Burma, Pakistan, Somalia, Darfur, …

October 4 is blog Burma day (see here for details).  Here are a couple more articles about Burma:

most rubies are from Burma and so are blood-rubies (90% come from Burma and most are controlled by the military)
this article notes that all countries aren’t united against the Burmese action:

The result was as follows: Russia and China vetoed [...]

Food Aid Down?

Since the price of staple crops has increased so much recently (driven in part by the increased use of corn for ethanol), the amount of food aid is decreasing.  Here I actually agree with Bush that the US should spend more on crops grown in Africa (of course many others also support this, including many aid [...]

World Cup and Marathons

Germany beat Brazil 2-0 to repeat as winners of the World Cup (the US beat Norway 4-1 in the consolation game). 
Haile Gebrselassie won the Berlin marathon in 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 26 seconds to break the record by 29 seconds. The previous record had been set by Paul Tergat in 2003.

A Couple Quick Notes

The situation for gays is so bad in Iran, that gays there are glad Ahmadinejad denied there were gays in Iran.  That way it would be more likely they would be ignored by the government.  Since there is the death penalty for homosexual relations, that’s probably a good thing (two gay teenagers were executed in [...]

Guantanamo and the ABA

The American Bar Association has said it will not give legal aid to prisoners at Guantanamo:
“It would be inconsistent with the A.B.A.’s strong position” against limits on detainees’ filing habeas cases, the bar association president, William H. Neukom, said in a letter to the Justice Department on Thursday. He added that participating in finding lawyers [...]

More Burma

There’s not much news out of Burma.  The UN representative arrived today. China also went a bit further today:
“China hopes that all parties concerned in Myanmar show restraint, resume stability through peaceful means as soon as possible, promote domestic reconciliation and achieve democracy and development,” Mr. Wen said in Beijing, according to Agence France-Presse. The [...]

Genocide and America

I didn’t think anyone could be stupid enough to say slavery wasn’t a big deal or that the treatment of native-Americans didn’t constitute genocide, but Michael Medved does both and in 7 days no less. See Sadly No! (or Clif ) for more and for the links-I refuse to link to this junk.
Let me look at [...]

No, It’s Not About Religion–Says Fatah

The Morality police have arrived in the West Bank.  Luckily, it’s not about religion:
“Morality is part of the public order,” said Murad Qundah, the 27-year-old police captain who heads the new 10-person unit. “We are not a religious police.”
It’s good to see people in other countries make such obviously incorrect assertions.  Here’s one of the [...]

Speak Up for Burma

The crackdown continues.  It’s not as violent today only because the miliatary has sealed monasteries, shut down internet connections, killed hundreds (although it’s impossible to know how many), and arrested hundreds more.
If you want to know why this can happen, look at these quotes:

“China hopes that all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and properly handle [...]

No More Random 10

I’m getting a little bored with the random 10 (even my silly little variation, using duodecimal), so for Fridays I will now only link to videos and put up a poem.
Here’s some Green Day:
American Idiot;
The Saints Are Coming Home (Live with U2 for New Orleans);
Holiday.
And some Cake:
I Will Survive;
War Pigs;
 Never There.
and a poem:
Visions dance upon [...]

Roundup of News

I don’t have much time today, so here are some other stories:

 The government in Myanmar has cracked down on the protests led by monks.  So far there have not been too many deaths, compared to the crackdown in 1988.  Is this a hopeful sign?  Another possibly hopeful sign is that China is criticizing Myanmar.  But [...]

Another Reason We Need Net Neutrality

Verizon Wireless has said it will not allow NARAL to use a group text message program, because:
it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.”
This type of thing has happened before:
Professor [...]

Mercenaries in Iraq

TPM has an interesting article that looks at the reason there are so many private contractors and problems they might cause.  The main reason there are so many is because this administration believes in privatization, so they try to move some of the duties of the army to private sources (it also looks good politically since [...]

A Bit of Good News From the Courts

This isn’t the end of it, of course it will work it’s way up to the Supreme Court, but a couple of decisions have said that some provisions of the Patriot act are unconstitutional.
Even better, the judge found that it was obvious:
Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence [...]

World Cup: Germany and Brazil

Wow, the US team hasn’t lost in a few years and they lost 4-0.  Brazil is obviously very good (although they had trouble against Australia).
The final is Sunday with Brazil against Germany (seems like a men’s final).  Both teams have been playing well, so it should be an interesting final.

Iran and the Senate

The Democrats have crumbled again.  This time they have helped pass the Lieberman-Kyl amendment.  The worst  part of the language was taken out (look below for a link that talks about the original), but it’s still saber rattling and looks to war (if the Iran National Guard is a terrorist organization, then Iran is since [...]

Iraq Is a Mess? Off to Iran.

In some ways, you have to hand it to the Republicans who don’t support the war–they are tenacious. Here’s Dan Friedman (via Majikthise):
Now for the good news. All the damaging consequences of all the blunders the President has committed to date in Iraq are reversible in 48- to 72-hours – the time it will take to [...]

World Cup: Germany and ?

One of the finalists is in.  Germany beat Norway 3-0 and now awaits the winner of US/Brazil tomorrow (since they’re on cable I don’t see many of these games, but I did see Brazil’s win over Australia which was quite entertaining). 

What About a Jar of Fluff?

Wow, I thought I had seen crazy but something even more crazy always comes along.  Go here (which I found here) to see a creationist argue that evolution is wrong because we have not discovered new life in peanut butter jars. Really, that’s the argument. What makes this crazy isn’t only the argument but that they [...]

A Dictator at Columbia University

No not Ahmadinejad, he might have problems but he was elected.  It’s Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.  He isn’t as bad as his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov, but that would be hard:
Niyazov, who preferred to be known as Turkmenbashi, or Leader of All Turkmen, ruled his impoverished underlings with an iron fist. The tiny, energy-rich Eurasian nation is [...]