(cross posted at kickin it with cg)
The Arab League Summit planned for Qatar this weekend seems fated to go down in the history books, but for the worst possible reason. Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, embraced Sudan’s resident Omar al-Bashir as an honoured guest today as he arrived to attend the Summit in a brazen act of defiance against an international arrest warrant on charges of war crimes in Darfur.
Geithner versus Krugman has become the new Israel/Palestine debate on the blogs. It’s an Economist’s cage-match, with fervent supporters on both sides, and much hyperbole slung by both camps. Because the economic arguments are so opaque, and because both men are so highly qualified, choosing between their solutions has devolved to questionable character judgments. Krugman is “shrill”, and “never liked Obama”. Geithner is a “crook”, and “is incapable of seeing the problems he helped caused”.
I think we can do better than this. I believe that if we look closely, we can discern some dynamics between the two men, based on objective evidence. Furthermore, this dynamic may serve as a clue to clarifying the debate, and taking us a step closer to deciding who is “right”.
A personal friend and avid reader of my blog recently complained that,
“You’re too tough on Democrats and Barack Obama. Since the election you’ve fired more rhetorical bullets at Democrats than Republicans.”
In yesterday's mail was an envelope from my folks, quite unexpected. It contained Xerox'ed copies of two magazine articles (how un-green of them, I know, when those same articles are easily found online and emailed!) with no commentary other than "FYI" scrawled at the top of one. I already knew what to expect. One was an article by Thomas Sowell, the other by Andrée Seu.
I took my 8 y/o daughter recently to visit the grave of my grandmother and grandfather. They’re buried in a little cemetery in Batavia, IL called Resurrection. My daughter said it was too bad that we didn’t bring flowers and I agreed. I’m not much of a cemetery visitor myself, but there is something about flowers.
We agreed to bring flowers next time.
(Cross-posted at The National Gadfly)
Better news for Fargo today. At this point the Red River seems to have stopped rising as fast and may even have crested. It is currently at historic record levels of 40 and a half feet or so. The problem remains critical, as all of the man made dikes must hold for days and possibly even weeks. That is asking a great deal of semi-frozen bags of sand and plastic and clay. The other problem is that the river could still change her mind and rise unexpectedly.
I actively dislike most meteorologists, but one of the pretty young ladies from the Weather Channel had an excellent point just now on MSNBC.
There is some good news, but
~ snip ~
“we are staying at this elevated level. You know we are still above record levels on the stage of this river, which is just incredible, and it is going to stay there for days to come. So even though maybe we are not going to top that levy, it doesn’t mean we aren’t going to breach it still. That’s a lot of pressure, a lot of power from that water, and when you are talking about a man made dike like that…we’re talking sand bags, you know, this is just sand trying to hold away a river. So there is no guarantee that we are out of the woods just yet.”
Alaska Democratic Representative Mike Doogan didn’t like the attention of blogger AKMuckraker – proprietor of The Mudflats Blog and a person who had become internationally famous as a source of local commentary and information regarding Governor Sarah Palin – so he chose to stalk this blogger and publicly expose her real name.
This, in my opinion, is a of breach of trust – not to mention an example of immature and vindictive behavior – which is so fundamental that it raises serious question as to whether Rep. Doogan should hold public office.
Not the movie. Right now the city of Fargo is in trouble. They have currently exceeded all historic levels of flooding and the Red River has not yet crested. I have been watching the situation all week. Big Ed Schultz clued me in last week when he announced that Fargo could be completely flooded by this week’s end.
He may well be right. Currently the dikes are holding, but 150 homes just needed to be evacuated this morning. A dike started leaking, and to protect lives, residents were told to leave. If I was living there now, I am certain that I would be on dike watch. It is an extremely important job. As is sandbagging and laying sandbags and making food for volunteers and…so on.
The crest predictions have been updated (up) several times and Fargo and her residents are struggling to keep ahead of the mighty Red River of the North. My thoughts are with them now; as these next few days will be very exhausting, traumatic and frightening. And quite possibly devastatingly in every possible way.
This week, I attended another screening at Clarisse Thorn’s Sex+++ Film Series at Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago. Two documentary films were featured. The first one, “Sex, Disability & Videotape” (Beyondmedia Education) was about women from age 16 – 24 with disabilities claiming and exploring their self image, self worth and sexuality. The second feature, “Orgasmic Women” (Marianna Beck) is a film of 13 women interviewed about masturbation, with demonstrations.
(Cross-posted at The National Gadfly)
Uh oh. Two days have crept up on me. I was trying to do these every day, but that might not be possible all of the time.
Thursday March 26, 2009 in 100 seconds.
Contessa Brewer was handing out a few spankings today. It looked like fun.
Wednesday March 25, 2009 in 100 seconds.
Did I mention that I am getting pissed at some Democrats? Conservadems! Evan Bought and Paid for, Kent Condom, Byron Doorknob, Blanched and Fainted Lincoln and Tom Craper…the list goes on.
Rachel says it well.
I really do hate Democrats sometimes. Perhaps some of them need to go? We do need more real people to run for Senate. I know many, many republicans must go as well.