st.elmo's fire and heathers

Hours before the 4 p.m. deadline to submit petitions, Nader supporters submitted more than twice as many signatures as the 7,500 required.
Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said she expects Nader to qualify under the banner of the Waterbury-based Independent Party of Connecticut.
Local voter registrars around the state will have until Aug. 19 to verify signatures among about 16,000 petitions.
The Winsted native, famous for a career as a consumer advocate that began in 1965 when he exposed dangers in American automobiles, was not present for the petition-campaign event.
But staff members for the consumer advocate-turned-presidential gadfly complained that Connecticut's election laws present too many obstacles at a time when computerized voting lists should make it easier.
Christina Tobin, Nader's national ballot coordinator, called a news conference Wednesday outside the Capitol's east entrance. But Capitol police said she had not requested permission for the event, so she spoke with reporters under nearby trees that were still dripping from the morning's downpour.
"The people of Connecticut deserve to have the chance and the choice to vote for Ralph Nader, should that be the candidate of their choice," Tobin told reporters.

that's from ken dixon's 'Nader backers get him on state ballot' (connecticut post) and you can use the link to read on and see a democrat have a snit-fit and embarrass herself. nader's on the ballot in conn. and he can count on the votes of my in-laws, lifelong democrats. and he's not stealing their votes from barack. they won't vote for barack. they don't like liars.

we're all supposed to write about an 80s film tonight. and i actually want to note 2. my 2 are heathers and st. elmo's fire.

first, st. elmo's.

demi moore is a name most of us now know. c.i. always would go on about how talented demi was. i didn't see it. i saw about last night and felt she and elizabeth perkins had 1 great scene in the film (where they are in the kitchen preparing a meal). if it weren't for that scene, i would have thought c.i. was nuts.

st. elmo's fire is an even worse film than about last night - if that's possible. about last night had a 'pedigree.' it was still garbage. so is st. elmo's. it's a young-adult soap opera that really plays out like a case of california whine.

the thing that makes it work is demi moore as jules. the character is badly shaped in the script but demi moore makes jules come alive.

we really need her because you've got a lot of males giving wooden performances (every 1 except emilo estavez who is saddled with playing an 80s remake of andy hardy - apparently the punishment for actually acting) and you've got talented women trapped in retro roles. mare winningham (a brilliant actress) plays the virgin.

'oh i must lose my virginity.'

at some point, after you've gone through high school and college, if losing your virginity is still your life's mission, you've got some serious problems. mare's is that she loves rob lowe (the worst actor on the face of the planet) and apparently only he can pluck her cherry.

at the end of the movie, after insulting her, he'll finally toss her a pity f**k and we're supposed to be thrilled. thrilled would have been seeing mare lose it even with a stranger.

ally sheedy is saddled with playing some man's idea of 'desirable.' which means she lives to make other men happy. she's been making judd nelson happy and decides maybe it's time to make andrew mccarthy happy? shirley maclaine couldn't pull off this non-role.

the only time ally has any snap and fire is in her scenes with demi.

demi is the driving force of the film and the only reason to watch because you will lose interest throughout as you're forced to watch andrew try to play manly with bob blowe and emilo. and sometimes judd.

judd's nostrils will flare larger than any of the many hole plots in the film.

though there will be a mid-point flirtation with bob blowe (which works because jules is self-destructive), demi's character mainly stays clear of the host of whining boys passing themselves off as men.

jules has a coke habit, spends money recklessly (and wastefully - the light up poster of billy idol in her apartment being your 1st clue) and is suffering from a bad childhood. demi manages to bring real bitterness to those brief lines (brief because though she's the most interesting character onscreen, she's the 1 the writers forgot) and she really shapes a full characterization.

a ton of movies were supposed to capture the 80s. i think only st. elmo's fire did and only jules' character truly sums up the 80s. she does that in excess, in wardrobe, in you name it. it is a brilliant performance by demi and a real shame that it appears in such a lame movie.

if you ever doubt how good an actress she is, rent st. elmo's fire and pay attention to how every 1's got a love story and every 1's got this and that except jules. but demi is the 1 who holds your attention from start to finish.

the other film i wanted to note was heathers.

that starred winona ryder and christian slater.

it's a dark comedy about winona's character who is in high school.

she's friends with the heathers, a group of young women named heather. 1 rules the school.

to be popular, she's friends with them. she realizes, at the start of the film, that popularity is a trap. after a near-date rape, winona and heather 1 have it out.

she realizes she'll have to kiss heather 1's ass. along comes j.d. played by christian slater.

j.d. and winona visit heather and plan to make a disgusting drink for her in a soup cup. j.d. actually plans to poison heather 1. heather 1 dies.

so begins the crime spree.

winona is brilliant in it and christian is actually 'fresh' a term never again applied to him. he'd do kuffs quickly afterwards and we'd realize how limited he was.

opposite winona and with 1 of the funniest scripts of the decade, he'd appear to be 1 to watch.

winona is perfect in her role as some 1 disillusioned with her friends who gets caught up in a cycle that she alone has the power to break if she dares. that applies to both being 'in' with the heathers and to stopping the violence.

so those are my 2 faves from the 80s.

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Wednesday August 6, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, a war resistance anniversary approaches, 6 US service members have died in Iraq since Saturday, the Iraqi provincial elections seem unlikely this year, the puppet al-Maliki sits on millions and spends very little, and more.

Starting with war resistance. In June 2006, Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. That decision followed much research on his part and the decision at the end of 2005 that he could not participate in an illegal war. For months prior to going public, Watada attempted to work with the US military which gave him every indication that they wanted to work with him on this issue. But no alternative was ever accepted. Instead he was repeatedly told that something would happen, some decision would be reached. His command was attempting to run out the clock because June 22, 2006 would be when he would deploy to Iraq and they thought if they strung him along he would have no choice but to deploy. Instead, Watada went public. Almost two years ago, his Article 32 hearing was held (August 17, 2006). The Article 32 hearing allowed Watada to call witnesses such as retired Army Col Ann Wright and former UN under-secretary Denis Halliday. Lt Col Mark Keith oversaw the Article 32 hearing. In February 2007, Judge Toilet (aka John Head) presided over the court-martial. Judge Toilet had his own idea of 'justice' which included refusing to allow Watada's defense to explain why he decided to refuse to deploy. He could admit (or not) that he refused to deploy, but Judge Toilet wouldn't allow his reasons to be explained to the military jury. Judge Toilet also refused to allow Watada's attorney to call various witnesses. It was 'justice' in name-only. Despite that, Watada's case was presented strongly. So strongly that, on the third day, when Watada was due to take the witness stand, Judge Toilet suddenly found fault with a stipulation that he himself had explained to the jury and that he himself had overseen. Judge Toilet 'suggested' the prosecution move for a mistrial and the prosecution did not immediately take the hint or grasp that Toilet was handing them a do-over. When they did grasp it, they made the motion and Judge Toilet ruled the court-martial a mistrial over defense objection. The Constitution prohibits double-jeopardy -- one of those pesky laws Judge Toilet never grasped. Toilet said the second court-martial would take place in March of 2007. It did not. It has not taken place. Last November US District Court Judge Benjamin Settle ruled that the Constitutional issue had to be resolved. It still hasn't been resolved.

In December 2006, Watada's service contract expired. The first court-martial took place despite that fact. All this time later, Watada remains in the service and reports for duty on base while he waits for the US military to figure out their next move. The military had their chance to court-martial him but when Judge Toilet realized Watada might walk, he threw the justice system out the window and declared a mistrial. As a result, the military really has no 'follow up' at this point. They need to release Watada from the army immediately. His service contract expired nearly two years ago and his Article 32 took place almost two years ago.


War resisters in Canada need support as well. To pressure the Stephen Harper government to honor the House of Commons vote, Gerry Condon, War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist all encourage contacting the Diane Finley (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration -- 613.996.4974, phone; 613.996.9749, fax; e-mail finley.d@parl.gc.ca -- that's "finley.d" at "parl.gc.ca") and Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, 613.992.4211, phone; 613.941.6900, fax; e-mail pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's "pm" at "pm.gc.ca"). Courage to Resist collected more than 10,000 letters to send before the vote. Now they've started a new letter you can use online here. The War Resisters Support Campaign's petition can be found here. Long expulsion does not change the need for action and the War Resisters Support Campaign explains: "The War Resisters Support Campaign is calling on supporters across Canada to urgently continue to put pressure on the minority conservative government to immediately cease deportation proceedings against other US war resisters and to respect the will of Canadians and their elected representatives by implementing the motion adopted by Parliament on June 3rd. Please see the take action page for what you can do."

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Yovany Rivero, William Shearer, Michael Thurman, Andrei Hurancyk, Megan Bean, Chris Bean, Matthis Chiroux, Richard Droste, Michael Barnes, Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).

In Iraq, there is still no movement on provincial elections. Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, " After weeks of late-night negotiations and under intense U.S. pressure, Iraqi lawmakers failed to pass a much-debated provincial elections law Wednesday before adjourning for the month. The failure to pass the law, which would govern elections in provinces across the country, may push the elections into next year. If elections don't happen by the end of this year, it could be July before the balloting could be carried out, U.N. spokesman Said Arikat said." UPI reports that, citing Kurdish MP Fouad Massoum, there is the possibility of "a special session of Parliament sometime during the recess, which ends Sept. 9," to again try to address the issue of elections. Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) notes the "days of intense negotiations and heavy pressure from the U.S., the United Nations and Britain" and how Kirkuk continued to be a stalling issue. Most reports do. Leila Fadel offers another theory among Iraqis, that those currently holding office aren't willing to risk losing office if new elections are called. Walter Ibrahim (Reuters) gets a non-official US response, quoting someone at the US embassy in Iraq who refused to be named but did declare, "The United States regrets that the Iraqi parliament today adjourned without finishing its work on a local elections law."


On the other big news of Iraq today, a new report finds that Nouri al-Maliki, puppet of the occupation, is refusing to spend the many millions on reconstruction still. White House press secretary Dana Perino declared, "It's interesting -- what I find interesting about this report, as well, is when you're looking at these two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, seeing how vastly different Iraq is from Afghanistan in terms of the natural resources that they have. Afghanistan is a very poor country, one of the poorest in the world. Iraq will come back much faster, given that they had some semblance of infrastructure, as crumbling as it was, but something to work from. Afghanistan is being built from scratch. And so I thought that was something worth taking away." What's interesting is that someone tasked with speaking to the press on behalf of the White House appears to have only just realized the differences between Afghanistan and oil-rich Iraq. It does not speak well of Perino -- even as spin, it should produce laughter. Perino was speaking on board Air Force One as the Bully Boy traveled to Thailand and repeatedly referred reporters' questions to the US State Dept implying that she hadn't seen the latest report. Later, after Air Force One landed in Thailand, Bully Boy would hold a public event with Thailand's Prime Minister Samak but took no questions. Apparently, like Perino, he was unfamiliar with the report. Perino: "I saw the report -- I saw the reports about the report -- so I'd refer you back to the State Department, just to -- as they wake up this moring -- just to make sure that they've looked at it, because I don't know all the details." A rather shocking admission for someone tasked with being the public face of the White House. Plenty of egg on the face to go around because, in DC this afternoon, the State Dept's Gonzalo R. Gallegos (Acting Deputy Spokesperson) held the daily press briefing and was asked about Iraq . . . never. Not once. Macedonia, Mexico and many other topics. Gallegos didn't arrive with a prepared statement and tossed immediately to questions. Not one reporter asked about Iraq. How very sad and very telling.

If you're feeling a sense of deja vu, you may be thinking back to last Wednesday when the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstuction issued a report. Stuart Bowen Jr. issued a note to the report [PDF format warning] explaining, "The United States has now appropriated more than $50 billion in taxpayer dollars for Iraq's reconstruction." The report notes its basis is "seven new audit products" between May 1st and June 30th of this year. You may be thinking of the silence that greeted that report as the press focused instead on the gossip and whispers that the White House was putting out declaring Bully Boy would speak Thursday morning and deliver a 'major' statement on Iraq that everyone just knew was going to be about the treaty between the White House and the puppet. The treaty, the White House had promised, would be wrapped up by July 31st. Bully Boy gave his statement, no word about a treaty. The dealine passed. And the government report on reconstruction was lost and forgotten.

For some context on the latest report, let's drop back to April when Gen David Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker did their song and dance before the US Congress. From the April 8th snapshot, where US Senator Barbara Boxer is questioning Crocker:

She wanted to know about the training, all the training, that had gone on and then on again. "We've done a lot for the Iraqis just in terms of the numbers themselves," Boxer declared. "I'll tell you what concerns me and most of my constituents, you said -- many times -- the gains in Iraq are fragile and reversable. . . . So my constituents and I believe that" after all the deaths, all the money, "you have to wonder why the best that you can say is that the gains are fragile and reversable." Noting the lack of military success and Hagel's points, Boxer pointed out that nothing was being done diplomatically "and I listened carefully to Senator Hagel and Ambassador Crocker -- from the answer you gave him, I don't get the" feeling that the White House has given anything, it's still "the status quo. She then turned to the issue of monies and the militias, "You are asking us for millions more to pay off the militias and, by the way, I have an article here that says Maliki recently told a London paper that he was concerned about half of them" and wouldn't put them into the forces because he doubts their loyalty. She noted that $182 million a year was being paid, $18 million a month, to these "Awakening" Council members and "why don't you ask the Iraqis to pay the entire cost of that progam" because as Senator Lugar pointed out, "It could be an opportunity" for the Iraqi government "to turn it into something more long term." This is a point, she declared, that she intends to bring up when it's time to vote on the next spending supplamental. Crocker tried to split hairs.

Boxer: I asked you why they couldn't pay for it. . . . I don't want to argue a point. . . I'm just asking you why we would object to asking them to pay for that entire program giving all that we are giving them in blood and everything else?

Today Karen De Young (Washington Post) reports that the US Government Accountability Office has found that while "Iraq's oil income will more than double this year . . . Baghdad continues to spend only a small percentage of its own money on reconstruction and services while it banks billions in surplus funds" and that, "Between 2005 and 2007, only 10 percent of Iraq's expenditures went toward reconstruction, with just 1 percent spent on maintaining U.S. and Iraqi-funded investments in roads, water, electricity and weapons, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office. Even when Baghdad has allocated larger sums, the report said, it has spent only a small portion of the budgeted money." Kevin Hall (McClatchy Newspapers) points out that the report "left little doubt that Iraq, which racked up $32.9 billion in oil earnings from January through June, can afford to pay more for its own reconstruction." Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers' Baghdad Observer) takes the topic from the abstract to the concrete: "Driving through Iraq you feel the neglect here. In Basra the city is rivers of sewage, destroyed buildings and bridges from war after war after war. Every day I pass by the same buildings destroyed years ago during the U.S. led invasion in my neighborhood in Baghdad. Every day they look exactly the same, a pile of rubble. The electricity problem seems to be getting worse; Iraqis have an average of about four hours of electricity a day. While there is talk of reconstruction, a bridge here, flowers planted there the people don't feel a change."

In her brief remarks on Air Force One, Dana Perino offered a laughable example of how the puppet al-Maliki is helping Iraqis declaring that, "One thing that's very important is how they are spending their money, which is distributing it evenly amongst the --- around the country, but amongst the different sects as well, so Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds. It's something that they're going to have to continue to work out. We want them to take on more of their own responsibilities just from a security standpoint, but also reconstruction.
Also, if you remember, Prime Minister Maliki went into Sadr City, Basra and Mosul, he offered immediate financial assistance to people who were living there under those terrible conditions." The assaults on the people in those areas? The turn-over-your-guns-and-I'll-toss-a-few-coins-your-way is 'relief'? In what world?

Reality came via Sunday's press conference in Baghdad: hospitals that hide bed shortages, lack of supplies and more via a paint job. And we saw that justified by the Deputy Minister of Health for Grants and Loans who declared, "It is good for their psychological health . . . it is good to take care of the appearance, to see the building a new, clean." Spoiled blood, lack of medicine, lack of beds, lack of prosthetics, etc. are just minor details, after all, what matters is the hospital slapped on a new coat of paint outside. Or that's what matters to the Ministry of Health. Reality comes via Dalia al-Achi and Carole Laleve's UNHCR report Sunday on how the UNHCR and Syrian Arab Red Crescent was aiding Iraqi refugees in Syria by distributing "school kits to Iraqi refugee children . . . distribution of uniforms, shoes and school materials . . . and is expected to outfit 30,000 children from Damascus and Rural Damascus before the start of the Syrian School year on Sept. 7. Last year, UNHCR's distribution reached 20,000 Iraqi children." And what's al-Maliki done besides sit on millions? Not a damn thing.

But there was Perino on Air Force One this morning delcaring, " It's really important that they figure out a way to quickly get that money to those people directly. I think they've made a lot of progress on that, but they needed to do more." al-Maliki's done nothing for the people. But he has managed to go on spending sprees for items he wants. From last Friday's snapshot:
It's been a busy week for the puppet -- a regular spending spree. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency started the week with the announcement that they "notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of Armored Security Vehicles as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $206 milliion." Wednesday included "The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of Light Armored Vehicles as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $3 billion" and "The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of technical assistance for construction of facilities and infrastructure as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $1.6 billiion" and "The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of Helicopters and related munitions as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $2.4 billion." Thursday brought this announcement, "The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Iraq of M1A1 and Upgrade to M1A1M Abrams Tanks as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $2.16 billion."
Staying on the topic of violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing that left two police officers wounded, a Baghdad bombing ("targeting . . . one of the Iraqi security companies") left four people injured, a Ninevah car bombing that killed the driver, 1 civilian, 1 Iraqi service member and left nine other people wounded and a Basra roadside bombing that wounded one civilian. Reuters notes a Mosul car bombing that claimed 3 lives (plus driver of the car) and left fourteen injured.

Shootings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 "Awakening" Council members shot dead in Baghdad.

Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 corpse discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 2 corpses discovered in Mosul and 16 corpses discovered in Diyala Province.

Last Thursday morning, the Bully Boy held court at the White House and said nothing. The press corps acted as though something had been said. "This has been a month of encouraging news from Iraq," he spun and the press took their marching orders. They're still following those 'turned corner' marching orders despite the fact that there is no treaty, despite the fact that there will most likely be no October provincial elections, despite the fact that al-Maliki is spending next to nothing on reconstruction and despite the fact that violence is again up in Iraq. Much was made all last week of "Only 13 US soldiers dead in Iraq for the month of July!" As if 'only 13' dead from an illegal war was something to go wild over.

Private Timothy J. Hutton
Specialist Jonathan Menke Sergeant Gary Henry Sergeant Brian K. Miller Private 1st Class Jennifer L. Cole Specialist Kevin R. Dickson Specialist Ronald Andrew Schmidt

All six US service members have died since Saturday morning. Somehow that hasn't resulted in the 'coverage' that 13 for the month of July resulted in coverage last week.


Turning to the US presidential race. Ron Jacobs (Dissident Voice) notes just how much it is costing the peace movement (and how willing 'leaders' are to table objection to the illegal war):
Just look at the major national antiwar organization United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and their public stance regarding the desire of organizers of the protests at the upcoming Democratic convention to stage a large antiwar march at the convention. According to a recent press release from some organizers of the march, Leslie Cagan of UFPJ told some Denver organizers, "We don't think it makes sense to plan for a mass march that might not end up being all that mass!" In other words, UFPJ is refusing to help build support for the march.
There can only be one reason for UFPJ's stance. That reason is UFPJ's allegiance to the Democratic Party. This allegiance is not an allegiance found among the grassroots of UFPJ but at the top. It involves a political misunderstanding of the Democrats' role in maintaining the US empire and a fear of losing funding from elements of UFPJ that are tied to the Democratic Party. Ignoring the fact that it is the Democratic Congress that has kept the Empire's wars going, UFPJ continues to call the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "Bush's Wars." Besides the attempts to silence the antiwar voice in the streets, there are also ongoing attempts by Democratic Party manipulators to keep antiwar language out of the Party's platform. This is in spite of a statement signed by the progressive wing of the party demanding that the language be included. If 2004 is any indication, there will be no antiwar language in the 2008 Democratic Party platform.

We saw this happen in 2004 and the peace movement was in disarray until the summer of 2005 (Cindy Sheehan resparked the movement). That cannot happen again but it is happening as too many see their 'peace' role as "cheerleader for Barack." Presumed Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama continues to run the most embarrassing campaign in recent memory. Today's big news is that another campaign staffer (volunteer!) has been outed. Perry Bacon Jr. (Washington Post) reports that the volunteer was Chicago's own Mazen Asbahi who held the title of "Muslim outreach coordinator" until the Wall St. Journal did the job the campaign should have and found ties to Jamal Said and the North American Islamic Trust. True or false doesn't matter and will not be known for some time. In a campaign perception matters. The Obama campaign has already telegraphed that they see Asbahi as someone to wash their hands of and it's one more sign of how inept that campaign is that they didn't do the vetting that a paper did. Though Asbahi will most likely be found to have no links or ties to terrorists and be nothing but a dedicated volunteer who believed in a candidate and wanted to work for the candidate's election, the campaign continues to demonstrate just how unskilled and unknowledgable they are. This is the campaign that drummed up over a week's worth of mock outrage over a satirical cover of The New Yorker which lampooned the notion that, among other things, some may see Barack as a terrorist. If they put half that energy into vetting their staff, they wouldn't be in the news on this today. Asbahi joined the campaign July 25th, after the mock outrage. The campaign damn well took offense at satire but apparently lacked the intelligence to do the basic vetting of any high-profile spot. Asbahi joined the campaign with a high-minded/self-serving statement and now leaves the campaign with a cloud over himself and one over the campaign. He does so with the usual nonsense statement about how his departure is "to avoid distracting from Barack Obama's message of change" but the real message the campaign has again sent is that they do not know how to run a campaign including the most basic procedure of vetting anyone in a profile role.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is for a real withdrawal (not a partial redeployment to Afghanistan masked as a 'withdrawal'). Nader continues to pursue ballot access and will hold a press conference in Iowa tomorrow morning at 9:30:

Nader/Gonzalez Campaign and the Iowa Peace and Freedom Party Wednesday Will Submit more than Double the Required Signatures for Ballot QualificationSupporters of Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader and the Iowa Peace and Freedom Party will submit petitions to place Mr. Nader and running-mate Matt Gonzalez on the November 2008 election ballot, Thursday, Aug. 7, to the Iowa Secretary of State's Office. Mr. Nader will be on the ballot as the Iowa Peace and Freedom Party nominee, and if he gains more than 2 percent of the vote in the state, the party will become a ballot-qualified political group.Iowa will be the 26th state in which the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign has filed for a ballot line since the celebrated consumer advocate announced his intent to run during a February 24 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." To qualify to appear on Iowa's ballot, state law requires submission of the signatures of 1,500 registered voters.The Nader/Gonzalez campaign will submit more than 3,000 signatures.Scott Knight, the Nader/Gonzalez Iowa State coordinator, will be joined by Iowa supporters of Nader/Gonzalez 2008 and the Peace and Freedom Party at 9:30 a.m. for a news conference at Capitol West Steps, West Mall area, Capitol Building, Des Moines, IA.Iowans have been hit recently with massive floods and with the greed of large corporations, like Whirlpool Corp., which in July filed a federal lawsuit aiming to slash the medical benefits of thousands of retired Maytag workers after having bought out that company. The Nader/Gonzalez Campaign offers solutions instead of excuses. Mr. Nader would rein in corporate greed, waste and abuse and respond to natural emergencies with preventative public investments and rapid response to those disasters. As president, Mr. Nader would rebuild the Mid-West instead of tearing down the Mid-East. WHO: Iowa Supporters of Nader/Gonzalez 2008 Campaign and the Peace and Freedom Party WHAT: News Conference and turn-in of nominating petitions WHEN: Thursday, Aug 7, 2008, 9:30 a.m. WHERE: Capitol West Steps, West Mall area, Capitol Building, Des Moines, IA About Ralph NaderCelebrated attorney, author, and consumer advocate Ralph Nader has been named by Time Magazine one of the "100 Most Influential Americans in the 20th Century." For more than four decades he has exposed problems and organized millions of citizens into more than 100 public interest groups advocating solutions. He led the movement to establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and enact the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and countless other pieces of important consumer legislation. Because of Ralph Nader we drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments. Nader graduated from Princeton University and received an LL.B from Harvard Law School.About Matt GonzalezMatt Gonzalez was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2000 representing San Francisco's fifth council district. From 2003 to 2005, he served as Board of Supervisors President. A former public defender, Gonzalez is managing partner of Gonzalez & Leigh, a 7-attorney practice in San Francisco that represents individuals and organizations in mediation, arbitration, and administrative proceedings before state and federal regulatory bodies. Gonzalez graduated from Columbia University and received a JD from Stanford Law School.About the Nader/Gonzalez CampaignAccording to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted from July 27-29, Ralph Nader is at 6 percent nationally, higher than his highest major poll numbers during the same time period in 2000 and approaching the 10 percent threshold required for eligibility to participate in "America's Presidential Debate in New Orleans," a Google-sponsored event scheduled for September 18. In the key swing state of Michigan -- whose voters were partially disenfranchised by the Democratic National Committee -- an EPIC-MRA poll found Nader at 8-10 percent.

iraq
ehren watada
ron jacobs
karen deyoung
the washington post
mcclatchy newspapers
leila fadel
campbell robertson
the new york times

nader, ramzy baroud

starting with team nader's latest:

Only Two Days Left in Contest

Posted by The Nader Team on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 03:20:00 PM

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Only two days left in our Win Dinner with Ralph E-mail Contest.

Many thousands of you have signed on.

And a select few of you are competing for the grand prize of a dinner with Ralph.

This morning, Ramy Mousa from Baton Rouge, Louisiana tops the leader board with 263 friends that have joined our network.

But many more thousands of you haven't even played.

So, we'd like you to try it.

You bring us the e-mails of your friends, neighbors and countrymen.

We feed them up-to-the minute breaking news about the two corporate candidates - Obama and McCain - and the growing challenge by Nader and Gonzalez.

Nader/Gonzalez is an unconventional campaign, in many ways.

One, there is no national convention.

We're running as independents.

Two, we have a broad range of support.

Take Iggy Pup here, for example.

We asked Iggy.

Iggy, who ya going vote for?

Iggy, being on our e-mail list, knew that Nader/Gonzalez would shift the power from the corporations back into the hands of the people.

Check out Iggy's answer in this just released Nader/Gonzalez video.

But it's not enough for Iggy to be plugged in.

Or for you to be plugged in.

We have to spread the word far and wide.

And one way to do it is to build our network of supporters.

Just bring us five new e-mails, and you can be part of a special invite-only conference phone call with Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez.

But you have to get going.

The contest ends the day after tomorrow - Thursday August 7 - at 11:59 PM on the West coast.

There are other great prizes.

But most importantly, you'll be helping us spread the word.

About the candidacy that will stand up to the two corporate parties in November.

So, help us out - find five people right now that will join our network of supporters.

Click here to get started.

If you are already in the game, thank you.

You can track your ranking on our leader board.

Find more friends and family and colleagues, and watch yourself move on up.

We'll be announcing the winners in a week or so.

Thank you for joining.

Together, we are making a difference.

Onward.

The Nader Team

PS: We invite your comments to the blog.

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so that's ralph. marcia called me and asked, 'did you see the dog? i love the dog!' i hadn't really paid attention to the dog ('iggy pup') so I went back to look and, yes, it is a cute dog.

1 bit of housework from yesterday. i was noting things that we didn't do at 3rd and flyboy reminded me of 1 thing we didn't have time for. c.i. wanted us to run an advertisement (political - and text only) from 1967. we'll do that this sunday. there just wasn't time.

ramzy baroud's 'Obama Joins the Club' (znet):

True, Obama has promised some degree of withdrawal from Iraq and a level of communication with Iran. But even these promises are ambiguous and can be easily modified to fit political interests and lobby pressures at any time. Any military redeployment in Iraq would, now we are told, be matched with greater military build up in Afghanistan, a sign that the militant mentality that motivated the war hawks in the Bush administration is yet to change; the valuable lesson that bombs don't bring peace, yet to be heeded.

Even talking to Iran is an indistinct promise. To begin with, various officials in the Bush administration have already been talking to Iran -- in less touted meetings, but they have engaged Tehran nonetheless -- in matters most pertinent to US, not Israeli, interests (i.e. the Iraq war). Moreover, in what was widely seen as "a shift of policy", senior US diplomat William Burns joined envoys from China, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and the EU in their talks with Tehran in Geneva 19 July. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised US participation and the "respect" the US envoy had shown during the meeting.

uh-oh. looks like norman solomon's attempts at lecturing didn't accomplish anything. looks like sell-out solomon doesn't, in fact, control the left.

somewhere he's sobbing. probably at another fair gala.

poor norman, he stomped his feet, slapped his hands together and still couldn't silence the left. how sad it must be for him after all the cushy pillows and puffy tossed to him for years.

norman solomon is a sell-out and that's only surprising if you've missed the way counterspin has turned into a non-stop joke.

the really insulting thing about 'media critics' like norm and janine jackson and all the LIARS at fair is how much they disrespected us.

they really need to go.

they thought they could lie to us and play us.

they thought we were stupid.

they owe the people an apology.

no 1 ever listened to counterspin saying 'i'm so stupid i don't know who to vote for please give me marching orders!'

people listened to get media criticism.

but that piece of crap half-hour is nothing but LIES and democratic SPIN and real media does laugh at it.

it's no longer whether you agree with them or not for real media, it's now about the fact that they have no credibility.

real media could sell war on iran tomorrow and the pathetics at fair wouldn't have a high ground to stand on. they sold it out in order to become cheerleaders for barack.

they are pathetic.

vote them off the island.

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Tuesday, August 5, 2008. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the stalemate in Parliament continues, Turkey continues to be worried, the Guardian of London continues to reveal that a political party's newsletter (New Labour) doesn't make for journalism, news of Robin Long, Ralph Nader and -- gasp -- the Undead Speaks -- meaning we should all keep a close eye on Yorba Linda. Starting with war resistance. US war resister Robin Long's civilian attorney James Branum has a YouTube video where he explains some of the basics of Long's case. Branum is a member of the National Lawyers Guild (and co-chair -- with Kathleen Gilberd -- of their Military Law Task Force). James Branum: What's happening in Robin's case, Robin Long was an American soldier. And when he was recruited to join the US military, his recruiter and him were talking and Robin told the recruiter, said, "I'm okay with being in the army but I don't want to go to Iraq. I don't believe in it." Recruiter said, "Don't worry about it. You won't have to go to Iraq. I can make sure you won't. In fact, you'll be stationed at Fort Knox here in Kentucky. So Robin thought, "Okay, I can live with that." So he did that, he joined. Turned out the recruiter was honest about one point. Yes, he was stationed at Fort Knox [. . .] however he was told very quickly, "Yes, you're going to Iraq and you're going to be sent to Fort Carson, trained to go to Iraq and then, after that, you're going to be sent there." So Robin, what he ended up doing was, he ended up going to Canada and there's a lot there that I can't go into about his story but to make a real long story short it was an issue of conscience at the end of the day. He had to do what he felt was right. He couldn't do something that he felt wasn't right. And he couldn't go. That's what it comes down to. So when he got to Canada, he was living his life. He applied for aslyum status so he could stay there. And he was working. And as an asylum seeker, he was able to get a work permit and what-not. He also had a son while he was there who's now about two-years-old. And he had his life very well established. He did a lot of different jobs. All kinds of different stuff. For awhile, he was a fruit picker. He worked in different orchards. In fact, that's kind of what got him into trouble cause when he was working as a fruit picker, he was a seasonal migrant worker, you know? And so he was, for awhile, out in British Columbia. And he was previously in Ontario and there was a misunderstanding [. . .] from Canadian immigration about where he was supposed to check in to. And Robin thought he had checked in like he was supposed to. The immigration authorities say he didn't. There's a misunderstanding there. But to make a really long story short, even though Robin was fighting this in the Canadian courts, the Canadian officials pulled a sneaky manuever -- basically, they were able to fast-track him through deportation within four days so that he or his lawyer did not have time to respond appropriately in the Canadian system. And so he was trapped and he was sent to the US. And what happened was he was held in jail for a few days in Canada and then he was handed over to US officials at the border. And actually, the Canadian officials even told the US officials, "Here's your deserter." Handed him off. And so from there, the immigration officials transferred him to a local jail and he was held in two different local jails for awhile before the military came and picked him up and transferred him to Fort Carson, Colorado. And at that point, at 11:30 at night, they had a hearing to decide whether he would remain in what is called pre-trial confinement. Because in the military, you don't get bail. Basically, you either are released before your trial or you wait in pre-trial confinement. So they had a hearing late at night. Robin was put into jail. And since that point, he has been held here in Colarado Springs in the Criminal Justice Center in El Paso County -- basically just a regular old county jail with all kinds of people, dangerous criminals many of them, and it's a difficult place to be. But Robin's in good spirits and we're now dealing with the consequences of his action in the military courts here. Robin Long was extradited. He was not deported. If that wasn't obvious before, it should be from the description above. Judge Anne Mctavish needs to be held accountable for her actions. The extradition process in Canada would have immediately opened up other avenues of appeal for Robin. That's why she didn't want to call it "extradition." Calling it "deportation" allowed her to act with NO OVERSIGHT. It wasn't deportation and -- repeating again -- as the father of a young Canadian child, the immigration laws in Canada are very clear about Robin's rights to stay in the country. It would be politically beneficial to the New Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and Bloc Quebecois to call for Parliament to hold an investigation into how Haper's government and Mctavish allowed Long to be extradited while telling the people of Canada he was being deported. Steve Clarke, Federal Liberal candidate for Simcoe North and, last month, he wrote "Gov't can't keep ignoring motion concerning war objectors: Clarke" -- a letter to the editor (Orilla Packet & Times) which resulted in Ralph Moore's letter. Saturday, the paper ran his is "Re: Ralph Moore letter to the editor, 'Candidate's letter challenged by reader':" I would like to thank Mr. Moore for his letter of July 18 in response to my earlier letter on conscientious objectors. Although I disagree with Moore's opinion on the legality of the Iraq war, I truly welcome honest public debate on important matters such as this one. The unsanctioned invasion of Iraq occurred March 18, 2003, a full seven months before the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1511 to ensure the "restoration of stability and security" in response to the chaos caused by the invasion. The resolution does not and could not provide retroactive exoneration. The fact remains, Stephen Harper would have committed Canada to this illegal war if he were Prime Minister at the time. As for Afghanistan, I would much prefer that Canada was there with our original intention of peace-keeping and reconstruction. However, our troops deserve our full support in this new, combative role, which is sanctioned by the UN. The point of my letter was that the Conservative government must respect the motion on conscientious objectors passed by Parliament. Harper himself said the government has a moral responsibility to respect such motions. This motion is based on an issue of fundamental human rights, and it is downright callous to ignore it. According to an Angus Reid poll conducted June 6 and 7, 2008, after Parliament passed the motion calling on the government to make a provision to allow war resisters to stay in Canada and to cease all deportation and removal proceedings, two-thirds of Canadians want Canada to grant permanent residence status to U. S. Iraq war resisters. The Harper Conservatives are afraid of raising the ire of their ideological cousins in the Republican administration but, ignoring the democratic will of Parliament and the views of the large majority of Canadians will only raise the fury of Canadian voters who want a more progressive government that reflects Canadian values. Steve Clarke, Federal Liberal candidate for Simcoe North War resisters in Canada need your help. To pressure the Stephen Harper government to honor the House of Commons vote, Gerry Condon, War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist all encourage contacting the Diane Finley (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration -- 613.996.4974, phone; 613.996.9749, fax; e-mail finley.d@parl.gc.ca -- that's "finley.d" at "parl.gc.ca") and Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, 613.992.4211, phone; 613.941.6900, fax; e-mail pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's "pm" at "pm.gc.ca"). Courage to Resist collected more than 10,000 letters to send before the vote. Now they've started a new letter you can use online here. The War Resisters Support Campaign's petition can be found here. Long expulsion does not change the need for action and the War Resisters Support Campaign explains: "The War Resisters Support Campaign is calling on supporters across Canada to urgently continue to put pressure on the minority conservative government to immediately cease deportation proceedings against other US war resisters and to respect the will of Canadians and their elected representatives by implementing the motion adopted by Parliament on June 3rd. Please see the take action page for what you can do." There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Yovany Rivero, William Shearer, Michael Thurman, Andrei Hurancyk, Megan Bean, Chris Bean, Matthis Chiroux, Richard Droste, Michael Barnes, Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum. Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma). Yesterday at the US State Dept, Gonzalo R. Gallegos (the department's "acting deputy" spokesperson) declared, "My understanding -- that the Iraiq parliament did not convene on Sunday. However, it has not yet recessed and lawmakers remain ready to reconvene once a new bill is ready for them to consider. The Iraqi political leaders are continuing to discuss the elections law. Ambassador Crocker and [US] Embassy officials continue to encourage Iraqis to work towards compromise and consensus, and to develop an elections law that will allow for provincial elections this year." Provincial elections. Long postponed. Long said to take place in 2008. Said for most of the year to take place in October. Fell apart last month as the Kirkuk issue split Parliament and led the Kurdish bloc to walk out. Campbell Robertson (New York Times) notes the United Nations is yet again proposing that the issue of oil-rich Kirkuk be tabled. As Robertson appears to explain it, not only would the issue of whether Kirkuk remained with the central government or split off into the Kurdish region be tabled, also tabled would be Kirkuk participating in provincial elections. Conspiracy! That's what AFP reports the Kurdish region's president, Massud Barzani, has called some efforts and quotes him stating, "After the long talks we held it was clear for us that what happened on July 22 was a big conspiracy and very dangerous for the democratic and constitutional process of Iraq, in particular against the Kurds." From the July 22nd snapshot: Waleed Ibrahim (Reuters) reports today on "a walkout by Kurdish lawmakers over how to deal with the disputed oil city of Kirkuk" with regards to the supposedly upcoming provincial elections and quotes Khalid al-Attiya (Deputy Parliamentary Speaker) stating, "We cannot have a vote with an absence of a whole faction. The vote is useless. It will be rejected by the represenatives of this bloc and by the presidency council." CNN notes the makeup of the presidency council: Jalal Talabani (President, Kurd), Tariq al-Hsahimi (Vice President, Sunni) and Adel Abdul Mahdi (Vice President, Shi'ite) and adds, "Many observers believe Talabani would stand with his Kurdish compatriots and vote against the measure, bringing it back to square one." Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman is quoted by AP stating, "The draft of the provinical elections law will be referred to the presidential council, which will definitely not approve it. So the elections will be postponed until next year." If the president of the Kurdish region is upset, you can take that to mean the issue is far from resolved. So it should come as no surprise that today's meeting resulted in nothing. The Iraqi Parliament closed session for the summer last Wednesday (yes, they did Campbell Roberston). They scheduled one special session for Sunday. At that session, nothing was accomplished. Nothing was accomplished yesterday and nothing was accomplished today. Hurriyet notes of Sunday: "A vote had been planned for Sunday but it was scrapped when lawmakers failed to agree on how the elections would affect Kirkuk, which minority Kurds want to make part of their semi-autonomous northern region. Turkey's Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli called on the country's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in a written statement to warn Iraqi Kurdish groups in Kirkuk more openly and take the necessary measures in order to protect Turkmen's rights. Turkey, who has historical ties with Kirkuk, has been monitoring the situation very closely and calls on all parties to reach consensus for a solution." At the US State Dept yesterday, Gallegos was asked about Recep Erdogan (Turkey's Prime Minister) speaking to Jalal Talabani (Iraq's President) to express concern over Kirkuk being annexed into the Kurdish region and Gallegos responded, "I think we said something about that last week, I believe. And our position is that we believe that this -- now is not the time to be making such a decision. We believe that the parties need to leave themselves open to all appropriate or -- all options in order to come to an understanding so that they can proceed with provincial elections this fall." Strange wasn't it? How the United Nations pitched to Iraq just what the US favored? As Hurriyet noted, "Iraqi political leaders reached a tentative compromise on Monday" and were due to debate it again today. UPI explains, "The Iraqi Parliament adjourned its Tuesday session without reaching an agreement on provisions in the election law regarding the status of the city of Kirkuk. Shahied al-Jaberi with the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance said lawmakers opted to postpone the issue until the Wednesday session because lawmakers could not agree on the Kirkuk issue, Voices of Iraq reported." They also note Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, Parliamentary Speaker, even arranged for the time alloted for debate to be extended but that resulted in nothing as well. Iran's Press TV reveals that, should the measure pass, "Elections in Kirkuk would also be postponed until no later than December 2009." BBC reports that "a Turkmen representative, said a delay [in Kirkuk voting] was unacceptable." China's Xinhua quotes Parliament's Deputy Speaker Khalid al-Attiyah, "The parliament session to approve the provincial election law has been delayed until tomorrow." Ned Parker Said Riifai (Los Angeles Times) point out, "The deadlock also prevented a vote by parliament on a $21-billion supplemental budget. The crisis has marked the first time that elements of one of the most prominent Shiite Muslim parties, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, have broken with the Kurds, their traditional allies." Meanwhile Bully Boy faces a fresh onslaught of charges that he lied the world into an illegal war. Tim Reid and Sam Coates (Times of London) report that Ron Suskind's latest book (The Way of the World) includes details such as * British intelligence (specifically M16) was informed that Iraq had no WMD in January 2003, that then Prime Minister Tony Blair was informed of that and that Poodle Blair passed it on to Bully Boy. *That the CIA was ordered by the White House to create a forgery "from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Huseein" in order to falsely tie Iraq to 9-11. Bill Plante (CBS News -- link has text and video) reports: "The book alleges that Habbush, Saddam's intelligence chief, was in CIA protective custody after the 2003 invasion, that the White House ordered CIA officials to have [Tahir Jalil] Habbush [al-Tikriti] write and backdate the letter, and paid him $5 million. The author quotes two former CIA officials who claim to have seen a draft of the letter on White House stationery." Interestingly (but not surprisingly) the Guardian of London is AVOIDING this story. That's only a surprise for anyone that confuses that RAT-TRAP with actual journalism. The Guardian sold the illegal war in England. When the Times of London exposed the Downing Street Memos, the Guardian refused to cover it. The Guardian is the DLC party organ in England. It is not journalism, it is not a newspaper. You have MPs in England saying that there needs to be an investigation and you have . . . silence from the Guardian. Never confuse that outlet with journalism. Ali al-Mashhadani is a real journalist practicing real journalism. As noted in the July 31st snapshot, he is being imprisoned by the US military with no charges against him. The Committee to Protect Journalists has released a statement: U.S. military authorities should present charges against a Reuters cameraman detained since last Tuesday, or they should release him immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. [. . .] A spokeswoman for the Multi-National Forces-Iraq told CPJ that al-Mashhadani was detained because he posed a security risk and that his case would be reviewed within a seven-day period that began on July 29. "This is the third time U.S. forces have detained Ali al-Mashhadani without charge," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "The military has never substantiated any wrongdoing by him. The authorities must make evidence against him public or release him immediately." Turning to some of today's reported violence . . . Bombings? Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 Baghdad roadside bombings that left five people wounded. Shootings? Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an attack on "Awakening" Council members in Kirkuk that left 3 of them dead. Corpses? Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 corpse discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes a corpse was found in Mosul today. For those keeping score (and you should be) the deaths of 2 US soldiers from a Baghdad bombing Monday was covered in print by Ned Parker and Said Rifai's "Roadside bomb kills 2 U.S. soldiers in Baghdad" (Los Angeles Times) and Sudarsan Raghavan's "Two U.S. Soldiers Killed in Baghdad Bombings" (Washington Post). The New York Times did not think it was news. That's five since Saturday according to ICCC. Turning to the Undead -- it's got to be the only reason he's still around. Aging boy-toy Hank Kissinger shows up in the Khaleej Times to dish -- and with nary a starlet around. Kissinger who sold and re-sold an earlier illegal war sometimes makes sense -- sometimes that's insane sense, sometimes . . . Today he declares of withdrawals from Iraq, "Under the fixed withdrawal scheme, combat troops are to be withdrawn, but sufficient forces are to remain to protect the American Embassy, fight a resumption of Al Qaeda and contribute to the defence against outside intervention. But such tasks require combat, not support forces, and the foreseeable controversy about the elusive distinction will distract from the overall diplomatic goal." Yes, he has noted the problem. Those are combat troops whether you call them "combat" or something else. Where he's wrong is when he claims that there's no need for a fixed withdrawal. (Mass killings are and have always been Viagra for Hank.) But that's the reality of Barack's plan that supposed 'peace' 'leaders' don't want to face. It's not withdrawal. It was never withdrawal. Maybe with Kissinger pointing it out, it will finally register. In other news of presumed Democratic presidential nominee and presumed narcissist Barack Obama, US News & World Reports offers an exhuastive round-up of the reaction to his latest cave A widely-distributed AP story also says Obama's proposal "includes two significant reversals of positions he has taken in the past," noting that "as recently as last month" he "argued against tapping into the petroleum reserve," while USA Today reports Obama's proposals include "two reversals of positions he has taken in the past." A widely-syndicated McClatchy pieces is titled, "In Another Switch, Obama Calls For Tapping U.S. Oil Reserve," and says "Obama's revised position on a key energy issue was his second shift in three days." Likewise, the New York Times titles its piece, "Obama, In Shift, Urges Tapping Oil From U.S. Reserve." However, the Wall Street Journal reports that Obama aides defended the move, saying Obama "had met with economic advisers and business leaders in Washington last week, and they had advised him to call for tapping the government reserve." The New York Daily News adds, "Team Obama cast the proposal as a 'refinement,' rather than a flip-flop, on Obama's previous opposition to tapping the 770-million barrel reserve." In an editorial, the San Francisco Chronicle says that Sen. Obama's "energy policy is offering more flip flops than a Lake Tahoe souvenir stand." The New York Post editorializes, "One more week, one more Barack Obama reversal on a key issue. Actually, make that two reversals. ... So much for principles." Turning to independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader. As Ruth pointed out yesterday, "AP reports today that Mr. Nader's campaign will turn in signatures tomorrow to qualify for South Dakota's ballot. Lebanon Daily News reports that Mr. Nader should be on Pennsylvania's ballot because the campaign has collected 24,666 signatures (the deadline is Friday). Jesse A. Hamilton (Hartford Courant) reports that the Nader-Gonzalez ticket picked up the nomination of California's Peace and Freedom Party ('carrying with it an automatic slot on the California election ballot') and contains this statement from the Nader campaign, 'There can no longer be any justification -- if there ever was -- for Ralph Nader not being included in every national poll'." Foon Rhee (Boston Globe) noted the Nader campaign's plans for the week includes garnering "the November ballots of seven states". Tim Carpenter (Capitol-Journal) reports that "Kansas is the 22nd state in which Nader's forces filed papers since his campaign began in February." Richard Winger (Ballot Access News) reports Nader is now on the ballot in Michigan. AP notes the campaign plans to file for the ballot today in South Dakota. Meanwhile John Geluardi (San Francisco Weekly) covers the College of Marin campaign stop Sunday by Nader and running mate Matt Gonzalez with Gonzalez asking the large crowd assembled, "How is he [Barack] going to 'change' the culture of Washington if he can't stand up to those corporations?" Nader's remarks included, "We now grow up corporate. When you start looking at ads when you're two, three, four years old, pretty soon the world is Madison Avenue. Then in college it's computer skills, computer skill, computer skills. What about civic skills? Young people think they live in a Democracy because they can vote for American Idol." Finally, from Team Nader: Only two days left in our Win Dinner with Ralph E-mail Contest. Many thousands of you have signed on. And a select few of you are competing for the grand prize of a dinner with Ralph. This morning, Ramy Mousa from Baton Rouge, Louisiana tops the leader board with 263 friends that have joined our network. But many more thousands of you haven't even played. So, we'd like you to try it. You bring us the e-mails of your friends, neighbors and countrymen. We feed them up-to-the minute breaking news about the two corporate candidates - Obama and McCain - and the growing challenge by Nader and Gonzalez. Nader/Gonzalez is an unconventional campaign, in many ways. One, there is no national convention. We're running as independents. Two, we have a broad range of support. Take Iggy Pup here, for example. We asked Iggy. Iggy, who ya going vote for? Iggy, being on our e-mail list, knew that Nader/Gonzalez would shift the power from the corporations back into the hands of the people. Check out Iggy's answer in this just released Nader/Gonzalez video. But it's not enough for Iggy to be plugged in. Or for you to be plugged in. We have to spread the word far and wide. And one way to do it is to build our network of supporters. Just bring us five new e-mails, and you can be part of a special invite-only conference phone call with Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez. But you have to get going. The contest ends the day after tomorrow - Thursday August 7 - at 11:59 PM on the West coast. There are other great prizes. But most importantly, you'll be helping us spread the word. About the candidacy that will stand up to the two corporate parties in November. So, help us out - find five people right now that will join our network of supporters. Click here to get started. If you are already in the game, thank you. You can track your ranking on our leader board. Find more friends and family and colleagues, and watch yourself move on up. We'll be announcing the winners in a week or so. Thank you for joining. Together, we are making a difference. Onward. iraq robin long the washington post sudarsan raghavan said rifai the los angeles times ned parker campbell robertson the new york times tim carpenter john geluardi richard winger u.s. news & world reports

talking post

that's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels" from sunday and an amazing comic.

now thank you to kat for suggesting a topic.

1st, here's the latest from 3rd:

Truest statement of the week
Truest statement of the week II
A note to our readers
Editorial: Open Up The Debates
TV: Reality, Power and 'Reality'
Nader '08: Health care and dining
The Death of Panhandle Media
Captain Caveman Barack
Workin' it for Sister Baracka
Roundtable
Highlights

so that's what we managed to write. kat's idea was to write about what we didn't have time for and she kindly slid the topic to me.

1) jim wanted to do a technology feature but we just didn't have the time.

2) for several weeks, we've talked about doing a horror movie kind of thing (we know which movie) and tying it into the christ-child. it's really only a matter of finding the time. sometimes we just do not have the time. i'll talk more about time in a 2nd, because i just remembered something jim was talking about this morning.

3) betty, c.i. and kat have been wanting us to do something on mae west. a dvd feature most likely. that's not anything any 1's opposed to but it's something we just never seem to have time for. they have been pitching that for 2 weeks now. if it's not done by the end of september, don't be surprised if ava and c.i. grab it for themselves. they could write it right now.

4) an interview with isaiah. we wanted to do that the week before last and again last week. we never had time. we want to discuss the faux outrage over the new yorker cover and a great deal more.

5) an e-mail came in at the start of last week that was supposed to be a feature sunday but we never had time to do all the interviews we needed. we did interview my grandmother and the plan is to finish the interviews needed and write that up next week. my grandmother probably has the opening quote because she was very funny in her interview. (she's a very funny woman regardless.)

okay, jim's going to cover this in some way but he asked me if i would note it here. 3rd's readership has increased and increases all the time. not every 1 was around in 2005 for the big roundtable (no link, jim's looking for it and may not find it - 3rd's archives are a mess due to switching templates in 2007). but in a roundtable - as jim remembers it - a question comes up from e-mails about changes in the t.v. commentaries.

ava and c.i. write those themselves. jim thinks it was august 2005. whenver it was, the question comes up and it's why ava and c.i. changed stuff. they didn't and they don't know what the reader's writing about. jim has been changing stuff. now some typos that ava and c.i. have are not mistakes. they are private jokes for friends. and jokes on who they are covering. there was a closet lesbian, for example, that a word looks mispelled in a sentence about. it's not. they've used the 1st name of her lover. so if the word was 'an' and the lover's name was 'ann,' they would have spelled 'an' 'ann' as an inside joke. ('ann' wasn't the word. but a number of people who've read 3rd for some time will immediately grasp what word i'm referring to and who.) so any way, it comes out that jim's been correcting spelling and jim's also changed a few words (words he thought would be stronger). it's a semi-infamous roundtable. ava and c.i. did not explode or anything. but they made it very clear that jim was not doing that again. other than them, ty is the only 1 allowed to correct their reviews.

in his note this week, jim put some links in and it resulted in several e-mails already (from new readers) about a 2005 piece. he mentioned it to ava and c.i. and they said, 'that's your dance. we never asked you to change anything.' when it came out in the roundtable, this was after months and months of weekly commentaries and ava and c.i. made it really clear they didn't have time to go back and try to figure out what had been changed. so jim's going to do some sort of thing this coming sunday to update new readers.

to explain this, this week in the roundtable, ava and c.i. were talking about how they don't use 'bitch' in real life. (they don't. they really don't.) and ava explains why it was used 2 weeks ago and when it's been used in the past. jim links to a 2005 review by ava and c.i. and that word is in there. but they used 'brat' and when e-mails started coming in about how wonderful the thing was (back in 2005), jim thought, 'yeah, it's wonderful but it should be the other b-word,' so he changed it. that's the sort of thing he would do.

not to be mean, not to insult their writing, but thinking that it would make something even stronger. ava and c.i. didn't approve (i don't think most people would) and when it came up in a roundtable, it became an issue. (that roundtable is infamous.) and in fairness to jim, he saw his role as the editor of the site. he doesn't anymore. dona's the editor. jim's the publisher. but it started out as group writing all the way and the issue was never dealt with. so jim would go in and fix typos. and some typos weren't typos - they were inside jokes. and, as he kept doing that, he would sometimes think, 'brat is funny but __ would be stronger.' so he'd change a word.

now in the case of 'bitch,' that's exactly why ava and c.i.'s attitude was 'stop it right now.' that's a word they're not interested in using unless it's necessary (necessary is when covering soaps and little else unless it's a direct quote).

i use the word ('bitch') in everyday life when i feel it's appropriate. it's not 'rebecca how dare you!' from c.i. or ava. it's just words they don't use. c.i. also doesn't use 'ain't.' that was a problem between us when we were in college because i did (i knew it wasn't a word or proper english) and c.i. would point out 'i fall into other people's speech patterns and i don't want to use that word.' so i limited it (as opposed to 16 times in row when the issue was raised). when c.i. said that, i wasn't thinking 'well, we aren't friends anymore.' but i did think 'well excuuuuuse me.' in the years since (many years), i've seen how c.i. does pick up words and phrases automatically from people that are around a great deal. a curse word (c.i. curses) isn't a big thing because c.i. just doesn't use any curse unwanted curse words. but normal conversational words do pop in all the time. if c.i. was going a trip (and c.i. hasn't had a pleasure trip in years), i could usually guess who c.i. was on the trip with. that also came in handy for guessing c.i.'s latest love over the years. (c.i. does not do the gossip that i live on. neither does elaine really but she's more forthcoming. with c.i., i've always said, c.i. could marry and divorced and i'd hear about it a few years after.)

c.i. can be private but the real reason for that is c.i. walls it off to protect it. that was explained long ago, how easy it can be to complain, complain, complain just because you have nothing else to talk about. i did that on my 3rd marriage and got the point. i've since learned how to not do that. how to just say, 'i have no complaints' and if some 1 thinks that's weird, oh well.

as long as i'm telling stories, i'll tell an elaine 1.

elaine and c.i. have always been wonderful dressers. they came to college with wardrobes that the rest of us would die for. and elaine's style is a little more formal. always has been. she's the audrey hepburn type. now they'd get all dressed up in that manner when it was time to 'hunt bear' (confront the dean over something, etc.) but otherwise, they'd wear (a nicer version) of what every 1 else was wearing. and we were all going out to a club 1 night. elaine was wearing some french designer outfit, a black mini-dress, that was gorgeous.

and she put this strand of pearls with it.

i should say right now that i feel very bad about this story in terms of my actions.

but any way elaine used to wear those pearls at the drop of a hat.

and pearls really weren't something teenagers were wearing. so she asked if she looked okay when she emerged and i said something like, 'wonderful but those pearls? i don't think so.'

c.i. slapped me on the back and started laughing.

c.i. says, 'rebecca loves those pearls. she's been talking about them for months. she told me she was going to pull that joke on you at some point. you should see your face.'

elaine's face had looked like i hit her. when c.i. said that, elaine totally relaxed. and she did a little laugh and then went into the bathroom to check her hair.

at which point i 1st said 'ow' (c.i. had really slapped my back) and then added, 'what's the deal?' c.i. said those pearls meant the world to elaine and that obviously meant they were something of her mother's. elaine lost both parents at a very early age. c.i. pointed out that whenever elaine was happiest and we were going out, she put on those pearls. so c.i.'s explaining to me that obviously those pearls mean a lot to her because they were her mother's and it's sort of like a connection to her mother.

i felt about 2 inches tall. (and should have. but i wasn't even 18 so that's my excuse.) (i started college at 16.) i said i would go apologize to elaine right now and c.i. said, 'no, let her think it was a joke.' so that's what i did for about 10 years. we were talking about something, i forget what, and i said i needed to tell her something. so i told her the truth and we laughed about it. she said, yes, they were her mother's pearls and that her mother would wear them and elaine would always think they were so pretty (when elaine was a little girl) and her mother would tell her that when she turned 18, they (her parents) would get her a strand of pearls. her parents died so that didn't happen. but when she turned 18, her brother gave her those. he had held off on it because he knew the story (he's older than elaine) and thought it would mean something to get the pearls on her 18th birthday. and it really did mean a lot to elaine. (as it would to any 1 and i always get teary when i think about this story). so her freshman year of college, she was wearing those any chance she could. she'd wear them insider a blouse or, if it was a bit fancier of an occassion, outside.

and c.i. was right about how she wore them (on the outside of her outfit) whenever anything really good happened. and i can see how that would matter. and how much that would mean to some 1 in that position. it really was a way of sharing the event with your parent.

if you haven't figured out, this is a talking post. i really had nothing tonight. but sometimes that's how it goes.

i had an e-mail about my comments regarding flowers and it was from dan who asked, 'well what do c.i. and elaine like?' i had written about flowers last week and don't remember when (maybe friday) but explained how i loved flowers (goldie had e-mailed that she's just gotten her 1st flowers from a boy and how much she loved them). i love flowers but not every 1 does.

in answer to dan's question, c.i. and elaine have always enjoyed books or music more as a gift than flowers. they aren't rude when they get flowers. but that's what they enjoy: music or a book. when mike 1st got with elaine (or when i finally found out!), he asked me about a present at some point. he was trying to figure out what to get her?

i explained to him that he needed to stop trying to figure out how to impress her. elaine (and c.i.) have always had money enough to buy anything they wanted. you don't get them big gifts. if it's something big and they wanted, they'd have it already. with elaine, you go to a used bookstore (or a used vinyl store) and find the gift. i remember elaine going on and on (in the 80s!) about a book that had 15 cents marked up on the cover.

it can't just be any book. you don't just walk in, grab something and pay for it. but if you put some thought into something like that, it really means the world to elaine. maybe it's a book she mentioned reading when she was a child. maybe it's a book by 1 of her favorite authors (check her bookcases to make sure she doesn't have it). something like that (or the same with vinyl) always means the world to elaine.

and that's true of c.i. as well. i think i blogged last christmas about what elaine and i got c.i. if not, it was a dvd (and candy - a bag of plain m&ms, c.i.'s favorite). we spent less than 20 buck (ten each) and c.i. loved the gift.

it was christmas in connecticut, the dvd. i knew that some 1 had borrowed that movie in the late 90s and never returned it. and i knew c.i. had waited and waited for it to be returned. i also knew that even after it wasn't returned, c.i. had never replaced it.

with c.i., that sort of thing leaves a really bad taste in the mouth. if some 1 accidentally breaks something, no problem. c.i. will replace it in an instant and not give it a 2nd thought. if some 1 loses something, same thing.

but if some 1 keeps something that is not their's to keep, it leaves a bad taste and c.i.'s attitude isn't just 'i'm done with that person,' it's 'i'm done with that.'

elaine's the same way. i lost a pair of earrings c.i. loaned me in college. and they were nice. and i was freaking out. i told c.i. and it wasn't a problem. c.i. said, 'rebecca, they're just earrings, don't worry about it. thank you for telling me but i lose things all the time.' a few weeks after, a woman borrowed 1 of elaine's chanel dresses for a big party. and 3 weeks went by without the woman returning it. after the 1st week, and this woman would drop by our apartment all the time and she'd always say, 'oh, i forgot the dress.' after the 1st week, it became a very big topic between elaine and c.i.

and i offered to go over and get the dress and elaine's attitude was, 'i don't want it now.'

i think it goes to if you lose or break something, it's an accident and they're fine with that. but if you're keeping something, it's saying you're using them or you don't really value them. now if you love something you borrow from them - true now and true then - unless it has some sentimental value, if you tell them how much you love it, they will insist you keep it. and mean that when they say it. but if you try to keep something without asking, that really ticks them off.

so the person who borrowed christmas in connecticut (and other dvds from c.i. but that was the only 1 that mattered to c.i.) could have called and said, 'i love these movies!' and c.i. would have said, 'aren't they great? why don't you keep them?' and the person could have had them all with no problem and remained c.i.'s friend. if the person had lost them or broken them and called c.i. to say what happened, it would have been, 'no big deal. that happens every day. don't worry about it.' but when you 'borrow' (c.i. and elaine have a great line they've used for years, about 'borrowing, also known as theft') and don't return it and just keep it, they can't stand you.

there was a woman who borrowed elaine's book (gloria steinem's 1st 1, i forget which 1 it was). and gloria had enscribed it to elaine. elaine hadn't wanted to loan it out but the woman was having problems (sexual harassment on the job) and elaine thought, 'maybe it will help her.' so when she was asked to loan it, she said 'sure.' then the woman moves across town and every time they bump into 1 another, she tells elaine, 'i need to get your book to you.' at 1 point, she says she'll drop it by elaine's office. she never does. a day or 2 after christmas, elaine's in a used bookstore and sees a copy of the book. she thinks, 'well the woman is dealing with sexual harassment. i'll just get another copy to keep on my book shelf.' she opens it and immediately grabs her cell. i wasn't home, but she left a long message on my machine. she was on the phone with c.i. while purchasing the book.

if you haven't already figured it out, it was her book. it was the 1 enscribed to her. that woman who had said, 'i'll bring it back,' had sold it to a bookstore. elaine was furious. and it was probably better that i wasn't home and she was on the phone with c.i. because c.i. was going, 'they must have some sort of record, find out when she sold the book.' i wouldn't have thought about that. the bookstore was able to narrow it down (they did have a system because they're right next to a college and often have purchased text books that end up being stolen text books). so it turned out that all the time elaine was bumping into that woman, the woman had already sold the book. even when she was saying, 'i'll drop it off at your office.'

now i wasn't present for those conversations but elaine and c.i. are just alike on this: they do not bring it up. if something borrowed and not returned is brought up, it's by the person who borrowed it.

a boyfriend of mine (for 3 weeks) once borrowed about 7 of c.i.'s records (without c.i.'s permission and without my knowledge - this is where you insert the 'borrowing also known as theft' line) and when i broke up with him, he made the mistake of bringing up those records. c.i. had never said a word to him about it. when he brought it up, he tried to blame c.i. and c.i. was very clear (and very loud) that it is not c.i.'s job to ask some 1 who borrowed something to return it and 'since you didn't ask me if you could take it, why the hell should i have to ask you to return it. don't pin your theft off on me.'

so that woman went from beyond dead to elaine to much worse. and then 6 years later thought she could pick up the friendship. she didn't know elaine. elaine told her off and told her she wasn't friends with thieves or liars. the woman tried to play dumb and elaine wouldn't let her.

and elaine's point was about the hostility in that. to ask to borrow something, to not return it, and then to sell it? the woman didn't even keep it because she wanted it. she sold it for a dollar (maybe less). and, no, elaine and c.i. will not be friends with people like that.

it's also why, when i had a money crisis in the 80s and c.i. helped me out, i kept saying, 'i'll pay you back, you know that.' and c.i. kept saying, 'it's a gift.' finally c.i. said, 'rebecca, you know me. if you say you're going to pay it back and don't - maybe you get sick, maybe something awful happens to you - you will forever be some 1 who promised to pay back and didn't. so let's just make this a gift.'

which is what it was. (but i did pay it back. and when c.i. repeatedly refused, i hid it and when c.i. came across it and called, i said, 'well that was my gift to you.)

but it's probably having grown up with money. they're happy to share anything they have. and if you like it, they will give it you unless it's got some loved 1 attachment. even if it has that attachment, if you break it or lose it, it's not a big deal. but if you keep anything you borrow, it does kick in - on some level - that person is just using me.

i could talk about this with examples for hours.

today, we'd probably call it 'played' and not used. if you make them feel 'played,' you're out of their lives for good. they will not trust you again. they will always see you as some 1 who uses.

i'll do 1 more example. a woman who borrowed from both c.i. and ava in our 2nd year of college. and after nothing was returned, they had this hysterical bit anytime they brought it up (usually when the woman was calling and they weren't taking her calls) about how, 'i'm not her boyfriend, i'm not her daddy. it's not my job to buy her gifts.' (only with more colorful language.)

you may remember when i blogged about jim moving in with c.i. (ava, jess, and ty were already moved in. dona and jim decided much later.) my 1 piece of advice to him was, 'things are going to break and c.i. knows that. but if you break something, just let c.i. know. it will not be an issue if you let c.i. know.' and jim's only broken 2 things (1 was a plate when c.i. was there). just your nomal living from day to day stuff. but jim let c.i. know and it was never a problem. don't have it in the house (this is c.i.'s belief) if it being broken is the end of the world. so that's that and i had more but i'm getting an out of memory message over and over.

let's close with c.i.'s ' Iraq snapshot:'

Monday, August 4, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, provincial elections do not appear likely in October, the US military announces multiple deaths, a Sunday Baghdad press conference reveals several Iraqi medical crisis, Nader gets on the ballot in California and more.

Starting with war resistance. 26-year-old Darrell Anderson, of Lexinton, Kenutcky, is an Iraq War veteran -- and a decorated one with a Purple Heart. Serving in the Iraq War drove hom that it was an illegal war, he decided to self-checkout. He went to Canada. He married in Canada. He went through the process of attempting to receive refugee status as so many have. Then he decided to return to the US and turn himself in at Fort Knox. He stated that his work opposing the illegal war was a way to "make up for things I did in Iraq; I feel I made up for the sins I committed in this war." Due to the fact that the process largely followed what had been outlined ahead of time, other war resisters in Canada were considering it until Kyle Snyder attempted to return shortly after and found out he was yet again lied to. After being discharged, Anderson has continued to speak out and is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. (He was present to show support for Lt. Ehren Watada in the court-martial that wasn't. Watada, all this time later, has still not been released from the service even though his service contract expired in December 2006, two months prior to his court-martial.) Anita Anderson, his mother, has also remained active and, most recently, was giving support to Helen Burmeister, mother of US war resister James Burmeister who exposed the kill-teams in Iraq. As noted in the Julsy 17th snapshot, Darrell Anderson continues speaking up and supporting other war resisers:
Chris Kenning (Courier-Journal) reported on Helen Burmeister's efforts and spoke with US war resister Darrell Anderson who also went to Canada. Anderson returned September 30, 2006 to turn himself in October 3rd. Like Burmeister, he suffers from PTSD and he also lost his benefits. He told Kenning, "It wasn't the easy choice, it was the hard choice. I lost my GI Bill, my veteran's benefits . . . but I did what's right, and I've still got my pride."

Anderson has gone through it all and continues to give and share with other war resisters. The illegal war hasn't ended and Darrell hasn't stopped fighting it. His story would not have ended in 2006 even if he had decided to pretend the illegal war wasn't taking place. He was already a part of history -- a high point of history -- and he's taken his experiences and his knowledge to share with others in the need. On Saturday Freeople noted a speech he gave last year:

I joined in '03," 'cause I was broke, I needed money, but I was a young American kid, I wanted to fight in a war. I joined up. [A] month out of training I arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, January '04. Saddam's been captured. And I get there and the guys I'm serving with have been there for six months already; they were there in '03. And I go, "Well, you know what, I think it's come out that, you know, these people had nothing to do with 9/11, there was no Iraqi on those planes. We can see around here there's no Al Qaida, there's no terrorist syndicates in Baghdad, or Iraq. Saddam had stamped 'em out." And I asked my buddies, "Well, you know, we're here to find 'weapons of mass destruction'." And they laughed at me. And I said, "Well, you know, we're here to 'help the people.'" And they laughed at me. And I said, "What's our mission? What's our goal?"...They're like, "All we're trying to do is make it home alive..." [. . .] In April, they told us, "In a crowded area, if one person shoots at you, kill everybody." [. . .] They [members of the crowd of people] are letting them [the person or persons firing at the U.S. military] attack you. They're no longer innocent if they're there at the time of the crime . . .


War resisters are doing their part to end the illegal war and war resisters in Canada need your help. To pressure the Stephen Harper government to honor the House of Commons vote, Gerry Condon, War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist all encourage contacting the Diane Finley (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration -- 613.996.4974, phone; 613.996.9749, fax; e-mail finley.d@parl.gc.ca -- that's "finley.d" at "parl.gc.ca") and Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, 613.992.4211, phone; 613.941.6900, fax; e-mail pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's "pm" at "pm.gc.ca"). Courage to Resist collected more than 10,000 letters to send before the vote. Now they've started a new letter you can use online here. The War Resisters Support Campaign's petition can be found here. Long expulsion does not change the need for action and the War Resisters Support Campaign explains: "The War Resisters Support Campaign is calling on supporters across Canada to urgently continue to put pressure on the minority conservative government to immediately cease deportation proceedings against other US war resisters and to respect the will of Canadians and their elected representatives by implementing the motion adopted by Parliament on June 3rd. Please see the take action page for what you can do."

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Yovany Rivero, William Shearer, Michael Thurman, Andrei Hurancyk, Megan Bean, Chris Bean, Matthis Chiroux, Richard Droste, Michael Barnes, Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).


Sunday in Baghdad a press conference took place on the state of health care in Iraq. Iraqis participating were Dr. Essan Namiq (Deputy Minister of Health for Grants and Loans) and Dr. Kahmees al-Sa'ad (Administrative Deputy Minister of Health). For some reason, a medical press conference required the participation of two American generals.We learned that, unlike the United States, Iraq has some form of universal health care (Dr. Essame: "Frankly, Ministry of Health has a heavy weight on the budget of the state for offering free treatment inside Iraq, for sending the patients outside Iraq. Very heavy budget that's affecting the budget of the state. There is no neighboring countries, or all over the world any country . . . there is not country like us that offers free treatment." ). Diyala Province has a shortage of medications (Dr. Essam: ". . . yeah, maybe we are facing a shortage") and there is a serious issue with the limited medications in Baghdad being smuggled out of the medical environments onto the black market (Dr. Essam stated that "we expect to see such problems" and "hope" that a plan to address the problem will emerge at some point by "the end of 2008 to 2009").In addition there have been problems with "spoiled blood" -- which Maj Gen Mohammed al-Askari (press spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense) intentionally avoided in his response. This was pinned on the people coming into Iraq. Though Iraq's borders are porous, Dr. Essam put forward the laughable claim that anyone crossing the border into Iraq is "going to be tested. This is especially in HIV. The . . . once the passport has been stamped, the person is being tested." Not only did al-Askari avoid that specific issue, he grabbed that question that was tossed to Dr. Essam.July ended and the press gave rah-rah coverage in their end of the month reports when the reality is that the medical conditions in Iraq are a nightmare. For example, Dr. Essam admitted that they did not have the necessary prosthetics for patients who have limbs amputated. Shortages of medication, shortages of prosthetics, shortage of beds and, yes, shortage of medical staff. Dr. Essam floated the laughable claim that "many" Iraqi doctors were about to return to the country -- any day now! -- and when pressed on it, put foward the dubious claim that "more than 80% of the Iraqi doctors, and even in the deterioration of the security situation, they were here in Iraq and working. It is a fact." No, it is not. They were among the first to flee, long before there was a refugee crisis. It was part of the 'brain drain' that first hit Iraq. The number fleeing only increased when they became kidnapping targets and were also targeted with violence. Any doctors that do return will neither be housed in the Green Zone, according to Dr. Essam, nor provided with government protection because, he explained, 2008 is not like 2007.It was revealed that nurses were selling medications and Dr. Essam wanted to remind everyone that "it is not within their job description." Asked about the huge increase in cancer rates in Basra and Najaf since the start of the illegal war, Dr. Essam claimed that was true "all over the world, the number of people afflicted with cancer is increasing." The issue of improving the hosptials (beyond exterior work) was raised (and it was noted that Shahad Adnan Hospital has over 13 floors and only two elevators as well as a bed shortage). Dr. Essam responded that, "It is good for their psychological health . . . it is good to take care of the appearance, to see the building a new, clean." Though that's of no comfort to someone climbing over 13 floors of stairs or doing without a hospital bed, Dr. Essan wanted the reporters to know, "We ourselves face problems with elevators." CBS and AP offer an embarrassing (mis)report but they may be the only outlet that covered the press conference. To read their (mis)report is to grasp that the talking point about "doctors returning!" can be teased into several paragraphs with nothing to back it up and that all the very real and serious problems (brought up by reporters at the press conference) can easily be ignored.

From health to homeless, a number of Iraqis are squatters. This situation was encouraged/endorsed by the US government with the White House wanting to privatize everything and willing to endorse state buildings being taken over by squatters. In addition, the Iraqi refugee situation (internal and external) has led to squatting. Today Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports on this issue and zooms in Ghania Jassim whose family became squatters after the start of the illegal war and rents soared so they ended up "in the former Iraqi air force headquarters. The family set up a makeshift home in the former Iraqi air force headquarters. There were no government services, sewage ran through the streets and the children's toys were scraps of metal, rubble and garbage. Times seemed grim, but now Jassim looks back on those days as carefree. About four years ago, bandits stopped her husband and demanded his car, his most valuable possession. He refused, and he paid with his life." She is now the sole support for her family and makes her living off the black market -- makes her living as in: barely survives. New troubles have emerged because she and her family were "ordered" to leave. The family now goes house to house between family and friends and Ghania "and her five children sleep in a different place almost every night." Ghania and the many others see no improvement in their lives . . . and Nouri al-Maliki sits on millions. Day after day.


Staying with the political front, Iraq's Parliament ended their session Wednesday. They are now on summer break. Sunday they scheduled a special session that was to address provincial elections which were supposed to take place in October. The always postponed provincial elections ended up postponed yet again when a vote was pushed through (the Kurdish bloc walked out) that brought issues regarding oil-rich Kirkuk into the mix. The bill passed; however, it was shot down by the presidential council (made up of Iraq's president and two vice-presidents). Leila Fadel and Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) report that the special session resulted in no actions: Despite intense U.S. pressure, Iraqi legislators Sunday failed to reach an agreement to solve an increasingly bitter dispute over the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk. . . . The parliament's inability to resolve the dispute over the city mirrors Iraqi political leaders' inability to make progress on other fronts, including constitutional amendments and the passage of a law governing the distribution of the country's oil revenues, despite the recent improvements in security." Sudarsan Raghavan and Qais Mizher (Washington Post) note the special session was "to vote for the second time on the elections bill, which must be approved before elections can be held in the country's 18 provinces. But the session never convened, because Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on Kirkuk, where their respective ethnic groups are locked in a struggle for land and resources." They also note that Bully Boy of the US got on the phone yesterday to Mahmoud al-Mashhadani (Speaker of Parliament) and Adel Abdul Mahdi (one of Iraq's two vice-presidents). Ned Parker and Caesar Ahmed (Los Angeles Times) point out, "U.S. officials believe the elections, initially scheduled for October, are necessary for Iraq's long-term stability. Sunni Arabs, formerly the country's elite, boycotted the last such elections, in January 2005, leading to the creation of provincial councils dominated by Shiite Muslims and Kurds. The absence of Sunni Muslims from local government helped strengthen the Sunni-led insurgency across central and northern Iraq. . . . The stalemate emphasized the fissurges and entrenched positions among Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds in northern Iraq, which often threatens to spill over into violence." Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) notes a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 2 lives and left fifteen wounded, another Baghdad roadside bombing left two police officers wounded, a Mosual car bombing that left four police officers wounded and a Mosul bombing that was "targeting the convoy of Khisro Koran, the deputy of Mosul governor" which claimed the life of 1 bodyguard and left six more injured. Reuters notes one Baghdad car bombing claimed 10 lives ("including three policemen") and left thirty-eight injured while another claimed 4 lives and left six more wounded while a Baghdad minibus bombing claimed 1 life and left seven injured, a Hilla bombing that claimed 1 life and left two people (family members of the deceased) injured.

Shooting?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) notes an armed clash in Nineveh Province that left 2 people dead. Reuters notes 1 person shot dead in Hawija, 1 attorney was shot dead outside of Hillar and, dropping back to Sunday, 1 police officer was shot dead in Iskandariya, while 1 civilian was shot dead in Iskandariya in a separate incident which also left his wife injured..

Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) notes 2 corpses were discovered in Baghdad and 1 corpse discovered in Mosul ("female employee in the governorate office").

Sunday the US military announced: "A Coalition force Soldier was killed and one was injured a result of a vehicle accident southwest of Baghdad Aug. 2. The injured Soldier was transported to a nearby combat support hospital in Baghdad." And they made this announcement: "A Coalition force Soldier died in the vicinity of Forward Operating Base Grizzly as a result of a non-battle death incident August 2. Two Soldiers were also injured as a result of the non-battle death incident." Today the US military announced: "Two U.S. Soldiers were killed and another wounded after an improvised explosive device struck their patrol in eastern Baghdad at approximately 9:30 a.m. Aug. 4."

Turning to the US presidential race. Barack Obama, presumed Democratic presidential nominee, has caved again. Now he likes off-shore drilling and sings the joys of compromise. His latest cave made it a busy day for Amy Goodman who returned to her duties as Chief Cover-Up Artist For Barack. Remember she only plays like she's a journalist. Ralph Nader is the independent presidential candidate and he is now on the California ballot. Sharat G. Lin (Bay Area Indymedia) reports he won the Peace and Freedom Party's nomination on Saturday by "a majority of the delegate votes on the first ballot in a four-way contest . . . Nader and Gonzalez promised at the convention to use their national campaign to boost the Peace and Freedom Party in qualifying for ballots in many other states. Nader is already said to be polling the support of 6 per cent of the nationwide electorate." Peter Hecht (The Sacramento Bee) reports that the nomination took place "in a packed, sweaty room at the Hawthorn Suites" and that Nader's speech included criticism of the "Democrats and Republicans alike for condoning sustained war, abusing workers and neglecting families. . . . He prevailed after firing up the crowd with an indictment of the Democratic and Republican parties for supporting 'a state of perpetual war.' He vowed to fight for a workers' bill of rights and stand up against 'systems of cruel and brutal globalization'." John Lyon's "Nader Campaign Submits Signatures For Ballot Spot" (Arkansas' Times Record) reports that 2,000 signatures were turned into the Arkansas Secretary of State's office Friday which should get Ralph Nader's name on the ballot and quotes the Nader Team's "regional coordinator for the South," David Peyton declaring, "The people of Arkansas were exceptionally willing to participate in the Democratic process and welcomed our petitioners into their communities from Little Rock to Fayetteville."

The Nader Team notes:


This is a biggest ballot access week of the campaign to date for Nader/Gonzalez.
With the addition of California on Saturday, we're currently at 23 states with seven to go to meet our goal of 30 states by the end of the week -- on our way to 45 states by September 20.
This is what we need today:
We need more roadtrippers to collect signatures to put Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot.
Optimum profile for a Roadtripper for Ralph -- energetic, youthful spirit, personable, fun loving, adventure seeking, democracy warrior.
If you can commit a week or more to get Ralph on the ballot in the Mountain West, the South, the Midwest, and the East Coast, contact mark@votenader.org.
This week, we'll be turning in signatures in Maryland, Kansas, South Dakota, Alaska, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Iowa -- to put us at 30 by the end of the week.
We're halfway to our goal of $100,000 by August 10 to fund this 30 state drive.
So, please, donate now whatever you can afford $20, $50, $100 -- let's get it done this week.
Finally, two more installments to the Obama Flip Flop Watch:
Number one:
On May 4, Obama told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that he was willing to debate with "any of my opponents about what this country means, what makes it great."
But on Saturday, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe backed off, saying that Obama would debate only Senator McCain and only in the three rigged debates sponsored by the two parties and paid for by major corporations.
Number two:
Prior to last week, Obama said he was opposed to offshore oil drilling.
Last week, he said he was okay with it.
As we move toward November, and as Obama reveals himself to be the corporate candidate that he is, a significant portion of the American electorate will demand an alternative.
That's why it is so important to put Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot in as many states as possible.
And that is the important ground work we are completing now.
Come September, we will be in a position to demand open debates.
And present the American people with a viable candidacy that will shift the power from the corporations back into the hands of the American people.
If we meet our goal.
So, please, donate now, whatever you can.
And help push us toward our goal of $100,000 by the end of the week.
Together, we will make a difference.
Onward to November.
iraq
darrell andersonehren watadajames burmeisterchris kenning
mcclatchy newspapersleila fadelsahar issa
laith hammoudi
the washington postsudarsan raghavanqais mizherthe los angeles timescaesar ahmedned parker
peter hechtsharat g. linjohn lyon