The Skunk and Tiger

"Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."-Horace Mann

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Evidence Suggests U.S. Attorney Firings May Have Been Part of White House Scheme to Help Game 2008 Election

Karl Rove Associate and GOP Operative Tim Griffin's Appointment in Arkansas --- and Others Like it --- Are Worth Noting as the Scandal Continues to Unravel...
Blogged by Arlen Parsa

Details continue to drip out from the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal which seem to suggest that electoral politics --- and perhaps the 2008 election in particular --- may well have been at the heart of the White House/Dept. of Justice scheme to strategically place partisan operatives where they might be most useful prior to the next Presidential Election.

One such detail revealed itself on Tuesday March 20th when Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) appeared on MSNBC's Hardball to discuss the recent purge of several US Attorneys by the Bush Administration. Host Chris Matthews opened the segment by asking Pryor how much he knew about the White House's decision to replace the US Attorney in his state, Bud Cummins, with one of Karl Rove's associates, a partisan operative named Tim Griffin.

Pryor criticized the Attorney General for firing Cummins and replacing him with Griffin, who had very little professional experience in Arkansas and had only recently moved there when Cummins was fired in December of 2006. Cummins, on the other hand, whom George W. Bush himself had appointed in 2001, had been well respected, competent, and non-partisan (despite personally being a Republican).

But the real bombshell came near the end of the interview....

Click here for REST OF STORY! @ BradBlog...

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Iraq's Mandaeans 'face extinction'

By Angus Crawford
BBC News, Damascus




The Mandaeans are pacifists, followers of Adam, Noah and John the Baptist.

They have lived in what is now Iraq since before Islam and Christianity.

More than 80% have been forced to flee the country and now live as refugees in Syria and Jordan.

Even there they do not feel safe - but they say western governments are unwilling to take them in.

Victim voices

There are thought to be fewer than 70,000 of the Sabian Mandaeans spread across the world - only 5,000 are left in Iraq.


Nine-year-old Selwan likes watching cartoons and playing football.

But he is too scared to leave his flat. The other children tease him.

He has burns all down the side of his face and on 20% of his body.

He was kidnapped by Islamic militants who forced him to jump into a bonfire - because he is Mandaean.

Now his family lives in a tiny flat in a slum in Damascus.

I meet Luay. He is too scared to be identified and does not want to use his full name.

He was dragged off the street by armed men and forcibly circumcised - a practice not allowed in the Mandaean religion.

He is 19 and is now unlikely ever to find a bride from his own faith.

Worse, he was forcibly converted. That means in the eyes of those same extremists, if he now declares himself Mandaean he is apostate.

To the extremists, that makes him a traitor to Islam, who may be murdered. He says he will not be safe in any Muslim country.

'Convert or die'

Then there is Enhar, raped by a gang of masked men in front of her husband - because she would not wear a veil.


Our ethnic minority and our ancient religion will die off
Kanzfra Sattar, Mandaean bishop
Mazen used to be a prosperous jeweller. Now he lives in a cramped flat, with his wife and children. Water drips through the ceiling.

His legs are peppered with machine-gun wounds, he can barely walk.

Shoaki wears a Manchester United hat and shows me the scars where a gang beat and cut him with a knife - he watched his brother murdered in front of him.

Mandaean elders use words like annihilation and genocide - they believe Islamic militants, both Sunni and Shia, offer them two choices - convert or die.

"Some will not consider us people of the book... they see us as unbelievers, as a result our killing is allowed," says Kanzfra Sattar, one of only five Mandaean bishops left worldwide.

'Wait in line'

He believes they are a litmus test for modern Iraq - in a secular state these doctors, engineers and jewellers would thrive.


In the country as it is without law and in the grip of religious extremism, he fears they will be destroyed.

"We are small in numbers, we ask all the governments of the world to extend a hand of help," Kanzfra Sattar says.

He says he wants the West to accept his people as refugees.

I ask him what will happen if they do not - he replies simply: "Our ethnic minority and our ancient religion will die off."

The UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, says there may be as many as a million Iraqis who have fled to Syria.

"The numbers that will be resettled are tiny compared to the very large numbers that are here," says Laurens Jolles, the head of a UNHCR team.

He acknowledges that the Mandaeans will just have to "wait in line", with other vulnerable groups.

Roughly two million Iraqis have fled to Syria, Jordan and Turkey. But there are no plans to welcome large numbers to the West.

The US has offered places to 7,000, while Britain says it will consider every case "on its merits".

So the Mandaeans wait in line.

Shoaki puts it more simply: "Here, we live in despair."

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Random Thoughts.

Hope every one is having a fun and safe holiday. Not doing much other than reading and listening to music. Planning on attending a war protest tomorrow. There have already been several this weekend. Right now I am still bored with blogging. I think I might get out the camera and take some more photos and get back to cutting articles from other sites. I just want to use this blog as a scrapbook of news articles and photos. I am read ing several books right now.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin: This is a Fantasy Novel my friend Brandon recommended. It was slow at first, but the action and plot has finally started to move along. Martin's descriptions of cultures, histories and landscapes make up for any of the slow parts. I just wish Martin would number his chapters, it is easy to lose your place. HBO has apparently purchased the rights of the entire series, there are at leased four books right now, and there is talk of an ongoing television series.