Ortega, Gauguin, Bechtel, Perle

House news.
The grill is on the terrace. After a slight delay caused when the leading hand's brother was shot dead in the palenque. Hipag sister Ann has a filipino boyfriend, which has dashed my heart, but otoh, what was the delay? The guy apparently is a spaghetti head (so called for the wicks of rolled up tissue, which look like.. well you know)

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Heads of state can be sentenced to death for war crimes, with no time-limit. When can we expect to see Bush Howard and Blair dangling from the gallows pole?

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Reuters is saying

The right is split between Montealegre and rival conservative candidate Jose Rizo, but is expected to unite to defeat Ortega in any second round.

voting closed 6pm 5Nov (in 8 minutes time)

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8Nov Christie Gauguin auction
- a quality work'L'Homme a la Hache' , one of the first Tahiti pictures.
Christies are saying $45M, I expect more.

Previous auction was from Marquesas, an inferior work when PG had a contract to turn out a regular number.
Some critics have said the Marquesas girls are more pretty and delicate. This is a silly, racist comment. I think PG may have been churning out 'pretty' stuff for his new market. If it wasnt for provenances, I would suspect 'Deux Femmes' was a forgery, its so far below the best. Expect more than the £16.9m (correction: $19.2M) DF got
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After Gauguin who?
Picasso is facile
Bonnard is charming

who does pictures that we care about?
Matisse? (these from ibiblio are decent sized)



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1Nov06 iraq-war.ru
NEW YORK - Security company Kroll has withdrawn its bodyguard teams from Iraq and Afghanistan after it lost four workers in Iraq, its parent company said Wednesday.
...
October 31, 2006
Bechtel Corp. went to Iraq three years ago to help rebuild a nation torn by war. Since then, 52 of its people have been killed and much of its work sabotaged..
Now Bechtel is leaving.
.."Did Iraq come out the way you hoped it would?" asked Cliff Mumm, Bechtel's president for infrastructure work. "I would say, emphatically, no. ..

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guardian
Iraquis stand up (not) video is NOT available from guardian

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vanityfair
Richard Perle
"Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform," ..February 2003..
'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No ..' Oct 2006
..I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. ..

To David Frum..speechwriter.. "axis of evil," it now looks as if defeat may be inescapable,
Kenneth Adelman..February 2002.."I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."
2006.. neoconservatism "is dead"..I would have said: that Bush's arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked can't do..

Michael Ledeen..the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

Frank Gaffney,.."[Bush] doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle ..

Kenneth Adelman: ..I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people.
..We're losing in Iraq...[Rumsfeld] certainly fooled me."

Michael Rubin, ..Bush has betrayed Iraqi reformers in a way that is "not much different from what his father did on February 15, 1991,

Eliot Cohen.. we can still pull ourselves together. .. it will probably take another big hit. And a very different quality of leadership. Maybe we'll get it."


condi by annie
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Oretega, Gauguin, Bechtel, Perle