This is bullshit. He asked for a nonbinding referendum on whether the citizens wanted to convene a constitutional convention that might allow for more than one term. That’s it. This was after he obeyed the Supreme Court’s ruling not to put a binding referendum on the ballot.

The institutions of the developed world are generally strong enough to prevent or limit dictatorial takeovers (God knows the Republicans tried), but third world countries have a very hard time getting things to work properly, thanks to the abject poverty, corruption, powerful neighbors, no pluralism among elites, etc. Military might is inevitably going to be a huge player, but in service to what or to whom?

A Honduran friend emailed me this morning, “Las noticias y mandatarios internacionales me tienen decepcionada con la cobertura y apoyo a Mel,” (News and international leaders have disappointed me with the coverage and support for Mel) and she’s the last person to want to see soldiers in her streets. The country’s vulnerability is such that there’s no easy way to establish institutional continuity, but I get the sense that this is what people are hoping for and that’s what they are expecting the military to help with.

I love how the WSJ article funnels down to hating Hillary Clinton, to catching her “showing her true colors.” What a bunch of fucking clowns.

I dunno. I have a soft spot for Zoo Station, altho Zooropa sucked

Actually, yeah, I’ll put “Achtung Baby” in with the good albums, but showing the start of the decline. The last of the first Eno/Lanois bunch. I didn’t even know they had gone back to the Lillywhite/Eno/Lanois trough in varying combinations for their last two records. Shows how bad I thought the two before that were. I just stopped paying attention.

The blurb on allmusic about the new one makes it sound like I might like it. One of these days I’ll give it a spin.

(1) Remind them that the alternatives include actor212.

Hey, I have enough on my plate with women, thank you very much…

This isn’t as crazy as it sounds, even though the WSJ’s language echoes certain Cold War self-deception and doublespeak. My understanding is that Zelaya was acting unconstitutionally and ignoring the Honduran Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ordered the military to remove him. Not my idea of a democratic surrender of power either though.

Nailed on the second reply.

The situation is complicated, but Zelaya was fucking over the country pretty hard, ignoring the other two branches and had made enemies out of nearly every political ally he had previously. He was abusing the executive bureaucracy under the objections of the legislature and the supreme court, the latter of which requested his removal by the military.

I think the US should stay out of this, long post short.

I dunno. I have a soft spot for Zoo Station, altho Zooropa sucked. Time Magazine did a piece tracing U2s albums and this timeline pretty much held: Boy and War were seen as good, but not their best, then you hit “Fire” and “Tree” up at the top of their career, and then you can watch the career tank slowly, achingly slowly, beyond that, with little blips (“Dismantle” wasn’t half bad, but it wasn’t all that great, either)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=160345324422&Category=1468&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26its%3DI%26otn%3D1

[lebowski]That must be exhausting.[/lebowski]

Just sayin’ …

There’s also the issue that using the army to settle political disputes is not exactly de rigeur these days.

One thing with wingnutz is that they can’t spare a moment to think a little more broadly than the Extreme Seriousness and Importance of corruscating a brown guy who stands up for poor brown people – imagine for a sec Obama’s lot came out and said, “Good Job, Honduran Army, for restoring the rule of law in your country”. Anyone else in the world, right now, who might not use that as cover to use his own heavies to “restore the rule of law”? Off the top of your head?

OT: Wingnut headline right now is the on-again, off-again auction of Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate on E-Bay. Will confess that whilst I had the idea a while back that this could be a great idea to pocket some wingnut welfare for myself, this is not my auction. Mainly because the risk of being killed by a bilked wingnut far outweighed any fun, reward, or performance art enjoyment I hoped to get.

The displaced President is an evil Hugo Chavez power grabber for wanting to allow the Honduran citizens to vote on whether or not they should vote to change the Constitution to permit Zelaya to run again; real democratic leaders like Alvaro Uribe simply rely on a bribed Congress to authorize their re-election.

Kinda like when Sec. of State Al Haig testified before Congress that some nuns had died “in an exchange of fire” with the Salvadoran soldiers/death squad (I forget exactly) who/which had brutally executed them. Family values, culture o’life, and such as.

“Full on Cheetos”, “in the bottom”, and “Dangerously Cheesy” must be employed to describe wingnuts.

F’zd.

It saddens me, Sadly, when the quality of trolls goes down so much, and readers respond anyway. These guys don’t believe in anything, Gang. They just want to be embittered and make poopies and have people yell at them (if nobody will talk to them, which they won’t). My ex-father-in-law was one of them. He had his collection of Lyndon Larouche bullshit ideas, his racism cloaked in irony, his paranoia. He liked being persecuted because it meant somebody, somewhere, was thinking of him.

When nobody would engage him any more because he was boring, offensive, and tone-deaf to human interaction, he would start baiting. Saying unpleasant things, accusing people. Because everyone knew he was a crackpot, they would resist confronting him back.

When baiting didn’t work he’d start talking to himself. Eventually he would make a scene (for similar example see http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/21234.html, Breitbart vs. Whoever,) and finally there would be a ghastly and embarrassing denouement that tapered from a huge display of balls to a tiny, scaly point, much like the tail end of a rat.

He eventually died hideously. I wouldn’t wish such a fate on anybody. But most of all, he died alone. Profoundly, engulfingly alone. Nobody cried for him. I hadn’t even thought of him for years, until just now. That’s the thing that propels the cranks, I think. What makes people become Nazis or join the Minutemen. They want to be part of something, and they want to make people react. They can’t make anyone love them, or laugh, or smile, so they say, “fuck it, I’ll go for fear and disgust.”

All of which is to say, don’t feed the trolls. The best vengeance is silence.

Unless, of course, the violent coup is against a Rethug Preznit and censorship is limited to Faux News. Then you’re for it FULL TILT.

Moron.

As I travel around Arizona, I am always humbled…

…you tell it, brother!!