Shocker: Iraqi Government Misses Goals

My, really big news this is

WASHINGTON (AP) – A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.

I think this report shows, in fact, that Iraq has a level of democratic government that looks remarkably similar to our own

Pelosi lays blame for missed goals on Senate
(06-30) 04:00 PDT Washington — The problem for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t just President Bush. It’s the Senate.
Pelosi sounded more apologetic than celebratory Friday when she announced with her Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democrats’ list of accomplishments six months after they seized control of Capitol Hill and promised “a new direction” in Washington.
“I’m not happy with Congress, either,” Pelosi, of San Francisco, conceded.
She pinned the blame on “the obstructionism of the Republicans in the United States Senate.”
Immigration has joined Iraq, stem cell research, Medicare drug pricing, the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations and other promises in the dustbin of the current Congress. Heading into a July Fourth recess after a bruising failure on immigration, Congress has a public approval rating in the mid-20s, lower than Bush’s and no better than Republicans’ ratings on the eve of their catastrophic election defeat in November, when the GOP lost control of the Senate and the House.
So little has been achieved that Reid threatened to hold the Senate in session during the August recess, the congressional equivalent of torture.

And it seems to me we’ve had a bit more practice at this democracy stuff then the Iraqis have.
And people aren’t blowing up cars in markets around DC, either.

So the D.C. Madam Posts Her Rolodex

…and I’m thinkin’ ‘YAWN‘, until…!!!!

…NUMBER OF JOHN / JOHN’S NUMBER
#257 / 1-317-RLa-Vitr
#258 / 1-872-867-5309
#259 / 1-800-BIN-GLEY

WTF!!! The wanna-be goobernatorial floozy has some ‘splainin’ to do…

This Is Stupid

There. I said it. And it’s late and this kind of weasel speak makes my head spin. For the record, more American service members died during the Clinton years than have left us so far during Bush’s tenure. Well, okay. Some gooberhead wants to argue about more “combat” deaths during Bush’s term, but dang Einstein ~ it’s a WAR. As opposed to Bubba’s Somalia/Haiti/Bosnia/ad nauseum adventures in Commander-in-Chiefness. Honestly…aren’t people expected to die in combat any more? Else, why would we call it ‘combat’? And, if we weren’t in a ‘MAJOR conflict’, why were all those folks dying during Clinton’s 8 years? Maybe Hillary can answer, huh? And if all these combat deaths still don’t add up to what was, in actuality, a peacetime armed forces during Bubba I & II, WHY were there so many dead service members? (Come to think of it, there were a lot of dead/dying Clinton types period, weren’t there?) (Forget I said that ~ I mean no harm…) Training accidents, schmaybe? If so, then we should be vastly proud of the advances made in troop safety manifesting itself in far lower numbers once we bugger out and stop all those nasty ‘war’ wounds. They just screw up the stats.
A Swill Salute to the Gateway Pundit for confusing the pi$$ out of me.

What Is Wrong

…with this picture?

…Rebel leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi told the private Geo TV network that his mother had been wounded by gunfire.
“The government is using full force. This is naked aggression,” he said. “My martyrdom is certain now.”

To paraphrase John Kerry, “Would it were so, Ghazi old boy.” Gunfire woundage caused, no doubt, by your trying to steal her burkha like the other brave Islamic Presbyterian ‘martyr‘/aka: YOUR BROTHER who buggered outta Dodge the other day. What? No tablecloths left in the dome?
UPDATE: Rumor has it that he’s martyred at long last.

The leader of the rebel mosque being stormed by Commandos in Islamabad has been killed, according to the Pakistan government.

Oh, I Am a Happy, HAPPY Girl Tonight!

My favoritest magazine in the whole, wide world is coming back.
Hoffman Media has taken over publishing it (they do Southern Lady, etc.) and I have great hopes. The typeface is back, the photography looks like it will be just as voluptuous…oh, DANG! This is COOL.

It Says On Their Website

…”Two faced, but in a good way.” I think that’s probably open to interpretation.

Sprint hangs up on ‘excessive’ complainers
Drops 1,000 customers who company says call customer service too much
Sprint Nextel Corp, which recently launched an advertising campaign to attract new customers, is disconnecting more than 1,000 subscribers for calling its customer service lines too often and making what the company called unreasonable requests.

My favorite quote:

…”In some cases they were calling customer care hundreds of times a month for a period of six to 12 months on the same issues even after we felt those issues had been resolved,” she [Sprint spokeswoman Roni Singleton] said.

Considering how AT&T has jonesed us before and after their multiple Cingular morphs, I can understand a customer who might be hugely annoyed with their wireless company. This last go-round, I’ve written FCC/AG/BBB letters. How nice they get to decide when a matter is settled. And I’m curious how Sprint would handle you breaking a two year agreement because of ‘excessively’ annoying, unreasonable, shitty service? I doubt you’d be able to just drop them like they’re ditching the problem children. Cost you big time, that would.

…Sprint waived final balances on canceled accounts and gave customers 30 days to transfer their phone numbers to other wireless providers, she said.
“We’re working very hard to improve customer service. That’s our number one priority,” Singleton said.

Oh yeah they are. It’s easier to satisfy customers you don’t have any more. Like the AT&T supervisor telling me last month after the 15th jacked up bill and BS phone run around, “We appreciate your business.”
Oh no, you don’t. But when it’s my scribbled names and notes from all the phone calls against your corporate computer ‘customer care’ collusion? I can see how someone could call 40 times a month.
.

TALIBAN?

I’m guessing the TSA goobers never saw this movie…

Baby, You Can Ride In My Car

Or maybe not.

CORZINE SUV AIDE TRANSFERRED
THE aide to New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine who was with him April 12 when he was seriously injured in a car crash was suddenly reassigned last month because the two had become “too close,” said an inside source.
Samantha Gordon, a “tall and attractive” 25-year-old, worked for a year as an “intellectual valet” to the governor, traveling with him wherever and whenever he went, much as Huma Abedin is the “body person” who travels with Sen. Hillary Clinton.
“Samantha was extremely devoted to him,” said the source.
Gordon was riding in the middle row of seats in Corzine’s SUV when his two-car motorcade crashed on the Garden State Parkway, but she emerged unscathed.
Corzine, 60, was rumored to have been sitting next to her and not in the front seat with no seat belt as he claimed, said our source. This would better explain why Corzine was found in the very rear of the vehicle by responders to the scene.

Juicy. An ‘intellectual valet’.
And no, major dad, you can’t have one.

Time For Some Tough Actin’

…Tinactin.

Man’s smelly feet trigger police raid
German police broke into a darkened apartment fearing they would find a dead body, after neighbors complained of a nasty smell seeping out onto the staircase.
…But instead of a corpse, they found a tenant with very smelly feet, asleep in bed next to a pile of foul-smelling laundry…

Woof! I hope the cops sock it to ‘im.

So Is ‘IMMIGRANT’ the New

…’French Youth‘?

3 Immigrants Killed in Texas SUV Crash
SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A sport utility vehicle packed with at least 19 suspected illegal immigrants crashed after a high-speed chase with authorities, killing three immigrants and sending 12 others to hospitals.

Nothing Like Having Your Family

…be quietly supportive.

All Grown Up — and Going to War
July is a month I sincerely hoped would never come.
At the end of this month, my young son, my only child, deploys with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. His departure had been six months away, three months; now it is a matter of weeks…
…The ironies of this conflict are many for me. More than 30 years ago, I wrote my master’s thesis at Columbia University on “Political Integration of the Kurds in Iraq.” Little did I ever suspect that any child of mine would be a pawn in a senseless conflict in that distant land…

Couldn’t she have held off sending this very PUBLIC message until her hard chargin’ Jarhead was in country? Where maybe mom’s writing the freaking WaPo with her liberally credentialed, anti-war screed wouldn’t embarrass or even demotivate her son in real time?
You’ll notice that NOWHERE in her navel gazing accusations and gloomy prognostications (Mentally deranged? Wounded, even? Scarred and limbs missing? She’s already got him legless in a VA hospital in her mind!) does she mention pride in her son. Nowhere does she speak of the man he has become and how she feels about him. Pitiful. Her letter is a selfish, pitiful intellectual exercise.
Grow up, Ms. ‘Columbia’ and be a man…for your boy. Save the Cindy Sheehan parenting handbook steps for when he’s deployed and busy with the life-or-death life he’s chosen.
Oo-RAH, Marine. Semper Fi.
A Swill Salute to Wake Up, America.

At Long

…last.
“Signin My Ballz”, indeed.

Presbyterians Guilty In London Plot

Hopefully they’ll rot some where for a long time

Three defendants in the 21 July terror trial have been found guilty of a plot to bomb London’s transport network.
Jurors found Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, Yassin Omar, 26, and Ramzi Mohammed, 25, guilty of conspiracy to murder.
The verdicts on three other defendants, who all deny charges against them, are still being considered by the jury of nine women and three men.
Woolwich Crown Court heard how the cell tried to detonate bombs on three tube trains and a bus on July 21, 2005.
The suspects had claimed the bombs were fakes, and the attacks had been intended as a protest against the war in Iraq.

Sort of a novel defense, I’ll grant them: Since the bombs didn’t explode they were therefore fakes and thus this was speech, and not terrorism.
And let us not forget Yassin Omar’s moment of glory

Omar was arrested in Birmingham after travelling there disguised as a woman in a burka.

I Was Waiting for the Transcripts So I Could Share

…and see if you were as surprised as I was. The setting? A round table on CNN’s “This Week at War“. The participants? BRIG. GEN. David Grange, U.S.A.(RET), Jamie McIntyre, the usual CNN suspects, including…correspondent Michael Ware. I was already rolling my eyes. They would wind up bugging out in shock.

…[Tom] FOREMAN: Jamie, how afraid are the generals that now with General Petraeus in command, they are moving in the right direction that things actually are making progress but that the clock in Washington has just run out?
McINTYRE: You saw that comment from General Lynch. It followed the one on Thursday from General Mixon, his counterpart to the north. There’s a united front from front line commanders who are urging patience with the surge. The biggest fear now is that the surge is going to be successful in the short term and then the troops are going to be pulled out. It’s all going to go back to the way it was. That’s what they’re warning about now and basically say they’re not paying attention to what’s happening in Washington, but they can feel the heat of the disillusionment in Washington, the impatience with the policy and they’re very concerned that the rug might be pulled out from underneath them just when they think they have a strategy that’s working.
…FOREMAN: Michael Ware, you’ve had some of the most pessimistic outlooks at times that anything can be done to make things better, but you’re on the ground there. You see the so-called surge at work. Would you say to the politicians here, yeah, give it until September, see how it works out or would you say, look, we’ve waited and waited and waited. Maybe you’re doing the right thing to change now?
WARE: What I would say is quite the contrary. I would say that, you know, I’m sorry, but American forces took this country. A set of circumstances emerged and whether you like it or not, whether you’re for or against this war from the beginning, whether you’re for or against the surge now, I’m sorry, America has very little choice but to stay and for the long-term. I mean, this country is broke. America’s enemies are emboldened and stronger. Their spheres of influence are increasing as a direct result of U.S. presence here and the ongoing war. And what, you want to turn around and pull out and leave it behind to them? If that’s what you want to do, I mean, if America wants to pull out now…

…is America ready to pay the price?

The next question is “General Grange, what do you think that price would be, very briefly?” and you can tell the General is stunned by what came out of Ware’s mouth, as were we. He was all fired up to dispute what he knew Ware was going to say, got completely blindsided and has to regroup, speaking as if he can’t believe what he’s about to say…

GRANGE: I think Mike’s right on.

Buried on a Saturday afternoon show, I doubt this got the attention it deserves, since the New York Times editorial page had already gone to print. Sh*t. I’ll bet they had this written a year and a half ago and were just waiting to spring it.

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.
…It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost.

‘Youth’-ful Passions Inflamed/-s

…again.

Some 50 masked attackers smashed cars and clashed with police in northeast Paris on Friday night. Three officers were injured, police said.
…Tensions have remained high between police and French youth, especially minorities in rundown housing projects, since riots erupted in such neighborhoods nationwide in 2005. Most of the rioting hit impoverished suburbs that ring French cities, while Paris was largely spared.

Everyone seems to have adopted the code phrase.

I Got Yer Live Earth Right Here

While Gorezilla was jetting about telling us to use less fuel and our own Governor Corzine was signing and touting some legislation to ruin our economy

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (Reuters) – New Jersey became on Friday the first U.S. state to mandate sharp greenhouse gas reductions by 2050 to help fight climate change.
The law, signed by Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, makes New Jersey the latest state to bypass the Bush administration by setting mandatory regulations to fight emissions of gases that scientists link to global warming.
“We want to send a message to Washington. Wake up, get with the program and start doing something about greenhouse gases,” Corzine told reporters at Giants Stadium on the eve of former Vice President Al Gore’s international Live Earth concerts.
The Global Warming Response Act mandates cuts of greenhouse gas emissions throughout New Jersey’s economy by about 16 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 in the country’s most densely populated state.

(hopefully Gov. Speedracer will realize that if he drives 55 instead of 90 he might cut down on emissions)
Yes, while all these bloviating gas bags were doing all types of emitting in the name of conserving I was grilling, charring as much flesh as I could

That’s 7 pounds of spare ribs, some filet mignon, 2 buffalo steaks, some grilled corn on the cob and twice-baked potatoes, because you’ve got to love anything that makes you use the oven twice.
Oh, and of course it was all washed down with wine from Australia to maximize the carbon footprint.
Hear Gaia scream.

Couldn’t Have Been Much of a Party

…if I wasn’t invited.

Former U.S. senator and actor Fred Thompson spent part of his Gulf Coast vacation Thursday night in Pensacola garnering political support for a potential presidential run.
Thompson had a private dinner with local supporters at the Fish House restaurant, and then he spent some time meeting and greeting locals.
He said the informal dinner was “testing the waters” and he plans to announce “in the not too distant future” whether he’ll run for president.
“People are looking for a new direction for the country,” Thompson said. “I will talk straight to them and not be afraid to have a vision for the future.”

Since This Happened in Our Neighborhood

…I’ll blame Al Gore III for the copycat crime.

Girl charged in DUI, chase
11-year-old driver from Perdido Key in 100-mph chase in Orange Beach
An 11-year-old Perdido Key girl has been charged with driving under the influence after she led Orange Beach police on a high-speed chase.
Greg Duck, Orange Beach assistant police chief, said the Tuesday night chase — which was caught on a dashboard camera in a police cruiser — started about 10:30 p.m. in Orange Beach near the Florida line. It ended just inside the Gulf Shores city limits when the girl crashed and rolled the Chevy Monte Carlo she was driving.

I hope she didn’t hit a Perdido Key Beach Mouse on her way through.
She’s really in hot water then.

Gaia Was Warmer Than They Thought

Damn you, Chimpy! It seems your nefarious reach extends farther back than we thought

Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed.
DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest.
That contrasts sharply with the prevailing view that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago, according to a summary of the study, which is published Thursday in the journal Science.

Wait a minute! You mean the data contradicts the “consensus”? Has anyone told Gorezilla? The Cult of Gaia will be quick to attack these infidels!

China Has A Big Problem

As these stories proliferate it could have a big impact on world trade

PANAMA CITY – A top Panamanian prosecutor said tests show at least 94 people have died from taking medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol since July 2006 and that 293 more deaths are under investigation.
Prosecutor Dimas Guevara told The Associated Press on Wednesday that people have continued to die this year even though the tainted medicine was pulled from shelves in October, with some struggling for months before dying.
…A chemical commonly found in antifreeze and brake fluid, diethylene glycol was used in cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment made in a Panama government laboratory.
Investigations revealed the chemical was made by a Chinese company that fraudulently passed it off as 99.5 percent pure glycerin, a sweetener commonly used in drugs, to a Spanish company. That company sold it to Panama’s Medicom SA, which sold it to a government laboratory.

Just look at all these problems.

How Do You Clean Uranus?

With a space sponge!*

One of the strangest moons in our solar system is Hyperion, a Saturnian satellite so pockmarked by deep craters that it looks like a giant, rotating bath sponge adrift in space.
New image analyses suggest the moon’s odd appearance is the result of a highly porous surface that preserves craters, allowing them to remain nearly as pristine as the day they were created.
The finding is just one of several new details about the quirky moon revealed in two studies published in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature. Scientists determined that Hyperion is composed mostly of water ice and that the bottoms of its craters are covered in a dark red gunk that could be the key to resolving some of the moon’s other strange properties.

*not safe for septic systems

Tour de Gore

UPDATE REDUX: Honest to GOD, I swear the whole family’s smokin’ dope. (DOPE being the operative word.)

The artist formerly known as Cat Stevens — and now known as Yusuf Islam — will perform at one of Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts. Click here….including links to a video in which Mr. Peace Train expresses his desire for Salman Rushdie to burn at the stake, plus his connections to Hamas.

Via the Blogfaddah.

Between the ‘Rock Star’ Tour and the ‘100 MPH’ Speedster

…those carbon offsets are gonna cost a bundle.
UPDATE: I guess this (circled in pink) would be a ‘mitigating factor’.

When In the Course of Human Events">When In the Course of Human Events

Read more »

While Reading a Chapter or Two Before Beddie-Bie

…a passage made me laugh. It really is so true that the more things change…

“…As yet another, Nathaniel Grubb complained in 1763 to the Pennsylvania legislature that “a pack of insignificant Scotch-Irish” was responsible for having retaliated too fiercely against a series of Indian attacks.“

…the more they stay the same.