So now, mark your playing cards, they're saying Sunday the law will pass.
While the stalemate continues, so does the violence.
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a rocket attack on the Green Zone. Reuters notes a Baghdad bicycle boming which claimed the life of 1 Sahwa leader and left three people wounded.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 police officer shot dead in Mosul. Reuters drops back to Friday to note 1 police officer shot dead in Kirkuk.
In today's New York Times, John Leland offers "Adversities Await Iraqis Who Return Home" which covers the IOM report (see Tuesday's snapshot for more on the IOM report) and I wanted to say something nice about the article because (a) the IOM report (and other organizations' reports) need to get press coverage and (b) I've got a bad headache and am really not in the mood for a lengthy critique. But I made the mistake of reading Leland.
Question: Did Leland read IOM's report?
There report is specifically on, PAY ATTENTION, LELAND, Iraqis who were displaced internally. This is not about Iraqi refugees who left the country. But Leland's a damn liar and a damn whore (unless he's just too stupid to read). His first paragraph was already questionable as it appeared he was attempting to include external refugees in his 'report' on a report which does not address them. But maybe I was wrong? Maybe the vague words were just a lazy reporter slapping s**t together?
Then comes paragraph three where suddenly he's yet again trying to include everyone when the report only studies internal refugees. Is he so damn stupid he doesn't know the difference?
The internal refugees are those Iraqis who remained in Iraq but were driven from their homes. The external refugees are those Iraqis who were driven from their homes and left the country. It's not that hard to grasp unless you're intentionally attempting to mislead.
He not only distorts the report, he questions it. And that's him, not an expert, not "___ at ___ states ____."
It's a piece of garbage, this is a really s**ty report from a sh**ty paper that really has so damn little to offer that they've now taken to distorting an IOM report.
It's that shameful, it's that embarrassing.
I am not a reporter, I made the decision not to go into that field long, long ago. So it should be really embarrassing for John Leland that my half-ass work here trumps his lousy reporting that the New York Times felt was worth running. And repeating, we covered it on TUESDAY! On Tuesday. Four days later, the paper gets around to it and they can't even get the facts of the IOM's report straight. Even on the minor issues -- like how to round numbers -- Leland can't get it right.
Here's Leland:
The returning families who spoke to researchers came from a variety of ethnic and religious groups: 50 percent were Shiite, 41 percent Sunni and 9 percent Christian.
Here's reality (from Tuesday's snapshot):
Of those returning to their former homes across Iraq, Arab Shia Muslims make up the largest percent (49.4%), followed by Arab Sunni Muslim (31.0%), Turkmen Sunni Muslim (9.7%) and Christians (8.9%).
Turkmen are their own category. And Leland can't do math. He combines 9.7% and 31.0% to get 41%. That's fine that's 40.7% and you can round it up to 41% (you really shouldn't lump Turkmen and non-Turkmen into one category, however). But look what he does with Shia. The report states they are 49.4% Anything lower than .5% is not raised. So they are not 50% despite what he says. Where did he go to school? Did no one bother to teach him math?
We frequently note things that are sent in to the public account and I'm happy to do so when we can. But to be clear, we have no interest in Jim Hightower. I could go into that in depth but I'll be kind and just say: "No interest." Actually, I'll add that when CSPAN decides to go for ratings and starts doing VH1 type programs like Behind the Politics, the Hightower special will more than make clear why we say "No interest."
We'll note the latest posts at community websites (this includes Thursday night, Friday night and, tonight, Wally & Cedric):
""George Bush's lover."
"Garden omlette in the Kitchen"
"E-mails"
"Diana prepares new book, Dems sell out women"
"The Lousy O's"
"Debra Winger"
"Greenpeace, 40 years old"
"the pap smear mike papantonio"
"sunsara taylor"
"Fort Hood shooting"
"Time of death?"
"Democratic Policy Committee"
"Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee"
"Stupid people at wowOwow "
"EDNA (not Garrett)"
"Movies that don't hold up"
"The strong and the brave"
"Why does Dissident Voice foster misogyny?"
"Economy and music"
"IVAW, the elections"
"THIS JUST IN! DEBATING THE CELEB!"
"Cheese"
"THIS JUST IN! HE ACHIEVES SOMETHING! "
"Barry's accomplishments"
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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