Arab League Supports Abbas, Empowering Native Americans, UN and North Korea

Paul Krugman
Yoel Marcus

"Why does the Obama administration keep looking for love in all the wrong places? Why does it go out of its way to alienate its friends, while wooing people who will never waver in their hatred?" - Paul Krugman

"It will be pathetic if the Palestinians, who have not missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, don't learn the lesson and miss again." - Yoel Marcus

Well, I'm back to being my usual grumpy and cynical self, suffering from erratic sleep patterns. My neighbors two doors down got arrested for burglary, while the cops were cleaning out their house their three cats escaped, and I've spent the last night and this morning trying to round them up. My cat, who thinks that they are invading his territory, helped me find them by attacking one every couple of hours last night. He is quite satisfied with himself, even if he has been fixed...

Yoel Marcus has a good pice on the Palestinian peace talks, punctuated by a missile fired at Israel this morning. The Arab League gave the green light to Mahmoud Abbas and his strategy of demands before sitting down in face to face negotiations. It's as if both sides are waiting to see what Uncle Sam will do next. If he was a good Uncle, he would cancel all funding of both groups until they actually negotiate. The US provides over 80% of the Palestinian Authority's funding and we sent over $3 billion yearly to Israel. Think of it as getting the donkey's attention... And still, no-one is talking about obtaining the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, guess it's more important to get those settler's houses built than one man out of prison...

Not only has BP switched out its CEO's, but its thinking of changing its name to rebuild sales. For some reason people in the US stopped buying their gas, so they might go back to the name Aramco... Turns out that BP refuses to learn from its past mistakes, having had 80% of environmental violations among all of the oil companies working in the Gulf of Mexico. Yeah, changing its name will really help with its credibility... BP has replaced its CEO with an American, who is more used to answering American reporters, and who is better at stonewalling them and telling bald-faced lies. He joins the great tradition of other American companies and should be ready for his close-up at the next congressional hearing. Already less information is being given out, and BP had turned off the cameras pointing at the wellhead for the last 3 days. Something they didn't want us to see, or rapture of the deep...


Ok, we have a glut of intelligence agencies that produce reams of reports that nobody reads, and they all want to do covert operations. Everyone wants to do the sexy stuff, playing James Bond. Imagine trying to get a federal agency like the FBI to investigate or prosecute mundane cases like rape or abuse or even drinking too much in public. Yep, it'll never happen, and that's been the problem for the last 100 years on the Indian reservations. All crime falls under federal jurisdiction, so most crime that happens on the reservations goes unpunished.

Today, President Obama changed that, with the signing of the Tribal Law and Order Act that: "... was hailed by lawmakers from both parties as the first significant update of a system of justice on reservations that dates back more than 100 years — and which took away the rights of American Indians to prosecute serious crime on their own lands." If it has taken this long for the US government to grant this much empowerment to an occupied people, I wonder how long before we allow the iraqis and Afghans to take care of themselves? Probably not in this century...

The Army released a report yesterday, on the rising suicide rate of soldiers, and, of course, put the blame everywhere but on itself: "There were a record 160 active-duty Army suicides in the year from Oct. 1, 2008, to Sept. 30, 2009. The report said that if the Army added in accidental deaths, which it said are often the result of high-risk behavior involving drinking and drugs, “less young men and women die in combat than die by their own actions.” It concluded: “We are often more dangerous to ourselves than the enemy.”


According to the Army, roughly 20 out of 100,000 soldiers have killed themselves, compared with a rate of roughly 19 out of 100,000 for the civilian population.


The report put a large part of the blame on commanders who either failed to recognize or disregarded high-risk behavior among their troops." Yeah, screw it, blame those dumb commanders whom you never taught correctly, it's their fault. And the soldier's fault for being overly-sensitive 19 year-olds, prone to suicide, anyway. Yeah, these are the kind of men I want in the Pentagon, leading my nation's armed forces, while we get rid of the better leaders like Stanley McChrystal... We really do need a purging of our national leadership, and may I suggest we begin with those irresponsible, lazy weenies in the Pentagon...

Which reminds me, things still have been bristly around the Korean peninsula. First, that South Korean ship was sunk, killing 46 onboard, and North Korea was blamed because who else could possibly have done it? The island of Dr No was ruled out years ago, thanks to British intelligence, and the damage looked like it was done by a torpedo.

The NATO troops that have been stationed in Korea since 1953, commissioned to keep the peace, were to have a series of talks with North Korea, topics included the sunk boat. But then the US and South Korea held four days of joint naval exercises, meant to scare the bejesus out of the North. It worked, with the North threatening to launch a reign of terror in nuclear weapons. Thank God that scenario never happened.

You might think that things must calm down after this display. But no, now the Chinese are launching their own air and naval exercises, they are playing with themselves, and hope to cheer up North Korea by making the heathen long-noses quake in awe of their military might. Now, because they can't top the Chinese, South Korea will run silent and run deep with some submarine exercises next week.

Whew. In the midst of all this waste of fuel, the UN Northern Command will hold those talks with North Korea on the border. Hopefully, cooler heads that are not military heads will prevail...



The BBC will air a documentary this weekend on the rise of Brazil as a source of sex tourism. An unfortunate component also is the rise of child prostitution, of boys and girls as young as 12 and 13 cruising the streets to hook up with foreigners. With all of the unrest and recent bombings in Bangkok, Brazil is now overtaking Thailand as the world's number one destination for horny European and American men. Oh, and those Canadians...