McCain Warns Of "Hard Struggle" On The "Iraq-Pakistan Border"
Today on Good Morning America, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) refused to call the situation in Afghanistan “precarious and urgent,” but admitted that “We have a lot of work to do.” He warned of a “very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.” Watch it:
Of course, Iraq is nowhere near Pakistan. In fact, Baghdad — the capital of Iraq — is over 1,500 miles from Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad:
Before McCain repeats his claim to “know how to win wars,” he should probably look at a map.
Bush Administration Caught Pressuring Iraqi Govn't to Mislead Americans to help McCain
The New York Times acquired and translated Der Spiegels' recording of al Maliki's interview. It confirms the original story. Al Maliki said:
“Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”
“Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”
Bush just got caught pressuring Iraq's government to mislead Americans to help McCain.
New York Times article is below:
BAGHDAD — On the eve of Senator Barack Obama’s visit to Iraq, itsprime minister tried to step back Sunday from comments in an interview in which he appeared to support Mr. Obama’s plan for troop withdrawal.
The interview with the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was published Saturday in the online version of Der Spiegel, a German magazine. It was widely picked up by American newspapers because it appeared to give an unexpected boost to Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who has called for an expedited withdrawal.
Mr. Obama arrived in Baghdad on Monday, according to Reuters, for meetings with American military commanders and Iraqi officials. He had made an overnight stop in Kuwait, where he met with the emir, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, according to a Kuwait government news agency.
Mr. Maliki's interview prompted immediate concern from the Bush administration, which called to seek clarification from Mr. Maliki’s office, American officials said.
Scott M. Stanzel, a White House spokesman with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., said that embassy officials explained to the Iraqis how the interview in Der Spiegel was being interpreted, given that it came just a day after the two governments announced an agreement over American troops.
“The Iraqis were not aware and wanted to correct it,” he said.
The back-and-forth between the governments came as Mr. Obama finished a one-day trip to Afghanistan, where he met with President Hamid Karzai for nearly two hours on Sunday. Mr. Obama said the United States, NATO and Afghanistan must step up their efforts to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda and to encourage Pakistan to eliminate terrorist training camps.
“Our message to the Afghan government is this: We want a strong partnership based on ‘more for more’ — more resources
from the United States and NATO, and more action from the Afghan government to improve the lives of the Afghan people,” Mr. Obama said in a written statement, which was also signed by Senators Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, who are part of the traveling American delegation.
Mr. Obama, who is on the opening leg of a weeklong overseas trip, said in a television interview that the United States needed to send a stronger message to Pakistan about its efforts to fight terrorism along its border with Afghanistan.
“I think that the U.S. government provides an awful lot of aid to Pakistan, provides a lot of military support to Pakistan,” Mr. Obama said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “And to send a clear message to Pakistan that this is important, to them as well as to us, I think that message has not been sent.”
In Iraq, controversy continued to reverberate between the United States and Iraqi governments over a weekend news report that Mr. Maliki had expressed support for Mr. Obama’s proposal to withdraw American combat troops within 16 months of January. The reported comments came after Mr. Bush agreed on Friday to a “general time horizon” for pulling out troops from Iraq without a specific timeline.
Diplomats from the United States Embassy in Baghdad spoke to Mr. Maliki’s advisers on Saturday, said an American official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss what he called diplomatic communications. After that, the government’s spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, issued a statement casting doubt on the magazine’s rendering of the interview.
The statement, which was distributed to media organizations by the American military early on Sunday, said Mr. Maliki’s words had been “misunderstood and mistranslated,” but it failed to cite specifics.
“Unfortunately, Der Spiegel was not accurate,” Mr. Dabbagh said Sunday by telephone. “I have the recording of the voice of Mr. Maliki. We even listened to the translation.”
But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.
The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki’s comments by The Times: “Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”
He continued: “Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”
Mr. Maliki’s top political adviser, Sadiq al-Rikabi, declined to comment on the remarks, but spoke in general about the Iraqi position on Sunday. Part of that position, he said, comes from domestic political pressure to withdraw.
“Foreign soldiers in the middle of the most populated areas are not without their side effects,” he said. “Shouldn’t we look to an end for this unhealthy situation?”
Administration officials expressed confidence on Sunday that Mr. Maliki did not intend to create a rift with Mr. Bush on the issue of withdrawals, saying that both leaders conditioned any troop pullout on improved security in Iraq and would not impose a rigid timetable.
But a senior military official in Iraq said top American commanders expressed surprise and confusion over Mr. Maliki’s published remarks. The official added, however, that no American officers spoke to the Iraqi prime minister or any of his top aides about them.
“This isn’t the first time this has happened with the prime minister,” said the senior military official, noting that Mr. Maliki or his top aides had had to issue clarifications previously of comments that Iraqi or foreign journalists reported the prime minister said. “All of us were going, ‘What? What did he say, why did he say it and was it accurate?’ ”
Mr. Obama’s movements remained shrouded in secrecy, but Iraqi officials said he was scheduled to meet with Mr. Maliki on Monday before the prime minister was to travel to Germany and also with President Jalal Talabani. Americans here strictly warned Iraqi officials not to give details about Mr. Obama’s visit.
Before leaving Afghanistan, Mr. Obama shared a traditional Afghan lunch of chicken, mutton and rice during a meeting with Mr. Karzai. An Afghan government spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said the meeting was conducted in a “very friendly environment.”
Mr. Hamidzada made light of Mr. Obama’s earlier criticism of Mr. Karzai as not getting out of his bunker enough to help Afghanistan develop, saying it was not so much a criticism as a statement of realism.
“While we are making progress, we are also facing the significant threat of terrorism that is imposed upon us and on the Afghan people,” he said.
“We are spending a lot of time and resources on fighting terrorism,” he said, adding that the government hoped in the future to spend more of those resources on the development of Afghanistan.
Update: Murky Coffee Fiasco makes the Washington Post Metro Section
Article here, quoted below:
Espresso, Extra Bitter
Man's Tiff With Barista Spills Onto Internet
By Joe Heim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 17, 2008; B01Who knew a cup of coffee could create such a tempest in a teapot?
Not Jeff Simmermon, whose request for a triple shot of espresso over ice at Murky Coffee in Arlington County turned into a heated Internet squabble, sparked debate about whether the customer is always right and provided a reminder about the intended and unintended consequences of blogging.
The drink request Sunday, said Simmermon, who was visiting from Brooklyn, was denied by a barista who told him that Murky doesn't do espresso over ice. Irked, Simmermon said he asked for a triple espresso and a cup of ice, which he said the barista provided, grudgingly.
Service. No smile.
Then -- and this is Simmermon's account -- the barista scolded him, saying that what he was doing to his espresso was "not okay" and that the store's policy was to preserve the integrity of the drink. The employee said that allowing customers to dilute espresso was not in keeping with said policy.
Coffee-rage moment in 3, 2, 1 . . .
Simmermon, 32, said that he interrupted the barista with an angry blast about how he would have his coffee any way he pleased, thank you very much, and that he told the barista he had his own policy about doing what he wants with the products he pays for. He mixed in a couple of expletives, but that was the essence of it.
That might have been the end of the saga, but Simmermon did what comes naturally to literate victims of perceived everyday injustices in the 21st century.
He blogged about it.
In a post on his Web site, And I Am Not Lying For Real ( http://andiamnotlying.com), Simmermon detailed the encounter, his anger and, somewhat befuddlingly, his order at Murky an hour later for the "strongest iced beverage your policy will allow." He accepted the barista's recommendation for an Americano with four shots "and light on the water." (He said he enjoyed it.)
He also posted a picture of the dollar bill he left as a tip, on which he wrote "[naughty word deleted] you and your precious coffee policy."
Since coffee shops are little more than way stations and IV drips for many bloggers, it's not surprising that Simmermon's post quickly made the rounds in cyberspace. Murky's owner, Nicholas Cho, was alerted to the dispute and responded with an open letter on the cafe's Web site ( http://murkycoffee.com). He defended his berated barista, David Flynn, and ticked off a litany of store policies that would have made Seinfeld's Soup Nazi duck for cover:
"No modifications to the Classic Cappuccino. No questions will be answered about the $5 Hot Chocolate (during the months we offer it). No espresso in a to-go cup. No espresso over ice. These are our policies. We have our reasons, and we're happy to share them."
At his cafe yesterday, Cho explained the policy: "The way we do espresso is different than what people are used to. It's a very exacting technique. . . . When you pour it over ice, it creates a certain acidic reaction that makes the drink sour."
He also said some customers have the audacity to order an espresso over ice, then fill the glass with milk at the dairy bar -- creating their own iced latte, at a significant saving.
In his letter on Murky's site, Cho wrote: "To others reading this I will say that if you don't like the policies, I respectfully recommend that you find some other place that will give you what you want, or select something that we can offer you."
But regarding Simmermon, who said in his post that he would only return to Murky Coffee "carrying matches and a can of kerosene," Cho's anger was undiluted.
"While I certainly won't bemoan you your right to free-speech," he wrote, "I have to respond to you in your own dialect: [naughty word deleted] you, Jeff Simmermon. Considering your public threat of arson, you'll understand when I say that if you ever show your face at my shop, I'll punch you in your [another naughty word deleted]."
Whew. Decaf anyone?
The battle of the blogs escalated, and a cabal of caffeinated commenters soon weighed in.
On a typical day, Murky's Web site receives 200 visits. On Tuesday, there were more than 15,000, Cho said yesterday. His e-mail inbox was filled with messages full of vitriol and praise.
Simmermon said his post about l'affaire Murky drew record hits for him, too -- 100,000, at last count.
But yesterday, he expressed regrets.
"I have mixed feelings about it, and I'm not really proud of the behavior that triggered this," he said. "These things take on a life of their own, and I don't want to be a part of it. He had a bad day, the owner had a bad day, and I had a bad day. That's all."
Cho is also ready to move on, if not exactly back down.
"You have to fight blog with blog," Cho said with a laugh. "That's the price you pay when you throw your words out there."
Cho and Simmermon seemed astounded at the amount of commentary the postings received.
"Ultimately, it's just coffee," Cho said.
Exactly. Can't we all just get a latte?
Furthermore, Cho makes another followup response on the company's blog, claiming that the majority of the comments left on the previous two posts were supportive, but then, the majority of the comments left on the current post appear to be negative. Also - the VAST MAJORITY of the Washginton Post commenters are also negative, all supporting the customer. It looks like this has indeed turned out horribly for Cho, not surprisingly.
Update: Murky Coffee Fiasco turns into Blogstorm
I posted at length about this story yesterday. It was first posted on BoingBoing & Metafilter. Now the Consumerist picks it up. Other notable Washington DC area blogs, DCist and The DCeiver are also covering it. It's a hot topic on Twitter. Also, a commenter on DCist had found this old post about how the DC Murky, before it was closed down due to the owner oweing $427,000 in back taxes, has multiple health code violations. This Nick Cho douchebag is a class act. Yeah, Murky Coffee for the lose.
Horrible Service - Murky Coffee in Arlington, VA
Update: After further reading I've learned that Murky Coffee used to own a store on Capital Hill in Washington DC as well but had to close down in March because they owed the District hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes & their landlord for rent dating back 2 years.
Jeff Simmermon recounts his recent experience with a snobbish barista at Murky Coffee in Arlington, VA.
Maybe condescending service from a patronizing millennial at a DC coffee shop isn’t news to anyone else. But the only way I’m ever coming back to Murky Coffee in Arlington is if I’m carrying matches and a can of kerosene.I just ordered my usual summertime pick-me-up: a triple shot of espresso dumped over ice. And the guy at the counter looked me in the eye with a straight face and said “I’m sorry, we can’t serve iced espresso here. It’s against our policy.”
The whole world turned brown and chunky for a second. Flecks of corn floated past my pupils, and it took me a second to blink it all away.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll have a triple espresso and a cup of ice, please.”He rolled his eyes and rang it up, took my money, gave me change. I stood there and waited. Then the barista called me over to the bar. I reached for it, and he leaned over and locked his eyes with mine, saying “Hey man. What you’re about to do … that’s really, really Not Okay.”
I could hear the capital letters in his voice, could see the gravity of the situation in his eyes.
He continued: “This is our store policy, to preserve the integrity of the coffee. It’s about the quality of the drink, and diluting the espresso is really not cool with us. So I mean, you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I can’t stop you, but”
I interrupted. “You’re goddamned right you can’t stop me,” I said. “I happen to have a personal policy that prohibits me from indulging stupid bullshit like this — and another personal policy of doing what I want with the products I pay for.” Then I looked him right in his big wide eyes and poured the espresso onto the ice.
The whole thing was so Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces:
Touching a waitress’s chest is Not Okay. Pouring the coffee onto the floor instead of the cup is Not Okay. Drinking something I paid for the way I want to drink it — that’s more than Not Okay, it’s perfectly fucking fine.
Let me put this incident in perspective: I've got a good job, a gorgeous, loving girlfriend and I haven’t been to very many funerals. This is probably the worst thing that’s going to happen to me this weekend. So in the big picture, I’m doing okay.
But mankind hasn’t evolved, physically, in thousands and thousands of years. Biologically, we are the same barefoot creatures that hunted woolly mammoths with spears and competed with cheetahs for meat on the African savanna. That’s the source of most customer rage right there: a creature with a fight-or-fight reflex that’s 250,000 years old confronted with some ridiculous, arbitrary bullshit.
Here’s how arbitrary: I was stuck there fuming for an hour or so while my girlfriend had a dance rehearsal. And then, dammit, I needed more coffee. I didn’t want to spend any more money there, but I didn’t know where the nearest Starbucks was. I’m usually a fan of local, independent businesses — but at least Starbucks doesn’t tell me how to like my coffee. So I went back up to the register.
“I would like the strongest iced beverage your policy will allow,” I said.
“How about an Americano with four shots and light on the water” asked the barista.
I’d never had one before — so I said, “sure.”
Then he turned around and filled up a plastic cup with ice, filled it 3/4 of the way with water and carefully added four shots of espresso. He stirred it gravely and handed it to me, saying “enjoy.” And you know what? I really did. You’ve got to admire someone’s dedication to craft, and rigid adherence to a strict quality control policy. I was really, really impressed. So impressed that I swallowed my rage like so much cold coffee, opened up my wallet, and left a tip in the tip jar.
**Followup**This whole thing’s blown up pretty big over the few hours — linked on Metafilter and BoingBoing — and it’s a little embarrassing. I mean, I can freely admit that I acted like a total dick here. But it’s not like I didn’t have probable cause. This is a tiny little thing that happened and made for a funny story, but I mean, c’mon, there are wars and genocides happening. I’m making a big deal out of it on this blog, but overall, not such a bad thing.
It reminds me of Lily Tomlin’s comment about her behavior on the set of I Heart Huckabees
…Now it’s all over, and so what, and I don’t have to keep up some great pretention I’m the most dignified, eloquent, elegant, perfect, smart-thinking, kind, generous person. I’m just a plain old human with a whole bunch of flaws.
Murky Coffee, Arlington: Hold That Espresso Between Your Knees (And I Am Not Lying)
It is hilarious to see people defending the practice of telling me how to drink my coffee. Yes, being a service-industry slave sucks sometimes. The traditional way to survive service work is to make friends with the good customers, because the good ones have likely been in the same situation as you.
I see nothing in this story, as told here and in the other blog, that anyone was rude or stupid until the coffee dude was rude and stupid. And then a customer behaved (slightly) poorly and made him cry. Boo-hoo.
Let’s please put this in the correct perspective, shall we? When we show up to a coffee shop to get a beverage we are, the majority of us, not offering ourselves up to a transcendental experience. We are only engaging in the transaction enough to get to the next part of our day. So, there you are, bellied at the bar, requesting a perfectly reasonable drink that every other independent and chain coffee place makes and you are snapped out of your reverie (got to pick up GF; I wonder if work will call this week-end; we ought to pick up eggs and milk on the way home; gods, it’s hot, I could use an iced coffee; &etc.) and forced into a ridiculous interchange for an even more ridiculous reason.
No, they are not out of coffee. No, they have not had a power outage. They are not out of ice. They are refusing, on philosophical grounds, to make you a drink that is, with some tweaking, already on the menu. That this might be company policy is baffling enough. That anyone in the service industry would respond with anything other than an apology and an offer to work around the ridiculous policy is even more so.
I’m sorry, but this is just coffee. It is not some high art, and even coffee snobs may just want a cold cuppa because that’s the way they like it that day.
I would probably have reacted in much the same way, but I would have been much more sarcastic. What else might not be part of the pure, perfect coffee experience at this shop? The thing about being a snob, is that anyone, anywhere can out-snob you. It is a zero-sum game.
Does anyone think “educating” me on what sort of way to drink coffee is of any use, at all? Did I ask for your input on my beverage choice? I am exchanging hard-earned cash for a break in my day and a little pick-me-up. Treat me with minimal polite attention and easy small-talk and I will return the same in kind.
People, this is hilarious. I was hoping that the coffee dude in question was just being ironic by taking the Coffee Bar Guy stance, but it would appear not (given the uber-serious nature of the linked Flickr photoset above).
So, yes, Unintentionally funny.
Anyone who defends the notion that we must start this dialogue with the assumption that there is some sort of perfect coffee drink that must never be polluted is deluding themselves.
Hey, unless you are drinking scalding hot coffee made with fire-roasted beans collected that day, cooked in a big pot for hours, and served so there are tablespoons of grounds your intended to eat at the bottom of each cup is not being true to an original coffee ideal.
Anything else is just recent fashion and subject to change without notice as coffee-drinking culture changes. Guess what? Purity loses out to invention every single time.
There is no “pure” coffee experience. Laboring under this delusion is only going to lead to tears and recriminations. So, let’s all be adult here and just accept that a double shot of espresso over ice and a shot of cream is a beverage that is here to stay. There is nothing wrong about that. Italian espresso bars don’t mind serving this, and neither should this place.
If this causes undue pain, I suggest getting out of the coffee business, because the amount of sleep you might lose is just not worth it.
The coffee guy is wrong, the company is wrong if this is policy, and however poorly the customer acted afterwards, there was an easy way to get around the situation.
McCain Breaking the Law in Plain Sight
I mentioned earlier today that it was quite a thing to see John McCain denouncing Barack Obama for breaking his word on public financing when McCain himself is at this moment breaking the law in continuing to spend over the spending limits he promised to abide by through the primary season in exchange for public financing. (By the FEC's rules, we're still in the primary phase of the election and will be until the conventions.)
I want to return to this subject though because this is not hyperbole or some throw away line. He's really doing it. McCain opting into public financing, accepted the spending limits and then profited from that opt-in by securing a campaign saving loan. And then he used some clever, but not clever enough lawyering, to opt back out. And the person charged with saying what flies and what doesn't -- the Republican head of the FEC -- said he's not allowed to do that. He can't opt out unilaterally unless the FEC says he can.
The most generous interpretation of what happened is that McCain's lawyer came up with an ingenious legal two step that allowed him to double dip in the campaign finance system, eat his cake and spend it too. But even if you buy that line, successful gaming of the system doesn't really count as strict adherence. And the point is irrelevant since the head of the FEC -- a Republican -- says McCain cannot do this on his own.
Like everything that has to do with campaign finance, the details are a little ... well, detailed. But they're worth understanding.
Who are the "Media Bloggers Association" and what gives them to right to negotiate copyright with the Associated Press?
The Associated Press has promised to meet with some organization I've never heard of called "The Media Bloggers Association" to work out the details of its frankly insane proposal to sell licenses to quote five or more words from AP stories.
Who are the Media Bloggers Association? Turns out it's mostly one guy, some right-wing attack-blogger who hangs around on the lecture circuit and ran a blog devoted to pissing on Keith Olbermann. Our Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blogged an extensive analysis of the Media Bloggers Association and its total irrelevance to blogging and its total unsuitability to representing "blogging" in some kind of negotiation with the AP.
The Media Bloggers Association substantially consists of one lackluster blogger named Robert Cox. His weblog, Words in Edgewise, and the MBA website, are two halves of the same site. Robert Cox isn’t all that interested in blogging per se. What he’s really into is self-aggrandizement by representing himself as someone who speaks for bloggers and blogging. An embarrassing number of organizations have fallen for this.
Link
Article by Cory Doctrow of BoingBoing.