Politics 09: Fire Reid and Steele.

[Grefter]

Fuck text book companies.  Evolve or die.  They are supposed to be capitalists.

[NotMiki]

In other news, the Governator is awesome:

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090609/tc_afp/useducationinternetcalifornia_20090609155456

Ditching textbooks in favor of digital distribution saving the state millions of dollars?  Yes please.

Yeah, gotta give the man credit for at least *trying* to solve the state's budget problems.

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Right, so this should properly be in IotD, but it's political so it's going here instead.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371046569&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

In a sign of growing concern in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government over US President Barack Obama's Middle East policies, Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled proposed Israeli sanctions on the US in a letter to cabinet ministers on Sunday.

Yeah, sanctions including:

reconsidering military and civilian purchases from the US, selling sensitive equipment that the Washington opposes distributing internationally, and allowing other countries that compete with the US to get involved with the peace process and be given a foothold for their military forces and intelligence agencies.

[Cotigo]

You... you do that, Israel.  Let's see how well that works out for you.

[metroid composite]

Bwahahaha, oh my god, the fifth largest economy in the Middle East (behind Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates) thinks it can bully America by imposing economic sanctions?  Bearing in mind that proximity is the most important variable when it comes to trade (which is why Canada is America's #1 trading partner)?  Man, why don't they just protest by flicking spitballs at the president?  Based on past precedence that would draw more attention.

[Xeroma]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090614/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear

I usually don't post in this topic, but I noticed this and it pissed me off. Thoughts?

[NotMiki]

This recent actions by NK are all about this succession business.  The US has by and large been doing the right thing by being publicly dismissive of NK's actions (though I am quite certain they are paying very, very close attention to them) and NK is ramping up the rhetoric as a result.

I must say, NK worries me.  I'm not concerned that Iran may get the bomb; its leaders may be jerks, but they're sane, and that means they're not going to nuke anyone.  NK?  Not so sure.  Kim Jong-il hasn't displayed a great understanding of the extent China is willing to let him get away with (they were not happy with the nuclear test about a year ago, for example) and I fear that, in an extreme case, they might somehow convince themselves that using a nuke could possibly be a good idea.

[InfinityDragon]

Kim Jong-il hasn't displayed a great understanding of the extent China is willing to let him get away with (they were not happy with the nuclear test about a year ago, for example) and I fear that, in an extreme case, they might somehow convince themselves that using a nuke could possibly be a good idea.

Not that Kim Jong Il is sane, but he doesn't really need to worry about China until he actually does try to strike up some type of nuclear war within the region. China doesn't want a conventional war on its doorstep, meaning it will be against any military action against North Korea for the most part.

Jong Il also doesn't need to worry about China too much because he holds Seoul in the palm of his hand. Any military action against North Korea runs the risk of North Korea's artillery firing on the city. As long as the US and other countries value a city of 25 million more than the threat of nuclear war or proliferation, North Korea can basically do what it wants. Even best cast scenarios in recent war games predict a minimal civilian death toll of 300,000+. It doesn't matter much that the United States can obliterate North Korea with ease if Seoul goes up in a cloud of smoke.

[NotMiki]

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html

Pictures from Iran.  Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets.  Apparently there was a mass of protesters on the main street in Tehran that was 5 miles long.  See #38 for a good view of that.

The Obama administration is taking a hands-off approach, taking care not to appear to be rooting for Mousavi, which might damage Mousavi's credibility at a critical juncture.  However, that doesn't mean the US is being passive.  The State Dept. contacted Twitter (Twitter! Really!) and had them reschedule an hour of maintenance downtime that would have coincided with daytime hours in Iran.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-06/iran-protests-mind-state-department-blocks-twitters-maintenance-outage

[Shale]

Not as important as the crowd shot but still big, I think, is the one of a protester helping a riot policeman get away after other protesters started attacking him. How's that for moral high ground?

[Dunefar]

That's one hell of a striking image.

[NotMiki]

Not as important as the crowd shot but still big, I think, is the one of a protester helping a riot policeman get away after other protesters started attacking him. How's that for moral high ground?

That photo is really something.  Given the right exposure, it could be iconic.  Obviously a lot of terrible things have happened, and more are surely to come, but the most inspiring thing I've yet heard come out of these protests is that over the weekend: a group of police stepped in between protesters and a gun-toting plainclothes government militia, risking their necks to prevent violence.

Best coverage I've seen so far, by the way, is HuffingtonPost's page for it, frequently updated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html

This is translated from Etemaad, a Farsi-language newspaper in Iran, with commentary following:

Yesterday a couple of the members of the Iranian parliament started asking question regarding the plainclothes security forces who have been beating the protesters in Iran.


Apparently, Abutorabi (Parliament secretary) questioned the connections of the plainclothes security forces who had earlier storm Tehran University's dorms and killed and injured students. Abutorabi claims that those individuals have been identified and says: "Why do plainclothes individuals without permission from the government get to storm the dorms?"

Then Ansari, a member of the parliament took the floor and talked about the "fact finding" committee and the fact that everyone in that comity is an Ahmadinejad supporter and therefore questioned the legitimacy of the committee.

After Ansari, Abutorabi took the floor again and continued questioning the plainclothes security forces once again. At this point Hosseinian, Koochakzadeh, and resaee, the three biggest supporters of Ahmadinejad in the parliament, started a verbal argument which ended with a number of physical fights. As a result a number of pro and anti Ahmadinejad members of the parliament join the fight and start slapping and pushing each other.

In the end, the anti Ahmadinejad block claims that they will expose the identities of those behind the plainclothes security forces.

Keep in mind that the pro and anti Ahmadinejad blocks belong to the same political party! I think the government is starting to crack up from the inside.

Also, here's a Politico piece, banged out on Monday.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23745.html

Yes, after years of massive economic mismanagement capped by a plunge in the price of oil, it's beyond belief that anyone could doubt Ahmadinejad got slightly more of the vote than last time, or that tens of millions of paper ballots can be counted in a matter of hours.  Silly me!  I guess my opinion that something strange was going on was just my myopic Western wishful thinking.

[metroid composite]

or that tens of millions of paper ballots can be counted in a matter of hours.

Hey, it happens in Canada.  (Always boggled my mind that Canadian elections seem to get resolved faster than American elections despite Canada being 100% paper ballot.  We know how to push paper?)

[Shale]

Hand-counted or machine-counted, though?

Edit: Also, bear in mind that Ahmadeinejad got 61 percent of the runoff votes in 2005. He got less than 20% in the first round. He supposedly jumped forty-fucking-percentage-points from the last race.

[metroid composite]

Hand-counted or machine-counted, though?

Hand counted.

Canada is pretty simple: Pencil.  Paper.  Mark an x.  Fold your paper and put it in the box.  Done.

Actually, the fact that we're voting for 1 thing and not 30 things probably speed things up a lot >_>

[NotMiki]

Prior elections in Iran have taken a few days to come up with the official number.  This one took 2 hours from the closing of the polls, and the Ayatollah personally endorsed the results, which is also apparently suspicious.

To be clear: the total results of the election may have shown Ahmadinejad as the winner, perhaps even by a landslide, but given the circumstances, it's not hard to believe that the official results were a complete fabrication.

[metroid composite]

This one took 2 hours from the closing of the polls

Oh, yeah I was responding to "few hours", which I assumed meant about 4-5 hours.  Even Canada doesn't do all its counting in 2 hours.

[Grefter]

Canada handles it like Australia and counts during the day of the entire election as well I assume?  We normally have pretty conclusive result by 9ish that night same day (polling closing... 7 that night I think off the top of my head?) and official results pretty much by the next day (craaaaazy tight stuff might take a little bit longer).  Also entirely paper and 100% attendance.

But yeah, that still stinks of rigged election.

[Excal]

Yeah, did a bit of election day work once and the count basically started as soon as everyone who wasn't supposed to be there got kicked out and the doors were locked.  Took about an hour to do the count and any necessary recounts, and we were all able to get out of there in time for supper and any related events we might be interested in.

That said, our recent provincial election did have one seat take a few weeks to decide.  Mostly because I think the final margin of victory was around 2 votes.

[NotMiki]

a well-respected (or so I am led to believe) statistician specializing in election fraud says the likelihood of fraud is "moderately strong."  I think that translates in layman's terms to "oh my god what a steal."

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/mebane_moderately_strong_suppo.php

[Grefter]

Yeah that is looking more and more Russian Provincial Zombies voting level fraud right there.

[NotMiki]

http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/23065/

Orwellian.  There's no other way to describe this.  Lithuania just passed the Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information.  The law forbids homosexuality from being discussed in schools, or in any public information minors may have access to.  One lawmaker who voted for it praised the law for striking a good balance -- positive and negative comments regarding homosexuality have both been banned, you see.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

...

I... goddamn, I have -absolutely no words-. Will try to reorganize my flabbergasted disdain for this piece of news into an actual opinion when I get home.

[metroid composite]

"If the teacher tried to help a homosexual pupil – if they were being bullied or ridiculed by their peers – if they told them that this child is okay and does not have a disease and it isn’t a problem, then they could get in trouble,”

Um, wow.  This reminds me of the kind of thing that would happen to the Harry Potter character Professor Umbridge.  Except for the part where it's the exact opposite of karmic justice.

The Seimas adopted the law with 67 votes for and three against.

I see.

Gay Web sites are the gay community’s main medium of communication, and he said these could be shut down.

Speaking of which, are they going to ban children from accessing the internet?  'Cause if they don't then I don't see how they will stop them from accessing websites from other countries.

[NotMiki]

Speaking of which, are they going to ban children from accessing the internet?  'Cause if they don't then I don't see how they will stop them from accessing websites from other countries.

Met, why the hell are you bringing this up?  You know as well as I do that as long as we don't talk about things that are problematic, they're not problems.

[Grefter]

Homosexual Rations have gone up from 3 grams per day to 4 grams per day.  A teaspoon of homosexual makes the medicine go down.  So swallow that teaspoon's worth and smile.