AP story sez Michael Jackson's personal physician administered propofol, a heavy-duty narcotic used in hospitals and administered by IV drip, to help him sleep. It's used in hospitals because patients require continuous monitoring. According to AP's police source, Dr. Conrad Murray gave Jackson the drug sometime after midnight on June 25th, at which point The Gloved One™ became One With the Ages®. Cops found propofol, among other drugs, an IV line and oxygen tanks in Jackson's bedroom after he kicked it. There were more O2 bottles in the guardshack. Murray is the subject of a manslaughter investigation.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/28/2009 09:21 ||
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Just to make it absolutely clear, one simply does not use propofol outside a careful, monitored setting. I do conscious sedation for some procedures I do, and I only use propofol when an anesthesiologist is present and happy with the setting. We use it in the medical ICU as well, but again only with careful, continuous monitoring and 1:1 nursing care.
This is criminal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/28/2009 11:05 Comments ||
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A New Zealand swimmer got into difficulty when a friendly dolphin stopped her returning to shore. "Flipper? What are you doing?"
The woman had been swimming with the dolphin, called Moko, at Mahia Beach on the North Island. But the playful dolphin did not want the fun to end. "No, Flipper, no!"
People at a nearby cafe eventually heard her cries for help, and rowed out to her rescue. She was found, exhausted and extremely cold, clinging to a buoy. She said the dolphin had meant no harm. "He just gets that way . . . he doesn't really mean to hurt me . . . he's a good provider . . . no, I don't want a restraining order . . . ."
Posted by: Mike ||
07/28/2009 06:34 ||
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#1
Stupid hippie... dolphins are WILD animals. You're in THEIR habitat, and they swim a lot better than you. Spend a minute on 'the internets' and find out what happens to sharks when dolphins decide to ram.
Recipe By : Palm Beach Post 07/17/97
Serving Size : 2 Preparation Time :0:00
Seafood - Entrees
Amount Measure
Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ ------------------------8 Ounces Dolphin Filets
Flour Seasoned With Salt And Pepper -- for
dredging
2 Ounces Tomato Sauce
Egg Beaten With A Little Milk
Italian Bread Crumbs
Olive Oil
Shredded Mozzarella
2 Ounces Parmesan -- grated
Rinse fillets; pat dry. Dredge in flour, dip in beaten egq, then in
bread crumbs to bread the fillets. Place in pan with a little olive oil
and pan sear until lightly browned. Place fish a casserole dish or on a
baking dish and top with tomato sauce and mozzarella and Parmesan.
Bake at 350° until cheese is melted and dolphin is moist.
MIAMI (AP) -- A hospital that sent a seriously brain injured illegal immigrant back to Guatemala - over the objections of his family and legal guardian - did not act unreasonably, a jury found Monday. Under a federal law called EMTALA, hospitals that receive Medicare reimbursements are required to provide emergency care to all patients regardless of their ability to pay and must provide an acceptable discharge plan once the patient is stabilized. But the hospital couldn't find anyone in the US to take the patient. Eventually, backed by a letter from the Guatemalan government, the hospital got a Florida judge to OK the transfer to a facility in that country. The patient is now living with his mother in Guatemala. My impression of the Florida electorate just went up a few notches So the family and legal guardian couldn't take the patient here in the U.S., but they managed to sue.
#2
Yes BP. Usually a country exports its surplus, but I suspect that in this case, there are no takers. Probably because most other countries already have their own ruling class.
When Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited India last week and appealed to her hosts to limit emissions she was rebuffed. The Chinese may be a little more polite in Washington this week. But the substance of what they say is likely to be just as unyielding. The Indians and Chinese point out that the vast bulk of the CO2 already in the atmosphere has been put there by the industrialised countries of the west. China is now probably the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. But, on a per capita basis, emissions in China are still well below western levels. Why, ask the Indians and Chinese, should Americans and Europeans assume the right to continue using energy at levels that they seek to deny to poorer countries? It is a fair question.
The Indians and the Chinese have so far refused to accept binding targets on CO2 emissions. Even if they change their position during the Copenhagen negotiations – and that is far from certain – that will come at a price. The proposed deal is that rich countries essentially bribe poorer countries to cut emissions and adopt cleaner technologies. China has proposed that developed nations should all agree to contribute 1 per cent of gross domestic product to help poorer nations fight global warming.
Now imagine that you are Mr Obama trying to sell a deal like that back home. The US is running a budget deficit of 12 per cent of GDP. The Chinese are sitting on the world’s largest foreign reserves. The president would have to ask the American people to write a large cheque to China to combat global warming – while simultaneously praying that the Chinese graciously consent to keep buying American debt to fund the deficit. It does not sound like a political winner.
Even if a deal is somehow struck at Copenhagen, it will involve promised reductions of CO2 emissions that seem literally incredible. The rich countries that belong to the Group of Eight, including the US, say they want to cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 – which will mean a massive transfer to cleaner sources of energy. As Oliver Morton, the science writer, points out – “Building two terawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050 – enough to supply 10 per cent of the total carbon-free energy that’s needed – means building a large nuclear power station every week; the current worldwide rate is about five a year. A single terawatt of wind – 5 per cent of the overall requirement – requires about 4m large turbines.”
Nicholas Stern, a professor of economics, has issued an influential report arguing that the transition to a low-carbon economy is affordable and compatible with continued economic growth. Leading western politicians say that they believe this and talk airily of the “green jobs” of the future. But there is little sign that they are prepared to back their arguments with deliberate efforts to raise the cost of fossil fuels or to make the necessary investments in alternative energy. All the politicians involved in the global climate change negotiations know that a country that moves unilaterally risks severely damaging its economy, at least in the short-term – without affecting the global problem.
The state of international negotiations presents a huge dilemma for climate change activists. Most genuinely believe that a failure to achieve an international agreement in Copenhagen would be catastrophic. But they also know that, even if a deal is reached, it is likely to be feeble and ineffective. If they admit this publicly, they risk creating a climate of despair and inaction. But if they press ahead, they are putting all their energy into an approach that they must know is highly unlikely to deliver.
It is a horrible dilemma. But, in difficult situations, it is best to start by facing facts. The trouble is that – in different ways – both sides of the climate change debate are in denial.
#1
ATTENTION ALL MOONBAT CO2 FANATICS
CO2 is what plants "Breathe" to solve this (Non existent) Problem, plant weeds, grass, or leafy bushes.
While trees are nice, whatever has the most greenery (Including algae) is the best "Purifier".
You want a "SCRUBBER" here it is
It would also help if you stopped "Emitting" CO2, so off yourself to save the planet, we won't miss you.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/28/2009 13:47 Comments ||
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#2
Bamboo, RJ. Bamboo, y'all. Grows like a weed but looks good. Provides an excellent privacy screen from the neighbors. Best of all, some parts are edible.
#3
Most species of bamboo are highly invasive, so plant it in pots or behind concrete barriers unless you want the entire neighborhood to participate in your CO2 reduction scheme. Other than that, they really are a wonderful addition to the garden.
#2
I would say that pretty much explains the recent "ultra-deep" oil find off the coast of Brazil about 4-1/2 miles under the earth's surface in rocks that should never have been exposed to the surface. The 6,000 feet of salt above the oil find would have come from when Africa and South America were rifting apart and sea water would break in to the rift and be evaporated. Basically, any rocks in the Atlantic that are beyond the continental shelves of South America and Africa have never had surface vegetation since the "mid-atlantic ridge" formed.
#5
Which gets back to an inconvenient point that the 'experts' are still hypothesizing about how oil really formed. No one knows with absolute certainty.
#6
Thomas Gold has pushed this theory for a while.
Deep Brazilian find does not require it - actually pretty classical set-up: proto-rift holds nutrient-rich lakes and seas that grow lots of source biota, with anoxic bottom waters that preserve them when they die & sink. Potential reservoir rocks (perhaps sand dunes, perhaps carbonate reefs) are deposited. The seas are periodically sealed off and evaporate, leaving salt layers that make outstanding seals to keep any oil and gas from escaping (salt provides the superb seals in Iran and Kazahkstan that hold thousands of feet of oil and gas column trapped.) Continued subsidence and burial leads to heating and pressurizing of the source biota to where oil, and then gas are generated. The part that surprises me is that the rocks were not overcooked to the point of destroying the oil.
There are however some good arguements to support the deep Earth source concept for SOME accumulations though. Some West Texas (and I think Russian) gas fields contain very unusual concentrations of Helium, which must have come through deep Earth outgassing, as far as anyone has proposed. That doesn't mean the methane and ethane did too - just that they got caught by the same seal. And I have seen some claims of (traces of) hydrocarbons in deep boreholes into non-sedimentary rocks - could be deep Earth outgassing source.
But marker geochemistry, basin analysis, and other oil science seems to pretty well explain 99.9% of commercial oil and gas accumulations through biologic processes.
#7
The Russkies had this idea for a long time, but it was advocated in the US most famously by Thomas Gold. I heard a talk by him at Fermilab in the IIRC early 90s. Very interesting, but not compelling. I'm not surprised that abiotic oil is possible, but that doesn't mean it is the main source of petroleum deposits.
#8
At 4 miles deep the temperature must be upwards of 400F.
Ouch.
Posted by: Lord garth ||
07/28/2009 8:43 Comments ||
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#9
Salt is a relatively good thermal conductor (for a 'rock') and so the reservoirs just below it should be a little less hot than normal thermal gradients would predict, apparantly enough to keep the oil from degrading to badly.
#10
The Russians seem to have a great deal of expertise in the matter of high pressure hydrocarbons. In Soviet times, they made quite a bit of hard cash by selling gem diamonds. De Beers had to pay out to protect the monopoly. Many folks, including some at CIA, wondered if the Russians had perfected manufacture of gem diamonds.
#11
wondered if the Russians had perfected manufacture of gem diamonds.
Or Russia sits on the Siberian Traps just loaded with all sorts of deep earth minerals.
Posted by: ed ||
07/28/2009 14:39 Comments ||
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#12
there is no such thing as fossil fuel, only misidentification of its origins.
Titan has a surface covered in hydrocarbons of all types. no rottend plants or animals under pressure had anything what sover to do with any oil any where.
Meteor impacts left vast pools of oil exposed on jupiter which disappeared in about 8 months later. Last week another impactor created even more oil which will take some time but it too will seep into the fractures left post impact.
all oil is a by product of catastrophe physics be they meteor impacts or earthquake related.
the universe is teaming with heavy hydrocarbons...all because of the transitions which occur after mega collisions have occurred.
there is no fossils in fossil fuel only contaminents within rocks that oil might pass during its flow or holding periods.
#13
Ya lost me when you mentioned large pools of oil exposed on Jupiter. The surface of Jupiter has never been viewed - that is if there is a surface.
Interesting Jupiter surface tidbit - some theorize any possible solid core of Jupiter could be surrounded by a layer of diamond. A BIG layer of diamond.
#14
last weeks impact as viewed by telescopes. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-112
When shoemaker Levy the misidentified astroid string hit Jupiter it left earth size black ozz, oil that is, that stayed visible for 8 months before seeping into the fisures created by the impacts.
Last weeks event produced the same stuff....
oil that is, texas tea, black gold...the next thing ya know hellfish is a millionaire, kin folks say, hell move away from here, so hell packs up his family and moves to Titan where the oils as thick as hells kitchen.
[Mail and Globe] Liberia's former president, Charles Taylor, on Monday denied that he had ever eaten human flesh or ordered his fighters to do so as he answered allegations of cannibalism at his war-crimes trial. "It is sickening. You must be sick to believe it," the one-time warlord testified in the Special Court for Sierra Leone, sitting in The Hague. "It makes you feel like throwing up." I wonder if Prince Johnson would have the same opinion about his treatment of Samuel Doe? But that's on videotape, so maybe not.
Taylor (61) said he could not dispute that there were cannibals in certain parts of Liberia, but claims that he was among them were "total nonsense". "Tut tut, my good man! Me? Eat a political enemy? Pshaw!"
A witness had testified at the trial that he ate human flesh with Taylor at a gathering of a secret society, Poro. "It never happened," the ex-president retorted, adding: "I never ordered any combatant to eat anyone."
Some witnesses have told the court that combatants of Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia had committed cannibalism to instil fear in civilians in the West African nation.
The former leader and warlord took the stand in his own defence on July 14, dismissing as "lies" charges of murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers, enslavement and pillaging against him. Much of the documentation for those acts is also on videotape and one or two have pictures that have appeared on Rantburg.
He has been on trial since January 2008 on 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from the brutal 1991 to 2001 civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone, whose rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) he is accused of arming in exchange for so-called "blood diamonds". Too bad. I used to love his sneakers...
Posted by: Fred ||
07/28/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Yeah, he has rolls of film and plenty of witness.
#3
Lucifer's Hammer wasn't what I first thought of:
Ain't logical. Cuttin' on his own face, rapin' and murdering - Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid. But these Reavers... last ten years they show up like the bogeyman from stories. Eating people alive? Where's that get fun?
[Bangla Daily Star] Over a hundred businessmen yesterday laid siege to Bogra Sadar Police Station demanding legal action against district Jubo League member Feroz Khan for torturing Baro Masjid Lane businessmen Korban Mollah and his son Babu.
Earlier, they staged demonstrations in front of the offices of deputy commissioner (DC) and superintendent of police (SP) on the same demand as the Jubo League man went into hiding following the incident.
Jahangir Alam, officer-in-charge of Sadar Police Station, confirmed the incident and said the allegations made against Feroz Khan by the businessmen include brandishing firearms publicly and threatening the businessmen.
Baro Masjid market businessmen alleged that Feroz demanded tolls from the businessmen of the market a few days back. As the businessmen protested it, Feroz and his accomplices attacked Korban Ali and his son Babu Sunday night.
Injured Babu was admitted to Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College Hospital.
Rashedul Islam, general secretary of Baro Masjid Lane Businessmen's Association, said the businessmen kept their shops closed yesterday on the same demand.
He said Feroz and his accomplices attacked Korban Mollah and his son Babu and looted cash from their shop.
District Jubo League General Secretary Sagor Kumar Roy said Feroz Khan is involved with their organisation but he does not hold any important post.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/28/2009 00:00 ||
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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is planning to issue a report next month that suggests that wild swings in oil prices were significantly driven by speculators, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Tuesday.
A 2008 report by the main U.S. futures-market regulator that attributed oil-price swings primarily on supply and demand was based on "deeply flawed data," Bart Chilton, one of four CFTC commissioners, told the paper in an interview on Monday. The CFTC did not reveal preliminary figures from the report to the paper and declined to discuss the previous data. Reuters attempts to contact the agency outside regular U.S. business hours were unsuccessful.
The CFTC will hold the first of three hearings on Tuesday to consider whether to limit holdings of energy and agricultural contracts and whether some traders should be allowed to exceed so-called position limits.
AP story sez Bank of America's CEO, Ken Lewis, has said he's planning on shrinking the bank's 6100 branches by ten percent, citing a Wall Street Journal story. Liam McGee, president of BoA's consumer and small business bank, blames people's preference shift to online and mobile banking.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/28/2009 09:39 ||
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#1
No McGee, BoA is full of crooks and incompetents so you lose customers to other banks who also offer online banking.
They auto enrolled me in one of their programs and hustled me out of $150, but lost a customer for life. They can go stick it up their ass, the sooner that zombie dies the sooner smaller banks can take their artificially inflated territory and start doing some good work.
#2
Bank of America has too damn many branches, if what I saw in Jersey was any sample. Every third traffic light in some parts of central Jersey features a Bank of America branch with an empty-looking parking lot outside.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/28/2009 18:10 Comments ||
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#2
Guided missile destroyers with a 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/28/2009 6:41 Comments ||
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#3
Will these be Burke class ships, or something else?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/28/2009 8:34 Comments ||
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#4
Probably something about 2/3 the size of a Burke.
And the article is wrong:
Cho said it is thought to be very rare for Lockheed to partner with a foreign company to produce Aegis-equipped vessels for possible sale to a third country.
They already provide the aegis systems for the norwegian frigates built in Spain, and the Australian destroyers licensed from Spain.
Posted by: ed ||
07/28/2009 14:28 Comments ||
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#7
It's Korea, lagom. for a while there I was nuking my food & driving my ass around in machines made by the same heavy industrial concern - Daewoo. I miss that car - it got gas mileage like a Prius, til some hit-and-run asshole totaled it parked outside of my apartment building.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/28/2009 18:17 Comments ||
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#8
Gas, Oil, Electronics, Shipbuilding. I did not know those things. Hyundai looks like a Korean Haliburton.
#9
Hyundai owned the company I used to work for (Symbios Logic - maker of SCSI devices and silacon chips) for a short time - 1998-99, I believe. They later sold it to LSI in California, and the name changed to LSI Logic. LSI still runs a chip manufacturing facility here in Colorado Springs, and their SCSI facilities are split between here and Kansas. Hyundai wanted Symbios for its Firewire technology. When it was plain to even them that USB showed more promise than Firewire, they sold out.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/28/2009 22:37 Comments ||
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European Union nations decided Tuesday to impose anti-dumping duties on US biodiesel imports, which are suspected to be heavily subsidised, an EU diplomat said Tuesday. The proposal, by the European Commission, was adopted by the 27-country bloc's finance ministers at a meeting in Brussels, the diplomat said, on condition of anonymity.
The duties, to come into force by July 12, range from 23 euros (32 dollars) to 41 euros per 100 kilogrammes (160 pounds) and would last for up to five years.
The stakes are high as biodiesel represents around 80 percent of the total production in Europe of biofuels, which have become an important pillar of the EU's efforts to fight global warming.
US biodiesel accounts for most of this fuel imported into the EU.
The commission launched an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probe into US biofuels in June 2008 after industry lobby the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) complained the EU market was being flooded with heavily subsidised US imports. While both the United States and the EU support the use of biofuels, the group claims that US biodiesel is being sold at below US producers' costs thanks to generous subsidies.
It estimated in January that US exports of a particular biodiesel blend known as B99 had surged by 40 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, which it said was threatening the viability of European producers.
#4
Has anyone thought to ask why it is legal to export a product subsidized for domestic production & consumption?
Clarified, export a subsidized product for Profit??
Must have been the language in the last 1000-page bill that wasn't read...
#5
logi-cal - trust me, you don't want us moving towards a situation where everything which isn't authorized is illegal. Subsidies are asinine, for reasons such as this. Trying to legislate your unintended consequences merely piles tyranny & additional theft on top of idiocy, incompetence, ideology, and theft.
Repeal the subsidy, don't try and prosecute the clever for exploiting your mistakes.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/28/2009 18:21 Comments ||
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#6
Right, Europeans wouldn't want to rely on a fuel supply from a potentially undependable partner ... oh, wait ...
#2
Apparently they never launched it, that I can tell. They had various technical problems that forced them to abort the launch three times so they scrubbed the test. I wouldn't exactly call that a "serious" setback, that is pretty much the normal course of events with new systems.
Posted in this detail because the site is currently experiencing the Slashdot Effect
Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world's most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.
They report that a short pulse from the FLASH laser 'knocked out' a core electron from every aluminium atom in a sample without disrupting the metal's crystalline structure. This turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.
''What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before,' said Professor Justin Wark of Oxford University's Department of Physics, one of the authors of the paper. 'Transparent aluminium is just the start. The physical properties of the matter we are creating are relevant to the conditions inside large planets, and we also hope that by studying it we can gain a greater understanding of what is going on during the creation of 'miniature stars' created by high-power laser implosions, which may one day allow the power of nuclear fusion to be harnessed here on Earth.'
#8
Aluminum will stretch not shatter, but can be scratched easier than glss, Don't look for aluminum windshields anytime soon.
And reading closely, it's only Invisible to infrared.
Much work still to be done.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/28/2009 17:40 Comments ||
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#9
Science Daily article, in some detail. Sounds like the effect was infinitesimally short, and the new state of matter was that they temporarily knocked some of the electrons out of the aluminum matrix. Funky, but very brief.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/28/2009 18:01 Comments ||
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#10
captian there be whales
Posted by: Dan ||
07/28/2009 19:35 Comments ||
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#11
And reading closely, it's only Invisible to infrared.
Extreme ultra-violet. So, not so useful for making whale tanks, or windshields either.
The Department of Energy has denied USEC Inc.'s application for a $2 billion loan guarantee, and the company has started "demobilizing" the American Centrifuge Project, which currently employs about 450 at its Oak Ridge manufacturing site.
USEC Chief Executive Officer John K.Welch, after learning that DOE would not grant the loan guarantee, made this statement today:
"We are shocked and disappointed by DOE's decision. The American Centrifuge met the original intent of the loan guarantee program in that it would have used an innovative, but proven, technology, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and created thousands of immediate jobs across the United States. USEC was the beneficiary of court decisions that allowed limiting import of Russian enriched U, so the company may have thought it was on a win streak - also fwiw, the US imports a lot of enriched U
"Our application has been pending for a year, and we have addressed any concerns the department raised. Technically, we operated the American Centrifuge technology in a lead cascade for approximately 235,000 machine hours. Financially, we have invested $1.5 billion dollars in the project and offered $1 billion of additional corporate support. It is unclear how DOE expects to find innovative technologies that assume zero risk, but the American Centrifuge clearly meets the energy security and climate change goals of the Obama administration."
The company has been pushing every button possible in recent months to save the multi-billion-dollar uranium-enrichment project under construction at Piketon, Ohio, and had threatened to start scaling down the work if DOE didn't proceed. Elected officials from Tennessee, including Gov. Phil Bredesen, U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, and U.S. Reps. Zach Wamp and Lincoln Davis, had gone to bat for USEC and urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to intervene and help back the program touted as a key part of the nation's nuclear renaissance.
Posted by: Lord garth ||
07/28/2009 12:33 ||
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#1
It's not like the US needs energy production. How long before Obama asks his good buddies in Tehran if we can import some of their enriched uranium.
Posted by: ed ||
07/28/2009 14:57 Comments ||
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#2
Current leadership can be modeled by brownian motion.
#4
Nuclear energy in the US is not practical as there's no place to safely store waste. Obama MADE SURE OF THAT when he ordered Yucca Mountain shut down.
[Straits Times] INDONESIA'S vice president, who ran against President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in elections this month and lost, on Monday filed a lawsuit demanding that the results be annulled, citing inaccurate voter lists.
Dr Yudhoyono won 60.8 per cent of the votes in the July 8 presidential election, according to the official count by the General Election Commission (KPU). Vice President Jusuf Kalla won 12.41 per cent of the votes, and former President Megawati Sukarnoputri got 26.79 per cent.
Those results were in line with many of the opinion polls and election quick count results, but both Megawati and Kalla had said they would challenge the results. Analysts do not expect these challenges to affect the election outcome.
Complaints by Mdm Megawati and Mr Kalla of voter list irregularities dogged the final hours before the actual election, and in the end, the authorities allowed those whose names did not appear on the electoral rolls to use their identity cards in order to vote.
'We want the KPU's decision to be cancelled. If it is cancelled, it means the election has to be repeated,' said Andi Muhammad Asrun, one of the lawyers from Mr Kalla's legal team.
The constitutional court accepted the lawsuit and a clerk at the court said that the first hearing was set for August 4.
Mdm Megawati's legal team also plans to file a similar suit to the constitutional court on Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/28/2009 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] PHILIPPINE President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, faced with the prospect of civil unrest unless she steps down at the end of her term, vowed on Monday not to try to extend her time in office. In her last state of the nation address, she defended her record during her turbulent 8 1/2 years in power but assured lawmakers she would not lift term limits set by the constitution.
'I have never expressed the desire to extend myself beyond my term,' Mrs Arroyo said. 'At the end of this speech I shall step down from this stage ... but not from the presidency. My term does not end until next year.'
She also said she will defend democracy when threatened by violence in her last months in power - a clear warning to anyone plotting to remove her by force.
The 62-year-old US-trained economist has survived four coup attempts and four impeachment bids since 2001. Her opponents have accused her of maneuvering to extend her six-year term either by amending the country's 1987 constitution to lift term limits or by imposing martial law.
Riot police used trucks, barbed wire and shipping containers to block more than 10,000 people who braved the rain to protest outside the House of Representatives, where Mrs Arroyo gave her hour-long annual speech. Protest leaders warned Mrs Arroyo of public unrest if she clings to power.
'Ms Arroyo's political maneuvers ... to perpetuate herself in power will surely face the people's wrath,' said leftist Rep. Rafael Mariano, who boycotted Mrs Arroyo's speech and joined the protesters.
The rowdy demonstrators set on fire a huge effigy of Mrs Arroyo, who was depicted as a decomposing figure in a red dress atop a military tank labeled 'Gloria Forever'.
A huge streamer read, 'Gloria, you're history.' Eleven priests in white cassocks held letters that formed the phrase, 'Enough of GMA,' Arroyo's initials.
Mrs Arroyo said her government's fiscal measures protected the country's economy from the global financial meltdown. She also praised her achievements in getting close to a balanced budget, ensuring education for all, next year's automated elections, improved infrastructure and initiating fresh peace bids with Muslim and communist rebels.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/28/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Here's one woman who is probably keeping a very close watch on Honduras and its ex-president.
She's claimed before that she would not seek another term - only to change her mind later.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
When Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited India last week and appealed to her hosts to limit emissions she was rebuffed. The Chinese may be a little more polite in Washington this week. But the substance of what they say is likely to be just as unyielding. The Indians and Chinese point out that the vast bulk of the CO2 already in the atmosphere has been put there by the industrialised countries of the west. China is now probably the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. But, on a per capita basis, emissions in China are still well below western levels. Why, ask the Indians and Chinese, should Americans and Europeans assume the right to continue using energy at levels that they seek to deny to poorer countries? It is a fair question.
[Mail and Globe] Liberia's former president, Charles Taylor, on Monday denied that he had ever eaten human flesh or ordered his fighters to do so as he answered allegations of cannibalism at his war-crimes trial. "It is sickening. You must be sick to believe it," the one-time warlord testified in the Special Court for Sierra Leone, sitting in The Hague. "It makes you feel like throwing up."
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is planning to issue a report next month that suggests that wild swings in oil prices were significantly driven by speculators, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Tuesday.
