Bush Would Defy Withdrawal Legislation

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq, War

Carlos Zapata, “Dictator”

"Rice Says Bush Will Not Abide by Legislation to Limit Iraq War" -- International Herald Tribune, February 25, 2007:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress not to interfere in the conduct of the Iraq war and suggested President George W. Bush would defy troop withdrawal legislation.

But Sen. Carl Levin, Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers would step up efforts to force Bush to change course. "The president needs a check and a balance," said Levin.

Rice said Sunday that proposals being drafted by Senate Democrats to limit the war amounted to "the worst of micromanagement of military affairs." She said military leaders such as Gen. David Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, believe Bush's plan to send more troops is necessary.

"I can't imagine a circumstance in which it's a good thing that their flexibility is constrained by people sitting here in Washington, sitting in the Congress," Rice said. She was asked in a broadcast interview whether Bush would feel bound by legislation seeking to withdraw combat troops within 120 days.

"The president is going to, as commander in chief, need to do what the country needs done," she said.

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The Surge

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq

Peter Galbraith on "The Surge" in The New York Review of Books, March 15, 2007:

At best, Bush's new strategy will be a costly postponement of the day of reckoning with failure. But it is also a reckless escalation of the military mission in Iraq that could leave US forces fighting a powerful new enemy with only marginally more troops than are now engaged in fighting the Sunni insurgency. The strategy also risks extending Iraq's civil war to the hitherto peaceful Kurdish regions, with no corresponding gain for security in the Arab parts of the country.

Until now, US forces in Iraq have been fighting, almost exclusively, the Sunni Arab insurgency. Bush's new plan calls for the US military to initiate operations against the Mahdi Army (and related militias) as well, a measure that could mean US forces will become embroiled in all-out urban warfare throughout Baghdad, a city of more than five million. In addition, the Mahdi Army has members throughout southern Iraq, in the Diyala Governorate northeast of Baghdad, and in Kirkuk. While many Shiites do not support al-Sadr (the Mahdi Army has had armed clashes with the Badr Organization belonging to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, or SCIRI, one of the two main Shiite parties), the Mahdi Army is a formidable force comprising as many as 60,000 armed men. With Bush ratcheting up the rhetoric against Iran, the Iranian government may see a broad-based Shiite uprising against the coalition as its best insurance against a US military strike. It has every incentive to encourage -- and assist -- the Mahdi Army in organizing such an uprising. Iran has sufficient influence with Iraqi Shiite groups -- including SCIRI -- to ensure at least their neutrality in a clash with the Mahdi Army.

At the core of the Iraq fiasco has been Bush's unwillingness to send forces adequate to accomplish the mission. Now the President proposes a military strategy to confront twice as many foes with just 15 percent more troops. The Mahdi Army may choose to wait out the Americans by taking a low profile for the duration of the surge. If so, this will be helpful to US troops, but, of course, it will have done nothing to break the power of the Shiite militias. President Bush's public statements indicate no awareness of the risks of escalating America's mission in Iraq. Democrats have concentrated almost exclusively on the escalation in troop numbers, giving the President a free ride on the far more dangerous escalation of the mission itself.

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WordPress as a Content Management System

/ WordPress

WordPress CMS discussion and tools at the WordPress Codex site

Bloghelper's Using WordPress as a CMS articles

A response on BloggingPro.com with lots of comments

"Beyond Blogging: WordPress as CMS" at CMSWire.com

"Five WordPress Plugins that Turn WordPress into a CMS" at Ann Arbor Web Design

Joe Brockmeier's "Must-Have WordPress Plugins"

Gobala Krishnan on WordPress CMS applications like training courses and classified ads

BaoCMS: A CMS plugin for WordPress

A CMS theme from Bos89.nl

Semiologic's WordPress CMS theme and plugin suite

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Weblogs in Translation

/ Weblogs

cigar437.jpg

The Navigator Fresh Record: "President M. was short-leg friendly and called him prezikom."

Thunder Will Not Burst Out, Peasant Will Not Cross: But now -- the session of auto-ashes-head-sprinkling.

It Was Here 4: "When I brought cap home, dog greatly was revived. It for some reason immediately solved, that this this thing is special for it, like the toy bears, which we to it sometimes bring so that she them would tear to pieces and would take out white synthetic cotton in them of the belly. I attempted even to preserve this cotton and to fill her back into the bears so that to the dog there would be anew the same happiness, but it then to me tired, because dog with the same happiness into the minutes tore up the accurately zashtopannogo bear and threw about cotton throughout entire house. Therefore bears now live in our of empty sandpapers. It can be, the type of cap reminded the dog of empty bear."

Plastic Peace Will Never Conquer, Orphan from the Planet of Perdida: "Nemnogo after thinking, I purchased sausage for thirteen shekels and crumbled to its cat to asfal't. Kotik it were annealed by hot sausage it hurried somewhat more rapidly than doyest'ya it sat next on the border, concentratedly it looked at the sneakers."

We Burn! Accurately We Burn!: "In the course of the first working month me they had time to frighten by horse, fixed by cap and gradient into entire screen. Now me cannot be frightened it seems by anything. Only sometimes first the bridges across the river I compose at night, then examination tickets in the auto-school."

Siymon69: "It did not see not one old-time, which would not force novices 'to dry crocodiles,' to trample down parade-ground to to useru, to run around the barracks, 'to start musical deer,' 'to show soul to the inspection' and other army khuynyu."

Diaries of Skazochnika: "The 'song of opera hats.'"

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The Reign of Charles the Beloved of Zembla

/ Politics, Texts

That King's reign (1936-1958) will be remembered by at least a few discerning historians as a peaceful and elegant one. Owing to a fluid system of judicious alliances, Mars in his time never marred the record. Internally, until corruption, betrayal, and Extremism penetrated it, the People's Place (parliament) worked in perfect harmony with the Royal Council. Harmony, indeed, was the reign's password. The polite arts and pure sciences flourished. Technicology, applied physics, industrial chemistry and so forth were suffered to thrive. A small skyscraper of ultramarine glass was steadily rising in Onhava. The climate seemed to be improving. Taxation had become a thing of beauty. The poor were getting a little richer, and the rich a little poorer . . . . Medical care was spreading to the confines of the state: less and less often, on his tour of the country, every autumn, when the rowans hung coral-heavy, and the puddles tinkled with Muscovy glass, the friendly and eloquent monarch would be interrupted by a pertussal "backdraucht" in a crowd of schoolchildren. Parachuting had become a popular sport. Everybody, in a word, was content -- even the political mischiefmakers who were contentedly making mischief paid by a contented Sosed (Zembla's gigantic neighbor). But let us not pursue this tiresome subject.

-- Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (New York: Knopf, 1992 [orig. pub. 1962]), 75.

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Mrs. Manjuparkavi Madhanmohan’s Egg Rice

/ Food

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Mrs. Madhanmohan's recipe:

Ingredients:

Egg 5
Rice 1/4kg
Onion 2
Jeera 1tsp
Red chillies 4
Salt to taste
Corriander leaves
Oil 5tbs

Instructions:

Cook the rice separately and keep aside. Take a bowl,break the eggs and beat nicely. Take a kadai, add oil. Add jeera when oil is heated. When jeera splutters add onion and red chillies. When onion turns golden brown colour, add the beaten eggs and salt. Fry thoroughly. Now add the cooked rice with it. Add little salt again and mix thoroughly. Finally decorate with corriander leaves.

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