Water polo rioting and wall-butting

From the Guardian: “Almost unnoticed outside Iraq, the senior US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has issued a proclamation outlawing any "gatherings, pronouncements or publications" that call for the return of the Ba'ath party - or for opposition to the US occupation.” It goes on to point out that at the same time the Bush admin has been applauding demonstrators against the Iranian government (indeed, using radio & tv beamed into Iran to call for them). Indeed, Shrub himself said "I think that freedom is a powerful incentive. I believe that some day freedom will prevail everywhere because freedom is a powerful drive." But then, he may have been referring to freedom fries.

“A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. And 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons in the war.” The poll also shows that supporters of the war were more likely to have their facts wrong.

The Financial Times suggests that that raid on a “terrorist training camp” in Iraq was actually the result of one tribe pointing the US military in the direction of a tribe it was feuding with--the sort of thing that happened in Afghanistan all the time.

This paragraph from Cursor.org: A June 13 article in the New York Times print edition, headlined "Goal Is To Lay Cornerstone at Ground Zero During GOP Convention," was changed in the Web edition to 'Officials Plan Speedy Ground Zero Environmental Review.' The last line in the lead paragraph was also changed, from "This would allow them to lay the cornerstone of a 1,776-foot tower in August 2004, during the Republican Convention," to "This would allow them to start construction by the summer of 2004."

The Sierra Club points out that the Ford Explorer gets worse gas mileage than the Model T. Get a horse, I say.

There are now fewer than 1 million Jews in New York city. Also, there are now more Jews in Israel than in the US.

Here’s a headline you don’t see every day: “Water-polo Rioting Spreads.” Croatia and Serbia.

“Austrian authorities have warned people not to copy a cult television show in which participants run at a wall and head-butt it while wearing a crash helmet after a man collapsed and died after doing it.” That’s in Salzburg, the home of Mozart. Who’d probably have loved wall-butting, now that I think of it.