Zero Sheep

If you have not heard, Sarah Palin just announced that she is resigning the governorship of Alaska effective the end of this month (see, e.g, here).  I have not listened directly to her remarks, but on Twitter (@AKGovSarahPalin) she said:  “We’ll soon attach info on decision to not seek re-election… this is in Alaska’s best interest, my family’s happy… it is good, stay tuned.”

There are also rumors to the effect that she is out of politics for good.  Everyone seems to be assuming that (1) it’s not true, and she’s just freeing up her time for a 2012 presidential run, or (2) there is some enormous scandal coming, so she is getting out of the way now.

Continue reading →

Earlier this morning, I posted an article which essentially said that both those condemning the ‘coup’ in Honduras and those praising its new government were wrong.  My opinion was that Honduras was right to get rid of Zelaya, but went about it the wrong way.  Thanks to a helpful commenter, Viva Honduras Libre (whose very informative comments here, here, and here spurred me to write this article), I now understand that the Honduras courts, military and legislature were probably acting in accordance with the law, or at least with their best guess at what the law was.  I still believe that they could — and probably should — have handled it differently to remove even the appearance of a coup, but I think I can state that it was categorically not a “coup.”

I will warn you in advance that this will be a long and probably dry post with quotes from Honduran law translated by Google Translate (which is used for all translations unless otherwise noted).  Google Translate works fairly well, but it transliterates more than translates, resulting in some incomprehensible sentence fragments.  Keep that in mind in assessing the accuracy of my conclusions.  The Andean Democracy Research Network also has a very brief summary of the constitutional issues (prepared, ironically, by the Carter Foundation, which has come out against the new government).

Continue reading →

UPDATE: Please see my new article, “No ‘Coup’ in Honduras,” for a more complete look at the issues raised in this article.  My initial thoughts regarding the actions by Honduran leaders were greatly revised upon learning that there is no mechanism for impeachment in the Honduran constitution.

Everything else has been moved past the jump.

Continue reading →

“They will take my blog when they pry it from the soft, furry paws of my kittens.”

I am currently out of town and writing this on my phone, so will keep it brief. I have been following the Iran situation via Twitter, paying more attention to my phone than to relatives I hardly know anyway.

Although Obama has slowly increased his rhetorical support for the democratic protesters, it is still clearly aimed at keeping the possibility of negotiation with the regime open. If he continues to push for negotiations that will legitimize the oppression, how will the media react?

I would posit that as much as they love Obama, the love is actually for the story of an idealistic, young African-American who became president. However compelling it is, that story is slowly becoming stale. How long, then, can the love of that story protect Obama when he is on the wrong side of an even more compelling story: the story of underdog, pro-freedom protesters fighting the evil theocracy?

For now the media is spinning on Obama’s behalf, but I think this is just the first time (of perhaps many yet to come) where he runs the risk of the media leaving him for a better story. His utter tone-deafness will cost him with his most valuable constituency, if not now, then eventually.

Whatever the implications may be of the current protests in Iran of Friday’s rigged presidential elections, they are giving us some shining examples of courage and selflessness. One ‘tweet’ in particular caught my eye and tugged at my heartstrings (time is CDT, UTC -5):

PD90, Sun 14 Jun 12:19 via web
Going out to join the croud, with my mother guiding me. I will fill you in on the details soon! Sit tight! #iranElection

What makes this particularly poignant (and why he mentions being guided) is that PD90 is blind.

Continue reading →