A Little News and Talk

It’s been a busy few weeks down here with the moose heard. Let’s see what’s been happening since I’ve been so busy. Um, so the middle east has completely changed. Did anyone see that happening.

The UN seeks access to the Libyan injured and dying:

The United Nations is calling on Libya to allow it immediate access to the rebel-held western city of Misrata, following reports of fighting and deaths in the area.

U.N. emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos said Sunday that people “are injured and dying and need help immediately.”  She also called on all sides of the conflict to “ensure that civilians are protected from harm.”

The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the Red Crescent Society in Benghazi reported that Misrata, 200 kilometers east of Tripoli, is under attack by government forces, and that the Libyan Red Crescent is trying to get ambulances from Tripoli in to collect the dead and injured.

That’s a pretty bad sitiuation. Unlike the other middle eastern countries that have had changes and protests and the like, the Libyan government and military has met theirs with violence and apparently a goal of killing all of their citizens.

Apparently things aren’t really resolved in Egypt either. First the supposed interim government and really military don’t seem much different than before. And now there appears to be more attacking of protesters by “armed civilians” (read military or police out of uniform):

On Sunday, men in plain clothes armed with swords and petrol bombs confronted the pro-democracy activists after soldiers dispersed a Cairo rally they were holding to demand reform of the security services, eyewitnesses say.

“The army started firing in the air to disperse us,” Mohammed Fahmy told Reuters news agency.

“We tried to run away but we were met by 200 thugs in plain clothes carrying sharp weapons.”

Mr Fahmy put the number of protesters at 2,000.

Dismantling the security apparatus has been one of the key demands of the protest movement, the BBC’s Magdi Abdelhadi in Cairo says.

The events of the weekend have been described as the Egyptian storming of the Bastille, he says.

Let’s hope the military and the old politicians behind the scenes don’t do anything rash and let changes happen as they’ve promised. It’s not over and the Egyptians are not out of the woods by any means.

And allegedly because of all this unrest, gas prices are skyrocketing and will soon top $4/gal in the US:

For the first time since fighting in the Middle East sent gasoline prices skyrocketing, President Obama is thinking about tapping the country’s oil reserves.

“We’re looking at the options. The issue of the reserve is one we are considering,” Obama’s Chief of Staff Bill Daley said today on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

But he added: “It is something that only is done and has been done on very rare occasions.”

He is talking about the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It’s along the Gulf coast and is America’s oil piggy bank. In underground salt domes, 727 million barrels of oil are stored. The oil is there to protect against a sudden cut off of supply.

“It should be tapped when, physically, the market is lacking oil. And I don’t think we’re anywhere near that,” Roger Diwan of PFC Energy told ABC News.

I’m sure that will help the economy is the US loads. Meanwhile the remaining Democrats are standing firm and drawing a line in the sand about the budget. And they really mean it this time. Yea, right:

Assistant Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin drew a line in the sand on Sunday in his party’s budget battle with Republicans, who are pushing deep spending cuts to trim the federal deficit.

Durbin, one of President Barack Obama’s top allies in Congress, said he opposed going beyond the $10.5 billion in domestic, non-defense discretionary spending cuts that Democrats have backed.

Republicans want $61 billion in spending reductions.

“I think we’ve pushed this to the limit,” Durbin told the “Fox News Sunday” television program as Congress and the White House prepared for another week of showdowns that threaten a government shutdown.

“To go any further is to push more kids out of school,” Durbin said. “It stops the investment of infrastructure, which kills good-paying jobs right here in the United States.’

“I’m willing to see more deficit reduction, but not out of domestic discretionary spending,” Durbin said.

Any bets as to how long they pretend to be defending the budget. What theater. They want the same as the Republicans, for the moneybags behind them to be happy and to continue to keep them in office. Either way, neither party has our interests at heart.

And finally, Charlie Sheen is running his own internet talk show. Or soon will be. Yea, that’s what I said. If there ever were a sign that the entire US had jumped the shark, that would be it.

This is an open thread. Talk it up. No fighting. Or at least, not without proper boxing gloves.