I just wanted to alert you all to a wonderful, hilarious interview with Keith Richards, in, of all places, GQ. Read the whole thing, because he’s his usual brilliant, irascible self; but I want to highlight what is my oddly favorite section:

Like your immune system-legendary.

It’s above average, yes.

That’s a fact of medical science?

Yes. They want it so they can study it and figure out how to make other people much better. [laughs] I mean, I eat everything wrong. I shove terrible things inside me.

Yet you won’t eat cheese.

No! Cheese is very wrong.

And then there’s this:

Why do you think some people live and some die?

Lack of breath?

It was yet another gruesome day, in Iraq. As the New York Times reported:

As many as 20 mortar shells were fired Sunday at the heavily fortified Green Zone, one of the fiercest and most sustained attacks on the area in the last year.

The shelling sent thick plumes of dark gray smoke over central Baghdad and ignited a spectacular fire on the banks of the Tigris River. It ushered in a day of violence around the country that claimed the lives of at least 58 lraqis and four American soldiers.

According to tallies by The Associated Press and Icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks casualties in Iraq, those military deaths pushed the number of American service members killed in the five-year-old war to at least 4,000. The figure includes service members whose names have not been released by the Pentagon.

This following a week in which Dick Cheney yet again lied about a link between 9/11 and Iraq, then served as Administration point man, promoting permanent occupation. This after a week in which Bush once again expressed his complete lack of regret for having caused this hellish disaster. This after a week in which John McCain reiterated his intent to keep us in Iraq indefinitely.

Of course, even our puppet Iraqi president admits the country is rife with violence, terrorism and corruption. And the New York Times reminded us that Bush originally claimed the entire cost of the war and aftermath would be no more the $60 billion. Which has already been wrong by more than a factor of ten. A factor which is expected to increase by several more factors. And the Pentagon is still sharply divided on the war strategy going forward. And the Iraqi army is still nowhere near ready to defend itself. And the Mehdi Army’s truce is fraying. And those Sunni militias, whose allegiance Bush has been buying, may go on strike. But other than that, everything’s going perfectly well. Except, of course, for those 58 Iraqis and four Americans who were killed, yesterday.  

In Iraq, the irony doesn’t drip; it bleeds.

You remember the last time Saint Maverick went to Iraq to give us a little straight talk about the improving conditions. You remember how he went on a leisurely shopping trip to an open-air market. Wearing a flak jacket. And accompanied by 100 of his closest armed friends. With three Blackhawk helicopters hovering overhead. Not to mention two Apache gunships. Well, he’ll be skipping that fun diversion, this time. As John King of CNN explained:

And it will be interesting, because you note that marketplace. It’s called the Sorja (ph) marketplace. It’s in a Baghdad neighborhood.

We tried to go there today, as a matter of fact. We wanted to see what it looks like now, a year after Senator McCain was here. And he did walk around, and he did say it was proof that there were security gains being made, and that some parts of Baghdad and Iraq were quite safe. And as you noted, he also had 100-plus troops providing his security detail. And many of the merchants in the area, as soon as they were gone, said the neighborhood was quite unsafe.

We got close to that marketplace today, Jim, but our own security advisers here in Iraq didn’t want us to go there. They did not believe it was safe for an American to be in that area.

We were in a thriving marketplace nearby, but when you show up, the local Iraqis, well, it is clear that security is better on the street. And it’s clear there are more markets open. Just the traffic jams alone tell you that things are better on the streets of Baghdad.

It’s also very sensitive potential neighborhoods. That one marketplace, as a matter of fact, that neighborhood, you do see Iraqi police, you do see the Iraqi army. But in truth, that area is controlled by the racial cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi army.

It’s safer for the Iraqis, but still not safe for Americans. But it’s safer for the Iraqis because it’s controlled by al-Sadr. Good thing he extended his truce. Otherwise that market might not even be safer for the Iraqis.

But I have been very sick, the past week. And I’m only beginning to recover. Which means I’m not having fun yet. But at least I’m not on strike. Buhdy pays me too well.

And if you think reading the major blogs is bad when your head is clear, try it when it’s not! I’ve become a lurker. Which takes much less time and is much less annoying than not being a lurker.

But I just wanted to make clear that I’m not on strike. Because lots of people are. Or are offended by people who are. Or are launching counterstrikes. Or are offended by people launching counterstrikes. But I’m not on strike. Although I do reserve the right to be offensive.

The bad news is that if you watch too much television, it might fuck up your circadian rhythms. The good news is that Denmark and Sweden won’t be declaring war on each other because of IKEA. And the best news is that while other blogs are abandoning the pretense of being reality-based, we never had such a pretense in the first place!

Eliot Spitzer has resigned, effective Monday. Taegan Goddard didn’t spare him:

Rule #1: If you ride into elective office as a crusader on your white horse, people will try to knock you off. If you’re arrogant, they’ll try harder. In Spitzer’s case, he came into office on a streamroller but the lesson is the same. The forces of bureaucracy and the status quo are incredibly powerful. Show any sign of vulnerability or hypocrisy and they’ll stop you right in your tracks.

Rule #2: You need friends and allies in politics. Even politicians with the best intentions get pushed off course. But without people on your side, you’ll spend most of your time trying to get out of a ditch. Your adversaries will work tirelessly to keep you there. Since his inauguration, Spitzer has even had people in his own party cheering for his demise.

The New York Times had a profile of Lieutenant Governor David A. Paterson, who will become this nation’s fourth-ever African American governor, and who is legally blind. But there’s much more to the story. Glenn Greenwald wants to know who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes? And my DocuDharma colleague ek hornbeck angrily made the point:

On the one hand we have a man who, if every single allegation and inference is proven true, paid money to have sex and tried to conceal that fact from his wife, the government, and the people who elected him.  He hypocritically denounced the crimes he was committing.

Hmm…

On the other hand we have a man who is a war criminal.  Who’s administration has killed hundreds of thousands of innocents (maybe along with a few guilty). and rendered millions homeless refugees.  Who has condemned millions of women to Sharia Law and Burkas.  Who lied 935 times to us and the whole world.  Who is even now plotting to extend this illegal war that has damaged our national defense and our economy in a direction that will DESTROY IT!

But others question the very process that led to Spitzer’s getting busted. Because it fits a certain sinister pattern.

While the corporate media are dancing on Eliot Spitzer’s political grave, and the supposedly lefty blogs are inventing new and exciting sludge bombs to sling at the Democrat they love to demonize, McClatchy has this:

Eight U.S. service members were killed in two attacks today in Iraq, making it the deadliest day against the military this year, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. At least 11 Iraqis also were killed Monday in a surge of attacks throughout the country.

Five of the Americans died when a suicide bomber walked up to a foot patrol in Baghdad and self-detonated. The others died while on a patrol in Diyala province, the official said. He asked not to be identified as he isn’t an official spokesman.

The rash of attacks against a spectrum of targets raised new questions about whether the U.S. can draw down its presence from the current buildup to levels of about a year ago.

News 14 Carolina:

The body of a young woman found Wednesday morning was identified as Eve Marie Carson, the student body president of UNC Chapel Hill, police said Thursday.

Carson, 22, of Athens, Ga., was found shot several times, at least once in the head, around 5 a.m. Wednesday at the intersection of Hillcrest Drive and Hillcrest Circle. Carson was a Morehead scholar and a senior at the university.

Los Angeles Times:

Stanford University called about Jamiel Shaw a week or so ago, intrigued by the slight but speedy running back for Los Angeles High School, the Southern League’s most valuable player last year. Rutgers University called a few days later.

The Shaw family already had reason to be proud. Jamiel’s mother, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, was on her second tour of duty in Iraq.

On Sunday night, it was Jamiel’s father on the phone and then his son’s girlfriend, Chrystale Miles. Jamiel Sr. called to tell him to hurry home from the mall. The 17-year-old boy was three doors away when someone shot him to death while he was still talking on his cellphone to Chrystale, friends say.

Jamiel Sr. heard the shots almost as soon as he hung up. He ran out of the house, raced around the corner and found his son lying on the sidewalk, bleeding.

“She’s over there trying to protect us from guns and bombs, and then she has to hear that her son is dead over here,” he said of Anita on Monday. “I’ve got my own personal Iraq now.”

To some, the most disturbing part of this video is Bush killing time while waiting for John McCain by doing a stupid little dance. But we know Bush is a nincompoop. What I find most disturbing- what I’ve always found most disturbing about his press appearances- is the seeming giddy laughter whenever he makes an insipid little “joke.” These are supposed to be professional journalists. Do they really find him funny? Or are they so shallow and simple-minded that proximity to a “president” makes them fawn, babble, and drool? I guess we’ll find out, next year. And I’m not sure which is worse.

As reported by Think Progress, Bush on climate change:

Now, look, I understand stereotypes are hard to defeat. People get an image planted in their head, and sometimes it causes them not to listen to the facts. But America is in the lead when it comes to energy independence; we’re in the lead when it comes to new technologies; we’re in the lead when it comes to global climate change – and we’ll stay that way.

(h/t Plutonium Page)

A brief review…

A strong start

Just two months into his first term, CBS News reported:

The White House said Wednesday that President Bush would not implement the climate treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, but would seek an alternative that would “include the world” in the effort to reduce pollution.

That April, Business Week reminded that:

In mid-March, George W. Bush made a stunning reversal of a campaign pledge to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, a culprit in global warming–and immediately found himself on the hot seat. Predictably, environmental groups are mobilizing to flood the White House with letters demanding that Bush stick to his promise. Bush may pay little attention to them, but in the weeks to come he will face pressure from others who will be much tougher to ignore.

It will come from European leaders, CEOs who favor action on global warming, and members of his own party in Congress.

But, of course, he did ignore them. And his alternative “strategy” was play-acting. The honor system. As New Scientist reported, in February 2002:

George W Bush unveiled the details of his alternative strategy for halting global warming in an address to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday.

He made no promises to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, but instead set a national target of reducing by 18 per cent the amount of greenhouse gases the country produces for every unit of GDP.

Targets without promises. Toothless. Worthless. And he continued to deny the very existence of human-caused global warming. From CBS News, in June 2003: