But please, have a good gloat on me. What are friends for?

Government has become a system of back-room deals and information leaks. Like someone leaked that Dissant was offering Brazil a 40% discount on the French jets. Dissant responded by saying it wasn't true: "We never make our negotiations public!" they said.

The rest is true - but keep in mind that evaluating the impact on each of these issues on foreign policy is speculative - there are too many back room deals to know for sure. You know, these diplomats and statesmen save this information for their memoirs. Jim DeMint's memoirs will be called "DeMinted" and in it he will reveal what he talked about with Clinton. I joke.

BTW, old Indian trick. Place cut hedgeapples (Osage Oranges) in your cupboards to keep the cucarachas at bay.

Obviously agribusiness isn't sustainable over the long haul. However, civilization as we know it is structured around this enormous negative expenditure (growth capitalism?), so trading it in for positive efficiency is nothing less than sedition. Help stamp out potatoism!

I like to fantasize about the impact of a significant revolutionary movement to replace our lawns with vegetable gardens on our economy. With 32 million acres of turf grass in the US, it is our largest irrigated crop. We spend around $1,200 per household, or $28.9 billion annually, in lawn care. Somewhere between 50% and 70% of urban water consumption is poured on our lawns. We use three times as much pesticides per acre on lawns than we use on ag crops. We burn 58 million gallons of gasoline mowing lawns. So what if those lawns were converted to, say, raised-bed gardens?

I've always loved the ending of Voltaire's "Candide." All the characters of the adventure, including some that he had killed-off in the novel, ended up in Istanbul "tending their gardens."

What I'm extrapolating from a bunch of wishy-washy doubletalk is that Clinton was in touch with DeMint, and she told him that the Administration would recognize the validity of the elections whether or not Zelaya was reinstated. Subsequently DeMint lifted his hold on the appointment of Arturo Valenzuela, and Valenzuela has been confirmed. Shannon's appointment, however, is still blocked. But Ian Kelley would not confirm this, other than saying that Clinton and DeMint had been in contact.

So DeMint got what he wanted - a smooth transition from the coup government to an ultra right wing government of Pepe Lobo. At least it looks this way - but be prepared for more surprises.

The press briefing is very good: Kelley is put under big pressure by journalists, who seem to be fed up with State's ambiguity on this issue.

Whereas:

1.That during 131 consecutive days of the struggle, we have pressured for a peaceful resolution to the political crisis that our country has lived resulting from the coup d’état perpetrated by the Honduran Oligarchy. In this period we have supported the initiatives that have been driven by various national and international sectors, maintaining three fundamental demands: a) the return of institutional order with the restitution of the legitimate president Manuel Zelaya Rosales, b) respect for our sovereign right to install a National Constituent Assembly that brings together the country and c) punishment for the violators of human rights.

2.That the call of the agreement Tegucigalpa-San Jose contains the priority element the return of constitutional order and literally states its purpose as “to bring back the title of the Executive Power to the state previous to the that of June 28 until the conclusion of the actual governing period, January 27, 2010”

3.That the National Congress, coauthor of the breaking of constitutional order on the June 28, is using delaying tactics, in not wanting to convene the complete assembly in order to repeal the decree that installed the de facto regime.

4.That the OEA and the government of the United States, who we consider accomplice of the military coup d’état, do not represent our interests in the definitive exit of the people involved in the coup d’état out of power.

So we resolve:

1.If today, Thursday, November 5, no later than midnight President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales is not reinstated to his position, the National Resistance Front against the Coup d’Etat will not recognize the electoral process and its results.

2.We alert all the organizations in the resistance on a national level so that in case President Zelaya is not reinstated in the established period to be ready to execute the actions of negating the farse elections.

3.We call on the international community to maintain the position that the de facto regime and the elections of November 29 are illegitimate.

We resist and we will be victorious!
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. 5 of November 2009
------------------end quote--------------

The article goes on to answer the question, which many have asked, "why boycott the elections."

Up in the San Joaquin valley, the Santa Rosa Rancheria (Yokuts, I believe), boasted that their casino sign is the largest neon sign in the world.

That said, I always liked John Stuart Mill's "greatest good" arguments. "the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people."

So the better the local economy is, the better it is for the Wampanoag casinos.