Things going nuts in Honduras, President reportedly arrested by army for proceeding with referendum allowing re-election which was condemned by Honduran Supreme Court and IG. If the military takes over and hands power to Zelaya’s right wing opposition, it could get even more unstable.
Why haven’t we started the bombing runs yet? That islamosocia-list in the White House too much of a sissy?
6.
El Cid
@John Cole: Actually, some reports suggest that the military intended a coup last week and that the U.S. embassy suggested it was not happy with the idea.
Latest witness reports (unconfirmed) are that President Zelaya was escorted to a plane.
I would assume that the U.S. foreign policy establishment’s aims are mixed; they are happy to have another regional ally of Hugo Chavez and leftist governance gone, but they may also be now having to deal with an agitated hornet’s nest of a country.
The U.S. hawks are likely in my view to wonder why Obama didn’t more loudly support the official denunciations of President Zelaya earlier, and it’s obviously because Obama loves Hugo Chavez and wants to have gay shari’a law babies with him on top of Iranian / North Korean missiles. [Also, ACORN somehow fits in there too, obviously.]
7.
Bill E Pilgrim
Good pictures of Paris on the New York Times front page today, they actually capture what it feels like in reality for a change, and why I love this city so much.
Several of my favorite pastimes are pictured, including hanging out on the Canal St Martin, having picnics on the Pont des Arts, and a park I walk through many mornings on my way to one a cafe just outside its gates.
Even the shot of people at an evening vernissage is nice, if a little snooty, we’re at that point where it’s actually still light out after 10. The other night I saw that there was some (dark) blue sky remaining and when I looked at my watch it was five to eleven, to my astonishment.
8.
geg6
I am pissed at CBS Sunday Morning. I generally expect better of this show than the apparent wall to wall MJ coverage we’re going to get this morning. The good news is that it is cooling off a bit here in WPA and I don’t have to run the air conditioning. Oh, and I have a 3 day work week to look forward to. Off Monday and Friday. Yay! Plus, my dean is off for two weeks, so no dumping extra projects on my desk at the last minute. Considering that last week may have been the most stressful week of my entire career at the University That the FSM Favors Most (after all, the sky is blue and white as a sign of favor, amirite? /snark), this is all good news.
I would assume that the U.S. foreign policy establishment’s aims are mixed; they are happy to have another regional ally of Hugo Chavez and leftist governance gone, but they may also be now having to deal with an agitated hornet’s nest of a country.
Are we sure of that, regarding the leftists? I can how Obama might find them easier to deal with diplomatically, than a bunch of trigger-happy right-wing authoritarians.
I’m talking, of course, about the Washington Post editorial board.
.
10.
4jkb4ia
I thought I would say vaguely that John might enjoy “An Army At Dawn” if he hasn’t read it yet. Extremely well written but very brutal in spots. I am aware that “friend and counselor Lewis Libby” is named in the acknowledgements, which is a high probability of being the same person since Atkinson was at the WaPo at the time.
11.
geg6
By the way, far be it from me to praise MoDo, but she finally has sunk her teeth into a subject uniquely suited to her talents. Her column today regarding Sanford is quite entertaining, IMHO.
12.
Brick Oven Bill
Like most of my liberal acquaintances, one of my friends is a person of color. But unlike my liberal acquaintances, me and my Honduran friend have spent significant amounts of time eating and fishing together. We have young children of the same age.
This is one of the most ethical people I have known, behavior likely instilled by his deep Christian faith. He builds his own pre-fab reinforced concrete columns, not quite up to Corinthian standards of beauty, but very impressive nonetheless for some former laborer in Central America. He has a wood working shop where the trim for the doors and windows is created by hand out of Mahogany.
He built a beautiful house on the Caribbean beach for an American couple who are both airline pilots, with a son at the Air Force Academy. The wife had been sleeping with one of her son’s friends from the Air Force Academy in this house, resulting in a divorce for the marriage, and a lien on his project. As we walked around this beautiful house that he built, it was clear that Carlos was more disturbed about the family than the delay in payment. ‘They had everything’ he said, shaking his head.
I suggested later that I would like to visit Honduras, not really that I wanted to visit Honduras, but out of respect for Carlos and his heritage. Carlos directed me to not go to Honduras without him, and in that case he would only take me to certain places.
A mining engineer from my neighboring American town, I found out a year later, was working a mine tailing in Honduras and was shot dead just for being him.
A certain percentage of Hondurans are apparently racist.
13.
Mino
Very pretty girl (I assume). Great Pyrenees are good with small dogs.
14.
El Cid
@JGabriel: I view the U.S. foreign policy establishment of including but not being limited to the Executive and State Departments, but rather a hazy yet fairly contiguous cloud of agencies from the Executive branch, influential Congressional committees and leading Congressmen & Senators, military agencies, influential ‘think tanks’ and ‘foreign policy experts’ groups, and major news corporations and leading pundits.
So, yes, from the US FPE, sure, it’s always a choice between the options available in the real world, but, yes, they preferred a bland vaguely neo-liberal leader for Honduras such as a functional pro-big-business hack like Mexico’s Calderon, and no one in the U.S. seems to give the slightest crap that right wing ally Alvaro Uribe in Colombia changed the rules so he could be re-elected and now nearly every one of the legislative members most crucial to the approval of that re-election referendum are under investigation for being bribed into their votes.
Truth be told, though it was stupid and provocative and led directly to this coup, I’m not surprised somebody like Zelaya didn’t look at what the U.S. happily let Uribe get away with all the time and just not say, ‘F*** it, why not?’
15.
El Cid
By the way, it must really be a coup, because I’m streaming probably the largest radio station in Honduras and they’re mostly talking about the latest soccer matches and team selections.
They just said, however, that Zelaya has been reportedly escorted out of the country, and that everything is totally, totally calm, the capital is calm, please everyone go about their business. Other reports suggest a number of street disturbances already.
Oh, and on Uribe’s totally non-bribing of the Congressmen who voted for his re-electability referendum.
16.
Michael
Hugo Chavez has the only copy of Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate. Putin sent it to him via an ACORN intermediary. After Chavez gets done with it, he’s sending it on to Ahmadinejad, who will then send it to Kim.
17.
SiubhanDuinne
@ geg6 / 8. When CBS Sunday Morning came on, I groaned aloud at the prospect of yet more OTT MJ coverage. But in fact the tributes and analyses have been thoughtful, even-handed, and respectful — not at all tabloidy or full of gag-worthy repetitive hagiographic gush like CNN and MSNBC. They also did nice tributes to Farrah and Ed. YMMV but I’m glad I’m watching.
18.
El Cid
@Michael: That’s a cautious and useful outline, but how are they using the global warming fraud conspiracy to institute pagan gay marriage with cousins?
19.
El Cid
Honduran anti-Zelaya paper La Prensa is reporting that President Zelaya has ‘left’ for Venezuela. The Organization of American States’ leader Jose Miguel Insulza has called for a meeting within hours to ‘restore democratic stability’.
Castro is jealous he doesn’t get to see it too. Or is he next in line after Kim? Isn’t Gaddafi getting a look at it? Or is he out of the cool kids club these days?
The Washington Post printed the Sotomayor polling analysis this morning, so good for them. Better late than never.
It’s heartening for a couple of reasons. 8 in 10 Democrats, but also 2/3 of independents think she’s “about right” ideologically. There’s even a split apparent among Republicans, a clear division between hard right and center right, and that breaks on gender. Hard right Republicans have problems with women voters. Ahem.
None of the nonsense the right + media morons threw at her stuck. None of it.
That’s even more amazing considering there was virtually no push-back from rational sources, besides a single lawyer from SCOTUS blog who occasionally appeared on television with his actual case analysis. He was late out of the gate because of course it takes a little while to do an actual case analysis, when there are 150 or so cases. It’s easier to do a Gingrich, and smear her without facts.
So, I’m willing to conclude two things. 1. most people were offered no real information on Sotomayor, so have none, so give her the benefit of the doubt, and 2. most people ignored the misinformation Gingrich and Co tried to sell. Number 2 makes me very happy.
What a complete waste of time, money and energy that smear campaign was. All heat, no light, and the fire didn’t touch her.
26.
Violet
The Honduras thing is a little concerning. I have a friend who has lived there for a long time and has essentially devoted his life to working with the disadvantaged in Tegucigalpa, especially the street kids. I hope this isn’t affecting him. He does great work and has helped a lot of kids.
27.
El Cid
@Dennis-SGMM: All the online sources from Honduras appear to have either been overwhelmed or taken off-line. However, Venezuela-launched TeleSur is showing live images of the soldiers occupying the Presidential palace and streets and civilians arriving to argue and challenge at the gates and fences. Venezuela and Bolivia have strongly condemned the coup. TeleSur just aired the comments of I believe Zelaya’s wife.
I can’t wait for the wonderful, balanced U.S. news media to air the objective, wise, experienced, unbiased views of the man who helped turn Honduras into a death squad air base for Reagan’s Central American slaughters, former Bush Jr. administration official John Negroponte.
28.
burnspbesq
The Pyr is saying “hey wait a minute – you promised me a proper snack. These bite-size things don’t cut it.”
In an interview with Spain’s El Pais newspaper published on Sunday, Mr Zelaya – an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – said a planned coup attempt against him had been thwarted after the US refused to back it.
“Everything was in place for the coup and if the US embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not,” Mr Zeleya said.
“I’m only still here in office thanks to the United States.”
Has something changed? Was a nod given?
31.
Porco Rosso
Didn’t I see one of your parent’s Jack Russell terriers in the video for “Total Eclipse of The Heart?” Those eyes really look familiar.
while I by no means support the coup in Honduras it is important to note that this fixation by Latin American leaders (both from left and right) to change the constitution so that they can stay permanently is probably the worse political trend int he region in the last 20 years. I condemn it in Colombia, Honduras, Argentina, wherever it takes place. And one should note too that the referendum today has been ruled illegal by every political institution in the country–Judiciary, Congress, all political parties–so Zelaya was not being a paragon of political virtue by pushing for this, he was acting in his own way to disregard the law so that he could hang around. I don’t care if I like someone’s politics or not, this sort of behavior is not conducive to democratic stability. The faster the army is pulled back from any power the better, but what Honduras needs is a return to its own constitution not a constant tinkering to have someone remain in power because he simply wants to.
Today was the day of the (declared illegal or unauthorized) ‘referendum’.
So it’s obvious that the timing of the coup is connected to three things: (1) fears about the outcome of the referendum, including its mere occurrence; (2) Zelaya’s destitution last week of the chief of the Armed Forces of Honduras for refusing to assist in carrying out the referendum; and (3) the refusal of other national authorities from the Supreme Court to the Attorney General’s office to express legal authorization for the referendum.
36.
ihop
littlest dog says she needs a bigger boat.
37.
Dennis-SGMM
I imagine that the usual suspects are already preparing to spin the situation in Honduras as a loss for Obama and a vindication of Bush foreign policy.
And good news for John McCain, also.
As in all great affairs, Mark Sanford fell in love simultaneously with a woman and himself — with the dashing new version of himself he saw in her molten eyes…
With Maria, he was no longer the penny-pinching millionaire Mark, who used to sleep on a futon in his Congressional office and once treated two congressmen to movie refreshments by bringing back a Coke and three straws.
No, he was someone altogether more fascinating: Marco, international man of mystery and suave god of sex and tango.
That passage is insightful enough to lead me to believe MoDo had a latin lover herself once.
39.
geg6
I wish I could give a smackdown like Paul Krugman. He slides the knife in while seemingly the politest, most reasonable person ever. Sadly, my smackdowns tend much more to the nasty and snarky. I must learn to cultivate my inner Paul Krugman.
I imagine that the usual suspects are already preparing to spin the situation in Honduras as a loss for Obama and a vindication of Bush foreign policy.
If only we had someone like Mark Sanford in there, with his vast foreign policy experience in South America!
He can see Honduras from his lover’s balcony, y’know.
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41.
Dennis-SGMM
@smiley: …Marco, international man of mystery and suave god of sex and tango.
I think he just wanted to get leyenda’d.
42.
Brick Oven Bill
Spain granted Honduras independence in 1821. Since then there have been sixteen different Constitutions. Personally, I attribute this to Neolithic evolutionary forces upon the electorate. Or perhaps Almighty God created us all with identical plastic brains and this is all Reagan’s fault.
The current Honduran Constitution was put in place in 1982, during Reagan’s first term, replacing ten years of military rule. Although I have been unable to find this Constitution online, this is an interesting document:
“Honduran constitutions are generally held to have little bearing on Honduran political reality because they are considered aspirations or ideals rather than legal instruments of a working government.”
Perhaps we should consider limiting immigration from Countries whose populations have not shown the historical ability to be governed under representative rule?
43.
geg6
smiley: Yep. MoDo really sank her very pointy teeth into today’s column with a relish that makes me wonder how she has so much insight into Mark/Marco.
44.
Dennis-SGMM
@JGabriel:
This is one of those times when I’m glad that I don’t watch much TV any more. The news shows will be awash with “experts” who don’t speak Spanish, have only a nodding acquaintance with the history of the region and whose only claim to expertise is that they occaisionally get a burrito at Taco Bell. That will not keep them from casting their ax grinding in terms of the events in Honduras.
45.
valdivia
I cannot deal with all the problems with BOB’s post so I will simply say that Independence for Latin America happened because there was a war for independence raging at different times from Mexico to Argentina. The idea that independence was ‘granted’ like a freaking gift just does not reflect reality at all.
46.
Brick Oven Bill
Honduras’ first Constitution was set in 1825. This is one hundred and eighty-three years ago. Since then there have been sixteen Honduran Constitutions in total. Dividing 183 by 16 yields the number 11, plus a fraction.
In contrast, the Honduran Constitution put in place on Reagan’s watch lasted from 1982 until now, and is arguably still in place. This is twenty-seven years, or two-and-a-half times the average lifetime of a Honduran Constitution. This accounting does not even consider those long periods of Honduran history where the military ran things and there was no Constitution in place.
Way to go Reagan.
47.
LD50
Honduran radio station HRN reported that Zelaya had been sent into exile, citing unidentified “trustworthy sources.”
The radio announcer said it was not known to what country he had been taken but “apparently he flew on the presidential plane to Venezuela.”
If that was America, Zelaya would be claiming he was leaving to spend more time with his family.
@Punchy: No, but with MJ, Iran, and now Honduras, CNN doesn’t know whether to shit or go blind. They have “CNN coverage” insets coming out their ears. w00t! twitterati!
56.
Dennis-SGMM
I was just making a mental bet with myself as to how long it would take someone who doesn’t know the Boland Amendment from a bull fiddle to invoke the sainted name of Ronald Reagan.
I was way over.
57.
gex
JRTs meet Great Pyrenees deserves video. But the pic is cute too.
JRTs meet Great Pyrenees deserves video a reality show. But the pic is cute too.
Fixeteth.
59.
gex
@Dennis-SGMM: Well of course not. It is not a country the neocons want to bomb, like Iran. If you want the US to pay attention to your coup, you really need to get yourself on the elite Axis of Evil invite list.
60.
geg6
There is nothing that has happened ever in all of history in all the world that is in any way good that can’t be credited to St. Ronnie. Right, BOB?
61.
Dennis-SGMM
@gex:
Guess that they should have threatened to go nuclear or at least launched a bottle rocket in the general direction of Miami.
62.
Punchy
@AhabTRuler: Honestly, I’m not concerned with Honduras. I’m sure Kos will have a lot more to say, but I’m not eggsactly shocked that a 3rd world country suffers from 3rd world despotism.
63.
Dennis-SGMM
@geg6:
I heard that touching Reagan’s tomb will cure dropsy.
64.
Brick Oven Bill
Reagan established a Honduran Constitution that lasted twenty-seven years geg6. Obama, in only six months, has presided over the establishment of military rule in Honduras.
Therefore one must conclude that Reagan was a champion of liberty, and Obama is a champion of tyranny. It took 2 years for Reagan to establish liberty in Honduras and only one-quarter of that time for Obama to establish military rule in Honduras. Obama is thus more effective than Reagan in his aims.
All of this makes sense since Obama is from Kenya (tyranny) and Reagan was from Illinois (liberty).
Either this or the Honduran military views the Obama Administration as impotent and has just decided to do whatever it wants in the absence of a stabilizing world power.
This is why Russia will invade (er, send peacekeepers to provide stability in) Iran, establishing a stranglehold on European energy supplies and a warm water port.
65.
gex
I’m guessing, despite the jpg name, that things went pretty well with the doggy meet up.
In April 2005, as the Senate confirmation hearings for the National Intelligence post took place, hundreds of documents were released by the State Department in response to a FOIA request by the Washington Post. The documents, cables that Negroponte sent to Washington while serving as ambassador to Honduras, indicated that he played a more active role than previously known in managing the US covert war against the Sandinistas. According to Post, the image of Negroponte that emerges from the cables is that of an
exceptionally energetic, action-oriented ambassador whose anti-communist convictions led him to play down human rights abuses in Honduras, the most reliable U.S. ally in the region. There is little in the documents the State Department has released so far to support his assertion that he used “quiet diplomacy” to persuade the Honduran authorities to investigate the most egregious violations, including the mysterious disappearance of dozens of government opponents. [3]
After the warm shit of Bill’s grotesque views of history has lost its charm, we always need to step back and take a look at reality.
Odd that a spoof who lives on his ability to morph google finds into phony stories of his own adventures would fail to at least take the time to acquaint himself with the rudiments of recent Honduran history.
Reagan was a true believer in the magical thinking of Barry Goldwater and his “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” principle. That principle is nothing more than a sloganized version of “Ends Justify Means” thinking, politics, and policy. Hondurans having human rights problems? Well then, send in the Americans to counter them with some human rights problems of our own liking, as long as it advances “freedom.”
No need to worry about whether and Mom and Pop America will get wind of the horrors perpetrated in the name of “freedom” when we control the spin and the news cycles here at home.
Sorry to ruin your weekend, Bob, but your spoofy fairy tale does not feed the bulldog.
Edit: looks like demkat got there first. But damn….what a week.
74.
Dennis-SGMM
@El Cid:
There are also approximately 35,000 Salvadorans whose enjoyment of the blessings of Reaganesque liberty was cut short by dying at the hands of US supported death squads.
75.
LD50
This is why Russia will invade (er, send peacekeepers to provide stability in) Iran, establishing a stranglehold on European energy supplies and a warm water port.
Given that Russia hasn’t shared a border with Iran since 1989, I’d love to hear BOB’s explanation of how Putin is going to rear his head over Iran.
Bob Schieffer: Governor, aside from the personal matter of Sanford’s treatment of his own family values, isn’t this really about dereliction of duty, going AWOL on the duties of the governor of his state and being unreachable for almost a week?
Haley Barbour: I don’t think it’s polite to talk about people’s personal troubles this-a-way.
(paraphrased slightly, I don’t have the transcript; no meaning was harmed in the making of this paraphrase).
Billy Mays was a political opponent of the Obama Administration. This is because Obama had decided to deliver gifts of Sham-Wows to heads of foreign states instead of other TV merchandise, most notably KaBooms. This triggered Mays Promotions, Inc. to organize what was rumored to be an upcoming protest.
Mays Promotions, Inc. was one of the fastest growing private companies in the US. Now he is dead of mysterious causes.
A ‘blown tire’ led to his death? You figure it out.
@Brick Oven Bill: The airplane tire industry assassinated Mays because he was next going to start marketing the Jet Airliner Tire Repair In A Can product, and they couldn’t afford the risk.
More intellectual dishonesty from a douchebag Republican.
On This Week, Peggy Noonan saw no hypocrisy regarding Sanford because the family values message is still a laudable goal towards which everyone should aspire.
Also on This Week, Kathleen Parker was moved by the fact that Sanford is in love with his mistress and wasn’t just looking to get laid.
92.
Dennis-SGMM
Seems appropriate to post this piece from Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler:
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
@JK: Yep. Provided you pay lip service (hur hur) to an ideal, your actions don’t count. Foley could have stuck around until he was voted out of office if he’d burped up the requisite number of Biblical quotes.
@Cat Lady (#20): Why do you think my blog looks the way it does? Btw, Flora is shedding all over my hands as I type this. : )
@Punchy and @Ash et al: You stole my Billy Mays scoop! (And yes, that would be a scoop of Oxi Clean.) I wonder if his vocal chords just gave our or if he sniffed too many household products. (Btw, police are still looking for Vince, who was recently arrested for beating up a prostitute in South Florida and sticking ShamWows in her mouth to keep her quiet.)
I absolutely do not need for 150# of Gus to learn to be a JTR, I strongly doubt such an occurance anyhow.
98.
kuvasz
That pix looks more like a Kuvasz than Pyrenees.
99.
maya
J
On This Week, Peggy Noonan saw no hypocrisy regarding Sanford because the family values message is still a laudable goal towards which everyone should aspire.
Specifically, the sanctity of Marriage as God intended between a man and a woman and sometimes another woman.
On This Week, Peggy Noonan saw no hypocrisy regarding Sanford because the family values message is still a laudable goal towards which everyone should aspire.
Right, because in Republicanworld it’s *believing* in things that makes you morally superior, not your actual behavior or living up to the sanctimonious standards you like to scold other people for.
Also on This Week, Kathleen Parker was moved by the fact that Sanford is in love with his mistress and wasn’t just looking to get laid.
She’s just an incurable romantic. Actually, her thoughts here was one of the few honest sentiments expressed over the Sanford affair. This is not, on the other hand, going to please Sanford’s wife.
On the political side, someone on one of the pundit shows noted that the Republicans might prefer to see the governor stay in office because they don’t want the Lt. Governor to get any advantage for the future gubernatorial election.
I am 100% opposed to a cure for romantics.
That is why I go out of my way to boycott all walks and rides for the cure and never, ever, sponsor anyone who participates.
Uh, John. The dude got tossed, because he wanted to run his Government like Venezuela.
You know, like Communism?
So, he got tossed.
…and the Democrats support that?
No wonder I left that party.
106.
Sour Kraut
Yep. Provided you pay lip service (hur hur) to an ideal, your actions don’t count. Foley could have stuck around until he was voted out of office if he’d burped up the requisite number of Biblical quotes.
@kommrade:
Indeed. What’s the saying? “Hypocrisy is the tribute that Vice pays to Virtue.”
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El Cid
Things going nuts in Honduras, President reportedly arrested by army for proceeding with referendum allowing re-election which was condemned by Honduran Supreme Court and IG. If the military takes over and hands power to Zelaya’s right wing opposition, it could get even more unstable.
John Cole
@El Cid: Why won’t Obama say more!
harlana pepper
Heh, he/she’s like “interactive toy” Neat!
J.
Watch where you’re putting that paw, ya Great big Pyrenees!
I’m off to hike the Appalachian Trail and work on my book for a few days. But I’m sure my staff will keep me up to date (and my blog will be in good paws) while I’m working on my tan lines… I mean “book.”
Robertdsc-iphone
Why haven’t we started the bombing runs yet? That islamosocia-list in the White House too much of a sissy?
El Cid
@John Cole: Actually, some reports suggest that the military intended a coup last week and that the U.S. embassy suggested it was not happy with the idea.
Latest witness reports (unconfirmed) are that President Zelaya was escorted to a plane.
I would assume that the U.S. foreign policy establishment’s aims are mixed; they are happy to have another regional ally of Hugo Chavez and leftist governance gone, but they may also be now having to deal with an agitated hornet’s nest of a country.
The U.S. hawks are likely in my view to wonder why Obama didn’t more loudly support the official denunciations of President Zelaya earlier, and it’s obviously because Obama loves Hugo Chavez and wants to have gay shari’a law babies with him on top of Iranian / North Korean missiles. [Also, ACORN somehow fits in there too, obviously.]
Bill E Pilgrim
Good pictures of Paris on the New York Times front page today, they actually capture what it feels like in reality for a change, and why I love this city so much.
Several of my favorite pastimes are pictured, including hanging out on the Canal St Martin, having picnics on the Pont des Arts, and a park I walk through many mornings on my way to one a cafe just outside its gates.
Even the shot of people at an evening vernissage is nice, if a little snooty, we’re at that point where it’s actually still light out after 10. The other night I saw that there was some (dark) blue sky remaining and when I looked at my watch it was five to eleven, to my astonishment.
geg6
I am pissed at CBS Sunday Morning. I generally expect better of this show than the apparent wall to wall MJ coverage we’re going to get this morning. The good news is that it is cooling off a bit here in WPA and I don’t have to run the air conditioning. Oh, and I have a 3 day work week to look forward to. Off Monday and Friday. Yay! Plus, my dean is off for two weeks, so no dumping extra projects on my desk at the last minute. Considering that last week may have been the most stressful week of my entire career at the University That the FSM Favors Most (after all, the sky is blue and white as a sign of favor, amirite? /snark), this is all good news.
JGabriel
El Cid:
Are we sure of that, regarding the leftists? I can how Obama might find them easier to deal with diplomatically, than a bunch of trigger-happy right-wing authoritarians.
I’m talking, of course, about the Washington Post editorial board.
.
4jkb4ia
I thought I would say vaguely that John might enjoy “An Army At Dawn” if he hasn’t read it yet. Extremely well written but very brutal in spots. I am aware that “friend and counselor Lewis Libby” is named in the acknowledgements, which is a high probability of being the same person since Atkinson was at the WaPo at the time.
geg6
By the way, far be it from me to praise MoDo, but she finally has sunk her teeth into a subject uniquely suited to her talents. Her column today regarding Sanford is quite entertaining, IMHO.
Brick Oven Bill
Like most of my liberal acquaintances, one of my friends is a person of color. But unlike my liberal acquaintances, me and my Honduran friend have spent significant amounts of time eating and fishing together. We have young children of the same age.
This is one of the most ethical people I have known, behavior likely instilled by his deep Christian faith. He builds his own pre-fab reinforced concrete columns, not quite up to Corinthian standards of beauty, but very impressive nonetheless for some former laborer in Central America. He has a wood working shop where the trim for the doors and windows is created by hand out of Mahogany.
He built a beautiful house on the Caribbean beach for an American couple who are both airline pilots, with a son at the Air Force Academy. The wife had been sleeping with one of her son’s friends from the Air Force Academy in this house, resulting in a divorce for the marriage, and a lien on his project. As we walked around this beautiful house that he built, it was clear that Carlos was more disturbed about the family than the delay in payment. ‘They had everything’ he said, shaking his head.
I suggested later that I would like to visit Honduras, not really that I wanted to visit Honduras, but out of respect for Carlos and his heritage. Carlos directed me to not go to Honduras without him, and in that case he would only take me to certain places.
A mining engineer from my neighboring American town, I found out a year later, was working a mine tailing in Honduras and was shot dead just for being him.
A certain percentage of Hondurans are apparently racist.
Mino
Very pretty girl (I assume). Great Pyrenees are good with small dogs.
El Cid
@JGabriel: I view the U.S. foreign policy establishment of including but not being limited to the Executive and State Departments, but rather a hazy yet fairly contiguous cloud of agencies from the Executive branch, influential Congressional committees and leading Congressmen & Senators, military agencies, influential ‘think tanks’ and ‘foreign policy experts’ groups, and major news corporations and leading pundits.
So, yes, from the US FPE, sure, it’s always a choice between the options available in the real world, but, yes, they preferred a bland vaguely neo-liberal leader for Honduras such as a functional pro-big-business hack like Mexico’s Calderon, and no one in the U.S. seems to give the slightest crap that right wing ally Alvaro Uribe in Colombia changed the rules so he could be re-elected and now nearly every one of the legislative members most crucial to the approval of that re-election referendum are under investigation for being bribed into their votes.
Truth be told, though it was stupid and provocative and led directly to this coup, I’m not surprised somebody like Zelaya didn’t look at what the U.S. happily let Uribe get away with all the time and just not say, ‘F*** it, why not?’
El Cid
By the way, it must really be a coup, because I’m streaming probably the largest radio station in Honduras and they’re mostly talking about the latest soccer matches and team selections.
They just said, however, that Zelaya has been reportedly escorted out of the country, and that everything is totally, totally calm, the capital is calm, please everyone go about their business. Other reports suggest a number of street disturbances already.
Oh, and on Uribe’s totally non-bribing of the Congressmen who voted for his re-electability referendum.
Michael
Hugo Chavez has the only copy of Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate. Putin sent it to him via an ACORN intermediary. After Chavez gets done with it, he’s sending it on to Ahmadinejad, who will then send it to Kim.
SiubhanDuinne
@ geg6 / 8. When CBS Sunday Morning came on, I groaned aloud at the prospect of yet more OTT MJ coverage. But in fact the tributes and analyses have been thoughtful, even-handed, and respectful — not at all tabloidy or full of gag-worthy repetitive hagiographic gush like CNN and MSNBC. They also did nice tributes to Farrah and Ed. YMMV but I’m glad I’m watching.
El Cid
@Michael: That’s a cautious and useful outline, but how are they using the global warming fraud conspiracy to institute pagan gay marriage with cousins?
El Cid
Honduran anti-Zelaya paper La Prensa is reporting that President Zelaya has ‘left’ for Venezuela. The Organization of American States’ leader Jose Miguel Insulza has called for a meeting within hours to ‘restore democratic stability’.
Cat Lady
@J.:
Those are two fine looking kittehs. They’re clearly waiting for you to leave so they can help with the formatting and settings.
El Cid
@Brick Oven Bill: Are you actually under the impression that anyone pays attention to your crappy stream of non-consciousness emissions?
Brick Oven Bill
I like pie El Cid.
Dennis-SGMM
@El Cid:
Thank you for the update. I don’t know about the TV news but there’s almost nothing about the coup on the web yet. Odd.
Violet
@Michael:
Castro is jealous he doesn’t get to see it too. Or is he next in line after Kim? Isn’t Gaddafi getting a look at it? Or is he out of the cool kids club these days?
kay
@JGabriel:
The Washington Post printed the Sotomayor polling analysis this morning, so good for them. Better late than never.
It’s heartening for a couple of reasons. 8 in 10 Democrats, but also 2/3 of independents think she’s “about right” ideologically. There’s even a split apparent among Republicans, a clear division between hard right and center right, and that breaks on gender. Hard right Republicans have problems with women voters. Ahem.
None of the nonsense the right + media morons threw at her stuck. None of it.
That’s even more amazing considering there was virtually no push-back from rational sources, besides a single lawyer from SCOTUS blog who occasionally appeared on television with his actual case analysis. He was late out of the gate because of course it takes a little while to do an actual case analysis, when there are 150 or so cases. It’s easier to do a Gingrich, and smear her without facts.
So, I’m willing to conclude two things. 1. most people were offered no real information on Sotomayor, so have none, so give her the benefit of the doubt, and 2. most people ignored the misinformation Gingrich and Co tried to sell. Number 2 makes me very happy.
What a complete waste of time, money and energy that smear campaign was. All heat, no light, and the fire didn’t touch her.
Violet
The Honduras thing is a little concerning. I have a friend who has lived there for a long time and has essentially devoted his life to working with the disadvantaged in Tegucigalpa, especially the street kids. I hope this isn’t affecting him. He does great work and has helped a lot of kids.
El Cid
@Dennis-SGMM: All the online sources from Honduras appear to have either been overwhelmed or taken off-line. However, Venezuela-launched TeleSur is showing live images of the soldiers occupying the Presidential palace and streets and civilians arriving to argue and challenge at the gates and fences. Venezuela and Bolivia have strongly condemned the coup. TeleSur just aired the comments of I believe Zelaya’s wife.
I can’t wait for the wonderful, balanced U.S. news media to air the objective, wise, experienced, unbiased views of the man who helped turn Honduras into a death squad air base for Reagan’s Central American slaughters, former Bush Jr. administration official John Negroponte.
burnspbesq
The Pyr is saying “hey wait a minute – you promised me a proper snack. These bite-size things don’t cut it.”
The Grand Panjandrum
RE: Honduras, AP reports
:
SGEW
From th’ Beeb:
Has something changed? Was a nod given?
Porco Rosso
Didn’t I see one of your parent’s Jack Russell terriers in the video for “Total Eclipse of The Heart?” Those eyes really look familiar.
John Cole
Am I the only one to think the Honduran President looks like a Jon Lovitz SNL character?
JGabriel
Sunday Morning – The Velvet Underground
“I’ve got a feeling / I don’t want to know”
.
valdivia
while I by no means support the coup in Honduras it is important to note that this fixation by Latin American leaders (both from left and right) to change the constitution so that they can stay permanently is probably the worse political trend int he region in the last 20 years. I condemn it in Colombia, Honduras, Argentina, wherever it takes place. And one should note too that the referendum today has been ruled illegal by every political institution in the country–Judiciary, Congress, all political parties–so Zelaya was not being a paragon of political virtue by pushing for this, he was acting in his own way to disregard the law so that he could hang around. I don’t care if I like someone’s politics or not, this sort of behavior is not conducive to democratic stability. The faster the army is pulled back from any power the better, but what Honduras needs is a return to its own constitution not a constant tinkering to have someone remain in power because he simply wants to.
El Cid
@SGEW:
Today was the day of the (declared illegal or unauthorized) ‘referendum’.
So it’s obvious that the timing of the coup is connected to three things: (1) fears about the outcome of the referendum, including its mere occurrence; (2) Zelaya’s destitution last week of the chief of the Armed Forces of Honduras for refusing to assist in carrying out the referendum; and (3) the refusal of other national authorities from the Supreme Court to the Attorney General’s office to express legal authorization for the referendum.
ihop
littlest dog says she needs a bigger boat.
Dennis-SGMM
I imagine that the usual suspects are already preparing to spin the situation in Honduras as a loss for Obama and a vindication of Bush foreign policy.
And good news for John McCain, also.
smiley
@geg6:
That passage is insightful enough to lead me to believe MoDo had a latin lover herself once.
geg6
I wish I could give a smackdown like Paul Krugman. He slides the knife in while seemingly the politest, most reasonable person ever. Sadly, my smackdowns tend much more to the nasty and snarky. I must learn to cultivate my inner Paul Krugman.
JGabriel
Dennis-SGMM:
If only we had someone like Mark Sanford in there, with his vast foreign policy experience in South America!
He can see Honduras from his lover’s balcony, y’know.
.
Dennis-SGMM
@smiley:
…Marco, international man of mystery and suave god of sex and tango.
I think he just wanted to get leyenda’d.
Brick Oven Bill
Spain granted Honduras independence in 1821. Since then there have been sixteen different Constitutions. Personally, I attribute this to Neolithic evolutionary forces upon the electorate. Or perhaps Almighty God created us all with identical plastic brains and this is all Reagan’s fault.
The current Honduran Constitution was put in place in 1982, during Reagan’s first term, replacing ten years of military rule. Although I have been unable to find this Constitution online, this is an interesting document:
“Honduran constitutions are generally held to have little bearing on Honduran political reality because they are considered aspirations or ideals rather than legal instruments of a working government.”
Perhaps we should consider limiting immigration from Countries whose populations have not shown the historical ability to be governed under representative rule?
geg6
smiley: Yep. MoDo really sank her very pointy teeth into today’s column with a relish that makes me wonder how she has so much insight into Mark/Marco.
Dennis-SGMM
@JGabriel:
This is one of those times when I’m glad that I don’t watch much TV any more. The news shows will be awash with “experts” who don’t speak Spanish, have only a nodding acquaintance with the history of the region and whose only claim to expertise is that they occaisionally get a burrito at Taco Bell. That will not keep them from casting their ax grinding in terms of the events in Honduras.
valdivia
I cannot deal with all the problems with BOB’s post so I will simply say that Independence for Latin America happened because there was a war for independence raging at different times from Mexico to Argentina. The idea that independence was ‘granted’ like a freaking gift just does not reflect reality at all.
Brick Oven Bill
Honduras’ first Constitution was set in 1825. This is one hundred and eighty-three years ago. Since then there have been sixteen Honduran Constitutions in total. Dividing 183 by 16 yields the number 11, plus a fraction.
In contrast, the Honduran Constitution put in place on Reagan’s watch lasted from 1982 until now, and is arguably still in place. This is twenty-seven years, or two-and-a-half times the average lifetime of a Honduran Constitution. This accounting does not even consider those long periods of Honduran history where the military ran things and there was no Constitution in place.
Way to go Reagan.
LD50
If that was America, Zelaya would be claiming he was leaving to spend more time with his family.
Dennis-SGMM
@valdivia:
Simón Bolívar? Who’s he?
Dennis-SGMM
And/or go into rehab.
valdivia
@Dennis-SGMM:
LOL. and San Martin. or Miguel Hidalgo.
LD50
@Brick Oven Bill:
There also haven’t been any Ebola outbreaks in California during my entire life. Way to go Reagan.
Also I used to have migraines real bad when I was young, but haven’t had any for 10 years. Way to go Reagan.
Also, the price of coffee around here hasn’t gone up too much in the last several years. Way to go Reagan.
AhabTRuler
What about Bernardo O’Higgins?
Punchy
Anyone famous buy the farm today……yet?
valdivia
@AhabTRuler:
Good on you to know about him.
AhabTRuler
@Punchy: No, but with MJ, Iran, and now Honduras, CNN doesn’t know whether to shit or go blind. They have “CNN coverage” insets coming out their ears. w00t! twitterati!
Dennis-SGMM
I was just making a mental bet with myself as to how long it would take someone who doesn’t know the Boland Amendment from a bull fiddle to invoke the sainted name of Ronald Reagan.
I was way over.
gex
JRTs meet Great Pyrenees deserves video. But the pic is cute too.
AhabTRuler
Fixeteth.
gex
@Dennis-SGMM: Well of course not. It is not a country the neocons want to bomb, like Iran. If you want the US to pay attention to your coup, you really need to get yourself on the elite Axis of Evil invite list.
geg6
There is nothing that has happened ever in all of history in all the world that is in any way good that can’t be credited to St. Ronnie. Right, BOB?
Dennis-SGMM
@gex:
Guess that they should have threatened to go nuclear or at least launched a bottle rocket in the general direction of Miami.
Punchy
@AhabTRuler: Honestly, I’m not concerned with Honduras. I’m sure Kos will have a lot more to say, but I’m not eggsactly shocked that a 3rd world country suffers from 3rd world despotism.
Dennis-SGMM
@geg6:
I heard that touching Reagan’s tomb will cure dropsy.
Brick Oven Bill
Reagan established a Honduran Constitution that lasted twenty-seven years geg6. Obama, in only six months, has presided over the establishment of military rule in Honduras.
Therefore one must conclude that Reagan was a champion of liberty, and Obama is a champion of tyranny. It took 2 years for Reagan to establish liberty in Honduras and only one-quarter of that time for Obama to establish military rule in Honduras. Obama is thus more effective than Reagan in his aims.
All of this makes sense since Obama is from Kenya (tyranny) and Reagan was from Illinois (liberty).
Either this or the Honduran military views the Obama Administration as impotent and has just decided to do whatever it wants in the absence of a stabilizing world power.
This is why Russia will invade (er, send peacekeepers to provide stability in) Iran, establishing a stranglehold on European energy supplies and a warm water port.
gex
I’m guessing, despite the jpg name, that things went pretty well with the doggy meet up.
El Cid
@Brick Oven Bill: Reagan also brought a proud tradition of death squad military slaughter and murder to Honduras.
It doesn’t matter what you f***ing call the majesty of your rule of law if the military is wandering around assassinating the opposition.
F***ing brainless whackjob.
demkat620
@Brick Oven Bill: Didn’t the doctor tell you it is not good to miss your meds?
SGEW
Gosh, there sure is a lot of pie on this thread.
LD50
@demkat620:
He got out of bed too fast and fell down. He’s a little disoriented. He’s thinks it’s 1983 again.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@Brick Oven Bill:
After the warm shit of Bill’s grotesque views of history has lost its charm, we always need to step back and take a look at reality.
Odd that a spoof who lives on his ability to morph google finds into phony stories of his own adventures would fail to at least take the time to acquaint himself with the rudiments of recent Honduran history.
Reagan was a true believer in the magical thinking of Barry Goldwater and his “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” principle. That principle is nothing more than a sloganized version of “Ends Justify Means” thinking, politics, and policy. Hondurans having human rights problems? Well then, send in the Americans to counter them with some human rights problems of our own liking, as long as it advances “freedom.”
No need to worry about whether and Mom and Pop America will get wind of the horrors perpetrated in the name of “freedom” when we control the spin and the news cycles here at home.
Sorry to ruin your weekend, Bob, but your spoofy fairy tale does not feed the bulldog.
demkat620
@Punchy: Yeah apparently Billy Mays, the Oxy Clean guy.
asiangrrlMN
Holy moly that is one big, beautiful dog. I want video!
Punchy
@Punchy: God dammit. Spoke too soon.
Billy Mays, pitchman, just kicked.
Edit: looks like demkat got there first. But damn….what a week.
Dennis-SGMM
@El Cid:
There are also approximately 35,000 Salvadorans whose enjoyment of the blessings of Reaganesque liberty was cut short by dying at the hands of US supported death squads.
LD50
Given that Russia hasn’t shared a border with Iran since 1989, I’d love to hear BOB’s explanation of how Putin is going to rear his head over Iran.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Michael: But who has the Whitey tape?! Who?!!
kommrade reproductive vigor
From the AP on Honduras:
[Insert South Carolina joke here]
El Cid
@Dennis-SGMM: Yeah, but, they were already born, right? If they had been unborn, you might have a point.
Ash
@Punchy: I bet Vince the ShamWow guy killed him.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@Dennis-SGMM:
Dang it! Why didn’t we name those death squads “Freedom Squads?”
Who goofed?
El Cid
@PeopleAreNoDamnGood: We did.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
Bob Schieffer: Governor, aside from the personal matter of Sanford’s treatment of his own family values, isn’t this really about dereliction of duty, going AWOL on the duties of the governor of his state and being unreachable for almost a week?
Haley Barbour: I don’t think it’s polite to talk about people’s personal troubles this-a-way.
(paraphrased slightly, I don’t have the transcript; no meaning was harmed in the making of this paraphrase).
===//
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@El Cid:
Dang marketing department! The name didn’t stick!
Brick Oven Bill
Billy Mays was a political opponent of the Obama Administration. This is because Obama had decided to deliver gifts of Sham-Wows to heads of foreign states instead of other TV merchandise, most notably KaBooms. This triggered Mays Promotions, Inc. to organize what was rumored to be an upcoming protest.
Mays Promotions, Inc. was one of the fastest growing private companies in the US. Now he is dead of mysterious causes.
A ‘blown tire’ led to his death? You figure it out.
RIP Billy Mays.
demkat620
@Punchy: I know. What a weird week.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@Brick Oven Bill:
Funny.
Spoof tell, but funny.
LD50
@Brick Oven Bill:
Bob, Hillary killed him because he found out about her lesbian witch coven, just like Vince Foster did.
Yeesh, get with it. I thought everyone knew that by now.
anonevent
@Brick Oven Bill: Actually he died in his home.
El Cid
@Brick Oven Bill: The airplane tire industry assassinated Mays because he was next going to start marketing the Jet Airliner Tire Repair In A Can product, and they couldn’t afford the risk.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@anonevent:
Aha! And just how did an exploding airplane tire get into his home?
JK
@PeopleAreNoDamnGood:
More intellectual dishonesty from a douchebag Republican.
On This Week, Peggy Noonan saw no hypocrisy regarding Sanford because the family values message is still a laudable goal towards which everyone should aspire.
Also on This Week, Kathleen Parker was moved by the fact that Sanford is in love with his mistress and wasn’t just looking to get laid.
Dennis-SGMM
Seems appropriate to post this piece from Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler:
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
kommrade reproductive vigor
@JK: Yep. Provided you pay lip service (hur hur) to an ideal, your actions don’t count. Foley could have stuck around until he was voted out of office if he’d burped up the requisite number of Biblical quotes.
smiley
@Dennis-SGMM: That reminds me of thismore modern version.
J.
@Cat Lady (#20): Why do you think my blog looks the way it does? Btw, Flora is shedding all over my hands as I type this. : )
@Punchy and @Ash et al: You stole my Billy Mays scoop! (And yes, that would be a scoop of Oxi Clean.) I wonder if his vocal chords just gave our or if he sniffed too many household products. (Btw, police are still looking for Vince, who was recently arrested for beating up a prostitute in South Florida and sticking ShamWows in her mouth to keep her quiet.)
burnspbesq
@asiangrrlMN:
And they are fantastic companions. We have two.
Chuck Butcher
@asiangrrlMN:
I absolutely do not need for 150# of Gus to learn to be a JTR, I strongly doubt such an occurance anyhow.
kuvasz
That pix looks more like a Kuvasz than Pyrenees.
maya
J
Specifically, the sanctity of Marriage as God intended between a man and a woman and sometimes another woman.
Svensker
I ain’t talkin’.
Chuck Butcher
@kuvasz:
Looks like a small Gus, who is a Pyrenees
Mike G
On This Week, Peggy Noonan saw no hypocrisy regarding Sanford because the family values message is still a laudable goal towards which everyone should aspire.
Right, because in Republicanworld it’s *believing* in things that makes you morally superior, not your actual behavior or living up to the sanctimonious standards you like to scold other people for.
Brachiator
@JK:
She’s just an incurable romantic. Actually, her thoughts here was one of the few honest sentiments expressed over the Sanford affair. This is not, on the other hand, going to please Sanford’s wife.
On the political side, someone on one of the pundit shows noted that the Republicans might prefer to see the governor stay in office because they don’t want the Lt. Governor to get any advantage for the future gubernatorial election.
Laura W
@Brachiator:
I am 100% opposed to a cure for romantics.
That is why I go out of my way to boycott all walks and rides for the cure and never, ever, sponsor anyone who participates.
Paleo Pat
@John Cole:
Uh, John. The dude got tossed, because he wanted to run his Government like Venezuela.
You know, like Communism?
So, he got tossed.
…and the Democrats support that?
No wonder I left that party.
Sour Kraut
@kommrade:
Indeed. What’s the saying? “Hypocrisy is the tribute that Vice pays to Virtue.”