On Saturday, in arguing for a strong defense of Georgia in its struggles with Russia, McCain twice noted that Georgia is a Christian nation - perhaps to distinguish it from other crumbling pieces of the former Soviet Union that are Muslim, such as Chechnya and Azerbaijan.
Such comments may pass unnoticed by most American voters and may be reassuring to some religious Christians and Jews. They may even go over well with some secular Americans who are pleased that he is using more inclusive language than some members of the religious right.
But his repeated invocation of "Judeo-Christian values" is sure to stick in the ears of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and people of other non-Christian, non-Jewish faiths. And they're sure to be asking themselves: Just what is McCain trying to tell us?
I caught 10-15 minutes of the FOX program, "Presidential Character: Obama," and those minutes may have changed my life. The program uses clips from the audiobook of Dreams to highlight each time period of Obama's life, and also includes interviews with journalists who have covered Obama, and interviews with people from his past.
I found this program very inspiring. The way FOX chose Obama's words to support its hints that Obama is a radical, race-obsessed guy with a very un-American background -- it was spectacular! This innovative journalism speaks to me, and has moved me to become a FOX journalist.
Here is my first piece as a FOX reporter, using Obama's other published book, The Audacity of Hope, in that innovative FOX style.
A new chapter in the long and painful saga of the "War on Terror" has been revealed to the public. The facts are murky, the details impossible to confirm.
While there are several possibilities, there is one that most will find almost impossible to believe. We are not ready to believe that Dr. Aafia is a star terrorist-- a claim that is ironically being jointly pushed by both the US Government and Al-Qaeda. Why are these opposing sides pushing forth this nearly consistent portrait? The answer lies in each group's malicious agenda.
It's been awhile since I've posted anything here, but now that I am finding some time to do so, I have something that is a bit provocative. It's a trailer for a movie called Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. I admit that I have mixed feelings about the subject in general. But I thought the movie would still be worth a look.
In August, 2004, Luis Posada Carriles and his associates were actually convicted and sentenced to jail in Panama for possessing many pounds (20 or 30, reports vary) of C-4 plastic explosive, planning to blow up a university auditorium containing Fidel Castro and several hundred Panamanian students. Just four months later, outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Miscoso pardoned the terrorists and released them from jail. Three of them immediately flew to Miami to a hero's welcome. Luis Posada Carriles disappeared, but less than a year later, he entered the U.S. illegally. The U.S. government tried to ignore him, but eventually they had to arrest him.
This section will tie up the 'Terrorism and War' segment of the 'On The Issues' series by focusing on Iran, Iraq, and the recent developments in Georgia. Let's get right to it, starting off with an issue that has been bread-and-butter for both candidates: Iraq.
Obama has consistently favored a phased withdrawal from Iraq, although he has caught criticism for refinements of his plan. Despite this criticism, Obama seems to have stuck with two core principles: first, withdrawal is the ultimate goal, and second, withdrawal is contingent on "the situation on the ground." Evidently, it isn't entirely clear how flexible the latter point will be in reality-- how much, if any, serious consequences of a withdrawal would be workable? What specifically would constitute a situation in Iraq that would make Obama significantly delay his plans for withdrawal, and do any such situations exist now? Obama has been (intentionally, I'd guess) vague on this point; he wants to run as a basically anti-war candidate without running into McCain's line of attack about weak-on-defense-Democrat stereotypes.
For reasons not directly relevant to this posting, I have been going through a large number of my previous diaries, and encountered one posted 4/12/2006 entitled "Living in a bulls-eye." As I read it I was somewhat shocked to realize how relevant it still was, given our current dispute with Iran and especially in light of the recent conflict in the Caucasus.
I had not intended to do a diary today - I have many other tasks. But since this merely requires me to repost, I thought I would, and see if you, like me, still think what I wrote more than two years ago here is still relevant.
BTW - the original was not on the recommended list, but it was part of diary rescue.
On a recent business trip, I had the need to stash my briefcase and bag at San Francisco airport for a few hours. I figured I'd just find one of those coin-operated lockers and invest a buck or two in quarters. Then it hit me that I hadn't actually seen any lockers at an airport for a long time. Of course, they must have ripped them all out for fear of bombs. Too bad.
Some research on the airport's web site finally revealed that there was one place in the entire airport to check luggage. I headed over there and learned that, for the low, low price of $17 I could leave my stuff there for up to 24 hours. It had to be checked in and X-rayed by an employee first, of course.
I'm pretty sure this 10X increase in the price (and decrease in the convenience) of a simple service doesn't appear in anybody's inflation numbers, but I'll bet there are plenty of similar examples out there of how everything is getting a lot more expensive—no matter what the government says. Add your own examples in the comments.
Last week I had a huge influx of readers interested in my piece on Eric Cantor. Seems I'm not the only one thinking McCain might just pick Cantor. I think it's a longshot, but possible.
Things are getting very hectic personally. This may be the last newsletter for a few weeks or more. We will be on vacation in California for a couple of weeks and I will have Grand Jury duty after that. Plus work is exploding for me and Joy's dissertation is overdue. Even politically, I will need to put some extra effort into my friend, Devin Cohen's primary election September 9th. But this newsletter I cover some pretty critical stuff.
With less than six months remaining before leaving the White House, the Bush administration, desperate to show it had made inroads into Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network has decided to take a gamble by trying Salim Hamdan.
Hamdan, however, was nothing more than a chauffeur, paid to drive Osama Bin Laden.
The Bush Administration's military tribunal system, created in the aftermath of 9/11 to process terrorism suspects, was on the verge of going down in history without a single conviction under its belt - nearly seven full years since its inception.
Well, pop the fucking champagne bottles, baby! They finally convicted a guy - bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan (of the famous Hamdan v Rumsfeld case) - of what he admitted to at the time of his capture in 2003 - being bin Laden's driver.
Normally, I'd treat this as the smallest of small deals - but with Bush and company trumpeting this as a great acheivement, proof that military arbitration is a more effective (they never said fair) way to deal with these suspects than civilian courts, I had to point out what a complete and total goatfuck this whole thing has become.
The FBI is saying Bruce Ivins sent the anthrax that wound up killing five and terrorizing the whole country. The deadly attack was aimed at some of our top politicians and media figures. If ever there was a terrorist attack, this was it. So, how come no one is calling Ivins a terrorist?
Let's get real. You know what the answer is. It's because he is white. It's also because he is Christian and right-wing, but I'll get to that in a second. Now, if you don't believe that they're not calling him a terrorist because he's white, let me ask you this question: What if his name was Sheik al-Abdullah Muhammad?
Summary: Well, you can now add Glenn Beck to the list of people who think that the movie "The Dark Knight" is advocating the kinds of things that the Bush Administration has been doing in its "War on Terror".
Now that I've actually read the novelization for the movie, I can comment a little more thoroughly on this subject than I would have in the past.
Saudi Arabia may have recently arrested hundred of activists to mollify the West over the relatively small increase in oil production granted by the royal family. But these arrests are significant for a different reason: the explanation given for the militant activity was discontent over the failure of the Saudi rulers to share the oil wealth with their citizens.
I have been saying for a long time that all social conflicts are, at bottom, about equity. Even those of Islamic fundamentalists, and now it’s happening in a country known for the emphatically religious nature of its regime: Wahabbi fundamentalism. Apparently, Al Qaeda differs with the clerics. As I wrote in “A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness”: “All the territorial wars, all the movements for liberation or succession, emanate from the same basic requirement of equity, as humanity evolves from animal, to primitive human, to a scientifically aware polity.”
You would think that amidst the GWOT we would be taking national security seriously and that seriousness would be demonstrated by a meaningful security clearance process. But not so.
The Six Million Dollar Man By Lori Price 06 Aug 2008 According to Ron Suskind in his book, 'The Way of the World,' Iraq Intelligence Director Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti collected a cool $5 million from the CIA for forging a backdated letter for Bush's henchmen. But, if you turn him in through the US 'Rewards for Justice' program, you can collect up to a million bucks!
It's hard to believe, but the case against Ivins, as far as being the "Anthrax Killer" just keeps getting worse. And more embarrassing to the FBI.
Now it turns out that the FBI was offering Big Bucks, millions of dollars, for people to turn on Ivins and report incriminating stories about him.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Before killing himself last week, Army scientist Bruce Ivins told friends that government agents had stalked him and his family for months, offered his son $2.5 million to rat him out and tried to turn his hospitalized daughter against him with photographs of dead anthrax victims.
