Month: June 2009

Turns out that Honduras did not have a coup after all.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers – but really, this story’s been covered by Fausta better than by myself.

(Background here)

They had a court order.  Fausta updated:

1:50PM
Indeed, Honduras’ La Prensa states that (My translation: If you use this, please credit me and link to this post)

An official statement of the Supreme Court of Justice explained that the Armed Forces acted under lawful grounds when detaining the President of the Republic, and by decommissioning the materials to be used on the illegal poll which aimed to bring forth Executive Power against a judicial order.Other sources verified that the president of the Congress, Roberto Micheletti, will assume the presidency of the republic in a few hours.
…
Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was detained this morning by the military in compliance with an order of the courts of law.

Meanwhile, the foreign policy experts over at State and the White House* have gone into, bluntly, full Ugly American mode: they’re currently declining to recognize the right of the Hondurans to remove their own head of state on constitutional grounds. Apparently, when it’s a choice between a chief executive on the one hand and said chief executive’s country’s judiciary, legislature, military, and own political party on the other… well, it all apparently depends on what Hugo Chavez thinks.

Let’s just hope that they don’t ask Chavez what he thinks about the Jews.

Moe Lane

PS: Let me expand on that just a little.  I don’t think that this administration is slavishly following Chavez’s lead: I think that they care so little about South American affairs that accommodating their stance to that of a darling of the radical Left seems to them to be a no-brainer.  If the White House is worried about getting the answer to this wrong, it’s not immediately obvious.

*H/T: Gateway Pundit, Hot Air.

Crossposted to RedState.

Apparently, the USA is ahead in its soccer game with Brazil. [UPDATED]

[UPDATE] Crisis averted. Whew!

By two points or dots, or whatever the terminology would be. This is unfortunate, not to mention a violation of the secret provisions of several international treaties: the sport of soccer exists of course for the sole purpose of giving the rest of the world something to feel superior to when it comes to the United States. Beating Brazil at the Worl…

What do you mean, the “Confederation Cup”? They have other competitions besides the World Cup? And we’re stuck with going to them? Who ordered that?

…anyway, obviously this is dangerously close to being a problem at the level of ‘diplomatic incident’ – so I apologize in advance if we win.

Moe Lane

‘Read my lips: no new tax increases?’

AoSHQ linked to this piece mostly to highlight the Warren Buffet quote on cap and trade:

“it’s a huge tax and there’s no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax. So it — and it’s a fairly regressive tax.”

– Real quickly, Mr. Buffet: how did you vote in the last election, again? –

…but I wanted to actually highlight the following exchange between George Stephanopoulos and Obama crony David Axelrod. In the interests of fair use, I am going to executive summary this one; feel free to compare it against the original. I think that I’ve captured the sense accurately, at least. Continue reading ‘Read my lips: no new tax increases?’

By the way, they just had a coup in Honduras.

Via Fausta’s Blog:

Soldiers arrest Honduran president: AP+

MECIXO CITY, June 28 (AP) – (Kyodo)—Soldiers on Sunday arrested the Honduran president and took him to an air force base just before voting was to begin on a disputed constitutional election, according to the Associated Press.

President Manuel Zelaya’s private secretary told the AP that Zelaya was arrested and brought to a base on the outskirts of the capital, Tegucigalpa.

[snip]

Zelaya had pledged to go forward with a referendum on constitutional reform despite the opposition of the Supreme Court, the military, Congress and members of his own party.

Fausta has background here: if you don’t have time to read it, note that proto-dictator Hugo Chavez (and whoever’s channeling Fidel Castro this week) is spitting nails on this. Given that, as the Wall Street Journal notes, this entire thing got started over President Zelaya’s attempt to set up a referendum* in opposition to pretty much the opposition of the rest of the Honduran government, civilian and military… well.  A man is known by his friends, and I wish I knew what the equivalent Spanish idiom is.

Moe Lane

*One that would allow him to run for re-election.  The Honduras Constitution forbids that; given of what I know of South American history, this isn’t exactly surprising.

Crossposted to RedState.

Iranian regime falls back on old tricks.

As in, trying to incite the populace against a long-established demon figure.

Iran arrests UK embassy staff

The British government is “deeply concerned” at the arrest and detention of British Embassy employees in Tehran, the foreign secretary said today.

David Miliband said Britain had protested to the Iranian authorities about the arrests made on Saturday.

He described the detentions as “harassment and intimidation of a kind that is quite unacceptable”. He added: “We want to see (them) released unharmed.”

Iranian media reported today that authorities had detained eight employees of the British Embassy in Tehran for an alleged role in postelection protests, signaling a hardening of Iran‘s stance toward the west.

No, it’s not always about us. Continue reading Iranian regime falls back on old tricks.

Send one each to each of your Senators.

I’d say send one to your Representative, too – but that ship has sailed.

(Scrappleface, via Vodkapundit)

Besides, either you’re in a GOP district, which means (with eight unfortunate exceptions) your legislator is already clued in – or you’re in a Democratic one, which means that you were planning to vote against the person anyhow.

Right?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Oliver Stone is mad about Reagan and Bush.

Mad, mad Oliver! (Link fixed.)

…I was going to write this whole thing up Dr. Seuss-style, but honestly? It came out completely lame. Anyway, it’s really simple: Oliver Stone’s angry as anything over the way that people cruelly went out and didn’t see his last movie, so he does what anybody would in his situation (and mindset) – go onto Bill Maher’s show and call Reagan and Bush stupid poopyheads. It’s cheaper than therapy, which Oliver Stone probably can’t afford right now anyway.

It always fascinates me how certain elements of the antiwar movement are so determined to discount the intelligence of the very people that effortlessly kicked their ass on foreign policy. I mean, they didn’t even slow down either President – so if Ronnie and/or W were dumb, then what does that make them?

Moe Lane

PS: All that being said, I liked The Doors.

Crossposted to RedState.

See, this is why I don’t mind funding the National Endowment of the Arts.

You can watch the video below only if you promise to read David Thompson’s post on it first.  It’s important that you do that: it’s not fair for me to reproduce it in full here, and it’s just too good to miss.

OK, you did that?  Excellent.  Here’s the video:

OK, see why I don’t mind funding the NEA?

Precisely: if we let somebody like Teixeira just wander around loose to try to find his own food, clothing and shelter, chances are excellent that when he finally autodarwinates* he’d accidentally take somebody with a net positive use to society with him.

So, it’s not so much a government subsidy as it is life insurance.

Moe Lane

*Thank you, Charlie Stross. But for the love of God, give up the grudge, OK? They’re out of office and it’s turning out that they got it right anyway. Drop the series as a bad job and just write the next Bob Howard novel.

…oh. Right. Should have checked first. Never mind…