Everyone was praising Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi for the role he played in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians. But the praise was short lived when Morsi used the moment to seize new dictatorial powers that allow him to "protect the people's revolution." Whenever a leader starts using phrases like "protecting the revolution" you can be sure that a) the revolution is over and b) the people lost.
Morsi no doubt feels confident that because of his role in the ceasefire he won't be condemned by the rest of the world as severely as he would under other circumstances. In fact his power grab is so ruthlessly cynical that you almost have to admire the sheer ballsyness of it. May the people rise up and reclaim the rights he has stolen.
Much is being said these days about the "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases due to take effect in January, but in many respects we've been here before. In 1982 and 1990 similar "Grand Bargains" for deficit reduction were passed, only the tax increases were real and immediate while the spending cuts were only in theory and never happened. For ways we might avoid getting snookered once again go here.
Politico is out with it's post-election wrap up of who's up, who's down and who's out. Among those listed as rising stars are two from Massachusetts - Senator John F. Kerry and Governor Deval Patrick.
Read here.
This is New York City (photo by Paolo Mastrangelo).
Only one electoral precinct out of the 5,286 precincts in New York voted for Mitt Romney over President Obama in the presidential election. That and other fascinating details from the election results from New York can be discovered by clicking here.
Big gas blast in the strip district in Springfield yesterday. I like this funny tidbit from the Patrick Johnson story in the Springfield Republican:
Another dancer, who would identify herself only as Debbie, said she was on stage when the club’s “house mom,” came up and told her everyone had to leave the building.
She went upstairs to get her clothes, and she saw smoke coming out of the ladies room.
Seconds later, the manager ran in and yelled “I don’t care if you’re (expletive) naked or not, get out,” Debbie said.
Poor Springfield, it seems to suffer one disaster after another. Of course the worst disasters to hit that city have been political.
A tower in Springfield's South End I photographed last month.
At over 806 million hits and counting this has become the most watched video in YouTube history. It doesn't deserve that status, but it is a foreshadowing of the increasing cultural power of Asia.
Gawker suggests superior videos that deserve the honor, or do they? Judge for yourself by clicking here.
This is a rarely seen, early publicity picture taken of Pink Floyd...
The late Syd Barrett.
Azwan of Amherst always seems on the brink of a major breakthrough that never quite occurs. However this Valley video featuring local scenesters has the potential to go big, but in any case I predict 2013 will be Azwan's breakthrough year.
2 comments:
I saw the same quote without attribution to Patrick Johnson -- he was there on the ground when there was a VERY real possibility of a second explosion and everyone else is taking his work without giving him credit for it.
With both the sewer worker amongst the injured and a fireman falling into an open sewer manhole (why was it open) is that the gas got into the sewer system somehow -- and that it wasn't the line going to the strip club but a leak somewhere else that they might not have found yet.
This is all consistent with reports that the injured had shut off the line to the club and had taken refuge "behind a truck" waiting for the gas to vent.
Not likely but you gotta wonder if the Christmas tree lighting caused a load that caused some underground switch to kick over and that is what sparked the whole thing.
Boston has something like 3300 gas leaks in its pipes, wonder how many Springfield has -- let alone all the other cities. Also wonder if folk even know where all the pipes even are....
Addendums:
It should have read "With... MY GUESS is..."
The next line should have included a second line asking "why" were the guys taking refuge behind the truck -- they probably kinda feared something like this might happen. Which tells you how bad the leak likely was.
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