Honeysuckle

Because we all need a little honeysuckle in the spring.  Or any time. 

[UPDATE:  I’m told that this flower is more properly known as “columbine”, but that “honeysuckle” is another name for it.  Whatever it is, it’s pretty.]

The Good Soldier Versus The Crazy Cat Lady

 

From http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/images/kiffie1.jpg

Actually, that’s a slander on crazy cat ladies. Most of them have far more sense than Mary Kiffmeyer, who up until she was voted out last November was Minnesota’s Secretary of State.

Baby-stealing.

From the Beeb:

“In the period from 1910 to 1970, it is estimated that between 10-30% of indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by government agencies in an attempt to ‘breed out’ their Aborigine blood and give them a better life.”

The story gives the poignant account of a woman who was stolen from her parents and shipped to Wales for adoption. Needless to say, she’s sore.

What’s not mentioned is that abduction of Native American children took place in the United States until at least the 1960s, although generally with older children.

Give the man a cigar. We are in a growth recession.

Nouriel Roubini has taken brutal (juvenile) criticism from the bulls for predicting a recession in the first half 0f 2007.

The revised figures for GDP are in for 1Q. Growth was a paltry 0.6% (annualized). A growth recession is when per capita national income declines, so if GDP rises more slowly than population growth, it’s a growth recession.  

A major component of that revision was the trade deficit, up to ca. $610B (annualized). Housing also subtracted. Inventories did not drop as much as anticipated. The only positive factor in the revision was consumer spending.

Nouriel says worse is to come.

Goings On In Venezuela

After several years — including a period in which the stations actively aided the Bush-backed, anti-democratic and violent military coup against him — Hugo Chavez is finally moving against the TV stations controlled by the oligarchic, Bush-aligned Caracas elite. The stations anticipated this and have for the past few weeks been sending out persons to protest, the fervor reaching a peak this week.
What’s very interesting is what you get when you read the IHT story on this all the way through to the last two paragraphs:

During a short-lived 2002 coup, RCTV and other private channels broadcast opposition calls for protests to overthrow Chavez while giving scant coverage to Chavez’s return to power amid protests by his supporters. RCTV denied wrongdoing, but critics argue that many countries would yank the license of a channel that allows government foes to openly called for a rebellion.

Thousands of Chavez supporters marched Tuesday, saying they reject an opposition attempt to stir up violence in the streets.

How long would it have taken for CBS to be forced off the air if, say, it had in December of 2000 urged Al Gore’s supporters to storm the Supreme Court in order to keep the Florida count from being shut down? (Especially if storming the Supreme Court failed and Bush still managed to get into the White House?)

We all know the answer to that one: About as long as it takes JimRob to ban someone over at FreeRepublic.

Meanwhile, there’s CNN getting caught using footage of a protest in Mexico and claiming that it was an anti-government protest in Venezuela. Ooops.

And while CNN and other pro-Bush-government media in the US help pave the way for a US invasion of Venezuela (since Condi’s apparently managed to keep Crashcart Dick Cheney from lobbing bombs at Iran, Ticky Dicky’s got an itchy trigger finger), Venezuela’s just paid off the last of its IMF loans (five years early, in fact) and has now severed all ties with both the International Enforced Economic Slavery Monetary Fund and the World Bank. (And it’s just completed the nationalization of its oil fields, a process that started when Chavez was first elected.)

Is Chavez perfect?  Not hardly.  Is he a damned sight better than his most powerful enemies — or, say, Bush buddies and fellow heads of state Pervez Musharraf or Islam Karimov?  You betcha.   (The anchors of our network newscasts certainly aren’t loudly wringing their hands on the evening news over Musharraf’s efforts to put down protests the way they were over Chavez’s efforts earlier this week.  You might see it on the web, but you won’t see it on US TV during the dinner hour.)  And none of the imperfections cited against him in the US press would matter one iota to them if he wasn’t pissing off the Bush Junta by actively working to make things better for his people and for Latin America as a whole.