report but made no commitment to accept any of its recommendations, including the creation of a Cabinet-level position to oversee the nation's 15 intelligence agencies.

No, he's back there at Casa Fabricata figuring out which plans he can implement in the manner of king.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

End your Sunday with Jesus' General

Patriotboy cracks me up some times, particularly when he writes actual letters.

Just go have a look.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Meet Michael John McCrae

Usually, I let this stuff pass. (Usually, I don't read it.) But today's a little different than other days, so...

About the Author: Michael John McCrae is an Independent, Conservative, Christian who has been personally insulted as a voter because John Kerry thinks the "Heart and Soul of America" lays in the "X- rated sexual innuendo" of Whoopi Goldberg. Well, Michael McCrae thinks America is better than that. Michael McCrae believes there is at least some morality left. So Michael McCrae is going to leave this here (until after the election) as a reminder to all of what John Kerry and John Edwards believe the Real America to be. They believe America's "heart and soul" resides in the "X-rated sexual innuendo" of Whoopi Goldberg. You can draw your own conclusions. Email: michael.mccrae@us.army.mil

If you've been reading YWA for any length of time, you already know what I think of Kerry and Edwards.

I'm sure you have already gathered that Michael Conservative Christian McCrae is freaked out about sexuality more than probably just about anything. As though Edwards and Kerry specifically isolated a ribald innuendo as the place where the heart and soul of America lies. (It's lies, Michael, not lays. An egg gets laid. And a lucky man.)

But let's look at what the personally insulted Michael John McCrae is leaving up until after the election, just for some Sunday fun.

In the NUFF SAID Department: I saw an ad for the upcoming CNN John Kerry Special Report: “Born to Run”. I had to wonder; is that born to run to the UN when he gets a boo-boo; or is it born to run away at the first sign of trouble? Never mind that this will be a great, unpaid-for, political advertisement for the “Elect Kerry Campaign”. Never mind too that the President will not get equal free time on CNN boosting his campaign. All you needed to see was the ad for the one hour “Elect Kerry” show. Several people are shown being interviewed and no one is saying anything negative about Kerry. That is CNN being unfair and unbalanced. Nuff said!

I guess Michael missed George's great unpaid-for advertisement, the ABC special with Diane Sawyer. And the Meet the Press interview. And the Fox interview.

And I guess Michael isn't counting all the many hours of CNN coverage of the president's speeches and antics around the world for the past four years.

Frankly, I can't see any reason why the incumbent in any presidential election should need campaign advertising time. If four years of his leadership isn't enough advertisement of what to expect from a man, then what is?

I see everyone liberal is still very concerned about hurting the feelings of France and Germany. Germany should understand that we do not have to leave one, single American in Germany anymore. They are supposedly a world leader for truth, justice, democracy and freedom. They don’t need us anymore. If we move our bases to Poland, and Latvia and Estonia and Bulgaria, we will help the economies of those countries and Germany will have much more room to give in support of their burdensome socialist programs.

So, Michael, honey. Ask yourself the logical question: Why are we in Germany? To bolster their economy? You really think?

...[E]xcept for the United States and a few other like civilized nations, most other nations of the world are ruled by heartless, dictatorial crap-heads who don’t care about the sanctity of life. (If the shoe fits, Pal!)

...And France? Well; who really cares about France besides John Kerry? Nuff said!

Somebody who cares about the sanctity of life perhaps? A Christian maybe?

Arnold, though he was joking, was addressing people who can’t take a joke; unless of course it is an “X-rated rant” from one certain comic.

Let me get this straight...Arnold makes jokes. Whoopi rants. Because Arnold is a bad actor turned governor, and Whoopi is a comedian. Okay, I think I've got it.

I owe Mr. Robert Novak a BIG apology. Novak did reveal the name of Valerie Plame, (with a “P”), but he did not break any law by his action. The whole affair is now shown for the political “liar-fest-to-get- Bush” that it was. I am sorry for ever doubting you Robert. I still wish I knew how much CNN stock you own though. Wilson lied, and it turns out Iraq had approached Niger (an African nation) for some “yellow-cake” (not pound cake or devil’s food cake, which is why Wilson sat at so many “teas” in the first place). The “16 words” so many liberals were having “poo-poo” fits over were actually based in good intelligence after all.

Michael, sweetheart, the lawbreaker is whoever leaked the name to Novak. Thank you for letting us know where Niger is, but the yellowcake claim was not actually based in good intelligence after all. The Senate report actually says that, whether he did or not, there was never any good evidence to indicate that Saddam was attempting to buy yellowcake from Niger. And, by the way, according to the Senate report, and Wilson, it seems that it was Iran that was interested in buying yellowcake.

In a “Washington Post.com” column I read this: “One day after Bush rolled out a new ad blasting Kerry for voting against a law making it separate crimes to kill or harm a fetus during an attack on a pregnant woman, [John] Edwards promised a vigorous defense of abortion rights. Kerry “will stand up, fight for and protect every day that he is in the White House a woman’s right to choose.” Edwards said. (Rhetoric On Values Turns Personal, 10 July 2004)

I want to know what one has to do with the other. Kerry will defend a woman’s right to choose abortion, but he refuses to defend a woman’s right to carry her child to term? If someone kills a wanted child, Kerry will not defend the woman should her child be killed by some murderous, evil scumbag? GEE WHIZ!

And, I bet Michael is old enough to vote. What a shame.

Where, Michael, where does Kerry say he will not defend a woman whose child is killed by some murderous, evil scumbag? Michael, the law making it separate crimes to kill or harm a fetus during an attack on a pregnant woman (during the commission of certain crimes), would be adding a law defending the fetus, not the woman. It creates a new legal status for a fetus - one equal to that of a person already born. A law that could have some pretty wild ramifications if some advocate of fetus' rights (some caring Christian person perhaps) should decide that any damage to a fetus can be punishable. The law does nothing to protect the woman against the attack in the first place. So it can't be that Kerry was refusing to defend the woman's rights.

In fact, Michael, there was an alternative law proposed and defeated called the Motherhood Protection Act, which would have created "a separate criminal offense for harming a pregnant women and offer penalties matching those in the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. By not establishing the fetus as a separate victim, the Motherhood Protection Act still addresses the problem of violence against pregnant women without calling into question the validity of Roe v. Wade." How did Kerry vote on that one?

I did want to comment on the Nader (Yawn!), Dean (Double Yawn!) debate. I think Nader should have a Senate record before being President, don’t you?

You mean like George WTF Bush's Senate record? You couldn't mean like Abraham Lincoln who lost his bid for the Senate. Or like Dwight Eisenhower who went from a life in the military straight to the presidency? Or, is there something personal about Nader that he should be a Senator first?

Attention all Liberals! Understand that the Gay Marriage issue is causing much Southern heartache! Many of your voters in the South who proudly call themselves Democrat, also proudly proclaim the correct form of marriage is that between a man and a woman. More than 70% of the Southern Democrat voting base knows the rule for marriage as established by the one True God of Heaven. Attention all liberals!

Don't ask me.

Let's cut to the conclusion....

I am so glad to be back from Baghdad.

And we "liberals" are so glad to have you back, too. Nuff said!

Well, Michael did publish this at a site called Useless Knowledge.

And, I have wasted your time and mine (but, hey, you know what Cheney would say). I even glanced into a couple other of Michael John McCrae's writings at this site. They were essentially sermons. One discusses being "with us or against us," in effect.

In the scriptures there are: “wheat and tares”, “sheep and goats”, “leavened and unleavened bread”, you know; other forms of Black and White.

...The admonition of scripture is to “examine your own self”. So, in a way, I agree with some of the more current offerings of my readers. I am examining myself as to the truthful content and the fairness of what I write.

I'm going to suggest he failed the exam.

I don’t ever worry about expressing my faith through scripture. The Word of God is the finest tool of truth one can have. A person can ignore it; disbelieve it; rail against it; condemn it; yet, it remains the only truth that will lead one to life eternal.

It is all there in Black and White. I’m a sheep, not a goat.

I can agree with the sheep part.

Okay, I release you now from this Sunday's sermon. Back to your pagan-ass lives. But don't come to me crying when you get your goat certificate.

....oh, do what you want....you will anyway.

Super Waves

Over the past two decades more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length have sunk around the world, with rogue waves believed to be a possible cause.

Senior scientist with the GKSS Forschungszentrum GmbH research centre, Wolfgang Rosenthal, says many ships have been lucky to survive giant waves.

"The same phenomenon could have sunk many less lucky vessels: two large ships sink every week on average, but the cause is never studied to the same detail as an air crash," he said.

ABC Australia article

Two per week. I had no idea. You?

The whole article reminds me of a great (old) movie: The Last Wave. If you ever come across it, watch it.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Presidential Auction 2004

The Democrat party platform has a few interesting points:

Sidesteps the question of whether the Iraq war was a mistake, saying "people of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war."

Obviously they weren't against the war in the first place. They just object to the Repuglican party being in control of it.

Suggests party supports maintaining a U.S. military presence in Iraq to prevent it from becoming "a haven for terrorists and a destabilizing force in the Middle East."

So where's the line item thanking Prezidiot Bush for getting us into Iraq, permitting this plank in the platform, and then screwing it up so badly that the Democrat party has a chance at the White House? Apparently, they hadn't figured out a way to get that military presence permanently installed without paying a political price for it. They should be pleased that His Slowliness the Dope did the dirty work for them.

Reserves the right to preempt unconventional attacks, but says Democrats will emphasize winning international support when confronting those threats.

The doctrine of preemption is just fine. Selling a given invasion to foreign investors before going in will be the key. After all, if you are going to be king of the world, you have to fool more than your own citizens to keep resistance at a minimum. BushCo's big mistake was in pursuing tyranny instead of manipulation.

Calls terrorists with weapons of mass destruction the single-greatest security threat to the United States.

Do they know who and where these terrorists are, or are they pulling a possible scenario out of their "ass"? That reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw yesterday: Vote Democrat - the ass you save may be your own. In the place of "ass" was the back end of the Democrat mascot.

Supports adding 40,000 troops to the military "to sustain our overseas deployments and prevent and prepare for other possible conflicts."

Does that mean a draft? Or just a lowering of the bar for who is accepted at the recruiting stations? The platform says "we are dedicated to keeping our military operating on a volunteer basis," so maybe they're going to raise military pay? Offer some better bonus incentives? The platform doesn't tell us.

Reaffirms U.S. commitment to Israel and offers support policies pushed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon; supports the creation of a Palestinian state; vows to help "transform" the Palestinian authority by promoting "responsible" leadership; says Jerusalem belongs to Israel and should not be divided.

Vows to put Israel's interests before America's or the world's.

Supports raising minimum wage to $7 an hour from current $5.15.

I want you to take a good long look at those figures, because they are not typos. Could you live on $5.15 an hour? Could you raise your family on $7?

Actually, if you look at the domestic planks, especially jobs, health care, and military reform, I think even your misguided Republican friends (those who are not wealthy) will be forced to think twice about voting Repug.

And, although I'm not thrilled with leaving this in the hands of the president, I think it is an absolutely necessary step in the right direction:

Supports giving president a constitutional "line-item veto" that would allow him to reject provisions of congressional spending bills.

We really need to get rid of that ability to tack totally unrelated issues onto bills just to get pet projects through. And I don't think it should be limited to spending bills.

I've commented on a lot more of the platform planks than I intended to when I started this post. There are a lot more of them, however. So take a look. Here's a shorter highlights list, and here's the whole thing (pdf).

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Sudan reacts to U.S. official charge of genocide

Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Othman Ismail charges George W(TF) Bumrush with politicizing the Darfur situation.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Othman Ismail criticized U.S. President George W. Bush of trying to exploit the crisis in Darfur to win black voters for his re-election.

There was no other explanation why the Bush administration had suddenly stepped up its criticism against the Sudanese government over the crisis, the minister said in an interview published Sunday in the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Sudan Tribune article

There must be another explanation because it would be totally out of character for them to politicize tragedy. As far as I know, they haven't staged a photo op in Sudan (yet).

Actually, I think it is not so likely that they are courting the black vote. Butthead's snub of the NAACP was a pretty clear signal that they're unconcerned about the black vote. Does Sudan have oil?

Regarding accusations that the Sudanese government was providing weapons to the government-linked Janjaweed Arab militias, Ismail said: "If the government, as they claim, is arming the Janjaweed. Who is arming the rebels?"

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Better get a little background on the rebellion and Sudanese political history.

The earth pot is at a rolling boil. Must be all those CMEs.

Cynthia McKinney's come-back

On Tuesday this week, Cynthia McKinney was vindicated.

McKinney...passed the 50% mark, narrowly giving her the edge she needed to avoid a run-off in the 4th Congressional District's Democratic primary here in suburban Atlanta. The (still unofficial) result will all but assure her a return to Congress.

...The former congresswoman known for her no-holds-barred criticism of the corporate and political elite lost her seat in 2002 when a maelstrom of post-9/11 media hysteria and right-wing fear-mongering combined to knock her out of office and nearly off the mainstream political map.

In the months following September 11, few public figures had the courage to openly ask how and why America was attacked that day, and who stood to benefit in the attack's wake. McKinney was one of the lone politicians to ask the questions no one seemed to want to face. In the spring of 2002, it proved a dangerous move. Already known as a political lighting-rod for speaking out on issues that even so-called liberals in the her own party avoided, McKinney had recently broached a series of politically taboo subjects. In March 2002, McKinney held back-to-back hearings investigating the Florida election debacle and alleged human rights violations by the George H.W. Bush-connected mining company, Barrick Gold. Shortly after, she made what would be her most serious political misstep. McKinney appeared on KPFA's Flash Points radio program and made statements that would all but end her ten-year congressional run. As Greg Palast told GNN, "Her words were taken, put through a media mix master, and changed around so that Cynthia McKinney was accused of saying that George Bush knew all about the September 11th attack in advance, and that he kept it to himself to make sure that the his buddies would from the wars to come." The only problems was that was not exactly what McKinney said.

That's okay. I'll say it for her.

The underbelly

The Most Dangerous Game traces the history of top-secret CIA mind control operation MK-ULTRA: from the covert importation of NAZI scientists at the end of WWII, to the illegal brainwashing experiments conducted on the patients of world famous psychiatric researcher, Dr. Ewen Cameron - cut to the pulsing hypnotica of Mitchell Akiyama.

Click graphic

Framing

Rahul Mahajan has a post about why the Democrats are losing the political war in America.

Bush frequently relies on heavily Orwellian framing -- "Healthy Forests" for an initiative to let private corporations cut down the forests, "Clear Skies" for an initiative to let corporations pollute more, etc.

...Liberals tend to think that facts and reasoning are what matter -- a legacy of the Enlightenment (something, of course, the radical right never went through and is largely unaware of). In other words, they think people are mostly rational and try to piece out what are the best policies by looking at the facts and the arguments that the two sides bring.

That's totally wrong, according to [George Lakoff, a linguist who has become something of a political consultant for the liberal left]. In fact, people make decisions based on emotive associations that are formed by the creation of simple, easily grasped, emotionally resonant frames that are then repeated ad nauseum. Thus, for liberals to fight back, they shouldn't ignore the facts but they need to concentrate on the frames.

article

I have to take exception to the analysis here. First of all, I think the statement about liberals thinking that facts and reasoning matter. I'm not sure they believe "people" are mostly rational, etc. The liberals themselves tend to be mostly rational, and Lakoff's description of people as being simple and emotive is not describing most liberals.

So, here's the liberal dilemma: to win political seats, they must campaign like conservatives, using dumbed down rhetoric and trigger words to capture the votes of non-reasoning people who are not particularly concerned with the facts. I think that is an unnatural approach for reasoning people, and one that feels dishonest and manipulative. Liberals seem to have the choice of behaving in the way they believe a democracy works, or behaving in a manipulative way that is counter to the precepts of democracy. Personally, I find the latter untenable.

Rahul asks, at the end of his post, the obvious question:

The question that occurs to me, though: are the rest of us, who explicitly abjure propaganda and manipulation, also at the same time abjuring any possibility of winning political victories?

I think the answer is, yes.

And that is why I say there is no longer room in this country for liberal democrats (small "d"). It is soundly in the grip of manipulators and the manipulated, which accounts for an overwhelming majority of the population. Fighting back by using undemocratic tactics strikes me as about as sensible as destroying a country to save it. If you have a population of people who can't be counted on to reason, and who react rather than think, what kind of democracy are you going to have? How can you even have a democracy?

Well, of course, we never did have. Not in this country.

I'll be watching our neighbors to the South, but frankly, I don't think there will ever be a successful, true democracy as long as there are greedy, power hungry people who are willing to be manipulative and deceptive. And I don't think the human race will ever have a shortage of those.



....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Making the Plame case go away

Josh Marshall discusses a Washington Times article which discusses the pre-Novak leaks about Valerie Plame's CIA work...

"The law says that to be covered by the act the intelligence community has to take steps to affirmatively protect someone's cover," one official said. "In this case, the CIA failed to do that."

A second official, however, said the compromises before the news column were not publicized and thus should not affect the investigation of the Plame matter.

There does seem to be a rush of articles aimed not simply at discrediting Wilson but specifically at arguing that there is no legal basis for a prosecution of the folks who leaked Plame's name. Who's so concerned? It makes me wonder.

I wonder when we're going to get the results of Fitzgerald's investigation into this. I suspect we are going to be robbed of Joe Wilson's wish to see Karl Rove frog marched from the White House in handcuffs.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.