Arrived safely, slept little. Not to complain or anything, but the hotel they booked me into has the most infuriating sort of internet connection in this lobby. First, it's web-only so I can't telnet to my email. Second it's got some sort of brain-dead filter on it, so that I cannot hit my news aggregator, which is web-based, because one of the blog or newspaper articles in the last week uses a naughty word (which is also a term of endearment for a cat, as in here p——y, here p——-y). And I can't read the recent comments on this blog, because the gentle readers have used ungentle language. Arrg.
Ok. Off to find some place that serves very very large quantities of coffee. Meanwhile get thee hence to Talking points memo which is full of important and highly disturbing news about Iraq. The only angle I can think of that's missing is that James Baker has been in bed with the Saudis for a long time, and to the extent part of the task is to get them to write off the $50billion (if memory serves) in debt Iraq owes them, or kick in new cash, he's the man for the job. But even so, from what one reads Iraq is not just a disaster, a quagmire, a total planning failure (worse than a mistake, a blunder), but now the administration is deep into CoverUp mode — neutering the inspector general, instructing the Iraqis not to count civilian deaths, employing Israelis to train what sound too close to Death Squads for my delicate tastes. Double double plus ungood.
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