monster food

was using dietitians as fronts 30 years ago. This is old school.

i don't get it.

to be clear, i marketed things i didn't personally care for when i did p.r.

but i never marketed anything i knew to be harmful.

i don't get how you can make a living off something that you know is doing harm to millions.

that's what i liked about 'iron fist,' by the way.

on netflix, the latest comic book series had danny (iron fist) grappled with being the head of a corporation.

his childhood friend (a woman) is perfectly okay with the company's chemical plant causing cancer with those in surrounding areas.

oh sure, she gives a minute of lip service.

but then she goes about her day and doesn't try to change it or fix it.

to me, that was the most interesting moment of the show.

danny makes good on the damage and good for him.

but to me, it was that moment where she briefly expresses doubt only to go ahead with it because it's about money.

monster food is not good for any 1.

it will destroy us all.

read margaret atwood for a real glimpse of what our future holds.

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Friday, March 24, 2017.  Chaos and violence continue, Moqtad al-Sadr stages a huge rally, AP misreports and much more.

Baghdad today?

: Thousands of people flood 's Tahrir Square, demonstration called by 's powerful cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr called for today's protest last Saturday:

Muqtada Al-Sadr has called for "million man march" on Friday in Tahrir Square central , Sadr will attend to give "important" speech.

His power to turn out a crowd remains -- visual evidence  of the power he continues to hold in Iraq.

He's never held elected office.

He's never been part of the Cabinet.

The power is internal based solely upon Moqtada himself.

There were times, during the first years of the war, when his power ebbed and flowed.

But the US government always played the wrong hand and would attack or insult him leading supporters to rally around him yet again.

As Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki couldn't command a crowd that size.

As former prime minister, Nouri's lucky to turn out 25 or so people when he visits their towns -- and some of those boo and throw things.

Who is the leader in Iraq?

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is one.

Moqtada al-Sadr is another.

Smoking a cigarette on top of one of bridges and thought about this.

Please note, Moqtada also has a huge amount of supporters in Basra as well.

Anadolu Agency reports:

In an address delivered to tens of thousands of supporters in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, al-Sadr said he had received numerous death threats -- he did not say by whom -- due to his loud and frequent calls for government reform.
“Continue on the path of revolution and reform… even in the event of my death,” he asserted, while urging followers to keep their protests peaceful.
“If Iraq’s official election commission and electoral law remain as they are, we will be forced to boycott the polls,” he declared.
He writes about the protests that erupted in 2014 -- except they didn't.
Those protests erupted near the end of 2012, picked up steam in 2013 and were eventually stopped by Nouri al-Maliki.
Facts, he leaves out of his AP report.
But the his AP report also manages to mention changes -- undefined -- that Moqtada wants to a 'committee' (unnamed.)
The title of the body is the Independent High Electoral Commission.
Dropping back to February 4, 2017:


To the February 8th snapshot:





Not only has Moqtada been protesting this for some time, UNAMI's also expressed concerns.

It's day 158 of The Mosul Slog -- and how's that working out?

|i regime digs mass grave for 200+ bodies killed by in Mosul. CNN will tell the world later they found an Yazidi mass grave

Their lives seem to have no worth.

Horrific Video from West of Mosul bombardment by US Coalition air crafts. 230 have died there in just 2 days.
~500 civilians (mostly displaced women and children) were massacred in less than 24-hours in and by the & its allies..


Oh, silly, idiot Elise of CNN, it is a slog.

It always was.

It's also a tragedy.

"People in West are trapped in the situation of penury & panic." Our representative in Iraq explains the latest developments
Mosul situation deteriorating as fighting rages
Around 400,000 people thought to be trapped in the Old City lack food, clean water and fuel to keep themselves warm.

Yesterday, we noted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's comments explaining the US military would not be leaving Iraq even if the Islamic State was defeated.  Jordan Shilton covers it for WSWS:

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared Washington’s intention to keep troops deployed more or less indefinitely in the territories now occupied by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in remarks delivered at the beginning of a two-day meeting of the US-organized anti-ISIS coalition in Washington.
“The military power of the coalition will remain where this fraudulent caliphate has existed in order to set the conditions for a full recovery from the tyranny of ISIS,” he told an audience that included Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He gave no indication of when, if ever, US troops could be withdrawn from a war zone extending across Iraq and Syria, where there has been fighting of greater or lesser intensity throughout the 14 years since the US first invaded Iraq.

Tillerson also called for the establishment of “interim zones of stability” in Syria to which refugees from the US-instigated civil war that has raged throughout that country for the past six years could be forcibly returned. Areas will be deemed “safe” if they have been initially cleared of ISIS, an absurdly low standard given the deadly conflicts which continue to rage between different factions in the Syrian civil war.

At some point, we'll get around to Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford's comments this week that the US military will be in Iraq for "years to come."



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