Its no game

Hundreds of people were slain in a wave of violence across Iraq today.  47 people dragged from their cars and shot.   Eleven prisoners taken from a jail in Basra by unidentified gunmen and shot. Baghdad is under curfew. Gun battles, RPG fired at mosques, houses & mosques set ablaze, ten imams murdered. Three Iraqi journalists were kidnapped and executed and dozens of Sunnis have been slain. Some clerics are saying America shares the blame, some blame Iran, and some are blaming each other. The fledgling Iraq police forces are not able to control the militias and that places the responsibility for security of the population right at the feet of the US military occupation forces. Seven GI's we're slain in two attacks.

This invasion and occupation is a horrific miserable crime.  Juan Cole, Riverbend and Raed offer more on the situation.

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Al Jazeera Reporters Give Bloody First Hand Account of April ’04 U.S. Siege of Falluja 

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(note: graphic war images in video)

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Justin Raimondo offers two more viewpoints on the UAE ports deal.

• Arianna Huffington, Racial Profiler
• Hating Arabs

Two friday releases.

Scandals - ( 24Kbps stream 128Kbps stream MP3 || Lyrics)

"Some of the scandals of the Bush regime thrown together in a song." - davidrovics

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New Orleans - ( 24Kbps stream 128Kbps stream MP3 || Lyrics )

"The entire Bush cabinet should resign in disgrace immediately to begin with. I wrote this while in a state of sleep deprivation in Beirut, Lebanon, in early September, 2005, and I recorded it at the studios of Amwaj Radio 91.5 in Ramallah, Occupied Palestine. This is a track from my upcoming CD, Halliburton Boardroom Massacre, to be released on September 1st." - davidrovics

Three days.

Three days stay in Alameda hospital costs:



Note that doesn't include the 2 CT scans, surgeons fees, or medications, which have totalled about $2k to date.

Doesn't having health insurance seem like a better option? But noooo...

I was arrogant and thought I wouldn't get sick when I really should have done anything to stay insured, sold my car or whatever. Instead, I played it risky and cheap and lost. Now I'm in debt $20,000 dollars along with a surely larger bill to come because I'll have an estimated five day recovery after my needed operation. I guess I've already resigned myself to this, but its shocking to see it in print in today's mail.