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on human shielding

and its signs.
- bill 7-22-2014 11:15 am [link] [add a comment]

Found this WaPo story, from 2007, buried in a long comment thread:

Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. "The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability," in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.

Haven't seen any mention of it anywhere else. If the described scenario is correct (both in ease of destroying the dam and the size of the resulting catastrophe,) it would seem like an easy way for ISIS to keep at bay any attempt to get them out of Mosul. Just wire up the dam and say "If you come for us, and we need to retreat, we will blow it up." 


- jim 6-26-2014 6:09 pm [link] [3 comments]

buying the war


- bill 6-22-2014 1:34 pm [link] [add a comment]

Challengers emerge to replace divisive Maliki. As I started reading I couldn't help but joke to myself that Chalabi should be one. Lo and behold: 

The names floated so far — Adel Abdul Mahdi, Ahmed Chalabi and Bayan Jaber — are from the Shiite blocs, which have the largest share of the total seats in the Parliament.

Unbelievable. It's like there's no difference between actual world news and the Onion.


- jim 6-20-2014 7:13 pm [link] [5 comments]

Institute for the Study of War Iraq Updates has a ton of detailed information on what's going on in Iraq. Like any source you have to be critical of course (the parent organization, The Institute for the Study of War, is led by Dr. Kimberly Kagan, wife of Fred Kagan,) but I haven't been able to find in depth reporting like this anywhere else.


- jim 6-15-2014 6:36 pm [link] [1 comment]

Watched the Snowden interview on YouTube in entirety. Well spoken dude. Well grounded. Not really making the headlines it should.
- bill 5-31-2014 1:47 pm [link] [add a comment]

that abramson update


- bill 5-21-2014 1:50 pm [link] [1 comment]

“The fetters which bind the people are forged from the people’s own gold.”


- dave 4-17-2014 2:37 am [link] [add a comment]

someone want to bullet point this for me? lucas, maybe? youre a big boy now.


- dave 4-01-2014 3:10 am [link] [6 comments]

not a parody.


- dave 3-26-2014 4:28 pm [link] [4 comments]






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