An excerpt from the endorsement of Obama by the Toledo Blade:
Additionally, Mr. Obama, a younger and more physically vigorous man, will be in a far better position to push Americans into solving one of the biggest problems we face: that of an unhealthy, morbidly obese generation of young people, a health crisis that is costing the nation billions. We applaud the fact that, urged by his talented wife, Michelle, he has quit smoking. That alone should be an inspiration to millions.
And why not to vote for Clinton:
Moreover, her candidacy reminds voters of how the Clintons in effect looted the White House of expensive china, furniture, and other items when they left in January, 2001. And, if that weren't enough, they set up a gift registry to furnish their new home in New York. In contrast to such political royalism, Mr. Obama, his wife, and their two daughters live much closer to the reality of ordinary people.
Vote for Obama because he's phisically fit. Don't vote for Clinton because she's a thief.
#2
That bean pole, are you kidding me? Take away the shoulder pads and he doesn't cast a shadow. Looks like the only thing he could push is a poll.
"Quit smoking, get healthy, I will ban firearms, believe in me I know what is best for the country, my policies are insane but my personality is impeccable, I don't have to be right I just have to be liked by the media"
#3
Hillary will crush that puny body between her massive thighs.
Posted by: ed ||
02/29/2008 17:26 Comments ||
Top||
#4
By that logic the American electorate should have put George W. Bush into the White House every time he ran. After all, the man rides mountain bikes, gave up drinking, and wields a mean chainsaw.
. . . Under dogged questioning from NBC's Timothy Russert, both presidential contenders promised to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement within six months of taking office if the agreement is not renegotiated to their liking. Mrs. Clinton even claimed, "I have been a critic of Nafta from the very beginning," which was news to the many Americans who saw her husband tout it as one of his great achievements in the White House.
What a sad showing from candidates who are going around promising to repair the Bush administration's supposed alienation of our friends around the world. Is this how they plan to do it? By dealing with our neighbors and trading partners in Canada and Mexico with threats and ultimatums? If the ploy backfires, American consumers could wind up paying more for everything from Mexican avocados to Canadian lumber and maple syrup.
All because the environmental standards that arch Republican Vice President Gore negotiated into Nafta aren't strong enough for the Green extremists running for the Democratic nomination this time around and because the candidates want to use the trade agreement, rather than the International Labor Organization, to dictate labor standards in neighboring countries. Something like 1,000 economists got together to warn Congress against a protectionist surge when Messrs. Smoot and Hawley were concocting the legislations that helped tip America, nay the world, into the Great Depression. One would have thought the Democrats would have learned. . . .
Between the call for a hasty retreat from Iraq and the effort to rewrite or abrogate trade deals with Canada and Mexico, the Democrats are looking like an isolationist party on the order of the Republicans of the late 1920s and early 1930s. With the economy already slowing and Democrats already threatening huge tax increases on income and payrolls, the last thing America needs is a new generation of protectionists. So the latest pronouncements add up to an enormous opportunity for Senator McCain.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/29/2008 11:51 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This article assumes that voters can tell shit from Shinola.
#3
"I have been a critic of Nafta from the very beginning," which was news to the many Americans who saw her husband tout it as one of his great achievements in the White House.
#4
Important note: As a President can only sign a treaty with the consent of the Senate, a President can only leave a treaty with that consent as well.
However, if the treaty has a provision that its signers may leave it at any time, the President can do so with just an executive order, without Senate approval.
But if a President did this, there is a strong possibility that the matter would end up before the Supreme Court.
#5
Huh? Presidents sign treaties but submit them to the Senate for ratification in order for them to be binding. Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Treaty, but a sense of the Senate resolution said 'we ain't ratifying', so he never submitted it for action [something the Donks and the left keep ignoring while they "Blame Bush"].
The request is familiar to American ears: "Bring them home."
But in Iraq, where I've just met with American and Iraqi leaders, the phrase carries a different meaning. It does not refer to the departure of U.S. troops, but to the return of the millions of innocent Iraqis who have been driven out of their homes and, in many cases, out of the country.
In the six months since my previous visit to Iraq with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this humanitarian crisis has not improved. However, during the last week, the United States, UNHCR and the Iraqi government have begun to work together in new and important ways.
We still don't know exactly how many Iraqis have fled their homes, where they've all gone, or how they're managing to survive. Here is what we do know: More than 2 million people are refugees inside their own country -- without homes, jobs and, to a terrible degree, without medicine, food or clean water. Ethnic cleansing and other acts of unspeakable violence have driven them into a vast and very dangerous no-man's land. Many of the survivors huddle in mosques, in abandoned buildings with no electricity, in tents or in one-room huts made of straw and mud. Fifty-eight percent of these internally displaced people are younger than 12 years old.
An additional 2.5 million Iraqis have sought refuge outside Iraq, mainly in Syria and Jordan. But those host countries have reached their limits. Overwhelmed by the refugees they already have, these countries have essentially closed their borders until the international community provides support.
I'm not a security expert, but it doesn't take one to see that Syria and Jordan are carrying an unsustainable burden. They have been excellent hosts, but we can't expect them to care for millions of poor Iraqis indefinitely and without assistance from the U.S. or others. One-sixth of Jordan's population today is Iraqi refugees. The large burden is already causing tension internally.
The Iraqi families I've met on my trips to the region are proud and resilient. They don't want anything from us other than the chance to return to their homes -- or, where those homes have been bombed to the ground or occupied by squatters, to build new ones and get back to their lives. One thing is certain: It will be quite a while before Iraq is ready to absorb more than 4 million refugees and displaced people. But it is not too early to start working on solutions. And last week, there were signs of progress.
In Baghdad, I spoke with Army Gen. David Petraeus about UNHCR's need for security information and protection for its staff as they re-enter Iraq, and I am pleased that he has offered that support. General Petraeus also told me he would support new efforts to address the humanitarian crisis "to the maximum extent possible" -- which leaves me hopeful that more progress can be made.
UNHCR is certainly committed to that. Last week while in Iraq, High Commissioner António Guterres pledged to increase UNHCR's presence there and to work closely with the Iraqi government, both in assessing the conditions required for return and in providing humanitarian relief.
During my trip I also met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has announced the creation of a new committee to oversee issues related to internally displaced people, and a pledge of $40 million to support the effort.
My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis.
Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq -- and the potential consequences for our national security -- are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?
What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance. UNHCR has appealed for $261 million this year to provide for refugees and internally displaced persons. That is not a small amount of money -- but it is less than the U.S. spends each day to fight the war in Iraq. I would like to call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.
As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.
It seems to me that now is the moment to address the humanitarian side of this situation. Without the right support, we could miss an opportunity to do some of the good we always stated we intended to do.
Angelina Jolie, an actor, is a UNHCR goodwill ambassador.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/29/2008 07:58 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Wanna help, Angelina ? use your fame and your face to make videos stating that the press has not reported the truth of the situation in Iraq. Rather than defining Iraq as a quagmire, show the reality on the streets and wake up your liberal friends and fans to contribute just this one time to the effort and victory. And while you're at it, realize we are not the enemy. The liberals who stir up trouble at every chance are the enemy. Snap out of it Angelina, and snap out your posse too.
Muslim students at Australian universities have demanded that class schedules be changed to work around their prayer times, and that male and female students be provided with separate cafeterias and recreational areas.
This is in line with similar initiatives in the United States, where the Muslim Students Association carries, on the Muslim Accommodations Task Force page of its website, pdfs of pamphlets entitled How to Achieve Islamic Holidays on Campus, How to Establish a Prayer Room on Campus, and How to Achieve Halal Food on Campus.
The MSA directs Muslim students to present these demands in the context of multiculturalism and civil rights. Most campuses, explains the publication on getting recognition of Islamic holy include respecting diversity as a part of their mission statement. They consider enrollment of diverse students an asset to the community, as they enhance the classroom learning experience and enrich student life. Try to find these statements specific to your campus, and explain that recognition of Islamic holidays would serve as a practical example of upholding these ideals.
Such recognition would also serve to right wrongs done to Muslims on campus: If any cases of bias against Muslims took place on campus in the recent past, present the proposal as an opportunity to foster cooperation and increase understanding. It would be a simple matter of civil rights: Additionally, if special holiday recognition is being offered to other faith communities (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant), Muslims have strong grounds to make a petition for equal consideration of their holiday requirements.
Its ironic that such calls for equal consideration would be made in service of an agenda that is so interested in being separate: the calls for separate eating and exercise facilities are a strange discordant note in a movement that claims for itself the mantle of the American civil rights movements. By the MSAs lights, the Muslim Rosa Parks would insist on sitting in a separate place on the bus, and Muslim students would demand the right not to have to eat at infidel lunch counters.
This is one of the primary reasons, but by no means the only reason, why the increasingly shrill demands in Western countries for accommodation of Muslim practices are not the latest manifestation of the push for equal rights for minorities, notwithstanding the posturings and protestations of Muslim leaders. Demanding a place at the table is not the same thing as demanding a separate table of ones own. In the civil rights movement, black Americans were working for full inclusion in the larger secular democratic culture, not trying to carve out their own enclave within it. If anything, they had that already, and that was the problem: if the Supreme Court could conclude in Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place, because separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, then they are still unequal.
And just as they were deemed unequal in 1954 because they abetted cultural attitudes that exalted one group as superior to the other, so also today: the demands of Muslim groups for separate facilities are in the service of a supremacist ideology that emanates from the Quranic assertions that Muslims are the best of people (3:110) while unbelievers are the vilest of created beings (98:6). Unbelievers are unclean (9:28) which leads to the conclusion, reasonable to the pious, that Muslims should be chary of contact with them. Every Western capitulation made to demands for Muslim accommodation only feeds these supremacist notions, and works directly against the actual goals of the civil rights movement, which were equal justice and equal rights for all.
Whats more, the MSA, the chief proponent of the growing Muslim accommodations movement in the United States, was listed as a friend of the Muslim Brotherhood in the infamous 1992 memorandum which spoke of the grand Jihad aimed at eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allahs religion is made victorious over all other religions. The victory of Allahs religion over other religions is a Quranic imperative: And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah (8:39), and it is an inherently supremacist imperative, in which non-Muslims pay a special tax from which Muslims are exempt, the jizya, with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (9:29).
Instead of capitulating to Muslim demands for separate facilities, university administrators and public officials ought to question those making the demands about their overall goals, and about the incongruity of claiming that creation of their own enclave is a matter of equality of rights for all.
But when will we have university administrators and public officials with that kind of courage and foresight?
. . . I thought it beautiful and inspiring that he was open to, eager for, friendships from all sides, that even though he cared passionately about political questions, politics was not all, cannot be all, that people can be liked for their essence, for their humor and good nature and intelligence, for their attitude toward life itself. He and his wife, Pat, were friends with lefties and righties, from National Review to the Paris Review. . . . His broad-gaugedness, his refusal to be limited, seemed to me a reflection in part of a central conservative tenet, as famously expressed by Samuel Johnson. "How small of all that human hearts endure / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure." When you have it right about laws and kings, and what life is, then your politics become grounded in the facts of life. And once they are grounded, you don't have to hold to them so desperately. You can relax and have fun. Just because you're serious doesn't mean you're grim. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
02/29/2008 06:18 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Fred....someone... the link doesn't work. Fix it pretty please?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
