September 2007 archive

I don’t know what to say.  I read a diary over at Daily Kos by Robert Naiman saying that the death toll in Iraq has reached one million.  One million dead.  One million dead.

Several years ago, Golf Digest
gave the odds of an amateur getting
a hole-in-one as 1 in 12,750

This is an OPEN THREAD, but it also features four stories in the news at 4 o’clock. It’s like trying to dunk a donut by grasping it by the ears.

1. The headline of the The Independent today reads: FATAL ATTRACTION — “Last week: George Bush flew into Iraq to meet Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of Anbar province. This week: General David Petraeus told the US Congress how Anbar was a model for Iraq. Yesterday: Abu Risha was assassinated by bombers in Anbar.” From the story, “Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed either by a roadside bomb or by explosives placed in his car by a guard, near to his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, the Iraqi province held up by the American political and military leadership as a model for the rest of Iraq. ¶ His killing is a serious blow to… Bush and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was attainable across Iraq.” The Washington Post gives news of the Abu Risha assassination equal billing to Bush’s televised speech. According to the Post, “Bush, during a visit to Anbar last week, met with Abu Risha and said the province suggested ‘what the future of Iraq can look like.’ Abu Risha was regarded by Americans as a rare leader willing to stand defiantly alongside U.S. forces, while able to both cajole and intimidate his fellow Sunnis into agreement.” The headline for The New York Times? Bush Says Success Allows Gradual Troop Cuts. The NYT places their story about the assassination beneath Bush’s propaganda speech, which according to the Times “Iraqi and American officials were caught off guard by the assassination, which came just hours before Mr. Bush addressed the American people about his plans for Iraq… In his speech, Mr. Bush acknowledged the killing.” The front pages of the three newspapers are shown below the fold.

2. The International Herald Tribune reports that cracks now appear in allied coalition in Afghanistan. “The coalition established to stabilize Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban by U.S. forces in 2001 is weakening as countries fighting in the volatile south criticize the lack of military support from other NATO allies, defense officials said Thursday. ¶ Britain, Canada and the Netherlands face crucial decisions on whether to renew their commitments in the increasingly violent region where the Dutch contingent now commands alliance forces fighting a growing resurgence by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. ¶ The intensifying debate in Europe comes as disarray in Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party following the resignation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is likely to interrupt and perhaps end the Japanese naval force’s six-year participation in Afghanistan.” Plus DW-World is reporting that EU’s Afghan training mission hampered by fresh troubles and “Brigadier General Friedrich Eichele is returning to Germany just months after he was appointed to head the EU training mission in Afghanistan.”

3. According to BBC News, the US chief scientist has told the BBC that climate change is now a fact. “Professor John Marburger, who advises President Bush, said it was more than 90% certain that greenhouse gas emissions from mankind are to blame. The Earth may become ‘unliveable’ without cuts in CO2 output, he said, but he labelled targets for curbing temperature rise as ‘arbitrary’… ¶ There may still be some members of the White House team who are not completely convinced about climate change…” He’s told the BBC, but will he tell Bush? More importantly will Cheney let him and will Bush even care? While the Bush administration is slowly waking from its global warming denial, Spiegel Online investigates what will become of Tuvalu’s climate refugees? “International legal experts are discovering climate change law, and the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is a case in point: The Polynesian archipelago is doomed to disappear beneath the ocean. Now lawyers are asking what sort of rights citizens have when their homeland no longer exists… ¶ Environmentalists have long worried about the fate of this tiny Pacific state. Now, however, international legal experts have also taken up the topic of its imminent demise. A nation’s ‘territorial integrity’ is one of the paramount legal principles. It’s unprecedented, however, for a country to completely lose its territory without the use of military force… ¶ Since it joined the United Nations in 2000, the island nation has managed to place its concerns high on the organization’s agenda. Its efforts seem to have borne fruit: Tuvalu is now regarded as a prime example of just how much damage climate change can do to a country.”

4. News from the Los Angeles Times today that after a long delay, Japan launches their lunar orbiter. “Taking advantage of a lull in rainy weather, the Kaguya orbiter lifted off from Tanegashima island in southern Japan, propelled by a domestically built H-2A solid-fuel rocket. Its 21-day trip to the moon begins a yearlong mission that Japan’s civilian space agency, known as JAXA, is promoting as the most significant lunar expedition since America’s Apollo program of the 1960s and early ’70s.” The Guardian reports that “the successful launch of the 55bn yen Kaguya was greeted with relief among space officials. The agency was forced to cancel the planned launch of another lunar probe in 2004 after repeated mechanical and financial setbacks.” America should have never abandoned the Moon in the first place.

A little more below the fold…

(Xposted at DK, as a cheap PR tactic)

This Dinette set could be yours!

A BRAND NEW CAR!

A full set of Encyclopedia Brittanica!

But don’t order yet! We will also send you six steak knives!

How about not going down in history as abetting a war crime and ethnic cleansing?

How about keeping your frikking jobs?

Hey Congress….HEY AMERICA!!!

What is it going to take?