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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (267771)	1/10/2006 12:02:47 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576163

U.S. troops build wall of sand around Iraqi town By Ghazwan al-Jibouri 2 hours, 20 minutes ago U.S. soldiers fed up with almost daily bomb attacks on their patrols near Iraq's main oil refinery are taking drastic measures to fight their shadowy enemy -- they're walling in an entire town. Army bulldozers have begun building giant sand embankments around Siniya, a town of 50,000 close to the northern oil refining city of Baiji. When finished it will be 10 km (6 miles) long and more than 2 meters (nearly 8 feet) high. I wish another country was doing this......then I could laugh at their desperation. ted

To: Road Walker who wrote (267771)	1/10/2006 12:06:55 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576163

"• Attitudes toward the Republican congressional leadership have soured. By 50%-40%, those surveyed say the policies proposed by Republican leaders in Congress would move the country in the wrong direction. That's by far the worst showing since the GOP took control more than a decade ago. Most consider lobbying scandal a big deal, poll shows By Susan Page, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — Americans are paying close attention to the lobbying scandal in the Capitol and say corruption in government will play a big role in their vote for Congress in November — more important than Social Security, taxes, abortion or immigration. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday signals a perilous year for incumbents. Views of whether most members of Congress and the respondents' own representatives deserve re-election have sunk to levels not seen since 1994, when Democrats lost control of both houses. (Related: Congress poll results) Enthusiasm for Democrats is only slightly higher than for Republicans. A plurality predict both parties will be hurt equally by the inquiry into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. And Democrats' hopes of scoring big gains have been tempered by redistricting after the 2000 Census that made many House districts less competitive. "I wouldn't foresee the tidal wave of '94 repeating itself — the system's incumbents are entrenched enough to avoid that," says Dennis Thompson, a political scientist at Harvard University who studies ethics issues. "But I think there could be a shift of control of one of the houses, possibly. Before this corruption scandal arose, that was less likely." Amy Walter, who tracks House races for the non-partisan Cook Political Report, calls it "a pessimistic electorate." "If voters are looking for change then it's Republicans who have more to worry about, since they are the party in power," Walter says. continued..................... usatoday.com

To: Road Walker who wrote (267771)	1/10/2006 1:25:55 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576163

Its become pretty standard to think that while southern Iraq is a mess, N. Iraq aka Kurdistan is doing well. Well "doing well" is all relative. Last nite, I was reading part of an article on the Kurds in National Geographic. And to be honest, the place is a mess. Things are so screwy its amazing they make any progress. For an example, two of the fastest growing cities in Kurdistan are roughly 90 miles apart from each other. A person from one city can not call a person in the other city nor can they send mail from one city to the other. They are in two different provinces and have separate telephone and postal services. There is no industry to speak of in Kurdistan....just oil. There has been some foreign investment but its so minor its not worth discussing. There is no banking system....no credit or debit cards. Expatriate Kurds are coming back with tons of money and investing in buildings but no market studies are done before a building is built. There is no planning department nor a building dept. to inspect the work. They don't do market studies to determine if there is a market for what's being built. In fact, there has not been a census in decades and they have no clue what is the country's population nor the population of its major cities. Currently, they are building four 30 story office buildings and shopping mall for 6K shops in one city and they have no clue who will rent the spaces. The complex is under construction near the city's main street where all the buildings are one or two stories.....falling apart/falling down......it looks like a cross between a strip mall and a slum. There are no curbs on the streets.......the streets look they are stone covered, and not cement or asphalt covered. I am not sure what I was expecting but I would have thought in 12 years, free from Saddam's rule, they would have made more progress. Then the article goes on to explain there are tribal feuds even among the Kurds and the only thing that's keeping them from breaking out is the insurgency and the problems they and Baghdad present to the Kurds. Frankly, the Kurds look better only by comparison. ted