In Iraq, we’re not exactly sure what choosey mothers chose, although peanut butter is probably not a staple there, even if its the sort of thing we distribute in our aid packages. We’re also not sure what Iraqi voters chose in their constitutional balloting, though it looks like we can be sure that huge numbers of them– over 10,000,000– voted yesterday to express a preference one way or another. This is actually more people than voted in last winter’s initial national parliamentary elections, and as such, is a sign that millions of Iraqi people are willing to brave the risk...

With last minute preparations for tomorrow’s vote to approve the hastily drawn, heavily compromised, and frankly, not very important Iraqi constituion… insurgents are blamed for managing to cause a blackout in Baghdad and vicinity. In some sense… what else is new? Large parts of Iraq are used to very, very unreliable electricity, not to mention water, telecommunications, public services in general, and certainly, security. Amidst such an environment, one might thinnk it a tad premature, if not outright presumptuous, to think that a new constitution can be hammered out and ratified in a manner that will (1) give it any...

News out of Pakistan continues to be grim. From Pakistan’s Dawn, we get this current, clinical sounding assessment of aid being delivered to areas stricken by the recent earthquake centered in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, even as it acknowledges that there are areas too remote to have received any help yet. It’s interesting: a huge part of the problem in getting relief up there is that, aside from the remoteness of the area (in a branch of the same mountain group that includes the world’s tallest peaks) is the general lack of infrastructure up there, a factor contributed to, in part, by...

The New York Police Department is looking at the possibility that an internationally known terrorist suspect (who?) has entered the United States as part of a plot to bomb the New York City subway system. This, of course, is a follow-on from purported intelligence picked up from a suspect in Iraq, who hinted at a plot here involving 19 (note the number, which, in my view, instantly added a “shades of Tom Ridge” element to the story) insurgent-terrorists infiltrating New York w ith a plot to blow up backpacks and baby carriages. For its part, the NYPD has stepped up...

South Asia suffered a 7.6 magnitude earthquake epicentered around 60 miles north of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, with tens of thousands feared dead and many more injured. The quake was felt as far away as New Delhi, India and Kabul, Afghanistan, and seems to have done particular damage in the Hindu Kush Mountains region, around disputed Kashmir, particularly on the Pakistani side of the line of control (where at least one report suspects 30,000 dead alone). This is reported to be the largest quake in the area in over a century. While the recriminations stateside will continue over Hurricane Katrina (whose...

Sunnis– and UN officials– are furious at a last-minute change in the Iraqi constitutional referendum process, which appears designed to virtually guarantee passage of the constitution, according to this Grey Lady piece. The change means that 2/3 of registered voters in at least three of Iraq’s eighteen provinces must vote to reject the proposed constitution in order to defeat it, a change from 2/3 of votes cast. The difference is obvious, given that it is Sunnis in heavily Sunni provinces likely to vote no to defeat the constitution, and I’m guessing there are three Sunni dominated provinces. Given that the...

We’ll start with this take from the Grey Lady, offering the premise that with the ascendance of Chief Justice Roberts and the probable ascendance of Associate Justice Miers, Roe v. Wade may as well already be reversed… so its time to think ahead to chemical alternative means of abortion, which have the virtue of lining the coffers of major pharmaceutical companies (and hence, still reflecting actual American “moral values.”) One such drug is misoprostol market by Pfizer as Cyotec, which, evidently, is already used extensively in Brazil, and by poor and immigrant women here, to induce abortion; it has a...

It seems to be a Bush II Administration tradition: get yourself in charge of selecting a key position, and then pick yourself. Dick Cheney did it for the vice-president position, and now, White House Counsel Harriet Miers has done it for the opening on the Supreme Court. Ms. Miers has never served as a judge, and therefore, doesn’t have that irritating paper trial. She has been a lawyer in Texas, bar association president, Dallas city council-person, has no (irritating) husband or kids, and… is a really, really good buddy of the President. We’ll find out, of course, that her political-ideological...

This week’s visit to our comrades at Beijing’s People’s Daily give us this rather alarming news about the Arctic polar ice cap: it might be gone in 55 years or so. Scientists, conservative by nature, do not know the exact cause (perhaps they should ask the “intelligent designer?”), but can come up with no alternative than the likelihood of the effects of accumulation of greenhouse gases and global warming. In essence, as noted by the People’s Daily, the melting of the floating ice cap itself will not directly raise world sea levels, as the ice is already floating, but will...

Of the 6 plus billion people in the world, a huge number will soon be threatened with instantly devastating– and deadly– illness, if fears of the avian fly mutating and migrating to humans in a human-to-human transmittable form this winter come to pass, according to this piece from our old friend Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey at Pravda. In the “great minds think alike” department, our friends over at the American Street are also focusing on this issue, which could easily kill tens of millions of people. The bird flu out of Asia now– which has killed an astounding 60 of the 120...