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This week Obama told us that he has asked Congress for an "initial" $50 billion to begin a six-year-plan to restore and and upgrade our infrastructure. Necessary, he said to keep pace with China, who is far wiser than the U.S. - wise enough to "invest today for tomorrow." He said it once in August, and again on October 11th. Don't you love being compared to a Communist country?
“Right now China is building hundreds of thousands of miles of new roads. Over the next 10 years it plans to build dozens of new airports. Over the next 20 it could build as many as 170 new mass transit systems. Everywhere else they are thinking big, they are creating jobs today, but they are also planning to win tomorrow,” said President Obama.Never mind, Mr. President, that of China's 751,000+ miles of highway, only 168,586 are paved, including highways. By contrast, the U.S. has 2,615,870 miles of paved roads, including highways, and another 1,401,791 miles of unpaved roads. If we are going to worry about China, comparing roads...humiliating for you and China. Don't compare our water systems either. Embarrassingly for you, Beijing and most of China has comparatively none.
Fifteen years ago, the roads were empty, save for the constant stream of bicycles.
Today they are jammed from morning to night with close to three million private cars.
A thousand new cars hit the city's streets every day. By 2020 China will have 140 million private cars, more even than the United States.
A magnitude 6.9 7.1 earthquake struck near the site of Yushu county in Qinghai Province, China today. The last reports some 400 589 are dead and rescue efforts are underway to save others trapped below the rubble in this high-altitude, mountainous area. See a video below. See update late 4-14-10 below.
A lot of one-storey houses ave collapsed. Taller buildings have hel up, but there are big cracks in them. One official told journalists more than 85% of buildings near the epicentre had collapsed. The official added that "a lot of students" had been buried after part of a vocational school collapsed.The USGS says this is the strongest quake to hit the area since 1976. Power, phones and water are off. Six strong aftershocks are reported - all but one at or above 5.0 magnitude (this reports 18 aftershocks). See a good interactive map of Yushu area here.
The streets in Jiegu are thronged with panic, full of injured eople, with many of them bleeding from their injuries," Zhuohuaxia, a local spokesperson, told Xinhua news agency. "The biggest problems now is that we lanc tnets, medical equipment, medicine and medical workers."
According to the provincial government about 10,000 are injured.From GlobalVoicesOnline:
Look, we just have to accept these bows are the real thing. It has happened over and over now. Obama knows Americans hate the submissive and fawning bows. He does it anyway. The photo below is Obama bowing to Communism and the Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Funniest quote of the year: "The idea here is to keep on turning up the pressure" ~ Barack Obama. The operative word is "keep." We have not been ratcheting up pressure on Iran, so we cannot "keep" ratcheting up the pressure, especially with the veto powers of Commies China and Russia sitting on the U.N. Security Council.
"In our talks with China it was agreed that tools such as sanctions have lost their effectiveness," he told reporters in Beijing.I would like to see an American leader say to the Security Council, "screw you, strong letter to follow." I will get a coalition of nations to isolate Iran, thus making my country safer , Israel safer and the surrounding Islamic countries safer. If I fail, then so be it, but it won't be because I didn't try."
...experts say Iran could convert a stockpile of 20% enriched uranium to weapons grade material within six months.Former UN Ambassador John Bolton said this week that Obama is naive in thinking sanctions can now stop the country from acquiring a nuclear arsenal:
The test is, can you pass a sanctions resolution that will stop Iran from continuing to pursue nuclear weapons, and the unambiguous answer is no. This continued talk about sanctions is counterproductive because it gives people the kind of a warm and fuzzy and comfortable feeling that we're doing something when in reality we're not."We let the IAEA's now retired Mohamed El-Baradei, and a Nobel Peace prize awardee, lie to the world for years about Iran's nuclear aggression, and just one month ago, just before he was set to exit the world eye, he said "Iran has not implemented any of the measures called for by the Security Council...." In May 2008, El-Baradei said Iran was not after a bomb:
"We haven't seen indications or any concrete evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and I've been saying that consistently for the last five years," ElBaradei asserted.The bottom line is this: we have let the U.N. Security Council be dominated by Islamic nations, and we allowed a Muslim to watch the hen house.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says there is a need for a new global reserve currency that does not depend on the U.S. dollar, and the policies, practices, conditions and leadership of a dominant country - in this case, that would be the United States.
Known as "Dr Doom" for his negative stance, Prof Roubini argues that China is better placed than the US to provide a reserve currency for the 21st century because it has a large current account surplus, focused government and few of the economic worries the US faces.Wall Street Journal February 3, 2010:
Prof. Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and a former World Bank chief economist, wants to see an "orderly transition" from a dollar-based global economy. "It is peculiar that we still have the dollar system when we are so globalized," he says. "[There is a] need for a new global reserve system to replace the dollar-based system."...
Not only has the value of the dollar fallen, but with official interest rates close to zero and yields on bonds at record lows, the dollar has started looking like an unappealing asset to hold....
Figures from the International Monetary Fund show that the share of foreign-exchange reserves held in dollars by central banks resumed a downward trend in the third quarter of last year. The dollar's share has declined to 61.6% from 71.6% in the first quarter of 2002, when the currency hit its peak....Always lusting for a one world order, the United Nations says the dollar should be replaced with a global currency, proposing the biggest overhaul of the world's monetary system since WWII.
The First Pacific President who isn't, Barack Obama, has been deemed "nowhere on the world stage" by our German friends.
David Axelrod whined to the press that the "public's expectations had been too high." "Expectations too high" - echos throughout the world. Damage control for Barack Obama: Expectations too high - December 2008!,Expectations too high - January 2009! Expectations too high - February 2009! Expectations so high - March 2009! Expectations too high - June 2009! Expectations too high - October 2009! This list could go on an on, and just for the record, most of us red-blooded Americans out here are getting exactly what we expected out of Barack Obama. See a Charles Krauthammer video below explaining the "first Pacific President," and why Obama is not "it."
The following from der Spiegel Online:
The mood in Obama's foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The "first Pacific president," as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions."Lost Some Stature:"
Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik."Relatively Unsuccessful:"
When former President Bill Clinton went to China in June 1998, Beijing wanted to impress the Americans. A press conference in the Great Hall of the People, broadcast on television as a 70-minute live discussion, became a sensation the world over."A Lot Like Jimmy Carter:"
America should clean up its government finances, and the weak dollar is unacceptable, the head of the Chinese banking authority said, just as Obama's plane was about to land.
Obama's new foreign policy has also been relatively unsuccessful elsewhere, with even friends like Israel leaving him high and dry. For the government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, peace is only conceivable under its terms. Netanyahu has rejected Obama's call for a complete moratorium on the construction of settlements. As a result, Obama has nothing to offer the Palestinians and the Syrians. "We thought we had some leverage," says Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration and now an advisor to Obama. "But that proved to be an illusion."
Even the president seems to have lost his faith in a genial foreign policy. The approach that was being used in Afghanistan this spring, with its strong emphasis on civilian reconstruction, is already being changed. "We're searching for an exit strategy," said a staff member with the National Security Council on the sidelines of the Asia trip.
An end to diplomacy is also taking shape in Washington's policy toward Tehran. It is now up to Iran, Obama said, to convince the world that its nuclear power is peaceful....This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers....The world is beginning to get it.
Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy
Yesterday, it was revealed that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 2009 will be $1.4 Trillion - a deficit normally running about 3 percent of the gross domestic product, now will be 10 percent of our gross domestic product. In the video below, Senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama sets the scene for economic and military disaster. Today, as president, he carries that scene into our future.
[Obama] "For a nation to remain a preeminent military power, it must remain a preeminent economic power."
UPDATE 10/24/08: I'm finding this post all over the web. If you cross-post this, please also post all of the updates linked here: Michelle Obama - African Press Update 10/20/08 Michelle Obama and African Press Update African Press International Speaks About Michelle Obama's Phone Call Remember this: Disclaimer: This report is controversial. Is it true? API is standing behind it. Obama campaign says huh uh. So far, MO has not released her own statement. The African Press International allegedly got under Michelle Obama's skin and she came out swinging - bribing, actually. She allegedly offered API an invite to the inauguration, in exchange for a "good" story about her husband:
African press International is supposed to support Africans and African-American view,” and she went to state that, “it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband’s face and yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband’s adoption by His step father. The important thing here is where my husband’s heart is at the moment. I can tell the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by a foreigner; says Michelle Obama on telefon to API.API asks this question: Did Barack Obama have any part in the recent arrest of Jerome Corisi in Kenya - because Raila Odinga IS the Prime Minister there? Her answer, according to API, was not to dig that which will support "evil" people. When asked who was evil:
...many conservative white people and even some African Americans were against her husband, but that this group of blacks were simply doing so because of envy.Read the entire story at African Press International. Disclaimer: This report is controversial. Is it true? API is standing behind it. Obama campaign says huh uh. So far, MO has not released her own statement. Here's API's update - and yes, I find it odd:
A big thank you to reader bmc. I love my readers and commenters!ADDED HERE BELOW DUE TO HUGE INTEREST ON THE ABOVE STORY. (TIME 16:08 Scandinavian time)
Verification of the story: We have found it necessary to publish a telephone number that can be used to reach us should anyone doubt the story. We are doing this because of many requests by many people who want to know more abouth the story.
We are able to receive calls tomorrow the 16th of October through to the 18th October. We find it important that our readers get the truth and not be misled in any way. This is a true story and we stand by everyone written.
NB: For verification, we can be reached on 004793299739
Barack Obama campaigning with Raila Odinga in Kenya
Mr. Odinga had the backing of Kenya's Muslim community heading into the election. For months he denied any ties to Muslim leaders, but fell silent when Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, appeared on Kenya television displaying a memorandum of understanding signed on Aug. 29, 2007, by Mr. Odinga and the Muslim leader. Mr. Odinga then denied his denials. The details of the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] were shocking. In return for Muslim backing, Mr. Odinga promised to impose a number of measures favored by Muslims if he were elected president. Among these were recognition of "Islam as the only true religion," Islamic leaders would have an "oversight role to monitor activities of ALL other religions [emphasis in original]," installation of Shariah courts in every jurisdiction, a ban on Christian preaching, replacement of the police commissioner who "allowed himself to be used by heathens and Zionists," adoption of a women's dress code, and bans on alcohol and pork.Thank you to Goat at the Barnyard.
Update 6-14-10: When this report was first published in 2008, The Evangelical Alliance showed an agreement Raila Odinga signed with the National Muslim Leaders Forum (NMLF). That document is no longer on The Evangelical Alliance website. The agreement would have committed portions of Kenya to Sharia Law. There is confirmation that there was an agreement, but denial that the agreement on the Alliance website was the actual agreement. The question is, if there was an agreement between Raila Odinga and the NMLF why is it not made public?
Barack Obama campaigned with Odinga in 2006. Raila Odinga says he is Obama's cousin. Can Obama be the man this Country wants to be President? Will he turn over American Muslims to Shariah Law? It's not unreasonable to think so. He turned the other way when it was tried in Kenya.
Raila Odinga lost the election, but Kofi Annan stepped-in and secured the power-sharing, Prime Minister position for Odinga.
Related to all the above is a news account of extreme violence in Kenya after the elections, which Odinga did NOT win - and which are believed to be fueled by Odinga supporters: The Australian reports: The Australian link isn't working. Read it at CBS.
EVEN the children were burnt alive. In broad daylight, a crowd of Kenyans set a church filled with hundreds of terrified families on fire and listened to their screams as flames engulfed them. According to witnesses including police and a Red Cross volunteer, those who escaped the Assemblies of God Church in Eldoret, about 300km west of Nairobi, were hunted down with machetes; others hid inside pit latrines. With Mr Kibaki [the President] belonging to Kenya's largest tribe, the Kikuyu, and Mr Odinga to the second-largest, the Luo, the violence has taken on a distinctly ethnic hue...,
Those massacred in the church were mostly Kikuyus. Kenya's other 41 official tribes accuse them of monopolising political power and businesses at the expense of other tribes - accusations stridently taken up by supporters of Mr Odinga.Related - see campaign photo of Obama and Odinga: Barack Obama's Socialist and Communist Connection in Kenya
BREAKING NEWS BEFORE THE VIDEO on Fox News' America's Newsroom with Megyn Kelly: Geraldine Ferraro told Kelly that the University of Chicago should get terrorist William Ayers off the University staff - that as a terrorist, he should not be teaching students (my paraphrase). Kelly, this moment, is asking Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman, whether or not Obama knew that Ayers was a domestic terrorist. Burton answered that Obama did not know. That has to be a lie and here's why: 1) Barack and Michelle Obama were employed at the law firm Sidley Austin. So were Bill Ayers and his terrorist wife, Bernardine Dohrn. 2) Then Barack Obama was employed by Judson Miner, a civil rights law firm in Chicago. Miner was a classmate with Bernardine Dohrn at the UIC Law School in 1967. They were both involved in anti-war activity. As I've said before, do we think there are no talks around the Law firm water-coolers about infamous individuals, such as Ayers and Dohrn - and no talk in halls of UIC about their terrorist Professor? THAT is a willful suspension of disbelief. Here's a video of CNN's Anderson Cooper getting down to a few details of the Obama-Ayers connection. Thanks to Stop the ACLU YouTube.com> Related: Guilty as Hell, Free as a Bird, America is Great
2001 photo of William Ayers trouncing the U.S. Flag
Photo credit: Chicago Magazine
Kill all the rich people, break up their cars and apartments, bring the revolution home...that's where it's really at.So, how many parents died at the hands of their child following the admonitions of the Weatherman? We'll never know. David Horowitz gives us a first-hand look at Ayers
I interviewed Ayers ten years ago, in a kindergarten classroom in uptown Manhattan where he was employed to shape the minds of inner city children. Dressed in bib overalls with golden curls rolling below his ears, Ayers reviewed his activities as a terrorist for my tape recorder. When he was done, he broke into a broad, Jack Horner grin and summed up his experience: "Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country." What I saw was a shallowness beyond conception. All the Weather leaders I interviewed shared a similar vacuity. They were living inside a utopian fantasy, a separate reality, and had no idea of what they had done. Nor any way to measure it. Appreciating the nation to which they were born, recognizing the great gifts of freedom and opportunity their parents and communities had given them, distinguishing between right and wrong – it was all above their mental and moral ceiling.In the days ahead, this is one of the dangers we face.
Obama and Ayers and his convicted felon terrorist wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were likely connected as early as 1988. In fact, it's a willing suspension of disbelief to think they were not. Why? Global Labor - When Did Bill Ayers and Barack Obama Meet? has done some mighty research.
Ayers helped organize a major force in the lobbying for that 1988 campaign, the Alliance For Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs. The Developing Communities Project which Obama headed at that time was a member of the ABCs, apparently one of the few members of the ABCs that worked with the black community. Many in the black community knew that teaching, the unions and school administration were one avenue to the middle class for blacks and thus were wary of the reform effort. Certainly support for "local control" would have been a pre-requisite to allowing Obama to chair, at such a young and untested age, the Annenberg Challenge. Thus, I think we can safely date the beginning of the Obama-Ayers relationship to at least 1988 when the ABCs effort was underway in Chicago schools. That was also when Ayers and Obama would have met up with the future Executive Director of the Annenberg Challenge, who would have been hired by Ayers and Obama, Ken Rolling. Rolling in 1988 was on the staff of the Woods Fund which provided several grants to the school reform effort and to Obama's Developing Communities Project at that time. Of course, a decade later, in 1999, as is already widely known, Ayers would join Obama on the board of the Woods Fund itself.The Obama's, Michelle and Barack, were both employed by the law firm Sidley Austin; so were William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Bernardine Dorhn was refused admission to the New York bar but...
More from Global Labor:...she was hired as a legal clerk by Sidley and Austin, a major Chicago law firm, in their New York office in 1984.
Howard Trienens, then managing partner of the firm, recently told the Chicago Tribune that he arranged the hiring of Dohrn as a favor to his fellow Northwestern University trustee and classmate, Tom Ayers [William Ayers' father].
Tom Ayers' firm, Commonwealth Edison, has used Sidley as outside counsel for many years. She later worked in their Chicago office when she and Bill Ayers moved back to Chicago in 1987. She left Sidley in 1988.
Later, both Barack and Michelle Obama were hired by Sidley Austin. I think it ridiculous to assume there was no talk around the office water-cooler about the Ayers.
Still later, Barack Obama went to work for Judson Miner, "a small civil rights law firm in Chicago."Miner was also classmates with Bernardine Dohrn at the University of Chicago law school in 1967 where they were both were involved in anti-war activity.Barack Obama will do most anything to keep this relationship hidden. When you get to the voting booth, or hopefully long before, remember the photo above and Obama's lack of judgement. If he really abhorred William Ayers' past, he still continued to use him to propel his career forward. Thanks to reader BobF.
Tip to Jeremy Sarber and Friends. See five (5) more videos from Rachel and Perez at Jeremy Sarber and Friends Thanks to YouTube.com
Here's a former Democrat from Alaska, now a Libertarian, defending Sarah Palin. Comments about Palin's former brother-in-law, an Alaska State Trooper, begin at 2 minutes 59 seconds. The interviewers can't bend Gravel. He got his message out!
In China's Xinjiang Provence, where the second largest conflux of Chinese Muslims reside, China once feared the Uighur Muslims had separationist designs on their oil and gas rich lands. Through a Pact between China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, China officially has the co-operation of the Pact countries in combating militant Islam. In an article dated June 20, 2001, IslamOnline writes of "China's Gang of Six Against Muslims."
The war against Islam has enlarged further with the establishment of a new committee of Islamophobes, as Russia and China have forged a new regional alliance to combat the spread of Islam into Central Asian nations. "The signing of the...Pact has laid the legal foundation for jointly cracking down on terrorism, separatism and extremism, and reflects the firm determination of the six states to safeguard regional security,"....But it a messy world out there, with "terror" occurring throught the globe, and China is either committing it, or suffering from it. China still accuses the Xinjiang Muslims of a "separatist movement," with desires to "...split China." Uighur Muslims rocked the area of Beijing with threats against the Olympic games, keeping police at fever pitch, and a recent violent raid on a police station killed two Chinese and wounded several others. Here's the latest with Holger's take on China's Ramaden smack-down.
The Chinese, at least, are consistent. They have done their best to suppress Christianity in China and now are taking steps to crack down in the islamic centered province of Xinjiang. Of course, this new action of banning mass prayers in Xinjiang is more related to a punishment to the islamists there who have directed several terrorist attacks against China in the past few months. Here's some of the details from Express India:
Authorities in China's Muslim-populated far northwest province of Xinjiang are seeking to prevent mass prayers and the distribution of religious material as part of a security crackdown for Ramadan, government notices said. As the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan began, local governments this week issued orders to clamp down on security in the region and stop its ethnic Muslim Uighur population from using the holy month to foment further unrest. "Faced with recent violent and disruptive activities by religious extremists, separatists and terrorists, we must... step up ideological education of religious leaders and followers," a notice posted on Xinjiang's Zhaosu county website said.Now, the Chinese are trying to say that these are security precautions but this is much more than that. This is the Chinese sending a huge signal to the islamists that they are through [snip] around with them. My prediction is that the Chinese will further isolate these islamists in Xinjiang province...that they will further persecute them and believe me, it's not in my nature to root on the Chinese but in this situation, I say hallelujah! What will be interesting will be to see how the islamic influences in Xinjiang coming from outside of China react. Xinjiang province shares a good sized border with Pakistan and it is with much certainty that a lot of the munitions and strategy for the Xinjiang islamists is coming from Pakistan...can you imagine if that border were to erupt about now? Can you imagine a Chinese attack inside of Pakistan to quell the flow of munitions into Xinjiang? It will also be interesting to see the global response from the islamic and jihadist countries...you know, the Pakistans and the Afghanistans and the Irans of the world that went apeshit when the Danish cartoons were published...what will these countries say to China's ban of Ramadan prayers? I doubt we will see much uproar because most of these jihadist countries fear the Chinese (not to mention they are a pretty good oil customer). The Chinese have officially joined the Global War on Terror and although they certainly aren't a Western ally in that fight, it is welcome to see a country with balls of iron show the islamists the brand of response that they will recognize...and that is one of no mercy.
Well...listen (copying that from Senator Obama) Obama cannot be definitive on Iran because of the two differing networks: Shia and Sunni. This is incredibly lame coming from a Presidential nominee. Obama speaks of the perversion of the ideology and faith of Islam - as though this is something new. The problem is, it's not a perversion. The ideology of Islam demands the faith of Islam to jihad. Jihad is centuries old. The difference between now and centuries ago: they live among us and they have transportation to reach the shores of the free world. Obama's words are intellectually dishonest. You will hear Senator Obama not wanting to comment on "hypotheticals." He says everything is hypothetical. Planning for the quashing of the Iranian nuclear program is not hypothetical. We have only so many options. Obama ducks it. Best quote:
O'Reilly: OK. We'll assume you're going to ratchet everything you can ratchet. But I'm going to assume that Iran is going to say, "Blank you.Transcript below the video. Video courtesy of Youtube.com O'REILLY: Well, first of all, thanks for being a man of your word. BARACK OBAMA, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You bet. O'REILLY: But I was worried there for awhile. It's been nine months since we last met in New Hampshire. OBAMA: It took a little while. I've had a few things to do in between, but I appreciate you having me on the show. O'REILLY: OK. Let's start with national security. Do you believe we're in the middle of a War on Terror? OBAMA: Absolutely. O'REILLY: Who's the enemy? OBAMA: Al Qaeda, the Taliban, a whole host of networks that are bent on attacking America, who have a distorted ideology, who have perverted the faith of Islam, and so we have to go after them. O'REILLY: Is Iran part of that component? OBAMA: Iran is a major threat. Now, I don't think that there is a — the same — they are not part of the same network. You've got Shia, and you've got Sunni. We've got to have the ability to distinguish between these groups, because, for example, the war in Iraq is a good example, where I believe the administration lumped together Saddam Hussein, a terrible guy, with Al Qaeda, which had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. O'REILLY: We'll get to that. OBAMA: And as a consequence, we ended up, I think, misdirecting our resources. So they're all part of various terrorist networks that we have to shut down and we have to destroy, but they may not all be part and parcel of the same ideology. O'REILLY: But I still don't understand — and I'm asking this as an American as well as a journalist — how threatening you feel Iran is? Look, if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, OK, to me, they're going to give it to Hezbollah if they can develop the technology. Why not? And they'll say, "Well, we didn't have anything to do with it." So therefore, the next president of the United States is going to have to make a decision about Iran, whether to stop them militarily, because I don't believe — if diplomacy works, fine, but you've got to have a Plan B, and a lot of people say, "Look, Barack Obama is not going to attack Iran." OBAMA: Here's where you and I agree. It is unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon. It would be a game changer, and I've said that repeatedly. I've also said I would never take a military option off the table. O'REILLY: But would you prepare for one? OBAMA: Well, listen... O'REILLY: That's the question though, senator. Anybody can say option. Would you prepare for it? OBAMA: Look, it is not appropriate for somebody who is one of two people who can be the president of the United States to start tipping their hand in terms of what their plans might be with respect to Iran. It's sufficient to say I would not take the military option off the table and that I will never hesitate to use our military force in order to protect the homeland and United States' interests. But where I disagree with you is the notion that we've exhausted every other resource, because the fact of the matter is that, for six, seven years, during this administration, we weren't working as closely as we needed to do with the Europeans to create... O'REILLY: Diplomacy might work. You might be able to sanction economically. OBAMA: …sanctions. O'REILLY: Maybe. OBAMA: Maybe. O'REILLY: But that's all hypothetical. OBAMA: Everything is hypothetical, but the question is, are we trying to do what we need to do to ratchet up the pressure on them, to change their... O'REILLY: OK. We'll assume you're going to ratchet everything you can ratchet. But I'm going to assume that Iran is going to say, "Blank you. We're going to do what we want." And I want a president, whether it's you or McCain, who says, "You ain't doing that." All right. Let's go to Iraq. I think history will show it's the wrong battlefield, OK? And I think that you were perspicacious in your original assessment of the battlefield. OBAMA: I appreciate that. O'REILLY: I think you were desperately wrong on the surge, and I think you should admit it to the nation that now we have defeated the terrorists in Iraq, and the Al Qaeda came there after we invaded, as you know. We defeated them. OBAMA: Right. O'REILLY: If we didn't, they would have used it as a staging ground. We've also inhibited Iran from controlling the southern part of Iraq by the surge, which you did not support. So why won't you say, "I was right in the beginning. I was wrong about that"? OBAMA: If you listen to what I've said, and I'll repeat it right here on this show, I think that there's no doubt that the violence is down. I believe that that is a testimony to the troops that were sent and General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated, by the way, including President Bush and the other supporters. It has gone very well, partly because of the Anbar situation and the Sunni awakening, partly because of the Shia military. Look... O'REILLY: But if it were up to you, there wouldn't have been a surge. OBAMA: Look... O'REILLY: No, no, no, no. OBAMA: No, no, no... O'REILLY: If it were up to you, there wouldn't have been a surge. OBAMA: No, no, no. O'REILLY: You and Joe Biden, no surge. OBAMA: Hold on a second, Bill. If you look at the debate that was taking place, we had gone through five years of mismanagement of this war that I thought was disastrous. And the president wanted to double down and continue on an open-ended policy that did not create the kinds of pressure on the Iraqis to take responsibility and reconcile. O'REILLY: But it worked. It worked. Come on. OBAMA: Bill, what I've said is — I've already said it succeed beyond our wildest dreams. O'REILLY: Why can't you say, "I was right in the beginning, and I was wrong about the surge"? OBAMA: Because there's an underlying problem where what have we done. We have reduced the violence. O'REILLY: Yes. OBAMA: But the Iraqis still haven't taken responsibility, and we still don't have the kind of political reconciliation. We are still spending, Bill, $10 to $12 billion a month. O'REILLY: And I hope if you're president, you can get them to kick in and pay us back. OBAMA: They've got $79 billion. O'REILLY: I'll go with you. OBAMA: Let's go. O'REILLY: We'll get some of that money back. All right. Let's go to Afghanistan. Look, there's no winning the Taliban war unless Pakistan cracks down on the guys that are in Pakistan. OBAMA: You and I agree completely. Right. O'REILLY: We all know that. OBAMA: Right. O'REILLY: You gave a speech in Denver — good speech, by the way. OBAMA: Thank you. O'REILLY: But you bloviated about McCain not following him to the cave. You're not going to invade Pakistan, senator, if you're president. You're not going to send ground troops in there. You know it. OBAMA: Here's the problem. John McCain loves to say, "I would follow them to the gates of Hell." O'REILLY: But he's not going to invade either. OBAMA: And the point is what we could have done... O'REILLY: No, not could. Let's stay in now. OBAMA: What we can do... O'REILLY: Yes. OBAMA: ...is stay focused on Afghanistan and put more pressure on the Pakistanis. O'REILLY: Like what? OBAMA: For example, we are providing them military aid without having enough strings attached. So they're using the military aid that we use to Pakistan, they're preparing for a war against India. O'REILLY: So you're going to pull it out and let the Islamic fundamentalists take them over? OBAMA: No, no, no, no. What we say is, look, we're going to provide them with additional military support targeted at terrorists, and we're going to help build their democracy and provide... O'REILLY: We're doing that now. Negroponte's over there, and he's doing that. OBAMA: That is not what we've been doing, Bill. We've wasted $10 billion with Musharraf without holding him accountable for knocking out those safe havens. O'REILLY: So you are going to — again, more diplomacy, and we need it, absolutely, trying to convince the Pakistan government to take a more aggressive approach. If you don't, we're going to pull… OBAMA: And what I will do is, if we have bin Laden in our sights... O'REILLY: Yes. OBAMA: ...we target him, and we knock him out. O'REILLY: But everybody would do that. I mean, that would be the biggest win Bush could have. OBAMA: Of course. O'REILLY: If you send ground troops in, all hell breaks loose. OBAMA: We can't — we can't have — and nobody talked about some full-blown invasion of Pakistan, but the simple point that I made was we've got to put more pressure on Pakistan to do what they need to do. (END VIDEOTAPE) O'REILLY: All right. Again, the rest of the interview will be seen on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week [September 8, 9, 10], and it is lively.
BEIJING - When 16,000 athletes and officials show up this summer, they will be able to turn the taps and get drinkable water — something few Beijing residents ever have enjoyed.China has a long history of championing water conservation, but with an exploding population and often less-than responsible regulatory policies, few measurable results are evident. In May 2000 the Earth Policy Institute reported that the water table underneath the city of Beijing fell by eight feet, and since 1965 the water table has fallen nearly 200 feet. In November 2007, The International Herald Tribune confirmed that the underground water table beneath Shijiazhuang, China is "steadily running dry."
The underground water table is sinking about four feet a year. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater.In the 1950's, Shijiazhuang was home to 335,000 people. Today, the population of the city and its surrounds is in excess of 9 million. Increased population, accelerated housing and commercial development, combined with policies that have sometimes allowed building at the "lowest points in the city's water table," have created a mammoth problem.
China’s disadvantage, compared with the United States, is that it has a smaller water supply yet almost five times as many people. China has about 7 percent of the world’s water resources and roughly 20 percent of its population. It also has a severe regional water imbalance, with about four-fifths of the water supply in the south.Throughout the country groundwater shows unacceptable levels of contamination. From WorldWatch Intitute:
The water in Zhao Bo’s village on the outskirts of Beijing was a sickly shade of green. After drinking from the local well, Zhao and his fellow villagers could not go a month without suffering from diarrhea.From SciDev.net:
[BEIJING] Some 65 million Chinese rely on underground water supplies that are heavily contaminated with arsenic or fluoride, according to the first national survey of the quality of the country's supply of drinking water.Another problem: China can only barely feed it's people, and water is part of the problem. China's plan to self-feed 95% of its population "within 12 years," faces huge challenges. Current facts reveal the enormity of the task. Vice Minister of Water Resources, Hu Siyi, recently announced a price increase on water usage to the consumer. Siyi cited the country's "low-level" of efficiency of agricultural water usage. According to the Vice Minister, 70% of China's water is used for agricultural purposes. In February 2008, China announced an increase in the country's "minimum purchasing price for wheat and rice," in an effort to protect the profit levels of the farming industry:
The announcement said the minimum purchasing price for different types of rice ranges from 75 yuan (about US$10.4) to 79 yuan per 50 kilograms; while that for wheat ranges between 70 yuan and 75 yuan. Last year the minimum purchasing price for wheat and rice stood at 69 to 72 yuan and 70 to 75 yuan, respectively.I can't think of anything in China that is superior - certainly not "vastly superior" to the U.S. Trains? China must have them; the people cannot afford autos. Ports? China cranks out the goods to the West, but we are certainly capable of receiving them in our ports. Airports: I count twelve major airports for China's huge population. Getting around this enormous country must be hell. Obama: not much thought given to his remarks - trying to convince Americans how very disadvantaged we are. Most Americans know better. Update August 25th, 2008: I received an email this morning from Probe International pointing me to a new report they have released on Beijing's Water Crisis. The report is posted in a pdf file, so the following quotes are from that report:
As recently as 30 years ago, Beijing residents regarded groundwater as an inexhaustible resource. Now hydrogeologists warn it too is running out. Beijing's groundwater table is dropping, water is being pumped out faster than it can be replenished, and more and more groundwater is becoming polluted. This report traces Beijing's 60-year transformation from relative water abundance to water crisis, and the main policy responses to keep water flowing to China's capital. The key to addressing Beijing's water crisis is not more engineering projects to deliver new supplies. More dams, diversion canals, pipelines and even desalination plants may be technically feasible but they are economically and environmentally ruinous. A better approach would be to curb demand through efficiency improvements in water supply and consumption using the rule of law and economic incentives.
Findalis' Monkey in the Middle reports that "China is down to 12 days worth of coal," and muses that this is an opportunity for the U.S.
Finally something the United States has plenty of that the Chinese will want. Let us jack up the price to about 10 times, then cut off the supply when the Chinese won't behave themselves.An AP headline this morning: "China calls for help on climate change"
China called on the international community Thursday to increase the flow of technology to developing countries to help them fight climate change. Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang said developed nations "need to establish a mechanism for technological transfer" of environmentally friendly technology so developing countries can afford them.Reject the U.N. posted on California's recently signed "compact" with the United Nations in China to "share ideas and research" on cleaning up China's air. Findalis' Monkey in the Middle raises a hot button issue. Will the U.S. take advantage of China's calls for help and even-out the trade deficit with this Communist country that clearly never has the best interests of any free country in mind? Technorati Tags: China,U.S. Trade Deficit, Fossil Fuels,U.N., Trade Imbalance, Communism
According to Wikipedia:
The Bamboo Curtain was the east Asian version of the Iron Curtain. It marked the border between the communist states of East Asia, especially the People's Republic of China during the Cold War, but excluding the eastern Soviet Union . . . The term "Bamboo Curtain" was used less often than the term "Iron Curtain" in part because while the latter remained relatively static for over 40 years, the former shifted constantly.Today we are encountering a new Marxist strategy that I call the “Bamboo Shower Curtain.”
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