Month: August 2005

Baghdad mayor tossed out

A weird echo of the old Iraq: Baghdad’s elected City Council chief Mazen A. Makkiaremoves the U.S.-appointed Mayor Alaa al-Tamimi[*1] .

The group that ousted him insisted that it had the authority to assume control of Iraq’s capital city and that Mr. Tamimi was in no danger. The man the group installed, Hussein al-Tahaan, is a member of the Badr Organization, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri.

The militia has been credited with keeping the peace in heavily Shiite areas in southern Iraq but also accused of abuses like forcing women to wear the veils demanded by conservative Shiite religious law.

Apparently there’s work yet to be done with the Iraqis on the concept of “due process.” Perhaps we need a timetable.

The Stones sell out

I’ve never particularly cared for the Rolling Stones. Now I’ve got one more reason[*1] :

They haven’t had a No. 1 album since “Tattoo You” in 1981.
. . .
But the most searing moment, on a song called “Sweet Neo Con,” isn’t personal but political. “You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/You call yourself a patriot, well I think you’re full of s—t.” “It is direct,” Jagger says with a laugh. “Keith said [he breaks into a dead-on Keith imitation], ‘It’s not really metaphorical.’ I think he’s a bit worried because he lives in the U.S.” Jagger smiles. “But I don’t.”

Ooh, how edgy, how daring. No rock band has ever done anything remotely like this before. The same people who huff “don’t question my patriotism” will undoubtedly line up around the block to buy this groundbreaking work of art. The Stones are like, so hip and relevant. I’m suitably impressed.

Via Reason Hit and Run[*2] .

Royals lose again

Indians 6, Royals 1[*1] .

The game was winding toward a quiet conclusion in the top of the ninth when Bell got ejected for arguing balls and strikes with home-plate umpire Tim Tschida.

It was Bell’s fourth ejection in 63 games.

“I think it was more of a misunderstanding than anything,” he said. “Two long nights for both of us.”

Perhaps we could have the entire Royals team ejected and have the T-Bones[*2] put on the blues for a game or two. They’d still get beat but maybe at least the Lemonade Guy[*3] would come back to Kauffman Stadium. Royals need to go 43-6 to finish .500, 25-24 to avoid 100 losses, 1-48 to avoid losing all of their remaining games.

Girls like girly web sites

The Register[*1] notes:

A study by Glamorgan University Business School’s Department of the Fairly Bleedin’ Obvious has concluded that it’s not just a website’s subject matter that determines whether it appeals more to guys or gals but – wait for it – “the appearance of the site also might play a subtle role”, as AP explains.

. . .

Actually, it’s a bit more subtle than that – but not much. The Welsh investigators found that women were drawn to pages with more colour and preferred “informal” rather than “posed” pictures. Men, naturally, showed a penchant for dark hues and “straight, horizontal lines across a page” as well as animated objects.

A stunning finding which will revolutionize the Web. I guess Medary needs some work to appeal to the female half of the target demographic, eh?

Latest on the Air America scandal

Radio Equalizer has the latest[*1] :

FRANKEN: Ok, it turns out he was on the board, or worked for, this Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx or something.

And he uh, borrowed (laughter) $875,000 from, I don’t know why they did it, and I don’t know where the money went, I don’t know if it was used for operations (softer, especially fast), which I imagine it was. I think he was robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Who’s running Air America, anyway? You’d think that someone would have asked this Evan Cohen guy where he got nearly a million dollars. Wouldn’t you?

Barbarians slow Iraqi reconstruction

U.S. Army forced to redirect funds[*1] from reconstruction to security efforts.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for carrying out some $18.4 billion worth of planned projects across the country, says up to 25 percent of that aid has gone on security to face down relentless violence and sabotage.Poor electricity and water supply, two of the issues sapping public confidence in the U.S.-backed government, have been directly affected by the unplanned-for redirection of cash, Brigadier-General Bill McCoy said this week.

Some observations:

1) The post-war violence continues to cost in blood and in treasure.

2) Our military and political leadership appears to have underestimated the post-war violence.

3) Anything which the bad guys can interpret as either our weakness of will or of support of them makes the situation worse. This includes everything from demanding a timetable for withdrawl to attending anti-war protests, to simply dignifying the barbarian thugs in news articles by calling them “insurgents.”