Blogging the democratic revolution
I forgot that my big research paper for the year is due on Monday. Oops. If anyone knows about how the Office of Unemployment in Florida (or anywhere else) works, let me know. Specifically if it saves the government more money than it puts into preventing fraudulent unemployment claims.
Carlo Stagnaro suggests that the European Union is ignoring Putin’s abuses because he signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. I’d like to add that signing on to Kyoto itself is a kind of abuse. I’m not sure if Putin will ignore it or not, but it makes the perfect excuse to put into place anti-free market measures and further government control. UPDATE: Kirk posts in the comments section: I think it is important here to note the reason why Russia decided to ratify the Kyoto Treaty in the first place – the European Union agreed to support Russia’s bid to…
Check out this chart of aid going to CIS countries. Poor Belarus — quite literally.
I was looking at my shelf of books that I have read over the past three years, and I noticed a couple in particular that I had not seen or thought about in quite a while. These are two books that helped stimulate the early growth stages of my political awareness. The first one is a book by Lawrence Eubank called The Case Against Capital. What I like about this book is that it completely refutes Marxist economic theory (and what is not to like about that?). While the fall of the Soviet Union pretty much collapsed all serious consideration…
Daniel Henninger thinks so: The Nobel Peace Prize Committee will announce its 2005 winner in October. I think that this year the voters of Iraq should receive the Nobel Peace Prize. They have already won the world’s peace prize by demonstrating in a single day a commitment not seen in our lifetime to peace, self-determination and human rights–the goals for which the Nobel Peace Prize began in 1901. Formal recognition by the Nobel Committee of what the Iraqi people did on Jan. 30 would do more to ensure the furtherance of these goals, in concrete ways, than any other imaginable…
Eurasianet offers one of the first recent interviews by new Georgia PM, Zurab Noghaideli. On another note, President Saakashvili gave his state of the nation address: Declaring Georgia “a proper state,” President Mikheil Saakashvili delivered his annual state of the nation speech to parliament on February 10. The upbeat speech was the Georgian leader????????s first detailed public statement on government policy since the death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, a leading architect of the country????????s reform program. Saakashvili asserted that the 2003 Rose Revolution that brought his administration to power had begun to accomplish its goals. “Georgia was a failed…
Nathan has today’s news update for what’s coming out of Central Asia.
From Regime Change Iran, though I wish they’d post the link to the Reuters article they cite: North Korea has sent a message of solidarity to Iran amid suspicions the reclusive communist state had boasted of having nuclear weapons to raise the stakes while U.S. attention is focused on Iran’s nuclear programmes. North Korea declared on Thursday for the first time it possessed nuclear weapons and pulled out indefinitely from six-party talks on its weapons programme, saying it needed a defence against a hostile United States. The North’s official news agency reported on Friday that two top officials had sent…
I wrote my senator, John McCain, about this around a month ago. Here are the results: The United States promised to cancel the Jackson-Vanik amendment for Ukraine, give Ukraine market economy status, and support Ukraine????????s entry into the WTO, a U.S. congressional delegation including Hillary Clinton and John McCain assured Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Friday. ???????We have received support and we expect Ukrainian hopes to come true,??????? Tymoshenko said. She said she hopes for larger U.S. financial support for programs of: healthcare, education, democratization, and development of small business. The Jackson-Vanik amendment was applied to Ukraine after the…
Donetsk is a highly Russian region in eastern Ukraine that was the home of whatever opposition Yanukovich could muster toward Yushchenko’s ascendency. Today, Yuschenko went over there to open dialogue about the corrupt mining industry and spur reforms to further the economy. Terry Rogers has the transcript. Here is the story.
John Burgess posted a roundup of news from the Arab press on the munipal elections, along with his own commentary about the articles. And the press seems very excited.
The United States will instead, as I have been predicting, defer to the regional powers: WASHINGTON (AP) – The Bush administration said Friday that it wasn’t interested in one-on-one talks with North Korea about its nuclear programs outside the six-party negotiations involving the communist nation’s neighbors. “It’s not an issue between North Korea and the United States. It’s a regional issue,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “And it’s an issue that impacts all of its neighbors.” North Korea has plenty of opportunity to talk to the United States within six-party talks, McClellan said. In an interview with a…
Looks like everything went fine: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – (KRT) – Saudi men went to the polls Thursday for the first nationwide election in the Arab world’s most conservative monarchy, though the royal family barred women from the experiment. The election passed in peace, despite fears that rebels might seek to disrupt the vote and embarrass the government on the day that the world was watching. At war with a homegrown insurgency, the ruling House of Saud is betting that a flicker of democracy – limited to local elections – might win support for the regime and ease public frustration…
Transitions Trends posts statements by the State Department that makes them look like they just don’t care. From the State Department: I don’t have anything new to say about Nepal from what we’ve said previously, which is, obviously, that the actions of the King, in summarily dismissing the government and declaring a state of emergency and taking repressive measures such as banning media and jailing political opponents, is something that we view with the greatest concern. This is what Transition Trends has to say about it: “Greatest concern”? As India is seriously threatening to suspend military aid to Nepal, all…
Kirk H. Sowell posts five reasons why you should read his blog. I suggest you do that.
Nathan has posted his daily roundup today about what’s going on in Kyrgyzstan.
Aussiegirl posts a writeup by BonnieBlueFlag, who has been informed that Yushchenko is coming to America and will be partying it up with the political and media elite. Well, I have an excellent source (Cindy Adams, NYP), who tells us today that Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine, is planning a March visit to the U.S. with his lovely American born wife, Kateryna. Kateryna (aka Katherine) Chumachenko was born of Ukrainian immigrants in Chicago, IL in 1961. Kateryna Yushchenko has been called Ukraine’s bridge to the West. Growing up she had to blend two worlds and cultures: American education and friends,…
The Iranian government has banned Seymore Hersh’s article about U.S. special forces penetrating Iran from being reprinted in newspapers.
I just came across more commentary from Iraq the Model on the assassination attempt of a democratic Iraqi politician.
When it comes to communists, at least they live up to their beliefs by working together: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said on Thursday it was troubled by Russian plans to sell Venezuela arms that U.S. officials suggest could be used to aid leftist guerrillas in Latin America. The arms pact announced last year by Venezuela’s firebrand President Hugo Chavez would give the South American OPEC member 100,000 automatic rifles and a number of helicopters. Venezuela is also evaluating Russian MiG-29 fighters as possible replacements for its F-16s. Bush administration officials have voiced increasing disquiet about the agreement in…
Abbas is quickly getting a reputation for reform: GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fired three of his top security chiefs on Thursday after militants, puncturing a cease-fire he reached with Israel, bombarded Jewish settlements in Gaza with mortar rounds. Israeli cabinet minister Ophir Pines praised Abbas for “an unprecedented step” in dismissing the three, members of Yasser Arafat’s old guard, in response to violence that flared after Tuesday’s summit in Egypt with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The United States, which has pledged renewed commitment to Middle East peacemaking after Abbas succeeded Arafat last month, also praised the dismissals.…
In case you weren’t invited to the party, here is a recap: BAGHDAD ???????? U.S. military police threw a mudwrestling party at a prison camp in Iraq and a woman who took part has been found guilty of indecent exposure and demoted, the U.S. military said on Monday. At least three female guards stripped to their underwear and wrestled each other in a paddling pool full of mud in the grounds of Camp Bucca, the biggest U.S. camp for detainees in Iraq, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said. Several guards who watched the wrestling have been reprimanded for failing to intervene.…
Well, duh: SEOUL, FEBRUARY 10: North Korea declared on Thursday, for the first time, it possessed nuclear weapons and pulled out indefinitely from six-party talks on its atomic ambitions, saying it needed a defence against a hostile US. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice played down the announcement, saying US had assumed, since the mid-1990s, that North Korea could make nuclear weapons. But she said it would only deepen its own isolation, and forego international security guarantees if it pulled out of six-party talks on its nuclear programme. The article contains a lot of international reactions. Japan downplays it as…
But Steve L.’s post about the comparison of Catholic and Marxist thought makes for good discussion, and is enough related to the theme of this site to warrant a linking! Certainly some of us supported those tax cuts with the belief that they would ultimately “grow the pie” and benefit the poor. Must that be the primary motivation? The biggest problem I have with linking Marxist ideas with Catholic thought is the role of the state. For Marx, the collective was everything. There could be no individual giving, and thus no piety could come from it. Yesterday, at an Ash…
David McDuff is reporting: Feb 02 – Estonian European MP Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the first Vice-Chairman of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, together with four colleagues nominated Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and the Ukrainian people for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. Their letter to the Nobel Foundation says that the orange revolution in Ukraine led by Yushchenko consolidated democracy and brought freedom to thousands of people. Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the Ukrainian President would be a sign that Ukraine is becoming a modern, democratic European state, the signatories of the letter find. They said that peaceful, consistent…