The Bad news

In Darfur

But Sudan seems intent on accelerating the massacre in Darfur: the government has actually proposed that the African Union troops depart when their mandate expires, to be replaced by 10,000 troops from the same Sudanese army that created the Janjaweed in the first place. Thus is set in place the most massive calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, and displacement since the Rwandan genocide (a slaughter that itself could have been mitigated had the then-head of UN peacekeeping, one Kofi Annan, not hamstrung General Roméo Dallaire, commander of the blue helmets in the benighted Central African country).

In Iran

TEHRAN, Iran (AP)-- Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.

The good news being that he's actually in charge of the universities himself and could insist on change. Instead he's requesting the students to involve themselves. Yet these same students were not happy when he
"named a cleric to head the country's oldest institution of higher education, Tehran University, despite protests by students."

In Mexico

What comes next? If, as is likely, the final ruling of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary confirms Calderón's victory, López Obrador will do as he has warned: On Sept. 16, Mexico's Independence Day, he'll gather tens of thousands of people in the central square of Mexico's capital to declare him "president" by acclaim. He may even try to control "his territory" in the southern states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco and Guerrero, and the capital itself. His aim for the near future will be to lay siege to the institutions he despises ("let them go to hell," he said recently) and force Calderón to resign.

If that happens do you suppose they'll ask us for help? I'd be surprised if we weren't already involved but it sure isn't very public. I doubt we'd put up with a leftist revolution right on the border.

That's enough bad news for one day.
Under good news - Rasta no longer needs to wear his halter all the time! We celebrated with a party yesterday.