News – Ahmed Qureia: Off to a Good Start

I don’t know if I trust the man yet, but at the very least, he’s getting some respect from me. Lets hope the trust is earned.

Israel/Palestine

Ahmed Qureia, potential new Palestinian PM, won’t be PM under Israeli dictate, which crippled his predecessor. I’m thinking I might like this guy. Lets hope he’s like Abbas is several ways. He’s made his demands, but the US and Israel don’t seem inclined to entertain them. Good enough, but Bush will have to chalk his attempt at peace in the Middle East up as a straight failure as it will be at this rate.

Iraq

Longer tours of duty for National Guard and Army Reserve forces in Iraq, as well as some in other areas of the world.

The Arab League has allowed a delegate from the Iraqi Council to join today’s meeting. A good sign for greater legitimacy of the council.

Bush and company must think we’re stupid: Administration officials deny intentionally misrepresenting the situation but say they did not realize just how bad things were in Iraq under ousted President Saddam Hussein.

They now say they had mistakenly assumed that much of the infrastructure was in good shape.

With ten years of watching the country, bombing the country and their certainty of WMD beforehand, I hope they’re not saying ‘Oh, well, we didn’t really study the infrastructure of the country, we just assumed it was ok’. Whether they knew or not matters little, as if they didn’t know, it was only though their own inattentiveness and incompetence with intelligence.

For a man whom apologists claim to see way more intelligence than we do, he’s remarkably ignorant of the most important facts. He’s also easy fodder for ridicule.

The Baghdad Blogger recounts how he got that moniker. More of the story? Don’t hesitate to put yourself out there, you never know what will come your way. Even fame. 😉

Korea

North Korea had its birthday parade, but without showing off a missile as South Korean and US analysts thought it might. Let the speculation continue about the country and its half cocked little leader.

US

New and improved counterfeit resistant twenties will be available in October. The old ones will still be valid, of course.

Slate notes the painful day of addressing the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002. A painful, complex issue with lots of paperwork and talking. And as noted in the article, it comes down to the difference between freedom and equality. An apt comparison, I think.

Is the neocon message machine cracking up when it comes to Iraq? Personally, I think they bit off more than they can chew and are choking on it.

Bush is tainting his war on terror with misconceptions and misrepresentations. Anyone with an ounce of knowledge, who ahs listen to his recent speech, would see that. He paints with a wide, unwieldy brush that makes it easy to paint all comers the same color of black in a world that isn’t black and white.

The diary of David Stanke for Monday a man whose family was made homeless by 9/11. They’re returning to their fifth temporary residence since the attacks, from a vacation in New Jersey.

The Worst of Al Sharpton: He took on the case of a young black girl who claimed to be raped by several high individuals, which was eventually decided as untrue by a jury. Sharpton continues to believe the young woman’s story to this day, despite losing a later defamation lawsuit by Pagones, one of the accused.

General

So, will the RIAA’s heavy handed tactics scare you back to CDs? Personally, it won’t bother me. I’ll still buy CDs that are within by defined price range and no more. Usually 15 bucks or less at most with rare exceptions.

There is suggested evidence that Venus held life for two billion years before turning into the deadly hot ‘hell world’ that it is now. Was there once life on Venus? Intriguing possibilities come to mind if there was. One that came to me was, what if they’re linked to us somehow? Hmmm..

Today’s Papers notes that congress will give bush his billions, but not without some razzing first. He deserves it. NYT has a breakdown of where the cash is going, sourced to the White House and notes that the trouble in Iraq was anticipated, but warnings were ignored. There’s more, of course.

The RIAA amnesty deal might not save you from being sued. An interesting note in the article is Earth Station 5, noted as one of the more outrageous examples of where users might migrate to now that KaZaA is under attack by the RIAA. They have declared war on the entertainment industry and are based in Palestine. Maybe the RIAA can get Israel to bomb their servers. :p

International Papers monitors some global opinions and views on the fall of Abbas and the possible rise of Ahmed Qurei. As well, there is a look at other related factors.

Day to Day reviews campaign finance and the conservative New Hampshire newspaper being critical on a perceived drift of the republican party form its core values.

Amusements

Eat here, get gas. You know you wanna

To the Refrigerator Bandit