Jun 01 2010
Peruvian child becomes symbol of US undocumented – Yahoo! News.
Difficult situation. No easy answers – and an innocent child, American by birth, in jeopardy, because of her parent’s illegal status. We need a better way.
QT
May 14 2010
Utterly ridiculous story. I can’t see any reason why someone who favors restrictions on gun ownership can’t simultaneously admire the craftmanship of a gun. The fact that the article had to tell us what was “awkward” about this proves that the author is just making stuff up.
Feb 13 2010
politico
Main Entry: po·lit·i·co
Pronunciation: \p?-?li-ti-?k?\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural po·lit·i·cos also po·lit·i·coes
Etymology: Italian politico or Spanish político, ultimately from Latin politicus political
Date: 1630: politician
Apparently Politico (a political blog) wants to trademark the name. Except that this is already an established, well-known word in the English language. It’s a word that made sense as a blog name because it was an already well-known word. Not content with merely being offensive, Politico is also being a bully – suing a British blog for using a word that is in the public domain.
Bob Cesca has started a logo boycott. I’m not a “politico.” But I support the boycott.
Editing to say – in sensitivity to the plight of the Baha’is in Iran, I am re-thinking adding “Politico” to the name of this blog. But I’ve found a nice new way of showing my support…
QT
Jan 20 2010
I’m reading everyone’s opinions regarding the Massachusetts election. Of all comments, what stands out most is a report prior to the election that President Obama was listless in his defense of candidate Coakley. Coupled with what I’ve read about the candidate, I thought “who could blame him?” But of course, the democratic party could blame him. He ran for president but he also inherited “head of the party.” The roles are in conflict, and there’s no way to enact his agenda while trying to also be the head of his party.
The Baha’i Writings state definitively that the political systems of the world are failing. Today I smell the stench of the failure of our political system as our government fails almost entirely to meet the needs of its people and the existential challenges of the nation. So many good ideas that can’t happen because people have personal, political interest to force good ideas to fail.
QT
Dec 04 2009
Obama homed in on an Afghanistan pullout date — latimes.com.
I can make no comments on the wisdom of continuing this war, nor any hopes aside for the least amount of loss of life on all sides. I pray sincerely for this. But I must comment on my sincere appreciation for President Obama’s thoughtful process. This is a great article about how the strategy announced Tuesday was arrived at – and it reaffirms my faith in this president. It also reaffirms my conviction that President Obama indeed made friends with General Petraeus – that the manly comraderie evident in the pictures was genuine. Years from now people will have to evaluate this presidency on its merits. One thing that I believe will emerge is that we did in fact have a president – the claims of this administration’s incompetence, inexperience, etc., will have been proven largely false. Here are some key parts:
On Veterans Day, after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in a cold drizzle, Obama convened his war council for the eighth time.
By this time, the staff was ready to present timelines. In a slide presentation in the Situation Room, the group looked at a bell-curve graph projecting a troop buildup over time — a few at first, then an increasing flow that would crest and trickle off.
To emphasize his desire to speed up the deployment, the president held up a printout copy of the bell curve and pointed to its apex, indicating the peak of the flow.
“He says, ‘I want to move this to the left,’ ” as one official recounted it, speaking on condition of anonymity. ” ‘We need more troops in sooner.’ ”
For months, said a senior officer, the military’s U.S. Command had been examining ways to insert forces faster. Logistics specialists held drills in Afghanistan, Kuwait and other locations to see how fast they could move people and equipment into the war zone.
Meanwhile, engineers in Afghanistan had begun preliminary work to see how quickly they could build austere infrastructure to house thousands of additional troops.
Armed with that work, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of Central Command and chief of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, told the president that, yes, the military could pull off the buildup he was requesting.
“We did so in Iraq,” said Petraeus, who designed and oversaw the Iraq troop buildup. “We can do so again.”
By the time Obama summoned the war council for its ninth and final meeting, the Monday before Thanksgiving, he had almost all the information he wanted. All that was left was a final poll of his top advisors.
“I want you to tell me how you feel about this ‘max leverage,’ ” he said. If people had any objections, he said, he wanted to know.
One by one, team members weighed in on the tenets of the plan, a “conditions-based transfer of authority to the Afghans,” as one witness described it.
No one voiced objection, the two senior administration officials said.
QT
Aug 08 2009
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Aug 04 2009
Long story short, Obama sucks, says David Bromwich. To which I say, it must be great making a living pontificating about endlessly about an endlessly interesting president, while saying nothing useful…
Jul 14 2009
Folks talking to folks. This wasn’t stereotyping, and I’m finding it silly and obnoxious to claim that Steele was doing so.
Jul 02 2009
I attempted to post this on my windonwater.net site, but it didn’t work… so I’m posting here:
