Arrivals and Departures

2005plusdexcuses.org

Le commerce peut être facteur de développement. Il peut aussi détruire toute chance pour les pays de Sud, d’assurer à leurs populations un revenu minimum leur permettant de subvenir à leurs besoins fondamentaux.

makepovertyhistory.org

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 11:25 PM 1 comments

The kiss of death

A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy died after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten a peanut butter snack, hospital officials said Monday. Christina Desforges died in a Quebec hospital Wednesday after doctors were unable to treat her allergic reaction to the kiss the previous weekend.
-- AP

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 5:14 PM 1 comments

1:38 p.m. - the beginning of the end

11.22.63

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 11:38 AM 0 comments

Bush v. Bush

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 2:48 PM 0 comments

HuffPo: ExxonMobil begrudges fishermen

"After sixteen years, ExxonMobil has still not compensated Alaska fishermen five billion dollars for damages caused by the eleven million gallons of crude oil dumped in Prince William Sound during the 1989 tanker spill.

ExxonMobil was ordered to pay the five billion dollars in a 1994 lawsuit. Since then, the company has been appealing the case in the Ninth Court Of Appeals.

More than 700 miles of coastline, used as the primary source of income for Alaska’s fishing and boating industries, were affected by the spill. Greenpeace sent out press releases yesterday to call on Exxon to compensate the fishermen.

ExxonMobil reported record high 75 per cent profit growth to almost ten billion dollars in the latest earnings quarter."

-- The Huffington Post

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 6:29 AM 0 comments

Martin Short as Nathan Thurm (left)


Paul Waldman is a bright chap who knows The District and frequently contributed to "The Gadflyer." Waldman invented The Nathan Thurm Memorial Mendacity Medal. He has probably considered bestowing the honor on WH Press Secretary Scott McClellan as the P-Sec performs some amusing bob & weave footwork while trying to deny saying something that a room full of cameras, tape recorders and reporters-with-pens clearly observed and recorded.

"As you might remember, Nathan Thurm was a character played by Martin Short in a 1980s Saturday Night Live parody of 60 Minutes, a sleazy lawyer defending corporate criminals. Sweating profusely and chain-smoking, Thurm would respond to questions with a defensive "I knew that," then make a ridiculous assertion and immediately deny he had said anything of the sort."
--- Paul Waldman, The Gadflyer, Feb. 10, 2004

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 6:18 PM 0 comments

CAFTA: If you build it, they will come...to protest globalism and burn stuff

"Free trade means big U.S. and European corporations gobbling up our companies and national interests," said Pedro Moreira, a 69-year-old unemployed Argentine who carried a sign reading "Get out Bush. Another world is possible." -- Reuters

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 6:33 PM 0 comments

Rule 21: Desperate times, desperate measures

Something had to give. With multiple scandals jockying for media position and years of curiosity about claims used to sell a war, the house of cards at 1600 Penn. Ave. appears to be teetering.

Exasperation must have caught up with senate Democrats today. Their Tuesday Surprise invoking Rule 21 called attention to a report that should have reached the light of day more than a year ago. Today's coup, albeit dramatic, will get information out of a Republican senator's bottom drawer and into the public record. The Washington Post reports...

"With no warning in the mid-afternoon, the Senate's top Democrat invoked the little-used Rule 21, which forced aides to turn off the chamber's cameras and close its massive doors after evicting all visitors, reporters and most staffers....Friday's indictment of top White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on perjury and obstruction charges gave Democrats a new opening to demand that more light be shed on these issues, including administration efforts to discredit a key critic of the prewar claims of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...within two hours, Republicans appointed a bipartisan panel to report on the progress of a Senate intelligence committee report on prewar intelligence, which Democrats say has been delayed for nearly a year." -- Washington Post (photo:AFP)

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 7:29 PM 0 comments

Minority Leader Harry Reid wins the day

Democratic Senator Harry Reid (pictured with his constituents who've served in Iraq and Kuwait) turned the tables on the Republican senate this afternoon. An investigation into misleading claims leading up to the Iraq war had been stalled by Republicans for more than a year. Today the stalled investigation and report came off the back burner as a result of Reid's actions.

You can post a message for Sen. Reid on his senate Web site.

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 7:11 PM 0 comments

U.S. loses big fish before prison abuse testimony

Four months after it happened, the mysterious loss of key player is revealed in Pentagon leak.

"A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday...A Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday evening that al-Farouq escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 10. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information." -- AP

posted by MonsieurCAVALIER @ 6:13 PM 0 comments