In case you thought that the next round of elections in Zimbabwe were going to be fair, a general lets you know they won’t:
Maj. Gen. Martin Chedondo, the army chief of staff, told soldiers at a target-shooting competition to leave the military if they did not support Mr. Mugabe, the Herald newspaper reported.
“Soldiers are not [...]

US and China Defense Spending

I was reading about Defense Secretary Gate’s criticism of Burma:
”We have reached out, frankly, to Myanmar multiple times during this crisis in very direct ways,” the Pentagon chief said. ”It’s not been us that have been deaf and dumb in response to the pleas of the international community, but the government of Myanmar. We have [...]

Left or Right?

Gathering dust is gathering steam and so here are a random 10 (duo) :
Devil’s Arcade Bruce Springsteen
Long Shadow Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros (no real video, great song though)
Wild Wild Life Talking Heads
The Wheel the Mudhens
Dancing In The Sunshine Of The Dark Fury In The Slaughterhouse 
Mrs. O The Dresden Dolls
Ashes To Ashes David Bowie
Ridiculous Thoughts The Cranberries
Mother Goose Jethro Tull
Heart Of Stone The Rolling Stones
Side [...]

New York to Recognize Gay Marriages

It seems NY is joining the Northeast:
In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”
So now we have: MA allows gays to marry; Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont permit [...]

Democracy?

Here are a few bits from the democracy wars:

the newly elected assembly of Nepal has declared the country a republic and abolished the monarchy. This, maybe, is the end of a weird terrible story:

But while the end of Nepal’s royal dynasty may have come in a peaceful vote, the stage for the monarchy’s demise was [...]

Arctic Cool Down

I haven’t written about the competition in the Arctic for a while and now there seems to be good news:
Diplomats from the five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean adopted a declaration on Wednesday aimed at defusing tensions over the likelihood that global warming will open northern waters to shipping, energy extraction and other activities.
The agreement, [...]

I’m Evil

Lindsay B. has a link to this article about the FBI looking to infiltrate the evil vegans:
What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism [...]

Burma, Burma, and Somalia

Two countries on the extremes of central government control are showing how badly things can go:

Burma’s government, one of the most centralized, is not only responding badly because they care more about themselves than the people, but because they are amazingly inefficient:

When a domestic Myanmar Airways passenger plane crashed in 1999 only three miles from the [...]

Mars and Life

NASA’s Phoenix has now landed on Mars and has sent back its first pictures. Here are a couple (credit for both is: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona):

This first is a picture of Mar’s northern polar region, the cracks are believed to have occurred because of the freezing and thawing of surface water.

This second picture has a view of [...]

Mukasey Supports Yoo

In an address to BC law graduates, Attorney General Mukasey basically said that no one should be punished for torture:
One memo defined torture, as recognized by U.S. law, as covering “only extreme acts” causing pain similar in intensity to that caused by organ failure or accompanying death.
An internal Justice Department investigation is now considering whether [...]

Exclusive Means?

Here’s more evidence of the mindset of the Bush administration (via TPM):
A 1978 law appeared at first glance to be an impediment to using new procedures for such surveillance. It stated that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) provided the “exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the interception of domestic wire, [...]

McCain, Hagee, and Parsley

Back when he needed support for the Republican nomination, Senator McCain actively worked to get the support of Reverands Hagee and Parsley. Now when their views have become more well known and might hurt him in the general election, he rejects both Hagee and Parsley. I guess this is more of his ’straight talking’ (he obviously [...]

Where Did I Go?

Yesterday I got lost and I’m still endeavoring to figure out where I am. Obviously it’s somewhere with a computer, but I have a feeling that there are a lot of those around. My method is to pin dollar bills to walls and suchlike to check to see if I’m going in circles. I must [...]

Kentucky and Oregon

I’m a bit slow, but it seems:
Kentucky: Clinton wins with 65%, Obama 30%
Oregon (55% counted): Obama wins with 58%, Clinton 42%
Update: Oregon (88% counted): Obama wins with 58%, Clinton 42%

Senator Kennedy Has Brain Tumor

It has now been reported that Senator Kennedy has been diagnosed with a malignant glioma, a tumor of the brain. The treatment or stage of the tumor has not been announced, but:
Median survival for patients with moderately severe (grade III) malignant gliomas is three to five years. For patients with the most severe, aggressive form [...]

Why Unions Still Matter

Lindsay at Majikthise has a story about Indian guest workers in New Orleans. Here is the worker’s statement:
New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
 
Statement of Indian Workers’ Congress at Launch of Hunger Strike
May 14, 2008
We represent over 550 Indian guestworkers who were trafficked to the United States Gulf Coast in late 2006. Eighteen months after [...]

McCain and the Supreme Court

Via Majikthise, here’s straight-talking Senator McCain:
“Sometimes the expressed will of the voters is disregarded by federal judges, as in a 2005 case concerning an aggravated murder in the state of Missouri,” he said. “As you might recall, the case inspired a Supreme Court opinion that left posterity with a lengthy discourse on international law, the [...]

And a Pony

Senator McCain is now giving speeches about what the world will be like in 2013 after his first four years in office:
In the world of President John McCain, most US troops will be back home from a safer, democratic Iraq by January 2013 – the first date he has mentioned for ending the war.
Afghanistan will [...]

Stop The World, I Want to Get Off

The end of the week has rolled around and I’m a bit late putting up my random (duo) 10, but it’s all the fault of potato chips and laundry. I was getting ready to do laundry, went into the other room, and when I got back the potato chips had attacked the laundry. Very weird, [...]

Gay Marriage in CA?

The California Supreme Court has overturned the state ban on gay marriages, which might allow them. The decision is here. There is also a piece with the current state in the states:
+ Massachusetts is the only U.S. state to allow gay marriage. Its highest court ruled in 2003 that a ban on gay marriage was [...]