The President's brain really does go missing

Karl Rove, the eternally creepy architect of the GW Bush catastrophic presidency has decided to quit to 'spend more time with his family' when in fact, like Rumsfeld and that oily heap of shit, Wolfovitz, should be heading for the Hague war crimes tribunal.

Rove stopped at nothing to get Bush into power, including leaking the view that political opponents were gay or mentally ill. He was also the main architect of the idea that American military power would see them roll over the middle east. Shame that he forgot to realise that the American military are useless at wars. One only needs to look at Vietnam to know that it takes more than a limitless supply of bombs dropped on mainly civilian targets to achieve victory.

So, that's one more vicious, violent swine out of the picture. Another year or so and the most disastrous US presidency will come to an end. I plan to have a week long party to celebrate the dawn of another era; one that might not be run by rotten stinking criminals.

Bush's brain goes missing as Karl Rove retires - Independent Online Edition > Americas

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Religion and Iraq: up shit creek

The Sunni-Shia (and to a lesser extent Kurdish) religious make-up of Iraq was always going to cause problems 'post-war' and it is the blackest of jokes that president GW Bush did not know the first thing about the issue before waging this catastrophic war. But religion certainly is the issue that divides Iraqis and leads to the casual continual slaughter of thousands of combatants and civilians alike; killed often for no other reason than a religious mark. Check points are set up and people are quizzed on obscure Sunni or Shia facts to ascertain whether they really are who they say they are. Then they are killed if they get the questions wrong. Life is that cheap, that worthless.

This is like Bosnia but 50 times worse because of the size of Iraq and because of our dependence on oil. Religion is not only a rotten, vile moniker which people use to project all their brutality, but religion is also the main theme of this war as people perpetuate stereotypes and the violence is all-encompassing in its ability to shake all of society. Nothing now goes on in Iraq that does not involve death, near death or talk of death. There seems no way out, and as this brilliant article by Patrick Cockburn states, the US 'surge' has simply not worked.

Perhaps one reason is that the Americans want to calm the number of attacks against them, protect Sunnis and stop the Shias from having too much power. If no radical change is to come then there will be no end to this, because this 'balance' the US seeks is a nonsense, a non-starter.

So, the solution is perhaps simpler than you'd imagine. Firstly, US military must block routes from Iran so that fighters and weapons cannot enter the country. Secondly, disarm people with guns everywhere. Once the guns start to disappear then there will be less gunfire - easy isn't it? Meanwhile, pour money into projects which will have a positive effect on people's lives, bring Sunni and Shia and Kurd together, kill or capture al-qaida figures with the help of Iraqi forces, then finally the US military should withdraw from the streets and focus more on blocking borders especially with Iran, leaving the Iraqis to become more self-sufficient. The present situation simply cannot go on because it is a human catastrophe of epic proportions.

Finally, and this may be more difficult, America should not be allowed to wage wars like this; the UN must be stronger against immoral bullies in all countries, whether they be dictatorships or countries masquerading as once-great democracies.

The surge: a special report by Patrick Cockburn - Independent Online Edition > Middle East

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Don't wish to be the harbinger of doom but...

...it's already started. Just an ordinary day in the news with a headline 'mentioning' that 20 million (not thousand) people had been 'displaced' by floods in South East Asia. Now, last month 50,000 people had their water cut off and 2 people died in England and it was the main story for a week, yet 20 MILLION slips by almost unnoticed. This is one of many warning signs that global weather patterns are changing - and the reason for this is us, the billions of us pumping out shit into the atmosphere - and it's going to get far worse.

BBC - homepage - Home of the BBC on the Internet

If I were you, I'd get some savings together, and I'd move to higher ground. Stats tell us that of the 3.5 million new homes recently and to be built in Britain, 2 million of them will be in unprotected flood areas of the future. This is how totally whacked this all is. Meanwhile, more people in Britain watched the Diana memorial concert than Live Earth. We are truly lost, and the stupid thing is, if we opened our eyes a little we could see it coming and do something about it.

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