TBC (Ebola Oatmeal for Brains)

I really didn’t want to hear another story about Ebola. It effects my appetite, makes me feverish and gives me an upset stomach. At last there’s some good news. A court in Maine has lifted the quarantine on Kaci Hickox. The Government can’t quarantine private citizens if they are not actually contagious. Finally we seem to be basing our decisions on fact not fear and we can focus on West Africa where this is a real crisis.

Me? I like generic Instant Oatmeal, Maple and Brown Sugar flavor with a pat of butter and extra maple syrup. Just lazy I guess.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when ~~we’re not too hungover~~ ~~we’ve been bailed out~~ ~~we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED)~~ the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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Today in History

Breakfast Tune: Pete Seeger sings Woody Guthrie – Union Maid

Listened to a nine year old crush this tune last night. I hope I’m half as good nine years from now!

Breakfast News & Blogs Below

News

‘Unprecedented Mobilization’: Hundred Thousand Rise Against Irish Water Tax

Across Ireland, crowds of people took to the streets on Saturday in a mass mobilization against a government austerity scheme to charge residents for domestic water usage.

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As part of their bailout deal made with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Irish government has attempted to enact reforms to privatize the nation’s water system. Under the Water Services Act 2013, the government set up a new semi-state company, Irish Water, which is gradually taking over all water provision services from the Republic’s 34 local authorities.

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In an expression of solidarity, residents of Detroit, Michigan-which has faced mass water shutoffs in the face of a similar water privatization effort-are marching on Saturday on Woodward Avenue in Detroit.

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Bangladesh grapples with nationwide blackout

Bangladesh has been struggling to restore power hours after a transmission line bringing electricity from neighbouring India failed, causing a nationwide blackout.

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Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Choudhury, reporting from Dhaka, said the government has deployed additional security forces because of a “major concern” about security in the city.

“The capital city is totally black,” Choudhury said, noting residents are unclear as to what caused the massive outage.

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Saturday’s blackout was the country’s worst since 2007, when a powerful cyclone that killed about 2,500 people knocked out the national grid for several hours.

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US-backed forces in Syria suffer big setback

ISTANBUL – Al Qaida-backed militants Saturday stormed the base of the most prominent civilian commander in the U.S.-backed Syrian rebel force, forcing him and his fighters to flee into hiding in the Jebal al Zawiya mountains of northern Syria.

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The rebels’ severe setback Saturday contrasted with the situation in Kobani, about 90 miles to the east, where rebel units and Iraqi Peshmerga fighters, equipped with heavy weapons, arrived this past week in preparation for a drive to force the Islamic State to withdraw from the city. The U.S. led Coalition has mounted nearly 200 air strikes against Islamic State positions in Kobani, a city whose civilian population has fled to Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who’s been publicly sparring with President Obama over the U.S. approach to the war in Syria, fired his latest salvo over Kobani Friday while on a visit to Paris for talks with his French counterpart, Francois Hollande. Erdogan has been extremely reluctant to support the defenders of Kobani, on the grounds that the town’s rulers are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, which Turkey and the U.S. view as a terrorist group. he’s also been critical of the U.S. for turning Kobani into the central theater in the war against the Islamic State.

“Since there are no civilians in Kobani, where there only 2,000 fighters, why is that place constantly being bombed? It is impossible to understand,” he said.

Maine could elect the country’s first gay governor – but LGBT activists are split

The man who may soon be the first openly gay person elected as a governor in the US sat silently in Maine’s house of representatives as an older colleague embarked on a homophobic tirade against the anti-discrimination proposal that they were considering.

“I don’t see them as gay because they never smile, they have got that withdrawn look,” J Robert Carrier, a Democrat from Westbrook, told the chamber in Augusta in May 1983, as a 28-year-old Mike Michaud looked on. “I feel sorry for those people,” said Carrier.

Urging fellow lawmakers to vote against a bill that would have outlawed discrimination against Maine’s estimated 100,000 gay citizens for housing or jobs, Carrier said that just as “if you want to be a drunk, if you want to be a liar, if you want to be a thief, if you want to be a crook”, the solution to homosexuality was “self-discipline”.

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