Since the American press lives in the same bubble as Bush, I've taken to reading foreign newspapers. It's amazing how much you can learn about what's going on in America when you read foreign newspapers.
I decided to make the newspaper rounds this morning and compile a few of the stories that I found interesting, thought provoking or had me shaking my head.
Some of my sources may be considered conservative rags or owned by "those" people, but I read for content. I will find an article on a conservative site and see the same story in a liberal paper and the two stories jive. When two sources match, who cares which way they tilt.
I like to read news and here are some of the things I've read this morning ....
I started off this morning, with this little jewel from the UK. The Brits are still seething about rendition flights and now they have to contend with planes loaded with bombs landing in their country. But not to worry, the British MP's don't have to deal with it now. This little article lays bare who is going where for their holidays:
And they're off: MPs pack their bags as 76-day holiday begins. Seems the British press likes to post the holiday plans of their MP's since this is the second time I've seen an article like this. I wonder if anyone will be screaming about National Security? Oh well, on to the news.
UK airport used to fly bombs to Israel
Britain has been used as a staging post for major shipments of bunker-busting bombs from America to Israel. The Israelis want the 5,000lb smart bombs to attack the bunkers being used by Hizbollah leaders in Lebanon.
Two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with GBU 28 laser-guided bombs landed at Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, for refuelling and crew rests after flying across the Atlantic at the weekend, defence sources confirmed. The airport has also been used by the CIA for rendition flights carrying terrorist suspects.
President George W Bush appeared uncomfortable when he was asked if he regarded the simultaneous American provision of military support and humanitarian aid to Israel as contradictory. He said that America was honouring commitments to Israel made before the current crisis flared up.
Flip the coin and we see the side of the people on the receiving end of the bombs. I don't care who you think is right or who you think is wrong, these are human beings that should be treated as such. The person interviewed asks a very compelling question about our president. It also brings up a question that no TV media people wanted to discuss yesterday. That question is just how is aid supposed to be delivered to the people who need it when bombs are raining down and anything moving along a road seems to be a target?
Why do they give weapons to Israel and food to us?
THE fanfare marking yesterday's arrival of the first American aid to Lebanon was scorned by Esam Haider and 2,000 fellow refugees living in an underground car park after their homes were bombed by Israel.
Mr Haider, aware of recent reports that the US was accelerating the delivery of new missiles to Israel, was furious. "Why does President Bush send billions of dollars of weapons to Israel and hands the Lebanese a few boxes of food and blankets?" the 24-year-old chef asked.
"Is he just trying to fatten us up before he gives Israel bigger bombs to kill us?" he said as his nine-month old daughter slept on the concrete floor of the vast supermarket car park in Beirut's southern suburbs.
But one senior aid official told The Times: "The US flies in its aid as it pleases, but has yet to get Israel to agree safe corridors so other countries can bring in supplies and the UN and Red Cross can deliver it. I'm not sure American aid is very welcome."
This next article comes from a Times reporter who is an Iraqi. It's a sobering story of what daily life is like in his country. I've been trying to write a diary for the last 4 days about the hospital situation in Baghdad, but every time I reread the article I get so angry that I start shaking. These are human beings who are living in hell on earth and the media has forgotten them. They have a government that can't seem to govern and we've poured billions into their country and their suffering gets worse every day. There is a reason why so many Iraqis have been dying in such large numbers and our media, as usual, isn't giving us the whole story. Soon, I'm going to compose the hospital diary because I can't get the story out of my head
'Violence is discussed like the weather...everyone has a gun'
By Ali al-Hamdani
A reporter for The Times describes his struggle to survive each day in western Baghdad
THE anxiety starts the moment you wake. The drone of the generator (if you are lucky enough to have one) reminds you that you will have to spend hours searching for petrol on the lawless streets -- the normal electricity supply functions barely four hours a day.
Distant bomb blasts raise the familiar questions. How will I get to work? Which roads have been closed by fighting? There used to be a morning postal service, but I have not received a letter since the war. All my communications now are through email or telephone -- many of them to friends overseas.
I take a taxi to work because my car is broken and there is no time to fix it: curfew starts at 8.30 pm but mechanics close even earlier for lack of security.
I'm very cautious about which taxis I take: I look for an old man in a beat-up car. Young men in flashy vehicles could be militiamen cruising for victims. I do not take calls on my mobile because speaking in English is dangerous.
Many cab drivers spend the trip complaining about the Americans, Zionist conspiracies or Sunni terrorists and Shia death squads. You do not disagree: if the driver's Shia so are you. The same if he's Sunni. You tell by the dashboard stickers, his accent, or simply which side he is bitching about.
Did you know that Poland elected a set of twins? One is the Prime Minister and the other is the President. They have decided that it's pay back time in Poland. They use a rubber stamp in Poland too! I thought it was just used in the US. What in the hell is wrong with the world? This story gives me the creeps. "Purge" is a nasty sounding word. I guess it's better than being killed, but look what happened when they purged Saddam's party out of the government.
Poland prepares purge of communist collaborators
Teachers in Poland are sweating their way through a nerve-wracking summer holiday. The new Government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski is preparing a purge of hundreds of thousands of Poles suspected of collaborating with the communist secret police, including headmasters and university chancellors as well as journalists, diplomats, army officers and politicians of all colourings.
. . . the Kaczynski brothers -- Jaroslaw as Prime Minister, Lech as President -- who have made high office in Poland into a family affair.
The new amendment to the so-called Transparency Law -- passed by the lower house of parliament last week and to be rubber stamped on Friday -- is the sharp edge of a campaign slightly reminiscent of the communist era, when dissidents were hounded out of public service.
From my local paper, comes more news about the money shortage that the Army faces. Seems the supplemental passed in June didn't help. Remember Rummy and his lean, mean fighting machine that he wanted to turn the military into? Well, Rummy decided to free up soldiers by having contractors do their jobs so he wouldn't fall short on troops to send to War. Now the garrison can't pay for those contractors. They are keeping the rent-a-cops who man the gates to the Post, since all the MP's were the first to be shipped out to Kuwait before the war. You know how the Repubs promised they would get the troops the things they needed, not going to happen this year. If stuff breaks, it's just going to have stay broken.
I wish someone could figure out just how much money we are spending in Iraq. Between supplemental and money coming out of garrison budgets, just how much money have we've sunk in the hole of Bush's Folly? All I ever hear is the total of supplements, but just how much have they siphoned off from all the Army garrisons in the last three years?
Guardsmen replace civilians at welcome center
FORT HOOD - National Guardsmen were welcoming visitors to the Army's largest post Monday, despite assurances Friday by post officials that the civilian staff had won a temporary reprieve.
The workers in the center at the post's Main Gate were given a roller-coaster ride Friday as the Army's largest post battled through another round of money shortages prompted by the service's huge commitment to the war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Converting noncombat and support duties to civilian contractors and government workers was a centerpiece of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's initiative to maximize the military's shrinking uniformed ranks after recruiting difficulties added to a strained mission at the start of the war in 2003.
However, still some $500 million short for this year's budget and facing an equipment repair or replacement bill of $12 billion to $13 billion from the war fronts, contracts for those services have been severely cut or axed this year.
The cuts were to have been lifted once President Bush's $92.2 billion supplemental request for the wars was passed in June, however the Army said it has decided to extend most of those cutbacks until Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
The Army's 2006 budget is $98.2 billion. The 2007 budget request not yet approved by Congress seeks $111 billion for the Army.
After reading this article, I decided that Bush and Condi should have just stayed home instead of attending the G8 summit. Maybe this is Putin's way of paying him back for being a horse's ass.
Putin's billion-dollar arms sale risks souring Western détente
HUGO CHÁVEZ, the ardently anti-American President of Venezuela, arrives in Russia today to sign a billion-dollar arms deal that has infuriated and alarmed the US.
The self-styled leftist revolutionary will sign an agreement with President Putin to buy 30 Sukhoi Su30 fighter jets and 30 military helicopters worth $1 billion (£540 million).
The two leaders will also discuss plans to build two Kalashnikov factories in Venezuela -- to add to the 100,000 Kalashnikov AK103 assault rifles that Venezuela has bought from Russia in the past year. The arms deals -- and the visit by Señor Chávez -- are the latest evidence of Mr Putin's drive to re-establish Russia as a counterbalance to the West in international affairs.
The following article starts out with the usual claptrap about the great economy in America, Bush's tax cuts, the usual BS. It took a turn toward the end that I had to include for the simple fact that these people can't look beyond wall street and the funny accounting practices of Bush & Co. The last paragraph just about sums up the accomplishments by Bush & Co. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Bush is unloved but it's not the economy, stupid
Still, the rapid growth in the economy, the reduced tax burden, the healthy jobs market, and a business community that is benefiting from what Jim Awad, of the eponymous asset-management company described to a television audience as "lots of profits, lots of cash, lots of deals", should be producing the "feel-good factor" to which all politicians aspire.
Nobody is quite sure why the president's party cannot count on such a factor in the coming November congressional elections. It might be that house prices are cooling, or that petrol prices are not. Or that interest rates, although still low at present, are rising, dampening growth.
The elderly worry about the rising cost of drugs. Middle-income folks feel that they have not shared fully in the economy's growth, which has favoured high earners, including chief executives whose widely publicised compensation is not always related to the performance of their companies.
But most of all, there is an unsettling sense that things are out of control, and not only in Iraq. Arab terrorists backed by Iran have opened a two-front war against Israel. Globalisation frightens those who see their jobs disappearing to China, a potential adversary that is accumulating a worrying pile of America's IOUs. Some 11m illegal immigrants are in the country, and thousands more sneak in every week. President Vladimir Putin tells Bush that his repression of dissent in Russia is none of America's business, North Korea tests long-range missiles in a programme the president describes lamely as "unacceptable", Al-Qaeda seems to be regaining control of Afghanistan, and Iran cocks a snook at an impotent America.
There really isn't much more that I can add. The last paragraph seems to sum up the state of the world today. I doubt you'll hear much about any of these things in our press. Wonder if Bush will give a news conference to blast Putin for selling arms to Chavez? Maybe he'll dig the VP out of his undisclosed location and have him rake Putin over the coals. But then, Russia has nukes, so maybe not.