Monday, January 07, 2008

Other Items

This week (including tonight) Showtime's The L Word starts it's fifth season and on this week's episode (which will repeat throughout the week).  Caryn Brooks (New York Magazine) notes:
 
Alice, anxiously watching cable news for signs of what might be happening to her soldier girl, Tasha, just shipped out to Iraq, hears a knock at the door.  Is it an army official with news of Tasha's death or dismemberment?  No, it's Tasha, apparently AWOL and looking for some loving.  They immediately go at it in the front hall.
 
Alice is played by Leisha Hailey, Tasha is played by Rose Rollins. Note that realities of the illegal war can make it to premium cable if not to alleged political events (which, by their nature, should support free speech).  From Carol Coakley's "Our trip to the Manchester debate" (Gather):
 
 
For a political junkie, there's nothing quite like a trip to New Hampshire before the primary and yesterday's pre-ABC/Facebook debate visit did not disappoint.  A contingent of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), and Mass. Peace Action activists from the Boston area went by bus and car to Manchester to drive home the peace message to the candidates.  An Edwards/peace supporting friend and my Kucinich/peace-supporting self drove up to join them.
After stopping by downtown Manchester and an Edwards rally on Elm St. and waving at the Kucinich bus that drove by, we headed up to St. Anselms College.
Approaching the College was a little like driving into Vegas at night.  The campus was buzzing with lights, people, and the media.  As you drove up the hill towards the 400 acre campus signs directed you to parking for ticket-bearing-audience members, the press, and demonstrators. The
American Friends Service Committee, and various campaign supporters lined the snowy sidewalks and embankments.  Unbenounced to demonstrators with banners or signs over a certain size, they were not allowed on campus, so many AFSC and IVAW members stayed on the public road near the entrance.
 
 
After falling off the political radar, the Iraq war re-emerged yesterday as a flash point between Hillary Rodham Clinton and the surging Barack Obama in the final days before the New Hampshire primary.
[. . .]
Later, Clinton told reporters the vote was intended to spur UN inspections of Saddam Hussein's weapons stockpiles and "wasn't a vote for pre-emptive war."
Clinton leveled her own criticism of Obama on Iraq, accusing him of backing off a promise to oppose the war when he was running for the Senate in 2004. Obama, she argued, talked tough about the war but voted to fund all war appropriations bills until last year.
"You gave a speech, and a very good speech, against the war in Iraq and ... then you voted to [fund the war] you were against," she said, addressing the Illinois senator directly.
 
In Iraq today, Reuters reports, two Baghdad bombings have claimed at least 14 lives.  Reuters notes five other Baghdad bombings today resulting in at least 5 deaths and at least twenty-two wounded.
 
 
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
 


Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.