This is an Open Thread: Who’s behind the door?

Friday’s Headlines: E.P.A. Chief Defends His Decision on California: Egypt moves to seal Gaza border: Pakistani army in onslaught against Taliban chief linked to Bhutto killing: US troops will be gone within 10 years, says Iraqi minister: Berlusconi eyes return to power in Italy

U.S. Asking Iraq for Wide Rights on War

WASHINGTON – With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials.

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials.

USA

E.P.A. Chief Defends His Decision on California

WASHINGTON – Defending his refusal to let California set limits on the greenhouse gas emissions of automobiles, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency insisted before a Senate committee Thursday that climate change posed no “compelling and extraordinary” risk to the state.

Describing such change as “not unique to” and “not exclusive to California,” the agency’s administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, called it “a global problem requiring a global solution or, at least at a minimum, a national solution.”

But internal agency documents cited by members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works listed climate change effects specific to California, including wildfires and species loss.

Deal on stimulus reached

House and the Bush administration agree on a plan including tax rebates and higher limits on home loans

WASHINGTON — Hoping to jolt the ailing economy — and counter criticism that Washington is too divided to come to Americans’ aid — House leaders and the Bush administration reached a deal Thursday on a package of tax breaks and mortgage rules designed to put more money in consumers’ hands and stimulate business investment.

The centerpiece of the plan is a rebate of as much as $1,200 per household — even more for families with children — that could be mailed to most taxpayers as soon as late spring. The package also includes temporary tax breaks to encourage businesses to expand and create more jobs this year.

Middle East

Egypt moves to seal Gaza border

Egyptian security forces have begun intervening to try to stem the flow of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip through its partly demolished border.

They are now stopping Palestinians from entering Egypt, only allowing people returning to Gaza to pass through.

Hundreds of thousands have crossed into Gaza to buy supplies since militants blew holes in the border on Wednesday.

Israel has been demanding Egyptian action, claiming weapons are likely to be smuggled into Gaza amid the chaos.

US troops will be gone within 10 years, says Iraqi minister

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

Friday, 25 January 2008

US military forces will not stay in Iraq for anything like as long as some American politicians are demanding, says the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari. He said crucial issues about “Who is in charge in Iraq – we or you?” would be settled in negotiations between Iraq and the United States, starting this month.

The Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, caused anger among Iraqis this month by saying during the New Hampshire primary that US military forces might stay in Iraq “for 100 years”. Mr Zebari, asked by The Independent in Baghdad if the American army would be in Iraq in 10 years, said: “Really, I wouldn’t say so.”

Asia

Pakistani army in onslaught against Taliban chief linked to Bhutto killing

· Dozens killed as troops encircle mountain base

· Locals flee air and ground assault on Afghan border

The Pakistani army has launched a blistering air and ground assault on the mountain stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban commander accused of orchestrating the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, as a battle for control of the lawless region near the Afghan border intensifies.

The onslaught follows months of sporadic clashes in Waziristan, where Islamists have embarrassed Pakistani forces in recent weeks, and comes amid growing pressure from the US, which finances the operations against the extremists.

The British have made matters worse, says Afghan President

Britain and Afghanistan fell out in spectacular fashion yesterday after President Karzai accused his British allies of bungling the military operation in Helmand and setting back prospects for the area by 18 months.

Mr Karzai, Britain’s key ally in Afghanistan, had little praise for the efforts of the 7,800 British troops deployed in his country. Most are in the restless southern Helmand province, where Britain has invested billions of pounds in trying to defeat the Taleban, bolster central government authority and begin reconstruction.

But Mr Karzai said that they had failed in the task, particularly the initial military mission launched nearly two years ago by 16 Air Assault Brigade – a unit that is returning for its second tour this year.

Europe

Berlusconi eyes return to power in Italy

· Confidence motion defeat ends Prodi coalition

· President may seek interim government

Italy’s president, Giorgi Napolitano, will begin consulting political leaders today on the country’s future after the collapse last night of Romano Prodi’s centre-left government.

Silvio Berlusconi, the opposition leader who has a huge lead in opinion polls, called for a snap election. Napolitano is known to favour a transitional government to steer through electoral reform, but the media mogul who governed Italy until two years ago said the project was “senseless”.

What the country needed was a “new and authoritative” administration, he said. “We need to go to the polls in the shortest time possible without delay.”

Netherlands braced for Muslim anger as second politician releases ‘anti-Islam’ film

By Claire Soares in The Hague

Friday, 25 January 2008

For a film that lasts just 10 minutes and for which no one has even seen a trailer, it is creating one hell of an uproar. The cinematic debut from the anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders has forced the Netherlands to wrestle with the limits of its age-old tradition of free speech and stirred up anxieties about a multicultural society.

The film, billed by Mr Wilders as an illustration of how the Koran inspires people “to do the worst things”, is the latest provocation from the maverick MP who has compared Islam’s sacred text to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, tried to ban the burqa and the building of mosques and called for all Muslims in the Netherlands either to give up their religion or go back to their own countries.

In a sign of how preoccupied the government is with the impending fallout, the Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, made an extraordinary statement before the Wilders film was even finished, let alone screened.

Africa

Kenya leaders meet and pledge peace as economy grinds to a halt

President Kibaki met his political challenger, Raila Odinga, yesterday for the first time since disputed elections nearly a month ago triggered waves of inter-ethnic violence. Both said that they were committed to seeking peace.

The symbolic meeting, brokered by Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, raised hopes of a political resolution to end the bloodshed and ease the country’s economic crisis. “We are determined to get to the underlying causes of these unprecedented events and to lead the nation in a process of healing, reconciliation and lasting harmony,” Mr Kibaki said.

Power cuts cripple southern Africa

Lusaka, Zambia – Power outages are a common occurrence in Kabwata, a poor neighborhood in the capital of this Southern African nation, where residents spend many of their evenings by candlelight, cooking with charcoal.

“Our electrical infrastructure is too old. It hasn’t been rehabilitated for the last 40 to 45 years,” says Given Lubinda, an opposition member of Parliament who represents Kabwata. Power cuts “occur in my constituency on a daily basis, regularly, from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.”

But when the lights flickered and then shut down throughout Zambia just before 8 p.m. last Saturday night, people immediately sensed that something different was happening.

Latin America

Rice lobbies for Colombia trade deal

MEDELLIN, Colombia – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday the challenges facing Colombia will only get harder if a trade deal with Washington doesn’t pass, as she met with union members during a visit to try to revive the pact.

Rice arrived in Colombia along with a delegation of U.S. Democratic lawmakers to lobby for the free trade deal, or FTA, which was first signed in 2006, but has not yet been passed by the U.S. Congress. The delegation met late Thursday in Medellin with unionists who oppose the deal.

Rice told reporters she was in Colombia “to say very strongly that whatever the challenges facing Colombia they are not going to be easier if this FTA does not pass. In fact they will be harder.”

Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

An Opened Mind XXXV:

This is the last in the subseries of six poems about Daily Kos.  

Art Link Layers Transference You keep telling me what I think — like you would know? How is that appropriate? I am told by you that I must be motivated by self-interest alone like you and (you aver) everyone But it is not so It angers you that I deny your claim maybe because you assume I must believe that I am better than you No such thing do I believe But the truth of it all seems to be that you apparently do believe your philosophy is lacking if your attitude is any measure And isn’t that a kick in the butt? –Robyn Elaine Serven –January 5, 2007

I know you have talent.  What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent.  I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I’m a pretty darn good cook.  🙂  

Let your talent bloom.  You can share it here.  Encourage others to let it bloom inside them as well.

Won’t you share your words or art, your sounds or visions, your thoughts scientific or philosophic, the comedy or tragedy of your days, the stories of doing and making?  And be excellent to one another!

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has updated its policy on climate change with the pronouncement that changes to the Earth’s climate system are “not natural.”

The Earth’s climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system-including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons-are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century.

More below the fold…

Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956-2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850. The observed rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is expected to continue and lead to the disappearance of summertime ice within this century. Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities. Recent changes in many physical and biological systems are linked with this regional climate change.

~snip~

With climate change, as with ozone depletion, the human footprint on Earth is apparent. The cause of disruptive climate change, unlike ozone depletion, is tied to energy use and runs through modern society. Solutions will necessarily involve all aspects of society.

The AGU, which has 50,000 members in 137 countries, said delivering solutions would require the co-operation of all sectors; from science and technology, to industry and government.

Link to full AGU statement available here.

The NYT has 120 plus stories on ‘Clinton’ and ‘gays in the military’ between 92 and 93. If you want to know how the media was able to define Clinton as a divisive figure who alienated people a decade ago, look around. We’re living it. Then, as now, Hillary and Bill are being blamed for the divisions among us.

Campaigning on Race: Who here can deny seeing Obama as a person of color, first; and as an individual, second? Obama has been running on race from day one.

Reverse racism, fears of exclusion, and liberal guilt have been exploited shamelessly by Obama supporters. Policy positions more extreme and right-wing than those of either HRC or Edwards are shuffled to the side in order to present a candidate who voted with the party 97% of the time as an agent of change, rather than simply as more of the same in black.

How often do Obama supporters focus on the superficialities of appearance and ignore the deeply flawed roots of a campaign of cynicism, a campaign that owes so much to bigotry and gay-baiting.

Obama’s Ebenezeer St speech is a milestone in this campaign. Not because Obama spoke out against intolerance, he’s done that before. The Ebeneezer street speech is special because the speech, delivered in a church just a week before the South Carolina primary allowed Obama supporters, many of whom were shocked by the role gay-baiting played in Obama’s campaign, to forget that this campaign of ‘hope’ began by pandering nakedly to bigotry and hatred.

Obama preaches a message of inclusion, but sends anti-gay bigots into the south to drum up dollars and votes. Then he scolds bigots for coughing up the dough. The acolytes see in this astonishing cynicism further evidence of divinity.

Obama devotees place the Ebeneezer Street blindfold over their own eyes and those of others, celebrating themselves, forgetting the message of MLK, forgetting honesty, forgetting, at least until the SC election is over, that there would be no Obama South Carolina victory without bigotry and hate, without Donnie and Mary-Mary.

Gay hatred, bigotry, cynicism and lies will likely carry the day, this weekend, just as they did back in 92-94. When Obama supporters cheer themselves, their morality and their courage, perhaps they can raise a glass to Mariachi Mama, and her son who hung himself last month, and all the gay folks who have taken their own lives rather than endure the kind of hate promulgated from the stage of the candidate for change.

we bounce around like free radicals

in our flesh, bones, and blood world

tricked into keeping time…

like there are such things as

beginnings and endings. startings and stoppings.

we have always been

our energy… part of the spurting spitting gases swirling

in a universe we claim to be ubiquitous

god. it’s lonely without my dog.