Monday, June 17, 2013

Ed Snowden online at the Guardian right now

First:
 
3h
BREAKING: Edward Snowden will appear today at the Guardian website, 11 am EST, for reader Q-and-A - ask him anything
View summary



Back to Iraq, 
All Iraq News reports that Kirkuk Governor Najim al-Din Karim gave a radio interview where he declared that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was improving.  Last December,  Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke.   The incident took place late on December 17th (see the December 18th snapshot) and resulted in Jalal being admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital.    Thursday, December 20th, he was moved to Germany.  He remains in Germany currently.  Every few weeks someone comes along to announce, "He's getting better!"  It's past time that Iraqis were told when Jalal was coming back and if he's not coming back shortly, it really is time to replace him.  He's been out of the country -- and not doing his job -- for over six months now.  It's a four year term and he's already missed 1/8 of his term.

The Iraqi people have still never been told how serious this is.  Clearly, this wasn't an 'average' stroke, or he would have made a public announcement himself long ago.  This appears to be a much more serious stroke and there may have been other strokes which followed after he was moved to Germany.  Indulging a family for one month or two is one thing.  Having no one in that position for six months is completely different.  If Jalal is not able to return to Iraq quickly, he needs to resign or be replaced.

Yesterday Iraq was slammed with violence and at least 51 people were killed.  Iraq Body Count counts 260 dead so far this month, through Sunday.   All Iraq News notes Nouri blamed foreign countries today for yesterday's violence.


Today?

Kareem Raheem, Kamal Naama, Isabel Coles and Janet Lawrence (Reuters) report a Taji restaurant bombing claimed 7 lives and a Taji minibus claimed 2 lives and left seven injured, a Falluja suicide bomber detonated himself in front of Falluja's police headquarters killing 3 people (in addition to the suicide bomber).  Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) notes the Falluja attack also left thirty people injured.  In addition, All Iraq News notes a Mosul bombing injured one police commander, and they note that the Taji restaurant bombing didn't just claim 7 lives lives, it also left 23 people injured.



On Iraq, Barack has two disgusting nominees.

Last week Peter Hart (FAIR) explored Samantha Power, Barack's nominee to be US Ambassador to Iraq, and concluded:


 Some of Power's most pointed critics–like writer and lawyer Chase Madar–have argued that Power does not forcefully critique U.S. policies that have encouraged and enabled massive crimes against humanity, preferring instead to talk about instances where the United States could have taken steps to intervene militarily in a given crisis and didn't. 
But in the case of Iraq, at a time when the themes of her celebrated book were very much a part of the debate over whether or not to go to war, it was hard to determine where Power stood.


Peter's got a strong piece, the one thing -- if he had more room -- he could've included is that Power wrote and co-wrote pieces on how maybe someone in Congress should speak.  Maybe.  She's a joke.  So is Susan Rice.  Stephen Zunes wants to write about her now.  And I could be nice.  I try to be.

I'm ripped off every damn day and don't really care for the most part. Information should be free it's not a big deal.  For the most part.  As Mike noted at his site, last month, I was shocked to discover a US print publication had ripped me off word for word.  I didn't realize that until years later.  But I wrote the story -- based on Arabic media -- four days before the reporter paid to write about it in the US picked up on the story and damned if three paragraphs are not what I wrote word for word -- and of course there's no attribution at all.  That kind of pissed me off because it was one of the many key issues that we have owned here, that in terms of English websites, we have broken the news on.  So it did piss me off, I'm not going to lie.

Stephen Zunes.  I probably wouldn't give a damn about his bad column today denouncing Susan Rice if he weren't such a damn liar.  Benghaiz is not a minor point and when idiots like priss pot Zunes can't pull the stick out of their ass on this one, they look like idiots and they shut off a large part of the audience they could be reaching.  Benghazi does matter, four American lives do matter, whether or not diplomats around the world are properly protected matters.  I'm sorry that these issues escape Zunes.

Zunes 'discovers' Susan Rice and Iraq today and I love this paragraph:

 Rice, however, was adamant that Powell had "proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don't think many informed people doubted that." In light of such widespread and public skepticism from knowledgeable sources, Rice's dismissal of all the well-founded criticism was positively Orwellian: those who blindly accepted Powell's transparently false claims were "well informed," while the UN officials, arms control specialists and others knowledgeable of the reality of the situation were presumably otherwise.

Why do I love it?  That link under "adamant" goes to a November 28, 2012 Daily Kos post that just 'discovered' Susan's interview to NPR about Iraq in 2003 praising Colin Powell.

You know what I love even more than that?  "The unqualified Susan Rice."  Which I wrote.  November 15, 2012.  Noting that NPR interview.  I love that.


And I love that we're so read.  But honestly, sometimes I don't love the fact that you all love to rip off, you all live to rip off but none of you bitches know how to give credit.

You know how to copy.  You know how to steal. You just never learned how to credit and that's what really stands out after nine years online.



This has to go up now because we need to get Greenwald's Snowden announcement up.  I will note CODEPINK's press release in the snapshot today, in full.















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