Essentially, the GCC created an Arab League group to monitor what's going on in Syria. The Syrian National Council - based in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries Turkey and France - enthusiastically supported it. It's telling that Syria's neighbor Lebanon did not.

When the over 160 monitors, after one month of enquiries, issued their report ... surprise! The report did not follow the official GCC line - which is that the "evil" Bashar al-Assad government is indiscriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so regime change is in order.

The Arab League's Ministerial Committee had approved the report, with four votes in favor (Algeria, Egypt, Sudan and GCC member Oman) and only one against; guess who, Qatar - which is now presiding the Arab League because the emirate bought their (rotating) turn from the Palestinian Authority.

So the report was either ignored (by Western corporate media) or mercilessly destroyed - by Arab media, virtually all of it financed by either the House of Saud or Qatar. It was not even discussed - because it was prevented by the GCC from being translated from Arabic into English and published in the Arab League's website.

Until it was leaked. Here it is, in full (.pdf).

c. you think the giants will win?

d. if you were betting, you'd take the giants with their 3 points ...

Enquiring Minds

Seattle + Boston + 1984 = seabos84

I'm rooting Pats, although, football (american) wears me out.

American football DOES somewhat reflect how American organizations run -

• for every few grunts in the trenches, there is a boss working to being a boss of bosses and grunts.

• the 60 minute game takes over 180 minutes because the marketing (commercials) and legal (refs) and manager (coaches) departments need to show everyone how important they are.

As much as we Americans like to pretend & think & worship all those making 6 and 7 and 8 figures a year, cuz those big money people are Gawds who grow our water and harvest our shirts ---

very few of those 6 and 7 and 8 figure a year salary suckers did anything useful or marketable.

There are former Michigan State players on each team.

Both are blue states.

After the tension of a Michigan State vs those other people basketball game earlier this afternoon, which we won 64-54, I'll be able to relax a bit.

and...

"Karen Handel was the prime instigator of this effort, and she herself personally came up with investigation criteria," the source, who requested anonymity for professional reasons, told HuffPost. "She said, 'If we just say it's about investigations, we can defund Planned Parenthood and no one can blame us for being political.'"

Emails between Komen leadership on the day the Planned Parenthood decision was announced, which were reviewed by HuffPost under the condition they not be published, confirm the source's description of Handel's sole "authority" in crafting and implementing the Planned Parenthood policy.

So we'll agree to disagree.

On this especially:
"I have no doubt that the Komen decision would have enraged people even more had Brinker been a Democrat, an Obama bundler, and based in California or NY."
That's a convenient assertion and I disagree.  I think we'd have seen progressives bending over backwards to support this just as they did with Stupak.

Anyway.

The mission of Komen is to eradicate BC by advancing a number of things - including education, awareness, screenings, treatment, research, not necessarily in that order.

Because Komen hasn't funded enough research to please some people, or spent all its dollars in progressive-approved places,  or people have recently made unpleasant discoveries that have been in plain sight for decades, that's conflated with not caring about women's health.

The fact is BC is enormously difficult to treat and research has not made particularly huge advances in the last 10-15 yrs. There have been several false starts, Tamox among them.

In that light,  you could make the argument that - given BC is clinically incurable once it's outside the breast, dollars are better spent at this point on education/awareness/treatment with the goal of very early detection prior to metastasis.

Here in Pgh, the Komen affiliate has never funded PP. That didn't stop thousands of people calling up and screaming at them to start funding it or they'd never send another dollar and so on.  In fact the Western PA chapter sends its funds directly to Adagio Healthcare which provides mammos directly. Unlike PP,  which does not - and just gives voucher to women to get their mammos elsewhere. And let's be clear that screening, and mammos are often conflated which is in error. Screening is a general term that can include something as  simple as a breast exam. Yes these you get at PP. Mammos - a radiological diagnostic test - no (or at least rare few PPs offer it).

However to everyone's point - Komen (in large part due to Handel IMO, given their board has been loaded with wingers since forever and they've never stepped this far onto the political front) went off the reservation this week (well, last Dec with their transparent policy switch) and politicized women's health, much to their detriment.  

The fact remains that they spend millions which goes to education and early detection, which saves women's lives.

We can always find issues, but I think the fact that they have been revealed this week as  deeply Republican has fueled the vitriol to large degree.