This is how I feel this morning
Hello Conflucians!! I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’ve been sitting here staring off into space like a zombie since I woke up at 7AM Eastern time. The only time I’ve gotten up was to make a cup of tea and go to the bathroom. I guess it’s the end-of-the-semester syndrome–nearly compete emotional, physical, and spiritual burnout.
Here are a few interesting stories for you to discuss when you finish reacting to myiq’s post–maybe seeing that headline about Obama’s grade for his first year that bumped me into zombieland. B+?! What is that guy on? We’re in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, real unemployment is around 20%, the banksters are being bolstered by Obama’s free hand with the U.S. Treasury, health care reform is dead for at least another decade, and Congress is pushing for cuts in Social Security and Medicare. In my gradebook, that would be grounds for an F.
Anyway…where was I? Oh yeah. Headlines…..
Developing nations walked out of the Copenhagen climate talks this morning:
A little more here
THE Copenhagen climate summit is in chaos after poor countries walked out of negotiations en masse today.
The G77, a group which represents 130 developing countries, walked out because it is concerned the existing Kyoto protocol will be abandoned.
Australia’s Climate Change Minister Penny Wong confirmed that organisers were trying to fix the problem and coax back the developing world.
Many countries at the UN climate summit want a brand new treaty to tackle climate change, but the developing world wants the Kyoto protocol to continue as well.
The protocol forces rich countries to reduce or limit their greenhouse gas emissions.
Senator Wong said the walkout was “most unfortunate”.
“It is regrettable that we appear to have reached a gridlock on process,” she said.
I was getting excited, but the developing nations have already walked back in:
Developing nations return to Copenhagen climate talks
Talks at the UN climate summit resumed on Monday afternoon after protests from developing nations forced a suspension.
But talks have been limited to informal consultations on procedural issues, notably developing countries’ demands for more time on the Kyoto Protocol.
The G77-China bloc, speaking for developing countries, said the Danish hosts had violated democratic process.
Some delegates talked forlornly of the vast amount of negotiating left to be done before the summit concludes.
The countries that suspended co-operation were those which make up the G77-China bloc of 130 nations. These range from wealthy countries such as South Korea, to some of the poorest states in the world.
Italy’s Berlusconi to stay in hospital after attack (with video)
Italian Prime Minister is in the hospital after having a statue thrown at his face.
Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi will stay in hospital at least until Tuesday after having his nose broken by an attacker, doctors say.
A medical bulletin reported in the Italian media said Mr Berlusconi was able to eat, but only with difficulty.
Mr Berlusconi, 73, suffered a broken nose, two broken teeth and a cut lip after being hit with a model of Milan cathedral after a rally in the city.
A 42-year-old man was arrested and has been charged with aggravated assault.
The suspect, Massimo Tartaglia, was said by police to have had a history of mental illness, receiving treatment over a 10-year period.
Excuse me, I started laughing inappropriately and had to take a short break. {wiping tears away}
The Horrible Health Care Destruction Nightmare Continues unabated. Will it ever end?
Health Care Progress Report: December 14
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) — one of the Democratic caucus members the plan was intended to appease — dropped a bombshell Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” when he said he would not vote for a bill that expands Medicare.
“From what I hear, I certainly would have a hard time voting for it because it has some of the same infirmities that the public option did,” he said about the Medicare buy-in.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), another conservative who may or may not vote for the health care bill, said on “Face the Nation” that the Medicare buy-in is “the forerunner of single-payer, the ultimate single-payer plan, maybe even more directly than the public option.”
WTF are Lieberman and Nelson doing in the Democratic party anyway?
Is Reid Cursed by the Lucky Number 60?
Sixty is the number of senators in the Democratic caucus, and the precise number needed to overcome Republican filibusters. It is the magic number of votes that Mr. Reid needs to pull together to advance major health care legislation.
In many ways, 60 is also a mirage – falsely raising Democratic hopes, particularly those of more liberal senators, that they have the muscle to push the health care bill without making painful concessions to centrists in both parties.
To be sure, controlling 60 votes has generally been advantageous to the Democrats. They have repeatedly cleared procedural obstacles that Republicans set in their path, even on routine bills that ultimately are approved by overwhelming majorities.
But on the health care bill, in particular, the notion of nominally controlling 60 votes has emboldened many Democrats, especially liberals, to make demands that they might otherwise have regarded as unreasonable if their party held even one less seat.
WTF?!! Wanting Americans to have reasonably priced health care like the civilized countries do is “unreasonable?” Maybe it’s reading assinine stories like this every day that is making me feel like a zombie.
ProPublica.org is running a series of stories on police misconduct after Hurricate Katrina–highly recommended.
<a href=”After Katrina, police shot first and asked few questions.“>After Katrina, NO police shot first and asked few questions
Matt McDonald left his native Connecticut and headed to New Orleans in the summer of 2005, shortly before Hurricane Katrina struck and floodwaters engulfed the city. McDonald was a troubled soul, a heavy drinker who had lived on the streets, but he kept in touch with his family, calling from time to time.
After the storm, his brother John, an auto-body technician who lives in Norwich, Conn., began working the phones, reaching out to anyone in Louisiana he thought might know something. “I heard so many different things,” John McDonald recalled.
John McDonald’s wife, Kerry, spent the next month making one phone call after another. “It was such a big runaround,” said Kerry McDonald, who recalled speaking to FEMA officials, American Red Cross staffers, New Orleans police officers and numerous others. “One person would say he was shot to death; the next would say he was found floating.”
Eventually, despite the conflicting stories, one thing became clear: Matt was dead at 41. His body was identified by several distinctive tattoos, including the name of his daughter, Crystal, and a pair of black bat wings.
His girlfriend, Martha Dziadul, paid to cremate the body.
Four years later, a reporter looking at the conduct of the Police Department in the aftermath of the hurricane called Dziadul to ask whether she had ever seen the official report on McDonald’s death. The document said a police officer armed with an AR-15 assault rifle had shot him to death on Sept. 3, 2005.
She was staggered. “They never, ever told me the police shot him. They told me it was a homicide,” she said. “They said: We don’t even know what day it happened because we weren’t there.”
Shot or Not, Dead or Alive? Two Men’s Fate Lost in Chaos
A motionless body lay on the pavement. Perhaps 20 riled-up police officers milled around. On the shoulder of the road, an RTA bus was parked at a crazy angle, like a dislocated elbow. Nearby was a long white limousine, crashed into a pole.
What had we stumbled upon?
Then there were guns aimed at us, and my face was pushed against a wall. I heard lots of shouting and cursing.
It was three days after the levees broke: Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005 — in my limited view, the day things completely fell apart in New Orleans.
The desperation was mounting. The cavalry wasn’t coming, it seemed. We were in it alone.
The heat was brutal, punishing. Supplies were minimal, and shrinking.
Can any country that permits this kind of abuse and neglect of its people survive? I honestly don’t think so.
There are a couple of terrific opinion pieces at Truthdig today:
Scott Ritter on Afghanistan: Our Murderers in the Sky
The true test of a society and its leaders is the extent to which every effort is made to both properly define a problem as one worthy of military intervention and then exhaust every option other than the use of force. It is true that President Barack Obama inherited the war in Afghanistan from his predecessor and therefore cannot be held accountable for that which transpired beyond his ability to influence. But the president’s recent decision to “surge” 30,000 additional U.S. military troops into Afghanistan transfers ownership of the Afghan conflict to him and him alone. It is in this light that his decision must be ultimately judged.
In many ways, Obama’s presentation before the Long Gray Line at West Point, in which he explained his decision to conduct the Afghanistan surge, represented an insult to the collective intelligence of the American people. The most egregious contradiction in his speech was the notion that the people of Afghanistan, who, throughout their history, have resisted central authority whether emanating from Kabul or imposed by outside invaders, would somehow be compelled to embrace this new American plan.
Chris Hedges: Gravel’s Lament: Fighting Another Dumb War
I have spent enough time inside the American military to have tasted its dark brutality, frequent incompetence and profligate ability to waste human lives and taxpayer dollars. The deviousness and stupidity of generals, the absurdity of most war plans and the pathological addiction to violence—which is the only language most who command our armed forces are able to understand—make the American military the gravest threat to our anemic democracy, especially as we head toward economic collapse.
Barack Obama, who is as mesmerized by the red, white and blue bunting draped around our vast killing machine as the press, the two main political parties and our entertainment industry, will not halt our doomed imperial projects or renege on the $1 trillion in defense-related spending that is hollowing out the country from the inside. A plague of unchecked militarism has seeped outward from the Pentagon since the end of World War II and is now sucking our marrow dry. It is a familiar disease in imperial empires. We are in the terminal stage. We spend more on our military—half of all discretionary spending—than all of the other countries on Earth combined, although we face no explicit threat.
Mike Gravel, the former two-term senator from Alaska and 2008 presidential candidate, sat Saturday on a park bench in Lafayette Park facing the White House. Gravel and I were in the park, along with Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney and other anti-war activists, to denounce the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at a sparsely attended rally. Few voices in American politics have been as consistent, as reasoned and as moral as his, which is why Gravel, on a chilly December morning, is in front of the White House, not inside it.
Hedges is one powerful writer!
Please add more links in the comments. I’m sure I missed something big….
HAVE A MARVELOUS MONDAY!!!!!!!!!
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Filed under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, broken promises, Democratic Party, Economy, Health Care Reform, Hurricane Katrina, Politics | Tagged: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, Chris Hedges, Copenhagen climate talks, Health Care Reform, Joe Lieberman, Katrina, Mike Gravel, morning news, New Orleans, Scott Ritter, Silvio Berlusconi, zombies | 106 Comments »
I was flipping through channels last night, trying very carefully to avoid broadcast news, when my low battery powered remote got stuck on PBS during the NewsHour. There was Judy Woodruff interviewing Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin about their (yet another) budget deficit reduction plan. This one is just another version of “stick it to the middle class” that has become the popular fad in Washington these days. In this one, we get a sales tax! Ooo, it’s like opening a new present every morning.
The Confluence 