George W. Romney

The George W. that should have been a president!

The Milky Way by Royce Bair

You can see Royce Bair's fascinating photos of the Milky Way like the one below and many others at his Flickr page.

Chuck Colson

Chuck Colson has departed, but his legacy (Prison Fellowship, Manhattan Declaration, etc) will remain.

The crime of being an Amhara in today's Ethiopia

This report of ethnic Amharas being displaced from their homes in Bench Maji zone in Southern Ethiopia is very alarming. Their crime: being a native of another region of Ethiopia. Please click here to listen to the 18 minute VOA Amharic report.

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

In memory of Earl Scruggs who passed on today.

Ethiopians: Wake up!

It is reported that the Ethiopian woman that was video taped being abused in the streets of Beirut has committed suicide. Her name was Alem Dechasa. This is a very sad ending to a tragic story! May her soul rest in peace.

While thousands of Alem Dechasas are being abused in the Mideast, the Ethiopian government is bragging that it has destroyed "enemy" camps in Eritrea. Its mouthpieces like waltainfo.com and aigaforum.com have also not carried Alem's story. Sadly, Gadaa.com also posted the story on its web site only after learning her name sounded like an Oromo name. What have become of us? Wake up, Ethiopians!

Modern day slavery

It is very hard to watch this video footage of an Ethiopian woman being dragged into a car against her will in the streets of Beirut, Lebanon, and not be filled with rage. This incident happened just outside the Ethiopian consulate a few days ago. Apparently, this is a common occurrence in front of the consulate.

The abusive and inhumane treatment of Ethiopian women who work as maids in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries has been in the news for more than a decade. The Ethiopian government, however, has ignored the issue. This is an abdication of its number one duty, which is the protection of its citizens. Ethiopians must do something about this modern day slavery.

Lamu Port Project

Not sure how long the Lamu port project has been in the drawing boards, but the governments of Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia should be commended for embarking on it so soon after the independence of South Sudan.

This Music is Good for You - VIII

Enjoy Antonín Dvorák's 4th movement from his Symphony No. 9 played by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Swedish symphonic metal band Therion (you will need to click on the "Watch on YouTube" link to watch the Therion version). Dvorák composed Symphony No. 9 while on a visit to the United States in 1893.

"I feel duped"

In a new book titled "Die Kalte Sonne" (The Cold Sun), one of Germany's best known environmentalists and an electric utility executive, Fritz Vahrenholt, argues that the official United Nations forecasts on the severity of climate change are overstated and supported by weak science. He writes boldly that "the climate catastrophe is not occurring." Here is an excerpt from an interview he gave to DER SPIEGEL magazine.

SPIEGEL: Why are you taking on the role of the climate rebel with such passion? Where does this rage come from?

Vahrenholt: For years, I disseminated the hypotheses of the IPCC, and I feel duped. Renewable energy is near and dear to me, and I've been fighting for its expansion for more than 30 years. My concern is that if citizens discover that the people who warn of a climate disaster are only telling half the truth, they will no longer be prepared to pay higher electricity costs for wind and solar (energy). Then the conversion of our energy supply will lack the necessary acceptance.

Open Science is good science

How the US lost on iWork

A fascinating look at how the US lost on iPhone work from the New York Times.

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

...

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

Student Protest in Hossana

VOA reported students protested in Ethiopia over the last week. Muslim high school students in Addis Ababa protested the removal of their Imam and other perceived government interferences in their education. College students in Nekemte protested over poor cafeteria food conditions. Meanwhile, post-college students in Hossana also protested. But why?

It was reported that 429 recent college graduates in Hadiya zone got together in Hossana, the regional capital, to petition the regional administration for jobs. The students elected their representatives and went to the government office to discuss their petition. When the student representatives remained in the office for a long time, the students outside suspected foul play and started asking for their representative to come out. The police, however, responded by beating the students and shooting at them. That is when the petition turned into a protest.

These job-seeking college graduates should be given credit for being proactive in their job search, but I am baffled as to why they thought it was worth their time to petition the Hadiya zonal government for jobs. Don't they know that regional governments at the zonal level in Ethiopia have no authority to tax and, therefore, no real power to create jobs? Regardless, the fact that they had the temerity to organize themselves to petition at a time when such activities are not tolerated, as was clearly evidenced by the way they were treated, is in itself a pleasant surprise!

Santorum makes a lot of sense!

The Left in the US has been trying to make a mountain out of a molehill on this issue (see the video) for quite sometime. If you ask me, this is just one more sign of a society that is fast loosing its priorities. A tyranny of the minority is not the antidote for a tyranny of the majority! In this case, the people who advocate for this issue are a minority and will always be a minority in this republic.

Europe at the Brink

A WSJ Documentary - Wall Street Journal editors and reporters examine the origins of Europe's debt crisis and why it spread with such ferocity to engulf much of the continent and threaten the entire world.

"Of all people, why Aman?"

This was a quote from a taxi driver by the Associated Press after the execution of Aman Andom and other officials of the Haile Selassie government in the last week of November 1974. I am glad I was not old enough to understand the barbarism that ravaged Ethiopia in the mid 70s. My heart cries out for Aman, the other officials who were executed with him in that fateful week and all the rest (both Ethiopian and Eritrean) whose lives were brutally cut short in the aftermath of that killing orgy.

Merry _________ !

Merry Christmas!

Durban Blues

Two years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark these same beggars and climate change alarmists were almost successful in their attempt to extort a 100 billion dollars a year, to paraphrase Rep. Ron Paul, from the poor people in the rich nations and give it to the rich people in the poor nations. They failed then, but they did not give up. They kept trying at it in Cancun, Mexico last year and in Durban, South Africa again this year. It looks like they are now resigned to the fact that their extortion scheme will not work. Ah, the sweet smell of reality!

How Ethiopians felt in 2007

The World Values Survey offers an interesting snapshot on how Ethiopians felt on various social and political issues in 2007. It confirms the view of many that the current government is deeply unpopular and that Ethiopia is a deeply conservative society in many ways. In 2007, Ethiopia was a place where about 7 in 10 of its citizens did not have confidence in the justice system. Less than 4 out of 10 people felt the same way in Ghana. The table below shows how confident Ethiopians felt about their government as compared to Ghanians:

Selected countries/samples: Ethiopía [2007], Ghana [2007]
		Country
Weight		Ghana	Ethiopia
Confidence: The Government	A great deal	29.70%	7.90%
	Quite a lot	41.60%	18.50%
	Not very much	22.50%	48.10%
	None at all	6.20%	25.50%
	Total	1522 (100%)	1360 (100%)
Source: Values Surveys Databank

It looks like the survey was done in Addis Ababa and, as such, it probably is not a representative sample for the whole country. Nevertheless, I found it to be very informative and I hope you do, too.

Kismaayo or bust!

Kenya thinks it has learned from Ethiopia's Somalia mis-adventure of 2007-2009. Good luck!