Ludacris, Obama is Here. Black Values and the Culture War.

Never trust the white establishment.
"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit." -Communist, Frank Marshall Davis, mentor to Obama

Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism

Investors Business Daily

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.
It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.
In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).
Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.

It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.

Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.
Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.

Among his proposed "investments":

• "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.
• "Free" college tuition.
• "Universal national service" (a la Havana).
• "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").
• "Free" job training (even for criminals).
• "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).
• "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.
• More subsidized public housing.
• A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."
• And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.
  

His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.
That's just for starters — first-term stuff.

Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.

You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.

But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?

Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.
The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.

A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."

As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.
"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit."

After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.

His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.

The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.

After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.

While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.
(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)
Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.

As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."

His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."
"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."

Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.
(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)

In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.
(Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)

With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."

He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.

Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."
He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.

Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.

Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.

The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.

But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.
Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.
Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.

"Proud at last, proud at last, Thanks God Almighty, proud at last."

"This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," ..."I have become a symbol of the possibility of America."

After 911, I was struck by the supreme confidence of the Islamic terrorists in their righteousness and their evil cause. It became apparent to me that what separated the Islamic world from most of the rest was their sense of mission. Muslims have no doubt as to their place in the universe. It is in their culture and their belief system. It is the way they are raised and it is their sense of mission.

Obama shares that trait. Obama is also delusional. Dana Milbank takes him apart:

______________________

President Obama Continues Hectic Victory Tour

Congress offers adulation to the self-elected president.

By Dana Milbank Wapo
Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.
Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday. He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president's) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing. Then, he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.

Along the way, he traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual president's. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities, which included a fundraiser at the Mayflower where donors paid $10,000 or more to have photos taken with him. His schedule for the day, announced Monday night, would have made Dick Cheney envious:

11:00 a.m.: En route TBA.

12:05 p.m.: En route TBA.

1:45 p.m.: En route TBA.

2:55 p.m.: En route TBA.



5:20 p.m.: En route TBA.

The 5:20 TBA turned out to be his adoration session with lawmakers in the Cannon Caucus Room, where even committee chairmen arrived early, as if for the State of the Union. Capitol Police cleared the halls -- just as they do for the actual president. The Secret Service hustled him in through a side door -- just as they do for the actual president.

(more if you can take it)

Who Is This A-hole?

Francis Anthony Boyle (born 1950) is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. He also received a Ph. D. in political science from Harvard University.

These guys did not go to Harvard Law or the University of Illinois. They have a somewhat different view of International law and relations. Who would you rather have a beer with?

"AIDS in America today is a black disease"

"AIDS in America today is a black disease," says Phill Wilson, founder of the Black AIDS institute.

Report: Black U.S. AIDS rates rival some African nations

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The AIDS epidemic among African-Americans in some parts of the United States is as severe as in parts of Africa, according to a report out Tuesday.

"Left Behind - Black America: A Neglected Priority in the Global AIDS" is intended to raise awareness and remind the public that the "AIDS epidemic is not over in America, especially not in Black America," says the report, published by the Black AIDS Institute, an HIV/AIDS think tank focused exclusively on African-Americans.

"AIDS in America today is a black disease," says Phill Wilson, founder and CEO of the institute and himself HIV-positive for 20 years. "2006 CDC data tell us that about half of the just over 1 million Americans living with HIV or AIDS are black."

Although black people represent only about one in eight Americans, one in every two people living with HIV in the United States is black, the report notes.

The report uses just-released data from UNAIDS and existing CDC and Census data to highlight grim statistics:

AIDS remains the leading cause of death among black women between ages 25 and 34. It's the second-leading cause of death in black men 35-44.

In Washington, more than 80 percent of HIV cases are among black people, that's one in 20 residents. iReport: AIDS in Washington's older population

"Five percent of the entire population (in DC) is infected... that's comparable to countries like Uganda or South Africa," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN for the recent "Black in America" documentary.

According to this report, if black Americans made up their own country, it would rank above Ethiopia (420,000 to 1,300,000) and below Ivory Coast (750,000) in HIV population. Both Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast are among the 15 nations receiving funds from the President's Emergency Plan For Aids Relief. The United States has given about $15 billion to PEPFAR nations in the past five years. CNN

Living in Blessed Times. King of Kings and Lord of Lords

Fraudulent Free Trade and Expensive Oil

Parting company.

The New York Times has an article about the affect of fuel consumption brought on by foreign government subsides. Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, India and China all heavily subsidize the price of petroleum products. These governments fearful of inflation, and civil unrest are heavily subsidizing energy prices, particularly for diesel fuel. China alone spends $40B a year on subsidies. That would not be possible if it were not for the fact that China has such a huge trade surplus with the US.

I doubt anyone calculated the affects of these subsidies when the US was agreeing to lop-sided trade agreements giving away trade advantages at the expense of American interests. Fuel Subsidies Overseas Take a Toll on U.S.

Secession - Go Your Own Way

A recent Middlebury Institute/Zogby Poll shows that : one in five Americans believe that states have the right to secede. The survey finds 18% would support a secessionist effort in their state."One in five American adults - 22% - believe that any state or region has the right to "peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic."

..."The level of support for the right of secession was consistent in every region in the country, though the percentage was slightly higher in the South (26%) and the East (24%). The figures were also consistent for every age group, but backing was strongest among younger adults, as 40% among those age 18 to 24 and 24% among those age 25 to 34 agreed states and regions have secession rights.

Broken down by race, the highest percentage agreeing with the right to secede was among Hispanics (43%) and African-Americans (40%). Among white respondents, 17% said states or regions should have the right to peaceably secede."

It seems as if a lot of people in the Unites States on the left and on the right do not like each other and have a preference to go their own way. Hispanics, by 43%, have already established a substantial presence in the American Southwest. They not only have the inclination to secede, they can make it happen within a generation.

African Americans at 40% seems to confirm that the logical outcome to multi-culturalism and diversity is devolution. Sorry about that.

Call of the Wild

The Real Scum is CNN’s Christiane Amanpour

Poligazette

In Amanpour’s twisted universe, calling rioters who happen to be dark skinned ’scum’ is racist. Remember; these children of immigrants were destroying France last year. They were burning down cars and destroying shops on a massive scale. They declared war on the French government and fought against the police. ‘Scum’ is quite an appropriate word for them.

Not because they are dark, but because they are destroying other peoples’ possessions in a violent manner. That’s why.

To Amanpour, however, that doesn’t matter. In her sick politically correct world, one is not allowed to say something negative about people if those people happen to be dark skinned. If they are white, no problem.

What’s even sicker is that she is arguing that Obama and these rioters are the same because the color of their skin happens to be dark.

Barack Obama and his Muslim Family

Obama and his Muslim family ... back row from left: Unknown, Barack Obama, half-brother Malik, unknown, half-brother Abo, Bernard. Front: Half-sister Auma, stepmum Kezia, stepgran Sarah, unknown.

Bernard converted to Islam 18 years ago. The dad of one said: “I’m a Muslim, I don’t deny it. My father was raised a Muslim.

“But it’s not an issue. I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is about.”

Guest Post from Belmont Club blogger:

Morton Doodslag:

As long as we’re discussing leftist media bias, and selective truth telling, I was astounded to read an item about Barack Obama’s brother yesterday, linked at Drudge. It may still be there. It’s entitled “Found! Obama’s brother!”
If one reads this article carefully, one learns that Barack Obama’s father must have been a polygamous Muslim, and that he continued to sire children with his first wife even after he’d married BHO’s wife. Further, BHO’s mother probably knew about it. Obama Sr. frequently returned to Kenya, and BHO’s half siblings through that marriage are both older and younger than he. I suspect if some PajamasMedia sleuth were to try, no divorce documents or claims can be found.

Compare the complete non-mentioning of this jaw-dropping Fact to the smears and claims of Mormon polygamy with media reporting on Romney.

I’m unaware of any claim that Romney’s family was polygamous, but he was widely smeared with this through innuendo. Whereas BHO is almost certainly a byproduct of a fricking Muslim harem!

But the PC rules viciously preclude even mentioning the fact. Even many I. The right, so eager to show they’re not Islamiphobic, buy into the clampdown on discussing BHO’s blatant Muslim roots and the implications.

In the somewhat silly Harry Potter series, the characters are gripped by a hysterical avoidance of mentioning the name of the man who threatens them with destruction. The antagonist in the story is regularly referred to as “He who must not be named”.

Muslims and Leftists have successfully waged a campaign of fear and intimidation so that even mentioning the incontrovertible facts surrounding this BHO phenom is out of bounds.

I had never read anything in the media about this harem detail in BHO’s past. Even the British article only hinted obliquely to this revelation by a passing reference to the age of BHO’s younger brother. If one didn’t ponder the significance of it, one would not have gathered the fact that BHO Sr. returned many times to his first wife, whom he probably never divorced, and continued to sire children with her after marrying BHO’s mother and having HIM.

When every peccadillo of our right wing politicians, real or imagined, becomes a feeding frenzy in our media, and the first black Muslim born offspring of an Islamic harem is blatantly glossed over and placed off limits through vicious Press attacks and intimidation, you know we’ve gone very far down some kind of scary rabbit hole.

If it were a Mozart opera, we could laugh at the high farce of it all. But a nightmare is unfolding, and the monsters are not being named. Except here.

___________________

Obama's brother is in Bracknell
By OLIVER HARVEY The Sun
Chief Feature Writer
Published: Today

HE may be living in a Bracknell council house, but soon he could be dining with his brother at the White House.

The Sun was the first newspaper to track down and speak to Bernard Obama, 37.

And he said of Democrat candidate Barack: “I’m very proud of my big brother.

“It’s quite a funny feeling that he might be the next President of the USA.”

Muslim Bernard — an avid Manchester United fan and Sun reader — is staying with his bingo-loving mum Kezia, 67, who has lived in the Berkshire new town for six years.

He was glued to the TV news in the modest suburban bungalow last night as Barack, 46, was due to arrive in Britain.

Bernard leads a quiet life, running a car parts firm in Nairobi, Kenya.

But he is a regular visitor to the UK to visit Elvis fan Kezia.

She married Barack Obama Snr in Kenya in 1957 when she was a teenager.

He later left for the US and went on to meet Ann Dunham, who gave birth to his now widely acclaimed son.

Obama Snr, a Kenyan goatherd who became a leading economist in his east African homeland’s government, was killed in a car crash in 1982.

Barack Jnr was 21 and Bernard 12. He said: “Our father passed away when I was young and I didn’t get the chance to get to know him very well.

“When you lose your dad at such a young age, that’s when you really miss him.”

Bernard smiled when he spoke of his famous half-brother. He said:

I was around 17 when I first met Barack.

He was visiting Kenya and it was obvious from the way he spoke and his charisma that he was going to be a success.

He is charming, very good company and very charismatic.

I’ve met him since with his wife Michelle in Kenya. She’s very nice, a very strong and intelligent person. I don’t think we will see him on this visit to Britain. It’s official business and he’ll be very busy.

Bernard is remaining with Kezia for the next month as she recuperates from illness.


Barefoot and dressed in cream shorts and red T-shirt, he said: “I love coming to Britain because I love football and I like reading about it in The Sun.

Converted

“I’m a big Manchester United fan but I think Barack’s more into basketball.”

Bernard converted to Islam 18 years ago. The dad of one said: “I’m a Muslim, I don’t deny it. My father was raised a Muslim.

“But it’s not an issue. I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is about.”

Barack is a staunch Christian. A recent cartoon in the New Yorker magazine caused a furore by portraying him as a turban-wearing Muslim and his wife as a terrorist.

In February, photos emerged of Barack in traditional Somali robes during a trip to Kenya in 2006.

But Bernard dismissed jibes about Barack’s religion and said there was no significance to the photos.

He added: “If you go to Japan or Nigeria you put on the traditional dress. People are trying to look for ways to tarnish him.”

In his biography, Dreams From My Father, Barack told of meeting Bernard in Kenya.

He wrote: “That sweetness, the lack of guile, made him seem much younger than his 17 years.

“As we stepped into the street, Bernard draped his arm over my shoulder. ‘It’s good to have a big brother around,’ he said, before waving goodbye and vanishing into the crowd.”

The pair’s dad left Kenya in 1959 when he took up a US scholarship. Kezia, then three months’ pregnant with daughter Auma, already had a year-old son Malik to look after.

Barack Snr met Barack’s mum Ann in Hawaii, and she gave birth to the now presidential hopeful in August 1961.

The Democrat’s dad returned to Kenya in 1965 and Kezia subsequently gave birth to two sons, Abo in 1968 and Bernard in 1970.

Raunchy

Barack’s former brother-in-law Ian Manners, 55 — divorced from Bernard’s and Barack’s sister Auma — is writing a book about his in-laws.

Daughter Akinyi, 11, spent Christmas with Barack in the US. She said: “I asked him if I could meet Beyonce. He smiled and said he’d see what he could do.”

Barack attended Ian’s 1996 wedding to Auma and famously ran out of a pub in Wokingham, Berks, during Ian’s stag bash when a raunchy dancer took to the stage.

Businessman Ian said: “We were having a few drinks, then a stripper dressed as a St Trinian’s schoolgirl appeared.

“She was no Miss World and it was the last thing I wanted. As soon as Barack saw what was about to happen he made a hasty retreat.

“He was in politics already and left the pub immediately.”

Ian added: “I played a couple of rounds of golf with him in 1997.

“We had to go to a municipal course because golf clubs wouldn’t have been keen on a black man playing on their course back then.

“He is very competitive and beat me both times. It was obvious Barack was going to get to the top.”

Bernard agreed, saying: “Barack is going to win the election, definitely, and I want to be in the US for his inauguration.

“He will be a breath of fresh air for the world.”

Petraeus Recalibrates his Career - Focus Afghanistan

Politics does make for some strange bedfellows. Maybe politicians just crave strange, but this is an interesting twist. Has General Petraeus done a calculation that Obama will be president?

No one gets beyond one star and stays that way unless he plays and has mastered the ultimate military art of being a politician, camouflaged of course.

____________________

Is Petraeus Preparing to Betray the Neo-Cons?

July 25, 2008 -

By: Lobe, Jim Israelenews

The Wall Street Journal had a good news piece today on where things are going with respect to a U.S. withdrawal — at least of combat troops — from Iraq entitled “Consensus May be Nearing on Iraq Pullout: Target Year of 2010 Gains Some Traction Among Principals as U.S. Looks Toward Afghanistan.”

I would add that, in addition to Obama, the Bush administration and now even the McCain Campaign, it appears that Gen. David Petraeus, who will take over as CentCom commander some time around Sep 1, is also preparing the ground for a move in that direction, suggesting in a Sunday interviewwith AP that al-Qaeda may “start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan.”

“We do think that there is some assessment ongoing [by al-Qaeda] as to the continued viability of [its] fight in Iraq,” he said. “There is some intelligence that has picked this up,” he went on, adding, “It’s not solid gold intelligence.”

In fact, of course, evidence that al-Qaeda and its allies have shifted their focus back to Afghanistan and, more important from a strategic point of view, Pakistan has been accumulating for much of the past year; hence, Mullen’s and Gates’ increasing and increasingly vocal agitation about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the growing influence and infrastructure of al Qaeda and Taliban forces across the border in Pakistan. In the two weeks before Petraeus’ interview, AP, the always-excellent Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times published articles providing detailed evidence that al-Qaeda made its assessment some months ago and has been acting on it by sending many more fighters to Southwest Asia, including Iraq war veterans.

That Petraeus says that he believes al-Qaeda is only now making its assessment suggests the degree to which, as U.S. commander in Iraq, he has been focused exclusively on that theater and has fought tooth and nail against the Pentagon’s desire to accelerate its drawdown in troops there in order to free up more for Afghanistan.

Now, however, as commander-designate of Centcom, southwest Asia is about to become his responsibility, and he most certainly doesn’t want to lose — or be perceived as losing — there any more than he has in Iraq. In that respect, I think he is preparing to join the consensus, a consensus that, significantly, embraces the concept — pushed hard by Obama in recent days — that Afghanistan/Pakistan really does constitute the “central front” in the war on terror. (He may also believe that Obama is going to the next president and that continuing to insist that Iraq is the “central front” might be detrimental to his long-term career goals.)

If Petraeus does indeed move into the Southwest Asia camp, it will mark a huge setback for the neo-conservatives — whose Israel-centered agenda has accorded paramount priority to the Middle East and the Gulf — and whatever residual hopes they harbor for a U.S. attack on Iran. Tehran’s capacity to cause trouble in Afghanistan and even Pakistan is considerable, and I think that is one reason why Mullen and Gates have pushed for dialogue and detente.

Obama Seizing Victory from Jaws

Call this the audacity of audacity, but Obama is poised to take credit for what appears to be a possible and at this stage likely win in Iraq. McCain through pique and barely repressed anger seems handicapped in adequately responding to the Obama strategy.

Obama is a bullshit artist extraordinaire. McCain supports the surge and Obama responds with the putsch. Bush, the architect, and McCain, the promoter, are caught flatfooted while Obama floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.

________________________

An Emerging Victory in Iraq, Defeat for McCain

July 24, 2008, 6:37PM

By AUSTIN BAY
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

IT is ironic, but victory in Iraq could mean defeat for John McCain.

Crown the lucky Barack Obama, bury the courageous McCain — what a fate for a warrior senator who has played a key leadership role in Iraq's emerging victory.

I'll repeat that description: "emerging victory." Terror campaigns and insurgencies end with diminishing codas of violence.

In a recent column, I referenced the "Strategic Overwatch" video that appeared on the Internet the first week of June. "Overwatch" is a military term. At the tactical level, one soldier moves, the other "covers" him (overwatches), ready to suppress enemy fire. At the strategic level, allied nations "cover" one another.

"Strategic Overwatch" is also a term I encountered when I served in the plans section of Multi-National Corps-Iraq in 2004 — a desirable strategic condition I thought the coalition and Iraqis could achieve.

"Strategic Overwatch" is a limited victory for a United States willing to remain a reliable Iraqi ally. "Strategic Overwatch" protects the much more enthusiastic Iraqi version of victory. After his May 6, 2008, speech at Quantico, Va., I asked Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations Hamid Al Bayati what would constitute victory for the Iraqi people. He responded viscerally, "Every day we have democracy is a victory for the Iraqi people."

How blunt. The Iraqis have earned their democracy, and we owe them a solid alliance.

The video summarizes "Strategic Overwatch" ( You can use the guest click in feature) in this manner:

Assumptions: The United States is in Iraq for the long haul; Iraqi political progress continues.

Time to Develop: Could emerge by mid- to late 2009, full-fledged by 2011.

Related Events: Iraqi army continues to re-arm and modernize; Iraq and the United States agree to a "long-range cooperation agreement" the Iraqi people see as advantageous to Iraq; ... Iraq begins to attract steady and sustained private investment; members of the Arab League begin forging stronger political and economic ties with Iraq.

Effect on Average Iraqi: Increased GDP ultimately means a wealthier society; Iraqi neighborhoods revive; Baghdad's business community revives and the city's nightlife returns.

Effect on Region: Increased internal trouble in Iran as Iranian people object to the corrupt mullocracy and to the lack of democracy in Iran; Iraqi-Turkish relations continue to strengthen; Iraq becomes more assertive in Middle East politics and economic affairs; more Shia Arab strife occurs in Lebanon (stoked by Iran) with the goal of distracting Iraqi Shias and-or "radicalizing" Iraqi foreign policy; Jordan re-emerges as a staunch ally of Iraq.

Eight weeks after the scenario hit the Web, we should change "could emerge" to "is emerging." Credit the Iraqis with accelerating the process. Operation Charge of the Knights (March-May 2008), which most so-called media experts immediately labeled the "Basra blunder," demonstrated that the Iraqi army's operational capabilities had improved and that the Maliki government could astutely turn security success into political solidification. Iraqi gains mean a significant reduction in coalition combat forces could come by late 2009, with complete Iraqi combat responsibility by late 2010.

So why the irony? Barack Obama wanted to withdraw because Harry Reid and the Democratic Party insisted we'd lost. As "Strategic Overwatch" develops, the United States can begin reducing its combat role because we are winning — and "we" includes the Iraqis. McCain ought to reap the reward, but given the national media's creampuff treatment of Obama, the next "instant truth" will be "see, we can withdraw."

But before Obama declares peace in our time, consider the "Effect on Region" paragraph. The Iraqis want an alliance. That means Washington must be prepared to back Iraq in a confrontation with Iran. We know McCain can handle that dangerous test. In the maelstrom moment when an Obama-advocated rapid military withdrawal would have devastated the Iraqis, McCain stood firm.

Bay, a nationally syndicated columnist based in Texas, specializes in military and foreign affairs.

Barack Obama Birth Certificate Mystery Solved!

Citizen of the World, Barack Obama, Bahaist

We do not want or need a world citizen to head our country, we need an American President.

Obama, in Berlin and at his most vacuous announced, " Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world."

Obama has undergone a metamorphosis from presidential candidate to world messenger. He has clarified his religion. He is not a Muslim, he is a divine messenger. He is the fruit of his hippy mother, the fruit of flower power. Obama is a Baháist. A Baháist is a follower of a religion founded in 1863 in Persia and emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. Obama has revealed himself to humanity in Germany as a new age guru and not just a messenger but perhaps, "The Messenger".

Here is the official web site of the Bahai

Throughout history, God has revealed Himself to humanity through a series of divine Messengers, whose teachings guide and educate us and provide the basis for the advancement of human society. These Messengers have included Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. Their religions come from the same Source and are in essence successive chapters of one religion from God.

Bahá’u’lláh, the latest of these Messengers, brought new spiritual and social teachings for our time. His essential message is of unity. He taught the oneness of God, the oneness of the human family, and the oneness of religion.

Bahá'u'lláh said, “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens,” and that, as foretold in all the sacred scriptures of the past, now is the time for humanity to live in unity.

Founded more than a century and a half ago, the Bahá'í Faith has spread around the globe. Members of the Bahá'í Faith live in more than 100,000 localities and come from nearly every nation, ethnic group, culture, profession, and social or economic background.

Bahá'ís believe the crucial need facing humanity is to find a unifying vision of the nature and purpose of life and of the future of society. Such a vision unfolds in the writings of Bahá'u'lláh.

I Resent Obama in Berlin

Like a conquering field marshal Obama mesmerized the Germans. The undertone of the crowd was not to cheer America but to make an anti-American statement. It is a statement of condescension. 67 percent of Germans want Barrack Obama to become the next US president, a recent opinion poll said.

Obama gave them what they wanted to hear:

"If we're honest... we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart and forgotten our shared destiny."

What destiny do we share with the Germans?

You can hear the voice of Michelle Obama in this sentiment:

"In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common."

"In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future...
"But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together." he added.

"As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya."

The Germans always believed in the great man concept that can ride in on a horse and has more often than not led them to hell rather than through Valgrind to Valhalla. They seem not to have changed:

"Obama stands for a new era in politics," some bystander said. "He is someone who can change the world."

I wonder how many American voters will resent the German's choice for the US President?

"Just how far we have come as a country"

We have come far alright. The culture war is entering the surge phase and the rout is almost complete. Listen to the tone and tenor and the anger. Revenge and change is on the way. Determination by the left and the tireless application of whatever it takes for the cause. God bless America.

Jews for Obama. Why?

US elections: American Jews predicted to vote Obama by significant margin
Ewen MacAskill and Daniel Nasaw in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday July 23, 2008

Jewish leaders in the US today predicted a big turnout among Jews in the November presidential election in favour of Barack Obama in spite of suspicion about his views on Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, an advocacy group with strong links to the Democratic party, said: "I think Obama will win the Jewish vote by a large margin. The question is how much?"

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Centre of Reform Judaism, said American Jews' traditional political affinity with African Americans, born of a shared experience of discrimination and the struggles of the civil rights era, could outstrip concerns among some Jewish voters that Obama is not pro-Israel enough.

"There is a great deal of pride and excitement about this moment in history as we see this real possibility of seeing a black president," he said.

Obama's visit to Israel is partly to counter criticism from his Republican rival, John McCain, that he lacks foreign policy experience but it is also to shore up support among Jews in the US. Although they make up only 3% of the electorate, Jews have been historically important, mainly as activists in the Democratic party and as generous donors. Unlike young voters and African-Americans who have in the past turned out in low numbers - but are both predicted to turn out in large numbers for Obama this time - Jews are dependable about casting their ballots.

Jews tend to be overwhelmingly Democrats, with 65% identifying themselves as Democratic or leaning Democratic, according to a June survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, compared to 23% who identify as Republican or leaning Republican.

A Gallup poll in April put Obama on 61% to 32% for McCain.

Forman said that while Jews are concentrated in places such as New York and California, which both vote Democratic anyway, there were also large numbers in states where the outcome is not as predictable: Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Forman acknowledged that African Americans and young voters are likely to defy past experience by turning out in large numbers for Obama but his campaign team would still be looking for Jewish votes. "When you are running a political campaign, you always make the assumption it will be a close race and you have to turn out all your constituencies heavily," Forman said.

Saperstein said Obama has been able to diffuse some of worries about his commitment to Israel, in part through his speech last month at a conference in Washington of the American Israel Political Affairs Committee, in which he promised that Jerusalem would be the undivided capital of Israel, even though he qualified this the next day to say this would be dependent on final negotiations with the Palestinians, who also claim it as their capital.

Border Defense and Pierced Nipples

TSA Agents Forced Woman To Remove Nipple Rings, Pulled Pants Off Disabled Man

Reporting
Pam Zekman CBS-2

When travelers go to the airport, they know what kind of security to expect: luggage searches, metal detectors and shoe inspections.

It's all part of our post 9-11 reality enforced by the Transportation Security Adminstration. But as CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, thousands of travelers have complained that some of these screenings can become abusive and even x-rated.

For arguing with a TSA agent, Robin Kassner wound up being slammed to the floor. She's filed a lawsuit.

"I kept begging them over and over again get off of me ... and they wouldn't stop," Kassner said.

And it wasn't enough for another woman to show TSA agents nipple rings that set off a metal detector. The agents forced her to take them out.

Mandi Hamlin said, "I had to get pliers and pull it apart."

John Edwards Outed. Obama Should Still Choose Him as VP. Jesse Jackson to Provide Spiritual Guidance.

Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

LOS ANGELES, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards said here on Monday that he would "seriously" consider being Barack Obama's running mate, if asked.

"Anything that I'm asked to do by Senator Obama, either as a presidential candidate or as the next president of the Untied States, I would take seriously and seriously consider," said Edwards.

Edwards ran for vice president in 2004 and ended his own presidential bid six months ago.

The question on whether he would consider being the vice-presidential contender on the Obama ticket arose during a news conference on affordable housing.

But Edwards said "What I have said many times now is first, I'm not seeking the job. I don't expect to be asked."

Edwards with his babe, Rielle Hunter, quite the fox.

Rousing Speeches to Large Excited German Crowds is Nothing New

According to a recent poll, Obama has the confidence of 84 percent of the French, 82 percent of the Germans and 74 percent of the Brits. They have no clue as to what he is about, but no matter. Of the three countries, Obama is preparing the big pitch and the stem winder for the Germans. That is a soft choice. Germans like big speeches. They like the glow and fervor created by a mesmerizing speaker. It stirs the Teutonic soul.

Obama will be there in front of an adoring crowd with his head appropriately tilted looking towards the heavens and the Germans will hang on every word. Germans know nothing about Obama except he is not Bush. Obama is an American that appeals to the European palate. That will further eroticse the American left. Hopefully it will end as a net negative to middle America.

Change or Stammering Shuck and Jive?

Here is an ABC Report on The Chief of Shuck and Jive. Listen to to his smugness talk about himself as Commander and Chief.

Halt Immigration, Legal and Illegal - Mark Krikorian

Greater income inequality, more bilingualism and cultural balkanization and ethnic unrest, more Mexican and other foreign government involvement in our internal affairs, more vulnerability to terrorist threats, more poor people leading to progressively bigger government financed by progressively higher taxes causing progressively slower growth in productivity and per capita income.

The New Case Against Immigration
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, July 18, 2008

FP: Mark Krikorian, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Krikorian: Glad to be here.

FP: What inspired you to write this book?

Krikorian: I've long been concerned that the various critiques of immigration were disjointed, without an overarching structure. There was a grab-bag approach, with conservatives examining, say, the security problems stemming from mass immigration, but not the effects on American blue-collar workers. Likewise liberals were often concerned about the strains on the social safety net, but might reject any concern about assimilation. This book offers a "unified field theory" of immigration limits.

What's more, too much of the debate over immigration has focused on the issue of legal status. It's an important issue, obviously, and has to be the starting point of any effort fix immigration policy. But if legality were the only problem, then just amnestying everyone and admitting an unlimited number of "willing workers," in the president's words, would solve the problem. But, of course, most of the strains created by immigration -- on schools, hospitals, assimilation, national security, what have you -- are unrelated to legal status. Thus getting away from the simplistic "illegal-bad/legal-good" dichotomy is essential.

FP: Are today's immigrants much different from those of a century ago? Are “we” different? The rise of the welfare state, political correctness and identity politics has thrown a twist into things, yes?

Krikorian: The punch line of my book is that what's different about immigration today as opposed to a century ago is not the immigrants but us. Today's immigrants obviously come from different countries, but they're very similar is most relevant respects. It's America has changed dramatically, in good ways and bad ways, but in any case in ways that make us a mature society and render our past experience with immigration irrelevant. We have a post-industrial, knowledge-based economy, a welfare state, advanced communications and transportation technology that complicate the issues of security and sovereignty, etc.

We have, in other words, outgrown mass immigration. It was an important phase of our national development, and played an important part in shaping who we are as a nation. But, like other phases we've passed through as a people -- pioneers settling the frontier, for instance -- it's something we need to put behind us.


FP: Tell us some of the ways that mass immigration conflicts with the goals and characteristics of a modern society.


Krikorian: I can't address every facet (for that, buy the book), but let's start with assimilation. This is more than just learning English and getting a job -- true assimilation, what John Fonte calls "patriotic assimilation," means you have shifted your allegiances from your old country to your new country. There are two attributes of modernity that make this kind of assimilation less likely. The first is modern communications and transportation technology, cheap phone calls, rapid travel across oceans. These are good things, but they also mean that an immigrant never really has to leave behind the old country in the way he was forced to by circumstances in the past. As a result, he doesn't necessarily refocus his emotional attachments on his new country, because he's always able to call home or send e-mail or hop on a bus or plane to go back for a wedding. The second problem is that in all modern societies, the elites lose the cultural self-confidence necessary to induce newcomers to become more like you rather than the reverse. The result is bilingual education, multiculturalism, press 1 for English, and all the rest. In neither case is this something the immigrants dreamed up or imposed on us, but is does mean we have to change our immigration policies to better reflect this new reality.

The same conflict exists in economic matters. In a modern economy, higher education is necessary for upward mobility, and most immigrants are inevitably going to be relatively low-skilled, undermining the life-chances of low-skilled Americans and even earlier immigrants, in whose success we now have a large stake. Poor immigrants also inevitably strain government budgets -- no matter how hard they work, low-skilled people in a modern economy just can't earn enough to support themselves and their families at the level we think appropriate without subsidies from the taxpayer. It's not their fault. It's not our fault. There is no "fault." It's a mismatch that we need to end.

FP: Why do we continue to invite mass immigration?

Krikorian: A combination of reasons. Inertia, to begin with -- people think we've always done things this way, so why change now? Sentimentality -- I love my bubbe from Vilna, so immigration today is good too. Politically, the problem is what scholars call "client politics," where organized interest groups benefit at the expense of the public. So, some employers like immigration because it keeps labor costs down, while racial-identity groups like La Raza want more warm bodies to pretend to represent, which helps them get bigger grants from the government and foundations and corporations. When you have highly organized interests like this, all on the same side of an issue, with only the broader public interest in the other side, you can see how it's hard to change things. In addition, much of our elite has become what I call post-American -- they don't hate America, they've just moved beyond a narrow concern for their compatriots. When you see the world that way, then why would you be concerned about parochial things like sovereignty, and why would you favor the interests of a black American teenager in Miami looking for a job over a newly arrived Nicaraguan illegal alien?

FP: What are the consequences to us if we do not cut down on immigration?


Krikorian: Greater income inequality, more bilingualism and cultural balkanization and ethnic unrest, more Mexican and other foreign government involvement in our internal affairs, more vulnerability to terrorist threats, more poor people leading to progressively bigger government financed by progressively higher taxes causing progressively slower growth in productivity and per capita income. These things aren't all just going to happen tomorrow, but it's clearly where we're headed if we keep pursuing an outdated immigration policy.


FP: What are some of the best arguments to be made against amnesty?

Krikorian: Don't reward lawbreakers -- despite all the baloney about "going to the end of the line," any form of legalization by definition lets illegals continue living and working here, thus giving them what they came for. Don't encourage more illegal immigration in the future by telegraphing to the world's six billion non-Americans that they can sneak in or overstay their visa, and if they keep their heads down long enough, they'll get a green card. It's not appropriate to even consider amnesty until after we've re-asserted control over the system, after we've reduced the illegal population through attrition, after we've restricted future admissions. Even then, I might be against it, but at least it would be a legitimate topic for debate. But until then, there's nothing to talk about.

FP: How large an issue will immigration be in the upcoming election?


Krikorian: I used to think it wouldn't be important, because Obama and McCain have identical views on the issue, so what's to talk about? But McCain's responses to Obama's hilariously baseless charge that McCain "walked away" from his own amnesty bill make me think immigration might come up more. McCain is an honor politician, and he considers such an accusation an insult to his honor, so he stands up before the cameras and says "No, I'm a bigger champion of amnesty than you are, Sen. Obama!" Obama can't lose with this approach -- it helps him express his solidarity with skeptical Hispanic Democrats who'd initially favored Hillary, and continually reminds McCain's prospective supporters (not just Republican voters, but also the very independents and Reagan Democrats he's targeting) that he's "Amnesty John."

FP: What are some of your policy recommendations for legal immigration and illegal immigration?

Krikorian: I go into some detail in the final chapter of my book about what reform would look like. With regard to illegal immigration, we need to pursue a policy of "attrition through enforcement," steadily and comprehensively applying the law to promote increased self-deportation by illegals so the total illegal population starts shrinking each year instead of continually growing. This isn't a pipe dream -- even the stepped-up enforcement we've seen over the past year seems to have caused a non-trivial drop in the illegal population. Maybe the two most important things to do in this regard are to require electronic verification of Social Security and related information for all new hires (something that's now voluntary) and to fully implement the check-in/check-out system for foreign travelers at our airports and border crossings (it's not even close to done).

As for legal immigration, the goal should not be zero immigration, but zero-based budgeting -- start at zero, and then admit only those narrowly defined categories of people whose admission is so compelling that we want to let them in despite the problems immigration can cause in a modern society. That would include husbands, wives, and unmarried minor children of American citizens, a handful (maybe 10,000-15,000) of the most extraordinary talents from abroad, and 50,000 of the most desperate refugees in the world, for whom coming here is the absolute last resort. That's a total of maybe 300,000 or 350,000 people a year -- quite a few, actually, but some 75 percent less than we take now.

FP: Mark Krikorian, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Krikorian: Thanks for the opportunity to do this.

Obama Supporter, Brzezinski, Warns on Afghanistan

Not too enthusiastic.

Brzezinski wary of repeating Soviet experience
By Daniel Dombey in Washington FT

July 20 2008

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former US national security adviser and prominent supporter of Barack Obama, has warned the Democratic presidential candidate that he risks repeating the defeat suffered by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Mr Obama has called for up to 10,000 more US troops to be deployed in the country, where the USSR once sent tens of thousands of soldiers only to suffer cataclysmic military failure.

But in an interview with the Financial Times Mr Brzezinski warned: “It is important for US policy in general and for Obama more specifically to recognise that simply putting more troops into Afghanistan is not the entire solution . . . We are running the risk of repeating the mistake the Soviet Union made . . . Our strategy is getting in deeper and deeper.”

He added that while the Soviets invaded the country thinking there was a communist Afghan elite on which they could rely, “we have to be careful not to overestimate the appeal of the democratic Afghan elite, because we run the risk that our military presence . . . will gradually turn the Afghan population entirely against us”.

Afghan society was deeply conservative and resistant to dramatic change, he said.

Mr Brzezinski is sometimes seen as a controversial figure because of his trenchant criticism of Russia and his calls for US policy on the Middle East not to be “subordinated to Israeli interests”. Today he depicts himself as a supporter who has declined to join the Obama campaign because of his unwillingness to be kept quiet or on message during the duration of the election.

“I realise that in an electoral campaign you don’t want to antagonise large groups which are highly motivated,” he said.

Nevertheless, their personal contact has left its mark on the 80-year-old former Harvard and Columbia professor, a veteran of the Johnson and Carter administrations. He said that of all the presidential candidates since 1960, he was most impressed by Mr Obama and John Kennedy, both of whom he considered “in tune with the music of the time”. But he argued it was more difficult today for Mr Obama to define a clear foreign policy position than it was for Kennedy.

“This is a very dangerous period of time with very unpredictable consequences,” he said, referring to tensions between Iran and Israel and the US. “You have three countries doing a kind of death dance on the basis of confusion, division and fear.

“If we end up with war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran at the same time, can anyone see a more damaging prospect for America’s world role than that?” he asked. “That’s the fundamental foreign policy dilemma at the back of this election. A four-front war would get us involved for years . . . It would be the end of American predominance.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Where Are the White Male Soldiers?

This is a NY Times Photo of Obama at a stopover in Kuwait. Blacks make up 20% of the US Army.

China Threatens Exxon Mobil

It should be obvious even to the most optimistic free trader that China is a special and dangerous situation that does not fit into the free trade dream. China has intentions that go beyond wanting to be a partner in trade. China is intent on domination and beating the west at its own game. So far so good for China. China is drilling American oil off Cuba, dominates the Panama Canal, stroking Chavez and institutionalizing itself in the Americas. China is not about fair trade or fair play or fair anything. China is out to win and is doing a very respectable job at it. Here is just another not too subtle example:

________________

China warns ExxonMobil: Drop deal with Vietnam
By MarketWatch

July 20, 2008

HONG KONG (AFP) -- China has warned U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil Corp.to drop an exploration deal in the seas off Vietnam and said the project could threaten any future mainland contracts, a Hong Kong newspaper reported Sunday.

Diplomats in Washington have contacted senior figures in the world's largest oil firm to protest the deal, which they say could be a breach of Chinese sovereignty, the Sunday Morning Post reported citing unnamed sources close to the U.S. firm.

"If it was simply a legal question it would be easy," one of the sources told the newspaper.

"Vietnam would probably prevail in international mediation. But it's political, too. China's concerns make the situation much more complicated for a company like Exxon ... China is a very important player in the international oil industry."

The dispute involves a preliminary co-operation agreement between state oil firm PetroVietnam and ExxonMobil covering exploration in the South China Sea off Vietnam's south and central coasts, the report said.

The Chinese protests are based on Beijing's historical claim to huge swathes of the South China Sea, the report said.

Last year, China criticized a joint deal between Vietnam and U.K. energy giant BP PLC near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, saying the area has been an "indisputable part of Chinese territory since ancient times."

The report quoted Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung saying it needed to be "clearly asserted" that Hanoi's dealings with foreign oil partners fell entirely within Vietnam's legal rights and sovereignty.

China and Vietnam - who in 1979 fought a short border war after Vietnam expelled the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge from Cambodia - also fought a brief naval battle in 1988 near the Spratly Islands.

Who is leaning towards whom?

The Affirmative Action Candidate

If he weren't black he would not be here.

July 20, 2008
Obama Wraps Up the Bush Status Quo in Pompous Clichés
By Robert Tracinski Real Clear Politics

I am quickly coming to the conclusion that all there has ever been to Barack Obama is symbolism and grandiloquent speeches. There is the symbolism of him as the (potential) first black president. And there is his ability to give portentous speeches in high-flown Harvard rhetoric, perfectly pitched to sound thoughtful to college-educated liberals--without actually saying anything.

And here we go again, with another one of Obama's patented Big Speeches, this time on Iraq. It is pitched to sound sincere and intellectual, and to sell us on his allegedly superior foreign-policy judgment--so long as we drift through it and don't start asking any questions.

The speech has two purposes. One is to artfully evade Obama's massive misjudgment of the "surge," which he unequivocally opposed. Thus, while he half-acknowledges the enormous turnaround in Iraq, here is how he describes its cause:

As I have said many times, our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence. General Petraeus has used new tactics to protect the Iraqi population. We have talked directly to Sunni tribes that used to be hostile to America, and supported their fight against al Qaeda. Shiite militias have generally respected a cease-fire. Those are the facts, and all Americans welcome them.

Here's a tip. When Obama begins a sentence with "As I have said many times," this means that he is about to announce a totally new position that contradicts everything he has said before. For a little reminder of what Obama has actually said about the surge "many times," check out this video clip helpfully posted to YouTube by the Republican National Committee.

The rest of that passage shows a total, willful ignorance about what the surge actually consisted of and what it has done. He says that we "talked directly to Sunni tribes that used to be hostile to America." Well, we did a little more than talk. We backed up the Sunni "Awakening" movement with some serious military action--which is precisely what the extra "surge" troops were needed for.

But the most ridiculous line is that "Shiite militias have generally respected a cease-fire." This Spring saw pitched fighting between Iraqi troops and the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army militia--fighting that ended because the Mahdi Army lost. Does Obama not even watch the news?

But that is not what is most interesting about the speech. What is most interesting is its main purpose, which is to make it sound as if Obama is offering a whole new strategic direction for the War on Terrorism--while he declares that he would implement precisely the policies that are already being followed by the Bush administration.

He says that "True success" in Iraq--note that he has even borrowed Bush's habit of saying "success" in place of "victory"--"will take place when we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future--a government that prevents sectarian conflict, and ensures that the al Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge." But that is precisely what is already happening. Sectarian killings in Iraq, for example, have dropped to zero for about ten weeks running.

And how does Obama propose to ensure that we keep on enjoying this "true success" in Iraq? "We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010--one year after Iraqi Security Forces will be prepared to stand up; two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, we'll keep a residual force to perform specific missions in Iraq: targeting any remnants of al Qaeda; protecting our service members and diplomats; and training and supporting Iraq's Security Forces."

Note the part about the "residual" combat force, whose size Obama never specifies, which will target the remnants of al Qaeda and train and support Iraqi forces--which is precisely the end result envisioned by the Bush administration if the current progress in Iraq continues.

But maybe the big difference is that Obama will stick to his 16-month timetable no matter what, while Bush and McCain want to make withdrawal dependent on conditions on the ground. Well no, Obama would "make tactical adjustments" after consulting with "commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government."

That final flip-flop that the left has been dreading, when Obama throws out his commitment to a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq? It just happened. I wonder how long it will take them to notice.

Obama's policies for Afghanistan and Pakistan also read like a giant "me-too" to the current administration. His "new strategy" is to do more of what we're already doing: increase troops, increase economic aid, and try jawboning the Pakistani government into fighting the militants.

But the biggest piece of misdirection in the whole speech is about Iran. One of the centerpieces of Obama's strategy is a plan to "secur[e] all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states." So that means shutting down Iran's nuclear weapons program. How does he propose to do that?

Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is a vital national security interest of the United States.... I commend the work of our European allies on this important matter, and we should be full partners in that effort.... We will...present a clear choice. If you abandon your nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives. If you refuse, then we will ratchet up the pressure, with stronger unilateral sanctions; stronger multilateral sanctions in the Security Council, and sustained action outside the UN to isolate the Iranian regime. That's the diplomacy we need
So he'll cooperate closely with our European allies to offer the Iranians incentives to stop their nuclear program and threaten them with sanctions and diplomatic "isolation" if they refuse. In other words: precisely the policy the Bush administration has followed for the past six years, and especially since the summer of 2006--all with no results.

So on these issues, there is nothing to Obama's speech. It is a whole bunch of pompous clichés--stuff like "it falls to us to act with the same sense of purpose and pragmatism as an earlier generation, to join with friends and partners to lead the world anew"--wrapped around the conventional wisdom.

And that's all there ever has been to Barack Obama: symbolism and grandiloquent speeches.

Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com.

Somalia North American Style?

The world's focus is on Israel, Iran, Lebanon, high fuel prices, high food prices, Obama and just about anything but the evil insanity in Mexico which grows by the day. Why this isn't a major issue of the Presidential campaign is another one of the modern mysteries.

These are the news articles delivered in yesterday's Google alert. They come like this everyday. I don't hear any politicians raising the alarm. Stratfor has warned that Mexico is headed toward "failed state" status. It could be that we will have our very own Somalia in North America.

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Google News Alert for: mexico border violence

Mexico finds tons of cocaine in submarine
Reuters - USA
Some 1700 people have been killed in drug gang violence in Mexico so far this year, and Calderon's frontal assault has failed to stop attacks on police and ...
See all stories on this topic

Officer shot dead in Mexican border city
Houston Chronicle - United States
2008 AP CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Mexican officials say armed men barged into a police station in the border city of Ciudad Juarez and gunned down a ...
See all stories on this topic

Valenti in the drug war, Homeland Security and junior volunteers
Newspaper Tree - El Paso,TX,USA
Our research indicates that despite drug-related violence in other Mexican border cities, victims of that violence are not entering the US for treatment at ...
See all stories on this topic

Mexico finds tons of cocaine in makeshift sub
Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
The submarine find comes as troops on Thursday discovered 12 tonnes of marijuana in trucks near Tijuana at Mexico's border with California, police said. ...
See all stories on this topic

Group issues report on violence against women in Juarez
Newspaper Tree - El Paso,TX,USA
After hearing of Jurado’s arrest, several activists on both sides of the US-Mexican border came together to protest the charges made against her. ...
See all stories on this topic

Casino boss, 3 guards in big Chetumal trouble!
Amandala - Belize City,Belize
The case has created significant controversy on both sides of the border, as the Belizean version of what led to the arrests differs sharply from the ...
See all stories on this topic

Mexican Cartels Threaten Politicians, Families
The Ledger - Lakeland,FL,USA
Another civic leader, City Councilman member Mario Espinosa of Acuna, Coahuila, was killed late last year at his home across the border in Del Rio, Texas. ...
See all stories on this topic

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Israel Disgraced, the Samir Qantar Release

"The thing I need most now is privacy. In 2004, when I was supposed to be freed, I bought a house, 40 metres from the beach, in Beirut. The house is waiting. I want to be alone. I want to have my own key, so that I can come and go whenever I please, to drink coffee on the balcony, to smoke a cigarette, to go down and swim in the sea and go jet skiing." -Samir Qantar

Chen Kotes-Bar
The Guardian, Saturday July 19, 2008
'The girl screamed. I don't remember anything else'

Samir Qantar, feted as a hero of the resistance in his native Lebanon this week, was reviled as a child-murdering monster in Israel, which freed him in exchange for the bodies of two soldiers killed by Hizbullah in the raid that triggered the 2006 war. Over four years Chen Kotes-Bar, an Israeli journalist and daughter of an Auschwitz survivor, spoke to prisoner 562885 ... the man behind a brutal terrorist act that is seared into her country's consciousness. This is an account of their extraordinary conversations

Our meetings, which began in February 2004, took place in the prison library - just the two of us, unaccompanied. Qantar spoke to me in Hebrew. He brought tea and biscuits, and he chain-smoked. Over the 29 years he spent in Israeli jails, I was the first and only Jewish Israeli woman he met and spoke to face to face.

I told him about my father, who survived Auschwitz, and about my five-year-old son. Each time I wrap him in a towel after his bath, I told Qantar, I think of Danny Haran and his daughter Einat. About the terror attack in Nahariya.

The girl's death was a tragic incident, answered Qantar. He insisted that he had not killed her. What does it matter, I told him, you shot at them. If you had not landed on the beach at Nahariya in your rubber dinghy, Einat Haran would still be alive. He never expressed any remorse.

Qantar was born in the village of Abiya, on Mount Lebanon. "My father worked in Saudi Arabia as a chef for Albir Avila, the international hotel chain. He was a well-known chef, in high demand. He used to come home once every two months, always laden with gifts like clothes and perfumes.

"My mother is a homemaker with a very strong personality. When she decides something, that's it - you can never change her mind. My family is Druze, secular and well off. We are three brothers and five sisters. We have a beautiful house that overlooks Beirut, with a view of the airport from the balcony. Occasionally my father took me to Beirut. When I saw the refugee camps, I asked my father what they were. He explained to me, 'Son, those are Palestinians. The Israelis drove them out of their country, and they're not allowed to return."

At the age of 13, Qantar persuaded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to allow him to enlist. "Each afternoon at 5, a car would collect me and take me to the training camp. That's where I shot a gun for the first time - a Kalashnikov. It was fantastic."

Three years later, having spent 11 months in a Jordanian prison following a failed terror operation, Qantar was given leadership of a cell and assigned to attack Nahariya, an Israeli coastal town located about 10km south of Lebanon.

During that notoriously brutal attack, Qantar, then 16, dragged 32-year-old Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter, Einat, from their apartment to the nearby beach. He killed Haran by shooting him in the back and then drowning him, while Einat watched. According to forensic evidence and eyewitness court testimony, Qantar then killed the girl by smashing her skull against the rocks with the butt of his rifle. Her mother, Smadar, hid with two-year-old Yael, but accidentally smothered her to death while trying to silence the toddler's cries. The Nahariya attack is considered the most brutal in Israel's history. It is seared on the collective Israeli consciousness.

"We set out on the rubber dinghy at 10pm on April 21 1979. The sea was stormy and it was cold. The journey to Nahariya took about four hours, because we travelled slowly to avoid making noise."

Upon landing on the beach in Nahariya, Qantar and his comrades followed instructions issued in Beirut - which included finding a police officer and killing him. They knocked on the door of a private house and called out in Arabic via the intercom, frightening the inhabitants into calling the police. They killed officer Eliyahu Shachar in a hail of bullets. Qantar boasts that he alone shot 30 bullets.

They continued to a nearby apartment building - planning, said Qantar, to abduct two or three people and take them back to Lebanon. "We walked up some stairs and I kicked open the door of an apartment," he recounted. "I told Majed [one of his co-attackers] to take the right, while I took the left. Majed opened the bedroom door and someone inside shot him twice in the forehead. He managed to say, 'They shot me,' before he fell.

"I doubled back, entered the bedroom and saw the man who shot Majed. He was an older guy, with a long nose. I pulled the trigger on my pistol that was equipped with a silencer, but nothing happened. I tried again, but still nothing. I tried using my Kalashnikov, but it was jammed. That guy was lucky.

"I yelled downstairs, 'Someone get up here.' Ali came up the stairs. I told him, 'Toss a grenade in there, I've gotta fix my weapon.' The explosion made everything go black. The guy in the bedroom disappeared. I was pretty sure he was dead, but I fired a few more shots just to make sure. Then we went downstairs. The stairwell was dark, but there was light under the door of one of the apartments. We broke in. That was the Haran family's apartment.

"Dan Haran was standing there, looking at us. The little girl was with him. When we arrived, he was sitting on the bed, as if he were waiting for someone. But as soon as we entered the bedroom, he stood up. He started talking to me in English. I didn't understand much; just a few words. He was trying to explain that I should not hurt him. I told my comrade in Arabic, 'Don't shoot.'

"I tried to calm him with gestures. I said to him, 'Come.' He started speaking to me in a mixture of Hebrew and English. He held his daughter tightly. The girl did not make a sound. She was wearing pyjamas. I tried to tell him to leave her there, but he did not understand. I tried telling him 'come.' But he did not want to come with me. I understood he was trying to give the police time to arrive. He was afraid.

"My comrade, Muhammad Ali, did not understand why we were waiting. I tried explaining to Haran again, using Arabic and hand gestures. He understood, but he was completely unwilling to come with me. I tried to separate him from the little girl. Then I heard shots outside. It was 2.45am. I said, 'He is delaying us.'

"I grabbed him in a hurry, with the girl in his arms. I said, 'Yalla, imshi ['Let's go, move it']. We left the building surrounding Haran, who was holding his daughter in his arms, and went to the beach. Haran kept halting and talking, trying to delay us. But we had to get to the boat. They were waiting for us in Lebanon.

"As we approached the rubber dinghy, we heard a lot of voices. Then shots were fired in our direction. We approached the boat from the rocks, and Ali took Danny on board. That's when they started to shoot at us really hard. I returned fire, but it wasn't enough. Ali and Danny got off the boat. I ordered everyone to take a position on the rocks and return fire. Danny was behind us. His daughter was near him. Haran waved at the soldiers and called out to them in Hebrew.

"They continued to fire heavily. I ducked down to put a fresh magazine into my rifle. Haran waved again, while they were still firing, and he was wounded.

"The little girl screamed. That was the first time we heard her. That's it. I don't remember anything else.

"The battle continued until around 5.30am. Ahmed was wounded in the forehead. Ali was killed. I took five bullets and lost a lot of blood. I was not focused.

"What happened to the girl? During the interrogation they told me, 'You must admit that you wounded the girl with your rifle.' I told them, 'Write whatever you want.' I did not see anything and I did not hear anything. It was total chaos there. I was focused on the goal. I don't mind admitting to things that I did. I don't want to admit to things that I did not do."

Samir Qantar's version of the events of April 22, which have been articulated here in his voice for the first time, is different from that of the security service personnel and Israeli civilians who were present.

According to the Israeli security services' reconstruction of the incident, officer Eliyahu Shachar was killed after he got out of his vehicle and fired two warning shots into the air. Qantar's cell responded with a massive burst of shots. A teenager who was sitting in the car, together with two more police officers, was wounded in the leg and ran to hide behind some bushes.

Also contradicting Qantar's testimony is that of Smadar Haran, Danny Haran's widow, who hid with Yael in a tiny crawlspace above the bedroom. She has no recollection of hearing Qantar trying to convince Danny to leave Einat behind. "It was a terrible and chaotic night, but I find it very difficult to believe that any such conversation took place," said Smadar.

Samir Qantar and Ahmed Alabras were wounded and captured at 5.30am. Mhanna Salim Al-Muayed was killed during the exchange of fire.

During his trial Qantar denied responsibility for the murder of the Haran family, despite the evidence of the pathologist, which proved that Einat Haran was killed by the force of a blunt instrument - most likely a rifle butt. The pathologist's report also showed that Einat's brain tissue was found on Qantar's rifle.

In November 1978 Qantar's trial began and lasted for three months. "I thought it was a circus," said Qantar. "There were 52 witnesses. I testified for 90 minutes, in Arabic. The sentence was handed down on January 29 1980. I got five life sentences plus 48 years inside. At the trial I heard for the first time the names of Eliyahu Shachar, Einat, Danny Haran and Smadar Haran, who survived."

"Smadar took me on as her personal project. She could not understand that it wasn't personal. I didn't come with Lebanon with a note that said 'Haran family.' I came as part of a conflict in which I was convinced I had to participate. I did what I did for my people, for my country. If I sit in jail for a hundred years, I will never change my opinions. This is what I believe.

"You are all banging your heads against the wall. You are playing a zero sum game, and both sides are losing. The solution is for the stronger side to compromise. You are the stronger side. You are the occupiers. If you don't compromise, things will not work out. Those are my opinions."

In July 2006, Hizbullah fighters attacked an Israeli patrol and kidnapped two reservist soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev to use as bargaining chips to secure Qantar's release. In the ensuing month-long war, 1,100 Lebanese and more than 100 Israelis were killed. The remains of the two Israeli soldiers were this week handed over to Israel in a deal which saw Qantar's pardon and return to Lebanon.

"When the war began, I felt pride. Our people have finally begun to value human life, as you did once. I hoped the abducted soldiers were alive. I knew they were more valuable alive, and I wanted the price to be high. I heard the parents of the abducted soldiers speaking. Things like that lower the barriers. I knew that if they had released me in 2004, your soldiers would not have been abducted. There would not have been a war at all.

"You are responsible. You behaved with stupidity and arrogance. After the 2004 prisoner swap I told one of the guards at Nafha, 'There is going to be a war over me. Remember that.' I knew that there would be a deal and I would be released, that it was just a matter of time.

"What am I going to do now, after my release? I really don't know. I feel as if I am going to another world. I need to sit and digest my new situation. If I had been imprisoned at an older age, it wouldn't be so difficult. But I came to jail as a teenager.

"This is the first time I will experience life on the outside as an adult. I need to learn how to drive, to go to the bank, to buy things. I have never held money in my hand.

"The thing I need most now is privacy. In 2004, when I was supposed to be freed, I bought a house, 40 metres from the beach, in Beirut. The house is waiting. I want to be alone. I want to have my own key, so that I can come and go whenever I please, to drink coffee on the balcony, to smoke a cigarette, to go down and swim in the sea and go jet skiing."

· This article first appeared in Ma'ariv

Benny Morris - If Israel Attacks Iran

July 18, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Using Bombs to Stave Off War
By BENNY MORRIS

Li-On, Israel

ISRAEL will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb.

It is in the interest of neither Iran nor the United States (nor, for that matter, the rest of the world) that Iran be savaged by a nuclear strike, or that both Israel and Iran suffer such a fate. We know what would ensue: a traumatic destabilization of the Middle East with resounding political and military consequences around the globe, serious injury to the West’s oil supply and radioactive pollution of the earth’s atmosphere and water.

But should Israel’s conventional assault fail to significantly harm or stall the Iranian program, a ratcheting up of the Iranian-Israeli conflict to a nuclear level will most likely follow. Every intelligence agency in the world believes the Iranian program is geared toward making weapons, not to the peaceful applications of nuclear power. And, despite the current talk of additional economic sanctions, everyone knows that such measures have so far led nowhere and are unlikely to be applied with sufficient scope to cause Iran real pain, given Russia’s and China’s continued recalcitrance and Western Europe’s (and America’s) ambivalence in behavior, if not in rhetoric. Western intelligence agencies agree that Iran will reach the “point of no return” in acquiring the capacity to produce nuclear weapons in one to four years.

Which leaves the world with only one option if it wishes to halt Iran’s march toward nuclear weaponry: the military option, meaning an aerial assault by either the United States or Israel. Clearly, America has the conventional military capacity to do the job, which would involve a protracted air assault against Iran’s air defenses followed by strikes on the nuclear sites themselves. But, as a result of the Iraq imbroglio, and what is rapidly turning into the Afghan imbroglio, the American public has little enthusiasm for wars in the Islamic lands. This curtails the White House’s ability to begin yet another major military campaign in pursuit of a goal that is not seen as a vital national interest by many Americans.

Which leaves only Israel — the country threatened almost daily with destruction by Iran’s leaders. Thus the recent reports about Israeli plans and preparations to attack Iran (the period from Nov. 5 to Jan. 19 seems the best bet, as it gives the West half a year to try the diplomatic route but ensures that Israel will have support from a lame-duck White House).

The problem is that Israel’s military capacities are far smaller than America’s and, given the distances involved, the fact that the Iranian sites are widely dispersed and underground, and Israel’s inadequate intelligence, it is unlikely that the Israeli conventional forces, even if allowed the use of Jordanian and Iraqi airspace (and perhaps, pending American approval, even Iraqi air strips) can destroy or perhaps significantly delay the Iranian nuclear project.

Nonetheless, Israel, believing that its very existence is at stake — and this is a feeling shared by most Israelis across the political spectrum — will certainly make the effort. Israel’s leaders, from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert down, have all explicitly stated that an Iranian bomb means Israel’s destruction; Iran will not be allowed to get the bomb.

The best outcome will be that an Israeli conventional strike, whether failed or not — and, given the Tehran regime’s totalitarian grip, it may not be immediately clear how much damage the Israeli assault has caused — would persuade the Iranians to halt their nuclear program, or at least persuade the Western powers to significantly increase the diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran.

But the more likely result is that the international community will continue to do nothing effective and that Iran will speed up its efforts to produce the bomb that can destroy Israel. The Iranians will also likely retaliate by attacking Israel’s cities with ballistic missiles (possibly topped with chemical or biological warheads); by prodding its local clients, Hezbollah and Hamas, to unleash their own armories against Israel; and by activating international Muslim terrorist networks against Israeli and Jewish — and possibly American — targets worldwide (though the Iranians may at the last moment be wary of provoking American military involvement).

Such a situation would confront Israeli leaders with two agonizing, dismal choices. One is to allow the Iranians to acquire the bomb and hope for the best — meaning a nuclear standoff, with the prospect of mutual assured destruction preventing the Iranians from actually using the weapon. The other would be to use the Iranian counterstrikes as an excuse to escalate and use the only means available that will actually destroy the Iranian nuclear project: Israel’s own nuclear arsenal.

Given the fundamentalist, self-sacrificial mindset of the mullahs who run Iran, Israel knows that deterrence may not work as well as it did with the comparatively rational men who ran the Kremlin and White House during the cold war. They are likely to use any bomb they build, both because of ideology and because of fear of Israeli nuclear pre-emption. Thus an Israeli nuclear strike to prevent the Iranians from taking the final steps toward getting the bomb is probable. The alternative is letting Tehran have its bomb. In either case, a Middle Eastern nuclear holocaust would be in the cards.

Iran’s leaders would do well to rethink their gamble and suspend their nuclear program. Bar this, the best they could hope for is that Israel’s conventional air assault will destroy their nuclear facilities. To be sure, this would mean thousands of Iranian casualties and international humiliation. But the alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland. Some Iranians may believe that this is a worthwhile gamble if the prospect is Israel’s demise. But most Iranians probably don’t.

Benny Morris, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University, is the author, most recently, of “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War.”

Autumn Ends for Jo Stafford. Dead at 90.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Jo Stafford, the honey-voiced band singer who starred in radio and television and sold more than 25 million records with her ballads and folksongs, died Wednesday. She was 90.

Stafford died of congestive heart failure at her Century City home, her son, Tim Weston of Topanga, said Friday. She had been in declining health since October, he said.

Stafford had 26 charted singles and nearly a dozen top 10 hits, her son said. She won a Grammy for her humor.

Stafford's records of "I'll Walk Alone," "I'll Be Seeing You," "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" and other sentimental songs struck the hearts of servicemen far from home in both World War II and the Korean War. They awarded her the title of "GI Jo."

Barack Obama's Great Leap Forward to Big Government

What does Obam mean by this statement? "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." If impatient go to the 15 minute mark. He calls for the program at the 16:53 mark.

July 17, 2008
Another inconvenient truth down the Obama Memory Hole
Thomas Lifson American Thinker

The staggering implications of another embarrassing Obama statement would remain unexplored, with the public record obscured, were it not for a video clip of one of his speeches posted to the web and alert internet journalists. As first developed by World Net Daily's Joseph Farah, the story is about what the candidate said in Colorado Springs on July 2nd:

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

Published transcripts of the speech in the Wall Street Journal and Denver Post did not include the remarks, which apparently were added to the prepared transcript. Another instance of the dangers of letting the candidate deviate from the teleprompter?

In the MSM, only the Chicago Tribune publicized the remarks. But the size implications of a force that's "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the United States Military went unremarked upon. This would truly be a mass organization, apparently a new kind of security force.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air explores what else Obama could have meant. But if this remark ever requires response, I suspect he will admit to "poor phrasing" and claim he meant "ample" funding. But that would require someone beyond the blogosphere to publicize it. This is a golden opportunity for talk show hosts.

Even if he claims it was poor phrasing, the sweeping nature of the phrase "just as powerful, just as strong" seems to offer some sort of window into the candidate's mind. There is a hint of regarding the military as the "other" against which to compare the new forces. Inherent in the words "just as" is an unmistakable sense of catching up and balancing out.

If these new civilian security forces ever march into an Obama rally carrying torches, whatever color their shirts, I am out of here.

Will China Send 300,000,000 People to Africa?

Robert Mugabe is their kind of boy.

• With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.
• In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony.
• Massive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals.
• More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.
• Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent.

How China's taking over Africa, and why the West should be VERY worried
By ANDREW MALONE Daily Mail
Last updated at 11:41 PM on 17th July 2008

On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring (if by today's standards utterly offensive) new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent.

'My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,' wrote Galton.

'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.'

Despite an outcry in Parliament and heated debate in the august salons of the Royal Geographic Society, Galton insisted that 'the history of the world tells the tale of the continual displacement of populations, each by a worthier successor, and humanity gains thereby'.

A controversial figure, Galton was also the pioneer of eugenics, the theory that was used by Hitler to try to fulfil his mad dreams of a German Master Race.

Eventually, Galton's grand resettlement plans fizzled out because there were much more exciting things going on in Africa.

But that was more than 100 years ago, and with legendary explorers such as Livingstone, Speke and Burton still battling to find the source of the Nile - and new discoveries of exotic species of birds and animals featuring regularly on newspaper front pages - vast swathes of the continent had not even been 'discovered'.

Yet Sir Francis Galton, it now appears, was ahead of his time. His vision is coming true - if not in the way he imagined. An astonishing invasion of Africa is now under way.

In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony.

Reminiscent of the West's imperial push in the 18th and 19th centuries - but on a much more dramatic, determined scale - China's rulers believe Africa can become a 'satellite' state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke.

With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.

The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.

The plans appear on track. Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New embassies and air routes are opening up. The continent's new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.

The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.

The trains are linked to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing after unloading cargoes of cheap toys made in China.

Confucius Institutes (state-funded Chinese 'cultural centres') have sprung up throughout Africa, as far afield as the tiny land-locked countries of Burundi and Rwanda, teaching baffled local people how to do business in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Massive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals.

Pristine forests are being destroyed, with China taking up to 70 per cent of all timber from Africa.

All over this great continent, the Chinese presence is swelling into a flood. Angola has its own 'Chinatown', as do great African cities such as Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.

Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent. 'African cloths' sold in markets on the continent are now almost always imported, bearing the legend: 'Made in China'.

From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival.

'The Chinese are all over the place,' says Trevor Ncube, a prominent African businessman with publishing interests around the continent. 'If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have taken their place.'

Likened to one race deciding to adopt a new home on another planet, Beijing has launched its so-called 'One China In Africa' policy because of crippling pressure on its own natural resources in a country where the population has almost trebled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in 50 years.

China is hungry - for land, food and energy. While accounting for a fifth of the world's population, its oil consumption has risen 35-fold in the past decade and Africa is now providing a third of it; imports of steel, copper and aluminium have also shot up, with Beijing devouring 80 per cent of world supplies.

Fuelling its own boom at home, China is also desperate for new markets to sell goods. And Africa, with non-existent health and safety rules to protect against shoddy and dangerous goods, is the perfect destination.

The result of China's demand for raw materials and its sales of products to Africa is that turnover in trade between Africa and China has risen from £5million annually a decade ago to £6billion today.

However, there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made assault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars, often over the materials the Chinese are desperate to buy.

Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe's regime.

After an international outcry, the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, was forced to return to China, despite Beijing's insistence that the arms consignment was a 'normal commercial deal'.

Indeed, the 77-ton arms shipment would have been small beer - a fraction of China's help to Mugabe. He already has high-tech, Chinese-built helicopter gunships and fighter jets to use against his people.

Ever since the U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions in 2003, Mugabe has courted the Chinese, offering mining concessions for arms and currency.

While flying regularly to Beijing as a high-ranking guest, the 84-year-old dictator rants at 'small dots' such as Britain and America.

He can afford to. Mugabe is orchestrating his campaign of terror from a 25-bedroom, pagoda-style mansion built by the Chinese. Much of his estimated £1billion fortune is believed to have been siphoned off from Chinese 'loans'.

The imposing grey building of ZANU-PF, his ruling party, was paid for and built by the Chinese. Mugabe received £200 million last year alone from China, enabling him to buy loyalty from the army.

In another disturbing illustration of the warm relations between China and the ageing dictator, a platoon of the China People's Liberation Army has been out on the streets of Mutare, a city near the border with Mozambique, which voted against the president in the recent, disputed election.

Almost 30 years ago, Britain pulled out of Zimbabwe - as it had done already out of the rest of Africa, in the wake of Harold Macmillan's 'wind of change' speech. Today, Mugabe says: 'We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets.'

Despite Britain's commendable colonial legacy of a network of roads, railways and schools, the British are now being shunned.

According to one veteran diplomat: 'China is easier to do business with because it doesn't care about human rights in Africa - just as it doesn't care about them in its own country. All the Chinese care about is money.'

Nowhere is that more true than Sudan. Branded 'Africa's Killing Fields', the massive oil-rich East African state is in the throes of the genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of black, non-Arab peasants in southern Sudan.

In effect, through its supplies of arms and support, China has been accused of underwriting a humanitarian scandal. The atrocities in Sudan have been described by the U.S. as 'the worst human rights crisis in the world today'.

The government in Khartoum has helped the feared Janjaweed militia to rape, murder and burn to death more than 350,000 people.

The Chinese - who now buy half of all Sudan's oil - have happily provided armoured vehicles, aircraft and millions of bullets and grenades in return for lucrative deals. Indeed, an estimated £1billion of Chinese cash has been spent on weapons.

According to Human Rights Watch, a U.S. watchdog, Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles, grenade launchers and ammunition for rifles and heavy machine guns are continuing to flow into Darfur, which is dotted with giant refugee camps, each containing hundreds of thousands of people.

Between 2003 and 2006, China sold Sudan $55 million worth of small arms, flouting a United Nations weapons embargo.

With new warnings that the cycle of killing is intensifying, an estimated two thirds of the non-Arab population has lost at least one member of their families in Darfur.

Although two million people have been uprooted from their homes in the conflict, China has repeatedly thwarted United Nations denunciations of the Sudanese regime.

While the Sudanese slaughter has attracted worldwide condemnation, prompting Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg to quit as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics, few parts of Africa are now untouched by China.

In Congo, more than £2billion has been 'loaned' to the government. In Angola, £3 billion has been paid in exchange for oil. In Nigeria, more than £5billion has been handed over.

In Equatorial Guinea, where the president publicly hung his predecessor from a cage suspended in a theatre before having him shot, Chinese firms are helping the dictator build an entirely new capital, full of gleaming skyscrapers and, of course, Chinese restaurants.

After battling for years against the white colonial powers of Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, post-independence African leaders are happy to do business with China for a straightforward reason: cash.

With western loans linked to an insistence on democratic reforms and the need for 'transparency' in using the money (diplomatic language for rules to ensure dictators do not pocket millions), the Chinese have proved much more relaxed about what their billions are used for.

Certainly, little of it reaches the continent's impoverished 800 million people. Much of it goes straight into the pockets of dictators. In Africa, corruption is a multi-billion pound industry and many experts believe that China is fuelling the cancer.

The Chinese are contemptuous of such criticism. To them, Africa is about pragmatism, not human rights. 'Business is business,' says Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong, adding that Beijing should not interfere in 'internal' affairs. 'We try to separate politics from business.'

While the bounty has, not surprisingly, been welcomed by African dictators, the people of Africa are less impressed. At a market in Zimbabwe recently, where Chinese goods were on sale at nearly every stall, one woman told me she would not waste her money on 'Zing-Zong' products.

'They go Zing when they work, and then they quickly go Zong and break,' she said. 'They are a waste of money. But there's nothing else. China is the only country that will do business with us.'

There have also been riots in Zambia, Angola and Congo over the flood of Chinese immigrant workers. The Chinese do not use African labour where possible, saying black Africans are lazy and unskilled.

In Angola, the government has agreed that 70 per cent of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans.

As well as enticing hundreds of thousands to settle in Africa, they have even shipped Chinese prisoners to produce the goods cheaply.

In Kenya, for example, only ten textile factories are still producing, compared with 200 factories five years ago, as China undercuts locals in the production of 'African' souvenirs.

Where will it all end? As far as Beijing is concerned, it will stop only when Africa no longer has any minerals or oil to be extracted from the continent.

A century after Sir Francis Galton outlined his vision for Africa, the Chinese are here to stay. More will come.

The people of this bewitching, beautiful continent, where humankind first emerged from the Great Rift Valley, desperately need progress. The Chinese are not here for that.

They are here for plunder. After centuries of pain and war, Africa deserves better.

Condi and Iran, An Amazon Demures to Dove

Condoleezza Rice was George Bush's handmaiden for the war in Iraq but she is now emerging as the best hope for avoiding a military conflict between the United States and Iran. John Bolton is not happy.

Condi's coup: how the neo-cons lost the argument over Iran
Secretary of State's influence pivotal to Bush's change of policy
By Leonard Doyle, Independente in Washington
Friday, 18 July 2008

Condoleezza Rice was George Bush's handmaiden for the war in Iraq but she is now emerging as the best hope for avoiding a military conflict between the United States and Iran.

The Secretary of State, who is one of the few people with the President's ear, has shown the door to Vice-President Dick Cheney's cabal of war-hungry advisers. Ms Rice was able to declare yesterday that the administration's decision to break with past policy proves that there is international unity in opposing Iran's nuclear programme. "The point that we're making is the United States is firmly behind this diplomacy, firmly behind and unified with our allies and hopefully the Iranians will take that message," Ms Rice said.

Mr Bush's decision to send the number three in the State Department, William Burns, to attend talks with Iran in Geneva at the weekend caused howls of outrage that were heard all the way from the State Department's sanctuary of Foggy Bottom to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. A parallel initiative to reopen the interest's section of the American embassy in Tehran, which would be the first return of a diplomatic presence on Iranian territory since 1979, has also received a cool response from neo-conservatives.

"This is a complete capitulation on the whole idea of suspending enrichment," said Mr Bush's former UN envoy, John Bolton. "Just when the administration has no more U-turns to pull, it does another."

In public, Ms Rice has been as bellicose as any neo-con when it comes to Iran, calling dialogue with its leaders "pointless" and declaring: "For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons."

She had been the prime mover behind Mr Bush's disastrous policy of "preventive wars" and cheerleader of his expansive plans to reorganise the entire Middle East and to "export democracy". But with the rumblings of war with Iran growing steadily louder, Ms Rice worked feverishly behind the scenes to stop sparks from flying in the drive by the US and Israel to shut down Iran's nuclear programme.

The breakthrough, if that is what it turns out to be, that persuaded Mr Bush that it was time to end the 30-year boycott of high-level diplomatic contacts with Iran, came from the simple act of Ms Rice signing her name to a joint letter offering sweeter terms to Tehran than it had seen before.

The very act of putting her name to a package of incentives presented in Tehran last month persuaded the Iranian authorities that there was movement that would allow them to proclaim victory over the US, while ending their nuclear programme.

When he saw Ms Rice's signature on the document, Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, was visibly stunned, according to those present at the meeting. He formally responded to the offer with a letter addressed to Ms Rice and the EU's foreign policy envoy, Javier Solana, as well as foreign ministers of the five other countries at the talks.

His letter skirted around the hot-button issue of Iran's uranium enrichment programme, but it contained an olive branch of an offer to "find common ground through logical and constructive actions", according to reports.

Hearing of Mr Mottaki's reaction and then receiving a formal response persuaded Ms Rice that Iran was finally willing to have meaningful talks with the US that could avoid a war.

Before approaching the President with a plan to avoid war in the last six months of his presidency, Ms Rice had to persuade Mr Cheney, chief among those described as the "Vulcans" of his administration. She made her pitch at a meeting that included Mr Cheney, Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, Joshua Bolton, the White House Chief of Staff, and Mr Burns, who is heading to Geneva at the weekend to take part in the "one time only deal". Iran welcomed the American change of attitude yesterday, but with governments from France to China also welcoming the shift, Tehran also signalled that there was a long way to go before the diplomats break out the champagne. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that there are still "clearly defined red lines", meaning that Iran is insisting that it has the right to peaceful nuclear energy. This is a position that Israel and the American conservatives still find unacceptable.

Thirty years on from the humiliation of the US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, the country's boycott of all high-level direct contact with Iran has achieved little beyond making it impossible for the two sides to learn to trust one another and employ diplomatic skills to avoid conflict.

But there are also doubts about the effectiveness of using sophisticated weaponry against a nuclear programme that is secreted deep underground and in multiple sitesacross Iran. The US administration was recently advised that it would be folly to expect the regime to fall in Iran if it was attacked. If anything, a US and Israeli attack would strengthen the rule of the mullahs while causing further tension on the oil market.

From hawk to dove

Condoleezza Rice may have a bright political future ahead, despite the many roles she has played in the discredited Bush White House. Her soundbites have often come back to haunt her. She wilfully distorted the truth while pressing the case for the invasion of Iraq: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." No one, she declared, "could have predicted" that al-Qai'da would try to fly planes into buildings before 11 September 2001; "I'm proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein," she said. And when George Bush asked her about the looming war saying: "Should we do this?", Ms Rice replied in a heartbeat "Yes." The book Rise of the Vulcans, by James Mann, describes Ms Rice as a major player in the Iraq war, detailing how she served as the White House co-ordinator and as the President's closest adviser, throughout the entire operation. Despite this, the future looks bright for the 52-year-old. Stopping a war with Iran could even catapult her into the vice-presidency under a John McCain presidency.

US Diplomats to Go to Iran

Bud McFarlane's favorite recipe.

US plans to station diplomats in Iran for first time since 1979
Washington move signals thaw in relations

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Guardian

The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

The news of the shift by Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his tenure comes at a critical time in US-Iranian relations. After weeks that have seen tensions rise with Israel conducting war games and Tehran carrying out long-range missile tests, a thaw appears to be under way.

The White House announced yesterday that William Burns, a senior state department official, is to be sent to Switzerland on Saturday to hear Tehran's response to a European offer aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff.

Burns is to sit at the table with Iranian officials despite Bush repeatedly ruling out direct talks on the nuclear issue until Iran suspends its uranium enrichment programme, which is a possible first step on the way to a nuclear weapon capability.

A frequent complaint of the Iranians is that they want to deal directly with the Americans instead of its surrogates, Britain, France and Germany.

Bush has taken a hard line with Iran throughout the last seven years but, in the dying days of his administration, it is believed he is keen to have a positive legacy that he can point to.

The return of US diplomats to Iran is dependent on agreement by Tehran. But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated earlier this week that he was not against the opening of a US mission. Iran would consider favourably any request aimed at boosting relations between the two countries, he said.

US interests in the country at present are looked after by the Swiss embassy. The British government restored its embassy in Tehran after Labour's 1997 general election victory as part of a policy of constructive diplomacy with countries that had previously been branded rogue states.

The creation of a US interest section would see diplomats stationed in Tehran for the first time since the hostage crisis that began when hundreds of students, as part of the Iranian revolution that led to fall of the Shah, stormed the US embassy in 1979 and held the occupants until 1981.

The special interests section would be similar to the one in Havana, Cuba. The US broke off relations with Cuba in 1961 after Castro's takeover but US diplomats returned in 1977.

The special interests section carries out all the functions of an embassy. It is, in terms of protocol, part of the Swiss embassy but otherwise is staffed by Americans and independent of the Swiss.

There has been an intense debate within the Bush administration over Iran, with the vice-president, Dick Cheney, in favour of a military strike against Iranian nuclear plants and the state department in favour of diplomacy.

The state department has been pressing the White House for the last two years to re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran by setting up an interest section.

The state department is keen that the move should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

Sending Burns, who left Washington last night, to Geneva and the establishment of an interests section undercuts one of the main planks of foreign policy advocated by the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, who argues for direct negotiations with Iran.

The White House has been working in tandem over the last month with Obama's Republican rival, John McCain.

The US has had to rely on British diplomats based in Tehran, as well as other diplomats, for information about the inner workings of Iranian politics. Having its own staff would give them access to students, dissidents and others. The staff would also process visa applications, at present handled by a small office in Dubai, which is difficult for Iranians to get to.

Ahmadinejad told a reporter earlier this week, in response to a question about a possible US interests section: "We will receive favourably any action which will help to reinforce relations between the peoples." He added: "We have not received any official request but we think that the development of relations between the two peoples is something correct."

That sentiment was echoed last month by secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who told reporters: "We want more Iranians visiting the United States ... We are determined to reach out to the Iranian people."

Iran has an interests section in Washington, which would make it harder for Tehran to deny the Americans a similar arrangement.

Rice set up a group to study the feasibility of re-establishing a presence after the idea cropped up repeatedly in discussions among Washington thinktanks.

Asked last month about the idea, she would not confirm or deny it.

But she indicated that the present arrangement where there is an American visa office for Iranians in Dubai was inadequate.

"We know that it's difficult for Iranians sometimes to get to Dubai," she said.

Archbishop of Canterbury: A Snivelling Grovelling Wanker?

Christian doctrine offensive to Muslims, says Archbishop of Canterbury
By Ben Farmer Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:48AM BST 16/07/2008

Key elements of Christian doctrine are offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said in a letter to Islamic scholars.

Dr Rowan Williams also spoke critically of the violent past of both religions and Christianity's abandonment of its peaceful origins.

His comments came in a published letter to Islamic leaders, intended to promote closer dialogue and understanding between the two faiths.

However they come just months after Dr Williams was forced to clarify comments in which he said some parts of Islamic law will "unavoidably" be adopted in Britain.

The comments are also made as the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference begins in Canterbury. Up to a quarter of bishops are boycotting the event, as the Anglican Church faces continuing division over the issues of women bishops and homosexual clergy.

The wide-ranging letter, which covers difficult issues including religious freedom and religiously-inspired violence is in response to a document written last year by Muslim scholars from 43 countries.

Discussing differences between the religions, Dr Williams acknowledges that Christian belief in the Trinity is "difficult, sometimes offensive, to Muslims".

The Trinity is the Christian doctrine stating God exists as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and conflicts with Islamic teaching that there is one all-powerful God.

Speaking about the history of the two religions, Dr Williams said they had been too often confused with Empire and control.

He said: "Despite Jesus' words in John's gospel, Christianity has been promoted at the point of the sword and legally supported by extreme sanctions; despite the Qur'anic axiom, Islam has been supported in the same way, with extreme penalties for abandoning it, and civil disabilities for those outside the faith.

"There is no religious tradition whose history is exempt from such temptation and such failure."

He goes on: "What we need as a vision for our dialogue is to break the current cycles of violence, to show the world that faith and faith alone can truly ground a commitment to peace which definitively abandons the tempting but lethal cycle of retaliation in which we simply imitate each other's violence."

The 17-page letter, called A Common Word for the Common Good, is in response to a letter from Muslim leaders written last September.

That letter, A Common Word Between Us and You, was signed by 138 Muslim scholars to declare the common ground between the two religions.

Dr Williams described the Muslim document as hospitable and friendly and added: “Your letter could hardly be more timely, given the growing awareness that peace throughout the world is deeply entwined with the ability of all people of faith everywhere to live in peace, justice, mutual respect and love.”

His own dense and meticulous letter did not mention sharia Islamic law at all. He received widespread criticism from politicians and other clergy for his comments in February and later told the General Synod he took responsibility for his “unclarity” and “misleading” choice of words

"Senator Obama seems to think losing a war will help him win an election." - Camp McCain

A subtle affirmation of faith.  Cameras unnoticed.

This is what we want. Get out there and rumble. McCain has been continuously taunted by the usual Democratic suspects in unvarnished old style politics. No change there. 

For instance, there is nothing nuanced in these three comments:

• "John McCain has no notion of what's going on ... he doesn't get the fact that in fact there is no reasonable prospect of there being a strong central government located in Baghdad," said Democratic Senator Joseph Biden.

•  Obama foreign policy aide Susan Rice said the vehemence of the McCain camp's attacks was designed to obscure "the fact that John McCain has been wrong on Iraq from the very beginning."

• "That kind of old-school fear mongering is exactly what the American people are tired of and they won't be fooled by," she said, accusing the McCain camp of impugning Obama's character.

Now McCain has decided to go on the attack. Hopefully he stays that way. Obama has not been bloodied in this phony pantomime and image creation disguised as an election. Hillary proved Obama can be cracked but she got gun shy because of the black vote. McCain should need not feel any restraint in going after Obama. We have yet to see His Radiance under pressure. It should be fun.

_______________________

Obama would swap Iraq war loss for election win: McCain camp

WASHINGTON (AFP) —

Republican John McCain's camp has charged that his Democratic foe Barack Obama would trade defeat in Iraq for an election win, as a fierce new row over the war rocked the White House race.

As tensions mounted ahead of Obama's expected to visit to the war zone, his campaign hit back that McCain was oblivious to the real situation in Iraq and warned voters would not be hoodwinked by "fear-mongering."

Obama stoked the latest row with an opinion piece in the New York Times, in which he pledged to redeploy two combat brigades, or up to 10,000 troops to Afghanistan, and reaffirmed a 16-month troop withdrawal deadline in Iraq.

In response, McCain's foreign policy aide Randy Scheunemann contrasted what he billed as the Arizona senator's principled support for last year's US troop surge with Obama's opposition to the plan and vow to bring troops home.

"Senator Obama continues his search for a political position to protect his flank in an election," Scheunemann told reporters on a conference call.

"Senator McCain said he would rather lose an election than lose a war and see the nation lose a war.
"Senator Obama seems to think losing a war will help him win an election."

A day before Obama is due to make a major address on Iraq, in Washington, his aides questioned McCain's basic understanding of the war, saying he would prolong what they see as President George W. Bush's failed policies.

"John McCain has no notion of what's going on ... he doesn't get the fact that in fact there is no reasonable prospect of there being a strong central government located in Baghdad," said Democratic Senator Joseph Biden.

And Obama foreign policy aide Susan Rice said the vehemence of the McCain camp's attacks was designed to obscure "the fact that John McCain has been wrong on Iraq from the very beginning."

"That kind of old-school fear mongering is exactly what the American people are tired of and they won't be fooled by," she said, accusing the McCain camp of impugning Obama's character.

In the Times article, Obama pledged to send up to two more combat brigades to the Afghan war, following an upsurge in suicide attacks and insurgent activity, and stood by a mid-2010 deadline to get most soldiers out of Iraq.

"We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in," said Obama, who is expected go to Iraq and Afghanistan soon, though details of his trip have been withheld for security reasons.

"We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 -- two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began."

"I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks," Obama wrote.

McCain backer and Republican senator Lindsey Graham branded Obama's article an "unbelievable, brazen effort by a politician to rewrite history."

"It is clear to any objective observer that what happened in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad became a central struggle in the war on terror," Graham said on a conference call.

Graham also suggested that Obama's war policy dishonored the sacrifices of those killed in the surge effort, which US generals credit with quelling sectarian violence and stabilizing Iraq.

"For us to deny history does a great disservice to those who made history," he said.
"The history that is being made in Iraq now from the surge came at a heavy price and a lot of sacrifice."

Republicans accused Obama of engaging in 'flip-flops' for political gain after he said this month he may "refine" his policies after meeting US commanders in Iraq.

In the New York Times article, Obama again said he was open to making "tactical adjustments," leaving himself some room for maneuver should he be inaugurated president next January.

The McCain campaign also said on Monday that the Arizona senator would make a speech on Afghan war policy later this week.

Tough Day in Kunar.

 

This video from a fire base in the same province gives you a feel for the terrain.

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghan authorities released further details Monday of the insurgent attack at an outpost in eastern Afghanistan which killed nine American soldiers and wounded 15 others.

Defense ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said Sunday's attack in Dara-I-Pech, in the far eastern province of Kunar, involved 400 to 500 militants. At least 100 were killed or injured, he said. The casualties also included four Afghan National Army soldiers.

The attack was the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 American troops were killed -- in the same province -- when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

During the fighting, insurgents used homes, shops and a village mosque for cover, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said. ISAF troops, along with members of the Afghan army, responded with firepower.

A U.S. official confirmed to CNN different numbers about Kunar. The official estimated that 200 insurgents participated in the Kunar fight and American officials up until now have not confirmed the numbers of insurgents killed. 

The official added most of those killed in action occurred just outside the base, when a group of insurgents overran an "observation point" -- a slightly elevated platform with a small number of troops.

"It is quite common for them to attack our outposts," said NATO spokesman Mark Laity. "But this was a larger scale attack than normal. This was not a new tactic. They usually get defeated. We are very, very sad that we lost some people but again, their attempt to take that base failed."

Meanwhile, U.S. military commanders in the region have asked the Pentagon to send hundreds of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs), designed to withstand strong explosives, as quickly as possible to its troops battling the Taliban, a senior U.S. defense official said.

The MRAPS, which are the newest armored vehicles, have a V-shaped hull that helps deflect the blast of a roadside bomb. Defense sources said the request could include between 600 and 1,000 MRAPs.

Until MRAPs began arriving in Iraq in large numbers in 2007, troops had limited protection in armored Humvees. The last several months has seen a rise in the number of U.S. and NATO troop deaths from roadside bomb blasts in Afghanistan.

On Monday a roadside bomb killed six Afghan guards who were accompanying a vehicle of a U.S.-based private security firm, the Afghan defense ministry said.

The guards, working for the Texas firm U.S. Protection and Investigations (USPI), were struck Sunday near the town of Gereshk in the Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, Gen. Azimi said.

No one claimed immediate responsibility for the attack. But Azimi said it bore the hallmarks of the hardline militant group, the Taliban.

USPI is based in Houston, Texas, according to the company's Web site. Last December, Taliban fighters ambushed a USPI-operated convoy carrying fuel bound for U.S. military bases in western Afghanistan. Fifteen Afghan employees of the firm were killed in the attack.

Elsewhere in the south of the country, the Associated Press reported that a suicide bomber targeting a police patrol killed 24 people Sunday, including 19 civilians, while U.S. coalition and Afghan soldiers killed 40 militants during counter-insurgency operations.

On Saturday, a teenager detonated his explosives-laden vest outside an Afghan National Army camp, killing himself and three others.

In another Helmand attack, a coalition member was killed by a Sunday roadside bomb, the U.S. military said.


Since the start of coalition operations in Afghanistan, 470 U.S. troops have died, including Sunday's casualties.

Helmand -- where Monday's roadside bombing occurred -- is an important front in the war against Islamic militants. It is considered the the world's largest opium poppy growing region, and that trade has helped fund insurgent activities.

What is the meaning of life?

Report: Anheuser-Busch agrees to InBev sale


ST. LOUIS — Anheuser-Busch reportedly has agreed to be acquired by Belgian brewer InBev for $49.9 billion.

The deal being reported by The Wall Street Journal would create the world's largest brewer and put the iconic American beer maker in the hands of the Belgian-based company behind Stella Artois and Beck's beers.

The newspaper cited anonymous sources who said Anheuser-Busch-InBev would be the new company's name and Anheuser would have two seats on the company board.

Anheuser-Busch did not return a message seeking comment Sunday evening.

The newspaper said the deal was for $70 a share. That's an increase over InBev's original offer that was rejected in June.

Affirmative Action and the US Financial Meltdown Part II

"Don't leave home without it."

There will not be one word from our rulers and masters as to the real reason why this happened. It will not be mentioned by the MSM or any of the political candidates. Affirmative action in hiring and lending did this.

I defy anyone to present an argument proving otherwise. I will welcome it on this blog and will post it and subject it to comment and scrutiny. I doubt it will come. Fear will override analytical thought and question. Racial intimidation in the US is so complete. Do not read me wrong. The bail-out it necessary. The economic disaster is that bad and the calamity could only get worse, but the social architects that brought on this collapse will not be exposed nor will they step forth and fall on their swords for what they caused to happen.

You are poorer tonight, not because of the rescue effort, but because of what caused it in the first place. That has not been addressed and will not be. That is the pathetic state of the United States of America and the unworthy who lead.

_______________

White House, Fed will rescue Fannie, Freddie

Government-sponsored lenders are too global to go under, Paulson says

By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
Last update: 8:08 p.m. EDT July 13, 2008

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The implicit government guarantee of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is now explicit.
In a dramatic statement released Sunday, the White House and Federal Reserve moved to give the mortgage giants the capital they need to survive the depression in the housing market and turmoil in financial markets that had left them dangling over a cliff.
Of most immediate importance, the Fed's board of governors voted to open up its emergency discount window to Fannie and Freddie.
In addition, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that he will seek Congressional authorization to by stock in the two companies and increase the government's credit line to them.
At the moment, each company may borrow only $2.25 billion.
In return for the capital, Paulson said that the Bush administration would ask Congress to grant the Fed a "consultative" role in the capital standards of the companies.

The rest of the cover-up here

Operation: Flatulence Arresting Recovery Tanks begins in earnest

Study Cow. In the interest of science, I reccommend the recovery tanks be called, "Flatulence Arresting Recovery Tanks" (FART).


Cow Backpacks Trap Methane Gas
(PhysOrg.com) --

In an attempt to understand the extent of cow flatulence on global warming, scientists in Argentina are strapping plastic bags to the backs of cows to capture their emissions.

Argentina has more than 55 million cows, making it a leading producer of beef. In the study, the scientists were surprised to discover that a standard 550-kg cow produces between 800 to 1,000 liters of emissions, including methane, each day.

Further, methane - which is also released from landfills, coal mines and leaking gas pipes - is 23 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

"When we got the first results, we were surprised," said Guillermo Berra, a researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology in Argentina. "Thirty percent of Argentina´s (total greenhouse) emissions could be generated by cattle."

In their study, the researchers attached balloon-like plastic packs to the backs of at least 10 cows. A tube running to the animals´ stomachs collected the gas inside the backpacks, which were then hung from the roof of the corral for analysis.

The Argentine researchers say that the slow digestive system of the cows causes them to produce these large amounts of methane. Now, the scientists are performing trials of new diets designed to improve the cows´ digestion and reduce global warming. By feeding cows clover and alfalfa instead of grain, "you can reduce methane emissions by 25 percent," according to Silvia Valtorta of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigations.

via: Reuters

It's the same as it ever was

Oh my, once again the Bush Administration has "stepped in it."

EPA Won't Act on Emissions This Year
Instead of New Rules, More Comment Sought

By Juliet Eilperin and R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, July 11, 2008; Page A01

The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare -- a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.

The Supreme Court, in a decision 15 months ago that startled the government, ordered the EPA to decide whether human health and welfare are being harmed by greenhouse gas pollution from cars, power plants and other sources, or to provide a good explanation for not doing so. But the administration has opted to postpone action instead, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Greeenhouse gas pollution...in other words, carbon dioxide emissions, you know, the gas which makes trees and other living green things grow. The ruination, the destroyer of worlds. Carbon.

Expect the howls of protest and excoriation to reach a cresendo in the coming months. Or, in this election year maybe not. Nevertheless, the true believers will not let political expediency or the current economic crisis stand in the way. According to this account in the Moderate Voice, Vice President Haliburton Cheney is the evil power behind this latest affront to mankind.

In its unaltered form, the changes heralded by the findings in the report would have had substantial economic as well as environmental benefits. Sadly, those changes would have also have done two things that Cheney isn’t going to let happen on his watch — I mean, Bush’s.

• Trigger ’sweeping’ regulatory requirements under the Clean Air Act;


• Cost utilities and automakers billions of dollars.
  

Well, if it was VP Cheney who stopped regulatory requirements that would have cost utilities and automakers billions of dollars, I say, "Bravo."

Unfortunately, it may not be possible to forestall the green zealots forever. The next administration may very likely be more amenable to what Al Gore first proposed in the early 1990's, the dreaded, wealth redistributing Carbon Tax which according to the Carbon Tax Center:

A carbon tax must be the central mechanism for reducing carbon emissions. Currently, the prices of gasoline, electricity and fuels in general include none of the costs associated with devastating climate change. This omission suppresses incentives to develop and deploy carbon-reducing measures such as energy efficiency (e.g., high-mileage cars and high-efficiency heaters and air conditioners), renewable energy (e.g., wind turbines, solar panels), low-carbon fuels (e.g., biofuels from high-cellulose plants), and conservation-based behavior such as bicycling, recycling and overall mindfulness toward energy consumption. Conversely, taxing fuels according to their carbon content will infuse these incentives at every chain of decision and action — from individuals’ choices and uses of vehicles, appliances, and housing, to businesses’ choices of new product design, capital investment and facilities location, and governments’ choices in regulatory policy, land use and taxation.
A carbon tax won’t stop global climate change by itself — other, synergistic actions are required as well. But without a carbon tax, even the most aggressive regulatory regime (e.g., high-mileage cars) and “enlightened” subsidies (e.g., tax credits for efficiency and renewables) will fall woefully short of the necessary reductions in carbon burning and emissions.

This is a stark illustration of the clash of worldviews that underlie our modern world problems. It doesn't take an Albert Einstein or Milton Friedman to figure what is going on here. It's the age old struggle written in a modern play. The Soviet Union may have gone out of business but the mentality didn't. Reds have simply found a new green vehicle to carry on their struggle for socialism. Anarchists and malcontents are still at war with the establishment. Men still seek power and control over others. Wolves are still among the sheep. Thieves still seek the treasury.

Man's nature does not change and we're kidding ourselves if we think we are more intelligent, more enlightened, more humane and better looking than those who came before us. We're just as fallible and human as all that came before us. Other than the fact that there's more of us, it's the same as it ever was.

Affirmative Action and the US Financial Meltdown

Franklin Raines played the Washington game of knowing all the right people.


A superb essay from Talkimag.com

The Diversity Recession, or How Affirmative Action Helped Cause the Housing Crisis

In 1992, Congress passed the Government Sponsored Enterprises bill, which set “targets” (i.e., quotas) for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are quasi-governmental publicly-traded for-profit thing-a-ma-bobs, to encourage “affordable” and “underserved” (more or less minority) home loans.

Both the Clinton and Bush departments of Housing and Urban Development raised the quotas repeatedly. For example, initially, the Clinton Administration required 21% of these quasi-governmental mortgages must go to ”underserved areas” (which are officially defined as “low-income census tracts or in low- or middle-income census tracts with high minority populations"), but the quota for 2008 established by the Bush Administration is 39 percent.

Reuters reported October 13, 1999:

The mortgage industry intends to pursue minorities with greater intensity as federal regulators turn up the heat to increase home ownership in underserved groups. ‘We need to push into these underserved markets as much as we can,’ said David Glenn, president and chief operating officer of Freddie Mac. …

In September, Freddie Mac launched a new lending program, based on research done in collaboration with five black colleges, to bring more African-Americans into the market.

The federal government in the meantime has increased pressure on lenders to seek out minorities, as well as low-income groups and borrowers with poor credit histories.

Fannie Mae recently reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to commit half its business to low-and moderate-income borrowers. That means half the mortgages bought by Fannie Mae would be from those income brackets.

Read the entire article at Talkimag.com

____________________

Others saw it coming- From 2004:

Stop Franklin Raines’ Rape of Fannie Mae — and Taxpayers

Contact: Peter Flaherty 703-237-1970
Date: December 29, 2004
Website: www.nlpc.org

Peter Flaherty, President of the National Legal and Policy Center, today expressed surprise and disgust at the current attempt by fired Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines to walk away with millions despite his central role in the accounting scandal rocking the company.

NLPC promotes ethics in public life, and sponsors the Corporate Integrity Project.

Flaherty said, “Let me get this straight. Raines apparently cooks the books, brings disgrace to the company, and imperils Fannie Mae’s standing with regulators, the Congress and administration. So for his punishment he is made wealthy for the rest of his life?”

According to a December 27 Form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Raines is entitled to:

•“Deferred compensation” of $8.7 million

•Stock options currently worth $5.5 million, and potentially millions more

•”Performance Share Payouts” through 2006, potentially worth millions more

•A monthly pension of $114,393 for the rest of his life, and the for life of his spouse should she survive him

•Free medical and dental coverage for the rest of his life, as well as for his wife for the rest of her life, and his children until age 21

•Free life insurance in the amount of $5 million until age 60, and $2.5 million thereafter

The agreement even allows for Raines to receive a “cash bonus” for 2004.

Raines stated that, “By my early retirement, I have made myself accountable.” Flaherty reacted by saying, “It is like Enron and Tyco never happened. I cannot even fathom the level of arrogance and self-delusion necessary for Raines to claim he’s been made accountable for his mistakes.”

Flaherty continued, “The OFHEO regulators have taken the right step in reviewing Raines compensation. But if Fannie Mae executives inflated profits to increase their own bonuses, that is fraud. Political connections should not insulate corrupt executives from criminal prosecution, if it is warranted.”

“This is not a case of foolish or captive directors rewarding a failed executive with a golden parachute. Fannie Mae is not really a private company. It has been granted advantages in the marketplace by Congress, that are worth billions of dollars. Raines is not only fleecing Fannie Mae, but also the taxpayer.”

“Raines was paid $20 million in 2003 but was never really a private-secter corporate executive. His CEO position was more of a political plum. Most of his career was spent in political appointments or at Fannie Mae itself.”

The Obama Illusion is Coming Apart

It must be that people are beginning to get it. It certainly is not the result of brilliant campaigning by my guy. For example, on July 16 Senator McCain will address the NAACP at its national convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. Why? What is the point?

Does McCain want to be President? McCain needs to take Obama down. He needs to get on and stay on offense. He needs to whittle away at voters who can be detached from what should be a very weak candidate.

McCain needs to show he is tough , competent and that America needs him.

He also needs to expose Obama for what he is. The NAACP is not that place. Obama could admit to having had helped OJ and he would still not lose one black vote.

________________

CAMPAIGN 2008
Glow Fading?

The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by only 3 points. What a difference a few weeks can make.

Jae C. Hong / AP

By Jonathan Darman | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jul 11, 2008

A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama's glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month's NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.

Obama's rapid drop comes at a strategically challenging moment for the Democratic candidate. Having vanquished Hillary Clinton in early June, Obama quickly went about repositioning himself for a general-election audience--an unpleasant task for any nominee emerging from the pander-heavy primary contests and particularly for a candidate who'd slogged through a vigorous primary challenge in most every contest from January until June. Obama's reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage.

More seriously, some Obama supporters worry that the spectacle of their candidate eagerly embracing his old rival, Hillary Clinton, and traveling the country courting big donors at lavish fund-raisers, may have done lasting damage to his image as an arbiter of a new kind of politics. This is a major concern since Obama's outsider credentials, have, in the past, played a large part in his appeal to moderate, swing voters. In the new poll, McCain leads Obama among independents 41 percent to 34 percent, with 25 percent favoring neither candidate. In June's NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama bested McCain among independent voters, 48 percent to 36 percent.


Obama's overall decline from the last NEWSWEEK Poll, published June 20, is hard to explain. Many critics questioned whether the Democrat's advantage over McCain was actually as great as the poll suggested, even though a survey taken during a similar time frame by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg showed a similarly large margin. Princeton Survey Research Associates, which conducted the poll for NEWSWEEK, says some of the discrepancy between the two most recent polls may be explained by sampling error.

At the time of the last poll, pundits also noted that a large lead in the polls doesn't always guarantee a general-election victory. Many warned that Democrat Michael Dukakis led George H.W. Bush by as much as 16 points in some 1988 polls and then went on to lose that year's presidential contest.

But perhaps most puzzling is how McCain could have gained traction in the past month. To date, direct engagement with Obama has not seemed to favor the GOP nominee. McCain has announced major initiatives on energy and the economy but failed to dominate the conversation on those issues. Last week's shake-up of the campaign's senior management did little to halt calls from Republicans for a major overhaul in McCain's message. Nor did it quell the lingering suspicion among Republicans that 2008 is simply destined to be a Democratic year. (Only 28 percent of voters in the new NEWSWEEK Poll approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president.) McCain's biography still appears to be his greatest asset, with 55 percent of voters saying they have a favorable opinion of the Arizona senator, compared to 32 percent who have an unfavorable opinion. (Obama's favorable/unfavorable gap is virtually identical at 56 to 32.)

More

What is "Occupation" Appointed Director

For his long term patronage and outstanding contributions to the Elephant Bar, What is “Occupation,” resident of the Heartland, USA has been appointed to the EB Board of Directors.


WiO, as he is known to fellow barflies, is a charter member of the EB and this appointment remedies a long-standing oversight.

Fallen Snow. A Good Man Died Today.

Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary, gentleman and conservative pundit practiced his craft, balanced and fairly, with a dash of toughness. He will be missed by us all.


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former White House press secretary Tony Snow -- who once told reporters "I'm a very lucky guy" -- died at the age of 53 early Saturday after a second battle with cancer.

Snow, who had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments for a recurrence of the disease, left his White House job September 14, 2007, and joined CNN in April as a conservative commentator.

President Bush said Saturday that he and first lady Laura Bush were "deeply saddened" by Snow's death.

"The Snow family has lost a beloved husband and father. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character," the president said in a statement.

From Fox:

Snow had his colon removed and underwent six months of chemotherapy after he was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005. In 2007, he announced that his cancer had recurred and spread to his liver, and he had a cancerous growth removed from his abdominal area.

He resigned from the White House six months later, in September 2007, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post. He was replaced by Perino.

After taking time off to recuperate, Snow joined CNN as a political commentator early this year.

In his year-and-a-half at the White House, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president's policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.

Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.

As a commentator, he had not always been on the president's side. He once called Bush "something of an embarrassment" in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush's "lackluster" domestic policy.

A sometime fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh, Snow said he loved the intimacy of his radio audience.

Robert Anthony Snow was born June 1, 1955, in Berea, Ky., the son of a teacher and nurse. He graduated from Davidson College in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, and he taught briefly in Kenya before embarking on his career as a journalist.

Because of his love for writing, Snow took a job as an editorial writer for the Greensboro Record in North Carolina and went on to run the editorial pages at the Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press, Detroit News and Washington Times. He became a nationally syndicated columnist, and in 1991 he became director of speechwriting for President George H.W. Bush.

"He served people, and we can learn from that. He was kind, and we can learn from that. He was just a good person," the senior Bush told FOX News.

Snow played six different instruments — saxophone, trombone, flute, piccolo, accordion and guitar — and was in a D.C. cover band called Beats Workin'. He was also a film buff.

"He was a great musician," Ailes said. "And he loved movies."

More than anything, said Snow's colleagues, he was a joy to work with.

"He was a lot of fun," his former FOX News producer Griff Jenkins said Saturday. "This is a loss of a family member."

Senior FOX News Washington Correspondent Jim Angle called Snow a "gentleman."

Snow is survived by his wife, Jill Ellen Walker, whom he married in 1987; their son, Robbie; and daughters, Kendall and Kristi.

Save the Planet

The Tectonic Plates of Freddie and Fannie

Did he make it? 

UPDATE: Shares of US mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in a freefall Friday on heightened concerns the trillion-dollar firms may face insolvency or a government takeover.

Freddie Mac plunged 48 percent to 4.10 dollars at the Wall Street open following a 22 percent slide on Thursday and Fannie Mae lost 46 percent to 7.07 dollars after a 14 percent drop in the prior session.

__________________

Washington dithered. The doctrinairia pontificated. Confidence withered and now a problem that could have been resolved with billions will cost trillions.

Articulation matters.

One well argued sentence from a smart politician can rally opinion and save an empire. It did not come.

Back in March, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called for additional relief and urged lenders to help distressed owners by lowering the amount of their loans.

"This situation calls for a vigorous response," Bernanke said in a speech to a banking group meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Derisive howls came from the "let them take their medicine" crowd.

A cacophony of shallow men shouted down the messenger. No point in naming names now, but they won the day. Now we all will take our medicine.

___________________

U.S. mulls take over of troubled mortgage giants
By Chris Oliver
Last update: 2:47 a.m. EDT July 11, 2008

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Senior Bush administration officials are considering a plan that would see the U.S. government take over mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae if they continue to deteriorate, according to a published report in the New York Times Friday, which cited people briefed about the plan. The plan, which could see the government take over one or both mortgage companies, would entail placing the companies under a conservatorship if their financial health worsens. If that were to happen, the shares of the two companies would be worth little or nothing and any losses on mortgages they own or guarantee would be paid by the U.S. government. The Bush officials are also considering a plan that would offer an explicit government guarantee on the $5 trillion of debt owned or guaranteed by the companies, the Times reported. The report cited officials as saying no action was imminent and neither mortgage company is in a crisis situation.

Israel is using Iraqi air space and U.S. bases in Iraq

Report: Israel practicing in Iraqi air space

Published: 07/11/2008 JTA

Israel is using Iraqi air space and U.S. bases in Iraq to prepare for a strike against Iran, according to an Iraqi news report.

The report, which was cited by Iranian media, quoted sources in the Iraqi defense ministry.

The sources reportedly said that using U.S. bases in Iraq would enable Israeli planes to reach Iranian targets within minutes.
_____________

Iraq: Israeli jets using US bases, says ministry source


Baghdad, 11 July (AKI) -

Israeli Air Force jets have been flying over Jordanian airspace and landing in Iraq for over a month, according to reports quoting Iraqi government sources.

Iran's state-funded Press TV also reported the claim, immediately fuelling speculation about a potential strike by Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities.

According to Press TV, the Iraqi Ministry of Defence told Iraqi news network, Nahrainnet, that suspected Israeli warplanes had landed at the al-Assad American airbase near Haditha, in western Anbar province, as well as a base in Nassiriya in the country's south.

Iran's Press TV also reported that the US had boosted security arrangements around the bases allegedly used by Israel.

According to retired Iraqi army officials, fighter jets have been entering Iraqi airspace from Jordan.

Jordan and Israel signed a peace agreement in 1994.

Sources also claimed that if Israeli warplanes were to carry out an attack against Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr, it would take them five minutes to reach it from Iraq.

In June, 100 Israeli warplanes carried out a drill over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece, as a rehearsal for a possible attack on Iran.

During that exercise, Israeli Air Force helicopters and refuelling aircraft reportedly flew around 1,500 kilometres from Israel - roughly the distance between Israel and Iran's primary uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

On Thursday, Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that his country was ready to act against Iran if threatened.

"Israel is the strongest country in the region and has proved in the past that it won't hesitate to act when its vital security interests are at stake," said Barak speaking in Tel Aviv on Thursday.

German Chancellor Merkel Bitch Slaps Obama

His Smugness

Merkel Warns Obama: Don't Do Electioneering Abroad!
09/07/2008 04:53:09 PM GMT
Aljazeera

German Chancellor Angela Merkel slammed a request by Barack Obama to give a speech this month before the Brandenburg Gate as "inappropriate", her deputy spokesman said Wednesday.

The conservative leader said that while she would be pleased to meet the US Democratic presidential hopeful, it would be wrong for him to hold a "campaign rally" at the historic symbol of German unity.

"It is unusual to do electioneering abroad," spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters. "It is unusual to hold election rallies abroad. No German candidate for high office would even think of using the National Mall (in Washington) or Red Square in Moscow for a rally because it would not be seen as appropriate."

"Take a chance on me."hattip: Hugh Hewitt

In an unusual move, a spokesman for Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier sharply contradicted Merkel's views at a regular government press conference, saying they could be interpreted in the United States as an affront to Obama.

Foreign ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner said Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, was eager to meet Obama after speaking with him on the phone in April. Republican presidential contender John McCain should also be welcome to speak at the Brandenburg Gate if he chose to, he added.

"The foreign minister does not find it odd," he said, adding that an Obama speech at or near the site would be "an expression of the vital German-American friendship" just days after Washington opened a new embassy next to the gate.

¬
Source: AJP

Someone remind the Messiah that he is not President yet.

German Children to Vote?

The politicians are outraged that approximately 14 million German citizens are shut out of the democratic process because of their tender ages.

Just when you think it can't get any goofier, or as a friend of ours, Brother D-Day, would say, "Germany jumps the shark." :

Germany Ponders Giving Children the Right to Vote

Every German citizen should have the right to vote in national elections, even those under the age of 18, says a group of parliamentarians. They've proposed a law that would allow parents to vote for their children.
Preschoolers have as much right to make their political opinions heard as adults, according to a bipartisan group of 46 German parliamentarians.

The politicians are outraged that approximately 14 million German citizens are shut out of the democratic process because of their tender ages, the DPA news agency reported. That means nearly one in every five German citizens is too young to cast a ballot.

Currently, Germany follows the lead of most other democratic countries in limiting voting to adults 18 years of age and older. Some German states allow voting starting at age 16 for local elections.

The idea has gotten backing from some members of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the free-market liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). The proposal also has the support of political heavyweights such as the former minister for family affairs Renate Schmidt, Bundestag vice-president Wolfgang Thierse and FDP head Dirk Niebel.

Constitutional change required

The supporters want to change Article 38 of Germany's constitution by striking out the sentence that defines voting eligibility as starting at the age of 18.

Under the proposal, parents would be allowed to vote for the children. Parents could then add their children to a voting list when they believe the child is ready to take on his or her own democratic responsibility.

A similar proposal was defeated in 2005 on constitutional and practical grounds. Opponents objected that parents would vote their own wishes and not those of their children. A two-thirds majority would be needed to change the German constitution.

DW

Barack the Pragmatic

Don't Spare the Poleaxe

Don't Misunderestimate Obama
By Patrick Buchanan
Real Clear Politics

With 68 percent of Americans believing George Bush has done a poor job, and 82 percent saying the country is on the wrong track, the election of 2008 will turn on one issue: Barack Obama.

If Sen. Obama can convince the people he is "one of us," and not some snooty radical liberal from Chicago's Hyde Park, who looks down upon white America as a fever swamp of racism and reaction, a la the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the senator will be the next president.

The election of 2008 thus mirrors the election of 1980.

Then, the country wanted Jimmy Carter gone. Americans had had enough of 21 percent interest rates, 13 percent inflation and 7 percent unemployment. They wanted the Iranian hostage crisis ended, violently if necessary. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, America wanted a leader who would not kiss Leonid Brezhnev on the cheek but reassert American power.

The issue then was Ronald Reagan. Portrayed as some Al Capp cartoon of a crazed right-winger and B-Grade Hollywood actor given to spouting Reader's Digest bromides, Reagan was regarded as ridiculous by much of the media and too big a risk by much of the nation.

In one debate with Carter, Reagan erased the misperceptions and turned a close race into a cakewalk. That is Barack's opportunity.

A savvy politician, he has measured correctly the hurdle he must surmount and is moving expeditiously to alter an image of him forged by his own past associations and policy positions. In three weeks, he has jettisoned his new politics in a stunning display of raw pragmatism.

A prime minister must be "a good butcher," H.H. Asquith told Winston Churchill on naming him First Lord of the Admiralty, "and there are several who need to be pole-axed now." Four years later, Asquith would pole-axe Churchill over the Dardanelles disaster.

Obama is not lacking in this capacity that Richard Nixon, too, felt was an indispensable attribute of a statesman.

Samantha Power was tossed off Barack's sledge after calling Hillary a "monster" and suggesting Barack's Iraq timetable was not set in concrete. Robert Malley was canned for having talked to Hamas, though that was his portfolio at a think tank for conflict resolution.

Barack pole-axed pastor Wright and, though he said he could no more repudiate his church than his family, shortly after the second time Wright went off, Barack severed all ties to Trinity United.

Barack has spoken of how he cringed at the racist reaction of his white grandmother after she was accosted by a black man on a bus. Grandma has now been rehabilitated in a new ad as the loving woman who inculcated good old Kansas values into little Barack.

When his own surrogate, Gen. Wesley Clark, suggested John McCain's war service did not automatically qualify him as presidential timber, a storm erupted. Barack proceeded to cut the general's legs off.

His had been one of a few Senate voices to speak of Palestinian suffering. But Barack's address to the Israeli lobby read like it was plagiarized from the collected works of Ze'ev Jabotinsky.

When the Supreme Court declared every citizen has a Second Amendment right to a handgun, Barack stood with Justice Scalia. When Scalia said the court ought not to have taken away Louisiana's right to execute child rapists, Barack was with him again.

When Congress voted the telecoms immunity from prosecution for colluding with the Bush administration in wiretapping citizens, Barack stood with Bush and the telecoms. Fearing it might cost him his huge money-raising advantage over McCain, Barack tossed campaign finance reform over the side.

In Ohio, Barack was a populist opponent of NAFTA. He is now a free-trader. Yet when economic adviser Austan Goolsbee told the Canadians pretty much the same thing, Barack disinherited him.

As July 4 approached, Barack gratuitously dissed his friends at MoveOn.org for their "General Betray Us" ad mocking Gen. David Petraeus. And that flag pin Barack got rid of after 9-11, calling it a "substitute ... for real patriotism"? It's back on the lapel.

Last week, Barack said that, after he meets with Petraeus and his field commanders in Iraq, he might "refine" his commitment to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades within 16 months.

And finally, Obama has co-opted President Bush's faith-based initiative and claimed it as his own.

What is Obama up to? Having secured the nomination, he is moving to convince the nation he is neither a black militant nor a radical, but a man of the center who will even listen to the right.

Though infuriating to readers of The Huffington Post, this may save Barack. For in Middle America folks worry less about politicians adjusting positions than about True Believers willing to go over the cliff with flags flying -- and taking us with them.

Reagan was no Barry Goldwater. He knew when to "hold 'em," and he knew when to "fold 'em." Yet, America still knew who Reagan was.

We may be misunderestimating Barack. But the question of 2008 remains: When all is said and done, who is this guy?

How's my guy doing?

Give Iraq a Timetable

Iraq insists on withdrawal timetable for US troops

Jul 8 10:02 AM US/Eastern
By SALLY BUZBEE Breitbart
Associated Press Writer

Iraqi Prime Minister Calls for Date of Withdrawal for US Troops

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's national security adviser said Tuesday his country will not accept any security deal with the United States unless it contains specific dates for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.
The comments by Mouwaffak al-Rubaie were the strongest yet by an Iraqi official about the deal now under negotiation with U.S. officials. It came a day after Iraq's prime minister first said publicly that he expects the pending troop deal with the United States to have some type of timetable for withdrawal.

President Bush has said he opposes a timetable. The White House said Monday it did not believe al-Maliki was proposing a rigid timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals.

U.S. officials had no immediate comment Tuesday on al-Rubaie's statement.

Al-Rubaie spoke to reporters after briefing Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf on the progress of the government's security efforts, and the talks.

"Our stance in the negotiations underway with the American side will be strong ... We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn't have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq," al-Rubaie said.

Some type of agreement between the United States and Iraq is needed to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires at year's end.

Iraq's government has felt increasingly confident in recent weeks about its authority and the country's improved stability, and Iraqi officials have sharpened their public stance in the negotiations considerably in just the last few days.

Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level in four years. The change has been driven by the 2007 buildup of American forces, the Sunni tribal revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and crackdowns against Shiite militias and Sunni extremists.

Inspirations for Change in America

"Care Planning for Looked After Children" in Welsh

The American Left loves Britain. They pick up the accent on the way from Heathrow to their first night in a London hotel. They use Britishisms with extreme relish and adore the sophistication and progressiveness of the English Left wing establishment.

Britain is also a multi-cultural society on steroids. The country is larded with self loathing politicians, academics and intellectuals. I would not care about the last part if it were not for the former.

The American Left, given the chance, will follow Britain lock step because like Britain, American social services and education are already deeply infiltrated by the Left and poised to expand their grip and control. An Obama presidency will ensure it.

For all the talk and bluster from the Republicans, they have not undone anything created and institutionalized by the Left and the Democrats. A vote for Obama by a disgruntled conservative or Republican is delusional.

Make no mistake about it. The campaign of Barack Obama would be a joke if not for the increasing control the Left has had over American education since the seventies. Youth in America are indoctrinated from nursery school through university by left wing zealots. That trend will continue as the Left is institutionally in control. The control by the Left will be the enduring legacy of Barack Obama.

Creeping socialism and statism owns Britain. Here is the thinking of Paul Ennals, Chief Executive of NCB National Children's Bureau (NCB) in Britain:

Budget Day is our annual chance to set out what we would do if we were Chancellor, in the sure knowledge that no-one would ever trust us with such a responsibility. As a rule, budgets have a central theme, providing a story-line in a mass of deadly detail. This Chancellor has often made children his theme, and we must hope he will do so again this year.

Budgets centre mainly on taxes and benefits – income and expenditure for the Treasury. Most decisions on spending come in the summer, when the Chancellor reveals how much each government department will have to spend for the next three years. But Mr Brown normally uses his budget to announce the odd treat – a rabbit from his hat to keep us entertained.

We already know that he will not contemplate the measure which would really transform our children’s services: increasing taxes. In Sweden, which so often provides inspiration on what can be achieved for children, taxes represent 51% of GDP. Here the argument between Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives centres on whether the tax take should be 40% or 42%. For as long as our nation values low taxes over good services, we can only dream of welfare provision that is truly universal and sufficient.

So what should the Chancellor do about benefits? His key challenge remains reducing child poverty – the single most important step in improving the life chances of children across the country. The Government is within range of meeting its target of cutting child poverty by a quarter by 2004, but the next target is going to be harder, and further radical action is needed. Child tax credit has to rise a further £3 per week if progress is to be maintained.

And what about the treat? If the Chancellor does decide to lob an extra billion somewhere, where should it be? The Children Fund, focussing on preventive services in the poorest areas and facing budget melt-down next year, seems a good candidate. Or what about an increased commitment to opening Children’s Centres ahead of schedule? Or a boost to support services for disabled children – the most marginalised group of children in our nation? We’ll have to wait until this afternoon and see.

And here is CHANGE from the NCB:

Toddlers who dislike spicy food 'racist'

By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent Telegraph
07/07/2008

Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency.

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their lives".

The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: "Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships."

It advises nursery teachers to be on the alert for childish abuse such as: "blackie", "Pakis", "those people" or "they smell".

The guide goes on to warn that children might also "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuk'".

Staff are told: "No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action."

Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children "reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes".

Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: "Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case."

Motivation, Money and Mojo

Photo courtesy of Deuce's Mojo Magic Graphics Studio.

Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
I wanna love you so bad till I don't know what to do

Mo Motivation
The question in this election is motivation. Will Obama and Company succeed in motivating their usually unmotivated collection of minority groups? Another question is will the Republicans succeed in motivating their disenthralled base? On one hand you have an energetic group ardently committed to change and hope and on the other, you have a rather tired party which is less than thrilled with its nominee. Energetic v. Exhausted. Who wins that contest?

Mo Money
What can I say? Not since the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia has a contest has been this one sided. If money alone were the deciding factor, we could forego the campaign and hold the coronation, uh, inaugural today.

Mo Mojo
Obama nation is on the march and not to be denied. Eight years of George Bush, war and a spend thrift, narcicisstic Republican congress have resulted in a deep-seated Bush Derangement Syndrome. Barack Obama is free to triangulate and navigate politics however he chooses. If he needs to tack right, no problem, he can claim whatever he wishes. It will not matter to Obama acolytes. No gaff will go unforgiven. No flipflop will be too outrageous. Anything will be forgiven if that is the price which must be paid for unseating George Bush and the Republican party.

Obama got his mojo working. McCain ain't got no juice.

Globalisation has Passed its High-Water Mark

Oil price shock means China is at risk of blowing up

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:33am BST 07/07/2008

The great oil shock of 2008 is bad enough for us. It poses a mortal threat to the whole economic strategy of emerging Asia.

The manufacturing revolution of China and her satellites has been built on cheap transport over the past decade. At a stroke, the trade model looks obsolete.

No surprise that Shanghai's bourse is down 56pc since October, one of the world's most spectacular bear markets in half a century.


Asia's intra-trade model is a Ricardian network where goods are shipped in a criss-cross pattern to exploit comparative advantage. Profit margins are wafer-thin.

Products are sent to China for final assembly, then shipped again to Western markets. The snag is obvious. The cost of a 40ft container from Shanghai to Rotterdam has risen threefold since the price of oil exploded.

"The monumental energy price increases will be a 'game-changer' for Asia," said Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley. The region's trade model is about to be "stress-tested".

Energy subsidies have disguised the damage. China has held down electricity prices, though global coal costs have tripled since early 2007. Loss-making industries are being propped up. This merely delays trouble.

"The true impact of the shock will only be revealed over time, as subsidies are gradually rolled back," he said. Last week, China raised internal rail freight rates by 17pc.

BP 's Statistical Review says China's use of energy per unit of gross domestic product is three times that of the US, five times Japan's, and eight times Britain's.

China's factories "were not built with current energy levels in mind", said Mr Jen. The outcome will be "non-linear". My translation: China is at risk of blowing up.

Any low-tech product shipped in bulk - furniture, say, or shoes - is facing the ever-rising tariff of high freight costs. The Asian outsourcing game is over, says CIBC World Markets. "It's not just about labour costs any more: distance costs money," says chief economist Jeff Rubin.

Xinhua says that 2,331 shoe factories in Guangdong have shut down this year, half the total.

North Carolina's furniture industry is coming back from the dead as companies shut plant in China. "We're getting hit with increases up and down the system. It's changing the whole equation of where we produce," said Craftsmaster Furniture.

China is being crunched by the triple effects of commodity costs, 20pc wage inflation, and sagging import demand in the US, Canada, Britain, Spain, Italy, and France.

Critics warn that Beijing has repeated the errors of Tokyo in the 1980s by over-investing in marginal plant. A Communist Party banking system has let rip with cheap credit - steeply negative real interest rates - to buy political time for the regime.

Whether or not this is fair, it is clear that Beijing's mercantilist policy of holding down the yuan to boost exports share has now hit the buffers.

Foreign reserves have reached $1.8 trillion, playing havoc with the money supply. Declared inflation is just 7.7pc, but that does not begin to capture the scale of repressed prices, from fuel to fertilisers. "There is a lot more bottled-up inflation in this economy than meets they eye," says Stephen Green, from Standard Chartered.

Inflation merely steals growth from the future. It defers monetary tightening until matters get out of hand, which is where we are now. Vietnam has already blown up at 30pc. India is on the cusp at 11pc, so is Indonesia (11pc), the Philippines (11pc), Thailand (9pc) - leaving aside the double-digit Gulf.

Of course, oil prices may fall again. They plunged to $50 a barrel in early 2007 after the Saudis raised production. The scissor effect of slowing global growth and extra crude later this year from Brazil, Azerbaijan, Africa, and the Gulf of Mexico may chill the super-boom.

The US Commodities Futures Trading Commission is on an "emergency" footing, under orders from the Democrats on Capitol Hill to smash speculators. If it is really true that investment funds have run amok, we will soon find out.

I suspect that the energy markets have fallen prey to their own version of the "shadow banking system" that so astonished regulators when the credit bubble burst.

I also suspect that Hank Paulson and his EU colleagues have a surprise up their sleeve for the late-cycle über-bulls. Those who claim that derivatives (crude futures) cannot drive spot prices have overlooked a key point. The Saudis and others use the IPE Brent Weighted Average of futures contracts as their pricing mechanism. Futures now set the spot price.

But even if oil comes down for a year or two, the mid-term outlook of the International Energy Agency warns that crude markets will be tighter than ever by 2012. Call it Peak Oil, or just Peak Non-Cooperation by the dictatorships that control most of the world's remaining 5 or 6 trillion barrels (Mankind has used one trillion so far).

Come what may, globalisation has passed its high-water mark. The pendulum will now swing back from China to America. The mercantilists will have to reinvent themselves.

Carbon Blues

It's interesting to see the finger pointing in regard to high energy prices. Congress blames the automakers. The automakers say that's what the market wanted. NGO's blame biofuels for the run-up in food prices. Conservatives blame liberals for blocking everything. Alternative energy proponents blame the carbon gluttens. Watermelons blame the evil capitalists. And it goes on and on.

All I know is that it costs me over $4.00 a gallon to feed my wonderful, comfortable, reasonably safe Tahoe which can get as much as 21-22 mpg on the highway if I keep it around 60-65 mph.

I recently paid my latest utility bill and did some quick calculations to see what my local community owned utility was gouging me for these days. It's just the wife and I plus two dogs and a bird in a three-year old, 2600 SF home.

For the period 5/16/2008-6/16/2008, the bill breakdown is as follows:
Electric Billed Usage 1501 KWH $231.69

Gas 0 CCF $10.45

Water Service 54 CGAl $13.62
Sewer $30.79
Refuse Service $15.30
Stormwater $7.27
Fire Service $13.00

Total Charges $322.32

Turns out, the city is ripping me for 15.45 cents per KWH compared to the national average of 9 cents. How's it look in your neck of the woods? BTW - A friend told me the other day his bill runs about two grand a month.

The Dhimmitude of Britain (continued)

What part of theocracy does this man not understand?
Melanie Phillips
Friday, 4th July 2008

After the Archbishop of Canterbury, now England’s most senior judge, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips, has given a green light to the growth of sharia law in Britain in family matters and the arbitration of disputes. It’s not really a surprise that Lord Phillips thinks like this since he actually chaired the meeting where the Archbishop, Dr Rowan Williams, had his sharia moment. Dr Williams, said Lord Phillips, had been misquoted. Not so. It is Lord Phillips who does not appear to understand the significance of what Dr Williams was saying because, as Lord Phillips demonstrated in his own lecture last night at the London Muslim Centre, he is clearly just as ignorant and confused about Islam, sharia and the accepted relationship between religious minorities and the state.

Admitting that he knew little about sharia law, Lord Phillips said he had taken advice in Oman and that as a result of this (clearly highly partial and inadequate) briefing he was able to state:

I understand that it is not the case that for a Muslim to lead his or her life in accordance with these principles will be in conflict with the requirements of the law in this country.

But how can that possibly be the case, when the whole point about sharia is that it recognises no higher authority than itself? Sharia law is therefore by definition inimical to the fundamental rule of British society, that the law of the land is the law for all. Because he clearly doesn’t understand that crucial point, it appears that Lord Phillips thinks that, while reaching out to the Muslim minority, he is nevertheless holding the line for the principle of one law for all. He is wrong. He is destroying it.

He thinks that, because Britain wouldn’t allow sharia punishments to be inflicted – such as stoning or amputation – there would be no problem. He ignores the fact that sharia law is founded upon principles which are inimical to western values, such as the inferiority of women or the requirement to sacrifice free speech in the interests of maintaining the honour of the faith, because the sharia is said to be God’s own law.

He muddles up allowing informal dispute resolution by sharia courts – anyone can informally resolve a dispute by whatever criteria they wish; that has nothing to do with the law -- with the resolution of marital and family issues, a different matter altogether. Although Lord Phillips did not specifically mention the Jewish Beth Din courts, he seems to be labouring under the same delusion as Dr Williams that what Muslims want under sharia courts is the same as Jews already have under the Beth Din. But the huge difference between Jewish and Muslim religious courts is that Jewish courts administer only informal rulings and are bound by the law of the land.

Marriages or divorces of Jews have to be carried out under English law; and in the one instance where the English law was amended in order to enforce a divorce upon a recalcitrant man in certain circumstances, this was only necessary because English family law had authority whereas Jewish family law did not. Since however Muslims regard sharia as superior to secular law, the Phillips/Williams arrangement would establish a two-tier system offering no protection for women, apostates or homosexuals. Even at present, merely turning a blind eye to sharia means condemning many Muslim women to live in fear of their lives, not to mention those who leave the faith. The idea that they could appeal to the English courts for protection is, given the social circumstances, ludicrous.

Next, Lord Phillips repeats the error -- deliberately promoted by the Islamists -- that Principles of Sharia prohibit the earning or paying of interest when what they actually prohibit is not interest – which is even permitted in Saudi Arabia, for heaven’s sake -- but usury. The prohibition of interest was invented by 20th century Islamists to use ‘sharia finance’ as a means of Islamising the western public sphere.

Next, Lord Phillips says he ‘understands’ that terrorist atrocities such as suicide bombing are in conflict with Islamic principles. In which case, why are suicide bombings mandated as a religious duty by some of the most authoritative legal authorities in the Islamic world such as Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi and (on occasion) Sheikh Tantawi of al Azhar university in Cairo?

If anyone were in any doubt why the Islamists are so overjoyed by Lord Phillips’s most ill-advised remarks, they only have to read the response by the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Mohammed abdul Bari. He made it plain that he does not want a parallel legal system. He wants English law to become Islamised:

I believe I speak for a vast majority of Muslims when I say that we do not want separate Courts or parallel legal system. What we do want is a judiciary that is sensitive to our divine laws on personal relationships and family matters. Judges involved in family matters need to have knowledge of our rights and obligations as Muslims in Sharia law.

Lord Phillips extols ‘equality under the law’. What he does not seem to grasp is that this means Muslims should be treated equally with all other minorities. And all others acknowledge that they live under the law of the land. They do not expect the law of the land to change to accommodate them.

One final point about Lord Phillips’s craven naivety. At the beginning of his talk, he disclosed for the very first time that he has Jewish ancestry in that his maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants to Britain. He presumably vouchsafed this information, which he has never before made known in public, in order to ingratiate himself with his Muslim audience on the presumed grounds that they would warm to his identifying a common experience with them of being in some sense an outsider to the culture.

However, he delivered his address at the London Muslim Centre. This centre shares the ideology of Jamaat e Islami, an extremist Islamist organisation which aims to Islamise the state and follows the teachings of Maulana al Maududi, who believed that the Jews worshipped Satan. The dignatory who opened the Centre a few years ago was one Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al-Sudais, who has in the past called the Jews ‘calf-worshippers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers... the scum of the human race whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs.. these are the Jews, a continuous lineage of meanness, cunning, obstinacy, tyranny, licentiousness, evil and corruption’.

This is where Lord Phillips chose to use his Jewish background to grovel to those who would destroy the very values which afforded his maternal grandparents sanctuary. How can England’s most important judge be quite so clueless?

This is the same Lord Phillips who says life sentences are cruel and unusual.
Why do I think Lord Phillips is a man our own Justice Kennedy looks to for his "evolving standards of decency?"

The Dhimmitude of Britain

Extremism flourished as UK lost Christianity
By Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester
Last updated: 2:28 AM GMT 11/01/2008

In fewer than 50 years, Britain has changed from being a society with an acknowledged Christian basis to one which is increasingly described by politicians and the media as "multifaith".

* Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims

One reason for this is the arrival of large numbers of people of other faiths to these shores. Their arrival has coincided with the end of the Empire which brought about a widespread questioning of Britain's role.

On the one hand, the British were losing confidence in the Christian vision which underlay most of the achievements and values of the culture and, on the other, they sought to accommodate the newer arrivals on the basis of a novel philosophy of "multiculturalism".

This required that people should be facilitated in living as separate communities, continuing to communicate in their own languages and having minimum need for building healthy relationships with the majority.

Alongside these developments, there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism. One of the results of this has been to further alienate the young from the nation in which they were growing up and also to turn already separate communities into "no-go" areas where adherence to this ideology has become a mark of acceptability.

Those of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work there because of hostility to them and even the risk of violence. In many ways, this is but the other side of the coin to far-Right intimidation. Attempts have been made to impose an "Islamic" character on certain areas, for example, by insisting on artificial amplification for the Adhan, the call to prayer.

Such amplification was, of course, unknown throughout most of history and its use raises all sorts of questions about noise levels and whether non-Muslims wish to be told the creed of a particular faith five times a day on the loudspeaker.

This is happening here even though some Muslim-majority communities are trying to reduce noise levels from multiple mosques announcing this call, one after the other, over quite a small geographical area.

There is pressure already to relate aspects of the sharia to civil law in Britain. To some extent this is already true of arrangements for sharia-compliant banking but have the far-reaching implications of this been fully considered?

It is now less possible for Christianity to be the public faith in Britain.

The existence of chapels and chaplaincies in places such as hospitals, prisons and institutions of further and higher education is in jeopardy either because of financial cuts or because the authorities want "multifaith" provision, without regard to the distinctively Christian character of the nation's laws, values, customs and culture.

Not only locally, but at the national level also the establishment of the Church of England is being eroded. My fear is, in the end, nothing will be left but the smile of the Cheshire Cat.

In the past, I have supported the establishment of the Church, but now I have to ask if it is only the forms that are left and the substance rapidly disappearing. If such is the case, is it worth persevering with the trappings of establishment?

Much of this has come about because of a "neutral" secularist approach which refuses to privilege any faith. In fact, secularism has its own agenda and it is certainly not neutral. It is perfectly possible for Britain to welcome people on the basis of its Christian heritage.

Christian chaplains can arrange for people of other faiths to have access to their own spiritual leaders without compromising the Christian basis of their own ministry.

Instead of this, the multifaith "mish mash" is producing a new, de facto, establishment as the Government attempts to bring particular communities on to its agenda for integration and cohesion, an agenda which still lacks the underpinning of a moral and spiritual vision.

If it had not been for the black majority churches and the recent arrival of people from central and eastern Europe, the Christian cause in many of our cities would have looked a lost one.

At last it seems the Government may be waking up to the situation; to the importance of English as a means of communication, to greater integration in housing, schools, and leisure pursuits and in citizenship education.

But none of this will be of any avail if Britain does not recover that vision of its destiny which made it great. That has to do with the Bible's teaching that we have equal dignity and freedom because we are all made in God's image.

It has to do with a prophetic passion for justice and compassion and it has to do with the teaching and example of Jesus Christ regarding humility, service and sacrifice. Let us pledge in this New Year to restore this noble vision to the centre of our national life.
Story from Telegraph News:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574695/Extremism-flourished-as-UK-lost-Christianity.html

Celebrate Independence. Overthrow Judicial Tyranny

Jefferson said judicial tyranny made the Constitution "a thing of wax."

If [as the Federalists say] “the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government,” … , then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de so. … The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they may please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law … 

— Jefferson Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, Nov. 1819

_______________________

How Do We Stop Power-Hungry Judges?

Steve Forbes

For decades judges in U.S. courts, high and low, have been behaving like legislators, making laws as they see fit. The Supreme Court, for example, recently ruled that Louisiana could not execute a man for raping his very young stepdaughter, thereby overturning similar laws in five other states. The Justices rationalized their ruling by saying that there is "a national consensus" against applying capital punishment to such a crime.

A national consensus? Are the courts now going into the polling business before rendering decisions? Isn't turning consensus into law or instituting a change in law a function of elected legislative bodies? This ruling, alas, is not unusual. Since the 1930s justices in this country's courts have increasingly usurped powers they previously hadn't had. Precedent has meant little, and so has the U.S. Constitution. Three years ago, for instance, the High Court nullified the Constitution's ban on using the power of eminent domain for private purposes. The justices gave the green light to politicians' seizing of private property to help out politically connected developers.

For decades state courts have forced politicians to spend increasing amounts of money on schools, despite there being no demonstrable link between outlays and outcomes. New Jersey, for example, has some of the worst schools in the country in beleaguered cities such as Camden, Elizabeth and Newark, even though per-pupil spending in those schools runs around $20,000, about twice the national average.

Not content with their usurped legislative powers, judges have decided to reward themselves on a very personal basis. A New York State Supreme Court justice has ruled that the New York State legislature must increase judges' salaries, claiming that the cost of living is going up. Ponder that for a moment: judges decreeing pay increases for themselves. Talk about the ultimate ATM!

Judicial arrogance hasn't stopped there, however. In Brooklyn, N.Y. judges decided to use a public park as a place to park their cars. There are parking facilities a few blocks away, but the judges felt that walking to fetch their cars might be a danger to their personal safety. The New York City Parks Department has plans to use that park as a pedestrian walkway and told the judges to park their vehicles elsewhere. Not surprisingly, these judicial autocrats have threatened to sue the Parks Department for infringing on their self-awarded perks.

This type of egregious overreaching by grasping judges has already poisoned American politics. That's why nomination fights over jurists for the federal bench have become increasingly vitriolic and bitter.

Our Founding Fathers would be aghast at such power grabbing, which makes a mockery of the separation of powers and the checks and balances that they took such pains to enshrine in the U.S. Constitution.

Why Woman Should Not Be Bullfighters

Sieze the Moment in Colombia, Support Democracy in America

...She recalled how the day began, waking up at 4:30 a.m. and saying the rosary before being told by her guards that she and the other hostages were to be transferred to another location, where their detention was to continue.

"My heart broke because I did not want another transfer, another time, in captivity," she said.

But her guard, a woman, was unmoved and ordered Betancourt to cross a river to the pickup spot -- "very harsh, move, hurry up fast, as always," she said.

Soon, two white helicopters approached and several men approached the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia commanders who were overseeing their transfer, she said.

"They spoke with Commander Enrique and Cesar," she said of her captors. As she looked closer, she saw that the men from the helicopter were wearing shirts emblazoned with the likeness of Che Guevara, the Argentine hero of the Cuban revolution. "I thought, this is FARC," she said.

Placed in handcuffs, Betancourt got into the helicopter, still unaware of what was happening. "They closed the helicopter doors, the helicopter started flying and suddenly there was something happening," she said.

"Suddenly I saw the commander who, during four years, had been at the head of our team, who so many times was so cruel and humiliated me, and I saw him on the floor naked with bound eyes."

_________________________

Uribe pushes for peace after hostage release

Betancourt recalling freedom: "Helicopter almost fell because we started jumping"
Colombian military infiltrated FARC leadership, defense minister says»

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Hours after a military operation that freed 15 hostages, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday night urged peace by calling on leftist rebels to release all hostages.

The Colombian military infiltrated the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and deceived its members into giving up the hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, the country's defense ministry said.

The FARC, which has fought a long, complicated conflict with Colombia's government and right-wing paramilitary groups, has defended hostage-taking as a legitimate act of war and is believed to hold roughly 750 prisoners in the nation's remote jungles.

With Betancourt seated beside the podium from which he spoke, Uribe called the daring operation "an unbelievable military achievement and an honor to humanity."

No shots were fired in the operation.

The security forces who deceived the rebels "are entering the page of the heroes of humanity," Uribe said. Watch Uribe describe the operation to the nation »

Betancourt acknowledged she had been deceived by the mission.

Appearing healthy after being held hostage for six years in the jungle, she walked down from a Colombian military jet in Bogota hours earlier into the arms of her mother and later her husband.

"God carried out this miracle," she said. "This is a miracle because I know that all of you suffered with my family, my children, with me. This is a moment of pride for all of Colombia for such a perfect operation."

Along with Betancourt, three American contractors and 11 Colombian police and military were rescued in the operation. Late Wednesday, the Colombians were with their families and friends in Bogota, and the Americans -- Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes -- had arrived in the United States.

Betancourt was abducted February 23, 2002, after venturing into rebel territory in the south while campaigning for the Colombian presidency. Once one of Colombia's rising political stares, she was a reformer who fought Colombia's drug cartels as a congresswoman in the 1990s. Her platform called for a nation "free of corruption, violence and free of drugs." Watch Betancourt describe feeling guilty for being kidnapped »

Asked if she still wants to be president, Betancourt said, "If I continue with the dream to serve Colombia, yes, from the presidency, only God knows. At this moment, I just want to feel like another soldier, another soldier for Colombia, in the service of the fatherland."

She said she wanted to discuss her plans with her children and family before commiting to involvement in Colombian politics again, The Associated Press reported.

The former lawmaker said she had fallen gravely ill during her captivity, but that a nurse among the captors had diagnosed her illness and helped her recover.

She recalled how the day began, waking up at 4:30 a.m. and saying the rosary before being told by her guards that she and the other hostages were to be transferred to another location, where their detention was to continue.

"My heart broke because I did not want another transfer, another time, in captivity," she said.

But her guard, a woman, was unmoved and ordered Betancourt to cross a river to the pickup spot -- "very harsh, move, hurry up fast, as always," she said.

Soon, two white helicopters approached and several men approached the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia commanders who were overseeing their transfer, she said.

"They spoke with Commander Enrique and Cesar," she said of her captors. As she looked closer, she saw that the men from the helicopter were wearing shirts emblazoned with the likeness of Che Guevara, the Argentine hero of the Cuban revolution. "I thought, this is FARC," she said.

Placed in handcuffs, Betancourt got into the helicopter, still unaware of what was happening. "They closed the helicopter doors, the helicopter started flying and suddenly there was something happening," she said.

"Suddenly I saw the commander who, during four years, had been at the head of our team, who so many times was so cruel and humiliated me, and I saw him on the floor naked with bound eyes."

It was only then that the reality of liberation hit home.

"The chief of operations said, 'We are the national army, and you are all free,' and the helicopter almost fell because we started jumping, we screamed, we cried, we hugged. We couldn't believe it." Watch Betancourt call the operation 'perfect' »

Betancourt described the operation as "a miracle" and "a moment of pride" in Colombia.

Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos joined the welcome, embracing Betancourt and others.

Earlier, he outlined the operation for the news media, saying the operation followed a length fact-finding effort to develop intelligence in the area.

The Colombian military had infiltrated the FARC leadership and arranged for the hostages to be taken to the south of the country, where they were to be picked up by two helicopters that the rebels believed were controlled by another group, Santos said. Two FARC rebels were also captured, he added.

The operation was "100 percent Colombian," he said.

Betancourt added that she hopes that FARC commanders would not punish the guards who were fooled. It was not their fault, she said; the operation was too perfect for them to detect the deceit.

Betancourt, who holds dual French-Colombian citizenship, said she would travel to France on Thursday to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy, saying she probably is alive because of French efforts to secure her release, AP reported.

In a televised address after Betancourt's release, Sarkozy expressed happiness and thanks to the Colombian government and urged FARC members to "stop this absurd combat, this fight."

U.S. President Bush phoned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to congratulate him on the operation.

William Brownfield, U.S. ambassador to Colombia », told CNN's "Larry King Live" that the two countries share intelligence but that the operation was "was overwhelmingly a Colombian operation."

Julio Cesar Betrago, a member of the national police who was kidnapped a decade ago and released with Betancourt, was overjoyed at being freed. "I want to thank our glorious army," he told reporters. "For me, it's like being born again."

The freed American hostages -- Stansell, Gonsalves and Howes -- arrived around midnight at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas aboard a U.S. military flight. They were working for Northrop Grumman Corp. as part of a U.S.-funded counternarcotics effort when their plane crashed in Colombia on February 13, 2003.

The rescue operation is the latest in a series of blows that has battered the FARC this year. Since March, three members of the rebel group's seven-member general secretariat have died or been killed, including the founder and leader of the rebels, Pedro Antonio Marin, also known as Manuel Marulanda Velez, and the group's second-in-command, Raul Reyes.

The military strike that killed Reyes led to the discovery of a treasure trove of intelligence from computers taken during a raid by Colombian military forces on a FARC camp inside Ecuador, a move that led President Rafael Correa to break diplomatic ties with Colombia.

The computers included reported links between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the rebels.


Chavez has denied supporting the rebels and has changed his stance from calling for diplomatic recognition of them as legitimate combatants to calling for them to lay down their arms and end their military struggle.

In an interview with CNN en Espanol, Betancourt said she admires "what Chavez and Correa have done for all of us, but it is key that they support our democracy. In the same way they were elected in a democracy, they have to give the Colombians a chance to solve our problems by ourselves.

Barak's Abortion Machinations

Watch this all the way to the end for Bill Bennett's explanation.
He's a clever man, that Barak Obama. A good Christian, too, he says but personally, his brand of Christianity is alien to me. Against capital punishment but all for abortion or the criminal neglect of a live aborted baby. Exactly upside-down and backwards if you ask me but what can you expect from a church and a "Christian" hospital which carry out late-term abortions and leave the babies to die in the "soiled utility room.?" There's something very disturbing about Barak Obama.

Obama in Violation of Senate Ethic Rules

Let us see how the new American "Ace of Hearts" and his handlers play this little hand. First a little inconvenience in the Senate Rules:

Standing Rules of the Senate
RULE XXXV
GIFTS

1. (a)(1) No Member, officer, or employee of the Senate shall knowingly accept a gift except as provided in this rule...

(19) Opportunities and benefits which are..

(E) in the form of loans from banks and other financial institutions on terms generally available to the public; or...

Now the problem where the three card monte begins:


Obama Got Discount on Home Loan
Campaign Defends Lower Rate as Lender Competition for Business

By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 2, 2008; Page A03

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the rate was adjusted to account for a competing offer from another lender and other factors. "The Obamas have since had as much as $3 million invested through Northern Trust," he said in a statement.

Modest adjustments in mortgage rates are common among financial institutions as they compete for business or develop relationships with wealthy families. But amid a national housing crisis, news of discounts offered to Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the banking committee, and Kent Conrad (D-N.D) by another lender, Countrywide Financial, has brought new scrutiny to the practice and has resulted in a preliminary Senate ethics committee inquiry into the Dodd and Conrad loans.

Within Obama's presidential campaign organization, former Fannie Mae chief executive James A. Johnson resigned abruptly as head of the vice presidential search committee after his favorable Countrywide loan became public.

Driving the recent debate is concern that public officials, knowingly or unknowingly, may receive special treatment from lenders and that the discounts could constitute gifts that are prohibited by law.

"The real question is: Were congressmen getting unique treatment that others weren't getting?" associate law professor Adam J. Levitin, a credit specialist at Georgetown University Law Center, said about the Countrywide loans. "Do they do business like that for people who are not congressmen? If they don't, that's a problem."

Under financial disclosure rules, members of Congress are not obliged to disclose debts owed to financial institutions for personal residences. Names of lenders and rates paid on mortgages sometimes can be determined by scrutinizing property transaction records. In March, in response to media questions, Obama posted on his campaign Web site records related to his house purchase.

Last week, during debate on a bill to help homeowners caught in the foreclosure crisis, some members of the Senate ethics committee proposed an amendment to require that lawmakers disclose their mortgage lenders and loan terms in annual financial forms starting next year.

In Obama's case, he received a lower rate than the average offered at the time in Chicago for similarly structured jumbo loans. He secured his final mortgage commitment on June 8, 2005, and during that week, rates on similar loans for which information is available averaged 5.93 percent, according to HSH Associates, which surveys lenders. Another survey firm, Bankrate.com, placed the average at 6 percent.

"It's certainly safe to say that this borrower did better than average," said Keith Gumbinger, an HSH vice president, noting that consumer rates vary widely. "It's a good deal."

The Obama campaign called the rate "consistent with Northern Trust policies, and it reflected the base rate set for that period discounted to address the competition for the account and other opportunities, such as personal financial services, that the relationship would bring to Northern Trust."

When the Obamas secured the loan, their income had risen dramatically. Obama assumed his Senate seat in January 2005, with an annual salary of $162,100. That same month, Random House agreed to reissue an Obama memoir, for which it originally paid $40,000, as part of a $2.27 million deal that included two future nonfiction books and a children's book.

Around the same time, the University of Chicago Hospitals promoted Michelle Obama to a vice president and more than doubled her pay, to $317,000.

The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen.

The Obamas had no prior relationship with Northern Trust when they applied for the loan. They received an oral commitment on Feb. 4, 2005, and locked in the rate of 5.625 percent, the campaign said. On that date, HSH data show, the average rate in Chicago for a 30-year fixed-rate jumbo loan with no points was about 5.94 percent.

Jumbo loans are for amounts up to $650,000, but the Obamas' $1.32 million loan was so large that few comparables are available. Mortgage specialists say that many high-end buyers pay cash.

Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, has no mortgages on properties he owns with his wife, Cindy, who is a multimillionaire.

Unlike Countrywide, where leaked internal e-mails documented a special discount program for friends of chief executive Angelo Mozilo, Northern Trust says it has no formal program to provide discounts to public officials. Loan officers may consider a borrower's occupation when establishing an interest rate, the bank said.

"A person's occupation and salary are two factors; I would expect those are two things we would take into consideration," said Northern Trust Vice President John O'Connell. "That would apply to anyone seeking to get a mortgage at Northern Trust." He added that the rates offered to Obama were "consistent with internal Northern Trust rates at that time."

"The bottom line is, this was a business proposition for us," he said. "Our business model is to service and pursue successful individuals, families and institutions."

O'Connell referred additional questions to the campaign.

Since 1990, Northern Trust employees have donated more than $739,000 to federal campaigns, including $71,000 to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Obama's house purchase has been a source of controversy. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that on the day of the closing, the wife of Obama's longtime friend and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko closed on an adjoining lot that had been the estate's side yard.

The Obamas bought the house for $300,000 less than the asking price of $1.95 million, while Rezko's wife, Rita, bought the neighboring lot for the full asking price of $625,000. Rita Rezko later sold a portion of the undeveloped lot to the Obamas, enlarging the senator's yard.

Tony Rezko already had been linked to a grand jury investigation involving public corruption. Last month, he was convicted of 16 counts in an influence-peddling scheme that reached the highest levels of Illinois state government.

Did You Know that Blacks Have Their Own National Anthem?

'Black national anthem' stirs controversy for city

9 News
DENVER - Mayor John Hickenlooper's annual State of the City address may get more attention for what wasn't included than what was.

At the start of the event Tuesday morning, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem.

Instead, she performed the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," which is also known as the "black national anthem."

When she finished, the audience responded with mild applause. The national anthem was never performed.

In the spirit of equal time

The War Record of the Perfumed Prince, General Wesley Clark

Belgrade Burning

April 5, 1999: Bombing of Aleksinac
The 13th night of air strikes included the first major NATO mistake when an attack on a barracks on the southern mining town of Aleksinac resulted in missiles striking a residential area. Five dead and at least another 30 injured when the three missiles fell 600 m short of their target. The missiles struck apartments, an "emergency centre" and a medical dispensary.

April 12, 1999: Grdelica train bombing
NATO attack on a railway bridge hit a passenger train, killing 14 and leaving 16 injured. The Belgrade-Thessaloniki train had been crossing the bridge near Leskovac, southern Serbia as the air-launched missile released several miles away reached its target.

April 14, 1999: Bombing of a refugee column
On April 14, during daylight hours, NATO aircraft repeatedly bombed refugee movements over a twelve-mile (19 km) stretch of road between Đakovica and Dečani in western Kosovo, killing seventy-three civilians and injuring thirty-six-deaths Human Rights Watch could document. The attack began at 1:30 p.m. and persisted for about two hours, causing civilian deaths in numerous locations on the convoy route near the villages of Bistrazin, Gradis, Madanaj, and Meja.

April 23, 1999: Serb Radio and Television headquarters bombing
Sixteen RTS civilian technicians and workers were killed and sixteen were wounded.

April 27, 1999: First Bombing of Surdulica
At least 16 civilians were killed after two NATO missiles hit a residential area in the southern town.

May 1, 1999: Bombing of a civilian bus
At least 23 people died when a NATO missile aimed at the Lužane bridge north of Priština hit a passenger bus.

May 7, 1999: Cluster bombing of Niš
NATO confirmed that a cluster bomb aimed at an airfield in the Yugoslav city of Niš hit a hospital and a market, killing 14 civilians. A further 60 people were injured in the daylight attack which left unexploded cluster bombs lying in gardens.

May 7, 1999: Chinese embassy bombing
The U.S. admitted that an out-of-date map used by its intelligence operations had led NATO to mistakenly launch missiles at the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three people, injuring a further 20.

May 14, 1999: Bombing of Koriša
At least 100 civilians died after NATO bombed what it said were "legitimate military targets" in the village of Korisa, southern Kosovo.

May 19, 1999: Belgrade hospital struck
A Nato bombing attack led to the deaths of at least three patients in a Belgrade hospital. Parts of the Dragiša Mišović hospital, near a barracks in the Dedinje district, were reduced to rubble.

May 30, 1999: Bombing of Varvarin
11 civilians were reported killed and a further 40 injured when Nato bombers mounted a daylight raid on a bridge in Varvarin, south-central Serbia. Yugoslav sources said local people were attending the town's market when the attack happened at 1pm local time. Witnesses said four cars fell into the Velika Morava river. Rescuers who went to aid of the injured were hit in the second attack.

May 30, 1999: Second Bombing of Surdulica
Nato planes have hit an old people's home at a sanatorium in south-eastern Serbia killing at least 11 people. Officials say the town was hit by four bombs at around midnight, two of which landed on the old people's home. Another building in the grounds of the sanatorium was also destroyed.

May 31, 1999: Bombing of Novi Pazar
At least 10 people were killed and 20 injured in a Nato missile attack on an apartment building in Novi Pazar, southwest Serbia.

Obama hit man and self-appointed judge of McCain's flying skills.

Too Bad for Zimbabwe that Robert Mugabe is not White.

If he were, he would be long gone. In America and much of the world there are two intellectual and behavioral standards, those acceptable and demanded of whites and the No-Go areas reserved for blacks.

Americans are scared pale of any critical analysis of anything Afro-American.

The double standards are staggering and anyone who dares to call attention to their racial piousness is branded (of course) a "racist". The examples are legion. Picture media reaction to a White Congressional Caucus or John McCain if he attended a militant Caucasian-centric church for twenty years.

The recent video posts of black students trashing an Asian owned convenience store is a daily reminder of the hypocrisy of the press and and the timid denial of Americans to a deep enduring social problem. Had those students been white and the owners black, Al Sharpton would be pitchin a bitch and the MSM would be homin in.

Hate is hate and racism is racism. Zimbabwe is a victim of the racist murderer Robert Mugabe. The whites are dead or gone but Mugabe's old habits developed against them exist.

__________________

African leaders stay silent on Mugabe
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor Independent
Tuesday, 1 July 2008

Africa's leaders have failed publicly to condemn Robert Mugabe for stealing Zimbabwe's presidential election by proceeding with a run-off vote in which he was sole candidate at the height of an officially orchestrated intimidation campaign.

At a summit of the 53 member states of the African Union – in which stable democracies remain a minority – Mr Mugabe was praised as a "hero" by the veteran President of Gabon, Omar Bongo.

Although he was not addressed as "Mr President" by fellow summiteers gathered in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the embattled Zimbabwean leader was comforted by speeches in which few spoke out about the political violence in his country. His most vocal opponent, President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa of Zambia, suffered a stroke and was rushed to hospital on the eve of the summit.

The summit host, President Hosni Mubarak, did not mention the Zimbabwe crisis directly in his opening speech. Raila Odinga, the Prime Minister of Kenya, was a lone voice sniping from the sidelines in Nairobi where he called for Zimbabwe to be suspended from the AU until "free and fair" elections can be held.

Conference sources said that while African leaders were more outspoken in private meetings, they declined to criticise Mr Mugabe in public. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda was said to have been "particularly unhelpful".

The summit is expected to wind up today with a call for dialogue between Mr Mugabe and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who has urged the AU to deny the Zimbabwean President the legitimacy he craves. The dialogue is intended to produce a government of national unity or a transition to fresh elections.

The US and the EU have branded the election a "sham". Britain fears that Mr Mugabe will control the transitional arrangements unless they are conducted under the supervision of Mr Tsvangirai, who came ahead of the 84-year-old President in the first round of voting on 29 March. Lord Malloch Brown, the Foreign Office minister for Africa, came away disappointed with his talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, after the UN deputy secretary general, Asha-Rose Migiro, warned the AU that it faced a "moment of truth".