Despite the best efforts of George W. Bush and John McCain to sabotage it; yes the Surge worked.  It worked because most people inside Iraq now really believe that the United States will be leaving Iraq soon.  No thanks to President Bush on that score; since the President still refuses to rule out a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq.  And no thanks to Senator McCain either who publicly muses that the U.S. military may stay in Iraq for a hundred years if necessary.  The Surge, a decision to send 30,000 more American soldiers into Iraq, could easily have been viewed by Iraqi citizens as evidence of American re-entrenchment .in their homeland.  .And who could have blamed them?

Most Republican leaders remain loath to give Iraq's citizens any concrete assurances that the American military occupation will be short lived.  Instead the Bush Administration acts like the Green Zone in Baghdad is the Panama Canal Zone resurrected or perhaps our new Guantanomo Bay.  Where does the Bush Administration get the authority to argue with Iraq's government over how soon it can ask the U.S. to withdraw our forces? Why on Earth is the largest U.S. Embassy on Earth being constructed in Iraq today, if America's role in Iraq tomorrow was destined to be minimal?  Whose war is it, anyway?

Obama coulda gone to Ramstein sans media and photo op, John Edwards really was in the hotel-- in the room with the woman reported to have given birth to his child-- and I still don't have a caretaker for my Mom.

And while all this has been going on a contractor in Brooklyn  was locked up in a psych ward for four days after he smashed into walls in three apartments trying to rescue a cat.

Auyup! You read that right. He is reported to have told the mental health police as they carted him away.

I'm not crazy, doctor. There really is a cat in my wall.

But guess what? There really, really was.

According to the NY Post, that collector of all things bizarre in the greater New York environs, it all started with a mischievous kitty named Rumi who put his head a hole in the wall of a condo undergoing renovation in Carroll Gardens.

Poor Rumi, the hole opened on a 30-foot shaft and he fell to the bottom.

The contractor, Chris Muth, had been watching Rumi for a friend and panicked when he went missing.

He couldn't reach the cat from the first apartment - even after enlarging the hole.

So the super, Doug Steiner, gave Muth permission to make a small hole in the wall of another unit.

But, Steiner said:

He opened up all the walls. I said, 'What the hell are you doing? The owner's going to flip out.'

Muth cared only for catching Rumi. Unable to catch him from that second hole, he broke into a third apartment, and again started smashing into the walls.

According to the Post:

Steiner had as much success coaxing Muth out as Muth did with Rumi.

So the super called the cops - who shipped Muth to a local psych ward.

Rumi remained in the catacombs of the condo - a former church.

Again, according to the Post in typical  NY Post style:

And the shrinks decided Muth was suffering from bats in his belfry.

They are not kidding. The hospital report on Muth declared:

He had a bizarre delusion [he] was trying to save a cat of his friend

But it all ended happily.

Muth finally convinced the doctors that he wasn't a wacko.

And Rumi, tired of his 15 days in solitary, let himself be caught by professional cat rescuers using a fishing-pole-like, professional cat-catching  device. Muth told the Post:

After 60 hours stuck down there, I thought the cat was going to die. Otherwise I wouldn't have panicked like I did.I can fix holes, but I can't bring a cat back to life.

I wish this guy was running for office somewhere. He'd get my vote!

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07252008/new s/regionalnews/krazy_kat_got_me_kommitte d_121467.htm

Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, it seems to me, is making all of the right foreign policy moves his trip overseas.  I take particular note of the following passage, found at Yahoo News:

PARIS - Democrat Barack Obama said Friday that Iran should promptly accept an international call to freeze its uranium enrichment program, which some nations see as a potential step toward obtaining nuclear weapons, and not wait for the next U.S. president.

The presidential candidate met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, where they discussed Iran, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, climate change and other issues.

Speaking later at a news conference, Obama said Iran should accept the proposals made by Sarkozy and other Western leaders. He urged Iran's leaders not to wait for the next U.S. president to push them "because the pressure, I think, is only going to build."  Yahoo News

Recently, John McCain and other anti-Obama forces (e.g. here) were able to convince the mainstream media to report that European leaders were afraid that Obama would not pursue an Iran diplomacy consistently strict with what Europe has been doing.  

By meeting with Sarkozy and promising that "the pressure, I think ,is only going to increase", Obama is promising to apply even more pressure than the Bush Administration has, but within the framework set out by the Europeans, which does not include going to war with Iran.

Two weeks ago, when I first posted my interview with Ben Carter, many people applauded him for having the courage to come forward and talk about his first-hand experience in Iraq with Halliburton subsidiary KBR. He described, in great detail, KBR's negligence in their contract to provide safe non-potable water to the troops. Hundreds and hundreds responded by e-mailing DoD Chief Financial Officer Tina Jonas, telling her not to give KBR another penny of thegovernment's money until a full public investigation was fulfilled. Note: After receiving an influx of emails from activists, Ms. Jonas blocked her email address. We have now made the action into a petition which will be delivered to her.

We also shared Ben's testimony on the Brave New Films documentary, Iraq For Sale

Not everyone was supportive though...

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I support same-sex marriages.

Even though I don't understand homosexuals, I support their rights as human beings. God created them, just as he did everyone else, but he endowed them with different feelings of attraction and intimacy.

All humans, regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation, deserve the same protection and rights under the law.

Married heterosexual couples are protected in issues of joint ownership, government or workplace benefits, and making life and death decisions for a spouse, and it is discriminatory to judge a person unworthy of these same rights simply because of who they are.

Being different should never be the core issue when determining if someone is worthy of being treated as an equal child of God. Jesus taught us to love one another, to bear one another's burdens, to visit the sick, the poor and the fatherless. Never has he charged us to reject anyone.

When we tell someone they are unworthy of the same human rights and protections we enjoy simply because they live and act differently than we do, I wonder if Jesus is pleased with how we are handling this issue.

Carlyle Potter
St. George, Utah
By Permission

Crossposted at Kos and TPM

Tomorrow Saturday July 26 marks the beginning of the 100 Days to Victory campaign. I'm calling on anybody and everybody across the country to help Scott Harper in IL-13 by phonebanking for half an hour calling just 5 people from a list of names and numbers and a script we'll send you via email or fax. This is an excellent opportunity for newbies to get their feet wet volunteering for a campaign and you don't have to be anywhere near Illinois to participate. You don't need any campaign experience to help. If you know how to use a telephone that's good enough. Of course if you're an experienced activist who wants to do more you can make as many calls as you want and we'll also be canvassing and phonebanking from many locations across the district. If you're close by campaign HQ in Naperville we're meeting at 1pm for a group photograph. We're gonna have with free pizza, so bring the kids and we'll have a great time.  

So read on for details about why you should spend a little time tomorrow and links to how you can help.

OK, call out the Obama Ministry for the Promotion of Worshipful Adoration and Suppression of Snark - we need a fatwah on Gerard Baker of the Times. He dares to mock The One in a hilarious column in today's paper. Death to the infidel!

He ventured forth to bring light to the world
The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: "Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?"

Oh, it gets worse ;-)

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.