Taking a slight break from my “break” to congratulate the team on a gutsy performance on the road and a huge win over the Sacramento Kings in the nationally televised game. Good one!
p.s. I know the Kings are missing Peja and Webber, but hot damn, that was a good win to end our 4-game-losing streak :)
We here at Dancing with Dogs are going to take a little break for the vacations along with the Blog Mela. We will be back if something really interesting happens or on Jan 5th, 2004 - whichever comes first :)
We are taking the Mela offline till then to revamp it a bit - some ideas are to make the Mela a monthly event and have a poll where visitors can rank the posts and the winning post’s author gets a $10 Amazon gift vertificate (I will sponsor that). Drop in the comments any other suggestions you may have to improve the Mela - we will be checking in often.
Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! :)
The Command Post - Iraq - Saddam Captured Alive, Iraq Official Says - it is a jolly good day to be alive :)
So, my Mavs whup some Laker butt in LA on the 13th anniversary of their last win there on Friday - my husband buys me an $1100-pair of diamond chandelier earrings on Saturday and I hear the Saddamonster is captured this Sunday morning - can my weekend be any more perfect? Funny you should ask :) I would love for Darrah or Sandra to beat sour-puss Lillian on Survivor, thankyouverymuch! ;)
I would give anything to be able to down a cool glass of Reisling right about now, but I guess I have to wait another 6 months before I can complete my celebration. heh!
Wallace added that teams are drafting high school players because they want athletes who are “dumb and dumber.” “That’s why they’re drafting all these high school cats, because they come into the league and they don’t know no better. They don’t know no better, and they don’t know the real business, and they don’t see behind the charade.”I had no idea Rasheed Wallace had this much of deep thinking in him - sure, Rasheed! Of course, people want “dumb” players - it isn’t like they are sinking millions of dollars into them that they would lose if the players turned into dumb potheads like…you and Bonzi, maybe? Why don’t you just shut up and play like we sometimes think you can? That would help you a lot more than this crazy talk.
Yeah, I know I am blegging for votes (blush), and I know there is no chance I can take over Healing Iraq’s vote count (nor do I want to), but still go vote for me, people! :)
Here is the link - Wizbang
Here is an initial first-hand report of the long-planned anti-terror demonstrations in Baghdad, held by the various political parties marching together for peace and democracy in Iraq - The Iraqi people spoke today. I will post more links as they become available. I think this is a good thing that the long-oppressed seem to have found a voice of their own and are for the first time marching for themselves and not Saddam.
Update: The Iranian reformers are trying to jump on the democracy bandwagon - here is news of huge demonstrations asking for an end to the brutal mullahcracy in Iran.
Iraq update: Zeyad’s perspective on the demonstrations is here - here are some pictures he took with his new digital camera of the demonstrations. I love these guys’ spunk and courage and the eternally optimistic outlook they project.
Another update: Here is a the Yahoo (AFP) story on the demonstrations - note the “sneer” quotes around the word “terrorism” - Bleh! Did I mention AFP is French?
(begin rant) Another thing to keep in mind - if even Al-Jazeera admits (per the Iraqi bloggers) there were 10,000 people marching in these demonstrations, why is this not a big media event? Why is the big media in general silent about it? Doesn’t fit with their storyline of a “quagmire”? Why is it that when “NON-IRAQIS” hold anti-war rallies it is a big thing but when the free IRAQI people hold them to make their views known, people just ignore them?(end rant)
It is also really interesting to see the difference between the so-called anti-war protesters and the Iraqis marching against terrorism in Zeyad’s photos (he has three sets of pictures up on his site). Where as there is nothing but blood, hate and a freaky carnival atmosphere in the “peace” protests, the Iraqis as you can see are well-dressed and almost every face shines with hope and happiness. The people look repectable and they seem to be proud in whatever they are doing.
Last update: Here is a hilarious comparison in pictures between the “peace” protesters and the Iraqi demonstrators.
Go check out this week’s mela being hosted at Null Pointer.
Next week’s Mela is going to be hosted here at Dancing with Dogs. Don’t wait for the formal announcement - go ahead and send in your nominations :)
An Iraqi colonel who commanded a front-line unit during the build-up to the war in Iraq has revealed how he passed top secret information to British intelligence warning that Saddam Hussein had deployed weapons of mass destruction that could be used on the battlefield against coalition troops in less than 45 minutes. Lt-Col al-Dabbagh, 40, who was the head of an Iraqi air defence unit in the western desert, said that cases containing WMD warheads were delivered to front-line units, including his own, towards the end of last year.This colonel not only says they had WMDs ready to be deployed in case of war, but that too within 30 minutes...It should be interesting to say the least, to find out what else will come out as these people will start talking about their capabilities to the coalition forces and to the world in general. Pre-emptive update: Here is a link to a site that claims that there can be RPG-propelled chemical weapons and have been known to be possessed by Iraq. Another update: An interesting article about how the Telegraph tracked down the Colonel. (All links via LGF)
I read in one of the blogs the following: “Bush was in Iraq on the 27th. He made a fleeting visit to Baghdad International Airport. Don’t let the name fool you- Baghdad Airport is about 20 minutes outside of Baghdad. It’s in this empty, desert-like area that no one is allowed to go near.”. I want to say: please watch at Baghdad’s map carefully, you can conclude easily that the longest displacement in Baghdad is 25Km, so, how can Baghdad international Airport be 4 Km outside Baghdad and in a DESERT like area??[All emphasis in original]
You can see the sectors: ‘Hay Al-A’amel’, ‘Hay Al-Firdows’,’ay Al- Jihad’ and ‘Hay-Al Ta’ameem’, all of these sectors located around Baghdad International Airport and the time which is needed to reach the airport from these sectors is less than 10 minutes!
So, the Airport is IN Baghdad and beside those sectors.
So writes Ays, another Iraqi blogger about a post written by Riverbend of Baghdad Burning. Now, I have always kept an open mind about both the pro-US and the anti- Iraqi bloggers so far, but this attempt to deliberately mislead people who might think she is telling the truth since she lives there is something that looks like a cheap tactic to pander to her audience or to bitch about something just for the sake of bitching about it. Eiter ways, it does a lot to damage her credibility when she deliberately distorts facts to make them fit into her world-view.
Update: Here is a BBC map of Baghdad for reference.
Looks like the action in Iraq is getting more unilateral by the day - Japan Set to Send Troops to Iraq (washingtonpost.com). Who cares if there are Italian, Spanish, Polish and British (just to name a few) troops out there in addition to the Americans? If there are no French, Germans and the UN (given the great job they seem to be doing in places like Ivory-no-blood-for-cocoa- Coast) I guess we still cannot call the coalition multilateral!
/sarcasm
Trust Scrappleface to come up with the best way to talk about the so-called “Turkeygate” scandal for what it really is - a pathetic attempt to clutch at straws while there might be bigger issues elsewhere going unnoticed - ScrappleFace: Troops Demoralized by Bush Turkeygate Scandal.
Freaking hilarious - maybe the Washington Post should now mobilize people to impeach Bush since gasp “Bush lied and the turkey died” ;) This is what makes me so mad about so-called journalists and their inablity to get beyond stupid, sensationalistic crap like this and get down to serious business - it isn’t like this was in the National Enquirer - Shame on Washington Post!
This is quite a shock! ESPN.com - NBA - Rebuilding? Blazers ship Bonzi to Grizzlies I guess the Zach Randolph debacle was the straw that broke the Blazers’ back. Talent-wise, the deal is stupid, considering Bonzi is all-star-level, while Wesley Person is pretty mediocre, but the Blazers management must have been really desperate to bring some class to the organization to have made such a move.
Considering Wells’ 27-years-age to Person’s 32, it is even harder to not sympathize with the Blazers about how against the wall they must have been to pull the trigger on such a deal. This is going to make the Grizzlies even scarier than they were - Pau Gasol and Wells together is going to be a WC nightmare, if only Wells performs up to his talent.
Yazad has the Plain Vanilla Bharatiya Blog Mela up at his blog - go check it out for the best of Indian blogging over the past week :)
LOS ANGELES — Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs was suspended for one game by the NBA on Monday for pushing an official to the floor.I think it was a bad deal - I admit I did not watch the game, but from what I heard of it, Duncan was clearly lost in the game and the push on the official was totally accidental. It isn’t like he is some kind of thug like Sheed Wallace or Bonzi Wells with a known tendency towards intimidation. The league overdid the punishment in this case, IMO.
Update: Did I just mention Sheed and Bonzi? Add Zach Randolph, the one so-called silver lining in a team of misfits to the mix.
Another update: These reactions from Blazers’ fans over the Randolph situation are funny in a pathetic way.
“I today am saddened that I have to vote to repeal this law,” said Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes. “I believe in this policy, I believe in those people, and I believe they have a right … to work, to drive their kids to school.”Even though Niraj is rightly worried about security when it comes to illegal immigrants, I wonder why is it that the right of illegals to drive more important to the congresswoman than the right of citizens to be able to drive safely on the streets.
When you think about it, it doesn’t matter if none of these illegals are terrorists or terror-supporters - I am worried about more mundane things like, do they carry insurance? I bet 90% of them don’t, since they cannot afford it. When these illegal drivers hit somebody, the other driver becomes liable for his own injuries since the illegal is uninsured and thus sees a raise in his premiums for no fault of his. I don’t understand how congress(wo)men elected to represent the citizens of the country think it is somehow their duty to protect illegal immigrants at the cost of welfare of citizens and legal immigrants. Despicable, really!
People with a weak gag reflex and relatively less tolerance for gushy, mommy-stuff need read no further ;)
I felt my baby last night!!! Yes, I did! I will be about 14 weeks along this Wednesday, so it was a real surprise to me when this happened. I had just laid down to go to sleep last night when I felt a little fluttering sensation in the left side of my stomach (I was lying on that side) - it went on for about a minute - a constant sensation of something moving within me - probably heady with the sugar rush a glass of pomegranate juice might leave you with ;)
I have to say it was an extremely amazing experience. It was something that made it very real to me that I had a living being inside of me, something that no grainy sonogram will ever match - btw, we saw the baby turning somersaults even in last week’s sonogram, so I think I have a pretty active baby on my hands (I am sure my mom can sympathize with me on this, though she probably is thinking, “payback time”). Well, that was it for now, so we can go back to our regularly scheduled happy, fun programming now.