We'd Rather Vote for Obama
From JJ for Unrepentant Old Hippie

Or Hillary. Or a fire hydrant, as long as it's a Democrat. Anything to get the Republicans out of the White House.
 

Thanks to the Bush administration, Canadians have grown to loathe US Republicans so much that some that some of us would trade our Canadian electoral votes to help keep them out of the White House:

"Fifteen per cent of Canadians would give up their ballot in Canada's next federal election to vote in the U.S. election, a new poll co-sponsored by the CBC has found.

The poll, done by the Canadian polling company Environics, asked 2,001 Canadians over the age of 15 questions about how they perceive their role, and Canada's role, in the world.

Forty-six per cent of those surveyed in January by telephone said it matters a great deal to Canada who wins the November 2008 U.S. presidential election. Another 35 per cent said it mattered somewhat, while only eight per cent said it doesn't matter at all.

Keith Neuman of Environics told CBCNews.ca that the fact that nearly one in six Canadians said they would vote in the American election over the Canadian election shows just how important they think the United States is." [...]

"While Canadians see the United States as important, when asked what countries stand out as being a negative force in the world, 52 per cent of respondents named the U.S." [...]

"Neuman said other studies have shown that people's opinions of the U.S. are negative because they are uncomfortable with the country's foreign policy, including the invasion of Iraq. They also cite discomfort with U.S. President George W. Bush, who took office in January 2001.

Given that so much Canadian government policy, foreign and domestic, emanates from Washington DC, I wouldn't mind having the chance to help vote the Republicans into the political wilderness. If Stephen Harper has to suck up to a US administration, I'd rather it was Obama's.

---

Know a blog that deserves to be featured on the Blog World Report?  Contact Robert.

Sorry, but you need flash to view this video

---

Voters react to one Democratic nominee: What does it tell us?
From SueJ for Nailing Jello to the Wall

Well I got my feet wet Saturday morning, jumping into the political pool. I signed up to help with the Hillary Clinton campaign in Maryland for a "statewide bumper sticker visibility" day. A group of us stood outside a local supermarket with a dual purpose of handing out "Hillary for President" stickers and getting volunteers for a phone bank this week. I will tell you right off that we sucked at getting any volunteers. I guess none of us were the right people for that job, as we all agreed that (a) we hate calling, and (b) we hate even more when we are called by phone banks.  But we did give out massive numbers of stickers which many many folks slapped ont0 their coats and jackets to increase the visibility of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Most interesting to me was the response we got from voters. Of course this is completely unscientific, and based on anecdotal evidence, but my conclusion and prediction for the Democratic nomination is ... anybody's guess!

You see, any preconceptions I had about who would be receptive to the sticker was thrown out immediately. Middle-aged white women often responded with a comment about Monica Lewinsky, or some such silliness. A lot of African Americans, of all ages said, "Sure, can I have two?" A middle-aged white man said "Yeah, sure, I like her. She's all right!" And plenty of young white women just made a smirky face and walked on by.

So if you think you know who's going to win the nomination, good for you. (Put some money on it if you're so sure!) But here in Maryland, it's still anybody's game. We vote next Tuesday, Feb. 12, so I'll be watching tomorrow's Super Tuesday results, but no longer with a feeling of irrelevance.

I predict this post will suck
From Randal Graves for L'ennui mélodieux

The Anti-McCain Republicans
From Dave Schuler for The Glittering Eye

A Beautiful Blue Death
From The Fat Lady Sings

 

When I'm under a great deal of stress, I often read to relax my mind.  Especially when I'm doing a lot of writing, believe it or not.  My mind will get too linear, too wrapped.  I need to take breaks - so I read.  It puts me on another track.  I am able to come back to my work refreshed.  This review is of a book I recently finished, A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch.  It is a murder mystery set in Victorian England, the first book in a series based upon the gentleman detective who serves as Finch's lead character.  I am fascinated by Dickens's England - the last throes of a dying empire.  Within 50 years England will have abdicated its hegemony, and the ascendancy of imperial America will have begun.    

 

Where to begin?  Before I purchase a book, I often rely on reviews - reader's reviews, actually (Amazon).  A Beautiful Blue Death came highly recommended.  Commenter’s compared Finch’s detective to both Nero Wolf and Sherlock Holmes.  It is Finch’s writing style that prompted these comparisons – but not for the good, I’m afraid.  Like Wolf and Holmes, Finch imbues his lead character (Lenox) with a host of idiosyncrasies – tics, if you will – both physical and intellectual.  He spends an inordinate amount of time itemizing and then dwelling on each (to distraction) – how many pieces of toast, the exact nature of relationships - the texture and cut of Lenox’s entire world, actually.  And the descriptions are quite well done – don’t get me wrong - if this were a book on Victorian mores, that is.  What the author fails to do, however, is make these observations matter – either to the solving of the mystery at hand, or to supply the reader with insights into how his lead characters mind functions (again leading to mystery solved).  Simply listing patterns is not providing building blocks.  Those patterns must have a purpose – and here’s where Finch falls down on the job.   

 

Wolf’s orchid obsession or fanatical search for the perfect meal was more than the author’s literary indulgence.  Nero Wolf solved crimes because of them.  They are the key to his genius.  The reader needs to know that Wolf is a grumpy obsessive – and that those obsessions can turn him into a terrier with a bone.  Upset his ordered existence and Wolf will move heaven and earth to put it right.  In doing so, the crime becomes solved.  Holmes multitudinous tics, his overflow, flotsam collections detailing obscure minutiae – even the cocaine use – all pointed to a mind that moved at the speed of light.  Holmes was easily bored.  It was important the reader know that.  He solved his crimes quickly, intent upon the next puzzle.  He practically fled the room the minute the case was over.  As a reader we accept this abrupt nature because we have been led into that acceptance. I mean – how else would Holmes act given his inherent nature?  We love reading about it because it helps us understand why Holmes makes certain decisions.

 

I believe this is what Finch was striving for in his creation of Lenox.  He thinks he has another Hercule Poirot on his hands. Well - he has missed the mark, in my opinion.  What was intended as rich and engrossing character exposition becomes merely twee; lost in the buttered toast and cushiony chairs.  If you like your mystery to take a back seat to period flavor – then this is the book for you.  I however, will not be reading the rest of the series.

 

Hillary doesn't get it - WAR IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE
From Kitchen Window Woman for The Dishpan Chronicles

WAR IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE. War is the number one women's issue world wide. Women and children comprise 80% of the collateral damage that results from the wars that are being waged daily all over the world. Women and their children are victims of bombs, bullets, rape and other forms of sexual violence, psychological trauma, starvation, displacement, and the damaging effects of DU-depleted uranium, the radioactive poison which is used extensively by the United States to coat its bullets, missiles and bombs.

WAR IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE. There are very few women in the world who do not suffer from the cycle of endless wars. Directly or indirectly, the fallout of armed conflict impacts or alters the lives women in every country. War is akin to the domestic violence that destroys families from the inside out. It destroys from the outside in. Just as women have worked feverishly to break the cycle of domestic violence, they must now work with equal determination to break the cycle of war.

WAR IS THE WOMAN'S ISSUE THAT HILLARY CLINTON DOESN'T GET. The woman who wants to be America's first female president has consistently supported the use of force and the continued funding, development, and use of some of the most cruel and destructive conventional weapons used in modern warfare. DU, cluster bombs, and land mines have been in the Clinton arsenal ever Bill was president, and remain there to this day, despite Hillary's sudden conversion to an "end-the-war now" candidate.

Since WAR IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE, let's look at Hillary Clinton's history as a pro-war HAWK. Most famously, back in March of 1999 when Senator Clinton was our nation's First Lady, she pressured her husband, the president, to bomb Yugoslavia. Military interventions soon became a habit for the co-presidential couple. Along with Yugoslavia, the Clintons involved US forces in the affairs of Afghanistan, Columbia, Haiti, Iraq, Somalia, the Sudan, and Iraq.
 

Weapons laced with Depleted Uranium were used in Kosovo and are still in use in Afghanistan, and Iraq leaving all three countries contaminated with radioactive poison. Military service members and civilians have been in constant contact with the highly toxic dust. Despite an epidemic of cancers and severe birth defects in newborns, the American and British militaries continue to use DU in their various wars. Depleted Uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years which make it a forever killer and an invisible form of genocide.

Senator Clinton was finally forced by sick veterans to call for medical tests for our soldiers who have been exposed to DU (many vets are still waiting for testing) however, the Senator has done nothing to STOP the use of DEPLETED URANIUM, America's WMD of choice.

Senator Clinton also voted against a ban on cluster bombs and munitions. Think of a cluster bomb as a pregnant shell that delivers a litter of tiny grenades over a large area. Cluster bomblets scatter everywhere - gardens, roof tops, school yards, farm fields, markets, and under cars. It doesn't matter if the duds don't explode right away. They often remain hidden for years before being detonated by an unsuspecting civilian. Cluster explosives are very effective weapons of terror when used against civilian populations. Women and children are the primary victims. Senator Barak Obama gets it - that WAR IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE. That is why he voted in favor of the ban.

Hillary voted with the pack on October 11th, 2002 not once, but twice. First she voted against the "Multilateral Use of Force Authorization" put forth by Michigan's Democratic Senator, Carl Levin, and then she voted with the neoconservatives for the Iraq War Resolution which authorized "the decider" to start an illegal war. Hillary Clinton voted as an ambitious politician, not as woman who respects, and values the lives of others. "If I knew than what I know now" is one hell of an unacceptable excuse in the face of the massive suffering that has been caused by the illegal war against Iraq. Lately, she's been re-writing history by twisting the truth about the the Iraq War Amendment.

WAR IS A WOMAN'S ISSUE but the corporateers who make up America's Military Industrial Security Complex view WAR AS A MONEY ISSUE, and so does Hillary Clinton. Is it any wonder that the weapons industry has turned away from Republican candidates to offer large sums of money to Democratic pro-war honey, Hillary? Sadly, she took blood money contributions from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrup-Grumman, General Dynamics, and Raytheon while the taxpayers continue to pay $720 million dollars a day to poison a country and kill people.

WAR IS A WOMAN'S ISSUE. Echoing George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton threatened, "Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price." She, like the current "war president", is a deliverer of ultimatums - negotiations are off the table She likes nukes, too! War brings suffering and death. Hillary just doesn't get it! War is the Anti-life.

WAR IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE because in large numbers we are the ones whose hearts break, whose family members are killed or maimed, whose homes and fields are destroyed, and whose lives are lost all due to the violent actions of others. Women bring life into the world. We are the keepers of the hearth. We love. We are nurturers. We grow children. We teach our children to respect one another, to problem solve, and to negotiate. We do not teach them to steal. We do not teach them to kill. We do not invent ways to kill other people.

Women need change. Women want change. Many women are working to make that change happen by ending militarism and the cycle of war that goes with it. It is up to us to select leaders who take into account the lives and interests of women everywhere. BARAK OBAMA GETS IT! He has worked toward change. He voted against the war that has preemptively ended over one million lives. I will cast my vote for Obama.

******************************************************************
*Note - I haven't slept well since George W. Bush was appointed president. I have dreaded every day during his two terms for each dawn brought more destruction and damage. I will not rest with Hillary in the White house. I do not trust her. She will go to war.

.......Hell No Hillary !........

Media Watch: Montel Williams Rips FOX and Then Loses His Show
From KathyInBlacksburg for DemocracyUpsideDown

 

Talk show host Montel Williams ripped FOX News recently and paid dearly. After Williams criticized the FOX emphasis son the celebrity death of Keith Legdger, he noted that twenty eight soldiers had died in Iraq that month.

The number of deaths on our side pale in contrast to nearly a million civilians dead and 4 million refugees (2 million internal and 2 million external).

Read more here.

Good news on the strike front! Hopefully
From By Ken Levine

There is cautious optimism that the WGA strike may soon be resolved. Supposedly, both sides have agreed in principle to the deal but now must convert everything to legal language so the studios have loopholes to get around everything they’ve agreed to. Some announcement could come any day now. And peace and harmony will be restored in the entertainment industry – all the way until June when the actors’ contract is up.

But as we bask in this possible-glow I still have a few questions.

Why did it take the AMPTP four months, billions of dollars lost, thousands of workers laid off, the TV season in shambles, next summer’s feature tent poles derailed, residual animosity that will reverberate for years, the loss of the Golden Globes, and the possibility the Oscars would suffer the same fate when they could have just as easily made the same deal in October?

When informal negotiations clearly cut through the bullshit (as it always does), why go through the whole formal negotiation dance, especially when you have union hater Nick Counter as your lead negotiator?

Why wouldn’t the DGA just sit back and let us slug it out since their deal wasn’t up until June? What was their big rush? Clearly they got a worse deal. The DGA can publicly spin this deal any way they want. The truth is they’re being perceived as gutless. And as a member of the DGA I’m somewhat embarrassed.

What percentage of the audience that the networks lost as a result of the strike will never return?

Will anyone read Nikki Finke once the strike is over?

Is NBC still going to air MY DAD IS BETTER THAN YOUR DAD on February 18th? Come on. Rerun JOEY.

How did Giants receiver David Tyree make that catch?

 

 

The "coincidences":

• A series of internet disruptions due to cut telecom cables that has cut Iran off the Internet!
• Israel is not affected.
• An Iranian Oil Bourse, where oil, petrochemicals and gas will be traded in various non-dollar currencies, is set to open this month.
• Israelis have been told to prepare for war, presumably with Iran

Before leaving the Middle East, Bush is reported to have promised Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would join Israel in a nuclear strike on Iran. In Israel, there is talk of "...a rain of missiles" for which Israelis must prepare now.

Speaking on radio as part of a military propaganda offensive, retired general Udi Shani said: "The next war will see a massive use of ballistic weapons against the whole of Israeli territory."

Shani was tasked recently with drawing up a report on the way the military authorities operated during Israel's 2006 summer war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

During that conflict thousands of rockets hit Israel, but were limited to the north of the country from where hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated.

The character of war has changed, said the general.

"Strikes to the rear must now be taken into account -- that is what will come and we must prepare in a totally different way for this eventuality," he said.

--Israelis told to prepare 'rocket rooms' for war

By the time the following dispatch hit what was left of the internet, it was clear: the world is under attack by organized coincidences.

Egypt denies the earlier reports on the Mideast Internet outage, saying there were no ships present around when the cables were cut off.

Egypt's Ministry of Communications announced in a statement Sunday that "a marine transport committee investigated the traffic of ships in the area, 12 hours before and after the malfunction, where the cables are located to figure out the possibility of being cut by a passing vessel and found out there were no passing ships at that time.”

The Ministry had originally stated that a ship dropping its anchor on the two key cables was most likely responsible for Wednesday's cut in service that robbed Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India of much of their internet.

The statement added that the location, 8.3 kilometers from the port of Alexandria, was in a restricted area so ships would not have been allowed there to begin with.

Internet blackouts are impacting large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa after four undersea cable connections were severed.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.

--'No ship behind ME internet outage'

That there was 'no ship' would rule out the official 'dragging anchor' theory.

DOHA (AFP) — An undersea telecoms cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged, disrupting services, telecommunications provider Qtel said on Sunday, the latest such incident in less than a week.

The cable was damaged between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das on Friday, Qtel's head of communications Adel al Mutawa told AFP.

Cables were also damaged last week in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to Internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and south Asia.

The cause of the damage is not yet known.

--DOHA (AFP) — Qatar reports new damage to Gulf undersea cables

It is amazing how much damage can be done by a rogue coincidence.

A repair ship was expected to begin work to fix the two cables in the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday. They were damaged on Wednesday, rupturing connections not only in Egypt but also thousands of kilometres away.

--Qatar reports new damage to Gulf undersea cables

The sub-plot that ties all these "coincidences" together is the planned opening of the Iranian oil bourse where petrochemicals, oil and gas will be traded in non-dollar currencies. Iran Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari has said that the bourse will be open during the Ten-Day Dawn, ceremonies marking the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. There's more at: Oil Bourse

Making these developments especially ominous are Bush's repeated threats and promises to Israel that he will join a nuclear attack on Iran. I wonder if this improbable attack of the cable killing coincidences, denying oil traders access to the net, is enough to delay the opening of Iran's planned oil bourse.

Given the precipitous fall of the dollar, only idiots will not consider the effect that an Iranian oil bourse will have on a war-mongering US.

Bush, of course, denies that his wars of aggression have anything to do with oil and, in a very, very narrow technical sense, perhaps not! They are, in fact, motivated by the fact that over the course of a century, the US economy was utterly dependent upon the availability of cheap energy, initially from West Texas, but later, the Sheikhs!

One wonders what goes on inside the heads of blithering idiots, primarily those who wage war upon their own people, those idiots who threaten the world from atop a precarious perch. So precarious the American position --one wonders if impeaching and removing this blithering idiot now is simply too little too late. Even now, however, good people are morally bound to oppose Bush even if it is with a dying breath beneath a mushroom cloud!

The World is Glued to America's Presidential Race
From Tom Harper for Who Hijacked Our Country

Picture this: Your community is being controlled by a shadowy secretive gang of outlaws. They walk all over your local government, your culture; they do exactly what they want when they want. It’s all about THEM. They're the center of the universe, and you're just a pawn on their chessboard. For the past seven years this gang has been worse than ever. But now you’ve heard that the gang’s current leader will have to step down in January 2009.

Several people — with different viewpoints and qualifications — are jockeying for this leadership position. All of these wannabes are keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and the current leader. They didn’t vote for him; they don’t know him; they don’t know anybody who voted for him or who can even stand him.

Whoever wins this political race, things have to be better in your community after the #$%&!#!$ gets replaced. Are you interested in this race? Damn right you are!

In the furthest reaches of the world, people are glued to our presidential campaign. How could they not be? It’s bad enough to have an 800-pound gorilla dominating the world. But since January 2001 this gorilla has been crazier, meaner and dumber than ever. Things just have to get better next year.

A senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said: “They feel there's a real chance to work with the U.S. America's image in the world is really on the line. Non-Americans are looking for someone who can restore faith in the United States."

A political scientist from the London School of Economics said: “Thank God that retched shitstain will finally be scrubbed out of the White House People all around the world are pretty worried. They want a president who will restore a kind of U.S. legitimacy in the world."

This article uses the term “Soft Power” to describe the worldwide power America, uh, used to have (not mentioning any names here). It’s too bad the author couldn’t think up a better name. Millions of knuckledraggers will have a field day with “huh huh huh huh huh huh what kind of wimp cares about Soft Power huh huh huh huh huh uh uh uh uh.”

Soft Power refers to the admiration and empathy the world used to have for America. It’s much easier to be persuasive with other countries if those countries respect your integrity and what you stand for. Lately, any time we try to “persuade” another country, they either laugh or they brace themselves for an invasion. Either way, more terrorists get recruited.

Whoever inherits the White House is gonna have one Godawful heaping putrid mess to clean up.

Blair & Co-conspirators Are Being Investigated By Scotland Yard Over War Crimes
From Rick B for Ten Percent

Fuck Yeah! All hail Landsker who alerted me to this in comments and to whom I must beg forgiveness for not blogrolling him, but not anymore! And now the news-

Press Release: Scotland Yard to investigate Tony Blair and ex-Attorney General Peter Goldsmith for war crimes

Press Conference,
Room C, 1 Parliament Street
Tuesday 15th January 2008 3pm

John McDonnell MP, Chris Coverdale: International War Law Expert and Annie Machon of the Campaign to Make War History brief MPs and the media on allegations of war crimes committed against the people of Iraq by Britain’s former Prime Minister and former Attorney General.

Officers from Scotland Yard have commenced a criminal investigation into the deaths of Iraqi citizens killed during the armed invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Metropolitan Police are acting in response to crimes reported by peace activists from We Are Change UK and The Campaign to Make War History. In an unprecedented step, the case was handed to the War Crimes division of the Counter Terrorism branch who are now investigating allegations of 14 criminal offences committed by Tony Blair, Lord Goldsmith and others. The offences are under the International Criminal Court Act 2001, which came into effect under English common law, just two days before 9/11.

Two Members of We Are Change UK and a representative from the Campaign to Make War History were interviewed for six hours at Belgravia Police station on the 20th December 2007. Evidence was provided to the police relating to the crimes of:-

• genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and conduct ancillary to these crimes under Sections 51 and 52 of The International Criminal Court Act 2001.
• a crime against peace and complicity in a crime against peace under Articles 6 and 7 of The Nuremburg Principles.
• murder, incitement to murder and conspiracy to murder under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
• conspiracy to commit genocide, a crime against humanity and war crimes under the Criminal Law Act 1977.

Video of press conference-

makewarshistory.org.uk

It’s a start, I can imagine even now senior officers are being co-opted to strangle the investigation, that’s if anyone is taking it seriously in the first place, but it does not have to be that way. These people lied, most deliberately in order to kill and steal. The first thing to do is report this far and wide, to force it to be taken seriously. Pressure and support for the investigation would help, how might we go about that? More in time, for now let’s put this onto the agenda and into people’s minds.

Three Dog Night, Eli's Coming
From Hector Diego for The Walrus Speaks

A journalist after my own heart
From Dusty for It's My Right to Be Left of the Center

 

As my last few posts have told you..I am quite undecided about who to vote for..Obama, Clinton or one of my felines here at home..

Evidently I have lots of company, at least according to this recent Salon.com writeup. Consider this paragraph from the article:

Much to my consternation, it's almost Super Tuesday, and I am an undecided voter. I am a political junkie, a Democrat; I read the papers. But for the first time in my life, barring some truly dramatic last-minute development, I am going to walk into a voting booth on Tuesday, pull a curtain closed, and see how the spirit moves me.

And that folks..is moi in a nutshell(except for the Democratic part..I am a Decline to State). I take my vote very seriously..always have. It's the romantic in me that says my vote counts damn it..and I want to make the right decision. Consider her pov about sHillary:

There is shame in voting for Hillary Clinton, make no mistake -- pulling a lever for someone who voted for Iraq and proposed anti-flag-burning legislation provokes its own brand of self-loathing. When I think about doing the deed, I consider the fact that she's brilliant, that she's competent, that she knows her shit inside and out, that she's battle-tested, tough as nails, and that she wipes the floor with Obama in the debates. She provides a steel-solid track record, he a nimbus of vague hope.

Its a good piece by Rebecca Traister who was also behind Kucinich, then Edwards.. and now.. no one. Check it out if you feel so inclined. Sadly, it doesn't help me out of my quandary.

The Clinton Dynasty and Why It Doesn't Move the Country Forward
From James for Genius of Insanity