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Friday, Jun 02, 2006
Then ... and Now
Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003
Authorities say the more than 100,000 people who fled sectarian strife are straining resources. U.S. officials dispute the extent of the problem.
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
June 2, 2006
KARBALA, Iraq — The Hotel Karbala has kept pace with Iraq's changing times. In its halcyon days, it housed Shiite Muslim tourists visiting the shrines of this southern Iraqi city. It later became a base for Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, and played host to foreign troops after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
But in a sign of the current troubles, the ramshackle two-story concrete building and its weed-strewn lot have become housing for more than 70 Shiite Muslim families who fled violence elsewhere in the country.
"We were driven from our houses when we were attacked by terrorists," said Ali Jaffar Hussein, 35, a formerly prosperous Shiite merchant who moved his family here from the religiously mixed city of Tall Afar, about 270 miles to the northwest, fearing attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents.
"Now, we don't know our destiny," he said. "The government is not capable of protecting us."
Net Neutrality
Okay, I'm officially concerned about net neutrality. KAZU airs On Point, which covered the topic today.
Scott Cleland of n3tc0mp3tition.org kept lobbing vapid talking points that should have been easily swatted aside by the moderator (who is generally good). But Tom Ashbrook had call on the opposing side, turning it into a he said - he said, in the worst tradition of American news.
The part that really chapped my hide was when Cleland described net neutrality as "socialism". Net nuertrality is about preserving some common ground in the marketplace for innovation by new entrants -- and that's where innovation comes from.
Is the next HotMail going to come out of Microsoft? Hell no. The first one didn't, although Microsoft saw fit it acquire it -- after others had taken the risks and done the innovation. That's how modern American capitalism works, and if Cleland doesn't understand that, then he doesn't understand much. He's an ignorant, biased flack, and should be treated as such by journalists.
Allowing the internet to be dominated by monopolistic walled gardens would be bad for innovation, bad for capitalism and bad for the US economy.
The opposite of oligarchy is democracy.