Month: August 2007

War Room: Political News, Politics News – Salon:

“Republican political doctrine has been a failure,” Gingrich said. “Look at New Orleans. How can you say that was a success? Look at Baghdad … We’ve been in charge for six years and I don’t think you can look around and say that was a great success.

“We have got to get beyond this political bologna. I’m not allowed to say anything positive about Hillary Clinton because then I’m not a loyal Republican, and she’s not allowed to say anything positive about me because then she’s not a loyal Democrat. What a stupid way to run a country.” This last line he nearly spat out, expressing what seemed like genuine outrage. But the response was muted. Tepid applause bubbled up and then died within seconds.

Inhofe had recommended the students read Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” to learn about the global warming hoax, but Gingrich suggested they pick up newly elected French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s “Testimony.”

And finally, when it seemed he’d been as blasphemous as he could possibly be, Gingrich pulled out a whopper: “None of you should believe we are winning this war,” he said, referring to the so-called war on terror. “We are in a phony war … we have not been taking this seriously.”

What the hell?

Israel’s Jewish Problem in Tehran – by Jonathan Cook:

There is an interesting problem with selling the “Iran as Nazi Germany” line. If Ahmadinejad really is Hitler, ready to commit genocide against Israel’s Jews as soon as he can get his hands on a nuclear weapon, why are some 25,000 Jews living peacefully in Iran and more than reluctant to leave despite repeated enticements from Israel and American Jews?

Reading in this article about the history of Israel’s relations with non-Zionist Jews is rather upsetting… For example…

Even more notoriously, Israel went to greater lengths to ensure the exit of the Arab world’s largest Jewish population, in Iraq. In 1950 a series of bombs targeted on Jews in Baghdad forced a rapid exodus of some 130,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel, convinced that Arab extremists were behind the attacks. Only later did it emerge that the bombs had been planted by members of the Zionist underground, supported by the Israeli government.

AlterNet: Chomsky Interview

Geov Parrish: Is George Bush in political trouble? And if so, why?

Noam Chomsky: George Bush would be in severe political trouble if there were an opposition political party in the country. Just about every day, they’re shooting themselves in the foot. The striking fact about contemporary American politics is that the Democrats are making almost no gain from this. The only gain that they’re getting is that the Republicans are losing support. Now, again, an opposition party would be making hay, but the Democrats are so close in policy to the Republicans that they can’t do anything about it. When they try to say something about Iraq, George Bush turns back to them, or Karl Rove turns back to them, and says, “How can you criticize it? You all voted for it.” And, yeah, they’re basically correct.

That sums up pretty well what’s been depressing me about politics lately.

Cryptomundo.com » Bridge Collapse: Flashbacks to 1967

A bridge over the Mississippi River has fallen.As it gets near 10 pm EDT, the wire services are saying seven people are reported dead from the freeway bridge that fell into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, about four hours ago.

Reuters is flashing the news around the world that “One hundred cars [are] missing in US bridge collapse.”

News channels on television are showing wall-to-wall images of the collapse.

It reminds me of the Silver Bridge collapse over the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on December 15, 1967. In that tragedy, thirty-seven (37) cars and trucks were on the bridge when it fell, taking them into the water. Forty-six (46) individuals died, with 44 bodies found and two bodies never recovered.

Despite popular legend, no Mothman was seen that day, but the banshee-like link between the sightings of the previous 13 months and the Silver Bridge collapse will live forever due to The Mothman Prophecies book and movie.

I have not actually read the book or seen the movie but my habitual bedtime reading of Fortean Times magazine has familiarized me with the history of the Point Pleasant bridge collapse, and perhaps pathetically, when I heard about this bridge collapse the first thing I thought of was indeed Mothman.

Sounds like we’re thankfully not dealing with loss of life on the magnitude of the 1967 bridge collapse, though any loss of life is bad enough.