No one looked for Paula Deen's endorsement. She has collector grits.

Paula promotes instant grits?  Ah, come on.  Grits is corn.  She doesn't shuck her own grits?  Martha Stewart she is not.

Servings: 4 servings (click title to entry - thank you)

Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 30 min
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients Add to grocery list

2 cups water
1 1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup Quaker Grits, quick cooking, not instant 
1/2 cup butter

Directions

In a small pot, bring water, milk, and salt to a boil.  Slowly stir grits into boiling mixture.  Stir continuously and thoroughly until grits are well mixed.  Let the pot return to a boil, cover pot with a lid, lower the temperature, and cook for approximately 30 minutes stirring occasionally.  Add more water if necessary.

Grits are done when they have the consistency of smooth cream of wheat.

Serve with butter, fruit, or savory with a meal.

Recipe courtesy Paula Deen


Baked Garlic Cheese Grits (click here)

Ingredients

• 6 cups chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 cups regular grits
• 16 ounces Cheddar, cubed
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 8 ounces grated sharp white Cheddar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 4-quart casserole dish.

Bring the broth, salt, pepper, and garlic powder to a boil in a 2-quart sauce pan. Stir in the grits and whisk until completely combined. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the grits are thick, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the cubed Cheddar and milk and stir. Gradually stir in the eggs and butter, stirring until all are combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared casserole dish. Sprinkle with the white Cheddar and bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until set.

Shrimp and Grits (click here)


Ingredients

• 2 servings cooked grits
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup diced tasso ham*
• 2 tablespoons diced leeks
• 2 tablespoons diced onion
• 2 tablespoons diced green peppers
• 20 medium to large shrimp, peeled and de-veined, with tails on
• 1 to 2 tablespoons white wine
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Salt and pepper
• Green onion tops, chopped
• *Cook's Note: Tasso is a Cajun ham and is often hard to find outside of Louisiana, but you can find it at some specialty gourmet shops or by mail order. If not, you can substitute salt pork, pancetta, or prosciutto, but you will have to beef up your seasonings, as tasso is very flavorful.

Directions

Cook grits according to package directions; set aside and keep warm.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add tasso and saute until crisp. Add diced vegetables and saute until onions are translucent. Add shrimp and saute for 30 to 45 seconds, or until pink. Remove from the pan and set aside. Deglaze the pan with a little white wine. Slowly add the cream and let reduce until thickened. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide grits among 2 serving plates. Line plate edges with shrimp (10 shrimp per serving). Pour sauce over grits. Garnish with green onion tops.

For a great wedding idea, use martini glasses to serve shrimp and grits, with the grits on the bottom and shrimp and sauce on top.

Romney needs to rely on his SUPERPACS. Seriously.

Poll: George W. Bush is more popular than Mitt Romney (click title to entry - thank you)

The State Column

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Former President George W. Bush is more popular than Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to a Bloomberg News National poll released Monday. Although Mr. Romney is the front-runner in the current race for the Republican presidential nomination by numerous measurements, including delegate count, and several national and state-level polls, the Michigan native has a lower net favorable rating than Mr. Bush among a sample of the voting age population.

Mr. Bush, whose job approval ratings sunk as low as 25 percent during his presidency, was an extremely unpopular president when he left the Oval Office. In fact, Mr. Bush’s job approval ratings peaked in the weeks after September 11th (climbing as high as 90 percent), before gradually falling throughout the rest of his presidency.

The fact that Mr. Bush has a higher net approval rating (45 percent) than Mr. Romney (42 percent) may reveal a lot about the current state of the Republican Party. Has Mr. Bush’s popularity improved over time or is Mr. Romney and the rest of the Republican presidential field an unsatisfactory group of candidates for American voters?

This is not for real. Doonesbury is not Blondie. Newspapers editors are worried about confusing an opinion with a comic? Do editors live on the same planet as everyone else?

MARCH 13, 2012 12:18AM 

So let's break this down. (click here) First, Jim Thompson, the Editorial Page editor for the Athens Banner-Herald, wrote Sunday in the "Editor's Corner" that he wouldn't be running the Doonesbury strip about the Texas ultrasound requirement because it would confuse his Georgia readers. Quote:

Given that the Georgia General Assembly is considering an abortion bill — House Bill 954, sponsored by Rep. Doug McKillip, R-Athens, which would prohibit abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy — I made a unilateral decision not to publish the “Doonesbury” strips intended for publication this week. Quite simply, I thought there was a real possibility that readers might confuse the topic of this week’s “Doonesbury” with Georgia’s proposed abortion legislation, and I didn’t want to add any confusion to the ongoing concerns, pro and con, about House Bill 954.

This is Doonesbury.  This is what Doonesbury does.  Doonesbury is about political satire.  Have the nation's editors gone batty?

...“Editors believe (click title to entry - thank you) he has expressed that opinion in a manner that skirts, if not crosses, the boundaries of good taste expected in a family newspaper.”(Vacaville, CA Reporter)

“I am concerned about the graphic content.” (Rock Hill, SC Herald)

“The language in the original strips was not appropriate for a comic that could be viewed by children.” (Ogden, UT Standard-Examiner)

“The Texas abortion cartoons venture too far for the comics pages.” (The Press of Atlantic City)

“Went over the line of good taste and humor.” Oregonian)...

"Over the line of good taste...?"  What do these editors believe the legislators are doing?  In the entire landscape of the assault on women's reproductive rights, this cartoon is the least of the issue and brings comic relief to a sincerely tragic strategy to up end a woman's life by extremist state legislators.  

These comics are tame compared to what they should say.  I can't believe USA newspaper editors are running away from the fact women are being victimized by their own governments.  Talk about a war on women, where are the newspapers when women need them?

Housing Bubble 2 arrives to Main Street

The "Skyscraper Indicator" (click here), developed by Edward Dewey, in the 1940s, correlates human optimism to the number of high-rise buildings under construction. Simply stated, when people are very optimistic, they tend to express their feelings in massive construction projects, especially tall buildings, like skyscrapers, because they have a need to build toward the sky! Since this extreme optimism is reached at major peaks, in the economy, severe economic downturns usually follow; not just declines in real estate prices.  


The housing bubble was felt in 2007 in small measure, where was Paulson?  In China.  At any rate, the send wave to housing bubble dynamics have arrived to Main Street.


The housing EXCESS cannot be deconstructed.  What was built in optimism of million-billionaires everywhere is still on the market.  Their deflated value is now arriving to local economies in the way of lower property taxes.


...More than five years after real estate prices began to tumble, (click title to entry - thank you) Americans are finally starting to get property tax breaks on their devalued homes, a USA TODAY analysis finds....



...Property taxes generated $436 billion last year, about $66 billion more than in 2006 when home values peaked. Public schools get about 40% of this money. The rest flows to other local governments....


For the States that saw this coming action was taken.  For all the Republicans in the Federal Senate and House that didn't back the President in his Educational Initiative in the American Jobs Act, are contributing to economic decline.

Kan. House approves property tax measure (click here)

March 12, 2012

House members have approved a measure that provides Kansas cities and counties with $90 million in property tax relief while requiring public notification when property valuations increase.

The bill, approved Monday 101-23, goes to the Senate. It restores a city-county revenue sharing program that ran from 1938 to 2004, and it requires the local governments to use the money to reduce property taxes. The bill would share $45 million in both 2013 and 2014.

The bill includes a requirement that cities and counties lower their property tax rates when the overall valuation has increased. The intent is to end a practice that legislators called “stealth’’ tax increases when property values increased but tax rates didn’t.

Voter Suppression is real.

...Think about it. Why, in a shaky economy, (click title to entry - thank you) would Gov. Corbett be willing to shell out up to... 


$4 million to enforce an unnecessary law 


...supposedly designed to thwart voter-impersonation fraud - of which there is virtually none?

Not only that, it's no surprise that Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Mississippi - the states that passed the strictest laws since President Obama's election - are mostly red to the core.

Please. This isn't about policy. It's about politics. So much for small government....

The Pennsylvania Governor Corbett is anxious to sign the bill that oppresses the urban and poor vote.  Corbett is more red than red, he is Merlot Red, even the Pennsylvania Governor site is Republican Red.

He is more of a pundit than any pundit out there.  This is anti-American legislation.

Dennis Miller is touting how Girl Scouts have to show ID to sell Girl Scout cookies so why shouldn't a nation prove their identity at the polls.

Well, get this one, I walked into a Hilton Hotel on Sunday and stated I was a 'member' and they asked for my name, my address and then my signature, NOT my ID.  It was nice not having to dig through my purse to find an ID when I was tired enough to call it a day.  

As I walked to the car to get my overnight bag I realized that is what occurs when a person votes; name, address and signature.  Gee, it was interesting to realize a hotel chain interested in my comfort believed that was enough for them.  So much for Girl Scout Cookie salespersons or whatever.

Give me a break, this is voter suppression, plain and simple.

I am not buying the CBS/NYTimes Poll. According to others it is an outlier.

CBS News/NY Times	3/7 - 3/11	1009 A	41	47	-6
ABC News/Wash Post	3/7 - 3/10	1003 A	46	50	-4
Gallup	3/9 - 3/11	1500 A	49	43	+6
Rasmussen Reports	3/9 - 3/11	1500 LV	47	52	-5

The New York Times/CBS changed their structure.  A populous of opinion doesn't change that drastically overnight for any reason. There was not a major event occurring in that time frame to cause such outcomes. Gas prices have been horrible. The problem is speculation and everyone knows it. WALL STREET.


Wall Street is in New York, right? I mean if the opining are folks like Paulson I guess they are more unhappy than the rest of the nation.


Let's see what was the trauma last week?  Hmmmm.... Oh, yeah, Limbaugh.  Could it be the propaganda networks supporting Wall Street imagineering of the public be losing ground?  My, my, my.


If foreign policy appears to be the problem, it is ISRAEL.  


President Obama cannot appear to be confident he is assessing he Iran situation correctly, he needs to put forward the facts backing up that dynamic. He needs to make the people of the USA as confident about the Iranian assessment as he has been. He is painted as a diplomat rather than a general in his public image. When it comes to a potential release of nukes, it won't be tolerated and will make people nervous. Most Americans prefer to bomb Iran as a prevention rather than be confident otherwise. It is called fear.


If the fear exists it is because of the 'uncertainty' raised as a political tool by the right.  

Iraq had death sqauds. This soldier served three tours in Iraq. The location he chose to carry out his act may have been strategic.

Video: No change in Afghan Strategy, White House says (click here)

AP Video

Published Monday , Mar. 12, 2012 8:08 PM EDT

Last Undated Monday, March 12, 2012 8:10 PM EDT

After an American soldier allegedly killed 16 Afghan civilians, the United States says it won't alter its commitment to protecting Afghans.


A professional soldier, if they are to survive a mission that has no profound meaning studies his enemy, ie: Vietnam.  There was a lot of soldiers that considered themselves self-contained in their survival.  If there is a unit out of Seattle that is renegade, that is a culture, within the military defined by soldiers that solve their own problems.


"The only good soldier is one that is still alive."


The military leadership has lost the confidence of soldiers deployed at the whim of diplomats.


The mission of the USA is to train Afghan soldiers that was obvious when they found the corrupted Korans leading to this incident.  But, the presence of Christian soldiers is becoming a dominant issue for the Afghan people whom no longer believe they are safe.  It is time to move the training mission to Turkey and leave the people of Afghan alone.  Their own soldiers have to do the job and it is time they did.

A new heat transfer system formation

March 13, 2012
0030:00z
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of USA (click here for 12 hour loop)


I met up with this vortex system in Athens, Ohio yesterday evening and watched it roll in.


It wasn't that windy, it was a tad bit cold, but, for the most part the temperature was very comfortable for this time of year.  The edges were very clear and crisp containing mammatus clouds about one quater of a mile from the edge.  The only time I have seen this cloud formation before were the early years of heat transfer formations.  Those heat transfers were rainless and didn't carry any winds.  They were purely a mechanism to move heat from the equator to the Arctic Circle.  


The early linear systems running vertical along the east coast of the USA were empty of weather.


I followed up Lower Michigan and the weather was homogenous.  A fine rain with no wind, no real water accumulation on the roads, no thunder or lightning.  This was and appears to be a heat transfer system and nothing more.  An accumulation of water vapor with the sole purpose of moving heat.  

March 11, 2012
0630z
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite image of north and west hemisphere


The vortex took on its most definitive form over Texas, a sustained drought area.  It literally soaked up heat within its water vapor content and is moving north.

March 13,2012
0130:00z
UNISYS Water Vapor north and west hemisphere (click title to entry - thank you)


I wonder if that will improve the drought.  There should be a new monitor map in a few days.  Probably on the 15th.


At about mile marker 200 north on Internet 75 in MIchigan the snow was subliming.  It was turning from solid snow to water vapor.  It was passing right through any liquid stage and becoming water vapor.  Where the subliming was dense the fog was very dense.  There was very little rain while traveling through the fog.

What does that mean?  It means the snow is not running off into local water supplies but entering the humidity heading north.  It will effect water supply that relies on spring thaw.

The lose of civil rights in the USA, a very slippery slope. It could lead to assault of the First Amendment.

...Predictably, (click title to entry - thank you) with video cameras far more commonplace and smartphones doubling as video devices, Americans are increasingly documenting police conduct through audio and video recordings.

Not so predictable: Many are getting arrested or having recordings confiscated:

•In Rochester, N.Y., last spring, Emily Good was charged with obstruction of governmental administration after she shot video of police making a traffic stop. Good was standing in her front yard at the time. The charges were later dropped.

•Pending in a U.S. district court in Maryland is a lawsuit filed by Christopher Sharp, who recorded the arrest of a friend by Baltimore police in 2010. The police confiscated his phone and deleted a number of his videos, including family recordings.

•Last month, Boston police acknowledged that officers used "unreasonable judgment" in arresting Simon Glik, who used his cellphone to shoot the arrest of a man on Boston Common in 2007. Glik is now suing the police department.

•High school student Khaliah Fitchette was arrested by Newark police in 2010 for shooting video of their response to someone falling on a city bus. She was handcuffed and taken to a detention facility, and her video was erased. She was never formally charged and is suing the police.

•A freelance photographer on Long Island was arrested in July after he shot video of officers arresting suspects in a police chase. Phil Datz videotaped his own arrest after an officer ordered him to stop shooting on the public street. After the officer's conduct was widely viewed on YouTube (213,000 times to date), the Suffolk County Police Department decided to drop the charges.

Citizens are sometimes arrested under eavesdropping laws that were designed to prevent the surreptitious recording of a conversation. But does a police officer have a reasonable expectation of privacy while he's doing his job? And how surreptitious can it be when the camera is in full view?...

The bill determined to remove civil rights from American Citizens is "Defense Spending Bill 1987."  Below is what conservatives are saying.  The country has to know there is something drastically "W"rong and now we are seeing recording devices confiscated and those doing the recording arrested.  What comes next are citiznes that literally disappear and are detained for potentially the rest of their lives.  That means no one is going to maintain an accurate record of where they live or work where police can easily find them, because, there may be a chance they won't be released. 

...The bill was drafted by U.S. Sens. John McCain (click here), R-Ariz., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., but there were 381 amendments proposed to the original bill, most of which were not adopted. The controversial text can be found in Section 1031 of this enormously cumbersome, $600 billion epic. Numerous amendments to change this section were proposed, but the most important was the one introduced by California Sen. Diane Feinstein (D) and sponsored by Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

Durbin made a passionate speech in the Senate to support the Feinstein amendment to alter the original document.

The following was contained in Durbin’s speech: “The Senator from California has not only read the law, she has written many laws, and her competence in advocating this important constitutional question has been proven over and over. So, I thank her for having the determination and courage to stand up for her convictions against some who would be critical of anyone who broaches the subject. This is a controversial subject. We are talking about the security of Americans. We are talking about terrorism.

“… We establish standards of conduct and justice, and particularly as it relates to the people who live in America, our citizens and legal residents who are in the United States. That is what this debate is about.

“This is an important bill. … But this provision they have added in this bill is a serious mistake — serious. It is serious enough for me to support Senator Feinstein in her efforts to change and remove the language. Why? First, we know the law enforcement officials in the United States of America, the Attorney General’s Office, the FBI have done a good job in keeping America safe. They have arrested over 300 suspected terrorists in the United States — over 300 of them — and they have tried them in the criminal courts of America, on trial, in public, for the world to see that these people will be held to the standards of trial as an American citizen. Of those 300, they have successfully prosecuted over 300 alleged terrorists, then incarcerated them in the prisons of America, including Marion, Ill., in my home state, where they are safely and humanely incarcerated.....

Those that want to say 'it is over' and the Feinstein Amendment took care of Americans have to ask themselves, why did it happen at all and what indeed is the sincere outcome?  I don't believe any cases have reached the courts, but, why should there be a 'trial' of such assault on civil rights in the first place?

I thought Osama bin Laden was dead.

There should not be confiscation of anything from people that can't be returned when they are released with the exception of firearms and explosives.  Cameras are only dangerous when they capture the truth.

Until tomorrow.

I'd pay attention to this one.

March 11, 2012
0630:00z
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of North and West Hemisphere (click title for 12 hour loop)









March 11, 2012
0645 gmt
Weather Channel temperature map of USA

The temperature differences within that vortex is significantly different. 

In a weather satellite at KATV (Click here) the temperature span was 29 degrees Fahrenheit over Sante Fe, New Mexico and dropping while Temperatures over Witchita, Kansas was 52 degrees Fahrenheit.  Something's gotta give.

March 11, 2012
0630z
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of USA (click here for 12 hour loop)

I wish S. Epatha Merkerson much success with her program on TVONE. (click title to entry - thank you)

The reality of so many missing is something no one really thinks about often.  I hope the show is a great success and through people reunited with their familes perhaps we can come to understand this strange phenomena within our country. 

2,300 a Day (click here)

Reports of missing persons have increased sixfold in the past 25 years, from roughly 150,000 in 1980 to about 900,000 this year. The increase was driven in part by the country's growing population. But the numbers also indicate that law enforcement treats the cases more seriously now, including those of marginalized citizens.
An astounding 2,300 Americans are reported missing every day, including both adults and children.
But only a tiny fraction of those are stereotypical abductions or kidnappings by a stranger.
For example, the federal government counted 840,279 missing persons cases in 2001. All but about 50,000 were juveniles, classified as anyone younger than 18....

Manhunt: Catching Kony - Uganda, October 2010

Uganda, the void of sanity. I thought there were big game hunters in Uganda, no?

In this July 2006 file photo, (click here) members of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army are seen as their leader Joseph Kony meets with a delegation of Ugandan officials and lawmakers and representatives from non-governmental organizations, in the Democratic Republic of Congo near the Sudanese border. Invisible Children launched a viral campaign to 'Stop Kony' on Tuesday to mobilize the next generation of young Americans to help end the conflict in northern Uganda.


Sometimes bush drivers are necessary to find the game one is looking for.  Look, I thought drones had a purpose in Africa.  

...As with their previous campaigns  Displace Me and How it Ends, Invisible Children launched Stop Kony 2012 on Tuesday to mobilize the next generation of young Americans to help end the conflict in northern Uganda – except this time, they called on their mostly white, privileged, and educated youth followers to get involved through web-activism on their Facebook, Twitter,Tumblr and YouTube accounts....


To be honest, killing Kony will result in the rise of another.  Uganda has only the experience of people like Idi Amin.  But, if the heinous murderers of children begin to understand they will be treated like the next al Qaeda field marshall, it might have an effect.  At least children can find windows of escape, but, there will have to be refugee camps for them to flee to and those camps need to be secure.  If it works in Pakistan, who is to argue.


Idi Amin, who has died at an age thought to be 78, (click here) was one of the most brutal military dictators to wield power in post-independence Africa.

While chief of staff of the Ugandan army, under Dr Milton Obote's civilian government, he seized power in 1971. He made himself president, with the rank of field marshal, and after eight years of power left Uganda a legacy of bloodthirsty killings and economic mismanagement. Parliament was dissolved; no elections were held; secret police - most of them in plain clothes - exercised absolute power of life and death; and the courts and the press were subjugated to the whims of the executive....


The moral men and women of Africa have raised nations of children from the ravages of HIV, I think they are up to returning innocence and hope to the children of Uganda, if given half a chance.  

Uganda in its current state is not a sovereign country and to that end there are huge impositions upon natural resources and we all know the score.  The more damage to the nation and its assets by rebel bands such as this the less wealth the leaders have to manage.  If Africa is to have a place in the global community, it has the capacity to find a way to transform nations so damaged by brutal dictators.


And, oh yeah, Uganda doesn't have nuclear weapons or PEACEFUL use of the technology, so let's keep it that way.

My, my, my. Publicly Traded Private Equity Firms. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. I think that is called an oxymoron, right?

They want to do more of what they already do.

Yep.

THEY are running out of liquid assets.  Their CASH is going back the other way under this administration.  Gee, why do I miss George W. Bush so much?

The Carlyle Group reveals (little about) IPO plans (click here)

Posted by Cardiff Garcia

 Sep 06 15:05

It took long enough for David Rubenstein’s firm to formally declare its intention of joining Blackstone, KKR and Apollo as a publicly traded PE firm, but we’ll have to wait a little longer to get any meaningful details.
Carlyle Group has filed an S-1 with the SEC, and according to the press release the proceeds will be used to “repay indebtedness and for general corporate purposes, including general operational needs, growth initiatives, acquisitions and strategic investments and to fund capital commitments to, and other investments in and alongside of, its funds.”
In other words, it’s going public so it can to do but more of it what it already does. The $100m amount is just a filler; it will be changed later. We also don’t know offering terms (price, number of units), which means we have little guidance on the company’s expected public market value....


So, in determining to REMAIN 'viable' Carlyle is mortgaging every asset available.  Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank have to get in on this in order to have enough clout to back an IPO?  Really?  All the biggies from 2008.  How great is that, huh?  I wonder why I prefer GM to have its own equity and maintain sanity in its use rather than investing in empty opportunities?  Go figure.  I must be crazy worried about the USA economy again.

Thu Mar 8, 2012 11:57pm EST

(Reuters) - Private equity company Carlyle Group CYL.UL,(click title to entry - thank you) which filed for an IPO last September, has added banks including Barclays Plc (BARC.L), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) to help with the sale, Bloomberg said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and UBS AG (UBSN.VX) would also work on the offering, Bloomberg quoted the unidentified sources as saying.

Carlyle Group has filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to $100 million, with JPMorgan, Citigroup and Credit Suisse as its underwriters....


Hm.  And no major wars on the horizon, either.  Gee, I guess 'the people' of the world are finally having their way!  What was the word?  Hm.....oh, yeah, peasants.  It looks as though the peasants revolt is taking hold.


IPOs for private equity firms.  Hey, good luck with that!  


Hey!  GM!  Show me the money !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Up to now the Senate has disagreed regarding the approach to Syria. Now there is a third stating no more militarization of Syria.

(CBS News) Something must be done about the Syrian government's (click here) ongoing violence against its own people, but the U.S. "can't just jump up one morning and say, 'OK, let's go drop some bombs on Syrian tanks," Sen. John Kerry said Thursday.

Appearing on "CBS This Morning," the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pushed back against colleagues, notably Sen. John McCain, who has advocated for a U.S.-led military intervention.


"I'm very sympathetic with John McCain's passion about this. I think we all share a sense of deep frustration. Nobody wants to be sitting on the sidelines watching people be killed against the tyrannical efforts of the military and a small governing fleet, which is what it's reduced to now," the Massachusetts senator said....

The Third Party is Kofi Annan.  He has a along standing expertise and a respected resolve.  He knows the plight of the Syrian opposition and does not want them harmed anymore, perhaps, he can find a way to end this expediently without further destabilization and massacres of innocent people.

Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan talks during a press conference with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, not pictured, at the Arab league headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, March 8, 2012. (AP)


March 9, 2012 5:41 AM

(AP) BEIRUT - The leader (click title to entry - thank you) of Syria's main opposition group on Friday rejected calls by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan for dialogue between the government in Damascus and the opposition, describing them as unrealistic.

In a telephone interview from Paris, Burhan Ghalioun told The Associated Press that Annan already has disappointed the Syrian people.

Annan, who has been appointed joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, has said his mission was to start a "political process" to resolve the conflict in the country. He is due this weekend in Syria where he will meet with Assad.

In comments made in Cairo on Thursday after talks with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, Annan warned against further militarization of the Syrian conflict and urged the opposition to come together with the government to find a political solution.

"I hope that no one is thinking very seriously of using force in this situation," Annan said. "I believe any further militarization would make the situation worse."

Annan also said he would be making "realistic" proposals to resolve the conflict. He did not elaborate....