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musings of mark since 2001

United Press International
Iraqi civilian casualties

Jul. 12, 2005 at 12:04PM

An Iraqi humanitarian organization is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported that chairman of the ‘Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-’Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.
‘Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country’s provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared.
The number includes those who died during the U.S. assaults on al-Fallujah and al-Qa’im. ‘Iraqiyun’s figures conflict with the Iraqi Body Count public database compiled by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. According to the Graduate Institute of International Studies’ database, 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since March 2003. No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued by the Pentagon, which insists that it does not do “body counts.” The Washington Post on July 12 reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq now total 1,755.

More pundits picking up on Pat Robertson’s stupidity to vocalize what the govt. really wants to do with Chavez, and it’s not a good weekend for those in Crawford looking for a quiet end to the summer as Maureen Dowd’s NY Times opinion piece gets picked up everywhere for the phrase, “the cultural shift that is turning 2005 into 1968” while Joan Baez reminds everyone there are still people that are activists for civil rights and humanity everywhere.

It’s certainly 1968 around Snug Cove this afternoon, as the annual Bowfest end of the summer party and parade theme was “Flower Power” with Peace, Love and Understanding abounding. Certainly a different atmosphere than last year, when the large imported police presence caused more than a bit of consternation amongst the locals. Maybe it was the lack of an official “beer garden” this year, but the constabulary’s presence was barely noticable when the company van was decorated with “grass” for the parade; lawn clippings from me the day before that were bagged and thrown right away into the walk-in freezer to stay green. There was some sitar music, and local band Naive mistook a lot of 70’s and 80’s music for the 60’s sound, but no one really noticed I think.

With our own municipal elections coming up, we’ll be seeing some culture clash a little more clearly here. There are a few main factions of thinking on the island, ranging all the way from sell the whole island and let’s get a bigger ferry at all costs, to those that think there should be only one ferry a day, and it’s leaving only.

The Word Press software comes with one active “plug-in”, which is a sort of widget that anyone familiar with php can produce. This one displays a verse or line from an artist from another time, “it symbolizes the hope and enthusiasm of an entire generation summed up in two words sung most famously by Louis Armstrong. Hello, Dolly”. I was changing the stylesheet a bit and noticed

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.
I’m half crazy all for the love of you.
It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage.
But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.”

Which is sweet, but not sure what to make yet of the line at the top of the admin area: “Find her a vacant knee, fellas” - ? - until I read the lyrics while singing along

Makes you wonder if the company is like the Hells Angels, where you have to do something really nasty to get in. Britain’s own war monger, Tony Blair, is in the UK tabloids as being groomed for a position with the Carlyle Group after he’s chucked out of office.

How high are gas prices going to go up? A lot higher even though ChevronTexaco’s profits in the third quarter improved by 62%. Reason being, way down in the article a spokesman for same says, “The rise in oil prices has been so rapid that ChevronTexaco hasn’t been able to pass on the costs quickly enough to U.S. motorists”. Too bad for those masses of people that aren’t part of the profit sharing. At least the govt. is better able to afford vacations for senators, prime ministers and presidents, as a good portion of the cost of a gallon of fuel is in the taxes anyways.

Get to add some to the pot myself soon with about 7 or 8 hundred k’s added to the little Mazda GLC with the trip to Kelowna. It deserves some time on a highway though, any trip around here is just a few kilometers and I walk most places anyways. Got to remember to burn a new set of cd’s for music when going over the Coquihalla Highway.

Maybe it will be the real Christians who eventually kick the present govt. to the south out, as their religion has been hijacked and they are viewed as the terrorists themselves in some parts of the world. To wit: popular televangelist Pat Robertson says about Chavez of Venezuala, who is attempting to give back to the common person some of the oil riches from their country, “a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us badly, (I read that as economically),….We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability…….We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”

I always thought the the ideas of Thou Shall Not Steal and Thou Shall Not Kill were fairly solid principles of most religions, but apparently not of the so called Christian Coalition of America where killing so you can get someone else’s oil is perfectly acceptable. All about money and power to them, Robertson was the same one who said one of the problems with feminism is that it destroys capitalism.

In defense of Pat Robertson is the fact that he isn’t saying anything about US policy that isn’t true. The US has a long history of “taking out” those that are in the way of their corporate profits and as the linked article suggests, he’s simply a smoke screen and the truth is probably worse than we could ever imagine.