A day after he said he was ready to yield power to “safe hands,” President Ali Abdullah Saleh asserted Saturday that his departure was not imminent, leaving unclear when and under what terms he would agree to step down.
Sunday Reads
Posted: March 27, 2011 Filed under: Feminists, Foreign Affairs, Japan, just because, Libya, morning reads, Violence against women, Yemen | Tags: fossils, Fukushima, Iman al Obeidi, Where is Eman al Obeidi 64 Comments
Morning everyone, it has been raining non-stop here in Banjoville. The electricity has been spotty so this may be a short round-up. So let me get to your morning links.
News from Libya is horrifying. Wonk reported on Eman al-Obeidi, and her frightening torture and rape at the hands of Gaddafi’s men. Please take a look at Wonk’s post from last night. As of my writing this post we still have not heard any more updates on her condition. Juan Cole has an Open Letter to the Left at his blog Informed Comment. Be sure to read it.
The intervention in Libya was done in a legal way. It was provoked by a vote of the Arab League, including the newly liberated Egyptian and Tunisian governments. It was urged by a United Nations Security Council resolution, the gold standard for military intervention. (Contrary to what some alleged, the abstentions of Russia and China do not deprive the resolution of legitimacy or the force of law; only a veto could have done that. You can be arrested today on a law passed in the US Congress on which some members abstained from voting.)
Among reasons given by critics for rejecting the intervention are:
1. Absolute pacifism (the use of force is always wrong)
2. Absolute anti-imperialism (all interventions in world affairs by outsiders are wrong).
3. Anti-military pragmatism: a belief that no social problems can ever usefully be resolved by use of military force.
More on Libya:
Libyan rebels retake strategic town from Gaddafi | Reuters
Libyan rebels backed by allied air strikes have recaptured the strategic town of Ajdabiyah, signaling that the tide may be turning against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in the east.
In Yemen, it seems that President Ali Abdullah Saleh is not leaving any time soon.
Flipping Again, Yemen President Vows to Stay – NYTimes.com
His statement was the latest pivot in back-and-forth negotiations over a transfer of power, even as Mr. Saleh tries to frame the terms under which he would leave.
In Japan, the situation is not getting any better. BBC News – Japan: Sea radiation near Fukushima plant rises further
Levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant have risen further to 1,850 times higher than the usual level, says Japan’s nuclear agency.
It is believed the radiation is coming from one of the reactors, but a specific leak has not been identified.
The plant’s operator has been berated for a lack of transparency.
It seems like more than a lack of transparency, it seems like outright lying. Japan nuclear crisis: Japan utility admits it failed to warn Fukushima workers about radioactive water – latimes.com
Tensions between the Japanese government and the company that runs the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex surfaced again Saturday after the utility admitted that it had failed to adequately warn workers about dangerous radioactive water at the plant.
Two workers doing electrical cable work at reactor No. 3 were hospitalized Thursday after their legs came into contact with radioactive water. Tokyo Electric Power Co. conceded Saturday that it had known about highly radioactive water at reactor No. 1 days earlier but didn’t brief workers that a similar hazard could exist at No. 3.
[…]
TEPCO resorted to using more than 5,300 tons of ocean water to keep its reactors and adjacent spent-fuel storage pools cool after the earthquake and tsunami knocked out primary and backup power to the cooling system. But the salt in seawater is corrosive to the reactors, and engineers are trying to pump it out and drain it into the sea.
Graham Andrew, special advisor to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a briefing Saturday that the situation at the plant remained “very serious” and that the likelihood of damage to the containment integrity of reactor No. 3 — whose fuel supply includes highly carcinogenic plutonium — is “a cause for concern.”
The latest from Kyodo News:
“10 mil. times normal” Does this mean 10 million times normal? Apparently it does: NHK WORLD English
Extreme radiation detected at No.2 reactor
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it has detected radioactive materials 10-million-times normal levels in water at the No.2 reactor complex of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The plant operator, known as TEPCO, says it measured 2.9-billion becquerels of radiation per one cubic centimeter of water from the basement of the turbine building attached to the Number 2 reactor.
The level of contamination is about 1,000 times that of the leaked water already found in the basements of the Number 1 and 3 reactor turbine buildings.
The company says the latest reading is 10-million times the usual radioactivity of water circulating within a normally operating reactor.
TEPCO says the radioactive materials include 2.9-billion becquerels of iodine-134, 13-million becquerels of iodine-131, and 2.3-million becquerels each for cesium 134 and 137.
These substances are emitted during nuclear fission inside a reactor core.
This next story is very upsetting, I must say it is yet another case of sexual assault on a girl, this time she was 9 and ended up getting pregnant.
A Lantana man accused of raping and impregnating a 9-year-old girl has been sentenced to life in prison plus five years.
Fede Datilus, 33, was convicted Wednesday of sexual battery on a person under the age of 12 and impregnation of a child.
Datilus raped the girl and got her pregnant while the two were living with relatives in Lantana. The victim gave birth to the baby in 2008 when she was 10 years old.
According to the arrest report, the victim said she was afraid she would be sent back to Haiti if she told anyone what happened to her.
She gave birth when she was ten! This is so disturbing. How could they make her carry that pregnancy and deliver is beyond me. There is a strange code in prison where child rapist are the lowest of the low. I only hope that this guy gets what he deserves in prison.
This bit of news proves why all those PLUB male politicians are always busting out of their hypocritical suits. Praise the lard? Study links church to obesity – Health – Diet and nutrition – msnbc.com
It might be the potlucks, it might be those long hours sitting in pews, but whatever the cause, a new study presented this week shows a link between religious activity and weight gain.
The study, conducted by researchers at Northwestern University, found that young adults who frequently attended religious activities were far more likely to become obese than those who didn’t.
“Our main finding was that people with a high frequency of religious participation in young adulthood were 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age than those with no religious participation in young adulthood,” says Matthew Feinstein, the study’s lead investigator and a fourth-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
This next link is a good one from ECHIDNE of the snakes: Life In the Neolithic Ages. A Feminazi Rant. Read the whole thing, I will quote a portion of it below.
It’s the obliviousness with which writers carefully pen the term “post-feminist,” the pretend-seriousness with which they discuss the imaginary coming era of men’s oppression by women, all combined with jokes about women as bad drivers or worries about whether women should be in power. It’s the opining on feminist topics by many who appear to have done their research by having a ten-minute thought one night over a beer or two, and it’s our willingness to take such thoughts every bit as seriously (if not more so) than the writings of people who actually have done the necessary research.
Take, for instance, the often expressed view that we now live in a post-feminist world? When honor killings exist? When the United States has never had a female president? When the Erick Ericksons of this world can proudly compare the US Secretary of State to bad women drivers? When work-life balance is just yet another women’s issue? When I can watch a week of Japanese television about the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-disaster combination and not see one female expert or politician interviewed, when all those rooms of power are full of only men? When the US Republican Party has declared an all-out war on women, and few notice this? Post-feminist, indeed, but only in the sense of feminism being irrelevant.
From Minx’s Missing Link File: Looks like we may reach a point where we don’t even need these misogynistic men around to keep the human race going. Presenting: Sperm in a Test Tube – Truthdig
They’ve gone and done it, those crafty scientists: As reported by Nature (as in the publication), a team of Japanese researchers has successfully cultivated “fully developed sperm” from “immature mouse testicles.” And they’re not just showing off.
Easy like Sunday Morning Link of the Week: How about some science news this morning. Remarkable fossil: 525-million-year-old discovery of ‘feathered helmet from beyond the clouds’
Researchers from China, Leicester and Oxford have discovered a remarkable fossil which sheds new light on an important group of primitive sea creatures.
The 525-million-year-old fossil belongs to a group of tentacle-bearing creatures which lived inside hard tubes. Previously only the tubes have been seen in detail but this new specimen clearly shows the soft parts of the body including tentacles for feeding.
So what are you reading or watching this morning. Let’s get the party started…because after all…this isn’t a rave, it’s a happening! 😉
peej
Carissa
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
JJ Lopez aka Minkoff Minx
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
This is from The Guardian, published a few hours ago:
Libyan woman is brutally silenced after accusing Gaddafi’s forces of rape | World news | The Observer
No update on Obeidi’s condition.
This is something from CNN, published 10 minutes ago:
Libyan woman bursts into hotel to tell her story of rape – CNN.com
They have wifi here so I’m sort’ve in business for being a sickie in a hospital. Anyway, Juan Cole posted this thread on Libya. I found it to be an interesting read.
Well, you beat me to it from your hospital bed. I was just about to post that on the front page!
I’d front page it if I was lucid enough to say something about it. I thought Cole had some excellent points and we’ve had some discussion with folks with similar thoughts too. I’m just glad I’m not stuck with hospital TV at the moment although they have three movie channels.
for a sickie in a hospital.
please get better…but huh? How did I miss that?!
It pretty much just happened. My face swelled up on Friday afternoon. I went to the emergency room on Saturday afternoon after youngest daughter got in from Baton Rouge to get me there. I have a MRSA infection and they’re loading me up with antibiotics. I look like I just went 6 rounds with Mike Tyson.
BTW, have you noticed that Memeorandum now links to us even when we use one of their links in a comment?
nope, didn’t notice that. They must have rewritten their search algorithm.
Oh my gosh – get well soon!!!
thx, believe me I’m trying!
a whirling the prayer wheels now!
please get better soon!
thx! If I don’t drown from all these IVS first!
That’s a nasty bug. All good wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.
Wow, I just noticed this in the comments. Feel better, dak. That is a rough infection. We’re all sending you positive, healing thoughts to help you fight it.
Dak,
Sending good thoughts and meditation your way. Get well soon.
Sending healing vibrations your way Dak
Thx for all the good wishes! Don’t ever get this stuff… it’s nasty.
I am glad to see you here Kat…I am very worried about you! Very worried…please take care and get better soon.
they just plugged me into the fifth IV bag full of antibiotics a few minutes ago. I think they’re throwing everything that got at me! My face still looks weird though. I get to see plastic surgeons tomorrow. I was hoping they’d throw in a tummy tuck.
Plastic Surgeons? Damn, please get better Kat.
They’re trying to figure out how to get all the fluid out of my cheek without disfiguring me. I look like I had a botched collagen Job on the right side of my face.
My god Kat, this is a nightmare. Are you at least responding to the antibiotics?
Its not getting worse. I think I’m less swollen this morning. My lip feels more normal but I haven’t looked at my face yet.
The worst thing is my noisy cellmate who appears addicted to TV at all hours, keeps singing muzac gospel and talks about wanting a taste of his body and blood. I feel like I’m in a zombie/vampire saga. I want to poke my eardrums out now. She loves her some phone too.
I thought that article from Juan Cole was excellent. (I already had that up on my front page today…it is the first article I link too…) I think if anyone objects to what we are doing in Libya, I am just going to point them to that Open Letter to the Left…
They will throw broad spectrum antibiotics at you until Microbiology determines exactly which antibiotics the organism is susceptible to, then the treatment will narrow down to that. This usually takes a few days.
Plastic surgeons?? Yipes!
Anyway, please just rest, regain your strength and get better.
A few updates:
Japan nuclear plant: workers evacuated after radiation levels soar | World news | The Guardian
BBC News – Libya revolt: Advancing rebels capture oil town Brega
Inside the Middle East: Blog Archive – Dozens of Syrians reported killed in Daraa « – CNN.com Blogs
Man you are on it!! I was just about to post the Syrian story!!
Hillary 2012
What amazes me is that we sit here in the US as the Radical Right continues to chip away at women’s rights and healthcare issues, while at the same time decrying similar treatment of other women across the globe. The truth is that all these issues are the same.
While the GOP forges its hatred of women across the nation, state by state, we have yet to hear the same outcries of outrage which will have the same effect. The diminishment of women by law.
A 10 year old forced to give birth will be the law of the land wrapped in the idea that she has been “blessed by God” to carry out this atrocity by electing idiots more focused on placing women in the same category as those of other nations we deride for the same practices.
While the GOP forges its hatred of women across the nation, state by state, we have yet to hear the same outcries of outrage which will have the same effect. The diminishment of women by law.
Well said
Pat,
I agree. It’s really difficult to understand how the government and the media can continue to maintain their inconsistent and hypocritical attitudes toward women!
You’re right that their attitudes are hypocritical, bb, but they’re becoming more and more consistent. The dirty secret of right-wing libertarianism is that it’s based on control by the “enlightened” or otherwise “worthy,” not freedom. Ayn Rand grew up under the Tsarist system, and that, under a different name of course, is exactly what the likes of the Koch Bros., the C Street crowd and others of their ilk want: the aristocrats at the top, a scattering of professionals to meet their needs, and the serfs.
New article at Salon, hope to do a main thread on this later. What’s really driving the GOP’s abortion war – War Room – Salon.com
Oooooh, I hope you do that, Minx!
It is up…when you read it think Lord of the Rings…
And Woman Voter, thank you! It’s good to see you.
The article is excellent. I will look forward to seeing the thread!
That being said, I must rant about the auther, the lovely Amanda Marcotte, who somehow claimed to be a feminist while drooling all over Barack Obama and slamming Hillary every chance she could. How’s it feel to be completely and totally wrong, Amanda?
Apparently it doesn’t feel that good, considering the way she talks about us ACTUAL feminists:
Gosh, Amanda, how did those pro-choice activists become so embittered and neglected? It’s a mystery!
Oh boy. I hadn’t had time to look at the article yet. Marcotte was completely fooled by Obama. I don’t know what she’s been writing about him lately.
@ madamab: Yup, completely agree about Marcotte.
Hey, at this point any media attention for this war on women is something we should be promoting. Watching our rights erode away is so frustrating. What gets me is that the younger generation of women are not spitting mad about this. I think I have read a few articles about some protest against the defunding of Planned Parenthood, but are there any college students organizing on any level? The ones who are so vocal about this appear to be around my age and older…(I am 40 btw)
Gosh, I love that sassy theater/opera style of yours madamab…I laughed and laughed…must have been the missing ‘horse blinders’.
madamab,
I guess she missed the WAR ON WOMEN, started when the women that made a business out of women, ala Oprah, went for Obama over Hillary, when he barely was in the party in 1998. Yup, us Democratic women, who worked and worked tireless, giving up weekends and Holidays to register voters and do the party’s business, did it all so we could be trampled on and NOT HAVE OUR VOTES COUNTED in the primary where the best candidate just happened to be a woman.
When you don’t count a person’s VOTE you are discounting their very existence and that is the deepest kind of insult you can do to a person…that is hard to forget.
This is for Minkoff Minx…I went to a Planned Parenthood rally a few weeks back, and there were tons of people who were in their 20s and 30s. Both men and women. They get it, but they still think the Democrats are on their side. That is what is holding so many people up.
That is good that there was a large turnout. I have tried to find protest articles and editorials from students and have only found a couple of them. Thanks for letting me know!
Great round up MM! Thanks!
The simple commonsense approach to abortion is if you don’t approve, don’t have one.
The same commonsense approach I use when presented with a plate of hated brocolli.
It’s that easy and has nothing whatsoever to do with what takes place between a woman and her doctor in the privacy of an office.
Eggs-actly!
Same thing with “gay marriage”–if you don’t care for it, don’t marry a person of your own sex. It ain’t that hard to avoid.
loved seeing Hillary on the talk shows this morning.
great roundup M.M. 🙂
I am working and missed them. 😦 Maybe someone can post a video, if they find one. 🙂
Stacy has all of the videos and transcripts here:
http://secretaryclinton.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/videos-secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton-on-the-sunday-talk-shows/
Thanks, my morning weekend routine doesn’t allow for multi-tasking…do appreciate it. 🙂
In the Salon article, Marcotte says that Texas law requires an ultrasound before an abortion. Who pays for the ultrasound? Since the state requires the ultrasound, it would make sense that the state pay for it, but that would then involve using taxpayer money to pay for an abortion related service. If the state is forcing the patient to pay for the ultrasound, isn’t that unconstitutional in the same respect that conservatives are claiming that Obama’s healthcare plan is unconstitutional because it forces people to purchase something from a private business?
I hope this is being challenged in the courts and also that, someone in Texas is drawing attention to the hypocrisy of the conservatives.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. If the Repubs are so against the health care law because it requires citizens to pay for services of insurance co’s, how can they force women to pay for ultrasounds, “counseling,” and whatever other ridiculous services they require of pregnant women?
Double speak they do, and do…just as all the affairs of those trying to run for president like Newt and Trump.
Those PLUBs probably make the woman pay for it! By increasing the cost of the abortion…And if they do not have the funds to pay for it, then those a-holes will deduct the bill from their WIC allowance.
janicen @ 11:56:
See my post from a couple weeks ago…
https://skydancingblog.com/2011/03/07/dont-mess-with-us-lefty-women-in-texas/
The Dems here even tried to pass an amendment to speed up the Medicaid application process for the sonograms, and the PLUBs still rejected it.
I do remember reading this post, Wonk. It was a great one, but I’m referring to actually going to court to challenge the constitutionality of forcing women to pay for a medical procedure for which there is no medical necessity, just as VA Atty Gen Ken Cuccinelli is challenging Obama’s healthcare plan.
I understood that janice, sorry I didn’t make that clearer. I was answering your question on who is supposed to pay for the sonograms. Supposedly Medicaid will pay. But, these control freaks won’t even expedite the medicaid process, so that reveals a lot right there. At any rate… even though it’s taxpayer money used to pay for an abortion related service, I suspect in PLUB dislogic, they see this as a service more related to “stopping” abortions (i.e. shaming/scapegoating/controlling women), so even though they won’t pay for it in reality, in theory I don’t think they see this as an issue of money being fungible and their money touching abortion money.
Hey, this is OT, but is anyone else having problems with the Sky Dancing site? The typefonts are not working for me…the style of writing up at the header. Are any of you seeing the same thing?
I’ve been having some trouble posting comments. Sometimes it takes me to an error page, but the comments still post. I had problems yesterday too. They have made some changes lately, and I guess all the bugs aren’t worked out yet.
The first uptick in decades for India’s wild tiger population:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110326/wl_sthasia_afp/indiaanimalsenvironmentwildlifetiger_20110326223830
And I’m awfully close to agreeing with some of the comments that poachers should be shot out of hand.
Legality is not the issue. The U.S. can twist arms and get a coalition going any time the U.S. wants. The UN resolution passed because it was not about regime change, though the U.S. is making sure it is.
To figure out why the Libya war is not a good idea, just take a look at all the bloodshed in Iraq and the Contras in Nicaragua. Both of those wars were regime change from outsiders. Ortega is the president of Nicaragua right now, despite the bloodshed, and the Iraqis have an occupied country. There will be a blow back from that war, imo.
No matter how bad a dictator is, the change must come from the people, and the idea is out there that the Libyans wanted to get rid of Gaddafi, but couldn’t because he was using his army, is nonsense. When a population is against a dictator, he must leave. The Libyans are divided, and that’s why the people who want Gaddafi out couldn’t do it.
Dak – get well asap!