Baghdad is still enjoying some days of relative calm interrupted only with minor sporadic incidents. In general there’s a feeling that these days are better than almost any other time in months. This is more evident in the eastern side of Baghdad than the western part, because the former part has received more US and Iraqi military reinforcements than the latter.
Checkpoints in Baghdad are becoming more abundant, with more attention paid to the exits and entrances of the city. I’m also hearing that those checkpoints have been reinforced with more soldiers and equipment.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — The powerful Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has left Iraq and has been living in Iran for the past several weeks, senior Bush administration officials said Tuesday.
With fresh American forces arriving in Baghdad as part of the White House plan to stabilize the capital, officials in Washington suggested that Mr. Sadr might have fled Iraq to avoid being captured or killed during the crackdown.
Leave it to the New York Times to spin that into a negative.
If Mr. Sadr had indeed fled, his absence would create a vacuum that could allow even more radical elements of the Shiite group to take power.
The surge seems to be going so well that even the Masters of Doom in the democratic leadership are toning down their rhetoric. At least for a couple of days. Then it’s back to supoorting our troops while they plan for their defeat again.
Update: Geez. Leave it to Jack (unidicted co-conspirator) Murtha to prove me wrong. He couldn’t even wait one day to get back to the crazy. Video.
London’s Observer (3/3/02) carried a story saying that an “unpublished report shows some patients are now having to wait more than eight months for treatment, during which time many of their cancers become incurable.” Another story said, “According to a World Health Organisation report to be published later this year, around 10,000 British people die unnecessarily from cancer each year — three times as many as are killed on our roads.”
The Observer (12/16/01) also reported, “A recent academic study showed National Health Service delays in bowel cancer treatment were so great that, in one in five cases, cancer which was curable at the time of diagnosis had become incurable by the time of treatment.”
The story is no better in Canada’s national health care system. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute has a yearly publication titled, “Waiting Your Turn.” Its 2006 edition gives waiting times, by treatments, from a person’s referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist. The shortest waiting time was for oncology (4.9 weeks). The longest waiting time was for orthopedic surgery (40.3 weeks), followed by plastic surgery (35.4 weeks) and neurosurgery (31.7 weeks).
Canadians face significant waiting times for various diagnostics such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound scans. The median wait for a CT scan across Canada was 4.3 weeks, but in Prince Edward Island, it’s 9 weeks. A Canadian’s median wait for an MRI was 10.3 weeks, but in Newfoundland, patients waited 28 weeks. Finally, the median wait for an ultrasound was 3.8 weeks across Canada, but in Manitoba and Prince Edward Island it was 8 weeks.
You’re a first term congressman who attracted not a little controversey for hanging out with terrorist supporters and as the first muslim elected to congress. You cause a small fuss for wanting to be sworn in with a Koran.
How do you reach out to your new colleagues and neighbors?
Rep. Ellison calls the cops to snuff Tancredo’s cigar
By Betsy Rothstein
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) believes it is his right as a Muslim to be sworn into Congress with the Quran. But apparently, the freshman lawmaker doesn’t believe it’s Rep. Tom Tancredo’s (R-Colo.) right to smoke a cigar in his congressional office.
Ellison’s office called the Capitol Hill Police on Tancredo last Wednesday night as Tancredo was in his office smoking a cigar. The lawmakers have neighboring offices on the first floor of the Longworth House Office Building.
Tancredo was still stunned a day later. “It’s very bizarre,” said Tancredo, who has never met Ellison. “Seemed to me not a good way to say hello.”
And let’s face it. Calling the cops on a colleague takes the cake for the nerviest behavior so far among members of this year’s freshman class of Congress.
This is how it all went down. On Wednesday evening, around 6 p.m., Tancredo was preparing for his trip to Mississippi. And as he so often does, he was unwinding with a cigar.
Soon enough, however, a police officer walked in to check on the smoke. The officer told Tancredo that the officer came because he was required to do so and not because the officer wanted to. The officer had already told Ellison that Tancredo was permitted to smoke in his office. The visit was more a formality.
Tancredo said he would not stop smoking in his office. “Heck, no!” he said. “If he [Ellison] would have [had] the courtesy to say something I’m sure I would have been more accommodating to his wishes.”
Enjoy your two years in congress Mr. Ellison. That’s all you are going to get. Even the lefties in Minnesota can see when they’ve been duped and elected a moron.
Great start to what will be a very unremarkable stint.
