By the time the news of the invasion surfaced yesterday, I had already completed my daily research so I missed the initial report of the invasion.
"The Iranian flag has been lowered. The Iranian troops have pulled back 50 meters, but they have not gone back to where they were before. The Iraqi government asked for the troops to go back to where they were," Dabbagh said.
The border flare-up kicked off a storm of emergency meetings and bilateral phone calls, with Baghdad calling for an immediate withdrawal yet also seeking to contain damage to its important relationship with neighboring Iran.
In a phone conversation on Saturday evening, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and his Iraqi counterpart Hoshiyar Zebari underlined the need for a meeting of officials "with the intention of enforcing bilateral border agreements," Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported.
On Friday, global oil prices climbed following media reports that the Iranian troops had commandeered a well at the field southeast of Baghdad.
The two countries have a long history of border feuds, including one that escalated into a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s. The relationship warmed after 2003, when fellow Shi’ite Muslims took over in Baghdad and the countries’ trade and religious tourism ties began to deepen… [emphasis added]
Fortunately the incursion was not as severe as I had originally read. I thought Iran had taken over an oil field, not just a single well. Nevertheless, there is still reason for concern here, because any instability could delay the further withdrawal of US troops in Iraq who desperately need to come home.
No doubt you’ve heard that the Senate Democrats have cut a deal under which the public option would takre effect only if Big Insurance doesn’t deliver.
After days of secret talks, Senate Democrats tentatively agreed Tuesday night to drop a government-run insurance option from sweeping health care legislation, several officials said, a concession to party moderates whose votes are critical to passage of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
In its place, officials said Democrats had tentatively settled on a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage. Additionally, the emerging agreement calls for Medicare to be opened to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, a significant expansion of the large government health care program that currently serves the 65-and-over population.
At a hastily called evening news conference in the Capitol, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declined to provide details of what he described as a "broad agreement" between liberals and moderates on an issue that has plagued Democrats’ efforts to pass health care legislation from the outset… [emphasis added]
My first reaction is to feel very, very angry. However, I’m going to bite my tongue and refrain from making any suggestions about what Harry Reid might do his nether regions with a cactus. Before I should render an opinion, I need to know exactly what’s in this deal.
On a more positive front, The Ben Nelson Coat-hanger Amendment went down.
The US Senate on Tuesday rejected an anti-abortion amendment to a health care reform bill, splitting the Democrats and complicating the chances of getting a 60-vote majority to pass the measure.
The amendment barring federal funds from being used to pay for abortion, directly or indirectly, was defeated by a 54-45 vote.
It was supported by Democrats Robert Casey and Ben Nelson, author of the amendment, and eight Republican senators, including amendment co-author Orrin Hatch.
Nelson’s measure would prohibit Americans who receive government subsidies to pay for health care from buying into an insurance plan that covers abortion, and would ban a government-backed insurance plan popularly known as a "public option" from covering the procedure.
The measure includes exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or where a doctor certifies that the woman is "in danger of death unless an abortion is performed."
Tuesday’s vote could complicate Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan to muster the 60-vote margin needed to pass the health care bill before the end of the year.
Some lawmakers have already said they will not vote in favor of the reform legislation unless it includes an anti-abortion measure…
A few days ago, I reported that President Obama has appointed Dana Perino to the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Yesterday she demonstrated her gratitude and loyalty.
Earth to Dana the Dingbat!! Hello?!!? What was 9/11?!!?
Seriously, I don’t believe for a moment that Dana does not know not only that 9/11 was a terrorist attack, but also that it could have been easily avoided were it not for the total incompetence (at best) of Bush and his GOP minions. Perino lied to discredit Obama. Sean Hannity, Faux Noise propagandist and operator of Hannidate, a site where closeted GOP hypocrites go to find their very own wide-stance lovers, just sat there and did not correct her.
The White House phone number is (202) 456-1111. Will you join me in challenging Barack Obama to rescind her appointment?
Soon we shall have to say goodbye to a journalist I have come to respect greatly over the years.
Veteran PBS journalist Bill Moyers has announced that he will be ending his Friday night public affairs show “Bill Moyers Journal” as well as “Now on PBS” on April 30, 2010:
Mr. Moyers said he had been planning for some time to retire the program on Dec. 25, but was asked by PBS to raise the funds to continue through April, which he did.
“I am 75 years old,” he said of the decision to end the series, which began in April 2007. The program has recently been having a “good run of it,” he added in a telephone interview on Friday, “so I feel it’s time.” He said he was not quitting television work, although he has no new projects planned… [emphasis original]
It was an encounter one Ozark 10-year-old will likely never forget.
Called to a home to help control an allegedly "unruly child," an Ozark police officer was reportedly told by the girl’s mother that he could use the electric weapon to subdue her, according to 40/29 News Arkansas.
However, the girl supposedly kicked the officer in the groin when he approached. "He had no other choice [but to Taser her]," Ozark Police Choief [sic] Jim Noggle reportedly said. "He had to get the child under control."
According to the Associated Press, the officer’s name is Dustin Bradshaw. His aggressive approach to dealing with a child has the girl’s father enraged.
"If you can’t pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don’t think you need to be an officer," Anthony Medlock reportedly said.
Ozark police argued that had the officer grabbed the girl, he could have hurt her. "If you grab somebody, you can slip an arm out of joint," the police chief added. "They can slip from you and fall on the ground."…
It seems that almost every month I read a story about the abusive use of a TASER by police, including several fatalities.
The chief’s defense is absurd. Shooting thousands of volts of electricity through a ten year old body has to be more dangerous than the possibility of dropping the child, given that the TASER has killed full grown adults. The mother who gave permission, if the officer is not testilying about that, is equally responsible. The cop should be fired, branded on his forehead with a scarlet T, and forbidden to work in any phase of law enforcement ever again.
Somehow too many police officers (certainly not all) have gotten the notion that they can use the TASER in any and all circumstances. Until such time as training can be upgraded sufficiently for officers to respect the TASER’s lethal potential and use it only when appropriate, the weapon should be banned.
Is there water on the Moon? The NASA LCROSS mission has determined the answer to be a resounding YES! GeekDad has covered the LCROSS mission with an article prior to the LCROSS launch by Lonnie Morgan, a pair of articles on viewing what was hoped to be a visible plume from the impact by Dana Bostic and myself, and finally a follow-up to the impact about the process of data analysis and waiting for results. If you have missed all the coverage, the LCROSS mission impacted a spent Centaur booster into the Moon and captured data from the impact plume with the goal of finding deposits of frozen water. Today, the LCROSS team released theirpreliminary findings:
The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.
Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.
NASA today opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus c[r]ater near the moon’s south pole…
The presence of water on the moon, and by extension, the likelihood that water is available in places previously thought unlikely, raises the question of whether or not there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
Given that God favors intelligent life, it is likely to be elsewhere, because she created so little of it on this planet.
"The Iranian flag has been lowered. The Iranian troops have pulled back 50 meters, but they have not gone back to where they were before. The Iraqi government asked for the troops to go back to where they were," Dabbagh said.
