More bombings in London.
Topic: General News.

More bombings in London today. Thankfully no one was hurt. It appears these might have been some sort of copycat attack because the explosions were caused by detonators not bombs and several people were seens running from the scene after throwing rucksacks. This doesn't appear to be quite as sophisticated as the bombings two weeks ago. Time will tell.

First things first:

A reader of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes to the editor that the paper is showing its liberal bias by where it places “positive reports” about president Bush. He notes that a piece reporting that no torture had been found at Gitmo was on page 6 and another story about the lower deficit projection was on page 8! Well, I’m not going to wait a minute longer or bury these stories on my blog. No siree…

The story about Gitmo was from July 14th and began like this:

“Military investigators examining alleged abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, say they found treatment such as forcing a terror suspect to behave like a dog. But they say they found no evidence that there was torture or that senior leaders imposed faulty interrogation policies.”

Good news! The military investigated itself, once again, and found nothing! Just because they made one prisoner “dance with a male interrogator,” and “subjected him to strip searches with no security value, threatened him with dogs, forced him to stand naked in front of women, and forced him on a leash, to act like a dog,” I don’t see the issue. Donald Rumsfeld walks around with a dog leash on 8 hours a day, why can’t a suspected terrorist?

On the deficit [Steep drop in deficit projected] the story goes like this:

The annual White House midyear budget report projects this year’s deficit will drop to $333 billion. That’s $79 billion below last year’s record red link and $100 billion less than earlier estimates…Despite the improvement, the deficit picture remains far worse than when Bush took office in 2001, when the White House and congressional forecasters projected cumulative surpluses of $5.6 trillion over the subsequent decade.”

Did this guy actually read these articles? These are positive reports?

It’s settled:

Thousands of settler activists camped out in Kfar Maimon have given up and are going home in the face stiff resistance from the 20,000 police and soldiers preventing them from reaching their goal of Gush Katif. What I find interesting about this whole deal is, the entire time the settlers, and a couple former chief rabbis, have been calling for members of the IDF to disobey their orders. In fact, about 9 soldiers did quit and a couple even made their way into Gaza to resist with the settlers there. A common sign being carried by the settlers said,” Disobey orders. What will you tell your grandchildren?”

Now, imagine peace protesters here, or a preacher or priest, calling for U.S. troops to desert. I can’t imagine it. Of course, Pat Robertson can say a nuclear device should be dropped on Foggy Bottom, but that’s okay, he’s a friend of the president’s. Erik Rudolf and go around bombing abortion clinics, but he’s not a terrorist, he’s got God on his side. Things are different for them that got religion.

The stupidest congress ever!

Rep. Curt Weldon (R. PA) met last week in Paris with an Iranian exile; Feridoun Mahdavi (A.k.a. “Ali.”), who the CIA says is a fabricator and a liar. Don’t confuse the representative with the facts though; he’s got religion too. Also along for the trip, at tax payers expense, was Peter Hoeskstra (R. Michigan) Weldon’s colleague and chairman of the house intelligence committee (Now there’s a real oxymoron.). According to the Inquirer "Mahdavi is a longtime associate of Iranian arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar." You remember good old Gorba, the gun dealer in the Iran/Contra affair? He "has had two CIA "burn notices" issued on him, meaning agency officers are not to deal with him." Seems rep. Welden is trying to get a war started in Persia and he's found his own Ahmad Chalabi. (How stupid are these guys?)

At first the CIA said the evidence Chalabi was pushing on Iraq's WMD was dubious, so they were wrong about that. Then when no WMD was found, they got it wrong by not knowing there wasn't any. So now when they say of Ali, "It is... likely that, as a former official during the Shah's era, [Mahdavi] seeks to influence the U.S. government to overthrow the current Iranian government," in a ltter to Weldon last year, they are most assuredly wrong. Iran is about to attack us, why won't anyone listen?

Bomb Mecca?

Curt Weldon is either really stupid or just amazingly gullible, but there’s no question what rep.Tom Tancredo (R. Col.) is…

Last Friday when asked by a talk show host how the U.S should respond if extremists struck several of its cities with nuclear weapons.

“Well, what if you said something like---this happens in the United States, we are determined that it is the result of extremists, fundamentalists Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sights,”

“You’re talking about bombing Mecca,” Pat Cooper, WFLA radio, asks.

“Yeah.” Tancredo

Asked to explain his statements:

"I hope we can think of things that actually will prevent an event of that nature…From my point of view there’s a lot that can be done…I don’t want to inflame this issue.” Too late, jerk.

Condi says, "stop touching our press."

WaPo:

DARFUR, Sudan, July 21 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded and received an apology Thursday after Sudanese security guards manhandled staff members and press accompanying her on her journey to the country.

The incidents occurred while Rice was meeting with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir. Sudanese officials shoved U.S. journalists away from the Bashir meeting, grabbed a tape from a reporter and slammed the wooden doors to his palace in their faces.

At one point, NBC's Andrea Mitchell attempted to ask a question about the killing of innocent civilians in Sudan and was physically pulled away and told there were no questions allowed.

Angered U.S. reporters responded that the press corps with Rice as a "free press," but were told by a Bashir aide that "it's not a free press here."

What we will do for a little oil. Nice people we're dealing with over there. Perhaps, Condi should have brought some of Bashir's good friends at the CIA along, maybe she would have been treated better.