I'm Off

Have work to do, damned reality.

But before I go, let me express my incredulity at the suckiness of our major broadcast news corporate media whores for their rampant spinning of the Iraqi election. Meta-reality usually loses to actual-reality, except when it comes to pulling wool over the eyes of the electorate. Notice how well those associated with the American occupation performed.

The Shiite-dominated ticket received more than 4 million votes, or about 48 percent of the total cast, Iraqi election officials said. A Kurdish alliance was second with 2.175 million votes, or 26 percent, and Allawi's list was third with about 1.168 million, or 13.8 percent. Of Iraq's 14 million eligible voters, 8,456,266 cast ballots for 111 candidate lists, the commission said. That represents a turnout of about 60 percent, several points higher than the predicted 57 percent.

The figures also indicate that many Sunni Arabs stayed at home on election day, with only 17,893 votes -- or 2 percent -- cast in the National Assembly race in Anbar province, a stronghold of the Sunni Muslim insurgency. In Ninevah province, which includes the third-largest city, Mosul, only 17 percent of the voters participated in the National Assembly race and 14 percent voted in the provincial council contests. A ticket headed by the country's president Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, won only about 150,000 votes -- less than 2 percent. A list headed by Sunni elder statesman Adnan Pachachi took only 12,000 votes -- or 0.1 percent.
Also Sunday, gunmen assassinated an Iraqi general and two companions in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. The attack occurred as Brig. Gen. Jadaan Farhan and his companions were traveling through Baghdad's Kazimiyah district, an Iraqi police officer said on condition of anonymity.

Now what spare time I have, the rest of the day, I'll be finishing up the "Deadwood" DVD I have. And in the spirit of that show, I declare this a "fucking cocksucker" of an open goddamned thread.