News – Waiting for Truth on Iraq

Iraq

Despite initial insistence that it had enough money, the White House is already tapping into the emergency $25 billion that was set aside before. See, if Bush and company could just be honest for once, I might have more confidence in them, but more often than not they put their best face forward and obscure the truth of things. With this little revelation following the announcement last week of pulling 3.5 billion from Iraqi water, power and other reconstruction projects to improve security, one must wonder what the heck is going on.

The second of the Americans recently taken by militants has been killed, with only the Briton left. His captors demand that all women be released from Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr jails. The US military maintains that no women are being held in those two prisons and two female scientists are the only ones being held elsewhere. One of them, weapons scientist Rihab Taha, dubbed “Dr Germ” by her American captors, may be freed as a part of a scheduled review of her detention.

A fresh suicide bombing kills 11 and injures dozens in Baghdad.

Iran

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami says that the world should recognize Iran’s right to enrichment of uranium for fueling power stations. Regardless of whether he’s right or wrong, that’s hardly the way to foster support to one’s side.

Afghanistan

The US has released eleven prisoners from Guantanimo Bay at the request of Hamid Karzai, it seems. Among them was Nayem Koochi, a tribal figure of some prominence who served as a Taliban commander during the group’s rule from 1996 to 2001.

US

US soldiers returning from Iraq say the US government isn’t giving them the help they deserve for their injuries.

Old, largely unused and unknown laws are being used in dubious ways to restrict protestors. In general they’re being abused, I’d say. Who’d have thought a guy going to get soap from the store could get snapped up by a police sweep because he passé near where the president was and be detained for 25 hours without charges? Utter BS.

Former TRMPAC director John Colyandro, Washington-based fund-raiser Warren Robold and former DeLay aide Jim Ellis have been indicted on Tuesday along with eight companies for illegal fund-raising activities in Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee formed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. DeLay has both said the indictments show the investigation “isn’t about me” and chalked the charges in general up to election year politics. Dosen’t matter if their true, I suppose.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has approved Goss for CIA leadership by 12-4. The four negative votes were from democrats who questioned if Goss could keep partisanship from coloring his tenure at the CIA. “I hope that he proves my vote wrong,”, said Democratic Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia.

Activist find more flaws in Diebold’s voting machines that could be used to rig elections. Diebold says any vote tampering would be discovered in auditing. I say that Diebold is stupid for more or less shrugging at the flaw, rather than nodding and fixing the damn thing.

The Pentagon-run Federal Voting Assistance Program‘s Web site is being denied some overseas users due to security measures put in place to thwart hackers. The situation is being worked on.. and they’d better work fast. There is a deadline.

The House has backed some lifting of travel restrictions on Cuba, defying the position of the White House. The measure they back would allow Cuban American families to visit Cuba more frequently, once a year rather than once every three years. Personally, I don’t see how letting Cuban families visit their relatives once a year will strengthen Castro’s grip on Cuba, whereas once every three years hurts him.. somehow.

The TSA wants to compel 77 airlines to turn over their data of who flew in June to test a new system for identifying passengers who may pose a security risk.

Cat Stevens, a singer who converted to Islam and changed his name to Yusuf Islam, had the passenger plane he was riding to Washington diverted to a city 600 miles away where he could be escorted off the plane and sent back to Britain for security reasons. His 21 year old daughter, who was traveling with him, was allowed to remain in the country and the flight he was on resumed it’s trip to Washington three hours later.

Seems like roles have reversed when it comes to the typical conservative and liberal ideal. An interesting muse.

A few News entries ago(lost in the hacking), there was the story of Lynne Gobbell, who lost her job for having a Kerry bumper sticker on her car. A new article delves into Philip A. Geddes, the asswipe who did the firing previously.

General

Bush’s speech before the UN was less than inspiring and, in places downright ironic. “We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace,” he said near it’s beginning. I’m surprised the entire floor of the UN didn’t break out into hearty guffaws at the thick irony of such a statement coming from that man.

Explainer tells us how deadly scorpions are.

Today’s Papers has hundreds of thousands effected by the storm that passed over Haiti, an EPA rule on mercury restrictions taken nearly verbatim from a lobbyist proposal, the US moving toward smaller, more labor intensive reconstruction projects in Iraq to help with the country’s massive unemployment(about damn time) and more in the one page news.

Amusements

Intoxicated man arrested after driving lawn mower nearly six miles from party to tavern (with charming mug shot)

Behind the making of the Star Wars trilogy: Apparently Fox execs were not happy that Chewbacca did not wear pants

“Arabic style writing” found written in the in-flight magazine cancels flight

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop this group of people standing in the shape of a heart

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop this woman standing inside a futuristic structure. What might lurk outisde?

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop these hot air balloons