Fausta’s Blog

A bomb scare in the Netherlands,
Report: Attempted Terrorist Attack in The Netherlands – Bomb Found in Train

UPDATE (6:00 AM ET)
Dutch Omroep Brabant now reports that police say no bomb has been found. A man was arrested, but he it’s likely he’s an insane loser with too much time on his hands and not a terrorist. Good news, if true of course.

Having said that, I do hope that this man will suffer the consequences of pulling such a “prank.” The entire train station was evacuated, people couldn’t get to their work, all because of one attention craving idiot. End Update

In other news, Geert Wilders is on trial. Pat Condell comments,

Gates of Vienna and Diana West have more on Geert Wilders. Go read every word.

From the irony department,
NOAA: Blizzard Rearranges Climate Change Announcement

As D.C. continued to dig out from Snowmageddon and is keeping an eye on another storm system, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was busy making a climate change announcement.

NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce, is going to be providing information to individuals and decision-makers through a new NOAA Climate Service office. “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives,” the release says.

Earlier snowmelt? That would be nice.

As I write this, the weather cable TV stations are forecasting 4″ of snow today and an additional 6″-8″ tomorrow. Washington, which was slammed harder than us over the weekend causing the government offices to close and the National Guard to be called on duty, is supposed to get even more.

But, says NOAA spokesman Justin Kenney, they’re happy to have a chance to educate people about the difference between the climate and the weather.

Or, as Don Surber puts it, Baghdad Bob joins NOAA.

…which will further curtail my tango activity, probably.

The town and the township are covered with snow but the roads are clear. TigerHawk was out there taking pictures,

I’m soooo ready for spring…

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The big story of the week: Cristina Fernandez seized the Central Bank

After a month of wrangling, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner succeeded in sacking central bank President Martin Redrado last week. In his place she named Mercedes Marcó del Pont, a Yale-trained economist who has expressed the view that central bank autonomy ought to be limited.

The opposition howled at the news. Felipe Sola, former governor of Provincia de Buenos Aires, warned that the new bank president “is going to do what the executive decides and they are going to modify the bank charter to justify her doing what the executive tells her.”

Of course that would seem to be the point. Mr. Redrado was fired because he refused to turn over $6.6 billion in bank reserves to Mrs. Kirchner, who wants to pay foreign creditors but doesn’t want to use treasury revenues.Ms. Marcó del Pont, if she wants to keep her job, will follow the orders of the president.

UPDATE
Welcome, Instapundit readers!
Please also listen to the podcast, Argentina’s Cristina seizes the Central Bank

LATIN AMERICA
Obama and the FTAs

ARGENTINA
Argentina’s reserves and its debts
Central Bank robbery: The president gets her way, again, but at a price, and visit the blogs and articles featured below,

El riesgo país es el matrimonio

BOLIVIA
PDF file: Into the abyss: Bolivia under Evo Morales and the MAS

BRAZIL
Brazil’s possible next president
Serra waits, a bit too patiently, for the presidency
The front-runner in Brazil’s coming presidential contest has done a decent job running its biggest state. But to keep his lead he must get campaigning

CHILE
El impacto de un gigante: “Mi negocio queda al lado del Costanera Center”

COLOMBIA
Uribe Vows Calm as Colombia Awaits Referendum Ruling

Colombia’s health reforms
Shock treatment: President Uribe tries to push through some much-needed changes

COSTA RICA
Costa Rica Debt May Outperform on Chinchilla Poll Win, RBS Says

CUBA
“Guardian angels”

Kenneth, What Is the Frequency: How CBS and Dan Rather Set Up Elian Gonzalez

Rage against the Marxist machine

Commentary: No ‘common policy,’ as Europe grapples over its future ties with Cuba

Cuba 1963: Inside castro’s prisons

Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Juan Ramón Rivera Despaine, Cuban Political Prisoners of the Week, 2/7/10

ECUADOR
Ecuador at Risk: Drugs, Thugs, Guerrillas and the Citizens Revolution

Cocaine trafficking keeps Ecuador anti-drug authorities busy
Seizures set a record last year for the country, which is growing in importance as a hub for shipments to the U.S. and Europe

Ecuador president says cops overreacted to insult

Humor: Por atentado a la majestad del poder
¡Correa se mete preso a sí mismo!
Asesores le aconsejan no volver a salir a la calle

Indigenous Groups Confront Rafael Correa
Ecuador’s Neo-Liberal Model

GUATEMALA
Conferencia sobre Evolución en Guatemala

HAITI
“Trop loin du Bon Dieu”

Haiti’s Crisis: Oil, Oligarchs, and The Groundhog Day Manifesto

The evil genius of the U.S. plan to destroy Haiti

HONDURAS
Honduran amnesty and truth

MEXICO
Protection through Integration: The Mexican Government’s Efforts to Aid
Migrants in the United States

PANAMA
Facts and rumors

PARAGUAY
¡Sinvergüenzo!

PERU
Chocolate and coca

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rican nationalist pleads guilty to charges related to 1983 Wells Fargo robbery in Conn.

In Hartford, A Machetero Pleads Guilty To Role In 1983 Wells Fargo Robbery

VENEZUELA
Via Instapundit, Venezuela: Chavez equates Twitter with terrorism

DEL “TAS PONCHAO” AL 26/9: ¿ESCALERA, BARRANCO O TOBOGÁN?

Murderer Ramiro Valdes comes for the 18 years of Chavez bloody military coup

CIA Factbook Draws Chavez’s Ire

Government Expands Business Nationalization Powers

From 2007,

Cable news channels are announcing that John Murtha, D-PA, age 77, died of complication from gallbladder surgery.

Who will take his seat?

UPDATE
Wall Street Journal notice.

Chris Cilliza

The death of longtime Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha (D) this afternoon will set off a special election in his very competitive western Pennsylvania 12th district.

According to state law, the governor has ten days once the vacancy is officially declared to decide on the date for the special election, which can come no sooner than 60 days following that proclamation.

That likely means the special election will be held on May 18, which is the date already set for federal primaries around the state. (Special elections costs the state huge sums of money and it’s likely that Gov. Ed Rendell will choose to go with an already established election day to save some cash.)

The Voters Of PA-12 Will Choose A New Representative Through A Special Election

In other words, there will be a couple more opportunities for voters to affect the composition of a House already narrowly divided on President Obama’s signature issue, and for now, at least, there are no longer the votes to pass anything unless and until Nancy Pelosi turns some “no” votes into “yes” votes without losing more of the original “yes” votes.

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
Argentina Seizes the Central Bank

After a month of wrangling, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner succeeded in sacking central bank President Martin Redrado last week. In his place she named Mercedes Marcó del Pont, a Yale-trained economist who has expressed the view that central bank autonomy ought to be limited.

The opposition howled at the news. Felipe Sola, former governor of Provincia de Buenos Aires, warned that the new bank president “is going to do what the executive decides and they are going to modify the bank charter to justify her doing what the executive tells her.”

Of course that would seem to be the point. Mr. Redrado was fired because he refused to turn over $6.6 billion in bank reserves to Mrs. Kirchner, who wants to pay foreign creditors but doesn’t want to use treasury revenues.Ms. Marcó del Pont, if she wants to keep her job, will follow the orders of the president.

Mrs. Kirchner is not the first politician to covet the wealth available from the monetary authority. Closer to home, there is Barack Obama, who didn’t back Ben Bernanke’s controversial second term as head of the Federal Reserve out of magnanimity. Mr. Bernanke kept his job because he has shown a willingness to finance Mr. Obama’s big-government agenda.

Yet Americans can still hold out hope that competing institutions will check the runaway power of a government that is being underwritten by the central bank. In Argentina, institutions are frail and it is far from certain that they can hold up under Mrs. Kirchner’s iron fist.

There’s a lot at stake. More inflation—beyond the 17% rate in 2009—is one danger. A Hugo Chávez-style power grab is another. Mr. Chávez is Mrs. Kirchner’s closest ally in the region, and she has been open about her desire to copy his model; her husband, former president Nestór Kirchner is widely viewed as the author of her playbook.

The lunge for the bank reserves is all about improving the Kirchners’ odds of staying in power. Until last night when Mr. Kirchner underwent emergency circulatory surgery, analysts expected him, rather than her, to run in the 2011 presidential election. What remains clear is that if the kirchneristas want to retain power they will need to boost government spending.

Related reading:
Argentine Committee Backs Firing of Central Banker
Argentina Bank Won’t Be Independent, Goldman Says
Argentina Markets Slump On Central Bank Worries
And from the English-language Buenos Aires Herald, After gov’t made appointment official
‘Marcó del Pont must stop Moreno, otherwise she has too much to lose’

In other news, Argentine Ex-President Kirchner May Leave Hospital by Midweek

The Carnival of Latin America will be up this afternoon.

Stayed away from politics most of the weekend, so I’m totally puzzled about this fuss over Sarah Palin’s hand – the hand jive. Michelle Malkin has a screen capture of the meme,

Steven Spruiell makes a point,

I get that it’s a sort of “turnabout is fair play” from the set that must be very annoyed by now at all the prompter jokes. But it misses the point of why the prompter jokes have caught on. A prompter feeds your remarks to you word for word. The idea that you would need such a device to talk to a room full of sixth graders or a meeting of your own staff is funny.

On another level, the prompter jokes took off because they reinforce the substantive argument that Obama is in over his head, because they indicate that he can’t perform the the presidency’s basic public-speaking duties without a major safety net. I’m not sure what substantive argument Palin’s hand-notes are supposed to underline, and I suspect it’s not an argument so much as an attitude. The attitude would be that writing on your hand is dumb and low-class. On the left, where this opinion of Palin already prevails, anything which reinforces it will be picked up and cheerfully passed around. And, to the extent that anyone not on the left notices this giddy snobbery, it will play to Palin’s strengths.

For example, one might say: “Unlike the guy who needs a three thousand dollar teleprompter to get out of bed in the morning, Palin speaks from concise notes like everybody else. And, like other busy moms, she sometimes writes notes on her hand.” The comeback is so obvious that, again, I really can’t figure out why Palin’s detractors are bringing this up at all.

By the way, Palin delivered a 45-minute speech. Those seven words were her “notes”.

She’s not even an elected official now.

The Commander in Chief of the United States has a teleprompter for every word and can’t even pronounce “corpsman” correctly.

“So, how’s that hopey, changey stuff working out for you?”

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Can’t wait for The Onion or Scott Ott to take a spin at this one: scientists in the UK found that bored bureaucrats drop like flies,
You really can be bored to death, scientists discover

Boredom could be shaving years off your life, scientists have found.

Researchers say that people who complain of boredom are more likely to die young, and that those who experienced ‘high levels’ of tedium are more than two-and-a-half times as likely to die from heart disease or stroke than those satisfied with their lot.

More than 7,000 civil servants were studied over 25 years – and those who said they were bored were nearly 40 per cent more likely to have died by the end of study than those who did not.

The scientists said this could be a result of those unhappy with their lives turning to such unhealthy habits as smoking or drinking, which would cut their life expectancy.

Yeah, substance abuse can do you in no matter whether you’re bored or not.

However, I’m curious as to whether the fact that the people studied were government workers had anything to do with it. Shouldn’t the study conclude that big government kills?

Specialists from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London, looked at data from 7,524 civil servants aged between 35 and 55 who were interviewed between 1985 and 1988 about their levels of boredom. They then found out whether they had died by April last year.
…
Those who reported feeling a great deal of boredom were 37 per cent more likely to have died by the end of the study.

No word as to whether the original scientists who interviewed the bored in 1985 were still around for the follow-up last year, or whether they, too succumbed to ennui.

Obama: ‘She insisted she’s going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt’

At 8:25 in the video,

I got a letter — I got a note today from one of my staff — they forwarded it to me — from a woman in St. Louis who had been part of our campaign, very active, who had passed away from breast cancer. She didn’t have insurance. She couldn’t afford it, so she had put off having the kind of exams that she needed. And she had fought a tough battle for four years. All through the campaign she was fighting it, but finally she succumbed to it. And she insisted she’s going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt.

Plweeeez! I respect her decision to be buried in anything she best chose, but must Obama tell us about it? And not even bother mention her by name – Melanie Shouse?

The Lonely Conservative points out that Melanie Shouse had insurance,

She had delayed going to a doctor after she began to feel sick. She explained that she could only afford so-called “catastrophic” insurance — one that required her to pay $5,000 in deductibles before the insurance kicked in.

My heart goes out to her family, but to say she didn’t have health insurance is a lie. The article linked above went on to explain that Melanie Shouse used her savings to start a small business. Apparently, she chose the large deductible policy, and chose to invest in her business. But what better investment is there than in one’s own life? If we aren’t willing to invest in our own lives, why should we expect others to make that investment?

But the Obama ego is what matters. Another Black Conservative:

Speaking of lies, if you can stomach it, listen to the first couple of minutes where the audience is cheering his every sentence. Watch as he starts to boasts about his accomplishments how the audience’s applause diminishes to nothing, especially when he gets to the part about putting earmarks put online. Yes, he actually had the gall to count putting earmarks online as an accomplishment!

It goes well with those “millions of jobs saved or created”, too. After all, it’s coming out of the tower of Babble.

Ronald Reagan was born 99 years ago today.

Here is his first inaugural address, on January 20, 1981. Almost prescient,

It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We are not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope.

You can read the address in full here.