Perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we sa

Geraldo Rivera of FOX News TV, of all people, broadcast this video (WMV):

BAH! If I hear the word "loot" one more time for subsistance salvage in a disaster area from flooded stores I'm going to barf all over my keyboard and it's going to seep into the internet so you'll all end up smelling it!

Seriously, what have we come to when the police are kinder to nominal criminals taking essentially abandoned property to survive than the so-called liberal news media?

Welcome to the 30s -- the MID-30s!

An agreement was reached that Islam is the religion of state, and that no law shall be enacted that contradicts the agreed-upon essential verities of Islam. Likewise, the inviolability of the highest [Shiite] religious authorities in the land is safeguarded, without any allusion to a detailed description.... A Higher Council will be formed to review new legislation to ensure it does not contravene the essential verities of the Islamic religion.

Tomorrow is the day that my bet with ellem is decided, based on whether the Downing Street Memos are real, and not forgeries or fakes, according to the two-out-of-three judgement of the following three news sites, listed with their most recent articles mentioning the memos excerpted below. If I win, ellem has to volunteer for 8 hours at

Karl Rove
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Andrew Card
Alberto Gonzales

[This post, after having been slept on, has been redacted in its entirety, but has been saved and may appear later in a retrospective edition. Summary: I've got so much stuff going on, really good and really bad, that I'm not going to be posting much if at all for months at least.]

Such a great melody with vapid lyrics. I wish I hadn't looked.

Finally! Could be quicker....

US plans Iraq troop cuts as revolt rages
By Martin Sieff, UPI Senior News Analyst
July 27, 2005

Have kids in school? Don't want them to be recruited to go around killing people and breathing uranyl oxide gas vapor fumes? Click here. You need to opt out twice for each kid: once for direct recruiting, and again for in-school recruiting.

• For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
• By 58%-37%, a majority say the United States won't be able to establish a stable democratic government in Iraq, similar to the results when the question was asked in April 2004.
• About one-third, 32%, say the United States can't win the war in Iraq. Another 21% say the United States could win the war, but they d

Shots to the Heart of Iraq
By Richard C. Paddock
L.A. Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD -- Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit. The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car.

elmegil scooped on this article:

The Iraq War is Over, and the Winner Is... Iran
By Juan Cole
Thursday 21 July 2005

Hamstrung by the Iraq debacle, all Bush can do is gnash his teeth as the hated mullahs in Iran cozy up to their co-religionists in Iraq.