Progressive breakfast club headlines 12/7/08 12356

 

Progressive breakfast club headlines 12/7/08   WILL NEXT STATE DEPARTMENT BE A "TEAM OF RIVALS" OR "HILLARY LAND?"  Apparently it will be the latter as Clinton accepted the nomination on condition of being able to select her own staff and advisers.  So far she has tapped personal loyalists for her "kitchen cabinet" and officials from the Bill Clinton adminstration for under-Secretary positions. (For an old H. Clinton imagery, she may be baking cookies with friends in Foggy Bottom.) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5299035.ece   "I'M THE SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS, NOT THE SENATOR FROM KOGELO.  Barack Obama's statement during a 2006 visit to Africa.  It symbolizes the dilemma of Africans who believe and/or hope that the presence in the White House of a man with immediate African roots will promote African interests in U.S. foreign policy.  The problem, says Kenyan poet Mukama Wa Ngugi, is that Obama will have to be responsive to U.S. political pressures, and may disappoint Africans on such matters as support of AIDS eradication, U.S. imperialism in Somalia and the development of an African military command.  It comes down, he says, to whether Africans will be able to pressure Obama to be responsive to their expectations. (Again, the idea of power from the grassroots; or should we say veldt-roots?)  http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19869   BREAKING U.S. SANCTION AGAINST TECHNOLOGY EXPORTS TO IRAN WITHOUT BREAKING U.S. LAWS.  A number of multi-national corporations like the oil tool manufacturer Schlumberger are able to carry on operations in Iran which critics say involve risk in technology transfers that could be used by Iran to develop nuclear weapons.  Lawyers for these firms say, apparently correctly, that they are operating in conformity with."all applicable (U.S.) laws and regulations."  A Boston Globe special report.  http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2008/12/07/oil_firm_sidesteps_sanctions_on_iran/? page=1   "THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM IN MACON COUNTY SUCKS."  So says the mother of the 1994 victim of a brutal murder, referring to the judicial system that convicted a possibly innocent man and then kept him in an Illinois prison suffering from multiple sclerosis and medical neglect, after previous Governor George Ryan commuted death sentences for all Illinois prisoners before he left office.  Having been extradited from California with a promise to execute him if found guilty, there is now pressure to return the near-comatose man to CA to face another capital charge. http://www.alternet.org/rights/110045/should_a_terminally_ill_prisoner_have_to_die_behind_bars/?page   "FLORIDA IS A SUPER-PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS STATE. WE'RE VERY CONSERVATIVE THAT WAY" (ORLANDO CITY LAWYER). Indeed!  Her statement is proven in the saga of a "rabble-rousing" preservationist in a long-running campaign to stop a Lake Leola Park development project that threatens to demolish a neighborhood of 1920s-built homes.  She is allowed by city officials to "jump through the hoops" of a protest that she is not legally allowed (under "conservative" property rights laws) to make because she is not a resident of the neighborhood.  As City Council takes action on the matter, city lawyers tell the Council it must affirm the developer's building contract or be sued for breach of contract.  http://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/story.asp?id=12796   These headlines and following additional stories posted on website today.  To read them, click http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ scroll below headlines and click on any article you want to read.   ooo  La Scala Opera opens, expecting a season of miseries. ooo  Hollywood lights come down (the sea turtles you know.) ooo  Why do "Hispanic-themed" speciality license plates in Florida? ooo  Parts of Gainesville FL become mosh pit after Gator win. ooo  And more.   Quote of the day:    "''At some point in our lifetime', said George Clooney, 'gay marriage won't be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps keeping James Hood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black.' To the opponents of Proposition 8, this kind of analogy is a rallying cry; but as white Hollywood has recently discovered, to the blacks who voted for the measure, it's galling. Comparing the infringement on civil rights that gays are experiencing to that suffered by black Americans is to begin a game of 'top my oppression' that you're not going to win." New York Times op-ed columnists, commenting on the overwhelming support of Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, in California. The columnists see this situation is representing a serious tear in the "big tent" under which different liberal constituencies are attempting to co-exist.