From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — Documents captured from Iraqi insurgents indicate that some of the recent fatal attacks against American helicopters are a result of a carefully planned strategy to focus on downing coalition aircraft, one that American officials say has been carried out by mounting coordinated assaults with machine guns, rockets and surface-to-air missiles.
In other news a helicopter in Afghanistan was shot down and a series of bombs have gone off in Baghdad. I am not trying to make these events sound un-important, the lives of our troops and the lives of the people in Iraq are very important, but I don't think those are items I am going to spend a great deal on. In journalism class one of the things you look at to see if a story is news worthy is the uniqueness of the event, and as sad as it is these events are turning out to be regular events.
Shocking news from the land of LA, Britney Spears has shaved her head, now you see here is a unique story. According to MSNBC Spears went to a hair saloon to get her hair shaved off, when the worker refused to do it for fear of a lawsuit, she took the clippers and did it herself. The pictures are crazy, what is going on with this womyn, how many people are going to watch her fall into this crazy destructive lifestyle and do nothing to step in and help her. Where is her family, where are her friends that should be helping her. The worker at the hair saloon said that she just wasn't there emotionally. After that she got some new tattoos.
The Senate is moving towards more of a confrontation with President Bush over the war in Iraq. While I support the politics of balance of power that seems to be at work here, I am concerned that politics and making gains of power against the republicans and the White House could become more important than the issues that need attention. The lives of our troops in the battle in Iraq demand the respect that a solution be given the first priority and politics given second, the lives of the people of Iraq demand a solution to this war that we have started that will give them the fair chance to create a stable society.
From Voice of America:
In Latin America Hugo Chavez is taking on the powers that have just been granted to him and using them to nationalise industries, he is promising to oust foreign capital interests from the oil sector. Critics are calling his abuse of power a blow against democracy in the country.
In a unanimous vote, Venezuela's national assembly, in effect, temporarily disbanded itself. Assembly President Cilia Flores was jubilant afterwards.
"Long live the sovereign nation of Venezuela," she said. "Long live Hugo Chavez. Long live socialism. Fatherland, socialism or death!"
Two bombs have exploded aboard a train in India headed towards Pakistan, at least 64 passengers are determined to have been killed in the blast. Officials are calling it an act of terror and claim that it is an attempt to undermine the peace process going on between the two countries.
Well, it is late and it is time for me to sleep. I know I could have done something better than I have out up here, and I promise to do better in the future. Time is so fleeting and you think you have so much time to get things done, and then you look and the time is much shorter than you thought, and you scramble to get things done, and in the haste you do them poorly. I am sorry to say that is the case I find myself in this day.
Dante
Note: I am avoiding links as to avoid being labeled a spam blog by Google, being labeled as such means that you have to enter a key every time you post and this system does not always work with my computer. I am getting my taxes back in a couple weeks and one of the things I have thought about is getting a new computer with the money. I have other things I need to get better at though that the computer isn't a factor in, like typing and learning to relax while I am typing, one of the main reasons I am doing this blog no one is going to read. I try and type it all at once and to get the words on the page as fast as I am thinking them but that makes me nervous and makes my hands shake which makes it harder for me to keep my homeroom placement and makes it harder for me to find the letters which makes me a slower typer which makes me try harder, which makes my hands shake more, which makes me slower, which makes me upset when I make mistakes, which makes me more nervous and I get frustrated and I don't think about the fact I am writing a sentence that goes on forever and ever, or a post with a note on it that is half as long as the post itself.
