Palin won far more viewers than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) or Obama running mate Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who addressed the crowd on day two and day three of the Democratic convention.
Interesting also to see that more people were tuning in to the Republican convention than the Democratic Convention.
Nielsen said an average 34.4 million people watched the Republican convention over its main three days. The convention was scaled back on it’s opening day as Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
An average 30.2 million viewers tuned in to the four-day Democratic Convention in Denver, Nielsen said.
I thought that the Republicans were supposed to be distraught, dismayed, and dispirited, but it seems like they’re packing in the crowds and the atmosphere at their convention was best described as ebullient.
Sorry folks, I have been absolutely slammed with work and other responsibilities, so I have been forced away from Musing for quite awhile.
As much as I might have wanted to, I haven’t had time to comment on the election. However, the latest from Harry Reid was too good to pass up. Apparently Harry Reid’s office referred to Sarah Palin’s speech as “shrill and sarcastic.”
Reid’s spokesman is defending the comment as appropriate since Palin commented on Reid’s self-admitted dislike for John McCain (Reid noted that he “can’t stand” McCain). However, it’s clear that the the term “shrill” was clearly and deliberately targeted toward Palin’s gender. For those who think otherwise, try a little experiment for me and then let me know how it works for you.
Guys; next time you’re having a discussion with your wife, girlfriend, female co-worker, mom, sister, or another woman in your life, let it drop — and make yourself clear — that you think she’s being “shrill.”
Women; try to imagine being in the discussion I described above and tell me if your blood pressure isn’t already rising.
Try the same experiment another time and switch the word “shrill” with “angry” or some other term not targeted specifically toward females. See if the response you get is any different.
Truthfully, no reasonable person can honestly claim that this was a non-gender specific comment from Harry Reid. This is one of those terms that ranks right up there with telling that special lady in your life to “settle down” or “relax” in the middle of an argument.
As an aside, I am even more amazed that American feminists are playing along with the attacks.
This Daniel Pipes article on the Muslim world’s take on Obama is an eye opener.
How do Muslims see Barack Hussein Obama? They have three choices: either as he presents himself – someone who has “never been a Muslim” and has “always been a Christian”; or as a fellow Muslim; or as an apostate from Islam.
Reports suggests that while Americans generally view the Democratic candidate having had no religion before converting at Reverend Jeremiah Wrights’s hands at age 27, Muslims the world over rarely see him as Christian but usually as either Muslim or ex-Muslim.
One quote from a Christian Science article serves to highlight the confusion over Obama’s ambiguous religious background.
A conversation in Beirut, quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, captures the puzzlement. “He has to be good for Arabs because he is a Muslim,” observed a grocer. “He’s not a Muslim, he’s a Christian,” replied a customer. Retorted the grocer: “He can’t be a Christian. His middle name is Hussein.” Arabic discussions of Obama sometimes mention his middle name as a code, with no further comment needed.
The ex-Muslim view is also interesting because, as Pipes notes later in the article, if that view persists, the Muslim world could see easily see the war on terror as being led by an apostate ex-Muslim. That could become a rallying call for al Qaeda.
Andrew Walden has an in depth article on the financial and business links between recently-convicted Obama fundraiser and slum lord, Tony Rezko and Iraqi-British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. He supplies one key reason why the few remaining unbiased reporters out there are refusing to investigate.
Why aren’t the American media investigating the role of British billionaire businessman Nadhmi Auchi in supplying loans to Barack Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko? Some point to media bias, but there is another factor. Working for Auchi, who was born in Iraq, attorneys from London law firm Carter-Ruck have for several months been flooding American and British newspapers and websites with letters demanding removal of material they deem “defamatory” to their client.
In its June 28 edition, British satirical magazine Private Eye explains: “Until Carter-Ruck and Partners and England’s stifling libel laws got to work, the few American journalists not caught up in Obama-mania were turning to the archives of the British press to answer an intriguing question: who is Nadhmi Auchi?”
What is so “stifling” about English libel law? In the U.K., as Carter-Ruck explains on its own website, “A libel claimant does not have to prove that the words are false or to prove that he has in fact suffered any loss. Damage is presumed.”
The Obama campaign recently issued a non-denial denial in response to claims that Obama met with Auchi?contained in Jerome Corsi’s bestseller, The Obama Nation. They cited only two references. One is, “Mr. Auchi’s lawyer” who told the February 27, 2008 London Evening Standard, “As far as he can remember he has had no direct contact with Mr. Obama.” Another is, “A lawyer for Auchi, Alasdair Pepper” who says, according to the April 16, 2008 Washington Post, “Auchi Had ‘No Recollection’ Of Meeting Obama or Michelle.” Alasdair Pepper is the attorney whose name appears on the Carter-Ruck demand letters.
The links that Auchi’s lawyers appear willing to go to cleanse the public record of this man’s name and influence are intriguing. Given their extensive list of successes, information on this issue is likely going to have to go viral very soon, or key information on Obama’s links and sources of money could be wiped out.
Excellent ad by the American Issues Project on Obama’s close political alliances with a self-admitted and unrepentant domestic terrorist.
The Obama campaign has responded with a lame attempt to distance themselves from Ayers. They’re actually trying to sell the line that Obama was only 9 years old when Ayers was “declaring war” on the U.S.
For example, I received this email from JohnKerry.com this morning.
The ad is filled with lies as it desperately tries to distract people from McCain’s horrible policies, and it attempts to tie Barack Obama to a man he has almost no connection with, someone who lives in the same neighborhood named William Ayers.
Here’s the facts: Ayers was in a radical group back in the 60s when Barack Obama was 8 or 9. Barack Obama has already denounced the long-past activities of this guy …
This group and the Obama campaign don’t, however, bother to explain why Obama — as a 34 year old adult — allied himself with Ayers and referred to him as “respectable” and “mainstream.” They don’t explain why Obama allowed Ayers to host fund raising parties for Obama in Ayers’ home in 95. They don’t explain why Obama continued to serve on foundation boards with Ayers around the same time that Ayers bemoaned the idea that the Weather Underground “didn’t do enough.”
More importantly, they don’t explain why Obama is pulling the same stunt that he pulled with Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger. They don’t explain why he spends years, working with and associating with these people, never having any apparent concerns with their radical, anti-social, anti-American, and destructive views. He quite happily associates with and uses their radical connections and politics to advance his own career and power. Then, when the public learns just how radical his associates are, he stands up and “denounces” their actions and words for the TV cameras. From the other side of his mouth he claims that “this is not the person that I knew” for all those years.
None of this is believable. Obama has clearly associated himself with the most radical, criminal, and anti-American elements in society for many years and those associations are completely germane to his judgment and to understanding his foundational beliefs. The man is not a suitable selection for the presidency.
The American Issues Project has responded to the Obama campaign’s attempts to censor the ad by flooding radio and TV stations, demanding that the ad be pulled. Not surprisingly, their response blows the Obama campaign’s feeble defenses out of the water.
The Obama campaign has been contacting stations running American Issues Project’s ad in an unsuccessful attempt to compel them to pull the spot. The Obama campaign also sent a letter yesterday to the Department of Justice asking the government to investigate American Issues Project, its officers, board of directors, and donors. With no success on either front, the campaign has begun running its own ad in response. Notably, this ad fails to dispute a single fact in the American Issues Project’s initial ad.
“The Obama campaign knows it can’t argue the facts of the link between Obama and Ayers, so it is instead resorting to a desperate campaign of intimidation and legal threats,” said Ed Martin, American Issues Project’s president. “The scary question this raises is if Barack Obama demonstrates this little regard for free speech from his opponents during the campaign, what could the American people expect from him as a president?”
Obama claims he is sooo concerned about fixing all the problems that exist in this country; he wants to tax the so-called rich — who already pay over eighty percent of the country’s taxes — to cover the bills for his outlandish spending proposals. He wants to redistribute your hard-earned money to the “poor” of the country. However, he doesn’t appear willing to toss a few of his millions in the direction of his own family members who daily live under the pressures of real poverty.
Seems a teeny bit hypocritical from where I’m sitting.
I was talking with a friend yesterday who is absolutely convinced that Hillary will be the Democratic nominee for president. Despite the fact that Hillary lost in the delegate count, he refuses to believe that she’s gone. He said he expects her and her supporters to begin cutting his feet out from under Obama by pushing his mounting legal issues (alliances with Rezko, Ayers, etc.), poor judgment (again Rezko, Ayers, Dorhn), his character failings, his lack of experience, and … the whole “he wasn’t born in America” issue.
I laughed it off and then, as I was reading through some of my morning email, I came across this article.
A prominent Pennsylvania Democrat has sued Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and, therefore, is not eligible to be president of the United States.
Philip J. Berg, a former member of Pennsylvania’s Democratic State Committee and former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, filed the lawsuit this week in U.S District Court, asking the court to declare Obama ineligible for the presidency and to prevent him from running for the position.
However, a WND investigation has found that at least part of Berg’s lawsuit relies on discredited claims.
A separate motion was also filed seeking a temporary restraining order on Obama’s presidential campaign until Obama’s eligibility can be verified.
Notice that this motion is being carried out by a high-ranking Democrat - the Republicans don’t appear to be involved. It seems that my friend is correct about the idea that the pro-Hillary crowd refuses to let go of the nomination. Whether it will gain any traction or not remains to be seen.
Why is it that elections always seem to have so many legal and technical problems when the Democrats are involved? (Just wondering out loud here.)
Classic bit of insight into the notion that the “science” of climate change is settled.
It’s absolutely 100% rock-solid SETTLED … in stone … cemented … locked up … pwned … comprehended … understood … nothing more to discuss … only the absolute outermost fringe thinks there’s anything left to be learned … until you suggest that the billions in funding being shoveled out to these climate scientists be used for something else. Then you hear the indignant shrieks of how much more there is still to learn.
The science of AGW is settled . . . unless, that is, you suggest that the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for climate-related research might be used in more productive ways (say, by letting taxpayers keep it). Then the story becomes: no…no, we desperately need billions more to look into the grave uncertainties.
Climate models that predict environmental catastrophe decades hence are supposedly so accurate that we must start starving ourselves of energy on their say-so — as in theClimate Change Science Program’s “Unified Synthesis Project” on which I commented yesterday. But now we learn that the state of computer modeling is so in its infancy that billions more are necessary to make them suitable for the purposes to which they are already being put.
Whose the bigger fools in this issue. The climate modelers who snidely look down their noses at the so-called fringe skeptics, informing the world that they KNOW the answers, or taxpayers and elected officials who continue to hemorrhage tax dollars into their increasingly complex and arcane models (that seem unusually well suited to predict the opposite of the models prepared by the guy in the next lab).
I wasn’t a bit surprised to see that Obama selected Biden as his running mate. In this ticket, you have two of the most arrogant, elitist, socialist Prima Donnas in the country vying for the power to control all of our lives. To steal a line from Forrest Gump, they’re like two peas in a pod. They belong together.
Of course Biden, wasn’t more than a few minutes into the process before he allowed his latent bigotry to show though and started making cracks about educated women.
Since he has always thought he should be the Presidnet, I wonder how long it will take him to try to usurp the role of the nominee? It seems that Obama is already beginning to recognize that he will not really be in control of this little partnership. (Who was he introducing? The next President … err … oh yah! Right, I’m the nominee … The next Vice President … Freudian slip, or had Biden already made a move to take over?)
This Newsmax.com editorial describes a Media Research Center study that shows how the major networks handed Obama the Democratic nomination with their unfailing support and glowing reviews. While the MSM had grown weary of the Clinton machine and willingly advanced negative opinion and damaging stories about Hillary, they coddled Obama and fawned over his every move.
The three broadcast networks ran 462 positive stories about Obama — 34 percent of the total — compared with only 70 stories (5 percent) that were critical.
NBC Nightly News was the most lopsided, with 179 pro-Obama reports, more than 10 times the number of anti-Obama stories, 17. The CBS Evening News ran 156 stories in favor of Obama, compared to just 21 anti-Obama reports. ABC’s World News was the least slanted, but still tilted roughly four-to-one in Obama’s favor — 127 positive stories to 32 negative reports.
Barack Obama received his best press “when it mattered most, as he debuted on the national scene,” the MRC report observed. All three networks lavished him with praise when he was the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic Convention, and did not produce a single negative story about Obama prior to the start of his presidential campaign in early 2007.
Obama’s relationship with convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko was the subject of only two full network reports, one each on ABC and NBC, and was mentioned in just 15 other stories. Also, CBS and NBC initially downplayed controversial statements from Obama’s long-time pastor Jeremiah Wright.
Obama’s best press of this year came after he won the North Carolina primary on May 6. After that, 43 percent of stories were favorable to Obama, compared to just 1 percent that were critical.
The networks referred to Obama as a “liberal” only 14 times in four years, while on twice as many occasions reporters referred to him as either a “rock star,” “rising star,” or “superstar” during the same period.
Of 147 average citizens who expressed an on-camera opinion about Obama, 114 were pro-Obama, compared to just 28 that offered a negative opinion, with the remaining five offering a mixed opinion.
The article also describes just how close the race was, with “41,662 votes out of more than 35 million cast” separating Obama and Hillary. With a race that close, there is no denying that the schoolgirl crush the media has on Obama pushed him over the top.
When the headline said that China was “flaying animals alive” I thought, this has to be just a headline to get me into the article. It wasn’t.
I admit that these reports are coming from PeTA. I will also admit that the videos may be limited to a small sector of the Chinese fur industry. However, the video that is shown on this Worldnetdaily.com article, and the PeTA website, is so brutal and so graphic that I had trouble sitting through it. (Warning to those with weak stomachs - DO NOT watch that video! This is the sort of thing that will stick with you for a long time.)
I’ll preface this comment with the fact that I have hunted my whole life. I have also helped to raise and butcher my own livestock. I also have no problem wearing leather or fur products. I have even defended the Canadian seal hunt. However, nothing that I have seen in my experience was as completely callous and over the top brutal as the methods used by these Chinese fur producers.
When in the article they describe the workers literally skinning the dogs alive, they are serious. The dogs are still squirming and yelping as the workers are cutting away at them. When the dogs, bleeding from the snout and choking on their tongues, try to move away from the worker, they are kicked, hit, and their heads and necks are stepped on; enough to inflict further abuse, but not enough to kill them. The same video also shows a skinned dog (literally no fur) lying on a pile of dog carcasses moving around, blinking, and looking at the camera.
Words really don’t do justice to the lack of basic human concern shown by these people.
The WND article also lists a string of other dangerous products that have already come from China - just in in 2007.
Portable baby swings that entrap youngsters, resulting in 60 reports of cuts, bruises and abrasions;
Swimming pool ladders that break, resulting in 127 reports of injuries, including leg lacerations requiring up to 21 stitches, five reports of bone fractures, two back injuries, two reports of torn ligaments and eight sprained ankles;
Faulty baby carriers that result in babies falling out and getting bruised, getting skulls cracked and hospitalizations;
Easy-Bake Ovens that trap children’s fingers in openings, resulting in burns;
Oscillating tower fans whose faulty wiring results in fires, burns and smoke inhalation injuries;
Exploding air pumps that have resulted in 13 lacerations including six facial injuries and one to the eye;
Bargain-priced oil-filled electric heaters, selling for less than $50, that burn down homes;
Notebook computer batteries that burn up computers, cause other property damage and burn users;
Circular saws with faulty blade guards that result in cutting users, not wood.
Add to that list the grotesque and sickening abuse of these animals and I am going to focus on “Made in USA” or “Made in Canada” stickers from now on.
This Forbes article reinforces the idea that when compared to Olympic games held in free countries, the Chinese Olympics are only beautiful and well organized … on the surface. However, when one scratches that surface the brutal oppression and immediate suppression of any and all human expression belies the open nature of the games.
This nationalistic pride of China was appropriately manifest in the breathtaking beauty of the opening ceremonies, the logistical efficiency of the games, the newly planted forests and a largely ceremonial Olympic Green.
This manufactured perfection was matched by legions of conscripted “volunteers,” the Potemkin village-like disguise of unsightly buildings with faux veneers, uniformed spirit sections at venues with scripted cheering at random moments, a lip-synched little girl’s soprano, pre-recorded spliced-in fireworks and the perpetual emptiness at the far-flung locations designated for protesters.
Where previous Olympic games had their share of publicly visible errors, the Chinese dictatorship has carefully masked over any evidence of dissent or mistake. Where the Chinese Olympics have the dry, antiseptic, ordered sameness typical of a Soviet-era military parade, previous games have had what the Forbes author termed, “chaos, confusion, conflict and spontaneous joy.”
Everything, from the lip-syncing opening act, to the performance of the “16 year-old” Chinese gymnasts, to the impressively decorated but near empty Olympic Green appears to have been put on, scripted events that destroy the spontaneity and expression usually associated with these global gatherings.
To borrow from a constant theme of my university days, the Chinese Olympics lack authenticity. The more I see and read about them, the more I see a brilliantly painted facade that hides the decaying and stunted souls of 1.3 billion people. A facade created to dupe the media and the ignorant.
The Chinese government’s creation appears beautiful, but it’s actually untouchable and unwelcoming, much like the special living room in your childhood friend’s home; the one with the plastic covered sofa. It appears inviting at first glance, but trying to go there is both anticlimactic and dangerous.
It’s good to see that some in the Canadian health care establishment are willing to recognize just how horrible socialist health care provision in Canada has become.
The natural next step for Canada’s health system is allowing more private delivery, which will give patients more choice, and better access to care, the new president of the Canadian Medical Association says.
“My whole career has been about resolving access issues. This is my battle horse,” said Robert Ouellet, who takes over Wednesday as president of the CMA.
“Private delivery is an accepted practice everywhere in the world and it’s time Canada accepted this reality.”
I have written about the wait lists and cues in several posts on this blog and dozens of other places as well (and yes, my Mom is still waiting for that hip replacement 3.5 yrs and counting). Others are agreeing and reporting that people are literally dying on the wait lists.
The comments after the article are equally interesting. Many Canadians are clinging to the silly belief that the reason the wait lists are so long is because the government refuses to fund health care - despite the fact that approximately 10% of Canadian GDP goes to health care spending. They also add in the note that wait lists are also too long because the doctor to patient ratio is too low. Surprise!!! When you restrict the ability of doctors to charge a reasonable fee for their time and effort and to practice in the area they want, they move to the U.S. where they can make a decent living. No wonder the ratio is weighted so heavily toward patients in a socialist system.
One hopes that elected officials listen to people like Ouellet and the millions of Canadians who are being forced to choose between waiting for years or traveling to another country for necessary treatments.
Thank heavens for the symbolic foolishness of nanny state busy bodies brave and fearless city councilors in London, Ont. If it weren’t for their shameless pandering to self-righteous special interest strong principled stand on this important issue, the people of London might have had more freedom of choice been a party to the continued rape and destruction of our precious Gaia Mother Earth.
The water fountain is about to make a comeback. Plastic water bottles are the focus of a growing national backlash that’s turning them from a fashion accessory into the latest environmental taboo. The issue reached a head in London, Ont., Monday night after city council voted to eliminate sales of bottled water at all city-run facilities, including arenas and community centres, and possibly even golf courses.
Now the good people of London can feel smug and holier than thou as they wait (and wait and wait and wait) in the waiting rooms of walk in clinics to get treatments for the disease spread by water fountains. But what’s a little hepatitis compared to the self-righteous enviro-cred you gain by engaging in meaningless gestures you think will save the blessed Earth Mother from the demon human infestation?
More importantly though, as the comments following the article indicate, the people of Canada are apparently proud that these industrious city councilors — who appear to lack any real, serious issues that need to be addressed — have struck a blow against big soda pop. Maybe they’ll have the good pre-election sense to follow this up with something even bigger and braver.
They could really strike a blow for the “little guy” by holding hearings, in which they subpoena the managers of the local Coca Cola and Pepsi distributors. They could then force bottled beverage barons to testify on the “windfall profits” they’ve made selling bottled water. If Londonites were only that brave, then we could finally answer the question of whether big soda has colluded to fix the price of bottled beverages.
Kliff Kincaid has published another revealing article that describes Obama’s close childhood relationship with Marxist and Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis.
More revealing than the fact that Obama’s younger years were heavily influenced by a known CPUSA member is the Obama campaign’s attempts to cleanse and cover over the relationship and Davis’ radical past. In this article, Kincaid details how the Obama campaign’s rebuttal of Jerome Corsi’s book, The Obama Nation, carefully censors Davis’ past and hides portions of pro-Davis articles to ensure both Obama and Davis are presented in as palatable a light as possible.
For example, instead of describing Davis as being intricately engaged in the Hawaii branch of the CPUSA, the Obama campaign and friendly members of the MSM describe him only as a ” ‘left-leaning’ poet and journalist’ and “as being involved in the ‘labor movement’ with other ‘African-American intellectuals’ and committed to racial integration and harmony.”
A comment following the article is every bit as revealing in that it points out the futility of Obama’s efforts to censor and hide the truth about his past from American voters. The commenter questions why Obama is bothering to hide Davis’ ties with the CPUSA and Davis’ obvious influence on his life and beliefs? He wonders why Obama is risking angering voters with this cloak and dagger silliness when Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party are openly espousing socialist/Marxist policies that fit well with the policies proposed by the CPUSA, like mandatory minimum wage laws, the nationalization of our energy industry, nationalization of health care provision, and many others, along with their historical support of the expansion of the welfare state and the raising of taxes.
That commenter makes a very good point. It would seem far more open and honest to simply admit that Obama (and much of the Democratic Party) have been heavily influenced by Marxist rhetoric and teachings. Not surprisingly, their campaign platforms show the extent of that influence. The recent CPUSA endorsement of Obama would seem to cement the link.
They may refer to it by names like “progressive” today but when looked at from the sidelines their end goals are essentially the same. So one is forced to wonder why Kincaid is forced to dig and dig and dig for small snippets of information that have been missed by the Obama campaign’s cleansing teams. One is also forced to wonder why the media refuses to even touch the issue.
Every voter should be asking why our media doesn’t see Obama’s core beliefs as newsworthy?
The elite, socialist, genius, agent of “change” is letting the influence of his Marxist mentor show through. In his plan to deal with the fiscal impacts of $4 gas — a price which he recently stated was a good thing that just happened too quickly — Obama has stated that his administration would impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies. He would then take that money and “give” American families a $1,000 rebate on their taxes. This plan is apparently supposed to help families deal with the rapidly rising price of gas.
Clearly, we can see that while he may have paid close attention during his international law courses at university, Mr. Obama must have skipped his into Econ courses. As any first year university student learns, corporations don’t really pay taxes; they pass the increased prices on to consumers. So Obama’s plan will only give people a quick bump in their bank accounts that will soon be just as empty when companies in all sectors adjust their prices to account for Obama’s raising of their operational costs.
If Obama was really serous about dealing with the “windfall profits” that are being made on the sale of petroleum products, his campaign platform would start by returning the hundreds of billions in profits that the government collects in the form of fuel taxes from working families across America.
API statistics show that oil companies made a 7.4% profit on sales of their petroleum products in Q1 08. That makes up 29.6 cents out of a $4 gallon of gasoline. In contrast, the government (at various levels) imposed a 13% tax on each gallon of gas — 52.4 cents on each gallon of gas. The government is almost doubling the oil industry’s income from the sale of gasoline and other petroleum products, yet Obama says nothing about their obscene profits or the impacts their taxes are having on working families.
Really people, with stats like these, who is actually enjoying “windfall profits” on the backs of the hardworking people of the country?
Obama clearly isn’t serious about helping working families. He wants to increase the size, scope, and power of government as it expands to handle the increased income from, and then redistribution of, these so-called windfall profits taxes. He wants the average American dependent on whatever handouts he is able to wring from companies and individuals, regardless of the fact that those handouts are actually going to increase overall costs.
If he were really serious about addressing the issue of gasoline prices, Obama would advocate the reduction of gasoline taxes and rebate the multiple billions in windfall profits that the government has brought in from sale of gasoline and petroleum products. As it is now, he’s just selling people a new line with $1,000 of their own taxes.
The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse has released two excellent commercials that consider the difference between being someone’s biological father and being their “Dad.”
Being a Dad takes time and commitment and, as the ads state,
The smallest moments can have the biggest impact on a child’s life. …
Take time to be a dad today.
Another way you can be a good dad is showing your child how much you love and respect their mother. Your sons will learn how to treat their wives by watching how you treat their mom. Your daughters will learn what to expect from their husbands the same way.
Here’s a classic case of the big government, socialist mindset being confronted with something other than a scripted, politically-correct talking point. When that happens, you will almost always get one of two responses; 1) An immediate, vitriolic, and personal attack, or 2) Regression into a numbed repetition of meaningless and/or discredited talking points.
Canadian Health Minister, Tony Clement, saw the second response when he openly disagreed with World Health Organization policies that support so-called safe injection sites at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. Actually having to face reasoned dissent left one WHO official flummoxed and near catatonic, able to only repeat a meaningless five-word mantra.
When asked for his views on safe injection sites, Clement pulled no punches,
Allowing and/or encouraging people to inject heroin into their veins is not harm reduction, it is the opposite. … We believe it is a form of harm addition. … “We’re not prepared to allow people to die” by condoning their continued drug use, Mr. Clement said.
And it is a form of harm addition. Encouraging heroin addicts to continue with their addiction and actually providing them the tools and protective environment in which they can nurse that addiction, ignore their other responsibilities, avoid the costs of their lifestyle choices, and live off of government handouts is not a help. In the PC-speak of the international bureaucrats, it’s “facilitating” their self-destructive behaviors.
Not surprisingly, WHO officials were stymied by an individual who did not go along with their carefully scripted rhetoric.
Teguest Guerma, associate director of the HIV-AIDS department at the WHO, who was clearly uncomfortable about the exchange between the minister and reporters about the apparent contradiction in Canada’s position, would only say: “The WHO supports harm reduction.”
She repeated the phrase more than a dozen times, only once adding “including all interventions that benefit injecting drug users.”
Faced with the reality that there are those who actually disagree with coddling addicts and who have an expectation that addicts need to do more with their lives than cue up for their next government-funded fix, Guerma was lost. She wasn’t swaddled in her protective ivory tower environment or greeted with friendly faces and familiar, politically correct slogans and she appears to have literally broke down for a moment. All she had to offer was that five-word mantra as her protective charm against Clement’s words.
Her inability to mount an effective defense for her positions indicates the paucity of “reasoning” that acts as a foundation for her beliefs. This lady is the Associate Director of the HIV/AIDS department at WHO. She likely draws a very comfortable salary, “working” full time as an international bureaucrat, wholly focused on the challenge of reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS. However. she is wholly incapable of offering any more than “the WHO supports harm reduction” when someone disagrees with her.
Unfortunately for Guerma, she has just become the personification of the lack of reasoning that underlies these massive international socialist organizations.
As an aside, the article does go on to make a good point about the Canadian government’s contradictory approach to dealing with drug abuse.
Mr. Clement has never clearly stated why the government supports needle exchange and rehab programs but so sternly opposes the existence of a facility where drug users can actually use the safe needles and be encouraged to enter rehab. The sticking point appears to be that, at Insite, drug users cannot be arrested and prosecuted.
The government should get out of the business of handing freebies over to drug addicts period.
Additionally, legalization may be a well known libertarian position (i.e.: what you put into your own body is your own business). However, so long as those who choose to put those drugs into their bodies immediately jab their hands out, demanding that tax dollars provide them with clean injection sites, clean needles, “free” health care, “free” rehab programs, subsidized housing, “free” education for their children, etc., they’re not advancing a libertarian, so much as a libertine argument. They want to be free from all moral, legal, and social restrictions when it comes to their choice to inject, inhale, or insert anything into their body. They also expect to be “free” from all obligations or responsibilities to cover the costs of those choices.
When these so-called libertarians are willing to fund their own addiction and deal with the well-known and destructive outcomes of their lifestyles and activities, then I will willingly step aside and recognize their freedoms to do with themselves as they see fit. Until then, they have no more right to demand the proceeds of my work fund their addiction than the guy down the street who “needs” a new car to get to work, or his kid who “needs” a new XBox 360, or the obese person who “needs” that bag of chips …
Tell me again that the press doesn’t have a liberal bias. Tell me that they’re only interested in getting to the bottom of an issue. Whatever the outcome, they only want the truth presented to their listening/reading public.
Now read this question, posed by MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer to Newsweek Paris bureau chief Christopher Dickey as Brewer and Dickey discuss whether Obama is pulling the South together and “freeing them from their histories, or pushing them apart.”
There are probably a lot of families, too, who are wary of that stereotype, that racist stereotype that gets slapped on the South so frequently, but in your travels, you found merchants who are selling what clearly are hurtful symbols of the South’s racist past. And so how does Barack Obama really stand a chance in places where so many people do cling to their Southern, sometimes racist traditions?
For those who missed the irony in that question. Brewer makes it clear that it’s wrong for Southerners to hold prejudicial views about African-Americans. However, she has no difficulties with portraying the actions of a few merchants as representative of the populations of the Southern States. In her world, Southerners are a bunch of inbred, hilly billy, racists. No logical or moral disconnects there.
Clearly in Brewer’s mind the only way the South can move past their history is to vote for Obama. It doesn’t matter if they don’t agree with his socialism, his tax-and-spend policies, his flip-flopping, his elitism, his questionable judgment and associations with anti-American religious leaders and domestic terrorists, as well as his obvious disdain for small town voters. None of that is pertinent. If they don’t vote Obama, they’re racist and Brewer and her palls in the pro-Obama MSM are going to do everything in their power to get Obama elected.
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