This is my next-to-last opportunity to convince y’all to check out TexasBlogfest 2005, which starts Friday night in Addison. I’m really obligated to do this as I posted the wrong week a few days ago.
If you’re a Texas blogger, especially in the DFW area, go check it out now. Hey, Friday night is your chance to share a brew with me.
As if that’s not enough, major gun play is in the works for Sunday morning.
The big stories of the day (just turn on your TV and start flipping through the news channels if you don’t believe me):
Who cares?
Scott Peterson gets death sentence
Really, I don’t understand people who get wrapped up in the flavor-of-the-month news story.
Oh yeah, the Ags are trailing Clemson 42-34 at the break.
Listening to the Aggies’ first-round NIT game on the radio while filling out my NCAA brackets for the office pool.
Man, what a great time of the year. See y’all later.
The next Iraqi government is beginning to take shape.
One day before the first meeting of Iraq’s transitional National Assembly, representatives of major parties reached an agreement “in principle” on formation of a new government, officials said Tuesday.
The agreement between Kurdish leaders and members of the United Iraqi Alliance includes the appointment of Jalal Talabani as president — the first time a Kurd would hold such the post — and of Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister, according to Dawa party official Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi.
Negotiations continued into Tuesday night, and most party representatives are expected to sign the document Wednesday as the assembly holds its historic meeting Wednesday at 11 a.m. (3 a.m. ET).
In the January 30 election, the United Iraqi Alliance won 140 seats in the 275-member temporary legislative body, and the Kurds gained 75 seats. Despite its lead in assembly seats, the alliance needs partners because a two-thirds majority is required to form a government.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad sent out a warning Tuesday alerting Americans in the capital to take extra care ahead of the meeting.
Iraq is already operating under a state of emergency, which was extended by acting Prime Minister Ayad Allawi on March 3. The order restricts travel across borders and gives Allawi broad powers to detain suspected insurgents.
As I blogged before, a deal between the Shiite alliance and the Kurds would possibly hinge on the Kurds getting the presidency. That looks to be the case.
If this potential agreement comes to bear fruit, there will be two important questions as the assembly meets. First, will there be a role for interim prime minister Ayad Allawi in the government being shaped? Second, will the assembly be able to successfully conduct its business in safety? Damn, it’s got to be a juicy target.
I recently created the “My Blogroll” category as a place to announce additions to my blogroll (now nearing 100 strong) and as a place to occasionally honor the blogs I read. I plan, on a fairly regular basis, to list favorite blogs based on some particular attribute, such as appearance, best essays, favorite MilBloggers, funniest, etc.
For my first installment, I thought it only appropriate to list the five blogs that inspired me to blog and helped me realize there was actually somebody reading, some reason to keep blogging.
Obviously two legends in the game, these are the first two blogs I began frequently reading.
The blog that actually inspired Target Centermass. Bill Whittle and Stephen den Beste are legends in the blogosphere, but elgato at the Swanky Conservative was just a regular guy who posted at an Aggie-related forum I frequent. After repeatedly visiting his fine blog, I realized I had some things to say and could actually say them, though not as well as he.
The first to link to Target Centermass. Beginning blogging can be a very lonely endeavour, not knowing if anybody is reading. Sometimes it seems one can actually hear the echoes of the key-clicks. After all, not everybody can get an Instalanche in their first week (I’m looking at you, Eric … with envy). Checking on my blog in a hotel while visiting my ailing father, Lo! I suddenly see traffic when John Little named my little project as his Site of the Week.
Phil was the first to blogroll and link to me before I’d found him. Ah, redemption — a link that was obviously not just reciprocity or pity. Maybe, just maybe, I can do this blogging thing.
Thanks very much to all of y’all. You’re why Target Centermass began and continued.
So far today, it’s a tale of two retreats. First, Italy announced plans to leave Iraq. Now we have the story of Syrian intelligence bugging out of the Lebanese capital … and fast.
Witnesses say Syrian intelligence agents in the Lebanese capital have begun evacuating their headquarters, one day after a massive protest in Beirut aimed at ending Syria’s military presence in the country.
Syrian agents were reported loading equipment onto pickup trucks under the supervision of Lebanese police.
Now, let me go see if I can hunt down some more retreats.
On Monday, hundreds of thousands of protesters in Beirut held the biggest anti-Syria rally since last month’s assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. Lebanon’s opposition blames Damascus and Beirut’s pro-Syrian government for the killing, but both deny involvement.
Just as a kindness, I’ll offer these helpful links to the Syrians.
For the best Lebanese coverage of the “Cedar Revolution” as it unfolds, I once again have to recommend Publis Pundit.
Italy has announced that it will begin drawing down its forces in Iraq, beginning in September. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi claims the decision is unrelated to the recent checkpoint shooting of a car carrying communist reporter and supposed hostage Giuliana Sgrena.
Asked whether Italy’s decision was tied to the shooting incident, Mr McClellan said he had not heard Italian officials saying that.
“I’m not sure I’d make a connection there,” he said.
Dr. Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report disagrees.
Giuliana Sgrena has finally gotten her way. Islamist media already attributes Italy’s announced withdrawal as a response to the Sgrena debacle. Expect more hostage taking (real or feigned) immediately.
This is the second lengthy outtage in recent days.
Not that it matters much to me, just a poor schmuck trying to reach 10K hits in my meager aims for ego-stroking. Unfortunately for others, the Blogrolling service can actually have an economic impact.
That, and it hampers my ability to read my blogroll. I may have to reconsider my means of listing those sites I enjoy reading.
Perhaps Blogrolling.com has too much of a sway over the current make-up of the blogosphere. Hmmm…
The United Nations has an image problem among many Americans.
Surprised? Of course you’re not. Despite its success as a political arena during the Cold War, a Coliseum for the diplomatic gladiators of the U.S. and the Soviets, the UN has long since strayed from its hopeful origins and purposes. At its best, it is bungling. At its worst, it is incredibly corrupt. In between lies the norm — spineless token gestures, misguided and half-hearted forays, hollow words and resolutions.
Now, the UN wants to correct its image in the eyes of Americans with a planned revamping of the UN Human Rights Commission.
The United Nations is out of touch with most Americans, who think the beleaguered organization has abandoned its mission to keep peace and protect human rights around the world, says U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s chief of staff.
“In a very real way, we seem to have lost touch with the great middle in America, a middle which very much believes in the aspirational ideas of the U.N. … and who feel that we’ve drifted away from a commitment to human rights, a commitment to help the poor of the world,” Mark Malloch Brown said yesterday.
The United Nations is under fire for several scandals including the oil-for-food program, charges of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeeping forces and the resignation of a top official accused of sexual harassment, which Mr. Malloch Brown addressed in an exclusive interview with “Fox News Sunday.”
The organization will propose changes in the coming weeks to begin repairing its reputation by revamping its “human rights machinery” to keep dictator nations off the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
Governments making up the current membership include Cuba, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia. Libya is the outgoing chair of the committee.
The plan would “try and restore the credibility of this and have people on that commission who really are people of stature and reputation and record and come from countries of the same thing, with real human rights standing in the world,” Mr. Malloch Brown said.
Go give it a read, as it does a good job of listing the current hot-button problems — chiefly, the oil-for-food scandal, subsequent investigations, and the allegations of atrocities by UN peacekeepers. Noticably absent is any mention of the organization’s horrible track record of its treatment of Israel vis-a-vis the surrounding despotic Arab states, but that would require too much honesty in the face of too much hatred and opportunism.
How far has the UN fallen? They know they have a problem that they plan to address, and still I am sadly confident that they will fail to do anything more than change some window dressing.
In the latest turn in a game of rally and counter-rally, tremendous numbers gathered in Beirut to protest Syrian influence in Lebanon.
Hundreds of thousands of opposition demonstrators chanted “Freedom, sovereignty, independence†and unfurled a huge Lebanese flag in Beirut on Monday, the biggest protest yet in the opposition’s duel of street rallies with supporters of the Damascus-backed government.
Robert Mayer at Publius Pundit provides a thorough and updated round-up of coverage of what he’s calling a “human tsunami” in Beirut.