The Morning Blog

Newshour has an interview with Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit. He really has a wonderfully soothing voice. I also have to give it to him, he makes some sound points in favor of gradual change. Egypt would be foolish to drop its emergency law while 17,000 prisoners are loose in the street. However, he does take a somewhat patronizing tone. When he speaks about Egypt moving to another political phase and needing encouragement to do so, it's reminiscent of a child development specialist talking about potty training. He seems to presume a certain degree of political immaturity on the part of the citizens of one of the worlds most ancient nations.

Oh wow! UPDATE!!! Egypt's army has decided it's had quite enough of Mubarak. He's done. Now. So much for that gradual transition of power the Foreign Minister was talking about!

Looks as though the diabolical Obama administration has reduced the prison sentence of yet another terrorist! This monster will be out in two years to carry on his reign of...cooking? The guy is a cook? Why on Earth are we holding a cook? Seriously, his crime was running a kitchen. Albeit, a terrorist kitchen that I'm certain made evil falafel but still. In case you're curious, it costs a mere $650,000 a year to keep this mans cuisine out of the hands of our enemies. When this cook is released, our bill for the war on terrorist gastronomy will be approximately $7,150,000 or the total amount of money we budgeted to spend on counter-narcotics work for all of Asia, Africa and Europe in 1995.

He must be one hell of a cook.

Cricket comes to Compton.

Looks like we may very well be dealing with peak oil a whole lot sooner than later. Perfect timing. I just bought a van.

I don't understand why or how there could be a debate about this. Clearly, this is a violation of the First Amendment. 11 Californian students have been charged with crimes for standing up and loudly arguing about Israeli policy during a visit by the Israeli ambassador. The district attorneys office proposes substituting different groups in order to understand the rationale of the prosecution: the Ku Klux Klan for the protesting students and amazingly enough, Martin Luther King for the interrupted ambassador. This is so profoundly wrong it's staggering. First and foremost, the ambassador is A PUBLIC OFFICIAL. Part of serving a government is dealing with peaceful, even loud and rude protest. It's just that simple.

Speaking of public servants... Why on Earth do they keep doing this sort of thing and assume that it will never emerge publicly? It's like they thrive on humiliation.

You can go to New York City and catch a Broadway show...Or maybe catch something else...

A 15 year old played slots for an hour. Unbelievably, the universe did not come to a fiery end.

I am pleasantly surprised! Republicans are acting like grown-ups. They've pushed for massive budget cuts in order to get spending under control. They finally realized that in order for any of those cuts to be meaningful, they absolutely have to look at defense spending. Good for them! I'm glad they're facing fiscal reality!

This is a truly amazing (and very tiny), predator. It's evolved the ability to absorb and use the genes of its prey. That's pretty neat! And I am very relieved that it is just a wee beastie!

Let's fantasize that we're not in the midst of a recession and shop for real estate! Shall we go for the fort near the famous pink city of Jaipur or perhaps the palace with the elephant proof gate? Decisions, decisions....

Kacee Bait: Feel like listening to some music?

This strikes me as a very nice political evolution: Separatists unite to discuss ways towards peaceful dialogues with their respective governments to forward their republican causes. Sinn Fein, the Basque Eta as well as representatives of the Kurdish Workers Party will all be present. Specifically, they'll be looking to see if the Northern Irish model will work for other countries.

Happy Birthday Anarchist Cookbook!

Just in time for Valentine's Day.