WE DIDN’T CALL HER BUT FORMER CHILD ACTRESS ALYSSA MILANO CALLED US AND EXPLAINED SHE WANTED TO WEIGH IN BECAUSE “I REALLY NEED THE PUBLICITY IF I’M EVER GOING TO HAVE A CAREER AGAIN. SO HERE’S MY TAKE ON ABOLISH ICE: NO. NO, DON’T DO IT. NOT NOW, WHEN IT’S SUMMER AND PEOPLE ARE THIRSTY AND WANT A COLD DRINK. MAYBE AFTER AWHILE WHEN WINTER’S CLOSER, WE CAN RETHINK IT BUT RIGHT NOW AMERICA NEEDS TO FILL EVERY ICE TRAY IT HAS.”
WHEN WE THANKED HER FOR CALLING, MILANO CLOSED WITH, “REMEMBER, I’M NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE. I’M WHO’S THE BOSS CLASS OF 1992.”
Iraq has banned its farmers from planting summer crops this year as the country grapples with a crippling water shortage that shows few signs of abating.
Citing high temperatures and insufficient rains, Dhafer Abdalla, an adviser to Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources, told The Associated Press that the country has only enough water to irrigate half its farmland this summer.
But farmers fault the government for failing to modernize how it manages water and irrigation, and they blame neighboring Turkey for stopping up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers behind dams it wants to keep building.
A water shortage in the summer? It's been a 118 degrees Fahrenheit day for Iraq today. And they suffer a water shortage.
The water issue is not a new one. So why didn't Hayder al-Abadi do anything over the last four years as prime minister to address the issue? Last February, some were sure that a hard summer would be avoidable due to some heavy rains that had fallen. Now that notion is so outrageous that we'll be kind and not name the non-Iraqi outlets that pimped that lie.
The big lie, of course, is that voting helps Iraq. Over and over, Iraq's prime ministers do nothing. The problems are known. They are identified. Then four years fly by and nothing has been done. Over and over this happens. Starting to grasp why so few bothered to vote last May?
#Iraq's treasured amber rice crop devastated by drought
iraqdailyjournal.com/story-z17408425
How does this happen?
As Patrick Cockburn observes, this is a human-made drought.
It did not happen overnight.
Nor was it a surprise.
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