Barack Obama has injected race into every aspect of his political career from the beginning. From his references to his choosing of his black heritage in his books to his forsaking of his own grandmother on the alter of defending his racist pastor. Egalitarianism is easily broken completely whenever it is contrast with the practices and statements of those who hustle and flaunt it.

Now he comes once again with the "they are gonna tell you" and "they are gonna try and make you afraid of me" rhetoric. When that is precisely what he himself is doing by default through both direct, indirect and oblique references to his race.

He has all but said "don't penalize me because I am black, don't oppress me because I am black."

Yet his defenders immediately attempt to portray his political maneuvering inside of his declared race, as some form of surreptitious and unfair attack by the opposition. That is not only the weakest of representations, but it literally wreaks of the real racism being portrayed in this campaign and by whom.

Barack Obama is the product of biracial parents and he has chosen to declare half of his race as the predominant qualifier of who he is. He could have just as easily declared and claimed the white half of his race and pursued a political career on that basis. But he knew that to do so, would immediately cast him as a traitor to his true race in the eyes of the black community that he is catering to.

And now he comes forth and basically attempts to try and float the perception that he isn't about race, but that is the precise tired, dead and battle worn red fish that he always returns to. The man is a harlequin patchwork of cobbled together socialist ideologies and race based ploys to garner both votes and acceptance. First by his black supporters and hopefully through the imposed guilt that he hopes to heap on whites. And he fails on all counts of objective scrutiny and examination, one he is revealed as nothing more than what he is. A manufactured and contrived caricature of forced perspectives and false representations based upon the supposed currency of race and the ideology that change is the only qualifier for a political platform.

Masked US cyclists apologize to Olympic organizers

Four US cyclists who wore masks over their nose and mouths over pollution fears when arriving in Beijing apologized Wednesday to Olympic organizers, US Olympic Committee chief executive Jim Scherr said.

Mike Friedman, Bobby Lea, Sarah Hammer and Jennie Reed were among about 200 athletes from an American delegation of 596 who were issued masks by their US sport governing body to combat pollution in Beijing.

"They've now seen how their actions have been perceived," Scherr said. "They were very eager to take the right action, which was to apologize to their hosts."

But US officials said they would not ban US athletes from using masks to combat pollution, whether in sports events or not, if they felt it was needed because of air quality conditions.

"They have the right to wear masks if they feel it's in their best interest to do so," Scherr said. "Hopefully they won't have to use them and the air quality will be good."

Watching this unfold on television yesterday? I thought to myself that for once, we had some athletes with some backbone and fortitude. Granted, the Olympics is suppose to be about athletic competition yada, yada, yada. But we all know that the original ideals and principles of athletic excellence was overthrown for political representations and policy statements beginning at least with the 1936 Berlin games and Hitler.

So yesterday, we have four American cyclists stepping out and making a statement about the very real probability that they could suffer physical respiratory effects from even being in this polluted nation. But of course the International and American Olympic boards immediately stepped forward to challenge the insult to the communist Chinese and demand an apology.

Never mind that the Chinese have literally diverted rivers into Beijing to attempt to cleanse the polluted filth that normally clogs the city. Or that they have been seeding the clouds over Beijing to attempt to clear the smog laiden air that still remains.  Or their attempting to claim that the smog over the city is just a mist. Beijing China is one of the most polluted cities on the planet, but don't let that stop the mad rush of egalitarians in their attempt to hold another 'we are the world' Olympic event there.

I wonder how many of our young people will return from this fiasco that they are calling an Olympics, with life long respiratory problems, as a result of sucking down the filthy air while trying to please the world's eyes and trying to soothe their otherwise tormented sensibilities.

I won't be watching this contrived representation of pseudo sports for politics. And I only wish that we had more young Americans who would stand for their principles and speak out against what everyone knows is a dangerous manifestation of absurdity. I wish they all would just get back on their planes and come home. And maybe come home wearing  T shirts that read, "Been there, Done that and now I can't breath."

Obama assails McCain as tool of Big Oil in ad

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama attacked Republican rival John McCain as a tool of big oil companies in a television ad released on Monday.

Seeking to tap into Americans' anger over soaring gasoline prices, Obama's ad opens with a shot of a driver pumping gas and refers to huge profits made by oil companies in the past year.

"Every time you fill your tank, the oil companies fill their pockets," a narrator says. "Now Big Oil's filling John McCain's campaign with $2 million in contributions."

The ad shows McCain standing next to fellow Republican President George W. Bush as the narrator says, "After one president in the pocket of big oil -- we can't afford another."

The ad touts Obama's plan to offer American families $1,000 tax breaks to help offset higher energy costs as well as the Illinois senator's proposal for a tax on windfall oil company profits. It accuses McCain, an Arizona senator, of seeking to give oil companies additional tax breaks.

You can always count on the democrats to counter logic with sensationalism and rhetoric. Last week, Barack Obama saw his manufactured bounce from the European ego trip, vanish in the span of  less than three days time. And all the King's horses and all the King's men (AKA Gallup & the Media) couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

The Emperor's new fall fashions were finally revealed for precisely what they were during the Obama World tour. Nothing new and no real unique or new ideas, only euphemisms and salutations of a better and brighter 'world' but only if Barack Obama is elected president. That's when America finally got to see the Emperor's New Clothes in all of their splendor. When Obama stood on the podium in front of 200,000 Germans and apologized for America and talked in glowing platitudes of a better and brighter world under his tutelage and global socialism, not only weren't the Germans not all that impressed, but Americans gave a collective shiver and head snap.

One big problem with Obama's message, America isn't electing Caesar or even anointing a king. America is electing a president. Our president, not the president of the world. But in his egotistical socialism, Barack Obama sees himself as the second coming and the only one capable of leading the world to Nirvana and everlasting peace. Meanwhile back at home the American people weren't impressed and John McCain finally began making dents in the seemingly impervious media created aura surrounding Obama.

Perhaps John McCain had simply found a way to finally connect with the American people. But more than probably, the reality has been revealed that Obama's own words have been the tools of his recent demise and shrinking popularity and that has been reflected in the polls of late.  Barack Obama said no to the surge in Iraq. In the face of $4 gasoline prices, he said no to drilling in ANWAR and off the continental shelf. He has said no to more nuclear power plants, without the excessive regulations that have already made America a third rate nuclear energy power. He has said no to any town hall meetings to discuss his proposed leadership with the people and John McCain. He said no to visiting our warriors in Germany and opted to go to the gym and work out. And the cumulative effect has taken it's toll on his faux reality and his campaign popularity.

Last week John McCain began in earnest going after senator Obama on his stated policies and the effects that they are  having and will have on all Americans if he is elected. So now, Barack Obama has once again turned. He now says it's unfair to point out his own interjections of race into the election. He doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills. Does that mean that his hair isn't as long as theirs? Or that his clothes are different from theirs? I hardly think so. And the American people by and large saw the intent of his words just as I did.

Obama has skinned his own cat with the American people on the war and on energy and the gasoline crisis and now he seeks to rectify that by once again demonizing the oil companies and attempting to link John McCain  to these demons of his mind, by asserting that John McCain is in the pocket of big oil. Obama would like the America people to believe that John McCain was getting big campaign contributions from big oil long before the gas crisis became a reality. And he certainly wants to ignore the fact that the two million dollars that he speaks of in his latest add, was contributed after the fact. After John McCain took a stand on drilling for our own assets and not just sitting and waiting for some miraculous invention to ease our pain.

Barack Obama like most of the democrats, would rather kill the Golden Goose and scramble all the eggs, before he will give up his dreams of a socialist Utopia. Never the mind that socialism has failed in every instance that it has ever been attempted on this planet. Go after the evil doer oil companies. Take their money and redistribute it to Americans that need it. This is Barack Obama's plan for funding his version of an economic incentive and stimulus plan. Nurturing the geese that provide the energy is not an option in Obama's thinking. He would rather slay them all and bathe in the temporary riches that he would take as his own, than to see any realistic plan put forth to save America or it's people. Besides, by his own words at another time, we haven't suffered enough for our wealth.

According to Barack Obama, John McCain is the Big Bad Wolf and he is Little Red Riding Hood. He is trying to float a fairy tale with the American people and he intends to do it with images of socialist platitudes and words that will lull us into believing that he is "the one." Well most Americans are now seeing that Barack Obama isn't the one. Not even close. In the midst of an energy crisis fueled by the high costs of energy globally, Barack Obama would rather tax this nation into oblivion for his save Africa legislation and end poverty bill, that leaves Americans with a 845 billion dollar debt for the audacity of having been prosperous.


Barack Obama isn't Little Red Riding Hood or the second coming of the messiah. Barack Obama is more akin to Alice and the Looking Glass world of down the rabbit hole. Which is fine by me, but i am not interested in chasing him down that rabbit hole. Or in seeing my country sucked into the vortex of new age socialism, as marketed by one Barack Obama and his merry band of leftist ideologues who are the one's really propelling his candidacy and providing his talking points and position papers.

Barack Obama is a dangerous man, but he is not half as dangerous as those who stand in the shadow of his two dimensional image. the man is a cardboard cut out. A caricature expressly designed to fool the week minded and to lull the weary into believing that he has all the answers. Barack Obama doesn't have any answers. Only the dog eared and worn out re-manufactured realities of a tried and true, failed and busted philosophy of Nirvana. And the illusion of it is as noticeable as the Emperor's new clothes. They each exist only in his own mind.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

 Link to full story


So after Pelosi shut down congress today for five weeks? Now Obama suddenly says that he would agree to a compromise on off shore drilling. How sweet. Having flatly said no to more drilling, no to more nuclear power, no to any use of oil shale or development of coal or anything else that might realistically address America's energy dependency on foreign oil? He now suddenly turns on a dime and says that he is open to a compromise on off shore drilling. A compromise of course, incumbent on the republicans agreeing to his version of pursuing alternative energy sources.

What a scam. Obama knows damn well that now that congress is in a five week recess, that he will be well past the convention before any of this can be seriously revisited. Personally? I suspect that he has seen the polls from today and after he got past his WTF moment, he decided to attempt to change gears and try to gain traction again. But his weak energy policies (and other policies) and his weak minded arrogance and condescending nature has already betrayed him.

It's called closing the barn door after the cows have gone missing senator. No substance, no provocative thinking and no originality of proposing a path to moving this country forward. Only more words. And this time? They are worried words and it shows.

Senate Bill Aimed at Making Absentee Ballots from Overseas Count

Friday, August 01, 2008

Complete Story Link

WASHINGTON —  Although roughly 6 million U.S. citizens are eligible to vote oversees using absentee ballots — many of whom are serving in the military — only a fraction of their ballots are being counted.

The bipartisan Election Assistance Commission found that of the nearly 1 million absentee ballots sent out for the 2006 election, only 300,000 actually were counted. Some estimate the low return of absentee ballots meant 400,000 service members' votes overseas weren't counted.

The problem seems to be the mail. It takes 18 days for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail to Iraq and 18 days for it to be returned.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has introduced legislation that would allow absentee ballots to be sent via Federal Express to those serving in the military, although there reportedly is resistance from the postal union.

"It should be a national scandal that, here, our men and women in uniform who are protecting our freedom who are exposing themselves to harm are being denied the most basic civil right, and that is the right to vote," Cornyn said.

Cornyn has 29 co-sponsors to his Military Voting Protection Act, all of them Republican.

Those who remember the 2000 election? You know...the one where Al Gore still claims that he won? Well history proved that hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots from military personnel stationed overseas, were never counted. And the facts proved across the board, that the democrats did everything in their power to insure that they wouldn't be counted.

This scam is most prevalent in states where those elected to the state election boards are liberal democrats. They know that by an average of five to one, military personnel vote republican. Therefore, the democrats will be damned before they will allow those military people that they don't really like or respect anyway, to have their votes counted like everyone else's.

2000 was one thing, but we are now in the midst of a war for our survival as a nation. To think that games can and will be played with these valiant heroes votes is beyond the pale IMO. But you can count on it happening, if something isn't done about it now to insure that ALL votes are counted. And not just the one's that favor the democrats.

LINK

I found this on a friend's blog Rick at: Brutally Honest

It needs no words from me.

Obama says Republicans trying to scare voters

Jul 31, 6:32 AM (ET)

By MIKE GLOVER

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama, the first black candidate with a shot at winning the White House, says John McCain and his Republican allies will try to scare them by saying Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Stumping in an economically challenged battleground state, Obama argued Wednesday that President Bush and McCain will resort to scare tactics to maintain their hold on the White House because they have little else to offer voters.

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

During a round of appearances in Missouri, Obama worked to link McCain to the unpopular Bush, saying the Republican senator from Arizona would serve the equivalent of a third Bush term if elected. He said the country can't afford more of the same and expects different results.

"That's a definition of madness, but that's what John McCain is offering. He's offering Bush economic policies and Karl Rove politics," Obama said.

Link to Full Article

 
Once again Obama is returning to his race as the qualifier for his presidency. 'Don't miss this moment.'  Don't miss what moment senator Obama? You mean the moment to elect a black man president?

Obama touched on all the talking points in his speech yesterday. Don't let them make you afraid of me. Don't accept their reality that I am a risk and that I have no experience. Don't let them make you think that I am not a Christian.  After which he proceeds to attempt to solidify the opposition theory that McCain will be a third term of President Bush and that somehow Karl Rove is really orchestrating the anti Obama campaign from a clandestine GOP bunker in the Watergate Hotel.

What you are seeing folks is the real backlash and reality of Obama's recent world tour and his condescending treatment of both the media and the American people. These people (Obama campaign) have "daily polls." Bill Clinton and Dick Morris perfected that technique fifteen years ago. And Obama is playing the same hand with the same deck as we speak. Looking into the crystal ball and seeing the storm clouds forming.

He and his handlers have seen the writing on the wall of the past week in the press clippings. Since his return from the ego trip last week he has recognized that the media is no longer in his pocket. As he realizes that John McCain has picked up support and that a good many of those supposedly undecided and moderate voters, didn't like what they saw when they saw Obama traipsing around Europe, supposedly "looking presidential" and smirking at the folks back home while dodging realities about Iraq and the oil crisis and apologizing for America. With about three weeks left until the convention, Obama and his campaign are going into damage control mode and trying to hold on to what they had before the trip. But the messiah's crown has slipped and the people are finally seeing the Emperor's "new clothes."

IOC agrees to Internet blocking at the Games

LINK

BEIJING: The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games.
Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages - politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.
On Wednesday - two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games - the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.

Remember all that 1st amendment stuff that we learned in school and have had hammered into us by the media all of our lives? Seems all you need to counteract 200 years of American and western journalistic arrogance, is a defiant China and a world media tripping over themselves to participate in the most staged and censored Olympic event in history.

I wonder if they will have cameras installed in the toilets of these international journalist? To make sure that they aren't rat holing micro film in their cheek safe? Personally? I have absolutely no intention of watching these Olympics. And if America wants to allow our athletes to go to Bejing under these circumstances? Then they are on their own this go around IMO. Watch the ratings once they are posted after these games.

Then watch the mad race back to the states and the UK, where all the journalist will attempt to outdo each other with their breaking reports of what they couldn't say while they were held hostage in communist red China. Like I said, I don't care. Real news from compitent people is always a channel change or a mouse click away. At least for the time being.

Salmonella Outbreak Traced to Irrigation System, Pepper at Mexican Farm Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The salmonella strain linked to a nationwide outbreak has been found in irrigation water and a serrano pepper at a Mexican farm, federal health officials said Wednesday.

Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's food safety chief, called the finding a key breakthrough in the case, as did another health official.

"We have a smoking gun, it appears," said Dr. Lonnie King who directs the center for foodborne illnesses at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Acheson said the farm is in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Previously, the FDA had traced a contaminated jalapeno pepper to a farm in another part of Mexico.

Acheson and other officials were grilled at a congressional hearing about why the investigation originally focused on tomatoes.

The officials insisted that tomatoes still cannot be ruled out and that it is quite possible that the outbreak was caused by several different kinds of contaminated produce.

The outbreak has sickened more than 1,300 people since April.

Once again the American people have been duped. And in the process hundreds of millions of dollars has been wasted and potentially thousands of American lives have been put at risk.  If there are three words that best describe the typical American, those words would be "short attention span."  Advertisers know it, the government knows it and all successful politicians know it.

And based upon that simple reality combined with the influences of egalitarian relativism as applied by of the FDA in this instance, Americans have been hustled for three months now concerning the latest salmonella outbreak.  Florida and Texas tomato growers, were significantly damaged and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tomatoes were left to rot in the fields, while the FDA played hoi poi with the American public over the origins of the salmonella outbreak.

The FDA knew within a reasonably small amount of time the origins of the specific strain of salmonella and that the strain came from tainted produce from Mexico. But based on politically correct reasoning and egalitarian multiculturalist sensibilities, the agency pulled a fast one on the American people while they pretended to investigate all potential sources and in doing so, left American farmers in the lurch and American consumers at risk.  The bottom line, they knew in a short period of time that the cause of the outbreak originated in Mexico. But they were determined to avoid any accusations of xenophobia, so they strung out the investigation for over three months, while hundreds of other Americans became sick eating Mexican produce.

Salmonella is a bacteria and it isn't something that is naturally brought into produce via the plant's roots in the ground. It is a surface contaminant, usually resulting from food or produce that has been tainted with some form of fecal matter containing the bacteria. No different than last years scare involving spinach, the FDA waited months then proclaimed that "a feral hog had contaminated the spinach in a particular spinach field in California. End of story. And afterward? Most Americans simply said "Oh good. I am glad they figured that out."

I am sorry, but "moi" isn't either so stupid or so gullible. And my mind has a tendency to pay attention to details and representations, especially those tendered by government. I am not one of the dumb-masses. And that makes me an enemy of the state of confusion, that this government represents as the desirable qualities of tolerance and multiculturalism, to the forfeit of my own identity, heritage and sensibilities.

President Obama Continues Hectic Victory Tour

Link to full story

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, July 30, 2008; A03

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:

When the Washington Post and the New York Times begin to get that strange taste in their mouths about a candidate? Watch out. And as previously discussed both here and elsewhere, Obama's ego trip and victory laps are not going unnoticed by even the MSM now. Especially when they  (MSM) are being discounted and walked on by junior and the juggernauts.

This article demonstrates clearly the kind of press that the candidate and his inner circle have created on their own, without any influences from the opposition or supposed smear tactics. The MSM is awakening slowly from their one night stand with Obama. And they are finding bigger problems than mussed hair and stained sheets. They are seeing a gloating paramour who hasn't respected them in the morning.  

Federal Budget Deficit for Fiscal 2009 Projected to Be $482 Billion

That's the headline today.The deficit is rising and congress doesn't seem to have any answers, other than partisan attacks. which are particularly interesting, seeing as the democrats have been some of the worst pork barrel violaters. 

An excerpt from an article posted today reflects what is really going on.

Link to article

Congressional Democratic leaders took aim at the administration — and the Republican candidate for the next administration — for what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called misguided priorities.

"The large budget deficit is a symptom of the many serious problems that Bush-McCain Republicans refuse to address. Rather than continuing the flawed policies that produced this result, Democrats believe we must change course," Reid, D-Nev., said.

Among the problems Reid said Republicans neglected were renewable energy, health care reform, and refocusing military efforts on Afghanistan. "Until we deal with these underlying problems, our budget deficits and the squeeze on Americas families will only get worse."

Likewise, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized what she called unrestrained spending.

"President Bush has mortgaged our future with record deficit spending on the wrong priorities. An unnecessary and extraordinarily costly war in Iraq has turned record surpluses into record deficits. Meanwhile, our economy is in a severe economic slump as a result of this President’s mismanagement," she said.

Reid and Pelosi are good at pointing fingers and assigning blame, while ignoring the actions of their own party in causing much of these deficits. With the exception of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, can anyone guess where the majority of the money being spent is going? And President Bush has been responsible for signing these bills. Bills literally loaded to the rafters with partisan pork on both sides of the isle. Meanwhile those like Reid want to attribute the deficits to not spending more money on health care and other social programs that he and the rest of the socialist democrats want to see funded.

The first thing that has to be done to get a handle on these deficits, is to understand that first and foremost, we can't spend our way out of debt. We have to put the brakes on a runaway system of government entitlements and other feel good programs that are not showing any results and haven't shown any results in the last forty years.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama wants to saddle America with a bill that he has proposed and obtained eighteen cosigners for, that would obligate this country to 845 billion between now and 2015, to address global poverty. That doesn't include the three billion estimated cost of his affordable health care plan. Simply put, we don't have the money to support what we are doing now, much less the money to do more. And rearranging the bank accounts to take money away from fighting terrorism to fund more socialist programs, doesn;t create anything other than creative bookkeeping.

Right now, Medicaid accounts for over half of the annual budget and the ammount being spent on medicaid is growing exponentially.Within five years, we won't have the money to fund Medicaid obligations. and that one item alone stands to bankrupt this country.

Reid and Pelosi need to got off of their partisan hobby horses and understand, that it's not as simple as taking money away from the war to fund their secular socialist dreams. Of course they already know that, but they continue to hammer their self induced lunacy at the dumb-masses, because they know to do so stands to elevate them back to power.

It's not about power, it's about survival. and while America is sinking daily in the quagmire of Washington politics, the liberals in congress are only concerned about winning politicla battles.

Microphone Picks Up Private Conversation Between Obama and British Leader on Need for Vacations and 'Thinking' Time

July 26, 2008 8:40 AM

At British Parliament today, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, met with Tory Leader David Cameron.

Seemingly unaware of an enormous fuzzy boom mike held by ABC News' Eric Kerchner, the two chatted casually -- and privately.

"You should be on the beach," Cameron told Obama. "You need a break. Well, you need to be able to keep your head together."

"You've got to refresh yourself," agreed Obama.

"Do you have a break at all?" asked Cameron.

"I have not," said Obama. "I am going to take a week in August. But I agree with you that somebody, somebody who had worked in the White House who -- not Clinton himself, but somebody who had been close to the process --  said that, should we be successful, that actually the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you're doing is thinking. And the biggest mistake that a lot of these folks make is just feeling as if you have to be -- "

"These guys just chalk your diary up," said Cameron, referring to a packed schedule.

"Right," Obama said. "In 15 minute increments …"

"We call it the dentist's waiting room," Cameron said. "You have to scrap that because you've got to have time."

"And, well, and you start making mistakes," Obama said, "or you lose the big picture. Or you lose a sense of, I think you lose a feel-- "

"Your feeling," interrupted Cameron. "And that is exactly what politics is all about. The judgment you bring to make decisions."

"That's exactly right," Obama said. "And the truth is that we've got a bunch of smart people, I think, who know ten times more than we do about the specifics of the topics. And so if what you're trying to do is micromanage and solve everything then you end up being a dilettante but you have to have enough knowledge to make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you."

-- Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller

If this open mike incident points to anything, it points directly to where Barack Obama is getting his policy and talking points from and his ideology and political philosophies. They for the most part are not his own manifestations of ideas,  as much as he admits the ideas of those around him. More direct evidence that Barack Obama isn't the quentisential essense of the second coming, but rather the vessel that has been chosen by the leftist elite of socialist democracy in America to carry the standard for this election cycle.

He has a bunch of smart people 'he thinks' ? Which represents the reality that it isn't Obama who is really calling the shots and he attributes their level of intelligence at level ten times greater than his own. This is and should be a scary revelation to those even remotely evaluating his candidacy and his ideologies objectively. He goes on to compare himself to a dilettante if he were to attempt to micro manage or get to deeply involved in the day to day realities of what he is hustling. That might reduce him to no more than a person with a superficial interest in the big picture. Apparently, he is comfortable leaving the big picture to tthe real policy makers and his handlers, and then looking over what they have produced and making the decisions that he feels are a good fit.

This is the man that wants to be the next president of the United States. This is the man that many in Europe swoon over and many more here in America get giddy over.  The man has no real policies or visions for this country, only the montage of liberal socialist ideologies that are floated past him for approval, as if he were already the president and he was making choices of new wall paper for the Oval office.

As every day passes, another layer of the onion is revealed and the true twisted ideologies and who is really inspiring them is revealed. And like a real onion, it should be enough to make the average American cry at the thought of this man ever being given the reins of the most powerful country on this earth.

Barack Obama and Tony

Obama Downplays Political Impact of Overseas Visit

by FOXNews.com

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Barack Obama downplayed the political implications of his weeklong trip to Europe and the Middle East Saturday, saying he wouldn’t be surprised if he saw a downtick in his poll numbers upon his return.

The Illinois senator spoke to reporters in London on the final stop of his tour, after meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

After a week of photo ops, high-level talks with foreign leaders and media coverage befitting an international celeb, Obama said he doesn’t even know if the trip will help him — in the U.S., anyway.

“You know, I’m not sure that there is going to be some immediate political impact. You know, I wouldn’t even be surprised if that in some polls that you saw a little bit of a dip as a consequence,” Obama said.

Once again Barack Obama demonstrates his ability to take the reality and re-manufacture it into his own reality for the best political appearance of the moment. Barack Obama's world tour had two purposes and two purposes alone. And those purposes were first to manufacture foreign policy knowledge and seeming experience in the middle east and just as importantly if not more, to be seen looking presidential for the lemmings back home and the media that he took with him. In addition, Obama hoped to hit the spring board that would separate him significantly and permanently from John McCain going into next months conventions. But it didn't happen.

Having taken with him the media personalities of the three major media networks and a whole bevy of sundry lesser journalist from other media outlets, he didn't meet with the results that he had planned for. His whistle stop visits to Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan proved to no more than photo ops and choreographed sound bites provided by the military hosts and the media was left standing outside the perimeter while Obama walked the rope lines inside the secured atmospheres of the bases, where all contact with the troops was limited and staged.  And Andrea Mitchel's pointing that out to the folks back home certainly didn't help Obama's cause or presentation any.

And the one time that he did set down to be interviewed by Katie Couric while in the middle east, she boxed him in so completely with his parsing of the success of the surge in Iraq, that he came off looking both confused and bewildered at her persistence in trying to get him to give a straight answer or admit that the surge in Iraq was a success period.

His next stop in Israel, saw him schmoozing with Israeli leaders and more photographs. Then he gave a speech that was tantamount to watching a ballet dancer performing on broken glass. Having six weeks ago stated in front of AIPAC back home, that he would always support Israel and that he felt that Israel should have one capitol and that capital (Jerusalem) should not be a divided city, he had since back peddled from that statement at every opportunity. But he now found himself facing the Jews of Israel face to face and in an atmosphere that he realized would play heavily with the Jews back home and their votes come November. More parsed explanations of his Jerusalem remarks and his vision of the middle east, Israel and America followed by a brief trip to the Wailing Wall for more photos with his yarmulke and he was off to Germany.

Chancellor Merkel having previously canned his backdrop of the Brandenburg gate, Obama took to the streets in from of the Victory Column and gave his world vision speech not as a candidate for the American presidency, but as a citizen of the world. 200,000 people were reportedly there, but during many points of the speech, Obama met with a lukewarm response at best. When speaking of joining with Russia and the EU as partners in the global economy, or when talking about Germany's commitment and participation concerning terrorism or Iraq and Afghanistan, the crowd was subdued to say the least. The rips of applause coming only when he apologized for America's perceived shortcomings and his commitment to abject globalism and the prevention of global warming.

The next day in Paris while speaking with President Sarkozy, Obama seemed noticeably uncomfortable with the recognition of the image by the international press that he had been purposely creating and cultivated the previous day in Germany. Stating "I am not the president, I am just a US Senator.' That moment being the epiphany moment of his realization IMO, that the plan wasn't being received as he had hoped it would. The media wasn't playing along. His intent all along was that he be seen as looking presidential and giving visions of what could be expected after his election. But the media wasn't suppose to openly question his actions or intents of representation, they were suppose to just play along with the masquerade and report favorably on his performance to the folks back home. And yet there was one of those damn pesky EU reporters speaking out of script and pointing to the hem of his robe and asking bothersome questions for the otherwise eloqunet speaker.

By the time he reached the UK, for his meetings with Brown and a few others, the tone of the British reception was noticeable more reserved and less of the inkling of a faux state visit by the pseudo president and his traveling road show, as it had been in previous days. More photos and a few more words before leaving for home and the news that he already knew awaits him. But the British people took note quickly, that he had opted to have his first sit down with Tony Blair and that Gordon Brown was left standing for seconds. Not the way the Brits see as winning friends and influencing their public opinion. of him positively. And the subsequent reviews haven't boded well for him since in the media or the polls.

Regardless of the best attempts of Gallup the numbers haven't changed. Barack Obama remains in a dead tie with John McCain and his best attempt to date to heat of the race and pull away hasn't materialized into the numbers that he was hoping for. Before Obama left on the world tour, Gallup was tracking a supposed six point difference between him and McCain for the previous ten days. And after the trip the difference remains the same six points according to Gallup, even though they are attempting to portray it as something new. Meanwhile, other pollsters are showing a much closer 2-3 point difference that also hasn't been changed one iota by the Obama world tour.

And now Barack Obama is attempting to massage what he knows is a very real potential come Monday in the polls. With the people having had a full week of non stop coverage of the candidate doing his best to impersonate the president of the United States, will they be receptive to his apologies for his country and his pandering to the leaders of other nations in an obvious pseudo roll of statesman. In hopes of their embrace and support of his candidacy as a demonstration to the folks back home that the election is a done deal? Personally, I don't think so. I have said all week that I don't believe that the majority of Americans will appreciate someone representing their country in front of the nations of the world, while using apology and appeasement as the export du joir of representing his campaign or his vision. Neither do I believe that most Americans will fall for his juvenile attempts to create the image of himself standing before the German people as JFK or Reagan. Or the delivering his words as if they had been merely borrowed by the predecessors in the White house during lesser times.

Americans are a bit touchy about their icons, not the least of which being how they see American personalities representing them abroad. It's one thing for a president to visit other countries and speak on behalf of the American people. It is quite another thing for a celebrity or a candidate for the office to do the same and in the same moment be making apologies for the rest of us back home and giving winks and nods to the socialists of Europe. Real leaders and would be leaders of America don't disparage their country in front of others on the world stage. Any more than American personalities are long suffered for having done the same.

Barack Obama knows that he has miss-stepped, misspoken and misfired at several key moments of  his now concluded world tour. He now must return home to face the real critiques and the reviews of the  people who will judge his performances and determine their votes. And he knows from the early returns, that the American people's response has been much like the response by the crowd he addressed in Berlin. A smattering of applause here and there, but far too many tepid responses and discerning stares to make for great box office reviews once he returns home to America.

So once again Obama is revving up the massage machine and attempting to downplay the very real probability that the world tour didn't play well in Peoria. Or across the heartland in other cities and towns for that matter. In New York and LA and his beloved Chi town, he may get a better reception, but even there I hope he brought home a bunch of T shirts. Because the people at large haven't been overly impressed. And he knows it.

Zoo drama as escaped chimp grabs gun

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

An elderly chimp who climbed to the roof of a zoo to escape the heat defied the attempts of workers to get him down until they offered him a banana.

Ichiro the chimp, a 42-year-old resident of Ishikawa Zoo in Japan, managed to escape to the roof in order to cool down during a heatwave.

But it took a lot of work from the zoo staff to get him back. One worker was disarmed of his tranquiliser gun and the chimp withstood two direct hits from other workers.

It wasn't until someone hit on the old ape trick of offering a banana that he gingerly climbed back down.

Some things don't need a lot of commentary.

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