 Muse in the Morning |
Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.
| Better Than You island doesn’t exist. And if it does it’s full of idiots, looking over their shoulder for the next idiot to arrive.
–David Whitehouse |
 Tones |
February 2011 archive
Feb 25 2011
Muse in the Morning
Feb 25 2011
Supporting freedom overseas, but not at home
The president supports a liberation movement overseas, one in which local labor unions played a key roll.
Meanwhile, labor unions are being crushed here at home and Washington politicians are largely hostile to citizens standing up for their rights.
As Ted Rall put it: If irony were money, we’d all be rich.
Am I talking about Egypt and Wisconsin today? I could be, but I’m not.
Instead I’m talking about events that happened two and three decades ago.
Feb 25 2011
Supporting freedom overseas, but not at home
The president supports a liberation movement overseas, one in which local labors unions played a key roll.
Meanwhile, labor unions are being crushed here at home and Washington politicians are largely hostile to citizens standing up for their rights.
Am I talking about Egypt and Wisconsin today? I could be, but I’m not.
Instead I’m talking about events that happens two and three decades ago.
The one certainty in American politics is that freedom overseas is generally supported, but rarely supported when it means the people the politicians actually represent.
Feb 25 2011
from firefly-dreaming 24.2.11
Regular Daily Features:
- The Who kick off the day in Late Night Karaoke, mishima DJs
- Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! on Six Different Topics!!!
Six Days a Week!!! at Six in the Morning!!!!
Essays Featured Thursday, February 24th:
- Thursday Open Thoughts from mplo center on Music.
- Cornucopia Thursday from Ed Tracey brings a delightful collection of news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ….well, just plain whimsy…..
- davidseth pleas Obama: Please Go To Wisconsin
- Firefly Memories 1.0 is where Alma takes a look back at some of the Brilliant essays of our first years posts, highlighting those which exemplify our firefly-dreaming spirit and mission.
Today:the game of musical chairs and the myth of modernity……
join the conversation! come firefly-dreaming with me….
Feb 24 2011
Reporting the Revolution: 24.02.2011
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
This is The Guardian Live Blog from Libya.
Al Jazeera English also has a Live Blog stream that is up dated regularly.
Libyan “madman” Muammar Gaddafi again took to the public airways via a telephone statement that the rebellion is being run by Al-Qaeda and that the young protesters were being drugged by Osama bin Laden. Tripoli is paralyzed and, according to foreign reports, food and fuel are in short supply contradicting Libyan official reports that everything is “normal”. Phone and internet service is intermittent.
Mustafa Abdel Galil, who resigned three days ago as justice minister, speaking to Al Jazeera, said that Gaddafi had chemical weapons and would not hesitate to use them. The United Nation’s Human Rights Council will meet in Geneva to decide to send a team to investigate violations of international human rights law in Libya.
In the east, the cities of Benghazi and Tobruk are now under the control of a civilian council of lawyers and doctors with the aid of military officers who turned on Gaddafi. Ferries have docked in Benghazi to aid in the evacuation of foreign residents and tourists. The eastern border with Egypt has been opened and tent hospitals and aid stations have been set up to care for the wounded and sick. Doctor Without Borders is sending a team from France to help the Egyptians.
Even as Gaddafi digs in, much of the country is out of his control and the military is deserting him. His assets in foreign banks have been frozen. Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, one of Gaddafi’s top security official and a cousin, defected and left the country on Wednesday evening, stating differences over “grave violations to human rights and human and international laws”. It would seem that it just a matter of time before Gaddafi is gone. The cost to be rid if him will be high.
Oil prices soar to 30-month high amid uprisings
Oil prices climbed to their highest level in 30 months in London today as Libya’s uprising reduced shipments and sparked fears of unrest spreading across the Middle East.
Brent crude hit 119 US dollars a barrel for the first time since August 2008, while benchmark crude for April delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was up nearly four dollars at 101.67 US dollars.
Countries around the world step up efforts to evacuate citizens, but some warn an exodus of refugees could spark crisis.
Nations around the world are evacuating thousands of people from the violent unrest in Libya, amid fears in some countries that the situation will lead to an exodus of illegal immigrants.
On Thursday, European nationals and thousands of Chinese people landed on the Greek island of Crete, after boarding chartered ferries from Libya, while scores of Britons were evacuated via military plane to the Mediterranean island of Malta.
Gaddafi daughter denies fleeing
Aisha Gaddafi, the daughter of the Libyan leader, appears on state TV to deny reports that she tried to flee to Malta.
Aisha Gaddafi, the daughter of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has appeared on state television, denying a report she tried to flee to Malta.
There had been reports on Wednesday that a Libyan plane carrying Gaddafi’s daughter had been turned back from Malta after it was denied permission to land.
Scrapping the draconian law to placate growing discontent had been a major demand made by the opposition parties.
Algeria’s cabinet has adopted an order to lift a 19-year-old state of emergency in a concession designed to avoid the tide of uprisings sweeping the Arab world, but protesters said the measure did not go far enough.
A draft law approved by the cabinet would repeal the emergency law as soon as it is published in the government’s official journal, the official Algerie Presse Service reported on Wednesday.
Hosni Mubarak’s cronies face corruption charges in Cairo court
Three stalwarts of the deposed Egyptian president are greeted by angry crowd at courthouse
Three former stalwarts of Hosni Mubarak’s regime have appeared in a Cairo court to face charges ranging from abuse of state power to squandering public wealth.
The trio – former housing minister Ahmed Maghrapi, former tourism minister Zuheir Garana and Ahmed Ezz, steel tycoon and one-time secretary general of Hosni Mubarak’s NDP party – arrived in police cars clanging with the sound of pelted stones and got out at the courthouse to a chorus of deafening insults.
President Saleh instructs security forces to protect demonstrators after at least 15 protesters have been killed.
Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s president, has issued a directive ordering his security forces to protect demonstrators trying to end his 32-year rule, after at least 15 people have been killed in the country’s recent unrest.
The statement, relayed by the Yemeni press attaché in Washington on Thursday, said Saleh had “demanded security services to offer full protection for the demonstrators”.
“Late this evening [Wednesday] … Saleh instructed all security services to thwart all clashes and prevent direct confrontation between pro- and anti-government protesters,” it said.
“Furthermore, the government calls on protesters to remain vigilant and take all precautionary steps to prevent the infiltrations of individuals seeking to carry out violent actions.
“The government … will continue to protect the rights of its citizens to assemble peacefully and their right to freedom of expression,” the statement said.
Thousands of protesters were camping out for a fifth day in an impromptu tent city outside Sanaa University. Members of the university’s professors’ union also turned out to support the demonstrators, who have one demand: that Saleh step down.
Students killed at Yemen rally
Protests turn deadly as the president’s supporters open fire on anti-government demonstrators in the capital, Sanaa.
Feb 24 2011
Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette
Our regular featured content-
- Six In The Morning by mishima
- On This Day In History by TheMomCat
- Punting the Pundits by TheMomCat
- Evening Edition by ek hornbeck
- Prime Time by ek hornbeck
And these articles-
- Obama: Please Go To Wisconsin by davidseth
- Reporting the Revolution: 24.02.2011 by TheMomCat
- MISO- not just fermented soybeans anymore by ek hornbeck
Feb 24 2011
Supporting freedom overseas, but not at home
The president supports a liberation movement overseas, one in which local labors unions played a key roll.
Meanwhile, labor unions are being crushed here at home and Washington politicians are largely hostile to citizens standing up for their rights.
Am I talking about Egypt and Wisconsin today? I could be, but I’m not.
Instead I’m talking about events that happens two and three decades ago.
The one certainty in American politics is that freedom overseas is generally supported, but rarely supported when it means the people the politicians actually represent.
Feb 24 2011
An Altered Ocean
Caught this report earlier on the PBS News Hour site and then went searching for the report, given yesterday at the National Press Club. The press club still doesn’t have anything but the announcement for up at their site, but I did catch the report and it page with plenty of backlinks as well as audio to the press club presentation.
Another scathing report we’d better pay attention to and start what should have already been a couple of decades old advancing this country towards the innovations, we were once envied for, needed to move forward.
Feb 24 2011
A Lesson for Stoppin’ Liberal Activist Judges
(cross-posted from the ol’ Daily Kos there)
Duh! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
A new bill in the Iowa House of Representatives FINALLY solves the problem of liberal activist judges takin’ away all our precious freedoms! Republicans are showin’ some real ingenuity in the ol’ legislative arena for dealin’ with same-sex marriage:
County recorders would be prohibited from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and the Iowa Supreme Court would be unable to rule on the issue under a bill sponsored by six conservative House Republicans.
House File 330 specifically says that the Supreme Court would not be able to overturn or restrict the law if the bill were passed.
How brilliant is that? If the liberal courts are givin’ ya trouble, just pass a law to keep their noses out of our business! It’s like the Republicans are playin’ chess and the Democrats are playin’ Minesweeper.
Feb 24 2011
By-Products of a Damaged World
I’ve recently been reading the late UK novelist’s Muriel Spark’s book The Comforters. Her first effort at the genre, it describes in detail the life of Caroline Rose, a recent convert to Catholicism. Set in 1950’s Britain, Rose is first supremely skeptical of organized religion. The fellow believers with whom she interacts have an intellectual understanding of the faith, but to her they lack real sincerity. Beyond that, she believes that these people appear to fabricate God’s presence in their lives, rather than displaying the humility only a truly Divine relationship can produce. In particular, Caroline finds one frequent, unfortunate practice most distasteful of all.
Feb 24 2011
News from the Wild: WWL Headlines 2/24/11
Headlines from The Wild Wild Left…the last Island on the “LEFT” in a Sea of Wildly Wrong Rightness…a Harbour of Sanity for Liberals, Progressives and Radical Leftists – Get Wild, Get Left – JOIN IN!
Its been an AMAZING week on WWL!
John Kozy follows up my interview with him last Friday with Liberty’s Easy Slide Into Tyranny.
Rusty1776 is hands down, one of the BEST writers on the Net.
Sky of Memory and Shadow sees the world on fire, a fire to rebirth!
More Exquisite *Essayship below !!
* (yes, I make up words 🙂