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Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

1 Hayden: Pakistan border poses danger

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

34 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – The situation in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan where al-Qaida has established a safe haven presents a “clear and present danger” to the West, the CIA director said Sunday.

Michael Hayden cited the belief by intelligence agencies that Osama bin Laden is hiding there in arguing that the U.S. has an interest in targeting the border region. If there were another terrorist attack against Americans, Hayden said, it would most certainly originate from that region.

“It’s very clear to us that al-Qaida has been able for the past 18 months or so to establish a safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border area that they have not enjoyed before, and that they’re bringing in operatives into the region for training,” he said.

Weekend News Digest

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 ‘Standing up’ Iraq army looks open-ended

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

47 minutes ago

Iraq’s new army is “developing steadily,” with “strong Iraqi leaders out front,” the chief U.S. trainer assured the American people. That was three-plus years ago, the U.S. Army general was David H. Petraeus, and some of those Iraqi officials at the time were busy embezzling more than $1 billion allotted for the new army’s weapons, according to investigators.

The 2004-05 Defense Ministry scandal was just one in an unending series of setbacks in the five-year struggle to “stand up” an Iraqi military and allow hard-pressed U.S. forces to “stand down” from Iraq.

The latest discouraging episode was unfolding this weekend in bloody Basra, the southern city where Iraqi government forces – in their toughest test yet – were still struggling to gain the upper hand in a five-day-old battle with Shiite Muslim militias.

Year by year, the goal of deploying a capable, freestanding Iraqi army has seemed always to slip further into the future. In the latest shift, with Petraeus now U.S. commander in Iraq, the Pentagon’s new quarterly status report quietly drops any prediction of when homegrown units will take over security responsibility nationwide, after last year’s reports had forecast a transition in 2008.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Are you still trapped in High School?

What puts me in mind of the subject is this post by digby.

Are you so psychologically damaged by not being the inner jock/cheerleader/prom queen you deserved to be?

GROW THE FUCK UP!

I was Ferris Bueller and what took me 10 years to get over was that there was never again such a system I could so totally scam out here in the cold harsh world of reality.

If our Whiny Ass Titty Baby Beltway Buttkissing Bozos can’t find anything better than to pine in envy when the dude wearing a Duck’s Ass (that’s what DA means you terminally unhip losers) walks down the hall between the lockers they DESERVE their toilet bowl swirlies and atomic wedgies.

Get a job you lazy bums!

Go work for someone who won’t listen to your sniveling excuses and only pays for results you snot nosed brats.

Oh wait- you don’t have any.

What makes you better than me you miserable failures.  Mummy and Dada will protect you?

Not in my neighborhood.  Here you’re nothing but meat.

Welcome to the jungle.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

It’s hard to know how to really direct my anger at this moment because the media is failing on so many levels.

Where is the outrage that says- Timmeh?  So do you agree with the position of the Catholic Church on birth control?  Why didn’t you walk out of the pews then?  Timmeh?  Do all blacks look alike to you?  Then why only ask Colin Polwell and Barack Obama about Harry Belefonte?

You couldn’t possibly be a racist any more than John McCain could misspeak about Foreign Policy or prostitute himself for the endorsement of a preacher who calls your church a “Great Whore”.  No more than a “maverick” who wrote campaign finance reform could commit a felony by violating his own law because laws are for the little people not great fat respected Village Idiots like you.

No more than this “maverick” fighter pilot senile old gas bag of a lying panderer could have sold out to any of the lobbyists who run his campaign because he has the “guts” to stand up to Boeing and offshore another 20,000 jobs and stand tall in Iraq and condemn another 4,000 American soldiers to death so he can bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran and involve us in yet another war WE WILL LOSE!

I am disgusted.

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 China blasts Dalai Lama, Pelosi on Tibet

By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer

29 minutes ago

CHENGDU, China – China accused the Dalai Lama on Sunday of stoking Tibetan unrest to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and also berated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying she is ignoring the truth about Tibet.

This month’s violence in Tibet and neighboring provinces has turned into a public relations disaster for China ahead of the August Olympics, which it had been hoping to use to bolster its international image.

The Chinese government said through official media that formerly restive areas were under control and accused the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, of trying to harm China’s image ahead of the summer games.

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 US deaths in Iraq approach 4,000

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 38 minutes ago

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb killed three American soldiers north of Baghdad on Saturday, pushing the U.S. death toll in the five-year conflict to nearly 4,000.

Also Saturday, Iraqi authorities reported that a U.S. airstrike north of the capital killed six members of a U.S.-backed Sunni group – straining relations with America’s new allies in the fight against al-Qaida.

Two Iraqi civilians also died in the roadside bombing, which occurred as the Americans were patrolling an area northwest of the capital, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Ok this is like my fifth try at this-

One of my favorite Easter traditions is Onion Dyed Eggs.  The recipe is really simple.  Collect some Onion skins, more is better, it helps if you plan early so you don’t have to do Onion Soup or something like that to get rid of the Onions.

You put the skins in with your eggs and boil them until they’re brown (less skins = boil longer).  I always use the skins from at least 3 pounds of onions.

Ideally they’ll turn out a dark shade of mahogany and have a faint oniony aroma when cooled.

For a variation you can use Bermuda Onions which, if you use them alone, will create a rich deep purple.  Otherwise you can add them to your regular yellow onion skins and it will make the brown darker and richer.

Sigh.  That’s much better.  All the rest devolved into rants against the religious hypocrites criticizing Reverend Wright and upbraiding Obama for not spiting on him in the handshaking line outside Church on Sunday- the most segregated hour in America.

Thank God I’m an atheist.

The Morning News

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Paulson admits U.S. economy in sharp decline

Reuters

Tue Mar 18, 10:10 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Tuesday described the economy as being in “sharp decline,” the closest he has come yet to conceding an election-year recession has set in.

Appearing tired after a weekend of helping to broker a fire sale takeover of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns to keep it from outright collapse, Paulson pushed back against efforts to have him admit a recession was under way.

“There’s no doubt that the American people know that the economy has turned down sharply. So to me much less important is the label that’s placed on it today. Much more important is what we do about it,” he told NBC’s Today Show.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

The Wearing Of The Green
O Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?

The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground!

No more Saint Patrick’s Day we’ll keep, his color can’t be seen

For there’s a cruel law ag’in the Wearin’ o’ the Green.

I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand

And he said, “How’s poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?”

“She’s the most distressful country that ever yet was seen

For they’re hanging men and women there for the Wearin’ o’ the Green.”

So if the color we must wear be England’s cruel red

Let it remind us of the blood that Irishmen have shed

And pull the shamrock from your hat, and throw it on the sod

But never fear, ’twill take root there, though underfoot ’tis trod.
When laws can stop the blades of grass from growin’ as they grow

And when the leaves in summer-time their color dare not show

Then I will change the color too I wear in my caubeen

But till that day, please God, I’ll stick to the Wearin’ o’ the Green.

You can listen to it here.

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Tibet protests spread to other provinces

By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

34 minutes ago

BEIJING – Violence in Tibet spilled over into neighboring provinces Sunday where Tibetan protesters defied a Chinese government crackdown. The Dalai Lama warned Tibet faced “cultural genocide” and appealed to the world for help.

Protests against Chinese rule of Tibet were reported in neighboring Sichuan and Qinghai provinces and also in western Gansu province. All are home to sizable Tibetan populations.

The demonstrations come after protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa escalated into violence Friday, with Buddhist monks and others torching police cars and shops in the fiercest challenge to Beijing’s rule over the region in nearly two decades.

Weekend News Digest

Final.

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 More rate cuts from Fed expected Tuesday

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

30 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – Desperate to aid an economy in crisis, the Federal Reserve is ready to deliver yet another big interest rate cut.

How big? One-half of a percentage point, some economists say. Investors and others hope for even more, a three-quarters cut or perhaps a full point, given the turmoil on Wall Street. It will be a close call, Fed watchers say.

The speculation ends Tuesday afternoon after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and central bank policymakers have met.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Because I just can’t get enough statistics.

It being the 6 month anniversary and all and having just passed our 5,000th essay and 100,000th comment I thought I’d take a look at the stats for our Admin board.  

Just as an aside Front Pagers, and you know who you are, you really should register and check out Scheduling Dharma before you post or promote to the Front Page.

4093 entries.

budhy surprisingly enough is in the lead with 784 posts followed closely by me at 773.  Others in the triple digits are Turkana at 411, pfiore8 with 399, On The Bus at 278, Nightprowlkitty with 205, and Robyn at 118.

And this amazingly slight essay will be my 229th, 4.5%.

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