I meant to watch the first part of this PBS documentary last night, but unfortunately that never happened. So tonight I spent some time catching up. I found it an interesting view of a country I only know through the media. Iran is a country of over 80 million people and I think they deserve a voice beyond what their government or our President have to say.
You will find some of what you might expect, but I think you will also see a portrait of a warm, caring, family oriented people who would like to find happiness, just as we all do. So I thought I would provide a link to the first part of the film, if you are interested in visiting Iran. The second part is airing tonight, August 14. I will have to watch that tomorrow. :)
91 comments:
Indications are that Iraq will defy the U.S. sanctions against Iran, if for no other reason, because they're not in a position to comply with our demands on that matter. Politico.com
Began to wonder this morning whilst reading the returns on yesterday's primaries and preliminary contests…. What do we reckon are the chances that any of the various foreign entities that Trump has picked fights with are gonna wanna surrender to Trump between now and November?
Well, if I were them I'd hang tough to see how things shake out. At the moment he's almost like a lame duck.
I'm thinking it's a little early to be calling him a lame duck. As long as he's got a Republican Senate behind him he's still gonna be a force. And the Republicans are most likely gonna keep the Senate. It's possible they'll lose their majority there, but it ain't likely.
This is one area where I am anti-Trump, and one of the few things Obama did good. Iran detenté is good for the US and for the rest of the world.
The Iranians are one of the few peoples on earth where you COULD actually eke out a successsful "color revolution" given time and subtlety. The populace, especially the people in Teheran that matter, are way less Islamist than the regime is.
BUT, Iranians are also proud nationalists, heirs to the heart of the Persian empire, so you can't force change upon them. But they could well be cajoled into it, in fact many there long for it.
BUT, Iranians are also proud nationalists, heirs to the heart of the Persian empire, so you can't force change upon them. But they could well be cajoled into it, in fact many there long for it.
I kind of got that impression from the first film. They love their country, but not necessarily the people in their government.
I notice that the Chinese and American trade representatives have quietly resumed trade talks. Bloomberg This conforms to the developing pattern.
Trump talks tough (to the delight of his dedicated Trumpkins), then he claims to have ‛forced’ the counter-party (in this case the Chinese) into talks which they never resisted in the first place. Then he throws in the towel on his initial demands (and perhaps gets an empty promise on some insignificant matter from the counter-party in return for his surrender, or maybe he has to forgo even that little fig leaf), and he then declares that a return to the status-quo-ante is a great victory for Trump's America.
And the dedicated Trumpkins eat it up. (The Chinese will likely coöperate with this plan, at least to the point of much public ballyhoo about an agreement to engage in very public trade talks, set to begin just before the November elections.)
Ex-CIA Chief, John Brennan, who's been stripped of his security clearance as of yesterday by order of Trump himself, has come out in the NewYorkTimes with an Op-Ed in which he bluntly names Trump's claim of ‛No Collusion’ with the Russians to be, ‛hogwash’.
He didn't provide any evidence, but he's not in a position to make any such evidence he might have public. The revocation of his security clearance does not absolve him of his duty to keep the secrets he already knows.
Lynnette, Lee C., Petes, and Marcus,
Hello all,
For the next two days, my four Kindle books are free. Just click on the covers of the books on the sidebar of my photoblog and you will be taken to Amazon, where you can download the titles with one more click.
If you don't have a Kindle, just download Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac. I read a lot of books using the Kindle for PC program on my laptop.
Silvertone
I'm living in Budapest right now, but I'll be heading back to China in mid-September.
Lynette: "I kind of got that impression from the first film. They love their country, but not necessarily the people in their government."
Pretty much echoing what I said. In any case I believe that punishing the Iranian people with sanctions is counter productive. Shower them in western goods and western ideas instead, and they may well adopt western ways and bring down the Mhulllas on their own.
Hiya Jeffrey! Good to see you're still around. Good to see it's just not me, Pete, Lee and Lynnette circle-jerking up in this mufuggah.
"I'm living in Budapest right now, but I'll be heading back to China in mid-September."
You just HAVE to tell us more about your impression of Budapest. I went there myself last year for a 4-day weekend vacation and left feeling it was a quite OK place, for tourism. But when I compare it to Prague, for tourism mind you, Prague still wins in just about every department.
So... WTF ya'll doing in Budapest? What do you make of Budapest and Hungary? What abuot Orban running Hungary? You must have more to tell, right? Do tell!
As for you, Lee and Lynnette; in 2020 Trump will win by a LANDSLIDE. It will not even be close.
You'll have "your" side (unless you'll have wisened up by then) voting for any black with coherent thought along with deranged trannies and moslems in hijabs and deranged trannies. That's your voting pool, and of course you'll get the stoned Antifa crowd too if they are sober nuff to go vote ( they are not, they're only in if for the post vote riots).
But the side not siding with completete degeneracy will be all Trump. And that side is AMERICA. Which will win. Which means Trump will win a second term. And THEN..... THEN you'll see the wall built and a whole lot more. Bet that!
Marcus,
I needed a place to hangout for a few months, and someone recommended Budapest because it's cheap. I used a service called Spotahome and rented an apartment for two months -- 630 euros per month.
I just finished the rental today and have moved to a cheap hotel for the last two weeks before my flight back to the US (and then China after getting the new visa). I bought a bike here and I've been riding all over the city -- and starting to write a new book.
As you know, I've been teaching in China for three years and I'm starting to write a book about that experience. I'm taking a year off and studying Chinese at a university in Ningbo, China -- well, and probably doing some on the side teaching, too. Anyway, even though I'm in Budapest, my mind is working on Chinese issues.
What you say is true. Prague has Budapest beat in most categories. But Budapest is trying to catch up. Still, it's very uneven and there are lots of ancient buildings that need tons of work. My apartment building still has bullet holes from the 1956 revolution!
Listen to this. Housing is really tight now here. I've asked several people what percent of their salary goes to rent and they said between fifty and seventy-five percent. That's nuts. Even in NY, the usual guide was twenty-five percent of your salary.
I'll stop back. I've always checked in now and then to see what you guys were discussing -- always a wide range of issues.
It looks like we can add another voice to the chorus of Trump critics.
Dear Mr. President:
Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.
Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.
Hi, Jeffrey! Nice to see you. So you've been writing books in your spare time? I wish I had your energy...and talent.
Your adventures in China should make for an interesting read.
I've always checked in now and then to see what you guys were discussing -- always a wide range of issues.
Glad to hear you still take a peek now and then. Anytime you want to add anything to the discussion feel free. I've always liked to hear varying opinions.
Listen to this. Housing is really tight now here. I've asked several people what percent of their salary goes to rent and they said between fifty and seventy-five percent. That's nuts.
That is. Not enough new housing being built to accommodate the increase in population?
Shower them in western goods and western ideas instead, and they may well adopt western ways and bring down the Mhulllas on their own.
Probably not. At least not the real fanatical ones. I watched the second part of that documentary last night. You can get to it by following the link in the post and clicking on the second part. Anyway, the fellow the narrator called "Mr. Big Mouth" had adopted some trappings of modernity, even going so far as letting his wife drive. If you watched the first half you will recall that he was opposed to women driving. But that didn't change his more extreme religious views or his views of the West. While he has started to use the internet, he and his son are using it as a tool to monitor Iran's enemies.
Now he is the kind of person that makes me glad that my blog is nice and obscure. ;)
I noticed that Trump's military parade has been abruptly canceled for this year by the Department of Defense. (‛Postponed’ until 2019 in Pentagonspeak)
There's been no word as of yet on whether or not Trump was informed before the announcement.
"…you will be taken to Amazon, where you can download the
titles with one more click."
Apparently I would also be obliged to actually install an Amazon/Kindle tracking app before they'll allow the download.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
I'm not sure what to make of this, but I'm reading some faux-conservative Trumpkin types as beginning to argue that it would be good for Trump (bad for the Republican Party, but good for Trump) if the Democrats were to take the House in the mid-term elections (the House, but not the Senate). This would allow the Republicans to achieve gridlock in Congress, without actually involving Trump in the process gumming up the works, and thus keep some of the stink off of him. Governmental gridlock is almost always better for the Republicans than the Democrats for the simple reason that the Republicans are the ones always running on the notion that government can't do shit right, and so there should be less government (other than the armed guards necessary to keep the rabble at bay).
This would allow Trump to rail against the Democrats for all the ills of Republican government (which he already does, but it's not actually working with the independent voters--with a Democratic House he might be able to get that line to work for him).
Additionally, the Democrats might be taunted into overworking the impeachment angle. Bill Clinton actually gained support when the Republicans tried too hard to impeach him for shit the country didn't care about. Republicans are hoping the same might happen for Trump with the Senate still backing Trump, but a Democratic House trying way too hard to achieve an impeachment they'll never be able to pull off.
Lee C.,
Apparently I would also be obliged to actually install an Amazon/Kindle tracking app before they'll allow the download.
Yeah, that might be true. I recall you saying in a previous comment string that at some point you gave up trying to stop Big Data from digging into your life.
Listen, I'm not sure if you'd like any of the books anyway, so it might be just as well.
I use my Kindle a lot because I'm always on the move, and I also really like the Kindle for PC program for my laptop.
"…at some point you gave up trying to stop Big
Data from digging into your life."
I neglected to allow for the development of verticle integration of data bases, for the internet vendor and the credit card company and my ISP and my e-mail provider all coöperating with Google to build a profile on me.
That doesn't mean I've come to generally accept tracking apps. Not yet anyway.
Lynnette,
Why thanks. I still have some energy left, which is surprising after those five years of running IBC. I was always typing entries after teaching all evening and when I should have been in bed. I was thoroughly spent at the end of that blog. Talent? Questionable, but I really do like how Year of 13 Moons takes the reader on an odd trip -- and a true tale of personal failure.
Now he is the kind of person that makes me glad that my blog is nice and obscure. ;)
Man, that makes me smile. One thing I learned right away at IBC is how pure hatred is part of human nature. In regular life, yeah, there are people you meet that don't like you. But when IBC was blogrolled at the NYTimes and other major news sources, the number of people who began to hate me rose exponentially. It was incredible. People I never met would wish my slow, painful death on a daily basis. So "nice and obscure" sounds like a smart move.
By the way, if I had to do it again, I would not have used my real name on the blog -- I was the only one who used my real name. Nope, that was stupid. On the Internet, there are just too many people who want to harm you if you don't agree with them. I didn't know that then, but I do now.
Lee C.,
That doesn't mean I've come to generally accept tracking apps. Not yet anyway.
I'm with you on this issue. I'm always wary of what's going on when I'm online. I probably need to do more research like you have to try to protect myself more. Because I have to jump over the Great Firewall of China, I've been using a VPN for the last three years. I think I would continue to use one even if I were to move back to the US.
Matthew Continetti, a post-conservative, neo-Trumpkin type pundit type, writing in the Washington Free Beacon has done me the favor of writing today on a subject I'd mentioned earlier this morning, how the Democrats will overplay their ‛impeach Trump’ instincts and thus lead to a resurgence of Trumpkinism in 2020 (or, so he's hoping).
Trumptweets: Trump claims this morning that it was his idea to cancel that military parade he'd been asking for and nobody else really wanted (they did those in the Soviet Union; they still do them in North Korea).
I'm wondering how long that story lasts without getting the wind let out of it.
Jeffrey:
"Listen to this. Housing is really tight now here. I've asked several people what percent of their salary goes to rent and they said between fifty and seventy-five percent. That's nuts. Even in NY, the usual guide was twenty-five percent of your salary."
It's the same in Prague from what I gather. After my last visit 2-3 months ago with a pal of mine we started discussing the possibility of buying an apartment (well, me buying one, not him, he's a teacher with a teacher's salary) in Prague.
We thought that since so much stuff like a reastuarant meal or a beer is so cheap, maybe apartments were equally cheap. On a side note we went one day to the Prague Zoo. Now I normally don't really like zoos BC seeing wild animals in captivity is sort of depressing to me, but I had heard the Prague zoo was great and the animals there were well tended to. Yeah, kinda, maybe, but it was still depressing to see a couple of polar bears who naturally roam vast reaches enclosed in captivity just going this way and that and having a bath in a stangnant pool once in a while. The looked well fed but I can't imagine they are happy with their lot in life.
ANYWHO: what I was getting at, we had ourselves a couple beers in that zoo and they were like $1:30 a piece, real beer (Kozel), 5% alcohol content, pint sized. In a major attaction site (they get 1.5 million visitors annualy), it was still that cheap.
So I thought; well if everything is cheap as that I might could buy an apartment here in Prague on the cheap and have a fallback position once Sweden turns into a bloody Caliphate, amirite?
No. No the prices for real estate are well up there with our domestic Swedish ones. And in the attractive parts of Prague they are higher than in Sweden. Well, maybe not higher than in Stockholm but for sure higher than here in Malmö at least.
So that was a no go for me.
And I do believe you when you say folks in Hungary pay an insane amount of their earnings on rent, the Chezh must do the same if they wanna live in decent areas close to the city.
Jeffrey:
"By the way, if I had to do it again, I would not have used my real name on the blog -- I was the only one who used my real name. Nope, that was stupid. On the Internet, there are just too many people who want to harm you if you don't agree with them. I didn't know that then, but I do now."
Really? Did you get that kind of hate? Myself I've of course not run a blog but have commented here under my real name for.... what is it, 15 years now, and I've never heard a peep from outside this comment section.
I get that I as a commenter to a blog I might not be not important enough to look up and harass, as the runner of a blog might be, but I still I wouldn't have thought you were that much in the spotlight eihther so as to get haters on your back.
IMO there's a vast difference between "hating" on someone in a comment field such as this, the way Canadian John and Myself used to do even steven, or the was myself and Lee sometimes say less than pleasant things to eachother (BC he's a total dumbass, and I'm way cool!); and to get into "real world" harassment and start hassling people IRL or making IRL threats.
So I read the negroes in South Africa are gonna take whities land without compensation. Very equal and rainbow and unicorn and all, wouldn't you say?
No?
First of all, almost ALL negroes in SA today are of the Banthu or Zulu tribes and they only ever entered SA AFTER whitey created prosperity and a jobs markey for them. They were never ever the owners of any land there, no whitie ever took it from any of them.
The original inhabitants of the land were the Xhosa, who never ventured onto the coast where the Duch settled. And the Xhosa is a fringe minority today. The blacks who now rule SA are decendent from tribes who came there to live better off of the white man than they had ever lived before. They CAME BC the white man ceated prosperity for them.
But they have no notion of history, they know only abouth them GIBS and them GIBS are not enough, never enough. So now they're gonna take over the whities land, kill all the whities and then... starve to death themselves.
But no... other white nations will feed them then. White guilt will pour resources into SA when they kill off all the whites (and eat them, or whatnot) and wreck their whole agricltural section. GIBSMEDAT!!!, they will scream, until the support system from whitey is streched so thin in beaks.
So we'll get Zimbabwe 2.0.
Negroes through sheer incompitence and lazyness undoing the productive facilities the white man created, and faced with the inevitable shortage screaming GIBSMEDAT! But we only have so many GIBS to give, and soon they'll be on their own, starving and desperate. Begging for whitey to come back and feed them, just like Zimbabwe is doing right now.
So, the original coastal inhabitants are all dead then?
And that means Whitey gets to keep the land?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…. It looks like Trump is gonna start stripping security clearances away from current DOJ and FBI personnel who're now working or have worked in the past on the Russian/Trump collusion question. CBSNews I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this is a warm-up for stripping security clearances from Robert Mueller and his team at the Special Counsel's office.
Lee: So, the original coastal inhabitants are all dead then?
And that means Whitey gets to keep the land?"
There weren't any. The Xhosa was a hunter-gatherer tribe that lived inland where there was jungle and such. They did not farm and had no use for farmland, grasslands.
The coast, and the fertile plains close to it were EMPTY when the Dutch settled. The Dutch Boers made that land into farmland and laid claim to it.
And yes, that means the decendants of the Boers (whitey) should get to keep THEIR lands (not those lands, THEIR lands).
Why should Banthus and Zulus who never ever inhabitated those lands get to steal it without compensation from the ones who farmed it through generations? Just BC they migrated south to feed off of the prosperity the whites generated?
"There weren't any."
That appeared to me to be unlikely (early American history was likewise inclined to pretend that the Indians didn't make any claims to the land), and a quick google indicated it isn't true. There were native peoples, Bushmen and ‛Hottentot’ and ‛Khoi’ by designation. And the Xhosa appear to have been a ‛pastoral’ people with herds of cattle, not the jungle bunnies you'd wish they were.
In any case, the surviving blacks are obviously much more closely related to the indigenous people than are the European replacements.
And it appears there were also ‛Strandlopers’, fishermen by trade, the name means ‛beachwalker’, living where Capetown now stands when the Dutch first got there.
Jeffrey,
I use my Kindle a lot because I'm always on the move, and I also really like the Kindle for PC program for my laptop.
I can see where it would make things more convenient for someone who is traveling extensively. I haven't had the opportunity lately to do that, so have had no issue with the traditional paper books. I also tend to prefer them to their electronic cousins because of the feel and, yes, smell of them. I know, maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I like the looks of them on my shelves waiting to be picked up and enjoyed. They feel like friends I have yet to meet.
By the way, if I had to do it again, I would not have used my real name on the blog...
I have never used my full name. I never thought much about it at first, so used my real first name, but now after having met so many odd people I am glad I never used my full name. Although for the most part I really don't think any of them would bother to hunt me down in real life. I wasn't that important to those I argued with. I was probably more entertainment than anything else.
I have heard of some who have been harassed in real life because of things they have said or done on social media, but they are far more high profile.
Myself I've of course not run a blog but have commented here under my real name for.... what is it, 15 years now, and I've never heard a peep from outside this comment section.
Marcus, Petes and I only started writing here in 2014. You're thinking of Z's blog, I'm guessing. That was really a wild comments section. That was the first time I'd run across anyone like Nader.
It looks like Trump is gonna start stripping security clearances away from current DOJ and FBI personnel who're now working or have worked in the past on the Russian/Trump collusion question.
He's found a new weapon, or toy, as the case may be, to hit people over the head with. I don't know, I'm thinking the further he goes down this path the more he will alienate people who he should have as supporters. All of his little Trumpkin minions aside. We're already seeing condemnation from many former CIA operatives from all the way back to the Reagan administration.
That was the first time I'd run across anyone like Nader.
Or Z, for that matter.
Marcus,
Let me clarify. I mean that I used my full real name at Iraqi Bloggers Central. Not only that, I also posted my exact address in Astoria, Queens, New York, and even gave everyone my phone number. At the time, I figured I had nothing to hide.
You might remember a commnenter called Bruno from South Africa (I often called him Brunhilda), a regular at IBC and several other weblogs. We disagreed a lot and one time I told him if he was really serious to give me a call and we could hash out our issues. I gave him an exact time to call me.
Well, when the time arrived, the phone rang and it was Bruno. We talked for half an hour to an hour. For the first ten minutes, it was very heated and contentious -- both of us finally getting a chance to vent on one another for years of acrimony. After that, we calmed down and worked out all the details of our differences, but in the end, neither of us changed our views.
Iraqi Bloggers Central had a lot of traffic and during those years of the Iraqi conflict people were very divided on many issues. There was a dedicated group of anonymous commenters who never joined the debates, but instead spent all of their time threatening me. They followed me wherever I went. If I remember correctly, they even contacted the university where I was teaching.
That kind of malevolent attention I had not expected. So, looking back, if I had do it again, I would never use my full name and give others so much personal information.
I started Iraqi Bloggers Central in 2004. My main interest was just to follow what Iraqi bloggers had to say now that they had the freedom to write whatever they wanted. As it turned out, IBC charted the rise and the demise of the English-language Iraqi blogosphere. Lots of excellent writing between 2004 and 2009, but then in the last few years it went silent.
Lynnette,
I have never used my full name. I never thought much about it at first, so used my real first name, but now after having met so many odd people I am glad I never used my full name.
That was smart. Yes, I explained to Marcus just above. I was a bit naive when I started Iraqi Bloggers Central. Full transparency for me. Not smart. Why? Because there are people out there who really would like to harm you if you don't agree with them.
It's amazing how far back both Lynnette and Lee C. go in the Iraqi blogosphere. I first wrote about Lee C. all the way back in 2004. His persona in those days was something like Lee Marvin playing Liberty Valence in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.
He used a kind of cowboy diction that worked well with his laconic, irritable responses to those who challenged him. For example, here's just one that I highlighted in a blog entry about Kurdo's World, which I called Kurdo's Wild West Saloon.
A foolish commenter writes:
Lee..
You didn't answer my question.
Sheriff Lee C. responds:
Yes, that's correct.
I told you a couple of times that if you kept on being stupid I was going to start ignoring you.
See how that works.
Classic Sheriff Lee C.
Today, believe it or not, I think Lee C. has mellowed a bit. Also, he doesn't use the cowboy diction as much as he used to.
For years, I referred to Lee C. as Sheriff Lee C., imagining him sitting at the end of the bar with a shot on the counter in front of him and only talking when people were foolish enough to engage him.
Kurdo's Wild West Saloon Blow by Blow.
*
Lynnette,
Not enough new housing being built to accommodate the increase in population?
I'm not sure. I need to talk to more people here about this. There's lots infrastructure projects going on and some of old buildings are being refurbished (and a lot of old buildings are still boarded up). In the city itself, I don't see new apartment buildings going up -- but maybe this is going on in the suburbs.
I've never heard of people having to use almost all of their salary just to pay the rent. Could the landlords be colluding with each other?
Could the landlords be colluding with each other?
Interesting thought. If you have a handful of owners that own most of the property, let's say the upper 1%, perhaps they have gotten together and fixed the rents. Real estate can be very lucrative, especially if you don't play by the rules. Or if you have fixed the rules in your favor.
Jeffrey,
I think Iraqi Mojo was kind of out front with his personal details to some extent too. Didn't he meet up with some of the bloggers?
And, Zeyad too was rather high profile.
After you mentioned IBC yesterday I visited the site and looked at a few of the old Iraqi blogs. I was pleased to see that Abbas(Konfused Iraki Kid) still had his site open. I looked at a couple of his earlier posts and realized that I hadn't read all of them, or have forgotten. I may have to go back and reread them. A lot of the Iraqi bloggers were in their early 20's when they started posting so it was a critical time in their lives.
I would guess that most have moved on to other social media sites, like Facebook or Twitter. The blogs are a little passe now.
NBCNews tells us today that Trump is considering taking the war in Afghanistan ‛private’, turning it over to Erik Prince of Blackwater Inc. fame (later know as Xe Services, and now known as Acadami). For real; Prince has been pitching this to Trump since Trump first began his run for President, but nobody ever really figured Trump was dumb enough to go for it.
Apparently there's folks in the Pentagon have begun to reassess the level of dumb that Trump can bring to his decision making, and they're getting worried that it might actually happen.
NewYorkTimes headline: White House Counsel Has Cooperated Extensively With Mueller’s Obstruction Inquiry
We've been noting that the White House long ago gave up on arguing that Trump hadn't tried to obstruct justice. Rather, they're now betting all their marbles on the argument that the President cannot be charged with obstruction of justice on the grounds that he's the President. (And betting that they'll keep enough Republican support in the Senate that he'll never be successfully impeached--that latter one is the more likely to work out for them.)
Jeffrey: "It's amazing how far back both Lynnette and Lee C. go in the Iraqi blogosphere. I first wrote about Lee C. all the way back in 2004. "
I think I first started posting comments on Zeyads blog already in 2003, but I might be mistaken - it might've been in 2004. In any case Lee was aleady there at the time I found the place (I think at least).
Also in the early years there were Omar the sunni-extremist and of course Umm Ayad the jew-hatress who hung around for quite some time.
Then of course Bruno and An Italian, who was really intelligent and often hilarious to read.
Good 'ol times in these here tubes, that's fer sure.
Apparently there's folks in the Pentagon have begun to reassess the level of dumb that Trump can bring to his decision making, and they're getting worried that it might actually happen.
One should never overestimate our President's level of "stable genius".
...An Italian, who was really intelligent and often hilarious to read.
He was certainly a unique individual.
Marcus,
I wasn't sure how far you go back in the Iraqi blogopshere. Commenting in 2003 means you were there at the very beginning. We are all veterans of that commenting community.
My write-up of that first year is still worth reading. I wrote that series in six days, one entry for each year. Five years of daily experience in the Iraqi blogosphere went into those entries. I could not do it today. Anyway, here a link to that first year.
A Look Back at Iraq and the Iraqi Blogosphere: 2003
*
Lynnette,
I met Iraqi Mojo several times in New York. He would visit occasionally for business and we'd hang out together and talk. He was really interesting and a perfect person to talk to about Iraqi issues. Being basically bi-cultural, he understood both sides. If I remember correctly, you could also call him bi-sectarian, with some parts of his extended family Sunni and the others Shia.
One night, Iraqi Mojo and I hung out with Omar from Iraq the Model and that was fantastic. Omar was very funny and witty. Sharp as a tack. We had dinner at a restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and then drank beer and chatted through the rest of the evening.
*
TrumpTweets: It would seem that Trump was watching the news last night when it got out that the White House Counsel, Don McGahn, had been coöperating with Robert Mueller's investigation. Possible he'll have brooded about it all night.
We might have some interesting tweets come about this morning (unless they've had the very good sense to have hidden his twitterphone overnight).
Jeffrey,
That was a nice walk down memory lane. But somehow sad at the same time. I wonder now what happened to so many of the people who blogged back then? Yes, I know some are in the US or Sweden, but I know others stayed in Iraq. So much has happened since 2003, not least of which was the rise of Daesh from the remnants of Saddam loyalists.
Yes, I remember now that you had met up with Iraqi Mojo and Omar. I don't know if you keep in touch, but I hope they are all well.
We might have some interesting tweets come about this morning (unless they've had the very good sense to have hidden his twitterphone overnight).
Nope, no such luck. He has been twittering about McCarthyism in relationship to Mueller's investigation.
There was a poll out that has 51% of Republicans saying they believe that the media is the enemy of the people. I never would have believed that so many Americans would be so gullible as to be taken in by Trump's propaganda.
*sigh*
It appears to be a race as to who will be the master of our demise, climate change or ourselves.
"There was a poll out that has 51% of Republicans saying they
believe that the media is the enemy of the people."
I find that neither surprising nor particularly distressing. According to Gallup the percentage of Americans who'd admit to actually being Republicans was only 26% as of July of this year (up from 22% as of January of this year) So, we're talkin’ maybe as much as 13% of the American population there. I am not particularly surprised by this percentage.
I didn't make this stuff up; this is really happening:
"Many churches in the Northeast held a ‛Mass of
forgiveness,’ including St. Patrick's Cathedral [on
Sunday]"
CBSNews
The Catholic priests and bishops are forgiving themselves for running rampant child porn and pedophilia rings on the East Coast. (The Mass of Forgiveness officiated by one of the named pedophile bishops in Pennsylvania Friday managed to escape my notice until such self-forgivenness religious services became more widespread and started making news even among us non-Catholic types.)
A minor Twitterburst by the Great Orange Leader this morning. The Mueller investigation has apparently been on his mind overnight.
The Catholic priests and bishops are forgiving themselves for running rampant child porn and pedophilia rings on the East Coast.
I think everyone was surprised at the extent to which this was going on in Pennsylvania. But the whole thing has been white washed by the Catholic Church for years. This, and also abuse of nuns by priests. Is there no one with any integrity anymore?
There seem to be more women running for elected office, especially in Minnesota. Perhaps it's about time to get another view point on things.
It's not your imagination. There's a record number of women running for federal office this year. NPR also NPR Those two are about the House of Representatives but it's not confined to just there. There's a record number of women running for governorships and state legislatures up for records as well.
I notice that Trump has a tweet in among this morning's offerings with closes with the announcement of ‘CLEAN COAL’.
It appears that Trump intends to discover this so-far elusive prize by rescinding the existing pollution regulations on coal fired power plants. CBSNews
Jeffrey,
"I wasn't sure how far you go back in the Iraqi blogopshere. Commenting in 2003 means you were there at the very beginning. We are all veterans of that commenting community. "
Now I could be wrong BC it's so long ago but my entry-point was probably the Riverbend-blog by some Iraqi anti-war female via some MSM that referenced it, and from there on I found Zeyad's Healing Iraq, quite early. You remember Riverbend?
But I was mostly a fly on the wall the first few years, asking questions and so, and didn't really have time for much else. Later I was more outspoken about my anti-war stance, and espacially against the TORTURE that renditions and reversed-SERE led to, that was standard practice during the Bush years.
That's when I first encountred Sheriff Lee who NEVER EVER admitted to any American's wrong doing, being it stuffing an Iraqi general head first into a sleeping bag in the middle of the desert and then kicking him around only to find out he, surprise, surpsise suffocated and died from it. I thought that heineous, Lee thought it OK.
Then it got into whole other areas and also Sweden was swamped by "refugees" from Iraq and all these following conflicts and I was faces with the consequences of that, and them consequences were not good. My sympathy for Arabs have fallen quite a bit you know.
But hey Jeffrey, thank God for Trump, eh? If not for him you'd be in WW3 with Russia over Syria and it's quite doubtful China could've stayed out of it and even if they could you most likely could note have gone back there after your Istanbul sojourn. If any of us would even have survived. So Thank GOD the war-thirsty ghoul Hillary was stumped by Trump. Right? That's one nasty vampire shrew who got a stake through her pitch black heart at the very last moment, amirite?
"Lee thought it OK."
You appear to again be confusing me with your imaginary friends, Scooter and Nils.
The jury in the Manafort trial appears to be hung up on a verdict on one count of the eighteen count indictment (at least one, but probably only one).
At one point during the trial the judge told the prosecutor to move along to a loan that Manafort actually got instead of continuing to spend time on the one they were working on for the jury (which loan was never made). This was an error by the judge; Manafort was charged with fraud for having committed fraud in the loan application, so it didn't really matter if the bank had gone ahead and made the loan. The prosecution submitted a motion and a brief on the matter and asked the judge to explain to the jury that he'd been wrong the day before; it was fraud to try to defraud the bank in a written loan application--didn't matter that the bank didn't fall for it. The judge declined to so advise the jury.
If that turns out to be the count they're having trouble deciding, then there's gonna be lot of talk about how that judge screwed it up.
NBCNews tells us that Michael Cohen, Trump's ex-personal lawyer/fixer, has struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Not a good day for Trump here today.
The Associated Press tells us that the jury has convicted Paul Manafort on eight counts of the eighteen counts in the indictment. The judge has declared a mistrial on the remaining ten counts. We'll have to wait for later to discover which way the jury was leaning on those remaining ten counts, and whether or not any of them admit to having let political biases play a role in their decisions (either in favor of Manafort or opposed).
Another of the early endorsers of Trump, Congressman Duncan Hunter (R) of California, has been indicted for campaign financing violations. The dedicated Trumpkins are turning out to be first order swamp creatures. Drain the swamp indeed.
It appears that Trump intends to discover this so-far elusive prize by rescinding the existing pollution regulations on coal fired power plants.
And once again reinforcing my belief that he is the worst President ever. He makes decisions without thought of the consequences.
The dedicated Trumpkins are turning out to be first order swamp creatures.
Indeed. Birds of a feather flock together.
This may the time to mention that Michael Cohen's plea agreement in New York has taken a lot of the heat off of Robert Mueller (this assuming that Trump's lawyers can get it through his head what just happened to him yesterday). Cohen has pled guilty to conspiring with Trump to violate campaign finance laws--that's already out there.
That's impeachment material, all they need, right there. Firing Mueller isn't going to make it go away.
Now they need a Senate that will impeach Trum. That'll require 67 total votes. That's not there yet. This Republican Senate won't impeach Trump. Maybe if they take a serious whuppin' in the upcoming elections that'll change, but right now there's no way in hell that there'll be enough Republican Senators vote to impeach in spite of clear, beyond a reasonable doubt, evidence that Trump is guilty of campaign felonies.
I would also note that Trump was bragging yesterday, during his campaign rally in West Virginia, that he had ‛forced’ the EU into trade negotiations with his threat of 25% tariffs on German cars.
I mentioned this gambit before (Lee C. @ Thu Aug 16, 05:52:00 am ↑↑). The EU was never reluctant to engage in negotiations; they're okay with negotiations, always have been. Nobody was forced to the table here (except maybe Trump, who's had to recognize reality when the counter-parties retaliated instead of buckling under).
TrumpTweets: Fairly broad hint to Paul Manafort this morning that the pardon Manafort's been counting on is coming probably soon--soon as the current trials are over is my guess.
Hey Lynnette
Check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dECR9_kNh1s
Now, why would we wanna dilute that with African culture?
Why not have European culture in Europe and African culture in Africa?
After all there are 1.2 BILLION Africans with a birthrate seeing them double in about a decade and only 0.5 Billion white Europeans with a stagnant or even negative birthrate.
Why can't we whites have a place of our own?
Why can't we whites have a place of our own?
Because if they don't start having babies they're going to be extinct and wherever they lived before will be taken over by those who do?
I noticed there is speculation that China is reconsidering its two child policy.
Fairly broad hint to Paul Manafort this morning that the pardon Manafort's been counting on is coming probably soon--soon as the current trials are over is my guess.
At some point in time Trump will have been given enough rope to hang himself. There is a tipping point out there, just not sure where.
"There is a tipping point out there, just not sure where."
Fifty-one Democratic Senators and no real prospect of the Republicans regaining the Senate majority until they purge themselves of the vestiges of Trump. Then it'll tip; probably not before.
At least one juror from the Paul Manafort trial is talking now. She's told FoxNews that the jury was eleven to one in favor of conviction on all eighteen counts, but that there was a single juror (female) who simply would not come around.
This is important to the Mueller team as they weigh the pros and cons of trying one more time to convict Mueller on the ten ‛hung jury’ counts in the indictment. If it had been eight to four, for instance, they'd probably not try it again, but eleven to one suggests they'd probably get a conviction next time.
(The juror was an apparent dedicated Trumpkin, as might be suspected from her willingness to appear on FoxNews, but she was convinced of Manafort's guilt on all counts nonetheless"
Leaks from FoxNews (and other places) that Trump is actively considering a pardon for Paul Manafort, in spite of White House assertions to the contrary.
She's told FoxNews that the jury was eleven to one in favor of conviction on all eighteen counts, but that there was a single juror (female) who simply would not come around.
Yes, kind of curious, that. One has to wonder, given the thoughts of the other eleven jurors, what was it that made her so uncertain?
If I were Mueller I would definitely look into the possibility of a retrial of those last 10 counts.
...Trump is actively considering a pardon for Paul Manafort, in spite of White House assertions to the contrary.
Of course he is. That was kind of a given. He's got the power and he's willing to use it. Just like any good dictator.
"If I were Mueller I would definitely look into the
possibility of a retrial of those last 10 counts."
The deciding question would be whether or not those additional ten counts would make Mueller more likely to roll over on Trump. That's what the prosecution of Manafort means to Mueller--an avenue to Trump. If Mueller gets enough time on the Washington D.C. charges to keep Manafort in prison for life, then nailing Manafort on those particular ten charges begins to look irrelevant.
"Of course he is."
I guess I didn't figure the point about the leaks. These leaks are coming from very high up--Rudy Guiliani in one case (the New York Times); Trump himself in another case (Fox and Friends' interviewer on FoxNews). They're doing the leaking because they want Manafort to be certain about that promise of a pardon and know it's coming directly from the top.
There may be some problem for Trump with certain voters who supported him in the past if he does go so far as to pardon Manafort, or some others. Yes, he is still looking good for those who are benefiting from a strong stock market, but there are others out there who are starting to waver over the pardon thing.
Rain! It's actually raining here!
It's been quite a while.
I offer a parting salute to John McCain. FoxNews He will be missed; he will be remembered.
Lynnette:
"I noticed there is speculation that China is reconsidering its two child policy."
Of course they can reconsider that, now, after the effects of the much needed ONE child policy that saved them from totally swamping the place. Then they instituted the two child policy to try and reach equilibrium. Now that they are more prosperous and people are less inclined to breed like rabbits all over the place they might could do away with the two child policy as well.
But what they do NOT do is try to alter their population numbers by importing infinity Africans, and I sure as hell am not thinking I'll see that in the near, medium or far future, as far as the chinese go.
Africa is bigger than the USA and Canada, and western Europe, and Australia put together. And much of it is the most fertlie lands on earth. Why cant africans eke out a living there I ask? How fucking inept are they? Are they just big children?
How is it in any capacity sane that africans from the equator should move up to the northern polar circle for... for what? GIBS is what. Them sweet GIBSMEDATS. Nothing else.
The ONLY reason africans reallocate is to live near and off of white people. If there were no whites in scandinavia no africans would even be able to live there, they'd freeze or starve depending on season.
Just like the black Banthu and Zulu people only came to South Africa AFTER the whites had settled the lands and ceated job opportunities.
Then they outbred the more prosperous whites (took a few decades, the whites were the majority for quite soe time there), took over Government, and are at this very stage about to steal the white South Africans legacy, then in the near future they will kill them and maybe even eat them.
And then, then there will be no domestic farms to produce foodstuffs, no whites left to run the infrastructure, no-one to repair broken pipes or roads, and South Africa will fall into negro-Chaos.
Just like Haiti does every time the white man moves away from there.
Just like prosperous Rhodesia fell into the hellholwe that is Zimbabwe.
Sad.
I read somewhere that the original, indigenous, people of the British Isles were black. They were eventually slaughtered to extinction by white skinned people from northern Asian prairies (Russian territory now, called the "steppes" )
Perhaps the native people of Sweden were black too. (The current Germanic types now occupying Sweden slaughtered the original inhabitants to extinction around 2000 years ago, except for the Laplanders in the ice regions to the far north.)
And, just by the way…
It's difficult to justify the way the white men treated the indigenous Americans. Indeed, it's impossible to justify that. However, the white American invaders did not wipe the native population entirely out of existence. The same cannot be said of the Swedes. They wiped the natives out of existence, except for the Eskimo who lived too far north for the Swedes to want to go.
(Swedes call them Laplanders or Sami; they're called Inuit in Greenland; Eskimo in North America.)
Lee: "It's difficult to justify the way the white men treated the indigenous Americans. Indeed, it's impossible to justify that. "
No it's not, they got conquered is all. See? Easy as that.
Happened all across the globe with every human population of every colour.
Heck, the tribes that went into the bush to find negroes to sell to the Jewish slave merchants for them to ship off and sell to whites in America were, surprise, surprise: other negroes, but from different Tribes
.
"Easy as that."
I'm gonna havta assume your English has failed you again.
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