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Sunday, August 14th, 2005
| Time | Event |
| 7:16a | Soon to be followed by an official non-denial denial! The Washington Post is reporting that the Bush administration has significantly lowered their expectations on what can be achieved in Iraq. The Bush administration no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say. "What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground. We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning . . . We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic . . . We didn't calculate the depths of feeling in both the Kurdish and Shiite communities for a winner-take-all attitude." - senior Washington official involved in the planning of the war "We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us." - U.S. official Sounds to me like the Washington Post found at least two career staffers within the planning side of the war -- probably either State Department or Pentagon -- who are willing to comment freely on the current expectations that their planners really have, regardless of whether it gives the Bush administration a black eye or not. Such embarrassing statements from senior Washington non-politicos are getting more common lately, even though such people could lose their careers over it. They apparently sense blood in the water, or simply are fed up at what they've had to deal with and are not willing to take it anymore. No love lost there, apparently... |
| 7:57a | Are Iraqi insurgents cookin' up chemical weapons? A new, insurgent-run chemical weapons lab was found in Iraq. It's like ray-e-ain on your wedding day, dontchathink?! Oh... and the creators of the lab aren't caught yet, so there could be more out there. Such a proposition would be pretty F'ed up for the soldiers, to say the least. Pass the chemical suits, 'cause it's not hot enough in Iraq. |
| 8:21a | But... but... but... he was still suspicious, right?! Update on the Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, who was killed by London police while boarding the London Underground. It turns out that he wasn't wearing a heavy jacket afterall. Just a simple denim one. ... and that he wasn't wearing an electrician's belt with wires dangling from it. ... and he didn't vault the barrier. He used his card to get into the station. ... and he wasn't confronted by police. He walked to the platform, unchallenged. ... and he'd already entered the station by the time the officers arrived. ... and he was shot in the head seven times, not just five. ... and that neither the station nor the train had a working video surveilance camera recording the incident. But the good news is that the people of London are safe, right?! |
| 6:38p | Sunday swirly stuff. Colleen sounds quite nice, and Carolina Melis is a lush animator.  Download the video for "The Happy Sea" (23.5 MB) if you like pretty things and have a bit of time and bandwidth to burn... |
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