Today both the US and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen. In the wake of Eunuch the Crotch Bomber’s failed attempt to blow up Delta flight 253 on Christmas Day – a journey that for him began when he went to Yemen to “learn Islam”, as he told his father – an increasing amount of attention is being paid to the almost-failed state.
Pat Buchanan and others on the political right are suggesting that the Crotch Bomber should be denied pain medication to extract information from him. Bush-era Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge is suggesting that holding him in prison and trying him in federal courts – as the Bush administration did with the like-minded Shoe Bomber – is a travesty, apparently believing he should be somewhere else where we can use (sic) “more effective means” of extracting information from him.
That’s not the American Way, guys, recent evidence to the contrary. It’s the Way of other folks – the ones we traditionally fight against.
Lurking beneath the headline stories on cable news shows is the next stage of the Iranian Revolution, which continues to smolder after this summer’s uprising. Police are out in force at this moment trying to put forth the power of the military and Republican Guard in opposition to the will of the public and the religious clerics who founded the current regime.
Two-term Iranian president Mohammad Khatami had a speech interrupted by Mehdi Army thugs today, GreenUnity4Iran has video of various protests going on today and other documentary video.
“Iran 26 Dec 09 Tehran- Jamaran Inside Hosseynieh Hall”
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old young man from Nigeria, tried to make his statement by blowing up the plane he was on from Amsterdam to Detroit. According to passengers “there was a pop, and then a puff of smoke”, and then the young man was tackled by passengers and subdued.
CNN and all the news channels are providing all the information (and arguably more) that anyone could ask for. The question I have for all of you is:
“What if anything do you take away from this incident?”
Just now, the final vote requiring 60 to pass in the Senate was won – 60 to 39.
At 7am tomorrow the bill will be approved. This will be the first time that a vote has been held in the Senate on Christmas Eve since 1895.
Ho, Ho Ho! Merry Christmas!
As people line up to point out, opine upon, gloat or otherwise comment upon the President’s lack of success, in Copenhagen today he secured an agreement that prior to his arrival seemed out of the question.
I know, it’s way more fun to criticize, but sometimes you just have to stand back and admire the handiwork.
The administration announced today that some of the detainees from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will be moving to the Thomson Correction Center in Illinois. The Republican Leadership is going all out to convince the American public that:
o a US Supermax prison is not up to the task of holding terrorism suspects;
o the US system of justice is not up to the task of dealing with enemy combatants, and;
o the US cannot be made safe from Al Qaeda under any circumstances.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the No. 3 House GOP leader, said moving terrorist suspects to the United States would put the public at risk.
“The Obama administration is putting international public relations ahead of public safety,” Pence said.
Not exactly the rousing speech President Bush gave from the smoking rubble at Ground Zero, but this is the new, improved and more timid, GOP.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
AP Photo, Spencer Green
A GOP Senator and fan of Alaskan Blogger Sarah Palin has stated his intention today to stop any reform of health care under any circumstance whatsoever. Joe Liebermann (R-Sole)was quoted today as saying, “There’s nothing I enjoy more than watching poor people struggling for their last breath, alone and in fear.”
A new day dawned amid snow and fanfare in Mojave Spaceport in California Monday night. The VSS Enterprise was rolled out and unveiled to the public and given its official name, ushering in the age of commercial space flight. Along with its mothership VMS Eve, itself adorned with a nod to great aircraft of the past and their crews, VSS Enterprise will be the first private vehicle to regularly deliver individuals into space simply because they choose to go.
It is easy to see this as nothing more than a toy for the rich, but as a life-long advocate of direct human experience with the new and unknown I think this will be looked back upon as one of the key steps in liberating mankind from it’s terrestrial home. More than likely the passengers of the Enterprise will include over time not just the fabulously wealthy but also the average person who wins a ticket in a fundraising event and the retired person who chooses a trip into space as a good use for that home equity saved up over the years. Sir Richard Branson’s stated goal is to see the cost of such flights drop down to where it is the equivalent of “taking the family to the Mediterranean” – a trip not outside the bounds of many people and a cost reduction not inconceivably far from the current rates.
I say bring the sky within reach of the average person and let’s see what they do with it.
“We are not Clintonistas or Obamabots, nor Democrats, nor Republicans. We are Americans, and we’d like our country back please. We’re coming to take it.” – Travis Stark