Say Anything Blog

Google results here in case you were wondering.

Took 5 hours apparently.

Al-Qaeda is reaching out from its base in Pakistan to turn militant Islamist groups in the Middle East and Africa into franchises charged with intensifying attacks on western targets, according to European officials and terrorism specialists.

So says the Financial Times. Not only has the Iraqi operation distracted American attention away from more relevant targets but Iraq is part of Al Qaeda’s training program.

Good grief.

Not so much according to this study published in the first issue of Open Medicine. The report finds some ailments receive better treatment north of the border, some receive better south of the border and a whole bunch don’t appear to show significant differences. There’s lots of data tables, the ‘u’ is appropriately utilised throughout and it’s an interesting read if you enjoy healthcare stuff.

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Sorry about that.

A DoD report on the ties between al Qaeda and Saddam has been declassified. The WP has the details which appear to confirm the general wisdom.

I’m not sure why this strikes me as funny but it just does.

Interesting release of documents this evening regarding the fired prosecutors...including one which suggests that the Attorney General may have been in error when he said that he wasn’t closely involved with the process.

These must be tough times to be a Republican supporter I would think. Ideological differences aside, I can’t recall such a quick turn around in political fortunes as we’re witnessing today.

I recall the days spent here a couple of years ago debating whether or not the tide was beginning to turn in American politics. I perceived an increased public discomfort with the war in Iraq and expected that the Republicans might find themselves pushed harder to justify their policies . What I didn’t expect was the degree to which the Republican juggernaut, which talked in terms of a new majority which could last for decades, would begin to crumble under the weight of its own ineptitude and hubris.

The Washington Post reports on a bill which clears the way for the District of Columbia to elect its very own Representative. Eric Muller wonders about the constitutionality of this development. Fun speculation ensues.

“There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq,” Petraeus said.

“Military action is necessary to help improve security ... but it is not sufficient.”

Call him an appeaser or say that his head is buried in the sand but the fact is that solutions to geopolitical problems must be addressed politically and, dare I say it, diplomatically as well as militarily when required. Quotes are from Reuters.

Spencer Ackerman reports that Baghdad should enjoy a full day of electrical power by 2013.

Or rather the Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus, as it is formally known according to Conservapedia.com, is quite the unusual beast. Having checked out this picture, I am tempted to make a trip west this summer.

It depends what you mean by worse I suppose but Bergen and Cruikshank have published an analysis of the trends since the “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them at home” campaign commenced.

Indeed, though what we will call “The Iraq Effect” is a crucial matter for U.S. national security, we have found no statistical documentation of its existence and gravity, at least in the public domain. In this report, we have undertaken what we believe to be the first such study, using information from the world’s premier database on global terrorism.

The report is here.

I’m a firm believer in the Canadian model of healthcare and I like nothing better than a good game of curling.

-Teddy Roosevelt

Gosh...who knew?