Pretty good. Pret-ty pret-ty pret-ty good.

In some way, however, small and secret, each of us is a little mad....Everyone is lonely at bottom and cries to be understood; but we can never entirely understand someone else, and each of us remains part stranger even to those who love us.... It is the weak who are cruel; gentleness can only be expected from the strong...Those who do not know fear are not really brave, for courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined....You can understand people better if you look at them - no matter how old or impressive they may be - as if they are children. For the most of us never mature; we simply grow taller....Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable...The purpose of life is to matter - to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that we lived at all. - Leo Buscaglia

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Obama Thinks Hamas, Hezb'allah Have Legiimate Grievances

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Sat, 17 May 2008 08:03:46 -0700

Ed Lasky

In an interview with New York Times columnist David Brooks , Barack Obama was asked about the statement he released regarding the situation in Lebanon. Specifically this statement was in issue:

all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately. It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment.

This statement was met with criticism for flying in the face of reality, for having a surreal air about it especially when that air was already filled with smoke from the ravages of Hezbollah attacks against the Lebanese government and the Sunni and Christian communities. His solutions seemed more akin to suggestions offered in civics and good government courses rather than geopolitcal and strategy courses.

Brooks gave him an opportunity to undo some of the political damage (amazing how the media always allows Barack Obama to have makeovers when his statements cause him political problems) by expanding on his previously issued statement. He stated that Hezbollah is not a legitimate political party (despite holding seats in the Lebanese Parliament-a fact that he does not acknowledge) and offered further commentary through Brooks:

I asked him what he meant with all this emphasis on electoral and patronage reform. He said the U.S. should help the Lebanese government deliver better services to the Shiites "to peel support away from Hezbollah" and encourage the local populace to "view them as an oppressive force." The U.S. should "find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services."
The U.S. needs a foreign policy that "looks at the root causes of problems and dangers." Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that "they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims." He knows these movements aren't going away anytime soon ("Those missiles aren't going to dissolve"), but "if they decide to shift, we're going to recognize that. That's an evolution that should be recognized."

One wishes that Barack Obama had gone further and articulated what aims he feels Hezbollah and Hamas hold that he considers legitimate? What legitimate goals does Hamas have? They were given Gaza and the chance existed for them to develop the land and help their people. Instead they turned it into a terror base: killing opponents, killing Christians, brainwashign their children to hate,  launching thousands of missiles into Israel. Having been given Gaza what additional aims would Senator Obama consider legitimate? The release of terrorists from Israeli jails, the movement of millions of Palestinians into Israel, the destruction of Israel, the killing of Jews and Christians around the world?

Both organizations were founded and have as their principal aim the destruction of Israel. Their charters-especially so in the case of Hamas-talk about the killing of Jews and Christians around the world. They are fiercely anti-American and filled with religious extremism. Are those legitimate aims? After all, appeasers in Europe-particularly in England-justified their approaches towards Adolf Hitler by agreeing that he also had legitimate claims (on territorial and World War One reparations). By granting credibility to these terror groups-and to at least some of their aims-does he enhance their status , power and obduracy going forward? Those are questions one wishes David Brooks had asked.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/05/post_87.html at May 17, 2008 - 11:02:29 AM EDT

I don't know what scares me more! The ignorance that Obama shows toward geo-politics, or the people in this great country that would actually vote for him.
Be afraid!! Be very afraid!!!

Posted by: Jimmi Hayden | May 16, 2008 12:27 PM

Obama is dangerous, yes, but examine WHY this is so. It is because he embraces an extremist philosophy, is demonstrably THE most liberal-left member of Congress, and contrary to his false assertions, has an agenda that, if implemented, would set back not only our culture and way of life but advance those of very dangerous groups like La Raza, the ACLU and others like them.

Posted by: Ed Schneider | May 16, 2008 12:44 PM

I think Jimmi (above post) hit on something very important, maybe without realizing it: That so many would cast a vote for such radical socialists as Barack and Hillary is, I think, the single most important problem facing this country today!

Posted by: Ed Hoppe | May 16, 2008 07:03 PM

Hitler loved European diplomacy. Winston Churchill, instead of giving back to England a rightful - I told you so - considered himself a failure for not doing more to convince his country of Hitler's ultimate goals. England tried appeasement through diplomacy and all this ended up doing was buying more time for Hitler to build up his forces. Mullah's in Iran are the lead dog in all of this & using the same strategy. Buying time for developing the bomb, therefore letting us repeat the same mistake. What's to "negotiate" with any of these people until they back down from their goal of killing the Jews? - NOTHING!! My prediction - as soon as it's seen by Israel, Obama's got the presidency locked up - boom goes Iran. Democrats demagoguery of how their talk of withdrawing our forces led the Iraqi government to step up will turn out be true towards Israel. They're the country who ultimately can't afford Obama to be elected.

Posted by: Ciscokid | May 17, 2008 09:49 AM

Send to a friend

What do the Saudis Want?

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:54:20 -0700

By Judith Klinghoffer

Slowly but surely it is beginning to dawn on a world mesmerized by the Democratic primary contest that an oil cartel has been picking our pocket with impunity by willfully failing to adjust its output to the additional needs of China and India. More specifically, Americans are beginning to wonder at the logic of continuing to keep Saudis safe. Hence, the US-Saudi oil axis faces a day of truth when president Bush will deliver diplomatically to his Saudi hosts the message NY senator Chuck Schumer delivered most undiplomatically:

We are saying to the Saudis that, if you don't help us, why should we be helping you?

And the Saudis are only NOT helping, they are hurting.

The Saudis have let their output fall from 9.5m to 8.5m bpd over the last two years, camouflaging the move behind the accession of Ecuador and Angola to the group (which boosted nominal supply). OPEC failed to compensate for a 330,000 bpd drop in Nigerian production in April, allowing the market to tighten further.

Saudi behavior baffles none other than Dr Fadhil Chalabi, a former OPEC secretary-general and now director of the Centre for Global Energy Studies:

"They have about half a million barrels a day of good crude that they could put on the market. The puzzle is why they are not doing it. The soaring price is obviously telling us that the world needs more oil,"he said. "I can't understand why the Saudis would risk their strategic relationship with the US over this.
"They need the US more than ever given the growing influence of Iran in the region," he said.

Prior to President Bush's visit, the Saudis put out the word out that they would promise Bush to produce more though they would not help lower the price of oil regardless of Congressional threats to proceed with legislation penalizing the OPEC producers' cartel for "anti-competitiveness practices". But when Bush arrived they rebuffed him completely arguing that they had already increased production by 300,000 barrels per day earlier this month. Consequently, the Saudi oil minister insisted, all is well:

"Supply and demand are in balance today... The fundamentals are sound."

Ouch! but why?

The short answer is: OPEC, including the Saudis, want to prevent oil from becoming obsolete. Alternatively, they want to make as much money as possible as long as possible and to be able to use their sovereign wealth funds to maintain the economic leverage they currently enjoy.

And what will it take to change their mind? For what are they bargaining?

That answer can be found in the Financial Times editorial entitled Time to convene a summit on oil:

First, they want to see energy demands curtailed rather than supplies increased so that oil will continue to be able to meet that need.

Second, they want oil consumers to continue to promote investment in oil and to promise NOT to invest in or subsidize seriously the development of alternatives to oil.

Third, if alternative energy is to be developed, it should not substitute for oil, merely supplement it.

Fourth, they want "to smooth the recycling of billions of dollars in oil revenues from producers back into consuming countries." In other words, end the growing scrutiny of sovereign wealth funds.

Such demands make perfect sense from the oil producers' point of view as it will enable them to maintain their noose not only around the West's neck but also around Asia's neck. Indeed, I cannot imagine anything more dangerous than meeting these demands because it is bound to exacerbate the current world wide competition over energy supplies and even lead to another world war. Asians are particularly and justifiably annoyed with Western calls to limit their development.

Nor should the dangers posed by sovereign wealth funds be downplayed, fashionable as it may be to do so. It is particularly useful to recollect the warnings issued by the editors of the FT as late as July 2007. Everything written then has only become more pressing now:

The sheer volume of money placed at their disposal – ING estimates that they manage $2,200bn, which could grow to $7,000bn to $9,000bn by 2015 – adds a new dimension to the perennial sensitivities of cross-border buy-outs. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in calling for a European system to vet acquisitions by these funds, responds to genuine concerns over their opaque nature and potential to act through political motives. . . .

Yet the rapid growth of sovereign wealth funds poses risks beyond that of national security. There are worries over competence within some funds; concerns that their scale and ability to affect asset prices could lead to market volatility; and suspicion that they could help countries preserve a favourable currency regime. If decisions are swayed by political considerations, they could also undermine market discipline that matches rewards to sound corporate governance.

Hence, the FT's editors call for an oil summit at which the oil producers' demands would be met is most disconcerting, as is their columnist Martin Wolf's idealistic recommendation that scarce oil be shared and shared alike:

. . . do try to reach global agreement on a pact on trade in oil based on the fundamental principle that producers will be allowed to sell their oil to the highest bidder. In other words, the global oil market needs to remain integrated. Nobody should use military muscle to secure a privileged position within it.

Yes, and my grandmother has wheels. What is called for is a realistic recognition that the time has come to reduce, not enhance OPEC's economic power and that we will all pay dearly if we squander the opportunity to develop alternative energy sources (though not food based biofuel which leads to higher food costs), presented by the current high price of oil. For ultimately, nothing less is at stake than the peace and prosperity of our global community.

Dr. Judith Apter Klinghoffer is the author of Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences, the co-author of International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights and a History News Network blogger.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/what_do_the_saudis_want.html at May 17, 2008 - 10:53:28 AM EDT

Send to a friend

Woman indicted in Missouri MySpace suicide case

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:09:25 -0700

Good. Send a message that there will be repercussions if you mess with the life of a child.

link
A Missouri woman was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.
Lori Drew, 49, of suburban St. Louis, who allegedly helped create a MySpace account in the name of someone who didn't exist to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, was charged with conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone else's computer.
Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006, allegedly after receiving a dozen or more cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Does It Mean Brad Will Now Ask Angelina To Marry Him?

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:05:34 -0700

Remember this?

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie support same-sex marriage

Brad Pitt, ever the social activist, says he won't be marrying Angelina Jolie until the restrictions on who can marry whom are dropped.

Isn't California considered to be your residence?

Eat those words, Bradley Pitt

Send to a friend

Are New Yorkers Rude?

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:30:16 -0700

Yes.
I left a long time ago, so what's my problem? Innate?

New Yorkers are truly good people. They will give you their shirt, feed you, save your life, hold your hair back when you're vomiting, drive you where you need to go, tell you the truth (yes, you did gain weight), and for the most part, are down to earth.

Do they curse like truck drivers? Yes.

It's the culture......

You got a problem with that?

Why do New Yorkers seem rude? A noted critic and essayist has a few ideas
By Joan Acocella
Photographs by Bob Sacha
Smithsonian magazine, April 2008
In my experience, many people believe that New Yorkers are smarter than other Americans, and this may actually be true. The majority of people who live in New York City were not born here. Indeed, more than a third were not born in the United States. New Yorkers, then, are people who left another place and came here, looking for something, which suggests that the population is preselected for higher energy and ambition.
Also for a willingness to forgo basic comforts. I grew up in California, where even middle-income people have a patio on which they can eat breakfast and where almost everyone has a car. In New York, only upper-income people enjoy those amenities. The others would like to share them. I sometimes get into conversations with taxi drivers, and since most of them are new to the city, I often ask them what they miss about the place they came from. Almost always, they name very ordinary pleasures: a slower pace of life, a café where they could sit around and talk to friends, a street where they could play kickball without getting run over. Those who miss these things enough will go back home. That means that the rest of us, statistically, are more high-strung, hungry and intent on long-term gains—traits that quite possibly correlate with intelligence.
But I think it's also possible that New Yorkers just appear smarter, because they make less separation between private and public life. That is, they act on the street as they do in private. In the United States today, public behavior is ruled by a kind of compulsory cheer that people probably picked up from television and advertising and that coats their transactions in a smooth, shiny glaze, making them seem empty-headed. New Yorkers have not yet gotten the knack of this. That may be because so many of them grew up outside the United States, and also because they live so much of their lives in public, eating their lunches in parks, riding to work in subways. It's hard to keep up the smiley face for that many hours a day.
It is said that New Yorkers are rude, but I think what people mean by that is that New Yorkers are more familiar. The man who waits on you in the delicatessen is likely to call you sweetheart. (Feminists have gotten used to this.) People on the bus will say, "I have the same handbag as you. How much did you pay?" If they don't like the way you are treating your children, they will tell you. And should you try to cut in front of somebody in the grocery store checkout line, you will be swiftly corrected. My mother, who lives in California, doesn't like to be kept waiting, so when she goes into the bank, she says to the people in the line, "Oh, I have just one little thing to ask the teller. Do you mind?" Then she scoots to the front of the line, takes the next teller and transacts her business, which is typically no briefer than anyone else's. People let her do this because she is an old lady. In New York, she wouldn't get away with it for a second.
While New Yorkers don't mind correcting you, they also want to help you. In the subway or on the sidewalk, when someone asks a passerby for directions, other people, overhearing, may hover nearby, disappointed that they were not the ones asked, and waiting to see if maybe they can get a word in. New Yorkers like to be experts. Actually, all people like to be experts, but most of them satisfy this need with friends and children and employees. New Yorkers, once again, tend to behave with strangers the way they do with people they know.
This injects a certain drama into our public life. The other day I was in the post office when a man in line in front of me bought one of those U.S. Postal Service boxes. Then he moved down the counter a few inches to assemble his package while the clerk waited on the next person. But the man soon discovered that the books he wanted to mail were going to rattle around in the box, so he interrupted the clerk to tell her his problem. She offered to sell him a roll of bubble wrap, but he told her that he had already paid $2.79 for the box, and that was a lot for a box—he could have gotten a box for free at the liquor store—and what was he going to do with a whole roll of bubble wrap? Carry it around all day? The clerk shrugged. Then the man spotted a copy of the Village Voice on the counter and laid hold of it to use it for stuffing. "No!" said the clerk. "That's my Voice." Annoyed, the man put it back and looked around helplessly. Now a woman in line behind me said she'd give him the sections of her New York Times that she didn't want, and she began going through the paper. "Real estate? You can have real estate. Sports? Here, take sports." But the real estate section was all the man needed. He separated the pages, stuffed them in the box and proceeded to the taping process (interrupting the clerk once again). Another man in line asked the woman if he could have the sports section, since she didn't want it. She gave it to him, and so finally everything was settled.
This was an interesting show, to which you could have a wide range of reactions. Why didn't the box man bring some stuffing? If the clerk hadn't finished her Village Voice, why did she leave it on the counter? And so on. In any case, the scene sufficed to fill up those boring minutes in line—or, I should add, to annoy the people who just wanted to read their newspaper in peace instead of being exposed to the man's postal adventure. I won't say this could happen only in New York, but I believe that the probability is much greater here.
Why are New Yorkers like this? It goes against psychological principles. Psychologists tell us that the more stimuli people are bombarded with, the more they will recede into themselves and ignore others. So why is it that New Yorkers, who are certainly confronted with enough stimuli, do the opposite? I have already given a few possible answers, but here's one more: the special difficulties of life in New York—the small apartments, the struggle for a seat on the bus or a table at a restaurant—seem to breed a sense of common cause. When New Yorkers see a stranger, they don't think, "I don't know you." They think, "I know you. I know your problems—they're the same as mine—and furthermore we have the same handbag." So that's how they treat you.
This belief in a shared plight may underlie the remarkable level of cooperation that New Yorkers can show in times of trouble. Every few years or so, we have a water shortage, and then the mayor goes on the radio and tells us that we can't leave the water running in the sink while we're brushing our teeth. Surprise! People obey, and the water table goes up again. The more serious the problem, the more dramatic the displays of cooperation. I will not speak of the World Trade Center disaster, because it is too large a subject, but the last time we had a citywide power failure, and hence no traffic lights, I saw men in business suits—they looked like lawyers—directing traffic at busy intersections on Ninth Avenue. They got to be traffic cops for a day and tell the big trucks when to stop and when to go. They looked utterly delighted.
Another curious form of cooperation one sees in New York is the unspoken ban on staring at celebrities. When you get into an elevator in an office building and find that you are riding with Paul McCartney—this happened to me—you are not supposed to look at him. You can peek for a second, but then you must avert your eyes. The idea is that Paul McCartney has to be given his space like anyone else. A limousine can bring him to the building he wants to go to, but it can't take him to the 12th floor. To get there, he has to ride in an elevator with the rest of us, and we shouldn't take advantage of that. This logic is self-flattering. It's nice to think that Paul McCartney needs us to do him a favor, and that we live in a city with so many famous people that we can afford to ignore them. But if vanity is involved, so is generosity. I remember, once, in the early '90s, standing in a crowded lobby at City Center Theater when Jackie Onassis walked in. Everyone looked at her and then immediately looked down. There was a whole mob of people staring at their shoes. When Jackie died, a few years later, I was happy to remember that scene. I was glad that we had been polite to her.
Of course, the rule with celebrities, which forbids involvement, is different from the other expressions of common cause, which dictate involvement. And since few of us are celebrities, the latter are far more numerous. As a result, New Yorkers, however kind and generous, may also come off as opinionated and intrusive. Living with them is a little like being a child again and having your mother with you all the time, helping you, correcting you, butting into your business. And that, I believe, is another reason why New Yorkers seem smarter. Your mother knew better, too, right?
Joan Acocella is a staff writer for The New Yorker.
Photographer Bob Sacha is based in New York City.

NY Mag link to a girl who supposedly wants to kill Santa Claus. He doesn't see her coming through the crowd. She's clearly evil.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Why Kids Lie

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:12:11 -0700

Good NY Magazine article

Kids lie early, often, and for all sorts of reasons—to avoid punishment, to bond with friends, to gain a sense of control. But now there’s a singular theory for one way this habit develops: They are just copying their parents.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Fascinated

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:06:13 -0700

By the idea of Obama, just not his ideas.

The idea being, he's seen as a transcended, post racial figure.

But he's too liberal and too much like Carter. I don't think Obama can deal with the dangers of Iran.

Bush in Israel, throwing punches. I love it. I am not mad about it. I know Bush wants his party to prosper. He wants a McCain-Clinton showdown. If McCain goes against Obama he has virtually no chance of winning. Enter Hillary. McCain's chances increase. But you know and I know, people really don't want another 8 years of Bush. Hillary's chances increase.

Now, with a few weeks left to go, it's the perfect time to make Obama look bad.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Big News In California

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:26:39 -0700

California's top court legalizes gay marriage

California's Supreme Court declared gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry — a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.

Same-sex couples could tie the knot in as little as a month. But the window could close soon after — religious and social conservatives are pressing to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would undo the Supreme Court ruling and ban gay marriage.

"Essentially, this boils down to love. We love each other. We now have equal rights under the law," declared a jubilant Robin Tyler, a plaintiff in the case along with her partner. She added: "We're going to get married. No Tupperware, please."

A crowd of people raised their fists in triumph inside City Hall, and people wrapped themselves in the rainbow-colored gay-pride flag outside the courthouse. In the Castro, the historic center of the gay community in San Francisco, Tim Oviatt wept as he watched the news on TV.

"I've been waiting for this all my life. This is a life-affirming moment," he said.

By the afternoon, gay and lesbian couples had already started lining up at San Francisco City Hall to make appointments to get marriage licenses. In West Hollywood, supporters were planning to serve "wedding cake" at an evening celebration. link

Send to a friend