Tuesday's Quickie
Alito filibuster is broken, badly... 72-25 with 3 members not voting. Man, that's gotta sting, I mean thats not even a show of force in the end by the democrats. Shit, the latest polls in the public are 2-1 for confirmation. Even more embarrassing that Kennedy and Kerry both said they are sure they are not going to win the filibuster but wanted to make a statement. The statement was that you got your ass kicked guys. Vote should be today I think, and Judge will be Justice.
Next issue we have to deal with is Iran. A few days ahead of the IAEA meeting, the 5 permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have agreed to recommend taking Iran to the Security Council. This is a big development for Iran because Russia was formerly helping them out and deflecting a good deal of problems. Now thats less of the case. Iran has called this the end of diplomacy if it happens according to CNN. Iran has been attempting to push this move off by threatening world oil prices, but strangely have stepped off this platform. This might be a tactically bad move since it loses their only good advantage, but strategically it might be good because that would force the world to react much faster.
Bush's State of the Union speech is tonite. Its said to be much more low key than last years. Probably a good idea since the social security reform idea was DOA. See this cool link here on the State of the Enemy. The only really important thing on the domestic side of the address for me he is going to touch on is energy. Since I am now taking a course in "Energy Sources and Utilization" this impacts me pretty good. I am hoping to hear about a concerted effort to put new nuclear power plants online and different options for transportation. Nuke power isn't really an option there, but natural gas as well as hydrogen, even more bio-diesel are all options I want to be explored a lot more. I would be thrilled to see the US cut its energy dependence of Petroleum in half in the next 10-20 years. We currently use 27 Quadrillion BTUs worth of energy from petroleum each year, and half of that is imported. If we get out of that market into a new source, that would do great things for environmental and political problems. Especially with India's and China's rising demand for it.
As we all know now, Hamas won the elections. Now comes the sticky problem. Funding. As in Palestine, most of the money comes in the form of aid. 900 million of that comes from the US and EU combined and additional comes from the United Nations and Russia for the primary amount. All 4 countries have said that funding will have to be review unless Hamas 1) Recognizes Israel's right to exist, and 2) Must renounce the use of violence against Israel. Both of these things are part of the founding charter of Hamas which has taken credit for several hundred deaths of Israeli citizens from suicide bombings. Hamas has come out and said they will "Not be blackmailed into making any changes or concessions." Further complicating issues is that the EU and US have designated Hamas a terrorist organization. That makes it pretty much illegal to send them any money at all and if the UN still wanted to, it might be illegal for the US to fund the UN. Very sticky and a lose of money there could have either really good (cause it will cause a total rethinking process of the Infitada) or really bad effects (lots of starvation and even more hatred of everyone else). Next few should be interesting.
So thats the big news for now, enjoy it, hate it, spit on it. It'll probably all change tomorrow!
Next issue we have to deal with is Iran. A few days ahead of the IAEA meeting, the 5 permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have agreed to recommend taking Iran to the Security Council. This is a big development for Iran because Russia was formerly helping them out and deflecting a good deal of problems. Now thats less of the case. Iran has called this the end of diplomacy if it happens according to CNN. Iran has been attempting to push this move off by threatening world oil prices, but strangely have stepped off this platform. This might be a tactically bad move since it loses their only good advantage, but strategically it might be good because that would force the world to react much faster.
Bush's State of the Union speech is tonite. Its said to be much more low key than last years. Probably a good idea since the social security reform idea was DOA. See this cool link here on the State of the Enemy. The only really important thing on the domestic side of the address for me he is going to touch on is energy. Since I am now taking a course in "Energy Sources and Utilization" this impacts me pretty good. I am hoping to hear about a concerted effort to put new nuclear power plants online and different options for transportation. Nuke power isn't really an option there, but natural gas as well as hydrogen, even more bio-diesel are all options I want to be explored a lot more. I would be thrilled to see the US cut its energy dependence of Petroleum in half in the next 10-20 years. We currently use 27 Quadrillion BTUs worth of energy from petroleum each year, and half of that is imported. If we get out of that market into a new source, that would do great things for environmental and political problems. Especially with India's and China's rising demand for it.
As we all know now, Hamas won the elections. Now comes the sticky problem. Funding. As in Palestine, most of the money comes in the form of aid. 900 million of that comes from the US and EU combined and additional comes from the United Nations and Russia for the primary amount. All 4 countries have said that funding will have to be review unless Hamas 1) Recognizes Israel's right to exist, and 2) Must renounce the use of violence against Israel. Both of these things are part of the founding charter of Hamas which has taken credit for several hundred deaths of Israeli citizens from suicide bombings. Hamas has come out and said they will "Not be blackmailed into making any changes or concessions." Further complicating issues is that the EU and US have designated Hamas a terrorist organization. That makes it pretty much illegal to send them any money at all and if the UN still wanted to, it might be illegal for the US to fund the UN. Very sticky and a lose of money there could have either really good (cause it will cause a total rethinking process of the Infitada) or really bad effects (lots of starvation and even more hatred of everyone else). Next few should be interesting.
So thats the big news for now, enjoy it, hate it, spit on it. It'll probably all change tomorrow!
posted by Maddawg at 1/31/2006 09:23:00 AM
1 Comments:
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