RIA Novosti: Abkhazia seeks to join CIS, Russia-Belarus Union State (11/09/2008)

Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia is seeking to join the CIS and the Russia-Belarus Union State, the republic's president said on Thursday.

The CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent States, is an alliance of ex-Soviet states.

Russia recognized the independence of Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on August 26, two weeks after it had expelled Georgian troops from the region following Tbilisi's August 8 offensive against South Ossetia.

Italy's national airline, Alitalia, may have to cancel some flights because of a lack of funds to buy fuel, a top official has warned.

Augusto Fantozzi, Alitalia's bankruptcy administrator, made the comments as he called unions to emergency talks a day after the latest session broke down.

The unions earlier quoted him as saying flights could not be "guaranteed" because we cannot "get fuel".

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi blamed "political" motives for the failure.

He said he would do all he could to save Alitalia from collapse.

"The executive is always ready... to give all the possible support to get to the only solution possible to avoid the airline going bust," he said.

Alitalia later issued a note it said was sent by Mr Fantozzi, which said: "There are difficulties relating to the supply of fuel which could put some flights at risk," Reuters news agency said.

Italian investment consortium CAI, which was poised to take over the company's profitable parts, walked away from talks with the unions on Friday, accusing them of intransigence.

Los Angeles train crash kills 18

At least 18 people have died and 135 have been hurt in a head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train near Los Angeles.

[....]

The Metrolink passenger train was travelling from Los Angeles to Moorpark, north-west of the city, a spokeswoman said.

It collided with a Union Pacific freight train on a curving stretch of track in Chatsworth, in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles county.

Taking the Mountain to ... September 12th, 2008 | by fubar |

Via CBC:

A Quebec businessman whose name is one of the many that have erroneously landed on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's flight passenger watch list has decided to change his name to avoid lengthy security hassles at the airport.

Mario Labbé, an executive with a Montreal-based record company, says his Canadian passport triggers a red alert on the computers of U.S. customs agents every time he tries to board a flight to the U.S. -- which is about once a month for the past seven years.
...
Although Labbé wrote letters to the U.S. department, his efforts were in vain, prompting him to legally change his name.

"So now, my official name is François Mario Labbé," he said.

"Then you have to change everything: driver's license, social insurance, medicare, credit card -- everything."

Although it's not a big change from Mario Labbé, he said it's been enough to foil the U.S. customs computers.

It turns out that terrorists aren't allowed to legally change their name, so I guess we can consider that security hole firmly plugged.

'In a poll last month by the firm CSA, 49 percent of respondents said Mr. Besancenot was currently Mr. Sarkozy's leading opponent, behind the Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë (54 percent), but ahead of other Socialists like Martine Aubry (36 percent) and Ms. Royal (32 percent).

'Mr. Besancenot is a postman, a member of the working class, who delivers the mail part time in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.

'But he is also the leader of the Communist Revolutionary League, and in a long interview here, in party offices above a printing factory in this racially mixed city just east of Paris -- where cheap clothing stores abut shops selling North African and Middle Eastern spices and take-out food -- he describes himself without blushing as a revolutionary.

'But given the travesties of the past, from the bureaucratic savagery of Soviet Communism to the chaos of Mao, he said, "revolution needs to be reinvented, for no revolutionary experiment has ever succeeded." They have only been betrayed, either crushed by an armed elite or destroyed by "bureaucratic counter-revolution," he said, adding, "We are trying to strike that balance of taking power without being taken by power."'

If y'all are going to go revolutionary communist, I guess that I'm going to have to move there.


paul spencer

As HuffPo puts it,

The most impressive numbers come from Florida (441,225 new voters, 45% of which are Democrats and half of which are under 35), Michigan (where 63% of the 411,207 new voters are under 35), North Carolina (429,059 new voters, 49% of which are Democrats and 55% of which are under 35) and Pennsylvania (where an outstanding 67% of the 286,255 new voters are Democrats and 69% are under 35).

The North Carolina and Georgia ones are particularly impressive to me.  (NC is absolutely Earth-shaking.)  Because it's obvious who's registering: Young people, of course, but the rest are likely blacks and new residents who've come in from other states and need to switch their state registration.  (People who live in a state they were not born in are overwhelmingly Democratic, particularly in the South.)

Ohio looks very good.  The ground game is clearly paying big dividends there.  Ditto Virginia (go, Marek!).

Whether they'll be enough to change outcomes is anybody's guess, but these are truly transformational movements.  This is what a long-term realignment looks like.

This only covers January to July of this year.  The even better news is that the numbers I've seen for August look as though the whole operation is kicking into overdrive (another 50,000 in Virginia last month alone, for example, of whom the Obama campaign expects 80% are Obama voters).

The polls still show it tight.  Maybe tied, maybe a slight McCain lead (no more than a point).  But if they can get these people to the polls, we win.  Period.

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?