Okay, it’s time to play Who Said It. See if you can identify the person who said the following: “Here are the Democrats demanding that you withdraw at least with a timetable and you are stubborn against them… How can you be seeking to avoid sectarianism, while you are inciting it through building a wall? You, Bush, you have planted violence and hatred. Are you capable of ending it? I say not at all.”

Time’s up. That gem of truth came from Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr yesterday after he called Bush “the greatest evil” and said that a “victory for the Iraqi people” would be an eventual US pullout. It’s too bad that people like Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and al-Sadr, who are demonized by the administration and media, aren’t ever quoted in context so we can decide for ourselves whether they’re as crazy as we’re told. Not that I’m saying I’d like to have dinner with the guy, but his analysis of the occupation is wholly more truthful that that of our own officials, including leading Democrats. His words came after a car bomb drove into a crowd and killed dozens.

At least 60 people have been killed and 170 wounded in a suicide car bomb attack near a Shia shrine in the central Iraqi city of Karbala.

Saturday’s blast occurred at a checkpoint not far from the shrine which is located in a busy area close to shops and restaurants in Karbala, which is 100km southwest of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital.

“Many of the wounded are women and children,” said Salim Kadhim, a spokesman for the Karbala health department.

He said the explosion took place 200 meters from the shrine of Imam Abbas, the second holiest in Karbala, at 7:10pm local time (15:10 GMT).

Iraqi television images showed a man running down a smoke-filled street holding a dead baby above his head.

Smoke was rising from the child’s body.

source