Posts from — July 2009

Results from the official Tour site.

Mark Cavendish [GB] continues his winning ways with another stage win, and keeps the green jersey, but he is at 142 overall.

The overall leaders have shifted: Fabian Cancellara [CH], Tony Martin [D], Lance Armstrong [US], Alberto Contador [E], Bradley Wiggens [GB]. Cadel Evans of Australia is in 8th place.

There is nothing surprising about winning the Tour without winning a stage. The stage winners tend to be specialists, while the yellow jersey goes to the best overall cyclist.

According to The Book of Answers the only weapon that worked against the Rabbit of Caerbannog was the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch:

And the Lord spake, saying, ‘First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.’

Much more effective than the Jon Boat Paddle of Plains.

Trying to figure out what was going on in Honduras has been a slog that required exercising my Baja Spanish and Google translate to strain information from the Constitución de la República de Honduras. After poring over it one thing became abundantly clear: the job of President is one term.

Trying to alter that is treason according to Article 4. Doing anything to aid or abet, directly or indirectly, any attempt to alter that costs you your civil rights according to Article 42, section 5. The term limit can not be altered by any means according to Article 374. The two Honduran lawyers stated flatly that if a President starts a process to alter the term limit he/she is instantly out of office according to Article 239.

The number of the term shall be one, no more, no less. One is the number of the terms, and the number of terms shall be one…

At the end of the slog, I got the definite impression that the constitution is really, honestly, unequivocally telling anyone who looks at it: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TRY TO CHANGE THE NUMBER OF TERMS FOR A PRESIDENT!!!

Of course, if you’re a wealthy ne’er-do-well playing cowboy, constitutions are just another piece of paper.

British sprinter Mark Cavendish has won the second stage of the tour in 104° temperatures and now wears the green jersey, but the overall leaders remain the same: Fabian Cancellara [CH], Alberto Contador [E], Bradley Wiggens [GB]. Lance Armstrong is at 10^th place and stayed with the pack today.

The fans needed helmets to protect them from the flying water bottles.

Update: I noticed someone wondering why the finish times at the end of a stage may show a half dozen people with the same time. This is because they only track the time to the second, and that many people may cross the line in a second. When the main group comes through you could have more than a dozen people crossing together.

Octavio Sánchez, a lawyer, is a former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of the Republic of Honduras wrote an op-ed for the Christian Science Monitor that explains what happened in Honduras: A ‘coup’ in Honduras? Nonsense.

These are the facts: On June 26, President Zelaya issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the “Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly.” In doing so, Zelaya triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office.

Constitutional assemblies are convened to write new constitutions. When Zelaya published that decree to initiate an “opinion poll” about the possibility of convening a national assembly, he contravened the unchangeable articles of the Constitution that deal with the prohibition of reelecting a president and of extending his term. His actions showed intent.

Our Constitution takes such intent seriously. According to Article 239: “No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”

Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says “immediately” – as in “instant,” as in “no trial required,” as in “no impeachment needed.”

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The ABC has a new opposition statement – Ahmadinejad paid for votes: Mousavi

The main Iranian Opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has issued a new 25-page report detailing alleged fraud and irregularities in last month’s presidential election.

The report has been prepared by the Committee for the Protection of Votes, which is run by Mr Mousavi’s campaign office.

It accuses President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of abusing state machinery during the campaign and handing out cash to secure the votes of working-class Iranians.

The report says both the Interior Ministry, responsible for organising the election, and the Guardians Council, the official electoral watchdog, were biased towards Mr Ahmadinejad.

And some of those claims are backed up and expanded on by an important association of clerics in Qom, as noted by the BBC: Iran clerics defy election ruling

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The BBC is reporting Yemenia crash jet signal detected

A signal has been detected from the flight data recorders of the Yemenia airliner that crashed in the Indian Ocean on 30 June, officials say.

Comoran and French investigators say the signal was picked up during an underwater search.

They gave no indication when the flight recorders might be recovered.

The Airbus 310, going to the Comoros Islands from Yemen, came down in bad weather with 153 on board. A 12-year-old girl was the only survivor.

From what the survivor has reportedly told her father, it sounds like the crew was too low as it approached for landing. They may have been hit by a down draft or had faulty readings. They weren’t trying to ditch in the ocean, and the weather was bad at the time.

The 2009 Tour de France starts today in Monaco and continues until the July 26^th finish in Paris.

You can follow on the official site, the BBC Cycling page. and the NBC site.

The CBC has a Tour introduction site.

Lance Armstrong is back, but he is probably not going to be a contender, especially following his injuries in a major crash during a tune-up race.

Update: From the ABC results from Stage 1.

The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…

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The Miami Herald reports on an interview with a Top Honduran military lawyer: We broke the law

In an interview with The Miami Herald and El Salvador’s elfaro.net, army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza acknowledged that top military brass made the call to forcibly remove Zelaya — and they circumvented laws when they did it.
…

Inestroza described weeks of mounting pressure, in which a president who was viewed as allied with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez used soldiers as “political tools.” The attorney general’s office had ordered Zelaya’s arrest, and the Supreme Court, Inestroza said, ordered the armed forces to carry it out.

So when the powers of state united in demanding his ouster, the military put a pajama-clad Zelaya on a plane and sent him to Costa Rica. The rationale: Had Zelaya been jailed, throngs of loyal followers would have erupted into chaos and demanded his release with violence.

“What was more beneficial, remove this gentleman from Honduras or present him to prosecutors and have a mob assault and burn and destroy and for us to have to shoot?” he said. “If we had left him here, right now we would be burying a pile of people.”
…

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Lambert has a YouTube video of Loudon Wainwright III singing his song, The Krugman Blues, which is a fitting lead in to Krugman’s latest column, That ’30s Show.

The White House didn’t do enough to even slow the slide, much less start the recovery. Along with the job losses wages are heading toward deflation, so you have fewer people working, and those that are working are taking home less money. That is not the way you get out of a recession, much less the GOPression we are in.

The private sector is not even borrowing, much less spending or investing, so it is up to the government. The budget problems of the states are making matters much worse as they are required to lay people off and curtail their spending to balance their budgets.

We need a really big stimulus package and we need it now, or we are going to be stuck in this mess for a decade. The longer the White House stalls, the worse things will get. It is about time they stopped listening to “conventional wisdom” and started listening to people who have been right all along.

California has a Republican governor who can’t convince Republicans in the legislature to stop blocking the state budget, so the fiscal year starts with IOUs. I saw it under George Dukmejian and Pete Wilson when I lived in California, so why should it be different for Arnold. They all talked about fiscal responsibility and all ran deficits that they covered up. Well the days of cover-up are over, and something has to be done, but the Republicans in the legislature refuse to do it.

Digby lives in California and notes who gets IOUs, “People needing temporary assistance for basic family needs”, and who continues to get cash, “Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees”.

Since California loves initiatives, why don’t they put something on the ballot that says if there isn’t a state budget at the beginning of the fiscal year, not only do “Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees” not get paid, but they are fined an amount equivalent to their pay and benefits for every day until a budget is passed.

That is the penalty for public workers who go on strike in New York, and the “Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees” in California are public workers who aren’t doing their job. They obviously need an incentive.

Chilling Out

Turn down the thermostat!

[Editor: KT-2 attempting to remain lady-like while maximizing belly contact to cool off. It did cool off later when a thunderstorm passed through.]

Friday Ark

Just when I was anticipated a relatively calm hurricane season it turns out El Niño has two personalities, one stormier.

Normally an El Niño, a large pool of warmer than usual water in the Pacific, helps to hold down the number and strength of tropical storms, and it looks like one is forming this year. Now they tell us that if the pool is more in the central Pacific than the eastern, it can make the season worse.

The central Pacific form is being referred to as El Niño Modoki after the Japanese scientist who discovered the difference the location makes in the effect. We still don’t know for certain which type is forming, but the last time an El Niño Modoki formed was in 2004. I got smacked by hurricane Ivan and the peninsula was crisscrossed by storms from both coasts [Bonnie, Charley, Frances, and Jeanne].

By all accounts Representative Alan Grayson, (D-Orlando) is a solid liberal vote, but he’s a Congresscritter and does what Congresscritters do – Bring Home The Bacon.

He is pushing a $50 million hurricane research center to be built in Orlando. More money for hurricane research is great, but there are existing research centers that could make better use of the money than building a new one in Mouseville. If Walt Disney had wanted a hurricane research center in Orlando he would have ordered the local Congresscritters to build one.

The Orlando Sentinel editorial page notes Alan Grayson behind a Category 5 waste and Dr. Jeff Masters says New $50 million hurricane research center: a bad idea.

Yes, Orlando needs jobs, but the jobs generated would come from outside the Orlando area, not from the local community, so it isn’t an effective boost in a state without an income tax. If the Congresscritter would like to really help, he could back rail service to Orlando to increase visitors.