He’s into poetry, new agey acoustic alchemy, and quality time with his daughter, according to what, by all appearances is Packouz’s MySpace page. Not only is there a picture of Packouz that almost exactly matches the one in today’s Times, but there’s a link to what appears to be his music page, DavidPAQ: MicroCOSM, and a picture of what appears to be the same man—kinda Daughtry-esque—sitting with the daughter he so frequently dotes on in his lyrics. Asked via MySpace message to confirm whether he was the same David in the paper today, “DavidPAQ” replied that he couldn’t comment on the case, saying it’s an ongoing investigation (now soon to be congressional testimony, thanks to Henry Waxman, D-CA), but he did tell Radar this: “How it will affect me only time will tell. My goal has always been to make a living from my music. I should complete my album within a month or two. There will be a song on there about my former scumbag partner (called ‘Hog in the Rat Race’)—I’m in the process of recording it now. Hope you enjoy the music!”
Americans lowball Iraqi death toll
Poll shows knowledge of U.S. dead, but huge underestimation of Iraqis The Associated Press updated 11:17 a.m. CT, Sat., Feb. 24, 2007
Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.
Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.
Christopher Gelpi, a Duke University political scientist who tracks public opinion on war casualties, said a better understanding of the Iraqi death toll probably wouldn’t change already negative public attitudes toward the war much. People in democracies generally don’t shy away from inflicting civilian casualties, he said, and they may be even more tolerant of them in situations such as Iraq, where many of the civilian deaths are caused by other Iraqis.
“They may be even more tolerant of them in situations such as Iraq, where many of the civilian deaths are caused by other Iraqis.” Especially when the “other Iraqis” are acting in tandem with U.S. forces?
The flip side to Hendrik Hertzberg’s interpretation of John McCain’s Iraq policy. It doesn’t matter how many Iraqis are killed by the U.S. and its surrogates. The killing will continue until the U.S. can micromanage Iraq and the region without interference and its leaders are puppets on a string.
The Straight Talk Express has pulled into the station.
In the long run-up to the Pennsylvania primary, the Democratic campaign has descended ever deeper into a negative and personal mudslinging contest between the two remaining contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Broadcast news cycles have become dominated by an unending stream of barbs and accusations from each side, the most prevalent of late dealing, on the one hand, with sermons delivered by the pastor of Obama’s church and, on the other, with Hillary Clinton’s flight of the imagination to Bosnia a dozen years ago.
It is curious that in this toxic political environment, the Obama campaign has steered clear of one revelation concerning the Clintons that surfaced earlier this month. The media has virtually ignored it as well.
Political assassins from A to Z, including former New York City mayor and Democrat Ed Koch, have taken to bellowing that Barack Obama “threw his grandmother under the bus” when he referred to her as a typical white person in this radio interview.
Perhaps Koch and the rest were projecting ahead of partisan backlash to come following Hillary Clinton’s appearance on FOX News this evening. Billed as an interview, it plays like an endorsement, with Greta Van Susteren pitching soft balls to a Clinton-in-red who stood stiffly before an American flag and suggestive backdrop like one Mike Huckabee used in this ad.
Clinton is oblivious to how deeply she’s hated by Republicans crossing over in record numbers to ensure her a good showing in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. 2012 will not be her year; Gore, Kerry and Edwards will empathise.
Or maybe not. They seem to have standards that the Clintons lack.
This article was reported by C. J. Chivers, Eric Schmitt and Nicholas Wood and written by Mr. Chivers.
Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.
With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.
Albanian Politics:
Transcript of Diveroli – Trebicka Conversation
*Inside ACLIS: Read & Listen the Transcripts of alleged telephone conversation between Efraim Diveroli and Kosta Trebicka
Recorded in Tirana, Albania on June 11, 2007 at 20:49 PM by Trebicka, Diveroli was in Florida*
Name Key:
Efraim Diveroli – President of Miami-based AEY, Inc.
Kosta Trebicka – Albanian businessman, owner of Xhoi
Ill Pinari – Director of Meico, official arms export agency of Albanian Ministry of Defense (under arrest)
Henry Thomet – Swiss businessman, alleged owner of Cyprus-based Evdin
Fatmir Mediu – Albanian Minister of Defense (resigned)
Mihal Delijorgji – Albanian “businessman” (contractor for AEY and Southern Ammunition, under arrest)
Sali Berisha – Albanian Prime Minister
Shkelzen Berisha – son of Sali Berisha
Sound clip 1
Trebicka: What’s happening with your pal Pinari?
Diveroli: I don’t know, you tell me, did you make a deal with him with the boxes?
Trebicka: I don’t want to make a deal with him, you know that he is a crook, you told me before that he’s a mafia guy, didn’t you?
Diveroli: I think he is, either he’s the mafia or the mafia is controlling him. Either way he’s a problem. The problem is, I don’t have a choice. I have to deal with him. The U.S. government is expecting the products. I have no decision to make.
Sound clip 2
Diveroli: What’s going on with the whole friggin’ thing here, …(inaudible conversation about Pinari….) OK, Kosta, the company that’s doing the packing might want to buy your packing material, I’m going to broker the deal…
Trebicka: Which one is the company, is it still Delijorgji?
Diverolli: I have no fucking idea, we’re waiting for Pinari to give us the details of this company. I will push this sale very hard to go through.
Sound clip 3
Diveroli: ……….(Some talk about services Trebicka is still supposed to do for Diveroli.) I’ve been 100% with you. I did not remove you from this job. You understand that? I have nothing to do with this. Even though Pinari asked me to, and he’s forcing me to, I have never supported this decision. I’m very, very upset, I’m very concerned.
Trebicka: Is he still working with Henry Thomet?
Diveroli: I think he’s still working with Henry. I’m still working with Henry. I have to work with Henry. I’m working with Henry.
Sound Clip 4
Diveroli: …I’m different than Henry, I can’t play monkey business with the mafia and Delijorgji and all those fucking guys in Albania….. I’m a U.S. company, I’m working for the government, everyone is watching me. Pinari needs a guy like Henry in the middle to take care of him and his buddies, which is none of my business. I don’t want to know about that business, I want to know about legitimate businesses. That’s my feeling, that’s my feeling on the situation, that’s my idea, that’s my opinion.
Sound clip 5
Some small talk, discussion about George Bush visit to Albania…
Trebicka: ….but I think with Pinari and his mafia guys and Delijorgji and Henry, it will be difficult for you to go ahead because they will create lots of problems …. Probably I will be invited in Washington DC from the CIA guys and from my friends over there. .. two weeks from now I will come to Florida to shake hands with you and discuss future deals.
In early August 2007, Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a Shi‘i preacher affiliated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, made headlines with striking comments to a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor. The cleric revealed in an interview with Sam Dagher that “a massive operation” was underway to secure the establishment of a Shi‘i super-province in Iraq, to be named the “South of Baghdad Region,” and projected to encompass all nine majority-Shi‘i governorates south of the Iraqi capital. Saghir claimed that his party had already drafted detailed plans for how such a super-province would be governed — plans of such importance to Iraq and the region that there was “no room for misadventures.”[1] While Saghir did not mention a timeline for this remarkable undertaking, other Supreme Council supporters of the idea were less reticent: “The Shiite federal region will be announced in April 2008,” wrote one enthusiastic proponent.[2]
The date was not chosen at random. April 2008 is the month when the law for implementing federalism — adopted by the Iraqi parliament in October 2006 — comes into effect. For the first time in Iraqi history, areas of the country that desire a special federal status similar to that already enjoyed by Kurdistan may initiate a procedure for transforming themselves from ordinary governorates into “federal regions,” potentially acquiring such privileges as the right to establish local paramilitary forces and the right to negotiate local deals with foreign oil companies. In order to obtain the rank of federal region, a governorate must hold a referendum in which no less than 50 percent of the electorate votes and a simple majority votes yes. If multiple governorates wish to band together in one federal region, the proposition must pass such a referendum in each province tagged for inclusion. (Only the Baghdad province is prohibited from forming part of a greater federal region.) If one targeted governorate says no, the federal project founders.
Muntaser, a young Iraqi refugee, washes his clothes in a shared toilet in the area of Sad el-Bousharya, Beirut. Photograph: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty
Rabi’a, an Iraqi refugee, is cooking in the narrow, filthy corridor that doubles as a makeshift kitchen in his tiny apartment in eastern Beirut. There is a gas burner, a sink, a cupboard and a small plastic bucket overflowing with garbage and potato peelings. At one end of the room a door leads to a reeking toilet. The heavy smell of urine mixes with that of the months-old oil he is pushing round the frying pan.
“I fry the best tomatoes in the world, the most delicious dish,” he tells me. “You must have some with us.”
In Iraq they used to call this dish the “dinner of the sanctions”, after the decade-long economic blockade imposed on the country in the 1990s.
View Baghdad: City of walls
A series of films done by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in collaboration with ITV News to provide a view of the current reality in Iraq on the five-year anniversary of the US-British led invasion of Iraq.
According to a new survey conducted by the Forward, a disproportionately large share of the Democratic party’s super-delegates are Jewish. Many of them have declared their support for Hillary Clinton, accounting for more than 15% of her current backers.
Like the general population of super-delegates, whose support remains fluid, several Jewish supporters of the New York senator said in interviews that their votes still remain up for grabs. All told, more than 70 Jewish super-delegates will make the trip to Denver this summer for the Democrats’ nominating convention. They account for nearly one-tenth of the party’s nearly 800 so-called super-delegates, the informal term for elected and party officials whose status as delegates to the convention does not depend on state primaries and caucuses.
If the Democratic presidential primary comes down to a photo finish, these Jewish insiders could play an outsized role in anointing a nominee at the party’s August convention. And it would be a history-making experience: Although Jews have long been considered a formidable voting bloc and have been overrepresented among the country’s cadre of liberal activists and thinkers, they have only more recently become common as Democratic establishment insiders, with unprecedented numbers of both Jewish elected officials and party leaders.
Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace
Mar. 25, 2008
On Thursday Mar. 20, more than two weeks after beginning a water and food strike, Dr. Sami Al-Arian began drinking water. He remains on a hunger strike. Throughout his strike, despite suffering from chest pains, severe dehydration, headaches and other symptoms, Dr. Al-Arian was not offered an IV or treated for any of the symtoms. Thursday morning, Dr. Al-Arian appeared before a third grand jury and once again did not testify, citing his plea agreement which does not require his cooperation. The grand jury appearance — and the Department of Justice’s continued attemps to indefinitely prolong Dr. Al-Arian’s imprisonment– came less than three weeks before his April 7 release date.
On Friday, the nationally syndicated television and radio program Democracy Now! featured Dr. Al-Arian’s daughter Laila and one of his attorneys, Will Olsen. Click on the following link to watch/listen to the program and read the transcript:
This sermon shows the similarities between life in Jerusalem under Roman rule in Jesus’ day and life in Occupied Palestine today under Israeli rule, which is supported by the U.S.
Following Jesus means opening our eyes to the pain of the world, it means taking seriously loving our neighbors, and it means finding more challenge than comfort.
Reading: John 3:16‐18
[Any of you who may be considering running for public office, if you have been following Barack Obama’s efforts to distance himself from some of his UCC minister‘s sermons, then you might want to start thinking about how you will distance yourself from this sermon.]
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