Cool kitty video and more

This kitty (via rump roast) is cool.

Poor Kathleen, she can’t find any fun, only sadness and Marxism talk.  No ‘scandal’ worked to defeat Obama.

On a more serious note, the continent of Africa is blowing up — it’s more than Somalia or Sudan, but the Congo.  Snarky me thought that Sarah Palin might put her expertise to work helping the Congo make their natural resourses work for the general population.  But she’s back in Alaska and that sort of ‘share the wealth’ program only works there.

I love it when my boss calls at 4:59 on a Friday about some web edit and then uses something I said about a FTP issue from 5 years ago to criticize her failure to edit copy — especially when she edited the copy all those years ago.  She’s recently taken to quoting my exact words (in her mind) from several years ago — all the while lying about simple stupid things that have happened since.  As always, my hope is just to last until she retires while making my work as interesting as possible.

RW&B is Chris Bell and Joan Huffman.  We’ll see if it’s interesting (TX Senate seat 17).

Oh, and Obama made a joke about Nancy Reagan. PLEASE.  The woman was horrible to everyone but those she trusted (very few) in her time.  GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK.  Let Nancy cry about being the butt of a joke.  She’s got an entire organization and mouthpiece lauding her hubby day in and day out.  She deserved it.

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Sec. of State Rice in Africa

But nothing much got accomplished.  Sure she urged, she sought and she pushed, but to what end?

Sec. Rice went to Addis Ababa and talked about Somalia:

She said the US appreciated the deployment of an advance Ugandan force but they “frankly need to be joined soon by other forces”.

The US is offering to help African states who send troops to Somalia.

(snip — link to a report on the extremely competent Ugandan forces)

Ms Rice said she and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had “emphasized the need for a ceasefire” between the Somali government and “non-extremist opposition groups”.

(My emphasis)

In a meeting about DR Congo, Rice met with reps from that country, Burundi, Uganda, and Rwanda:

They included the “rapid strengthening” of security forces in Congo, reiteration of a commitment not to “harbour negative forces” and a recommitment to previous agreements. But there appeared to be no concrete or new ideas on the table.

Also in the meeting with the Ethiopian PM:

“I also urged the prime minister to avoid any acts that might heighten friction between Eritrea and Ethiopia and to take concrete steps to lessen tensions on the border,” she said.

Ethiopia remains in a tense stand-off with its arch-enemy Eritrea, following the dissolution last week of a commission tasked with brokering an agreement on the neighbours’ disputed common border.

“There must not be a resumption of hostilities initiated by either side,” she added.  

There was supposed to be some talk about Darfur, but the Sudanese government rep. skipped the meeting.

For current info on Sudan and Darfur:  UNMIS

Bonobos in the DRC

I had intended to write a great post about this topic, but I am an incredibly forgetful person.  You’ll see.

Yesterday in my Reading class, we started a chapter titled Out of the Trees.  The pre-reading activities asked the students to think about the similarities between humans and their nearest living relatives.   Of course all of my students were already familiar with the big three, but none had heard of Bonobos.  I described Bonobos briefly, and we continued the lesson.  Later I went into the lobby of our office, and the latest issue of Smithsonian Magazine was on one of the tables with a beautiful photograph of a Bonobo on the cover.

I skimmed the article and thought to bring the magazine home to read it.  I forgot.  I did do a search last night and found some articles not only on the Bonobos, but the elections in the only country where they live in the wild, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The news was encouraging.

I took the magazine to class today and it proved very useful.  During lunch I did more research about the elections in the DRC with the intention of putting together the best post ever on the topic.

Per usual, I left the magazine at work with half of my notes.  My plan of working on the master essay on Bonobos in the DRC will have to wait.