Early flip-flops in '08 election campaign

It's no secret that during the primary season, candidates pander towards the more extreme ends of their parties. However, as the campaign progresses, they focus on the center and swing votes, having already courted their own unique party factions. Obama is even trying to steal the religious vote by proposing new faith-based initiatives — an appalling move in my view, counter-intuitive even. While it's good he isn't trying to isolate religious voters, especially in swing-states like my (current) home state of Ohio, I'm worried enough about separation of church and state after this Bible-thumping Bush administration.

I'm sure you all have also heard about Obama's shunning of public financing for his campaign, going back on an earlier statement. Will this hurt his image as a government reformer? Read more here.

Coral reef inhabitants face extinction

Some of the most diverse animals on the planet may soon disappear. Coral reefs and their inhabitants are being destroyed at an alarming rate, as rare ocean wildlife is already being harmed and fish supplies are dwindling.

A third of the world's reef-building coral species are facing extinction.

That is the stark conclusion from the first global study to assess the extinction risks of corals.

Writing in the journal Science, researchers say climate change, coastal development, overfishing, and pollution are the major threats.

The economic value of the world's reefs has been estimated at over $30bn (£15bn) per year, through tourism, fisheries and coastal protection.

"The picture is frightening," said Alex Rogers from the Zoological Society of London, one of 39 scientists involved in the assessment.

Back home

My plane arrived yesterday from Heathrow, and I'm missing London already! Be on the lookout for new posts...

Lack of confidence in world leaders (but is there hope?)

Who's the best world leader?
Well, if UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is counted, then he's the world leader with the highest confidence rating — 35% — according to a new study in conjunction with the University of Maryland. As Newsweek reports,

On average, only 23 percent of foreign respondents express "a lot of " or "some" confidence in Bush, and only Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does worse (at 22). ... Then comes [Russian President[ Putin at 32 percent, [UK Prime Minister] Brown at 30, [Chinese President] Hu Jintao at 28 and France's Nicolas Sarkozy at 26. The results aren't much different if you tally them country by country: in only two states (Nigeria and India) do a majority of people express at least some confidence in Bush. Putin and Hu each come out ahead in just five nations, and Brown in just six.

Meanwhile, respondents from most countries in a separate Pew study seem to adore US presidential candidate Barack Obama. Let's hope that, come November, most of America will think the same of him.

Say no to offshore drilling

In a move of populist pandering in an age of high gas prices, President George W. Bush...

has called on Congress to end a 27-year ban on drilling for oil in US coastal waters, to reduce dependence on imports.

We should not greatly endanger the environment when we should be looking for real solutions to the energy crisis. Offshore drilling -- like the loosening of gas taxes, or increased oil production -- is not a long-term solution. It will only make Americans more dependent on oil, and more dependent on something that destroys the environment in many more ways than one.

John McCain has made a complete U-turn on his offshore drilling policy, now following Bush in saying he supports it. His electoral opponent Barack Obama opposes both offshore drilling and the opening of ANWAR in Alaska.

Senator Obama dismissed Mr McCain's call as "political posturing" that would not bring down petrol prices and could endanger the country's coastal environment.

America's coastal environments have already been put in enough danger as the government takes a step back from regulating polluting industries. We have seen the vital role the coastal environment plays in protecting against hurricanes (New Orleans' natural defenses were down when Katrina hit) to soaking up what we pollute.

We shouldn't revert to old policies of drill-and-spill. I fail to see how this Republican ploy will do anything but hurt the United States in the long term. Isn't it time we moved beyond oil anyways?

Update

Hey readers, sorry I haven't posted in a while. I will try to squeeze in a few posts in the coming days, but on Friday I leave for a two week trip to London. Expect July and August to be good post months!

Firefox 3 released!

The newest version of Firefox is out. Go get it (8 million people already have) — and set a world record!

Meet the next Democratic presidental nominee

Barack Obama!


According to CNN, Obama has passed the threshold of 2,118 delegates required for the nomination (no surprise as many superdelegates switch over). While Hillary Clinton says she will not make a final campaign decision tonight, it is clear her end has come. However, she mentioned recently that she is willing to be Obama's vice presidential candidate.

This should end months of fracture in the Democratic Party between these two heavyweights. Obama will have to immediately jump into the race and Clinton and Obama supporters will have to get over their differences to beat John McCain in November. We cannot have effectively four more years of Bush-like foreign policy.

The South Dakota and Montana primaries are still ongoing, with Clinton looking to win the former while Obama takes Montana.

One more thing: For all those on the far right screeching that Obama is a liberal socialist, he's not. He is, at most, a left-leaning moderate. I only wish he was more liberal; but, alas, in a country like America, "liberal" is a dirty word and the right dominates more than its fair share of the mainstream.

P.S. The timestamp should be 10:14 PM not 9:14. Blogger has issues with DST.

Who gives a damn about what McClellan has to say?

While McClellan is cashing in on his new tell-all book, which tells us nothing new by a man who didn't shape Bush administration policy in any way but merely communicated it, Christipher Hitchens points us towards a book by former White House policymaker Douglas Feith...

Israel and Syria: Talking at last

A debate is brewing about diplomatic negotiations between Syria and Israel, who are technically still at war. In this situation, it's quite hard to see how talks could hurt. However the White House's policy on 'no talks with the enemy (lest we appease them)' seems to contradict its Mideast ally's approach.

NYT:

Israel, America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East, just became the latest example of a country that has decided it is better to deal with its foes than to ignore them.

The announcement that Israel has entered into comprehensive peace talks with Syria is at odds with the course counseled by the Bush administration, which initially opposed such talks in private conversations with Israelis, according to Israeli and American officials.
...
But in many ways, the Bush administration’s own policies appear to be at odds with his thesis.

Isn't this the same administration that took part in talks (albeit delayed ones) that resulted in the ongoing denuclearization of the North Korean state?

Women and the Bible (part 4)

As the Protestant reformer Martin Luther once commented, "If they [women] become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there." To be fair, many of the viewpoints expressed up to this point have been those of fundamentalists. After all, a new, modern Christianity cannot just interpret the Bible, it must bring a sense of fairness so it is not seen as an outdated an backwards faith (which is the truth any way one spins it). Egalitarians and liberals, trying to bring their faith into the modern age, say women do have rights; there are even some Christian feminists! But how can there be a feminist whose faith rests upon the words of a book contrary to their sole beliefs? So-called moderates can be just as bad as their extremist counterparts, strongly cherry-picking Biblical passages, liberally quoting them, ignoring the contradictions elsewhere in the Holy Book. That's not to say all modern Christian orginizations recognize women as equal. The Roman Catholic church — the world's largest religious body at 1 billion members and counting — still doesn't let women perform any official religious duties — in other words, they cant be reverends, bishops, etc. Keep in mind, though, that this is the same religious entity that refuses to acknowledge the link between condoms and AIDS prevention, or the scientific theory of evolution (the Vatican is not alone in its views).

Italy's government encourages racism

It seems that European xenophobia is not limited to people from predominately-Muslim countries...

Sixty-eight per cent of Italians, fuelled by often inflammatory attacks by the new rightwing government, want to see all of the country's 150,000 Gypsies, many of them Italian citizens, expelled, according to an opinion poll.

The survey, published as mobs in Naples burned down Gypsy camps this week, revealed that the majority also wanted all Gypsy camps in Italy to be demolished .

About 70,000 Gypsies in Italy hold Italian passports, including about 30,000 descended from 15th-century Gypsy settlers in the country. The remainder have arrived since, many fleeing the Balkans during the 1990s.
...
In a second poll, 81% of Italian respondents said they found all Gypsies, Romanian or not, "barely likeable or not likeable at all", a greater number than the 64% who said they felt the same way about non-Gypsy Romanians.

Many Gypsies are as entitled legally to live in Italy as 'ethnic' Italians, making this extreme xenophobia and racism all the more alarming. The government has made immigration rules harsher as it takes a swing to the right.

Italy will only get worse under its reelected, corrupt media-mogul leader Silvio Berlusconi.

The new 'appeasement' controversy

Make diplomacy, not war
President Bush made an attack on Barack Obama and other Democrats in a speech in the Israeli parliament.

The president, at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem, suggested that some Democrats were acting in the same way some Western leaders did when they appeased Hitler in the runup to World War II.

Those ready to talk to hostile regimes are not cowardly appeasers; they are actually courageous. Anyone can start a war (see George W. Bush), but it takes someone with diplomatic tact to keep the peace. Diplomacy, and thus engaged discussions, is required to do so. This is one of many reasons Obama is better-suited for the Oval Office than the incumbent officeholder. The Bush administration is responding to Iran's saber-rattling just the way Iran wants them to respond: with more saber-rattling. This makes war a greater possibility and raises tensions on both sides. It's time for both sides to back down.

It is not 'appeasement' to talk to the enemy, and in fact that word has become all-too-dirty since the appeasement of Hitler before the Second World War. To label everyone who does not support your every whim an 'enemy' is also a dangerous move this administration has chosen to take at a time where the world needs more peace, not more hostility.

The Republicans' need to smear Obama on foreign policy lies not only on their own warped views of the world, but also their insecurity as America is increasingly Democratic (by a 10% margin). Furthermore, Bush's speech was entirely inappropriate as it was in the Israeli Knesset. Is Bush trying to prove to the world we are the world's most polarized nation when he makes a veiled attack in his speech, or what? Hillary Clinton, Obama's competitor for the Democratic presidential candidacy, and looking more like she belongs on the other side of the aisle than ever, has also struck low blows, criticizing Obama's position on diplomacy with countries like Iran.

We need a president who's not afraid to talk with the other side.

Wishing Israel a happy birthday

(If only it was a peaceful one.)

It has been roughly 60 years since the founding of the Zionist state of Israel. Here are a couple articles of note:

BBC News - Israel at 60

Foreign Policy - Think Again: Israel (subscription required; I'll try to find an alternate link)

And its nearly impossible to talk about Israel without bringing up the fun topic of Palestine... Is Israel contributing to humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip? You decide!

More natural disaster

China's southwestern Sichuan province was hit by a major earthquake today...

One of the worst earthquakes in decades struck central China on Monday, killing nearly 9,000 people, trapping about 900 students under the rubble of their school and causing a toxic chemical leak, state media reported.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated a hilly region of small cities and towns. The official Xinhua News Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan province and more than 200 others were killed in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.

The death toll is likely to break 10,000.

The Chinese government has actually done a fairly good job responding to the post-earthquake humanitarian needs of its people. Conveniently trembles from the quake were felt in Beijing, so the government could not even attempt to mask the damage this earthquake has brought (a 1976 earthquake killed hundreds of thousands; the government attempted to cover it up).

The tale of John McCain and his crazy reverend

With all the over-hyped fury over Obama's pastor, you'd think McCain's even more insane 'spiritual guide' would make more headlines...

You may have heard of Rev. John Hagee, the McCain supporter who said God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its homosexual "sins." Well now meet Rev. Rod Parsley, the televangelist megachurch pastor from Ohio who hates Islam. According to David Corn of Mother Jones, Parsley has called on Christians to wage war against Islam, which he considers to be a "false religion." In the past, Parsley has also railed against the separation of church and state, homosexuals, and abortion rights, comparing Planned Parenthood to Nazis.

So much for freedom of religion. This is a man who wants to see all other religions but his destroyed. Interestingly enough, Obama denounced Jeremiah Wright; McCain hasn't even dropped the endorsement of Rev. Parsley. As far as I'm concerned, this Wright business has gone vastly overboard, politically speaking and considering the massive coverage its gotten over the past couple months.

Burma gets hit, hard

As if enough bad things haven't already happened to the Burmese people...

BBC News

More than 10,000 people were killed in a devastating cyclone that hit western Burma on Saturday, Foreign Minister Nyan Win has said on state TV.

This is one of the worst storms of its kind in years.

With disasters like this, the death toll usually rises rapidly. From 350 Saturday to 2,000 on Sunday then 10,000 today. It may continue to rise as more evidence of the cyclone's destruction is found. If only the Burmese government didn't block large amounts of aid meant to assist the disaster-ravaged people within its borders. It is also preventing people who aim to survey the effects of Cyclone Nargis from coming to Burma (aka Myanmar).

McCain: Four more years of Bush?

With the two senators on the Democratic side still duking it out for the presidental nomination, John McCain has been trying to capitalize on the rift within the Democratic party, with his own Republican nomination already secured.

McCain shows no sign of straying from Bush's path on the economy and the Iraq war — two of the biggest issues facing America today. He is sure to continue the current administration's disastrous policies at home and abroad, and has put forth no plan to combat poverty or the health care crisis. Not even counting Iraq (where the US may maintain presence for 100-plus years, according to McCain), his foreign policy plans are delusional. Of course, McCain shows vastly better leadership skills than the current president, and indeed would be better than the status quo, but that's not good enough. In brief, McCain is a panderer; he panders to the extreme right of the United States, an ideological group that has run this country into the ground with its extremist and irrational views.

Whichever Democrat comes up on top — be it Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama — they will most certainly be better for this country than the GOP's nominee.

Women and the Bible (part 3)

The very notion of women being vastly inferior goes against all our Enlightenment values — equality, fairness, freedom! I find it astounding that such an antiquated religion that calls for suppression of freedoms seen only in states like North Korea is the most popular faith on the planet. Do these professed Jesus-lovers even know what their book says? No, it does not preach peace and happiness, but submission and barbaric violence — specifically towards women — even by biblical heros! 'God' only knows how far back the mass belief in Christianity has pushed not only equal rights for women, but for other groups (e.g. gays, blacks). Just the fact that the world's first human was a man, and that the first woman was made from one of his ribs sets the stage for the inferiority of women.

The MSM and the race for the White House

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, penned a good op-ed in the New York Times today examining the absurdity of the media coverage in the 2008 presidential race. For instance, while we know Obama's bowling score, many nothing of his health-care plan. Edwards does not blame the mainstream press for the failure of her husband's campaign, but does fault it for ignoring candidates on both sides, such as Biden and Dodd for the Dems and Brownback for the GOP. As the article says,

I’m not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.