Think the US ambassador to Greece might have a tough job? (video)

The US embassy was hit with a smallish explosive and he's apologizing to the Greek people. This says to me that he's worried about this bombing hurting the perception of America in Greece.

Here's a text article in the Greek press which cites the apology: "Ries, in fact, offered an apology to Athens motorists for the surging traffic jam caused by the incident."
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The US supported the Greek Dictatorship of the 1960s -1970s.

a republican against bush (video)

Hagel direct with Condy Rice.

US raids Iranian Consulate

The nytimes gave this story a curious headline: G.I.’s in Iraq Raid Iranians’ Offices.

Drilling on the sly

Bush uses the cover of the troop surge to start drilling in Alaska.

A note in the file of Portland Public Education

Public education might universally doomed. This sounds exactly like NY.

No transfer to the tram

"Under Adams’ proposal, tram passes will not be interchangeable with TriMet and Portland Streetcar passes. That also is different than the operating assumptions in the report accepted by the council, which called for the tram to be part of the regional transit system."

US Attacks Inside Somalia

In 1993 this led to the "Black Hawk Down" incident. Hopefully there won't be any more war movies made.

Miers replacement

The person deemed competent to fight the Democratic hearings is a former member of the Nixon White House.

pseudo-terror alert

I wouldn't link to this story except it's notable because it is the top one on CNN.

Another thing to never miss about NYC: Putting the city on lock down over nothing.

Remember the "maple syrup" smell years ago?

Basically, the city is a toxic waste dump (made worse by 9/11) with no way to know what waste has been dumped there.

Look at this person commenting about it: his tone resembles that of a criminal confessing a crime.

Fallen and Felled Trees

An issue developing around the melody (simple sadness) of the fallen tree.

Background - Downing Street Memo - It depends on what the meaning of the word "fixed" is.

Something often referred to in conjunction with congressional hearings on the Iraq War is the Downing Street Memo.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy..."

This article includes a great discussion about the meaning of the word "fixed."

prognostication - constitutional crisis crisis

This article sees that

"The road to withdrawal from Iraq, in short, may run through a congressional hearing room... investigate... the Bush juggernaut -- its criminal violation of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. and international law and its criminal coverup of its abuses. "

Bush's refusal to comply with these hearings would thus provoke a constitutional crisis . I think a better way of looking at this would be to say that there already is a constitutional crisis, the guessing about the future here involves whether or not the democrats make a real issue out of this crisis in the current session of congress.