July 7, 2009 archive

Breaking in Honduras: Talks Instead Of Further Confrontation

Mediation between the golpistas and Manual Zelaya will take place in Costa Rica.  The mediator will be Oscar Arias.  Zelaya will not attempt to return to Honduras and will participate in talks.  

The political standoff in Honduras between deposed President Manuel Zelaya and the regime that ousted him will be mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias in an arrangement the U.S. helped to broker.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the mediator’s role for Arias today after meeting with Zelaya in Washington, where the exiled leader came to rally support for his return to office. Zelaya agreed to join the talks, to be held in Costa Rica, rather than try to go back to Honduras. The de facto government also agreed, she said.

“It is a better route for him to follow at this time than to attempt to return in the face of the implacable opposition of the de facto regime,” Clinton said. “Instead of another confrontation that might result in loss of life, let’s try the dialogue process and see where that leads.”

The negotiations may provide an avenue for both sides to back away from a confrontation that has triggered fatal clashes between Zelaya’s supporters and the military. As tensions mounted following the military’s overthrow of Zelaya on June 28, de facto President Roberto Micheletti pledged to arrest him if he returns. Meanwhile, Zelaya has won backing from the U.S., Europe and every nation in Latin America.

source.

Will this work to bring democracy to Honduras?  Will this restore Zelaya to the presidency?

Many questions.  Few answers.

—————————–

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

Not good news.

Some words are just too hard to say.

by ImpeachKingBushII

Tue Jul 07, 2009 at 01:24:09 PM PDT

Four at Four

  1. Surprise! As US troops move into south, Taliban strike elsewhere, reports the CS Monitor. “NATO forces meet light resistance in Helmand Province, but Afghan insurgents hit back in other parts of the country. Are more US troops needed?” Pretty much sums up the ‘whack-a-mole’ mission that President Obama sent the U.S. military on in Afghanistan and now some want to send more soliders there.

    Meanwhile, the LA Times reports 7 U.S. troops in Afghanistan are killed. “As U.S. troops in Afghanistan suffered the largest one-day death toll in months Monday, military officials and experts warned Americans to brace for rising casualties as thousands of additional service members pour into the country to confront a resurgent Taliban.”

    95 American troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year. “At the current rate, 2009 would be the deadliest for the U.S. in more than seven years of fighting, surpassing the number killed last year, the military said.”

    The NY Times adds a Helicopter crash adds to a deadly day in Afghanistan. Three NATO soldiers were killed at a base in Zabul in southern Afghanistan. The “helicopter crashed on takeoff, killing two Canadians and a Briton, NATO officials said. A preliminary inquiry had established that the helicopter was not brought down by enemy fire,” according to NATO officials.

  2. The Washington Independent reports socuments show that Chaos reigned in Guantanamo’s early days. Statements by two former commanders of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Majs. Gen. Michael Dunlavey and Geoffrey Miller, were released “late on July 2 as part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU for Defense Department documents related to the Bush administration’s interrogation and detention policies”.

    The statements “paint an alarming picture of the camp’s early years, as interrogators’ and guards’ competence and discipline were frequently in doubt, befitting one commander’s assessment that the facility’s command was ‘an ad hoc organization that started from a cold start.'”

  3. The Guardian reports Coral condemned to extinction by CO2 levels. “David Attenborough joined scientists yesterday to warn that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is already above the level which condemns coral reefs to extinction in the future, with catastrophic effects for the oceans and the people who depend upon them.”

    “He was speaking yesterday at the Royal Society in London, following a meeting of marine biologists. At the current rate of increase of atmospheric CO2, they said, coral would become extinct within a few decades.

  4. The Des Moines Register reports Coal burning plant switches to low-sulfur coal when air monitors are active. “Workers at the Grain Processing Corp. facility in Muscatine acknowledged last fall that they switch from burning high-sulfur coal to a low-sulfur variety when the wind blows toward a nearby sulfur-dioxide monitor, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources complaint investigation shows.”

    “When the wind blows toward the local SO2 monitoring station, (plant operators) switch from ‘regular’ to low-sulfur coal,” DNR senior environmental specialist Kurt Levetzow wrote…

The Sweet Peace of Depression, Despair and Dependence

This is a small point, gossipy and unworthy. But then I am depressed and unable to concentrate on worthy issues, on the big stuff, so….here we are. I often wonder at how people can justify contentment in this world. I often wonder at how people can justify not speaking out, yet alone yelling, at all of the worlds injustices, and by lending their voice, attempt to make things better. Depression, haha, is one reason. But that is temporary. (one hopes!)  Despair and dependence and according to one poster at Dkos being …. Tired of all the Drama, are others.(I will not link, I am not trying to specifically call out this commenter. I use him as an example, more than anything personal. He is most likely a good person. But he is obviously a product of his environment. And it is that environment that is the problem…. but you can search if you want, lol) This person wrote a diary that complained, quote…

I love political news, but it’s so damn hard to read All the Drama – Perceived Drama, Feigned Drama, Invented Drama……  Even The Daily Kos recently had a major post about editing the Troll Drama.

Aren’t you folks just a wee bit tired of Everyone’s Drama?

All well and good, I guess. But then this comment struck a nerve. I guess it struck my ‘contentment nerve.’ The nerve that the “Obama’s Got This” people always strike, I guess.

Obama’s doing a great job.  America is a strong, instead of fearful, a world leader again.  There is a bold plan out there for the future, with a political majority that’ll make it happen.

 

After all….2 wars, global warming, high unemployment, 3 million foreclosures, homeless and hungry kids and vets, torture, a rapacious financial sector, insurance industry, and MIC, the fact that they own our government, continued discrimination against gays and minorities, and the fact that the gulf between the The Ruling Class and the rest of America gets larger everyday ….what is there to be dramatic about?

It struck the nerve that, much to their discomfort, just makes me want to yell even louder, to rouse ‘them’ from their contentment.

Um, Mr. Olbermann? Can We Talk A Minute?

Mr. Olbermann, can we talk a minute? Let the Dog start off by saying he is a huge fan of your show Countdown, he and Mrs. Dog have watched for years, all the way back to when you were counting the days since the declaration of mission accomplished in Iraq in the low 1000’s. This all prefaces to talk about an issue the Dog has with you in one very particular area.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Honduras: How To Help Those Who Flee

Yesterday I asked for your help. I was concerned because many poor people from Honduras have been fleeing the country, passing through Guatemala, and landing in shelters in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico.  These shelters are ill equipped to deal with a large influx of refugees.  I wanted to help those who will help the refugees.  I have now found two reliable organizations in Mexico that do just that.  

Please join me below to help these refugees.

July 7, 1903: “March of the Mill Children”

Labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones led the “March of the Mill Children” over 100 miles from Philadelphia to Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s Long Island summer home in Oyster Bay, New York, to publicize the harsh conditions of child labor and to demand a 55-hour work week. It is during this march, on about the 24th, she delivered her famed “The Wail of the Children” speech. Roosevelt refused to see them.

Docudharma Times Tuesday July 7




Tuesday’s Headlines:

U.S., Russia agree on framework to reduce nuclear arsenal

Tokyo named as world’s most expensive city

With Wounded Pride, Unemployed Koreans Quietly Turn to Manual Labor

Were Iraqis tortured and killed by our soldiers?

Joe Biden speech sparks fierce response from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Tent city that awaits the G8

Rubik Cube inventor devises new puzzle to drive us all to distraction

Was there a coup in Honduras? The answer divides a nation.

New Protests in Western China After Deadly Clashes



By EDWARD WONG

Published: July 7, 2009


URUMQI, China – For a second successive day, rival protesters took to the streets here on Tuesday, defying Chinese government efforts to lock down this regional capital of 2.3 million people and other cities across its western desert region after bloody clashes between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese.

The fighting, which erupted Sunday evening, left at least 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured, according to the state news agency.

Police fired tear gas on Tuesday at Han Chinese protesters armed with clubs, lead pipes, shovels and hoes, news reports said. Earlier, in an attempt to contain China’s worst ethnic violence in decades, the authorities imposed curfews, cut off cellphone and Internet services and sent armed police officers into neighborhoods.

7 U.S. troops in Afghanistan are killed

The daily death toll is the highest in months. Observers warn that Americans need to brace themselves for mounting casualties in the conflict as more U.S. troops enter it.

By Laura King and Julian E. Barnes

July 7, 2009


Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington — As U.S. troops in Afghanistan suffered the largest one-day death toll in months Monday, military officials and experts warned Americans to brace for rising casualties as thousands of additional service members pour into the country to confront a resurgent Taliban.

So far this year, 95 American troops have died in Afghanistan, including seven on Monday, according to the independent website icasualties.org. At the current rate, 2009 would be the deadliest for the U.S. in more than seven years of fighting, surpassing the number killed last year, the military said.

Part of this is due to the Obama administration’s decision to scale back operations in Iraq to refocus on Afghanistan, and the military is in the process of sending 21,000 additional troops into the country. Officers insist that the new strategy will work — and indeed is already showing signs of promise. But, they cautioned, the arrival of more troops means more fighting and more U.S. deaths, at least in the short term.

USA

Hospitals Reach Deal With Administration

$155 Billion in Health Savings Offered

By Ceci Connolly and Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, July 7, 2009


The nation’s hospitals agreed last night to contribute $155 billion over 10 years toward the cost of insuring the 47 million Americans without health coverage, according to two industry sources.

The agreement that three hospital associations reached with White House officials and leaders of the Senate Finance Committee is the latest in a series of side deals that aim to reduce the cost of revamping the nation’s health-care system and to neutralize influential industries that have historically opposed such reforms.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

2009 Poems


Life Storm

Rift

How strange

that such a small

easily stated

.

difference

.

between us

could open

such a vast

.

.

.

chasm

.

.

.

of distrust

mystery

confusion

misunderstanding

even hatred

How sad

that the variation

occurring so early

in our lives

could affect

so much

for so long

Can such a breach

ever be healed?

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–January 30, 2009

Late Night Karaoke

Oceans

New Diary From My Brain

Writing this diary sucks.  I hate it.  I can copy and paste the horrible news we get everyday but you read it so i’ll spare you.

I spent almost a decade screaming at the top of my lungs about days like these that have come with the subtlety of a brick through a fucking Starbucks window. I was told to shut up, put in jail, even banned from “progressive” blog sites for even suggesting both parties we’re taking massive pay from special interests and we can’t expect them to bite the hand that feeds.  No luck on getting through to people to wake them up to the reality.

Here it is, the overcharging for endless war and export of all our manufacturing jobs and we now implode while Goldman Sachs gets blood from our last vein to move on to another nation-state with representatives that will suck dick for asswipe money and allow them to manipulate their markets to profit and move the roadshow to the next town.  

The stateless multi-national is a wandering vampire of economies.  

Where is our Van Helsing when we need them?

Working 9-5 at some dead-end job because the ones with money have more power than the ones with brains.

No longer do we think in terms of “Democrat and Republican” but we see our survival as citizens depends on figuring out “grass eaters or meat eaters”.

Who is taking pay for helping industry and who is on the payroll to propose legislation that repeals regulatory restrictions on financial industries so they can blow bubbles and walk-out with your grand-kids college money?  

One nation, under debt, even after paying their dues.

 

Open Letter to Progressives: Act Crazy Liberal! (Video)

I stumbled upon this video last night. Please watch and then discuss.

It is time to YELL LOUDER and MORE Effectively.

   I do not want to see the victory of the election where the Conservatives were roundly defeated thrown away by a political class that is corrupt and doesn’t care or the fools who would call for more pragmatism and patience.

   I say the time is now, and if not, when will that time ever come?

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