Artistic Interlude:Simply Irresistable

 Enjoy this clip from the 2000 Broadway production of CONTACT.

President Bush Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq

AL-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) – President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday, using the war zone as a backdrop to argue his case that the buildup of U.S. troops is helping stabilizing the nation.The president secretly flew 11 hours to Iraq as a showdown nears with Congress over whether his decision in January to order 30,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq is working. He landed at an air base in Anbar province west of Baghdad.

The president secretly flew 11 hours to Iraq as a showdown nears with Congress over whether his decision in January to order 30,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq is working.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived ahead of Bush, and convened a meeting with the country’s top political leaders to highlight Bush administration hopes for prodding Iraq into a ”bottom-up” approach to national reconciliation.

Gates conferred with senior U.S. officials, including Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, before opening a session with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, and other top Iraqi officials from Baghdad.

Bush and his national security team flew directly to this air base in a remote part of Anbar province, bypassing Baghdad in a symbolic expression of impatience with political paralysis in the nation’s capital. The gesture underscored the U.S. belief that the spark for progress may come at the local level.

Next week, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, testify before Congress. Their assessment of the conflict, along with a progress report the White House must give lawmakers by Sept. 15, will determine the next chapter of the war.

Domestic Flights are a Disaster

The New York Times has an article today that details the problems with domestic flights. Delays and cancellations have become routine. Consumers have very few options for coping with these issues as the airlines offer no compensation or assistance in dealing with all of the problems. As plans go awry, the airline sends out low level employees to cope with the hostile costumers. When the public reaches a greater level of anger, something might get done about this mess. A brief excerpt of the article follows.

In all, more than 100 domestic flights are officially late — by at least 15 minutes — 70 percent or more of the time. And most of those arrive, on average, more than an hour later than scheduled, the Transportation Department found in an analysis of a year of flights. (A full year’s data smoothes out the effect of seasonal miseries caused by summer thunderstorms and winter snow.)