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June 25, 2006 [LINK]

Venezuela on Security Council?

This fall the U.N. General Assembly will choose the next group of five countries to serve as rotating members of the Security Council, and the leading candidates from Latin America are Venezuela and Guatemala. U.S. diplomats sent a note to a number of other countries, one of which divulged it to the BBC. The crux of the U.S. argument: "We are deeply concerned that Venezuela would seek to disrupt the work of the Security Council and use the Council for ideological grandstanding rather than concrete problem-solving." Well, there's not much question about that. There is a big question, however, as to whether anti-American sentiment abroad is so strong that it will translate into a reckless vote in favor of Venezuela. The work of the Security Council could easily grind to a halt at some critical moment, giving ammunition to Neocons and others who would prefer to minimize U.S. reliance on the U.N. and multilateral diplomacy. (I'm not a big fan of that approach, but it would be foolish to throw away a potentially useful tool, as the Neocons seem eager to do.) Venezuela's presence on the Security Council would exacerbate a polarizing dynamic in global politics that is already very unhealthy.

World Cup 1st round

I've been watching a few of the soccer matches off and on, and I've learned that if you step away for even a minute, you will probably miss a goal, and perhaps the only goal of the match. It must be a corollary of Murphy's Law. Among the countries of Latin America, anyway, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Ecuador made it to the Round of 16, while Paraguay, Costa Rica, and the U.S.A. were eliminated. Ecuador lost to England yesterday, 1-0, and Argentina prevailed over Mexico today, 2-1. Brazil is heavily favored to defeat Ghana on Tuesday. Wouldn't that be something if Brazil faces Argentina in the final match on July 9?

Lula seeks 2nd term

As expected, Pres. Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva announced that he will in fact run for reelection in October. He remains fairly popular, in spite of various corruption scandals involving his Workers Party, but he has acted in a responsible way so far, and it will be hard for anyone to beat him.

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 25 Jun 2006, 11: 22 PM  .




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My blog practices

My general practice is to make no more than one blog post per day on any one category. For this reason, some blog posts may address more than one specific issue, as indicated by separate headings. If something important happens during the day after I make a blog post, I may add an updated paragraph or section to it, using the word "UPDATE" and sometimes a horizontal rule to distinguish the new material from the original material. For each successive day, blog posts are listed on the central blog page (which brings together all topics) from top to bottom in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology *
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel *
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)

* part of "Macintosh & Miscellanous" until Feb. 2007

The date of each blog post refers to when the bulk of it was written, in the Eastern Time Zone. For each blog post, the time and date of the original posting (or the last update or comment thereupon) is displayed on the individual archival blog post page that appears (just before the comments section) when you click the [LINK / comments] link next to the date. Non-trivial corrections and clarifications to original blog entries are indicated by the use of [brackets] and/or strikethroughs, as appropriate so as to accurately convey both the factual truth and my original representation of it. Nobody's perfect, but I strive for continual improvement. That is also why some of the nature photos that appear on the archive pages may differ from the (inferior) ones that were originally posted.

The current "home made" blog organization system that I created, featuring real permalinks, was instituted on November 1, 2004. Prior to that date, blog posts were handled inconsistently, and for that reason the pre-2005 archives pages are something of a mess. Furthermore, my blogging prior to June 1, 2004 was often sporadic in terms of frequency.


Blog errata
(preliminary)

April 4, 2008: "Andy Ashby" should be "Andy Jones"

April 3, 2010: "Mike Morgan" should be "Nyjer Morgan"

: "" should be ""