I'm sorry that my directions calling for salad dressing caused you to use the one with arsenic

Now we really know who "wears the pants"

Mattel Apologizes to China for Toy Recalls

All Things Considered, September 21, 2007 · Toy company Mattel apologizes to China, taking full responsibility for recent toy recalls. The U.S.-based company said its own design flaws were primarily at fault. The recalls cast aspersions on Chinese-made products. NPR

What f-ed up times we live in!

Tonight may husband and I were at my high school son's "back to school night." While we were sitting in his biology class (along with other parents) listening to the teacher as she explained what they would cover during the year she took a big gulp and said "I believe in evolution and I will be teaching evolution!"

She visibly relaxed when every parent said "Good!" and let her know that we have her back.

But what f-ed up times do we live in where this has to not only be an issue, but that a science teacher has to summon the courage to tell the parents of her students that she will be teaching SCIENCE!

and this is in Massachusetts no less

Black Adder, Rove, Bush and Cheney

Listen to the election commentary, and the responses. :-)

France is now saying to prepare for war with Iran

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner says the world should prepare for war over Iran's nuclear programme.

"We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," Mr Kouchner said in an interview on French TV and radio. . .
. . . He said France wanted the European Union to prepare sanctions against Iran.

"We have decided that while negotiations are continuing to prepare eventual sanctions outside the ambit of UN sanctions. Our good friends, the Germans, suggested that," he said.

Until now the Security Council of the United Nations has imposed economic sanctions on Iran, but did not allow for military action.

The United States has not ruled out a military attack against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

BBC

Bush was beating the drum last week. France (France?) is beating the drum this week. And all of us who have been seeing this coming for 2-3 years now are, with Bush's stupidity om Ira1q, Washington's moves emboldening Iran and making it a power broker in the region, are very frightened that we were right all along.

Despite what you hear, Iraqis want a timetable for our withdrawl

Let's see, there are 275 in the Iraqi parliament. Before al-Sadr's group left al-Maliki's UIA (United Iraqi Alliance) with just 85 seats, down from the 140 it once had and giving it a very thin majority.

The al- Sadr camp already had yanked its six ministers from the Cabinet in April over al- Maliki's failure to endorse a fixed timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. On Saturday, Sadrists trumpeted their resistance to the Americans in justifying the departure from a coalition that had guaranteed Shiite political dominance for nearly three years.

In leaving, they sought to present themselves as Iraq's true patriots -- unlike their fellow Shiite politicians, who remained America's ally.

"The main problem in Iraq now is the occupation, and the solution is to have a timetable for the withdrawal of occupiers, and anyone who agrees with us on this demand will find our hearts opened to him," lawmaker Nasar Rubaie said.

The ruling alliance had been engineered in late 2004 by senior clerics with the goal of securing Shiites' right to power. Until now, Shiite leaders managed to keep unity among the community's fractious political parties, but that had changed Saturday night.

"The UIA has started breaking down. They were the biggest bloc at the parliament, but not anymore," said Salim Abdullah, the spokesman for the largest Sunni political bloc, which withdrew from al- Maliki's Cabinet in August. "Maybe the government will be changed within four months."

So basically to support and protect the embattled al-Maliki government we need to present them wit ha time table for withdrawl of our troops.

For their part, people around al- Maliki were relieved. "To be frank, for a long time the Sadrists were outside of the UIA. Their decisions were always not in line with the UIA," Askari said. "Some UIA members are happy. This makes things clear."

Al- Maliki's camp also was confident that the Kurds would not abandon the ruling alliance. Askari said the Kurds see their interest in sticking with the Shiite bloc, rather than switching to a side that might not back their claims to an autonomous region in the north.

Kurdish parliament member Mahmoud Othman confirmed that the Kurds had no interest in ditching the UIA and al- Maliki, although their relationship had been rocky previously. "There is no better alternative than Maliki," he said. "There is no change."

You know, instead of playing these games for a country that was artifically created by the British, and getting our soldiers killed we sould partition the country and then stand with the Kurds so the Turks, who will have their backs up anyway, won't attack the Kurds.

Iraq is a country that was cobbled together by the British, It does not hold the same feeling of national unity as say Kuwait, Iran, the UAE, Jordan, etc. It's time to realized that because of it's artifical creation, it may NEVER. And we could get our people out much sooner and work for stablisation better if we partitioned it and withdrew.

Sore L.A. Times