Titide has landed!

Randal Archibold, of the soon-to-be-paywalled NYT:

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former priest who rose to become the nation’s first democratically elected president before being forced into exile twice, returned home…

Archibold (or his editor), fronting for the State Department adds this:

Amid an armed uprising, led in part by former members of the Haitian Army that Mr. Aristide had disbanded, he left Haiti on Feb. 29, 2004. He has said American diplomats kidnapped him, but the United States has long denied the accusation.

Actually, he has said that American diplomats and military kidnapped both him and his security force using as a threat US-trained “rebels” widely believed to be in the employ of the CIA, with an additional threat the US military forces that surrounded the presidential residence. I guess that doesn’t meet the NYT’s style guidelines.

But at last Haiti has a leader who may be able to end the ineptitude of the non-profits under Sultan Clinton and rally the people to rebuild this shattered nation.

A Groucho Marxist view of the world

Via Adrienne, a humorous take on how and why capitalism also doesn’t seem to work particularly well, by Slavoj Zizek:

Friday Cat Blogging

CAT-TV, now with Sensurround!

Japanese Wind Farms Unharmed By Quake or Tsunami, Putting Out Lots Of Power

Copyright New Energy Foundation (Japan)

The fledgling Japanese wind industry just passed a major, and unplanned, test — it’s not only survived the one-two punch of earthquake and tsunami, but done so without so much as a scratch:

I’ve been directly corresponding with Yoshinori Ueda leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association & Japan Wind Energy Association, and according to Ueda there has been no wind damage reported by any association members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami. Even the Kamisu semi-offshore wind farm, located about 300km from the epicenter of the quake, survived. Its anti-earthquake “battle proof design” came through with flying colors.

Mr. Ueda confirms that most Japanese wind turbines are fully operational. Indeed, he says that electric companies have asked wind farm owners to step up operations as much as possible in order to make up for shortages in the eastern part of the country…

The only wind farms that are offline because of the quake and tsunami are offline solely because of grid damage; the farms themselves are intact and capable of full operations once the grid is restored.

(Crossposted to Renaissance Post.)