I organized a reunion lunch with a few of the folks from my Form II year. Since Knight Rider is coming back, so are we.
We have not sat down together in 23 years. And everyone was instantly recognizable.
The five of us are: Deborah McGuire, Mark Rees-Thomas, Krishna Magan, Jessica Stephens (née Beyeler) and myself (trying to photograph myself by inverting the phone-camera; it does have two modes but the other one gives a reflected image).
We are still wrinkle-free though we have a few more grey hairs. Mark, Krishna and Jess have kids.
A whole bunch of names came up from the past, some of which I had forgotten, and we all had some great goss.
But we did have a few remarks and info about other folks—Jason Maling, Tracey Heemi, Ishara Goonawardne, Tom Pacza, Anita Balakrishnan, Barry Lei, Laura Hayvice, Chris Mardon, David Irvine, Corbett Stace and more. If you folks are reading, we still remember you. There were a few other names that came up that I am ashamed I have already forgotten tonight.
If United Airlines passengers are told that they are being flown by Capt Brett Egarr, let him know he was in our thoughts, too.
We have no info on Dane Alchorne, Cadell Macmillan, Neil McDonald, David Garland, Claudia Iten (though we suspect she could be an opera singer) and numerous others. If you guys ever read this, please get in touch with me via my main site or join the St Mark’s Alumni and Friends group on Facebook.
We did wonder whatever happened to that guy Karl Urban who was in our year.
We’ve decided to do another one in August so anyone from the class of ’85 who missed this, you still have a chance!
Anyone despairing of the future of the human race really should visit the Science Museum in London. You will surely walk away uplifted, as I was.There on display you will see thousands of examples of man's genius in fashioning the machines we so take for granted today. What is so astonishing is the progress that has been made in such a relatively short time. I have chosen images that illustrate this progress.
This is a replica of an Astrarium built in 1381. A description follows.
Then there is Stephenson's Rocket which was built in 1829.
Around 150 years later man had progressed to sending a man to the moon in this spacecraft.
And here is a replica of the very first computer invented by Charles Babbage around 1849.
On display is also the very first jet engine which I neglected to get a photo of, and many of the early machines created in man's attempts at flight. I marvelled at the courage and sheer persistence of these people in overcoming what must have seemed at times insurmountable problems. Yet they endured, and today we reap the rewards of their efforts. Surely there's a message there for all of us.
General Motors provided us with these videos today from the British Motor Show. Still thinking about whether to put them on to the Lucire site as the aspect ratio is wrong and everyone looks 12 ft tall. They include the launch of the Opel Insignia, and scenes from Cadillac, Bentley, Lotus, Renault and Alfa Romeo.
Estelle Getty has died—farewell to The Golden Girls’ Sophia.
Although her character was the oldest, I think Estelle was one of the youngest actresses in the cast. She was 84 at the time of her passing, but 20-plus years ago, her character’s age was in the 80s.
I’ll remember her well for The Golden Girls and not for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.
This is a reboot of the previous post, which got tangled in hidden formating codes.
Yep - here we go again! A new version of Chapter 4, in which we discover Earth's minerals, rocks, and layers.
Please - be brutal! The more you help me improve this, the better it will be for the students who have to use it!
4.1 Earth’s Composition
Most of our information about earth’s interior and its composition comes from indirect observation; the deepest drill hole to date has penetrated less than 25 km into the earth, or about 0.004% of the distance from the surface to the center. Nevertheless, we have learned much about the chemical makeup of earth's interior from komatiites, which are believed to represent upwellings from the mantle, and meteorites, which are believed to represent earth's starting composition. Similarly, earth tides, gravity, magnetism, and inertial measurements tell us much about earth's mechanical properties. However most of what we know about earth's interior comes from seismic energy released by
earthquakes, as we saw in chapter 3.
The thickness of the layers and their velocities (fig.4.1, center) may
be found using the arrival times at stations around the globe; in
certain instances, the behavior of the energy at the layer boundaries
is also informative (e.g., at the D’’ layer that is believed to be the
core-mantle boundary).
The challenge before us is to interpret these curves in terms of the geology. Changes in the curve may represent places where the material suddenly changes from one chemical to another. Or they may be places where the composition is constant but the material suddenly becomes denser. Each boundary seen in the seismic data may represent either of these situations, and various lines of evidence need to be studied to determine their nature.
What we do know is that each layer has consistent properties (Fig. 4.1), from the high water content of the aesthenosphere to the absence of S-waves in the outer core. The properties of each layer come from its physical conditions (pressure and temperature) as well as from its chemical composition. But how the layers are defined depends on which property is most important. Geochemists study earth based on its chemical properties and so define a different set of layers than do geophysicists who divide earth’s interior based on mechanical properties. Mechanically, the layers are the lithosphere, the upper mantle, the lower mantle or D’’ layer, the outer core, and the inner core. These layers have been primarily defined by their seismic characteristics, including P-and S-wave velocities. We will examine this in more detail in later sections.
For now, let us consider earth’s chemical layers. Chemically, earth’s interior is subdivided into the crust, the aesthenosphere, the mantle, the core-mantle boundary, the outer core, and the inner core. Each chemical layer is made from a specific set of rocks or materials with a consistent chemical composition (Table 4.1-1). For example, the mantle consists primarily of peridotite and the oceanic crust is primarily basalt and gabbro.
The rocks in each layer are made up of naturally-occurring compounds which form molecules known as minerals. Though more than 100,000 different minerals have been identified, the bulk of earth’s interior is made from only thirteen compounds (Table 4.1-2) that combine in various ways to make fewer than fifty minerals. Similarly, each compound is made up of atoms with consistent properties known as elements. Earth’s main elements are oxygen (O), silicon (Si), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), aluminum (Al), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), potassium (K), cobalt (Co), and nickel (Ni). The distribution of these elements is different for each planet and follows a distinct pattern (Chapter 10). For now, we will focus on the distribution of these elements in earth’s interior.
Each element is a specific type of atom with a defined number of positively-charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons in a central nucleus which is surrounded by concentric, non-spherical regions called orbitals that act as holding tanks for negatively-charged electrons. An electron must gain or lose specific amounts of energy in order to move from one orbital to another [1]. The number of neutrons in an element can vary. This changes the mass of the atom, creating isotopes which have the same chemical reactions but at different rates. More neutrons creates a heavier atom which reacts more slowly than one with fewer neutrons. As we will see, this effect creates a "thermometer" that can be used to determine the formation temperature for a mineral. The mass of an atom is shown as a superscript to the left of the chemical symbol. For example, carbon (C) is commonly found as with six protons and six neutrons, for an atomic mass of twelve (12C). However, it also has isotopes with seven neutrons (13C) and eight neutrons (14C).
It is the number of electrons that determines how each element reacts chemically, and the number of protons that determines how many electrons an atom can hold. Initially, these are equal. However, this can change in two ways. The number of protons and neutrons can change by nuclear decay (chapter 5) or fusion (chapter 10). If the number of protons has changed, the atom becomes a new element. The number of electrons can change when they gain so much energy that they leave the atom entirely and join another atom forming ions. The number of electrons lost or gained is shown by a superscript on the right of the chemical symbol. For example, when hydrogen (H) gains an electron it is written as H− but when it loses one it is written H+ . Protons and neutrons are more than 1,000 times more massive than electrons. Thus, gaining or losing electrons only changes an atom’s mass by an insignificant amount.
There are four main ways of joining atoms together to form molecules (Table 4.1-3). The electrons can be shared between atoms in a covalent bond. Glass is a material with strong covalent bonds. Alternatively, an atom can become a positively-charged cation by losing an electron or it can gain an electron and become a negatively-charged anion. The electrical attraction between cations and anions creates an ionic bond. Salt is a common material with an ionic bond. Electrons can also move between atoms, forming a metallic bond. Not surprisingly, iron and gold have metallic bonds. Weak bonds known van der Waals bonds can also form between molecules. The exact nature of these weak bonds is complex and beyond the scope of this text. Ice is an example of a material with van der Waals bonds (and covalent bonds).
Covalent bonds are the hardest to break. Covalent bonds reduce solubility (as this depends on ionic bonds) and create materials with higher melting points (stronger bonds require more energy to break). Materials made with covalent bonds do not break easily or smoothly. Ionic bonds create materials that are poor conductors of electricity and that dissolve easily in water. They are not as strong as materials made with covalent bonds and will break along well-defined lines. Materials with metallic bonds conduct electricity easily and can be hammered into a new shape without breaking. The weakest bonds are those formed between molecules with the van der Waals force. These materials have little strength and will break evenly along a plane.
The number of each element in a molecule is given by a subscript to the right of the chemical symbol. For example, the main component of air is two nitrogen atoms (N2) held by a covalent bond. The size of the orbitals and the atomic bonds create molecules with distinct shapes and sizes. A crystal is formed when these bonds create a solid from molecules, ions, or atoms in a repeating pattern. For example, salt (NaCl) is a crystal with alternating sodium (Na+) and chlorine (Cl−) ions held together by ionic bonds. Similarly, ice is a crystal formed from covalently bonded H2O molecules linked together by van der Waals forces. Because atoms are three-dimensional and can form multiple bonds, the resulting molecules can have different sizes in each direction.
One common tool for finding the bond size is X-ray diffraction. X-rays are simply a type of light not visible to the naked eye. In 1670, Isaac Newton discovered that visible light could be split into colors using a simple prism. In 1800, Frederich Herschel discovered a color of light that could not be seen. Because it lay beyond red, he called the color infrared. Since then, we have discovered that visible light is just a tiny fraction of the whole electromagnetic spectrum, which ranges from long radio waves to short gamma rays (fig 4.1-2).
Though the spectrum contains both "waves" and "rays", light is actually neither. Instead, it is a photon that sometimes acts like a wave and sometimes acts like a particle [2]. Photons can create interference patterns, like waves, but individual photons can carry only discrete amounts of energy. The amount of energy (E) that a photon carries is:
where c is the speed of light, lambda is the wavelength of the photon, and h is Planck’s constant (6.626x10−34 Js). A gamma ray photon (wavelength 10−16 m) has 1021 times the energy of a radio wave photon (wavelength 105 m). The photon’s wavelength also determines its color.
[1] Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his description of this effect.
[2] This is similar to the "cameleopard" which has the hump of a camel and the spots of a leopard. Despite the name, it is neither a camel nor a leopard. The modern name for a cameleopard is "giraffe"
4.2 Earth’s Minerals
Earth is mainly made up of silicate minerals, which form around groups of four oxygen (O) atoms covalently bonded to one silicon (Si) atom. The chemical notation for this is SiO4 . The silicon atom’s radius is about 1/3 that of an oxygen atom, so the silicate forms a tetrahedron with the silicon in the center. Aluminum is about the same size as silicon and frequently substitutes for it. Silicate tetrahedrons can form covalent bonds, or may gain up to four electrons to form ionic bonds. Common silicate cations include Na+ , K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Fe2+ (ferrous), Fe3+ (ferric). In general the cations are smaller than the anions. Thus, most of the crystal's volume is anions with cations put into the gaps.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/waroniraq/92274/
New York Times Spares McCain Embarrassment By Rejecting Op-Ed
As anyone who hasn't been living under a boulder knows by now, John McCain has always enjoyed an extra-special relationship with the press, who care for the Presidential nominee as one might nurture an orphaned lamb, doing him no end of solids. For example, even though Barack Obama has consistently led in the polls since clinching the Democratic nomination, we are told that this is Good For McCain, because according to something written on the Ancient and Illuminated Manuscript of Press Corps Conventional Wisdom, Obama should be leading by more, and his waste should smell like Springtime in Vermont. Also, when McCain visits Europe, it burnishes his Presidential pedigree, but if Obama does so, it makes him look un-American.
Now, however, the McCain camp is angry at their special friend, specifically the New York Times, because the paper of record spiked an op-ed column that McCain had prepared in response to a similar offering from Obama. McCain's surrogates are flush with outrage over this. But I've now read the piece, and it's pretty clear to me that the Times' decision, if anything, is in keeping with the press' traditional friendly relationship. The Times put bros before prose, and in so doing, spared McCain no end of embarrassment, because the op-ed is rivetingly dumb and laden with inaccuracies. None of which would have come to my attention if the candidate had done the smart thing and kept his mouth shut! But since he wants the attention, let's give it to him.
In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless." Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.
An inauspicious beginning! Surely the last thing McCain, as an Iraq War advocate, needs to be doing right now is pointing out that four years ago, things were really horrible in Iraq, and after an Olympic season of Surge and sturm and drang, we've only managed to almost get the level of horror back to where it was when it was horrible.
Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on January 10, 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
As all "Surge" proponents tend to do, McCain overlooks a situation that was unfolding in Baghdad contemporaneously with the "Surge," namely a massive campaign of sectarian cleansing that expelled people from their homes, hardened neighborhoods, and created a massive internal displacement problem. Violence dropped as a result of the factions getting what they wanted -- the people they were killing out of their neighborhoods.
Also, isn't it time that McCain stopped getting credit for being an "early advocate" of the Surge that President Bush was going to implement anyway? I was an early advocate and a vocal supporter of all of the Washington Redskins Superbowl victories, but you don't see me asking for a ring!
Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence." But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.
I think that when Obama denies that any political progress has resulted, it's probably because no political progress has resulted. Indeed, the "Surge" was supposed to "create space" for the Iraqi government to reach a level of functionality. What's the impediment? Well, according to a majority of Iraqi legislators, that "space" has been occupied by the occupation. They said so in the letter they sent to Congress, attesting to this:
Likewise, we wish to inform you that the majority of Iraqi representatives strongly reject any military-security, economic, commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States that is not linked to clear mechanisms that obligate the occupying American military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq, in accordance with a declared timetable and without leaving behind any military bases, soldiers or hired fighters.
I don't know...it seems like Obama might be aware of this!
Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress." Even more heartening has been progress that's not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City -- actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.
Wow. That's a mouthful of nonsense to parse. It's not the U.S. Embassy in Iraq who's made such a claim, it's "Surge" architect and editorial-page-welfare recipient Fred Kagan who's contended that the Iraq has had benchmark success. This is a claim that CNN Reporter Michael Ware has already debunked. In truth, on benchmarks, it would be more accurate to say McCain has it precisely backwards.
Also, it's really unfortunate to see McCain citing the Sunnis here as a sign for the better, especially at a time when "the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement against the US and the Iraqi government has regrouped and reorganized, and is effectively lashing out again." And al-Maliki's "willingness" to "crack down" on uprisings in Barsa and Sadr City is mostly spirit. The flesh, on the other hand, has been weak. Al-Maliki's troops were proven unready for prime time, leaving U.S. forces to once again "take the lead" in ending the crisis.
The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama's determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his "plan for Iraq" in advance of his first "fact finding" trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.
You'd think, of course, that had the military operation been a "success," that the rationale for withdrawal would be self-evident. At any rate, Obama's "plan for Iraq" pretty overtly stipulates that he wants to withdraw the troops from Iraq so that we might prevail over the terrorists who attacked us and who have benefited from Bush and McCain's policy of appeasement.
To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.
Uhm, actually? To suggest that Obama has "made it sound" like al-Maliki has said something he didn't say distorts the fact that al-Maliki has been clearly and consistently voicing his opinion that we need for a timetable for withdrawal. And after reports yesterday that he was walking those statements back, Maliki, as of this very morning, endorsed the Obama timetable.
Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.
Funny thing. You go to war because you have to stop a terrorist mastermind's powerful military from unleashing their awesome arsenal of diabolical weapons of mass destruction, and you end up staying at war because the military you defeated is no longer good for anything but a few laughs. Nothing fails like success, I guess.
No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five "surge" brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.
You see, when I read McCain saying things like, "A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five 'surge' brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind." I think: Yes, that is Barack Obama's plan.
But McCain's endorsement of the Obama Doctrine is bookended by two inane statements. In the first place, the United States favors a permanent U.S. presence. We are, at this moment, spending many a taxpayer dollar building "enduring" bases. One such base, located on the banks of the Tigris, will be as large as Vatican City. If McCain doesn't know this, then one can hardly take him for the spending hawk he claims to be.
Additionally, it's just seems to me that if McCain wants to insist on people not criticizing him for being dotty, he's simply going to have to stop saying things like he's going to "welcome home most of our troops from Iraq" one sentence after committing them to "beef[ing] up our presence" in Afghanistan.
But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.
Actually, it's also the crux of your disagreement with the sovereign government of Iraq, who back Obama's call for a timetable. And wouldn't you call the sovereign government of Iraq a "condition on the ground?" McCain once did!
From 2004:
Question: "What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there?"
McCain: "Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because -- if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people."
Based on McCain's recent statements, one can only assume that McCain is now flip-flopping on the issue of Iraqi sovereignty.
Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his "plan for Iraq." Perhaps that's because he doesn't want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be "very dangerous."
Well, Obama's got the Iraqi leaders clamoring for a timetable now. And as far as our commanders on the ground go, they've made it clear that they serve at the pleasure of the President:
CLINTON: And finally, General, if there were a decision by the President, in your professional estimation, how long would a responsible withdrawal from Iraq take?
ODIERNO: Senator, it's a very difficult question, and the reason is, is because there are a number of assumptions and factors that I'd have to understand first...based on how do we want to leave the environmental issues in Iraq, what would be the final end-state...what is the effect on the ground, what is the security issue on the ground. So I don't think I can give you an answer now, but, certainly, at the time, if asked...and we do planning, we do a significant amount of planning to make sure that an appropriate answer was given, and we would lay out a timeline.
I think that if you aren't aware of what "Commander in Chief" means, you really can't claim to have crossed the "Commander in Chief threshold."
The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we've had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the "Mission Accomplished" banner prematurely.
Of course, al Qaeda has staged a comeback precisely because we have too many troops in Iraq. And the surplus of American firepower has done nothing to prevent the expansion of Iranian influence in the region. This was made clear by one of the two Iraqi parliamentarians who traveled to the U.S. to offer testimony:
KHALAF al-ULAYYAN: And, unfortunately, now Iran is going into Iraq, and this is under the umbrella of the American occupation of Iraq.
Finally, McCain concludes:
I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war -- only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.
Naturally, I'd have to point out that McCain has, only recently, even suggested that his administration might get back to the task of winning the war on terror, having first announced a policy of avoiding that war for one hundred years. Only now has McCain put Afghanistan back in his foreign policy profile, and McCain has no idea where the troops are going to come from to support his "Surge Part Deux."
In short, there is just not one word of that op-ed that makes a lick of sense. Far from complaining, the McCain camp owes the Times a little gratitude.
AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/boost-for-obama-over-iraq-withdrawal-873769.html
Boost for Obama over Iraq withdrawal
By Patrick Cockburn
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Barack Obama has paid his first visit to Iraq, just as the Iraqi government explicitly matched the Democratic presidential candidate's 16-month timetable for the removal of American combat troops.
Senator Obama met Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, in Baghdad yesterday during his visit, which had become overshadowed by a row over the proposed pullout. Mr Obama did not raise his plan for withdrawal of US forces, the government said. But Mr Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said his government was "hoping that in 2010 combat troops will withdraw from Iraq". This time frame is similar to Mr Obama's.
The White House was clearly dismayed and embarrassed by an interview given by Mr Maliki to the German news magazine Der Spiegel in which he appeared to express agreement with Mr Obama's withdrawal plans. Mr Dabbagh later said in a statement distributed by the American military that Mr Maliki's words had been "misunderstood and mistranslated".
Der Spiegel stood by its version of what Mr Maliki said and said the translator for the interview was provided by Mr Maliki's own office and not by the magazine. In reality, Mr Maliki did say Mr Obama's 16-month plan "could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq".
Differences over American strategy in Iraq and the number of troops to be kept there is at the centre of the American presidential campaign. The Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, has argued that US forces should stay in Iraq until it has won a victory, although it is not clear what this victory would entail. He successfully relaunched his campaign to become the Republican nominee last year by claiming that the US was succeeding militarily. But it will be difficult for Mr McCain to denounce Mr Obama's plan as it is very similar to what the Iraqi government is demanding. Mr McCain said: "I'm glad that Senator Obama is going to get a chance for the first time to sit down with General David Petraeus and understand what the surge was all about and why it succeeded and why we are winning the war. I hope he will have a chance to admit that he badly misjudged the situation and he was wrong."
The weakness of Mr McCain's policy is that the fall in violence is attributable not only to the surge – the sending of US reinforcements – but to the Mehdi Army militia's truce ordered by its leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, and to Iranian support for Mr Maliki. This makes the political situation in Iraq very unstable.
Mr Obama is visiting Iraq as part of a congressional delegation, but was not planning to give press conferences while there. Mr Dabbagh said: "Obama did not speak about anything which concerns the Iraqi government because he does not have any official [government] capacity."
The US is under pressure to send troops withdrawn from Iraq to combat the mounting Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
I see from Deutsche Welle and al-Jazeera that Sen. Barack Obama’s overseas trip has received huge coverage, including a big interview on CBS’s Meet the Press.
So, where were all these networks when Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman went to Iraq and Europe?
Do most Americans even know they went?
Some Americans talk about their big three networks plus CNN providing more favourable coverage of Democratic presidential candidates—on this alone I’m inclined to believe them.
Famous British comedian (I mean, politician—sorry, I get the two professions confused) Tony Blair, who has guest-voiced on The Simpsons, appeared in this sketch with Catherine Tate playing Lauren Cooper.
Even though I disagree with the organization which sponsored the video and its implication, I think that it’s funny.
Congress is more to blame: 1. They shirked their responsibility and allowed the debasement of the US Dollar. The commodity spike is the result of our going of off the Gold Standard and an excess of cheap credit. 2. Their alliance with radical environmentalists have sabotaged our ability to produce our own oil and natural resources. 3. Excessive regulation and taxation has motivated business to move their operations off shore.
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