wtf . . .

[vicman]

almost 10 am and no one has posted?

[teriaki]

Originally posted by vicman

almost 10 am and no one has posted?

you didn't get the memo?

[sauvee88]

Originally posted by vicman

almost 10 am and no one has posted?

Apparently people were sick and tired of reading your posts in all CAPS and decided to not post till Friday!!! :mad:

I blame this all on YOU!!

[tinybutterfli]

I was busy working out my NYC trip details. Next weekend can't get here fast enough!

[vicman]

Originally posted by sauvee88

Apparently people were sick and tired of reading your posts in all CAPS and decided to not post till Friday!!! :mad:

I blame this all on YOU!!

GOOD THING YOU REMINDED ME ABOUT THE CAPS. UNFORTUNATELY YOU ARE STILL POSTING, MAYBE IF I POST WITH CAPS AND MAKE THEM BOLDED I WILL BE ABLE TO GET RID OF YOU UNTIL FRIDAY

[sauvee88]

Originally posted by vicman

GOOD THING YOU REMINDED ME ABOUT THE CAPS. UNFORTUNATELY YOU ARE STILL POSTING, MAYBE IF I POST WITH CAPS AND MAKE THEM BOLDED I WILL BE ABLE TO GET RID OF YOU UNTIL FRIDAY

Don't MAKE me report this post to a moderator!!

[addyk]

Originally posted by tinybutterfli

I was busy working out my NYC trip details. Next weekend can't get here fast enough!

whats going on next weekend?

[kken]

busy with work now complicated by carbomb.

[funkyfreshdc]

sorry i just woke up

[tinybutterfli]

Originally posted by addyk

whats going on next weekend?

you are getting my deep dish poster signed... oh wait....

I'm heading up for Paul Van Dyk in Central Park on Thursday and probably gonna stay through Sunday to chill w/ some friends.

Funkyfreshdc -

[rockyblue]

Originally posted by kken

busy with work now complicated by carbomb.

carbomb?

[tinybutterfli]

Originally posted by rockyblue

carbomb?

BAGHDAD, Iraq Aug 19 — A truck bomb exploded in front of the hotel housing the U.N. headquarters in the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens, officials said. Among the casualties was the chief U.N. official in Iraq, who was trapped in the rubble.

THE CASUALTY TOLL was climbing quickly as rescuers dug through the rubble of the Canal Hotel, a corner of which collapsed in the huge blast. The official death toll stood at 13, but a U.N. worker in Baghdad, Tharer al-Tikriti, said that he had counted 15 white body bags taken from the collapsed building, where about 300 people worked.

At least 40 others were wounded, according to witnesses. Pentagon officials said a U.S. soldier assigned to a civil military affairs office in the building was among the injured.

Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who is rebuilding the Iraqi police force, told reporters at the scene that evidence suggested the 4:30 p.m. (8:30 a.m. ET) attack was a suicide bombing.

“There was an enormous amount of explosives in what we believed to be a large truck,†Kerik said. “... We have evidence to suggest it could have been a suicide attack.â€

Dozens of ambulances and several helicopters were ferrying casualties from the scene of the blast. American Army Capt. James Jensen told Reuters that an unknown number of dead and wounded remained trapped in the rubble.

‘DOZENS ... STILL UNDER THE RUINS’

“I can’t move. I can’t feel my legs and arms,†Majid Al-Hamaidi, 43, a driver for the World Bank, cried out as he was pulled from the wreckage. “Dozens of people I know are still under the ruins.â€

Another wounded man had a yard-long, inch-thick aluminum rod driven into his face just below his right eye. He was able to speak and identified himself as a security consultant for the International Monetary Fund, saying he had just arrived in the country over the weekend.

U.N. officials said Sergio Viera de Mello, Secretary General Kofi Annan's envoy to Iraq, pictured here in July, was badly injured in the explosion that rocked U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

U.N. officials said that the leader of the U.N. effort in Iraq, Sergio Viera de Mello, had been “seriously wounded†and may have been the target of the bomb, which went off almost directly under the window of his office.

“Sergio Vieira de Mello’s office was destroyed and Sergio himself was hurt,†U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York.

Eckhard said Viera de Mello, 55, was trapped for a time in the rubble.

A senior UNICEF official, who was not identified, also was seriously wounded in the blast, U.N. officials said.

Eckhard described the attack as “a tragedy ... a setback politically for the U.N. mission.â€

NO CLAIM

There was no claim of responsibility for the blast. Nor has any claim has been made for the truck bombing two weeks ago of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, whcih killed 17 people.

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The attack was immediately denounced by the U.N. Security Council, which vowed that its efforts to rebuild Iraq would go forward.

Last week, the Security Council set aside bitter differences over the U.S. invasion to topple Saddam Hussein and set up a new mission to coordinate its mainly humanitarian effort in Iraq.

President Bush interrupted a golf game near his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and was expected to make a statement on the attack at approximately noon ET.

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, surveyed the scene as workers, some covered with blood, dug by hand trying to find survivors. Moments after receiving a briefing on the situation, a part of the building collapsed nearby, sending Bremer and rescue workers running for cover.

FORCEFUL BLAST

The force of the blast, which knocked out windows up to a mile away from the scene, destroyed several cars, including one that was on fire.

“My house shook like it did during the bombing at the start of the war,†a resident in the area around the hotel said.

The United Nations distributes humanitarian aid and is developing programs aimed at boosting Iraq’s emerging free press, justice system and monitoring of human rights.

U.S. seizes former Iraqi VP

The Canal Hotel operates more as an office building than a hotel. The cafeteria is a popular place for humanitarian workers and journalists to meet. U.S. officials often were at the compound as well for discussions with their U.N. counterparts.

Prior to the war, U.N. weapons inspectors worked out of the hotel.

The three-floor building houses the offices of most U.N. agencies with the exception of UNICEF and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Before the war, it was home to U.N. weapons inspectors who have hundreds of documents there and a mobile testing lab in the hotel parking lot.

[rockyblue]

aww crap...