02/06/2011 archive

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This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and Al-Masry Al-Youm: English Edition

The Guardian has a link to Twitter from their reporters in Egypt that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 6

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English.

It has been reported in all the news media, President Barack Obama is supporting Vice President Omar Suleiman, the man that helped plan and oversee the CIA/US rendition/torture program in Egypt, to lead the transition government after Mubarak steps down. This should be not only unacceptable for the Egyptian people but for Americans, as well. As Jane Mayer points out in her article in the New Yorker, “since 1993 Suleiman has headed the feared Egyptian general intelligence service. In that capacity, he was the C.I.A.’s point man in Egypt for renditions, the covert program in which the C.I.A. snatched terror suspects from around the world and returned them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under brutal circumstances.” That Suleiman has said he would not be a candidate in September is not an valid excuse for letting this man anywhere near a transitional government. As a former CIA officer, Michael Scheuer, who helped set up the practice of rendition, said, assurances that were made by Suleiman on behalf of the Egyptian government that they would not torture, “weren’t worth a bucket of warm spit.” Yet, Obama is willing to trust this criminal.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

February 6 is the 37th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 328 days remaining until the end of the year (329 in leap years).

On this day in 1952, Elizabeth II becomes the first Queen regnant of the United Kingdom and several other realms since Queen Victoria, upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a treehouse at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, born 21 April 1926) is the Queen regnant of 16 independent sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. In addition, as Head of the Commonwealth, she is the figurehead of the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations and, as the British monarch, she is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

Elizabeth was educated privately at home. Her father, George VI, became King-Emperor of the British Empire in 1936. She began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, in which she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. After the war and Indian independence George VI’s title of Emperor of India was abandoned, and the evolution of the Empire into the Commonwealth accelerated. In 1947, Elizabeth made the first of many tours around the Commonwealth, and married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. They have four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.

In 1949, George VI became the first Head of the Commonwealth, a symbol of the free association of the independent countries comprising the Commonwealth of Nations. On his death in 1952, Elizabeth became Head of the Commonwealth, and constitutional monarch of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon. Her coronation in 1953 was the first to be televised. During her reign, which at 58 years is one of the longest for a British monarch, she became queen of 25 other countries within the Commonwealth as they gained independence. Between 1956 and 1992, half of her realms, including South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon (renamed Sri Lanka), became republics.

In 1992, which Elizabeth termed her annus horribilis (“horrible year”), two of her sons separated from their wives, her daughter divorced, and a severe fire destroyed part of Windsor Castle. Revelations on the state of her eldest son Charles’s marriage continued, and he divorced in 1996. The following year, her former daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash in Paris. The media criticised the royal family for remaining in seclusion in the days before Diana’s funeral, but Elizabeth’s personal popularity rebounded once she had appeared in public and has since remained high. Her Silver and Golden Jubilees were celebrated in 1977 and 2002 respectively, and planning for her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 is underway.

And what a week it was.  Your bloguero finds himself hiding out in Columbia County,

New York, southeast of Albany and abutting the Massachusetts border, an area deep  in winter, full of snow,  crusted of with heavy ice,  and very cold.  In two words: hard winter.

While some blogs can tell you what’s coming in the future, an attribute your bloguero  admires, The Dream Antilles can’t.  Why not?  Because in a phrase: this blog doesn’t  know what’s coming up.  Your bloguero doesn’t know what, if anything, will write itself into pixels this week.  This is just one of the blog’s many delightful but sometimes vexing idiosyncrasies, like having the comment instructions be en Espanol.   And having the videos be too narrow.   Like having many dead links in the blog list.  Like, because of the bloguero’s obvious laziness, not giving you the links to stories in this posting: you just go to The Dream Antilles and scroll down to what you’re looking for.  It is not a long way.  Like the way he refers to himself in this post in the third person, as if he were the typing Deion Sanders.

So, if you look at the past week you will find:

Bob Marley’s Birthday: He’d Be 65.  Hard to imagine, but it’s been almost thirty years since he passed on.  And he’s an icon.  So we celebrate his birthday with a video of him performing “No Woman No Cry,” one of my favorites.

Making The Independent Judiciary A Joke  complains about Clarence Thomas’s wife’s rightwing political activism as a threat to judicial independence.  Specifically, she’s selling access. The comments posted to this essay at dKos make one suspect that commenters at that blog are on the payroll of rightwing think tanks.  Prove that wrong.

Announcing An Internet Serialized Novel tells the world that our friend, the novelist Claudia Ricci, is posting a serialized version of her latest novel at Huffington Post.  This is exciting, and it might herald the return of the serialized novel to America.  

Storm Central? is an essay about what happens when bad weather detains your bloguero at home and the local NPR affiliate is on full time fund raising, which by the way persists even as you read this.  He gave, really he did, but he notices a passive aggressive tilt in the fund raising strategy.

Welcome to the Port Writers Alliance.  What a great idea.  The Dream Antilles is honored.

Enough, I Say, Enough.  Even more crummy weather increases your bloguero’s cabin fever and grouchiness.  And why on earth not?  You have to be here to understand it.

Haiku For Imbolc.  Imbolc is the cross-quarter day, February 1, half way between the start of Winter and the first day of Spring.  So we’re half the way there, but it’s still a long slog to the first snow white.

Four Haiku For Egypt.  Fed up with all of the  analysis and blibber blabber, your bloguero cuts to the chase: poetry in support of democracy and the protestors in Egypt.

This essay about what is on The Dream Antilles is a weekly Sunday morning very early digest for the Writers Port Alliance.  See you next week, if the creek don’t rise.  

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Live from Egypt, Ms Amanpour’s guest will be the US Ambassador Sameh Shoukry to Egypt. She will host special round table discussing with journalists covering the demonstrations including veteran Egyptian journalists Lamia Radi and Nadia abou el-Magd, BBC’s John Simpson, Tony Shadid of the New York Times, and ABC’s David Muir.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:Mr. Schieffer’s guests will include Martin Indyk, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, Thomas Pickering, Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Israel and Jordan, and Dr. Abderrahim Foukara, Al Jazeera, Washington and New York Bureau Chief

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s panel is Bob Woodward, The Washington Post Associate Editor, Katty Kay, BBC Washington  Correspondent, Joe Klein, TIME Columnist, and Anne Kornblut, The Washington Post, White House Correspondent.

The question are: Did the U.S. Miss Signs That Egypt Could Become a Hostile Islamic State?

Donald Rumsfeld’s Rewrite of the Iraq war

Fear the Muslims! Rummie would look good in orange.

Meet the Press with David Gregory:MTP is live from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library marking the 100th anniversary of President Reagan’s birth. Mr. Gregory’s has interviews Mohamed ElBaradei and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The round table will be former Secretary of State and Reagan White House Chief of Staff, James Baker; former Reagan speechwriter, Peggy Noonan; former Speaker of the California State Assembly and Mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown; and W.H. Correspondent for NBC News during the Reagan administration, Andrea Mitchell.

Rah, rah, St. Ronnie who laid the foundation for the economic decline of the middle class.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: As the second week of protests comes to an end, we’ll discuss America’s standing in the Middle East and what’s next for Egypt and the region with former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright — exclusive, live and in-studio.

Then, former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Edward S. Walker, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte join us again to assess the ever-changing implications for the U.S.

Plus, live reports from CNN’s team of reporters on the ground.

And, we sat down with the co-chair of the White House Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Alan Simpson. The former senator from Wyoming outlined the commission’s plan for tackling the ever-growing national debt.

War criminals and “let ’em eat cake” misogynist

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: The latest on the turmoil in Egypt with live reports from our correspondents around the country and the region.

Egyptian opposition figure Mohammed ElBaradei speaks with Fareed on situation in Egypt and what might come next. Will Mubarak leave before September? Will ElBaradei run in the upcoming elections? Stay tuned to GPS to find out.

And, Fareed’s interview with British Prime Minister David Cameron. Will his austerity measures save England? Will Britain bail out its neighbors? And who will foot the bill for the royal wedding?

There’s The Door Don’t Let Hit You On The Way Out  

Protesters in Tahrir Square are right to be sceptical despite the apparent shake-up in Egypt’s ruling party

Robert Fisk: Mubarak is going. He is on the cusp of final departure

The old man is going. The resignation last night of the leadership of the ruling Egyptian National Democratic Party – including Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal – will not appease those who want to claw the President down. But they will get their blood. The whole vast edifice of power which the NDP represented in Egypt is now a mere shell, a propaganda poster with nothing behind it.

The sight of Mubarak’s delusory new Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq telling Egyptians yesterday that things were “returning to normal” was enough to prove to the protesters in Tahrir Square – 12 days into their mass demand for the exile of the man who has ruled the country for 30 years – that the regime was made of cardboard.

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
  

• Muse in the Morning by Robyn
• Six In The Morning by mishima

Featured Essays for February 5, 2011-

• ‘Advanced’ Civilization: The Long Party is Over by Edger
• How’s that austerity thing working out for you? Part 3 by ek hornbeck
• The Eighth Wonder of the World by Edger
• I Want You – Open Thread by Edger
• All Politics Are Local by Michael Gass
• Who we are…by the numbers by Robyn
• 5,000,000 Disappeared Workers, and 20,000,000 Missing Jobs by Jacob Freeze

DocuDharma

Not so many premiers.  Shrek 3 for you Mike Myers fans.

You have some dangerous machinery for sale here; I think you’re beggin’ for trouble on this one.

• ABC Family– Toy Story, Toy Story 2
• AMC– Open Range x 2
• Animal Planet– Pit Boss (premier)
• Bravo– House marathon
• Disney– The Suite Life on Deck x 2 (all 3 parts of Twister)
• E!– William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet
• ESPN– College Hoopies, Kentucky @ Florida
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Loyola Marymount @ St. Mary’s; High School Hoopies, Bishop Gorman (Nev.) v. Long Beach Poly (Calif.)
• Food– Challenge (premier)
• FX– The Incredible Hulk
• History– Top Shot marathon
• Lifetime– Amber’s Story, Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story
• Nick– Victorious, Big Time Rush, True Jackson, VP (premiers)
• Oxygen– Glee marathon
• Sci Fi– The Cursed, Husk x 2
• TBS– Mama Mia, The Bucket List
• Turner Classic– Stand and Deliver, Ghandi
• TNT– The Dark Knight x 2
• Toon– Pokémon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions, God, the Devil and Bob
• USA– NCIS marathon
• Vs.– Bullriding

Most of this stuff is old crap my dad left behind.

Doc! You have a table over there with a sign that says- “Laser Death Ray Bargain Bin!”

Later-

Oh, it must be dreamy to have a costumed nemesis. Chasing you… wringing his gloved hands in concern of your every move.

You’re kidding, right?

It just seems so romantic.

• ABC Family– The Flintstones
• FX– Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• Oxygen– Josie and the Pussycats
• Sci Fi– Hallowed Ground
• TBS– The Holiday
• Turner Classic– Ali
• TNT– Fallen
• USA– The Pacifier
• Vs.– D-League Hoopies, 66ers at Legends

SNL– Dana Carvey and Linkin Park.

Boondocks– The Return of the King.  The Venture Brothers– Tag Sale, You’re IT!.

Sweetie, isn’t that the guy from Depeche Mode?

Oh, no way! Where? Holy crap, he’s with a girl?

Oh yeah, that guy is totally straight. I saw a whole thing about him on the VH-1.

But he’s the guy from Depeche Mode! It’s impossible.

Straight.

Come on! He’s in Depeche Mode!

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma