Singapore | May 26

AP - Voters dealt Singapore's ruling People's Action Party its third electoral setback in a year, allowing the opposition to hold onto a Parliament seat in a by-election Saturday.

Workers' Party candidate Png Eng Huat, a 50-year-old businessman, won 62 percent of about 21,700 votes cast in Hougang district while PAP candidate Desmond Choo received 38 percent, election officials said.

It'd feel wrong to me to have the usual jukebox post, but post your musical Memorial weekend thoughts here.

I found this refreshingly candid piece This Memorial Day Look At How The Other Half Shops by Laura. 'njoy.

By Michael Collins

"The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after its managing director, Christine Lagarde, said she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens." Guardian, May 25

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Standard and Poor's are highly placed guardians of the world economy. IMF is supposed to teach developing nations how to be just like us, i.e., onerously indebted to the big banks. Standard and Poor's is the keeper of the credit, ratings that ripple through the economy and impact hundreds of millions. Nobody elected these folks. They were begotten, not made.

After IMF finished helping Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya with privatization and free markets, those nations descended into chaos and they're now broke, all of them, with lower living standards to boot. (See IMF Rates Up Dictatorships Just Before Revolutions)

Lisa Mascaro | Washington | May 25

LAT - In a momentary flash of bipartisanship, the Senate approved legislation that would allow Americans speedier access to generic drugs as well as breakthrough treatments for life-threatening diseases as part of a Food and Drug Administration revamping that now heads to the House.

But the comity didn't last, and the FDA accord was quickly followed by another round of partisan fighting over President Obama's push to keep student loan interest rates low. On party-line votes, senators blocked Democratic and Republican efforts to prevent interest rates from rising this summer.

John Markoff | San Francisco | May 25

NYT - A just-completed report from a presidential advisory committee urges President Obama to adopt new computer technologies to make better use of a huge swath of the radio spectrum now controlled by federal agencies.

The shift, which could be accomplished by presidential signature — and without Congressional involvement — would relieve spectrum congestion caused by the popularity of smartphones, and generate far more revenue for the federal government than auctioning spectrum to wireless carriers, according to the authors of the report.

This week’s attack by Hustler Magazine on conservative pundit S.E. Cupp wasn’t the first time that the infamous porn rag printed a faked photograph of a celebrity with a penis in her mouth. But their weak attempt at justification—citing Cupp’s “dumb ideas like defunding Planned Parenthood”—represents a new low in political discourse. Such debasing sexualization of a female commentator as retribution for her political views sends a clear signal that women who voice their opinions in the public sphere do so only at risk of the most blatant objectification. More at the link

Amanda Marcotte weighs in

"From the outside, anarchy might look threatening and scary and exciting. From the inside, anarchy can seem quite boring. But it is a profoundly hopeful type of boring." This more nuanced account of what anarchism is and what anarchists do is a refreshing change from the usual shrill MSM version. A must-read. "

Team Agonist | Blogistan | May 25

As you all know the only poetry thread rules are: no original poetry unless you just happen to be Maya Angelou or an up and coming poet that has been published. Otherwise stick to what has proven to be good poetry.

originally posted Memorial Day May 29, 2006. Please add your favorites.

Sorry 'bout that, Chief!

The Guardian has two good peices that need to be read together today. First, Mehdi Hasan points out that Barack Obama, like Mitt Romney, is an apologist for the 1%. Then Gary Younge writes that while the white working class is often said to 'vote against its own interests' by rejecting Democrats, we could equally ask why poor black and latino folk consistently vote against their interests by turning out for Dems.

Those who are struggling and believe Romney will improve their economic lot are wrong, regardless of their race. Eight years of George W Bush proved that. But it does not follow automatically from that that their home should be supporting Democrats under whom things have gotten less bad less quickly. True, those are the only two choices on offer. But if you're poor they are not great choices. What they need is a party that represents their interests. In a country where corporate money chooses the candidates and therefore shapes the debate that will demand a change in politics, not just politicians.

Or as one of my friends crudely put it: "the difference is that the Dems at least offer to buy you dinner before they date-rape you. But you still don't get that dinner."

Washington Post, By Jeremy Borden, May 25

Woodbridge, VA - Before she was 2, her mother recalls, Lori Anne Madison was reading her first book — Dr. Seuss’s “Hop on Pop.” At age 3, she competed in her first spelling bee.

Now 6, Lori Anne is the youngest contestant on record to qualify for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Her ticket to the competition that begins Tuesday was the word “vaquero,” meaning cowboy, which she spelled correctly to win the Prince William County bee.

It will get tougher onstage at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center when the home-schooled girl from Woodbridge faces 277 opponents, most of whom are at least twice her age. Last year, the winning word was “cymotrichous,” which means having wavy hair. The previous winner spelled “stromuhr,” which is a medical instrument.

But Speller 269, who will compete for $30,000, among other prizes, reports that she isn’t particularly nervous and isn’t cramming.

Quote of the day comes from Tove Maria Ryding, of Greenpeace, talking about the depressingly futile latest round of climate talks in Bonn.

"It's absurd to watch governments sit and point fingers and fight like little kids while the scientists explain about the terrifying impacts of climate change."

More here.

What a shockingly bad lede from A.P. this is:

The U.N. nuclear has found traces of uranium enriched at an Iranian site to a level that is slightly closer to the threshold needed to arm nuclear missiles.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says in a report that its experts have found particles enriched up to 27 percent. That is higher than the 20 percent declared by Iran and closer to the weapons-grade material used in the fissile core of such missiles.

Argh, Iran has stepped over the line! Panic! Start the bombing right now!

Oh wait:

The restricted report says Iran explains the find as a technical glitch. The agency says it is assessing that explanation and has asked for more details, while analysts and diplomats say Iran’s version sounds plausible.

Even David Albright, no stranger to concocting scary Iran stories himself, admits that the trace amounts found are almost certainly a quality control issue and are "embarrassing but not nefarious". Cancel the bombers!

George Jahn, who leads reporting on Iran for the A.P. and wrote this piece, has a long history of banging war drums at every opportunity and a track record of revealing spanner-in-the-works scoops sourced to "an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear program" which is a "member of the International Atomic Energy Agency" - that is, Israel. Others like the team of man-Judys at the NYT, Broad and Sanger, or Reueters' Deihl, are hardly any better. They usually force themselves to get the truth in there somewhere, but they'll spin it as negatively as possible.

When reading Western media on Iran, it's best to remember the Spanish-American War and that Pullitzer was one of the pioneers of yellow journalism.

But...we should definitely fear Iran's Oompa-Loompa engineers.

The French Tom Friedman, Bernard-Henri Lévy, is calling for war again. Infamous as the man who convinced his pal Sarkozy that a short, victorious war in Libya would help his election chances - leading Sarko to drag in the Brits and Cameron to drag in the US - he's now looking to the UK's Cameron to lead the charge against Syria. The platform is his new nacissistic movie about how he started the Libya intervention.

According to Lévy the film shows why intervention worked in Libya and not Iraq and how the conditions are present in Syria. “In Iraq we had no international mandate, there was no demand on the ground of the people, there was no representative leader for the forces against Saddam Hussein, in Iraq it was Western versus Arab country in Libya there was a real coalition with Arab countries involved in coalition with Emirati and Qatar forces. Intervention is justified if you have these conditions.”

Luckily - since Syria is a very different and far harder proposition than Libya both militarily and socially and in any case the whole notion of "humanitarian intervention" is on a shaky footing - I doubt Cameron will be so easy to fool.

Valentina Pop | Brussels | May 24

euobserver - EU leaders have tasked council chief Herman Van Rompuy with drafting a plan on deepening the eurozone's economic union, potentially via an inter-governmental treaty.

After more than five hours of talks on the need to strengthen growth policies while sticking to the already strengthened deficit rules, EU leaders on Wednesday night (23 May) agreed to come back to these issues at a formal summit on 28 June.

"Our discussion also demonstrated that we need to take the economic and monetary union to a new stage. There was a general consensus that we need to strengthen the economic union to make it commensurate with the monetary union," Van Rompuy said during a press conference at the end of the meeting.

Nikolaj Nielsen | Brussels | May 23

euobserver - National Roma integration strategies submitted by member states to the European Commission fail to fully assess the needs of Europe's largest minority.

Speaking to reporters in Strasbourg on Wednesday (23 May), EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding said the desperate situation of Roma is "a wake-up call for leaders."

EU leaders in June 2011 had backed a European Commission plan to end the centuries-old exclusion of the continent's 10 to 12 million Roma minority. Most live in Bulgaria, followed by Slovakia, Romania and Hungary. Access to education, jobs, healthcare and housing are among the four policy priorities.

Joe DeCapua | May 24

VOA - A new assessment has been released on efforts to end LRA rebel attacks in central and east Africa. The Enough Project says despite the deployment of U.S. advisers, current operations lack resources and troops.

Enough Project field researcher Kasper Agger spent several weeks in the region affected by LRA attacks. He said in the first three months of this year, there were more than 50 attacks, 9 deaths, 90 abductions and the continued displacement of nearly 450,000 civilians. Agger, who’s based in Kampala, Uganda, titled his report Mission in the Balance.

“I wanted to give it that title to stress that despite progress on the ground we are still far from seeing an end to the LRA. So I wanted to stress some kind of urgency,” he said.

The Enough Project is an advocacy group working to end genocide and crimes against humanity.

Adam Gabbatt | Montreal | May 24

The Guardian - More than 500 people were arrested in Montreal on Wednesday night as protestors defied controversial new law Bill 78

Protests that began in opposition to tuition fees in Canada have exploded into a political crisis with the mass arrest of hundreds of demonstrators amid a backlash against draconian emergency laws.

More than 500 people were arrested in a demonstration in Montreal on Wednesday night as protesters defied a controversial new law – Bill 78 – that places restrictions on the right to demonstrate. In Quebec City, police arrested 176 people under the provisions of the new law.

Demonstrators have been gathering in Montreal for just over 100 days to oppose tuition increases by the Quebec provincial government. On Tuesday, about 100 people were arrested after organisers say 300,000 people took the streets.

Michael Tarm | Chicago | May 24

AP - U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said Thursday he isn't sure what his future holds as he steps down from the job he has held for 11 years. He ruled out elected office and hinted that switching sides and becoming a defense attorney wouldn't suit him.

But the highly regarded Fitzgerald, 51, did say he could see himself accepting another government position, if asked.

"Whenever the phone rings in the future and the (caller) ID says `public service calling,' I (will) answer the phone," said Fitzgerald, addressing a news conference in Chicago.

He added that he has not discussed the possibility with the Obama administration about becoming FBI director, a job for which his name has surfaced several times.

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. | Washington | May 24

AOL Defense - The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously passed its mark-up of the annual defense spending bill, rejecting all proposed cuts to the Air National Guard, cutting the Defense Department's civilian and contractor workforce by 5 percent over five years, and restricting aid to Pakistan.

The bill is silent on detention of terrorist suspects.

Stephanie Nebehay | Geneva | May 24

Reuters - The last three countries where polio is still paralyzing children -- Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria -- said on Thursday that they have enlisted Muslim women and religious leaders to allay fears of vaccination and wipe out the disease.

Polio cases are at an all-time low worldwide, following its eradication in India last year, raising hopes but also fears about a threat of resurgence especially in sub-Saharan Africa unless remaining reservoirs of polio virus are stamped out.

By Michael Collins

"Cameron continues to insist that the inquiry is the best forum to evaluate Hunt’s actions. This signals the beginning of the end for Cameron. He’s proposing a solution for the Hunt investigation that is outside the rules of Parliament, in a forum that has rejected him. Upon closer examination, existing evidence will lead to even stronger condemnation of Hunt’s behaviour. Any new materials produced by the inquiry will bury him.

Queens Counsel Robert Jay unearthed a devastating piece of evidence that will surely create calls for the resignation of both culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and Prime Minister David Cameron.

In afternoon testimony at the Leveson Inquiry today (5/24), Jay confronted News Corp lobbyist Frederic Michel with an email rendition of a Hunt to Cameron memo of November 19, 2010 (see testimony/full memo at end of article). Hunt is clearly cheerleading for the News Corp acquisition of immensely profitable pay TV network BSkyB. News Corp owned 39% of the network and wanted to purchase the remaining 61%. This acquisition was absolutely critical to News Corp profitability and as a sign that Rupert and James Murdoch actually knew what they were doing.

One month after he got the biased memo, Cameron appointed Hunt as the government minister in charge of approving the bid. Hunt portrayed his role as "quasi-judicial" and claimed he was an objective judge. The bid was opposed by an alliance of news organizations.

Now we know, without any doubt and from Hunt's own words that he was biased in favor of approving the News Corp bid before he even got the authority to judge.

We also know that PM Cameron knew Hunt's bias and appointed him anyway.

I guess the Saudis, Quataris, Libyans and Turks all want that special rubber stamp of American approval...just in case they need someone to blame later.

As one diplomatic effort after another fails to end more than a year of brutal violence in Syria, the Obama administration is preparing a plan that would essentially give U.S. nods of approval to arms transfers from Arab nations to some Syrian opposition fighters.

The effort, U.S. officials told The Associated Press, would vet members of the Free Syrian Army and other groups to determine whether they are suitable recipients of munitions to fight the Assad government and to ensure that weapons don’t wind up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked terrorists or other extremist groups such as Hezbollah that could target Israel.

The EU's Ashton says the next round of talks will be in Moscow on June 18-19. Forget all the did-they-didn't-they-make-progress media reports - those are just reporters looking for an easy and headlineable narrative (and in some cases, working the agenda of those who'd rather see talks fail). The truth is captured perfectly by Ashton's spokes: "If there wasn’t progress, we wouldn’t still be holding the talks," Mann told reporters in the Iraqi capital. "Progress has been made." The process is the progress. That's a whole 'nother month there won't be war.