I often agree with Philip Adams... Some people I know do not. They find him pompous, full of himself and sub-patronising. Not faults in my book if only parts of a style in which strong truth is expressed bravely. But today, his blind support for Barack Obama and demolition of Hillary Clinton appeared to me below the belt. One does not make a great US President because one does great speeches in 2004. Many cartoonists in the USA show Hillary as the wrecker of the Democrat Party with her determination to hang on despite having been behind (no far though) in the presidential nominations... I see a strange opposite. Obama was the wrecker of the party — Hillary's party, sure. But then he will unify the Democrats or so we believe. And it's not a question of color if there are some doubts... Doubts include his feeding from many religious trough. I suppose one's got to know what's around one though...

I feel a few Democrat Super Delegates could start shaking in their boots for having given Obama the ointment.

His record in the senate has been mostly obscure but on the Cheney energy bill, for example, he sided with the Republicans. Hillary did not. On the gun laws in Washington, his recent "pirouette" shows he's ready to do anything for votes, including massage or disembowel "principles" ... His views on the death penalty, and other back-flips with a twist, are abhorrent and should be so to the fair minded (but pompous for some) Adams.

I fear, young Obama may be painting pure white with his "hope and change" rhetoric brush, be milk chocolate of skin (love it - nothing wrong with that) but dark of soul in his desire to grab power at any cost, while being "generous" with his cash. Thus if he is "blackened" by his opponents, Obama may have only himself to blame. I may be wrong. I hope I am wrong. It's not like in Australia where one's got to elect a smarter cookie than Rattus, the former PM, to take the hot seat. In the US, the Prez is on his way out no matter what after two terms. The Democrats to some extend had better candidates than Hillary and Barack, but the machine (the press and the people) dismissed them pronto.

Our new PM has a few issues to sort out and we knew that, before passing him the baton... We might give him the stick instead anyway... Kev Ruddy has to wake up. Things are not so simple. His saving moneys like 20 billions is borderline when claytonly decimating the CSIRO for example for a few dollars more (in the footstep of Johnnee-the-Slasher) is not on. Or like giving the funny tax break for planting trees on farm-lands in the name of carbon-trading, while at the same time letting old growth forest being felled (a wicked legislation dreamed up by Johnnee-the-Smartee, but not enacted before the elections).

As they say, nothing's perfect but there is no reason why things should not be better. Sure the human capitalistic way has always been to demolish things to rebuild them, while keeping a few retaining walls. These two seemingly opposed activities create "the business" flow. Nature is more cautious. It takes time to evolve and consolidate its capital. Yet we just burn it. But fear not...

An so flipflopped Barack... 

Gun Laws and Crime: A Complex Relationship
By ADAM LIPTAK

Lurking behind the Supreme Court’s ruling last week that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms were a series of fascinating, disputed and now in many ways irrelevant questions.

Do gun control laws reduce crime? Do they save lives? Is it possible they even cost lives?

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, one of the dissenters in the 5-to-4 decision, surveyed a quite substantial body of empirical research on whether gun control laws do any good. Then he wrote: “The upshot is a set of studies and counterstudies that, at most, could leave a judge uncertain about the proper policy conclusion.”

There is no question, of course, that guns figure in countless murders, suicides and accidental deaths. Over the five years ending in 1997, the Justice Department says, there was an average of 36,000 firearms-related deaths a year. (Fifty-one percent were suicides, and 44 percent homicides.) Determining whether particular gun control laws would have, on balance, prevented some of those deaths is difficult. Take Washington, D.C., whose near-total ban on handguns in the home was on the receiving end of last week’s decision.

At the crudest level, as Justice Breyer wrote, violent crime in Washington has increased since the ban took effect in 1976. “Indeed,” he continued, “a comparison with 49 other major cities reveals that the district’s homicide rate is actually substantially higher relative to these other cities than it was before the handgun restriction went into place.”

Those statistics by themselves prove nothing, of course. Factors aside from the gun ban, like demographics, economics and the drug trade, were almost certainly in play. “As students of elementary logic know,” Justice Breyer wrote, “after it does not mean because of it.”

But Gary Kleck, a professor at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, whose work Justice Breyer cited, said there were good reasons for making a definitive judgment.

“We know the D.C. handgun ban didn’t reduce homicide,” he said in an interview.

Not everyone agrees.

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Gus: Sure, guns alone do not kill people and whether having more or less guns amongst the population may or may not influence the numbers of murders, in statistical soup. It does affect the numbers of suicides though.

But the main paradigm is that guns, although not driving exclusively to a culture of violence, do contribute to it should there be such an under-current. Canada for example has a similar proportion of guns per capita than the United States. Yet Canada has far less "murders' per capita than the United States where there is about 36,000 death by small guns annually of which 15,000 are murders. If there had been an increase of say 1,000 murders and a decrease of say 6,000 suicides, the upshot would be to carry on with the ban and work arduously to eliminate the culture of violence — a culture that unfortunately oozes from the US President down.

Having less guns about under properly managed gun control may not be enough. Rather than bring a relaxation of gun laws, the laws should be made even tougher...  Look at one of Johnnee's success. Everyone hails his strict gun control laws (a drover's dog enacting the same laws would have had similar success too). Is it possible too that the "toughest" gun control laws in the US are a full of loop-holes?

Guns, especially hand guns for "self-defence", are the symbols of an immature society. Having more guns available for the pockets of good folks do not fare well on our values — Christian or whatever... 

Most guns are designed to kill. Handguns are designed to kill people. 

In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying

By Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2008; A04

FINDLAY, Ohio -- On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 -- best vacation of his life -- and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room.

He believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him.

On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor's house, at his son's auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate's background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

"It's like you're hearing about two different men with nothing in common," Peterman said. "It makes it impossible to figure out what's true, or what you can believe."

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Gus: I do not know Obama and my feelings could be wrong. All I know is what I have collected from many official (including US senate papers) and unofficial websites, and countless news reports. And a few things do not add up. Officially, he is a Christian in favour of more guns, is in favour of the death penalty and voted for Cheney's energy bill. That's already enough to worry me: it's the wrong mix of beliefs as if designed to capture Republican voters while evocating a liberal/social attitude. A bit glib in my book. At least with Hillary, there were flaws and truer turn of phrase that unfortunately were turned upside down by the press and used against her while she was really expressing positive, if uncomfortable truths. She shot herself a few time by embellishing her adventures while Barack stayed the course, dumped his pastors when required and used lovely gymnastics of "change' in his "beliefs" to explain his position. Barack is the consummate spruiker and this worries me too. But I could be wrong. Yes, he has been involved with Muslims, (Jews?) and Christians alike but this does not make him Muslim or Jew, as he profess to be Christian. I accept that... Bush professed to be Christian too and went on a killing spree. Thus understandably, people are weary... Obama's choice of VP will be telling... He may have no choice in the end, when starting to do some number crunching, but to nominate Hillary. 

GOP Sharpens Attacks on Obama
Allies of McCain Casting Democratic Candidate as Unprincipled, Opportunistic

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2008; A04

CLEVELAND -- Sen. John McCain's allies have seized on a new and aggressive line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama, casting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as an opportunistic and self-obsessed politician who will do and say anything to get elected.

McCain typically leaves the sharpened criticism to others, in the hope of being able to claim the high ground of conducting a "respectful" campaign. But the abrupt shift in tone among his paid staff members, volunteer surrogates and other Republican staples of the cable news circuit is unmistakable, and it resembles the unified message the GOP used to paint the 2004 Democratic candidate, Sen. John F. Kerry, as a flip-flopper.

It also reflects a growing belief among McCain's strategists that the campaign for the White House will be won or lost based on voters' view of Obama's character. In a strategy memo released Thursday, McCain's top political adviser accused Obama of "self-serving partisanship."

"In his time on the national stage, he has consistently put his party and his self-interest first," McCain strategist Steve Schmidt said in the memo. "We have seen Barack Obama forced to choose between principle and the interests of himself and his party. He has always chosen the latter."

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Gus: nothing wrong if you flip-flop-twist in the right direction... Obama flip-flops-backwards with a half turn it seems.

Mind you being unprincipled, opportunistic should make one ideal for the presidency

Senate Backs Wiretap Bill to Shield Phone Companies


By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: July 10, 2008

WASHINGTON — More than two and a half years after the disclosure of President’s Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program set off a furious national debate, the Senate gave final approval on Wednesday afternoon to broadening the government’s spy powers and providing legal immunity for the phone companies that took part in the wiretapping program.

President Bush praised the legislation’s passage in remarks from the Rose Garden. He is expected to quickly sign the surveillance plan into law.

The plan, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, marked one of Mr. Bush’s most hard-won legislative victories in a Democratic-led Congress where he has had little success of late. Both houses, controlled by Democrats, approved what amounted to the biggest restructuring of federal surveillance law in 30 years, giving the government more latitude to eavesdrop on targets abroad and at home who are suspected of links to terrorism.

The issue put Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. After long opposing the idea of immunity for the phone companies in the wiretapping operation, he voted for the plan on Wednesday. His reversal last month angered many of his most ardent supporters, who organized an unsuccessful drive to get him to reverse his position once again. And it came to symbolize what civil liberties advocates saw as “capitulation” by Democratic leaders to political pressure from the White House in an election year.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill.

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see toon at top... 

By Brian Stelter

Updated The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized Wednesday for critical comments he made about Senator Barack Obama that were picked up by a Fox News Channel microphone.

According to various reports, Mr. Jackson made disparaging remarks, apparently including a crude reference to male genitalia, about how Mr. Obama was talking to black people.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Jackson, a former Democratic candidate for president, said: “For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Senator Obama’s campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal. I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.”

He later held a news conference, during which he traced the history of the civil rights movement. He said he was passionate about Mr. Obama’s campaign and hoped his remarks wouldn’t distract from it, saying the campaign represented too many dreams and sacrifices made in the past. Mr. Jackson apologized after Fox News said it would be broadcasting the remarks on “The O’Reilly Factor” Wednesday night.

According to a Fox spokeswoman, Mr. Jackson was recorded speaking to Reid Tuckson, an executive vice president at United Health Group, when both men were about to be interviewed on “Fox & Friends” Sunday morning.

Bill O’Reilly, the host of “The O’Reilly Factor,” plans to play the exchange. At least one of the words will be bleeped, the spokeswoman confirmed.

Mr. Jackson’s comments were apparently in reaction to a recent speech Mr. Obama gave, saying that he felt Mr. Obama was “talking down to black people.”

Bush approves surveillance bill

US President George W Bush has approved a bill to shield telephone companies [just passed by Obama, rejected by Ms Clinton] who helped in the White House's controversial wiretaps programme.

The bill also grants the US government the power to continue with the telephone surveillance scheme.

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It would have been strange had Bush decided to veto the bill... "People of America... the US administration cannot spy on you anymore and your privacy is paramount to us — the gardians of the constitution — as paramount as the gun you keep in your bedside table... Please, use it wisely, but use it... shoot someone... otherwise loose it..."

Big Brother of 1984 fades into insignificance, as we accept our dumbing pills and lemming ointments while cherishing our daily bread of dictum... "would you like a colonoscopy with that?" says the television set to the couch potato we've become...

Go ahead...  make my day.