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Putin rejects Bush’s Iraq democracy model
[Quote:]
During a joint news conference Saturday in St. Petersburg, Bush said he raised concerns about democracy in Russia during a frank discussion with the Russian leader.
“I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq where there’s a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same,” Bush said.
To that, Putin replied, “We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly.”
Gee, I wonder why Putin said that…
[Quote:]
Gunmen kidnapped the head of Iraq’s Olympic committee and more than a dozen employees Saturday after storming a sports conference in Baghdad, police said. The kidnappers wore camouflage Iraqi police uniforms and security guards outside the meeting said they did not interfere because they thought the gunmen were legitimate law enforcement, police said.
Ahmed al-Hijiya, president of the committee, was taken in the assault, which came a day after the coach of Iraq’s national wrestling team was killed by kidnappers, said police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud.
[..]
In other violence, Iraqi soldiers and gunmen clashed in Baghdad, leaving at least three people dead and 11 wounded, police said.
Seven people were injured in a mortar attack near Haifa Street in downtown Baghdad, blocks from the Green Zone, which houses U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government.
Similar clashes broke out blocks away, injuring four and killing two civilians. U.S. troops sealed off the area after the attacks, said Iraqi Army Maj. Salman Abdul-Wahid.
The area along Haifa Street has seen heavy violence in recent weeks, which prompted Iraqi leaders.
Iraq’s parliament voted Saturday to extend a nearly two-year state of emergency in Baghdad for another 30 days.
Much of United States in heat wave
[Quote:]
Temperatures in the 90s or higher blanketed large areas of the United States on Friday from southern California to southern New Jersey.
In California, the operator of the state’s electrical grid asked residents to cut back on power use because the heat was expected to drive demand to record levels. The National Weather Service predicted temperatures topping 100 in the Santa Ana Mountains and inland areas, the Orange County Register reported.
The heat, combined with high winds, helped spread a massive wildfire near the San Bernardino National Forest.
The weather service also declared a red flag warning for parts of North Dakota because of the danger of wild fire.
In the Phoenix area, where the temperature was expected to reach 113 degrees, record power demand was also expected, the Phoenix Business Journal said. In North Texas and parts of Oklahoma, temperatures were also in the triple digits, with the NWS predicting no break earlier than Monday for Dallas/Fort Worth.
In Chicago, the city has opened six cooling centers to help those who live without air conditioning.
The disclosure of this weather is disgraceful. We’re at war with nature, which wants to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that weather, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America.
dolchstosslegende
[Quote:]
Every state must have its enemies. Great powers must have especially monstrous foes. Above all, these foes must arise from within, for national pride does not admit that a great nation can be defeated by any outside force. That is why, though its origins are elsewhere, the stab in the back has become the sustaining myth of modern American nationalism. Since the end of World War II it has been the device by which the American right wing has both revitalized itself and repeatedly avoided responsibility for its own worst blunders. Indeed, the right has distilled its tale of betrayal into a formula: Advocate some momentarily popular but reckless policy. Deny culpability when that policy is exposed as disastrous. Blame the disaster on internal enemies who hate America. Repeat, always making sure to increase the number of internal enemies.
The week in Armageddon
Van Hilleary For U.S. Senate, door-to-door campaining
From the campaign website:
[Quote:]
I believe innocent life must be protected. I have always been pro-life.
From reality:
[Quote:]
But Hilleary is counting on television ads to remind people that he is running for U.S. Senate. Hilleary said once they find out, they say, ‘Gosh, you’re my guy.’
Meredith Hilleary, Van’s wife, who was out walking door to door in 90 degree heat while being eight months pregnant, said she hears the same thing “five or 10 times a day.?
Ecuador volcano spews molten rock, villagers flee
[Quote:]
Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano spewed ash, gas and molten rock for a second day on Saturday, driving hundreds of evacuated villagers into nearby schools and churches in search of refuge.
Tungurahua, located about 80 miles (130 km) south of Quito, has been increasingly active since May, when it blew out big clouds of hot gas and prompted officials to renew a limited state of emergency in nearby towns.
Civil defence authorities and police continued to evacuate seven small villages around the volcano, whose name means “throat of fire” in the indigenous Quichua language.
Wiretap Surrender
[Quote:]
Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has cast his agreement with the White House on legislation concerning the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance as a compromise — one in which President Bush accepts judicial review of the program. It isn’t a compromise, except quite dramatically on the senator’s part. Mr. Specter’s bill began as a flawed but well-intentioned effort to get the program in front of the courts, but it has been turned into a green light for domestic spying. It must not pass.
The bill would, indeed, get the NSA’s program in front of judges, in one of two ways. It would transfer lawsuits challenging the program from courts around the country to the super-secret court system that typically handles wiretap applications in national security cases. It would also permit — but not require — the administration to seek approval from this court system, created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, for entire surveillance programs, thereby allowing judges to assess their legality.
But the cost of this judicial review would be ever so high. The bill’s most dangerous language would effectively repeal FISA’s current requirement that all domestic national security surveillance take place under its terms. The “compromise” bill would add to FISA: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the President to collect intelligence with respect to foreign powers and agents of foreign powers.” It would also, in various places, insert Congress’s acknowledgment that the president may have inherent constitutional authority to spy on Americans. Any reasonable court looking at this bill would understand it as withdrawing the nearly three-decade-old legal insistence that FISA is the exclusive legitimate means of spying on Americans. It would therefore legitimize whatever it is the NSA is doing — and a whole lot more.
Amen to that!!!