:: Sunday, May 11, 2008 ::

350

350?

If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.

James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, et al | Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?


Ya think?

Here's the Indian scientist and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [pdf] last year (and, by the way, got his job when the Bush administration, at the behest of Exxon Mobil, forced out his predecessor): "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late [pdf]. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." ... It means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way we made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.

Bill McKibben | The World at 350: A Last Chance for Civilization


Honestly?

Some of my colleagues are getting into recycling. I'm not. As usual, I have my own views on the subject. Park all cars, ground all planes, and turn off those stinking power stations. Otherwise, shut the fuck up and leave me alone. Simple really. So, when Tom Engelhardt posted Bill McKibben's The World at 350: A Last Chance for Civilization, I felt that most glorious of sensations, i.e. affirmation.

It does wonders for one's self-esteem, you know? But for more on that, you'd have to speak to Father Christopher.


I don't.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to new figures that renew fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control. Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years. ... Martin Parry, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working group on impacts, said: "Despite all the talk, the situation is getting worse. Levels of greenhouse gases continue to rise in the atmosphere and the rate of that rise is accelerating. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change and the scale of those impacts will also accelerate, until we decide to do something about it."

Guardian | World CO2 levels at record high, scientists warn

Anyway, this 350 gig is the real deal and I'm posting it because... I feel I oughta. I mean, it's not like I believe we're going to do any of this shit. It promises a future but, really, there's no money in it. And for that reason, I don't see catastrophe being averted.

Face it. People are dumb and greedy and such traits preclude radical change. Because this is so, we're toast.

When you really think about it, history is humanity. It's common enough to talk about some historical figure or failed experiment being swept into the "dustbin of history," but what if all history and that dustbin, too, go… well, where? What are we, really, without our records? Once we pass beyond them, beyond all the experience we've collected, written down, and archived since those first scratches went on clay tablets in the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates — now being stripped of their cultural patrimony — at least two unanswerable questions arise. Once history has been left in the dust, where are we? — and, who are we?

Tom Engelhardt | Bill McKibben, The Defining Moment for Climate Change

I told you, Tom. Toast.

:: Mike Golby 11:28 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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Once an Empire

Jaded glory...

Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that the elected government of Lebanon has lost. ... No, this is not a civil war. Nor is it a coup d'etat, though it meets some of the criteria. It is part of the war against America in the Middle East. The Hizbollah "must stop sowing trouble," the White House said rather meekly. Yes, like the Taliban. And al-Qa'ida. And the Iraqi insurgents. And Hamas. And who else?

Robert Fisk | Hizbollah rules west Beirut in Iran's proxy war with US


... and an Empire on blocks

There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action. The decision to go ahead with plans to attack Iran is the direct result of concerns being expressed over the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where Iranian ally Hezbollah appears to have gained the upper hand against government forces and might be able to dominate the fractious political situation.

The American Conservative | War With Iran Might Be Closer Than You Think

I've just noted, on the wall of the Nautilus building alongside the above ship — click to enlarge, that a graffiti artist has scrawled "VietNam". To what end, I've no idea. Ain't globalization a wonderful thing?

:: Mike Golby 7:42 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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Spreading democracy...

...across the street.

News people and editors were more courageous during the Vietnam War. What are they afraid of now?

Who can forget the shocking picture of the little Vietnamese girl running down a road, aflame from a napalm attack?

And who can forget the picture of South Vietnamese Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan putting a gun to the temple of a young member of the Viet Cong and executing him on a Saigon street?

I don’t remember any American outcry against the media for showing the horror of war when those photographs were published. Were we braver then? Or maybe more conscience stricken?

Seattle Post Intelligencer | People Can Handle the Truth About War

From the wells of disappointment | Where the women kneel to pray | For the grace of God in the desert here | And the desert far away: | Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Leonard Cohen | Democracy

:: Mike Golby 7:19 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Saturday, May 10, 2008 ::

Cape Wolf Packs

Cape Point Radar Station pillbox

"By late 1942, with shipping losses on the increase, some of the promised Allied radar equipment finally began to arrive. One of the great wartime secrets, the revolutionary cavity magnetron, was at the heart of two new 10 cm CD (coastal defence) radars in octagonal wooden structures which had been obtained with Schonland's influence. These were Type NT 273-S and had been made for the Royal Navy. Their small parabolic aerials projected a very narrow radar beam which was ideal for detecting U-boat conning towers and sometimes even their periscopes. One of these sets was erected on Signal Hill and the other one at Cape Point."

"He was worried about the submarine danger off Cape Point and wanted to know if we could not improve our cover. I told him we had a set in store but the site would not be ready for some time. We discussed possible improvisations and to cut a long story short with his energetic support we had a 273s working at Cape Point within two weeks and it ran there for about a year before the proper site at Rooikrans was ready."

The South African Military History Society


Cape Point lighthouse replica

During WWII, Cape Town was strategically well-placed to serve the allied forces fighting in Europe and in the East. U-boat wolf packs hunted the merchant marine convoys and troop ships that would fill Table Bay and, following a tradition established two hundred years earlier, the Cape bristled with listening posts and defensive emplacements.

Most people believe the radar station built at Cape Point by the South African Engineer Corps (SAEC) to have been an extremely small building and, with this perception seldom corrected, miss its ruins — which sprawl across the cape.

:: Mike Golby 11:42 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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Lady Liberty

ARA Libertad

ARA Libertad (Q-2) is a tall ship which serves as a school ship in the Argentine Navy. She was built in the 1950s at the Rio Santiago shipyards near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her maiden voyage was in 1962, and she continues to be a school ship with yearly instruction voyages for the graduating naval cadets.

She has just finished (April 2007) undergoing a general overhaul which includes the addition of facilities for female cadets and crew in line with current diversity policies in the Navy and the updating of the engines and navigation technology.

She participated in the celebrations of the United States Bicentennial on July 4, 1976 by sailing in parade, with many other tall ships from all over the world, on the Hudson River, in front of New York City in what was called Operation Sail.

Wikipedia | ARA Libertad (Q-2)

Shared histories...

:: Mike Golby 9:45 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Thursday, April 24, 2008 ::

The Big Five

Explosions in the Sky, El Alamein, September 1942

They say ev'rything can be replaced, | Yet ev'ry distance is not near. | So I remember ev'ry face | Of ev'ry man who put me here.

We all know the Big Five. Globalisation, peak oil, food scarcity, climate change, and global warming. Alternatively, we have the leopard, lion, rhinoceros, buffalo, and elephant.

Personally, the Big Five-Oh's been the elephant occupying my mind. I've avoided 'birthdays' to now, relating instead to the adage "You're as young or as old as you feel" — and, like most, I feel pretty good. Reasonably fit, healthy, and sane, I was always going to experience and consider the present and future as a seamless continuum.

For some reason, these photographs changed that. They'd been lying in a box for years and were scanned only recently.

Digitising the aging prints, I realised that, had we a wall on which hung a rogue's gallery of generational genetics, I'd be among the grey or sepia visages staring out at God knows what. However, had they remained in the box, they'd become the faded remnants of long-ago attempts to immortalise the living.

They'd be the memories of somebody other than the rummager and, lacking names, they'd mean nothing.

I'd hit a speed bump on my personal space-time continuum and I felt uncomfortable. The elephant had gone rogue and was destroying the suburban order of my psychic neighbourhood.

I know there's no avoiding our being forgotten and this is no exercise in trying to prolong memory. These pictures gave me something else, and what they gave me put the elephant out of mind. Merely acknowledging that these prints represent little more than items of future curiosity put everything into fresh perspective.

They hold nothing but sentimental value and belong in the box from which I had taken them — with the elephant. While I believe we remain every age we've ever been, I do acknowledge the importance of endings.

Over fifty years, I've been there, done this, thought that. I have the T-shirt and I'm comfortable in my own skin. I've no regrets and I regard our global Big Five as opportunities to learn from experiences we're all going to find uncomfortable. Quite frankly, and this has always been at the back of my mind, I want to be around when the shit hits the fan.

Now unencumbered by having to grow up through the Big Five of convention, i.e. childhood, adolescence, adulthood, marriage, kids, etc. I'm free to explore the world.

And few will pay me heed. It's a glorious thought. I've been set free to play in the fields of the Lord for as long as is my lot and fuck anybody who crosses my path.

Cracked? I don't know and it doesn't matter.


The World Is Not a Cold Dead Place, Cape Town 1974

They say ev'ry man needs protection, | They say ev'ry man must fall. | Yet I swear I see my reflection | Some place so high above this wall.

Revelling in my newfound freedom, I ran slap-bang into Frank Paynter. For those of you who know him, you'd know immediately that our meeting would demand of a rigorous re-examination of my newborn hypothesis. For those of you who don't know him, watch The Straight Story.

That's Frank. He is to blogging as Angelo Badalamenti is to David Lynch.

Disconcerted by my uncharacteristic exuberance, Frank suggested a visit to Ronni Bennett. In fact: he put it thus:

Ronni Bennett writes “Time Goes By — what it’s really like to get older.” She is conducting a survey on the universe of bloggers over 50 (”elderbloggers”).

“The goal,” she says, “is to find out what elderbloggers are like, how we may be similar and how we are different, how we relate to technology, how we came to be bloggers or blog readers, how we feel about it and what our demographics are.”

The survey is multiple choice, anonymous, and hosted at Survey Monkey (a reputable firm). There are 57 questions. It took me only a few minutes to complete.

NOTA BENE: This survey is for elderbloggers and elder blog readers who do not keep blogs. Readers and commenters are as important as bloggers to the elderblogging community and help equally to make it as lively and compelling as it is.

Now don't get me wrong — I love Frank Paynter. He is one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet and is, to put all doubt to rest, a founding member of Very Nice People.

In the far distance, I heard a trumpeting elephant. I immediately started a mail to Frank:

I've not thought of bloggers in terms of age. I count myself and those with whom I blog as 'bloggers' and the rest as Johnny Come Latelys or, for example, in the case of Selene or AKMA and Margaret's contributions to a saner, more civilized world, bloggers of the same age group as my daughters. My son, I believe I regard in much the same way as you do yours, i.e. as my equal.

Mindful of JP's recent birthday, a thought did spring to mind. I was recently a bit rocked to discover one of our fellow bloggers was a retired U.S. naval commander. His age? 50. It startled me and, thinking back on my reaction, wonder if my surprise was not a result of the cultural / national / lifestyle / geographic differences distinguishing us.

A South African, I expect to work to 65 or 70 and assume I'll need to work longer; till I drop. Until then, I compete against high unemployment (officially anywhere between 25 to 45 percent), youngsters pouring into the marketplace, changing employment practices and, in SA, an imperfect but necessary affirmative action.

In short, I cannot think of myself as 'getting on', let alone being an 'elder' anything. Nor do I regret it. I work with people I respect and admire. They're smart, sharp, and their ages belie their years. Hell, some are in their early twenties and I just don't see an "age gap." Perhaps I'm missing something ...

I was heading back to where this blog entry starts out.

Hearing the elephant climbing out of the box, I left the mail unfinished and dashed over to Ronni's to complete the questionnaire. I'm pleased I did. Having survived the shock of finding myself among ElderBloggers, I found much else on Ronni's site over which to enthuse.

A couple of weeks ago, Tom Matrullo sent me the second instalment of a friend's recollection of a trip to Southern Africa. A beautifully written essay, its author is in her eighties. Her insights and observations are those of a travel journalist sent in to get the story behind the story.

Nothing escapes her eye and as little escapes her considered and informed opinion.

In their own distinctive ways, Frank, the geriatric romper room at Very Nice People, Ronni's site, Tom's friend, my family, and my colleagues bear out my original thesis, i.e. "You're as young or as old as you feel."

Tossing the elephant a bottle of Amarula, I tipped my cap to those I know, and shuffled off to find my slippers.

I see my light come shining | From the west unto the east. | Any day now, any day now, | I shall be released.

Bob Dylan | I Shall Be Released

Oh yeah...

Labels: 50 explosions in the sky

:: Mike Golby 10:10 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 ::

Brave Dullard Bullish No More...

"He is an institution in our media community... he’s the conscience of our country."

Carte Blanche executive producer George Mazarakis

On apologising on national TV this evening for his racist article having offended detractors (including most South Africans), self-professed 'celebrity journalist' Brave Dullard confessed no regret at having written it. Disingenuously distorting Vince Maher's brilliantly provocative suggestion in the Mail & Guardian that racism might sometimes be revealed by the reading rather than the writing of contentious columns, the Sunday Times hack fired last week by editor Mondli Makhanya may some day come to view his appearance on 3 talk With Noeleen as his Britney Spears moment.

But I doubt it.

Bullard, covering his over-exposed and to now over-paid ass, smugly asserted he'd not been online since penning his pernicious piece. Denying knowledge of white-supremacist FaceBook groups (there are none) and myriad virulently racist annotators leaping to his unearned defence — and emboldened by reported job offers from several so-called leading Sough African print publications (the Independent Group's The Star picked up his latest piece), he was barely able to restrain himself from accusing the Sunday Times's editorial team and his readers of having written the execrable piece themselves.

Look, we have some great journalists in this country but our newspapers are far from world class. Dave Bullard might, given luck, contacts, and some bent and twisted acts of an unknown nature, be able to inveigle his way into a British tabloid but, as a newspaper columnist, he's sadly over-rated.

South Africans are presently engaged in an extremely healthy, sometimes volatile debate on racism and its effect on our society. Bullard, with an eye to the main chance, exploited the moment but betrayed his employers and South Africans by attempting to pass off a highly offensive piece of race hate as a 'contribution' to the debate attending one of our most dehumanising and debilitating social ills.

Perhaps more stupidly, he tried to pass himself off as a good journalist. Maher's column put paid to that little deceit.

If our media learn anything from the Brave Dullard, they should remember that engendering conflict generally leads to its realisation. Worse, poor journalism perpetuating the problems it purports to address drags our print media into a spin cycle of the sort evident on Google's news page, where thousands of publications daily bombard a gullible public with millions of words posing as substantive reportage.

The nauseatingly embarrassing U.S. presidential nominations race, the Global War of Terror, the U.S.'s impending strike against Iran, an imploding global economy, resource scarcity, irreversible environmental degradation and rumours of rain are prime examples of subjects on which a great deal of time, money, and energy are spent — while avoiding their subjects altogether.

The opportunistic likes of Bullard slither from this swamp of relativist verbiage to poison us with their words. They create a form of post-modern confusion in which it's acceptable for Thabo Mbeki to claim no crisis in Zimbabwe and for ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe to accuse the Scorpions of "...sheltering former apartheid security police intent on destroying the ruling party."

I'm keen to communicate Mantashe's comment to one of my neighbours. A lawyer in the National Prosecuting Authority whose figure would lend a svelte allure to any SAPS uniform, she has assured me the Scorpions merely followed the money.

Cutting a somewhat forlorn and pathetic figure, Dave Bullard appears to be leaving the room.

"If something goes out with my name on it I want it to be excellent."

Dave Bullard

It is, Dave, it surely is... now remember to close that door behind you.

Bullard Apologises

Following threats to approach the Labour Court, Dave Bullard comes clean and apologises to his friends and readers in a column he cannot help but lace with implicit excuses for his loathsome behaviour:

"...I offer sincere and heartfelt apologies to those who were offended, including Mondli Makhanya, my friend and former editor, whom I respect enormously. Particularly offensive to so many was the suggestion that a family who had lost a child would mourn for a week or so and then have another child.

Despite my claim that this is a fantasy SA, I realise that this was an insensitive remark to make and I humbly apologise.

The use of the term "simple tribesmen" was never intended to imply stupidity but to suggest an uncomplicated lifestyle. Nonetheless it offended my readers and therefore requires an apology. Other critics referred to my cavalier disregard for ancestor worship and one even felt that my suggestion that huts were built to catch most of the day’s sun insinuated that black people are lazy. Once again, I am sorry to have caused so much offence to so many of my regular readers."

Dave Bullard

Isn't it amazing how swiftly "celebrity journalists", drunk with a power derived from the words they wield, distance themselves from any effect their words might have? Indeed, what can one do with a person like this?

You forgive him. I know I do. That said, I don't trust the Brave Dullard to behave any differently in the future than he has in the past. But it takes a big man to climb down and, for doing so, Dave Bullard has my respect.

Labels: dave bullard clonialism racism contrition

:: Mike Golby 11:52 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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China plays its hand in Zimbabwe

It's Bullard's sort of shit that made me momentarily sceptical of Martin Welz's motivation in alerting the media earlier today to a ship, the An Yue Jiang, now in Durban harbour. It's carrying 75 tons of Chinese armaments for the Zimbabwean Defence Ministry. Welz cited Noseweek's publication date being ten days away as his reason, but I suspected publicity.

To his credit, he appeared to be the only person with detailed knowledge and documentation of the 1,500 RPGs, 3,500 mortar bombs, and three million rounds of ammunition for AK47 rifles making up Zanu-PF's cargo of electioneering materiel. Furthermore, he cited an invoice date of 10 or 11 January, indicating a delay in delivery — which possibly explains the delay in the release of that country's election results (my assumption).

My doubt was strengthened by Welz's urge to compel South African authorities to deny the arms shipment transit to the Zimbabwean border. He argued the shipment's contribution to violence in Zimbabwe could escalate, requiring SADC intervention and our troops ultimately facing the very weapons transported from Durban to Beit Bridge.

Martin Welz is our leading and most-enduring investigative journalist. His publication is required reading for both the innocent and the guilty in this crime-ravaged country. Of all people, he would know that, once alerted, government would proclaim the shipment embargoed in the interests of regional peace and stability.

The powers that be, in the country that midwifed Executive Outcomes, Sandline, Blackwater, Titan and other mercenary outfits would then — with unseeming haste, probably dispatch to Harare Antonovs stocked with an equal cargo of death and destruction.

Hell, Britain was selling weapons into Serbia and Iraq hours before going to war with those countries. During the 1982 British campaign to retake the Malvinas from Argentina, the destroyer H.M.S. Sheffield sank on being struck by a single French Exocet.

Weapons are money and know no nationality. Having comprehensively covered the arms deal now denying us electricity while sustaining many of our leaders' lifestyles, Welz should know this better than most.

I stilled my doubt. Welz alerted the media because one arms shipment denied Mugabe will mean countless lives saved.

Nevertheless, the circus that our media has become, epitomised by Bullard and redeemed in small part by the Mahers, Makhanyas, and Malalas of The Fourth Estate, leads me to seek deception in every line.

Update: If this report is to be believed, the An Yue Jiang has cleared customs. Whether or not its cargo — contravening others' sanctions on Zimbabwe, will be confiscated, remains to be seen.

However, as the weapons threaten to leave Durban for their destination, Sokwanele reports armed Chinese soldiers in the streets of Mutare.

The Chinese, together with about 70 Zimbabwean senior army officers are staying at the Holiday Inn, in the city's central business district. There are about 10 Chinese soldiers. "We were shocked to see Chinese soldiers in their full military regalia and armed with pistols checking (in) at the hotel," said one worker. "When they signed checking-in forms they did not indicate the nature of the business that they are doing and even their addresses."

While one can hardly blame the Chinese military for keeping a watchful eye on Beijing's vested interests, the timing of both the arms shipment and the presence of suspected "military advisors" in Mutare is an unlikely coincidence. I'm pretty sure their presence means Western powers, while continuing to pump out vacuous rhetoric, will now urge an "African solution" to the "Zimbabwe crisis".

South Africa will not interfere with a shipment of weapons aboard a Chinese ship that is destined for Zimbabwe, government communications head Themba Maseko said today.

"We are not in a position to act unilaterally and interfere in a trade deal between two countries," he told a media briefing.

The Times | SA won’t interfere in Zimbabwe-China arms deal

In terms of 2002's National Conventional Arms Control Act, Maseko's lying through his teeth. The guiding principles and criteria for allowing the conveyance of these arms to Zimbabwe include:

• avoid contributing to internal repression, including the systematic violation or suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms;
• avoid transfers of conventional arms to governments that systematically violate or suppress human rights and fundamental freedoms;
• avoid transfers of conventional arms that are likely to contribute to the escalation of regional military conflicts, endanger peace by introducing destabilising military capabilities into a region or otherwise contribute to regional instability;

Following the National Conventional Arms Control Committee's (NCACC) decision Monday to ship the arms to Harare many, like Ray Hartley, must be asking "...what Professor Kader Asmal, the author of the policy on arms shipments has to say?"

"Let the blood-letting begin?"

"Well, ask the Chinese ambassador. ... Durban harbour handles goods for many countries on the continent. If you say there are weapons that have arrived from China in the Durban harbour, I think you should ask the Chinese. There might be a consignment of coal that is being exported to the Congo or something; it is a port, those weapons would have had nothing to do with South Africa. I really don't know what Zimbabwe imports from China or what China imports from Zimbabwe."

Thabo Mbeki

Arms Shipment Blocked

Following receipt of a most-illuminating link from Madame Levy (a Great Daughter of Africa), which partly exposes the degree to which the South African government and our homegrown weapons manufacturers have conspired to keep Mugabe in power, I awoke from a pre-weekend power nap to an Eyewitness News item (not yet posted to the Web) reporting that a Durban court has ruled in favour of an urgent application brought by Bishop Rubin Phillip and Gerald Patrick Kearney against shipping the above arms to Zimbabwe.

"The world’s astonishment at President (Thabo) Mbeki’s political defence of Robert Mugabe will likely turn into outright anger as we are now not only denying the existence of a crisis in Zimbabwe, but also actively facilitating the arming of an increasingly despotic and desperate regime."

Rafeek Shah (DA)

Save me the indignation of politicians, most of whom appear to hold our Constitution in contempt. Give me the righteous wrath of true friends instead. And a few good journalists.

A ship that was carrying weapons and ammunition destined for Zimbabwe lifted anchor and sailed from Durban less than an hour after the Durban High Court ordered that its controversial cargo cannot be transported across South Africa to that country.

The An Yue Jiang lifted anchor between 18:00 and 19:00 on Friday evening.

Several sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the ship had set sail from the outer anchorage off the port of Durban.

News24 | Zim arms ship flees Durban

So what? Approached by the sheriff of the Durban High Court, it's safe to assume the ship's master — an employee of the state-owned Cosco Group, feared his ship being impounded. Nor does it break the rules of reason to assume such shipments have been clearing Durban harbour for years.

All in all, it seems Robert Mugabe has been protected by friends in all the right places. In short:

"President Mbeki needs to be relieved from his duty."

Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai | 567 CapeTalk and Radio 702

Labels: zimbabwe china mugabe mbeki crisis arms shipment blocked

:: Mike Golby 9:43 PM [+] :: | :: :: ::
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:: Thursday, April 10, 2008 ::

Manifest Destiny

"Go West, young man..."

We should not condone China's actions. That is why I sent a letter to President Bush urging him not to attend the Opening Ceremony and why I am co-sponsoring the Defend the Olympic Spirit Act, which restricts funding to prevent any U.S. official from attending the Olympic Opening Ceremony in China, with clear exceptions for the security of any U.S. athlete and support staff. While I support our athletes and honor their achievements, the act of removing an official U.S. presence from the Opening Ceremony will send a clear message that we do not tolerate human rights abuses.

Representative Barbara Lee (D - CA) | China's record does not reflect the Olympic spirit

I had no idea Barbara Lee existed. Were it not for the San Francisco Chronicle, my blissful ignorance of her arrogance might have persisted.

My God, how swiftly the mighty have fallen and the deceitful and duplicitous have risen. This shameless hussy is certainly aware that America's proxy warlords — her bankers, having being flying in and out of Beijing, Singapore, and several Middle Eastern countries in recent weeks in a flurry of avionic activity not seen since Henry Kissinger circled the globe, sparking genocides, wars and coups in every country sullied by the imprint of his leather soles.

No, America's bankers have not made the trip to vent their spleens at regimes incapable of matching theirs for repressive brutality — they've groveled, wept, and wheedled their way to