OB Rag

In D.C. yesterday morning, the Iraq Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaida’ie, paused during a presentation to address a handful of women from CODEPINK who were holding signs in the audience reading “Free al-Zaidi” and “al-Zaidi speaks for me.” The signs were to show support for the Iraqi journalist who was taken into police custody after throwing his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad press conference on Sunday.

A session of the Iraqi Parliament erupted in uproar on Wednesday as lawmakers clashed over how to respond to the continuing detention of an Iraqi television reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference earlier this week. As Parliament began to discuss legislation on the withdrawal from Iraq of armed forces, a group of lawmakers demanded that the legislature instead take up the issue of the detained journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29.

OB Rag blog T-shirts have arrived. Get them while they’re hot. Sizes are medium, large, and X-large, and for a $20 donation with $2 handling, we’ll mail them to you.

The anonymous donation of $259,500 to save San Diego’s beach fire pits has provided a little holiday warmth for a city that is cold, broke and desperate for help. The unexpected gesture, announced yesterday, led many San Diegans to heap praise on the unknown benefactor and renewed fond memories of a beach tradition that has spanned generations.

Watch the video!

“Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality and the protections that we have for religion… we protect religion… and talk about a lifestyle choice, that is absolutely a choice.”

Mike Huckabee gets an earful from Jon Stewart on the Daily Show

The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

BY CRAIG NEWMAN: A lot of Americans go into service professions, but most have other means of employment, and need to find ways to help that complement their lives. To be really fair, this requires time and/or money that might be lacking; for example, a single parent putting kids through college is already more than busy. Here, I’m focusing on people who might have a little extra. Here are four possible aspects of “a craigslist for service,” and my suggestions for the Obama Administration.

A recent study found that childhood (ages 0-19) leukemia mortality rates around US nuclear power plants have been significantly higher than the national average.
“The plant with the largest local population is the San Onofre installation in Southern California, located on the border of San Diego and Orange Counties. Results are also presented for this site…and a [statistically] significant increase in leukemia for children aged 0-9 [41% higher than the national rate] and 10-19 [29.5% higher] was observed.”

It has already rained half an inch at the coast Monday. There are predictions of from 1 to 3 inches of rain at the coast over the next few days. So what does that mean for us in San Diego? Not much for most of us, living here as we do in paradise. No one has prepared us for what to do. But that is going to change.
It’s about to rain buckets, so, I say, get out the buckets, the barrels, get out anything you can to capture rain water in. Why?
Remember, we still live in a desert.

Roughly 300 residents of University City packed a standing-room only auditorium Thursday night at University City High School, to listen to military and city representatives discuss Monday’s jet crash which killed four residents, and destroyed or damaged five homes. The crash had occurred just mere hundreds of feet from the high school campus. Many in the crowd supported the military, but also many were concerned that they would never learn the truth about the F-18 jet and why it crashed into their neighborhood. Anger was evident in the crowd, and it was downright hostile at times.

The Pentagon’s three new rapid-response task forces will assist civil authorities during possible terrorist attacks or natural disasters, but they won’t perform law-enforcement missions, a senior Defense Department official said here yesterday.Some people have surfaced concerns that active-duty soldiers, who make up the core of the first 4,700-member joint task force established in early October, could be used to perform police functions, which would be in violation of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.

They’ve taken their sleeping bags and pillows back home and hauled away their protest placards after ending a nearly weeklong sit-in at a Chicago factory that came to symbolize the plight of laid-off labor. But a day after dozens of protesting workers walked out of the Republic Windows & Doors plant with their demands met, they said they hope their triumph will inspire others nationwide to take similar stands against employers if need be.