Iran on Fire? Billmon on fire.

by redjade Sat Jul 30, 2005 15:03

Basra’s lack of car bombs and relative calm have been touted as a victory for the British Army’s softly-softly approach. But fear is often palpable.

Asked about the Islamic gangs who force women to wear headscarves and prevent the sale of alcohol and music, a member of the writers’ union immediately started trembling. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk about that. This is a dangerous thing,” he said. “I have three kids and I love life. The Islamic movement is very hard. Al- Qaeda is not a problem here. The Iranian revolution is the problem.” The various Islamic parties, most of whom spent years of exile from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in neighbouring Iran, deny any link to the violence and blame al-Qaeda.

But officials say that the parties are closely linked to Iran, receiving funding and reciprocating with intelligence.

Samir Jassim Khadair, a spokesman for the Southern Oil Company in Basra, was blunt.

“Iran is running Iraq, frankly speaking,” he said.

by eeeekkkk Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:13

A European friend of mine and I were talking,
and you can understand everything going on
today in the US with three simple sentences:

The United States' current account deficit and
structured payments (SSTF etc) is the largest
deficit in the world, currently -180% of total
value of all US assets, personal and corporate.

The Iraq current account deficit and structured
payments, though large, are only a small fraction
of the total value of all Iraqi assets, mostly in
its oil sector, the 2nd largest pool of crude.

The Iran current account deficit and structured
payments is the lowest in the world as a percent
of its personal and public assets. By far the
lowest in the world, they haven't been supersized.

The American Economic System is a Vampire Culture.

Posted by: lash marks | July 22, 2005 03:41 PM | #

by eeekkkkk Sat Jul 23, 2005 04:27

"Yesterday I was speaking with some collegues, and I suggested that “they” (the terrorists) have not yet won the war, but are winning. They have already made London security a joke.

There is nothing governments or police can do against these kinds of bombers. If someone wants to detonate a bomb, and kill themselves at the same time, then there is nothing police can do.

The only way they can keep security is to stop and search all people.

A security expert on BBC this lunchtime has said the rules of engagement with respect to terrorism and in particular suicide bombers have changed.

The only way to stop these people is with the newly applied “shoot to kill” powers. It is not the most humane plan, but what else do you do?

The only question then is that the police must be 110% sure that the person they shoot dead is a suicide bomber.

If not they risk creating an even larger rift between these communities and mainstream communities.

The only real answer to this is education and some compassion to people. Educate them as to why they do not have to carry out these acts.

This morning I heard on radio that the English government are creating “Police Cells” to patrol and enter these fringe communities and bring these radicals back into mainstream life."

by sanginety Sat Jul 23, 2005 04:10

A light aircraft has crashed onto the lawn in front of the Reichstag building in central Berlin.

The Reichstag houses the German lower house of parliament.

The single-engined aircraft burst into flames on impact - killing the pilot.

by drogues Sat Jul 23, 2005 03:35

There is a spine-tingling, effortlessly great moment in Martin Scorsese's documentary "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," when watching TV for a living seems like a gigantic mistake and the lure of music's visceral gut punch is almost too much to bear. It's 1966 in London, and Dylan, folk icon, has gone electric. He is young, wiry and full of marshalling genius -- he was probably never cooler. "Traitor!" someone yells. "What happened to Woody Guthrie, Bob?" another yells. Boos ring out, and Dylan, in a check suit and pointy shoes, drolly steps to the microphone and says, "These aren't British songs, they're American songs."

Beautifully audacious. In comes the guitar and drums, and Scorsese's camera captures the backdrop: a huge, wall-size American flag. "Judas!" someone else yells later. But it's too late by then. "Like a Rolling Stone" is filling the hall -- rock 'n' roll has just put a knife in folk music.

For all the emotional fulfillment one gets watching expertly crafted, brilliantly nuanced and superbly performed television, sometimes there's no real substitute for rock 'n' roll.

And so there was a keen sense of anticipation when PBS decided to screen "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" to roughly 100 people last week. It was one of those rare moments on the Death March with Cocktails: a desire to actually watch something. Even better, it was the first time the 3 1/2-hour film, with loads of never-before-seen footage, was going to be seen by anyone in the world.

by broog Sat Jul 23, 2005 03:29

"A week ago, when President Bush met with Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III to interview him for a potential Supreme Court nomination, the conversation turned to exercise. When asked by the president of the United States how often he exercised, Wilkinson impressively responded that he runs 3 1/2 miles a day. Bush urged him to adopt more cross-training. "He warned me of impending doom," Wilkinson told the New York Times."

by doorg Sat Jul 23, 2005 03:25

As he trudged across his Army camp west of Baghdad, 55-year-old 1st Sgt. Richard Robles was sometimes the target of wisecracks from soldiers in their 20s.
 
"They would say, 'Here comes the Bengay crew,' " Robles recalled.
 
Though the teasing didn't bother him, Robles did find some difficulties in life as an older soldier. The grandfather of 11 said he often awoke feeling stiff as a brand-new Army boot during the year he spent in Iraq.
 "You have to be out there all day with those young soldiers and the next day you're expected to get up in the morning even though you're sore sometimes," said Robles, who returned in March with the 208th Transportation Company, a Tucson-based Army Reserve unit that ran convoys in the deadly Sunni Triangle.
 
Robles is among a growing group of older soldiers going to war when they could be getting senior-citizen discounts at home. Their numbers have been fueled by the Army's heavier use of National Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq. And they're expected to rise even more now that the Army has upped the maximum recruiting age for Guard and Reserve soldiers.
 

by doorg Sat Jul 23, 2005 03:17

About 30 boys and young men had chased him down, beating him with cricket bats and metal scaffolding poles before he was stabbed three times in the heart on April 22, 2004, in a tough neighborhood of south Leeds known as Beeston.

Four youths were convicted of Clarke's murder this year, drawing prison sentences ranging from nine to 12 years. That Clarke was black and the mob was Pakistani did not, the presiding judge ruled, make it a racial killing. More complex factors including drugs and gang rivalries were at play, investigators decided.

Today, with police cordoning off the downtrodden blocks where three young suspects in London's suicide bombings lived, people here are searching for answers to the same troubling question: What feeds the murderous rage that ticks quietly in some hearts here?

A multiethnic enclave in one of England's largest cities, Beeston has long had racial tension on a slow boil, but police and community activists now fear that the resentment and wariness common among the immigrant generation can harden into hatred and violence in their British-born children.

by doorg Sat Jul 23, 2005 03:10

by Izzy
Fri Jul 22nd, 2005 at 02:00:31 PM EDT
O my merry band.  What a week it's been for George Bushieboy and his droogs, hanging at the WhiteHouse Milkbar playing all keen and vicious with the ultra-politics.

Things are changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read and all, everybody distracted by Roverdover in the spotlight.  

O Karl's a real horrorshow filthy fighter and very handy with the press.  But with everybody creeching 'bout the leaking, Georgie and the lads are really getting on with the job.  

What's it going to be then, eh?