CNN reports: U.S. vetoes U.N. resolution on Mideast

The United States on Thursday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding Israel halt its attacks in Gaza.

The proposal also demanded that Palestinian militants release the Israeli soldier abducted June 25 in a raid in Israel and stop launching rockets at Israel from Gaza. In addition, it called on Israel to release Palestinian government officials and lawmakers it took into custody after the soldier’s abduction.

Ten nations on the council voted in favor of the resolution, and four abstained.

John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that “in light of the fluid events on the ground,” the United States believed the Qatar-sponsored resolution was untimely and out of date, and would have helped inflame passions in the Middle East.

How could “passions” get more “inflamed” than the bloody all out war that is currently occurring in the region? Is there some part of the bombing of the Palestinian foreign ministry or Beirut airport that strikes you, John, as calm consideration of the geopolitical consequences of their actions. How many more dozens of people have to die before we can assumed that “passions” are about as “inflamed” as they are going to get?

After consideration, I think I’ll give her name to a prayer circle. She really needs help, and that is a human reaction, not a political swipe. Something is wrong and it needs to be attended to by people who care about her. She is not the person she was. At this point, she is only a threat to herself.

Having apparently forgotten on the 10^th, skippy the bush kangaroo is celebrating his fourth blogiversary™ ^{[Talk Left]} today.

Maru, among others, posts on the Faux fascination with a DKos “Flame War”.

Flame War? The server still responds. That’s a “spark spat” not a FLAME WAR!!!

On the news groups an “all out, Godwin-inducing, your Momma, flame war” crashed servers, brought the backbone to a crawl, and had people standing by the router cabinet with a CO₂ fire extinguisher to keep it from melting. You had people adding memory and writing code to try to keep their mailboxes empty. You had university payrolls running late because of the overload on the system. Fuses would blow, circuit breakers would snap, and the discs in electric meters would “Frisbee” away.

What wimps.

If things look a little weird at your favorite TypePad sites it is not your imagination.  They were doing something last night that affected a lot of people and destroyed the best comment I ever made at Musing’s musings.

Ah, well.

Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, Mexico, Venezuela, Libya, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia – as long as all of these countries are stable and untroubled, the bulk of the world’s supply of oil can be pumped out of the ground and the price stays stable. At the moment, Libya is the least troubled.

Of course, increased tensions anywhere near these countries, or along the sea lanes from these countries to oil refineries can be a problem.

The price of a barrel of crude jumped $20 on threats to Iran, $5 on the North Korea missile tests, $5 on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, not to mention the existing problems in Iraq – none of which has anything to do with supply or demand, merely the perception of possible supply problems if things go bad.

[Read more →]

Valerie Plame has filed suit against Cheney, Libby, and Rove. [CNN MSNBC all breaking news flash only at this time.]

This could be interesting. Too bad the Supremes decided that it was alright to do this sort of thing to serving Presidents.

Update: CNN link.

I was otherwise occupied and didn’t make it to the used book sale this morning.

I’m not sure it would have mattered with prices like this: A rare complete copy of the First Folio of William Shakespeare’s plays has sold for £2.8m [$5.14 million] at a Sotheby’s auction. That’s a bit high for a book with scribbles in the margins that wasn’t signed by the author[s].

CBS is reporting that the Senate has compromised on Gulf drilling. The compromise is to put all of the drilling rigs off the coast on the western end of the Panhandle in Area 181.

It’s okay, the people in the western Panhandle vote Republican, so they won’t mind if their tourism is screwed and the military operations have to move elsewhere, because this is for the good of oil companies.

Florida Senator Mel Martinez, the choice of the “Big Oil” White House, crafted this “compromise” to the coasts of the Eastern Time Zone. John Ellis can’t run again, so he doesn’t care.

That 125-mile zone they keep talking about is 125 miles off the coast of the Peninsula, not the coast of the state. Look at the map in the article.