My Views This Week

(10 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Cross-posted at Progressive Blue, Docudharma and even the Big O.

What a tough week this has been, the Yankees were out of it and the Jets had a buy week. To make matters even worse the right wing corporate home team got the great shellacking by the visitors from beyond the right field wall. But I was walking around with the old camera and taking photos. Plenty of photos, plenty of back lighting.

I spent the week with a familiar song locked in my head, the lyric “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” After the past two years I could never again come up with a reason to support a Dem but without the tradition of photography I would be a shaky as a fiddler on a roof. So during that fabulous Jets win, I slapped together a few photos from the week.  

One place I walked this week was the North Woods of Central Park. The first thing I encountered was an abandoned bicycle. It was sort of emotional, not because America had abandoned environmental action on Tuesday, the Democrats did not exactly represent Green guidance. I thought the forgotten toy to be a metaphor for progressive values in this nation.

 

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

I don’t think so but Central Park is beautiful this time of year.

Did you know that we have a geyser in Manhattan? We do and there always seems to be a bird in the shot too.  

That short Democratic dynasty was not the only ending last week. “Big Bambú: You Can’t, You Don’t and You Won’t Stop,” it stopped!

That whole new Democratic dynamic lopped off at one fell swoop.

Oh my.

Well no use crying over spilled Democrats.

Or you can always look on the bright side. Republicans can’t say Obama isn’t creating jobs after he put all of those Republicans to work on Tuesday. And 19 state governments too just in time for the next gerrymandering season.

But I was fond of the fact that the wisteria got into the act on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum.  

As it turns out this is the season of the witch, Witch-hazel that is.

Time for turning one’s back at the Harlem Meer.

I found another place in Harlem to walk of my fantasy that Barack Obama would ever be of any use to the people of the United States. Morningside Park takes its name from the western boundary, Morningside Heights that stands high above Harlem to the east. Here the western side is the morning side because on that high perch the sunrise views above the rugged cliff of Manhattan schist are spectacular. The very hilly park divides St.John the Divine, Columbia University and St.Luke’s hospital from Central Harlem.

But where I really like to walk it off is the North Woods and the Ravine of Central Park. It helped to replace that “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” lyric stuck in my head With “I had a Job in the great north woods, working as a cook for spare.”

I had a job in the great north woods

Working as a cook for a spell

But I never did like it all that much

And one day the ax just fell.

So I drifted down to new orleans

Where I happened to be employed

Workin’ for a while on a fishin’ boat

Right outside of delacroix.

But all the while I was alone

The past was close behind,

I seen a lot of women

But she never escaped my mind, and I just grew

Tangled up in blue.

She was workin’ in a topless place

And I stopped in for a beer,

I just kept lookin’ at the side of her face

In the spotlight so clear.

And later on as the crowd thinned out

I’s just about to do the same,

She was standing there in back of my chair

Said to me, “don’t I know your name? ”

I muttered somethin’ underneath my breath,

She studied the lines on my face.

I must admit I felt a little uneasy

When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe,

Tangled up in blue.

She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a

pipe

“i thought you’d never say hello,” she

said

“you look like the silent type.”

Then she opened up a book of poems

And handed it to me

Written by an italian poet

From the thirteenth century.

And every one of them words rang true

And glowed like burnin’ coal

Pourin’ off of every page

Like it was written in my soul from me to you,

Tangled up in blue.

I lived with them on Montague street

In a basement down the stairs,

There was music in the cafes at night

And revolution in the air.

Then he started into dealing with slaves

And something inside of him died.

She had to sell everything she owned

And froze up inside.

And when finally the bottom fell out

I became withdrawn,

The only thing I knew how to do

Was to keep on keepin’ on like a bird that flew,

Tangled up in blue.

Like I said back lighting.

Bad week for Democrats And I’ve had enough of them but it was a good week for photography.

Prime Time

Treehouse of Horror #21, also new Cleveland Show, Family Guy, and American Dad.  Throwball, Boys @ Packers– Cheeseheads all the way.  Amazing Race.  Nature Braving Iraq, Masterpiece Mystery Sherlock: The Great Game.

MSNBC offers more of their quality weekend programming- Sex Slaves: Texas (premier).

Put it away, son. It’s not worth you getting beat again.

You didn’t beat me. You ignored the rules of engagement. In a fair fight, I’d kill you.

That’s not much incentive for me to fight fair, then, is it?

Later-

Childrens Hospital, live Season Finale.  Metalocalypse, first airs a week from now.  Assisted Suicide.

Not just the Spanish Main, luv. The entire ocean. The entire wo’ld. Wherever we want to go, we’ll go. That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship needs but what a ship is… what the Black Pearl really is… is freedom.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Myanmar votes in rare election marred by fraud fears

AFP

Sun Nov 7, 11:33 am ET

YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar voted Sunday in its first election in 20 years as complaints of intimidation reinforced fears the poll was a sham to create a facade of democracy after decades of iron-fisted military rule.

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi remained locked up for the vote and two pro-junta parties were together fielding about two-thirds of the total candidates, leaving the splintered opposition little chance of success.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi swept her party to power in 1990 but the result was never recognised by the ruling generals. She has been detained for most of the last 20 years and supported a boycott of Sunday’s election.

The Week In Review 10/31 – 11/6 is posted.

2 Myanmar votes in election marred by fraud fears

AFP

Sun Nov 7, 2:41 am ET

YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar voted Sunday in its first election in 20 years with complaints of intimidation adding to fears the poll is a sham to create a facade of democracy after decades of iron-fisted military rule.

US President Barack Obama said during a visit to India that the elections in Myanmar on Sunday would be “anything but free and fair.”

“There are elections that are being held right now in Burma, that will be anything but free and fair,” Obama said in a town-hall meeting with students in Mumbai, during the second day of his visit to India.

3 US, Australia pressure Myanmar, Fiji over rights

by Lachlan Carmichael

Sun Nov 7, 2:26 am ET

MELBOURNE (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that the United States and Australia will press military regimes in Myanmar and Fiji to respect human rights and pave the way for democracy.

Wrapping up her two-week Asia tour in Australia, the chief US diplomat again condemned the military junta in Myanmar, which on Sunday was holding its first election in 20 years amid complaints of intimidation.

“We look at Burma today holding flawed elections that once again expose the abuses of the military junta,” Clinton said in a speech at the University of Melbourne, using Myanmar’s former name.

4 Violent protests in Germany slow nuclear waste train

by Frederic Happe, AFP

7 mins ago

DANNENBERG, Germany (AFP) – Protests against a train carrying nuclear waste from France to Germany erupted in violence Sunday as police wielding batons charged activists trying to halt the cargo’s progress.

Around 1,000 activists attacked police on the tracks near Dannenberg, the final destination for the train before the waste is loaded onto trucks and taken to a storage facility, a police spokeswoman told AFP.

“Police responded with batons and water cannon,” she said.

5 Pope sanctifies Holy Family basilica as gays hold kiss-in

by Francoise Kadri, AFP

2 hrs 7 mins ago

BARCELONA (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI Sunday consecrated a world monument to family, Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia church, condemned abortion and defended traditional marriage, but faced a mass “kiss-in” by gays.

As the 83-year-old pontiff paraded in his “popemobile” towards the unfinished masterpiece of Antoni Gaudi, 200 gays kissed to protest the Church’s rejection of homosexuality.

It was a sign of many Spaniards’ embrace of the changes that Benedict abhors: easier access to abortion, gay marriage laws that have enabled 20,000 unions in five years and swifter divorce.

6 Guinea votes in historic presidential run-off

by Laurence Boutreux, AFP

28 mins ago

CONAKRY (AFP) – Coup-weary Guineans voted Sunday for the country’s first freely elected leader in a run-off presidential poll which ran peacefully despite a campaign marred by ethnic violence between rival camps.

Polling stations closed as expected at 1800 GMT, with no serious incident reported throughout the day as voters took part in the mineral-rich country’s first democratic election since independence from France in 1958.

“There was a strong mobilization in all regions, popular interest and extraordinary discipline,” said Aziz Diop, executive secretary of the National Council of Guinean Civil Society Organizations. It had 964 observers spread across the country.

7 Study: Tuna black market worth billions of dollars

AFP

1 hr 9 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The craze for sushi has fueled a black market in tuna worth billions of dollars, as governments collaborate with the industry despite fears for the species’ survival, an investigation found.

A seven-month probe by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that fishermen have willfully violated official quotas in order to supply the lucrative tuna market, which is dominated by Japan.

The investigation covered 10 nations but found particular violations in France, where it said the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has joined forces with the tuna industry to doctor catch numbers.

8 iPhone triggers videogame gold rush

by Fabrice Hoss, AFP

1 hr 5 mins ago

MONTREAL (AFP) – The commercial tsunami unleashed by the iPhone has served as a launch pad for the videogame industry in Montreal, which hopes to seize on the success of Apple’s smartphone.

Hundreds of participants in the two-day Montreal International Game Summit that opens Monday in Quebec’s big city will be looking for ways to better milk the gaming market cow, in the face of Apple’s golden example.

In barely a year and a half, the iPhone has seized 20 percent of the portable gaming market and five percent of the global videogame market, estimated at some 50 billion dollars a year.

9 Vettel wins Brazilian Grand Prix, Abu Dhabi to decide title

by Gordon Howard, AFP

2 hrs 25 mins ago

SAO PAULO (AFP) – German Sebastian Vettel kept alive his challenge for the Formula One drivers’ world championship on Sunday when he led his Red Bull team-mate and title rival Australian Mark Webber home in the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Their one-two triumph confirmed the Red Bull team as the 2010 constructors’ champions, but left the drivers’ title race wide open with both drivers still fighting to take the crown from leading Ferrari driver two-times champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso.

Alonso finished a steady third for Ferrari ahead of the 2008 champion Briton Lewis Hamilton, who was fourth ahead of last year’s champion and McLaren team-mate Jenson Button.

10 Button’s escape racks up pre-race tension

by Gordon Howard, AFP

Sun Nov 7, 8:23 am ET

SAO PAULO (AFP) – Defending champion Jenson Button’s escape from danger when an armed gang threatened him on Saturday night added a note of additional tension to the build-up to Sunday’s already keenly-anticipated Brazilian Grand Prix.

The 30-year-old British racing driver, who was in a special car driven by a trained police driver, saw six men carrying machine guns approach.

He warned his driver and they fled immediately through the crowds following what had been for Button a disappointing Saturday qualifying session.

11 China’s Hu calls for Portuguese cooperation on reform agenda

by Anne Le Coz, AFP

Sat Nov 6, 5:04 pm ET

LISBON (AFP) – China wants to strengthen cooperation with Portugal on international issues such as reform of the United Nations, President Hu Jintao said Saturday.

“Thus we will be able to consolidate our consultations on global themes and common international interest, such as the resumption of world economic growth, the reform of the United Nations and climate change,” Hu added.

The Chinese leader was speaking at a joint press conference with Portugal’s President Anibal Cavaco Silva, on the first day of a two-day visit to this economically fragile country.

12 Scientists turn skin into blood

by Kerry Sheridan, AFP

Sun Nov 7, 1:04 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Stem cell researchers have found a way to turn a person’s skin into blood, a process that could be used to treat cancer and other ailments, according to a Canadian study published Sunday.

The method uses cells from a patch of a person’s skin and transforms it into blood that is a genetic match, without using human embryonic stem cells, said the study in the journal Nature.

By avoiding the controversial and more complicated processes involved with using human embryonic stem cells to create blood, this approach simplifies the process, researchers said.

13 Obama urges India, Pakistan to improve relations

by Steve Collinson, AFP

Sun Nov 7, 7:42 am ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) – US President Barack Obama urged India and Pakistan to talk to resolve their differences Sunday as he stressed the need for peace between the neighbours, who are vital for his plans in Afghanistan.

Venturing into the delicate area of relations between the nuclear-armed rivals, Obama insisted New Delhi had the most to gain from a stable Pakistan, while urging Islamabad to do more to address extremism.

“My hope is that, over time, trust develops between the two countries, that dialogue begins perhaps on less controversial issues building up to more controversial issues,” he said on the second day of a three-day trip to India.

14 Coal India issue could boost future state sales

by Salil Panchal, AFP

Sun Nov 7, 1:11 am ET

MUMBAI (AFP) – The success of India’s 3.4-billion-dollar sale of shares in state-run Coal India has raised hopes of big returns for the government from a cascade of looming partial privatisations, analysts say.

The sale of a 10 percent stake in Coal India was oversubscribed 15 times and shares soared 40 percent on their opening day of trade last week as foreign and domestic investors scrambled to invest in the world’s biggest coal miner.

It was India’s biggest stock sale ever and “will see a positive rub-off on future disinvestments”, Sanjay Sharma, head of equities with Deutsche Bank, told AFP.

15 Dancing Obama appeals to Indian youth

by Stephen Collinson, AFP

Sun Nov 7, 1:41 am ET

MUMBAI (AFP) – US President Barack Obama turned from winning trade deals to trying to dance his way into Indian hearts Sunday, forging a connection with India’s dynamic youth on the second day of a state visit.

Obama was hosting a town-hall style meeting, similar to hundreds of campaign events he has held over the last four years in the United States, leveraging his personal charisma in a dialogue with students on nationwide television.

His wife Michelle was again a hit, exuberantly dancing with local children, even coaxing her more reticent husband to join in, after her earlier energetic dance routine with kids Saturday hit newspaper front pages.

16 Get rich quick trumps market reform: analysts

by Luc Olinga, AFP

Sun Nov 7, 1:32 am ET

PARIS (AFP) – The Group of 20 countries, meeting next week, were supposed to have stamped out the financial market abuses at the heart of the global crisis but little seems to have changed since their last summit, analysts say

Hopes for reform after the market chicanery that brought down a series of ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks and sparked the worst slump since the 1930s have faded with the return of the ‘get rich quick’ mentality, according to analysts.

“The bad old habits have come back much faster than was expected,” said Denis Marcadet of Vendome Associes in Paris.

17 Myanmar army-backed parties set to sweep rare poll

By Aung Hla Tun, Reuters

1 hr 14 mins ago

YANGON (Reuters) – Two military-backed parties looked set to prevail on Monday in Myanmar’s first election in 20 years, a day after a choreographed vote marred by fraud charges and apathy, and condemned as flawed by Washington and London.

Complex election rules thwarted any chance of a pro-democracy upset as Myanmar ends half a century of direct army rule. State TV said voters “freely and happily” cast ballots, but witness accounts suggested low turnout and voting irregularities.

Official results trickled out over state media, showing the military and its proxy parties ahead, but a clear picture of who won control of parliament could take a day or longer in the reclusive country where timely release of information is rare.

18 Obama pushes India to talk to Pakistan

By Patricia Zengerle and Alister Bull, Reuters

Sun Nov 7, 6:23 am ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – President Barack Obama called on India on Sunday to bolster peace efforts with Pakistan that have floundered since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, relations seen as crucial to his troubled efforts to win the war in Afghanistan.

On the second day of his official visit to India, Obama faces a diplomatic tightrope in fostering ties with the growing global power, while at the same time helping Pakistan with billions of dollars in aid and promoting wider peace in Afghanistan.

Obama’s first leg of a 10-day Asian tour has been hailed as moving the United States closer to India as Washington tries to revive a weak economy and gather support to pressure China on its currency. But on Sunday, India’s worries about Pakistan dominated.

19 Republicans plan assault on healthcare law

By Donna Smith, Reuters

2 hrs 15 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Republicans said on Sunday they plan a full-scale assault against President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul next year but acknowledged it could take until after the 2012 presidential election to repeal it.

Representative Paul Ryan, expected to become chairman of the House Budget Committee chairman, said his fellow Republicans will try to deny funding for implementation of the healthcare legislation and hold hearings to point out its shortcomings when the new Congress convenes in January.

But full repeal of the law and replacing it may have to await the results of next election cycle, when control of Congress will again be up for grabs as well as Obama’s bid for a second four-year term.

20 Obama would be responsible for shutdown: Cantor

By Thomas Ferraro, Reuters

1 hr 49 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Republican refused on Sunday to rule out the possibility of a government shutdown next year over growing federal deficits but said if there were one, President Barack Obama would bear responsibility.

House of Representatives Republican Whip Eric Cantor said it’s up to Obama to work with Republicans since they won the House from Obama’s Democrats in last week’s election, vowing to slash spending and shrink government.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Cantor focused on Obama when asked if Republicans could provide assurances that they wouldn’t let the government shut down in any confrontation with the White House, disrupting all but the most essential services to millions of Americans.

21 Greek Socialists lead in local polls

By Ingrid Melander and Harry Papachristou, Reuters

1 hr 24 mins ago

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece’s ruling PASOK socialist party was ahead in most regions in crucial local elections on Sunday, an official estimate showed, in a boost for Prime Minister George Papandreou as he seeks support for harsh austerity measures.

“PASOK candidates are seen winning in eight regions and New Democracy (the conservative opposition party) in five; three races are very close,” said Yannis Karakadas, head of Singular Logic, the polling company hired by the government.

Papandreou has threatened to dissolve parliament, barely a year after coming to power, if the first round of the regional elections fails to give him a clear mandate to pursue budget cuts and reforms agreed in May under a 110-billion-euro ($155- billion) EU/IMF bailout to save Greece from bankruptcy.

22 Afghan polls protesters warn of possible violence

By Sayed Salahuddin, Reuters

1 hr 57 mins ago

KABUL (Reuters) – Disgruntled lawmakers and candidates in Afghanistan’s parliamentary election, marred by allegations of fraud, renewed protests on Sunday over the poll and warned of possible violence if a fresh vote was not carried out.

No results have been declared nearly seven weeks after the election. The protests are another sign of political instability in Afghanistan, already facing a growing Taliban-led insurgency.

Joined by hundreds of supporters, the candidates and members of parliament who had sought re-election in Kabul denounced the September 18 election as illegal and urged a new poll.

23 Analysis: Afghan review backs U.S. plan despite violence

By Ross Colvin and Paul Tait, Reuters

Sun Nov 7, 10:57 am ET

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) – A December review of the Afghanistan war is expected to say the U.S. strategy is working despite increased violence and record casualties, and that a July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing can be met.

But General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, will say that since the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops was just completed in late summer, it will take more time to get a complete picture of how the strategy is working, analysts said. That could affect the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal.

“There will be progress but a lot of ambiguity about interpreting it because of the late start to a lot of these offensives and the seasonality of warfare in Afghanistan,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus in the past.

24 U.S. military moves in Asia not aimed at China: Gates

By Phil Stewart, Reuters

Sun Nov 7, 1:32 am ET

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – U.S. military efforts to strengthen its presence in Asia are not aimed at countering China, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday, ahead of talks on deepening defense ties with regional ally Australia.

An Australian newspaper published a report saying Australia would grant the U.S. military expanded use of its bases, but a U.S. defense official cautioned that any decision on such a possibility was months away at least.

Gates said a strategic review of U.S. military posture would not include any new bases in Asia.

25 Slim hope for change in 1st Myanmar vote since ’90

Associated Press

2 hrs 32 mins ago

YANGON, Myanmar – Voters in the secretive military-ruled nation of Myanmar cast their first ballots in two decades on Sunday, as slim hopes for democratic reform faced an electoral system engineered to ensure that most power will remain in the hands of the junta and its political proxies.

There was little doubt that the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party would emerge with an enormous share of the parliamentary seats, despite widespread popular opposition to 48 years of military rule. It fielded 1,112 candidates for the 1,159 seats in the two-house national parliament and 14 regional parliaments, while the largest anti-government party, the National Democratic Force, contested just 164 spots.

Detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won a landslide victory in the last elections in 1990 but was barred from taking office, urged a boycott of the vote. Hundreds of potential opposition candidates were either in prison or, like Suu Kyi, under house arrest.

26 Obama: US elections force ‘midcourse corrections’

By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent

2 hrs 38 mins ago

NEW DELHI – Hampered by heavy election losses at home, President Barack Obama promised from India on Sunday to make “midcourse corrections” to reinvigorate his embattled domestic agenda in the face of a testier American public and more combative Congress.

On a day of friendly outreach, Obama also was confronted about his support for Pakistan, New Delhi’s nuclear neighbor and rival. He defended the alliance while acknowledging that Pakistan-based extremists are “a cancer” with the potential to “engulf the country.”

His comments took on added significance because he spoke in Mumbai, where memories are fresh from attacks in 2008 by Pakistani assailants that killed 166 in the city. Obama urged the two nations to talk peace; he didn’t commit the U.S. as middle man.

27 Republicans in charge take aim at health overhaul

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press

2 hrs 31 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Resurgent Republicans rallied Sunday behind an agenda based on unwavering opposition to the Obama White House and federal spending, laying the groundwork for gridlock until their 2012 goal: a new president, a “better Senate” and ridding the country of that demonized health care law.

Republicans said they were willing to work with President Barack Obama but also signaled it would be only on their terms. With control of the White House and the Senate, Democrats showed no sign they were conceding the final two years of Obama’s term to Republican lawmakers who claimed the majority in the House.

“I think this week’s election was a historic rejection of American liberalism and the Obama and Pelosi agenda,” said Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who is stepping down from his post in GOP leadership. “The American people are tired of the borrowing, the spending, the bailouts, the takeovers.”

28 Homeowners say loan mods led them to foreclosure

By JACOB ADELMAN, Associated Press

1 hr 44 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – Grocery store owners William and Esperanza Casco were making enough money to stay current on their mortgage, but when JPMorgan Chase & Co. offered a plan that reduced their payments, they figured they could use the extra cash and signed up.

The Cascos say they never missed a subsequent payment, so they were horrified when the bank decided the smaller payments weren’t enough and foreclosed on their modest Long Beach home.

Their story is echoed across the country by people who claim – some in lawsuits – that banks didn’t live up to their end of the deal when they agreed to trial mortgage modifications.

29 Chilean miner crosses finish line at NYC Marathon

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press

18 mins ago

NEW YORK – A Chilean miner ran, walked and hobbled his way to the finish line of the New York City Marathon on Sunday, showing the passionate grit that helped him survive more than two months trapped underground.

Edison Pena crossed the Central Park finish line at 3:24 p.m., with a time of 5 hours, 40 minutes, 51 seconds. He was draped in a Chilean flag as Elvis music played over the speakers.

The 34-year-old survivor had beat his own goal – to complete the course through the city’s five boroughs in six hours.

30 Gates, Obama urge repeal of military’s gay ban

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press

4 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is encouraging Congress to act before year’s end to repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the military. It’s a position shared by his boss, the president.

But his new Marine commandant thinks otherwise and the Senate has not yet taken action, setting up yet another hurdle for gay activists who see their window quickly closing. After Tuesday’s elections that saw Republicans chip away at Democrats’ majority in the Senate and wrest the House from their control, their hopes for ending the 17-year-old law have dimmed.

“I would like to see the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ but I’m not sure what the prospects for that are and we’ll just have to see,” Gates told reporters traveling with him to Australia this weekend.

31 Marines’ leader: Keep policy on gays in military

By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 7:04 am ET

SAN DIEGO – With American troops in the thick of the fighting in Afghanistan, the new commandant of the Marines Corps says now is not the time to overturn the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy prohibiting gays from openly serving in the military.

“This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness,” Gen. James Amos said Saturday.

Last month, the Pentagon was forced to lift its ban on openly serving gays for eight days after a federal judge in California ordered the military to do so. The Justice Department has appealed, and a federal appeals court granted a temporary stay of the injunction.

32 US worries that terrorism on upswing in Indonesia

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press

2 hrs 36 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The discovery of a militant training camp in Indonesia, along with persistent terrorist attacks there, have increased U.S. concerns that extremists are regrouping and eyeing Western targets in a country long viewed as a counterterrorism success story.

With President Barack Obama set to begin a visit Tuesday to the world’s most populous Muslim country, there is renewed attention on terrorists in Indonesia who in the past year appeared to be banding together into a new al-Qaida-influenced insurgency.

Recent Pentagon moves to renew a training program with Indonesia’s special forces and bolster military assistance show that the Obama administration believes the country needs more help tracking and rooting out insurgents, particularly those who rejoin the fight once they are released from jail.

33 Dead from Indonesia’s volcano buried in mass grave

By SARAH DiLORENZO, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 12:39 pm ET

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia – One by one the bodies of dozens killed by Indonesia’s most volatile volcano – some too charred to ever be identified – were placed into a mass grave Sunday, as people terrified that another eruption was coming fled the city at the foot of Mount Merapi.

As relatives wept and men recited traditional Islamic prayers, villagers and policemen unloaded the corpses – some in plain wooden coffins, others still in the morgue’s yellow body bags – from ambulances. They were placed into a massive trench, dug into a large green field in the shadow of the volcano, which has claimed 138 lives in the past two weeks.

The notoriously unpredictable mountain unleashed its most powerful eruption in a century Friday, sending hot clouds of gas, rocks and debris avalanching down its slopes at highway speeds, smothering entire villages and leaving a trail of charred corpses in its path.

34 APEC meetings open with talk of Pacific Rim FTA

By MALCOLM FOSTER, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 7:04 am ET

YOKOHAMA, Japan – Officials from 21 Pacific Rim economies, including the U.S., China and Japan, began meetings Sunday that could move toward a bold goal – creating a Pacific-wide free trade zone.

The series of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings this week in Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, will culminate next weekend in a summit bringing together President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and 18 other leaders.

According to a draft of APEC’s final communique obtained by The Associated Press, the leaders will agree to take “concrete steps toward realization of Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP)” encompassing all 21 members around the Pacific.

35 Pope defends family as Spanish gays hold ‘kiss-in’

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 1:29 pm ET

BARCELONA, Spain – Pope Benedict XVI strongly defended traditional families and the rights of the unborn Sunday, directly attacking Spanish laws that allow gay marriage, fast-track divorce and easier access to abortions as he dedicated Barcelona’s iconic basilica, the Sagrada Familia.

It was the second time in as many days that Benedict had criticized the policies of Spain’s Socialist government and called for Europe as a whole to rediscover Christian teachings and apply them to everyday life.

As he headed to the basilica, about 200 gays and lesbians staged a ‘kiss-in’ to protest his visit and church policies that consider homosexual acts “intrinsically disordered.” Later, a few hundred women marched to protest their second-class status in the church and the Vatican’s opposition to birth control.

36 Molinari holds steady to win HSBC Champions

By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Writer

1 hr 59 mins ago

SHANGHAI – The experience of losing to one No. 1 player in the world helped Francesco Molinari beat another.

When last seen on a world stage, Molinari was helpless against Tiger Woods in Ryder Cup singles, when the former world No. 1 steamrolled the Italian for an easy victory at Celtic Manor.

One month later at the HSBC Champions, Molinari turned in a world-class performance against the new No. 1.

37 Police arrest man in Swedish immigrant shootings

By KARL RITTER and JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press

2 hrs 8 mins ago

MALMO, Sweden – Lang Conteh thought the two loud cracks were fireworks from the nightclub. He was in high spirits, stepping out of a taxi with two friends to join the summer party.

Then he spun around and saw his Jamaican friend on the ground. A bullet had grazed his trouser leg, ripping a cell phone and ID card from his pocket. Conteh still didn’t understand what had happened.

“You didn’t hear the gunshots?” his friend asked, shocked.

38 US, Australia expand ties with an eye on China

By ANNE GEARAN and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 4:25 am ET

MELBOURNE, Australia – The United States plans to expand its military presence in Australia as the two nations maneuver to rein in an increasingly assertive China.

U.S. and Australia are considering a joint or shared base arrangement in which U.S. troops and assets such as planes or ships would piggyback on existing Australian military facilities, a senior U.S. defense official said Saturday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said wider military cooperation between the U.S. and longtime ally Australia is on the table as defense and foreign ministers from both countries hold annual talks Monday.

39 Oakland protests took new tactic: in neighborhoods

By TREVOR HUNNICUTT and SUDHIN THANAWALA, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 8:16 am ET

OAKLAND, Calif. – Looking out her front window in a usually quiet residential neighborhood in this city, Deanna Goldstein’s knees began to shake.

More than 100 protesters were hemmed in by police in riot gear. A trash can was blazing on the street.

“I came home early from downtown to get away from the craziness, but the craziness came to me,” she said.

40 Technology a blessing, a curse for remote island

By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National Writer

2 hrs 46 mins ago

BEAVER ISLAND, Mich. – Muggs Bass doesn’t own a computer. She’s pretty much dead set against e-mail. Anyone who calls her home on Michigan’s remote Beaver Island should be prepared for a busy signal, if she’s on her land-line phone. She has no cell.

“When you don’t have it, you don’t miss it. That’s what I say,” says the spunky 70-year-old grandmother, who’s as comfortable telling jokes at the local pub as she is attending Mass each morning.

Technology isn’t really her thing. So, it’s a small miracle when Bass drives, once a month, to her island’s rural health center to sit down in front of a wide-screen television. There, she and a handful of other islanders connect by video conference with a similar group in Charlevoix, Mich., a two-hour ferry ride away.

41 Feud over Vt. artist Tudor’s estate goes to trial

By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 1:12 pm ET

MONTPELIER, Vt. – A 2 1/2-year-old probate battle involving the heirs of children’s book author and illustrator Tasha Tudor goes to trial Monday, with her adult children fighting over the legitimacy of the will controlling her $2 million estate.

At issue: Whether Tudor was unduly influenced when she rewrote it to give nearly everything to her oldest son.

Tudor, who quit school after the eighth grade, won a worldwide following with her whimsical watercolors and drawings in “Pumpkin Moonshine,” “Corgiville Fair,” and “Little Women,” among nearly 100 children’s books she illustrated or wrote. In words and deed, Tudor celebrated old-fashioned family life at home, becoming known for her anachronistic lifestyle – often going barefoot, wearing vintage dresses or making linen for her own clothing and living in a replica of an 18th-century New England farmhouse built by her sons, in Marlboro, Vt.

42 9/11 workers face deadline for health settlement

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 12:45 pm ET

NEW YORK – Thousands of laborers, police officers and firefighters suing New York City over their exposure to toxic World Trade Center dust have until Monday to decide whether to join a legal settlement that could ultimately pay them as much as $815 million.

More than 10,000 people have sued the city and a long list of companies that handled the massive cleanup of lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.

Many claim to be suffering from illnesses caused by inhaling the pulverized remnants of the twin towers. Their lawsuits blame the government and its contractors for failing to provide proper equipment to protect their lungs.

43 WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK: In India, dancing with Obama

ERICA WERNER, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 11:25 am ET

MUMBAI, India – President Barack Obama tried hard to avoid it, but he couldn’t escape being pulled into a dance by schoolchildren celebrating the Indian holiday of Diwali, or the festival of lights.

Obama sat for a period of time on Sunday and watched admiringly as his wife, Michelle, joined girls dressed in colorful hues of blues, greens, pinks and orange in a swaying dance with graceful hand gestures.

He appeared to resist when students from Holy Name High School in Mumbai approached. Eventually, Obama gave in, got up and strutted his stuff, too. He jumped around a little and made awkward sawing movements with his arms.

44 Mass. town makes peace with Du Bois, a native son

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 11:16 am ET

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – He’s the most famous son of this quiet mountain hamlet in western Massachusetts. But until recently, people looking for signs of W.E.B. Du Bois’ life and legacy in Great Barrington would have had a hard time finding them.

For decades since Du Bois’ death in Ghana in 1963, the civil rights activist and scholar has drawn praise for his writings but scorn from residents upset that he joined the Communist Party, became a citizen of Ghana and often criticized the U.S. over race relations.

FBI agents and riot police guarded a park dedication to him more than 40 years ago. Efforts to name a school after him were blocked. Some residents saw him the father figure of black radicalism, and they remained conflicted over his legacy and his relationship with the largely white town he often romanticized in writings.

45 With $30M gift, Pa. college seeks to be university

By KATHY MATHESON, Associated Press

Sun Nov 7, 9:41 am ET

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. – In the high-pressure world of educational fundraising, tiny Delaware Valley College has seemingly hit the lottery: A local philanthropic group is giving the school an estimated $30 million in property and cash.

The generous gift from the Warwick Foundation of Bucks County is large by nearly any standard. But it’s considered transformational for the suburban Philadelphia college, which was founded more than a century ago as a farm school for immigrant youths and is now on track to become a full-fledged university.

The donation announced in September includes a 400-acre farm worth about $15 million; a $10 million endowment to care for the land; and $5 million to support the college’s long-term academic vision.

46 ‘Staff of life’ wavers under weight of humanity

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

Sun Nov 7, 12:02 am ET

LOS VALLES DE TLAXCALA, Mexico – In these volcanic valleys of central Mexico, on the Canadian prairie, across India’s northern plain, they sow and they reap the golden grain that has fed us since the distant dawn of farming. But along with the wheat these days comes a harvest of worry.

Yields aren’t keeping up with a world growing hungrier. Crops are stunted in a world grown warmer. A devastating fungus, a wheat “rust,” is spreading out of Africa, a grave threat to the food plant that covers more of the planet’s surface than any other.

In Chicago, London and other money centers, the wheat market is so roiled by bad news and speculators that rising prices may put bread out of reach for millions more of the world’s poor.

47 Haiti ‘got very lucky’ as Tomas skirted island

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press

Sat Nov 6, 7:36 pm ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Hurricane Tomas pushed northward from Haiti on Saturday, leaving villagers to mop up, evacuees to return to their tents and most everyone relieved that the country did not suffer what could have been its first big disaster since the January earthquake.

The storm’s western track caused widespread floods, wind damage along the far edge of Haiti’s coast and is blamed for the deaths of at least six people. It was a serious blow, but far better than had been feared in a nation where storms have been known to kill thousands, and more than 1 million quake survivors were living under tarps and tents.

“It really didn’t dump a lot of rain on us, so we got very lucky,” said Steve McAndrew, Haiti earthquake relief coordinator for the American Red Cross.

Rant of the Week: Greenwald, Ratigan & Uygur

The Left Behind by President Obama: Progressive Base Loses Faith

Partial transcript below h/t TheCallUp @ FDL

   Glenn Greenwald: You can complain and object to all sorts of things, but if at the end of the day politicians know that you’re going to give them your undying and unconditional support, because the other side is just mildly worse, what you’re doing is you’re ensuring that you’ll be ignored.   But I think this election actually revealed some leverage, which is one of the reasons why the Democrats got destroyed, is because the base of the party – the people who put Democrats in power in the last two elections – didn’t bother to go and vote.  And the reason they didn’t bother to go and vote is because they weren’t given a reason why they thought it was worthwhile.  That is leverage.  That is telling the Democrats you will be out of power.  Not just in the House of Representatives, but in the Senate and the White House if you continue on this path.

   […]

   Glenn Greenwald: [Obama’s] whole campaign was based upon subverting that very system – namely that no matter who wins, Democrats or Republicans, the same special interests continue to prosper, while ordinary Americans suffer.  And the plan was that by assembling this highly energized, activated citizenry behind him – this army of people who believed in the change that he would bring – he could circumvent all of those power structures.  He could tell them that they could no longer have their way, because they couldn’t do anything to him, because he had this army of highly energized young voters, first time voters, and the like.  And they squandered that.  Instead of becoming the voice of populist rage, they became the target of it, because they became the agents of the status-quo rather than the agents of change.

   Cenk Uygur: [Obama’s] fundamental error was – we didn’t ask you to do change on the specific issues.  That’s great, health care reform, etc. that’s lovely, ok.  And there was some good wins in Pell Grants, etc. right?  We asked you to change the system.  That’s what you missed. […]

   Glenn Greenwald: … the real tragedy of the Obama Presidency is there are millions of people who had believed that the political process had nothing to offer them, who were turned away from it and wallowing in cynicism.  And they got convinced to put aside their cynicism for the first time ever – that there was really hope that they would be able to realize by investing themselves in the political process.  And that has come crashing down.  And I don’t see how it can be re-engaged, and the irony of the Obama Presidency –

   Dylan Ratigan: Why not?  Why not?

   Glenn Greenwald: – because people concluded that: “this , I thought, was the real chance that something would be making a difference, and if not even this worked, then I don’t ever believe anything will.”

   Cenk Uygur: … I’m with Glenn.  There’s a great irony here, that the guy who sold us “HOPE” ultimately wound up robbing us of hope, and why?  Because this was our one chance.  Because the money power is so overwhelming, it is such a hard thing to fight, but he had amassed the army to fight it.  He had that army.  Let’s go, let’s do campaign finance reform, let’s change the way things are done so the lobbyists don’t own our politicians.  And he squandered it, so what hope do we have?  […]

   Glenn Greenwald: … I guarantee there are lots of people who are watching who are thinking “Oh, look at how impatient they are.  What did they think, that he was going to come in and fundamentally and radically change and improve Washington in two years?  I don’t think anybody thought that.  I certainly didn’t.  I think everybody was in it for the long haul, was willing to have patience.  But the reason people are disappointed isn’t because he hasn’t succeeded yet, it’s because he’s not trying.  He’s doing the opposite.  Everything he accomplishes is by meeting in secret with the very lobbyists who he said he was going to dis-empower.   Everything that he does is intended to entrench the system rather than to subvert and undermine it.  So if he were actually fighting, everybody, including everyone at this table, would have all the patience in the world […]

On This Day in History: November 7

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

November 7 is the 311th day of the year (312th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 54 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this dayin 1940, Only four months after its completion, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State suffers a spectacular collapse.

When it opened in 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world. Built to replace the ferry system that took commuters from Tacoma across the Tacoma Narrows to the Gig Harbor Peninsula, the bridge spanned 2,800 feet and took three years to build. To save cost, the principle engineer, Leon Moisseiff, designed the bridge with an unusually slender frame that measured 39 feet and accommodated just two vehicular lanes.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened with great fanfare on July 1, 1940. Human traffic across the waters of the Tacoma Narrows increased dramatically, but many drivers were drawn to the toll bridge not by convenience but by an unusual characteristic of the structure. When moderate to high winds blew, as they invariably do in the Tacoma Narrows, the bridge roadway would sway from side to side and sometimes suffer excessive vertical undulations. Some drivers reported that vehicles ahead of them would disappear and reappear several times as they crossed the bridge. On a windy day, tourists treated the bridge toll as the fee paid to ride a roller-coaster ride, and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge earned the nickname “Galloping Gertie.

 680 – The Sixth Ecumenical Council commences in Constantinople.

1492 – The Ensisheim Meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France.

1619 – Elizabeth of Scotland and England is crowned Queen of Bohemia.

1665 – The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published.

1775 – John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore’s Offer of Emancipation, which offers freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters in order to fight with Murray and the British.

1786 – The oldest musical organization in the United States is founded as the Stoughton Musical Society.

1811 – Tecumseh’s War: The Battle of Tippecanoe is fought near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana, United States.

1837 – In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time.

1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Belmont: In Belmont, Missouri, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overrun a Confederate camp but are forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive.

1872 – The ship Mary Celeste sails from New York, eventually to be found deserted

1874 – A cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party.

1885 – In Craigellachie, British Columbia, construction ends on the Canadian Pacific Railway railway extending across Canada.

1893 – Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote.

1900 – Battle of Leliefontein, a battle during which the Royal Canadian Dragoons win three Victoria Crosses.

1907 – Delta Sigma Pi is founded at New York University.

1907 – Jesus García saves the entire town of Nacozari de Garcia, Sonora by driving a burning train full of dynamite six kilometers away before it can explode.

1908 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reportedly killed in San Vicente, Bolivia.

1910 – The first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright Brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse.

1912 – The Deutsche Opernhaus (now Deutsche Oper Berlin) opens in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg, with a production of Beethoven’s Fidelio.

1914 – The first issue of The New Republic magazine is published.

1914 – The German colony of Kiaochow Bay and its centre at Tsingtao are captured by Japanese forces.

1916 – Jeannette Rankin is the first woman elected to the United States Congress.

1917 – The Gregorian calendar date of the October Revolution, which gets its name from the Julian calendar date of 25 October. On this date in 1917, the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace.

1917 – World War I: Third Battle of Gaza ends: British forces capture Gaza from the Ottoman Empire.

 1918 – The 1918 influenza epidemic spreads to Western Samoa, killing 7,542 (about 20% of the population) by the end of the year.

1918 – Kurt Eisner overthrows the Wittelsbach dynasty in the Kingdom of Bavaria.

1919 – The first Palmer Raid is conducted on the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists are arrested in twenty-three different U.S. cities.

1920 – Patriarch Tikhon issued a decree that lead to the formation of Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

1921 – The Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF), National Fascist Party, comes into existence.

1929 – In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public.

1931 – The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

1933 – Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected the 99th mayor of New York City.

1940 – In Tacoma, Washington, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge’s completion.

1941 – World War II: Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German planes while evacuating refugees and wounded military and staff of several Crimea’s hospitals. It is estimated that over 5,000 people died in the sinking.

1944 – A passenger train derails in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico from excessive speed when descending a hill. 16 people are killed and 50 are injured.

1944 – Soviet spy Richard Sorge, a half-Russian, half-German World War I veteran, is hanged by his Japanese captors along with 34 of his ring.

1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States of America

1956 – Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to immediately withdraw their troops from Egypt.

1957 – Cold War: The Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.

1963 – Wunder von Lengede: In Germany, eleven miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days.

1967 – Carl B. Stokes is elected as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American mayor of a major American city.

1967 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

1973 – The U.S. Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.

1975 – In Bangladesh, a joint force of people and soldiers took part in an uprising led by Col. Abu Taher that ousted and killed Brig. Khaled Mosharraf. The uprising, hailed as National Revolution and Solidarity Day, also helped Gen. Ziaur Rahman (later President of Bangladesh) to get freed from the house arrest that was enforced by Mosharraf four days ago amid a coup d’etat.

1983 – 1983 United States Senate bombing: a bomb explodes inside the United States Capitol. No people are harmed, but an estimated $250,000 in damage is caused.

1987 – In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba is overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

1989 – Douglas Wilder wins the governor’s seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States.

1989 – David Dinkins becomes the first African American mayor of New York City.

1989 – East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph, along with his entire cabinet, is forced to resign after huge anti-government protests.

1990 – Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland.

1991 – Magic Johnson announces that he is infected with HIV and retires from the NBA.

1994 – WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provided the world’s first internet radio broadcast.

1996 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor.

2000 – Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first former First Lady to win public office in the United States, although actually she still was the First Lady.

2000 – Controversial US presidential election that is later resolved in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Case.

2000 – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discovers one of the country’s largest LSD labs inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas.

2002 – Iran bans advertising of United States products.

2004 – War in Iraq: The interim government of Iraq calls for a 60-day “state of emergency” as U.S. forces storm the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

2006 – Chicago O’Hare UFO sighting

2007 – Jokela school shooting in Tuusula, Finland, resulting in the death of nine people.

F1: Interlagos

Surprise, surprise, surprise, Nico Hulkenberg gets Williams it’s first pole in over 5 years.  His team mate Rubens Barrichello qualifies a  modestly surprising 6th too.  The drivers they displaced from the usual suspects were Button and Rosberg.  Sutil and Buemi are staring with 5 place grid penalties, both for Turn 3 collisions at Yeongam.  Buemi piled into Glock on Lap 31, Sutil collected Kobayashi on Lap 47.  These are reflected in the pretty tables below.

The Telegraph article I cited does a pretty good job of summarizing the horse race, my McLaren boys need some timely DNFs, but, as I mentioned yesterday, Interlagos is a track that can provide them.  Alonso is running a used engine (of course there’s Webber and Vettel too).

Tactically it’s important to remember that while it rained yesterday it’s expected to be dry today.  This means a couple of things, first of all it means the track won’t be ‘rubbered in’ so it won’t particularly sticky at the start of the race.

The second thing is tire strategy.  Since it dried out at the end of Qualifying all (or mostly all) of the top 10 Qualifiers were running on Softs and they’ll have to start the race on them.  The fly in the ointment is that we saw in Friday practice that the Softs are only lasting a Lap or two, especially under heavy fuel and an abrasive track which are exactly the conditions we will have at the start of the race.

So, I would expect early pit stops from them.

But wait, it gets better!  Qualifiers 11 – 24 are always allowed to choose the tires they start on and particularly in this case because they parked them with Intermediate wets which you’re allowed to change for race conditions (they don’t even last as long as the Softs when it’s dry and were noticably deteriorating at the end of Q2).

It seems to me that the situation developing is this- all the backbenchers will come out on Primes and when the top Qualifiers are forced to pit without having had enough track time to build up time gaps, we’re going to see a lot of position changes.  It could be the case where if you want to win or even finish well you’ll have to do a lot of passing.  This might be a more interesting race than some.

Anyway, pretty tables (and they are pretty) and race updates below.

If you miss the race there will be a repeat on Speed at noon on Tuesday.

Starting Grid

Grid Driver Team Q-Time Laps
1 Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 01:14.5 35
2 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 01:15.5 27
3 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 01:15.6 28
4 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 01:15.7 32
5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 01:16.0 34
6 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 01:16.2 32
7 Robert Kubica Renault 01:16.6 31
8 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 01:16.9 30
9 Felipe Massa Ferrari 01:17.1 31
10 Vitaly Petrov Renault 01:17.7 33
11 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 01:19.3 25
12 Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber-Ferrari 01:19.4 26
13 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 01:19.5 23
14 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 01:19.6 24
15 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber-Ferrari 01:19.9 26
16 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 01:20.4 23
17 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 01:22.1 13
18 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 01:22.3 14
19 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 01:19.8 24
20 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 01:22.4 14
21 Lucas Di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 01:22.8 13
22 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 01:20.8 13
23 Christian Klien HRT-Cosworth 01:23.1 15
24 Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 01:23.8 15

Driver Standings

Rank Name Team Points
1 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 231
2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 220
3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 210
4 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 206
5 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 189
6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 143
7 Robert Kubica Renault 124
8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 122
9 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 66
10 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 47
11 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 47
12 Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber-Ferrari 31
13 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 21
14 Vitaly Petrov Renault 19
15 Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 18
16 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 8
17 Pedro de la Rosa BMW Sauber-Ferrari 6
18 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber-Ferrari 6
19 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 3
20 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 0
21 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 0
22 Karun Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 0
23 Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 0
24 Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 0
25 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 0
26 Sakon Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 0
27 Christian Klien HRT-Cosworth 0

Team Standings

Rank Team Points
1 RBR-Renault 426
2 McLaren-Mercedes 399
3 Ferrari 374
4 Mercedes GP 188
5 Renault 143
6 Force India-Mercedes 68
7 Williams-Cosworth 65
8 BMW Sauber-Ferrari 43
9 STR-Ferrari 11
10 Lotus-Cosworth 0
11 HRT-Cosworth 0
12 Virgin-Cosworth 0

Bill Maher: False Equivalencies

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Obama is not Hitler but Bush is a war criminal, Jon.

The Week In Review 10/31 – 11/6

266 Stories served.  38 per day.

This is actually the hardest diary to execute, and yet perhaps the most valuable because it lets you track story trends over time.  It should be a Sunday morning feature.

Economy- 53

Sunday 10/ 31 3

Monday 11/1 4

Tuesday 11/2 2

Wednesday 11/3 14

Thursday 11/4 14

Friday 11/5 9

Saturday 11/6 7

Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran- 17

Monday 11/1 2

Tuesday 11/2 4

Wednesday 11/3 4

Thursday 11/4 1

Friday 11/5 2

Saturday 11/6 4

International- 43

Sunday 10/ 31 8

Monday 11/1 10

Tuesday 11/2 9

Wednesday 11/3 4

Thursday 11/4 5

Friday 11/5 2

Saturday 11/6 5

Disasters in Haiti- 11

Monday 11/1 2

Tuesday 11/2 2

Thursday 11/4 2

Friday 11/5 3

Saturday 11/6 2

National- 106

Sunday 10/ 31 8

Monday 11/1 17

Tuesday 11/2 19

Wednesday 11/3 18

Thursday 11/4 18

Friday 11/5 17

Saturday 11/6 9

Gulf Oil Blowout Disaster- 6

Monday 11/1 1

Tuesday 11/2 3

Friday 11/5 1

Saturday 11/6 1

Science- 11

Sunday 10/ 31 1

Monday 11/1 2

Wednesday 11/3 2

Thursday 11/4 3

Friday 11/5 3

Sports- 12

Sunday 10/ 31 1

Monday 11/1 2

Tuesday 11/2 2

Thursday 11/4 1

Friday 11/5 2

Saturday 11/6 4

Arts/Fashion- 7

Sunday 10/ 31 3

Monday 11/1 1

Thursday 11/4 1

Friday 11/5 1

Saturday 11/6 1

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

Punting the Punditsis 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.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: The Tea Party favorite and newly-elected Republican Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul sits down with Ms. Amanpour for an exclusive interview. House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence and Former Reagan budget director David Stockman debate extending the Bush tax cuts.

Outgoing Democratic Senator Evan Bayh joins the Roundtable discussion with George Will, former Bush political strategist Matthew Dowd, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress and ABC News Political Director Amy Walter.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) join Mr. Schieffer.

The Chris Matthews Show: Mr. Matthew’s guests will be Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Bob Woodward, The Washington Post Associate Editor, Joe Klein, TIME Columnist and Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent to dscuss these topics:  Will President Obama Change?

and George W. Bush’s New Memoir.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Mr. Gregory will speak exclusively with the Tea Party’s most vocal backer in the Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and then New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R).

His guests for the Round Table discussion will be Former Obama White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, Former Adviser to Pres. George W. Bush Karen Hughes, President of the National Urban League, Marc Morial and Republican Strategist Mike Murphy.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley will be joined by re-elected Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MI) and Gov. Rick Perry (TX) to discuss what  Tuesday’s midterm elections say about the last two years in politics and  what they mean for the next two.

Then, after suffering a historic defeat in the House of Representatives, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), the congressman responsible for electing Democrats to the House, will join us. What’s the way forward for Democrats in Congress after the election?

And Pennsylvania Sen.-elect Pat Toomey (R) joins us to explain how he defeated his Democratic opponent in a state with more than one million more registered Democrats than Republicans. What will he achieve in Washington?

Finally, we’ll be joined by Michael Duffy of Time magazine, and Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post to break down a midterm election with wide-ranging implications.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS. See why Fareed says that if this “Republican Revolution” doesn’t manage to cut the deficit, the American people will be saying “Fool me three times, shame on me”.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman thinks the outlook for the next two years — with a power split in Washington — is “terrible”. In an exclusive interview, Krugman goes head-to-head with the former chief economist of the IMF, the right-leaning Raghuram Rajan on what can be done to fix the U.S. economy…and whether it will ever GET done given the likely of gridlock in the nation’s capital.

Remember when we told you it’s only been a few weeks since the end of WWI? Well, it looks like we might have to wait a little bit longer for WWII to end. Japan never signed a peace treaty with the Soviets or Russia. And President Medvedev’s four-hour tour of an obscure island this week has heated up the cold war between the two nations. What in the world?

After that, we answer the question that has been asked over and over since last week’s thwarted cargo bombings: Is Yemen the next Afghanistan? Fareed speaks with the New York Times’ man in Yemen, Robert Worth.

Then, a look at a moderate Muslim country that’s fighting and winning their war on terror and extremism. An interview with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak.

And finally, how one country could really put the “savings” in “daylight savings”.

It will be Republicans all the time now

Dana Milbank: Would we be better off under a President Hillary Clinton?

As I sat in the East Room last week watching a forlorn President Obama account for his shellacking, I listened with concern as he described the presidency as a “growth process” and suggested that the midterm setback was somehow inevitable. “You know, this is something that I think every president needs to go through,” he said.

It brought to mind Hillary Clinton’s 3 a.m. phone-call ad from the 2008 campaign, and her withering criticism of Obama: “When there is a crisis . . . there’s no time for speeches or on-the-job training.” I wondered whether Democrats would be in the fix they’re in if they had chosen a different standard-bearer. . . .

Back in April 2008, a Clinton ad delivered a populist blow to Obama: “When the housing crisis broke, Hillary Clinton called for action: a freeze on foreclosures. Barack Obama said ‘no.’ . . . People are hurting. It’s time for a president who’s ready to take action now.”

Obama survived the challenge then. But times changed, and the president, feeling “removed” from the people, asked in the East Room how he can give Americans “confidence that I’m listening to them?”

The answer is simple: Do what Hillary would have done.

There are places where heads will explode.

Frank Rich: Barack Obama, Phone Home

AFTER his “shellacking,” President Obama had to do something. But who had the bright idea of scheduling his visit to India for right after this election? The Democrats’ failure to create jobs was at the heart of the shellacking. Nothing says “outsourcing” to the American public more succinctly than India. But the White House didn’t figure this out until the eve of Obama’s Friday departure, when it hastily rebranded his trip as a jobs mission. Perhaps the president should visit one of the Indian call centers policing Americans’ credit-card debts to feel our pain.

Optics matter. If Washington is tumbling into a political crisis as the recovery continues to lag, maybe the president shouldn’t get out of Dodge. If the White House couldn’t fill a 13,000-seat arena in blue Cleveland the weekend before the midterms, maybe it shouldn’t have sent the president there. If an administration charged with confronting a Great Recession knew that its nominee for secretary of the Treasury serially cut corners on his taxes, maybe it should have considered other options. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Well, here we are.

True, the big things matter more than the optics. Unfortunately, they are a mess too.

Nicholas D. Kistof: Our Banana Republic

In my reporting, I regularly travel to banana republics notorious for their inequality. In some of these plutocracies, the richest 1 percent of the population gobbles up 20 percent of the national pie.

But guess what? You no longer need to travel to distant and dangerous countries to observe such rapacious inequality. We now have it right here at home – and in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it may get worse.

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Robert Reich: America’s Two Economies, and Why One Is Recovering and the Other Isn’t

Next time you hear an economist or denizen of Wall Street talk about how the “American economy” is doing these days, watch your wallet.

There are two American economies. One is on the mend. The other is still coming apart.

The one that’s mending is America’s Big Money economy. It’s comprised of Wall Street traders, big investors, and top professionals and corporate executives. . . .

But there’s another American economy, and it’s not on the mend. Call it the Average Worker economy. . . . .

Inhabitants of the Big Money economy are celebrating Republican wins last week. They figure financial regulations will be rolled back, environmental regulations will be canned, the Bush tax cut will be extended to the top 1 percent, and it will be harder for workers to form unions.

Inhabitants of the Average Worker economy aren’t so sure. The economy has been so bad they’re angry at politicians. They showed their anger at the ballot box. They took it out on incumbents.

But if nothing changes in the Average Worker economy, there will be hell to pay.

Ralph Nader: Democrats Squander the Swing Vote

The mid-term 2010 Congressional elections are over and the exaggerations are front and center. “A tidal wave,” “an earthquake,” “a tsunami,” cried the Republican victors and their media acolytes.

Wait a minute! No more than 7 percent of the actual voters switched sides to create a 14 point spread. This amounts to about 3 percent of all the eligible voters who produced this “tidal wave.” That is what happens in our winner-take-all system. So when it is said that “the people have spoken,” chalk it up to 7 percent or so switcheroos. The rest voted the way they did in the previous Presidential and Congressional election (and about 28 million voters stayed home.)

Such sweeping descriptions gave incoming House Speaker, John Boehner, even more leeway than usual to play with words when he declared, without further elaboration, that “the peoples priorities and agenda are our priorities.” Mr. Boehner is the consummate corporate logo-man masquerading as a Congressman. If someone drew the logos of all the big companies that have marinated his career and put them on his suit coat, they would run into each other.

How then did the Democrats lose against the most craven Republican party in modern history-a Party that opposes again and again the fair rights of workers, consumers, investors, savers and patients.

Elizabeth Wurtzel: America, Land of the Free to Be Stupid

What people are angry about, if they only knew it, is that social mobility in the US is over and their economic future screwed

There are some remarks that are so stupid that to be even vaguely aware of them is the intellectual equivalent of living next door to Chernobyl. This is what it’s been like to live in the United States for the last year or two: it’s the moronic influenza, as the irate among us find increasingly convoluted ways to say decreasingly less (as I just did).

Hard to say precisely what it is that people – “folks”, as President Obama likes to call them – are so darn exercised about, but they say things that show that their command of any words with more than two syllables is completely questionable, like: “The president is a socialist”, or “healthcare reform is unconstitutional”. Of course, what they want to say, and what they should say, is something to the effect that they hate this man that those people elected president and they want to kill him – but only people like me, elitists with Ivy League degrees – people who actually have read Das Kapital and who have studied constitutional law – talk trash like that.

If you don’t know better, apparently, you demand to see the president’s birth certificate – suddenly, every American is on border patrol – and you start claiming that there is nothing about separation of church and state in the first amendment, even though the supreme court has ruled on the point more than 25 times since 1878.

Morning Shinbun Sunday November 7




Sunday’s Headlines:

Chasing pirates: Inside Microsoft’s war room

USA

G.O.P. Plans to Use Purse Strings to Fight Health Law

Grim outlook for grizzlies in Yellowstone region

Europe

Greece despairs of escaping from mountain of debt

Latin lessons: What can we learn from the world’s most ambitious literacy campaign?

Middle East

West panics at American-born voice of jihad

Israel confronts flagging interest in military service

Asia

Veteran dissident pleads with young people in Burma not to vote in poll

Indonesian Muslims protest Obama’s planned visit

Africa

Zim gem smuggling fuels cross-border dealer hub

Latin America

Cholera death toll rises in hurricane-hit Haiti

Barack Obama’s India trip set to seal £6bn worth of deals for US

Barack Obama’s India trip all about business for US with 20 deals worth £6bn ready to be finalised

Jason Burke in Delhi

The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010


President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrived yesterday in the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai on the first leg of a 10-day four-nation tour of Asia to drum up business for American companies and to consolidate relations with key allies in the region.

The couple will also hope to find some relief from the domestic political fallout of the Democratic party’s resounding defeat in midterm elections last week.

The president made his first statement of the trip, the longest he has taken in office, at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel, one of the targets attacked by Islamic militants in the city just under two years ago.

Chasing pirates: Inside Microsoft’s war room

Tech giant’s fight against theft has implications beyond the bottom line

New York Times

As the sun rose over the mountains circling Los Reyes, a town in the Mexican state of Michoacán, one morning in March 2009, a caravan of more than 300 heavily armed law enforcement agents set out on a raid. All but the lead vehicle turned off their headlights to evade lookouts, called “falcons,” who work for La Familia Michoacana, the brutal Mexican cartel that controls the drug trade. This time, the police weren’t hunting for a secret stash of drugs, guns or money. Instead, they looked to crack down on La Familia’s growing counterfeit software ring.

USA

G.O.P. Plans to Use Purse Strings to Fight Health Law



By ROBERT PEAR

Published: November 6, 2010


WASHINGTON – As they seek to make good on their campaign promise to roll back President Obama’s health care overhaul, the incoming Republican leaders in the House say they intend to use their new muscle to cut off money for the law, setting up a series of partisan clashes and testing Democratic commitment to the legislation.

Republicans, who will control the House starting in January but will remain in the minority in the Senate, acknowledge that they do not have the votes for their ultimate goal of repealing the health law, the most polarizing of Mr. Obama’s signature initiatives.

Grim outlook for grizzlies in Yellowstone region

With milder winters affecting their food and hibernation habits, they’re forced into a meat-dependent diet – putting them at odds with humans and livestock. They could end up as despised as wolves.

By Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Cody, Wyo. – It’s been a bad year for grizzly bears, and, if forecasts prove correct, it’s only going to get worse.

The tally of grizzly deaths in the states bordering the greater Yellowstone region is fast approaching the worst on record. And that’s before the numbers come in from the current hunting season, a time when accidental grizzly shootings are traditionally high. Here in Wyoming, more bears were killed this year than ever, including a bear shot by a hunter last week.

A number of complex factors are believed to be working against grizzlies, including climate change. Milder winters have allowed bark beetles to decimate the white-bark pine, whose nuts are a critical food sourcefor grizzlies.  

Europe

Greece despairs of escaping from mountain of debt

Today’s local elections in Greece are being seen as a referendum on savage state cutbacks. In the struggling Peloponnesian town of Aigio, the verdict is already clear

Helena Smith in Aigio

The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010


When the sun rises over Aigio, the waters in the Gulf of Corinth shimmer seductively. Shrouded in mist, the mountains that rise out of it appear almost to float. But along the winding road into the town – past piles of uprooted train tracks, empty shopfronts and shuttered factories – beauty gives way to ruin. And in the cafeneia, stony-faced men say the country is heading for catastrophe.

“The only thing we know is economic crisis,” sighs Apostolos Karafotias, who has served as mayor of the Peloponnesian town for the past four years. “People are really disappointed, fearful and – let me find the right word for it – yes, furious, with politicians they believe are firmly to blame for our awful financial situation.”

Latin lessons: What can we learn from the world’s most ambitious literacy campaign?

Fifty years ago this month, Cuba committed itself to teach every citizen basic literacy. Today, the country’s education system is the envy of the rest of the world. Nina Lakhani travels to Havana to discover the story behind the success – and ask why some believe that cracks are starting to show…

Sunday, 7 November 2010

Tuesday afternoon in the José Marti Primary School means it’s time for maths. A classroom full of wide-eyed eight-year-old boys and girls are poring over frayed workbooks in pairs while their teacher walks around peering over tiny shoulders. Each wears the standard Cuban primary-school uniform of burgundy shorts or mini-skirt and white short-sleeved shirt, and eager hands go up one after the other as the day’s sums are completed.

It is an industrious scene, and one that plays out daily at any of the numerous schools that dot the narrow streets of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana).

Middle East

West panics at American-born voice of jihad

But the cleric accused of radicalising Western Muslims is just a sideshow

By Patrick Cockburn Sunday, 7 November 2010

Anwar al-Awlaki, the militant Islamic cleric in hiding in Yemen, was being denounced in the US and Britain last week as an arch-conspirator against the West, leading to hundreds of videos of his speeches and interviews being hurriedly removed from YouTube.

Awlaki, an eloquent preacher, is alleged to have radicalised Roshonara Choudhry, the theology student who stabbed Stephen Timms MP for voting for the Iraq war. Awlaki was also in contact with militant Muslims who later attacked American targets, such as the Nigerian student with explosives sewn into his underpants and the US officer who shot dead 13 of his fellow soldiersat Fort Hood.

 Israel confronts flagging interest in military service



 By Janine Zacharia

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, November 7, 2010; 12:18 AM


TEL HASHOMER, ISRAEL – Since Israel’s founding, the military here has served not just as a defender against outside threats, but as the glue that brings together a patchwork nation of immigrants.

Now, the Israel Defense Forces’ position as the country’s most venerated institution appears to be slipping. While service is compulsory for most young men and women, a growing minority is avoiding conscription, leaving planners to worry the military won’t have the troops it says it needs.

Asia

Veteran dissident pleads with young people in Burma not to vote in poll

U Win Tin, the prominent former political prisoner, insists jail is no deterrent in battle to oust the military regime

Tracy McVeigh

The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010


Burma’s most prominent former political prisoner yesterday urged the younger generation to risk losing their own freedom in the fight for their country’s liberty.

In an impassioned call to his people ahead of an election on Sunday that has already been decried as a sham by international observers, U Win Tin called for a boycott of the vote.

“It is the only thing left to us: there is no hope to come from voting for this party or that party. This government aims to win, and it is so detested that it is impossible for us to do anything but boycott,” he said. “Of course it is not safe to stay at home and not go to the polling stations and people will be worried that they will be punished, but the military junta wants to claim this election as free and fair and so we have to reduce the legitimacy of that claim by not takingpart at all.”

Indonesian Muslims protest Obama’s planned visit  



From Andy Saputra, CNN

November 7, 2010  


Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) — Muslims staged rallies across Indonesia on Sunday to protest U.S. President Barack Obama’s planned visit to the southeast Asian nation this week.

The protests — organized by Muslim group Hizbut Tahrir — included women and children.

“We don’t see the differences between Obama and Bush, they both oppress Muslims, they both have blood on their hands,” said Ismail Yusanto, a spokesman for the Muslim group in Indonesia.

“That’s why we reject Obama and we don’t believe that he’s reaching out to Muslims.”

The spokesman said about 20,000 people attended the rallies.

Africa

 Zim gem smuggling fuels cross-border dealer hub



JUSTINE GERARDY | MANICA, MOZAMBIQUE – Nov 07 2010

“Here Lebanese. Americans stay here. Ten Guineas stay in that house. Here Pakistan. Here Nigeria,” Raymond Reba (24) offers every few metres, with one man raising a hopeful finger to signal he is open for business.

“There is a buyer. Here another buyer. There again, another buyer.”

Globally these rocks are restricted as “blood diamonds”, with the watchdog Kimberley Process failing to agree last week if it will allow Zimbabwe to resume exports from the country’s controversial Marange fields.

Latin America

Cholera death toll rises in hurricane-hit Haiti

The death toll from the current cholera epidemic in Haiti has exceeded 500, the country’s health ministry has said.

The BBC 7 November 2010

Fifty-nine people had died up until and including Thursday, and 617 others had been infected, bringing the total affected to 7,359, the ministry added.

The news came as the local authorities and relief agencies attempted to get clean drinking water to those areas worse affected by Hurricane Tomas.

The storm caused flooding and left eight people dead in western Haiti.

The charity, Save the Children, said that in Leogane, the streets had been turned into “rivers” and some 35,000 people had been affected.

The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan in the town said the water reached her knees, and that people were afraid of the risk of disease.

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