A coalition of sectarian leaders from the approximately 185 separate political and insurgent groups vying for dominance in Iraq called for a nationwide moment of violence, to be held shortly before noon Friday in the remaining days of Ramadan.
"All of us fighting for control of this land, whether Baathists, Sunni militants, al-Qaeda sympathizers, al-Sadrites, or just plain street criminals, have one thing in common," read a statement released Monday by the ad-hoc group. "We all share a deep abiding commitment to the indiscriminate use of murder, mayhem, and massacre as a means of achieving our various ends."
"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
"Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."
--James Ellroy, American Tabloid
Ensure a Free and Fair Election (Ban Paperless Voting Machines
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."