Another Monday Carry-over

Red text is the "real" headline in these stories and articles.
Blue text is my own personal commentary.

AFRICA
NOT MUCH NEWS ABOUT DARFUR, ETHIOPIA OR THE SUDAN TODAY, WHICH IS DISAPPOINTING... THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY OF THE DAY!


MEDIA, THE BLOGS AND THE INTERNET
Is it too late to bring civility to the Web? (does anyone think we (bloggers) would have the influence we currently know, if we weren't vehement, animated and sometimes profane in our rants and raves and reviews?) The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse. Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/technology/09blog.html

Some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capitalists and technology investors have joined an investment group that is preparing to challenge cellphone carriers, cable and satellite companies for valuable radio spectrum that will be freed when television broadcasters convert to digital signals. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/technology/09spectrum.html

THE CHESS GAME IN DC
"Everything we do is a political calculation; we're constantly thinking about what can become law," said Frank, the acerbic new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. "We're interested in getting practical results." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/08/AR2007040800998.html

THE BUSH WARS
An extremist cleric said Friday that he was setting up religious court in the Pakistani capital, and threatened suicide attacks if the government didn't enact Islamic law and close down brothels and video stores within a month. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/04/07/7Pakistan.html

Army prosecutions of desertion and other unauthorized absences have risen sharply in the last four years, resulting in thousands more negative discharges and prison time for both junior soldiers and combat-tested veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army records show. The increased prosecutions are meant to serve as a deterrent to a growing number of soldiers who are ambivalent about heading — or heading back — to Iraq and may be looking for a way out, several Army lawyers said in interviews. Using courts-martial for these violations, which before 2002 were treated mostly as unpunished nuisances, is a sign that active-duty forces are being stretched to their limits, military lawyers and mental health experts said. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/us/09awol.html

U.S. Is Propagating Terrorists Like Easter Bunnies!
(thanx to SusanUnPC at "No Quarter")
"Iraqi insurgents recruit among U.S.-held detainees:
Former inmates say radicals operate with impunity in prison camps," L.A. Times, April 8, 2007: U.S.-run detention camps in Iraq have become a breeding ground for extremists where Islamic militants recruit and train supporters, and use violence against perceived foes, say former inmates and Iraqi officials. Extremists conducted regular indoctrination lectures, and in some cases destroyed televisions supplied by the Americans for use with educational videos, banned listening to music on radios, forbade smoking and stoked tensions between Sunni and Shiite detainees, they said. Iraqis swept up in security operations and held indefinitely while the Americans try to determine whether they have any links to the insurgency are susceptible to the extremists' message, former detainees said.
Continue reading "U.S. Is Propagating Terrorists Like Easter Bunnies!" »

Moktada al-Sadr, the rebellious Shiite cleric and power broker, exhorted Iraqi security forces on Sunday to unite with his militiamen against the American military in Diwaniya, an embattled southern city in Iraq where fighting has raged for three days. Mr. Sadr led two rebellions against the Americans in 2004 and emerged more powerful from each, even though thousands of his fighters were killed. He entered mainstream politics, and his followers now hold at least 30 seats in Parliament and critical cabinet postings. He also has a powerful protector in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite who gained the top job because of Mr. Sadr’s support. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html

...there is little sign that the Baghdad push is accomplishing its main purpose: to create an island of stability in which Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Kurds can try to figure out how to run the country together. There has been no visible move toward compromise on the main dividing issues, like regional autonomy and more power sharing between Shiites and Sunnis. For American troops, Baghdad has become a deadlier battleground as they have poured into the capital to confront Sunni and Shiite militias on their home streets. The rate of American deaths in the city over the first seven weeks of the security plan has nearly doubled from the previous period, though it has stayed roughly the same over all, decreasing in other parts of the country as troops have focused on the capital. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/world/middleeast/09surge.

Today's "logical conclusion" which will become a regular part of this blog.
It seems to me the only reason we are still IN Iraq is to continue the billion dollar no-bid contracts. everything else is just fluff. Bush's Texas bubbas are reaping the only benefit from this war, them and the insurgents who seem to be having no trouble recruiting suicide soldiers, while we can no longer convince young Americans they should risk their lives for this not-so-noble cause.

WORLD BANK: WOLFOWITZ LOVE-SCANDAL PAY RAISES
The World Bank's board of executive directors said last week it will investigate how Shaha Riza, a staffer romantically linked to bank President Paul Wolfowitz, received what are alleged to be overly generous raises upon being detailed in September 2005 to work at the State Department. On Wednesday, the bank's staff association said Riza, who remained on the bank's payroll while working at State for the Middle East Partnership Initiative, had received $61,000 in raises since she left, a sum the association said is far out of line with bank rules governing salary increases. The association called on the board to investigate. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/08/AR2007040801010.html?

ROVE WATCH (no one is hiding between the lines and behind the bushes more than Rove and Cheney)
Blog quote of the day, from CHS at Firedog Lake;
"Suddenly, that question about why Matt Cooper's phone call wasn't logged into the official White House phone log rears up in my mind. Was there a second set of books for phone calls on an RNC-paid-for phone line, too? And that e-mail to Hadley that was found only at the last minute, was that a GWB43.com e-mail? We've all been asking about this the last few weeks, but isn't it time we started getting some answers about it? And all the Susan Ralston-Jack Abramoff contacts? And calls? And…well, the list goes on and on and on, doesn't it?"

When Karl Rove and his top deputies arrived at the White House in 2001, the Republican National Committee provided them with laptop computers and other communication devices to be used alongside their government-issued equipment. Democratic congressional investigators are beginning to demand access to this RNC-White House communications system, which was used not only by Rove's office but by several top officials elsewhere in the White House. The prospect that such communication might become public has further jangled the nerves of an already rattled Bush White House. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-laptops9apr09,0,4904151.story

That document, entitled "Fraud in Wisconsin 2004: A Timeline/Summary," turned up last week in the horde of White House and U.S. Justice Department records released by the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
"The report was prepared for Karl Rove," said a source with knowledge of the situation. "Rick wanted it so he could give it to Karl Rove." Yeah, that Karl Rove, President Bush's political mastermind and his deputy chief of staff. The same guy who was knee-deep in helping decide which U.S. attorneys to keep or to boot. So the head of the state party went to the political arm of the White House with a report supposedly documenting widespread abuse of election laws in Milwaukee, violations that the party clearly believed weren't getting the attention they deserved. In late 2005, U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic, a Bush appointee, announced that his probe found no evidence of a conspiracy to steal the 2004 election here. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=588156

DOJ SCANDAL
As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin. The case involved Georgia Thompson, a state employee sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger. It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?
more about this important question HERE on this blog http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/opinion/09mon1.html

Mr. Iglesias, it turns out, was a late addition to the target list. He was a "diverse up-and-comer" considered for promotion and, in a March 2005 assessment, was placed in the category of "recommend retaining; strong U.S. attorneys who have produced well, managed well and exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general." Indeed, Mr. Iglesias' name didn't turn up on the list of those to be terminated until Nov. 7, 2006. How and why? The answers, though still incomplete, do not paint the Bush administration in an attractive light. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/08/AR2007040800874.html

Senator Domenici's ethical entanglement in U.S. Attorneys scandal
Last fall, during the heat of the 2006 elections, Senator Pete Domenici placed a call to New Mexico's U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. CREW alleges that Domenici's call violated Senate Ethics rule -- and we filed an ethics complaint against him. We also asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate Domenici's colleague, Rep. Heather Wilson, for making a similar call to Iglesias. Domenici's ethical woes were examined in (the) NY Times: "But a brief telephone call last year from Mr. Domenici to a federal prosecutor, David C. Iglesias, has become a central element of a Congressional inquiry into the dismissal of Mr. Iglesias and seven other United States attorneys. Mr. Iglesias told Congress that he felt pressured by the call from Mr. Domenici, once his political mentor, who days before the November elections telephoned to inquire about the status of indictments in a politically charged case. Committees in the House and Senate are exploring whether Mr. Iglesias and other federal prosecutors were ousted for strictly partisan reasons and whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senior Justice Department officials initially misled Congress in explaining the personnel moves. A complaint that Mr. Domenici broke Senate rules by interfering in a criminal matter has prompted an ethics committee inquiry. But it is unclear how that will play out because Mr. Domenici is not talking, and neither is the committee." http://www.citizensforethics.org/blog