1. From FireDogLake, Come Saturday Morning: Iraq — Still Broken After All These Years:

The supporters of the war, from the Bush White House to Sen. John McCain, tout the surge as the magic solution. But the surge, which primarily deployed 30,000 troops in and around Baghdad, did little to thwart the sectarian violence. The decline in attacks began only when we bought off the Sunni Arabs. U.S. commanders in the bleak fall of 2006 had little choice. It was that or defeat. The steady rise in U.S. casualties, the massive car bombs that tore apart city squares in Baghdad and left hundreds dead, the brutal ethnic cleansing that was creating independent ethnic enclaves beyond our control throughout Iraq, the death squads that carried out mass executions and a central government that was as corrupt as it was impotent signaled catastrophic failure.

2. 15 Year-Old Palestinian Boy Beaten Unconscious by Israeli Prison Guards Becomes Latest Suicide Bomber:

Fifteen year-old Mohammed Salem Al-Harbawi from Hebron is a case in point. According to the Defense for Children International, he was arrested in the beginning of July of 2003 and taken to Atzion detention centre. Like many other prisoners, the report continues, Al-Harbawi was visited by a lawyer, but was unable to see or communicate with his family:

The unhygienic conditions in this centre mean that most inmates, including Mohammad, have contracted skin diseases, including boils. By July 28, 2003, Mohammed was affected so badly that he was taken for hospital treatment. After the doctor had examined him, Israeli border guards took him back to the prison. On the way, the guards stopped the jeep and started to attack him inside the vehicle. The five guards beat him to such an extent that he lost consciousness.

I stumbled over this report of his stay in prison when I Googled Al-Harbawi’s name. Last Monday, now a child of 20, he blew himself up, along with Lyubov Razdolskaya, 73, in the streets of Dimona…

3. Russia’s Presidential Election - the Candidates

Four men are vying for the top job - Putin’s Poodle, the Neo-Communist, Mad Vlad, and the liberal Masonic Grandmaster who likes to blog.

4. Hillary’s “Old Politics” Campaign Ad Quickly Shot Down By Obama:

Following their 17% defeat in Wisconsin, there was wide speculation about what campaign tactics Hillary would use to try to win Texas and Ohio on March 4th. Some insider reports suggested that Clintons’ recognized that while they needed to fight on, there was a line they should not cross because they didn’t want to do irreparable damage to Obama as a Democratic nominee nor damage their own legacy. That line was national security/fitness to be commander in chief.

Apparently, they’ve tossed such caution aside with this new campaign ad that caters to viewers’ fears. The implication of the ad is that if Obama were elected, he wouldn’t keep your children safe. Only Hillary would.

5. Also See: Who Put the ‘Gau’ in Gaucho? A (Forged) Map of Nazi South America, Meditation can boost your gray matter, 25 years murder-free in ‘Gun Town USA:Crime rate plummeted after law required firearms for residents, Parties and Prostitutes, and Bush names terrorist sympathizer as new ambassador to Nicaragua.

1. Talk about absurdity. How is Mark Penn spending his gigantic haul? is answered by Arlen at the Daily Background:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pit-bull pollster and chief strategist Mark Penn has his Washington, DC, neighborhood in an uproar. He recently started multimillion-dollar renovations on his house on O Street in Georgetown, but didn’t alert anyone beforehand, said one local. “It includes an underground garage and home office. His yard is an ugly, huge gaping hole that looks like the descent into hell.”

…It’s the talk of Georgetown: Why is Mark Penn, pollster and strategist to Sen. Hillary Clinton, building a tunnel underneath the lot between his two houses on O Street NW? Perhaps he wants to avoid prying eyes, or a 30-foot walk in wintry weather.

2. Fail:

3. White people like shitty musical comedy (what a surprise):

One of the more interesting things about White people is that they love singing comedians…..

It’s a pretty good idea because when you have jokes that aren’t that great and music that isn’t that great, you can mix them together and create something that will entertain white people.

4. Gun Buyback Misfires:

Oakland’s recent gun buyback was especially ridiculous. The police offered up to $250 for a gun “no questions asked, no ID required.” The first people in line? Two gun dealers from Reno with 60 cheap handguns. Fortunately the buyback did manage to get some guns off the street, too bad they were turned in by a bunch of senior citizens from an assisted living facility.

5. See More of this wonderful internet worlds: And The Next President Of The United States Of America Is…, Florida Hates Gays, Right-wing blogger kills himself to protest the existence of Muslims, Ralph Nader Annoys Everyone and Announces Presidential Run Again, Zionism, the Working Class and Struggle between Hamas and Fatah, and ol’ Georgey says “I’ll be dead before the true history of the Bush administration is written.”

[tags]mark penn, rich, asshole, corruption, hillary clinton, democrats, fail, gun buy back, campaigning, strategist, internet links, blog[/tag]

Blog blog, bloggity blog:

1. From the Seminal (who I recently added all up on my own slog of the blog-o-blech), George Bush’s Top Ten Choices for the Next President of Cuba:

#10) Jacques Chirac — “he’s got experience running a commie regime.”

#9) “That nice Cuban maid who taught me to read when I was 14.”

#8) Elmer Fudd — “one bad ass outlaw replaces another.”

#7) Will Smith — “what can’t he do?”

#6) Hillary Clinton — “look Hil, you are president. Syke!!”

#5) Chico Escuela

#4) Sasquatch — “just to prove he exists”

#3) Hyman Roth

#2) Jeb Bush, Marvin Bush or Neil Bush — “nobody will notice, trust me brothers.”

#1) “Shit, if I knew where it was maybe I’d know who to appoint.”

2. 9/11, an Oil Mans Wet Dream:

In the late spring of 2001, Vice President Cheney held a series of top secret meetings with the representatives of Exxon-Mobil, Conoco, Shell and BP America for what was later called the Energy Task-force. Their job, ostensibly, was to map out America’s Energy future. Since late 2001 several public interest groups, including the very conservative Judicial Watch, sued to have the proceedings of those meetings opened to public scrutiny. In March 2002, the Commerce Department turned over a few documents from the Task-force meetings to Judicial Watch, among which was the map of Iraq’s Oil Fields, dated March 2001 (above) and a list of the existing “Foreign Suitors” for Iraq Oil.

3. The Big List of things that piss off Muslims. Some how they managed to forget premarital intercourse, The Big Noses, and grizzly bears.

4. Mike Huckabee isn’t going to quit until Lord Jeebus makes him:

The secular media just can’t understand: “But what are the chances? What are the chances either of these will happen? What rational person keeps going with such small odds?”
Who? A fundamentalist Christian, that’s who.

5. Other things to waste your time with: Teen pirates an entire human immune system, Peggy Noonan Uses Ebonics to Describe Michelle Obama, Bush Approval at 19% - Officially ‘Worst President Ever’, Mike Huckabee entertains us on SNL, McCain has some serious spending issues, Welcome to the jungle: How “gotcha capitalism” has destroyed the American social contract, and Welcome To Mike Huckabee’s America: Bigoted, Ill-Informed, and Ignorant.

Technorati Tags: blogs, bloggery, blog review, roundup, mike huckabee, jesus, liberal blogs, what pisses off muslims, islam, peggy noonan, michelle obama, ebonics, george bush, worst president ever, approval ratings

1. This:

2. The Atlantic Review has an excellent post on future quagmire building in Iran, and how many we need in our daily diet:

Tired of the same old boring quagmire? Looking for a new kind of quagmire to talk about with your friends? Good news if you are, because Iraq is not the only quagmire around. No need to look far—keep it in the “axis of evil.” Iraq’s neighbor, Iran is also a quagmire of a sorts… a diplomatic quagmire for the transatlantic allies.

3. If this is at all possible, Bill Clinton claims they’ve been running their campaign “on a shoestring”:

The former president spoke as if he were back in the grass-roots insurgency that he and his wife brought to the presidential campaign trail in 1992. “We’ve gotten plenty of delegates on a shoestring,” he said recently. He didn’t mention that his wife’s campaign has raised and burned through more than $140 million so far. That’s a lot of shoestring, even in Washington.

4. Life imitates The Big Lebowski over at Byron Crawford. Now, the post itself isn’t actually first rate but the discussion (over 200 comments as of right now) has got itself a race war on its hand. And who knew, on a black mans website and everything!

5. Some short asides: Russia is seeing minimal increases in its oil production, Was Edwards really the working class candidate?, 25 Questions to Think About Before Your Next Job Interview, Bush’s Enemy #1: Dennis Kucinich, and a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

Technorati Tags: Atlantic Review, Iran, axis of evil, Bill Clinton, Byron Crawford, Dennis Kucinich, Prescott Bush, Nazism